ML22321A289
| ML22321A289 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 11/10/2022 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| M221110 | |
| Download: ML22321A289 (56) | |
Text
1
UNITED STATES
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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BRIEFING ON NRC INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITIES
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THURSDAY,
NOVEMBER 10, 2022
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The Commission met in the Commissioners' Hearing
Room, One White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland, at 10:00 a.m.,
Christopher T. Hanson, Chair, presiding.
COMMISSION MEMBERS:
CHRISTOPHER T. HANSON, Chair
JEFF BARAN, Commissioner
DAVID A. WRIGHT, Commissioner
ANNIE CAPUTO, Commissioner
BRADLEY R. CROWELL, Commissioner
ALSO PRESENT:
BROOKE P. CLARK, Secretary of the Commission
MARIAN ZOBLER, General Counsel
2
NRC STAFF:
LUIS BETANCOURT, Acting Technical Assistant, Office
of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
DANIEL DORMAN, Executive Director for Operations
PETER HABIGHORST, Chief, Export Controls and
Nonproliferation Branch, Office of
International Programs
DAVID SKEEN, Acting Director, Office of
International Programs
1 3
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 10:00 a.m.
3 CHAIR HANSON: Good morning, everyone. I convene
4 this public meeting on the NRC's international activities. It' s very important to
5 keep the public informed of the agency's developments in this a rea, so I thank
6 you all for supporting this meeting today and I'm looking forwa rd to a great
7 conversation.
8 We'll hear from one small panel. We've had both ends of
9 the spectrum this week. I think we maybe had a total of 13 or maybe even
10 14 panelists on Tuesday. We've got two today.
11 Before we start, though, I'll ask my fellow Commissioners if
12 they have any remarks they'd like to make.
13 (No response.)
14 CHAIR HANSON: Okay. With that, we'll begin with Dave
15 Skeen, the acting Director of the Office of International Progr ams. Dave, the
16 floor is yours.
17 MR. SKEEN: Well, good morning, Chair Hanson and
18 Commissioners. It is a real pleasure for me to be here today w ith Dan
19 Dorman, our Executive Director for Operations, to jointly prese nt to you the
20 accomplishments and priorities of the agency's international pr ograms.
21 As you may know, in years past, the Commission did hold
22 annual public briefings on the international programs, and, wit h the increased
23 interest that we're seeing in nuclear energy around the world, we are pleased
24 to have this opportunity to reinstate that practice today.
4
1 Next slide. So Dan and I plan to cover the NRC's
2 international program accomplishments from fiscal year 2022 at a high level
3 and then also address the agency's programmatic priorities for the fiscal year
4 in 2023. Our remarks will be organized into five main categori es, and that
5 includes conventions and treaties, export licensing, internatio nal assistance,
6 international cooperation, and cooperative research. For each category, we
7 will emphasize how our engagements are targeted to meet the obj ectives set
8 forth in the NRC's international strategy.
9 For the benefit of our newer commissioners and for the
10 members of the public who are joining us today, the NRC staff p ublished the
11 most recent International Strategy in 2021, and it is publicly available on the
12 NRC's public website. The strategy was developed after extensi ve input
13 from NRC senior leadership, as well as our colleagues from arou nd the
14 Executive Branch. The strategy has five strategic objectives, and that is to
15 excel in executing our international program activities, to int egrate NRC's
16 international interactions with the efforts of the State Depart ment and other
17 federal agencies, and to partner with countries of strategic im portance to the
18 NRC and the broader U.S. government. Also, to lead by sharing NRC's vast
19 regulatory experience with our international counterparts and a ssist other
20 countries who want to strengthen their nuclear regulatory progr ams.
21 These five objectives of the international strategy
22 supplement the references to the agency's international engagem ent that are
23 included in the NRC's strategic plan and serve to demonstrate t he strong
24 connection between our international programs and both the agen cy's 5
1 domestic mission and the broader U.S. government's foreign poli cy and
2 national security objectives. As we go through the slides this morning, you
3 will see that we noted which strategic objectives are supported by the work in
4 each of the main categories.
5 Next slide, please. So as I mentioned at the outset, we bin
6 the NRC's international activities into five high-level categor ies. These
7 categories are consistent with the way the information was hist orically
8 presented during the public international briefings to the Comm ission in the
9 past. The activities listed here represent resources and exper tise from
10 across the entire agency across a very broad variety of both te chnical and
11 non-technical disciplines.
12 Throughout the rest of our presentation, we will be
13 discussing in more detail our accomplishments and priorities in each of these
14 areas. First, I will cover our work in conventions and treatie s, export
15 licensing, and our international regulatory assistance. Then I 'll turn the floor
16 over to Dan to cover our bilateral and multilateral cooperation activities and
17 our international nuclear safety research program.
18 But before I move on, I just wanted to highlight the photos
19 on this particular slide. The top photo there is Chair Hanson in a bilateral
20 meeting with his counterpart from Ghana, as a matter of fact, a t the IAEA
21 general conference this year. That's just one of the many bila teral meetings
22 he had with head regulators during that week.
23 The middle photograph is actually one of our Region I
24 employees, Don Jackson, with some of his students in Egypt. Do n served as 6
1 an instructor at the IAEA School for Nuclear and Radiological L eadership.
2 It's a training course to help train new regulators. And the N RC was heavily
3 involved in developing this course with the IAEA. In fact, the y requested the
4 NRC to help them develop this course, and it's been very succes sful. And so
5 we appreciate Don and Region I for allowing Don to participate.
6 Also, the bottom photo you see there, that is, again, Chair
7 Hanson is there with a cohort of six of the Polish assignees at the Plant
8 Vogtle site. The assignees came and spent six weeks at the NRC, including
9 doing some formal training at the Technical Training Center in Chattanooga
10 and then spending time with our folks in Region II, as well as NRC
11 Headquarters for some on-the-job training, and then finally som e time at the
12 Vogtle plant. And as it turns out, that was fortuitous because they have now
13 selected to build three AP1000s in Poland.
14 So I'll start with the conventions and treaties and just at a
15 high level. So the convention and treaties category represents the
16 legally-mandated activities as specified in binding internation al treaties that
17 the United States government has. In addition to fulfilling th e excel objective
18 in our international strategy, our engagement in this category also enables us
19 to demonstrate leadership in the international community and al so integrate
20 our activities with the broader U.S. government policy prioriti es.
21 The NRC plays a critical role in the U.S. government's
22 implementation of its legally-binding obligations. In fiscal y ear 2022, the
23 NRC, and specifically the NMSS folks and OIP, supported the Sev enth
24 Review Meeting of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent F uel 7
1 Management and Radioactive Waste. NRC representatives served i n
2 leadership roles at this meeting as a country group chairman, a s well as a
3 country group coordinator, and also delivered the U.S. national report
4 presentation along with the Department of Energy.
5 The NRC also, led by NRR, prepared and submitted on
6 behalf of the United States the national report for the next re view meeting of
7 the Convention on Nuclear Safety. Both of these triennial revi ew meetings
8 were postponed in the last few years due to the pandemic and th e inability of
9 folks to travel to meet in person.
10 The NRC staff and management also played central roles in
11 the first ever review meeting of the amended Convention on the Physical
12 Protection of Nuclear Materials. The OIP also represented the NRC on the
13 U.S. delegation to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference
14 this year in New York, and NSIR participated in the meeting of competent
15 authorities for both the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident
16 and the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accid ent or
17 Radiological Emergency.
18 On the safeguards side, the staff continued its
19 implementation activities under the U.S. IAEA Safeguards Agreem ent.
20 Obligations under this agreement include providing information to the IAEA on
21 the location of civilian nuclear facilities and providing acces s to those facilities
22 to conduct inspections. Activities included serving as the cha ir of the
23 subgroup on IAEA safeguards in the U.S., supporting the DOE's I nternational
24 Nuclear Safeguards Engagement Program, and supporting an IAEA 8
1 verification visit to licensees in Puerto Rico reporting under the U.S. IAEA
2 Safeguards Agreement for the Caribbean territories.
3 Returning to the Convention on Nuclear Safety, we'll talk
4 about the priorities for 2023. As the lead federal agency for the Convention
5 on Nuclear Safety, the NRC will lead the delegation to the next review
6 meeting in March of 2023. Chair Hanson will present the U.S. n ational report
7 with the support from the Executive Director of Operations, as well as from
8 the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations who will represent th e industry.
9 And we will have staff participating in each of the country gro ups during the
10 review meeting.
11 The CNS review meetings provide a critical opportunity for
12 nuclear regulators to peer review one another's regulatory prog rams, identify
13 good practices, and recommend areas for improvement where neces sary.
14 On the security side, we will continue to work closely with
15 the Executive Branch to advocate to universalize the amended CP PNM,
16 Convention for Physical Protection. The NRC will also co-chair the triennial
17 meeting of the Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Ra dioactive
18 Sources. While the code is not legally binding internationally, the United
19 States has made a political commitment to it.
20 Moving to export licensing, in FY22, as the U.S. licensing
21 authority for exports of nuclear material, components, and equi pment, the
22 NRC plays a critical role in meeting U.S. non-proliferation and peaceful uses
23 obligations under the non-proliferation treaty. Our primary ob jective is
24 maintaining a licensing process that is stable, predictable, an d transparent.
9
1 To that end, we prioritize frequent engagement with both our li censees and
2 our Executive Branch colleagues to ensure that our process is w ell
3 understood and applications can be reviewed in a timely manner.
4 In fiscal year 2022, the NRC completed 62 licensing actions
5 with more than 90 percent of those completed within 60 days of receiving the
6 Executive Branch views. OIP receives outstanding support and i nput from
7 NMSS, NSIR, and OGC on all export licensing reviews.
8 Our staff also conducted a variety of outreach activities at
9 conferences such as the Institute for Nuclear Materials Managem ent and the
10 annual National Conference of Radiation Control Directors. Als o, at training
11 courses for U.S. government employees, such as the Department o f Energy's
12 non-proliferation seminar. Also, in multinational fora, such a s the IAEA's
13 International Conference on the Safety and Security of Radioact ive Sources
14 and also to congressional staff on Capitol Hill.
15 We also continue our support for the Nuclear Suppliers
16 Group, which implements international export controls for nucle ar materials
17 and equipment. Changes made to the Nuclear Suppliers Group gui delines
18 result in commensurate changes to our own 10 CFR Part 110 regul ation, so
19 the staff must work closely with international colleagues in ne gotiations to
20 ensure that any changes do not conflict with NRC's equities. O ur
21 participation in these activities is key to the success of U.S. policy.
22 Finally, the NRC continues its close engagement with the
23 National Security Council, the Department of State and Departme nt of
24 Energy, and other U.S. government partners in policymaking disc ussions with 10
1 potential impacts on NRC's export and import licensing activiti es. This
2 engagement included NRC participation in negotiations for bilat eral
3 agreements for civil nuclear cooperation under Section 123 of t he Atomic
4 Energy Act, which we refer to as 123 agreements, as well as det ailing an
5 NRC staff member to the State Department to work on export lice nsing from
6 the Executive Branch's perspective.
7 Turning to FY23 priorities, the NRC's export and import
8 licensing program is required by the Atomic Energy Act, so our top priority
9 every year is to prepare to license exports of advanced reactor s. Just as on
10 the domestic side, our technical staff is engaged in pre-applic ation
11 discussions to obtain important information and ask questions u p-front, the
12 OIP staff works closely with the NRC technical offices and our Executive
13 Branch colleagues, as well as the potential applicants, to ensu re that we have
14 a robust understanding of the various reactor designs.
15 We are also continuing our engagement with our
16 counterparts in partner supplier countries to help ensure that international
17 export control guidelines reflect the additional proliferation nuances that these
18 new designs may bring. We are also working to ensure we have a dequate
19 resources to support upcoming physical protection bilateral vis its.
20 And, finally, we will continue to work closely with our
21 Executive Branch partners on policy development activities that could impact
22 NRC export or import equities. For example, in the recent past, information
23 about China's misuse of U.S. nuclear technology resulted in a d evelopment of
24 a policy restricting certain exports to China. And, currently, Russian 11
1 aggression in Ukraine is causing the U.S. government to focus o n improving
2 the domestic nuclear fuel supply.
3 The last area I will cover before turning things over to Dan is
4 the NRC's international regulatory assistance activities. The NRC's
5 international regulatory assistance activities strengthen globa l nuclear safety
6 and security and align closely with U.S. government foreign pol icy and
7 national security priorities. Through our assistance efforts, we aim to
8 positively, independently, and in technically competent ways ma ke sure that
9 these new entrant countries can develop their nuclear regulator y programs in
10 accordance with, mirrors the key principles of the NRC's infras tructure and
11 regulatory approaches. This, in turn, contributes to nuclear p ower and
12 radioactive materials being used more safely and securely aroun d the world.
13 While we are an independent agency, we work closely with
14 the Executive Branch to ensure that we are prioritizing our ass istance work
15 consistent with broader U.S. government objectives. A great ex ample of this
16 is our work with the Polish Atomic Energy Agency. The NRC has hosted
17 Polish regulatory executives and 12 international assignees at the Technical
18 Training Center, at our headquarters office, in Region II, and Vogtle. This
19 one-year effort has allowed our Polish counterparts to immerse themselves
20 on daily NRC activities associated with new reactor licensing, construction,
21 and plant start-up. Supporting this activity has been a signif icant effort
22 involving numerous offices, including NRR, Region II, OCHCO, th e folks at
23 the Technical Training Center, and OCIO. It demonstrates the N RC's
24 commitment to help prepare the Polish regulator to license and regulate their 12
1 first nuclear power plant.
2 As the Executive Branch seeks to limit Russian influence in
3 the civil nuclear market, Eastern European countries like Polan d have
4 become important partners.
5 Our international assistance work also touches U.S.
6 government foreign policy priorities in other ways, particularl y when there are
7 emergent geopolitical issues affecting nuclear equities. In fi scal year 2022,
8 we responded quickly to the continuing Russian aggression in Uk raine by
9 leveraging our relationships across the U.S. government, coordi nating with
10 international counterparts, and working with other NRC offices to facilitate
11 information sharing, address urgent technical questions and req uests for
12 information, and quickly commit funding to the IAEA to support Ukrainian
13 regulatory counterparts.
14 We are also working closely with the Department of State
15 as it implements its foundational infrastructure for the respon sible use of small
16 modular reactor technology. I know that's a mouthful, so we ca ll it FIRST,
17 the FIRST program.
18 The State Department highlights FIRST as a
19 capacity-building program designed to deepen strategic ties, su pport energy
20 innovation, and advance technical collaboration with partner na tions on
21 secure and safe nuclear energy infrastructure. Through our eng agement
22 efforts, we help ensure synergies between our engagement in the FIRST
23 program to target countries' and states' efforts, highlighting the importance of
24 credible safety regulation to the success of fledgling nuclear energy 13
1 programs.
2 On the radioactive source and safety side, in fiscal year '22,
3 we completed three radioactive source inventory phases in Afric a. This
4 phased approach refers to the work that the NRC staff and contr actors do to
5 help our assistance partners establish and maintain a national radioactive
6 source registry. As each registry can take months due to the g eographic
7 size of the country and the number of sources, we conduct them in phases.
8 Generally, we start in the country's capital and then begin mov ing out to other
9 regions in subsequent phases.
10 We also worked in FY22 with the government of Tanzania
11 to develop some new transport security regulations in that coun try.
12 Our international assistance work also touches U.S.
13 government foreign policy priorities in other ways. I think I' ve already
14 covered that. Sorry about that. Let's go to slide 11.
15 So we have three main priorities for our international
16 regulatory assistance work in fiscal year 2023. First, we will continue to
17 integrate our assistance activities with U.S. government foreig n policy
18 priorities and, in particular, we will support high-priority re quests from the
19 Executive Branch related to the global deployment of new reacto rs. With
20 Poland's recent announcement of its decision to construct three
21 Westinghouse AP1000 units, we expect that our engagement with t he Polish
22 regulator will continue to increase. This will be impactful bo th from a safety
23 perspective and a policy perspective, as our work will directly assist Poland in
24 starting up its nuclear program as safety as possible with the benefits of our 14
1 expertise, which has the added impact of reducing Russian influ ence in the
2 Eastern European region.
3 Second, we will continue to help embarking countries
4 develop their regulatory infrastructure to enable them to regul ate nuclear and
5 radioactive material use safely and securely. And, finally, th e NRC's
6 regulatory assistance program w ill continue to support countrie s in developing
7 national radiological source inventories, particularly in high threat regions of
8 the world.
9 Our work in this area, combined with our engagement with
10 regulatory bodies under the Code of Conduct on the Safety and S ecurity of
11 Radioactive Sources strengthens both safety and security worldw ide. It
12 reduces proliferation risk and facilitates expanded access to t he peaceful
13 uses of nuclear technology. These are all key obligations unde r the nuclear
14 non-proliferation treaty.
15 In addition to these important areas, the NRC will continue
16 its strong support for nuclear safety and security in Ukraine t o continue close
17 engagement with our interagency and international partners.
18 So with that, I will invite Dan to share his thoughts and
19 insights from our international cooperation and research areas.
20 MR. DORMAN: Thank you, Dave. It's my pleasure to talk
21 to you today about our many accomplishments and priorities in t he areas
22 Dave just mentioned. The NRC's international cooperative engag ement
23 benefits our domestic mission in a wide variety of technical an d nontechnical
24 disciplines. It also enables the NRC to share our expertise an d demonstrate 15
1 leadership to strengthen other regulatory programs around the w orld.
2 International cooperation activities fulfill nearly every one o f
3 our international strategic objectives and involve a broad rang e of NRC
4 offices, both headquarters and region and both technical progra m and
5 corporate offices.
6 As you can see on this slide, there's a great number of
7 committees, peer reviews, working groups, and other engagements that make
8 up our international cooperation. I suggested to staff we do a word cloud on
9 this one to capture the breadth and diversity, as well as the e ssence of all that
10 we do here in one place.
11 In fiscal '22, NRC managers and staff led or participated in
12 all of the International Atomic Energy Agency and committees re sponsible for
13 the development, revision, and approval of safety standards and security
14 guidance. We participated in 13 IAEA peer review missions and preparatory
15 meetings, including leading the International Physical Protecti on Advisory
16 Service mission in the Czech Republic and a follow-up Integrate d Regulatory
17 Review Service meeting in Zimbabwe and providing a deputy team leader for
18 the IRRS missions to Argentina and India.
19 I want to highlight the expertise that our regional offices
20 bring to the table in this area. Five of the peer review missi on participants in
21 the last fiscal year were from the regions. At the Organizatio n for Economic
22 Cooperation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency, we led and
23 participated in standing technical committees responsible for s etting the
24 NEA's budget and program of work and publishing technical posit ions to 16
1 strengthen nuclear safety regulation in a variety of areas, inc luding reactor
2 oversight, waste management, radiation protection and public he alth, safety
3 culture, risk reduction, human factors, and others. The staff has also led
4 cooperative engagement and training development in the areas of risk
5 communication and nuclear law.
6 Under the Memorandum of Cooperation on Advanced
7 Reactor and Small Modular Reactor Technologies, the NRC staff s uccessfully
8 collaborated with our Canadian colleagues on advanced reactor t opics and
9 issued unified positions through first-of-a-kind joint reports. This past
10 September, the NRC and CNSC, our Canadian counterparts, signed a charter
11 documenting collaboration on a new project associated with GE H itachi's
12 BWRX-300 design. Ontario Power Generation and the Tennessee Va lley
13 Authority are working together on the industry side to share ex perience and
14 enhance design standardization. NRC and CNSC agreed that the i nitial
15 topics of cooperation will be in the areas of advanced construc tion
16 techniques, safety strategy, and pre-qualified fuel verificatio n and validation.
17 The NRC-CNSC is intended to reduce duplication of
18 licensing review efforts, jointly utilize third-party verificat ion, identify areas for
19 collaborative verification, share expertise, and leverage analy sis performed by
20 each regulatory organization.
21 The staff has also collaborated extensively with regulatory
22 counterparts in Canada, Finland, France, Japan, the Republic of Korea,
23 South Africa, Spain, and the United Kingdom on operator licensi ng
24 benchmarking activities to help inform the development of the P art 53 17
1 rulemaking, which will establish a new transformative regulator y framework
2 consistent with the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act.
3 On the security side, the staff has engaged in cooperative
4 discussions with the UK, Canada, France, Japan, and the Republi c of Korea
5 on security-related topics, such as drones and oversight activi ties related to
6 the force-on-force program. These are all prime examples of ho w the NRC's
7 international engagement is essential in strengthening and info rming our
8 domestic activities.
9 Finally, in the past year, we have welcomed international
10 assignees from Japan, Poland, and the Republic of Korea to work alongside
11 NRC staff for on-the-job training and experience. These highly -qualified
12 experts contribute to our work as much as they learn from us.
13 The next slide. It will not be a surprise to hear that the
14 main priorities for the NRC internationally align closely with our domestic
15 priorities. This presents opportunities, as well as challenges. In the
16 opportunities category, international cooperative engagement en ables us to
17 share expertise with regulatory partners and multilateral organ izations,
18 demonstrate leadership to influence the direction and content o f international
19 standards and guidance, and learn from our counterparts in ways that
20 enhance our domestic reviews. Our cooperative work directly al igns with
21 most of our international strategic objectives across a wide ra nge of technical
22 topics.
23 In the challenges category, the same experts who are
24 leading domestic projects are sought after internationally for their knowledge 18
1 and expertise. This makes it especially critical that we prior itize our activities
2 appropriately so that our domesti c work is not adversely impact ed.
3 We expect an increasing number of requests for
4 engagement focused on SMRs and advanced reactors. Bilaterally, we will
5 continue our joint technical review work with Canada. We also expect to
6 expand engagement with France, Japan, the Republic of Korea, an d the
7 United Kingdom in this area. And multilaterally, we will conti nue our
8 leadership of the IAEA's SMR Regulators' Forum and work to infl uence the
9 direction of the new Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative, or
10 NHSI, at IAEA so that it can strike an appropriate balance betw een optimizing
11 the efficiency of regulatory reviews and preserving critical so vereign
12 responsibilities.
13 We will also engage strategically with Canada and the UK
14 on a trilateral basis, as well as bilaterally with France, to p artner in the
15 development of multilateral activities related to physical and cybersecurity and
16 emergency preparedness for SMRs and advanced reactors at both t he IAEA
17 and NEA.
18 NRC staff and management will also serve as team leaders
19 or deputy team leaders for IRRS missions or preparatory meeting s in
20 Germany, Poland, Sweden, and Finland, among others. We will ho ld
21 steering committee meetings with Canada, France, Japan, and Rep ublic of
22 Korea, and bilateral technical meetings with India and Taiwan. These
23 meetings, under the leadership of Senior Executive Service cham pions,
24 provide opportunities for fruitful bilateral discussions with s ome of our primary 19
1 regulatory counterparts that include a documented list of prior itized
2 engagements for the coming year. This enables both parties to judicially
3 allocate resources to various activities on a specific timetabl e.
4 We look forward to resuming these meetings in person after
5 several years of COVID-related uncertainty, and we'll also cont inue our
6 cooperation with Canada on the front end of the fuel cycle and transport
7 issues.
8 On that subject, every area of the NRC's work was
9 impacted by the COVID pandemic and international engagement was no
10 different. But I wanted to emphasize that the staff worked ext remely hard to
11 ensure that COVID would not significantly disrupt our cooperati on with the
12 staff participating in virtual meetings at all hours of the day and night with
13 counterparts in different time zones. We are leveraging best p ractices,
14 lessons learned, and expanded IT abilities from virtual engagem ent, as we
15 consider how to most efficiently collaborative with our interna tional partners.
16 This includes greater use of hybrid approaches to bring the rig ht NRC
17 expertise to the right meetings at the right time and realizing cost savings
18 whenever possible.
19 I wanted to just briefly note on the slide here is the signing
20 of the charter for the BWRX-300 project with myself with Ramzi Jammal, my
21 counterpart from Canada.
22 NRC management served on OECD NEA standing
23 technical Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installation and t he Committee
24 on Radiological Protection and Public Health. In addition, the staff 20
1 maintained leadership roles in many NEA working groups and IAEA
2 cooperative research projects.
3 We have calculated that our involvement in OECD research
4 projects yields up to a ten-to-one cost-benefit ratio. Having access to the
5 international research facilities enables the NRC and its count erparts at
6 regulatory bodies and technical support organizations to share costs and
7 leverage expertise on a wide variety of projects with far-reach ing benefits.
8 Data and results from these projects have direct impact on NRC' s regulatory
9 work in critical areas like fire protection, component degradat ion, reactor
10 system phenomena like passive heat removal, and severe accident
11 prevention and prediction.
12 International nuclear safety research has important
13 applicability to both conventional and new reactor designs and is informing
14 the NRC's preparedness for review and licensing of new designs. Absent
15 these multinational research efforts, we would have to construc t similar
16 research facilities in the United States at significant cost to the U.S.
17 government in time and resources that would almost certainly be detrimental
18 to meeting our domestic nuclear safety objectives.
19 The staff also initiated or renewed 18 computer code
20 sharing agreements in fiscal '22. Computer code sharing yields important
21 insights to help validate our computer codes for thermal hydrau lics, severe
22 accidents, and radiation protection. In fiscal '22, we've coll ected $1.8 million
23 in revenue from our computer code-sharing programs, as well as an array of
24 beneficial in-kind contributions from countries conducting rese arch alongside 21
1 us.
2 We also resumed technical meetings with our research
3 counterparts in France and Germany. As these organizations are separate
4 from the regulatory bodies in those countries, our relationship s with them are
5 especially important.
6 Looking forward to fiscal '23, we will continue our
7 engagement with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and UK's Office
8 for Nuclear Regulation on overarching principles for evaluating the uses of
9 artificial intelligence technologies. The goal is to establish a common set of
10 principles for evaluating the use of AI technologies based on e xisting
11 knowledge and identify further areas of collaboration after con sidering these
12 principles, helping inform future regulatory approaches for AI.
13 We will also continue our leadership of the NEA agreement
14 for the Framework for Irradiation Experiments II, or FIDES-II, a follow-up to
15 the Halden Reactor Project. International collaboration under FIDES
16 agreement allows for international collaboration to foster and facilitate
17 radiation experiments to test materials and fuels. This agreem ent fosters a
18 multinational community in the field of study, industry, and re search that
19 shares goals, resources, and results to define and implement Jo int
20 Experimental Programs, or JEEPS, and cross-cutting activities. The NRC is
21 gaining access to the results of these joint programs, which wi ll help inform
22 NRC safety and licensing strategies for nuclear innovations, su ch as accident
23 tolerant fuels, extensions to fuel burnup limits, and the high radiation
24 exposure of reactor materials such as stainless steel welds ove r subsequent 22
1 periods of extended operation. Research Director Ray Furstenau is the
2 Chair of the FIDES governing board, which authorizes these Join t
3 Experimental Programs.
4 Before we close, we'd like to share a quick snapshot of our
5 international program accomplishments over the last year. I wa nt to thank
6 the Office of Public Affairs for sharing their format of the NR C By the
7 Numbers graphics, which they release quarterly, to provide you with this
8 visual representation of some of the overarching accomplishment s in the
9 international programs.
10 We'd also like to acknowledge OPA's efforts in publicizing
11 the Commission and staff's international engagement on social m edia,
12 including international and domestic visits, important agreemen t signings and
13 conferences, and the release of our international strategy. Th is is another
14 area where we can model transparency and learn from our counter part
15 regulators' engagement strategies.
16 With that, I'll turn it back to Dave to give some brief closing
17 remarks.
18 MR. SKEEN: Thanks, Dan. And thank you, Chair and
19 Commissioners, for affording us this opportunity to brief you o n the agency's
20 international activities. This was not, by any means, an exhau stive list of
21 activities and priorities, but I hope we gave you a snapshot at least of our
22 work and how we are meeting our strategic objectives.
23 Our international work directly benefits our domestic
24 mission. It enables us to learn from and share knowledge with partner 23
1 countries. It strengthens global safety and security through r egulatory
2 assistance, allows us to demonstrate leadership to influence im portant
3 international safety standards and multilateral initiatives, an d closely connects
4 our work with broader U.S. government policy priorities. Our g oal in creating
5 the international strategy was to enable all NRC staff to clear ly identify how
6 their individual work helps meet the agency-wide international objectives, and
7 we are very proud at the way this is demonstrated across the NR C in
8 headquarters, in the regions, and across all technical discipli nes.
9 With that, we'll be happy to take your questions. Thank
10 you.
11 CHAIR HANSON: Thanks, Dave and Dan. Really
12 appreciate the high-level overview. I think I'm just going to dive in here with
13 some remarks, and I may make my way around to a question at som e point
14 in the ten-minute period, but there are no guarantees in that r egard.
15 So let me kind of repeat some things that I said in some
16 other contexts about how important I think the work that OIP do es and the
17 way OIP really leverages the rest of the agency in these intern ational fora.
18 The relationships that get built over time, you know, one of th e things about
19 these relationships is you're never quite sure when you're goin g to need
20 them, and you need them to be robust and you need to have gone through a
21 few ups and downs by the time something bad or something maybe even
22 very good happens so that you're ready for that opportunity. A s Brooke
23 occasionally likes to say, fortune favors the prepared, and I t hink that that is
24 an awful lot of what the work of OIP does, the work in staffing and bringing 24
1 our expertise to bear on these international fora.
2 You know, as I get to travel internationally, one of the great
3 things I've enjoyed is getting to know the technical experts th at we bring over,
4 people that I may not see around the building, people from the regions, and
5 other kinds of contexts who are really, you know, exceptionally highly
6 regarded internationally for their expertise. And that kind of almost kind of
7 one-on-one relationship building is so critical. And I think w e saw that in our
8 relationship with Poland. That's something that started ten ye ars ago.
9 We've ramped it up a lot in the last couple of years because Po land has come
10 to us and asked for the strategic, as well as the prosaic, you know, document
11 management and licensing reviews. We did a workshop on that ma ybe 18
12 months ago.
13 And, again, the relationships that got built, we had our
14 foreign assignees there. They went down to Vogtle and they met our on-site
15 construction inspectors, as well as our resident inspectors for Units 1 and 2,
16 as well as the folks in Atlanta and so forth, and all of those relationships really
17 matter because what we're ultimately doing here, besides sharin g our
18 expertise, is actually sharing our values. The ultimate object ive, in a way, is
19 for us, as part of these engagements, particularly with embarki ng countries, is
20 to build strong, independent, technically-competent regulators who are
21 capable, who can certainly learn from us, sometimes even the te chnical stuff,
22 right. I mean, you mentioned Ramzi Jammal, Dan. Ramzi's sayin g is a
23 neutron is a neutron is a neutron. Yep.
24 But building the capability in these other countries so that 25
1 they can make their own technically robust decisions around tha t is really
2 critically important and not only around those technical conclu sions but also
3 around our overall kind of philosophical approach to regulation, right. Our
4 principles of good regulation and our values. And, you know, I 'm particularly
5 enamored with those in the international context because I real ly believe that
6 our nuclear safety values, the things that we go out and espous e, are also
7 democratic values, and they're worth sharing from that perspect ive, as well.
8 And that, in some cases, is how they fit in to the overall USG strategic foreign
9 policy context on some of these things.
10 Let me talk for just kind of a minute about Ukraine and our
11 relationship with the Ukrainian regulator. Congress saw fit to provide us with
12 a little extra money so that we could help support them. We've done that
13 both on the nuclear safety side with regard to the safety of so me of their
14 plants, particularly Zaporizhzhia and the continued detailed on going
15 engagement there, but also on some of the material side, right, and helping
16 them keep track of, in a war zone essentially, their radioactiv e sources, which
17 we also care about the safety and security of.
18 And that, you know, with regard to that then, it's also
19 important, you know, what we have in the Russian invasion of Uk raine, the
20 Russian war against Ukraine; let's call it what it is, right. We have a direct
21 kind of assault on the international rules-based order, and tha t rules-based
22 order exists in a lot of context, right. It exists in treaties and laws, but it also
23 exists in these organizations, the IAEA, the UN, the OECD NEA, the OSCE,
24 NATO, other kinds of contexts. And it's our involvement in tho se that sustain 26
1 those institutions and make them robust and make them robust in times of
2 conflict and in times of attack. And particularly when it come s to nuclear
3 safety and security, this agency has a direct interest in susta ining the
4 international rules-based order through, you know, a lot of the conventions
5 and agreements that you guys made in your remarks. And those i nstitutions
6 are the thing, because Russia invaded Ukraine, it scrambled the global
7 nuclear fuel cycle, right. And so there is a real need for lik e-minded
8 countries to come together and rewire that fuel cycle to everyo ne's benefit.
9 And we're figuring that out but an awful lot of the things that
10 have to occur are going to come through this agency. Greater c apacity for
11 enrichment, greater capacity for conversion, export controls of technology,
12 ensuring peaceful uses, ensuring safeguard standards are upheld, et cetera.
13 And we're going to have to do all that, you know, not in a vacu um, in
14 partnership with our USG colleagues, and, again, with our allie s on so many
15 of these things.
16 And in that way, you know, as we endeavor to do that, none
17 of that stuff is charity, right. This is all in our national s trategic interest. And
18 so it is just one way in which, you know, we get to play our sm all role in the
19 overall U.S. government foreign policy.
20 Let me just put in a quick plug here for materials, you know.
21 Nuclear power gets a lot of focus, as well it should, right. For a lot of these
22 countries who are embarking, it's about energy security, it's a bout national
23 security, maybe down the road it's about climate security. But like in the
24 U.S., you know, peaceful uses of radioactive materials are peop le's exposure, 27
1 everyday exposure to the nuclear world. And supporting those e fforts
2 around the world are also really important. Talking about sour ce security
3 and working with our friends at the National Nuclear Security A dministration,
4 enabling the peaceful uses for human health and development, pa rticipating
5 in things like the IAEA Rays of Hope, which endeavors to put ra dioactive
6 source cancer treatments into more countries. Well, what enabl es all of
7 that? Well, again, strong independent regulators. They don't have to be
8 very big, you know. I was down in Panama earlier this year, an d they've got
9 five people. Not a fully-independent regulator, they're part o f the Ministry of
10 Health, but we're down there and we have modest efforts to help train
11 personnel in radiation protection and health physics and other kinds of things
12 down there that enable those uses. Even though that regulator is small, you
13 know, we went to the COPEG, the screwworm eradication facility there that
14 the U.S. and Panama jointly operate, and, you know, sure enough, in the
15 room with the radioactive source was the license from the Minis try of Health.
16 And so they're fulfilling their obligations, and we can help wi th that, too.
17 On some of my journeys and interactions, particularly in
18 Latin America, I've learned a lot of about disused sources, rig ht. A lot of
19 these countries now have several decades of experience in using these
20 materials and, by golly, they've got a growing inventory of dis used sources.
21 Well, you know what, that might be something we can help with o r we can
22 participate with our international partners on helping with. D oes each
23 country need its own, you know, what about storage, what about security of
24 those sources, et cetera. I think it's just one more example w here, again, it's 28
1 in our strategic safety, security interests. And, you know, I' ve thought and a
2 lot of other people have for a long time that, you know, suppor ting
3 international human health and development goals is also in the U.S. interest,
4 even if we don't see that immediate benefit right away.
5 So I just want to express the appreciation and the great
6 pride I've had in getting to travel internationally with people and, you know,
7 have international counterparts come up and say, you know, we d on't know
8 you from Adam, but we really like so-and-so in the NRC staff. I mean, it
9 really is enormously satisfying.
10 So, again, thank you all across the agency for what you do
11 and, I think, some of the success that we've had in these effor ts, and I look
12 forward to hearing a lot more about it.
13 Commissioner Baran.
14 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thanks. Well, with growing
15 interest in new reactor construction in the U.S. and around the world, NRC's
16 international work has never been more important. Some countri es are
17 interested in learning more about our regulatory approach as th ey develop
18 their own regulatory capabilities. At the same time, there's g rowing interest
19 in collaboration on technical issues that need to be evaluated in the licensing
20 reviews of new designs, and nuclear export licensing may become a larger
21 focus area for us. So I think this is a valuable and timely me eting.
22 My recent trip to the Darlington site in Canada, President
23 Velshi and I discussed NRC's cooperative efforts with the Canad ian Nuclear
24 Safety Commission on the GE Hitachi BWRX-300 design. I'm very 29
1 enthusiastic about our two agencies looking at some of the tech nical issues
2 and trying to come to common technical positions that could the n feed into
3 our separate licensing reviews. Can you give us an update on t he status of
4 those efforts?
5 MR. DORMAN: Sure. Thanks, Commissioner. As I
6 mentioned, and we had the picture on the slide, the first step was establishing
7 the charter for that work under the MOU, and Ramzi and I signed that in
8 September. And then concurrent with that, the staff was workin g with
9 General Electric Hitachi and with OPG and TVA, as well as with CNSC, to
10 identify topics that were ripe for that sort of collaborative e ffort. And so those
11 three projects have just within the last week or so been laid o ut, so we now
12 have established the three projects areas that we'll be working on with our
13 Canadian counterparts as we work with those applicants.
14 COMMISSIONER BARAN: That's great. And when I met
15 with Mark Foy of the UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation, it sou nded like they
16 might be interested in getting more involved in the cooperative efforts we
17 have with Canada. Are we having those discussions?
18 MR. DORMAN: We do have those discussions with Mark
19 and his team. One of the challenges in this international coll aboration is an
20 applicant bringing the same technology to multiple regulators a t the same
21 time, and that's what we've got with the proposals from OPG and TVA for our
22 Canadian counterparts.
23 I know GE is having discussions with a number of countries
24 on the X-300 technology. UK is high on that list. UK has othe r technologies 30
1 that are talking to them. So I know ONR is interested, and, at this point, I
2 think we've had conversations more about them participating as an observer.
3 We have the established MOC with our Canadian counterparts. If we
4 wanted to go deeper, we would have to develop the appropriate i nstruments
5 to enable that.
6 I think there are a lot of other countries. Every time I talk to
7 a vendor, their list of countries that they're talking to is gr owing. And so I
8 think one of the challenges with harmonization and standardizat ion is we've
9 already, through some of the first projects that we did with ou r Canadian
10 counterparts, worked through some of the challenges of just get ting two
11 regulatory frameworks to work together. The more you bring int o the
12 conversation, the greater the risk that that harmonization effo rt is actually
13 bogging things down, so we don't want to do that. But one of t he things in
14 the IAEA initiative is to look at how downstream regulators can take credit for
15 or learn from the first regulators. There's a great example of that experience
16 between UAE and South Korea and the development of the Barakah project
17 in the United Arab Emirates and the NHSI effort at IAEA is look ing to learn
18 from that to identify a framework where a newcomer coming to an established
19 regulator who has already licensed the technology can gain effi ciencies from
20 that process, as well.
21 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thanks. And I think you make
22 a really good point, which is that I think sometimes there's th e temptation to
23 think, well, cooperation with more countries simultaneously on something is
24 always better. And I think what we've seen in our work with th e Canadian is 31
1 that sometimes actually something that's more bilateral or tril ateral you can
2 really get a lot of, just from the practicalities of it, get mo re real product
3 deliverables at the end of that effort. And I think that's rea lly valuable.
4 I'm interested in hearing a little more about separate
5 trilateral effort with Canada and the UK on artificial intellig ence. It sounds
6 like that might be just getting started. Can you tell us a lit tle bit more about
7 that?
8 MR. DORMAN: I'm going to go to a lifeline on that --
9 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay.
10 MR. DORMAN: -- and ask Stephanie or Luis from
11 research to give us an update on that effort. Thanks.
12 MR. BETANCOURT: So good morning, Commissioners.
13 So thank you for that question. So the purpose of this project, as Dan
14 Dorman mentioned, is to evaluate AI technologies, and the plan is by the end
15 of the year of calendar year 2023 we will deliver the white pap er that basically
16 shows a common position on how we plan to evaluate this technol ogy and, to
17 your point, how can we better leverage the expertise across the Canadians,
18 the ONR, and the NRC to be able to have a common product that w ill be
19 useful for both the industry, as well as the regulators.
20 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Great. Well, that sounds like
21 a great project.
22 Let me ask a slightly different question. To assess NRC's
23 readiness to handle potential advanced reactor exports under ou r Part 110
24 regulation, the staff conducted a review. Can you talk a littl e bit about what 32
1 the staff found and how the Part 110 rulemaking is going?
2 MR. SKEEN: Yes. Thanks for that question,
3 Commissioner. And I can take that one. So that's done under o ur group
4 under the import/export licensing folks. And, yes, we figured out a few years
5 ago that, with this new interest in some of the advanced design s, we asked
6 ourselves a question: if we got an advanced reactor export appl ication, could
7 we do that under current Part 110, our regulations?
8 And so the working group got together, they met with a lot
9 of folks, talked internally, talked to some of their folks exte rnally, and basically
10 what the report came out with was that we could with more advan ced designs
11 today under Part 110. However, there were a number of ways we could
12 improve that and be prepared for some of these new designs that we see
13 coming down the road. And it was fortuitous the designs that w e looked at
14 and the kind of components that we were looking at and material s that would
15 be used are actually the same five that NRR now is getting inte rest in and
16 getting applications for. So that was good that that kind of m eshed together.
17 So as a result, we decided to put together a rulemaking
18 plan for the Commission to consider, and that will be coming up to you guys
19 probably in the first quarter of calendar year '23 to talk abou t ways that we
20 could improve on Part 110 if the Commission decides to go forwa rd with that.
21 And so you should be seeing that soon.
22 But I don't know if you need more details, Pete Habighorst
23 is our branch chief in that group, and he could probably speak to a little bit
24 more on that.
33
1 MR. HABIGHORST: Good morning, Chair. Good
2 morning, Commissioners. Just an addition to what Dave mentione d, he
3 asked me to expect a rulemaking plan and we look at that as an opportunity
4 for the Commission's decision, obviously, on a path forward on 110. We just
5 know that, from advanced reactors, it's already happening on ex ports. We've
6 already approved an export six months ago dealing with TRISO fu el to the
7 Netherlands for nondestructive examination and fuel qualificati on.
8 So even though we believe it's down the road, we're starting
9 to see, as vendors start to test and get ready for advanced re actors and
10 licensing, we start to see those exports.
11 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Great. Thanks. Appreciate
12 the update.
13 One last question I had. One important aspect of our
14 cooperation with our international counterparts is IAEA peer re view missions.
15 Our frequent involvement in the peer reviews of other regulator s was
16 mentioned earlier. NRC had its last peer review in 2010, and m ost of our
17 counterparts have been reviewed more recently.
18 To promote U.S. international leadership and gain the
19 benefit of the findings and perspectives of our international p artners, I'd like to
20 see NRC begin exploring the scope and timing of a future peer r eview
21 mission. Can you talk about the staff's efforts in this area?
22 MR. DORMAN: Yes. Thank you, Commissioner. And I
23 may go to a lifeline for more detail, but I think, as we prepar ed for the
24 Convention on Nuclear Safety, we, I think, coincident with your approval of 34
1 our national report, you asked us to take a look at this. So t he staff, over the
2 next year or so, will be looking at the issues associated with conducting an
3 IRRS, receiving an IRRS mission. It's a significant multi-year effort. There's
4 a structured self-assessment that IAEA has laid out the framewo rk for that's
5 about a year for the regulator to develop that self-assessment as an input to
6 the team that then comes and engages in a review of our program against
7 IAEA's standards.
8 And then there's a several year effort following the IRRS
9 mission to address the findings of the team and, typically, the n a follow-up
10 mission three to four years after the original mission. So you mentioned the
11 2010. I think we had our follow-up in 2014.
12 And the other -- so there's a timing issue, there's a scope
13 issue that the staff will explore and present options to the Co mmission on
14 what we would ask IAEA to bring a team to look at. And the 201 0 mission
15 that you referred to, we focused only on the operating reactor program. As
16 we go to some of the other countries, a lot of them do full sco pe, so reactors,
17 materials, everything.
18 With the size of our programs, that's a very heavy lift. And
19 so the Commission, in 2010, decided to focus to just operating reactors, so
20 we'll explore those options and bring those to you in response to the direction
21 you provided.
22 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Great. Well, I look forward to
23 all those discussions and appreciate all the work you're doing and your teams
24 are doing. And I agree with the Chair that it's just vital wor k. It always has 35
1 been, but I think it's especially true today. So thank you.
2 CHAIR HANSON: Commissioner Wright.
3 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you, Chair. First off, I
4 want to thank you for your comments. I was -- they were very good and they
5 covered a lot of ground, and I'm hoping to maybe refer to some of them in
6 what I want to do today. I may have a question, maybe not. I don't know
7 that I'll use my whole ten minutes either.
8 But, one, Dave, I want to thank you and all the members of
9 your team and your office for what you do and what you have don e. It's one
10 of these areas that is overlooked probably on a national scale by other, you
11 know, we know what we're doing, right. But outside the buildin g, maybe
12 people don't really realize. And you're doing it on a very lim ited budget,
13 which is one of the areas I think we need to maybe look at and delve into in
14 the future because what you're being asked to do on the interna tional side is
15 to a scale now that we've probably never done before and it's g oing to get
16 even bigger and it's more and more important.
17 The relationships that you've been building over the years,
18 they're certainly bearing fruit, and they're more important tod ay than they
19 have ever been. And going forward with the work that we are do ing and with
20 what the future kind of looks like with advanced reactors and s ome of the
21 things that these countries are trying to get involved in, they 're only going to
22 be successful if we are successful here on the domestic side, r ight. And if
23 we don't meet the mission, if we don't meet the moment here, th en we're not
24 helping, we're not going to be able to help them the way that t hey need to be 36
1 helped.
2 It's going to be important for us for several reasons. It's
3 what we do, it's how we do it, it's when we do it, right, becau se time limits for
4 some of this is critical, right. The need is there.
5 I've been fortunate enough to start traveling again and, as
6 you know, went to Romania back in May. A very successful trip. And I've
7 done a number of trips. This is the first time that I was invo lved in a trip
8 where other federal organizations were actively present, and we were
9 actually, although we're an independent agency, we have a role to play, you
10 know, and we were used in a good way. What we participated in had real
11 value.
12 You know, I was able to work and meet and work directly
13 with the Canadian regulator over there, and Cantemir and CNCAN over there,
14 and I met with the -- you know, never met a prime minister befo re; I met a
15 prime minister, right. I got to actually have a dialogue with the prime
16 minister, with the minister of energy, with the general secreta ry and others.
17 And what we were able, along with DOE and with State and Commer ce, you
18 know, we were able to talk about the importance of not what we do but how
19 important it is for them to do and support their regulator in a way that they can
20 thrive, that they can grow, that they can build a team, and tha t they are able
21 to then do the regulatory work that they're going to be asked t o do, right.
22 And they know that. They're trying to address the financial is sues that
23 they've got, you know, and to be able to pay their inspectors w hat they need
24 to be paid in order for them not to be picked off by other coun tries or even by 37
1 the state-run utilities over there.
2 I've had eye-opening experiences before. That was very
3 eye-opening because one of the things that I learned over there, you know,
4 Romania, depending on where you're at, some of them are still l iving a
5 hundred years ago, you know. You can be driving down the highw ay in a
6 bus, and you're seeing the guys with wagons full of hay pulled by donkeys
7 going up the street the other way. They don't have power. And one of the
8 things that we learned there was that the regulator, not only d o they have to
9 provide the power but they have to provide it in a very afforda ble way
10 because the people will choose just not to plug up, right.
11 And, you know, this goes to what the Chairman was talking
12 about, you know. So when the Chair was saying there's a health benefit to
13 this, you know, from the materials side. There's certainly the growth
14 opportunities that come from it economically or whatever jobs in those
15 countries. Electrification, period, in some other countries, y ou know, that
16 they don't have. And, yes, we don't technically, supposed to c oncern
17 ourselves with that economic part, you know, things, supposedly just the
18 safety. But what we do overlaps. Other countries, their regul ators have to
19 be concerned with that, right, so we have to help them in a way that I think it
20 certainly teaches, it educates us on our side. And I'm very, I 'm very grateful
21 to be able to be a part of that, and it's only because of how y ou all train us up
22 before we go and help us when we're there that allows that, you know, allows
23 us to feel like we're doing our part, right.
24 So I know that what we're -- if we do our things right here 38
1 and we meet the moment here, we're going to be allowing countri es to
2 produce clean water, right, to get into food production in a wa y they've never
3 done it before, to provide just those things that are going to help the residents
4 of their country. Their citizens experience something people b efore them
5 never have, right, and that, to me, is exciting and you guys ar e on the front
6 line.
7 In fact, I do understand that a connection we made in
8 Romania with one of the people that were there were, the U.S. T rade and
9 Development Agency, actually contacted us this week, connected my office,
10 about some investments they're looking at, I guess in South Asi a maybe. So
11 that's a benefit that comes from this, and I really think that it's exciting to me.
12 That's part of what we do as commissioners that I'm appreciatin g more and
13 more. I just want to be sure that, as a commission, that we ar e able to help
14 you the way that we need to going forward.
15 And I guess -- so I'll ask one question, I guess. So are
16 there other areas, you know, where OIP and Dan and then your sh op think
17 Commission engagement would also be beneficial in the coming ye ars, which
18 would further strengthen our international relationships and wo rk, you know,
19 on top of what we know is going on with, you know, the harmoniz ation stuff.
20 MR. SKEEN: Well, let me start and maybe Dan, if you
21 want to weigh in. So thanks for those comments, Commissioner. I
22 appreciate all the remarks you made there, and, certainly, the kudos to the
23 staff. The whole office is high performers, and they do a grea t job. And
24 Nader and I built a good team there, so we certainly appreciate that.
39
1 As far as your last part there about is there something
2 Commissioners could do, I think I'd like to take the opportunit y just to say
3 thanks to you and to Commissioner Baran for your visits to Cana da and to
4 Romania and in your meetings with Mark Foy in the UK. I've see n the
5 Chairman's schedule for travel, and it is a lot. And I know wh en Nader was
6 traveling with him, they traveled quite a bit internationally. And what I would
7 say is what it looks like right now, I think we're going to be increasing our
8 engagements internationally. So I'm not sure the Chairman can take all the
9 international trips to go meet with all these people, so I thin k we may be
10 calling on Commissioners to maybe help with some of that. And it's just as
11 you said: the value of Commissioners going and talking not just to the
12 regulator but to those who provide the funding to the regulator or they write
13 the legislation for the regulator, to ensure that they're comin g up with, first, the
14 independent piece, that you're not tied to the energy departmen t, that you can
15 make your own decisions based on safety; the fact that you need to have
16 enforcement capabilities because identifying problems and not b eing able to
17 do anything about it, that doesn't help either. The regulator will be ignored.
18 As far as the staffing piece, you're exactly right. We see
19 this in country after country that the regulator gets, they'll hire people and
20 train them for a year or two, but, because many countries, the government
21 caps what a government worker can make, they can't make enough money to
22 keep the people. So what happens is the utility can pay more o r those
23 people leave completely and go to another country and work.
24 And so some of the regulators get caught in this, it's just a 40
1 catch-22. If I train people up, they get pretty good at what t hey do and they
2 leave. And so now I'm in this constant training mode of I've g ot to hire new
3 people and train them, and they don't stay either.
4 So those kind of messages, I think, delivered at higher
5 levels in the government is very helpful. So what I would say, is there
6 anything the Commissioners could do, I think we will be coming to you. And
7 it's probably a good thing we have five now instead of three. Depending on
8 how fast this goes with some of these countries, but we are see ing it's
9 accelerating, it's not a constant pace. It's the more countrie s you meet with,
10 almost every country we meet with now is interested in SMR, if not a large
11 light water reactor because, while they can't use maybe a thous and megawatt
12 base load plant in their country because of their grid conditio n or their island
13 nation is spread out everywhere, that distributed type of power system is
14 attractive to them. But as we tell them, you know, if you don' t even have a
15 materials program, we talked about the materials previously fro m Chair
16 Hanson, if you're not even tracking the materials you're using for industrial or
17 academic or medical purposes and you come in and say I want to build a
18 nuclear power plant, it's like, well, you've got a ways to go b efore you're ever
19 ready to set up a nuclear power program.
20 So I think all of that, helping carry the message forward,
21 having someone other than just the Chair doing that, and having
22 Commissioners engaged, I think we would welcome that if we're a ble to do
23 that.
24 Dan.
41
1 MR. DORMAN: I would just emphasize, Dave touched on
2 legislation, and I think in my travels over the last couple of months and seeing
3 these aspirations, I've actually heard of one country that actu ally has draft
4 legislation to establish a regulator to build a nuclear power p rogram, so I think
5 there's opportunities there to work with the rest of the govern ment and
6 engage those countries early on and particularly emphasize the importance of
7 the independent safety regulator and the role that that plays i n ensuring that
8 they'll get their safely.
9 You know, we've worked with some countries who have
10 gone through this process, and it takes the better part of a de cade with a
11 concerted effort to build an effective regulator to be ready to license and build
12 a nuclear power plant. So I think that early engagement to hel p make sure
13 that they get on the right track legislatively and applying the principles, you
14 know, we can export the principles of good regulation, I don't think we need a
15 license for that. But I think that's real opportunities that s eem to be growing.
16 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you so much.
17 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you. And I'd just, for the record,
18 I and my family would welcome broader engagement on internation al travel.
19 (Laughter.)
20 CHAIR HANSON: Commissioner Caputo.
21 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Thank you, gentlemen, for
22 your remarks today. I'm going to start by associating myself w ith the
23 Chairman's very thoughtful and articulate remarks on this. I k now he has
24 certainly been incredibly busy with international activities la tely, and that's a 42
1 job well done and very important.
2 And I also want to follow on from Commissioner Wright's
3 comments about, you know, utilizing the four of us Commissioner s. It's
4 incredibly important to build these relationships abroad, but, to a certain
5 extent, some of us may have a limited time frame that we're he re and we
6 may be interacting with counterparts who also have a limited ti me frame.
7 So sometimes, as important as relationship building is, I
8 really do think it's crucial for the staff that we have to have long-term
9 relationships but that also have that expertise and ability to advise us and
10 prepare us and to engage as productively as we can. So as you look toward
11 a proposal for how the four Commissioners can engage internatio nally, I
12 would just encourage you to sort of think beyond just relations hips and look at
13 outcomes and results and ways that we can, you know, achieve so mething
14 that's going to be longer lasting than just our visit and putti ng a face with a
15 name.
16 Let me ask a question here about the UK. Dave, in the
17 Commission's fusion meeting this week, we heard from a UK speak er on their
18 preparations to regulate fusion. They seem to be probably fart her along in
19 their thinking than we are at this point. Given how much we co llaborate with
20 them, is there a particular effort ongoing in fusion?
21 MR. SKEEN: So I don't know of anything that ONR has
22 brought to us to cooperate on fusion. They may have talked mor e through
23 NRR, but, in my discussions with Mark Foy, when I talked with h im, he hasn't
24 brought anything to us about cooperating in the fusion area.
43
1 MR. DORMAN: I'm getting head shakes from the back of
2 the room there that we don't have any specific bilateral engage ment with
3 them on fusion.
4 MR. SKEEN: But we can raise that with them now that
5 you've raised it with us. We're happy to ask that question.
6 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Thank you. I'm also going to
7 follow on. Commissioner Baran talked about Canada and our coll aboration
8 with Canada, and Dan talked about the success we've had in that
9 collaboration. Once we've completed our work with Canada, do y ou see
10 potential to build off that success and either expand that coop eration or begin
11 establishing other bilaterals?
12 MR. DORMAN: Thank you, Commissioner. I think one of
13 the things I mentioned was having a vendor that's bringing the same
14 technology to multiple regulators at once seems to me to be a k ey to a
15 specific collaboration. And I know there are, beyond GE Hitach i, there are
16 other vendors that are talking to both us and CNSC. So I think, as we get
17 through the GE experience and learn from that, I think we'll be open to other
18 opportunities under that MOC.
19 I think my personal view, if we can be successful in that
20 under NHSI, the framework for then follow-on regulatory engagem ents where
21 we would have a technology that we've already licensed and are partnering
22 with somebody else who's looking at licensing it and they can l earn from us
23 and gain efficiency in their process. I think those will be, i n my view, the
24 opportunities for the greatest success. But I do think there w ill be 44
1 opportunities in particular in our bilateral relationship with Canada. And as
2 we get better at it, you know, maybe there are opportunities to bring in ONR
3 or others. But as I say, too many cooks in the kitchen can be problematic.
4 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Well, I've often used that
5 same expression, which leads me to my next question on harmoniz ation.
6 There's been a lot of international discussion about harmonizin g regulatory
7 requirements and there are multiple efforts out here. How do t hese
8 harmonization efforts differ from MDEP, the multi-lateral --
9 MR. DORMAN: Yes. So I think, first off, fewer cooks, you
10 know, if I take the Canadian example, bilateral, there's fewer cooks in the
11 kitchen. MDEP was around specific designs and had many cooks i n the
12 kitchen. The harmonization initiative at IAEA is not about des igns, it's more
13 process focused. There is a regulator track and an industry tr ack. Both
14 tracks have an item on information sharing, which has multiple pieces to it.
15 There's a government interest in export control aspects of info rmation
16 sharing. There are vendor interests in proprietary intellectua l property rights
17 that might inhibit sharing of information.
18 So there's a couple of conversations going on on
19 information sharing, but, fundamentally, that gets to, okay, a vendor wants to
20 go talk to how many regulators and the government side of that is how many
21 different processes do they have to go through to get the agree ments on
22 information sharing. So that's a process efficiency issue.
23 I think the other two tracks on the regulator side, one is to
24 develop, at the concept design review stage, a framework for an applicant to 45
1 bring its conceptual design to IAEA for assessment against the safety
2 standards there. And I liken that to our pre-application discu ssions that we
3 have on an extra-regulatory basis. They're not a requirement, but it's an
4 opportunity for them to see, you know, what kind of questions t he regulator is
5 asking, as well as our reviewers, to get familiar with the tech nology as they
6 develop it.
7 So that's a piece that, you know, we'll see how many
8 vendors want to actually do that because it seems like a step b efore a step to
9 the regulator. I hope it doesn't become another step.
10 And then the one that I mentioned, which would be looking
11 at building on the experience that United Arab Emirates engaged with the
12 Korean regulator that licensed the APR-1400, as well as with th e technology
13 supplier, got up to speed on the technology, as well as what wa s done in the
14 regulatory review and then came back to UAE, in their sovereign
15 responsibilities, decided what they could take credit for that Korea had
16 already done. And so looking at what are the issues that are r ipe for that
17 kind of exchange so that, as we meet in the moment, as Commissi oner
18 Wright said, and get the first-of-a-kind done in the originatin g country, that
19 other countries can gain efficiencies in carrying that forward.
20 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: I've often thought data
21 qualification is really maybe perhaps a low bar, but, if we cou ld at least agree
22 internationally on just the quality of the numbers that we're a ll using, even if
23 we reach different decisions, that, I think, would go a long wa y to jumpstarting
24 some of these applications. But that's just one small aspect o f it.
46
1 MR. DORMAN: I agree that's a very ripe one in that last
2 category that I talked about is, okay, the host regulator has a lready done
3 analyses that support it and they have a V&V behind their analy tical methods,
4 so maybe the new country may want to run a couple of their own runs to
5 validate that they get similar results but they don't need to r evalidate the
6 code.
7 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Yes, exactly. So, Dave, I'm
8 going to take a moment to sort of look at international program s from a
9 results-driven angle. Taxpayers invest significant resources i n our
10 international programs, and you mentioned a variety of accompli shments
11 today. One thing I think that's good about this meeting and th e briefing that
12 we've had today is, certainly, as a Commissioner, I have this s ort of
13 awareness that there is always a lot going on in international programs and
14 we get weekly reports on what's being done. But seeing the ful l scope of it
15 right before us today is always a great reminder of just the hi gh level of work
16 that goes on, and it's very impressive how you and your staff c over a lot of
17 ground.
18 But in your work, at least in some of the activities that you
19 engage in, how do you measure return on investment and sort of analyze that
20 to ensure that you're applying your efforts and resources where you have the
21 greatest impact?
22 MR. SKEEN: Thanks for that question. And it's
23 something we ask ourselves all the time, right. A lot of what w e do is more the
24 intangibles, as you've heard here. It's that relationship buil ding so that, when 47
1 a country is ready to get assistance or to cooperate with the N RC, we've
2 already built that relationship with them.
3 But, you know, it's hard to come up with the tangibles of
4 what is the value of international programs, right. You have t o look at the
5 overall aspects, including the training that we do for some of the regulators. I
6 mean, what we're doing is trying to build, as is said, the inde pendent
7 regulator, the competent regulators. And so we know we're succ essful when
8 they complete things or they get materials licenses in, they kn ow how to do
9 that. I'll go to the materials side and I would look at the Pa nama situation
10 where we helped develop the master's degree program there for r adiation
11 safety officers. So they had nothing ten years ago, and now th ey have a
12 program that every year puts out some master's level radiation safety officers
13 that make a real difference in radiation safety within their co untry.
14 So, for that, we can certainly see that that's a success, right,
15 when you do something like that. But also we've seen, as we ex port our
16 materials knowledge and when we go to these countries that they have no
17 regulations or they have regulations but there's no kind of ins pection program
18 for the materials that they use in their country. Panama was a n example
19 where they used to take the density gauges when they were build ing the
20 Panama Canal, when they got through with them they threw them over the
21 hill. No one tracked them, they didn't know where they went.
22 So we talked about orphan sources, the Chair talked about
23 that. They found a lot of orphan sources in Panama, and so tra cking those
24 down and making sure that those get put into a safe storage pla ce, as well as 48
1 just training radiation safety officers not just for the regula tor but for hospitals
2 and for the industrial uses that they have. That's how we meas ure the
3 success, when you're putting out those kind of people, those pr ofessionals
4 that are now looking at the materials in their country, that's a measure of
5 success.
6 Also, I would say that where we've gone in and provided
7 this database, our program that we developed and we provided da tabase to
8 these countries to track their materials. When you go back and see in a
9 year, two years, they've got all the sources in there, they've got a schedule of
10 when they go inspect to make sure that those sources are still in the places
11 they're supposed to be, that's a measure of success that we can take.
12 And, quite frankly, if we work with a country and we have a
13 few workshops and we see that they are not moving forward or th ey're not
14 really moving that far ahead, then we will not prioritize them as a country to
15 deal with and we will move on to someone else that is more read y or more
16 accepting of the assistance that we can provide.
17 So in a few ways, that's how we measure success. The
18 other thing I would say is, as far as our international assigne e program, right,
19 we have folks come here from regulators from all over the world, and many of
20 those become the head regulator or senior officials in their or ganizations
21 when they return home. And it may take a year or five years or ten years,
22 but we see a lot of folks who were assignees at the NRC who are now head
23 regulators or very high up in their regulatory bodies, as well.
24 So I think from that standpoint of training international folks 49
1 and sending them back to their countries, again, we're exportin g regulatory
2 expertise, right. I always say the NRC does not promote nuclea r energy, but
3 we promote nuclear safety. So when we do things like that and you see
4 those folks rising up in organizations, that's another measure of success that I
5 think we have.
6 So there's a number of ways, but we're always looking for
7 other ways to do that.
8 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Thank you. And thank you
9 both for being here today.
10 CHAIR HANSON: Commissioner Crowell.
11 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
12 This has been a helpful presentation for me, and I'm glad that I'm going last
13 today because I get to learn a little bit from all of my collea gues' questions.
14 You know, in my short time at the NRC, I've been very impressed with OIP's
15 staff and their engagement, and you guys probably have more wor k now than
16 you've ever had before and I don't see that ending anytime soon. And I
17 think, in that context, you guys are doing great work on, you k now, advanced
18 reactors, you know, engaging with the international community o n traditional
19 reactors, things of that nature, and maintaining our, you know, gold standard
20 that the U.S. has in that realm.
21 But an area where the U.S. doesn't have the gold standard
22 is in spent fuel and waste management and potentially transport ation. And
23 curious, you know, if one of you could talk a little bit more a bout our
24 international engagements on that front where we could have som e lessons 50
1 learned, where we could benefit more from those engagements to help our
2 domestic situation here with regard to spent fuel and waste man agement and
3 disposal.
4 MR. DORMAN: Thanks, Commissioner. So as you note,
5 there are a number, particularly the European countries, who ar e farther down
6 the path toward long-term disposal. Finland probably leading t he way and
7 several others well down the path.
8 So we participate in a regulators' forum, about a half a
9 dozen of us, Canada, France, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland. I t hink I got all
10 of them. I hope I didn't miss anybody. And, you know, at one point, we
11 were kind of the leader in that field, and we took a step back and now they're
12 moving forward and making progress in that area. So that's a f orum for us to
13 learn from our counterparts.
14 So we can learn from that from the regulatory side. I think
15 there's also opportunities, as we look toward a national policy that's outside
16 this Commission's responsibility, but looking at consent-based siting and
17 getting to a solution in the U.S. I think there's an opportuni ty for us to work
18 with other parts of the government that have that responsibilit y and convey
19 what progress is being made on that front.
20 That's the disposal of what we already have. Just earlier
21 this week, I was at an NEA workshop in Canada looking at how we 're thinking
22 about the end product of advanced reactors' fuel cycles and how the vendors
23 are looking at that and what are the things we can look at, wha t are the things
24 that they're looking, and what are the things that the broader nuclear safety 51
1 community can be considering in the design and the implications for the back
2 end of the fuel cycle for reactors that are currently aspiratio nal.
3 So I think that there's a number of areas where we engage
4 to stay abreast of what's being done both for the existing inve ntory, as well as
5 looking forward.
6 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: And I noticed that the IAEA
7 director recently made a comment about, you know, light water r eactors being
8 potentially run for a hundred years. So this issue is not goin g away. But as
9 we look to both traditional nuclear, as well as advanced reacto rs, it's critical,
10 it's indispensable in the context of addressing climate change, but if we're
11 helping solve that generational problem but ignoring the back e nd of the fuel
12 cycle and, thereby, creating a generational problem in terms of waste and
13 spent fuel, we haven't done our job as a public officials.
14 And so I think that, I'm hoping that OIP and even the other
15 staff within your realm, Dan, that we have adequate capacity to focus on
16 these things and really gather some lessons learned and do the engagement
17 that's necessary and have a good partnership with DOE here in t he U.S., as
18 well as our partner countries going forward. And if that's not the case and
19 you need help or assistance from the Commission, please let us know as
20 soon as possible.
21 MR. DORMAN: Will do. Thanks.
22 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Kind of on a similar front,
23 hopefully, the real nuclear renaissance is underway this time. There's still
24 decommissioning happening, and I'm curious to know how, I wante d you to 52
1 speak a little bit more to how, you know, the more advanced wes tern nations
2 do decommissioning of their plants and how that compares with h ow we do
3 decommissioning here and if there's anything that we could lear n or do better
4 domestically on decommissioning that we've gleaned from our int ernational
5 partners.
6 MR. DORMAN: So, yes, we do maintain ties with a
7 number of countries who are involved in decommissioning and, ob viously,
8 some of them, Germany in particular, has a very active decommis sioning
9 program. So we do have, through the standards committees at IA EA,
10 looking at radiation protection and waste issues, issues around
11 decommissioning, and also through bilateral engagements, share information
12 on decommissioning.
13 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Are we as far along in that
14 process, from a technical or from a community relations standpo int, as other
15 countries are?
16 MR. DORMAN: In many ways, yes. In many ways, we
17 have more experience with it. You know, we have completed
18 decommissioning of quite a number of nuclear power plants and o ther
19 significant nuclear facilities. The community relations piece, you know, I
20 think that's one where we could always learn and grow and do be tter. But I
21 think that the experience that we've had over several decades i n promoting,
22 kind of encouraging licensees in decommissioning to have constr uctive
23 engagement with the communities in the process, it's not someth ing that's
24 been imposed as a requirement. But we have had, in the '90s an d 2000s, 53
1 we had significant positive experience where community safety b oards with
2 different models. You know, I've seen community safety boards that were
3 chartered by the utility and advised the utility. I've seen th em established in
4 state legislation to advise the governor. So there's different models that
5 have been used. I think all of the models have been good, but I think the role
6 that we have played in that, as a licensee approaches the closu re of a facility,
7 to encourage them to engage such a process.
8 So it's something that we've promoted, but it is not
9 something that we've required.
10 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: I see a direct relationship
11 between our work on new and advanced reactors and our decommiss ion
12 efforts, and that connection is, if we're not doing decommissio ning very well
13 and having the support of the communities, we're not going to h ave that
14 support in the communities that are looking to host nuclear fac ilities. And so
15 it's important that we give equal attention to both of those th ings.
16 My last question, this is a kind of open-ended one on a hot
17 topic that either one of you can jump on, but can you talk a li ttle bit more
18 about fuel supply, both in the context of traditional reactors and fuel needed
19 for advanced reactors and from the mining, milling to the enric hment, full
20 scope?
21 MR. DORMAN: How much time do we have?
22 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: So I asked last, and I went
23 last, so you can go as long as you want.
24 (Laughter.)
54
1 MR. DORMAN: I think the conversation has touched on
2 this a little bit. I mean, we're already, without the added en ergy security
3 impetus that's come up through the invasion of Ukraine, we alre ady have
4 significant challenges on the front end of the fuel cycle, as v arious fuel
5 providers explore different advancements in fuel technology, an d then,
6 ultimately, those would need to get into production and make so me changes.
7 And part of that, there's an increased interest in the industry in higher
8 enrichments and burnups to support longer fuel cycles, and so t here would be
9 a need for increases in the license limits for our enrichment f acilities and for
10 the facilities that then handle that.
11 So that's already there. Then overlay on that, now we
12 need to look at the whole supply. You know, where is the urani um coming
13 from the ground but then, as was also mentioned earlier, then t he capacity to
14 provide the conversion services and the enrichment services nee ded to
15 support the U.S. fleet but also the global fleet is a significa nt challenge that's
16 before us. And then overlay on that, you know, TRISO fuels and advanced
17 reactor fuels and so forth.
18 So there's a lot of work that needs to happen to touch all of
19 those things in the coming years in the fuel cycle.
20 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Just one small and
21 potentially unfair question I'll ask you. What's your gut sens e of where we
22 are and how far along we are on advanced reactors and then, in terms of time
23 line for the first ones coming online? And the fuel supply and enrichment
24 conundrum, are they going to match up or are we going to have a 55
1 disconnect?
2 MR. DORMAN: So I think the first-comers that are small
3 modular light water reactors are using either existing or evolu tionary fuel
4 designs, so I think the changes there can be in place to suppor t deployment.
5 I think the first-comers in the non-LWRs are generally looking to the
6 government to supply their first cycle of fuel. TRISO fuel, X-Energy is
7 moving forward on a fabrication facility, so there is some move ment on the
8 industry side to establish the capacity that would be needed in the long term.
9 But I think the short answer is, for the first of a kinds, the
10 LWRs, I think the existing infrastructure can support it. For the non-LWRs
11 and the more different fuels, we'll need to develop their front end.
12 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Thank you.
13 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Crowell.
14 And thanks, Dave and Dan, for a good conversation this morning. I really
15 appreciate it, and I think we all do.
16 And thanks to my colleagues. I think we hit on a number of
17 key and important issues. Commissioner Crowell's, obviously, e mphasis on
18 other parts of the fuel cycle is really timely and important. I certainly agree
19 with Commissioner Wright and Baran that kind of doing our own w ork well
20 and our own, to meet our own needs is a critical part of actual ly productive
21 international engagement. And thinking about results and the e nd in mind is
22 also a point well taken. So, with that, thank you all. And we are adjourned.
23 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record
24 at 11:33 a.m.)
56
1