ML23213A083
| ML23213A083 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/21/2023 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NRC-2444 | |
| Download: ML23213A083 (1) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Regulatory Policies and Practices Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
teleconference Date:
Wednesday, June 21, 2023 Work Order No.:
NRC-2444 Pages 1-48 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1716 14th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 234-4433
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1
1 2
3 DISCLAIMER 4
5 6
UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONS 7
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 8
9 10 The contents of this transcript of the 11 proceeding of the United States Nuclear Regulatory 12 Commission Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, 13 as reported herein, is a record of the discussions 14 recorded at the meeting.
15 16 This transcript has not been reviewed, 17 corrected, and edited, and it may contain 18 inaccuracies.
19 20 21 22 23
1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS (ACRS)
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REGULATORY POLICIES AND PRACTICES SUBCOMMITTEE
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WEDNESDAY JUNE 21, 2023
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The Subcommittee met via Teleconference, at 8:30 a.m.
- EDT, Matthew W.
- Sunseri, Chair, presiding.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
MATTHEW W. SUNSERI, Chair RONALD G. BALLINGER, Member VICKI M. BIER, Member CHARLES H. BROWN, JR., Member VESNA B. DIMITRIJEVIC, Member GREGORY H. HALNON, Member JOSE A. MARCH LEUBA, Member ROBERT MARTIN, Member
2 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com WALTER L. KIRCHNER, Member JOY L. REMPE, Member THOMAS ROBERTS, Member ACRS CONSULTANT:
STEPHEN SCHULTZ DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL:
KENT HOWARD ALSO PRESENT:
ALLEN FETTER, NRR MICHELLE HAYES, NRR
3 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com P R O C E E D I N G S 1
8:31 a.m.
2 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay. It's 8:31. This 3
is a meeting of the Regulatory Policies and 4
Practices Subcommittee and is being held in a 5
hybrid meeting format using MS Teams.
6 I am Matt Sunseri, and I will be 7
today's Chair of the subcommittee.
8 ACRS members in attendance are Ron 9
Ballinger, Jose March-Leuba, Joy
- Rempe, Walt 10 Kirchner, Vicki Bier, Charles Brown, and online we 11 have Vesna Dimitrijevic. Are you there, Vesna?
12 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Yeah, I'm here.
13 Good morning.
14 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay. Dr. Bob Martin?
15 Are you there? Shows to be.
16 And Greg Halnon. Are you online?
17 MEMBER HALNON: Yes, I am, Matt.
18 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay. Thank you.
19 And did I miss any members online?
20 Okay.
21 We are also joined by our consultant, 22 Steve Schultz, and we have an invited expert, Tom 23 Roberts.
24 I note that we have a quorum.
25
4 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com Kent Howard, of the ACRS staff, has 1
been designated federal officer for this meeting.
2 The purpose of this subcommittee 3
meeting is for the NRC staff to provide an 4
information briefing to the subcommittee on 5
proposed Reg Guide 4.27, "Use of Plant Parameter 6
Envelope in Early Site Permit Applications for 7
Nuclear Power Plants."
8 The subcommittee will gather 9
information, analyze relevant issues and facts, and 10 formulate a proposed position and actions as 11 appropriate for deliberation by the full committee.
12 Because this is an information 13 briefing, I do not anticipate any additional 14 actions from this session.
15 ACRS was established by statute and is 16 governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
17 The committee only speaks through its published 18 reports. Because this is a subcommittee meeting, 19 you will only hear from individual member comments 20 today and not any committee position.
21 The ACRS reviews and advises the 22 Commission regarding safety aspects of the 23 licensing and operation of production in 24 utilization facilities, the adequacy of proposed 25
5 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com safety standards, technical and policy issues 1
related to the licensing of evolutionary and 2
passive plant designs, and other matters referred 3
to it by the Commission.
4 The ACRS section of the U.S. NRC public 5
website provides our
- charter, bylaws, federal 6
reports, and full transcripts of all full and 7
subcommittee meetings including the slides 8
presented at the meeting.
9 The rules for today's participation are 10 announced in the Federal Register. We have not 11 received any written comments or requests for time 12 to make oral statements from members of the public 13 regarding today's meeting.
14 A transcript of the meeting is being 15 kept and will be made available on our website.
16 Therefore, we request that participants in the 17 meeting should identify themselves and speak with 18 sufficient clarity and volume so they may be 19 readily heard.
20 A telephone bridge line has been opened 21 for members of the public to listen in on the 22 presentations and deliberations by the subcommittee 23 in addition to the MS Teams link.
24 We have set aside time at the end of 25
6 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com the meeting to offer members of the public the 1
opportunity to provide comments. Please mute your 2
individual lines during the presentation and 3
subcommittee discussions when you are not speaking.
4 At this time, I request everyone to 5
silence their cell phones.
6 We'll now proceed with the agenda. And 7
I call on Michelle Hayes to start the staff's 8
presentation.
9 Good morning, Michelle.
10 MS. HAYES: Thank you. Good morning.
11 So I'm Michelle Hayes, Chief of the 12 Licensing and Emerging Core Infrastructure branch 13 within NRR. That okay. Better?
14 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Just speak as 15 close as you can to the microphone.
16 MS. HAYES: Better?
17 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Yes.
18 MS.
HAYES:
Thank you for the 19 opportunity to brief you on this initial issuance 20 of Reg Guide 4.27, which provides guidance on using 21 a Plant Parameter Envelope rather than a specific 22 reactor design in an application for an Early Site 23 Permit. This is the approach TVA took in their 24 Clinch River Early Site Permit, which we granted in 25
7 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com 2019.
1 Issuing this reg guide will provide 2
durable guidance for future applicants who want to 3
do the same.
4 Now I'll turn it over to Allen Fetter 5
to discuss the whats and whys of Early Site 6
Permits, the history of this reg guide and how 7
staff responded to public comments, and our next 8
steps.
9 And I also want to thank NEI for their 10 interest and their public comments. Allen.
11 MR.
FETTER:
Good
- morning, ACRS 12 committee members and Chair.
13 Allen Fetter.
I'm senior project 14 manager in NRR, the Office of Nuclear Reactor 15 Regulation, Division of New Reactor Licensing, and 16 the New Reactor Licensing and Infrastructure 17 Branch. Just got a new branch. Michelle's our new 18 branch chief.
19 I was looking back at my notes and 20 everyone can hear me okay? Yes.
21 So I had briefed the ACRS back in I 22 think it was November of 2019 when we were working 23 or no, 2017, when we were working on the Clinch 24 River Early Site Permit. We gave them a little bit 25
8 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com of an overview.
1 And some of the slides I have prepared 2
today are a bit of a refresher, so I'm going to go 3
over that. And also, what we've been doing with 4
respect to the reg guide. So here we go.
5 And so, again, this is on Regulatory 6
Guide 4.27, "Use of the Plant Parameter Envelope in 7
Early Site Permit Applications for Nuclear Power 8
Plants."
9 So the purpose of today's meeting is to 10 describe what an Early Site Permit is and why an 11 applicant would pursue an Early Site Permit; 12 describe the role of the Plant Parameter Envelope, 13 also known as the PPE, in the ESP process; describe 14 regulations and guidance and why Reg Guide 4.27 was 15 developed; discuss the issuance of Regulatory Guide 16 4.27 in the next step; and answer your questions.
17 So, at a fundamental level, an Early 18 Site Permit is an approval of the safety and 19 environmental suitability of a proposed site to 20 support a future construction and operation of a 21 nuclear power plant.
22 Now, a lot of folks often wonder, "So 23 what are you doing? What does the permit provide?"
24 And when I'm working with other federal agencies, I 25
9 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com often describe this as almost like a zoning permit 1
for a nuclear power plant where you're zoned to 2
get, but you cannot construct and operate a nuclear 3
power plant even though you have the "zoning" you 4
need to have. You need to have another application 5
before NRC with a selected design, either through a 6
combined license or construction permit 7
application, referencing a
specific reactive 8
technology.
And that must be reviewed and 9
approved.
10 So here's the why. Why would an 11 applicant choose to pursue an Early Site Permit?
12 It allows us to identify and resolve site and 13 environmental siting issues
- early, reduce 14 regulatory and financial uncertainties when 15 planning for the future. It's valid for up to 20 16 years and may be renewed, and it gives flexibility.
17 And the part of 50 regulations 52 subpart A 18 regulations allow an ESP or CP, or COL application 19 can fall in our site permit.
20 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Specifically, 20 21 years is to the time the first shovel goes in the 22 ground? Or it's the first time they submit a 23 document?
24 MR. FETTER: So there's a little bit 25
10 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com more detail. If you want to once you have 1
MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: A sign up?
2 MR. FETTER: Yeah. Yeah. So once you 3
have an Early Site Permit if you're it can be 4
renewed again. But you have to there's 5
regulations with respect to it, and I going from 6
memory, and I can follow up with the committee if 7
you'd like, but I think it's three months before it 8
expires, you have to submit some sort of notice 9
that you're going to renew your Early Site Permit 10 for yet another 20 years.
11 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: And, basically, 12 your 20 years is the first time you put the shovel 13 in the ground until the time you complete the plan, 14 the time you submit some documents that you plan to 15 do something?
16 MR. FETTER: So I'm not quite sure I 17 understood.
18 So the Early Site Permit doesn't allow 19 you to build anything. You can do preconstruction 20 activities, but the 21 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Say they have a 22 build is 19 years and 6 months old and, I'm 23 assuming, now a CP, construction permit. Am I 24 still within the time frame? Or do I have to start 25
11 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com moving now?
1 MR. FETTER: Yes. You should be within 2
the time frame, yes.
3 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Submit all the 4
documentation.
5 MR. FETTER: Yes, correct. Correct.
6 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Because from that 7
point until construction operation maybe allow 20 8
years.
9 MR. FETTER: Yes. So because then, 10 once we have a construction permit or a COL 11 application before us, then that's referencing that 12 which was valid, so 13 MEMBER REMPE: To follow up on this 14 thing, again, like you said, even if they get the 15 construction permit, it may be another 10 years 16 before they actually break ground because of all 17 the work that has to be done between the 18 construction permit and the operating license 19 submittal. And that still, they're good.
20 MR. FETTER: So yeah. It's 21 MEMBER REMPE: It's an interesting time 22 frame.
23 MR. FETTER: Yeah. If we want to 24 but if you're familiar with the Bellafonte plant 25
12 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com down in Alabama, that had a construction permit.
1 And that was '80 I think it ended in '84. It 2
went on for a very long time. And it was put on 3
hold, and they actually, they reinstated their 4
CP. So that CP for Bellefonte is still valid from 5
my understanding 6
MEMBER REMPE: Thank you.
7 MR. FETTER: if that helps.
8 So one of the things is that the 9
benefits is because you have a site, if you're not 10 locked in with a specific vendor and design, it 11 allows an applicant to get a little bit more, I 12 guess, negotiation power with looking at other 13 vendors.
14 Okay. So now we're going to talk about 15 the role of the Plant Parameter Envelope in the ESP 16 process, which is approving an ESP site without a 17 selected reactor technology.
18 So an Early Site Permit Plant Parameter 19 Envelope values can bound a variety of reactor 20 technologies rather than one specific technology.
21 It's an amalgam of values representing a surrogate 22 what's known as a surrogate plant.
23 So the PPE values are bounding criteria 24 used by staff to determine the suitability of an 25
13 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com ESP site for construction operation of a nuclear 1
power plant.
2 At the CP or COL stage, when a specific 3
technology is identified, the ESP PPE values are 4
compared to those with the selective technology.
5 If the design parameters of the selected technology 6
exceed the bounding ESP values, additional reviews 7
are conducted to ensure that the site remains 8
suitable from a safety and environmental standpoint 9
for construction operation of a nuclear power 10 plant.
11 So regulations guidance I
already 12 mentioned. NCFR part 52, subpart A, on Early Site 13 Permits, you have to have emergency planning in 14 other areas. There's an environmental report 15 associated with that, and then there's NCFR 100 per 16 reactor site criteria.
17 So the guidance that was previously 18 used was review standard RS-002, and that will be 19 supplanted by Reg Guide 4.27 when that's issued.
20 And then, of course, there's the Standard Review 21 Plan, NUREG-0800.
22 So why was Reg Guide 4.27 developed?
23 Review standard RS-002, title "Processing 24 Applications for Early Site Permits" contained 25
14 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com outdated guidance and updates Reg Guide 1.206, 1
"Applications for Nuclear Power Plants," does not 2
contain all of the PPE information that's in RS-3 002.
4 So Reg Guide 4.27 was developed as 5
updated guidance that retains the PPE information 6
for use by future prospective ESP applicants. And 7
issuance of Reg Guide 4.27 allows the staff to 8
withdraw the outdated review standard, RS-002.
9 Okay. So here's a chronology of Reg 10 Guide 4.27 development. In the summer of 2020, the 11 decision to withdraw Reg Guide Regulatory 12 Standard 002.
13 And then, in the fall of 2020, there 14 was some preparation of Draft Guide 4.029 was 15 initiated to capture the PPE information in Review 16 Standard 002 that was not included in the other 17 guidance.
18 So, during the winter and spring of 19 2021, there was internal and external stakeholder 20 interactions to inform the development of the draft 21 guide.
22 In June of 2021, Draft Guide 4.029 was 23 issued for public
- comment, and RS-002 was 24 withdrawn.
25
15 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com August 2021, we received comments from 1
NEI on Draft Guide 4.029, and NRC resolved those 2
comments in the preparation of Reg Guide 4.27.
3 So summer of 2023 is ahead of us or 4
actually may have started today summer. And so, 5
we will work on finalizing and issuing Reg Guide 6
4.27 this summer.
7 So the comments we received we 8
received comments from NEI. Three of these were 9
the three main noneditorial comments was request to 10 endorse NEI 10-01, Rev 2, which was the " Industry 11 Guideline for Developing a Plant Parameter Envelope 12 in Support of an Early Site Permit."
13 So, right now, just from a planning 14 standpoint, there might be an applicant planning to 15 prepare an Early Site Permit as early as 2025, and 16 we wanted to get Reg Guide 4.27 out on the street 17 and then subsequently look at endorsing this NEI 18 Technical Report. And, if we endorse it, we would 19 then make a future revision to Reg Guide 4.27 that 20 would endorse it.
21 So any revision to Reg Guide 4.27, if 22 the staff does, in fact, endorse the NEI Technical 23 Report, would involve that revision and discussion 24 of the language. So it would not be a major 25
16 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com rewrite.
1 So the other public NEI comment was to 2
acknowledge that ESP applications may be followed 3
by a CP, construction permit, in addition to a COL.
4 That was incorporated into Reg Guide 4.27.
5 And the other one was to acknowledge 6
that ESP applications may be accompanied by a 7
limited work authorization. And there was a 8
request to incorporate a reference to COL ESP, 9
Interim Staff Guidance 026.
10 MEMBER REMPE: So I'm looking at NEI 11 10-01. And I just did an internet search. And I 12 have Rev 1 issued May 2012. Is there a REV 2 that 13 they wanted you to endorse or something? Or what 14 is 15 MR. FETTER: That's correct. Yeah.
16 Rev 2 is what and Rev 1 was looked at by the 17 staff. And my understanding I actually talked 18 to someone who's in retirement right now because 19 this was done so long ago. There was an effort 20 my understanding was that the staff endorsing that 21 reg guide, but or no, that technical report from 22 NEI. But at the time, I think there was a broad 23 I wouldn't call it necessarily consensus, but maybe 24 note there wouldn't be any more ESPs. And so, 25
17 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com developing endorsing the guidance wasn't 1
priority, and other activities were going on.
2 So now that ESPs applicants, future 3
applicants, or potential applicants continue to 4
express an interest, this has been revived. NEI, 5
in this Rev 2, they have incorporated some of the 6
maybe updates related to ESPs issued after 2012, 7
specifically PSEG and TVA's early site program.
8 MEMBER REMPE: Can we get a copy of it 9
even though it 10 MR. FETTER: Absolutely.
11 MEMBER REMPE: it didn't pop up on 12 the internet.
13 MR. FETTER: Yeah. That's 14 MEMBER REMPE: Could you send it to 15 Ken, and he'll forward it to us?
16 MR. FETTER: That's publicly available.
17 That should be 18 MEMBER REMPE: Yeah. Maybe I just 19 my internet search 20 MR. FETTER: available anytime so.
21 And the redline that they submitted with their 22 comments shows what changes were made since Rev 1.
23 And the staff will be working on reviewing that for 24 endorsement.
25
18 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MEMBER REMPE: Thank you.
1 MR. FETTER: Okay.
2 CHAIR SUNSERI:
- Hey, Allen.
I 3
apologize for missing this but could you turn on 4
your microphone.
5 MR. FETTER: Oh. I must apologies 6
to everyone. I must have inadvertently hit it. It 7
was working my mouse.
8 Did everyone do you want me to 9
repeat any of that?
10 CHAIR SUNSERI: No. You were good.
11 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: We have a backup 12 microphone.
13 MR. FETTER: Okay. So hopefully, I was 14 speaking loudly enough.
15 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Maybe we need to 16 ask the court reporter 17 MR. FETTER: If the court reporter has 18 any questions about anything I said between, I can 19 help clarify.
20 All right. Okay. Good. Good.
21 And then the final comment was to 22 acknowledge that OSO. And so, we added language 23 noting that an ESP may be associated with an LWA, 24 or a Limited Work Authorization. But we did not 25
19 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com include the COL, ESP, ISG, and 026 as a reference 1
because that doesn't offer any guidance related to 2
Plant Parameter Envelopes.
3 So next steps.
Finalization and 4
issuance of Reg Guide 4.27 via Federal Register 5
notice. And, as I said earlier, that would be this 6
summer.
7 Then NRC staff review of NEI Technical 8
Report 10-01 Rev 2, "Industry Guidelines for 9
Developing a Plant Primer Envelope in Support of an 10 Early Site Permit," for potential endorsement.
11 And, if endorsed, NEI 10-01, Rev 2, 12 could be referenced in an update to Reg Guide 4.27.
13 And one of the questions is that the 14 endorsement of the reg guide, if staff work on 15 that, that the timeline we're putting together a 16 timeline for that. And I hesitate to say when that 17 could be. But it could be in the relatively and 18 often Reg Guides aren't updated on a it's more 19 on a five to ten-year basis, but this would if 20 there is an update, it could be much sooner. And 21 we would be happy to meet with HCRS to discuss any 22 changes to that, or we could share that with the 23 subcommittee lead.
24 DR. SCHULTZ: Allen, Steve Schultz.
25
20 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MR. FETTER: Yes.
1 DR. SCHULTZ: Did NEI indicate that 2
there were applicants that were wanting to use 3
their guidance document, at this point, the Rev 2?
4 Is there enough 5
MR. FETTER: Well 6
DR. SCHULTZ: over there 7
MR. FETTER: So I 8
DR. SCHULTZ: that could utilize 9
that?
10 MR. FETTER: I'm going on the working 11 premise that well, first of all, the reg guide 12 is a priority because that's an NRC document. And 13 so, that, we want to get that out on the street.
14 And my premise in NEI, I understand, 15 is on this call, and maybe they can weigh in as 16 well. But I would presume that they would want 17 that endorsed to have applicants use that as 18 something to help develop their Early Site Permit 19 application.
20 DR. SCHULTZ: As you see it, would it 21 be a combination of both if an applicant were to 22 come in, they would be using the NEI Guidance along 23 with the Regulatory Guidance that you have?
24 MR. FETTER: I believe so. That would 25
21 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com be true.
1 DR. SCHULTZ: Good.
2 MR. FETTER: And right now, their NEI 3
does have Rev 1, we did not endorse it. It is 4
mentioned as a reference in the current Reg Guide 5
4.27, but there's not an endorsement of it. And 6
there as you say as I said earlier there are 7
updates that would be useful to a new applicant.
8 DR. SCHULTZ: But you don't see any 9
specific schedule or issue associated with an 10 applicant moving forward with the guidance that 11 exists until 12 MR. FETTER: I do not. I do not see 13 that. But that is I think it's incumbent on us 14 to work to look at the guidance to see if we can 15 endorse it in a timely manner.
16 DR. SCHULTZ: Thank you.
17 MR. FETTER: Okay. And now other 18 questions. Yes.
19 MEMBER BIER: I want to come back to 20 some of the discussion at the very beginning of the 21 presentation about how long the preliminary site 22 approval is valid for because, even with plants 23 that have already been constructed, we've seen that 24 plants that were built somewhere in a remote 25
22 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com location, by 20, 30 years later, it's not so 1
remote. They're in the middle of suburban sprawl 2
and in a place where, if they had proposed that 3
place at that time, we might not have approved it 4
based on remote citing.
5 And I don't want to say plants that 6
already have been built have to have their licenses 7
revoked because people move nearby. But has there 8
been consideration to putting some type of time 9
limits or conditions on the preliminary site 10 approval to prevent this kind of thing?
11 MR. FETTER: So well, let me just 12 say in terms of we have a safety review and an 13 environmental review, and some of the in the 14 environmental and the safety review, it looks at 15 population and so, in the population and 16 population projections.
17 Now, in the Counsel for Environmental 18 Quality, which is associated with guidance for 19 environmental impact statements, I think that my 20 understanding their guidance is that an EIS, 21 Environmental Impact Statement, that supports a 22 licensing action, is valid for on the order of five 23 years. But our permit would be good.
24 But if somebody comes in with a new 25
23 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com that COL application or CP application, you still 1
have to have an environmental report with updated 2
obviously, if changes to water use conditions or 3
population, you have to look at the delta and how 4
things have changed. So it's doing significant 5
change, and that's an environmental term of art for 6
our environmental reviews.
7 MEMBER BIER: Okay. So, in other 8
words, the preliminary approval would technically 9
remain valid. But, say, a construction permit 10 could still be disapproved based on too high a 11 population at the time they came in to request it.
12 Is that right?
13 MR. FETTER: So I'd have to we're 14 starting to get into almost a legal question that 15 would have to because certain areas that have 16 been resolved at the Early Site Permit stage are 17 considered closed. But that being said, you might 18 get into policy statement, as you say, if a lot of 19 people were to move around. That's a change. And 20 that could be 21 In our process, we have notice of 22 opportunity for
- hearing, and that could be 23 something that potential intervenors could bring up 24 as an issue. And, obviously, that's something we 25
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com want to be open and transparent and responsive to 1
stakeholders.
2 MEMBER BIER: Okay.
3 MR. FETTER: But that you're getting 4
into a legal question where maybe we would want 5
MEMBER BIER: Yeah. Yes.
6 MR. FETTER: If we want to have another 7
briefing where we have an attorney to talk about 8
MEMBER BIER: I don't think we need 9
another briefing, but I think the short answer is 10 it's complex, correct?
11 MR. FETTER: Yes. Yes. Exactly.
12 Yeah. But hopefully, that was a helpful answer.
13 MEMBER BIER: Yeah.
14 CHAIR SUNSERI: I think it's complex, 15 but I mean, it's all sequenced together, right, so 16 that you get some level of finality on issues that 17 are reasonable to create that finality on in 18 preparation for a construction permit or a COL, 19 which would add additional, especially if you're 20 referencing a DCA or an SBA. I want to pull all 21 this together.
22 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Exactly. To add to 23 Matt's comments, isn't there a requirement you do a 24 projection of population growth pursuant to 25
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MR. FETTER: That's correct. Yeah.
1 MEMBER KIRCHNER: So that partially 2
addresses what you're raising.
3 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: There are other --
4 you mentioned water rights. I'm thinking I 5
probably have an ESP permit for a plant in the lake 6
in Zaporizhzhia (phonetic),
conditions have 7
changed.
8 MEMBER BIER: Yes.
9 MR.
FETTER:
And that's water 10 condition, you can get a license from the NRC, but 11 an applicant also needs to comply with the Clean 12 Water Act requirements that are also partly 13 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: My point is 14 MR. FETTER: appointed by the state, 15 and 16 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA:
My point is 17 conditions change.
18 MR.
FETTER:
Conditions
- change, 19 exactly.
20 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA:
And they can 21 change overnight in this case.
22 MR. FETTER: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
23 CHAIR SUNSERI: So Member Martin has 24 his hand up.
25
26 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com Bob, do you have a question? You need 1
to unmute. Bob Martin, we can't hear you. If you 2
unmute.
3 MR. MOORE: Member Martin, this is 4
Scott Moore. You may need to press *6.
5 CHAIR SUNSERI: No, he's on Teams.
6 MR. MOORE: Oh, sorry.
7 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay. Well, we're 8
going to go ahead, Bob, and continue on. Just 9
break in when you think you have it resolved.
10 Ron?
11 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: You may have to 12 reboot your computer when you have problems with 13 the driver the microphone driver.
14 I have a comment question.
15 CHAIR SUNSERI: Yeah.
16 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: When you guys were 17 not reviewing. No, reviewing NEI 10, 10-01, and 18 developing the guideline, what was your did you 19 think of what the risk was of undoing the ESP the 20 regular way and creating a parameter?
21 Let me give you some examples. I'm 22 thinking of a light water reactor, that I designed 23 it with respect to those parameters. And then, the 24 guys that come with a sodium reactor. They have to 25
27 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com consider sodium fires, they have to consider 1
chemical beryllium leaks, things like that. Was 2
that a concern of yours?
3 MR. FETTER: Well, if you go back to 4
Clinton Early Site Permit, I think they included 5
something like the pebble bed reactor as one of 6
their options. And that created there was a lot 7
of complexity with the source term.
8 So we look at external hazards or even 9
internal hazards. So if you have sodium fires, 10 that would have to be looked at. And if that 11 wasn't if you didn't get finality on that, or if 12 that's new, then that would have to be reviewed by 13 staff, obviously.
14 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: But my point is 15 when you try to encompass with parameters an ESP, 16 my question is:
Have you covered all the 17 parameters?
18 MR. FETTER: Well, it doesn't matter.
19 I mean 20 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Is there such a 21 thing is there such a thing like a mutation or 22 condition in a reg guide that says, "This is 23 limited to reactors of this type"?
24 MR. FETTER: I might have to get back 25
28 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com to you on that.
1 But the parameters, you have plant 2
parameters and site parameters that you look at.
3 And so 4
(Simultaneous speaking.)
5 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: source term?
6 MR. FETTER: Yes.
7 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: It's the same for 8
everybody.
9 MR. FETTER: Yeah. Yeah.
10 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: But new plants 11 come with new risks. And they're likely minimal, 12 often minimal. I'm just thinking if you thought 13 about that.
14 MR. FETTER: But, in the end, whatever 15 plant is chosen to apply for construction there has 16 to fit within the parameters of the ESP. It's 17 going to reference the ESP.
18 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: But if my plan 19 if my ESP didn't have any limits on my beryllium 20 release, I can't plan with beryllium. How do I 21 know it's inside of my parameters?
22 CHAIR SUNSERI: And that was one of the 23 parameters that wasn't considered.
24 MR. FETTER: That wasn't brought up, so 25
29 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com it's information that was outside of the PPE. So 1
it's the staff always look at new information 2
that wasn't included.
3 So just because you have you can 4
if we come in with a reactor, and it's outside of 5
the suppose you said you were going to use 800 6
megawatts, and it becomes 810, we want to do bigger 7
because we have 8
Well, you have to look at what is that 9
power upgrade what are the implications for 10 source term? What are the implications for 11 emergency planning? What are the implications for 12 the ultimate heat sink? What are the and also, 13 going back to water resources, I
- mean, 14 environmental, you cannot you can only withdraw 15 a certain amount from a river. There's some sort 16 of EPA limit of 10 percent of the mean low flow or 17 something like that. But if that helps.
18 CHAIR SUNSERI: Thanks. So I do have 19 Member Martin's written we have a workaround.
20 Here's the 21 MR. FETTER: Okay. Okay. Workaround, 22 good. Good.
23 CHAIR SUNSERI: So the comment I'll 24 read the
- question, and I
think it's pretty 25
30 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com straightforward.
1 But the question is: What level of 2
engagement will the staff and applicant have with 3
the ACRS under this reg guide or whatever it is 4
spelled out with the ESP?
5 So I think the let me translate 6
that. If an applicant comes in with an ESP, what 7
level of engagement will the staff and an applicant 8
have with the ACRS?
9 MR. FETTER: Yep. Yeah, so just like 10 any review, if we have an Early Site Permit, we 11 have a safety review and environmental review. And 12 when we have the safety, we have the different SC 13 sections. The subcommittee would look at the SE 14 sections, and you'd have a final committee review 15 of the safety evaluation report as well as the 16 same.
17 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Part 52 requires an 18 ACRS review, actually.
19 So for new members on the committee, 20 the most recent ESP that was reviewed was for 21 Clinch River site. And Jose's line of questioning, 22 I think it was a presumption wasn't one of those 23 other reactor types.
They talk mainly in 24 megawatts, thermal not and the presumption was 25
31 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com probably source terms based on LW QR technology.
1 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Because I can 2
think of reactors that produce off tritium, which 3
have less power than 800 megawatts and, clearly, 4
it's not covered by my ESP analysis.
5 MR. FETTER: Some of the ESPs can come 6
in with a proposed source term. And when you see 7
the NEI often there's a table for different 8
radionuclides.
9 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: In a pinch and 10 then you lose some power, not on technology.
11 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Kind of a follow on 12 question is it clear in the Reg Guide I 13 haven't had the opportunity to read it thoroughly 14 through yet with regard to is it total source 15 term, so to speak, regardless of the number of 16 modules? Is it clear on say you have a 17 modularized reactor, and you have multiple units, 18 Clinch River data was bound to the largest single 19 unit. And I think it was 800 megawatts thermal.
20 But it's the total source term? Or is it a single 21 unit's source term?
22 MR. FETTER: Yeah. My recollection of 23 the Clinch River, their permit was for one or more 24 SMRs at the site, not to exceed 800 megawatts 25
32 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com thermal. So that was bounding. And so, you could 1
divide it up, so you had three SMRs that had 800 2
megawatts electric, and it was I think it's 2400 3
megawatts thermal, whatever the arithmetic is on 4
that. So that would be that's the total. And 5
what would the source term be for all of those?
6 Because I know this I recall that 7
this is something that's been asked before related 8
to how do you look at this in terms of if you have 9
multiple units in the accidents. Is that what 10 you're getting a little bit?
11 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Yeah.
12 MR. FETTER: So my understanding, my 13 recollection is that it has to do with the entire 14 source term regardless of how many units. But I 15 can follow up with the committee if you'd like.
16 MEMBER REMPE: So I've been given the 17 in the Rev 2, but even in the Rev 1, it talks about 18 multiple units. I haven't had a chance or I've 19 forgotten when I looked at it, but does it include 20 the source term from the spent fuel pool, too, and 21 all the hazards on the site that might contribute 22 is one question.
23 And then have you started to look at 24 Rev 2 versus Rev 1, and do you see any differences 25
33 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com with it, just out of curiosity? Do they still 1
consider the same release height and things like 2
that from the releases?
3 MR. FETTER: Yeah. So since we're 4
reviewing it right now, I don't want to comment.
5 But it is a publicly available document. Yeah. We 6
can actually, since it's publicly available, I can 7
share that. And I can pull up the table and run 8
through it real quick.
9 MEMBER REMPE: But you've not seen any 10 big differences so far for 11 MR. FETTER: I have not.
12 MEMBER REMPE: Okay.
13 MS. HAYES: I did want to mention I was 14 looking at the Clinch River ESP, and they put a 15 limit both on the single and the combined. And the 16 table is for the total.
17 MR.
FETTER:
Okay.
Thank
- you, 18 Michelle.
19 CHAIR SUNSERI:
I just want to 20 acknowledge that what the staff is doing here is 21 updating the old guidance with the new information, 22 including the contributor and all the experience to 23 date. So, I mean, they're not creating, really 24 there may be some new things, based on your 25
34 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com experience, but it's really a roll-up of the 1
experience we've gained. And so, this has all been 2
proven to work already once, I guess. Yeah.
3 MR. FETTER: Also, when the staff is 4
looking at the NEI technical report, we're looking, 5
also, at the vision of advanced reactors network.
6 So this is going to not just be looked at by our 7
division, but it's going to be looked at by 8
different divisions, who also are considering other 9
alternatives as a member.
10 Jose mentioned that are we looking at 11 beryllium and other sorts of fires, sodium fires 12 and beryllium releases and tritium, and so on and 13 so forth. So the staff's going to take a hard look 14 at that.
15 And there will be opportunities, as we 16 go through this, to engage with the public on NEI 17 on any observations we have and comments we have on 18 their technical report.
19 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: So this probably 20 is more a question for -- probably isn't for you, 21 but you view these as a draft ESP is kind of 22 it's a new site permit, but we're going to look at 23 it when you resubmit the concession permit?
24 MR. FETTER: Yeah. The point is as I 25
35 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com said to sort of like a zoning permit for a 1
nuclear power plant. And that's the way to kind of 2
come back to the fundamentals. You're looking at 3
site safety, suitability, and also environmental 4
acceptability.
5 And then that's when you look at the 6
hard look at the reactor to how it fits within the 7
at the site.
8 MEMBER REMPE: So, as you're thinking 9
about this interaction with NEI, you might also not 10 only think about the spent fuel pool and the 11 modules but the spent modules as we think about 12 what's coming down the pipeline or what people are 13 talking about, too, because, again, it's all 14 sources of radiation on the site.
15 MR. FETTER: So are you referring to 16 not only the spent fuel pool but ISFSIs or whatever 17 the 18 MEMBER REMPE: I'm talking about if 19 they have a bloated fuel module. And if they bring 20 it on-site before it's installed. And then, after 21 it's done, where they're going to the parking 22 lot until they can ship it off-site, and so you 23 might have that consideration too.
24 MR. FETTER: Yeah.
25
36 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com CHAIR SUNSERI: Any other comments?
1 MEMBER MARTIN: This is Bob Martin.
2 Can you all hear me?
3 CHAIR SUNSERI: Yes.
4 MEMBER REMPE: Yes.
5 CHAIR SUNSERI: Yes, Bob, we can hear 6
you.
7 MEMBER MARTIN: Okay. Great. In part, 8
I wanted to ask a question just to see if I can get 9
this to work.
10 I was wondering if, in the Reg Guide, 11 is there a mention of how applicants might approach 12 change, change to the PPE both in situations where 13 maybe their have an opportunity to relax the PPE 14 or, obviously, in a case where you can constrain 15 it, or it might open up all or part of their 16 original application?
17 Anyway, main question is: How is 18 change addressed?
19 MR. FETTER: So we had an application 20 for an ESP with Plant Parameter Envelope values.
21 And during the course of the staff's review, if 22 they want to update their application to change it, 23 they can and a lot of revs are a Rev 1, and 24 often if so it depends on how much it is.
25
37 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com If it's significant enough, they'll 1
have to withdraw perhaps they'll have to 2
withdraw the application, submit a new one. Or 3
they'll just make updates to request a change in 4
the Plant Parameter Envelope value that the staff 5
has to review.
6 Is that what you're getting at?
7 MEMBER MARTIN: Well, okay. The simple 8
question, I guess and it's in the interest of 9
minimizing engagement where it doesn't have to be 10 done, but if say, among the many plant 11 parameters, they see that they can relax a few, 12 which would otherwise be easy to disposition.
13 Would they have to engage in the staff on that in 14 anything more than, say, a report? Or would it 15 open up a review? And then, hence, they'd be 16 discouraged to engage in that particular case?
17 Obviously, if it tightens up, they lose 18 population changes, they sell property and I'm 19 just thinking from a radiological example that 20 opens things up. But I just kind of wondered.
21 There's, yeah, a number of things that are probably 22 on that PPE. And they can sharpen the pencil or 23 what have you and find that there's margins that 24 they can maybe otherwise credit for, say, a future 25
38 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com engagement or just looking to ensure they have 1
as much flexibility under the permit as practical.
2 MR. FETTER: Yeah. I think, well, 3
getting a permit or an application license from the 4
NRC is a non-trivial matter.
5 And so, when you're preparing a Plant 6
Parameter Envelope review, you want to try to 7
rightsize it to capture the bounding. But it 8
doesn't have to go so large that you're going to 9
have 4 AP 1000s on-site. You want to rightsize it 10 so it's I'd say it's incumbent on the applicant 11 to do their due diligence in determining what the 12 PPE values are reasonable, so that the staff can do 13 the reviews so that they have the flexibility to 14 and they get finality on certain aspects of the 15 site.
16 So, obviously, applications can always 17 be amended or revised. But then my basic answer is 18 there is flexibility in it. And those parameters 19 should be bounding.
20 But putting those bounds on there 21 doesn't mean it has to be wildly bounding. You 22 don't have to have an order of magnitude. We can 23 have enough so that you have an engineering margin 24 of adding an additional 20 percent to some sort of 25
39 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com boundary or whatever the case may be.
1 So is that helpful?
2 MEMBER MARTIN: I think you've answered 3
the question.
4 MR. FETTER: Okay.
5 CHAIR SUNSERI: So, Greg or Vesna, you 6
folks have any questions or 7
MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Yeah. I just 8
want to make a very general comment. It's not a 9
question or anything.
10 This is a very high-level reg guide in 11 this moment. And all of these questions which we 12 were asking are very specific questions.
13 So I
think this reg guide would 14 benefit, really, very much running the gauges NEI 15 than 01 because a lot of those questions address 16 and discuss that.
17 But I doubt it doesn't really provide 18 the specific directions for a
lot of those 19 questions, but I hope the next version will do 20 that.
21 MR. FETTER: Yeah. So NEI technical 22 report definitely has more granularity than our reg 23 guide.
24 CHAIR SUNSERI: Any other questions?
25
40 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MEMBER BROWN: Yes.
1 CHAIR SUNSERI: Charlie?
2 MEMBER BROWN: Yeah. I'm not exactly 3
sure whether I'm going to phrase this right. But 4
it seemed to me there were two thoughts in this.
5 One was to allow some flexibility for applicants to 6
get advanced planning done within an envelope of 7
characteristics, which the committee I mean the 8
Commission thinks are very, very important.
9 But when you paw the reg guide, and you 10 look at, what, four new regs, which are voluminous, 11 and some of the other documents you've got in here, 12 there's just a whole plethora of items that need to 13 be addressed.
14 And I guess my thought, what if you 15 tried is there a way to is there a way to 16 characterize the most critical parameters that are 17 needed for seismic or hurricanes or other 18 environmental issues that has to be addressed 19 separate from the 1500-megawatt thermal plants or 20 whatever they are, whether you got one of them or 21 four of them or what have you?
22 I mean, there's certain characteristics 23 that have to be defined that would reject a site 24 regardless of what you were going to put on it.
25
41 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com And that doesn't seem to be that doesn't seem to 1
be captured by some effort. And it's not a 2
critical. I'm not being critical here. It's just 3
the thought process of laying out, "Hey guys, 4
there's 422 characteristics listed in these four" 5
I throw that number out as candy at a child's 6
party.
7 CHAIR SUNSERI: Yeah.
8 MEMBER BROWN:
But
- here, the 50 9
specific items that are kind of independent of a 10 specific plant design that could be settled so that 11 you don't run the risk of having to lose the 12 characteristics or the approval of your Early Site 13 Permit. And I didn't see that in here.
14 I thought this was supposed to kind of 15 try to simplify it somewhat for applicants to get 16 some advance work done and not have everything be 17 squashed into one early time frame.
18 So that was just an observation. If 19 I'm wrong, tell me.
20 MR. FETTER: Well, I would tell you if 21 you look at sitting, you have seismic. You have 22 bearing capacity of a site from the geologic 23 strata. You have well, now we have a reg guide.
24 The one that's before this is on volcanic hazards.
25
42 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com We have meteorology, your flooding. Obviously, you 1
don't want to build it in a flood plain, on a 2
fault. And if you do it in a hurricane area, you 3
want to you need to assess what the floods are.
4 There are certain siting criteria in 5
Part 100. The main one's meteorology, seismology, 6
flooding, those sort of hazards. And I have some 7
additional slides that kind of cover those main 8
reviewers. Those are the ones that are to kind of 9
simplify it in terms of the siting.
10 MEMBER BROWN: Yeah, but does that 11 is that clear to the applicants that that's what 12 you want to do? I mean, there's no statements in 13 there that, "Hey, these items is a boundary 14 condition stuff that need to be addressed 15 regardless." And, obviously, you don't put it on 16 top of a volcano site.
17 MR. FETTER: Yeah, yeah.
18 MEMBER BROWN: That's kind of obvious.
19 MR. FETTER: Yeah.
20 MEMBER BROWN: But stuff that they 21 probably are not going to fail when they come back 22 with whatever point they want to. There's a lot of 23 other stuff once you know the footprint and what 24 type of plant it's going to be, what type of water 25
43 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com or cooling sources you need, et cetera, et cetera, 1
et cetera, which drives some other parameters 2
there.
3 I just got a little bit lost on that.
4 It's still pretty complex is all I'm saying.
5 MR. FETTER: Yeah. Yeah. So the Early 6
Site Permit process, you can do an Early Site 7
Permit and even reference the design. It's been 8
done before with Vogtle. They did an Early Site 9
Permit, and they even had a design they referenced.
10 But an Early Site Permit, you still 11 have to go through all the safety review and all 12 of the siting and environmental reviews are all by 13 and large the same. So we've been the best 14 practices for applicants is to get involved in 15 engagement with the NRC in advance. Of course, 16 they hire their own consultants, and they can see 17 other Early Site Permits we've issued to kind of 18 give them that can kind of help inform what they 19 prepare.
20 But this is just having the reg 21 guide is useful because we don't have because 22 RS-002 was sunsetted, we need to have we need to 23 have this reg guide there.
24 And I
don't know if this is a
25
44 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com satisfactory answer for you.
1 MEMBER BROWN: I'm just trying to get 2
some illumination. It's obvious not obvious but 3
seems to be apparent that it's the applicant 4
does not have a clear, crisp A, B, C, D, E, 5
satisfies "That's what I've got to look at" focus.
6 There's a lot of what I call little spurious 7
branches that get tossed in along the way. And you 8
probably can maybe you can't eliminate those.
9 They just have to be addressed as you go.
10 MR. FETTER: I'd say, yeah, the staff's 11 review for siting is just as thorough as for a COL 12 or a CP.
13 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. All right.
14 That's fine.
15 MEMBER HALNON: Charlie, this is Greg.
16 MEMBER KIRCHNER: That one is the 17 part of 52 that covers the ESP spells out a lot of 18 these requirements.
19 So, for example, when we saw that 20 Clinch River application, they, essentially, did 21 the Chapter 2 that you're used to looking at. So 22 they went through all the ologies, so to speak, 23 that would enact 24 Some of that was the citing. So that 25
45 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com was part of it, but, again, they picked a Plant 1
Parameter Envelope, basically, as the surrogate for 2
the actual plant that might be built.
3 MEMBER BROWN: Okay.
4 CHAIR SUNSERI: Greg, did you have a 5
comment?
6 MEMBER HALNON: Yeah. Just real quick.
7 Trying to help some of the context of all this.
8 This Early Site Permit is in the recipe 9
of all the stuff that we do to encourage and allow 10 future nuclear utilities, actually, see an ESP as 11 an asset when they find the site that is worthy of 12 a nuclear plant, and they can get some of the 13 regulatory hurdles out of the way.
14 But typically, this is coming at it 15 from a different angle. But the ESP is typically 16 provided or applied by a utility that is looking 17 for a plant that might fit onto a site, where what 18 we have been reviewing is some new technology 19 reactors coming in doing a reactor that needs to 20 have a site that it fits. So it's sort of coming 21 at it from a different angle.
22 So you'll probably not see a new 23 technology vendor come in for an Early Site Permit, 24 but you'll see a larger utility that wants to 25
46 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com increase their nuclear footprint.
1 So it's an important piece of the 2
puzzle, but not necessarily what we have been 3
reviewing in the past.
4 That's why TVA came in with Clinch 5
River. They were looking at a variety of different 6
nuclear plant SMRs that might fit into that 7
parameter. And so, this was in the early 2000 8
teens. This was the push to get these regulatory 9
hurdles out of the way so that they could 10 concentrate on finding the right technology to put 11 onto the site.
12 I just wanted to kind of provide that 13 with some context for the old reg guide.
14 MEMBER BROWN: Thanks, Greg.
15 CHAIR SUNSERI: Yeah, thanks, Greg. I 16 think that's a good wrap-up, actually.
17 So, at this point, I'd like to open the 18 line for any public comments.
19 If you're a member of the public, and 20 you want to make a statement, then now would be 21 your chance to go do that.
22 If you're on the phone, you'll have to 23 use *6 to unmute yourself. If you're on MS Teams, 24 just open your mike.
25
47 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com All right. So we're not hearing any 1
takers on the request for comments, so we'll close 2
that part of the session.
3 And we'll go into our final committee 4
subcommittee discussion here.
5 So, as I mentioned earlier, this is a 6
subcommittee information briefing by the staff to 7
let us know where they're going. We know there's a 8
follow-on piece to want to incorporate the newest 9
guidance that NEI is developing as a companion to 10 this process. And that will be the subject of a 11 future revision to this reg guide.
12 So as I had mentioned in the P&P, when 13 we last discussed this, as far as ACRS actions, now 14 is the kind of the final choice here.
15 But I recommend that we close out this 16 issue, that no letter is required, and that we take 17 this up again as a topic when it's next revised to 18 incorporate the most current NEI to address the 19 most current NEI adoption.
20 Any members have any comment on that?
21 MEMBER BROWN: Is there an NEI document 22 out there right now, at this point, some 10-01 or 23 something?
24 MR. FETTER: 10-01, Rev 2.
25
48 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MEMBER BROWN: Okay. So I didn't quite 1
remember that.
2 CHAIR SUNSERI: And, by the way, Kent 3
has reminded me that NEI is in our reference 4
material if you go to our website. I remember 5
looking at it, I just didn't 6
MR. FETTER: And you have the redlined 7
markup?
8 CHAIR SUNSERI: We have, yes.
9 MR. FETTER: Okay.
10 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay. So, not hearing 11 any other further discussion, then that will be the 12 direction we'll go.
13 And at this
- point, then, we are 14 adjourned. Thank you.
15 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 16 went off the record at 9:27 a.m.)
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Allen Fetter, Senior Project Manager, NRR/DNRL/NLIB Presentation to the ACRS on Regulatory Guide 4.27,Use of Plant Parameter Envelope in Early Site Permit Applications for Nuclear Power Plants June 21, 2023
Purposes of Todays Meeting Describe what an Early Site Permit (ESP) is and why an applicant would pursue an ESP Describe the role of Plant Parameter Envelope (PPE) in the ESP process Describe Regulations and Guidance and why RG 4.27 was developed Discuss issuance of Regulatory Guide 4.27 and next steps Answer questions 2
Early Site Permit (ESP)
An ESP is an approval of the safety and environmental suitability of a proposed site to support future construction and operation of a nuclear plant An ESP does not allow for construction and operation of a nuclear plant Before a nuclear plant can be constructed and operated at a site with an ESP, a combined license (COL) or construction permit (CP) application referencing a specific reactor technology for the site must be reviewed and approved by NRC 3
Early Site Permit - Why?
An applicant chooses an ESP to identify and resolve safety and environmental siting issues early, and to reduce regulatory and financial uncertainties when planning for the future An ESP is valid for up to 20 years, which gives applicants schedule flexibility for seeking approval to build a plant (COL or CP application submittal)
Because an ESP does not need to reference a specific reactor design, an applicant can be in a better position to negotiate offers from competing reactor technology vendors prior to submitting a COL or CP application 4
Role of the Plant Parameter Envelope (PPE) in the ESP Process 5
Approving an ESP Site without a Selected Reactor Technology
- ESP Plant Parameter Envelope (PPE) values can bound a variety of reactor technologies rather than one specific technology (an amalgam of values representing a surrogate nuclear plant)
- The PPE values are bounding criteria used by staff to determine the suitability of an ESP site for construction and operation of a nuclear plant
- At the COL or CP stage, when a specific technology is identified, the ESP PPE values are compared to those of the selected technology. If design parameters of the selected technology exceed bounding ESP PPE values, additional reviews are conducted to ensure that the site remains suitable from a safety and environmental standpoint for construction and operation of the selected nuclear plant technology
Regulations and Guidance Regulations:
10 CFR 52, Subpart A, Early Site Permits 10 CFR 50 (Emergency Planning & other areas) 10 CFR 51 (Environmental Report) 10 CFR 100 (Reactor Site Criteria)
Guidance:
Review Standard No. RS-002 will be supplanted by RG 4.27 NUREG-0800 (Standard Review Plan) 6
Why was RG 4.27 developed?
Review Standard No. RS-002 Processing Applications for Early Site Permits contained outdated guidance and updates to RG 1.206, Applications for Nuclear Power Plants does not contain all of the PPE information in RS-002.
RG 4.27 was developed as updated guidance that retains the PPE information for future use by prospective ESP applicants Issuance of RG 4.27 allows the NRC staff to withdraw the outdated Review Standard No. RS-002 7
Chronology of RG 4.27 development
Summer 2020 - Decision to withdraw RS-002
Fall 2020 - Preparation of DG-4029 initiated to capture PPE information in RS-002 that was not included in other guidance
Winter/Spring 2021 - Internal and external stakeholder interactions to inform development of DG-4029
June 2021 - DG-4029 issued for public comment and RS-002 withdrawn
August 2021-Received comments from NEI on DG-4029 and NRC resolved those comments in the preparation of RG 4.27
Summer 2023 - Finalize and issue RG 4.27 8
Public Comment Disposition (non-editorial)
9 NEI Comment NRC Response Request NRC endorse NEI 10-01, Industry Guideline for Developing a Plant Parameter Envelope in Support of an Early Site Permit, Rev. 2 as part of this RG 4.27 NRC will review NEI 10-01 Rev. 2 and consider endorsing in future revision to RG 4.27 Acknowledge that ESP applications may be followed by a CP in addition to a COL Incorporated Acknowledge the ESP applications may be accompanied by Limited Work Authorization (LWA) request and incorporate reference to COL/ESP-ISG-026 Added language noting an ESP may be associated with an LWA; COL/ESP-ISG-026 is not an appropriate reference because it does not offer any guidance related to PPEs
Next Steps Finalization and issuance of RG 4.27 via Federal Register Notice NRC staff review of NEI Technical Report 10-01, Rev 2, Industry Guidelines for Developing a Plant Parameter Envelope in Support of an Early Site Permit for potential endorsement If endorsed, NEI-10-01 Rev 2 could be referenced in an update to RG 4.27 10
Regulatory Guide 4.27 Questions?
11
Early Site Permit Additional Slides 12
Required Reviews for an ESP Application 13 Atomic Energy Act, as amended, authorizes the NRC to protect public health and safety, and to provide for the common defense and security The safety review team creates a Safety Evaluation Report (SER) addressing
- Site Safety
- Emergency Planning
- Security The environmental review team prepares an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
ESP Safety Review Site characteristics and areas reviewed include:
- Seismology
- Geology
- Hydrology
- Meteorology
- Geography
- Demography (population distribution)
- Site Hazards Evaluation
- Radiological Effluent Releases
- Radiological Dose Consequences
- Emergency Preparedness (with FEMA)
- Security Plan Feasibility 14
ESP Issuance 16 Commission issues ESP with terms and conditions, as it deems appropriate ESP Terms Valid for up to 20 years Renewal application - between 1 and 3 years before expiration of permit
- Must contain information necessary to bring previous application up-to-date
- Good for up to an additional 20 years
ESPs Issued & Potential ESP Application Submittal The NRC has issued six ESPs:
Clinton (IL) - March, 2007 Grand Gulf (MS) - April, 2007 North Anna (VA) - November, 2007 Vogtle (GA) - August, 2009 PSEG (NJ) - May, 2016 TVA (TN) - December, 2019 Unnamed Applicant - 2025 17