ML23211A001
| ML23211A001 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Hermes |
| Issue date: | 09/07/2023 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards |
| To: | Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards |
| Shared Package | |
| ML23220A164 | List: |
| References | |
| Download: ML23211A001 (8) | |
Text
CONSIDERATION OF NEW INFORMATION REGARDING POTENTIAL CUMULATIVE IMPACTS FROM NEWLY PROPOSED HERMES 2 TEST REACTOR PROJECT ON HERMES TEST REACTOR PROJECT Issue On August 19, 2023, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued NUREG-2263, Environmental Impact Statement for the Construction Permit for the Kairos Hermes Test Reactor: Final Report (Hermes CP EIS) (NRC 2023a). On July 14, 2023, after NUREG-2263 was in final stages of publication, Kairos Power LLC (Kairos), the applicant for the Hermes project, submitted a new application for a separate CP for a project called Hermes 2 (H2) consisting of two additional test reactors of comparable size and similar technology to be constructed on the same property as the Hermes test reactor (Kairos 2023). This evaluation considers whether the new information provided by Kairos in the recently submitted CP application for the H2 reactors warrants supplementation of the Hermes CP EIS.
Background
The Hermes CP EIS addresses a single non-power test reactor called Hermes that would test and demonstrate key technologies, design features, and safety functions of the proposed Kairos Power Fluoride Salt-Cooled, High Temperature Reactor (KP-FHR) technology. Hermes is a 35-megawatt thermal (MW(t)) test reactor proposed to be built on a 185-acre property owned by Kairos in the Heritage Center of the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The Kairos property was formerly occupied by two large industrial buildings termed K-31 and K-33 that were part of the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant (ORGDP) on the Oak Ridge Reservation and were operated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) until 1985 before being razed between 2011 and 2015. DOE remediated for industrial reuse the lands formerly occupied by the ORGDP and privatized the land, including what is now the 185-acre Kairos property, conveying it to the ETTP for private industrial development. The lands formerly comprising and surrounding the ORGDP were then incorporated into an industrial park termed the ETTP Heritage Center. Hermes would occupy approximately 30 acres of the Kairos property within the former footprint of Building K-33.
As described in Section 2.1 of the environmental report (ER) for H2 (Kairos 2023), the H2 project would comprise two additional 35-MW(t) test reactors on the same 185-acre property as Hermes. The H2 reactors would be sited immediately north of Hermes, also within the former footprint of the now-razed K-33 building. Similar to Hermes, the purpose of the two additional H2 reactors would be to test and demonstrate key technologies, design features, and safety functions of the KP-FHR technology. The construction materials and resource demands for building each H2 test reactor would be generally similar to those for the Hermes test reactor.
Kairos plans to build Hermes and the two H2 test reactors sequentially, starting with Hermes in late 2023 or 2024 and following with the two H2 reactors as early as mid-2025. While Kairos plans to operate the Hermes test reactor for only 4 years, Kairos stated in its CP application that it plans to operate the two H2 test reactors for 11 years. The H2 facilities would be built within the same 30-acre polygon where Kairos plans to construct Hermes and its support facilities.
Three elements of the H2 construction plan are identical to features in Hermes: 1) all water and utilities would be supplied to the H2 reactors via infrastructure serving the Heritage Center; 2) the reactors would be accessed using the roads of the Heritage Center; and 3) there would be no water intake or discharge structures or pipelines to surface water bodies.
Enclosure
Kairos would build and operate a short 161-kilovolt (kV) electric transmission line of less than 1,000 feet connecting the H2 test reactors to an existing transmission line just west of the Kairos property. While Hermes would involve no land disturbance outside of the 185-acre Kairos property, the NRC staff preliminarily estimates that, based on figure 2.2-1 of the H2 ER (Kairos 2023), building the H2 transmission line would involve disturbing less than 1 acre of offsite land to build transmission towers and string conductor wires in an offsite right-of-way (ROW) of less than 2 acres, entirely comprising industrial lands within the Heritage Center.
Requirements for Supplementing an Environmental Impact Statement As required by 10 CFR 51.92(a), the NRC staff will prepare a supplement to the final EIS for the Kairos Hermes Test Reactor if the proposed action (issuance of the CP) has not been taken and:
(1) There are substantial changes in the proposed action that are relevant to environmental concerns; or (2) There are new and significant circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns and bearing on the proposed action or its impacts.
Although H2 is proposed by the same applicant Kairos on the same property and would serve a similar function as Hermes, the NRC staff considers H2 to be a separate and independent project from Hermes. Kairos is applying for a separate CP for H2, and its pursuit of a CP for Hermes will continue irrespective of its separate pursuit of a CP for H2. In other words, the CPs for each individual application are separate and do not depend on each other for their justification. Issuance by NRC of a CP for H2 therefore constitutes a separate Federal action requiring its own review under the National Environmental Policy Act, and the CP application for H2 therefore does not constitute a change in the proposed action addressed by the Hermes CP EIS. However, the NRC staff does recognize that the possible construction of the H2 reactors could potentially influence the cumulative environmental impacts from Hermes. The staff could not have addressed the contribution of H2 on cumulative impacts when writing the EIS for Hermes because no information on H2 was available at that time. The NRC staff is therefore considering whether receipt of the new CP application for the H2 reactors constitutes new and significant information under 10 CFR 51.92(a)(2).
To merit a supplement, information must be both new and significant and it must bear on the proposed action or its impacts. The Commission has stated that for new information to be sufficiently significant to warrant preparation of a supplemental EIS, it must present a seriously different picture of the environmental impact of the proposed project from what was previously envisioned. 1 In determining whether new information meets this seriously different picture standard, the staff looks to, among other things: previous Commission decisions regarding new and significant information and previous environmental analyses done for the proposed action at issue. In other proceedings, the Commission has explained that if any new information that presents a significant new environmental impact that should be addressed in site-specific environmental analyses is identified, the Commission would then supplement or otherwise 1
Union Electric Co. (Callaway Plant, Unit 2), CLI-11-5, 74 NRC 141, 167-68 (2011) (citing Hydro Resources, Inc. (2929 Coors Road, Suite 101, Albuquerque, NM 87120), CLI-99-22, 50 NRC 3, 14 (1999)
(citing Marsh v. Oregon Natural Resources Council, 490 U.S. 360, 373 (1989)); Private Fuel Storage, L.L.C. (Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation), CLI-06-3, 63 NRC 19, 28 (2006));; Sierra Club v.
Froehlke, 816 F.2d 205, 210 (5th Cir. 1987) (citing Wisconsin v. Weinberger, 745 F.2d 412, 418 (7th Cir.1984)).
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incorporate the information into the environmental analyses, as warranted. 2 In doing so, the Commission will have provided access to the relevant information and the agency decision makers will have considered that information before a final decision on the matter is reached. 3 Evaluation Analyses of potential cumulative environmental impacts from the Hermes test reactor and other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future projects affecting the same environmental resources are presented in Chapter 3 of the Hermes CP EIS (NRC 2023a) for each of 12 environmental topics identified by the scoping process for the Hermes CP application, including:
- Land Use and Visual Resources,
- Air Quality and Noise,
- Hydrogeology and Water Resources,
- Ecological Resources,
- Historic and Cultural Resources,
- Socioeconomics and Environmental Justice,
- Human Health,
- Nonradiological Waste,
- Uranium Fuel Cycle and Radiological Waste Management,
- Transportation of Radioactive Material,
- Postulated Accidents, and
- Climate Change.
The staffs evaluations of cumulative impacts for each environmental topic are presented individually in the sections for each topic in Chapter 3 of the Hermes CP EIS (NRC 2023a). For the purposes of this new and significant review, only the environmental topics that have the greatest potential concern regarding impacts from the H2 project are discussed below. In the Hermes CP EIS, the staffs evaluations considered the other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future projects listed in tables 4.13-1 and 4.13-2 of the applicants environmental report for the Hermes CP (Kairos 2021), which was submitted as part of the CP application for that project. The evaluations for each topic address individually those other actions most relevant to the consideration of possible cumulative environmental impacts. Actions playing the greatest overall role in the evaluations for most topics include other development actions in the Heritage Center and Horizon Center of the ETTP, a proposed general aviation airport in the southern part of the Heritage Center, and the proposed TRISO-X fuel fabrication facility on undeveloped land in the Horizon Center. The cumulative impacts evaluations also considered other development projects in the surrounding landscape, including future development at the proposed TVA Clinch River Nuclear site and multiple other nuclear and other energy generation projects, DOE operations on the Oak Ridge Reservation, and others. The evaluation of possible cumulative impacts in the EIS also addressed possible future construction by Kairos of a fuel fabrication facility termed Atlas elsewhere on the Hermes site. However, because no information about the H2 reactors was available to the staff when writing the EIS, the staff could not consider the possible contribution of H2 on cumulative impacts.
2 Union Electric Co. (Callaway Plant, Unit 2), CLI-11-5, 74 NRC at 167-68. See also Entergy Nuclear Generating Co. and Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc. (Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station), CLI-12-15, 75 NRC 704, 726-27 (2012).
3 Hydro Resources, CLI-99-22, 50 NRC at 14 (citing Friends of the River v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 720 F.2d 93, 106-07 (D.C. Cir. 1983)).
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The Hermes CP EIS (NRC 2023a) concludes that the potential cumulative impacts for the Hermes test reactor and the other projects affecting the same environmental resources would be SMALL for each of the 12 environmental topics addressed. Those conclusions reflect the small size, and therefore low environmental resource demands, of the Hermes test reactor.
Those conclusions also consider Hermess proposed siting in an already established industrial park setting entirely within lands previously disturbed by past development, operation, and environmental remediation by DOE of buildings that were formerly part of the ORGDP complex.
Because of the low environmental resource demands of the H2 reactors and the low potential for affecting sensitive environmental resources, there is little potential for the H2 reactors to incrementally influence the minimal environmental impacts from the Hermes test reactor.
The ER included with the H2 CP application submitted by Kairos on July 14, 2023 (Kairos 2023) states that Kairos proposes to build the two proposed H2 test reactors immediately north and west of the Hermes test reactor on other undeveloped land on the same 185-acre Kairos property. Onsite temporary disturbances to build the H2 reactors would be confined to the same 135 acres of land (all contained within the 185-acre overall Kairos property) analyzed in the Hermes CP EIS (NRC 2023a) for disturbance to build Hermes. As indicated in the EIS, the subject 135 acres consists only of land previously disturbed by past industrial development and lacks any natural habitat, forest cover, wetlands or surface water bodies, or natural surface soils. The combined land permanently occupied by the Hermes and H2 test reactors would still be 30 acres, the same acreage conservatively analyzed in the Hermes CP EIS for permanent occupation for Hermes alone. The combined exclusion area for all three test reactors would still encompass only the 185-acre Kairos property, as analyzed in the Hermes CP EIS. Further, as described in the Hermes CP EIS (NRC 2023a), the entire Kairos property is situated in an existing industrial park where introduction of test reactors would not noticeably alter the visual and acoustic settings of the surrounding landscape.
Surface soils throughout the land subject to disturbance to build the Hermes and two H2 test reactors have been heavily disturbed to build and remove past industrial buildings and remediate past environmental contamination. Because excavation to build the Hermes reactor would extend deep enough to reach intact buried soils that could potentially contain cultural artifacts, Kairos is conducting field investigations to support development of an Archaeological Resource Monitoring and Unanticipated Discovery Plan (monitoring plan) to reduce the risk of inadvertent disturbance of archaeological resources. Kairos is developing the plan not only to address Hermes but also to guide future development work throughout the 185-acre property, including the area where Kairos proposes to build the H2 reactors (NRC 2023b). Because of the previously disturbed condition of surface soils throughout the Kairos property and the protections provided by the monitoring plan, the NRC staff expects that the potential for cumulative impacts from the Hermes and two H2 reactors on cultural and historical resources would be minimal.
The two additional test reactors comprising H2 would increase the demands for several environmental resources, including water, wastewater treatment, building materials, labor, and electricity. Based on the similarity of the Hermes and H2 research reactor designs and on other information discussed in Chapter 2 of the Kairos ER for H2 (Kairos 2023), the NRC staff conservatively estimates that the combined resource demands of the three test reactors (Hermes and H2) would be no more than three times those for the Hermes reactor alone.
Because the Hermes CP EIS (NRC 2023a) indicates that the resource demands for the Hermes reactor are more than an order of magnitude lower than available supplies or capacities, the NRC staff finds that a threefold increase in those demands would not likely result in noticeably 4
increased competition for the supplies or capacities. Kairos states in the ER for H2 (Kairos 2023) that the combined water demands of the three test reactors would be met by municipal water utilities or by trucked water and that the combined wastewater generated by the three reactors would meet municipal discharge requirements for treatment by the surrounding municipal wastewater plants. As such, there would still be no need to consume surface water or groundwater and no need to build intake or discharge structures. The electricity demands of the three reactors would still be supplied by electric distribution lines serving the Heritage Center.
Vehicular access to the three reactors would still be through the road system serving the Heritage Center. Based on the low likelihood of noticeably increased competition for resources and on the statements made by Kairos in the ER for H2, the staff determines that the increased resource demands by H2 would not significantly contribute to the cumulative environmental impacts from the Hermes reactor, as presented in the Hermes CP EIS.
The addition of two more test reactors of the same design would also affect the environmental resource areas in the previous list with a radiological nexus. The proposed H2 project would result in additional radiological effluent releases affecting human health with additional annual radiological doses to the surrounding population. There would also be additional uranium fuel cycle (UFC) impacts based on the extra need for High Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU) on the front end of the UFC along with the associated additional radioactive waste on the back end of the UFC along with additional low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) shipments. There is also the potential for an increase in risk from accidents with two additional test reactors on the site.
The annual radiological dose (combined external dose and from gaseous effluent releases) to the maximally exposed individual (MEI) in an unrestricted area (0.5 miles to the south-southeast) and within the boundary of the Heritage Center from the operation of the H2 reactors would add 4.8 mrem (0.048 mSv) (see table 4.8-3 of the ER for H2) to the estimated MEI dose from the original Hermes reactor of 2.4 mrem (0.024 mSv), for a combined total of 7.2 mrem (0.072mSv). This combined annual radiological dose to the MEI is still substantially below the 10 CFR 20.1301(a)(1) Total Effective Dose Equivalent limit of 100 mrem (1 mSv). Since Kairos does not intend to operate the Hermes reactor for as long as the two H2 reactors, Hermes would eventually require decommissioning. During that phase, the combined dose to workers decommissioning Hermes would be limited to the radiological dose that they receive from the H2 reactors. This annual radiological dose would not be significantly different from the 4.8 mrem (0.048 mSv) dose estimate to the MEI from H2 at the above unrestricted area and still less than the dose limit of 10 CFR 10.1301(a)(1) previously provided. Therefore, there would be no substantial change in human health impacts due to the proposed H2 reactors.
As stated in Section 3.9.1 of the final EIS, Hermes would need 0.93 metric tons of uranium of HALEU fuel for a four-year operating life. Due to the timing of the projects, if approved, Hermes would receive the necessary amount of HALEU from DOE before the H2 operational HALEU needs are fulfilled. Thus, the NRC staff expects that there would be no significant change in uranium fuel cycle impacts for Hermes resulting from the HALEU needs for H2. According to the CP application for H2, the radiological waste management programs and most of the volume of radioactive waste for each H2 reactor would be similar to Hermes. The most substantive effect from the H2 reactors is that the H2 reactors would generate additional spent TRISO fuel due to a longer operational lifetime and an additional volume of LLRW in the form of beryllium-sodium-flouride intermediate heat transport loop salts (BeNaF salt) contaminated by tritium. As noted in Section 2.6 of the ER for H2 (Kairos 2023), the H2 reactors would generate, over their operational timeframe, approximately 776,000 spent TRISO fuel pebbles, and Kairos has designed H2 to include sufficient onsite storage capacity. The tritium in the BeNaF salt would be 5
a result of the tritium diffusing from the primary heat removal system to the intermediate heat transport loop via the primary to intermediate heat exchanger tubing. The estimated LLRW volume of this BeNaF salt is approximately 5,090 cubic feet per year, as a Class A waste. The currently operating LLRW disposal facilities available to Kairos (i.e., Waste Control Specialist in Andrews County, Texas and EnergySolutions at Clive, Utah) have adequate capacity to accommodate the combined quantity of LLRW expected to be generated by the Hermes and H2 reactors (TCEQ 2020, EnergySolutions 2016). Thus, NRC staff anticipates that the additional radiological wastes generated by H2 would not substantially change the management of radiological waste for the Hermes project.
The transportation of radioactive materials during construction, operation, and decommissioning of the H2 reactors would be similar to that for Hermes, consisting of three shipments of unirradiated TRISO fuel per year per reactor. There would be additional H2 LLRW shipments above the 46 LLRW shipments for Hermes (see Hermes ER table 4.10-2 for 23 LLRW shipments to EnergySolutions and 23 LLRW shipments to Waste Control Specialists) due to the tritium -contaminated BeNaF salts (the intermediate heat transport loop fluid). The proposed H2 reactors would also have a larger number of spent TRISO fuel shipments during decommissioning due to a longer operational lifetime. Even with the additional volume of tritium-contaminated BeNaF salt, the combined number of LLRW shipments from the Hermes and H2 reactors would still be only a small fraction of the annual shipments of Class A or B LLRW to either the EnergySolutions (Class A) or the Waste Control Specialist (Class A and B)
LLRW disposal facilities. Hermes would be decommissioned before either of the H2 reactors are decommissioned, so the H2 reactors would not impact the spent TRISO fuel shipments from Hermes. Therefore, the NRC staff anticipates that any additional impacts due to the larger number of LLRW shipments from H2 to a licensed LLRW disposal facility would not be substantial and would not significantly affect the transportation of radioactive materials from Hermes.
Due to the same reactor system design, the postulated accidents for the H2 reactors are similar to those for the Hermes reactor, with the exception of considerations for the intermediate heat transport loop and power generation systems. The maximum hypothetical accident (MHA) is a hypothetical scenario conservatively defined to bound the potential dose consequences of other events that are postulated for the test reactor design basis. The MHA for H2 that bounds the radiological consequences of all postulated events, including the intermediate heat transport loop, is identical to the MHA for the Hermes reactor (H2 ER Section 4.11). In the EIS for Hermes (NRC 2023a), the postulated accident risks were found to be low and well within the regulatory requirements in 10 CFR 100.11(a)(2). Thus, the NRC staff anticipates that the additional risks of postulated accidents from H2 would not substantially change the overall accident risks for the surrounding area.
Outside of the 185-acre Kairos property, the only land disturbed for H2 would be that needed to build the new 161-kV electric transmission line. Based on figure 2.2-1 of the H2 ER (Kairos 2023), the NRC staff estimates that the transmission line would extend approximately 800 feet west of the Kairos property, crossing other vacant industrial land within the Heritage Center.
Assuming a ROW width of 100 feet, as is standard in NRC environmental reviews, the staff estimates that the new ROW would occupy less than 2 acres of vacant industrial land off of the Kairos property, all within the Heritage Center. This additional land use is minimal and would therefore have no effect on other land uses and little effect on the availability of usable industrial land in the Heritage Center or elsewhere in Oak Ridge. Building the transmission line would not require any disturbance to forest or other natural habitats, surface water bodies, wetlands, or natural soils unaffected by past industrial development. An electric transmission line is visually 6
compatible with an industrial park setting. The transmission line would be situated entirely within the Heritage Center and not pass within 1,000 feet of any residences, schools, parks, or other non-industrial public areas whose use and enjoyment could be compromised by a nearby transmission line. Because the transmission line would be built entirely within the Heritage Center, and because building it would not require disturbing any soils potentially containing cultural resources, the NRC staff expects that the transmission line would not cumulatively contribute to effects on cultural resources. Based on the above statements, the staff determines that the transmission line would not substantially contribute to the cumulative impacts of Hermes.
Based on the evaluation presented above, the NRC staff has determined that the two proposed H2 reactors (including their offsite transmission line) would not alter the conclusion in the Hermes CP EIS that the cumulative impacts from the Hermes reactor and other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions would be SMALL for all environmental resources.
Conclusion Based on the new information available to the staff via Kaiross CP application for H2 and the evaluation above, the NRC staff concludes that the new information contained in the CP application for the H2 project is not significant in the context of the assessment of the environmental impacts for the proposed Hermes test reactor in the Hermes CP EIS. The new information does not present a seriously different picture of the environmental impacts of the proposed Hermes reactor when compared to the impacts that were described in the Hermes CP EIS. The new information does not alter the conclusions presented in the Hermes CP EIS for any resource area; therefore, consistent with 10 CFR 51.92(a) and NRC guidance cited above, a supplement to the Hermes CP EIS is unwarranted. The new information also does not alter the staffs recommendation that the CP should be issued.
References EnergySolutions. 2016. Letter from V.C. Rogers, Manager, Compliance and Permitting, to S.T.
Anderson, Director, Utah Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control, dated November 29, 2016, regarding "State-issued Part B Permit EPA ID No. UTD982598898 -
Condition V.F.13 and Ground Water Quality Discharge Permit - Condition I.H.6: 2016 Annual As-Built Reports." CD16-0232, Salt Lake City, Utah. ADAMS ML22170A002.
Kairos Power, LLC. 2021. Letter from P. Hastings, Vice President, to NRC Document Control Desk, dated October 31, 2021, regarding "Kairos Power LLC Submittal of the Environmental Report for the Kairos Power Fluoride Salt-Cooled, High Temperature Non-Power Reactor (Hermes)." KP-NRC-2110-003, Alameda, California. ADAMS ML21306A131 Kairos Power, LLC. 2023. Hermes 2 Non-Power Reactor Environmental Report, H2-ER-000001, Revision 0, July 2023. ADAMS Accession Number ML23195A125 (Part of Hermes 2 Non-Power Reactor Construction Permit Application, ADAMS Package ML23195A121).
NRC (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission). 2023a. Environmental Impact Statement for the Construction Permit for the Kairos Hermes Test Reactor: Final Report. NUREG 2263.
Washington, D.C. ADAMS Package ML23214A269.
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NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission). 2023b. Summary of June 29 and July 25, 2023 Closed Meetings with Kairos Power Regarding Section 106 Consultations Under Section 106 Of The National Historic Preservation Act. ADAMS ML23241A003 TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality). 2020. Capacity Report on Low-Level Radioactive Waste. SFR-104/20, Austin, Texas. ADAMS ML22170A001.
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