ML22277A810
| ML22277A810 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 09/23/2022 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| Widmayer, D., ACRS | |
| References | |
| NRC-2109 | |
| Download: ML22277A810 (155) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Regulatory Rulemaking, Policies and Practices Subcommittee Docket Number:
N/A Location:
Video Teleconference Date:
Friday, September 23, 2022 Work Order No.:
NRC-2109 Pages 1-122 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1
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3 DISCLAIMER 4
5 6
UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONS 7
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 8
9 10 The contents of this transcript of the 11 proceeding of the United States Nuclear Regulatory 12 Commission Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, 13 as reported herein, is a record of the discussions 14 recorded at the meeting.
15 16 This transcript has not been reviewed, 17 corrected, and edited, and it may contain 18 inaccuracies.
19 20 21 22 23
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
+ + + + +
4 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 5
(ACRS) 6
+ + + + +
7 REGULATORY RULEMAKING, POLICIES AND PRACTICES 8
SUBCOMMITTEE 9
+ + + + +
10
- FRIDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 23, 2022 12
+ + + + +
13 The Subcommittee met via Video 14 Teleconference, at 2:00 p.m. EDT, David Petti, 15 Chairman, presiding.
16 17 COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
18 DAVID PETTI, Chair 19 RONALD G. BALLINGER, Member 20 VICKI BIER, Member 21 CHARLES H. BROWN, JR., Member 22 GREGORY HALNON, Member 23 WALTER KIRCHNER, Member 24 JOSE MARCH-LEUBA, Member 25 JOY L. REMPE, Member NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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ACRS CONSULTANT:
2 DENNIS BLEY 3
5 DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL:
6 DEREK WIDMAYER 7
8 ALSO PRESENT:
9 AMY CUBBAGE, NRR 10 SACHIN DESAI, Public Participant 11 DONALD PALMROSE, NMSS 12 ANDREW PROFFITT, NRR 13 WILLIAM RECKLEY, NRR 14 JOHN SEGALA, NRR 15 JOSEPH STAUDENMEIER, RES 16 DUNCAN WHITE, NMSS 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 2
Page 3
Opening Remarks 6
4 Staff Introduction 9
5 Draft White Paper -- Commercial Fusion Energy 11 6
Systems Regulatory Framework 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2
2:00 p.m.
3 CHAIR PETTI: Okay, it's 12:00 p.m., good 4
afternoon, everyone, the meeting will now come to 5
order. This is a meeting on the Advisory Committee on 6
Reactor Safeguards Radiological Rulemaking Policies 7
and Procedures Subcommittee.
8 I'm Dave
- Petti, Chairman of the 9
Subcommittee, ACRS Members in attendance are Greg 10 Halnon, Vicki Bier, Joy Rempe, Ron Ballinger, Charlie 11 Brown. I do not yet see Walt Kirchner. Oh, there he 12 is. Walt's in, so Walt's here as well.
13 Consultants who are on the Teams meeting 14 are Dennis Bley and Steve Schultz. Derek Widmayer, 15 the ACRS Staff is the designated federal official for 16 this meeting.
17 The purpose of the Subcommittee meeting is 18 to hear from the Staff concerning a draft white paper 19 proposing a regulatory framework for fusion energy 20 systems.
21 This Committee will gather information, 22 analyze relevant issues and facts, and formulate 23 proposed positions and actions as appropriate.
24 There is a session scheduled for the 25 October 2022 full Committee meeting at which these NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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matters will be presented and discussed, and the 2
Committee plans on preparing a letter report on these 3
matters at that meeting.
4 The ACRS was established by statute and is 5
governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, FACA.
6 The NRC implements FACA in accordance with its 7
regulations found in Title 10 of the Code of Federal 8
regulations Part 7.
9 The Committee can only speak to its public 10 letter reports. We hold meetings to gather 11 information and perform preparatory work that will 12 support our deliberations at a full Committee meeting.
13 The rules for participation in all ACRS 14 meetings including today's were announced in the 15 Federal Register on June 13, 2019.
16 The ACRS section of the U.S. NRC public 17 website provides our charter bylaws, agendas, letter 18 reports, and full transcripts of all full and 19 Subcommittee meetings including slides presented at 20 the meetings.
21 The meeting notice and agenda for the 22 meeting were posted there.
23 As stated in the Federal Register notice 24 and in the public meeting notice posted to the 25 website, members of the public who desire to provide NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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written or oral input to the Subcommittee may do so 2
and should contact the designated federal official 3
five days prior to the meeting as practicable.
4 Today's meeting is open to public 5
attendance and we have received one request to make an 6
oral statement at the meeting.
7 Time is also provided in the agenda after 8
the presentations and the statement from the member of 9
the public are completed for spontaneous comments from 10 members of the public attending and listening to our 11 meetings.
12 Written comments from Helion Systems have 13 been received and will be included in the record for 14 this meeting. Today's meeting is being held virtually 15 over Microsoft Teams, allowing participation of the 16 public over their computer using Teams.
17 The bridge line has also been established 18 to allow listening by phone. A transcript of today's 19 meeting is being kept.
20 Therefore, we request that meeting 21 participants on Teams and the bridge line identify 22 themselves when they speak, and to speak with 23 sufficient clarity and volume so that they can be 24 readily heard.
25
- Likewise, we request that meeting NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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participants keep their computer and/or telephone 2
lines on mute when not speaking to minimize 3
disruptions. We have been informed by one public 4
stakeholder that they may record the meeting on Teams.
5 This stakeholder has been informed that 6
they should comply with any local and state laws with 7
respect to recordings of such events. At this time, 8
I ask that Teams and telephone bridge line attendees 9
make sure they are muted so we can commence the 10 meeting.
11 We'll now proceed and I call on Andrew 12 Proffitt to begin presentations.
13 MR. PROFFITT: Thank you, Dave. John 14 Segala is going to give a few opening remarks before 15 we jump in. We had a late swap-out for John. John, go 16 ahead.
17 MR. WHITE: Okay, John, please, go ahead.
18 MR. SEGALA: Thank you. Good afternoon, 19 I'm John Segala --
20 MS. CUBBAGE: There's an echo. Do you 21 have another device, John?
22 MR. SEGALA: I don't think so. How about 23 now?
24 MS. CUBBAGE: That's good.
25 MR. SEGALA: I'm John Segala, Special NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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Assistant in the Division of Advanced Reactors and 2
Non-Power Production Utilization Facilities in the 3
Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
4 We're excited to be he knows today to 5
discuss this important topic. To provide a little 6
context, I wanted to start off with a little 7
background. In 2019, NEIMA, or the Nuclear Energy 8
Innovation and Modernization Act, was signed into law.
9 It defined advanced reactors to include 10 fusion and it required NRC to develop a new regulatory 11 framework by the end of 2027.
12 In the 2020 Staff requirements memorandum 13 for the Part 53 rulemaking, the Commission directed 14 the Staff to develop options for regulating fusion 15 energy systems for the Commission's consideration.
16 We established a fusion working group with 17 a diverse set of Staff from across the Agency 18 including Staff from NRR, Research, NMSS, and the 19 regions as well as agreement state representatives to 20 evaluate current fusion regulatory practices, 21 understand the technologies, develop regulatory 22 framework options, and engage with stakeholders.
23 We previously briefed the ACRS full 24 Committee in May of 2021 and benefitted from the 25 feedback we received at that time.
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Since that meeting the NRC Staff has 2
continued to have extensive stakeholder engagement, 3
enhancing our understanding of the fusion 4
technologies, gaining insights on the hazards and risk 5
associated with fusion, and receiving feedback on 6
potential options for regulating fusion.
7 Today we plan to provide the ACRS 8
Subcommittee an overview of the NRC Staff's efforts to 9
develop options for regulating fusion energy systems 10 as discussed in our draft white paper Entitled, 11 Licensing and Regulating Fusion Energy Systems, that 12 was made public last week.
13 We are looking forward to having 14 discussions today and hearing the ACRS Members' 15 thoughts and feedback on our draft white paper.
16 Thank you and I'll turn it over to Andrew 17 now.
18 MR. PROFFITT: Thanks, John, I'm Andrew 19 Proffitt, Project Manager in Advanced Reactor Policy 20 and in NRR and I'm the lead Staff Member coordinating 21 our fusion efforts.
22 We also have Duncan White here, a senior 23 health physicist and the State Agreement of Liaison 24 Programs in NMSS, and also another key Member Bill 25 Reckley, Senior Project Manager in the Advanced NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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Reactor Policy Group, who is here with us as well.
2 Duncan and I will take most of the 3
presentation but we also have Members of the working 4
group here to help our in our discussion if we get 5
into specific topics.
6 Like John said, we're excited to be here 7
this afternoon with you to brief you on the progress 8
and really give a little bit more detail as to what's 9
in the paper and how we got to the draft white paper 10 putting forward the options for the Commission to 11 consider for regulating fusion.
12 We've been really busy since our last 13 interaction with you all in May of 2021, developing 14 these options and engaging our stakeholders. And we 15 certainly understand how important our work is in 16 providing regulatory certainty and predictability for 17 an industry that's quickly advancing and evolving.
18 So, we've heard that feedback loud and 19 clear from our stakeholders that certainty is needed 20 on this topic and we're looking to move in that 21 direction with these options and future Commission 22 direction related to them.
23 MR. BLEY: Excuse me, Andrew? It's Dennis 24 Bley. I don't think we asked this last time around.
25 Could you tell us a little bit, kind of a voir dire on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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the NRC Staff?
2 Do we have any people degreed in fusion 3
physics, fusion engineering?
4 MR. PROFFITT: We've got a few folks that 5
I believe did master's and Ph.D. programs maybe a few 6
years back when fusion was a little bit more popular.
7 We have Joe Staudenmeier who has some expertise in 8
fusion, we have Don Palmrose on the working group.
9 A couple of our folks on the working group 10 do have some legacy, I guess I would say, fusion 11 expertise and training.
12 MR. BLEY: From back then, some things will 13 come up today. There might be things learned back 14 then that we might want to revisit, whenever back then 15 was.
16 MR. PROFFITT: So, moving forward here, 17 we'll go to the next slide.
18 The agenda today, jumping right in, we'll 19 give a little bit more background, touch on a little 20 bit more of what John mentioned about our Commission 21 and Congressional direction and some of our 22 stakeholder engagement.
23 Moving to the fusion technologies, an 24 overview of our understanding of what's under 25 development for potential deployment here in the U.S.,
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and then the hazards that are associated with those 2
technologies.
3 And then we'll jump in the regulatory 4
framework.
5 And so that's what we'll talk about, we'll 6
go through some looks at the legislation, the Atomic 7
Energy Act, and how fusion could maybe fit in 8
different buckets, and kind of walk through the 9
options that we have in the paper.
10 And then we'll end off here with our path 11 forward and next steps.
12 MR. BLEY: Andrew, I apologize, the second 13 thing is are you going to talk about potential hazards 14 with respect to each of the technologies you talk 15 about or kind of in general the hazards that might be 16 considered here?
17 MR. PROFFITT: We were planning on doing 18 a more general overview of the hazards we see from 19 these types of technologies.
20 MR. BLEY: You may get some specific 21 questions.
22 MR. PROFFITT: A little background, as I 23 mentioned, the Staff is implementing the Commission 24 and NEIMA direction, as John touched on, to prepare 25 regulatory framework to support the commercialization NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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of fusion energy systems.
2 So, you go back to 2009, the Staff wrote 3
a paper on the regulation of fusion-based power 4
generation devices and that's where the Commission 5
affirmed that the NRC does have jurisdiction over 6
fusion, regulating fusion and specifically, whenever 7
such devices are of significance to the common defense 8
and security or could affect the health and safety of 9
the public.
10 Joy?
11 MEMBER REMPE: Actually, I wanted to wait 12 until you got past the second bullet. My hand went up 13 a little too fast.
14 MR. PROFFITT: No problem.
15 The other thing in that SRM from the 16 Commission on the 2009 paper was to hold off, for the 17 Staff to wait until commercial deployment was more 18 predictable by way of successful testing before 19 expending significant resources developing a
20 regulatory framework.
21 So, fast-forwarding about ten years and 22 NEIMA, Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization 23 Act, directed the Staff to develop a regulatory 24 infrastructure to support development and 25 commercialization of advanced nuclear reactors.
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And that, as John mentioned, included both 2
fission and fusion reactors. Joy?
3 MEMBER REMPE: Now I want my hand up. If 4
I go further in this definition in NEIMA, it talks 5
about that advanced reactors in addition to being 6
fusion and fission ought to have significant 7
improvements compared to the commercial fleet.
8 And it mentions A through H, not only 9
additional inherent safety features, lower waste 10 yields, proliferation resistance and the ability to 11 integrate into non-electric applications.
12 To your knowledge, is anybody being a 13 gatekeeper on what all can get into the pot?
14 There's so many that are being considered, 15 and this is beyond the scope of the SECY, but I would 16 just like to bring up the point and ask if you know if 17 anyone is trying to be a gatekeeper for this on what 18 can be considered?
19 MR. PROFFITT: That is a good question.
20 I'm not aware of a specific gatekeeper. We definitely 21 view fusion specifically as how it's called out in the 22 Act as falling under that purview of advanced nuclear 23 reactor within NEIMA.
24 So, we are planning to have a regulatory 25 framework put in place by the end of 2027, which is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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really the driver in NEIMA for us related to fusion.
2 But I'm not sure, there's a few other folks from 3
advanced reactors on the line, I'm not sure if anyone 4
could maybe speak more to the question?
5 MR. RECKLEY: Andrew, this is Bill 6
Reckley. I would just weigh in and, Joy, we've had 7
the discussions in Part 53 and exactly what you 8
brought up was the reason we started using commercial 9
nuclear plant and really dropping advanced reactor, 10 was because those criteria you mentioned in NEIMA were 11 fairly broad.
12 Some were technical, some were economic, 13 some were social, such that we didn't think it 14 actually would be productive to be, as you mentioned, 15 quote, a gatekeeper. And so that was the rationale in 16 Part 53 for not even pursuing that.
17 MEMBER REMPE: So, in Part 53, you've now 18 decided to emphasize commercial non-LWRS?
19 MR. RECKLEY: That is the term we use and 20 we basically would accept anybody -- we would never 21 use the rationale that you don't meet one of those 22 criterias to say you can use Part 53.
23 MEMBER REMPE: Then I'm going to pull the 24 string a bit further that in fusion, are you going to 25 try and emphasize commercial applications as a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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distinction between some of the designs being 2
discussed in the near term?
3 Because that was going to be a question I 4
had when we get into a later slide, how many of these 5
applications and designs have a way of producing power 6
of the ones that are coming through in the near term?
7 I'm not familiar with all the designs. I 8
did read one of the background papers that was 9
submitted to us and there is apparently one individual 10 organization that is trying to consider how to produce 11 electricity but it wasn't clear to me that a lot of 12 the others are yet to that stage.
13 MR. PROFFITT: We wouldn't necessarily see 14 commercial in our presentation a little bit, but just 15 to differentiate it from R&D that may be done at DOE 16 or that maybe is being done currently that agreement 17 states for the most part are actually overseeing 18 through delegated authority from the NRC.
19 So, there's no major difference between it 20 making power or not, certainly our thought is to 21 regulate based on the potential hazards that a 22 specific device or technology or design presents.
23 MEMBER REMPE: I'll hold the rest of my 24 questions until later but thank you.
25 MR. PROFFITT: So, one other thing in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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NEIMA, there's specifically a Section 103 where it 2
requires the NRC to complete a rulemaking to establish 3
a technology-inclusive regulatory framework for 4
advanced reactors.
5 And again, we read NEIMA and our lawyers 6
have helped us read NEIMA and to understand that 7
fusion is included in this requirement.
8 And a little bit to the questions here, 9
fission and fusion under that advanced nuclear reactor 10 term from NEIMA are being treated separately by the 11 Staff and on parallel paths.
12 So, we have Part 53 that we touched on a 13 little bit, it would be for advanced fission reactors 14 and we're on track there to complete that by mid-2025.
15 And then for
- fusion, following a
16 Commission decision on our options paper, the Staff 17 would complete implementation of the regulatory 18 framework for fusion by the end of 2027 consistent 19 with that NEIMA deadline.
20 Following NEIMA, that's what has brought 21 us here today, the SRM on the Part 53 rulemaking, one 22 of the earlier ones in 2020, that's where the 23 Commission specifically directed the Staff to consider 24 appropriate treatment of fusion in our regulatory 25 structure by developing options for the Commission on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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licensing and regulating them.
2 Dennis?
3 MR. BLEY: Quick question on having the 4
framework ready by 2027. Does that mean having rule 5
language and rulemaking or just a paper describing a 6
framework? Not just.
7 MR. PROFFITT: Good question. It would 8
depend on the option that the Commission directed us 9
on. I think there is some potential, the Staff has 10 struggled with this question a little bit ourselves 11 because the industry is relatively still developing 12 and still maturing.
13 So, there's lots of different designs out 14 there that are under consideration that have a whole 15 spectrum of different hazards. And also, the intent 16 of NEIMA would certainly not be for the NRC to do 17 something that wasn't productive.
18 That would be the antithesis of NEIMA I 19 think. We are planning, pending Commission direction 20 and one of our options or several of our options do 21 include some at least limited rulemaking.
22 So, we would plan on having that done by 23 December 2027. Also, there's the potential for 24 guidance development possibly to meet that rulemaking 25 clause in NEIMA, but we would have deliverables NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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completed by December 2027.
2 But that's also not to say that's going to 3
be the regulatory framework that the NRC uses until 4
the end of time.
5 Clearly, with a new industry there will be 6
lots of lessons learned that we'll learn through early 7
applications and licensing and operating that we would 8
probably build on whatever is done by 2027 over the 9
coming years and decades.
10 MR. BLEY: Thanks, that's a pretty 11 thorough discussion.
12 As you read through these different 13 technologies, I'd appreciate it if you'd give the 14 Staff some idea of where they stand in the ability to 15 have the data you need to be able to support looking 16 at a rule, where they are in their development 17 process.
18 MR. PROFFITT: We'll see what we can do.
19 I'm not the technical expert in many of those areas 20 but Duncan can maybe give it a shot and other folks on 21 the line might be able to help us out as well. But we 22 will do that, Dennis.
23 Moving onto the next slide, stakeholder 24 engagement, you'll see lots of pretty logos here on 25 this slide.
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Consistent with NRC's
- values, our 2
principles of good regulation and being responsive to 3
early comments of the Staff, we really have 4
extensively engaged the fusion stakeholder community 5
while we've been seeking to understand the 6
technologies, the hazards, and work on these options.
7 I'll walk through them a little bit.
8 Obviously, DOE has some facilities for fusion R&D, has 9
particle accelerators, and has regulatory authority 10 and safety authority over the devices that are there.
11 So, they have some safety documentation and reports on 12 how they treat the hazards produced by these types of 13 facilities.
14 We've got a couple commonwealth fusion 15 systems, Helion have been very engaged with us along 16 with other private companies helping us understand 17 their technologies, what the hazards are they may 18 possess.
19 And both of those actually have been in 20 discussions with their agreement states on licensing 21 R&D that they have going on and construction and 22 building facilities that they are moving forward with 23 to prove their designs.
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devices and the materials that may be used in some of 2
these devices and help the industry along in that 3
manner.
4 The Fusion Industry Association, they're 5
akin to an NEI for fission reactors. The Fusion 6
Industry Association is seeking to be that advocate 7
for the industry, and they've been helpful with us 8
corralling public meetings and putting together a 9
broad perspective of the different industry 10 stakeholders.
11 The White House there, you may have heard 12 some press earlier, this year they had a big White 13 House summit on fusion and the White House and the 14 administration along with the Department of Energy has 15 a bold decadal vision for fusion.
16 And what they're looking to do there is 17 through public-private partnerships have a fusion 18 pilot plant done in the early 2030s. So, we're 19 obviously looking to be responsive to that need.
20 The United Kingdom, we've been engaged 21 with them. You may have seen some press on the United 22 Kingdom, how they're treating fusion.
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as a key, not categorizing it as a nuclear 2
installation, how they would characterize large 3
fission reactors.
4 And how maybe something you could say akin 5
to our utilization facility term. The IEA there, 6
internationally we actually have -- my Branch Chief, 7
Steve Lynch, I think he's traveling back now from 8
Vienna.
9 The IEA was having a meeting this week on 10 fusion regulation and how different countries are 11 treating fusion from a regulatory standpoint. The 12 Union of Concerned Scientists and other NGOs have been 13 involved in our public meetings and provided comments 14 and discussion.
15 ITER, the largest fusion R&D facility 16 that's out there that's being built and under 17 construction right now, we've engaged with experts 18 here in the U.S. that have dealt with ITER and also 19 with folks over there in understanding some of their 20 approaches to safety.
21 And the Organization of Agreement States 22 obviously, as John mentioned, we've actually had some 23 agreement state representatives on our internal NRC 24 working group and they bring very good perspectives, 25 being a little closer to some of the R&D and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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permitting and the regular that's been done to date 2
with fusion R&D.
3 So, we really had a broad engagement with 4
our stakeholders. And just a couple of the things 5
we've done, we've had six public meetings over the 6
past year, so a little over a year where we've engaged 7
our stakeholders on topics.
8 We've had presentations, we've had 9
meetings where external parties have presented and 10 we've solicited topics that they think are important 11 for us to hear about.
12 And we've proposed topics as well in 13 helping us understand the hazards and technologies in 14 moving us to this place of putting these options 15 together.
16 We had kicking off after the 2020 SRM of 17 putting a date for us to developing these options, we 18 had a joint public workshop held between the NRC, DOE, 19 and the Fusion Industry Association.
20 We attended that White House summit and 21 the follow-on DOE workshops related to that, 22 international engagement, bilateral government-to-23 government meetings.
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representatives on our working group.
2 We've presented dat their meetings that 3
they have and really have been seeking to understand 4
their perspectives, enfolding them as a key member in 5
our developing these options.
6 And then as I mentioned with Helion and 7
the commonwealth fusion systems, many other companies, 8
we've had pre-application-type meetings very early on, 9
meetings just to understand the technologies that are 10 out there and what some of their timelines are 11 potentially for moving forward with having the fusion 12 energy systems built.
13 Go ahead, Joy?
14 MEMBER REMPE: In your discussions, I'm 15 also trying to understand the landscape of what's 16 coming down the pike soon.
17 And so could you give me a little more 18 detail, and you can either do it in this slide or the 19 next, but again, how many of the prototypes or demos 20 in the near future are going to be able to produce 21 electrical power?
22 What's the maximum thermal power rating 23 for these near-term facilities? Do they include 24 tritium storage in their site? Or are they going to 25 ship it away and, again, how will the Staff deal with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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those issues and will they have a local limit on 2
tritium accumulation?
3 I'm just wondering because when I look at 4
your paper and the options, I want to know what's the 5
near-term expectation of what would come down the 6
pike? For example, one of the background information 7
documents we were given talks about you need to have 8
a Q greater than 10 to have meaningful electrical 9
power production.
10 So, what's the near-term expectation for 11 Q on some of these near-term concepts?
12 MR. PROFFITT: That's a really good 13 question and things we've been thinking about as we've 14 been putting the options together.
15 Right now, I don't know that these 16 companies right now are able to get to a Q greater 17 than 1 where they're producing more power with their 18 technology than what they are putting in.
19 There's been lots of developments and 20 probably since I took over here project managing this 21 position, I see on my phone every day recommending me 22 a new article on a fusion development.
23 So, there's lots of breakthroughs and 24 advances that are going on with magnet technologies, 25 with semiconductors, with lasers. So, there's really NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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a broad scope of systems out there under 2
consideration.
3 If you like to the FIA report on the 4
spectrum of the industry, I think I've heard them say 5
there's 25 or 26-plus, or maybe close to 30 or over 30 6
now at this point, companies and really, none of them 7
are directly competing against one another for the 8
same type of technology.
9 There's differences in all of them. But 10 we have heard from several companies that are seeking 11 to prove that they can produce more electricity with 12 their technology than they put in within the next few 13 years.
14 MEMBER REMPE: How many megawatts of 15 electricity would they be producing?
16 MR. PROFFITT: There's a broad array of 17 that. I don't think in the next few years we would be 18 on that level but most of these designs, I believe are 19 planned to be smaller.
20 So, just an example, everything we've 21 heard from developers from FIA is there's no plans for 22 anything even close to, say, an ITER scale. So, we 23 are understanding right now that these things may be 24 50 megawatts of potential commercial device would be.
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on the scale of what we're seeing out there?
2 MR. WHITE: Yes, I've seen things up to 3
250 proposed. Again, this is what they're shooting 4
for down the road but again, the timeline we're 5
looking at for that is the next decade, some time in 6
the next decade.
7 MEMBER REMPE: Again, I've only read a 8
small fraction of this in all but for the near term in 9
the next five years, they didn't cite a megawatt 10 electric thing and then they said after we prove this 11 works, we're going to try and do the 50 megawatt 12 electric.
13 And when they'd achieve that first 14 objective for the near-term facility wasn't clear.
15 So, it wasn't even clear to me but from what you're 16 telling me, you think somebody will try and build 17 something that's 50 megawatts electric by 2030?
18 MR. PROFFITT: I don't know that I would 19 commit to that. I think what we see from the White 20 House is a fusion pilot plant and their goal is that 21 it would produce electricity in the first half of the 22 2030s.
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work from the industry having any large-scale fusion 2
power commercial industry --
3 MEMBER REMPE: Your answers are actually 4
helping me but again, from what I'm reading, I'm 5
trying to get a feel for how much -- I know from what 6
I've read we don't have a lot of experience on it yet 7
but how soon you'll start seeing some experience.
8 And I guess your response is we've got a 9
bit of time here, is what I'm kind of inferring from 10 your response? Your head is shaking up and down yes.
11 MR. PROFFITT: I think so.
12 MEMBER REMPE: Thank you.
13 CHAIR PETTI: This is Dave, just a comment 14 on the question Joy asked.
15 What makes it so difficult to project into 16 the future for some of these concepts is where they're 17 at in their development trajectory and what they think 18 that ultimate machine will look like based on what 19 they understand today.
20 And there's uncertainties that make it 21 difficult to really tie down the power level, 22 sometimes the inventories of things that we'd be 23 interested in from a safety perspective.
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much more difficult than the range of fission reactors 2
under consideration. The hazards here can range from 3
very low to hazards that require some serious design 4
and oversight.
5 So, the
- spectrum, it's more than 6
logarithmic from one end to the other, and that's a 7
huge challenge. And so at some point on that 8
spectrum, it becomes important from the safety 9
perspective.
10 Even though everything is young and many 11 of these technologies aren't there, we need to get 12 some metrics on what are the numbers that are going to 13 be critical that help characterize the hazard and when 14 you moving forward something that isn't an issue to 15 public safety to one that is.
16 And that's challenging but I think it's 17 doable based on my experience in the fusion program 18 back in the day. So, thanks.
19 MR. PROFFITT: I appreciate that. I see 20 a couple of other Staff from the working group had 21 raised their hands. Maybe Jill and Don I think?
22 MR. PALMROSE: This is Don Palmrose with 23 the NRC Staff, I'm a Senior Reactor Engineer in the 24 Office of Nuclear Materials, Safety, and Safeguards.
25 I just want to point out that it gets to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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what Dr. Rempe was asking about. September 15th, 2
there was a full Senate Committee hearing to examine 3
the Federal Government's role in supporting the 4
commercialization of fusion energy.
5 And one of the topics that you were 6
bringing up were also raised in that meeting. So, 7
that would be something that would be potentially of 8
interest to the ACRS Committee.
9 MEMBER REMPE: Send the link or some 10 additional information to Derek, Don, please, so that 11 we can make sure we have access to it. Maybe Derek 12 already has it and sent it and I just didn't pick up 13 on it when I was reviewing the materials for this 14 meeting.
15 But I would be interested in looking at 16 it.
17 MR. PALMROSE: I'll try to put a link into 18 the chat if that will work.
19 MEMBER REMPE: But also please just send 20 something to Derek too, please, because the chat isn't 21 preserved.
22 MR. PALMROSE: Understood.
23 MR. PROFFITT: Yes, we'll do that.
24 Dennis, did you have your hand raised?
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get into the guts of your paper, you present some 2
options and talk about the pros and cons. But you 3
don't give any recommendations yet. Is that because 4
you haven't gotten to that point yet?
5 You'll need some before you send it up to 6
the Commission.
7 MR. PROFFITT: Yes, we plan to discuss our 8
recommendation here as we're moving through the 9
options just with the logistics of the white paper 10 being put out.
11 We typically don't put our recommendation 12 necessarily in the white paper but we will discuss 13 that here.
14 MR. BLEY: You have formulated them, 15 that's what I want to know?
16 MR. PROFFITT: Yes.
17 MR. BLEY: Great.
18 MR. PROFFITT: Let's move on to the next 19 slide here. Duncan will take over for a few slides.
20 MR. WHITE: As said in the beginning, my 21 name is Duncan White, I'm from NMSS. I'll briefly 22 talk about the different technologies being developed 23 right now in fusion.
24 As you can see from the slide, there are 25 three basic technologies these could be grouped into, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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the magnetic, the inertial, which is basically a 2
combination or ones with different alternative type of 3
designs.
4 in terms of the magnetic, obviously these 5
are the Tokamaks, the Spheromatics, such type which 6
we'd use large hydro-magnetic fields to contain the 7
plasma. A question came up about this is probably 8
where most of the interest is right now, probably the 9
commercial endeavors.
10 Probably at least half of them are 11 pursuing some sort of magnetic confinement approach 12 right now. In terms of inertial, again, the plasma is 13 maintained by high-powered pulse lasers and again, 14 there are not many companies, commercial endeavors, 15 pursuing this but there are a few out there.
16 And then in terms of the magnetic inertial 17 ones, again, there are a wide range of technologies 18 being developed here in these and again, I'll talk 19 about these very briefly. You see the fusion 20 reactions there.
21 Again, I'll touch on those a little bit.
22 That's to say the DT reaction, the 23 deuterium-tritium reaction is probably going to be the 24 most common one. Again, that's what's being used in 25 the magnetic and the inertial approaches, and again, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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some of these other aneutronic and low-neutricity 2
reactions are also in that area too.
3 Just very, very briefly about Tokamaks.
4 Again, they use magnets and a taurus or a spherical 5
configuration to create a high plasma.
6 And again, the idea is these super-7 conducting magnets, which are cryogenically cooled, 8
are designed to, hold the plasma in place, keep the 9
plasma off the wall so that the fusion reaction can 10 proceed.
11 The plasma is generally heated through 12 high-energy neurons or electromagnetic waves of 13 different frequencies to heat it. Again, with the 14 advancement of computer technology, AI, again we're 15 able to control these plasmas much better than they 16 have been able to in the past.
17 And again, the fueling for the Tokamaks 18 and similar designs are DT. Generally, the DT fuel is 19 injected into the plasma at high velocities. Again, 20 sometimes gas is injected into it to maintain a flow 21 and keep power levels up.
22 Again, another alternative to Tokamaks is 23 the accelerators. The accelerators are very similar 24 to Tokamaks in the design but they have a twisted-25 ring-type shape to them.
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And again, that's to make the plasma feel 2
smaller and again, they are able to do this and have 3
proper alignment with the magnetic fields by better 4
computer modeling and use of AI.
5 Lasers, the laser technology, again, the 6
plasma is created by high-power pulse lasers. NIF, 7
which is the Lawrence Livermore device, probably the 8
largest and most successful one uses 192 pulse lasers 9
to create this.
10 Fuel is injected into the plasma in 11 pellets which contain small quantities of DT and they 12 are assessed to maintain a fusion reaction that has to 13 be done probably 10 to 100 times a second and is sort 14 of a fusion reaction.
15 Again, if you look at some of the 16 combination type of devices that are out there, there 17 are ones that are Z pinch, which they compress the 18 plasma and the current. I'll let the engineers 19 explain a little bit better because I'm an HP, I 20 apologize.
21 Another way which is again being used for 22 some alternative designs and for the magnetic one is 23 something called fuel reverse configurations where the 24 magnetic confinement has the plasma and it has its own 25 electrical field which is induced by an electric NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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current inside the plasma.
2 And again, this is redirected by reversing 3
the currents in the plasma and usually, it's targeted 4
at each other to create the output. I mentioned 5
aneutronic and low-neutronic fusion reactions.
6 There's developments in those areas too.
7 Again, the one that's listed there, the hydrogen 8
proton one and the boron-11 one, are examples of 9
aneutronic.
10 Again, the energy created is not carried 11 by the neutrons, where all of the other ones are 12 carried by neutrons but by charged particles.
13 In this case, this particular reaction the 14 charged particle is an alpha particle and since 15 there's no neutrons
- produced, there's little 16 activation of materials. And again, to drive this 17 reaction you need ten times the temperature of a DT 18 reaction.
19 Low neutronics, again, there are a couple 20 companies working on this again with reverse-field 21 configuration, again using deuterium and helium-3.
22 This produces an alpha particle and high-energy 23 protons.
24 And again, some of the secondary reactions 25 do produce neutrons here and tritium. But again, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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those neutrons in tritium is not used to drive the 2
reaction. So, I know there's going to be questions so 3
I will stop here and address hands raised.
4 Denis, please go ahead?
5 MR. BLEY: Duncan, thanks. I may be 6
jumping the gun on your presentation here. One of the 7
things people have considered in the range of hazards 8
is arcing because of massive magnets and the very high 9
currents.
10 In the experimental systems that are out 11 there, have we had any experience with actual arcing 12 and what kind of damage has actually occurred? You 13 can get damage far from where the arcs occur if you 14 get really recurrent ones.
15 MR. WHITE: I'll let Joe or Don answer 16 that question maybe.
17 MR.
STAUDENMEIER:
This is Joe 18 Staudenmeier. I don't think there's been any damage 19 that has really crippled an experimental machine.
20 There have been incidences in the past I'm 21 aware of where -- I mean the high-voltage capacitor 22 banks, the one facility I'm familiar with from back 23 when I was in graduate school.
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instances where people left metal tools inside of 2
vacuum vessels and you turn on the magnetic field and 3
it gets thrown through the vacuum vessel and damages 4
the vacuum vessel.
5 That would have to be replaced, I guess 6
that's a significant damage but I guess the biggest 7
electrical thing that people would worry about in a 8
Tokamak is a plasma disruption and you can have very 9
large forces on the structures that could cause 10 structural damage to the facility.
11 And that could be an event that could lead 12 to some sort of radiation release.
13 CHAIR PETTI: Joe, just a position of 14 clarification, you may not be aware but in Europe this 15 issue is of large enough concern that experiments were 16 being conducted at FZK to look at arcing, largely 17 because of the energy storage in the magnets is so 18 large, near 100 gigajoules.
19 So, could it arc? And experiments were 20 being conducted, models were actually developed to 21 look at the events largely for ITER and DT-demo-type 22 machines.
23 But there were active experiments going on 24 given the step in terms of the power of the magnets 25 for that machine and let's say laboratory experiments NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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like Jet or TFTR when it was in operation.
2 MR. PALMROSE: This is Don Palmrose of the 3
Staff again.
4 The only thing I could add is the one 5
thing I remember from when I was doing my work as a 6
graduate student on fusion was that one of the 7
concerns was they had a compression ring to keep the 8
magnets together to affect compression structure had 9
failed and the potential for the magnet to physically 10 destruct was a possibility.
11 That's the only thing I can think of but 12 I'm not sure how much the newer designs, the more 13 recent designs, if that would be a factor.
14 CHAIR PETTI: So, as I understand it, 15 there are serious stress analyses that have to be done 16 on those magnets, and particularly some of the high-17 field options and those are the things that are going 18 to be designed to be within the stress allowables and 19 the like.
20 But that's what the magnet engineers spend 21 a lot of time deciding, stress analysis.
22 MR. WHITE: Thank you for the comments and 23 it is obviously something -- we're going to have to 24 look into the different technology areas when we're 25 doing this, so thank you.
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I'll go onto the next slide. Derek talks 2
about some of the radiological and non-radiological 3
hazards on the next slide if we want to do that.
4 Again, in terms of hazards, with these 5
devices, Staff feels that the inventory on site is 6
really what's going to drive any sort of radiological 7
hazards or non-radiological hazards on site, again, 8
unlike fission reactors where you do have chain 9
reactions which have other means to compensate for and 10 to stop.
11 Here you have a different set of issues.
12 In terms of onsite inventory, it's really driven by 13 the tritium and of course activated excavated 14 material.
15 Particularly with Tokamaks you're going to 16 have potentially large quantities of tritium on site 17 in the reactor vessel, in the breeder beds, in the 18 other parts of the facility where you're going to have 19 to control that and deal with that.
20 Activated material could be anywhere, on 21 stuff that neutrons come in contact with, which 22 obviously is going to be in the reaction vessel, it's 23 going to be in other parts of the magnets and parts of 24 the devices.
25 Again, these types of things do work into NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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the waste management issue.
2 The magnets and other components have 3
lifespans that are going to have to be swapped out, 4
they're going to have to be effectively stored, they 5
might have to be decayed for a while before they can 6
be disposed of.
7 Again, in terms of the facility, that's an 8
important aspect of it. And again, we'll talk a 9
little bit about it later but that will have to be 10 managed by their license, however that's being done.
11 We talked about the Commission, waste 12 management is going to be an important consideration.
13 We talked a little about how we're going 14 to have routine effluent releases from these 15 facilities, you're going to accident release and the 16 accident releases could be -- again, we'll talk about 17 the non-radiological hazards but those could cause 18 some of those accidental the releases from different 19 components.
20 We talked about arcing already but there's 21 obviously there's other ones too. Some of these 22 devices, even the low-neutronic device again produces 23 protons that again require shielding.
24 So, when these types of operate, they'll 25 produce radiation and workers in the area will have to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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be monitored for a variety of different -- obviously 2
for tritium, for neutrons, for gammas.
3 The radiation protection program has to be 4
a pretty robust program. I mentioned waste 5
management. Again, tritium is a challenge to deal 6
with, tritium gas or tritium water absorb into just 7
about everything and it migrates pretty easily.
8 It could during an accident scenario be 9
released for offsite -- it could result in some 10 offsite doses, offsite releases. Non-radiological 11 hazards, we talked about the arcing already.
12 Again, high magnetic fields, we're talking 13 about super-conducting magnets, they require cryogenic 14 cooling. Both of these could drive releases or 15 hazards.
16 Thermal shock from plasma disruptions, 17 what's going to happen at a commercial full-sized 18 plant if you do have a problem with the plasma 19 collapsing. What's going to happen? How is the 20 magnet and how is the vessel going to withstand that?
21 There's a lot of thermal energy there that 22 could drive leaks, there's hydrogen produced. One of 23 the considerations too is dust, it could accumulate 24 over time in these things. The dust could be 25 contaminated with tritium, the dust could be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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activated.
2 And
- again, there's potential for 3
explosions with that. And for the ones that use 4
lasers, they're using very high-powered pulse lasers 5
that if not used properly obviously could cause some 6
damage, if not properly maintained.
7 Again, I'll just stop there, this is an 8
overview of some of the hazards. I'll stop there and 9
entertain questions.
10 MEMBER KIRCHNER: This is Walt Kirchner.
11 Not to add to the complexity or the list but a very 12 real consideration is chemical hazards, especially 13 when you combine them with radiological hazards.
14 And also, depending on the concept, 15 depending if it's a not direct conversion but through 16 blankets and/or heat exchangers and a choice of the 17 working fluid for the heat exchanger, it introduces 18 another set of potential hazards to consider, 19 obviously, design-specific.
20 That has been incorporated in the 21 considerations in 10 CFR 53.
22 MR. WHITE: I certainly would agree with 23 that again.
24 Depending on the complexity of these 25 facilities, a commercial facility particularly, you're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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going to have a number of different systems which are 2
going to be particularly handling tritium.
3 And again, these all represent potential 4
release pathways and again, I think that's something 5
that's going to be very design-specific.
6 Some of the commercial facilities are 7
going to use -- a Tokamak facility will have a large 8
number of different components and they're going to 9
have tritium that's going to be moving through them 10 and potentially activate a material from the corrosion 11 and stuff.
12 And again, these are all going to have to 13 be considered in the analysis.
14 CHAIR PETTI: Duncan, this is Dave, is 15 this your last slide on the hazards? Are you moving 16 on from that?
17 MR. WHITE: Yes, as I said we wanted to 18 give you a high level. If you want a bit more, go 19 ahead.
20 CHAIR PETTI: Let me just give you my 21 comments. As I read the white paper, I felt the 22 hazards were not presented in the proper context.
23 For every case where something was cited 24 as being not a problem, I can provide two or three 25 references in the literature where it says it is a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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problem. There are many cases where what it looks 2
like, someone did a measurement in a current machine 3
and how you take that to a power reactor is completely 4
different.
5 My favorite is low tritium mobilization 6
and a loss of vacuum event that was done in Jet. Jet 7
has no decay heat, Jet has no active cooling, it's 8
inertially cooled so the air comes in and there's 9
nothing that happens.
10 But in a real power-plant, if the air 11 comes into the plasma chamber, the walls are hot even 12 after the reaction shuts off because of decay heat.
13 It heats up, the hot air has to go somewhere, it goes 14 back out the hole, however it came in.
15 This was looked at extensively, 16 experiments were done in Japan, analysis was done.
17 So, again, for the small machine it's not an issue but 18 for the power-plant on an engineering scale it is.
19 And that's just one of about six where I 20 read what I read was just not complete enough and 21 would lead one to misrepresent the span of hazards 22 that are potentially there.
23 And that's the option the Commission has 24 in terms of which way to go. And so I'm just one 25 Member, but I have a number of recommendations to work NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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on that section to provide better balance.
2 It does not recognize decades of work done 3
by the fusion community looking at the safety issues 4
associated with fusion across concepts. There's this 5
other thing that everything is focused on NEIMA.
6 That's not true.
7 If you go back far enough, and you have to 8
go back before Google searches, you'll find that the 9
community studied a lot of these configurations and 10 they looked at a variety of blankets, they looked at 11 a variety of confinement concepts and what does it 12 mean?
13 And that's the thing that I think is 14 missing. Just a comment.
15 MR. WHITE: Thank you for that feedback.
16 Any other comments? We'll move on to the next slide 17 then.
18 MR. PROFFITT: Thanks, Duncan, I'll pick 19 it up for a slide here and then I'll hand it back over 20 to Duncan.
21 Based on what we found in talking with 22 folks and understanding what concepts are in 23 development and understanding the potential hazards 24 that Duncan went through, we needed to go back to our 25 authority, our legislation, the Atomic Energy Act, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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look and see where could these things fit within the 2
frameworks that we have?
3 And so way back in the 2009 SECY, that's 4
when we started this work, doing a bit of an analysis 5
of where fusion energy systems could logically fit.
6 And two of the options that we came up 7
with, we either categorized them as utilization 8
facilities or building off of the particle accelerator 9
definitions that we have in the legislation that we 10 have in treating them under NRC's byproduct material 11 licensing.
12 So, we furthered that analysis here. Here 13 I'll go through a legal assessment of the utilization 14 facility. I'll just briefly read what is actually in 15 the act here, and this is the definition of a 16 utilization facility in the act.
17 Any equipment or device except an atomic 18 weapon determined by rule of the Commission to be 19 capable of making use of special nuclear material in 20 such quantity as to be of significance to the common 21 defense and security or in such manner as to affect 22 the health and safety of the public.
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such manner as to affect the health and safety of the 2
public, or any important component part especially 3
designed for such equipment or devices determined by 4
the Commission.
5 Let me just take one step back here and 6
mention the Atomic Energy Act does not explicitly 7
mention fusion in the act. That is why we're looking 8
at some of these other buckets where fusion could 9
potentially fit.
10 With utilization facility, the key there 11 in that definition would be related to fusion. It 12 could be the statement of peculiarly adapted for 13 making use of atomic energy in such quantity as to be 14 of significance to common defense and security or in 15 a manner to affect health and safety of the public.
16 So, that would be the clause where you 17 could potentially rope fusion in if you made those 18 findings, and then the Commission would then need to 19 determine by rule that these types of facilities were 20 in fact utilization facilities.
21 So, that leads into the next bullet there 22 where our current regulations, which are in 10 CFR 23 50.2, do not include fusion. They're really built 24 around special nuclear material for both of those 25 definitions that we have there.
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CHAIR PETTI: Andrew, just a question on 2
the first bullet, these things are so long. But this 3
statement in the third line, sorry, the fourth line, 4
peculiarly adapted for making use of atomic energy.
5 That could be interpreted to mean both 6
fission and fusion.
7 MR. PROFFITT: Certainly.
8 CHAIR PETTI: As I read it, I thought the 9
Commission, the SECY, says that NRC does have 10 authority over commercial fusion power, is that 11 correct?
12 MR. PROFFITT: Correct.
13 CHAIR PETTI: But I understand the second 14 one is sort of an implementation thing, it doesn't 15 include it?
16 MR. PROFFITT: Correct.
17 CHAIR PETTI: Thanks.
18 MR. PROFFITT: And so the Staff, based on 19 our understanding of the design so far, we have 20 certainly found that they could impact public health 21 and safety. So, there is an argument that could be 22 made to categorize them under the utilization facility 23 approach.
24 That's the point here is to say fusion 25 could fit in this bucket. If there are any other NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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questions specifically to how utilization facilities 2
are defined and categorized I can take them here or 3
I'll pass it to Duncan to talk a little bit about the 4
legal assessment.
5 MR. BLEY: Andrew, it's Dennis. It fits 6
without any change to the regulation, right, for 7
utilization facility?
8 MR. PROFFITT: We would need to add a 9
regulation, we would need to change our regulatory 10 definition of utilization facility. It could fit 11 within the act, the Atomic Energy Act, definition of 12 13 (Simultaneous Speaking.)
14 MR. BLEY: Not your regulations?
15 MR. PROFFITT: Correct.
16 MEMBER HALNON: This is Greg. I 17 understand how you can fit and shoehorn it in but was 18 it intended? There's plenty of documentation before 19 these are put in place to see if it was actually 20 intended.
21 I say that because if it was not intended 22 but it fits, it may fit in the definition but the 23 conglomerate of regulations and discussions after may 24 not be applicable. So, was it intended to be there 25 and just the words didn't match?
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Or are we just trying to shoehorn it into 2
a definition so we can apply a bunch of regulations?
3 MR. PROFFITT: I think that's one of our 4
struggles as we've been developing these options.
5 Really, we're looking to fit fusion into different 6
frameworks that maybe weren't 100 percent envisioned 7
with fusion in mind.
8 And we're also considering things like the 9
hazard they pose, the risks that are involved with the 10 technologies and trying to take that into account as 11 we're putting it into something.
12 And then to also go back Joy's original 13 comment of when is this going to happen and what's the 14 certainty and what scale? Certainly, that's one of 15 our considerations too because we could develop a 16 framework outside of these.
17 There could be new legislation. We've had 18 some interest from at least some Members of Congress 19 in potentially modifying legislation to be more 20 specific or specifically address fusion.
21 But our mindset from the get-go is let's 22 look at what frameworks we have and see if something 23 that we do have can fit for now at least given some of 24 the uncertainty that's out there and the timelines and 25 things like that without going off to do a bunch of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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work in developing a completely new framework.
2 Especially given the broad array of 3
potential designs and technologies that are out there, 4
it would be a significant undertaking to develop a 5
completely new framework from scratch to address these 6
things.
7 MEMBER HALNON: I understand that and I 8
appreciate that. I think if we find a definition that 9
allows it to fit, then if it wasn't necessarily 10 intended, that gives me a skeptical eye on every 11 requirement we put onto it and any requirement that we 12 don't put onto it that makes sense.
13 So, maybe not a complete framework but 14 certainly an outline of what a specific framework 15 would look like. And then you could determine if each 16 one of those items fit in the regulation.
17 So, it's a comment and I think as we go 18 forward and get down the road, we'll probably get more 19 clarity on that.
20 MR. RECKLEY: Andrew, this is Bill 21 Reckley.
22 If I can, I would just say, Greg, we've 23 researched this for the current paper as well back for 24 the 2009 paper and at the time, Congress did 25 intentionally change some of the language in terms of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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atomic energy to include fusion.
2 But the reason for that is you have to put 3
yourself back in 1954. To be quite honest, it was 4
because of the hydrogen bomb, not because of 5
commercial fusion for electricity.
6 But nonetheless, they did change it 7
specifically to address fusion reactions back in that 8
timeframe.
9 MEMBER HALNON: Thanks, Bill, like I said, 10 I think will become more clear as we go through and 11 discuss hazards and different design basis issues as 12 well. Thanks.
13 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Thanks, Bill, for that, 14 this is Walt. You didn't finish, the application that 15 was envisioned that one time was called Plow Shares 16 and I'll stop there for you to let people look that up 17 and see what that was about.
18 But that was an advanced application of 19 fusion energy.
20 CHAIR PETTI: Andrew, Number 2 on the 21 second bullet, that was added to support that 22 application?
23 MR. PROFFITT: Yes, that was specifically 24 added related to SHINE.
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was.
2 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Dave, that was added 3
specifically for accelerator and transmutation of 4
waste. The concept was to use a subcritical assembly 5
of the waste materials driven by accelerators.
6 CHAIR PETTI: So, just to argue it, if you 7
think about it, Part 50 had Item 1 and then something 8
came up that was close and you needed to modify the 9
definition. Here you do the same thing, you'd somehow 10 extend it and add another definition for fusion.
11 There's precedent for expanding what you 12 mean as you run into the specific application, if you 13 will.
14 MR. PROFFITT: Certainly, we would agree 15 with that.
16 Joe Staudenmeier, did you put your hand 17 up?
18 MR. STAUDENMEIER: Yes, Number 2 it was 19 not added for accelerator transmutation of waste, it 20 was SHINE specifically. If you look at that docket 21 number, that's the SHINE docket number.
22 MEMBER KIRCHNER: I stand corrected, 23 that's right. It pre-dated that, yes.
24 MR. STAUDENMEIER: Yes, I think that was 25 back in the 1990s, accelerator transmutation of waste.
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There was no modification back then but that was one 2
of the discussions that came up when we were looking 3
at modifying that.
4 It came up about if they wanted to do 5
something more general that would encompass something 6
like accelerator transmutation of waste, that it could 7
cover those types of things in addition to SHINE.
8 But they thought the most expeditious way 9
to do it was just to limit it to SHINE and not think 10 too much about other unintended consequences and 11 therefore keep it specific to SHINE.
12 MR. PROFFITT: Yes, and specifically, I 13 guess the point of this slide is to say fusion could 14 fit, it's not a direct fit but it's a viable option 15 for the Commission to consider.
16 MR. STAUDENMEIER: Thanks, got it.
17 MR. PROFFITT: I'll pass it back to Duncan 18 here.
19 MR. WHITE: Another possible framework to 20 put fusion under is Part 30 and using particle 21 accelerator.
22 The definition of byproduct material under 23 11E3 states that anything that's made radioactive by 24 use of a particle accelerator and is produced, 25 extracted, or converted after for a commercial, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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medical, or research activity.
2 In terms of considering fusion under a 3
byproduct framework, you first have to consider the 4
fusion energy systems operate like a particle 5
accelerator, and the second part of it is, is there 6
correct material converted to use for commercial or 7
medical research?
8 If you look at that 30.4 definition, which 9
is the definition in the actual regulations there, 10 again, there's the second definition that's listed 11 there, the 72 Federal Register one.
12 This is the definition that's mentioned in 13 the statements of consideration for the rule that 14 adopted the particle accelerator. It gives some 15 parameters on what the machine is and what it can do.
16 If you take a fusion device, that can make 17 a case that says that a fusion device does operate in 18 a similar manner to a particle accelerator because it 19 does create conditions conducive to fusion reactions 20 by accelerating the charged particles through 21 electromagnetic interactions in a vacuum and charging 22 the result in particle or other radiation into a 23 medium.
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that are out there. So, someone said earlier about 2
horseshoeing, we're doing a little bit of that here 3
too.
4 But again, there's similarities there 5
where we control to say that a fusion device does 6
operate in a similar manner to a particle accelerator.
7 Again, we talked about vacuum chambers, we talked 8
about discharge into plasma and into walls, partial 9
kinetic energy by raising temperatures.
10 There's some types of particles that are 11 used, there's acceleration of particles used. The 12 second part of the definition mentioned is, and this 13 becomes a little problematic for some of the 14 technologies that are currently out there, about their 15 use for commercial or medical research activity.
16 If you look at for commercial devices, we 17 mentioned before some systems that use aneutronic or 18 low-neutricity reactions. And as I mentioned earlier, 19 those use the reactor material that is produced or the 20 radiation produced is incidental to the fusion 21 process.
22 And for that reason, they don't really fit 23 under the definition of a particle accelerator. And 24 again, we'll come back to this later in terms of where 25 we landed but again, it does present a problem NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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because, again, it does not cleanly fit into that 2
definition.
3 But it does provide a potential option for 4
the Commission to look at in terms of what framework 5
to put it under. Again, I think we'll just stop there 6
and answer any questions.
7 CHAIR PETTI: Walt had his hand up.
8 MR. WHITE: Please go ahead.
9 MEMBER KIRCHNER: I had to find my mic.
10 When I look at this Duncan and Andy, I see your 11 dilemma. It seems to me with Joy's questions in mind 12 that if we do have time, how difficult do you feel it 13 is to -- maybe I'm getting to the end of your 14 presentation.
15 But at this point it seems to me a good 16 stopping point to take stock and say, okay, let's wish 17 and hope that fusion is successful, that it makes 18 large amounts of electricity or energy.
19 It certainly doesn't want to make large 20 amounts of byproduct material and some of the concepts 21 like Tokamaks clearly are not particle accelerators.
22 So, I can see your dilemma.
23 You've got Congress putting a timeline in 24 front of you of 2027, but it would seem to me there is 25 time to consider a framework that might not force you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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down the road of 10 CFR 5052 or something that follows 2
the risk-informed spirit of 53.
3 I can see using byproduct material for 4
research purposes where you're not really intending to 5
make large amounts of electricity or energy, you're 6
experimenting and you don't want to impede that by 7
curating a large regulatory infrastructure that holds 8
back the science and the development of potential 9
concepts.
10 So, I wanted to pose that. I know you've 11 got options and you also are going to have some 12 recommendations so maybe I'm getting in front of your 13 presentation.
14 But it seems to me at this juncture, does 15 it make sense to consider and does the time allow the 16 potential for a new framework that might be somewhat 17 akin to 10 CFR 53, or an appendix to 10 CFR 53 that 18 would follow not necessarily the 2027 deadline?
19 It's an observation question, maybe it's 20 premature in your presentation.
21 MR. WHITE: I think, as I said, we'll go 22 into a little bit of detail into the options, I talk 23 about the options and the pros and cons for them.
24 Again, as I said, both have their 25 limitations and again, any sort of alternative NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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framework is again, because of where we have start and 2
work with, which is the Atomic Energy Act, it really 3
leaves us with not a lot of flexibility in terms of 4
what path we go down and what we can develop as new.
5 For example, again, one of the options 6
you're going to hear about, we looked at a risk-7 informed option, but again, it has to be grounded in 8
what we have already in the act.
9 And again, unless Congress adds something 10 to the act to specifically add fusion to it, right now 11 we're kind of in that place in terms of how to proceed 12 with this.
13 MEMBER KIRCHNER: But you certainly want 14 to utilize and certainly don't want to produce a lot 15 of byproduct materials. So, it seems to me that 16 taking a success-oriented view of fusion and its 17 future, it would be under the utilization.
18 That would suggest some variant on 10 CFR 19 50 that was more appropriately scaled as to Greg's 20 comments, to the technology at hand and the potential 21 risk as well.
22 MR. WHITE: Yes, but as I said, one of the 23 things we looked at is again, it gets back to a basic 24 issue about Part 53 for these devices and looking at 25 53 is designed for advanced fission reactors and we do NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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have a portion in there, a placeholder there, for 2
fusion.
3 But again, to implement the full suite of 4
requirements that are required for advanced reactors, 5
it goes way beyond I think what these machines and the 6
risk involved for the machines are.
7 You would have to do a lot of I don't want 8
to call them exemptions but you would have to scale 9
back.
10 In hindsight, the Part 30 approach with 11 the particle accelerators, in some cases some things 12 in there will work fine but some things potentially 13 for commercial you're going to have to scale it up 14 quite a bit.
15 And it may go beyond what really Part 30 16 is capable of doing.
17 CHAIR PETTI: This is Dave.
18 Just some background, this issue of 19 whether fusion is in a particle accelerator has been 20 around for a long time. When the DOE commissioned the 21 fusion safety standard that was done in the 1990s, 22 this was one of the issues.
23 And at that time, the assessment was that 24 it really didn't fit when one was looking at large 25 engineering demonstrations and follow-on power-plants.
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So, it's always a question.
2 Given Part 53, I'm not convinced it's the 3
right thing but you could create a Framework C and it 4
would certainly be streamlined over what's Framework 5
A and Framework B, because many of the subparts 6
probably wouldn't be applicable.
7 But it would fit in the flavor of a risk-8 informed option.
9 MR. PROFFITT: Certainly, I appreciate 10 that. And just to frame a little bit more these 11 assessments and working through, obviously going back 12 to 2020 when the Commission asked for options for the 13 Staff to put forward.
14 So, that's really the basis of what made 15 us look at these and see if they were viable. And so 16 that's what we've done in the paper so far, is to say 17 there's not really a perfect fit necessarily but there 18 are some fits that could work and leverage a lot of 19 what we currently have.
20 And so that's what we're seeking to do 21
- here, point out there's utilization facility 22 framework, there's a byproduct material framework, and 23 fusion could potentially fit in them.
24 I'll go to the next slide for you, Duncan.
25 MR. WHITE: A summary and overview of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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where we are with regulatory shipment of fusion R&D 2
right now, again there's an emphasis on R&D.
3 A lot of you are familiar with the 4
Department of Residential Facilities, the two primary 5
laboratories are Lawrence Livermore with the National 6
Ignition Facility and Princeton with the different 7
Tokamak designs they've had over the years to FTR and 8
such.
9 The agreement states have been regulating 10 fusion R&D for some time under their Part 30 11 compatible regulations or under their existing race to 12 control requirements for particle accelerator lasers.
13 I highlighted a few there, academic 14 institutions, New York, University of Rochester has 15 had an initial program for a couple decades there.
16 They have tritium onsite, they do experiments there.
17 California, similar type of thing, the 18 university associated with Lawrence Livermore does 19 experiments too.
20 Commercially, there is a company out in 21 Washington, Helion, who has a small material license 22 and again, it's being regulated because of the 23 accelerator, because of its materials. It's being 24 done under Part 30 right now.
25 The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has been NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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in discussions, pre-application, with Commonwealth 2
Fusion Systems, CFS. Again, they are in the process 3
of building a larger R&D Tokamak type of design.
4 They use about 5 grams of tritium and 5
again, this will probably be finished some time next 6
year and the application will be, according to the 7
State, submitted in the early part of next year.
8 There's a couple states that particularly 9
have done a little bit of licensing involving fusion 10 R&D. They have run into a couple issues with the 11 current framework under Part 30.
12 One of them is tritium accountability.
13 Again, it's keeping track of the tritium. They had to 14 issue the exemption because in the regulations if you 15 lose a certain amount of material you have to report 16 that.
17 The challenge with fusion facilities is 18 tracking the tritium and they issued an exemption that 19 required the licensee to come up with a program of how 20 to track that. And again, then we talked to someone 21 about waste management.
22 The challenge with activation products, 23 with components is it's material-dependent. From 24 knowing what you have there, how much you have, 25 effectively measure this amount of material since it's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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again a challenge in terms of how you track that.
2 The same state that tritium mentioned that 3
they have because of a company that's holding some of 4
their activated components in storage is how do you 5
track the amount of inventory of material there?
6 Again, we pointed this out already, the 7
current scope of Part 30 does not cover all fusion 8
systems. Again, you'll see low-neutricity reactions 9
present a particular problem.
10 Questions?
11 MEMBER REMPE: This is Joy, I have couple 12 of questions.
13 On this last bullet, how many near-term 14 applications are you expecting to see for these two 15 systems mentioned in response to this last bullet?
16 And then on the third bullet, is there an 17 upper limit for tritium accountability or waste 18 management that you expect to be challenged in the 19 near term by what is allowed for Part 30 because of 20 anticipated increased scope and magnitude of the 21 devices that are coming through the pipeline?
22 MR. WHITE: Again, understanding the 23 quantities of tritium, they have a challenge with 24 accountability is again something that is being 25 licensed right now with what Massachusetts is going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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see.
2 We're in that range right now for doing 3
that.
4 MEMBER REMPE: I'll make sure I understand 5
your response. Right now someone is coming through 6
that will have more tritium than what currently 7
Massachusetts can authorize using Part 30?
8 MR. WHITE: I apologize.
9 Right now, the facility in Massachusetts, 10 which is a Tokamak-type design, that's the largest one 11 we know in the near term. There are other potential 12 applications coming in next year but I don't know the 13 quantity of material that they're coming into ask for 14 at this point.
15 MEMBER REMPE: So, right now no one has 16 talked to you about, hey, we're going to bumping the 17 limits of Part 30?
18 MR. WHITE: No.
19 MEMBER REMPE: And then I guess I still 20 haven't heard the answer to the last bullet and I have 21 a question about do they have to come up with some 22 sort of maximum hazard analysis and is it pretty cut 23 and dry what they're going to do?
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whether their maximum credible accident is indeed a 2
maximum challenge. Because I'm just thinking about 3
safety and where we fall into this.
4 ACRS doesn't review Part 30 applications 5
obviously and is there a point in the near term where 6
we would want to deviate from that current approach?
7 What is the limit and how well is it monitored that 8
they've properly considered the challenges?
9 MR. WHITE: Under Part 30 the licensees 10 are given a maximum possession limit of material 11 they're allowed to possess. And that material would 12 include waste products, it would include any 13 activation products.
14 So, again, that's how they're licensed.
15 That maximum possession limit is also the basis for 16 how much financial assurance they are to provide to 17 remediate the site if necessary.
18 That limit will also drive the offsite 19 hazard analysis. Again, in Part 30, if you have more 20 than 2 grams of tritium, you are required by 21 regulations to do an offsite evaluation of potential 22 offsite doses.
23 If you exceed 1 rem offsite, you are 24 required to have an emergency plan. Now, that doesn't 25 say necessarily that these facilities will have those NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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doses offsite but they have to go through the 2
evaluation and do that and demonstrate why their 3
offsite doses would not exceed 1 rem.
4 Again, preliminary information, we have 5
seen because they're dealing with tritium they would 6
easily be under the 1 rem requirement for offsite.
7 But again, they have to do that evaluation.
8 This is for current designs out there.
9 Again, the company I mentioned is coming with an 10 application and Massachusetts will have to do that 11 evaluation.
12 MEMBER REMPE: How close are they going to 13 be to the 1 rem?
14 (Simultaneous Speaking.)
15 MR. WHITE: The numbers we've seen have 16 been well under 10 millirem.
17 MEMBER REMPE: So, we're a way from 18 approaching the part 30 limit?
19 MR. WHITE: Yes.
20 MEMBER REMPE: That's one of the answers 21 to the questions I wanted to really -- and this last 22 bullet, are there any of these designs coming through 23 in the near term that don't fall within Part 30 and 24 how hard is it to include that?
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facility uses a low neutricity reaction right now.
2 They do have a byproduct lesson for sealed sources but 3
right now they have a permit to vent very small 4
quantities of tritium that they produce right now with 5
their machines right now.
6 As they scale up, when the question 7
becomes obviously, what are they going to do with this 8
tritium? This company, one of the things they have 9
talked about doing is collecting the tritium and 10 possibly collecting it and selling it.
11 That's one possibility they are looking 12 at. But if they sell that tritium, we could make the 13 argument going back that they now are using the 14 tritium for commercial use and we can argue that it 15 could fall under the regulations.
16 However, if they take that same material 17 and ship it to a waste site, it would be hard to make 18 that same argument.
19 MEMBER REMPE: So, they are already using 20 Part 30 even though it's a low-neutricity reaction?
21 So, your last bullet is kind of a moot point since 22 you're already allowing these other types of 23 facilities to use Part 30.
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and then let another organization sell it?
2 MR. WHITE: Yes but I'll make it very 3
clear, because companies are still in the research 4
phases right now, the current Part 30 allows us to 5
cover that because research is one of the activities 6
that is in the 113 definition.
7 As we approach commercial size, that may 8
not be the case. Again, it depends on how they 9
approach it.
10 MEMBER REMPE: And then I guess I'd be 11 curious on how soon is that going to happen? Are we 12 still talking beyond 2035?
13 MR. WHITE: Yes, that depends on their 14 continued development and where they're going to land.
15 CHAIR PETTI: Duncan, just a point for the 16 members to know, the number that was used in the old 17 days, 1 rem at a typical site boundary is about 50 18 grams of tritium. It could be 37, it could be 62, you 19 know when you do the dose calculation.
20 But it's kind of a rough rule of thumb so 21 it gives you an idea of that's the release that would 22 have to happen.
23 MR. WHITE: That sounds about right.
24 CHAIR PETTI: Steve, you have a hand up?
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some elements of the agreement state with regards to 2
their current participation in the work so far and 3
it's mentioned at the end of the white paper the 4
agreement states will be continuing in the development 5
of the regulation as a stakeholder.
6 As the units are scaled up to commercial 7
operation, what are you going to anticipate the role 8
of agreement states to be in regulation? Is that 9
going to change dramatically and will the relationship 10 with the NRC between the agreement states and the NRC 11 change then?
12 MR. WHITE: It probably could.
13 Again, right now the NRC under the 14 agreement obviously these types of facilities would 15 essentially fall under, however, in the past the 16 Commission has allowed states to return a portion of 17 their agreement where either they don't have a need 18 for it or they're unable to support it.
19 I'll give the particular which is used, 20 which is the review of sealed sources and devices that 21 some states do have such programs and some states that 22 have maybe only one or two manufacturers sometimes 23 choose to return that to the NRC.
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extra Staff for one or two licensees. When we have 2
met with the states, some of the states expressed 3
similar opinions with commercial fusion.
4 They have one or two facilities, they 5
don't see it as a particular advantage to hire 6
additional staff and to bring the expertise on staff.
7 And if there's an option for the states to return that 8
portion of their agreement to the NRC, they would 9
seriously consider it.
10 MR. SCHULTZ: That helps a lot, thank you.
11 CHAIR PETTI: Duncan, at this point we've 12 been going at it for more than an hour and a half.
13 I'm just thinking maybe we should take a break now and 14 then come back?
15 MR. WHITE: Sure.
16 CHAIR PETTI: Let's break and come back at 17 10 minutes before the hour, about 14 minutes' break.
18 Thanks, everybody.
19 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 20 went off the record at 3:37 p.m. and 21 resumed at 3:50 p.m.)
22 CHAIR PETTI: Okay, we're back. Are you 23 guys ready to keep on going?
24 MR. PROFFITT: Sounds good, Dave, I'm here 25 and I'm taking the next slide. Perfect time for a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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break, we can jump into the options here. So, the 2
first one in the paper is the treatment of the fusion 3
energy systems as a utilization facility.
4 So the path here would be to regulate them 5
under Part 53 and if this option was selected by the 6
Commission we would update Part 53, would be the plan 7
forward here.
8 And then additionally, we would update the 9
10 CFR 50.2 that I mentioned earlier that defines in 10 our regulations what a utilization facility is.
11 Part of the thing with this option, we 12 feel the potential hazards of the current designs that 13 we've been made aware of and have had talks with the 14 industry on are very different than typical 15 utilization facilities.
16 And certainly, 50 and 52 and to some 17 extent 53 are pretty prescriptive with regards to 18 being based around fission-based reactors.
19 One example there would be 10 CFR 100 and 20 siting, things like that, it's all based around the 21 source term from fission products, which obviously 22 these fusion energy devices do not contain.
23 None of the fusion energy systems that 24 we're categorizing and addressing within this paper 25 contain special nuclear material. If they did, we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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would certainly bump them into the utilization 2
facility framework.
3 Some of the other considerations due to 4
legislation and the Atomic Energy Act, there's 5
requirements such as Price Anderson related to 6
financial protection that would need to be addressed.
7 There's certainly restrictions on foreign 8
ownership control and domination, there's the 9
licensing processing and the mandatory hearings that 10 are involved with utilization facilities.
11 One of the key things and concern we've 12 heard on the restrictions on foreign ownership with 13 some of these companies that are out there are 14 receiving investment from international investment in 15 their companies. And that would certainly present an 16 issue for them potentially.
17 And then near-term licensing essentially 18 before, if there was licensing that needed to be done 19 before we fleshed out this complete framework that 20 addressed fusion, it would not be easy.
21 It would be a pain of trying to fit fusion 22 into a regulatory framework that was really written 23 around fission-based reactors. And specifically, 50 24 and 52 were focused on the large light water reactors 25 that are currently in operation.
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And certainly, we see the systems 2
especially in the near term as being significantly 3
lower hazard potential than those facilities.
4 Any questions on Option 1?
5 MEMBER HALNON: Yes, this is Greg. On the 6
third bullet
- there, the financial protection 7
restrictions on foreign ownership and mandatory 8
hearings, it almost feels like you're putting that on 9
there because you don't think that's necessary for 10 fusion.
11 Is that the purpose? You just don't think 12 that's necessary, or is that just listing a few the 13 extra stuff the AEA requires?
14 MR. PROFFITT: Sort of a mix.
15 Certainly for some, as we've talked about 16 there's a large array of hazards and something that 17 was a very small potential hazard happened to be 18 lumped in necessarily with Price Anderson and needing 19 to have that liability related to them because being 20 a small hazard facility that produced energy probably 21 wouldn't make sense.
22 So, there are things that would need to be 23 dealt with for a lot of the facilities that we see 24 that we think would maybe not be appropriate for all 25 of these to be applied to them.
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And certainly, and I'll get a little bit 2
more to stakeholder feedback here in a bit once we get 3
through the options, but there's been a lot of 4
stakeholder feedback around some of these types of 5
things as feeling they shouldn't fit specific designs.
6 MEMBER HALNON: That makes sense, I agree 7
with that, although on foreign ownership I think I 8
would beg to differ that that is still very important.
9 That restriction is huge, especially in today's 10 political environment.
11 So, just my comment.
12 MR. PROFFITT: I'll kick it back over to 13 Duncan to talk about the next option. You're on mute, 14 Duncan.
15 MR. WHITE: I apologize for that.
16 For the byproduct material framework 17 option, we have two-step options here. Again, we 18 regulate fusion energy systems using Part 30 and the 19 current framework we feel could accommodate near-tearm 20 commercial fusion energy systems.
21 And as we talked about earlier, those will 22 legally be included under the definition of particle 23 accelerator. One option is to do rulemaking, a 24 limited rulemaking, to include and add a technology-25 inclusive definition of fusion energy systems to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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scope of Part 30.
2 We'd add definitions, for example, for 3
defining fusion, fusion facility, commercial fusion 4
facility again is something that would come out during 5
the regulatory development.
6 Also, we would do guidance with rulemaking 7
to complement that.
8 The other thing we'd do besides adding 9
definitions under this option would be to add 10 definitions along the lines of what a content of what 11 an application is and what it would need to cover, 12 which again would be design-specific.
13 This option does add some regulatory 14 protectability for issuing clarity for the 15 stakeholders, it does produce the potential for 16 exemptions. We talked a little bit about that 17 earlier, maybe we'll possibly address some of those in 18 such a rulemaking option.
19 And again, the guidance will be important 20 here and guidance is also important under the no 21 rulemaking option because again, we would depend on 22 solely on guidance for this no rulemaking option to 23 regulate fusion energy systems.
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rulemaking unless consistency implementation with the 2
agreement states, because again, if we do rulemaking 3
the agreement states would have to adopt compatible 4
requirements as the NRC for fusion devices.
5 So, that's the downside there and I'll 6
point out we may not be able to include all the fusion 7
energy systems under this framework unless we do 8
rulemaking. Questions?
9 MEMBER HALNON: This is Greg again. I 10 know I'm picking on words, I apologize, but can you do 11 a no rulemaking option under the AEA? You're supposed 12 to regulate this, not suggest how you do it. It can 13 only be a suggestion.
14 MR. WHITE: One of the things, obviously 15 NEIMA also uses the word rulemaking in that particular 16 piece of legislation. So, a plain reading of NEIMA 17 would say the no rulemaking option is not really a 18 viable approach.
19 But again, it's a possibility. I 20 certainly agree, if you just do guidance there is 21 generally no opportunity or limited opportunity for 22 public input.
23 I'll go back to Andrew.
24 MR. PROFFITT: Thanks, Duncan.
25 Moving onto the third option that we have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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is a hybrid approach so that would be a couple 2
different possibilities there.
3 But essentially, such an option would be 4
able to better address the differences in the 5
potential radiological hazards associated with a 6
variety of technologies, something that could be 7
tailored directly towards fusion.
8 But there's also two different ways we 9
could do this and we've thought about one being you 10 basically use Option 1 and 2 but there's a decision 11 criteria that's established.
12 And that criteria would likely need to be 13 based back on that utilization facility definition 14 that we've talked about in the atomic energy act.
15 But you would develop some type of 16 criteria to either kick the specific application or 17 specific device into the Part 30 byproduct-material-18 type framework or into the utilization facility model 19 framework.
20 That's the diagram on the left there and 21 that would be in Part 53. So, there is some potential 22 limitations with this type of an approach. One, 23 there's not necessarily something on the near term 24 that we would see as 100 percent tripping such a 25 criteria that we would develop.
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Certainly, we don't have a specific 2
criteria necessarily in mind but it would be hazard-3 based, maybe some inventory, potential maximum 4
inventory that if you went over that you would be 5
treated as a utilization facility versus a byproduct 6
material, or some offsite consequence.
7 You would be treated one way or the other.
8 The second option would be the consolidated approach, 9
a whole new part of the regulations to fully address 10 fusion. And you would have increasing requirements 11 based on the hazard consequences.
12 So, we really feel like this second 13 approach is built into a potential longer-term of 14 either of the first two options, whether it be to 15 include another Part 53 as a utilization facility or 16 to include fusion under the byproduct material 17 framework.
18 We really see both of those longer-term 19 options essentially morphing as the industry will 20 mature into this consolidated approach as we tailor 21 one or the other frameworks to really address what 22 we're seeing with the fusion industry.
23 MEMBER BROWN: This is Charlie Brown, 24 could I ask a question?
25 MR. PROFFITT: Yes, go ahead.
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MEMBER BROWN: I've been listening to the 2
options, kind of interesting. I have a tough time 3
figuring out why we would do it as byproduct or a 4
hybrid.
5 We're trying to produce electricity out of 6
the fusion plants and why would we deny them some of 7
the same overall characteristics that you show on 8
Slide 10 to a fusion plant that's producing 9
electricity that we have with a light water reactor or 10 other reactors?
11 Byproduct just doesn't seem to make sense 12 to me. Obviously, I'm not very smart on all this 13 stuff, it would just seem to me the object is to 14 produce electricity for the country, not to have 15 byproducts coming out of it.
16 Anyway, that was my thought, I didn't hear 17 anything that pushed me out of that.
18 MR. WHITE: One thing to point out, 19 electricity is not the only thing that's being 20 mentioned by all parties developing fusion. We've 21 also heard people interested in using fusion to 22 produce isotopes.
23 The helium-3 and stuff like that, some of 24 these fusion reactors can be used to produce some of 25 the fuels that wants to be used. There's some NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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interest in doing that.
2 It's not exclusively electricity, although 3
that's a stated goal of a number of one. There are 4
other things being considered again by other 5
companies.
6 MEMBER BROWN: That's a big investment, 7
though, isn't it?
8 There are other methods to produce the 9
isotopes we have and the fusion is always in the past.
10 I'm just going back, remembering reading the first 11 articles on how wonderful this stuff was back in the 12 1950s.
13 That's how old I am. But electricity as 14 opposed to hydrogen bombs was the new end all be all, 15 just as the fission reactor approach we were taking in 16 the 1950s when we started. That's why I asked the 17 question.
18 It seems to me if you're going to spend 19 billions and billions and billions, because that's 20 what it's going to be by the time we get there, I'm 21 not objecting to that, it's just going to be a lot of 22 money.
23 And you'd like to have some popular 24 support relative to what it does for the country 25 overall and relative to, quote, clean energy for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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utilization purposes.
2 That was my only thought, I understand the 3
differences, it's just up in the air but it's just a 4
thought process.
5 MR. WHITE: As I said, obviously there has 6
been discussions in the literature about the 7
availability of tritium, if that's going to continue, 8
is it going to be available if we have a number of 9
fusion plants go online?
10 And then again, some have been talking 11 about someone can produce fuel for other designs, 12 that's just a possibility. I don't think that's their 13 end goal, I think their end goal is a number of them 14 really want to achieve success.
15 And hopefully there are other options that 16 people are seriously looking at that we've been 17 informed about.
18 MEMBER BROWN: Thanks.
19 MR. WHITE: Thank you for the question.
20 CHAIR PETTI: Andrew, my question on these 21 two sub-options is, is the consolidated approach --
22 how different would they be that they would 23 potentially merge together in this consolidated 24 approach?
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would really just be we would develop a criteria to 2
kick it one way or the other.
3 We would still need to do work within Part 4
30 and within Part 53, so really, it would be you're 5
doing Option 1 and 2 in addition to developing some 6
type of criteria to kick it to --
7 CHAIR PETTI: So, it's critical to get the 8
criteria?
9 MR. PROFFITT: I'm sorry, I didn't hear 10 that.
11 CHAIR PETTI: So, it's critical to get the 12 criteria established?
13 MR. PROFFITT: Yes, absolutely, that would 14 be critical and we would also need to make sure we 15 develop that so it was clear to the public, to all of 16 our stakeholders, to industry certainly to understand 17 where they would fit.
18 Because there could be uncertainty over 19 them developing a design and developing an application 20 that they thought they were tailoring it to one 21 framework and if it didn't go that way, they were 22 kicked one way or the other, that would obviously 23 produce a lot of uncertainty for them.
24 CHAIR PETTI: The other question is, is it 25 more work to do the single graded framework than NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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working on the two separate ones? Or is it about the 2
same amount of work, it's just how it's packaged?
3 MR. WHITE: I think the consolidated 4
approach would be more work because again, you would 5
basically have to have probably a new part of the 6
regulations that address both.
7 And it would have to be written in a 8
manner, and this has to be done by 2027, that would 9
include any commercial research, create a broad 10 umbrella to regulate and oversee the different 11 approaches.
12 And it would have to be wholesome enough 13 that you could base your regulation on that. And 14 again, it would be clearly more work. Decision 15 criteria for bifurcated would be easy, I'm not saying 16 that.
17 But again, you would basically talk 18 consolidated writing a whole new part of the 19 regulation to do that.
20 MR. PROFFITT: And the additional things 21 we're thinking about with that potential approach 22 would be obviously, the industry is budding right now, 23 very nascent right now, and just getting going with 24 people, these companies, seeking to prove a concept 25 with Q greater than 1 in the next few years.
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So, the combination of being at the very 2
early stages of the industry and also with the broad 3
array of technologies and scope of hazards that are 4
out there, it would be a difficult job to really 5
develop a completely new framework that would be 6
successful for the time and investment that we were 7
putting into it to be something worthwhile.
8 MR. RECKLEY: This is Bill.
9 Andrew, if I can, I think, Dave, from a 10 technical standpoint, it would be much more work, as 11 Duncan and Andrew have said, especially if you start 12 to build in some of those factors into that 13 consolidated framework, like when would Price Anderson 14 apply?
15 When might you use different hearing 16 procedures? Those kinds of things. From a technical 17 standpoint, it might not be much different but it 18 would be complicated to start to build in those other 19 options.
20 Whereas the bifuracted approach, you could 21 say right or wrong it's already decided for you. Once 22 you make that decision criteria and you say 23 utilization facility, then under the act, foreign 24 ownership would be restricted.
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complicated, especially if you started to build in 2
some of those other considerations.
3 CHAIR PETTI: That helps a lot because 4
technically, I didn't see it being that different but 5
it's all the other stuff that has to be touched on.
6 Thanks.
7 MR. PROFFITT: Duncan, did you want to 8
talk a little bit about what we're planning to 9
recommend in the SECY?
10 MR. WHITE: Sure. As you mentioned 11 earlier, we've had internal discussions and are 12 aligned on where we're going to go with this. We're 13 going to be recommending that we regulate fusion 14 energy systems under a byproduct material framework 15 doing limited rulemaking.
16 And our decision was based on a number of 17 factors. First, we noted that Part 30 provides a 18 broad framework for regulating material that include 19 the risks by these fusion systems. Because they're 20 already being done by agreement states.
21 We also know the projected risk from these 22 systems are at least a few orders of magnitude less 23 than the fission facilities, the commercial fission 24 facilities that are operating.
25 Part 30 framework also allows it to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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scalable in terms of a
risk-based
- approach, 2
commensurate with the diversity of the proposed 3
systems and the reactor material and radiation 4
present.
5 Again, one of the tasks under NEIMA is to 6
make this technology as inclusive as possible, and 7
this is where the limited rulemaking comes in.
8 Again, by doing limited rulemaking we can 9
ensure that Part 30 does address all anticipated 10 fusion devices and in addition to that provides better 11 regulatory predictability and consistency across NRC 12 and all agreement states' jurisdictions.
13 We also noted that by updating Part 30 and 14 potentially including content of application 15 requirements in the regulations to complement it with 16 guidance that we can scale up areas that we've 17 foreseen that really we need to beef up under the 18 byproduct material requirement approach.
19 These would be things like emergency 20 planning, physical security, and importantly, facility 21 design requirements and radiation safety for treating 22 paneling systems are a few the areas that I think we 23 can address there.
24 The other thing we noted is that if we 25 look at commercial irradiators, NRC regulate the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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commercial irradiators for 25 years more or less on a 2
case-by-case basis.
3 It was done with very limited regulations, 4
it was done mostly by guidance, and it allowed that 5
industry to mature and the designs to standardize and 6
provided an option when the industry matured enough 7
that we actually adopted in 1993 Part 36 to formalize 8
that.
9 We kind of see the same thing here with 10 fusion too. As we talked about earlier, right now the 11 industry is not mature, there's a lot of designs out 12 there and as things evolve over time, this would 13 potentially be a first step.
14 And again, later on we'd potentially go 15 back where we would want to make things more 16 standardized and be more inclusive of what's out there 17 as things evolve.
18 That's the general approach of why we're 19 doing that. Andrew, do you want to add anything else 20 to that?
21 MR. PROFFITT: No, I think you covered 22 most of it. It looked like maybe some questions were 23 popping up.
24 CHAIR PETTI: This is Dave. I'm really 25 surprised. To me, Option 3 gives the regular the most NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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flexibility, particularly the left-hand side one, 2
where basically, you decide some criteria and you can 3
go into 30 if you fit.
4 But if you don't you have to go into a 5
utilization facility and you can decide that based on 6
inventory of tritium.
7 And I would tell you the problem I think, 8
my personal opinion having spent a decade leading the 9
fusion safety program in the United States is an 10 understanding of uncertainty on all these numbers.
11 These are significantly greater than the 12 uncertainties on any of the advanced reactors that 13 we're going to see.
14 And how one has to think about those 15 uncertainties in terms of the safety, in terms of 16 providing estimates that you feel bound some of the 17 uncertainties, Option 3
just gives you more 18 flexibility going forward.
19 Because basically, Option 2 is the lower 20 branch of that Option 3 but if you're wrong and things 21 turn out worse than anticipated or it isn't as bounded 22 as what they thought, Option 3 gives you that 23 flexibility to capture that, whereas Option 2 may not.
24 MEMBER REMPE: Dave, before the Staff 25 answers, if they would have more guidance and limits, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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if they had limits on what the amounts are, which are 2
the current Part 30 limits, but have guidance about 3
consideration of uncertainty and then wait and say if 4
things start exceeding this the person is going to 5
have to have a lot of exemptions or do something else 6
rather than trying to coming up a Part 53 utilization 7
model when they don't know what the design is, would 8
that make you happier?
9 CHAIR PETTI: My feeling is that the 10 decision criteria are really important and one should 11 spend some time working on that, independent of which 12 way to go. And yes, I don't think there's a need to 13 decide which way to go tomorrow.
14 Because none of these systems in terms of 15 the larger-scale power reactor engineering 16 demonstration, whatever you want to call them, that 17 are out there, are many years away.
18 But you've got this 2027 hard deadline 19 that you're up against.
20 MEMBER REMPE: So, maybe what they need 21 are some better criteria rather than to try and figure 22 out something when there's so much uncertainty on what 23 the design is and the timeframe.
24 I'll defer to the Staff but I really think 25 that's what you're trying to say.
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CHAIR PETTI: Basically, you're trying to 2
make a decision when the technology readiness level of 3
many of these concepts, the uncertainty in plasma 4
physics is high and the uncertainty in the nuclear 5
technologies and how they get implemented is very 6
high.
7 The perspective, I know there's many of 8
the proponents that don't like ITER but if you go back 9
to 1990 when ITER was first conceived and you look at 10 ITER today and trace some of that, a lot of stuff was 11 because they didn't understand well enough at the 12 beginning that the design forced them to come to grips 13 with, if you will.
14 Design is an incredibly powerful tool and 15 it can so inform you, and to have to make a decision 16 at this point when so much is still foggy for some of 17 these concepts, it just seems like it can put you in 18 a box that you might not want to be in.
19 So, I would have thought flexibility would 20 be the most important thing.
21 MR. PROFFITT: I'll add a little bit 22 there.
23 I think this is where the Staff sees it as 24 working from Option 1, a utilization facility 25 approach, would be trying to work from a restrictive NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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framework that's built for large, relatively large, 2
hazard systems.
3 CHAIR PETTI: Let me stop you there, 4
Andrew. Do you think SHINE is a high-hazard facility?
5 I don't think so.
6 MR. PROFFITT: Part of SHINE, and I'm not 7
an expert on SHINE, but part of my understanding of 8
SHINE is they actually sought to be addressed as a 9
utilization facility and wanted, volunteered to be put 10 under that umbrella.
11 And just to add a little bit, it would be 12 working back from a framework, trying to scale back, 13 whereas working from a byproduct material framework 14 would be scaling up. And we think it does have that 15 ability to scale up.
16 We do think it's flexible. I think what 17 Part 30 does now, it regulates gauges, all the way up 18 to panoramic irradiators that are pretty high.
19 And additionally, letting that framework 20 scale as the industry matures we feel like would be 21 appropriate given trying to develop a consolidated 22 framework.
23 You're right, a decision criteria like we 24 said would be easier potentially than a consolidated 25 framework.
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But trying to develop a consolidated 2
framework and you guys know how resource-intensive any 3
rulemaking is, really, but certainly something where 4
you're developing a completely new part of the 5
regulations, to try and be wholly inclusive of the 6
potential fusion industry in the country and the 7
hazards the different technologies and devices may 8
possess would certainly be a big undertaking.
9 And I think we've heard during some of the 10 discussion here that it's likely premature.
11 So, that's where we feel like Option 2, 12 the byproduct material framework, it addresses the 13 hazards that we're seeing from the devices, tritium 14 being obviously one of the number one deactivated 15 materials.
16 The types of hazards that are there is 17 what Part 30 was built to address. And certainly, 18 we're acknowledging it will need to be scaled up and 19 we think a rulemaking will make it clear that, one, 20 fusion fits there, and two, give us that scaling more 21 directly.
22 And then obviously, guidance will continue 23 to grow as we move forward.
24 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Dave, this is Walt. I'd 25 like to make an observation. I certainly am not well NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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versed in Part 30 but I've been since this discussion 2
started thumbing through it and there's a big 3
conceptual difference between Part 30 and a fusion 4
machine.
5 And that is by and large starting with my 6
luminox watch and I think tritium for many of the 7
systems is going to be the highest hazard. It's not 8
going to be a sealed like my luminox watch.
9 This is an active system and almost any 10 system that produces electricity needs temperature, 11 usually high temperatures that makes control of 12 tritium a much more difficult undertaking.
13 We've seen it with SHINE, although we 14 can't discuss that in detail or shouldn't here, 15 certainly, tritium management is one of their biggest 16 design challenges and I think that's going to be the 17 same case for at least those magnetic confinement 18 systems that go with the tritium-fueled system.
19 So, that's a lot different than a sealed 20 source, a lot different than a sealed source. You do 21 have some provisions in 30 I see.
22 For one, you do not have a sealed source 23 but by and large, as Dave has pointed out, you're 24 generally not looking at the scale that you would see 25 in a fusion device.
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So, I'm curious, what would you change and 2
have you at least conceptually at this point gone 3
through Part 30 and thought through what significant 4
changes would be needed to regulate a fusion device 5
under Part 30 that is actually built at scale to make 6
power?
7 For
- example, Schedule C
on 30.72, 8
quantities or radioactive materials requiring 9
consideration of the need for emergency plan, I don't 10 see tritium in the list.
11 And that gets to Dave's point about having 12 at least some nominal threshold where a lot more 13 attention would be required by the regulator in 14 licensing such a facility.
15 MR. WHITE: Tritium is in there and again, 16 besides obviously emergency planning is one area we 17 talked about, in a commercial facility obviously one 18 of the things I mentioned earlier was physical 19 security.
20 The potential quantities would have to be 21 addressed under physical security requirements, 22 although you still would have to do that. But that 23 would require some potential changes to Part 37 to do 24 that.
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area that may need to be changed. I mentioned a lot 2
of items that are handled and regulated under Part 30 3
is actually done with guidance, the other reg guides, 4
other NUREGs are used.
5 They're hooked or tied to the guidance 6
document, which is the licensing guidance document 7
that a licensing reviewer and the applicant would have 8
to use to submit an application.
9 So, just because it's something not listed 10 in Part 30 doesn't mean we're not making it a 11 regulatory requirement. We would have other, draw on 12 other guidance that the Agency has developed to 13 license such a facility.
14 MR. PROFFITT: Duncan, do you want me to 15 pull up the backup slides we had on Part 30? Do you 16 think that would help?
17 MR. WHITE: If you want to do that but I 18 think those slides just talk about the different areas 19 you would look at, what would be in the application.
20 It doesn't help for where the Committee is looking 21 for, where are the gaps?
22 I think that's really what they're looking 23 for and certainly, I think we recognize we would have 24 to scale up portions of Part 30 to address some of 25 these fusion energy systems to do that.
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CHAIR PETTI: I have another question.
2 Codes and standards, quality, design requirements 3
relative to safety, those would all have to be added 4
to Part 30?
5 MR. WHITE: Potentially, yes.
6 CHAIR PETTI: It would be very helpful to 7
have a little checklist, take a look at your 8
utilization facility requirements, and what are the 9
ones that you think would pour over that make sense?
10 My basic concern is all of this rests on 11 what you think the hazard is, and it should based on 12 what you think the hazard is. It's tritium but I want 13 to tell my colleagues activated dust is not a small 14 problem, given the system operates at vacuum.
15 And you are activating tungsten 16 potentially, a nice wonderfully activated material, 17 activated steel. I have yet to see any fusion concept 18 that the plasma won't bump against the wall and create 19 the dust.
20 The question is how much? And that's 21 incredibly difficult to answer because of 22 uncertainties in physics.
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getting closer and closer to aspects of the 2
utilization.
3 Again, I'm talking more technically than 4
I am about the non-technical rules like Bill had 5
talked about. Because I'm also frankly worried that 6
you're going this way because it is also the one you 7
can meet by 2027 and that still may not be the right 8
thing to do.
9 I understand schedules are real but 10 that's a concern that I have, and so you may get a 11 letter that's going to disagree with you guys 12 depending on what the rest of the Committee says when 13 we do this in full Committee.
14 MEMBER HALNON: This is Greg.
15 That was kind of the earlier comment about 16 shoehorning it into a definition and then allowing the 17 rest of it to take hold.
18 There's going to be a tremendous amount of 19 scrutiny on every requirement and what requirements 20 have not been put on it that we may think need to be.
21 And when you do guidance you're not really 22 regulating, that's sort of an end-around way of doing 23 it. So, I agree, either a checklist or it's an 24 outline or some kind of framework that is not 25 necessarily regulatory language, but here's the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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boundaries and the limits and the things that we're 2
looking for.
3 And how do you define adequate protection?
4 That's a big question but how do you distill that down 5
into what's required for these things? And I agree, 6
a lot of Part 30 won't apply but a lot of it will, 7
maybe some of Part 50 and 52 will apply.
8 And it's not just technical, it is the 9
legal aspect about foreign ownership and 10 decommissioning and all of those other things that 11 have to come into play as well.
12 So, I agree with you, Dave, there's 13 something we need to kick around awhile.
14 CHAIR PETTI: We didn't get into the waste 15 issues but I would tell you, if the machine, if the 16 physics works absolutely perfectly and in ten years 17 from now they're talking about a power-plant, there 18 are no alloys available that will not produce greater 19 than Class C waste.
20 The alloys that the fusion community has 21 talked about, they're called low-activation materials 22 that are not ready yet, they won't be ready in ten 23 years.
24 MEMBER BALLINGER: It's sort of like 25 buying a box of cereal that's low fat. What's the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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starting point?
2 CHAIR PETTI: Right, but today if you have 3
to pick a material you have to pick a stainless steel, 4
that's going to activate in any of these situations, 5
when you're talking about power-plant fluences where 6
this thing is operating 24/7 or close to it, you're 7
going to get significant activation in either DD or DT 8
to challenge the waste limits.
9 So, they'll be greater than Class C. And 10 it all depends on the impurities, it has nothing to do 11 with the base metal.
12 You can go back, there's tons of papers in 13 the literature, tons, on this and how does a 14 fabricated controlled material like niobium, to 15 produce niombium-94, which is one of the worst 16 isotopes in the waste management regulations.
17 It's those sorts of things that are 18 underneath all of this that will need to be looked at 19 beyond the nearer-term operational stuff. It will be 20 really nice if you guys could for the full Committee 21 meeting come up with a short checklist.
22 It doesn't have to be perfect yet but what 23 you think needs to be reported into Option 2 because 24 it isn't all fleshed out enough.
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or 3 and basically had a complete list of criteria and 2
then said we can't do the upper path of this figure on 3
Slide 12, the utilization facility, at this time until 4
there's more operational experience, would that 5
satisfy NEIMA?
6 MR. PROFFITT: That's a good question, I 7
think that's something we would have to consider and 8
speak with the lawyers about. They're the ones that 9
advise us on the specifics on meeting NEIMA.
10 MEMBER REMPE: Because it surely seems 11 strange to spend a lot of effort on figuring out the 12 upper path when we don't really have a good idea of 13 what the facility would be like.
14 It just seems like a waste of somebody's 15 funds and effort.
16 MEMBER BALLINGER: I'm in the wasted funds 17 camp. I don't think the actual proponents of 18 individual concepts know what they need.
19 They can say what they think should happen 20 and then when things actually get going, should they 21 get going, only to discover that they made the wrong 22 set of criteria. And so here you are stuck with a set 23 of rules that don't even apply.
24 It worries me.
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the letter was Option 3, the bifurcated approach, get 2
to work on those decision criteria but fleshing out 3
all of this other stuff, you need more operating 4
experience.
5 You can't really characterize the two 6
hazards of some of these facilities at their power-7 plant vision until you get more operating experience.
8 MEMBER BALLINGER: To give you a bit of a 9
dumb example, because it's a little better now than it 10 was 20 years ago, the erosion rate of the first wall, 11 there are people that say the erosion rate is going to 12 be X and you say, well, X is thicker than the wall.
13 Then they come back and say, all right, 14 the erosion rate is X but the deposition rate is also 15 X.
16 CHAIR PETTI: Right, I know that whole 17 story, Ron, I've seen it in action.
18 Again, this is all some of the uncertainty 19 stuff that makes it really hard to in fact think about 20 these things in the traditional nuclear safety 21 approach where you're trying to bound things, you're 22 trying to in essence work backwards if you will.
23 You sometimes can't do that easily because 24 there's just too much uncertainty at this point.
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say I think in starting from the byproduct material 2
framework, we feel like it largely addresses the 3
hazards that we're seeing today.
4 It's been successful in oversight of R&D 5
to date and we feel like as the technologies mature, 6
as there's a potential industry, and as there's 7
operating experience, we feel that it can scale 8
appropriately up as we're getting to those points.
9 CHAIR PETTI: I completely agree. All the 10 current R&D facilities, Part 30 is not a problem. I 11 see that fitting because it allows innovation and it 12 allows the technologies to be matured.
13 But if you could get to those decision 14 criteria, you could get a sense for how soon and if 15 you could get there or not, and better inform what is 16 the right option.
17 MR. PROFFITT: Duncan, do you have 18 anything else to add?
19 MR. WHITE: No.
20 MR. PROFFITT: Anything else on the 21 options? I was going to move forward to stakeholder 22 feedback and then our path forward.
23 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Just, Dave, if I may, 24 this is Walt, can I just ask a question? When you 25 talk about Part 30, you're specifically only talking NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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about Part 30.
2 Because I was going through the later 3
parts, 31, 32, and such, it's interesting to look at 4
those because some of them require things like 5
radiation protection, training, radiation safety 6
officer, et cetera.
7 You will have a lot of those kinds of 8
hazards in one of these fusion devices that's actually 9
built to make, I presume, 24/7 electricity. You are 10 just specifically saying 30?
11 MR. WHITE: We're saying Part 30 because 12 that's where the framework is. Again, we should 13 quickly point out there are other -- Section 31 14 through 39 also works off of Part 30.
15 And some of the licenses we write for 16 other things, there's maybe not a lot of particular 17 regulations but we also pull from Part 20 in other 18 areas too, from other guidance.
19 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Yes, I presume 20 would 20 be applicable.
21 MR. WHITE: Yes, there are other things 22 that are applicable. We would --
23 MEMBER KIRCHNER: But going back to this 24 idea, I don't know if gap analysis is the right way to 25 describe it but it would seem to me that if your NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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recommendation is to go with 30, and I agree with 2
Dave, for research and development this is great.
3 That
- way, you get more and more 4
experience, more and more opportunities to try 5
different materials, whether it's the first wall or 6
whatever, or your gas handling systems et, cetera.
7 At some point, and I'm taking a positive 8
view that fusion might be successful there, you're 9
scaling up and I'm repeating myself but, boy, it sure 10 feels like a utilization facility to me.
11 Now, I wouldn't want to stick the fusion 12 community with 10 CFR Part 50 or Part 52. I think 13 Part 53 has a much more flexible promising framework 14 to start from.
15 But it would seem to me some kind of gap 16 analysis or something is necessary to say looking 17 forward, we'll go with this option for the near term 18 so that the research and development can proceed.
19 But at some point when the scale-up occurs 20 and the hazards become more complex, et cetera, then 21 things like operator requirements, radiation 22 protection access, material control, et cetera, those 23 things that are part of the utilization facility, they 24 may not be the very prescriptive things that are in 10 25 CFR 50 or 52.
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But they come into play and it would seem 2
to me that would be a necessary next step to flesh out 3
what's needed going forward to regulate fusion power.
4 I'll stop there, I'm repeating myself.
5 MR. RECKLEY: Andrew, this is Bill.
6 If I can, I would just weigh in that 7
whether it's utilization facility under 53 and we're 8
basing some of these same struggles with the variety 9
of the hazard, all the way from micro-reactors to 10 large facilities, what you have, and this has been a 11 criticism of 53, but you do have somewhat of a 12 methodology of how is it going to proceed under that 13 framework?
14 And basically saying what are your 15 inventories, where are they? That same thing would 16 come in for fusion. What are your inventories, what's 17 in the plasma, what's in the structure through 18 activation?
19 Largely, what would be in the blankets, 20 the breeder blankets, and being processed and being 21 stored in the form of tritium, look at your hazards.
22 Where are your energies? Dave talked about the 23 magnetic and someone else mentioned chemical and 24 thermal.
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potentially contribute to a release, all of those 2
things need to be assessed and we've built -- again, 3
traditionally on the reactor side, we've focused very 4
much on that.
5 That's done in materials too. I'd be the 6
first to admit I'm not a materials guy either.
7 I think what we're talking about for some 8
of these larger fusion facilities would be way on the 9
upper end of what we've done under Part 30 and 10 considered, and the complexity of the safety analysis 11 that would be done and so forth.
12 But it can be done under that framework is 13 all we're trying to say. And if an emergency planning 14 zone is needed, 30 can accommodate it. If there's 15 financial assurances that are needed because of 16 potential releases, that can be accommodated.
17 So, I just wanted to get that in. From a 18 technical standpoint, we think either framework can 19 build up and I think Andrew said it pretty well. To 20 some degree, if you start with utilization facility, 21 we think we might have to scale down.
22 But if you start with materials, there's 23 nothing that prevents us from scaling up requirements 24 and conditions on the license and all kinds of things.
25 But I would defer to Duncan because that's his area.
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Anyway, I just wanted to get that in.
2 MR. PROFFITT: Thanks, Bill. I see 3
another hand. Dennis, go ahead.
4 MR. BLEY: I want to take a little 5
different tack here. Think a bit, if you will, after 6
this meeting about Dave's discussion and about the 7
flexibility of Option 3. We haven't got to the 8
stakeholder comments yet and I'm going to jump on 9
that.
10 I haven't read all of them, I don't know 11 what they are but I suspect, I wonder if you think 12 Option 2 is something much more in line with what the 13 stakeholders want. I suggest to you that in five 14 years, wherever you start now may change quite a bit.
15 But by the time you have to actually use 16 this, which is some time later, things will change and 17 nobody out there is going to give you much credit for 18 aligning with the stakeholders in the early part of 19 the project.
20 And if it leads to complications later, 21 they'll be blaming you for it, not themselves for 22 having pushed you in this direction. So, it's just 23 another way to look at it.
24 And the flexibility idea, given what we 25 know now just feels crucial for you.
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MR. PROFFITT: I appreciate that. Let's 2
move on to feedback, that was a good segue into that.
3 So, the majority of feedback we've received has been 4
supportive of the byproduct material approach.
5 Some of the folks we've engaged with on 6
that include the National Academies and their report, 7
bringing fusion to the U.S. grid. I'll note the 8
framework seems appropriate and like we've mentioned 9
here can scale with the technologies.
10 Agreement states, in our discussion with 11 the agreement states they're supportive of the 12 byproduct material approach and the potential 13 involvement of them in the licensing.
14 Commercial developers have been nearly 15 unanimous I would say around the byproduct material 16 approach. They've presented at many of our public 17 meetings, many have written letters recently to the 18 Chairman and then you guys also received a letter from 19 Helion.
20 And then also some of the international 21 partners, I think I mentioned earlier the U.K. is 22 taking a different approach to fusion in their nuclear 23 program, but we've heard support through that realm as 24 well, from our international folks.
25 And kind of like we've discussed, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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utilization facility approach is viewed as not aligned 2
with the risk presented by fusion facilities and then 3
it introduces a lot of regulatory uncertainty given 4
that they would really need to work back from a higher 5
hat of requirements and they may need exemptions.
6 There may be items that aren't applicable 7
to fusion but maybe they feel like would not be 8
applicable to them but maybe the Staff would, so it 9
would create quite a bit of uncertainty in moving 10 through the licensing process.
11 And then we also had a little bit of 12 limited feedback, it may be similar to some of what 13 we've heard today. It's sort of just pausing on 14 fusion for now given the uncertainty and then it may 15 be further away than some of the news articles say.
16 And we've also heard some feedback that 17 anything other than the utilization facility approach 18 would be inappropriate.
19 That's a little bit of a highlight of what 20 we've heard now, so I kind of jumped the gun maybe on 21 stakeholder interactions before in some of the 22 feedback we've heard when I covered the earlier slide.
23 MR. BLEY: You'll recall that in the 24 1970s, that's when I was in graduate school and half 25 of the department was fusion, the projection for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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commercial fusion power was 20 years for sure.
2 MR. PROFFITT: Yes, it was certainly a 3
joke when I was going through school a little after 4
the 1970s that it's always kind of 30 years away. But 5
we are trying to be responsive to our stakeholders.
6 Obviously, we have to be responsive to 7
NEIMA and the requirements in NEIMA. And maybe it's 8
just because I'm on fusion now in my phone, here's my 9
meetings and all that, but there has certainly been 10 promising advancements that seem to be making fusion 11 closer.
12 I'll stop there.
13 CHAIR PETTI: It's too late in the 14 afternoon to gu9 that. Keep on going with the long 15 discussions.
16 MR. PROFFITT: All right, so path forward 17 18 MR. RECKLEY: I'll just say, Andrew, 19 predictions are hard, especially about the future, or 20 however that quote was.
21 MR. PROFFITT: Our path forward, and I 22 think this is key and it goes to some of the concerns 23 raised by the Committee here today, we're going to 24 continue to fulfil our mission protecting public 25 health and safety.
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So, regardless of where these things end 2
up, yes, the licensing process will be maybe a little 3
bit different and some processes may be easier than 4
others and some may be better tailored for near-term 5
fusion or longer-term fusion or big concepts or small 6
concepts.
7 But regardless of the framework that it 8
ends up in, the majority of the same information will 9
be necessary for licensing.
10 So, while a decision is made in the near 11 term to pick a path, we really don't see that 12 necessarily being a huge impact on what the 13 requirements are going to be on the facilities when we 14 get to applications and licensing.
15 So, we're going to put forward the options 16 to the Commission by the end of this year and they 17 will come back and direct us where they feel the 18 appropriate framework is and we'll move to implement 19 that with rulemaking or guidance pending their 20 decision, in line with the NEIMA deadline.
21 And obviously, stakeholder is going to 22 continue and even ramp up, especially ramp up, if 23 there will be rulemaking but certainly, if there's 24 guidance development we'll continue to engage our 25 stakeholders.
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Right into the next steps, I'll just 2
mention we're planning to deliver the options SECY by 3
the end of next month, ahead of a Commission meeting 4
that's scheduled on fusion in early November.
5 CHAIR PETTI: I just have a question for 6
Derek. Our letter developed in October will be able 7
to get to the Commissioners before the November 8th 8
meeting?
9 MR. WIDMAYER: We can try. Regardless of 10 whether it gets there, they won't make a decision on 11 the SECY for quite a while. So, they'll certainly 12 have your letter before they make a decision.
13 CHAIR PETTI: Okay, thanks.
14 Members, any other comments, noting that 15 we are almost an hour behind schedule on a Friday 16 afternoon? With that, one public comment. Please 17 identify yourself for the record and give us your 18 comment.
19 MR. DESAI: Hi, this is Sachin Desai. I'm 20 trying to get my camera ready. Thank you very much 21 for an excellent presentation and I really appreciate 22 the chance and opportunity to listen to this exchange.
23 We recognize the incredible benefits that 24 ACRS brings to public safety and it was one of the 25 first things I visited when I was an NRC law clerk, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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was an ACRS hearing.
2 A little about myself, sorry, I'll 3
introduce myself, my name is Sachin Desai, I am 4
General Counsel for Helion Energy. That's the 5
Washington-based fusion company that was discussed 6
before.
7 I've worked my legal career in nuclear 8
safety, starting actually, as I mentioned before, at 9
the Atomic Safety licensing Board, where one of my 10 first events was an ACRS hearing, which was really a 11 special event and helped guide how I look at a lot of 12 safety issues going forward.
13 Just a note about our Washington company, 14 we're one of those magneto-inertial fusion devices, so 15 that third category of device. We have a little bit 16 about ourselves in the letter that we've sent.
17 Our goal is to produce a 50 megawatt 18 electric device. The thermal aspect, it doesn't 19 exactly work perfectly because our approach involves 20 using changes in magnetic fields to directly capture 21 the energy produced from the fusion reaction.
22 We do have some heat that's produced but 23 primarily we try to directly convert the energy. We 24 produce tritium because our plan is to use a 25 deuterium-helium fuel cycle.
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The tritium would absolutely have a 2
commercial purpose, I know that came up before.
3 We plan to either sell the tritium or we 4
restore the tritium in the case of the helium-3, which 5
would then be our fuel used commercially in our fusion 6
device or sold to other users of helium-3.
7 I wanted to just call out that we provided 8
some limited comments in advance of the hearing and I 9
want to take a second just to call out a couple points 10 that may reflect on aspects of the discussion today.
11 First, I know you hit on diversity, 12 diversity was definitely an important part of the 13 discussion and it's an important part of the fusion 14 industry. I'll note that Figure 1 of our comments had 15 the little chat that talks about some of the 16 diversity.
17 It looks at some of the other companies in 18 this space that have come before the NRC or otherwise 19 received fundraising allowing them to build 20 demonstration devices.
21 And just a couple points on diversity, of 22 the five companies that are shown, two are pursuing 23 non-deuterium tritium fuels, four are pursuing non-24 Tokamak approaches, and one that is pursuing an 25 Tokamak approach.
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I can't speak for any other company but 2
we're is pursuing quite a different approach than what 3
either is planning.
4 So, there's a lot of incredible diversity 5
in the field that does speak to the need to build 6
something that can scale, that can recognize those 7
with limited impacts and continue to educate as the 8
industry evolves.
9 We have a perspective that we've shared 10 with the NRC Staff on among those options or how we 11 think fusion might be regulated. The first thing I'll 12 say to start that off is we certainly believe that 13 fusion has risks and hazards that have to be 14 regulated.
15 And a regulatory framework for fusion 16 would enable safe and effective deployment of this 17 device. We believe that we are in support of the NRC 18 Staff's examination of this issue.
19 It's time to start learning about this, 20 it's such a complicated field. We provided some 21 analyses and we call them out in our letter but I'll 22 point in particular to a March 2022 presentation.
23 We cite some of the slides in the letter 24 that talk about the results, and also a letter that we 25 provided in August of 2022, which does direct one-to-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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one comparison of fusion devices and particle 2
accelerators from a legal but also a technical 3
perspective.
4 Our perception, and this is how we think 5
about it, the picture behind me is a picture of our 6
Operating 6 generation research device.
7 When we think about how our plasma 8
accelerator, that's the definition of the device and 9
our technology, when we think about how our plasma 10 accelerator is regulated from a safety perspective, 11 how we think about safety from ourselves, we look at 12 DOE guidance on accelerators, we talk to people that 13 work on developing accelerators and find that our 14 stories and our issues are largely aligned.
15 Certainly, there are things that as fusion 16 develops will be unique to this technology but we 17 believe that fundamentally, the types of risks 18 involved with fusion devices stem from a particle 19 accelerator approach and other industrial facilities.
20 So, it makes sense to use that as a 21 foundation going forward for a framework, and as 22 fusion evolves we can evolve with it.
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closely. We've had a chance to dive into it, 30 but 2
as well as the other parts, 32, 36 in particular, 37.
3 The materials framework is capability of 4
handling a fair amount of diversity. Back when I used 5
to work, I worked with a number of Part 30 licensees 6
before moving to Helium.
7 We had licensees that had millions of 8
curies of radioactive material, particularly the 9
panoramic irradiator example, but others as well.
10 A number of licensees in the medical 11 space, I would look to Part 35 for example in the 12 medical use space, and some of the manufacturers that 13 deal with unsealed sources.
14 Large medical psychotrons that produce 15 byproduct material for medical applications deal with 16 very complicated safety issues and we work very 17 closely with agreement state regulators, or in many 18 cases they're directly regulated by the NRC.
19 Those are excellent examples.
20 The one thing we try to do that this 21 Committee may find of interest is in our June 22 presentation, Slides 16 to 30, is we took a look, we 23 recognized there's a number of things that would want 24 to be examined from a health and safety aspect, 25 whether it be NRC or agreement state oversight.
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And we listed them down and we said this 2
is our starting point of a list of things we might 3
want to look at. We talked about shielding, operator 4
requirements, shutdown, decommissioning, financial 5
assurance, emergency planning.
6 And we started to list some of the rules 7
in Part 30 or the Part 30 chapter that could be 8
applicable. We found that Part 36 had a number of 9
really interesting requirements too.
10 There they talked about construction 11 issues, they talked about shielding regulations and 12 there was a lot there that as a starting point seemed 13 applicable. And then you can take from Part 35.
14 Part 35 for medical use actually is really 15 interesting because they have examples of subparts 16 scales horizontally of different types of technologies 17 and how there are aspects of Part 37 that then scale 18 vertically in terms of the risks and the requirements 19 going up with different risk levels.
20 So, there's a lot there that I think could 21 be very interesting and if you're curious about how 22 you could take the tools that exist in the broader 23 Part 30 framework and apply them to fusion as a 24 starting point for the devices anticipated in the 25 future, that may be helpful.
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But also, the last thing I want to add is 2
there's a lot of really interesting questions that are 3
coming up and we want to serve as a resource. We 4
would be happy to come and answer your questions about 5
our technology.
6 One thing we are doing based on feedback 7
from working with federal and state stakeholders 8
including state regulators is we're going to try to 9
provide webinars and trainings about some of the 10 issues involved in fusion, neutrons, tritium, things 11 like that.
12 Those trainings will be made publicly 13 available over time but if there's questions, if you 14 have questions about how the technology and our 15 approach has been a safety case, we'd be happy to 16 address them potentially by a presentation about what 17 we do in these areas.
18 We wanted to call out some things in the 19 letter that may be helpful to you but also just again 20 reiterate that we want to serve as a resource. This 21 is a complicated area, we're learning it as you are.
22 We have some pretty ambitious goals we 23 seek to demonstrate in electricity from fusion in 2024 24 and put a device on the grid by the early 2030s if not 25 sooner.
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But there's a lot to do here and there's 2
a lot to learn and we are happy to share that 3
information with the Committee as well as the NRC 4
Staff and any other stakeholders.
5 Thank you, I hope I didn't go too long on 6
a Friday but thank you very much for your time.
7 CHAIR PETTI: Thank you. Any other 8
members from the public have a comment, please 9
identify yourself and make your comment. Okay, I'm 10 not hearing any. It is late on a Friday and I 11 certainly don't want to hold the Staff.
12 I just would say when we talk about this 13 in our October full Committee, we certainly don't need 14 all these slides again. You can give a more concise 15 presentation since you've got everybody but one member 16 of the Committee here now.
17 So, does any Member of the Committee have 18 any final comments before we close, or any questions 19 from the Staff on the full Committee presentation 20 before we break for the day?
21 MEMBER REMPE: Real quick, will the Staff 22 have a slide talking about their planned path forward 23 for the full Committee meeting?
24 MR. PROFFITT: Do you mean a recommended 25 option, Joy?
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MEMBER REMPE: You verbally told us, this 2
is what we're thinking about. Are you planning to 3
have a slide that documents this or are you probably 4
just going to stay where you are because it's just a 5
white paper?
6 MR. PROFFITT: Yes, I'm not 100 sure on 7
that. I don't want to commit to it but we'll 8
certainly discuss it.
9 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, thanks.
10 CHAIR PETTI: Any other questions slash 11 comments? Okay, given the late hour let's adjourn the 12 meeting and we'll see everybody at October full 13 Committee weekend. Thank you all, have a good 14 weekend.
15 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 16 off the record at 5:01 p.m.)
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Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Regulatory Policies and Practices Subcommittee Licensing and Regulating Fusion Energy Systems September 23, 2022
2 Agenda o Background
- Commission and Congressional direction
- Stakeholder engagement o Fusion Technologies
- Overview of concepts under development
- Potential hazards o Regulatory Framework
- Legal assessment
- Current treatment of research and development
- Options for Commission consideration o Path Forward
3 Background
o SRM-SECY-09-0064
- Commission affirmed NRC jurisdiction over commercial fusion energy devices whenever such devices are of significance to the common defense and security, or could affect the health and safety of the public
- Directed the staff to wait until commercial deployment of fusion technology was more predictable before expending significant resources to develop a regulatory framework o Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA) - January 2019
- Directs NRC to complete a rulemaking to establish a technology-inclusive, regulatory framework for commercial advanced nuclear reactors no later than December 2027 advanced nuclear reactor defined as including both fission and fusion o SRM-SECY-20-0032
- Commission directed the staff to develop options for their consideration on licensing and regulating fusion energy systems
4 Stakeholder Engagement
5 Fusion Technology: Concepts Under Development Confinement Approaches Magnetic Magneto-Inertial Inertial Fusion Reactions
- DT
- P11B
- D3He
6 Fusion Technology: Potential Hazards o No special nuclear material; no chain reaction o Hazards driven by inventory of radioactive materials on site Tritium and activated material Effluent and accident releases Radiation produced during operations Waste management o Non-radiological hazards - design specific High magnetic fields Thermal shock from plasma disruptions Thermal energy causing leaks Hydrogen or dust explosions Cryogenic releases High-power lasers
7 Legal Assessment: Utilization Facility o Section 11cc. of the AEA defines utilization facility:
(1) any equipment or device, except an atomic weapon, determined by rule of the Commission to be capable of making use of special nuclear material in such quantity as to be of significance to the common defense and security, or in such manner as to affect the health and safety of the public, or peculiarly adapted for making use of atomic energy in such quantity as to be of significance to the common defense and security, or in such manner as to affect the health and safety of the public; or (2) any important component part especially designed for such equipment or device as determined by the Commission.
o NRC regulations defining utilization facility in 10 CFR 50.2 do not include fusion:
(1) Any nuclear reactor other than one designed or used primarily for the formation of plutonium or U-233 Nuclear reactor means an apparatus, other than an atomic weapon, designed or used to sustain nuclear fission in a self-supporting chain reaction.
(2) An accelerator-driven subcritical operating assembly used for the irradiation of materials containing special nuclear material and described in the application assigned docket number 50-608
8 Legal Assessment: Particle Accelerator (Byproduct Material) o 10 CFR 30.4 states:
Particle accelerator means any machine capable of accelerating electrons, protons, deuterons, or other charged particles in a vacuum and of discharging the resultant particulate or other radiation into a medium at energies usually in excess of 1 megaelectron volt. For purposes of this definition, accelerator is an equivalent term.
o 72 FR 55868 states:
A particle accelerator is a device that imparts kinetic energy to subatomic particles by increasing their speed through electromagnetic interactions. Particle accelerators are used to produce radioactive material by directing a beam of high-speed particles at a target composed of a specifically selected element, which is usually not radioactive.
o Section 11e(3)(B) of the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) defines byproduct material as follows:
- e. The term "byproduct material" means-(B) any material that-(i) has been made radioactive by use of a particle accelerator; and (ii) is produced, extracted, or converted after extraction, before, on, or after the date of enactment of this paragraph for use for a commercial, medical, or research activity;
9 Current Regulatory Treatment of Fusion R&D o U.S. Department of Energy facilities Lawrence Livermore Princeton o Agreement States under Part 30 compatible regulations and State Radiation Control Requirements for particle accelerators and lasers Academic institutions - New York and California Commercial - Washington and Wisconsin Pre-application - Massachusetts o Agreement State licensing of fusion R&D have issued limited exemptions under current framework Tritium accountability Waste management o The current regulatory scope of Part 30 may not cover all future fusion energy systems Designs that use aneutronic or low neutronicity reactions
10 Option 1: Treatment as Utilization Facility o Regulate fusion under the utilization facility framework (i.e., Part 53)
- Rulemaking to add fusion energy systems to the definition of utilization facility in 10 CFR 50.2 o Potential hazards of current fusion energy systems are different than typical utilization facilities and more akin to byproduct material facilities o Atomic Energy Act (AEA) has additional requirements for utilization facilities including:
- Financial protection (Price-Anderson)
- Restrictions on foreign ownership
- Mandatory hearings, etc.
o Near-term licensing would likely require significant exemptions to appropriately regulate based on hazard levels
11 Option 2: Regulate Under Byproduct Material Framework o Regulate fusion energy systems under byproduct material regulatory framework (Part 30) o Current framework can accommodate near-term commercial fusion energy systems Devices that can legally be included under the definition of particle accelerators o Rulemaking to add technology-inclusive definition of commercial fusion energy systems to scope of Part 30 Adds regulatory predictability for industry and clarity for public stakeholders Reduces potential for exemptions to appropriately regulate Guidance will be developed in parallel with rulemaking o No rulemaking option:
Less regulatory predictability than rulemaking option and potential for less consistency in implementation by Agreement States for licensing and oversight of radioactive material May not apply to some inertial fusion energy systems that cannot be reasonably defined as particle accelerators
12 Option 3: Hybrid Approach o Intended to address the differences in potential radiological hazards associated with a variety of fusion technologies and designs Bifurcated approach: A bifurcated framework that would distinguish between different commercial fusion energy systems, addressing some using a utilization facility model and others using a byproduct material model.
Consolidated approach: A new single, graded framework that would address any commercial fusion energy system. Distinctions between regulatory requirements, based on hazards for different technologies would be located within the same part of NRC regulations.
13 Stakeholder Feedback o Majority of feedback is supportive of the byproduct material approach to regulating fusion energy systems National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Agreement States Commercial developers International partners o Utilization facility approach viewed as not aligned with the risks presented by fusion facilities and introducing regulatory uncertainty for nascent industry Starting from a framework developed for fission-based systems Limitations on ownership and investment o Limited feedback NRC should do nothing as commercial fusion industry is still too far away Any framework other than NRCs utilization facility approach is inappropriate
14 Path Forward o NRC will fulfill its mission of protecting public health and safety through regulatory oversight of commercial fusion energy systems Design and hazard analysis will determine the scope of requirements needed to support a license for the safe use of radioactive materials Regardless of the regulatory approach, similar information will be needed to evaluate the design and radiological hazards associated with a fusion energy facility o Commission will direct the staff to implement the appropriate regulatory framework for fusion energy systems Staff will continue stakeholder engagement Rulemaking and/or guidance will be completed by the end of 2027 (NEIMA deadline) o Next steps Staff to deliver options SECY to Commission in late October 2022 Commission meeting on fusion energy systems scheduled for Tuesday, November 8, 2022
15 Discussion
16 Back-up Slides
17 Agreement State Program
- Section 274 of Atomic Energy Act Established federal/state roles Recognized States experience Promotes cooperative relationship Promotes orderly regulatory pattern Established in 1959
- First Agreement State in 1962
- Currently 39 Agreement States Agreement States regulate 88% of materials licensees
- All programs periodically reviewed to ensure adequate to protect public health and safety and compatible with NRC requirements
18 Specific License Requirements for Part 30 o Radionuclides (maximum possession limits)
- Activation Products o Emergency plans o Financial Assurance and Decommissioning o Training
- Operator training
- RSO qualifications o Facility design requirements - construction, acceptance testing, codes and standards, facility modifications, equipment qualification
19 Specific License Requirements for Part 30 (2) o Radiation Safety Program
- Personnel monitoring
- Radiation monitoring Routine surveys Contamination control Effluent and Environmental Monitoring
- Operating and Emergency Procedures Procedures for safe use of radionuclides Security of materials Inspection and Maintenance Equipment Testing Requirements Attendance during operation Reporting Requirements
- Routine Audits
20 Specific License Requirements for Part 30 (3) o Waste management o Environmental protection regulations - Part 51 o Other Hazards - e.g., ozone, chemicals, lasers
21 Fusion Technologies Magnetic Confinement Fusion Inertial Confinement Fusion
22 Magnetized Target Fusion Field Reversed Configuration Fusion Technologies
23 Stellarator Fusion Technologies
24
September 16, 2022 Joy Rempe Chairman Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
SUBJECT:
Comments in Advance of ACRS Meetings on Fusion Dr. Rempe, Helion Energy, Inc. (Helion) recognizes and appreciates the dedicated work undertaken by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) to advise the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on important matters of public health and safety.
We understand that the ACRS is holding meetings in September and October on the regulation of commercial fusion energy devices. We offer the below limited comments in advance of these meetings to aid the ACRSs evaluation. These comments (I) further describe of the diversity of the commercial fusion energy industry; and (II) summarize certain previously submitted analyses by Helion on fusions safety case, including as compared to particle accelerators and other industrial uses of radioactive materials. They are intended to build on and align with the NRC staffs analysis of commercial fusion in its draft white paper Licensing and Regulating Fusion Energy Systems.1 We hope to serve as a resource to ACRS as it evaluates this exciting field and would be happy to support a direct briefing or answer questions as helpful.
I. The Diversity of Approaches in Commercial Fusion A. Commercial Fusion is a Diverse Industry, Distinct from ITER-Style Approaches There are currently over two dozen private-sector companies pursuing commercial fusion. Each is pursuing a distinct approach to fusion, with innovations that amplify fusions already strong inherent safety case. Appendix A provides a broad outline of this diversity in the fusion community.
1 White Paper - Licensing and Regulating Fusion Energy Systems (Draft, Sept. 13, 2022) (Draft White Paper).
2 Importantly, these private sector approaches differ substantially from large-scale public fusion research projects such as the ITER project in Cadarache, France. Such research projects may have understandably been used in the past as archetypes for commercial fusion devices, and the ACRS appears to have looked to ITER in its 2020 analysis.2 But the approaches being pursued by the private sector today stand in stark contrast. A look at a sample of five private fusion companies in North America that have each raised over $200M (Helion, along with Commonwealth Fusion Systems, General Fusion, TAE Technologies, and Zap Energy) immediately highlights many distinctions between these approaches and ITER.3 Figure 1: Example Differences in Private Sector Approaches Compared to ITER (Sample: Five Private Fusion Companies in North America that Have Raised > $200M)
Diversity in Confinement Four of the five approaches do not use tokamaks (and the other uses a high-field, compact approach).
Diversity in Fuel One of the five approaches uses D-3He fuel; and another p-11B fuel.4 Those approaches that use D-T fuel take advantage of newer methods to breed tritium than associated with ITER.
Low Inventories Tritium inventories are expected to be much lower than the kilogram quantities associated with ITER.5 Small Scale All private sector approaches are anticipated to require much smaller site footprints than ITER.6 ITER represents an incredibly safe approach to electricity generation that takes advantage of fusions inherent safety benefits.7 However, ACRS is encouraged to evaluate the even stronger safety cases supported by the diverse private sector approaches being pursued.
B. Helion is an Example of the Success of Diverse Approaches Helions Plasma Accelerator technology enables pulsed, non-ignition fusion and direct capture of fusion energy, resulting in small, efficient, fusion energy devices with no need for a steam cycle balance of plant. We intend to use deuterium and helium-3 fuel, which substantially reduces the 2 See ACRS Letter to Chairman Kristine Svinicki, Re: 10 CFR Part 53 Licensing and Regulation of Advanced Nuclear Reactors, at 3 (Oct. 21, 2020).
3 Fusion Industry Association, The Global Fusion Industry in 2022 Survey, at 6 (listing the five companies in North America with over
$200M in private sector funding). In this letter, following Helion, the other companies are listed in alphabetical order. Any information provided concerning companies other than Helion is based on Helions understanding after review of publicly available sources.
4 D-3He fusion results in much fewer, and lower-energy (2.45 MeV) incidental neutron emissions (produced via D-D side reactions) with lower activation impacts; p-11B fusion offers even lower incidental neutron emissions.
5 See I.R. Cristescu et al., IAEA Nuclear Fusion Journal, Tritium Inventories and Tritium Safety Design Principles for the Fuel Cycle of ITER (June 25, 2007). One reason ITER is anticipated to have kilograms of tritium on site is because it does not intend to breed tritium in substantial quantities, and thus would need to store tritium. A commercial D-T fusion device would instead actively breed tritium during operation, which would keep overall tritium inventories lower. General Fusion has estimated that its commercial fusion power plant will have 2-4 grams of tritium in total inventory at any time, and Commonwealth Fusion Systems has estimated 50-90 grams. See Updates on Plans for Fusion Demonstration Plant in the UK (Oct. 21, 2021) (slide 27, pdf page 29); Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Fusion Attributes in the Private Industry Context (Mar. 30, 2021) (slide 6, pdf page 81) (ARC fusion device).
6 For example, Helion expects that a 50 MWe Helion generator and related power electronics would be able to fit within a small set of shipping containers, and thus when deployed occupy a far smaller site footprint compared to ITER.
7 Although the private sector approaches differ from ITERs, ITER is still fundamentally different from a fission reactor because it cannot sustain a chain reaction, a defining facet of fission reactors. Moreover, ITER (along with private sector designs) does not need active cooling upon shutdown. ITER Website, Frequently Asked Questions, Could a Fukushima-type Catastrophe Occur at ITER?
3 already-low radiological impacts associated with fusion. An overview of our approach is provided in our March 2022 NRC public meeting presentation,8 and on our website.9 Helion has built and operated six prototypes since 2008, which have demonstrated the viability of our approach. Our most recent 6th-generation prototype, called Trenta, was the first private-sector fusion device to reach fusion-relevant plasma temperatures of 100 million degrees (and did so on a reproducible basis as part of a 16-month, 10,000-pulse campaign).10 Our accomplishments have been audited by a former technical leader at Sandia National Laboratories, and we have presented our results at multiple technical conferences.11 Figure 2: Images of Helions Fusion Devices (Left: An artists conception of a commercial Helion fusion device. Right: An angled view of one of Trentas plasma formation sections; the fuchsia color seen in this right photo comes from plasma ionization (Balmer Series spectra).)
Following Trentas successful operating campaign, we raised $500 million in 2021, fully funding our efforts through commercialization. Our focus is now on development of our 7th-generation prototype, called Polaris. We intend to demonstrate net electricity from fusion with Polaris in 2024. Thereafter, we plan to start working towards deployment of the worlds first commercial fusion power plant, with a capacity of 50 MWe.
Our 6th generation prototype Trenta is licensed by the Washington Department of Health under its particle accelerator framework. Licensing for the 7th-generation Polaris device is ongoing in close cooperation with the state regulator, and we have recently obtained the x-ray/particle accelerator registration for the first phase of Polaris operations.
II. Commercial Fusions Safety Case Helion believes that applying an appropriate and risk-informed regulatory framework for commercial fusion can enable the timely deployment of this technology, as well as build public trust and acceptance. We applaud the NRC staff on its thorough regulatory evaluation of fusion technologies, spanning two years and multiple public meetings to solicit stakeholder input. Its 8 Helion Energy, Supplemental Safety Case Analysis (Mar. 23, 2022) (slide 108).
9 www.helionenergy.com. We also have a video available online that describes our approach in more detail.
10 World Nuclear News, Helion Passes 100 Million Degrees Celsius (June 23, 2021).
11 See, e.g., D. Kirtley et al., 2021 IEEE Symposium on Fusion Engineering, Helion Presentation on Vacuum Vessel and Diverter Design and Results of 16-Month Operation of the Trenta Magneto-Inertial Fusion Prototype (Dec. 17, 2021); D. Kirtley et al., 60th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, Overview of Staged Magnetic Compression of FRC Targets (Nov. 5, 2018);
J. Slough et al., IAEA Nuclear Fusion Journal, Creation of a High-temperature Plasma Through Merging and Compression of Supersonic Field Reversed Configuration Plasmoids (Apr. 13, 2011). Additional papers, presentations, and patents/patent applications describing our technology are listed on our website or available upon request.
4 Draft White Paper reflects a thoughtful and well-reasoned first-principles analysis of fusions safety case and regulatory options, after taking in copious information from public and private sector sources.
Following this extensive process, the NRC staff found that the risks of fusion energy appear lower than typical utilization facilities and more similar to byproduct material facilities.12 This is not a conclusion that fusion is zero-risk, but an acknowledgement that risk-informed regulation of commercial fusion is possibleand perhaps more appropriateunder a byproduct materials approach compared to a utilization facility approach. Helion concurs with the NRC staffs determination that [t]he Part 30 approach provides a scalable and technology neutral basis for the licensing and oversight of the wide range of fusion energy systems currently under development.13 To aid the ACRS in its own review, we summarize below certain analyses previously shared with the NRCusing Helion as an examplethat speak to the close alignment of fusions safety case with particle accelerators and industrial facilities over fission reactors.
A. March 2022 Analysis - Commercial Fusion Impacts are Distinct from Fission In March 2022, Helion presented directly on the anticipated impacts of its planned commercial 50 MWe fusion devices.14 We shared the following findings for example:
No need for post-shutdown cooling (slide 116). We estimated that the approximate device temperature increase upon shutdown would be less than 20 °C in room air conditions, and radiation from activation products would decay sufficiently to permit entry into the Plasma Accelerator main room within a few days after shutdown.
Minimal impacts in accident scenario (slide 119). We estimated that even in hypothetical, extreme bounding scenarios (e.g., the whole vacuum vessel is turned into dust, freely released into the air), the estimated maximum dose to the public or workers would be just 11.3 mrem, 1/9th of the annual public dose limit.
These strong results in the case of Helion are driven in part by the lower materials inventory and neutron emissions associated with the Helions approach. As discussed in the March presentation, Helions device is anticipated to have only on the order of 0.015 mg of tritium within the fusion medium at any time, generated as products of each fusion pulse that are subsequently exhausted (slide 110).15 Cleanout of the vacuum vessel through a gas puff, glow discharge, or similar mechanism can be performed between fusion pulses to keep tritium adsorption on the vessel surface limited. Furthermore, neutron output in the case of Helions 50 MWe device is anticipated to be on the scale of 1018 n/s, orders of magnitude lower than what is anticipated for ITER (up to ~1021 n/s).16 Neutrons emitted by the Helion device are 2.45 MeV; this energy is below the activation thresholds for many materials, resulting in a limited activation profile 12 Draft White Paper at 7.
13 Draft White Paper at 8.
14 Supra note 8.
15 Tritium and helium-3 are both produced as a result of D-D side reactions that occur during the D-3He fusion pulse.
16 ITER Newsline, Counting Neutrons to Measure Fusion Power (June 13, 2016).
5 compared to higher energy neutrons. The Helion approach is but one of many innovative avenues being pursued across the private sector that enhance fusions already strong inherent safety case.
B. August 2022 Letter - Commercial Fusion Impacts Align with Particle Accelerators In a letter submitted to the NRC staff on August 12, 2022,17 Helion outlined the safety considerations for commercial fusion devices and how they align with various particle accelerators in both operational and accident scenarios. In particular, we discussed how the types of risks associated with fusion devices are essentially the same as found in particle accelerators, indicating that the regulatory approaches to address those risks can also align (see pages 6-8 of the letter for further details).
Figure 3: Commercial Fusion Device Impacts (Aligned with General Particle Accelerator Impacts)
Operational Impacts (1) Neutron and Photon Radiation. Both fusion devices and other particle accelerators emit neutrons and/or photons as subatomic particles move within the device and upon particle collisions. The neutron emission rate may be greater in the case of fusion, but often at lower energy levels.
(2) Radioactive Material Input/Output. Both fusion devices and other particle accelerators can require radioactive materials as input constituents or output radioactive materials, including tritium. The accelerator community, including operators of high-energy cyclotrons for medical isotope production, has significant experience handling intentional and incidentally produced radioactive material in relatable contexts.
(3) Incidental Activated Material. Both fusion devices and other particle accelerators can irradiate shielding or other device components, activating the materials. Although potentially emitting more neutrons, the lower-energy 2.45 MeV neutrons anticipated from Helions fusion approach for example activate fewer materials than the higher-energy neutrons from many particle accelerators (e.g., a cyclotron emitting 30-MeV neutrons that can cause spallation, therein producing tritium in the shielding, soil, and groundwater).
Accident Impacts (1) Release of In-Device Material & Dust. Both fusion devices and other particle accelerators can have radioactive material within the devices operating medium or on the vacuum vessel surface that can be released in some fraction in an accident scenario. In the Helion example, the activated material and tritium if released are estimated to contribute to only a small percentage of annual background dose.
(2) Release of In-Process or Stored Generated Materials. Both fusion devices and other particle accelerators have to manage the radioactive byproducts coming off the particle accelerator, such as medical radioisotopes or tritium. In the case of Helion, tritium will be independently stored after generation.
Avoided Impacts & Hazards (1) No Criticality. Neither fusion devices nor other particle accelerators can sustain a chain reaction. Both devices turn off on demand, and passively deactivate in the event of a material abnormality.
(2) Limited Inventory. Both fusion devices and other particle accelerators have a low inventory of radioactive materials in the device at any time, whereas a fission reactor typically holds an entire uranium core (a year or more worth of fissionable material and fission products) in the reactor vessel.
17 Helion Energy, Classification of Fusion Devices as Particle Accelerators; and Supplementing Common Defense & Security Discussions (Aug. 12, 2022).
6 C. June 2022 Analysis - Part 30 Tools Can Create a Foundation for Fusion Regulation As stated above, Helion agrees that an appropriate and risk-informed regulatory framework for commercial fusion can enable and enhance deployment. To this end, in June 2022, Helion openly discussed example design and operational topics potentially warranting regulatory oversight and explored how existing tools in 10 CFR Parts 30-39 could serve as a foundation to address them (see slides 16-30, pdf pages 59-73, in particular).18 In line with Option 2 of the Draft White Paper, these tools could eventually be implemented through guidance and/or development of new, scalable regulations within the byproduct materials regulatory framework. We concur with the NRC staff that the facility approach to regulating panoramic irradiators in 10 CFR Part 36 can be explored as a model for future regulation of fusion devices.19 Thank you for your time in reviewing this letter. We hope that this additional information on the diverse fusion technologies being pursued and their safety case can aid the ACRSs analysis.
As the ACRS continues its review, we hope to serve as a resource to the committee. To this end, a member of the ACRS in a May 2021 meeting with the NRC staff suggested that additional training and oral presentations of the different technologies may prove useful.20 Helion would be excited to support any such effort, including through a live briefing to the ACRS accompanied by a diverse set of fusion companies, or by answering additional questions by ACRS members.
Sachin Desai General Counsel Helion Energy, Inc.
Cc:
Members, Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Scott Moore, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Derek Widmayer, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Andrew Proffitt, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission David Kirtley, Helion Energy, Inc.
Michael Hua, Helion Energy, Inc.
Scott Krisiloff, Helion Energy, Inc.
18 Helion Presentation, AEA Common Defense and Security and Application of Materials Framework Tools for Fusion (June 7, 2022)
(pdf pages 44-75).
19 Draft White Paper at 6.
20 Transcript of ACRS May 6, 2021 Meeting, at 77.
Appendix A - Diversity of Approaches to Commercial Fusion Energy21 21 The Global Fusion Industry in 2022 Survey, at 7, 10.