ML22292A262
| ML22292A262 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/10/2022 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML22117A129 | List: |
| References | |
| M220510 | |
| Download: ML22292A262 (96) | |
Text
1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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MEETING ON THE STRATEGIC PROGRAMMATIC OVERVIEW OF THE FUEL FACILITIES AND THE SPENT FUEL STORAGE AND TRANSPORTATION BUSINESS LINES
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TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2022
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The Commission met in the Commissioners' Conference Room, One White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland, at 9:00 a.m., Christopher T. Hanson, Chairman, presiding.
COMMISSION MEMBERS:
CHRISTOPHER T. HANSON, Chairman JEFF BARAN, Commissioner DAVID A. WRIGHT, Commissioner ALSO PRESENT:
BROOKE P. CLARK, Secretary of the Commission MARIAN ZOBLER, General Counsel
2 NRC STAFF:
DAN DORMAN, Executive Director of Operations ROBERT LEWIS, Deputy Director, Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards (NMSS)
SHANA HELTON, Director, Division of Fuel Management, NMSS DANTE JOHNSON, Acting Deputy Director, Division of Security Operations, Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response (NSIR)
CHRISTOPHER REGAN, Deputy Director, Division of Fuel Management, NMSS MATTHEW BARTLETT, Project Manager, Fuel Facility Licensing Branch, NMSS JENNIFER DALZELL, Technical Assistant, Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, Region III LUCAS KYRIAZIDIS, Reactor System Engineer, Division of Systems Analysis, Office of Regulatory Research CHRISTOPHER MARKLEY, Systems Performance Analyst, Storage and Transportation Licensing Branch CYNTHIA TAYLOR, Senior Fuel Facility Inspector, Division of Fuel Facilities Inspection, Region II
3 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 9:01 a.m.
3 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Good morning, everyone, I 4 convene the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public meeting for the purpose 5 of discussing NRC's strategic considerations associated with Fuel Facilities 6 business line and the Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation Business Line.
7 And there's an echo. It's very important to keep the public 8 informed of the Agency's development in these areas of high interest so I thank 9 you all for supporting this meeting today and I'm looking forward to a great 10 conversation. We'll hear from two NRC Staff panels, the Fuel Facilities 11 business line will present first, then we'll take a short break and then we'll hear 12 from the Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation Business Line.
13 With each panel we'll hold questions until the end and then 14 we'll hear questions from the Commissioners to the panels. Before we start, 15 I'll ask my colleagues if they have any comments they would like to make?
16 We'll get started then with these two topics I think of pretty 17 significant interest to the public. So, with that, I'll hand it over to Dan Dorman, 18 the NRC's Executive Director for Operations. Dan?
19 MR. DORMAN: Good morning, Chairman Hanson, 20 Commissioner Baran and Commissioner Wright. We appreciate the 21 opportunity to brief you this morning on, as you say, two of the business lines 22 within the material safety program.
23 The Staff are pleased to be here in this panel to provide our 24 annual update on the Agency's Fuel Facilities program strategic outlook and
4 1 licensing and oversight environment.
2 The NRC's Fuel Facilities business line provides for public 3 health and safety and protection of the environment through our regulation of 4 the sole uranium conversion facility in the United States, enrichment facilities, 5 nuclear fuel fabrication, and non-reactor licensees possessing greater than a 6 critical mass of special nuclear materials, and through leading the NRC's 7 efforts on fulfilling international material control and accounting obligations.
8 The business line continues to focus on fulfilling our safety 9 and security mission for the currently licensed facilities and the Fuel Facilities 10 program is seeing a significantly growing workload driven primarily by 11 accident-tolerant fuel development, use of higher enrichments, planned fuel 12 facilities in support of advanced reactor technologies, and new medical isotope 13 production facilities.
14 The business line continues to seek ways to continue our 15 journey of being a modern risk-informed regulator with a heightened focus on 16 hiring, training, and professional development of Staff to meet the needs of 17 today and the future.
18 For the Fuel Facilities business line, several NRC offices 19 have a role in carrying out its functions.
20 These partners include the Office of Nuclear Material Safety 21 and Safeguards in the lead, Region II, the Office of Nuclear Security and 22 Incident Response, and the Offices of Enforcement, International Programs, 23 Chief Financial Officer, and the General Counsel.
24 This year the Fuel Facilities business line program is
5 1 comprised of roughly 70 full-time equipment Staff. I want to commend all of 2 the Staff who contribute to this business line for their hard work, diligence, and 3 commitment to ensuring the safe and secure use of radioactive materials.
4 Next slide, please.
5 Our first speaker will be Rob Lewis, the NMSS Deputy 6 Director who will provide a strategic overview of the Fuel Facilities business 7 line. Then Shana Helton, the Director of the Division of Fuel Management 8 will present on how we are preparing for the fuel cycle program of the future.
9 Matt Bartlett, a Senior Project Manager in the Division of 10 Fuel Management, will discuss fuel facilities, licensing activities, and how the 11 Staff are making advancements in licensing effectiveness.
12 Cynthia Taylor, Senior Fuel Facility Inspector in the Division 13 of the Fuel Facility Inspection in Region II, will present on the fuel facilities 14 oversight activities and the ongoing efforts regarding the implementation of the 15 Smarter Inspection Program.
16 Dante Johnson, acting Deputy Director of the Division of 17 Security Operations in NSIR will present on the Agency's authorizing official 18 activities. I'll now turn the presentation over to Rob to kick us off with the Fuel 19 Facilities business line activities.
20 Next slide, please.
21 MR. LEWIS: Thank you, Dan. Good morning, Chairman 22 and Commissioners. It's a pleasure to be with you in person this morning.
23 Next slide, please. Just last month, the NRC issued a refreshed strategic 24 plan covering the next five years.
6 1 This plan provides three strategic goals, which you can see 2 on the slide, ensuring the safe and secure uses of radioactive materials, 3 fostering a healthy organization, and inspiring stakeholder confidence in the 4 NRC.
5 Thank you, Commission, for setting this direction to Staff. I 6 think you'll hear today that these goals speak both to the current and the future 7 needs of this business line in particular and they're going to be very useful to 8 guide our decision-making and prioritize our work over the next few years.
9 Given my agenda is actually a strategic outlook, I thought a 10 great way to frame my comments would be to talk about what those goals 11 mean to me for this business line.
12 So our fuel facilities team ensures safe and secure 13 radioactive materials through our licensing and oversight work, our 14 international safeguards work, and our material controls and accountability 15 work.
16 We regulate uranium conversion, uranium enrichment 17 facilities, fuel fabrication facilities, and several universities and research 18 facilities that possess greater than a critical mass of special nuclear material.
19 This is a wide range of facility types and they use a wide 20 range of technologies and processes. Our business line differs from others at 21 NRC in that its focus tends to be on chemical processing engineering issues, 22 uranium health physics, and prevention of inadvertent nuclear criticality as the 23 main hazards.
24 Indeed, many of regulated facilities look more like chemical
7 1 plants than nuclear power-plants. Over the coming years, our strategic 2 workforce planning tells us that we have high confidence, we have increase 3 work related to new fuel fabrication and enrichment for advanced reactors.
4 We have increasing work for accident-tolerant fuels and 5 higher enrichment for existing reactors and there will likely be additional 6 business drivers for domestic conversion and enrichment capabilities driven 7 by world events.
8 It's important that we maintain situational awareness and 9 understand these evolving technologies, provide for regulatory clarity and 10 reliability, and take the actions to be ready to review any licensing submittals 11 if and when they come in.
12 Recruiting and developing and retaining a workforce where 13 people feel welcome to express their views on the complex nuanced safety 14 issues we will encounter will be essential to the success of our mission.
15 Regarding stakeholder confidence, we take pride not only in 16 our technical competence but in our work to ensure openness and 17 transparency of our regulatory decisions.
18 In addition to the many public meetings we hold near 19 facilities and on topical issues throughout the year, one good practice of this 20 business line is every six months we hold a fuel facility stakeholder meeting 21 with the entire fuel facility industry represented, where we talk about joint 22 priorities, we present an integrated schedule, and we improve awareness of 23 key NRC activities and initiatives.
24 We truly believe that these meetings help us make better,
8 1 more risk-informed and more informed regulatory decisions. We look forward 2 to further enhancing our stakeholder confidence activities over the next five 3 years to rise to the challenge set by the new strategic plan.
4 Next slide, please.
5 With regards to fostering a healthy organization, I'd like to 6 spend a minute on what we mean by the modern in NRC's transformation 7 mantra of modern risk-informed regulator.
8 It's important for us to look and act modern so we are a 9 workplace where top talent wants to come and, more importantly, wants to 10 stay. To that end, in NMSS we're using an employee experience model to 11 look at transformation areas of people, innovation, risk, and technology.
12 We're asking ourselves to think of what a modern company 13 would look like, a lot of people think of tech firms or something. So, let's act 14 and look like a tech firm. Some simple ideas but ideas that nevertheless 15 mean a lot of people's everyday life and make a real difference.
16 First, I'd like to talk about paperless. We've gone paperless, 17 not paper-free, today I'm setting a bad example but we're on the path.
18 We embrace paperless office concepts including 19 collaborative editing via shared documents and strict use of e-concurrence, 20 ideas that were really foreign to the NRC a couple years ago.
21 We were doing it before the pandemic started on NMSS and 22 it really helped us during the pandemic. These tools have made our work 23 easier, better, and faster. I haven't heard anybody that doesn't like to do it.
24 I'd like to never touch another paper concurrence document
9 1 again, personally. Second, we're stressing the use of data to make more 2 informed decisions. You'll hear from Matt today about how we use data to 3 resolve some long-standing questions about fees.
4 Using Be RiskSMART framework for our daily activities is 5 another emphasis area. We've integrated Be RiskSMART concepts into 6 standard briefing sheets, we hold pop-up seminars for the office to 7 demonstrate how the framework can be used both for big decisions and small 8 decisions.
9 The final area I wanted to mention and the most important 10 to me in terms of making a difference in people's experience in the workplace 11 is we stress that the managers in our program need to frequently emphasize 12 the principles of good regulation that the NRC values and the leadership model 13 in daily interactions. Model those behaviors.
14 Those are the behaviors that speak to us, that's the way we 15 want to be treated and that's the way we want to treat others in the workplace.
16 So, every chance we get we emphasize those with our team.
17 We've come a long way in two years but I'm going to admit 18 there's a lot more to do and culture changes are a sustained effort in NMSS 19 and in the rest of the Agency. We're committed to sustaining the effort and 20 the momentum that we have.
21 We're actually hiring a lot of people this year, as you know, 22 Commission, in NMSS and across the fuel facilities program. We're very 23 committed to getting their NRC career off to the right start including using the 24 leadership model behaviors.
10 1 So, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today in 2 person and Shana Helton is our next panelist.
3 MS. HELTON: Thank you, Rob. Good morning, 4 Chairman and Commissioners, I appreciate having the opportunity today to 5 give you a snapshot of some of the activities that are on the horizon for the 6 fuel facilities business line.
7 Next slide, please.
8 Industry has expressed interest in loading their first batch of 9 ATF with enrichments of up to 10 weight percent uranium-235 by the late 10 2020s with the goal of extending operating cycles for existing large light-water 11 reactors.
12 The Fuel Facilities business line is ready to support these 13 plans from a regulatory perspective, including licensing and oversight related 14 to enrichment and fabrication of ATF.
15 Staff has proactively engaged with industry to understand 16 their plans for regulatory engagement. We've publicly communicated our 17 needs to receive applications for fuel enrichment and fabrication 18 approximately two years prior to deployment and we strongly encourage pre-19 application activities prior to any submittals.
20 These pre-licensing engagements are critical for 21 establishing shared expectations regarding the scope and the licensing path 22 forward and to ensure Applicant and regulator readiness for a timely and 23 effective review.
24 In the case of new technologies, early pre-application
11 1 discussions are especially important to ensure we identify any areas where 2 we may see a need for research or regulatory guidance updates.
3 To date, we have found that our regulatory processes and 4 framework to be effective as demonstrated by our experiences over the past 5 several years of licensing the enrichment and fabrication of fuel.
6 We've already approved one licensee's request to change 7 their minimum margin of subcriticality for enrichments of up to 8 weight percent 8 uranium-235.
9 We're currently reviewing a similar request from Louisiana 10 Energy Services to go up to 10 weight percent uranium-235.
11 Applicants typically first seek approval of revised criticality 12 assessments prior to seeking approval to process material up to a higher 13 weight percent enrichment at a facility.
14 As such, we are anticipating follow-along licensing 15 amendments to allow fuel fabrication using increased enrichments. Next 16 slide, please.
17 Fuels for advanced reactors is a dynamic arena within the 18 business line and we anticipate an increased workload going forward. Many 19 advanced reactor designers have expressed an interest to use fuel that is 20 enriched from 5 to 20 weight percent uranium-235.
21 This is referred to as high-assay, low-enriched uranium, or 22 HALEU fuel.
23 The range of enrichment between 10 percent and 20 24 percent uranium-235 is considered by NRC regulations to be Category 2
12 1 material, also known as special nuclear material of moderate strategic 2 significance.
3 Since our last Commission briefing on this business line, 4 we've issued a variety of communications related to HALEU fuel. On our 5 public website, we posted questions and answers on the physical security 6 requirements for Category 2 material.
7 This is a topic of interest discussed at one of the NRC's 8 routine public advanced reactor stakeholder meetings. Last December, we 9 issued a report to Congress concluding that near-term updates to NRC 10 regulations or policies were not necessary to license HALEU fuel.
11 And in the coming months, we plan to issue updated 12 guidance in NUREG-2159 on material control and accounting practices at 13 facilities possessing Category 2 material.
14 As Rob mentioned, we have routine engagement such as 15 the advanced reactor stakeholder meetings and the fuel facilities stakeholder 16 meetings.
17 These meetings help us maintain awareness of stakeholder 18 needs and potential new technologies and regulatory issues.
19 At the NRC's Regulatory Information Conference as an 20 example, we hosted a panel on the unique attributes of the molten salt fuel 21 reactor cycle, including diverse panelists representing the Nuclear Regulatory 22 Commission, Department of Energy, the Canadian Nuclear Safety 23 Commission, and Elysium Industries.
24 Additionally, the Staff has as a variety of touch-points with
13 1 our interagency and international partners through our involvement in forums 2 such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Nuclear Energy Agency 3 and other forums.
4 There has been a good deal of licensing activity related to 5 advanced fuels as well. In the arena of fuels enrichment, we approved the 6 license amendment for Centrus to demonstrate the commercial production of 7 HALEU at the Department of Energy reservation in Piketon, Ohio.
8 Centrus has halted the installation of the HALEU 9 demonstration centrifuges in cascade form until the Department of Energy 10 completes its solicitation to competitively award the contract for finishing the 11 demonstration project for HALEU.
12 In the area of fuel fabrication, on April 6th we received the 13 first application for a new Category 2 fuel facility from TRISO-X. We've never 14 licensed a Category 2 facility before but I believe that overall, our licensing 15 framework is ready for novel designs.
16 You can see on the slide, along with the photo taken when 17 NRC received the application for TRISO-X, the depiction of the tristructural 18 isotopic or TRISO fuel used in the designs.
19 In addition, Staff is also continuing pre-application activities 20 with Kairos Power on its planned Atlas fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge, 21 Tennessee, which will be co-located near the Hermes demonstration reactor 22 that the NRC is currently reviewing.
23 I should also mention the increased licensing activity we're 24 seeing related to medical isotopes. Last fall, we were informed by Niowave
14 1 of their plans to submit a future license application under Part 70 to 2 commercially produce the molybdenum-99 isotope.
3 Pre-application engagement is underway to understand the 4 technology and the licensing approach for this facility. Lastly, I'd like to 5 mention that while our regulatory framework has demonstrated its flexibility in 6 licensing new technologies, there are some areas where more research or 7 guidance will help us with our reviews.
8 We're actively participating in discussions, monitoring 9 Department of Energy activities, and conducting regulatory gap assessments 10 to better understand the state of knowledge for these technologies and assure 11 that we are ready to effectively and efficiently license them when submitted.
12 Next slide, please.
13 As has been discussed, the EDO has set a priority to hire 14 more than 300 people by the end of the fiscal year. Personally, I'm thankful 15 that the EDO placed a high priority on staffing as this has been a focus area 16 already in the Fuel Facilities business line.
17 Our goal is to hire the right number of people based on 18 insights from strategic workforce planning to support the anticipated in-flux of 19 workload within the business line and to continue to support our existing work 20 activities.
21 To achieve this, we need to onboard roughly more than 15 22 staff this fiscal year, which is not insignificant for a relatively small business 23 line.
24 Chris Regan will describe our approaches for recruiting and
15 1 hiring in the next panelist of speakers, and these approaches are also being 2 used in the Fuel Facilities business line.
3 As we focus on staffing, we're likewise placing a high priority 4 on developing our people and preserving and transferring our institutional 5 knowledge. We've proactively engaged staff in knowledge capture and 6 transfer.
7 We've held several seminars and key areas including 8 commercial fuel cycle safety analysis and licensing in the United States, 9 molybdenum-99 isotopes technology and licensing, implementation of 10 international standards, and recently revised division instructions containing 11 guidance to Staff on licensing with a focus on making the process more stable 12 and predictable.
13 As Rob mentioned, Staff is currently using Nuclepedia on an 14 increasing basis and this tool is starting to become part of our day-to-day 15 practices. We've implemented a knowledge management action plan which 16 includes an effort to revamp our internal SharePoint site in response to 17 feedback from Staff and managers within the Fuel Facilities business line.
18 We're also leveraging technology for managing and 19 analyzing our work processes. I'd like to give a shout-out to the Staff of the 20 Chief Financial Officer for the dashboard they created to visualize budget 21 execution data.
22 This has been a real-time way of monitoring and managing 23 expenditures within the business line. Matt and Cynthia will both describe 24 further efforts to use data and technology in our licensing and oversight
16 1 processes.
2 So, with that I will now conclude my remarks and turn it over 3 to Matt Bartlett. Thank you.
4 MR. BARTLETT: Good morning, Chairman and 5 Commissioners. I will be presenting on the Fuel Facilities licensing activities.
6 Next slide, please.
7 The fuel cycle business line regulates a broad range of 8 facilities including 10 universities or research facilities, 5 fuel fabrication 9 facilities, one enrichment facility, one uranium conversion facility, and one 10 application under review for a new fuel fabrication facility, TRISO-X.
11 The business line continues to process and complete a large 12 number of both routine and complex licensing reviews to support these 13 facilities. The graph on the bottom left of this slide demonstrates that the 14 business line staff processes just over 40 fuel cycle licensing actions per year.
15 This includes reviews, amendments, renewals, and new 16 license applications. These reviews are completed in a timely manner on 17 average using 80 percent of the established schedule.
18 The number of actions has been consistent over the last four 19 years with a projected increase to an estimated 57 actions in Fiscal Year 2022.
20 This is due in part to the COVID-19 exemptions completed 21 in Quarter 1, the oversight of classified networks, several amendments to 22 support the transition to higher enrichments, and licensing of new fuel types 23 such as sodium and pebble fuels.
24 The business line is processing several major actions
17 1 including the Westinghouse license renewal, which is expected to be 2 completed in August 2022, three renewals for universities and a research 3 facility, the Honeywell restart expected to be completed in April 23, a new 4 application for the TRISO-X fuel fabrication facility, a wholly-owned subsidiary 5 of X-energy.
6 The trend in fuel cycle is for the enrichment and fuel 7 fabrication facilities to increase their enrichment limits above 5 percent. Two 8 fuel fabrication facilities and one enrichment facility have submitted 9 amendments to validate their criticality codes to support this effort.
10 There is also interest in developing fuels to support 11 advanced reactors with high-assay low-enriched uranium fuels up to 19.75 12 percent of U-235. Next slide, please.
13 The Fuel Facility business line continues to improve tracking 14 and transparency on projects.
15 For example, over the past several years, fuel cycle 16 licensees have expressed increased interest in understanding how their 17 annual fees support specific tasks such as rulemaking, guidance 18 development, administrative tasks, et cetera.
19 In the past, developing a detailed breakdown of the hours 20 spent per project was challenging because historically, the bulk of non-direct-21 fee billable work was charged to a few generic codes.
22 This made identifying the hours spent on specific projects 23 difficult because multiple projects were grouped together. This is 24 demonstrated on the slide in the top-left graphic.
18 1 The red in the chart represents the hours charged to generic 2 codes and the gray on top represents the hours charged to task-specific 3 codes. The majority of non-direct-fee billable work in 2018 and 2019 was 4 charged to generic codes.
5 The business line has been working to improve our data 6 collection by establishing the policy that projects involving 40 hours4.62963e-4 days <br />0.0111 hours <br />6.613757e-5 weeks <br />1.522e-5 months <br /> or more 7 should have a task-specific charge code.
8 The top left graphic demonstrates the use of generic codes 9 represented by the red portion of the column in 2018 made up 72 percent of 10 the charges. The red portion was reduced to 26 percent in 2021.
11 The result of better data collection enables the Staff to 12 observe trends in the data. The pie chart on the lower portion of the slide 13 illustrates the type of dashboards we are working to develop to draw useful 14 information from the data.
15 The pie chart displays a breakdown of several of the major 16 projects supported by our non-direct-fee billable work. Improved data and 17 analysis facilitate our ability to tell the story to our internal and external 18 stakeholders.
19 These types of dashboards provide a better understanding 20 of where resources are being utilized and facilitate communicating that 21 information to stakeholders.
22 The business line holds a semiannual stakeholder meeting, 23 as Rob mentioned, with industry and the public at which we use this type of 24 information to provide feedback on the level of effort spent on projects
19 1 including non-fee billable tasks.
2 This allows stakeholders to better understand the projects 3 supported by the annual fees. These presentations have been well received 4 and enhanced discussion on the projects supported by the business line.
5 Next slide, please.
6 Another area where the business line has seen marked 7 improvements in new processes and tools is the use of web-based licensing.
8 Web-based licensing is as online database used to track licensing actions from 9 receipt to completion.
10 The software facilitates project management as summarized 11 in the graphic on the left half of the slide. The software is used to create a 12 review schedule, track progress on the milestones, and monitor resources and 13 the review's progress.
14 The web-based licensing provides a number of built-in 15 reports that Staff and management can use to monitor the licensing action 16 status, percent of the metric used, number of actions completed, et cetera.
17 In addition, the web-based licensing software provides a log 18 to capture notes about the review. These records are searchable and provide 19 a useful history for knowledge management.
20 The recent example of the benefits of using web-based 21 licensing is the improvement the Staff has observed in the time required to 22 generate the quarterly metric reports submitted to the Senate Oversight 23 Committee and to support the Congressional budget justification.
24 Use of this software in place of manual calculations has
20 1 reduced the time needed to compile the data from 250 hours0.00289 days <br />0.0694 hours <br />4.133598e-4 weeks <br />9.5125e-5 months <br /> per year to under 2 50 hours5.787037e-4 days <br />0.0139 hours <br />8.267196e-5 weeks <br />1.9025e-5 months <br />. Next slide, please.
3 The business line has recently incorporated 32 Smarter 4 licensing recommendations into the division instructions, which are used as 5 guidance for a fuel cycle and spent fuel business lines.
6 These Smarter licensing recommendations were developed 7 by the NRC Staff and industry stakeholders. Incorporating these 8 recommendations into the procedures ensures they're a part of our routine 9 processes.
10 The Smarter licensing recommendations were incorporated 11 to enhance the review process by providing more opportunities to interact with 12 the Applicant, improve the efficiency of our reviews, and provide more 13 transparency for stakeholders to understand the review timeline and process.
14 Examples of the improved interactions include more 15 opportunities to hold pre-application meetings early in the review process, and 16 when feasible, to involve the review team in a site visit.
17 When developing requests for additional information, Staff 18 are also encouraged to discuss the draft final request with the Applicant before 19 sending them the formal letter.
20 This ensures mutual understanding of the information that's 21 needed. These interactions facilitate the Applicant's development of 22 high-quality submittals. Examples of improved efficiency result from flexibility 23 for scheduling and implementing tasks.
24 For simple actions, the Staff can combine multiple steps of
21 1 a review into a single action, such as combining the acceptance review with 2 the development of the safety evaluation report.
3 For major licensing actions, Staff can stagger the issuance 4 of requests for additional information based on the technical areas.
5 This improves efficiency because both the Applicant and the 6 NRC Staff can continue to work on one or more technical areas, even though 7 other technical areas may require additional time.
8 The updates provide improved transparency by requiring 9 Staff to estimate the number of hours needed to complete the review and 10 provide the Applicant a projected completion date in the acceptance letter.
11 The Staff also plans to make certain portions of the division 12 instructions publicly available so the review process is more transparent to 13 stakeholders.
14 The Smarter licensing recommendations contribute to 15 openness and outreach because they provide more opportunities to interact 16 with the Applicant in the review process.
17 These meetings are generally open to the public and provide 18 additional opportunities for stakeholders, including the public, to observe the 19 NRC decision-making process.
20 That concludes my prepared remarks. I will now turn the 21 discussion over to Cynthia Taylor. Next slide, please.
22 MS. TAYLOR: Thank you, Matt. Good morning, 23 Chairman and Commissioners. I'm a Senior Fuel Facility Inspector in the 24 Division of Fuel Facilities Inspection, or DFFI, in Region II.
22 1 Today I will highlight several fuel cycle oversight 2 accomplishments, enhancements, and ongoing activities. Next slide, please.
3 DFFI has successfully implemented the oversight program 4 for the nation's fuel cycle facilities this past year while preparing for inspections 5 at new facilities.
6 While remaining focused on public health and safety in 7 2021, we completed all core inspection activities except for a limited number 8 of emergency preparedness and force-on-force exercises that were granted 9 COVID exemptions and were rescheduled this year.
10 Separately, in 2021, we completed all program adjustments 11 carried over from 2020. We maintained our event response capabilities 12 during the pandemic by evaluating all licensee events and notifications.
13 Recently, our inspectors responded to an event that 14 occurred at a license facility that reported a loss of all controls of their credited 15 accident sequences.
16 Inspectors quickly evaluated the event focusing on the 17 immediate safe condition of the plant and completed a special reactive 18 inspection.
19 We believe strong partnerships with internal and external 20 stakeholders are essential for meeting our mission.
21 Listening to local feedback in the area around one of our 22 sites, this year, we plan to conduct an in-person license performance review 23 near the site and plan to partner with the Division of Management Licensing 24 Staff to answer additional questions from our external stakeholders.
23 1 We have incorporated lessons learned from the pandemic 2 for exemplifying our people-first philosophy.
3 While balancing Staff personnel safety with our mission 4 reinforces that while some inspection aspects can be successfully conducted 5 remotely, direct onsite inspection remains the most effective inspection 6 method and is in line with our performance-based risk-informed methodology.
7 As a result, we updated our inspection guidance to provide 8 additional flexibilities to our inspection program during a pandemic. DFFI is 9 busy with new fuel facility oversight activities.
10 Last year we conducted several operational readiness 11 reviews in multiple disciplines at the Centrus American Centrifuge Plant in 12 Piketon, Ohio. Beginning in late 2022 and into 2023, we have planned 13 increased inspection activities associated with the planned restart of 14 Honeywell, the U.S. sole uranium conversion facility in Metropolis, Illinois.
15 We share oversight of the SHINE facility with the Office of 16 Nuclear Reactor Regulation and conduct nuclear criticality safety and material 17 control and accountability inspections out of DFFI.
18 SHINE is a Part 50 medical isotope facility in Janesville, 19 Wisconsin, which intends to pursue a phased approach to initial operation of 20 the facility. In their October 15, 2021, letter, SHINE estimates Phase 1 21 construction to be substantially complete by May of 2023.
22 Before I leave this slide, I'd like to take a moment to highlight 23 some of my colleagues that perform fuel facility inspection activities.
24 From top to bottom, we have Brannen Adkins, a senior fuel
24 1 facility inspector, verifying the cylinder field mask for a uranium hexafluoride 2 cylinder during an operation inspection.
3 And Alejandro Alen, senior resident inspector for BWXT, 4 inspecting instrumentation measurements in the uranium recovery process 5 area during a plant status walkdown.
6 Next slide, please.
7 Intentional individual talent development remains an 8 essential focus area. Through formal and informal means, we empower our 9 Staff to seek out critical knowledge needed to excel in our mission.
10 We conduct biannual integrated counterpart meetings 11 where technical and regulatory topics relevant to inspection oversight are 12 shared and shown in the first photo, where DFFI Staff meets with Laura Dudes, 13 Regional Administrator Region II, during an integrated counterpart meeting.
14 We have implemented functional area specific community of 15 practice in such areas as nuclear criticality, health physics, and plant 16 operations to provide informal technical training to our Staff.
17 We recently completed a holistic review of our inspector 18 qualification requirements and planned to revise and improve our qualification 19 process. To support professional development, we have performed 20 competency modeling to assess and identify strengths and opportunities for 21 individual development.
22 In the Region II-focus area of teamwork, the Staff partnered 23 with the Technical Training Center to update the fuel cycle self-study courses 24 and exams. For cross-training activities, inspectors routinely support the
25 1 operating and new reactor business line on a variety of inspections.
2 We continue to support the Agency's diversity and 3 inclusiveness definitions through activities such as conversations for growth 4 and civility training.
5 Finally, the Diversity Management Advisory Committee, 6 which includes two individuals from DFFI, received a 2021 Federal Executive 7 Board Outstanding Achievement Diversity Award of the Year, as shown in the 8 second photo, further illustrating the business line's efforts to enhance 9 diversity and inclusion across all our organizations.
10 Next slide, please.
11 We continue to innovate and enhance the fuel cycle 12 oversight program. Last January, implementation of the Smarter Inspection 13 Program began.
14 In 2020, during the development of the Smarter Inspection 15 Program we used inspection experience and data insights to adjust our 16 inspection focus to better align our resources to areas commensurate with 17 their risk.
18 We updated our manual chapter and inspection procedures 19 to reflect the smarter inspection program changes.
20 Currently, the program has not yet completed a full 21 inspection cycle, but we have gleaned early insights through our use of an 22 inspector pulse survey.
23 We determined that several Smarter inspection program 24 changes to inspection procedures improve the focus of the resident inspector
26 1 program. For example, to reduce overlap we credited certain regional 2 inspection procedures for facilities that have resident inspectors.
3 Since the scope is duplicative to the resident inspector 4 program, sections of the regional inspection radiation protection procedure 5 were omitted for facilities that have a resident inspector.
6 In addition, modification to inspection procedures with 7 similar risk-significant elements and management measures were made.
8 Specifically, waste management risk elements and 9 management measures were absorbed into the radiation protection 10 procedures while similar attributes for the maintenance and surveillance 11 inspection procedures were incorporated into the plant operating procedures.
12 The fuel facility oversight program is a mature inspection 13 program and the Smarter inspection program improvements are 14 enhancements to the program. Our pulse survey indicates that we have not 15 identified any early implementation challenges to meeting our mission.
16 Survey responses also affirm inspections continue to meet 17 our mission and provide reasonable assurance of adequate protection.
18 We continue to develop the Category 2 fuel facility 19 inspection program by partnering with the Division of Fuel Management Staff 20 to evaluate inspection procedures to add and/or clarify inspection guidance.
21 We routinely collaborate to identify any differences in 22 licensing and hazards from these types of facilities by using RiskSMART 23 principles to further inform future inspections.
24 We have leveraged and repurposed replacement reactor
27 1 program systems and inspection scheduling tracking and reporting tools to 2 increase consistency and clarity in fuel facility inspection planning and 3 execution.
4 We are committed to enhancing our self-sustaining 5 knowledge management program across the business line, including 6 investments in Wiki-based Nuclepedia platform by providing site-specific and 7 technical information relevant to fuel cycle facilities.
8 My final slide, moving from top to bottom far right, shows 9 Larry Harris, senior resident inspector, and Laura Dudes, Region II Regional 10 Administrator, during a site familiarization tour at Nuclear Fuel Services.
11 The bottom photo shows TRISO-X pilot laboratory facility.
12 Thank you very much for the opportunity to present today. This concludes 13 my remarks, and I will now turn it over to Mr. Dante Johnson.
14 MR. JOHNSON: Thank you, Cynthia. Good morning, 15 Chairman and Commissioners.
16 Today I will give you an overview of how the Office of 17 Nuclear Security and Incident Response supports the Fuel Facilities business 18 line and provide you with the details in the development of the NRC's new 19 authorizing official program.
20 Next slide, please.
21 NSIR collaborates with the Fuel Facilities business line in 22 several areas, including licensing and oversight of fuel cycle and spent fuel 23 storage facilities, cybersecurity, transportation security, and protection of 24 radioactive and nuclear materials.
28 1 Additionally, NSIR leads and conducts force-on-force 2 inspections at Category 1 fuel fabrication facilities.
3 In the emergency preparedness and incident response 4 areas, NSIR coordinates event response for incidents at fuel facilities and 5 conducts emergency preparedness licensing reviews for fuel cycle facilities.
6 NSIR is currently involved in rulemaking for cybersecurity 7 and was involved in the development of the initial enhanced weapons 8 rulemaking for spent fuel storage installations and transportation, which will be 9 published later this year.
10 NSIR also conducts reviews of classified information 11 systems at fuel facilities as part of the authorizing official program, which I will 12 discuss in more detail in the next slide.
13 Next slide, please.
14 Fuel facilities, specifically enrichment facilities, have 15 classified information related to the methods used for the enrichment of 16 uranium. The protection of this information aligns with the Agency's goal of 17 security and protection of sensitive information.
18 Three enrichment facilities, Urenco USA, Global Laser 19 Enrichment, and Centrus, each have isolated classified networks which 20 require a sponsoring federal agency to approve the classified networks 21 operations.
22 The Department of Energy previously performed the 23 authorizing official role for these facilities through interagency agreements with 24 the NRC.
29 1 In September 2020, following an announcement that DOE's 2 Office of Nuclear Energy was closing its Oak Ridge site office, a decision was 3 made to transfer this responsibility to the NRC.
4 In December 2020, the NRC assumed formal responsibility 5 as the authorizing official for classified networks at Urenco USA, Global Laser 6 Enrichment, and Centrus.
7 An agile, collaborative, and cooperative Agency response 8 led to successful development of the NRC's authorizing official program within 9 about one year. Next slide, please.
10 Cooperation among the Agency's offices including the Office 11 of the Chief Information Officer, the Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and 12 Safeguards, Region II, the Office of Enforcement, the Office of the General 13 Counsel, and NSIR to establish the NRC's authorizing official responsibilities 14 led to a comprehensive program which integrates well with the NRC's existing 15 regulatory oversight.
16 Once the NRC assumed formal responsibility as the 17 authorizing official, the Executive Director of Operations designated the Chief 18 Information Officer to perform the duties of authorizing official on an interim 19 basis until a Work Group could develop and make more permanent 20 recommendations about the program that will put in place the framework to 21 enable further transfer of the authorizing official role to the director of NSIR.
22 The Working Group developed processes and procedures 23 for implementing the NRC's authorizing official program.
24 The new classified authorization program for licensees
30 1 established as part of the authorizing official program, documents the process 2 for authorization and continuous monitoring for classified networks and 3 information technology systems located at NRC-regulated fuel cycle facilities.
4 Region II division of fuel facility and inspection staff will 5 conduct inspection activities in areas that were previously performed by DOE 6 at the fuel facilities.
7 Since the authorizing official program transitioned from DOE 8 to the NRC, all operational classified systems at fuel cycle facilities have been 9 granted interim authority to operate by the NRC's Chief Information Officer as 10 the interim authorizing official.
11 Next slide, please.
12 Since the facilities traditionally work with DOE as their 13 accreditation authority for compliance with the various standards and policies 14 for use of classified networks, the Working Group ensured that licensees 15 impacted by any changes received background and information on how the 16 NRC would move forward.
17 In October 2021, Staff hosted a workshop attended by the 18 enrichment facilities and the other stakeholders to respond to questions and 19 concerns. As the NRC prepared to take over the authorizing official role, Staff 20 looked at the licensee's security programs and the versions of standards in 21 use.
22 Staff identified a gap in one of the major NIST standards being 23 used for the protection of classified networks. While the current standard was 24 sufficient for an interim period, it needed to be updated in the long term.
31 1 As a result, the NRC requested that each licensee upgrade 2 their security posture from Version 3 to Version 5 on NIST special publication 3 800.53. The request to upgrade did result in some questions within the 4 community, however, Version 5 does address and modernize the security 5 posture within licensee's classified environment and aligns with what other 6 security organizations require of contractors, licensees, certificate holders, 7 and other persons.
8 Another dynamic change addressed by the working group 9 occurred when the Department of Defense as an executive agent of the 10 National Industrial Security Program transitioned the National Industrial 11 Security Program Operating Manual to a rule under the Code of Federal 12 Regulations Title 32 Part 117.
13 During the same time period as the authorizing official 14 transitioned for the NRC, the Working Group used the workshop to provide a 15 common background and requirements for the protection of classified 16 information based on the new rule.
17 Next slide, please. The NRC is also responsible for enforcing 18 requirements of Code of Federal Regulations Title 10 Part 95, which pertains 19 to providing facilities security clearance and safeguarding classified 20 information.
21 The NRC is now also required to enforce a relatively new set of 22 requirements promulgated by the Department of Defense Title 32 Part 117 23 which requires protection of classified information shared with licensees and 24 other stakeholders to prevent unauthorized disclosure.
32 1 In closing, the NRC has an operational program and all 2 operational classified systems at enrichment facilities have been granted 3 authority to operate and the new infrastructure has been developed.
4 Development of the authorizing official program is an example 5 of how the Agency can quickly adapt to meet our mission. Thank you very 6 much for the opportunity to present today.
7 This concludes my presentation, and I will turn it over to Dan.
8 MR. DORMAN: Thank you, Dante, and thank you to all of the 9 panelists for your presentations.
10 Again, I'd like to thank the NRC Headquarters and regional staff 11 that support and make the Fuel Facilities business line a success and all the 12 Staff who helped to prepare us for this discussion today.
13 With that, Chairman, this concludes the Staff's presentation 14 and we look forward to your questions.
15 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thanks, Dan, thanks everybody.
16 I think I'm going first this morning with questions, so we'll just 17 get rolling with that. Shana, you mentioned I think it was on Slide 9 about 18 working with the Department of Energy about a Gap assessment for 19 regulations for HALEU and other kinds of advanced fuel cycles.
20 Could you just expand on that a little bit about what that entails?
21 Is that something we are doing or DOE is doing, et cetera?
22 MS. HELTON: Thank you, Chairman, yes, that's a good 23 question. When I talk about gap assessments I'm referring to specifically 24 Strategy 2 in the NRC's vision and strategy document for advanced reactors.
33 1 So, the Fuel Facilities business line is really watching and 2 supporting the broader Agency effort around advanced reactors. Research 3 does a number of things, and you're going to hear from Lucas in the second 4 panel in the Spent Fuel business line on the research activities.
5 But just as an example, right now for gap assessments I'm not 6 referring to our regulatory gaps in the regulations so much as data needs to 7 inform code development activities, neutronics for Non-Light Water Reactors 8 fuels will be useful in updating our SCALE suite of codes, as an example, to 9 help us with our regulatory reviews and any confirmatory analysis that we do.
10 This data helps us focus on the most important technical issues 11 for review and help make our reviews more efficient and effective.
12 CHAIRMAN HANSON: OK. That's helpful. I think I want to 13 tack maybe between you and Matt a little bit. You talked about we haven't 14 licensed a Category 2 fuel facility I think you said ever, but at least in a really 15 long time.
16 But we've got a specific application in front of us. I was 17 wondering, Shana, we could start with you, if you could just talk about in 18 general terms how we're preparing to license these Category 2 fuel facilities 19 in the near term.
20 Obviously, we've got one of these applications now in front of 21 us, but I think we've seen from the industry several more coming along behind, 22 all of them may be in some cases slightly different. Some of them may be 23 really different.
24 If you could talk about that, that would be great.
34 1 MS. HELTON: Sure, at a high level, the Category 2 fuel 2 facilities are coming in under our existing Part 70 framework.
3 That's already risk-informed, performance-based and I think 4 there's a joke among fuel facility Project Managers, Dan's probably familiar 5 with this joke, that if you've seen one fuel facility, well, you've seen one fuel 6 facility.
7 We're used to seeing unique things with each application that 8 we have and you're right, we've got Category 1 and 3 facilities currently 9 licensed but this will be new for Category 2.
10 Some of the nuances we've been anticipating we need to 11 prepare for are really in the security arena and that's why we've put out our Qs 12 and As on the public website.
13 And we've also been having a number of interactions with 14 applicants before they come in for licensing to ensure they've got their 15 safeguards program established, they can receive information about the types 16 of things they'll need to do for security at those sites.
17 The other area that's different is material control and 18 accounting. We've had a number of discussions, not just with our interagency 19 partners but with external stakeholders as well, and that's why we want to 20 publish NUREG-2159.
21 Stakeholders have seen a draft of that already so we're working 22 through those issues in the comment resolution, and we're in the final stages.
23 So, we do anticipate publishing that probably this summer or early this fall.
24 I'll flip it to Matt, if he has anything else he wants to add about
35 1 the nuances of Category 2?
2 MR. BARTLETT: You touched on it, we regulate Cat. 3 and 3 Cat. 1 so Cat. 1 is much more security involved than a Cat. 2, and I'd just note 4 that just this morning before this meeting, I took the safeguards plan for 5 TRISO-X to the security folks.
6 And just as a point of interest, some of the security folks that 7 are involved in writing that plan were originally at the NRC and retired.
8 And the security folks I was talking to was anticipating that the 9 plan would be very solid and they didn't anticipate any problems reviewing it 10 at a Category 2 level.
11 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Matt, you mentioned the use of WBL 12 as an internal project management tool for the NRC to deal with some of these 13 things.
14 Presumably, in licensing Category 2 facilities as well, I thought 15 that was really interesting because I've heard about it mostly in the context of 16 agreement state programs and trying to get it, licensing other materials 17 licensees.
18 So, that was kind of a new spin on that. Are there reports that 19 can come out of WBL that are available to the licensee so they see our 20 progress as well, as well as us tracking our own progress?
21 MR. BARTLETT: We're essentially using WBL for fuel cycle 22 but there's multiple modules in WBL, spent fuel, for fuel cycle, waste, 23 materials, like you said. But on the fuel cycle side, there's no direct public 24 access.
36 1 We can run reports and we use those to inform management 2 on what we're doing and to track our own progress, but there's nothing 3 specifically that the licensees can go into in WBL.
4 Now, we use information from WBL to keep public websites on 5 specific - like TRISO-X has its own public NRC site and we put information in 6 there on its status. So, we do that for each of the main facilities and that 7 information would be drawn from WBL.
8 But they wouldn't have direct access to WBL.
9 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Sorry, Rob.
10 MR. LEWIS: Chairman, just a thought. I like Matt's answer.
11 I can talk a little about the other business lines as well and the public-facing 12 nature. To date, WBL is an internal tool.
13 We do use it to produce public information but the public 14 themselves can't directly access and basically, licensees can't either.
15 It was built with the concept that licensees could do online 16 banking-type, and that's actually part of our WBL modernization project that 17 we're talking about as a future innovation and investing in.
18 You're correct that's focused mainly on the materials side but 19 NMSS as a whole, we're 300 people. So, John and I have been asking since 20 we've got there. 300 people, we don't do that many types of licensing.
21 Let's do it all in WBL and it's reflecting a lot what Matt's saying, just last 22 year, for example, all the decommissioning licensing is now added in and 23 being done with WBL. So, we want to use it going forward as the centerpiece 24 tool and more and more include some external-facing features to it.
37 1 CHAIRMAN HANSON: I want to applaud those efforts 2 because you're getting data about budget execution, people hours, et cetera.
3 So, there's a lot of transparency internally to the ongoing licensing.
4 MR. BARTLETT: And in terms of pulling data from budget, 5 that piece is still in budget so we'd like to see more of that capability.
6 CHAIRMAN HANSON: More WBL, that's the theme. Matt, 7 could you give us an update on the status of the TRISO-X application review?
8 MR. BARTLETT: We received their application on April 5th I 9 think is the date on the document. It went into ADAMS on April 12th; we've 10 started our acceptance review.
11 Interesting thing about the TRISO-X application is they recently 12 transitioned where their facility was going to be located to 10 miles down the 13 road. And so they're still collecting site data to support their environmental 14 submittal.
15 As a result, they werent able to submit their environmental 16 report at the same time as their safety analysis report.
17 The regs require them to be submitted together, so they 18 submitted an exemption request that would allow them to submit those 19 separately, which we approved.
20 And so what we actually received in April was just the safety 21 analysis report and so the regs also require that we can't formally docket the 22 submittal until we complete the acceptance review for both the safety analysis 23 piece and the environmental piece.
24 So, we've started our internal acceptance review of the safety
38 1 analysis piece because we don't want to hold up the technical review.
2 So, we'll proceed with that acceptance review but we won't 3 formally accept it for docketing until we get the environmental report and 4 complete that acceptance review.
5 And that's likely to happen, we'll probably get their ER in the 6 June, July timeframe, complete the acceptance review for that.
7 Then once we can accept both the SAR and the ER, then we'll 8 proceed with the formal review.
9 CHAIRMAN HANSON: And is the review plan under 10 development as you do the acceptance review so that review plan is then 11 issued upon docketing?
12 MR. BARTLETT: If you look at the overall schedule, we have 13 two months for acceptance and then roughly 36 months is what NEIMA 14 requires, but 30 months for the technical review.
15 So, the acceptance review, it's just the Staff doing a high-level 16 look at is all the critical information here?
17 We won't actually start development of the safety evaluation 18 report until we get into the technical review and that will start after acceptance.
19 But yes, we develop that as we do the review.
20 As we go through and try to write up our report, if we find areas 21 where have to ask questions, we'll just leave a blank spot there, I have a 22 question.
23 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Great. Thank you, that's very 24 helpful. Commissioner Baran?
39 1 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thank you all for your 2 presentations and for all your work. Cynthia, you talked briefly about the 3 SHINE medical isotope facility.
4 Can you give us an update on the construction schedule and 5 construction activities, and discuss NRC's oversight activities during 6 construction?
7 MS. TAYLOR: Thank you for that question, Commissioner.
8 SHINE intends to pursue a four-phased approach to their construction.
9 In their letter that they submitted back in October of 2021, they 10 estimate that Phase 1 construction, which is the production facility, will be 11 substantially complete by May of 2023.
12 Like I said, there are three other phases and those phases just 13 identify the number of unit irradiators that are going to be placed in the facility.
14 And the flow of completion of those phases go out to August of 2025.
15 And so we are currently doing construction inspections out of 16 the Division of Construction Oversight.
17 Actually, there's an inspector there today doing inspections and 18 he's looking at the building safety-related activities, foundation, process piping 19 installation.
20 And so those constructions will continue up until next year 21 when we'll go into the operational readiness phase. And as you know, DFFI 22 will help NRR in doing material accountability inspections, control 23 accountability inspections and nuclear criticality inspections.
24 So, we will be assisting our business line partners in those
40 1 types of inspections.
2 COMMISSIONER BARAN: And you noted the Honeywell 3 Metropolis uranium conversion facility is ramping up activity for a restart in 4 2023. Are there any issues or challenges expected with that restart or our 5 inspection activities there?
6 MS. TAYLOR: No, not at this time. Of course, we've just had 7 some inspectors go there the other week doing and completing an inspection.
8 They haven't been operating since 2017, so it's going to take 9 time for the inspectors to come up to speed on the site and they're doing that 10 by going out periodically conducting these site familiarization inspections.
11 So, no, we don't anticipate any issues with the restart of 12 Honeywell.
13 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Westinghouse has applied for a 14 40-year license renewal for its fuel fabrication facility in Columbia, South 15 Carolina. Given the performance in ground water contamination issues in 16 recent years, some stakeholders are arguing for a shorter license renewal 17 term.
18 The Department of the Interior, for example, recommends a 20-19 year license renewal. I know the Staff review is ongoing.
20 Can someone walk us through how the Staff determines the 21 appropriate license renewal term for a fuel cycle facility like Westinghouse 22 Columbia?
23 MS. HELTON: Sure. I'll give it a start and if anybody else 24 wants to chime in, like Matt or Rob, please help me out.
41 1 But essentially, like you said, we're still in the process of 2 considering that review. Were in the final stages, working towards 3 completing our review in the August timeframe.
4 And we are still looking at the request. They requested a 40-5 year license term and fundamentally, what plays into our decision is safety, 6 the environmental review, and the licensee operating performance history.
7 We're following the Commission direction on license renewals 8 to license fuel facilities up to the 40-year maximum licensing term. We can 9 go less than 40 years on a case-by-case basis in the case of novel 10 technologies or licensee performance issues.
11 So, that's something we're weighing very heavily as we 12 consider this licensing decision.
13 COMMISSIONER BARAN: My sense is, and tell me if I'm 14 wrong about this, there's no real guidance around that aspect of the licensing 15 decision, though, right?
16 So, how do you figure out, you've got whatever their 17 performance is, how do you then determine what the appropriate license term 18 is, whether it's 40 or whether it's something less than 40?
19 MS. HELTON: You're right, we don't have specific criteria. I 20 think going back, probably the thinking was that for such a small number of 21 facilities having well developed criteria for those license renewals, we didn't 22 develop it back then.
23 So, today we have the discussion from the SECY paper that 24 we sent to the Commission, SECY-06-0186, and we looked at that.
42 1 We look at precedent, we do have a number of renewals that 2 we have already gone through so we can look at those as precedents, going 3 back to NFS and Honeywell renewals, really.
4 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Anything else on that topic? You 5 looked like you might have something.
6 MR. LEWIS: I was on the fence. I think Shana gave an 7 awesome answer, couldn't improve on that, I'd maybe just add one thought, 8 and she was getting to this.
9 The totality of all of the information we use, just like any other 10 issue in the licensing review, we use all of that information and make our 11 conclusion that there's reasonable assurance of adequate protection.
12 And every facility is different as we've talked about before and 13 the circumstances are different, and we factor all of that in as we make our 14 reasonable assurance decision and licensing decision related to that.
15 The one thing that keeps guiding us is safety and security and 16 precedent and operating experience. But it would be very difficult to have a 17 firm recipe-type set of conditions that would say this is 40, this is less than 40.
18 Because I do think each situation we need to bring to bear our 19 regulatory guidance and wisdom on.
20 COMMISSIONER BARAN: I had also been interested in the 21 TRISO-X update and that was well discussed with the Chairman's questions.
22 So, with that I'll turn over the rest of my time and turn it back.
23 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Baran.
24 Commissioner Wright?
43 1 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Good morning, thanks for each 2 of your presentations and thank you to the rest of the Staff for all they do and 3 what they did in helping prepare you too today. So, with that, a quick question 4 for you, Rob.
5 You talked about the fuel facilities stakeholder meetings that 6 you hold every six months. Have you or are you considering expanding that 7 type of initiative to other business lines?
8 MR. LEWIS: That's a great question. We definitely do the 9 function across other business lines. The format varies across business lines 10 because each business line is unique. Fuel facility has a benefit in that it's 11 small and there's a limited set of licensees.
12 It's easier to get everybody together, so we leveraged that and 13 had the meetings every six months. In the materials arena, for example, we 14 have the ACMUI, the Advisory Committee on Medical Uses of Isotopes, they 15 perform some function prioritization workload planning, some of the same 16 functions.
17 Organization of Agreement States meetings perform some of 18 those functions for that business line. I might be harder to get the entire 19 business line together in the room in some of those, even spent fuel is a much 20 bigger business line.
21 One business line I do think is a great idea and we're going to 22 explore this model, the stakeholder meeting model, is the decommissioning 23 business line. As you know, big changes recently, the business models, we 24 have companies buying the plant and performing the decommissioning.
44 1 Just a small set of companies are doing that. NEI has been 2 getting those companies together. We can do something similar. We can 3 explore it. I'm not necessarily sold that the fuel cycle way will work there.
4 The function needs to be done and bringing people together to 5 share priorities, to share workload planning, that's a business line where that 6 function is definitely a top priority for us.
7 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Very good. Thank you.
8 Shana, good morning. You mentioned that prioritization of work activities is 9 one way that you're trying to enhance the employee experience. Can you tell 10 me more about how you are prioritizing the work?
11 For example, what are some typical high-priority items and 12 maybe what are some lower-priority items?
13 MS. HELTON: Great question, we talk about prioritizing our 14 work almost every day at the management and Staff level in the Division. So, 15 at the highest level we've got the Agency's add/shed/defer process.
16 The EDO has a procedure. We've developed one in the 17 Division of Fuel Management and recently expanded that to be an office 18 procedure. For the Division of Fuel Management for the business line, we do 19 have prioritization schema that we use.
20 There is always discretion to elevate priorities on an as-needed 21 basis for Agency response but at the top of the list are urgent, imminent, safety 22 and security issues, Agency response, safety issues at a lower level than the 23 imminent level, operational considerations for licensees.
24 Often times I've seen it more in the Spent Fuel business line
45 1 but for fuel facilities as well, if there's an operational need where a licensee 2 might not be an urgent safety issue but certainly an operational one, we try to 3 accommodate their needs.
4 For the Staff development activities, that's another area where 5 we're prioritizing that very high and we might need to update our prioritization 6 criteria. But right now given the needs of the staffing within the business line, 7 hiring has been made a top priority for all of our Branch Chiefs in the Division.
8 And soon after we're finished hiring, bringing the new Staff up 9 to speed, getting them qualified, doing knowledge transfer, that's going to be 10 the highest priority as well.
11 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Let me stay with the new hires 12 for a minute.
13 During this whole COVID-19 thing, you've onboarded a lot of 14 people, they haven't had an opportunity to interact face to face with people to 15 develop those relationships around the water cooler and things like that.
16 Really, I think its valuable for new employees to have, someone 17 they can turn to, especially if they have questions. Will all or most of the new 18 employees maybe have mentors, NRC mentors or groups they can reach out 19 to?
20 MS. HELTON: Absolutely, and that's one model that we've 21 been already following even for employees who are not new to the Agency but 22 may be new to the business line activities. We pair up senior staff with more 23 junior staff to ensure that we're facilitating knowledge management.
24 But the onboarding of employees who are new to the Agency,
46 1 we want them to have mentors with the Staff, the senior Staff, mentors at the 2 management level, and we also want them to band together.
3 Right now we've only hired a few folks but as we work towards 4 the end of the year, there's going to be a need for a bootcamp for Staff 5 qualification activities.
6 And I think having them form a cohort within the business line 7 within the office, even absent being part of a program like the Nuclear 8 Regulatory Apprenticeship Network, those peer networks are very important 9 too.
10 So, we're putting a focus on all of that.
11 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Very good. Thank you. I'm 12 going to follow up real quick on a question the Chairman asked you about the 13 regulatory gaps. And you did mention that it wasn't necessarily regulatory 14 where the gaps were.
15 But in that area, the ones that you found, these gap 16 assessments, whatever, have you identified a path forward for each of these?
17 I don't know that I heard that talked about.
18 MS. HELTON: I would say the work is ongoing. We've got 19 near-term, mid-term, and long-term needs identified in the NRC's vision and 20 strategy. So, we're in that period now of zero to five years.
21 This is one of the reasons why we really emphasize early pre-22 application engagement, especially for new technologies, because we want to 23 make sure that if we see something we can work towards the research or the 24 data or the regulatory guidance needs that we have.
47 1 But to date I think we've been able to effectively license but as 2 we get even more novel designs, I think that's going to be very important. The 3 Department of Energy, other organizations, you'll hear about it on the back 4 end of the fuel cycle, EPRI has a number of activities going on.
5 We've worked closely with Research and NRR, we follow all of 6 those efforts, as we do as well.
7 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you, I'm done with you.
8 Matt, Im going to come over to you here for a second, Shana rocks, doesn't 9 she? She's good.
10 So, Matt, you mentioned the Staff is improving transparency by 11 telling licensees in acceptance letters how much the time the Staff's review 12 might take and when you might be anticipating completing the review.
13 So far, how accurate are those predictions?
14 MR. BARTLETT: That's a great question. I think in one of my 15 slides, or at least I mentioned it, on average we complete the actions within 82 16 percent. So, that's good probably a good indicator of how accurate our 17 estimates are.
18 If you were to dig into those numbers, you'd see several items 19 that are way over two to three times longer than what we anticipated. And 20 you'd see a bunch of items that are under what we anticipated.
21 Our goal generally is to complete them under but close to what 22 we estimated. I'd say the Staff is getting better at it, we've only been doing it 23 about a year it seems like. So, when we first started at the Staff level, we 24 were kind of like how are we going to do this?
48 1 We don't have the data to make these estimates.
2 Now that we're a year in, we have a better feel for, yes, this is 3 probably a reasonable estimate. It's always our goal to complete it as 4 efficiently as possible and I think that's why some of our actions are completed 5 generally earlier than we anticipated. The long actions, those are just always 6 going to happen because there's always things you can't control, like the 7 licensee asks for a time-out or there's an external agency you have to get 8 information from and you can't control them.
9 So, I would say in general maybe 80 percent accurate is a good 10 estimate.
11 MS. HELTON: I know you said you were done with me, 12 Commissioner, but I would like to --
13 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: But you weren't done with me.
14 MS. HELTON: Matt's answer is great, but one thing I'd like to 15 emphasize, and it's something that Rob said earlier, which is our primary focus 16 is always on ensuring that we have reasonable assurance of adequate 17 protection of public health and safety, common defense and the environment.
18 So, that's always top priority. Even in some high-profile 19 reviews where there's schedule pressure, if, for example, we have a new set 20 of eyes to take a look due to Staff turnover, it's a safety issue, we're going to 21 address it.
22 We're going to ask the question and take the time we need 23 because that's the top priority. Even as we want to be more efficient, we 24 always like to emphasize being effective in our regulatory reviews.
49 1 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you.
2 MR. BARTLETT: Can I add one more thought? In cases 3 where we do go over, it is in our policy and guidance that we reach back out 4 to the licensee and give them a letter that says, hey, because of these reasons, 5 we're going to have to extend our estimated date by, whatever, a month.
6 So, we do reach back out and give a new estimate.
7 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you.
8 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner, and thank 9 you, all for your presentations this morning, Rob, Shana, Matt, Cynthia, and 10 Dante, I really appreciate it and I appreciate my colleagues' questions.
11 We're going to take a 5-minute break, we will reconvene at 12 10:20 a.m. Thank you.
13 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 14 10:15 a.m. and resumed at 10:21 a.m.)
15 Welcome back, everyone, the meeting will recommence now 16 with the second panel on Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation business 17 line. Dan Dorman, once again, the floor is yours.
18 MR. DORMAN: Thank you, Chairman, and good morning, 19 once again, Chairman Hanson, Commissioner Baran, and Commissioner 20 Wright. Our second panel today features our Spent Fuel Storage and 21 Transportation business line.
22 Like the Fuel Facilities business line, we continue to self-23 assess the program and make necessary adjustments to further risk-inform 24 our regulatory approaches and ensure effectiveness with optimal efficiency.
50 1 The business line continues to focus on ensuring that we have 2 the right people at the right time to address the challenges in our evolving 3 environment, which you'll hear more about from today's panelists.
4 We continue to maintain an appropriate focus on our mission 5 for the safe and secure management of spent nuclear fuel while also 6 maintaining effective external communication, transparency, and stakeholder 7 engagement as we prepare for the use of new technologies.
8 Next slide, please.
9 So, for this panel, Rob Lewis will again provide the strategic 10 overview for the business line. He'll be followed by Christopher Regan, the 11 Deputy Director of the Division of Fuel Management, he will present on the 12 Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation program environment.
13 Dr. Christopher Markley, systems performance analyst in 14 NMSS will discuss the Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation licensing 15 activities. Jennifer Dalzell, technical assistant in the Division of Nuclear 16 Materials Safety in Region III will present on Spent Fuel Storage and 17 Transportation oversight activities.
18 And finally, Lucas Kyriazidis, reactor systems engineer in 19 Research, will discuss Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation research 20 activities. That concludes my opening remarks and I'll turn it over to Rob.
21 MR. LEWIS: Thanks Dan. Good morning, again, Chairman 22 Hanson, Commissioner Baran, Commissioner Wright. Next slide, please.
23 The primary responsibilities of NRC's Spent Fuel Storage and 24 Transportation business line include the review and certification of
51 1 transportation packages for radioactive materials under 10 CFR Part 71 and 2 the review and licensing of Spent Fuel Storage facilities and certification of 3 spent fuel storage cask designs under 10 CFR Part 72. We inspect the 4 vendors of casks in transportation packages and we also inspect the users of 5 those packages.
6 As the program office, NMSS sets expectations across the 7 business line and works closely with the regions and other headquarters 8 offices to manage the priorities and work.
9 Today's panel illustrates our coordination and partnership.
10 Since the first dry casks were loaded in 1986, dry storage has released no 11 radiation that has affected the public or contamination of the environment.
12 Today, more than 159,000 steel assemblies are loaded into 13 more than 3,600 dry casks around the nation. All but one nuclear power 14 reactor site now has an associated independent spent fuel storage installation, 15 or ISFSI, and there are several away from reactor license ISFSI sites. On 16 this slide you can see the cover of our spent fuel storage brochure, NUREG 17 BR-0528, which you can find on NRC's public website and it supports our 18 outreach and transparency efforts for this program.
19 Some of the areas that this program is focusing on for the year 20 include hiring and fostering a positive work environment, focusing on Staff 21 development through knowledge management and cross-training, and 22 enhancing our decision-making using data and risk insights.
23 Today, our panel hopes to leave a positive impression of how 24 we're doing with these areas. Next slide, please.
52 1 The NRC has completed several risk studies over the years to 2 analyze the risk of transportation and of loading and storing spent fuel in dry 3 casks. These studies support our conclusion that the potential radiological 4 health risks are very small for both storage and transportation when conducted 5 in accordance with NRC's regulations.
6 The Staff is making use of risk insights to shape and focus our 7 licensing and inspection activities.
8 This includes recently investing in the Be RiskSMART 9 framework, developing a new licensing risk tool, using a graded approach for 10 licensing, and working on the very low safety significance issue resolution, or 11 VLSSIR process, more on that in a minute.
12 You'll hear about the other activities from the rest of panel 13 today. I'd like to finish with an example of our use of risk.
14 In the last year, we closely looked at the risks of weather events 15 like tornados on dry fuel storage systems during loading and transfer of a cask 16 from the pool to the ISFSI pad.
17 It's a short period of operation. We looked at the history and 18 licensing basis for vendors cask designs as well as how those general designs 19 are adopted by the utilities to use as the site-specific basis.
20 Our inspectors identified that licensees in some instances were 21 using administrative controls in lieu of technical analysis or engineered 22 controls and there are questions as to whether those changes represent 23 licensing basis changes that would have required NRC's approval before 24 being implemented.
53 1 These findings provided the Staff and industry the first 2 opportunities to apply the VLSSIR process outside the NRC's reactor 3 programs and we've worked on that for the last several months.
4 We do acknowledge that there were several lessons learned 5 and those lessons will pay dividends going forward.
6 These learnings include how to apply the VLSSIR screening 7 criteria in non-reactor programs, how vendor-approved cask licensing basis 8 interfaces with the site's licensing basis, application of backfit to both of those 9 licensing bases, a lot of learnings.
10 The Staff has recently identified a case where the licensing 11 basis was not clear, and we used VLSSIR to not expend additional inspection 12 effort due to very low risks. So, the lessons are paying dividends already.
13 Also in April, the Staff issued an enforcement guidance 14 memorandum indicating, based on the safety risks that these issues present, 15 although a violation might be present, licensees are afforded time to 16 implement corrective actions before the apparent violation would be cited.
17 This is just one example of how we're learning and using risk 18 insights to make better decisions as a regulator. Thank you for the 19 opportunity to address you and I'll now turn to Chris Regan.
20 MR. REGAN: Thank you Rob. Good morning, Chairman 21 Hanson and Commissioners. The Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation 22 program framework is effective for the management of complex regulatory 23 activities.
24 You heard mentioned that we have issued a license to Interim
54 1 Storage Partners for a consolidated interim storage facility and that the Holtec 2 International consolidated interim storage facility license is in process.
3 From a practical standpoint, what have which done in the 4 interest of inspiring stakeholder confidence and enhancing our external 5 engagement efforts?
6 The tremendous Staff technical and environmental review 7 effort aside, we have developed comprehensive communication plans for both 8 of these licensing actions.
9 Consistent with one of the principles espoused in our strategic 10 plan, throughout both consolidated interim storage facility licensing reviews, 11 we have persistently sought to inspire stakeholder confidence.
12 Similarly, throughout the transportation regulatory readiness 13 review, we exercised a diverse range of external communications 14 opportunities by NRC-sponsored public meetings, through industry and 15 technical conferences and meetings such as the National Transportation 16 Stakeholders Forum, the Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation 17 Committee, and various engagements at Nuclear Energy Institute venues.
18 In fact, just last week, Staff attended the annual NEI Used Fuel 19 Management Conference engaging with industry and communicating on 20 topics ranging from aging management, spent fuel operating experience, 21 transportation issues, and risk-informed licensing.
22 And the list goes on because Staff also took advantage of 23 opportunities where briefing staff and representatives from legislative bodies 24 from state and federal level Congressional institutions.
55 1 I mentioned the Staff's transportation and regulatory readiness 2 review to ensure preparedness for the oversight of potential commercial large-3 scale transportation of spent fuel.
4 Highlighting our external engagement with partners on this 5 effort, we worked closely with our federal partners at the Department of 6 Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security, with whom we 7 share responsibilities for the safe and secure transportation of spent nuclear 8 fuel.
9 At our invitation, Staff from these agencies presented on their 10 roles at the NRC public webinar where we shared the results of the regulatory 11 readiness review.
12 In fact, as a general rule, on a significant portion of our spent 13 fuel management interest, we also keep in touch with our partners at the 14 Department of Energy and other federal agencies and non-governmental 15 organizations.
16 I mentioned a bevy of domestic counterparts and stakeholders, 17 so I should also highlight that we have similar partnerships and engagements 18 with internationally and actively collaborate with the Nuclear Energy Agency, 19 the International Atomic Energy Agency, and for a specific example, the 20 Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to exchange technical information and 21 operating experience regarding radioactive material transportation.
22 In the big picture, we continue to strengthen our external 23 engagements in the spirit of inspiring stakeholder confidence and have 24 ramped up our support of outreach and communications related to efforts in
56 1 the area of spent fuel storage, transportation, and radioactive material 2 package transportation issues.
3 Next slide, please.
4 I'll now shift the focus to sharing strategies we're employing to 5 address the current workload, noting some of the results of our efforts over the 6 last year as well as ensuring the utmost agility as we prepare for future or 7 anticipated workload challenges.
8 I should note the program already has the ability to be 9 responsive to highly visible emerging issues.
10 For example, our business line Staff recently contributed to the 11 Agency's extremely rapid one-month comprehensive assessment of the 12 presence of counterfeit, fraudulent, and suspect items in the commercial 13 nuclear industry.
14 Long-term planning must also account for potential for 15 significant changes in the spent fuel management environment.
16 For example, the more rapid decommissioning of power 17 reactors cascades to an interest by licensees for faster movement of spent 18 fuel into dry storage, resulting in the potential for increased licensing action 19 and inspection activities.
20 As you heard earlier from the Fuel Facilities business line on 21 support of the Agency's ATF, HALEU, and advanced reactor activities, this 22 business line is also staying in lockstep with industry work in this extremely 23 dynamic area, and of which you'll hear more from later in this panel.
24 Another example is our Staff work on multiple items, largely
57 1 completed, that were also captured in an NEI white paper defining spent fuel 2 performance margins on spent fuel licensing and inspection effectiveness 3 improvements.
4 Furthermore, the spent fuel transportation regulatory readiness 5 review verified that our existing regulatory framework provides reasonable 6 assurance of adequate protection for commercial shipments of spent nuclear 7 fuel.
8 This work was specifically aimed at being proactive and 9 ensuring our preparedness for this future challenge.
10 With these in mind and being forward-focused, we are looking 11 to the outcomes from additional internal evaluations of recent business line 12 activities such as the effectiveness review of the ISFSI inspection program 13 enhancement initiative, COVID oversight program lessons learned, 14 experience from the consolidated interim storage facility licensing, work to 15 consolidate Division instructions, and you heard mentioned during the Fuel 16 Facilities panel, and the wealth of experienced we have gained from a 17 significant increase in external engagements and outreach efforts on Spent 18 Fuel Storage and Transportation issues. Our enhanced strategies that include 19 more frequent communications and engagements with our broader suite of 20 applicants and current licensees and vendors, also support a goal, one among 21 many, to learn as much as possible and get advanced notice of upcoming 22 licensing actions and industry schedule drivers.
23 A particular success in this area was our proactive engagement 24 with vendors and suppliers supporting ATF to ensure they had appropriately
58 1 counted for the time necessary for any required licensing actions to support 2 the transportation package certifications for the shipment of fresh fuel.
3 Given the challenges for the dynamic environment we are 4 experiencing, being able to use the insights gained to inform the way we 5 prioritize and plan our workload is of utmost importance.
6 Rolled up, all this helps us appropriately assess our five-year 7 workload forecast reflected in the Agency's strategic workforce planning tool 8 and to prioritize our work using an informed add/shed/defer process as case 9 work and emergent demands shift.
10 This all contributes to maintaining a continuum of learning and 11 ensuring the business line is an agile and adaptable organization. Next slide, 12 please.
13 I can't close my portion of the presentation on this business line 14 without also speaking to the topic of human capital, it's our people. More 15 pointedly, recruitment, retention, and recognition.
16 Here too, and continuing the theme for the Spent Fuel Storage 17 and Transportation business line, our hiring strategies include double-18 encumbering, pursuing staff from our Nuclear Regulator Apprenticeship 19 Network cohort, hiring additional Staff where appropriate to be more proactive 20 in areas of anticipated losses, looking at external grant recipients, leveraging 21 other direct-hire processes to onboard new Staff more quickly, and partnering 22 with other divisions and offices when posting ads for vacancies and working 23 to prioritize hiring needs on a daily basis.
24 And at the office level, bringing additional Staff on rotation to
59 1 increase the ability to focus on our hiring process.
2 To help us with successful recruitment and retention efforts, we 3 are surfacing and highlighting all those attributes and likes, especially from the 4 current Staff of why seeking a position within this business line might be 5 fulfilling to an individual. While our staffing fluctuates as people come and go, 6 we are working to support the Agency's goal to onboard more than 300 new 7 Staff, which includes no less than 13 new hires in support of the protected 8 workload within this business line.
9 We are also ensuring equitable attention to activities to retain 10 Staff, identifying and understanding reasons for Staff departing the 11 organization and our Agency is equally important.
12 We are taking action to address as many of these reasons as 13 possible. Finally, adding to this is our heightened focus on how and how often 14 we reward and recognize our Staff.
15 I'd like to say that in addition to newsletter shout-outs, personal 16 emails and notes from leadership, and lots and lots of simple thank yous, last 17 year we fully expended our allocation of award funding and this year we're on 18 track to do the same thing.
19 These efforts aside, we have continued development of our 20 existing subject-matter expert expertise within the Division of Fuel 21 Management and we exercise multitalented Staff to support technical review 22 actions for licensing and inspection work in both business lines within the 23 Division, for example, with criticality reviews.
24 And we have a set of programs for knowledge management
60 1 and transfer by having Headquarters technical Staff observe and participate 2 in regional onsite inspection activities.
3 The benefits of this are extensive and symbiotic; technical staff 4 reap the benefits of seeing the physical equipment in use and perhaps more 5 importantly engage with inspectors in the field and share their insights from 6 licensing technical reviews of the equipment actually being inspected.
7 Likewise, inspectors get the benefit from Headquarters Staff of 8 the deeper technical review behind the license spent fuel storage design. All 9 this contributes to growing our organizational body of knowledge and 10 furthering individual subject-matter expertise.
11 With that, thank you for the opportunity to present to you again.
12 This concludes my remarks and I'll now turn it over to Chris Markley.
13 MR. MARKLEY: Thanks, Chris. Good morning, Chairman, 14 Commissioners, I'm Chris Markley and I currently work as the spent fuel 15 licensing project manager, focusing on storage renewals and was previously 16 involved in the repository safety program.
17 I'll be discussing some of the recent accomplishments in the 18 areas of licensing, certification, and rulemaking for the Spent Fuel Storage and 19 Transportation business line.
20 I'll also cover some activities and initiatives we are 21 implementing to prepare for the future and to enhance the processes that we 22 currently have in place. Slide 36, please.
23 Over the past two-plus years, the Staff continued to ensure 24 safety through successful implementation of our licensing and rulemaking
61 1 work.
2 Despite the challenges that we encountered during this time, 3 we continued to effectively and efficiently conduct licensing and certification 4 reviews at spent fuel storage facilities, transportation packages, and spent fuel 5 storage cask systems.
6 In the previous fiscal year, we completed 43 licensing actions, 7 32 of those actions were transportation certificate approvals, the other 11 8 actions were for storage licensing and certifications, which included 6 storage 9 amendments for storage renewals and the aforementioned consolidated 10 interim storage facility.
11 The number of spent fuel transportation certification actions 12 decreased relative to the previous year due to a decrease of incoming 13 transportation applications while the number of spent fuel storage licensing 14 certification actions decreased because we are no longer receiving the 15 number of public-health-emergency-related exemption requests.
16 During this past year, we completed a number of notable 17 licensing action including the centralized interim storage facility.
18 In the last Storage and Transportation business line briefing, 19 the Staff report contained first cases that support the shipment of accident-20 tolerant fuels.
21 We continue to build upon those achievements.
22 In the past six months we approved two additional 23 transportation package applications for accident-tolerant fuel and we are 24 currently reviewing a package expected to transport high-assay low-enriched
62 1 uranium that is almost 20 percent U-235 by weight, as uranium hexafluoride.
2 We expect to make a decision later this year. We continue to prepare for the 3 future transportation of accident-tolerant fuels and advanced reactor fuel 4 types.
5 As Chris previously discussed, engaging our stakeholders is 6 key to maintaining a successful program.
7 We leverage these engagement activities to plan for current 8 and future research and licensing activities related to the transportation of 9 fresh, accident-tolerant and advanced reactor fuels.
10 For example, this past February we held a pre-application 11 meeting with Global Nuclear Fuel - Americas to discuss an upcoming 12 certificate of compliance amendment application.
13 The application expected later this year will request the 14 transport of fresh nuclear fuel assemblies having uranium-235 enrichments up 15 to 8 weight percent.
16 Another example of our engagement is with our federal 17 partners to support Project Pele. Project Pele is a prototype demonstration 18 of a mobile nuclear reactor to be tested at Idaho National Lab under the 19 authorization of the Department of Energy.
20 We are preparing to review an application currently expected 21 in mid-2023.
22 We also continue to coordinate with the Department of 23 Transportation in harmonizing our Part 71 transportation requirements with the 24 International Atomic Energy Agency's transportation safety standards and
63 1 ensuring compatibility with the Department of Transportation regulations.
2 We are coordinating with the Department of Transportation to 3 concurrently publish our respective proposed rules for public comment and 4 we'll consider the comments we receive when developing the draft final rule.
5 Slide 37, please?
6 In addition to the recent progress and accomplishments in 7 licensing and rulemaking, we continue to work on innovations for storage and 8 transportation by using insights to enhance our licensing program to play our 9 regulatory role in supporting America's nuclear future.
10 We are doing this by implementing innovative approaches to 11 further risk-inform our efforts while engaging our stakeholders and industry.
12 Among other things, the intent of these approaches is to streamline what 13 information is needed in certificates of compliance to consider alternative ways 14 technical information can be provided and to use risk information to ensure 15 reviews are efficient.
16 Successful implementation of these approaches can provide 17 additional flexibility for our licensees and can streamline the technical review.
18 So, let's begin with the initiative that we called the graded approach.
19 This approach describes efforts to streamline the format and 20 content of storage certificates of compliance.
21 This streamlining includes rearranging the certificate format to 22 better organize information, risk-informing the content, removing duplicative 23 items, and relocating non-safety-related items to other regulatory documents 24 such as the safety analysis report.
64 1 A benefit is this graded approach allows vendors of spent fuel 2 storage systems to make non-safety-related changes to existing regulatory 3 processes rather than having to request a new or amended certificate, which 4 among other things would require rulemaking.
5 The NRC completed the review of that pilot implementation in 6 a graded approach in August of 2020 and currently added three additional 7 amendments applying the graded approach in house.
8 The next topic I'd like to discuss is piloting the use of topical 9 reports to streamline the cask certification process.
10 For this, industry can provide topical reports to the NRC for 11 review and approval for use in the licensing process in lieu of specific 12 parameters and limits.
13 These topical reports can then be included by reference in 14 future applications and certificates where appropriate.
15 This can reduce the time NRC needs to review an application 16 and provides additional flexibility for vendors and general licensees to make 17 future changes without the need to request approval of individual certificate 18 amendments.
19 The NRC approved the first topical report, which covered some 20 thermal parameters in September of 2021. The NRC Staff are currently 21 reviewing an amendment application using this report.
22 While the development and review of certificates of compliance 23 and technical specifications are expected to be streamlined, there are 24 challenges. One, it takes resources for industry to develop and Staff to
65 1 review the topical reports.
2 The Staff must also balance the applicability of the topical 3 report to future applications and how broadly it can be applied to future 4 licensing actions.
5 In other words, the broader the methods provided in the topical 6 report could be applied, the more efficiencies can be realized. That said, Staff 7 are currently reviewing a second topical report, this one on aspects of 8 shielding and expect to make a decision towards the end of the year.
9 Another activity I'd like to briefly mention, the use of 10 Phenomena Identification and Ranking Tables, or PIRTs, where experts 11 engage in dialog in an attempt to come to consensus on some technical topic 12 or issue.
13 For example, last summer we participated in a PIRT exercise 14 on spent fuel cladding gross rupture to develop an actionable and durable 15 definition of gross rupture.
16 Updating the definition would allow qualification of fuel based 17 on the safety significance and could avoid unnecessary jamming of spent 18 nuclear fuel in a damaged fuel cannister that could otherwise be directly stored 19 in storage systems or transportation packages.
20 The PIRT panel found that the performance-based approach 21 was actionable and practical.
22 For example, based on detection of transuranic elements in the 23 reactor coolant system water chemistry, rather than based on presence of very 24 small cladding defects that in practice had been proven to be difficult to detect.
66 1 This effort, along with others, is being done in parallel with the 2 activities associated with the Nuclear Energy Institute's white paper Chris 3 mentioned earlier.
4 And the final activity I'd like to mention is the development and 5 refinement of a risk tool for use by NRC Staff. In general, the goal is for NRC 6 Staff to use risk information to focus license amendment reviews.
7 We recently completed a pilot application of this tool and are 8 assessing the results. The initial reaction shown provides a strong basis for 9 Staff to discuss risk significance in the various pieces of a storage system 10 application.
11 In other words, it engages Staff in differing technical disciplines 12 to consider the system under review as a whole.
13 One challenge identified is that the risk tool is general in nature 14 while amendments are expected to be more detailed, potentially limiting the 15 applicability to specific amendment reviews.
16 That said, senior staff are highly involved in piloting the risk tool 17 and confirm the risk information in the tool is consistent with their 18 understanding and consistent with how reviews have been previously 19 conducted.
20 So, it does have potential use in training and knowledge 21 management. While acknowledging the accomplishments and challenges I 22 just discussed, I'd like to end my presentation with a recent success in spent 23 fuel storage renewals.
24 After several years of engaging our stakeholders, the NRC
67 1 Staff streamlined the storage renewal review process by issuing the 2016 2 update in the standard review plan for spent fuel storage renewals and issuing 3 the managing aging processes in-storage report.
4 This guidance provided information that led industry to submit 5 higher-quality applications and helped the NRC Staff perform more efficient 6 reviews. We reported last year on the improvements and cost and review 7 schedule over the pre-streamlining averages.
8 And in the past year we've seen additional gains. Over the 9 past year we've cut the time for storage renewal review by an additional month 10 and had a nearly 20 percent further reduction in Staff hours.
11 So, currently, Staff averages just under 23 months and about 12 1400 Staff hours to review a spent fuel storage renewal application. For 13 context, prior to the standard review plan update, Staff reviews averaged over 14 48 months and 4700 Staff hours.
15 I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to present. With that, 16 I'd like to turn the presentation over to Jennifer.
17 MS. DALZELL: Thank you, Chris. Good morning, Chairman 18 Hanson and Commissioners. As mentioned before, I am Jennifer Dalzell and 19 I am currently the technical assistant for the Division of Nuclear Materials 20 Safety in Region III.
21 Previously, I was a reactor engineer conducting spent fuel dry 22 cask storage inspections. Today, I will be presenting the status of the 23 oversight program for spent fuel storage and transportation.
24 I will be highlighting our accomplishments including recent
68 1 enhancements to the program, the cross-regional and business line support 2 efforts, and the inspection work of the Staff. Next slide, please.
3 Starting in 2019, the Staff began an effort to revise the spent 4 Spent Fuel oversight program to be more risk-informed, comprehensive, and 5 consistent in our approach to ISFSI inspections and to ensure the focus is on 6 areas most important to safety.
7 The revised procedures became effective on January 1, 2021, 8 and have been used during inspections completed over the last year. The 9 result of this effort has shown the oversight program continues to be highly 10 effective in ensuring spent nuclear fuel is stored safely and securely.
11 Just recently in March of 2022, the Division of Fuel 12 Management at NRC Headquarters initiated a pulse survey to gather current 13 data and information from the regional and Headquarters ISFSI inspection 14 staff and our management related to the implementation of the risk-informed 15 ISFSI program enhancements.
16 So far, the responses to the survey indicate that the inspection 17 changes implemented to this point have proven to be reasonable, a balanced 18 approach, and has led to improved consistency across all of the regions.
19 While the revised inspection program was still under review by 20 NRC Staff, the start of the COVID-19 public health emergency was on the 21 forefront of everyone's mind.
22 Because of this, the Working Group decided to incorporate 23 lessons learned on the implementation of the ISFSI inspection program during 24 the COVID-19 public health emergency.
69 1 Throughout the pandemic, the regions and Headquarter Staff 2 have continued to conduct inspections including in-person observations of 3 licensee activities. The Staff did make some changes to how inspections 4 were completed.
5 For example, more paperwork reviews were completed in office 6 but on-site observations continue to play a key role during our inspection 7 efforts. In 2021, the Agency completed 63 inspections including spent fuel 8 loading campaigns, reviews on transportation systems, and inspections of 9 vendor facilities.
10 Recently, with the easing of travel restrictions related to the 11 COVID-19 public health emergency, the Agency has started to conduct both 12 domestic and international inspections of certificate of compliance holders and 13 fabrication facilities.
14 One such Part 71 radiographic material packaging inspection 15 was completed in September 2021 at a corporate office in Hanau, Germany.
16 A second Part 72 dry cask storage system fabrication inspection is scheduled 17 to occur this summer in Busan, Republic of Korea.
18 On this slide, you see an example of the transportation package 19 from the inspection completed a few months ago. These inspections are 20 essential to ensuring the safe storage of spent fuel and transportation of 21 licensed radioactive materials.
22 Also on this slide, you can see a recent inspection that occurred 23 at Wolf Creek that included inspectors from both Region IV and Headquarters.
24 Next slide, please.
70 1 Inspection workload challenges and the need for more 2 inspectors has led to more collaboration and resource sharing, including 3 cross-qualifications. These challenges stem from a variety of factors, 4 including several reactor facilities that have ceased operations and inspector 5 attrition that has resulted in a decrease in the number of experienced staff.
6 The regions and headquarters inspectors have been 7 successful in addressing these challenges by sharing expertise and resources 8 within the business line and across regional and headquarters offices.
9 One example of this cross regional and headquarters support 10 was the recent Region II need for additional inspector resources due to 11 numerous licensee ISFSI loading campaigns occurring over multiple and 12 sometimes consecutive weeks with little or no flexibility within the different 13 schedules.
14 Qualified inspectors from Headquarters and Region I made 15 strategic adjustments to their schedules to be able to support Region II, 16 demonstrating a dedicated collaborative spirit within the business line.
17 To ensure continued and successful completion of the ISFSI 18 inspection program agency-wide, Staff from all regions and Headquarters are 19 working collaboratively with their inspector resources to ensure inspections 20 can be completed as required.
21 Another area within the inspection program that the NRC has 22 been focusing on is qualifying Staff to conduct the inspections.
23 During the revisions to the inspection program, the governing 24 manual chapter was revised to provide additional guidance on the inspector
71 1 training program.
2 The training guidance embraces a streamlined approach to 3 cross-qualification, specifically for Staff that were previously qualified in the 4 resident inspector or regional engineering inspector program.
5 This new approach takes into consideration training and 6 experience the inspector has already achieved. The new program allows for 7 flexibility and efficiency and provides a path for cross-qualifications including 8 across business lines for inspectors in the operating reactor program.
9 This streamlined approach is currently being used to train Staff 10 in Region III, both as full-time spent fuel inspectors and to cross-qualify 11 inspectors looking to gain new skills and to learn about the spent fuel program.
12 Another advantage of the cross-qualification program is that the 13 inspection staff with expertise in certain areas such as structural support can 14 collaborate with the spent fuel inspectors by providing key insights into areas 15 important to safety.
16 Next slide, please.
17 Actions are being taken to ensure readiness in inspection and 18 training programs for consolidated interim storage facilities.
19 A team of inspectors from both Headquarters and the regions 20 have been working to develop inspection procedures and training programs to 21 support the oversight of the construction of consolidated storage facilities and 22 the large-scale transportation of spent nuclear fuels.
23 The team is working to ensure the Agency is ready to provide 24 oversight of the construction and transportation activities when consolidated
72 1 interim storage facilities are ready to be built and utilized.
2 That concludes my remarks, I will now turn it over to Lucas.
3 Thank you.
4 MR. KYRIAZIDIS: Good morning, Chairman Hanson, 5 Commissioner Wright, and Commissioner Baran and thank you for the 6 opportunity to discuss key research activities the Office of Nuclear Regulatory 7 Research is performing in support of the Spent Fuel Storage and 8 Transportation business line.
9 Next slide, please.
10 The mission within the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, 11 also referred to as Research, is to provide the Agency with technical analyses, 12 advice, tools, and information to support identifying and resolving critical safety 13 issues in support of risk-informed regulatory decision-making.
14 To fulfil this mission, Research continually looks over the 15 horizon by proactively monitoring industry plants through periodic stakeholder 16 engagement.
17 Research also stays abreast of new technical findings through 18 our collaborative partnerships.
19 Research continually assesses and identifies research needs 20 from these interactions with the goal of safe and effective regulatory 21 decision-making. It is these research needs that translate into new tasks and 22 projects for the Office.
23 New work within Research is driven by fulfilling the regulatory 24 need. We work closely with our partners in the Office of Nuclear Material
73 1 Safety and Safeguards to recognize and resolve these needs.
2 Work and technical assistance is requested by the user need 3 request process. User need requests identify specific tasks, resources 4 required, and the schedule for completing the work, all the while ensuring 5 proper tracking, monitoring, and closure is maintained.
6 Many user need requests are currently in place for executing 7 and completing spent fuel research. Research falls into four major technical 8 areas including dry cask storage systems, aging management, spent fuel 9 cladding performance, and criticality safety.
10 Next slide, please.
11 Research is actively engaged in many domestic and 12 international research programs and collaborative efforts. The goal of these 13 interactions are to identify areas of cooperation while leveraging the outcomes 14 of these efforts.
15 The NRC's domestic relationships play a critical role in 16 identifying and resolving key technical issues.
17 Ongoing collaborations with the Department of Energy and the 18 Electric Power Research Institute are yielding much success in obtaining 19 additional confirmatory data for the long-term performance of high burnup 20 fuels through the high burnup spent fuel data project.
21 This work supports NRC licensing activities to renew or extend 22 the dry cask storage of spent fuel for longer times, while ensuring the safety 23 of the public and the environment are upheld.
24 The NRC and the Department of Energy's spent fuel and waste
74 1 disposition program periodically have technical information exchanges 2 discussing spent fuel management research, further identifying areas of 3 cooperation.
4 These technical exchanges are primarily focused on accident-5 tolerant and advanced reactor fuels, aging management topics, and spent fuel 6 performance. International collaboration is and has always been beneficial to 7 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
8 It reduces the financial burden of independently funding 9 experimental projects while allowing the technical Staff to work alongside 10 many international experts.
11 One international program Research actively participates in is 12 the Studsvik Cladding Integrity Project. This five-year international project is 13 aimed at collecting data for higher burnup fuels such as thermal creep and on 14 spent fuel degradation mechanisms like hydride reorientation.
15 Projects like these produce a significant amount of empirical 16 test data that inform the technical Staff, inform existing guidance, and even 17 inform our suite of computer codes, like our fuel performance code, FAST.
18 Next slide, please.
19 The Office of Research continually delivers tools, methods, and 20 data that support spent fuel licensing. An example of this is maintaining and 21 enhancing our validated suite of computer codes.
22 For a risk-informed regulator, validated computer codes play a 23 key role in helping the technical Staff and reviewers focus on the most 24 important technical issues.
75 1 NRC's fuel performance code, FAST, and the neutronics 2 computer code, SCALE, have both been assessed and updated specifically 3 for simluating accident-tolerant, extended enrichment, and higher burnup 4 fuels.
5 On the NRC's public page for accident-tolerant fuels, several 6 assessment reports using both FAST and SCALE for spent fuel applications 7 can be found.
8 In October of 2021, an assessment of FAST was performed, 9 summarizing the impacts of high burnup and increased enrichment fuels had 10 on spent fuel behavior.
11 The assessment also identified the data availability and 12 additional data needs for improving confidence in our simulations. The 13 SCALE computer code supports performing criticality and shielding analyses 14 of spent fuel.
15 Code benchmarks have also been performed to assess the 16 impacts that accident-tolerant, increased enrichment and higher burnup fuels 17 have on the backend of the fuel cycle.
18 The latest work underway is an assessment identifying the 19 impacts of both increased enrichment and high burnup fuels have on decay 20 heat and isotopeic inventory of spent fuel that will be publicly available later 21 this month.
22 Research is also supporting the business line and the 23 readiness for the review of spent fuel for advanced reactors. Research Staff 24 have developed generic technical assessments for the nuclear fuel cycle,
76 1 including the backend for Non-Light Water Reactors designs.
2 This methodology is documented in Research's code readiness 3 strategy, which is based on adapting our existing computer codes such as 4 SCALE and MELCOR for performing these analyses.
5 A significant amount of work is also being completed as it 6 relates to aging management research. Aging management research ensures 7 that our partner office can perform independent and effective safety reviews 8 of potential renewals of dry cask storage systems and facilities and provide 9 effective oversight of licensees' aging management activities informed by an 10 enhanced understanding of potential degradation mechanisms.
11 Corrosion is one degradation mechanism of dry cask storage 12 systems. Research has been performed to verify the current state of 13 knowledge on corrosion and chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking.
14 These phenomena are a slow developing degradation 15 mechanism in welded stainless steel cannisters that are used in dry cask 16 storage systems. While there are no known operational occurrences of this 17 mechanism in welded cannisters of spent fuel in the U.S., there have been 18 operational experiences of this phenomenon within nuclear reactors located 19 near open oceans or bays.
20 Cannister inspection technologies, current and new, have been 21 studied aimed at the early detection of chloride-induced stress corrosion 22 cracking. This has been demonstrated at the Pacific Northwest National 23 Laboratory, where inspection methods such as using robotic crawlers to 24 deploy non-destructive examination methods were exercised on a mock
77 1 cannister.
2 Additionally, in the event of identifying a defect attributed to 3 chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking, cold spray mitigation and repair 4 methods have also been assessed, aimed at demonstrating their effectiveness 5 in arresting this degradation mechanism.
6 The Office of Research, along with industry stakeholders, have 7 also supported the development of a new consensus American Society of 8 Mechanical Engineers Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code for establishing the 9 requirements for in-service inspection and acceptance criteria for dry cask 10 storage cannisters.
11 A standardized set of inspection requirements and 12 development of the technical bases for cannister selection and inspection 13 frequency would be a benefit to the business line as it would reduce the 14 number of site-specific aging management program reviews.
15 The NRC assesses public safety and develops regulations 16 through risk-informed and performance-based approaches.
17 For example, feedback from industry has revealed that current 18 guidance for classification of the condition of fuel assemblies may be 19 unnecessarily conservative and practically difficult to implement.
20 This may have led to a wider than necessary use of damaged 21 fuel cannisters. These cannisters are secondary metal containment 22 enclosures used to prevent fuel fragment dispersal within the cask's internal 23 cavity.
24 We are leading the efforts in developing the technical bases
78 1 required for developing new risk-informed, safety-focused guidance for fuel 2 classification during cask loading.
3 Work is also underway to take advantage of potential thermal 4 margins to enable more efficient cask loading while still maintaining the 5 adequate protection of the public and environment.
6 This initiative is guided by performing technical analyses and 7 participating in industry-led phenomena identification and ranking table 8 exercises through expert solicitation related to the decay heat thermal 9 modeling and cladding performance of spent fuel.
10 Results from these efforts are being used to explore how risk 11 insights may be incorporated into our current regulatory framework, which may 12 instill changes to our current approaches for the safe licensing of spent fuel 13 loading into dry cask storage systems.
14 This concludes my presentation, thank you again for the 15 opportunity. I'll now turn it over to Dan.
16 MR. DORMAN: Thank you, Lucas, and thanks to all the 17 panelists.
18 I'd also like to thank all the Headquarters and Region Staff who 19 support the Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation business line and make it 20 a success, and all the Staff who supported the preparation for this meeting.
21 This concludes our presentations and we look forward to your 22 questions.
23 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thanks Dan. Thanks to all of you for 24 your presentations. Certainly, spent fuel storage and transportation is one of
79 1 the most visible and I think often least understood aspects of NRC's mission.
2 So, in that vein, I wanted to do two things. One, I wanted to 3 recognize and applaud the significant public communication efforts that the 4 team has made in this regard in trying to communicate both NRC's sphere of 5 responsibilities as well as some pretty technical information about spent fuel 6 storage and transportation itself, and also how we regulate that.
7 Along those lines, one of the things that's gotten some attention 8 recently is what we call the transportation readiness report.
9 So, Chris, I was just wondering if we could check in for a few 10 minutes about -- I think you touched on it in your presentation, talk a little bit 11 about what that report says?
12 And also, just NRC's overall sphere of responsibilities when it 13 comes to spent fuel transportation.
14 MR. REGAN: Yes, if include go back in my time machine for 15 a couple years and look at some scribblings on a white board for preparing on 16 transportation in light of the consolidated interim storage facilities, really what 17 prompted the effort.
18 And in an interest to be as proactive as possible, in looking at 19 from a regulator's standpoint, were we ready? And then the second piece is 20 do people even understand what our role is?
21 Because of the number of entities that were involved in the safe 22 and secure transportation of spent fuel, there's perhaps I won't say an absence 23 of information but just lack of clarity to some of our external stakeholders.
24 So, the effort on our part was to try and help clarify roles and
80 1 responsibilities, provide a little bit of clarity on the technical aspects of 2 regulations, spent nuclear fuel transportation.
3 And so we undertook the effort, it was a holistic look at all the 4 aspects of communications, the technical bases, the relationships, and get 5 that documented and share that and promulgate that out to our external 6 stakeholders so they could have something to refer to as we move forward.
7 Looking at the communications aspect, it was really an 8 opportunity for us to talk with our external stakeholders, answer questions, use 9 that as a guide for any lines of interest or questions they may have had from 10 us.
11 We started off with some fairly fundamental, there's the 12 National Transportation Stakeholders Forum, which DOE sponsored the 13 organization, its primary role was to engage with external stakeholders on 14 DOE transportation of spent nuclear fuel.
15 But we use that venue to engage with the broader scope of 16 stakeholders, everything from local law enforcement to first responders to 17 DOE representatives, and of particular note, the tribal community.
18 And use that as a starting point to help start that dialog and 19 share that understanding of the results, not only what we found but also the 20 results of our regulatory readiness review.
21 We're continuing that, this is on a continuum, it's not a one and 22 done.
23 In fact, in June the National Transportation Stakeholders Forum 24 is having their annual meeting and we'll be present at that one and we'll
81 1 continue to talk about next steps, what we're doing as a regulator to enhance 2 our program as a result of the recommendations from that regulatory 3 readiness review to ensure that we are ready for the time when the spent fuel 4 starts being transported again.
5 CHAIRMAN HANSON: And so our sphere of responsibility is 6 really around transportation, the packages, and if I remember my 7 transportation correctly there are other entities in the Department of 8 Transportation, et cetera, who may inspect the trailer or the 18-wheeler 9 separately.
10 Do I have that right?
11 MR. REGAN: When we put it in a context of a timeline, for 12 example, with a shipment of spent fuel from one ISFSI to a consolidated 13 storage facility, for example and where it starts and where it ends and who is 14 responsible for that.
15 And yes, you're correct, the NRC is responsible for licensing 16 our certification of the transportation package itself. We would do the 17 inspection to ensure the package is ready for shipment.
18 And in large part, DOT would take over that transportation 19 evolution from the point of origin until it arrives at a destination. And then we 20 start again with the receipt inspections, receipt of the packaging and then re-21 emplacement into a new storage configuration.
22 So, you've got the Part 72 regulations at point of origin, Part 71 23 regulations for the packaging, and then the Part 72 regulations again at the 24 backend when it actually gets in place with the new destination.
82 1 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thank you, that's really helpful.
2 Have we ever had a situation where we've done storage, transport, storage 3 for a cask? Is there anything special that needs to be done with amendment 4 of certificates of compliance or other things?
5 MR. REGAN: I don't recall specifically if it's been from dry 6 storage to dry storage but transportation of spent fuel is not something that's 7 new. There have been licensees, I think back in the 1970s and 1980s, that 8 moved spent fuel from one facility to another.
9 So, it's not a new evolution and industry likes to tout the fact 10 that this is something they're familiar with, that they have experience with in 11 the past. Could you repeat the second part of your question?
12 CHAIRMAN HANSON: You're capturing it, that's pretty 13 helpful. You had mentioned dry storage, transport to dry storage, that there 14 might be a little twist in there, but overall, transport is something we've done 15 quite a lot of obviously.
16 We have both within the utility fleet itself, we know this has 17 happened and also, utilities utilizing something like GE-Morris, for example, 18 and other facilities. So, I think that helps. Dan, did you want to jump in?
19 MR. DORMAN: I would just also note that in the international 20 community, there's a lot of experience with movement of spent fuel. So, we 21 have colleagues internationally that we can draw on their experience as well.
22 CHAIRMAN HANSON: With regards to Project Pele, I think 23 this is really interesting and kind of a twist. Spent fuel is one thing, we know 24 it's spent and we have things, as a technical term, inside the cask to prevent
83 1 criticality and we control criticality very carefully.
2 Pele is a fully loaded microreactor, it wouldn't have to be Pele 3 but any microreactor under transport.
4 Are there efforts to look at our regulations and evaluate those 5 for the readiness for something like Project Pele?
6 Could maybe one of you expand on that?
7 MR. REGAN: I'll start off in a broad sense, it's a transportation 8 package required to meet the requirements of Part 71. We have technical 9 Staff that are looking at what we might receive from the applicant.
10 Under the regulations of Part 71, there is the option for using a 11 probabilistic risk assessment approach, which we understand they intend to 12 take. And we have Staff with expertise in PRA who are ready to entertain 13 that.
14 As far as the process goes, maybe perhaps if I can invite Chris 15 Markley who's going to be on the licensing end, he can add some details on 16 the process and perhaps the timeline of what we might expect to receive from 17 Department of Defense by way of an application.
18 Chris?
19 MR. MARKLEY: Yes, I can help out there, Chris. Talking 20 about Project Pele obviously, it's a unique situation. It's the first of a kind, we 21 havent approved transport of a mobile micro-reactor up to this point.
22 But from our understanding of the approach we think they plan 23 on taking, our framework can accommodate it.
24 As Chris alluded to, there's the probabilistic risk assessment
84 1 approach that they could take and there is precedent for unique situations that 2 we've approved previously. For example, the Trojan reactor vessel, that was 3 approved with exemptions.
4 So, there are tools they can use. Our main role right now, is 5 just staying informed and trying to keep an understanding of what's going on 6 with the Strategic Capabilities Office and Department of Defense as we move 7 forward.
8 I know they're still working out how exactly they want to apply 9 this risk-informed approach so we expect to review any reports they're 10 developing just to get a sense of what direction they're going and comment as 11 appropriate.
12 As Chris mentioned, we do teams throughout the agency and 13 NMSS; we have rulemaking, environmental folks, financial folks, we have 14 technical experts in the Division of Fuel Management, Office of Research is 15 helping with the PRA aspects, NRR is involved.
16 So, it is an interagency effort and we're coordinating quite well.
17 And I think as you're aware, obviously, on Thursday they will be coming in for 18 a Commission briefing so more technical details will probably be potentially 19 available then.
20 Hopefully that helps.
21 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Great. Very much. Thank you both, 22 I really appreciate it. Commissioner Baran?
23 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thanks. Well, I think it's been an 24 interesting discussion on the spent fuel transportation issues.
85 1 I recently met with the Prairie Island Indian Community Tribal 2 Council and like many communities hosting nuclear power plants, they're 3 interested in seeing a disposal option for spent nuclear fuel and they raised 4 some broad concerns about the level of tribal involvement along transportation 5 routes if spent nuclear fuel moves from one storage facility to another.
6 When I say broad, I just mean not specific to them. I think they 7 were interested in other tribes as well. What's the Staff's current thinking 8 about the appropriate role of tribal governments in spent fuel transportation?
9 Should tribes be automatically notified of shipments rather than 10 being required to opt in? And what kind of tribal participation is envisioned 11 for future spent fuel transportation regardless of the destination?
12 MR. REGAN: I'll see if I can, you've got quite a few questions 13 embedded in there, or at least areas of interest.
14 I mentioned earlier the value of the opportunity of engaging with 15 the tribal community and we use the Transportation and Radioactive Materials 16 Tribal Committee as one venue to engage with the tribal community.
17 And I think early on, at least from a very personal perspective, 18 the value of those face-to-face relationships can't be underscored how 19 important those are.
20 I know probably in reference there was a tabletop exercise 21 conducted a couple of years ago to speak specifically to potential 22 transportation and the local tribal community was involved in that. There was 23 feedback I heard that they found that extremely valuable as well.
24 As far as the communications and the engagement, like I said,
86 1 the opportunity to engage with the Committee involves a large array of tribal 2 individuals from across the nation to use that venue.
3 He mentioned notifications, is there options for notifying the 4 tribal community? In opting into the program specifically, the benefit of that 5 is the control of safeguards information. It's critical.
6 We want to be sure that whoever is in receipt of information 7 related to transportation has the proper controls and framework in place to 8 handle that information.
9 Similarly, notifications from the Agency, we don't want to 10 surprise the tribe, we don't want to surprise any individuals. We want to make 11 sure they're prepared for the information we might be providing them and they 12 know what to do with it.
13 The organizations that ship the material are required by 14 regulation to notify anyone along the transportation route, and that would 15 include the tribes. So, there is that mechanism, there is a notification.
16 But as I may have mentioned earlier, just developing those 17 relationships with the tribal community as a regulator are important to open 18 those channels of communication.
19 As far as individual tribes, a lot of it rests with the tribe as far as 20 how much they want to engage and where their interests are in becoming 21 aware of transportation in their community and on their tribal lands.
22 So, it really is about relationships and forging those solid 23 relationships with our counterparts in the tribal communities.
24 COMMISSIONER BARAN: That's helpful. And in terms of
87 1 the question about whether tribes should need to opt in, under our regulations 2 is it different treatment for a tribal government than a state or local 3 government?
4 Are they the only ones who have to opt in and if that's the case, 5 why is that given the safeguards issues you raised and just the readiness 6 issues?
7 MR. REGAN: My understanding is that program is focused 8 primarily on the tribal communities and establishing a framework for their 9 ability to handle SGI material. It is something that is optional for them.
10 We do communicate, we send letters out to the tribal 11 communities every five years to remind them and urge them that opting in has 12 its benefits.
13 And we've also received feedback explicitly from those that 14 have opted into the program that it's not very burdensome for them to run 15 through that program, to set up the framework where they can receive those 16 notifications and ensure they can handle the material they receive in an 17 appropriate manner.
18 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Going back to comparing them to 19 states or non-tribal local communities, is there a difference in what information 20 they're receiving or the process by which they must receive it?
21 MR. REGAN: As far as the information, most of it obviously is 22 associated with the transportation routes, transportation logistics, and that 23 information, obviously, the importance is on the first responders because in 24 the unfortunate event that there's an issue, it's the folks that are along that
88 1 transportation route that would need to be made aware.
2 So, that's really a driver for that and I mentioned during the 3 National Transportation Stakeholders Forum the presence of local law 4 enforcement and first responders.
5 So, those folks should be and would be made aware of 6 transportation through their jurisdictions when the time comes.
7 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Historically we've had a situation 8 where dry casks of identical design at a site have different certificates of 9 compliance due to different amendments so sites can end up with multiple sets 10 of licensing documentation at a single storage facility, even if all the casks are 11 the same design.
12 Chris Markley, you talked about a bit about what the graded 13 approach the NRC Staff is taking to address that situation.
14 Can you tell us more about how the pilot worked and what the 15 results were?
16 MR. MARKLEY: I'd be happy to. The pilot, we completed the 17 pilot amendment application in August of 2020 and we looked at some of the 18 results and some of the results were pretty standard for an amendment review.
19 In terms of general re-emphasizing, we want to make sure we have realistic 20 expectations in what we're looking at, clearly communicate roles and 21 responsibilities. One thing that did come out of is identifying challenging and 22 cross-cutting issues early on in the review process.
23 In thinking about the connections of all these different tools we 24 have at our disposal, we have for example the risk tool that we had recently
89 1 piloted and bring this discussion and identify those issues.
2 We agree with NEI, we've made progress in the storage 3 licensing process and there are benefits and it has improved things. We do 4 have three amendment applications in house using this graded approach.
5 We look at it just as an additional streamlining tool. We use 6 the criteria from the graded approach to revise and simplify certificates of 7 compliance.
8 Regarding the multiple certificates of compliance at sites, that 9 would be something should industry want to move forward and reduce the 10 number of certificates of compliance, they could come in with applications and 11 we'd be more than willing to review.
12 And they could use the graded approach to try and simplify as 13 well. Hopefully that helps a little.
14 COMMISSIONER BARAN: It does and just to that point, I was 15 trying to get a sense of whether these efforts that's going to apply purely to 16 certificates of compliance going forward or whether there's something there 17 that would address the existing disparities in the various licensing documents?
18 Is that being contemplated, trying to rationalize that a bit or is 19 that just a possibility if someone came through the door with an application 20 along those lines?
21 MR. MARKLEY: That's definitely a possibility for specific 22 licenses for storage under Part 72 and looking at it under Part 71, I don't see 23 why under transportation, they can apply that as well.
24 The graded approach uses criteria and if you meet the criteria
90 1 you can try and simplify the certificate or the license in the case of specific 2 licenses. I'm not aware of anyone looking to apply that to anything beyond 3 these storage certificates of compliance at this time.
4 But again, I think that's something we could accommodate.
5 COMMISSIONER BARAN: I also wanted to ask briefly about 6 advanced reactor fuel. A number of advanced reactor designs contemplate 7 very different fuel types obviously, than we're used to seeing for large light 8 water reactors.
9 Can someone give us an update on the efforts associated with 10 certifying transportation packages for fresh and spent advanced reactor fuel?
11 The presentation seemed to focus more on ATF. I'm interested in the 12 advanced reactor side.
13 MR. REGAN: Maybe I'll start off. When we talk about the 14 transportation of ATF, our primary focus in the near term was on fresh fuel.
15 Would we have or were there certified package designs that 16 were suitable for the transportation of sufficient volumes or quantity of ATF in 17 support of industrys needs?
18 We had package designs that were certified and licensed for 19 those lead test assemblies. Those were done and looking at the package 20 designs for larger batch loads was an area of focus for us.
21 In a broad sense, we didn't identify any gaps in our regulatory 22 framework. It's broad enough that we feel confident that we can license what 23 industry might provide to us in those package designs. Amendments or 24 revisions to existing designs are suitable for being able to support that.
91 1 What we may see a need for, and I've expanded scope a little 2 bit beyond just ATF, advanced reactor fuels is because of the diversity of the 3 designs, there probably is going to be a need for us to modify or revise our 4 internal review guidance to address some of the particular nuances of the 5 fresh fuel designs that we may actually end up having to license for 6 transportation.
7 COMMISSIONER BARAN: So, it sounds like on the 8 advanced side there's some work to be done there?
9 MR. REGAN: Clarity, and again, to make our reviews more 10 effective and perhaps more efficient as we look at the individual nuances of 11 each particular design.
12 MR. LEWIS: Commissioner, if I could just add one point? As 13 Chris said in his talk, every chance we get we encourage people to come for 14 pre-application meetings and that includes the advanced reactor community.
15 But they're not at the point where they could propose their fuel 16 design where we could do a fuel package. However, people are coming to 17 us for higher enrichments, which does support advanced reactor as well as 18 ATF.
19 So, I think in that space, were meeting the needs of the 20 industry.
21 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Commissioner Wright?
23 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Chris, I'm going to come to you 24 first here.
92 1 You talked about proactive engagement with vendors and 2 suppliers supporting ATF to ensure they had accounted for the time necessary 3 for licensing actions on transportation package certifications.
4 So, assuming that the NRC receives a high-quality application, 5 how much time does it take the NRC Staff to review the license applications?
6 And does it vary by fuel design?
7 MR. REGAN: I don't think it'll vary much by fuel design 8 because we're really looking at the package and the packaging itself. We do 9 have our NEIMA metrics that we communicate with licensees and applicants 10 on what they might expect for license review.
11 And maybe I'll rely on Chris Markely a little bit to help me out 12 on the specifics, but I think it's on the order of 24 months for a typical 13 transportation licensing review evolution.
14 I'd like to say we always try and do better but I think that's the 15 metric that we target.
16 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Chris, do you have anything to 17 add to that?
18 MR. MARKLEY: No, in terms of the transportation, I don't 19 know off the top of my head what the metric is for that. I do know storage is 20 36 months for what it's worth.
21 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you. Chris, I'm going to 22 stay with you, Markley, how about that? You mentioned spent fuel licensing 23 support for Project Pele and we've had a little discussion surrounding that 24 today but what kind of support is your Branch providing?
93 1 And do you need any additional resources to support that 2 effort?
3 MR. MARKLEY: At the moment, I'm in the Licensing Branch, 4 we have a person dedicated to the NRC team and we put him in meetings.
5 And at this point, it's still more of an information gathering 6 because again, I don't think they have actually even selected their final choice 7 where someone could be developing a microreactor.
8 So, there's still a lot of uncertainty, at this point I don't think we 9 need additional resources but if there is something in the future we'll obviously 10 let the Commission know it's needed.
11 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you, I hope you do. Mr.
12 Regan, I'll come back to you. We have a SECY-21-0101, the Staff identified 13 three potential policy issues that may require attention or direction from the 14 Commission related to the NRC's readiness for oversight of large-scale 15 commercial transportation of spent nuclear fuel, and those three were 16 involvement of tribes along the routes, transportation of older spent nuclear 17 fuel that is no longer self-protective and updating the 1984 policy statement 18 on transport of radioactive materials.
19 Do you have any updates on those issues and when the Staff 20 may seek Commission action on this?
21 MR. REGAN: I seem to be very popular with the questions 22 this morning.
23 I'll start off with just an overview of one of the benefits of being 24 as proactive as we were with this transportation regulatory readiness review
94 1 is we have time.
2 The policy issues that were identified, we'll look at those as far 3 as the prioritization goes. A specific timeline of when the Commission might 4 be in receipt of recommendations from the Staff at this time, we don't have a 5 specific schedule.
6 We looked at some of the recommendations, or at least the 7 outcomes, from that transportation regulatory readiness review and it really 8 was just to set the stage for what we might need to do in the future.
9 But as far as the implementation plan, that's still something the 10 Staff is assessing on how to work those enhancements and when to engage 11 the Commission on those policy issues.
12 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Lucas, good morning. You 13 mentioned ongoing collaborations with DOE and EPRI on research of high 14 burnup fuel storage. Can you maybe summarize the results of the research?
15 What have we learned?
16 Is there any particular issue or issues that are critical to a path 17 forward on this storage?
18 MR. KYRIAZIDIS: The NRC collaborates with EPRI through 19 participation in EPRI's Extended Storage Collaboration Project, and ESCP is 20 broadly a group of organizations that aim to investigate the technical bases to 21 ensure the continued safe and long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel.
22 So, our interactions with EPRI really look like attending periodic 23 meetings to share research findings, maintain awareness of activities that 24 NRC is directly a part of, like the high burnup demonstration cask project that
95 1 you mentioned, and organize and execute special tasks, like the industry-led 2 parts I mentioned earlier and Chris mentioned.
3 So, all these activities really aim to identify and close technical 4 gaps that are related to dry storage.
5 And the high burnup demonstration project is one of them, 6 where it's providing additional confirmatory data that will potentially help 7 license or extend dry cask storage systems and facilities.
8 So, the way we'll use that data is inform the licensing action but 9 also inform our confirmatory codes and validated suite of computer codes like 10 FAST.
11 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Chairman, that's all I've got.
12 Three more minutes until lunch for you all.
13 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Wright.
14 Thank you all very, very much for a very good discussion. I think both panels 15 as usual, we see this a lot in NMSS where we cover really a lot of ground on 16 a lot of topics that are of keen interest to the public and I appreciate everyone's 17 presentations. Thank you for the ongoing work of both of these groups in 18 NMSS for thinking ahead, thinking innovatively, deploying new tools, and 19 continuing to protect the public and the environment; it's the foundation of our 20 mission.
21 And thanks to my colleagues, I think between the three of us 22 again we covered a lot of real estate as well, which is the way it's supposed to 23 work. And I appreciate that very much. So, with that, we're adjourned.
24 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at
96 1 11:35 a.m.)