ML22287A137
| ML22287A137 | |
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| Issue date: | 06/03/2022 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
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| Download: ML22287A137 (53) | |
Text
1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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MEETING WITH THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS (ACRS)
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- FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 2022
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The Commission met in the Commissioners' Conference Room, First Floor, One White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland, at 10:00 a.m.,
Christopher T. Hanson, Chairman, presiding.
COMMISSION MEMBERS:
CHRISTOPHER T. HANSON, Chairman JEFF BARAN, Commissioner DAVID A. WRIGHT, Commissioner ACRS MEMBERS:
JOY L. REMPE, Chairman VICKI M. BIER, Member CHARLES H. BROWN, JR., Member GREGORY H. HALNON, Member DAVID A. PETTI, Member-at-large MATTHEW W. SUNSERI, Member
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3 P R O C E E D I N G S 1
9:59 a.m.
2 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Good morning, everyone. I 3
convene the Commission's public meeting with our Advisory Committee on 4
Reactor Safeguards, or ACRS. The ACRS is statutorily mandated by the 5
Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and the Committee provides 6
independent advice that plays an important role in the Commission's 7
decisionmaking process. It is a pleasure to have you all here. This is a 8
periodic meeting to hear from ACRS members on several important topics, 9
recently reviewed by the Committee.
10 I would like to take one note to recognize publicly, I don't 11 think we'd had a chance to do this. But that in the, I think the ACRS was 12 first convened in what, 1957 or thereabouts, if I have my history correct.
13 And in that time, or now I would say, we have our first woman chair. So 14 congratulations to Dr. Rempe, and congratulations to the rest of the 15 Committee. I think this marks an important milestone.
16 I look forward to the discussion today. Thank you all for 17 supporting it. Before we start, I'll ask my colleagues if they have any 18 comments they'd like to make.
19 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Just to echo the Chairman's 20 congratulations on our other chairman. Congrats, it's great to have you in 21 that role.
22 CHAIRMAN HANSON: So with that, we'll begin with Dr.
23 Rempe, who is the chair as I just noted. Dr. Rempe, the floor is yours.
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4 DR. REMPE: Thank you, Chairman Hanson. I am Joy 1
Rempe and I am serving as Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Reactor 2
Safeguards. We appreciate the opportunity to brief you today.
3 Slide 2 of my presentation lists the agenda for today's 4
meeting. As indicated in this agenda, I'll start with an overview of activities 5
that ACRS has completed since our last briefing in October 2021. During 6
my presentation, I'll also discuss our review of the NRC Safety Research 7
Program. Second, Member Bier will present our report on the, by the staff, 8
to conduct the 10 CFR Parts 50 and 52, alignment and lessons learned 9
rulemaking. This will be followed by a presentation by Member Halnon, on 10 the rulemaking activities to support small modular reactors, and other new 11 technologies. And finally, Member Petti will close with an overview of our 12 reviews of staff activities regarding non-light water reactor source term 13 topics.
14 Since our last meeting in October 2021, we have issued 19 15 letter reports. As indicated in the first bullet of slide 3, five of these reports 16 pertain to staff activities to develop rulemaking and associated guidance to 17 enable the Agency to review small modular reactors, and other new 18 technologies. In addition, we have issued five letter reports pertaining to 19 technology specific, and design specific small modular reactors. Including 20 submittals pertaining to molten salt technologies, as well as the NuScale and 21 GE BWRX-300 small modular reactor. As mentioned previously, Members 22 Halnon and Member Petti will be providing some reports on several of these 23 topics.
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5 As indicated in the first bullet of slide 4, we also are 1
continuing our reviews of several applications pertaining to the operating 2
fleet. This includes two submittals pertaining to subsequent license 3
renewal, as well as several topical reports pertaining to spent fuel pool 4
heat-up accidents, and a new method for analyzing loss of coolant 5
accidents.
6 We've also completed five letter reports pertaining to other 7
topics, including high burnup fuel, reactor pressure vessel embrittlement, 8
and cybersecurity. During today's briefing, Member Bier and I will be 9
discussing the last two items in this slide.
10 Slide 5 highlights several other ongoing ACRS activities.
11 We do continue to implement processes to make our reviews more effective.
12 For example, in the last several months, several members have opted with 13 optional letters, to provide memos or several paragraphs in our meeting 14 summary reports, to make, to document our interim comments.
15 In addition, our requests for formal presentations have 16 been reduced in several activities, such as our subsequent license renewal 17 reviews and our ongoing review of the SHINE licensing -- operating license 18 submittal.
19 We are not only completing all required reviews, as well as 20 the optional reviews requested by RES, but also we're resuming several 21 activities that were precluded during the pandemic, such as our visits to 22 regional offices, as well as our plant and fuel fabrication visits.
23 We also are taking actions to prepare for future submittals.
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6 We have reorganized our subcommittee structure at the beginning of the 1
year and we have taken actions to address membership succession 2
considerations.
3 By the way, we do appreciate your prompt approval of our 4
request for two new members, and I'm happy to report that that solicitation is 5
now published in the Federal Register.
6 In slide 6, I'd like to now switch to the second topic of my 7
presentation, our review of the NRC Safety Research Program. As you 8
know, the Office of Regulatory Research does provide technical advice, 9
tools, and information for meeting the NRC's mission. The Atomic Energy 10 Act of 1974 does mandate the establishment of the Office of Regulatory 11 Research. And that mandate recognized that a strong technical foundation 12 was required for a world-class regulator and it expected that RES programs 13 would provide that foundation.
14 Since 1974, ACRS has conducted formal NRC reviews, 15 and currently this activity includes reviews of research conducted in support 16 of specific regulatory activities, periodic reviews of important ongoing 17 research activities, and our biennial review of the NRC Safety Research 18 Program.
19 Our biennial review continues to emphasize the 1997 20 direction by the Commission to evaluate the need, scope, and balance of the 21 reactor safety research program, the progress of ongoing activities, and how 22 well RES anticipates research needs in its position for the changing 23 environment.
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7 Our fiscal year 2022 report also emphasizes prioritization 1
and identification of user needs, long-term planning, and follow up on prior 2
ACRS activities. Our fiscal year 22 report was developed by integrating 3
insights from an initial meeting with the Director of RES, to obtain an 4
overview of his program, plans, priorities, and areas of interest. This was 5
followed by briefings with each of the RES divisions to better understand the 6
specific research projects that they are overseeing and other ongoing ACRS 7
activities, such as focused reviews of important research projects. Staff 8
participation in this effort was essential for completing our review, and we do 9
appreciate their willingness to participate.
10 In my remaining four slides, I'd like to highlight some of the 11 conclusions and recommendations in our report. First, we do find that the 12 RES program continues to meet Agency needs. The program enables staff 13 to maintain core competencies, it prepares the staff for reviews of 14 anticipated submittals, and it emphasizes enterprise risks in project 15 selection, evaluation, and termination. And by using the term enterprise 16 risk, we're meaning an agency-wide consideration of safety, security, future 17 submittals, emerging topics, as well as preserving core competencies and 18 development and maintenance of analysis tools and methods.
19 Second, as indicated in slide 10, we find that the RES 20 program and initiatives are enabling the Agency to be ready for emerging 21 needs and future submittals. And several examples listed in this slide 22 include the Future Focused Research Program, the Non-LWR Integrated 23 Action Plans, agency-wide strategies and initiatives, such as the Integrated 24
8 Code Development and Investment Plan, as well as reorganizations within 1
RES and expanded applications of new capabilities.
2 Our research review report highlighted the Future Focused 3
Research Program and effort as an asset to the Agency and recommended 4
that it be a sustained Agency activity. There are three appendices to our 5
research review report that outlines specific insights and comments 6
regarding projects being conducted within each division. Some example 7
comments are listed on this slide, such as we emphasize the continued use 8
of collaborations and virtual capabilities to leverage resources and maintain 9
core competencies, the use of the reference plant evaluation results to 10 prioritize data needs for small modular reactors and other new technologies, 11 and the continued emphasis of enterprise risk with respect to project 12 selection. I also observe that we -- or we recommended that the RES staff 13 consider fixed end dates for some of the user need request projects that are 14 selected.
15 The last slide of my presentation emphasizes our 16 recommendation that the interval between our formal reviews of the 17 Agency's research program be increased from two to three years. Several 18 factors support this recommendation. We do continue to find the RES 19 research portfolio healthy. The rate at which research results are obtained 20 don't support a review every two years. And finally we continue to perform 21 more frequent briefings on projects of special interest. For example, in the 22 last month we reviewed or were briefed by the RES staff on the university 23 nuclear leadership program and the digital twins Future Focused Research 24
9 effort. In the next month, we have planned a review of the progress of the 1
level 3 PRA effort.
2 I'd note that the director of RES, Ray Furstenau, has 3
reviewed our report and responded back. And in his response he indicated 4
he concurred with all of our recommendations and conclusions, including 5
this recommendation to go from a two-year to a three-year interval.
6 That concludes my presentation, so at this time I'd like to 7
call on Member Bier to begin her presentation. And thank you.
8 DR. BIER: Thank you very much. Can everybody hear 9
me?
10 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Just fine.
11 DR. BIER: Okay, great, thank you. So I appreciate the 12 opportunity to talk to you today about the Committee's review of staff efforts 13 on 10 CFR 50 and 52 alignment, and lessons learned rulemaking activities.
14 I'm sorry that I was unable to be there in person for this meeting.
15 This effort that I'm going to describe was an enormous 16 effort on the part of staff because the Committee had numerous questions 17 and comments during the process. And we really appreciate the staff's 18 patience and responsiveness in addressing all of the topics that we raised.
19 After some sometimes heated discussions, we found that a lot of our topics 20 or comments actually pertained to things that we just had not yet understood 21 fully about the document. And once we understood it, a lot of those issues 22 were really resolved. Next slide.
23 As you know, there are currently two licensing pathways 24
10 available; 10 CFR 50, which involves a separate construction permit followed 1
by an operating license and 10 CFR Part 52, under which applicants receive 2
a combined license prior to starting construction. We note that both 3
pathways were designed for light-water reactors. 10 CFR Part 53 may 4
eventually provide a more flexible option for other types of facilities, but until 5
10 CFR Part 53 becomes available, non-LWR applicants may wish to use 6
Parts 50 or 52. So as things evolve, we may find that those parts may 7
require some modification, if Part 53 is not yet available for that purpose.
8 Next slide.
9 Both pathways, Parts 50 and 52, provide reasonable 10 assurance of public health and safety. However, recent licensing activities 11 have focused primarily on Part 52. As a result, Part 50 has not yet been 12 abated to align with some requirements of Part 52.
13 Some of the areas where differences currently exist 14 include the application of the severe accident policy statement for beyond 15 design basis accidents, some post-TMI requirements, the reliance on 16 probabilistic risk assessment, and some requirements for fire protection 17 design and plan documentation. Therefore, these two pathways may not 18 provide equivalent protection in all cases and do not fully reflect some of the 19 lessons learned from recent licensing activities. Next slide again.
20 The objectives of the staff rulemaking process are to align 21 the licensing requirements in 10 CFR Parts 50 and 52 to incorporate lessons 22 learned from recent power reactor licensing activities. That's especially the 23 experience with Vogtle Units 3 and 4. To improve clarity, and to reduce 24
11 unnecessary burden on both licensees and staff.
1 This was accomplished through the development of a 2
number of draft rulemaking documents. In addition to the proposed staff 3
changes to 10 CFR Parts 50 and 52, the effort also involved changes to 4
numerous other documents such as Regulatory Guides and Standard 5
Review Plans to ensure that they were all in conformance. As noted 6
previously, this was an extensive and complex effort on the part of the staff.
7 Next slide.
8 With regard to alignments of Parts 50 and 52, the 9
proposed changes will require all applicants to address the four alignment 10 issues discussed previously. In particular, severe accident policy 11 statement, post-TMI requirements, usage of PRA, and fire protection 12 requirements. Making those changes is expected to offer several safety 13 benefits, as well as improved regulatory efficiency.
14 While the ACRS is generally in favor of these proposed 15 changes, we did identify several points for the staff to consider that we 16 thought would benefit from greater clarity in the process of finalizing their 17 drafts. In particular, the required level of detail for an essentially complete 18 conceptual design, or as it may be called a preliminary design for a 19 construction permit applications under Part 50, would benefit from additional 20 clarity. In addition, we found several places where there were vague or 21 inconsistent words or phrases used, such as credible or substantial. And 22 the ACRS noted that this vagueness could in principle lead to different 23 interpretations, inconsistent application of regulatory requirements, and we 24
12 therefore suggested that the staff consider providing clearer definitions for 1
some of these terms. Next slide.
2 In addition to the alignment issues mentioned previously, 3
several changes were proposed for 10 CFR Part 52, with the intent of 4
increasing flexibility, reducing regulatory burden, and providing clarity. We 5
had only two observations in regard to these changes. First, we agree with 6
the staff decision not to allow a 10 CFR 50.59-like process for changes to 7
Tier 1 and Tier 2 star information. In particular, we support continuing to 8
require explicit NRC approval for changes to these items.
9 In addition, we noted that the process improvements being 10 proposed for Part 52 include reduced reporting requirements for some types 11 of modeling changes, particularly for engineered core cooling systems, 12 ECCS. And while these reduced reporting requirements seem suitable for 13 evolutionary designs that are based on well-established engineering models, 14 in those cases, we agreed that minor modeling changes would not 15 necessarily need to be reported.
16 We noted that these reduced reporting requirements may 17 not always be suitable when you're talking about first-of-a-kind designs, 18 using novel engineering models for which not very much experience is yet 19 available, and that those areas may benefit from greater reporting 20 requirements than what was in the proposed draft that we reviewed. Next 21 slide.
22 The process under Part 52, these are two additional 23 observations that we had. First, the process under Part 52 does not 24
13 currently provide a step prior to fuel load, where the probabilistic risk 1
assessment must be inspected by NRC. While it's reasonable to expect 2
that this type of inspection will frequently happen, the lack of a requirement 3
to inspect the PRA prior to fuel load under Part 52 may reflect a missed 4
opportunity to confirm that there are no outstanding risk issues associated 5
with the kind of detailed design and construction decisions that would have 6
been made after completion for the PRA at the conceptual design stage.
7 And this is true especially since some licensees may not choose to pursue 8
risk informed applications. If they do, then the PRA would come under 9
greater scrutiny as part of the risk informed process, but not all applicants 10 may choose to take advantage of that route.
11 We also note that it may be worthwhile to pay more 12 attention to the issue of licensing of reactors that may be transported to or 13 from a site with a core already loaded. The existing regulations were not 14 designed with the intent of such fueled transportable microreactors. While 15 such reactors are governed by separate regulations for the manufacture, 16 transport, and operation stages, it may be worthwhile to have a roadmap or 17 additional guidance to clarify how these different regulations would be 18 expected to articulate with each other. We support the staff's ongoing 19 holistic look at this issue to see whether additional roadmap or guidance 20 might be worthwhile. Next slide.
21 This is the last slide of my part of the presentation. So 22 just to summarize, the ACRS believes that the proposed staff changes 23 address the stated objectives of the rulemaking activity. In particular, 24
14 aligning the licensing requirements of Parts 50 and 52, incorporating lessons 1
learned from recent licensing reviews, improving clarity, and reducing 2
unnecessary burden. We therefore recommend that staff proceed with this 3
rulemaking package with consideration of the kinds of comments that I 4
mentioned previously.
5 That concludes my part of this morning's presentation, and 6
with that, I am happy to pass along to member Greg Halnon for his 7
presentation. Thank you.
8 MR. HALNON: Thank you, Vicki. We're going to have an 9
echo. Good morning again. Again, very privileged to be here. Often 10 humbled by the sheer intelligence of the folks that I work with, and the 11 professionalism and the thoughtful process that the staff goes through. So 12 it's been a good year for me so far, and I really appreciate it.
13 I'd like to talk today about two activities that are very 14 important to the future of the nuclear industry. Part 53, as you know, is very 15 broad. I'm going to focus today on operator staffing portion of that. And 16 then first I'd like to discuss, though, a new revision to the Part 50, 50.160, 17 which is emergency preparedness for the small modular reactors and other 18 new technologies. Next slide, please.
19 In the 50.160 rulemaking, the staff worked through some 20 very difficult concepts and numerous comments. There was no shortage of 21 comments both in support and in opposition of some of the aspects of the 22 Rule. The volume alone, well over 2,000 comments, was impressive to 23 have both the public engagement and the staff being able to respond to that 24
15 many.
1 One thing that we looked at very carefully was connectivity 2
with other parts of the rulemaking going on, and guidance and everything 3
else that's happening in the new reactor world. We want to make sure that 4
this revision of, in 50.160 did have connectivity with Part 53 and what 5
Member Bier just talked about in Part 52 and 50, along with some of the 6
source term activities that Dr. Petti will be talking about here in a little bit.
7 Our review focused on four major categories. One was 8
the EPZ boundary selection and offsite planning and response. And I'll 9
speak in a little bit more detail on that. Hazards from non-nuclear and 10 co-located facilities, mainly because of the presumed uses of the new 11 technology, may be not just megawatt electric. It could be other processes, 12 chemical processes, as well. We looked at the performance based 13 regulatory oversight of the emergency response function. Important 14 because thankfully, we don't have to exercise in real time these emergency 15 plans very often. So the readiness of those are very important to us, and to 16 make sure that readiness. So that oversight's important. And then the 17 event selection for sizing the EPZ. It being a key result of the new rule 18 language, and a very important topic, and it's been talked about quite a bit.
19 Next slide, please.
20 Relative to the hazards from non-nuclear and co-located 21 facilities, we want to look at and ensure that the impact of non-nuclear 22 hazards, which may be more significant than the radiological hazard to the 23 public, did not conflict with the radiological responses that may have to 24
16 occur.
1 It is presumed that the smaller reactors may be an integral 2
part of that, some other process to develop products used in manufacturing 3
or chemical production, and this potentially, well, the heat energy, heat or 4
energy may be used for production of other things. We want to make sure 5
that the response to those hazards are appropriate and not conflicting.
6 It's very important that we understand those non-nuclear 7
hazards as well, so that if you have to respond to a non-nuclear hazard, for 8
example, if you have to reduce or eliminate power to a certain portion of a 9
chemical plant to shut down a system, you want to make sure that doesn't 10 affect the response that you may have to have in a reactor incident. Or 11 even cause reactor transient. So that's very important to understand those.
12 Now FEMA has jurisdiction over the non-nuclear hazard 13 portion of the response in their all hazards planning process. And, again, 14 we'll talk a little bit more about this in a minute. In the inspection area, we 15 probed the performance-based regulation oversight of the emergency 16 response function. There is some high-level criteria, but there are no 17 prescribed performance measures. And each applicant is to propose their 18 idea of what measures would indicate the readiness of their plan and 19 performance of their plan.
20 This, of course, will bring with it some regulatory 21 uncertainty, unpredictability, with each new application if they're going to 22 come up with their own scheme. However, over time I believe precedence 23 will take over and we will see some convergence of the performance 24
17 measures for these emergency plans as the staff and applicants continue to 1
work through what the new technology would be, would look like in a 2
performance measure perspective. This is an example of a tradeoff 3
between flexibility and predictability. There's going to be push and pull on 4
those two items throughout these new rules, especially when you're trying to 5
be technology inclusive. So this was one of those examples.
6 The framework for inspections at the regional level is being 7
developed, and we'll take a look at that when it comes down to time to do 8
that. Now, the event selection for sizing the EP is a key attribute to this rule.
9 Being able to define the size of the plume exposure EPZ requires the 10 important task of selecting the events and providing the source term for 11 those events to input into the process for determining the size. In 2018, we 12 commented that the determination of source term was one of the most 13 important aspects of implementing this new rule. In response, the staff 14 added Appendix B to the Reg Guide 1.242. In parallel with this, the 15 Licensing Modernization Project is being developed, along with research on 16 source terms. These activities, we recently received an important briefing 17 from the staff regarding the source term efforts. And a lot of work has been 18 going on in this area, and, again, Dr. Petti will talk about some of that.
19 There needs to be continuing work on connecting this source term 20 development activities and event selection with ultimately sizing the EPZ.
21 So we acknowledge that it is an issue that's still ongoing in discussion, and 22 that some applicants are working through the process. And, again, 23 precedence and as we get through this and learn more about how the size of 24
18 the EPZ can be determined using source term and event selection, and 1
licensing modernization, and all these different things that's going on, we will 2
converge, I believe, on a very good process. Next slide, please.
3 The risk-informed plume exposure EPZ was generally 4
supported by the Committee. We, as well the public and industry, support 5
the concept that having the smallest EPZ that is required by the technology 6
risk. Keeping the EPZ within the site boundary has many benefits in 7
protecting the health and safety of the public. Notwithstanding the fact that 8
it is decreased the amount of work you have to do to have evacuations and 9
sheltering, and other portions of the offsite plan.
10 However, the associated offsite planning is commensurate 11 with the reduced hazardous small reactors. For the smaller EPZs, no 12 evacuation is required. No sheltering would be required. No alert 13 notification system necessarily would be required. So there's a lot of 14 savings and resource redirect to more risk important activities that can take 15 place.
16 Also in this rule, the ingestion pathway EPZ changes to an 17 ad hoc response because of the timing required, and the increased and 18 better infrastructure that the U.S. has in interdicting problems in the food 19 chain. The smaller reactors with lower source terms will be able to leverage 20 those resources that are already out there. And being able to respond to 21 ingestion problems.
22 The rule does require development of some local and 23 federal capabilities to exist, to activate if needs arise. So there is some 24
19 planning that goes on, but essentially it's ad hoc. One of the most 1
prominent results of the new rule is this plume exposure EPZ to be within the 2
site boundary. And there's been a lot of discussion going on about that.
3 Our main issue with the smaller EPZ is that FEMA is 4
excluded during the application phase, so from the review of radiological 5
emergency planning. FEMA commented they were not in favor of being 6
excluded. And after considering the consultancy with FEMA on offsite 7
radiological planning, we are also not in favor of excluding FEMA from the 8
review. I want to be clear though, and I'll probably say this a couple times.
9 It's not the sizing of the EPZ that we think FEMA needs to be involved with.
10 It's oversight of the offsite radiological and non-radiological preparedness.
11 The staff responded that the all-hazard planning process is 12 sufficient for commercial nuclear plant radiological planning. The broad 13 spectrum of potential new technologies, the types of commercial nuclear 14 facilities, and the extent of offsite planning required, regardless of the EPZ 15 size, brought us to the conclusion that FEMA should not be excluded. The 16 longstanding partnership of FEMA to ensure the readiness of the offsite 17 resources to respond to radiological hazards at a -- and I'm going to 18 emphasize commercial nuclear facility, has been well developed through the 19 FEMA regional structure. Federal response committees and other 20 committees which contain the resources that would respond to all 21 radiological incidents that -- where assistance is required.
22 I wanted to illustrate this on the next slide. On the 23 left-hand side, I think that's your right-hand side, the onsite and offsite 24
20 planning activities. The requirement is for two FEMA reviews right now.
1 One, early in the application phase for site characteristics and the 2
impediments. And the second one is the emergency plan for offsite action 3
adequacy and readiness. So on one side you see the onsite and offsite 4
planning activities required, that the NRC reviews. And then on the other 5
side is the offsite planning activities that take place, that FEMA reviews.
6 And of course the NRC will review those as well.
7 So on the next slide, this is what's eliminated when the site 8
EPZ is within the site boundary. Or the EPZ is within the site boundary.
9 The whole side of FEMA review is no longer performed. The strikeouts are 10 the only items that are truly eliminated. Everything else continues to have 11 to be there. You still have to have your contacts, still have to have your 12 communications; still have to have offsite facilities. Those projections are 13 still required at some extent. Public information, reentry plans, and this 14 doesn't mention the hospital, medical response, law enforcement response, 15 fire department response. That's still required to go on. So FEMA did 16 comment in their letters on the Clinch River Site ESP that the all-hazard 17 planning process doesn't sufficiently address these in that all-hazards 18 planning guide, CPG 101.
19 So on the next slide just in summary, we felt overall the 20 rule and guidance is well developed. Staff did a really good job of 21 addressing many comments. The source term efforts are continuing, and 22 that's important, and we're continuing to follow that. We will be looking at 23 the inspection guidance down the road to ensure that, again, the connectivity 24
21 and the comprehensiveness to ensure that the performance measures is 1
converging on a good infrastructure.
2 Our position is that FEMA should remain informed of new 3
reactor siting and emergency plan requirements. There may be some room 4
for how the review is conducted, what they have to give back to the NRC, 5
with the information flow from the application to the FEMA, so that FEMA 6
can work with the local and state and federal governments and the tribal 7
governments. That should continue. We feel like that oversight is 8
important, regardless of the size of the EPZ. So we look forward to 9
continue our dialogue on the comments and recommendations with that.
10 Transitioning now to the Part 53 operator licensing 11 requirements on the next slide. We looked at the Subpart F. The rule has 12 a good balance of flexibility and predictability. The staff should be 13 commended for being able to work through this. They took a very 14 methodical approach, and they have a very high qualified staff to be doing it.
15 The licensing process largely follows the Part 55 licensing for reactor and 16 senior reactor operators. And they've done a good job of fitting it into the 17 technology inclusive approach to it.
18 The staffing plan, which is a document that will be 19 submitted, has a lot of value. We felt like the shift technical advisor was 20 initially eliminated from that. We didn't feel like the blanket elimination was 21 appropriate. However, like we did in the NuScale, if there is a performance 22 based justification through analysis and human factors engineering showing 23 that the technical expertise exists on site or is not needed, then we would 24
22 agree with that. And the staff agreed with that later on with us, and 1
indicated that they would be putting in that requirement to have an STA or 2
that experience unless it's otherwise justified, rather than the other way 3
around where it was just blanket eliminate.
4 We also felt like it was important to have a single 5
management position that had a singular reactor operator license who was 6
overall the reactor operator licenses. Having served in that position at the 7
Crystal River Plant, it proved to be very beneficial in several areas. One is 8
to corral the different SRO opinions and thoughts and approaches to nuclear 9
safety into one cohesive voice of senior reactor operators.
10 The other one was to take the conflict of interest of 11 schedule versus productivity or production off of the safety decisions from 12 that on-shift shift manager. So it was a very, very beneficial to have the one 13 SRO who is accountable for that in the operations staff.
14 We also felt like the scope of the simulators was an 15 interesting and good approach. The rule allows for limited scope simulators 16 for limited activities where it's justified. And we felt like that's a good use of 17 resources. And then we did note that there is some guidance documents 18 that are dated and need updating. And the staff agree with that and are 19 working towards that. Next slide, please.
20 One of the most innovative concepts in the Rule was to --
21 in the development of a new classification of operators called the certified 22 operator. It is anticipated that there may be some technologies where 23 human interaction or human action is not necessary response for a licensing 24
23 basis events. In these cases, the human operator takes a very low 1
significance in an actual accident response.
2 So the criteria to be able to implement this portion of the 3
rule was that the certain technology would be straightforward, passive, or 4
otherwise void of the need for human thinking, verification, or action, and the 5
operator action would not be required to maintain safety of the plant.
6 Licensees essentially license and certify their own 7
operators. The certification process is initially approved by the NRC during 8
the application phase. It largely follows the NRC licensing process.
9 There's not a lot of differences. It feels like there's some flexibility provided.
10 Certified operators perform all the functions that a licensed operator would 11 do, including the administrative and tech spec, operability decisions, and 12 other things. And one aspect, to be very clear, is that they're not co-located 13 on a site. It's either a certified operator site or it's a licensed operator site.
14 They're not together. Next slide, please.
15 We did not agree with this concept. Some of us on the 16 Committee have been licensed by the NRC, and we felt like that sole 17 licensing authority of the NRC has proven to be highly effective. And, 18 frankly, it's a high bar to reach to get a federal license. And you feel it when 19 you go through training. You feel the importance of it.
20 So the importance of that federal license, it's just a big deal 21 because typically a senior regional manager, sometimes even the Regional 22 Administrator will come out and charge you with the safety. Charge you 23 with your duties and hand you your license and say now you go do it. And 24
24 it's a big deal.
1 It also removes the potential, having a license removes the 2
potential conflict of interest of the safety decisions where a certified operator, 3
certified by the owner or commercial plant owner, may have conflicting 4
business objectives for the operation of the facility. The limited operating 5
experience in the new technologies, where all the different operating 6
scenarios and transient conditions may or may not be anticipated. Sort of 7
the unknown unknowns piece of this equation.
8 So to say that an operator action or inaction may or may 9
not be needed is a little bit, especially for first of a kind, maybe somewhat a 10 prediction if you allow it. The current operating license process, we think 11 can recognize the relevant and inherent passive features of the plants. You 12 can reduce the amount of training time or focus it on where you need to have 13 it. You can change your examination focus, your knowledge and abilities 14 catalog can be changed. And you can reduce the time spent on 15 non-significant features. So we think that the present licensing process 16 could be graded to save whatever -- or have a benefit to the training 17 process. But we feel like the benefit of having that federal license was very 18 important.
19 So in summary, in all the Part 53 operations portions 20 provides a reasonable performance based technology inclusive framework 21 for operator staffing. The licensed operators would be essentially 22 equivalent to the Part 55 that we have now. The submitted staffing plan is 23 good and will provide a confidence of the comprehensive and well thought 24
25 out operating strategies for this new technologies, especially when more 1
description up front is better than for the new stuff that we don't really have a 2
good feel for the total amount of operator burden that's going to be on them.
3 The STA position should be required unless elimination is 4
justified. And then certified operator programs shouldn't be pursued. We 5
really feel like we should focus on fine tuning the graded approach to the 6
licensing process, rather than to come up with a new licensing path or 7
certification path.
8 So that concludes my remarks. I'll turn the presentation 9
over to Dr. Petti for source term.
10 DR. PETTI: Thank you Greg. So let me talk a little bit 11 about non-LWR source term activities. Next slide, please.
12 So before we begin, source term is used in different ways 13 in the regulatory parlance in different places. I, when I think of it, have the 14 broadest definition. It's the release of the radioactive or chemical species 15 during postulated accidents from the fuel through any barriers in the facility, 16 and ultimately to the environment.
17 So there are basically four major activities we focused on 18 in source term since we last talked to you. There were two NUREGS on 19 fuel qualification. Qualification of solid fuel systems and qualification of fuel 20 dissolved in the salt, in the coolant, molten salt systems, particularly. And 21 we'll talk a little bit about that. We reviewed the mechanistic source term 22 topical approach from Kairos, which is the first non-LWR coming through the 23 system. And. finally, integration of source term activities for advanced 24
26 reactors. This is in the context of Part 53. Next slide, please.
1 So in NUREG-2246, it was report on fuel qualification for 2
advanced reactors. We really liked the logical approach the staff took. The 3
fuel qualification was top down, methodical, provide some assurance of the 4
completeness when a claim is made that a fuel is, quote, qualified. And 5
qualified is used in so many places, and so many different meanings for the 6
staff to be on record. I think that was really important.
7 The document had really broad requirements from 8
everything from fuel fabrication and radiation performance and safety 9
performance. The key parts of the approach that struck the Committee 10 was, A, the need for data, experimental data. What data do you really 11 need? And making sure that the data can help you assess the safety 12 margin. How far are you from when the fuel will begin to degrade or not 13 perform as you anticipated?
14 As part of the NUREG document, both documents also 15 discuss the need for source term data. This is the right place in our opinion.
16 The fuel guys own the source term because that's where the fission 17 products start, right? They're generated in the fuel. And so it made sense to 18 have that in there. So it was nice to see both of those documents have that.
19 The next slide talks about fuel qualification for molten salt 20 reactors. You know, in the current structure, fuel behavior is really 21 important in the safety case. But for these molten salt fueled concepts, the 22 fuel is dissolved in the salt coolant and circulates around. It's a different 23 configuration, and really required a new thinking of what does it mean to 24
27 have fuel qualification when it's not a solid fuel.
1 The report discusses volatility of fission products in the 2
salt, which is really the key input to the source term. Volatization is the 3
process by which the fission products are liberated from the salt and is the 4
key input into the safety analysis.
5 The report also identified challenges to any barriers to 6
prevent fission product release. In many of these molten salt systems, it's a 7
series of barriers, the functional containment concept. And there's really 8
some very nice work done by the contractor here at Oak Ridge. The salt is 9
corrosive and it's just hot thermally. So insulation could be degraded if you 10 have the wrong insulation. Instrumentation could be damaged if it spilled 11 and you've got the wires in the wrong place. If you don't cover your 12 concrete, you're going to have problems. So there were all sorts of like 13 practical things that I thought were very helpful for the design community.
14 Also you had -- Oak Ridge had this challenge. We're 15 talking about a number of different molten salts. Thermal systems, fast 16 systems, the chemistry is different. They did a very good job at trying to hit 17 the right balance there, that can be quite difficult given the breadth. And so 18 we did find that the report provided a very reasonable and practical approach 19 to developing a licensing basis for, for fuel qualification. Next slide, please.
20 So in terms of Kairos, to remind everybody the KP-FHR 21 and the smaller version, Hermes, are molten salt cooled pebble bed reactor.
22 The salt is Flibe, which is a eutectic mixture of beryllium fluoride and lithium 23 fluoride. Why we're so interested, and this is the first real implementation of 24
28 a functional containment. We've already told them in our initial interactions, 1
we're going to be interested in this. We think the public, there will be a lot of 2
interest, and so you'll see us writing a letter on this to give them a heads up.
3 The TRISO fuel that's in the pebbles and the molten salt 4
coolant together, both are very strong inherent barriers. So it's going to be 5
very safe. The numbers are going to come out, the source terms are going 6
to be very, very low. And we think that that's something that, you know, 7
should really be discussed and almost applauded, right.
8 They had a very nice methodology to calculate the source 9
term of fission products, activation products, and corrosion products. The 10 key activation product here is tritium from the lithium absorption, and 11 managing that is the real challenge because it's a high temperature system 12 and tritium moves everywhere. We also found the approach consistent with 13 the existing high level regulatory guidance on source term. Next slide, 14 please.
15 Our comment was that the staff when they review an 16 application that employs the methodology will need to ensure that 17 experimental limitations related to tritium behavior in the Flibe salt and 18 what's called diffusion and trapping effects in the graphite are adequately 19 considered in the conservative safety analyses or sensitivity studies.
20 There's a lot of uncertainty on how tritium behaves in these systems.
21 There's a tremendous amount of literature largely from the fusion program.
22 I actually did some of it myself. You have to make sure, and sometimes 23 things aren't as obvious what's conservative and what's not. And just to be 24
29 really careful, there's competing effects, so that make sure they wring that all 1
out and do it, do it well.
2 The other comment we had was that the staff SE didn't 3
require experimental validation of the vaporization of the fission products 4
from the Flibe, from heating. We felt that this was an important effect on the 5
source term, and the experimental data would need it to confirm the 6
approach used by the applicant. And we said we shouldn't issue the SE 7
until you address this. They agreed with us, and updated their SE. I 8
provided them vaporization experiments that need to be done are very 9
simple. These are not difficult, doesn't have to be radioactive, just has to 10 use Flibe. The Europeans and Japanese are doing this right now. Not with 11 Flibe because of the difficulty of handling the beryllium, but other salts so 12 that the methodologies are there. There's lots -- it's very easy to do these.
13 And Kairos is going to be dealing with Flibe. We just asked that they do 14 these sorts of experiments.
15 Next, turn to the source term in the context of Part 53.
16 The staff gave us a whole day of presentations on everything on the source 17 term, from source all the way out to the environment. Very, very well done.
18 They've created a webpage for applicants where all the relevant information 19 and links to the relative Reg Guides or documents that talk about source 20 term are there. We thought that was very commendable, and it should keep 21 the applicants up to date on the latest developments.
22 But we felt that it would be more helpful to have an 23 overview section on their webpage, explaining how the applicant can use the 24
30 information in concert with their pre-application consultations, to just make 1
them be better prepared for a high quality submittal.
2 The other topic that we heard about and Chairman Rempe 3
mentioned it earlier, were these computer calculations that were done in 4
terms of developing the models and applying them for advanced reactors.
5 They looked at four different reactor concepts: gas reactor, salt reactor, 6
sodium-fast reactor, and a heat pipe reactor. And they did calculations from 7
accident initiation through source term to test their models to learn, to figure 8
out what was going on. And we felt that that was very valuable and 9
although they're not design specific yet, these were open literature concepts 10 that they could gather from the literature, they learned a lot. They could 11 identify the key phenomena, what data gaps exist. How does the system 12 respond? And what does that mean for source terms? And we do 13 recommend that they document these even though these aren't formal 14 designs, that there's some really good learning from a knowledge 15 perspective that they should do.
16 We also felt it was quite clear in talking to them that this 17 has really helped increase the readiness of the staff to be ready for reviews 18 of non-LWRs. So it was a really valuable exercise for them to do. It was a 19 lot of effort. Next slide.
20 We talked about in the context of source term, there are 21 terms maximum hypothetical and maximum credible accidents. We have 22 the same comment that Dr. Bier talked about in the 50/52 alignment. They 23 are slightly different in that what they mean, but they also mean different 24
31 things to different folks. And that if they could help differentiate that, that 1
would be really helpful we thought.
2 And finally we just reminded them that these reactors 3
beyond the radioactive hazard, there are chemical hazards. The beryllium 4
in the salt, a lead system, the lead fast reactor, lead is toxic. There's lots of 5
things to be worried about even for worker safety, well, probably more than 6
public safety. Next slide, please.
7 So in summary, the focus of the fuel qualification efforts by 8
the staff has really been to ensure the fuel performs its safety functions in 9
the context of a design. And the NUREG document does that. The source 10 term aspects need to be considered as part of fuel. We completely agree.
11 And staff's effort to date of preparing for advanced reactor 12 applications is commendable, and the activity should really help increase the 13 readiness and promote expeditious reviews of current and future non-LWR 14 applications.
15 Our comments in broad brush really were ensuring that the 16 key components of the source term were identified, that all the key 17 assumptions related to the source term are based upon experimental data or 18 else conservative assumptions in the absence of data. And comments to 19 improve technical completeness and clarity of the document, given the broad 20 range of applicability across the advanced technologies and the associated 21 designs.
22 So in closing, we're in good shape. We're in much better 23 shape I think, that we all felt more comfortable after that day long 24
32 presentation we had with them. So, thank you.
1 DR. REMPE: Thank you, Dave. This concludes our 2
prepared remarks and we'd now like to welcome your questions.
3 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thank you, Dr. Rempe, and thank 4
you all for your presentations. Let me just start off with a few things this 5
morning. First of all, I wanted to make sure I thanked all the members of 6
the Committee for your service to the Agency and to the country. It's deeply 7
appreciated.
8 I know that many of you have had long careers, and this is 9
-- this is something else that you're doing as part of your normal work. And 10 the role that you play in advising the Agency is absolutely critical and very 11 highly valued I know by myself and other members of the Commission, so 12 thank you for that.
13 Also, we're very happy to support the effort to add new 14 members to the ACRS, and I think where we share a commitment to provide 15 the resources that are needed. Glad that the solicitation is now out and, out 16 in the world. And also want to applaud the Committee really for making an 17 effort to cast a wider net in terms of experiences and expertise to further 18 bolster the capabilities of the Committee. I think that's just outstanding.
19 Also wanted to thank you for your review of the research, 20 Office of Research. I read that carefully. I think having come from the 21 DOE world, and seeing, you know, tens or hundreds or billions of dollars 22 spent on applied research, I've always been extremely impressed with what 23 the NRC can do with a modest $65 to $70 million research budget.
24
33 I also kind of share your, personally I share your support of 1
the Future Focused Research. I think when Ray Furstenau first told me 2
about it and I asked him how much was being spent on this, he said I think it 3
was on the order of four or six hundred thousand dollars. And I was 4
shocked. I thought for sure he was missing several zeros on the back end 5
of that. Because I think it is really a great way for the Agency to look 6
forward. And I think Ray and Stephanie and the rest of the team over there 7
are doing a great job with, with relative to other parts of the government, as a 8
pretty modest investment by the Agency. So thank you all for your 9
continued look at that and your support for that.
10 I'm very interested in this idea about data, and the need for 11 data, and I was glad that it was emphasized in the RES letter. But of 12 course, Dr. Petti, you brought it up as well when it came to source term. But 13 there was something that came up I wanted to, Dr. Rempe, I wanted to ask 14 you. It said in the RES letter, you said the Committee continues to be 15 concerned about the need for data to validate models, to characterize the 16 responsive designs proposed or anticipated in near-term submittals for high 17 burnup fuel, and new materials are incorporated into some ATF concepts.
18 And I know this is also kind of related to the fuel fragmentation relocation 19 and disbursal issue, as well. Can you offer some thoughts, either you or Dr.
20 Petti, about the kind of data or how we should address the data gaps for 21 FFRD and ATF fuel types?
22 DR. REMPE: Okay, so first of all, I want to thank you for 23 your opening remarks. You know all of us feel that it's an honor and we 24
34 appreciate the opportunity to serve the Agency. And we believe it's 1
important work. I also wanted to share my enthusiasm and support not only 2
for the Future Focused Research Program, but also some of the 3
agency-wide initiatives I mentioned, that we mentioned in our letter.
4 I think that is something that's been very important, so if I 5
could just answer that before I answer your question, I would like to 6
emphasize that a little bit more because it's the first time I've seen an 7
agency-wide consideration of the code development and investments. And 8
it's longer looking out into the future, which I also think's very important.
9 And many of the members were very pleased to see that.
10 With respect to the accident-tolerant fuel materials and fuel 11 testing, I think that's a bit of a harder issue because of, as well as the fuel 12 fragmentation and relocation disbursal issue, because of the lack of, well, of 13 the recent, now not so recent, but the closure of the Halden facility. And not 14 only because we do have other test reactors. The advanced test reactor 15 out in Idaho, and the BR2 over in Europe. But the way that they 16 instrumented the tests is something that the world's trying to cope with.
17 And I believe Research is doing about all one can do at 18 this time, with their FITUS (phonetic) international effort to try and use the 19 international facilities. I think at the last meeting Dave mentioned it's too 20 bad that we didn't react to this sooner, and I share that concern, too. We 21 hadn't anticipated that Halden would shut down as soon as it did. But 22 again, I think we're doing all that can be done to have that data. But it is 23 something that I think the Committee feels is a continuing concern. Is there 24
35 anything that you'd like to add?
1 DR. PETTI: No, I think that's good.
2 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Given just the high level of 3
demand, Dr. Petti, I mean you mentioned just with regard to the Kairos 4
design, the need for confirmatory data in this case, on kind of tritium and 5
vaporization in Flibe. It's not necessarily a radioactive test, but there again, 6
there is a data need and I think that's a good example of some data needs 7
across the advance reactor small modular reactor community about, that 8
speak to some key concepts.
9 Do you have kind of, I wanted to give you an opportunity 10 for ideas about how to kind of fill those data gaps that I think are going to be 11 really important for our kinds of reviews, whether at universities or the 12 national labs, or what?
13 DR. PETTI: I think there is capability at both universities 14 and national labs for these experiments if a reactor developer doesn't have 15 the capability themselves. DOE's been spending a lot of money on these 16 technologies for a large number of years, so it's there. It's just, my personal 17 perception is that some of the developers don't appreciate, for instance, how 18 much data sits on light water reactor fuel, you know. I mean, there's just so 19 much information, most of it is proprietary, I mean, we see them in topical 20 reports so you can't really talk about that, but there's a lot of information that 21 they gather to support their code development. And so, you know, fuel 22 behavior historically is replete across all concepts, all technologies, of 23 mistakes that were made that were not foreseen.
24
36 Go back to the early light water reactor fuel days, there 1
were all sorts of stuff that surprised them. You look at the sodium system, 2
there were things that nobody knew, void swelling in the early days, you 3
know. I can talk about TRISO fuel and problems that were found there, 4
every single concept.
5 We just, you know, it's not all about lack of imagination, I 6
say it's not because of lack of imagination of engineers, these are 7
complicated problems. When you talk about in-reactor performance, you've 8
got to test to learn and get better, you know, I mean that's really the answer.
9 And yeah, I worry about the radiation needs specifically 10 because there are fewer, you know, available places. ATR's heavily 11 committed, you know, they are opening up some new capability for water 12 reactor to kind of replace the Halden capability, but not in volume, you know, 13 Halden had lots of locations, they'll be able to have a capability but it won't 14 be the same volume.
15 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Okay. Thank you. Member 16 Bier, I actually have a question for you. I welcome this effort by the staff to 17 learn from the long experience with Part 50 and the experience of Part 52, 18 obviously the Agency had approved a number of COLs back in the 2010 19 time frame, I think there were 10 of those at the time, and of course we're 20 coming to the end of the Vogtle licensing process, too, so I think we've got a 21 real window of opportunity here to take a look at how to better align those.
22 But I think you touched on a really important question and 23 that is, the definition of some of these words like credible and substantial, so 24
37 I just wanted to put it to you directly, ask you whether or not you had any 1
ideas or how you might approach on how to define a word like credible or 2
substantial, to bring some, as you suggest, maybe some needed regulatory 3
clarity and certainty?
4 DR. BIER: Thank you. I have to say, I had not made an 5
effort to put together such definitions yet, we could probably take a look at 6
that, but the issue of what's credible in particular for a, has been a problem 7
for the Agency and the industry for a very, very long time. Before we had 8
PRA, when we had the concept of the maximum credible accident, people 9
pointed out that it was neither maximum nor credible.
10 And so I think it is important and, you know, in some of 11 those cases it may be necessary to actually just replace the terminology, I 12 mean, for instance, in the safety goals we have actual quantitative metrics 13 that we can look at. But, especially looking at new reactor designs with 14 graded PRA approaches, we may not have those quantitative metrics to fall 15 back on always, there may be more qualitative analyses. So I think that's 16 something the Committee could probably look at but I don't have specific 17 recommendations at this time, sorry.
18 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Oh, no, that's just fine, just 19 thought I'd ask as long as we had you all here. So with that, thank you all 20 very much, I'll hand it over to Commissioner Baran.
21 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thanks. Well thank you for 22 your presentations and all the hard work the Committee continues to do on 23 numerous technical issues facing NRC. It's incredibly valuable for the 24
38 Agency, as the Chairman said. I'd like to start by asking about ACRS's 1
biannual review of the research program, I'll direct these questions to you, 2
Joy, since you presented on it, but whoever you want to respond to these.
3 Research is doing some important work related to 4
harvesting material and components from decommissioning reactors to 5
better understand the effects of aging, and the Committee recommended 6
that the staff look into whether it's possible to use harvested material 7
information to add a predictive modeling capability to aging management 8
strategies. Can you talk a little bit about that recommendation, or someone 9
on the Committee?
10 DR. REMPE: Sure. Actually I think I'm going to ask --
11 when we do the biannual research review we actually have leads for each of 12 the divisions, and in this case the lead was Member Matt Sunseri and so I'm 13 going to let him lead off on that because that was something that he really 14 championed.
15 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Do you want to use the 16 podium there, Matt?
17 MR. SUNSERI: Thank you for the question. So I think 18 what we were thinking about is, you know, obviously harvesting material 19 from these plants is a very difficult and expensive initiative. And it's usually 20 backwards looking, you know, proving that the empirical trends that we had 21 established are, you know, bearing out in the field.
22 So one of our members brought up the fact, well, can we 23 use maybe harvesting data to combine that with some of the more 24
39 sophisticated models that we're doing, artificial intelligence, twinning, or 1
whatever, to turn this into a more predictive thing, especially as we go for a 2
longer life plant designs and, you know, materials that we may not be 3
completely familiar with. Does that help?
4 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Yeah, very much so.
5 Thanks, appreciate it. And I know ACRS has been following the staff's 6
evaluation of high energy arcing faults, or HEAF, over the years, and the 7
staff's research to date has indicated HEAF maybe pose a potentially higher 8
risk than previously understood for some plants. Can someone share their 9
thoughts on how the HEAF research has progressed and is progressing?
10 DR. REMPE: So I'll start but if Member Sunseri wishes to 11 help afterwards he can add in more, but as you probably are aware it has 12 been taken off the list for the pre-GSI area, and my understanding now is 13 that the research is more focused on trying to better identify what areas of 14 the plant will have the materials of concern. And, Matt, did you want to add 15 more on that? Is it okay for him to -- he's speaking a bit --
16 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Sure.
17 DR. REMPE: He indicated off the mic that he thought that 18 was an adequate -- does that answer your question?
19 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Yeah. And is that something 20 you all are going to keep an eye on as it goes forward?
21 DR. REMPE: Yes. There are several members who, 22 and I believe it's on our list of topics we'd like be updated on, and the 23 research staff's been very supportive of providing those updates.
24
40 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Great. Well, you know, Joy, 1
you mentioned that the Committee recommends that its review of the 2
research program be done every three years rather than every two, and 3
given the maturity of the research program and the reasons you talked 4
about, and it sounds like the staff support, I think that change probably 5
makes sense. I just ask SECY maybe to include Committee approval of 6
that change as an option on the draft SRM for the meeting for us to consider, 7
because I think you do actually need Commission sign off on that, is that 8
right?
9 DR. REMPE: That's why I brought it up in my 10 presentation, so I'm glad that you asked, or made that comment, is that I 11 think that it's something that would helpful if we did have Commission 12 support for that change.
13 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. We'll get real 14 procedural there for a minute. Okay, great. Well, I appreciate the 15 committee's review of the draft proposed rule to align the safety 16 requirements of Part 50 and 52. Vicki, you mentioned that the staff is 17 contemplating reducing some Part 52 reporting requirements and that the 18 Committee had a concern about that, at least for first-of-a-kind designs.
19 Can you just take a minute and talk a little bit more about that? You know, 20 what the specific reporting requirements are and how you see evolutionary 21 designs versus first-of-a-kind being a relevant difference on those?
22 DR. BIER: I can take a first stab at it but there may be 23 other committee members who're more informed on the details to respond.
24
41 My understanding is that currently for models of the ECCS, the emergency 1
core cooling system, it's proposed that licensees be given the opportunity to 2
update those models or even correct errors that are detected in those 3
models without going back to the NRC for approval.
4 And, in the Committee's discussion it was observed that, 5
for many of the existing applicants and vendors, and so forth, there's very 6
expensive experience with that right now to be, you know, trusting of the 7
licensees or vendors to make those opportunities on -- to make those 8
updates on their own. And that, if you're talking about completely new 9
system designs and possibly licensees or vendors that have not very much 10 experience with the current regulatory process, that it may be more difficult 11 to put that level of reliance on them without greater NRC oversight.
12 But if someone else from the Committee would like to add 13 any details, I would be happy to have that. Thank you.
14 DR. REMPE: Thank you. If it's acceptable I would add 15 one comment to that, when we questioned the staff about this, they pointed 16 out that with the reports, reporting requirements could be reduced because 17 they've seen very minor changes that have had to been reported and they 18 thought that it was an unnecessary reporting requirement. But our concern, 19 as Member Bier carefully outlined, was that the established vendors of 20 evolutionary designs may have more experience with their models, whereas 21 with these new innovated models and less operating experience, there may 22 be some substantial differences in the mods. Thank you.
23 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thank you very much. Part 24
42 53, Advanced Reactor rulemaking, obviously a major priority for the Agency, 1
so thank you for all your work on that effort. Greg, I had actually some 2
questions here to talk a little bit about the blanket elimination of a Shift 3
Technical Advisor position and your thoughts on that, and this non-licensed 4
certified operator approach, but you did a great job kind of covering all that.
5 So I don't know that I really have anything to ask about that but I just wanted 6
to flag, I thought that discussion was really helpful and I appreciate it.
7 Digital instrumentation and control has been a
8 long-running focus area for NRC, and I think a lot of progress has been 9
made on that recently, staff is working on a proposed expansion of the 1993 10 policy on defense against common cause failures in digital I&C systems.
11 And the staff plans to send a policy paper to the Commission this summer, 12 and it sounds like you all, ACRS, aren't planning to do a letter report on that 13 matter so I thought I'd just give you all a chance to share any thoughts you 14 might have about it.
15 DR. REMPE: So we did have a meeting about this a 16 couple of weeks ago during our subcommittee meeting, unfortunately all we 17 received was an outline for that SECY. And so that was an example of 18 where members decided that it was better to simply document our interim 19 thoughts in a memo and that's included in our meeting summary report. We 20 did include in that, those paragraphs, that we would like to see the actual 21 text before, when it's finalized. But, again, having a draft outline and some 22 slides, it was a little more difficult to, or we did not think it was worthwhile to 23 write a letter at this time.
24
43 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. Well that --
1 MR. BROWN: Could I make a comment?
2 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Charlie, you want to?
3 DR. REMPE: You need to go to the microphone. Is it 4
acceptable to --
5 (Simultaneous speaking.)
6 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Sure, this is Member Charlie 7
Brown coming to the microphone.
8 MR. BROWN: There were two pieces to this, one was we 9
got notified they were preparing a SECY to send to you all on updating the 10 CCF criteria which would fundamentally involve Branch Technical Position 11 7-19, and we did just get an outline, in terms of on the written paper.
12 The presentation they made also played a part in how we 13 decided to respond to that. We had a subcommittee meeting on it, and if 14 you looked at the way they walked through a parallel path for maintaining the 15 existing methodology for folks, applicants to use, or use a risk-informed path.
16 And so the two paths go down, there was a little bit of merging and then it 17 branches out and -- so the presentation provided a good outline of what their 18 thoughts were. My initial reason for asking for a presentation was to ensure 19 we weren't going to loop (phonetic).
20 Branch Technical Position 7-19 is very good, it's been 21 updated, it's now on revision eight. We've still got an issue or two with it, 22 we've been finding out, which you're probably well aware of after we sent a 23 letter to the Commission. But it in fact, from 19 -- when I came on the 24
44 committee in 2008 there have been several revisions, we've approved those, 1
it's been improved and I think it's actually in a good place now for the general 2
defense in depth operation, and I do not think it's cumbersome in spite of 3
what some people may claim.
4 So my decision, or my recommendation to the Committee 5
was to not write a letter on this because it was kind of sparse, was what we 6
would say, and the fact that they were not eliminating the use of BTP 7-19 in 7
its present form. The one thing we asked for, gave them comments on in 8
the meeting was ensure that you don't co-mingle the risk in the first part so 9
that you don't have to jump between sections, provide an alternative review 10 process which utilizes that, which keeps parts of 17 but introduces the other 11 parts.
12 It's similar to what we did for ISG-06, which was a 13 pre-licensing review thing, back in the early, like, 2010, 2009 time frame that 14 we went through where we've identified the importance of architectures 15 relative to the general review and design of the digital I&C reactor trip 16 safeguards and other safety systems.
17 If you don't have an architecture which meets the 18 fundamentals, and everybody's heard this before, of redundancy 19 independence, deterministic processing, which means it goes straight 20 through, doesn't stop and go to something else, the software doesn't.
21 Diversity in defense in depth which is the fourth element, and the last 22 element which is control of access, which is different for digital systems than 23 it was for analog systems.
24
45 So there, subsequent to the initial version of ISG-06, they 1
came back later, we approved another design where they applied an 2
alternate review path, which provided other options but still included the 3
architecture as a framework. So the two paths is a good way to do it and 4
that's why I suggested, since we didn't have a lot of detail, we ought to wait.
5 We did not request to see the SECY before it went to you 6
because I think it's general enough and they were, good explanation. I think 7
we're going to see it probably but then we're going to have another 8
subcommittee on it subsequently if and when they start doing the BTP 7-19 9
modifications. Sorry to take so much time but I --
10 COMMISSIONER BARAN: No, thank you very much, 11 that's very helpful. Thank you, Chairman.
12 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thanks, Commissioner Baran.
13 Commissioner Wright?
14 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
15 And before I start the questions, while they're working on a definition or 16 clarifying definitions for credible and substantial, maybe throw reasonable 17 assurance at them as well.
18 (Laughter.)
19 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Why not? As Rumsfeld said, if 20 you can't solve the problem, expand the problem.
21 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Expand the problem, yeah.
22 But good morning again, and thank you for your presentations today and, as 23 the Chair said earlier, also for your service to the country and as you work 24
46 with us. And Chairman Rempe, thank you for your leadership and it's about 1
time that glass ceiling was broken, becoming the first female Chair, 2
congratulations on that as well.
3 I think we all agree that there's a lot of great work being 4
done in the Office of Research, some of which has been covered today.
5 And as you know, our budget is small, it's not unlimited, right? So I wanted 6
to get your perspective and whether there are any resources, either staffing 7
or funding that you see as being critical to any research initiative. For 8
example, are there any areas where you think additional funds would lead to 9
a more efficient and effective review? And if any of the other panel 10 members would like to comment, you know, feel free on this, too.
11 DR. REMPE: I'll start off, that's one of the questions we 12 actually asked in our review, are there areas where you feel like they don't 13 have adequate resources and we've not ever had the staff come back and 14 say, well there was something that we didn't get to do.
15 As you know, the user need request program, the 16 requesting organization does provide that funding; it's these other activities 17 right now that are, the future focused research and some of the integrated 18 efforts that are maybe perhaps a little more, less clear on how the funding's 19 provided. But I've not heard anyone from RES say, yeah, we really wanted 20 to do this, too, and we couldn't. Do others who are the leads for the various 21 division reports have any additional comments to make?
22 MR. HALNON: I'm not a lead, but I would make one 23 comment that there is one area that we did probe, and that is the Research 24
47 staff takes care of the Reg Guides, and there's a tremendous amount of flux 1
in rev. one, two, three, four, and sometimes they're being changed by 2
different rules at the same time. They do a good job of keeping that 3
together, but as we get more and more activity that's one area that we want 4
to focus on to make sure that we're not unchanging something that's being 5
changed somewhere else.
6 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Okay, thank you. And 7
Chairman, you talked about the potential subcommittee restructuring, or 8
reorganization I guess, so I have a couple of questions about that. Talk to 9
me a little bit more about what it might look like, you know. I guess -- and 10 maybe let me follow up, both, the staff and ACRS have expressed concerns 11 about the resources expended, too, right? Are there any reorganization 12 efforts that are aimed at addressing that issue?
13 DR. REMPE: First, if you'd like to look at our current 14 organization chart it's actually posted on our website. We approved it I 15 guess in our February full Committee meeting. One of the major changes 16 was to make sure we were prepared for near term submittals from the 17 various design developers, and so we've kind of reorganized how it's visually 18 appearing. That there is an area related to design certifications and other 19 regulatory activities, and then there's a second major grouping regarding 20 technical areas of expertise. We combined some activities together to, and 21 we will show -- for example, an accident analysis, that includes thermal 22 hydraulics, severe accidents, and source terms, and it depicts it as one 23 major category in identifying the Chairman. You will see the various design 24
48 centers that are listed there so it's more preparing for activities that are 1
ongoing and anticipating the near
- term, and eliminating some 2
subcommittees that just haven't met in recent years and we think that that's 3
a closing out activity.
4 With respect to resources, there were several I identified in 5
one of my slides where we're trying to not only eliminate unnecessary letters 6
and go with memos, or items listed in our summary report, we've reduced 7
the amount of presentations required in several of our activities, so we are 8
trying to be cognizant of eliminating unnecessary activities. Does that 9
answer the question you had?
10 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Yeah, I guess it's getting at I 11 guess what I was kind of wanting to hear and I think you've kind of headed 12 that direction, it sounds like the whole purpose is to try to help streamline the 13 reviews?
14 DR. REMPE: Right, make them more effective and focus 15 on what's most important for safety risk cases.
16 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Right. Thank you. Good, 17 thank you so much for that. So recently I went to ARPA-E and it was the 18 week after y'all had the digital twin presentation, okay, and you mentioned 19 that earlier, and that leads to a question that I have that actually was brought 20 up during my meeting with them, out there at DOE.
21 So you've got solicitations for new members, right? And 22 some of them are focused on more generalists, right? Has the Committee 23 considered any applicants that may have expertise in certain areas, for 24
49 example, digital technology, but might be in a different industrial environment 1
outside of the nuclear arena? That was something that was expressed that 2
might be a need for you.
3 DR. REMPE: So as you -- no, our solicitation is focused 4
on generalists because we realize, or we're looking forward at the workload 5
that's coming downstream and we want to make sure that we have someone 6
who's got a broad background that can help us in more than one area. And 7
that's actually one of the reasons I particularly like my ACRS activities is 8
that, maybe I have experience in one or two areas but I've grown over the 9
years to learn other things.
10 We have over the years had individuals who perhaps don't 11 have a nuclear engineering degree but have other areas of expertise. In 12 some cases, however, we also hire consultants, as you know, for when we 13 have a specialized need. For right now we've recently hired a consultant to 14 help us with one of our design-centered reviews because of the unique 15 nature of that design.
16 So that's another avenue that might be pursued but of 17 course the members have to be able to either, have knowledge in various 18 areas as well as come up to speed, so we haven't looked at the resumes 19 yet, our solicitation's open until July 8, and we'll see what comes in. But 20 that will be something that we'll be emphasizing, as according to the text, 21 that we do need to have someone who's got a broad range of expertise that 22 is needed.
23 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Okay, thank you for that.
24
50 Great, good to see you. So let's talk a little bit about the risk-informed 1
approach to EPZs a little bit, because it makes sense to me. My 2
understand is that the staff's approach is consistent with research and test 3
reactors, right, which have similar hazard profiles. Under that framework an 4
onsite response organization still required to coordinate with local officials 5
and not just under FEMA's purview, right? And given the NRC typically has 6
oversight and expertise of planning activities within the site boundary, am I 7
kind of getting that right or am I missing something?
8 MR. HALNON: Yeah, that's exactly right. I would submit 9
though, that they have the lower hazards but they don't, the new reactors 10 don't have the same risk as the RTRs might. For example, the RTR might 11 not operate 24/7 in trying to make a profit like a commercial reactor might.
12 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Right.
13 MR. HALNON: In addition to that, the new technologies 14 being affected outside of a university or a lab perspective, you have the local 15 government who is still responsible for the health and safety of the public, 16 whether it be something as tritium that we've seen in the past or other 17 problems.
18 So we feel like the flow of information from an application 19 to FEMA so that FEMA can be an informed area to help the locals develop 20 their radiological annex to their all-hazards plan is important, rather than 21 having the information go the other way, which is the local folks knowing 22 more about it than FEMA and therefore --
23 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: And I'm going to quickly ask, 24
51 kind of combine two questions here. So you noted on one of your slides 1
that source term efforts are a continuing topic for future meetings, so one 2
question, is there an area or areas in particular that require additional dialog 3
to resolve in that particular area? And then another question, are there any 4
particular areas where you think the ACRS and the staff won't ultimately 5
align, and if so what are your thoughts on not reaching resolution in those 6
areas?
7 MR. HALNON: In the source term area, we feel that the 8
research going on and the methodology of developing the source terms is in 9
good place, the issue is the event selection and then how did that feed into 10 the equation of your size of the EPZ. And that piece of it, and it's mainly the 11 event selection, is the most probably contentious part. We don't think that 12 there's necessarily a distinct answer yet. NuScale's working right now with 13 the staff on developing their event selection, and the Licensing 14 Modernization Project has its way. Part 53 is working through and, at least 15 in my personal opinion, I think its converging on a consensus at some point 16 down the road.
17 But there's so many different events that can occur and 18 then you add in the new technologies, what kind of events do you have to 19 worry about? Especially if you have a chemical hazard, does that have to 20 factor into the, you know, I would say source term, but non-radiological 21 source term issues? So there's a lot that has to be learned as we go 22 forward. To set a distinct answer right now may be actually detrimental in 23 my mind, and may be shortsighted. So we need to let it work out, I think the 24
52 learnings that we're getting from the applicants are important to take a look 1
at and maybe converge on a valid way of doing it.
2 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: What about the alignment 3
issue with staff?
4 MR. HALNON: I don't think we're misaligned with the staff 5
on source term and event selection. I think that we all agree that there's 6
different ways of looking at it and as we work through the Part 53 7
discussions on license basis events, design basis accidents and events, 8
non, you know, beyond the design basis, how it all fits in the -- and that was 9
that connectivity I was mentioning with 50.160 to make sure that the 10 discussions over here will compliment and not confuse the rule that we're 11 trying to put in over here.
12 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Okay, thank you. Thank 13 you, Chairman.
14 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Wright.
15 All right, with that we come to the end of our time together. I wanted to 16 take just two minutes and thank the Committee for one more thing and that's 17 the engagement on the alkali silica reaction issue up at Seabrook, I know 18 you all I think had your first meeting on that issue in May, if I'm -- or April -- if 19 I'm not wrong. It's an issue of course that's of concern to the public 20 surrounding the plant and we appreciate you guys engaging on that in a way 21 that augments I think the really good work that NRC staff, our regional 22 inspectors, and our resident inspectors have done on that work as well, so 23 thank you. With that, thanks to my colleagues for your comments and 24
53 thoughts today. And thank you all again. We're adjourned.
1 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record 2
at 11:28 a.m.)
3