ML23355A172

Meeting Transcript - Proposed Rule: Regulatory Framework for Fusion Systems, Teleconference, January 17, 2024, Pages 1-123

ML23355A172
Person / Time
Issue date:	01/17/2024
From:	Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards
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References
NRC-2023-0071, RIN 3150-AL00, NRC-2677
Download: ML23355A172 (123)

Text

Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Title:

Proposed Rule: Regulatory Framework for Fusion Systems Docket Number:

(n/a)

Location:

teleconference Date:

Wednesday, January 17, 2024 Work Order No.:

NRC-2677 Pages 1-119 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

Court Reporters and Transcribers 1716 14th Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 234-4433

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 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

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PUBLIC MEETING

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PROPOSED RULE: REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR FUSION SYSTEMS

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WEDNESDAY JANUARY 17, 2024

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The public meeting met via Video-Teleconference, at 2:00 p.m. EST, Dennis Andrukat, Facilitator, presiding.

NRC STAFF PRESENT DENNIS ANDRUKAT, NMSS, Facilitator RATEB "BOBY" ABU-EID, NMSS ALLYCE BOLGER, NMSS THERESA CLARK, NMSS CATY NOLAN, NSIR DONALD PALMROSE, NMSS CHRISTIANNE RIDGE, NMSS CINDY ROSALES-COOPER, NSIR

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 DUNCAN WHITE, NMSS PUBLIC PARTICIPANTS LAILA EL-GUEBALY TYLER ELLIS ROBERT FLORIAN DON GREGOIRE ANDREW HOLLAND MATTHEW LIPKA JEFFREY MERRIFIELD MIKE O'NEILL ANDREW PROFFITT PATRICK WHITE SAI ZHANG

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

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 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2:01 p.m.

MR.

ANDRUKAT:

All right.

Good afternoon. Hopefully, everyone can hear me. And I want to welcome you and thank you for participating in today's NRC public meeting to discuss the NRC's rulemaking to develop a regulatory framework for fusion systems.

Please note that this public meeting will have a transcript. Thus, we will ask that this meeting, the chat window should not be used to ask questions or make comments as items in the chat window do not get reflected in the transcription. However, it can be used to notify the staff that you have a question or comment or any technical difficulties.

Okay. And I have posted some information in the chat as well including links to the presentation, links to today's handout as well as the meeting notice that many of you have probably already seen.

Moving on, I'll go ahead and turn my camera on here. So my name is Dennis Andrukat. I am with the NRC's Office of Nuclear Material Safeguards and Security, and I am the Rulemaking Project Manager for this rulemaking, and I will be

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 serving as today's facilitator.

This is a comment-gathering meeting with a question and answer/feedback session. And that session will happen at the end of today's meeting.

The purpose of the meeting is for the NRC staff to meet directly with individuals to receive feedback comments from the participants on the specific decisions and actions to ensure that the NRC staff understands their views and concerns. Attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback to the staff about the topics discussed in the presentations today.

Please note -- and I kind of want to make this clear -- we've had a couple of questions on this, so for today's public meeting, no formal responses from the NRC will be issued for any of the questions, or comment, or feedback received during today's public meeting. As well as this meeting does not replace nor is an extension of any official public comment period associated with the publication of any proposed rule. The publication for the proposed rule for this has not happened yet. Of course, we are still developing it so at this point, we are in development stage, but we want to hear from our

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 stakeholders and get some early feedback as well.

We are using Microsoft Teams for this public meeting and again, to minimize distractions during the meeting, we do ask that everyone please mute themselves when they are not speaking, and to try to do our best not to speak over each other. And to help facilitate the discussion, we request that you utilize the raise hand feature. That's the little hand-shaped icon at the top of the window.

And then that will alert us to who has some questions and as well as the order that they raised their hand.

Then we will call on you when it is time for you to

speak, whether you have a

question, comment, feedback.

Okay. And again, you can use the chat window to alert us. Now some folks have been -- in previous public meetings, have been typing in their questions in the chat, but because the chat window is not going to be part of the transcript, if anyone were to do that when we get to the Q and A session, we will ask either you or myself to read the question out so that it makes it to the transcript. And for those that have joined Teams via the Teams bridge line and would like to ask a question, you can hit

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 star 6. That's the two keys to enter to mute and unmute yourself.

And again, once you're done speaking, you know, hit star 6 again to put yourself on mute. Also very important is to make sure that you identify yourself and your affiliation. Again, this is very important for the transcript.

Okay. Moving on. So we have the agenda here. So for today's meeting, the staff would like to share with the public the latest progress on the development of the proposed rule including the preliminary draft guidance which will become NUREG-1556, Volume 22.

In addition and in response to private feedback from our stakeholders, and that's to hold a venue to allow stakeholders to present feedback. So we will also hear presentations from three of our stakeholders followed by the question and answer session as you can see here.

We are running until 5:00. As soon as we get through all the presentations -- and we do ask to hold any questions, comments, feedback until the Q and A session at the end.

Okay. I also want to mention at the

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 bottom, we have a little footnote there. These times are estimated and depending on the participation level and the speed, the meeting could adjourn earlier than scheduled. If there's a concern with that, then, you know, please feel free to reach out to me. My contact info is in the meeting notice.

Moving on. And you can see on the agenda we have several presenters today. Today's presenters from the NRC include Duncan White from the NRC's Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards.

He is our lead technical person for this project.

Cindy Rosales-Cooper from the NRC's Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, she's going to be our emergency preparedness/emergency plans person for this project. Christianne Ridge from the NRC's Office of Materials Safety and Safeguards is our waste management expert followed by three of our external stakeholder. So we have Andrew Holland from the Fusion Industry Association followed by Andrew Proffitt from Helion, and finally, Tyler Ellis from Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

With that, I will -- well, excuse me, before we go to the presentations, what we'll do is I'd like to have Theresa Clark offer up some opening

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 remarks. So Theresa is the Deputy Division Director for the Division leading this rulemaking effort, and that's the Division of Materials Safety, Security, State and Travel Programs. Kind of a mouthful there.

So with that, Theresa, I'll hand it over to you.

MS. CLARK: Hi, everyone. Nice to see you all again or at least see your icons. And thanks, Dennis, for getting through what has to be one of the longest titles in the agency, but they don't pay me by the letter.

So nice to see everyone to talk about what's one of my favorite projects here where we're really putting something together that's at an exciting early stage of an industry. You know, you'll hear a lot about developing a framework, and I think about it in two ways. You know, we're creating something together that allows us to be ready for this industry when there's a regulatory approach needed, and we're optimizing something together because there's been fusion licensing in this country already at a research scale. There's been materials licensing in this country already for decades. And so we know a lot. And so part of the effort that we're doing in this rulemaking and guidance effort is saying, what do we already know,

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 how can we leverage that, and what do we need to tailor for this specific nature of fusion, whether it's a particular hazard, a particular material, new terminology and that sort of thing.

So this thought process is right in line with the Commission's mandate to us, to use the byproduct material framework, to regulate near-term fusion designs, and we're doing that by producing the materials that you're hearing about today.

The other thing that, you know, Dennis mentioned, our desire to get feedback from the public. A rulemaking process officially includes, you know, a proposed rule and final rule, and there's a comment period in between the two. We want there to be a lot more opportunity for engagement on this rulemaking as we do in lots of other rulemakings, and so that's why we're having these conversations early on. We're sharing some of our initial thinking.

We're asking you all questions. We're trying to get insights and feedback. And then we take that and, you know, work it into the process as we go.

And so, you know, Dennis might say we're not formally giving responses to comments here.

That's true. But we are thinking hard about everything that we get. Whether we get a letter,

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 whether we get someone making a statement in a meeting like this, that all goes into the thought process.

And so that's a really important part of our decision making. So, you know, we might float something, hear some feedback, totally change direction. We might float something, hear some feedback and say yeah, I think we're still in the right place. And that's a really good and healthy part of this.

We also are going to have several formal opportunities; one for the agreement states who are our partners in this regulatory process and then at a later date, the official formal public comment after the Commission has had a chance to see this.

So lots of opportunities for injects from the public, and it really is important and it matters. So, you know, don't think that we're just here to present our thing and then shut down the window. We want to hear what you have to say.

So that's what I have and I think I'll turn it over to Duncan.

MR. WHITE: Thank you very much, Theresa.

And what I wanted to go over with everyone in the next two minutes is to talk about where we are with the rulemaking and with the guidance. So again, Dennis introduced me. I'm Duncan White I'm the

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 technical lead for this rulemaking effort. So we'll go to the next slide, Dennis.

Back in October, we provided -- we had a meeting to talk about the proposed draft rulemaking language. And in that draft rulemaking language, we provided a definition for fusion system. This is --

we did make a little tweak to this definition. We replaced nuclear fusion with fusion reactions. This is the only change of any of the rulemaking language that we did make. And again, this is a relatively minor change but again, everything that we -- and the other change that we did do from October to November, there were some additional changes to the waste management language. That was discussed during the November meetings and when Christine went through those changes and talked about the tweaking of that language.

So that's the only thing we have changed in the proposed draft regulation language. So with that, we'll go on to the guidance. Next slide.

Right now we are -- we have most of the licensing guidance. We're reviewing it right now.

We have both assembled. We're waiting for a few more pieces, and we expect to have a draft of this licensing guidance done by the end of this month. We

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 also hope that, as Theresa was saying before, we want to get early feedback on this. So we hope to share at a future meeting that draft version of the guidance at a future meeting, well before it's published in the Federal Register, after the Commission sees it, you know, later this year, early next year. We want to do that way before that. So we'll get a chance for people to look at that.

The other thing just again as a reminder, and we've been saying this all along, is again, as we go through the and prepare the guidance, we may identify other additional areas that require our review and may even tweak the regulation -- the draft regulations as we go through. But again, as of right now, we have not made any additional changes with that. Go to the next slide, Dennis.

We -- in the handout that's included with this meeting, we put in some of the draft language we had for the guidance. The sections are listed up there. Again, this is, again, where we are right now with these particular areas. Again, this is, you know, the first draft of this, the first round of this and, you know, there may be additional changes as we go along. But we provided a variety of different areas that we've been, you know -- that we

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 have, that are applied fusion systems here. So again, you know, we welcome you to take a look at those and, you know, as said, if you have any comments on that, we certainly appreciate that.

So with that, that's all I wanted to cover with this particular area. So what I'll do now is I'll turn it over to Cindy who will talk in a little bit more detail about emergency preparedness.

So I'll turn it over to you, Cindy.

MS. ROSALES-COOPER: Thank you, Duncan, and Happy New Year to everyone. My slide is up, Dennis? Thank you. There we go.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Yes. Sorry about that.

MS. ROSALES-COOPER: Thanks. So as a result of the NRC staff's evaluation of the EP requirements for fusion systems, the NRC will not be pursuing any changes to 10 CFR Part 30 regulations at this time. The staff will, therefore, address EP considerations and guidance modeled after or comparable with Part 30 applicant guidance in NUREG-1556, namely Volumes 12 and 21.

The staff is developing guidance for performing the dose evaluations required under the existing Part 30.32(i)(1)(I) for possession of radioactive material in excess of existing 3072

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 Schedule C quantities.

We're also developing guidance for the written procedures needed to handle events that may require intervention by emergency personnel. These procedures will need to identify roles and responsibilities; identify appropriate response equipment; have instructions for the required notification and reporting; have the contact information for the RSO and other response personnel; and identify agreements with offsite response organizations such as local fire and EMS services.

The staff welcomes your feedback once the draft guidance has been released to the public.

Thank you. That's all I have for EP at this time.

MR. ANDRUKAT: All right. Thank you, Cindy. And with that, next, let's turn the presentation over to Dr. Christianne Ridge of the Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards, And she will discuss the waste management. Dr.

Ridge?

DR. RIDGE: Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much and thank you for your attention this afternoon. I'm going to be speaking for just a few minutes about waste management from the waste management guidance. Some of you might remember that

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 I spoke in November about waste management and the proposed rule changes.

Just to recap that, we're not planning on any changes to our low-level waste regulations, but a small change to 10 CFR Part 20 that addresses specifically accelerator waste and under that provision would address near-term fusion waste systems. So I'll talk more about that today, just a recap from November.

So waste management needs to be addressed for all byproduct licensees under the radiation protection program that's required under 10 CFR Part 20 and that's true for all byproduct licensees. And that program must address waste minimization, characterization, handling, secure storage, and disposal. Most of this is going to be the same for fusion systems, you know, the same regulations.

We're not changing anything. That's true for other byproduct licensees.

I am going to speak today -- I'm going to focus on disposal and the little bit of a change we're proposing to make there. So they have several authorized disposal mechanisms discussed in our regulations. Among them are decay in storage, release within effluent limits. Other methods that

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 are authorized in -- I have the regulation numbers there -- in Part 20 include compaction, incineration, those types of disposal methods. And all of those, the guidance is going to be -- we've really not proposed any changes to that guidance.

The one place where we are proposing a change is in transfer to an authorized recipient. So that part with the arrow here, that's the part I'm going to talk about more today. If we could go to the next slide?

So in our existing regulations under Part 20, and I specifically note in the slide 20.2008, that allows accelerator waste to be disposed of with low-level waste.

Now technically

speaking, accelerator waste is specifically excluded from the definition of low-level waste, but that's -- you know, that's not an impediment here because 20.2008 allows accelerator waste to be disposed of with low-level waste under our regulations for that, that's 10 CFR Part 61. And near-term fusion systems are going to fall under that provision.

And so that regulatory framework includes protection of people during operations. It includes protection of someone offsite from releases of radioactivity. And all of that is going to be the

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 same for fusion as it is for all other low-level waste.

The one place where we're proposing a change -- and this is what we talked about in November

-- was that the waste classification system, that's if it's low-level waste, Class A, a Class B, Class C, that's part of protecting someone from inadvertently intruding into the waste. So that's if, for some reason, knowledge of the waste site had been lost and someone intrudes into the waste, digs it up, comes into contact with it. Part of protecting that hypothetical individual is the waste classification system.

And when the NRC developed those regulations, we looked specifically at what waste we expected, and so a lot of that, that included a lot of things, you know, medical waste, industrial waste but of course, a lot of that was driven by what we expected from fusion reactors.

And so there was a concern that that system, that waste classification system would not cover fusion systems as well. Now for someone, you know, offsite, we're saying that the protection is already there, because our regulations to protect someone from releases of radioactivity offsite already require the waste characterization. They

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 require you to do a dose assessment that looks at all the characteristics of the waste. And that's going to apply equally well to fusion as to other systems.

But back in November, we talked about this change proposing under 20.2008 a new paragraph (c) that would require for fusion systems that if they contained novel

physical, chemical, or radiological characteristics, the waste disposal site would need to do an inadvertent intrusion assessment to show that that waste is going to be saved from the point of view of protecting someone who might inadvertently intrude into that waste.

Now in this third box down here, I point out that requirement actually is going to apply to the disposal site, not directly to the fusion licensee. So the way that would work is that in developing a waste disposal plan, the fusion site licensee would need to look at whether or not the waste disposal site had done that assessment for the types of waste they have. There would probably need to be some cooperation there, you know, telling the waste disposal site about the characteristics of the waste. And then the waste disposal site would take on that inadvertent intrusion analysis to show that their site could safely contain that waste.

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 Now I use this term novel physical, chemical, or radiological characteristics, and of

course, that seems like it would be up to interpretation, right? So the proposed guidance that we're talking about today would provide guidance in identifying what is a novel physical, chemical, or radiological characteristic for this waste. And the waste management proposed guidance is one of the sections that's in the handout for today. So you have available to you the draft version of this guidance that talks about that, and I'm going to give a brief overview in the next couple of slides.

So if you could go to the next slide, Dennis? So the main idea, the overriding idea of what is a novel characteristic is that it's something that the NRC did not consider originally when we developed our low-level waste regulations. And so there is a draft and final environmental impact statement for the development of Part 61 back in the early 1980's that describes in detail the physical and chemical and radiological characteristics that the NRC considered at the time. And everything that we considered then is what we consider to be really like the safety envelope of waste that's not new to us. You know, we thought about it at the time when

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 were writing the regulation. The regulation, as it stands, was informed by those considerations.

And so we previously considered, anything we previously considered importantly would not be considered and would not trigger this need for an inadvertent intruder analysis. And so what are those things? Examples of waste pipes, you know, activated metal, not new; ion-exchange resins, not new; solidified liquids, contaminated soils, contaminated equipment, building rubble, incinerator ash, there are other ones discussed in the guidance and, in fact, a licensee who is attempting to demonstrate that the waste did not have new physical or chemical characteristics could go into the draft or final environmental impact statement itself and, you know, show that their waste has similar characteristics to something we considered when we were developing the rule.

Now similarly, for previously-considered radionuclides, obviously anything that's in those waste classification tables -- and I know that, you know, many people who are listening today are very familiar with those -- but those would be things like Niobium, cesium. Importantly, tritium is in the waste classification tables already. Those are

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 things the NRC staff obviously already considered.

They're in the regulation now.

Now at the time we developed the regulation, we also considered other radionuclides and determined levels that hypothetically could have been Class A, B, and C at the time. And we determined it was not necessary to include in the rule itself but nonetheless, we considered them in that safety envelope. So those are also not new. Those are things like chlorine-36, cesium-135, europium-152 and 154; you know, obviously, important activation products in concrete, some uranium isotopes. And so in the draft guidance that you have available to you, we include those concentrations of those radionuclides that we considered at the time.

And so radionuclides that are not on that list were radionuclides that are in higher concentrations than, are on that lists, those would be something that would trigger this need for an inadvertent intruder analysis. Now if you could go to your next slide, please?

Now -- you know, I just -- there's a little nuance here, because I just said radionuclides that are not on that list but are in the waste. And so there needs to be some guidance on how hard do you

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 look to determine if something -- if a radionuclide is in the waste of not. And we're not developing new guidance there.

We're proposing to use the same guidance that the NRC has already issued for filling out the uniform waste manifest, and that is used by any licensee who is disposing of low-level waste. They would need to fill out this uniform waste manifest.

There's guidance on it in NUREG/BR-0204. And so these are just the criteria that are in that NUREG that are common for anyone disposing of low-level waste. And this is when you need to list a waste on that manifest.

And so the guidance we're proposing is that if it meets any of these criteria for when you would need to specifically list it on the uniform waste manifest. Then we're saying yes, we would consider something that's present in the waste. And so those are things like if it's above -- if it's one percent or more of the waste acceptance criteria for the disposal site, you're going to. That would trigger it. If it's not in the waste classification tables or the disposal site's waste acceptance criteria but it has a concentration of more than.26 megabecquerel per cubic centimeter; similarly, if

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 a reportable quantity under U.S. Department of Transportation regulations, or if it makes it more than one percent of the total activity within a disposal container, those would all be things where you would need to list it on the uniform waste manifest. Again, that's existing guidance but for our purposes, we're saying that's when you would consider it present in the waste, and you would compare it to the list of radionuclides that the NRC had previously considered to determine if it was something new.

And so I think I've come to my last slide, on the next slide, and that's just some guidance.

The guidance also includes what we would expect for the contents of an application. Again, we would expect an outline of the procedures for some of the items I listed on my first slide. That would be waste collection, handling, storage, disposal. We understand there wouldn't be fully fleshed out procedures at this point, but we would expect an outline of those procedures.

If a

facility was looking for authorization for extended interim storage of waste, we would expect to see that request in the application. And then going back to what I've spent

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 most of my time talking about today, if you were transferring waste to an authorized recipient, we would expect to see a description of that waste and an assessment of whether -- how these novel characteristics that was going to trigger the need for an inadvertent intrusion assessment.

Finally, we would expect to see in the application a plan for financial assurance for waste disposal during decommissioning. If that's required under the criteria that already exists in 10 CFR 30.35 and importantly, for fusion systems, I would point out that anything over 100 curies of tritium is going to trigger that requirement that's already existing in 10 CFR 30.35 for a decommissioning funding plan.

And of course, those criteria are applied with the Unity Rule. So it could be over 100 curies of tritium or, you know, applying it with basimal fractions using the Unity Rule, a combination of other radionuclides and those thresholds that are in the regulation.

So that's essentially what we would expect to see in the application. And Dennis, that concludes my slides, so I will turn it back over to you. Thank you very much, everyone for your attention today.

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.

ANDRUKAT:

Awesome, fantastic.

Thank you, Dr. Ridge. Let's go ahead and -- so now we're going to switch gears a little bit. We're going to -- that's the end of the staff or the internal presentations. Now we'll start with the external stakeholder presentation, the first of which will be the Fusion Industry Association. So with that, I'll turn this over to Andrew Holland of the Fusion Industry Association. And Andrew, if it's okay with you, I can just run the slides just like I did for the others.

MR. HOLLAND: Sure thing. Thank you.

Go on to the next slide then if you can. Can you hear me? All right. Thanks, everybody, and thanks to the NRC for hosting this. Looking forward to reading in detail through all of the handouts and everything put forward on this and being able to respond in kind as much as we need.

To introduce myself, I am the CEO of the Fusion Industry Association. The FIA is the representative of all of the private fusion companies working to commercialize fusion on a time scale that is relevant. Our companies are moving quickly to build and learn as much about fusion as we can to move towards pilot plants and commercial fusion

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 operations in a decade. Let's go to the next slide.

Just to give a brief overview for folks on this call and everything on the state of the fusion industry, as of last year we can verify that there are least 43 private fusion companies around the world, over $6.2 billion in investment into these companies. There's an accelerating number of new fusion companies coming in, and our companies are optimistic on the time scales. These companies are seeing growing interest from governments both in the United States and around the world in building the public-private partnerships.

These companies are around the world, but we have to be clear in both public and private that significant technical challenges remain. Fusion has not yet demonstrated commercial pilot plants, and we are working to that. And one of the things that the FIA believes is important is our engagement with the NRC and regulators like this to work through this.

Next slide, please.

Why is this happening now? Well, what's happened is that you take a combination of new scientific and technological breakthroughs from other fields like high speed computing, advanced manufacturing and even business model improvement,

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 you apply those to the very significant scientific and technological progress towards fusion energy that was finally demonstrated just over a year ago at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore when we did get to that breakthrough moment. You can see in this chart here the progress towards break even fusion. This is multiple technological areas.

As it climbs towards the top, that is the progress towards the break even fusion conditions, and the different colors are different sort of geometries and approaches towards fusion. So the idea that, you know, we've been just waiting for this binary moment of fusion will either work or it won't ignores the fact that there has been tremendous progress towards this breakthrough in fusion energy, progress that, in many ways, has been faster than Moore's law progress in semiconductors and microchips.

So FIA and our member companies are in that point now where we're moving from the scientific labs into the commercial sector. And that's where the regulatory environment gets important, cause having a predictable and stable regulatory regime for fusion is not just a want but is a need. This is

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 something that is a requirement for a commercial industry to scale up. Next slide, please.

And that leads us to our timeline and what we're looking at, and we are right now at this moment when we're going from 60 years of research into the scientific proof of concept. Multiple companies right now are building their machine that will be a scientific proof of concept, that machine that will show that fusion power can go onto the grid.

And so then that will show in a commercially relevant way that they can get to the break even fusion power such that by the late 2020's, they're able to design and build pilot plants; and then by the early 2030's or before, operating these pilot plants, making the first sales.

And that makes the 2030's the decade of commercial

fusion, rapid scale up and global deployment. This is an aggressive and ambitious timescale, and what I can say is that we know that multiple companies are aiming for this. We also know that the -- that there's multiple technological approaches towards getting there. We have 38 members within the Fusion Industry Association and all have a consistent pathway to get there. They all have a shot on goal.

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 so the regulatory structure is really important to get this all set up, and it fits into that mid-2020's timeframe. Getting this all set and done in, you know, the next few years is really important. So that's why we've been so engaged in this. Next slide, please.

To get into detail here now on where we stand and where everything is, we first want to thank the NRC staff and the Commissioners for their longstanding engagement in this over the last 3-1/2 years looking at this, being diligent, spending the time to work on this such -- to the point where we are talking in details about what the regulations are, what the rule changes are, what definitions are, and what the guidance will be.

The FIA sent a letter on December 15th to the NRC giving our perspective, and I'll go through some of this, but I want to highlight to all stakeholders on this call and to everybody that this letter is available, obviously, on the NRC's Adam's site but also on the FIA's website, and we want to be public and open about where we stand. Next slide, please.

The Commission's decision in the Spring of last year was clear that the -- that fusion should

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 regulated in a -- in the byproduct materials regulatory regime, separating regulatory oversight of fusion from the utilization facilities regime. And we really applaud this and think it's the right result. This will give fusion developers the regulatory certainty while also most effectively protecting the safety, security, and health of the public. Next slide.

And one of the clear things within that decision was that a limited scope -- this should be a limited scope rulemaking, and a limited scope rulemaking should be as simple as possible. The SRM said, under the limited scope rulemaking approved under Option 2, the staff should take into account the existence of fusion systems that already have been licensed and are being regulated by the agreement states as well as those that may be licensed prior to the completion of the rulemaking. Next slide.

And so we think that the rulemaking should be limited specifically to these definitions. The decision to place fusion in Part 30 relies on the legal understanding that all fusion machines meet the definition of particle accelerators. And it's important that this definition of particle

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 accelerators is updated. The proposed rule at this point does not explicitly add fusion to the definition of particle accelerator but -- so our proposal is very simple. Simply add fusion machines or, you know, under your current term, whether you call it fusion systems -- we believe machines is the appropriate term -- but add this to the definition of particle accelerator. And you can see the definition here. We have no opposition to the NRC proposal before that said to delete energies usually in excess of 1 megaelectron volt. But we think it's really important to add fusion machines and this linkage into there. It takes away a portion of possible regulatory uncertainty. Next slide, please.

And then, of course, we think it's important to define the fusion machine and limit that definition to specific components rather than adopting a facility-wide definition and that the proposed definition in -- as proposed by NRC right now is still overly broad and ambiguous. For

example, the phrase associated radiation and radioactive material could be read to describe material such as activated components that are awaiting disposal or spare tritium fuel in storage.

And of course we know that a fusion

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 machine license, whether issued by the NRC or by an agreement state, would necessarily include the entire inventory of radioactive materials and associated structures onsite. And we're not talking about the license. We're just saying that it's important for the definition of the fusion machine to be limited to

-- and does not need to include all site-wide materials and structures. Simply put, the diversity within the industry means that we should not create some sort of limiting factor and try to write a rule for all of this. Instead just define the fusion center itself. Next slide.

I think I went through this but the purpose of this rulemaking is to develop a regulatory definition that narrowly describes fusion machines, not the whole facility. So, you know, for example, NRC's definitions of particle accelerator, irradiator, and nuclear reactor all focus on the technological device itself, not the overall facility even though, of course, the license is for the facility. So we think just looking at this it's important to make sure it is a limited rulemaking and that the definitions remain limited. Next slide.

So we have a suggestion here and we propose actually that this definition follow the

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 definition as proposed in the Fusion Energy Act, H.R.

5244, recently added to legislation that has passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee. I won't read it out here but you can specifically see what we propose as the definition here, very simple and very obvious. Next slide.

So -- and as we move into the guidance, we really do look forward to and appreciate the publishing of some of the draft guidance here today, and we'll look forward to reading this. We support the creation of this new fusion-specific volume.

And, you know, we'd note that the limited direction from the Commission must also apply to the NUREG guidance as well as to rulemaking.

We want to emphasize the importance of maintaining this risk-informed approach in the guidance. You know, of course, the main advantage of the byproduct material framework is the flexibility to the variety of approaches to fusion with the details of the major requirements corresponding to the level of risk. And based on NRC discussion in public meetings to date, we feel it's important to reiterate this value and encourage the Commission to maintain it.

Specifics were concerned especially

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 about guidance on emergency preparedness, you know, some of the -- what was said today allays those concerns, so we'll look to see -- to read through the proposed guidance here. And, you know, the key point of the byproduct material framework, like I said, is about flexibility. And so as we look to read more of the guidance, we will have more to say and we may look into future letters or future comments on this as it comes. We do look forward to and thank you for putting out the proposed guidance and look forward to commenting on that in specifics in the future. Next slide.

Just to line up, this is our current membership, 38 member companies of which 25 are American. And those that aren't American are also deeply involved and watching this. This is really important to say that what's hampering here in the NRC in this rulemaking is being followed around the world, and it will provide a model for how this will go around the world. Next slide.

This is our affiliate membership, all for the record. Next slide.

And so that's it -- to say thank you, thank you for all your work. Thanks to everybody watching for your interest. You can learn more about

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 Fusion Industry Association on our website here.

We are open to affiliate memberships. We All right.

Open to keeping engaged with others so please, please reach out to me if you have any questions or comments and look forward to seeing the rest of this and commenting, as appropriate, as we go forward. Thank you, all.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Fantastic. Thank you, Andrew. And with that, now let's turn the next presentation over to Helion's Andrew Proffitt. Go ahead, Andrew.

MR. PROFFITT: All right. Thank you, Dennis. Can you hear me?

MR. ANDRUKAT: Yes, sir.

MR. PROFFITT: All right. Great. Good afternoon, everyone. As Dennis mentioned, I'm Andrew Proffitt with Helion Energy Regulatory Specialists here, and thank you for having me this afternoon.

And we'll certainly -- you know, if folks want to raise their hand or engage in any discussion or dialogue or have any questions as I move through, you know, please feel free to ping me and let me know, and I'll try to keep my eye on folks.

So just a quick overview on Helion.

We're located in Everett, Washington, a bit north

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 Seattle. We were founded in 2013, now over 230 team members and are rapidly working to commercialize our concept to bring fusion energy to the grid, potentially this decade. We were the first private fusion company to reach 100 million degrees Celsius, an important milestone in fusion, bringing the conditions to where they can -- you can achieve fusion reactions on earth here. That has also allowed us to raise significant capital, being fully funded now through commercialization.

We're currently building our seventh generation device now, Polaris, and that's expected to demonstrate net electricity here mid-decade, potentially the end of this year and into next year.

We do have a Power Purchase Agreement signed with Microsoft to start delivering up to 50 megawatts of electricity in 2028, 2029 timeframe, and we've announced a collaboration with Nucor Steel to provide 500 megawatts to one of their facilities here in the late 20's or early 2030's.

And this picture here is our Polaris junior formation. So the device -- our sixth generation device that reached 100 million degrees Celsius mark was Trenta. That has now been dismantled and we're moving rapidly towards our

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 seventh in Polaris but in the meantime here, we've put this machine together that's a bit scaled up from Trenta closer to Polaris dimensions and will help us practice developing our Field-reversed configurations, which is what's going on. That's that fuchsia-magenta glow going, and that picture there is our first Field-reversed configuration that we formed in that device here over the past couple months and are starting to refine that and move quickly towards Polaris. So next slide, Dennis?

So this is an overview of our concept, and I'll get to -- I'll show a quick video as well here in just a moment here, but this is an overview of our concept here. It's a magneto-inertial fusion and a pulse system. So we rapidly will pulse this system in a commercial device where we're working on making our pulses go faster in our seventh generation device versus our sixth generation device. And part of that pulsing also means that we have a very low inventory of any radioactive materials in the device at any given time. And we also use deuterium/helium-3 fuel which I'll talk to a little bit more in another slide, but those are non-radioactive fuels. And in fact, primary reactions produce stable products as well, though we do have some deuterium reactions that

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 can produce neutrons and tritium.

So we inject our fuel into the formation chambers. We form these donuts called Field-reversed configurations, and then through sequencing of magnets, rapidly accelerate them toward the middle from either end, and they combine in the middle.

They're further compressed by magnetic fields in the middle of the device there, number 3. And then we can reach fusion conditions there. You start to have fusion. That material begins to expand and release charged particles which push back against the magnetic field, and then that energy is directly re-harvested through the magnetic field and put back onto the capacitor banks which are used to fire the magnets to begin with.

So it's a really cool concept, no steam cycle. We not heating up materials in order to boil water to then go to a steam cycle. So very efficient to 95 percent efficiency of energy recovery from what we put into the system. And then directly capturing that electricity means we can actually -- you know, we don't need to get to ignition. You know, this is actually considered non-ignition fusion where we don't actually have to get to ignition conditions for a long period of time and deal with those difficulties

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 in doing that.

So if you don't mind, Dennis, if I can show a slide here that shows that in motion?

MR. ANDRUKAT: Sure.

MR. PROFFITT: We'll see if I --

MR. ANDRUKAT: Do you want --

MR. PROFFITT: -- can do that on my own here.

MR. ANDRUKAT: There you go.

MR. PROFFITT: Is that working?

MR. ANDRUKAT: Yes.

MR. PROFFITT: Okay. So this is an overview of a commercial concept of Helion's fusion generator. And let's see if it will play here just to show what I explained there in more detail. So we're forming a Field-reversed configuration like a donut accelerating to the middle. They combine and they'll now be further compressed by magnetic fields there enabling fusion to happen. That begins to expand and push back on the magnetic field, and then our electricity is directly recaptured right back on the capacitor banks as it comes -- I'll just play it one more time just for folks. It is a pretty cool concept here.

Accelerate toward the middle, combine,

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 further compressed, get to fusion conditions, this 100 million degrees Celsius plus. Do that for long enough, you'll have a fusion, and then you'll directly recapture that through the magnetic fields and then put back onto the capacitor banks. I'll stop and Dennis, you'll probably have to re-share.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Hopefully, you should be seeing now.

MR. PROFFITT: Yes. I got you. Then you can move to the next slide. So as I mentioned, Helion's fusion generators use non-radioactive fuel, so we have deuterium and helium-3, and that's our primary reaction source. That's what we're going for although we do -- and then our products of that are hydrogen and helium-4, both being stable isotopes of those elements and, you know, don't produce any radioactive by products or any radiation.

However, we do, in fusing -- creating the conditions to fuse deuterium and helium-3, we get deuterium-deuterium fusion. And about half of the time when you have deuterium-deuterium fusion, you can make tritium and hydrogen. And then you can --

half the time, you can make helium-3 and a neutron.

So that's where we do produce some radiation through our -- the neutrons and then the byproducts and the

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 tritium.

Now these are actually beneficial to us because the one reaction that produces helium-3, which is our fuel, one of our main fuels for the device, while deuterium is very prevalent on earth, helium-3 is not. And in fact, you know, there are -

- have been concepts through the years of mining helium-3 on the moon. So that would likely be detrimental to our commercial desires. So we can actually create it here, but then we do create neutrons through that reaction and then also the creation of tritium is also not -- for not either as tritium will decay into helium-3. So if we -- we will be very keen to hold any tritium that we do produce such that it will eventually decay into helium-3, and then we can use it in our fuel cycle.

So just an overview of our concept here.

So about 5 percent of our -- the energy we produce in these machines, in these generators will come out in the form of neutrons. So there will be a neutron field while the -- these machines are operating and obviously acting those materials, as Dr. Ridge mentioned earlier, the waste produced by these machines so the neutrons will do that. Next slide.

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 This is our building, Ursa, at our headquarters facility in Everett, Washington. This building is going to be the home of our seventh generation device, Polaris, which we do expect to show net electricity here in the year or so. And one takeaway from this picture is really like that these, our seventh generation device and our future power

plants, can actually be sited in traditional industrial parks. That is what this facility use to be. As you can see in the background, many other warehouse-type buildings of similar stature.

This building is about 30,000 square feet, very low environmental impacts as you would see in other types of power plants that may need a steam cycle and use significant amounts of water or have significant site work or either fuel delivery from pipelines or even, you know, large tracts of land that are used in the renewable space. So really, a very compact site that has very low environmental impacts.

And we also -- you know, another thing to note here is, you know, we expect for Polaris and then also for our potential commercial devices to have very low offsite consequences and potential, you know, credible accident scenarios. So we believe we

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 would stay well below the current 10 CFR Part 30 thresholds for needing -- necessitating offsite emergency planning. We think we can show that quite easily with our design.

So we really think this will unlock quite a bit of opportunities for us moving forward, having this compact footprint with low environmental impacts. Next slide, Dennis?

So, just to highlight a couple of the key requests here for the staff, and I'll come back to this slide at the end. But really, our keys today, and you know, we'll go through a few other comments that we have in our slides here, but really, our keys is, you know, this as the FIA mentioned, you know, a limited scope rulemaking that's well positioned to provide the clarity and regulatory predictability for the industry and stakeholders that we need here.

And we really appreciate the staff's engagement thus far, and obviously, the Commission decision back in April.

A couple of the highlights that we do ask, you know, directly to the staff is, we would like to see that direct tie of fusion generators to particle accelerators.

We think that'll be more robust and

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 durable moving forward.

And I'll get into more on each of these topics as we move forward.

Stakeholder engagement, we've had great engagement, you know, over the past several years on this topic and certainly over the past three months.

And we really want to keep that momentum going and not get ourselves in a position where we've gone too long without talking as the staff is moving forward with the rulemaking and the guidance development.

And then, lastly, you know, highlight this, you know, the potential future need for a licensing regime that can be more efficient than the site by site licensing that we have today.

As I showed on the last slide with these being cited and, you know, traditional industrial parks maybe already disturbed sites even and having very low potential off site consequences.

And also, as I'll discuss a little bit later, you know, the ability for much of the devices or maybe the full devices to be manufactured in a factory of licensing process that isn't inherently site by site and also, potentially, you know, slight differences across the nation as it's implemented by

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 Agreement States would be very beneficial to helping us achieve our climate and energy security goals.

So, next slide, Dennis?

So, this is one, and I'm actually excited, I heard in the staff's presentation, and I think in Theresa's opening remarks, you know, this, you know, fusion isn't something -- while new and does present some novel concepts and potential challenges, you know, the Commission decision, I think, was clear in that, you know, the regulatory treatment of fusion should be consistent with other uses of byproduct material.

You know, it's fundamentally a material issue.

You know, the Commission decided not to regulate fusion under the utilization facility framework that has more of a focus on the performance and control of the device.

It's in the byproduct material's framework, the safety focus is on the control, confinement, and shielding of that radioactive material.

You know, if you look at the staff's paper in SECY-23-0001, the staff looked at the

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 characteristics of near-term fusion systems.

Those included things like fissile material not being present, so not having criticality at a chain reaction that requires intervention to stop.

The energy and radioactive material production from the device would stop in off-normal events or accident scenarios without any intervention.

Active post-shutdown cooling is not required to ensure continued confinement of the radiological -- radioactive material in the device or on the site.

Radioactive nuclides present would result in low doses to workers and the present -- and the public during credible accident scenarios.

Further, fusion generators actually need active engineered safety features -- not safety features, active engineered features to continue fusion reactions.

You know, very, you know, the opposite of a fission reactor concept where you need active features to be able to stop the reaction as opposed to sustaining it.

So, essentially, you know, all these

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 characteristics together, I think, you know, really cement that this is, you know, a truly a material issue and fits well within the byproduct material framework and can build, as was noted earlier, on the decades of experience with byproduct material and also particle accelerators.

Next slide, Dennis?

All right, so, we think, you know, certainly as mentioned here at the top of this slide, in the rulemaking plan for the SECY-23-0001, it was noted as a major objective of the rulemaking that the staff proposed and was approved by the Commission to include a direct tie of fusion generators to particle accelerator.

The Atomic Energy Act does not mention fusion.

And also does not define particle accelerators.

So, the Congress left it up to the NRC to promulgate that definition. And they've done so in 10 CFR 30.4. And also have the ability to update that definition and clearly tie it in to fusion generators consistent with the Commission direction.

And also, you know, as the FIA just mentioned and has mentioned in other public meetings and others, you know, there are all fusion concepts

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 being considered by the commercial industry, can fit the current definition of particle accelerator.

But we do think it provides a more robust and durable, lasting impact to go through the rulemaking process and codify the Commission decision through a notice and comment rulemaking procedure which is -- holds quite a bit of deference in the judicial process in this country.

So, you know, we think it really lies with the staff to implement this change to the particle accelerator definition, you know, making explicit this tie to fusion generators as we move forward.

Next slide?

And again, consistent with the FIA's letter and their presentation, we really think the fusion system definition should be narrowed.

This would be consistent with past precedent and also the staff's position.

You know, one of the things that we've heard from the staff in these public engagements is there's not the intent to regulate fusion systems, generators, devices, machines, but you know, pick your term there, but not to regulate them from a facility wide perspective and focus on the material.

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 I think we are aligned with that concept. But the current definition, and I apologize, I ran out of room on this slide to be able to fit it here, but it is very broad and includes many other parts of the facility and systems and shielding and material and, potentially, waste and other things that may be on site that sort of go not in alignment with that velocity that we've heard from the staff.

So, this would be more of a longer term potential issue. And as there's, you know, turnover at the agency or, you know, as things are sort of worked down through guidance and legislation that, on the state level, how that's done, you know, that's where things, you know, the sort of original intent of the staff may not be fully fleshed out in implementation in the future.

Whereas, as things trickle down to the Agreement States, if this isn't cleared up.

And one of the things that I would note is that it appears that this definition has sort of evolved from the SECY paper, SECY-23-0001, where the staff was assessing fusion facilities and really were looking at the whole site there and the whole facility and what the hazards of it were.

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 Because they were assessing those hazards against the utilization facility criteria which are in the Atomic Energy Act.

So, it was appropriate to have a broader definition in that SECY paper when presenting that material to the Commission for a decision to provide them, you know, a complete view, complete picture of the hazards that the facility potentially posed when assessing whether or not they should be regulated as utilization facilities.

But now that the Commission has made their decision, I think it makes sense to tailor this definition more tightly.

And this would actually even, you know, be consistent with the nuclear reactor definition which, in fact, are regulated more broadly.

You know, certainly, facility wide, even that definition, as you can see there, you know, really, one line.

And then, the irradiator definition as well, you know, focused on the actual machine of the device there and not all the ancillary equipment or systems or other pieces of the facility that really aren't part of the definition of the -- or the machine that's actually producing fusion.

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 Next slide, please, Dennis?

So, we want to propose here, you know, on our continued engagement, you know, we think it would be really beneficial to have early technically focused workshops on the guidance.

And we're very excited to see from the staff that the handout for today.

Obviously, we've had very limited time to look through that and aren't really prepared to provide, you know, a whole lot of comment on that material here today.

But it's very beneficial to have that material and, hopefully, set us up for potential workshops.

You

know, the byproduct material framework is high level by design, you know, promoting technology inclusiveness and performance based approaches, it handles the hazards of a lot of different types of material and amounts of material.

And so, the guidance is really key in this framework, you know, more so than maybe other frameworks. Because it actually, you know, dictates sort of the day to day implementation of the framework more so than the ruling which is higher level.

So, you know, I think it would be

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 beneficial as we're moving forward where, you know, technically focused individuals from the commercial industry and other stakeholders can come together with the same from the staff and have more in depth technical discussions where the developers can bring in, you know, additional information on their designs and their concepts as we're finalizing our approaches for initial fusion power plants.

So, we can provide more detail to the staff than what they have and what they get maybe in these public sessions that are focused more on policy at a very high level.

And then, also, we can glean a lot of information from that material and understanding of the staff's concerns.

You know, it's always hard to really understand the basis or the impetus for words on paper. There's nothing better than actually getting in a room with somebody and walking through it and talking through it and realizing, you know, you may be aligned, you may be -- maybe you thought you were aligned and you're miles apart.

So, I think it's really helpful to actually get folks together in a room and walk through things.

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 really, the other, you know, really key point on this regard is, you know, Helion and some of our other colleagues, you know, we're getting to a point where we're finalizing designs for our initial power plants.

And as you'll see in my next slide when I get there is, you know, we really want to standardize this design and be able to mass produce it.

So, now is really a critical time in our design phase where we're finalizing our proof of concepts and we're starting to pivot towards, you know, designing our fusion power plants.

Being able to take into account these staff concerns or, you know, the latest in the guidance or finalizing what the language in the guidance will look like, you know, it's much easier for us right now to be able to implement a design change at this stage in the process.

You know, and it may not cost us anything or maybe, you know, it might cost us less to produce the design that may comply with the NRC's expectations as opposed to what we were thinking.

So, whereas, in a year, two years, three years down the road, those retrofits or design

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 changes can be extremely costly or even impractical and create, you know, lots of rework or going back to the drawing board, especially as we're moving towards the potential for mass manufacturing.

So, we would propose two workshops in the spring of 2024. I think waste management would be an excellent one. I think we've had a lot -- the discussion has furthered a lot here.

I think there are still questions and I think maybe the draft guidance that's out may help answer those.

And also, you know, emergency planning has certainly been a topic that, you know, sort of continues to evolve.

And I think the discussion today was great.

And again, but all these things are really going to come down to, you know, the devil's going to be in the details of the wording on this

guidance, is really going to impact the implementation.

So, you know, the sooner that we can get, especially our technical folks, engaged with --

directly with the NRC and these targeted areas, I think we can make sure that the staff end up

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 producing, you know, a quality document for the American people here.

So, next slide?

Thank you, Dennis.

Looking toward the future here, so, you'll see on the left here, aircraft manufacturing.

The aircraft industry in this country produces one or more new planes every day.

And we don't see any reason why that fusion generators couldn't be produced on a similar time scale, being, you know, many components are power electronics and others.

And also, the key, really, with fusion generator manufacturing is not needing radioactive material in the product or even initial testing of these generators. We can do that without radioactive materials such that, you know, they truly can be made in a factory.

You know, lots of small parts that go together being produced on a factory line, not requiring, you know, forging or fabrication of immense structures.

You saw the building earlier, Ursa, for our seventh generation device.

Polaris

that, you

know, is really

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 similar, a 30,000 square foot building in an industrial park. It would be sufficient for siting a fusion generator.

Can really be factory built, transported, and then, quickly installed in these buildings without significant heavy site work there.

So, you know, we're working very hard at Helion to prove our concept here in the next year and design our next -- our device for our Microsoft purchase agreement coming in 2028.

But you know, quite a bit of focus at our company is also on, okay, how can we make sure that once we do prove this and once we make one of them, we will quickly be able to ramp up and scale to meet the needs of the world from a climate and energy security perspective.

So, you know, essentially, the current licensing process, while -- will certainly enable initial deployments of fusion power plants and pilot plants and continued R&D.

I think we would all recognize that, you know, if we were -- if Helion was able or any of our colleagues were able to build one or more of these devices a day, the current framework would certainly be the long pole and tent and really the limiting

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 factors such that we, you know, we would be producing these generators and not be able to site them as quickly as we were deploying them.

So, we really think that there's an opportunity here in the fusion -- the longer term fusion regulatory strategy that the staff has discussed in these meetings, and even in this rulemaking, you know, to acknowledge this fact and commit to, you know, as the fusion industry continues to progress and mature, there is a need to look at a more agile, more efficient licensing process to support this potential here.

And you know, that could be done, you know, I can see some folks on the line probably presenting some skepticism, but you know, completely understand that there should be some metrics tied to that recognition.

You know, I don't want any portion of the government going off and using taxpayer dollars in a way that isn't efficient and going to benefit the American people.

So, you know, there could be a need, you know, having a commercial entity show net electricity from fusion, having a commercial entity have, you know, orders for X number of gigawatts of fusion

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 power, you know, by a certain date.

So, you know, I think there's fairly some metrics we could tie to that before the staff went off to generate such a process.

But we think now is certainly the time, given the amount of time that, you know, whether it be rulemaking or guidance development or others that would need to be undertaken to develop and implement such a process, you know, that time is really of the essence here as we're rapidly moving towards commercialization

and, hopefully, mass manufacturing.

So, next slide, Dennis?

All right, so just to tie out on the key requests that we had here.

Again, the limited scope rulemaking I think is well positioned to provide clarity and regulatory predictability to the industry and other stakeholders.

We strongly urge the staff to explicitly address fusion generators in NRC's 10 CFR 30.4 definition of particle accelerator given that fusion's not in the Atomic Energy Act and the particle accelerator, the definition of that was left to the NRC by the Congress.

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 this is consistent with the staff's rulemaking plan and the Commission's direction provided on SECY-23-0001.

And then, you know, as we showed here earlier, you know, in the little clip of Helion's fusion generator and also in FIA's statements, you know, all of these machines that are being considered do fit under the particle accelerator definition.

So, it -- we don't see any need for hesitancy for updating that definition, you know, clearly, providing that tie to the byproduct material framework within the NRC's regulations through notice and comment rulemaking.

Continue stakeholder engagement, again, we've had quite a bit of momentum here. We really want to continue that.

And as I mentioned, you know, now is really a critical moment as we're moving forward with our designs and as the staff is putting pen to paper in the guidance development.

We think we can be -- they can be quite mutually beneficial to continue our engagement and, not just continue our engagement, but actually, you know, ramp up and further our engagement more into the details and have our technical folks, you know,

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 directly in the room with one another to hash out some of these issues and better our understanding.

And again, you know, this, you know, being the time that it is, you know, changes -- future changes to our designs will, clearly, you know, potentially set us back in our mass production, desires or, you know, create significant costs as we're further along in those designs.

And then, lastly, as I just, you know, ended on the last slide, you know, now is really the time to acknowledge this need for a more efficient process over the current site by site siting process that's done.

And so, you know, with that process likely taking, you know, several years to develop and implement, you know, really, now is the time to start thinking about it and what maybe the criteria would be to launch off into that.

So, really appreciate the staff's time today and certainly open to any comments or questions as we move forward in the meeting this afternoon.

So, thanks.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Fantastic, thank you, Andrew.

We can just move on here.

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 Last, but not least, we have Commonwealth Fusion Systems. We're going to have two speakers from them.

And with that, I will turn it over to Mike O'Neill.

MR. O'NEILL: Great, thanks very much, Dennis.

Sound check, can everyone hear me?

MR. ANDRUKAT: Yes.

MR. O'NEILL: Great, thank you.

So, thanks a lot for everyone's time and attention today. We're really excited about all of the effort and enthusiasm and expertise that NRC is bringing to bear on this really critical path issue for CFS and all our peer companies across FIA and the broader fusion ecosystem.

We really appreciate the transparency and the efforts to collaborate.

And so, you know, our slides kind of reflect some perspectives following the November meeting.

Clearly, the conversation has evolved a bit since then on emergency planning and waste and things like that.

So, we'll try to reflect that in somewhat

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 real time recognizing we haven't had a chance to digest the updated materials from the staff.

But I think we can still offer some perspectives.

By way of background, I am an attorney for CFS. I'm not a technical person, so save those questions for my colleague, Tyler Ellis.

And we'll just give a little bit of background on what CFS is up to and then, dig into the rulemaking.

So, next slide, please?

CFS is a spin out from MIT. I think the takeaway from this slide is, there are about north of 600 people working with CFS.

And we're tightly focused on commercializing fusion energy with a mission to address climate change.

So, our goals are deployment as quickly as -- and efficiently as possible.

And to do that, we need a, you know, predictable regulatory environment that's, to echo Andrew Holland's description earlier.

Next slide, please?

You know, a lot of this material will be familiar to many of the faces on -- or I should say,

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 names on the attendee list here.

But because we're going to talk a little bit about SPARC versus ARC, I did want to describe a little bit about what we're doing today, whereas --

versus what we have planned for our future commercialization efforts.

So, SPARC is a fusion demonstration machine that is under construction right now in Devens, Massachusetts, about 45 minutes to an hour northwest of Boston.

And that machine will demonstrate net energy from fusion.

I've got some pictures further down in the slide deck that show that this machine is under construction today.

And I think what's relevant for our conversation is how important the particle accelerator practice and precedent is to efficiently developing the licensing basis and the license application, and we hope, the license itself for SPARC.

When, you know, SPARC is an experimental demonstration machine, that will give way and evolve into ARC.

ARC will be the commercial power plant

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 scale fusion machine.

We expect to deploy in the early 2030s and will be, you know, grid connected and sell power into the power grid.

I think it's relevant for this conversation that we are conducting a global siting search for ARC today. This is not a hypothetical exercise. We are engaged with communities around the world to evaluate sites for possible deployment of ARC.

It is an active part of our commercialization plan right now.

So, this is a very timely and important discussion for us to give us the certainty to deploy that kind of capital for ARC.

Next slide, please?

So, we're going to touch mostly on the limited rulemaking considerations. I don't want to belabor these points because Andrew Holland and Andrew Proffitt did a really nice job, you know, outlining some of the key considerations for us around some of the definitional points.

But I'll just kind of reiterate them at a high level.

Next slide?

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 So, our main objective in participating in this rulemaking exercise is to ensure that the regulatory program that's developed for fusion really protects public health and safety and hits the right balance for regulatory flexibility and rulemaking durability.

You know, as, I think Andrew Proffitt said, we want to ensure that this is a predictable framework that can foster innovation in this new and emerging technical area.

And one of the key ways that we think will address that, that will further those goals, is this explicit tie between fusion energy or fusion machine and particle accelerator to give us the firmest statutory

basis, tying back to the authorities that NRC has under the AEA from Congress.

And really, to give some comfort to the stakeholders that we deal with across the spectrum.

That we're going to be able to rely on the practice and precedent that has really helpfully built up around or grown up around particle accelerators and materials licensing basis for particle accelerators over, you know, the past many decades.

And as you can see, we've got a photo

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 here of SPARC under construction. That's a pretty recent picture, I think, to show the demonstration of the commercial fusion energy.

Next slide, please?

So, I think we really want to emphasize here that we're looking for a really strong statutory basis to implement the Commission's directive to select Option 2 out of the SECY and place commercial fusion energy within the byproduct material framework.

You know, some of -- I don't think we need to dwell on the legislative and regulatory history too much here, but you know, Congress brought particle accelerators into the -- or I should say, the byproduct material created by particle accelerators into the NRC's jurisdiction back in 2005.

And gave a fair amount of discretion to NRC to describe what types of machines would serve as particle accelerators.

And NRC exercised that discretion.

They've done it with the definition that's posted here in Parts 20 and 30.

And, you know, in our view, we share the view of FIA that we're not aware of any commercial

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 fusion technology that would not fit within this definition, be it, you know, machine topology or fuel cycle, anything else -- anything that any company that we're aware of that's proposing in the fusion space fits in the particle accelerator definition.

Next slide, please?

And so, you know, one thing that we were

-- we've kind of cottoned on to a little bit in -- is that, you know, our read of the SECY with the SRM is that, really, to the Commissioner's intended to make an explicit tie with -- to particle accelerator.

You know, that's within the Commission endorsed rulemaking

plan, within the limited rulemaking.

They suggested that the definition of particle accelerator ought to be updated to explicitly define radioactive material associated with the operation of a commercial fusion energy device as byproduct material.

That's really a very strong sign to us that that's where Commission decision landed. And that that's how they understand the basis for their Part 30 decision for fusion.

And that's what we think ought to be implemented via rulemaking here.

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 Next slide, please?

You know, and I think we just want to call out that this isn't happening in a vacuum.

You know, Congress is interested in this.

I think that's no surprise to anyone on this call.

And so, we are just -- we're in alignment with the definition that Congress is developing.

I think the point here is that we really just want a tech-neutral, comprehensive fusion machine definition that captures everyone. It creates a level playing field for the entire industry.

And then, we can, you know, deploy this technology safely and efficiently across the country.

You know, I think that this is just more of a -- our view is, we just want everyone swimming in the same direction.

Next slide, please?

So, here, we've got a picture of the inside of our Tokamak Hall about as it sits today.

You know, I think one thing that we do want to really emphasize is how strongly we agree with the approach that staff has taken on NUREG development based on 1556 Volume 21.

We think that that is the right approach.

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 we strongly agree with that.

And the key, for us, is how useful Volume 21 has been in developing our licensing strategy for SPARC for dealing with our regulators, for considering the entire gamut of operations, operational conditions, hazards, things like that.

We found Volume 21 to be the indispensable tool to develop a licensing approach for our machine.

We think that that is the key that is a critical part of expanding fusion writ large across the country.

Next slide, please?

So, one thing that we want to flag here from a more kind of practical, boots on the ground, market facing perspective is that, you know, some of the issuances that we've seen either in the definitional space or in prior conversations around, you know, the proposal of 20.20088 or something like that is that there's not a clear intention, at this point, with the rulemaking for fusion intends to really lever the decades of practice and precedent around particle accelerators.

You know, where our view is and remains that the material that we will license and our

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 machines should be treated as particle accelerator and particle accelerator produced byproduct material.

It fits squarely within the four corners of the Atomic Energy Act, within the existing regulations, and I think, for us, a very clear statement that this is accurate, that fusion machines are part of the particles accelerator rubric will give us and, frankly, many of our vendors or our --

the folks that we deal with in the marketplace, a lot of comfort and regulatory certainty that this is the case.

We want to assure that we are not creating or that NRC is not creating a whole new category of byproduct material here.

And what we're actually doing is just building on the decades of accelerator byproduct material framework. That's where CFS is.

And where we're concerned is around areas where we're actually increasing the potential for regulatory uncertainty.

For instance, you know, there -- it could be argued that 20.20088 isn't totally aligned with the -- with Congress's edicts in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

That could create -- if there is, indeed,

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 a conflict there, that creates some significant regulatory uncertainty across the ecosystem.

And so, we really want to drill down on that, you know, recognize that the intent from today seems to be that near-term fusion machines really ought to fall within the existing regulations at 20.2008.

But I do want to just caution around the potential for a conflict with the statute.

And last, but certainly not least, we want to, you

know, encourage this regulatory certainty as in line with the agency's own principles of good regulation.

You know, we think tying this all back to particle accelerator really implements the Commission's decision neatly in alignment with congressional intent, but under NEIMA and this emerging bipartisan bill in the House, in the Congress.

And so, it really is becoming a, you know, collaborative technology-neutral, technology-comprehensive regulatory approach.

So, I think that solves -- or that concludes my own slides.

If we could transition over to Tyler.

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. ELLIS: I'll take the next slide, please?

Hello, everyone. My name is Tyler Ellis.

I'm with Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

And we just wanted to share some additional thinking on some of the regulatory guidance concepts and some of the questions that were actually posed at previous meetings just to -- in order to kind of appropriately respond.

So, next slide, please?

It -- in the previous November meeting, there were actually three different questions that were asked by NRC kind of looking for input and we wanted to be able to share our thoughts on that.

So, the first question that was posed was really a question of does it make sense to include some additional terminology such as general emergency or notification of unusual events which is traditionally used in the fission context.

We, you know, did some thinking and looking at the current regulations.

And I think that what has been proposed, you know, just yesterday when we looked through the material, I think, is very much in line with that.

But our read of going through it is that,

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 on both alerts and site area emergencies pretty much cover all of the different situations that we would be talking about kind of both with and without the off site consequences.

So, we didn't really see kind of an obvious need for it.

And then, also, just based on the current definition of, you know, general emergency is really referring to a core melt type of a situation.

And since fusion power plants are not capable of that kind of a situation, you know, it doesn't make sense necessarily to include that additional terminology.

Next slide, please?

The second question was focused on, you know, what are the benefits or consequences of requiring all applicants to kind of both submit a maximum dose evaluation as well as a specific emergency response plan kind of independent of looking at the 30.72 Schedule C quantities.

And the main conclusion that we kind of came to is it wasn't obvious why fusion would necessarily need to be treated differently than any other 10 CFR 30 licensed, you know, facility.

When you kind of look at the evaluation

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 the maximum dose to an off side individual being under 1 REM, you can really reliably do a lot of that with the deterministic analysis tools that we already have just given that we understand the quantities and types of radioactive material that we would be having at these types of facilities.

And the idea of kind of, you know, trying to extend that to potentially include some sort of a probabilistic risk assessment or probabilistic safety assessment, it's challenging to construct those models Because a lot of these are first of a kind components, hence, they don't have the failure rate data that exists in order to create those models.

So, therefore,

the, you

know, the potential that you would -- model that you would generate necessarily wouldn't be as useful information just given that a lot of the key data inputs to construct that model don't really exist now.

And then, you know, the final point on this is, if the applicant can, you know, reliably demonstrate that you would remain under 1 REM in an accident scenario during a release of radioactive material, then the -- it did not necessarily seem to be any clear benefit to also require an emergency

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 response plan given that, you know, that is kind of the threshold that is currently written into the Part 30 regulations.

Next slide, please?

And then, the third question that was asked was the potential addition of a requirement for protecting on site personnel and then, coordinating with fire, medical, local law enforcement.

When we went and kind of read through what was covered under site area emergency, we think that this is already covered underneath that section.

So, we, you know, didn't necessarily see that there was a need to kind of include it again, you know, at the end of 30.32 section.

So, didn't see any obvious benefit on that one.

Next slide, please?

Then on to the activated material, there was a suggestion kind of brought up in an earlier public meeting that, you know, applicants might list out every single activated isotope separately on a 10 CFR 30 license application.

But according to the current practice of license applications in Part 30 now, we don't think that's necessarily standard practice.

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 if you were to kind of list out every single activated isotope, it would bring up some questions such what would the minimum half life be and the justification for those isotopes in there?

And if an isotope only exists for a small fraction of a second, does it make sense for it to be listed on the application given that it would decay away significantly in advance of any waste disposal or material handling type of situations?

So, the thing that we recommend is just kind of sticking with what we believe the current best practice is on listing activated materials in license applications, which is in the table in kind of the up front part of the application, you know, just describing when you're talking about activated material is, you know, any radioactive materials, Atomic Numbers 1 through 83, which is either integral to fixed equipment and structures or it's the removed equipment that you would do prior to disposal.

Next slide, please?

And then, on to the security, I think this also is kind of updated given the documents that the NRC shared today.

So, we're very much in full agreement, you know, with the NRC staff that requirements of 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 CFR 20, you know, really kind of effectively covered the near-term designs of fusion power plants.

And then, when I was kind of reading through the draft material that was shared, it said, kind of if the facility has either Category 1 or Category 2 materials, then, you know, you would need to look to 10 CFR 37.

The main point that we really wanted to share on this is, as of the list that's currently in Appendix H Part 37 now, we don't really envision fusion power plants having any of those kind of concentrations of Category 1 or Category 2 material.

So, as far as we understand, kind of with our designs and some of the other designs that we've seen, we don't think you would necessarily be broaching that threshold into 10 CFR Part 37.

Obviously, tritium is not listed in there either by the NRC or the IAEA.

Then, it would kind of look at the total radioactive material hazard, you know, tritium is a much lower energy beta emitter compared to the rest of the list of the Category 1 and Category 2 isotopes that have, you know, a much higher energy and more total dose effective equivalent type of radiation.

Then, finally, just given the fact that

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 tritium has really been shipped across the United States, you know, very effectively for a very long period of time in certified containers, both in the United States as well as Canadian certifications.

You know, the increased frequency of the shipments that you would need in order to bring the tritium to a fusion power plant really doesn't kind of change the overall hazard given that these storage and transportation containers have already been certified and used for a very long period of time.

Next slide, please?

And then, finally, a point on operator training, so, as is kind of already exists in NUREG-1556 Volume 21, which is, you know, the basis for which, you know, Volume 22 is being developed, there already is, you know, a pretty well developed section on training requirements for individuals that are responsible for the radiation and safety program for the facility.

Just given the fact that that is one of the main roles that can have an impact on public health and safety

and, therefore, having appropriately qualified person and appropriate training and all of the other infrastructure that goes along with that, you know, is really the kind of

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 major focus of that.

And the part that's important to kind of keep in mind for fusion facilities is that the low radiological risk is really kind of, by virtue of the design, as opposed to operator action.

You know, this is kind of, again, different from a fission facility where operator action can have an impact on radiological safety.

When you look at the operators for fusion facilities, you know, they're really focused on kind of maintaining, you know, efficient operations.

And then, not damaging the plant's equipment, hence, you know, making the company's investment, you know, be worth a lot less.

You know, it's really, their role is focused much more on investment protection and efficient operations and not necessarily radiological safety.

So, when you kind of look at what is the need from a regulatory standpoint from a, you know, an operator training program, it really, I think, makes more sense to have it be under the licensee's responsibility to ensure their own people are appropriately trained.

But since that doesn't play a role in

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 assuring radiological public health and safety, including requirements on operator training programs, you know, probably aren't needed.

And according to the table of contents that I think I saw this morning, I don't believe that's in there.

But I just wanted to emphasize that.

And with that, I think that is the end of our slides.

So, thank you very much for your time.

Again, really, really appreciate all of the time and effort and engagement for everyone here in, you know, moving this process forward.

MR. ANDRUKAT: All right, fantastic.

Thank you, Mike and thank you, Tyler.

So, this concludes the presentation portion of today's meeting.

You know, speaking for the staff, if I can for a second, I appreciate all of the feedback in the presentations given thus far and especially the time and the effort that went into these.

I really do appreciate that it's not just identifying issues of feedback, it's also providing best views and providing basis and examples we have to consider.

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 So, the staff will take these in addition to the feedback we've received to date as we continue to develop our proposed rule package.

So, I do appreciate that.

So, with that, hopefully, you guys can still hear me, but the -- I think we're going to move it on to the question and answer session.

So, with that, we can do the raise hand feature.

For those that are on the bridge line only, it's star six to unmute to let us know that you do have a question.

Again, it's a question or comment, excuse me.

Again, we do ask for the raised hand, wait for us to call on you. This is just so we can go one by one.

In addition, when it is your turn to speak, we do ask that you give your name and your affiliation.

And with that, I see that we're already starting to get some hands raised.

So, let's see if I can jump over to that here real quick.

Okay, so, we have Don, I see he was the

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 first one to raise his hand.

Go ahead, Don.

MR. GREGOIRE: Hi, yes, this is Don Gregoire from Zap Energy.

I had a chance to briefly look at the draft NUREG guidance.

And a couple questions, and I know you didn't really bring it up here, but in the NUREG-1022 Volume 22, there's a section 8.5.3 that mentions environmental review.

So, very curious about where that's going to and how that's going to be considered?

And then, the second question, and I'll leave it with that, is related to the new security section, security program, which is going to be 8.10.12.

But you also have a section on 8.10.3 for material control and accountability which was where security seemed to be talked about.

So, I'm curious as to how those two are going to be separated out differently?

And I'll leave it at that.

MR. WHITE: Don Palmrose, could you take a shot of answering that question, please?

MR. PALMROSE: Yes, this is Don Palmrose.

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 I'm a senior reactor engineer and an environmental COE, also in the Office of NSS.

We are currently looking at using NUREG-1748 that we have also used for other material licensing as our guidance for the environmental review.

MR. GREGOIRE: Okay.

It just seemed odd that you would add this section to the NUREG-1556 on environmental reviews.

MR. PALMROSE: Well, this section has been included in other volumes in NUREG-1556 before.

MR. GREGOIRE: Okay.

I compared it with the particle accelerator one in volume 21 and I didn't see it in that one, so maybe I missed it.

But on the security one, how are you separating out the two concepts there? Material control and accountability and security programs?

MR. PALMROSE: I don't know if Duncan or Duane wants to take that one?

MR. ANDRUKAT: Duane?

MR. WHITE: We're still writing those sections.

This is Duncan White.

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're still working on those sections but, material accountability, again, is, you know, is how much material you're going to have on site.

The way it's written now is those are going to be separated. So, security will be separated from what we're calling material accountability. And we may consider revising the titles of that.

Actually, we had a discussion earlier today, you know, how we're going to handle those write ups in fact.

But the way we have it right now is security will be a separate -- a completely separate section from inventory and material accountability.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Duane, did you have anything to add to that?

MR. WHITE: No, I didn't have anything additional.

But generally, we do separate material accountability from security.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Fantastic.

All right, okay, let's see, let's go back to our next person, is it Laila?

MS. EL-GUEBALY: Yes, could you hear me?

MR. ANDRUKAT: Yes, ma'am.

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 MS. EL-GUEBALY: Okay.

Now, regarding the radioactive waste, you focused on disposal.

And if you look at the latest trend in decommissioning, actually, now, people are suggesting the recycling in the clearance of all radioactive materials, whatever the source is, fission or fusion.

And so, I have two questions now for the NRC.

Is there any effort to regulate the recycling process of radiated fusion materials?

The second one, any plan to develop limits for fusion that employs more than the four alloys evaluated in the 2003 NRC clearance documents?

MR. WHITE: I'll take that one. I'll answer part of the question.

The waste people who do recycling, you know, we call them waste brokers, they are licensed for that particular activity regardless of where they receive the waste from, you know, commercial, academic, or wherever.

So, that -- so, those -- that would be licensed, not specifically for fusion, but it would

-- they would be licensed for that activity.

And that's kind of how we would handle

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.

Are we going to -- have we done anything specifically to look at that, particularly for fusion waste and recycling?

No, we have not done that yet.

Christianne, is there anything else you want to add?

DR.

RIDGE:

No, I

understand the question, but as Duncan said, no, we have not looked specifically at recycling yet.

And I would just add to what Duncan said about the waste brokers, and Duncan, you're the materials -- the state materials expert here, but my understanding is that is something that is generally licensed by the state -- Agreement State Programs.

And that, right now, in the United States, that that's how that is handled, that release of radioactive materials under, you know, what, I guess, release levels are the best way to call those.

Those are done under some state programs and there is not a federal program for that.

MR. WHITE: Yes, just to -- and again, the Agreement States who do regulate them and there's, you know, for example, there are waste brokers located in Tennessee, Washington, South

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 Carolina, a few other states, of course, too.

But they generally follow federal --

generally follow NRC guidance and they have similar programs to what NRC has in terms of how they license and inspect them.

But they -- but, clearly, those waste broker facility and Agreement States are under, you know, under the Agreement State Program, so they were

-- they would follow what the guidance that we already have in place for that.

MS. EL-GUEBALY: Okay.

My second question is for the peers.

Are there any efforts to update the document that you issued in 2003 to be applicable to fusion?

Because in this document that you have, it's just the four alloys. And in fusion, you have two million alloys.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Laila, do you mind just for --

MR. WHITE: Yes, I think --

MR. ANDRUKAT: I don't know if everyone heard the last part of that.

MS. EL-GUEBALY: Okay.

My original question is that are there

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 any plan by the NRC to develop clearance limits for fusion?

Because in fusion, we have more than the four alloys that you have in the 2003 NRC clearance documents.

So, we are stuck if we have many alloys in there and we only have four alloys, which is steel, aluminum, copper, and concrete.

We have much more than this in fusion.

We don't know which -- if we evaluate the clearance of these materials, if our fusion materials, we have a lot of uncertainty in there.

So, for example, the IAEA would have a big table of about 2070 elements that we can use regards they want to divide them into alloys that like the one that you have in the 2003 clearance limits.

So, are there any efforts to help the fusion program by getting -- updating your document or getting more like a whole list of elements that we can use and not to divide them into alloys like the one that you had before?

DR. RIDGE: Specifically, with respect to clearance levels, there is not an effort at this time as part of this limited rulemaking.

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 MS. EL-GUEBALY: Any plan in the future to do something about it?

MR. WHITE: We're not aware of any right

-- any plans right now.

MS. EL-GUEBALY: Okay.

MR. WHITE: But thank you for that.

Appreciate that feedback.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Okay. I'll go ahead and move on to Matthew. Go ahead and unmute yourself.

MR. LIPKA: Hello, this is Matthew Lipka from TAE. Thanks so much for the presentations today and also the evident willingness to take on board the discussion and feedback in previous sessions.

I had a question for Cindy related to your presentation on emergency plan and procedures.

I heard you say that there isn't a plan to modify the regulatory text at this time, but there are plans to update the guidance. And I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit about what the guidance changes might be needed there are, and whether any of them are related to the three questions that you asked last time and that Tyler recapped today. Thank you very much.

MS. ROSALES-COOPER: Sure, thanks for the question. So as I mentioned earlier, our

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 guidance is going to be modeled after existing guidance in 1556. I'm not at liberty right now to go into any specifics because as I said it's still under development. And if you refer back to the slide that I have, I cover at a high-level the things we are going to be focused on.

The only tie-in I think for the three questions that I asked on November 9th would be where we just restate the things that we will be looking for from those on-site emergency procedures should they be needed. And that would be it.

MR. LIPKA: Thank you.

MS. ROSALES-COOPER: Sure.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Okay. Let's move onto --

is it Sai Zhang? Am I -- I don't know if I'm saying that right.

MS. ZHANG: Yes. Can you hear me though?

MR. ANDRUKAT: Yes.

MS. ZHANG: Oh, this is Sai Zhang from Idaho National Lab. I have a question regarding the licensing basis event selection, so that might be a question for Cindy as it may relate to the maximum dose evaluation. So what are the current thoughts of how to determine the licensing basis events? Like would you encourage a risk-informed approach or it's

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 like a deterministic -- or you kind of allow the flexibility to the license applicants to determine which method can be used?

MR. WHITE: I'll take a first crack and let Cindy weigh in, too.

Since we're doing -- writing a guidance document that's really technology-neutral, we --

there's going to be different types of designs coming in. Those are all going to have some -- those designs are all going to influence any potential offset consequences. So we're going to rely on the applicant that -- doing -- looking at what they have and looking at what's realistic and a series of events that would result in some sort of off-site consequences as part of their evaluation. But again, our guidance may have some things to consider.

But again, when it comes down to actual doing the evaluation it's going to be very design-specific because again there's different types --

there are a number of different technologies out there, different types of -- even within the --

similar types of, you know, fusion category. There's different types of designs. And again, how that --

off-site consequences will be dependent on that in that particular facility and how it's designed. So

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's really what we're looking for.

MS. ZHANG: Okay. Yea.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Okay. And, Cindy, I don't know if you wanted to add to -- I know Duncan gave a pretty good response there, but --

MS. NOLAN: Dennis, so Cindy had to step away for a moment, so I just want to thank Duncan for his response and I'll make sure that Cindy does get the question in case there's any more follow-up at a later time that she could provide. But yes, I just want to agree with Duncan at this time. Thanks.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Awesome. Okay. Thanks, Caty.

Okay. Let's move onto -- looks like we have a Dr. Robert next. And please don't forget to un-mute yourself if you are speaking. And if you're not speaking, please make sure you are muted. Thank you.

DR. FLORIAN: All right. Can you hear me?

MR. ANDRUKAT: Yes.

DR. FLORIAN: Oh, okay. Great. First of all, this has been thoroughly fascinating. I just want to briefly say that I come from having spent 40 years in the 10 CFR Part 50 world in commercial PWR

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 nuclear plants, so I want to -- and spent a lot of time in licensing, so I've got a regulatory-related question.

Since there are a myriad of designs of fusion machines, as people have been calling them, just like we've got a myriad of small modular reactor designs out there right now and it hasn't condensed down like the Part 50 world had PWRs and BWRs -- so going back to something that Andrew talked about from Helion, for instance. He gave one example of where, okay, if I've got a fusion machine that's based on deuterium and helium-3 producing stable isotopes with no radioactive byproducts or radiation, then we wouldn't need certain aspects of Part 30, for instance like the emergency plan, et cetera, et cetera.

In the Part 50 world one of the things that my experience has been is that every time we had gone into the NRC for an exemption request under Part 50.12 -- once a whole string of plants start coming in the NRC says, okay, stop -- getting exemption requests approved and processed is pretty arduous.

Let's just go ahead and change the regulation.

So with all these different designs where some may produce byproduct material, some many not

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 produce byproduct material, some may produce certain levels of radiation that would be governed under Part 20, how does the NRC and the industry, like say the FIA working with the NRC, plan to address the applicability of various aspects of these regulations that may or may not apply to specific designs to avoid having to come in with a whole myriad of exemption requests?

Are we forward-looking enough to foresee all these different aspects and try to build specific exceptions into the regulations? I can just foresee what happened when I first started working in the industry, particularly after TMI, where we were basically designing as we were building and coming in with exemption requests left, right, and center. So I can envision the industry both in the SMR world and the fusion world basically repeating history from 40 or 50 years ago. What is the plan to address that time of regulatory environment?

MR. WHITE: Yes, I'll answer that question. Thank you for the question. Under the Part 30 approach to licensing we -- the requirements that are actually in the regulations are actually fairly high-level, and particularly for fusion the direction from the Commission was to write -- to have

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 requirements that are very technology-neutral and high level. And the way we do license -- and how do we address the differences between one fusion device versus another device if they're Part 30?

And our plans are, and it's consistent with how we do it for other types of byproduct uses, is that the guidance document becomes the main vehicle for getting the information that we need to ensure that the licensee will operate their facility and the fusion device in a safe manner and protect public health and safety and the environment.

So when we write our guidance document we may have different sections that frankly may not apply to certain types of devices. And for that reason the applicant wouldn't have to respond to that. But what we do ask the applicant to do for areas that do apply and they do have to provide information -- they make certain commitments and those commitments are incorporated into the license.

And by incorporating them into the license we make them legally binding.

And of course -- and that's legally -- and the way we work at NRC is anything that's in the license and it's legally binding is as enforceable as if it was in the regulation. So by doing it this way we don't have

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 have a myriad of regulations and do exemptions that they would -- may have to do under Part 50 and the other nuclear power plant regulations. So that's how our approach is.

So if there's a particular section in the guidance that doesn't apply to a particular fusion device that we -- under Volume 22, we don't expect an answer for it. It's that simple. But where do expect answers, that's where we would get the information and the commitment that would be incorporated into the license.

DR. FLORIAN: Okay.

MR. WHITE: That answer your question?

DR. FLORIAN: Yes. Yes. No, I appreciate that. I just was -- because I had just been through the AP1000 process, too, and I sadly say that we saw history repeat itself. So I was just hoping that with SMRs and fusion that we have learnt from our past. But, no, I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

MR. WHITE: Yes. No problems. Yes.

DR. FLORIAN: Thank you.

MR. ANDRUKAT: And I think -- this is Dennis Andrukat and I think it is important to note that the Part 30 and the material -- byproduct

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 material framework is definitely quite different than how the NRC -- how we regulate and set up the framework for the nuclear reactors on the fission side, right? So Part 50, Part 52 can be a bit more technology-dedicated and a bit more specific, and thus you get some possibly more exemptions.

Part 30, like Duncan said, is a bit more high-level. And I think Duncan did a good job explaining both how we're going to use the guidance, including in the license, which I think is a pretty good important point.

MR. WHITE: One of the advantages of Part 30, it's a very flexible set of requirements for a very large broad -- a very broad scope of types of active material uses from very small things up to very, very large amounts of radioactive material. So I think it's -- fusion fits well here.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Right. Right. I think it definitely helps for sure.

Okay. I guess it looks like we can move on to Boby. Go ahead, Boby.

MR. ABU-EID: Yes, can you hear me?

MR. ANDRUKAT: Yes.

MR. ABU-EID: Yes, I would like to respond to Dr. Laila's questions about --

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. ANDRUKAT: Hey, Boby?

MR. ABU-EID: Yes, can you --

MR. ANDRUKAT: Oh, Boby, just don't forget to tell us who you're affiliated with, please.

MR. ABU-EID: Can you hear me?

MR. ANDRUKAT: Yes.

MR. WHITE: Yes.

MR. ABU-EID: Okay. I'm trying to respond to Dr. Laila's question about the recycling.

I think in our case we declared such things as usable material for unrestricted use. And we are adopting IAEA criteria, which is 10 microsievert, if it is to be used for under no restrictions. And if it is to be disposed in certain areas and landfill it is about 1 to 5 millirems, the criteria. I think your question regarding recycling is to reuse the material for -- because it is expensive material that you're talking about. And this is depends on the kind of use and the kind of dose impacts in the recycling of the material.

So that's why I'll try to differentiate between clearance and recycling. So it is important, you know?

The other thing that -- just I want to mention that when we talk about the fusion system as well as the machine, I think we need to be careful

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 our focus on the rad material and safety rather than the machine because we don't know even up to now the exact design of the machine. How is it going to be designed? So I believe what -- when we talk about the system would cover rad material generated or stored that is associate with the machine. These are the two points I'd like to clarify. Thank you.

MR. ANDRUKAT: All right. Thanks, Boby.

And just for the record Boby is with the NRC staff.

And looks like we have Mr. Don. You've got your hand raised again?

MR. GREGOIRE: Okay. Yes, I didn't mean to monopolize the discussion, but --

MR. ANDRUKAT: No that's okay.

MR. GREGOIRE: -- just a few more questions on the draft NUREG that caught my eye.

One is the Section 872 that was being proposed, Individuals Authorized to Handle Licensed Material. And I see -- and this is just maybe a subtle thing, but emphasis on the verb use as opposed to handle or any of the other verbs that are currently used in Part 30 which include produce, transfer, receive, acquire, own, possess. Whatever. But they talk about in 872 an emphasis on authorized users.

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 I think particle accelerator they actually talk about handling.

So anyhow, is there something going on here that is trying to limit this concept as if fusion is only going to involve use of byproduct material as opposed to handle or possess or anything else? Just looking to see if there's any --

MR. WHITE: Yes, this is Duncan White again. No, there's not. Use is a common -- we use it often in the Part 30 world of -- to -- with regard to -- we talk about possession and use all the time.

So use is just our way of -- in lieu of saying handling we will say use. I mean, that's --

MR. GREGOIRE: Yes, the only reason I brought it up was because Particle Accelerator Volume 21 specifically uses the word handle and --

MR. WHITE: Yes.

MR. GREGOIRE: -- doesn't use the word use. So it just stood out to me as a --

MR. WHITE: Yes, it's -- there's no particular -- nothing specific about -- even by staff to focus on anything particular. It was just something -- it's a term that we often use is that term. Appreciate the feedback and the -- pointing that out. Appreciate it.

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. GREGOIRE: And the last question really, it kind of alluded to more -- I'm trying to understand the staff's position up to this point on the definition of fusion system and maybe the disconnect with particle accelerator. Is there something that is problematic with the staff in associating those two concepts together? I'd like to try to understand that a little more.

MR. WHITE: I'll start off and then I'll let others jump in. The way we approached it is again the NRC does not regulate the accelerator device itself. We only regulate the rad material that's produced by it. So the definition that we developed was to focus on the radioactive material that was -- it's either -- it's produced or -- and the radiation associated with that. So that was kind of the genesis of that is to use what's in the Atomic Energy Act and say -- which define byproduct material. And 1183 talks about its material that's produced. And again, by demonstrating we -- there's

-- that we have jurisdiction over that and there's possession of that, then we can go in and start further talking about -- and going forward with that.

That was kind of the genesis behind that.

And again, the definition was designed to

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 say, okay, well, wherever there's -- like an accelerator you're going to have activation of components that you want activated and there's going to be activation of components you don't want activated and they all are impact -- and they all --

we have to license them all like we do with -- like we do when they're under a particle accelerator license. We active -- we license obviously the targets and we also license the shielding that's activated. So this is -- so we -- it's kind of the same approach. So we -- the definition was written in that respect that anything that's impacted by it.

That's why we wrote it the way we did. So that's kind of the overall general approach to doing that.

Again, because particle accelerator is only defined in the regulations, not defined in the Act. It's only -- with relationship to what we're working here with fusion and fusion devices byproduct material is the only thing that's -- that's the clearest tie we have that's in the Act, not particle accelerator. That's why we focused on that.

MR. GREGOIRE: Yes, and that definition in the Atomic Energy Act does point to material produced by particle accelerators.

MR. WHITE: It does.

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. GREGOIRE: And so it seems like a natural fit to be able to conclude the same, that a fusion system is essentially a particle accelerator and it's being -- producing byproduct material.

MR. WHITE: Yes.

MR. GREGOIRE: So again, I think we probably need more discussion on this --

MR. WHITE: Yes.

MR. GREGOIRE: -- but I didn't want to tie it up.

MR. WHITE: That's exactly why we have these meetings is to get people's feedback.

I see, Theresa, you raised your hand.

You want to add to this?

MS. CLARK: Yes, thanks. And I'm just going to jump ahead of other people. Sorry. Manager prerogative, I guess.

So I think these are the conversations that we're having internally on which terms we should define and which terms don't need to be defined and how we can do it the simplest and most elegant.

I think one of the things that we are thinking about that some of the fusion companies might be able to have some thoughts on is that our mandate from the Commission is about near-term fusion

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 systems and our regulatory approach for those. And so we are working on this Part 30 rulemaking and guidance approach for the near-term fusion systems and thinking about how those fit into what we've already done for particle accelerators.

If we are making a statement that looks like all fusion systems forever fit under a certain definition of particle accelerator, I'm not sure we have the technical evidence for that yet. I'm not saying it's not true. I'm just -- we don't necessarily have that in front of us. And so this is where we have to think through this -- what we're approached with for the near-term designs, what we want to define today, and where we need to take it from there. So the books aren't shut on this. It's one thing we're actively discussing. And so input like this meeting and like the letter we got is helpful.

While I have my yap open I will address

-- there was a discussion a little bit earlier about environmental reviews and I think in one of our previous public meetings we talked about environmental reports and the need for that. Don Palmrose who spoke up earlier was one of the presenters there, if I remember right.

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 So environmental reviews are part of the Part 30 framework, where appropriate, let's say.

There are certain types of activities that have categorical exclusions under our regulations, so when the NRC is doing a review in 10 CFR 51.22 certain types of activities: research and development and education, for

example, there's a

categorical exclusion there.

And so in the past some types of licensees might not have had the environmental report and then either an environment assessment or an environmental impact statement, if they're in those categories, but where those categories don't apply -

- for example, well logging is one of those things where there are environmental reviews called out in NUREG-1556.

And so whether you see it or not in Chapter -- Volume 21 related to accelerators doesn't necessarily mean it wouldn't be applicable to a fusion facility, because if you actually look at the front matter of that volume it talks about like the

-- I'm editorializing here, but the accelerator itself is just one piece of a facility. There may be other activities licensed, and so it's possible that those other activities would have needed an

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 environmental review. That's sort of hypothetical, but that's how the puzzle pieces fit together.

And this is something when we put the whole guidance out and have another meeting in a few months we can talk about even more.

MR. GREGOIRE: Thanks for the feedback.

Appreciate it.

MR. WHITE: Thanks. Andrew, I apologize for calling an audible, so I'm -- jump ahead of you.

So I'll turn it over to you now.

MR. HOLLAND: Thanks, Duncan. No problem. And I actually think Theresa just mostly answered this in her conversation with Don.

I did just want to underline again that industry's strong support for linking the definition of particle accelerators to fusion machines, fusion systems and note that we really haven't seen any opposition to this in any of the public meetings. We first put this forward in July and this was the first time we heard the -- kind of the more fulsome discussion here of why you haven't put anything out on this, that definition.

It's helpful to know this, and yes, would look forward to in future meetings going further into this.

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 Obviously we've testified during the public process prior to the decision and since that everything that the -- that FIA members are planning and conceivably could plan we believe fits as an accelerator. And so we think that that definition should work. And we've heard no one -- no intervener say otherwise.

But I do have a better understanding now with, Theresa, your discussion there with Don on this.

So anyway, thank you for your continued engagement and look forward to continued discussion here of this.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Thanks, Andrew.

And, Tyler, I see your hand is up, but if I -- maybe both you guys can elaborate. I think some of you guys probably know a bit better than I do, but the tie of and the want to using particle accelerator as opposed to creating a new definition -- I know you guys talked about some basis and bringing it back to the statute and I didn't know if anyone could provide a little bit more detail for that nexus of bringing it back to the statute there.

MR. HOLLAND: Well, we think clarity in regulation is really the most important thing given

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 today even the Supreme Court is considering the challenge to Chevron deference, that it's really important that regulators make as clear a link as possible to everything they're doing in statute. And so that's one of the reasons the Fusion Energy Act in Congress is progressing as well. And we propose the link, the direct link between the definition for fusion machine here and fusion machine there.

In a world where -- that could be coming as soon as June of post-Chevron it's important for all regulators to consider how to explicitly link to these -- to statute.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Right. No, and I -- yes, you're right. You're right. And yes, I think -- was it the herring fishermen presenting something with the Supreme Court on the Chevron doctrine?

MR. HOLLAND: Yes, yes. Exactly right.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Right. Yes, that will be interesting.

So -- and forgive my ignorance here. So aside from the Fusion Energy Act that's still progressing through Congress, if hypothetically --

setting that aside for a second, is there still a clarity issue with tying it to the statutes in place

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 today?

MR. HOLLAND: No, we're confident that your -- so far as I understand it from our members, we're confident that the direction given by the Commission and the direction that you're going right now provides sufficient clarity. It's what we're looking towards in the future, in a not-too-distant future.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Okay.

MR. WHITE: I'll offer up something --

there's been obviously a lot of discussion on the fusion machine as particle accelerator. So maybe one thing that we could do is we could provide a discussion in the Federal Register Notice when we --

can we -- we can put a question there and maybe we can ask for it. We will write down where we are and then get some feedback, formal feedback on that.

Maybe we can do that.

MR. HOLLAND: Okay. That would be great.

MR. WHITE: In addition to continuing discussions at meetings like this. I'm not saying this is the end of the discussion. I'm just saying we could also do that.

MR. HOLLAND: Yes. Yes. I know of no

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 opposition to it, but --

MR. WHITE: Yes, I just --

MR. ANDRUKAT: And, Tyler, appreciate your patience there. Go ahead, sir.

MR. ELLIS: Yes, sure. Yes, I agree with what Andrew just shared of the importance of -- really strict to the statutory basis of this is a pretty key important point for connecting particle accelerator to fusion facility.

I guess the question that I had is --

kind of, Theresa, when you were describing -- it's kind of you don't know what you don't know. And the industry and a whole bunch of other stakeholders kind of shared descriptions of all the different designs that they're considering. Is it possible for you to describe like what attributes would cause it to not be a particle accelerator?

So like as kind of an example, there's basically four fusion fuel cycles that everyone is looking at:

deuterium deuterium/tritium, deuterium/deuterium, deuterium/helium 3,

proton/boron-11. All of those produce byproduct material. All of them have kind of radioactive material that's produced and activated material. So given all that all four fusion fuel cycles kind of

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 fit neatly in that byproduct material definition and all of the different designs that are kind of proposed and shared now I think would kind of fit within that, like what potential attribute or what potential things are people thinking about that might fall outside of the particle accelerator definition?

Because we've not seen anything like that.

MS. CLARK: So, and Duncan or other smart people on here can chime in, I think -- but since you called me out first. So I think we're looking at the actual words of particle accelerator in the 30.4 definitions and trying to make sure that things fit there, right? And so if it says a machine capable of accelerating electrons, protons, deuterons, et cetera, in a vacuum and discharging the resultant particulate, like that's pretty specific. And whether it should be that specific or not is perhaps a matter up for debate.

But we're looking at designs like the ignition facility at Livermore. Does that meet that definition?

I'd maybe need some technical information put in front of me to make sure that that meets it. It might. I'm not saying it doesn't. But we kind of need to bounce those sorts of things off of the particle accelerator definition. And then

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 even so, maybe there's a category of fusion generators, fusion machines, fusion noun that clearly meet the particle accelerator definition. And maybe we can lock that down. But I think you're sensing the uncertainty in categorically saying fusion is a particle accelerator. That's where we're a little bit nervous.

MR. WHITE: Yes, I mean, for example, if you look at something like the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore, which is an inertial fusion device. It looks very much unlike an accelerator. It looks very different. But again, you can -- that's the type of thing we want to make sure that we're covered by that. And again, I think Theresa also pointed out the point is, again, our mandate is termed. So we have to be -- we want to be -- stay true to -- again to what the Commission wants and not try to go too far outside that.

MR. ELLIS: Fair enough. Well, thank you. Yes, that's very helpful. And we're happy to kind of come in and meet and share some additional thoughts of -- even an inertial fusion where you have laser beams that kind of hit a particle, it accelerates that particle in order to create fusion.

So I think -- and it does it in a vacuum. So we

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 think that from a technical perspective that -- even the inertial systems would also fit.

MR. WHITE: Yes, as I said, it was something we struggled with when we wrote the Commission paper. Is to have it -- is it -- can we

-- we thought -- as I said, we -- it's just we want to make sure that we capture it correctly because it says it's not -- and explain it clearly to others that -- that what that is and sometimes that's hard to do. So, yes, appreciate your additional feedback on that. That would be great.

MR. ELLIS: Yes. No. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

MR. ANDRUKAT: All right. I don't see any other hands raised, but I do want to give it just a couple more minutes just in case as we're thinking about it because, I do apologize, I know folks didn't

-- the handout for example and the slides are fairly fresh or fairly new. People did not have a chance to really go through them, so I do want to give it at least a couple of minutes here just in case there's no more questions.

MR. WHITE: Looks like we've got some hands up.

MR. ANDRUKAT: I see Andrew Proffitt.

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 Go ahead.

MR. PROFFITT: Yes, sorry. Just on that note, Dennis, I'll say at Helion we'll be working our way through the draft guidance and certainly look forward to future interactions on that. Hopefully we can -- whether that be workshops or future public meetings. Of if not, we can certainly communicate via letter on that. So look forward to future engagement on that as we get our technical folks and have a chance to look through the material provided.

So appreciate it.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Fantastic.

And let's see, Jeff Merrifield, I think I just jumped over you. Go ahead, sir.

MR. MERRIFIELD: Thank you very much. I just wanted to make a comment, and that is I just want to congratulate the NRC staff for the time and effort and thoughtfulness that they've put into this.

Can you hear me?

MR. ANDRUKAT: Yes.

MR. WHITE: Yes, go ahead.

MR. MERRIFIELD: Can you hear me?

MS. CLARK: Yes, we're good.

MR. WHITE: Yes, go ahead.

MR. MERRIFIELD: Okay. I broke up there

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 for a second. Apologies.

I was just thanking the NRC staff for the time and thoughtfulness it's put into this effort.

Obviously you were given clear instructions from the Commission to try to keep to the Part 30 approach, and I think many of the comments you've made today have indicated the way which you are trying to meet that mandate.

I think some of the presentations on the industry side today were done in a spirit of outlining our concerns. And have not had a chance to review the materials you had prepared for this meeting, so I think it's going to give us an opportunity to go back, look at that in a thoughtful way and provide further comments as appropriate.

But I just wanted to -- sometimes folks ask a lot of questions and there's a lot of comments and I think it is appropriate to certainly give some credit the NRC staff as -- in the very helpful way that they've been trying to move this along over the course of the last couple years.

So like Andrew, I would say I think the meetings have been useful and continue to be useful and I think this open dialogue is getting hopefully to the right place for all involved. Thank you.

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. ANDRUKAT: All right. Fantastic.

Let's see. I don't see any other hands raised.

Looking at the chat don't see anything in the chat except for I do see a comment about the meeting summary ADAMS accession number, so very shortly here I will be adding some information to the chat window.

But please note that meeting summaries for these tend to come out at about -- or within 30 days of the public meeting. What I tend to do is I will share the ML number, but please note, and I'll share a little asterisk there, that the -- it won't be made public, of course, until finalized. So I think you'll be able to see a bunch of information that just populated into the chat.

So, Bob, I think that should answer your question as well.

DR. FLORIAN: Yes, thank you.

MR. ANDRUKAT: Of course. Doing one last check before I move on.

Let's see. I don't see anything.

Okay. Duncan, was there anything else, or, Theresa, that you guys wanted to say before I move on here?

MS. CLARK: I'll just say I appreciate the conversation. Like I said at the beginning, this

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 is exactly why we have these meetings. It's better to hear it all now so that we can inform the documents. They're easiest to address while they're being written, which is exactly what we're doing right now. And I think we both -- all -- both is the wrong word

-- alluded to a future public meeting around the time that we're ready to put all of the draft guidance together. We're still kind of nailing down the exact timing of that. It would be in the spring sometime probably. And so, whether you call that a meeting or a workshop or whatever, we'll figure that out.

But we do intend to have further discussion of this so that the first time you see the whole thing is not when it goes to the Commission. That is not the plan. That's it.

MR. ANDRUKAT: And, Duncan, looks like -

- I don't think -- I think you're good to go?

MR. WHITE: I'm good to go. I'll second what Theresa said.

MR.

ANDRUKAT:

Okay.

Fantastic.

Speaking of what Theresa just said -- yes, so looking on the next slide here, some upcoming events. Yes, the staff is already talking about another public meeting, so the tentative time frame that we're

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 looking at is -- I have early March. It could be at the end of February. That is the time frame that we are looking at. The point of this particular is to share the full preliminary draft version of the guidance.

We are also going to try and get that particular handout out with enough time for folks to be able to look at it before the actual meeting itself. So please take a -- be on the look out for another public meeting.

As far as the workshops and the requests for the workshops that we heard from some of the presentations, I cannot speak to that. I cannot make any guarantees. The problem that we're going to start running into is trying to get to a place where we can start our internal review and concurrence process. And once that happens it makes it very difficult to -- for the staff to make any changes to the packet such that we'll kind of need this in a spot that's kind of done before we start our internal review and concurrence process.

Now, the second item here on this slide.

Same as before. This has not changed. Our goal for the proposed rule stage; i.e., the proposed rule packets with the draft guidance to be sent to the

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 Commission. We're looking at September of this year, 2024.

This slide just has some additional information. Some of this is very similar to what I just put into the chat. So the public meeting information. So we have some ML numbers for you all for today's public meeting as well as the meeting summaries from the -- some recent public meetings.

In those meeting summaries you'll see references to the presentations that -- or any handouts associated with those.

The second set of blocks there. Public information. This is the standard for our rulemaking project. So we have a public website that does talk about this.

We do have the docket. It's NRC-2023-0071. That's on regulations.gov. So you can -- if you're familiar with the NRC's internal ADAMS, you can go there. Otherwise, you can go to this docket folder under regulations.gov.

I will like to add that, as always, the staff does look for feedback from our public meetings. And again, this particular feedback and the feedback form associated with the public meeting notice -- this is not the type -- it's not the

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 feedback that we did during the meeting. This is just more logistical on how the meeting was run, the systems that were used, et cetera.

So if you go back to the public meeting announcement/notice, there will be a link to the public feedback form. Feel free to provide us an details on how to run the public meeting, how well it was run, et cetera.

Now with that, we have some -- I put my contact info, I put Duncan's contact info if folks have questions on the rulemaking project. Please feel free to reach out to us on that.

And I'm just doing one last double-check.

Don't see any hands raised, questions. So, many thanks to everyone who attended and for the discussions today. I'd like to thank especially those that participated as well as our presenters.

I know that -- and I appreciate the time and the effort that went into making the presentations, so I do appreciate that.

And I think we're done. So I hope everyone has a wonderful evening and this meeting is now closed. Thanks, everyone.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 4:43 p.m.)

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