ML24030A408
| ML24030A408 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/05/2023 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NRC-2566 | |
| Download: ML24030A408 (1) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Regulatory Rulemaking, Policies, and Practices Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
teleconference Date:
Tuesday, December 5, 2023 Work Order No.:
NRC-2566 Pages 1-132 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1716 14th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 234-4433
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1
1 2
3 DISCLAIMER 4
5 6
UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONS 7
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 8
9 10 The contents of this transcript of the 11 proceeding of the United States Nuclear Regulatory 12 Commission Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, 13 as reported herein, is a record of the discussions 14 recorded at the meeting.
15 16 This transcript has not been reviewed, 17 corrected, and edited, and it may contain 18 inaccuracies.
19 20 21 22 23
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
+ + + + +
3 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 4
(ACRS) 5
+ + + + +
6 REGULATORY RULEMAKING POLICIES AND PRACTICES 7
SUBCOMMITTEE 8
+ + + + +
9 TUESDAY 10 DECEMBER 5, 2023 11
+ + + + +
12 The Subcommittee met via hybrid in-person 13 and Video Teleconference, at 1:00 p.m. EST, Ronald G.
14 Ballinger, Chair, presiding.
15 COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
16 RONALD G. BALLINGER, Chair 17 VICKI BIER, Member 18 CHARLES H. BROWN, JR., Member 19 VESNA DIMITRIJEVIC, Member 20 JOSE MARCH-LEUBA, Member 21 ROBERT MARTIN, Member 22 DAVID PETTI, Member 23 JOY L. REMPE, Member 24 THOMAS ROBERTS, Member 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
2 ACRS CONSULTANT:
1 DENNIS BLEY 2
STEVE SCHULTZ 3
4 DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL:
5 DEREK WIDMAYER 6
LARRY BURKHART 7
8 ALSO PRESENT:
9 DAVID ESH, NMSS 10 BOBBY JANECKA, Public Participant 11 STEVE KOENICK, NMSS 12 CARDELIA MAUPIN, NMSS 13 TIM McCARTIN, NMSS 14 JANET SCHLUETER, Public Participant 15 GEORGE TARTAL, NMSS 16 PRIYA YADAV, NMSS 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
3 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 1
1:00 p.m.
2 CHAIR BALLINGER: The meeting will now 3
come to order. This is a meeting of the Advisory 4
Committee on Reactor Safeguards Radiological 5
Rulemaking Policies and Procedures Subcommittee. I'm 6
Ron Ballinger, and I'm chairing this meeting of the 7
Subcommittee.
8 ACRS members in attendance are Joy Rempe 9
-- Dave Petti is remote. Charlie Brown is remote.
10 Vesna Dimitrijevic, I think, is remote. Jose March-11 Leuba is here. Vicki Bier is on -- well, maybe come 12 on. Tom Roberts and Bob Martin are here. Dennis 13 Bley, our consultant, is, I believe, online. And our 14 consultant, Steve Schultz, is here. Derek Widmayer of 15 ACRS staff is the Designated Federal Official.
16 The purpose of this Subcommittee meeting 17 is to hear from the staff concerning Proposed Rule 10 18 CFR 61, Integrated Low-Level Radioactive Waste 19 disposal. The Subcommittee will gather information 20 and analyze relevant issues and facts and formulate 21 proposed positions and actions as appropriate.
22 There is a session that's scheduled for 23 February 2024 of the full Committee, and the Committee 24 plans -- unless the Committee decides not to plan --
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
4 on preparing a letter report on this matter at that 1
meeting. I might add that this has been a long 2
process ongoing. The first -- we wrote four letters 3
on Part 61 so far, first one I think in 2014, the last 4
one I think in 2017. People will correct me if I'm 5
wrong.
6 And I must add -- it's not on the slides 7
that I went through -- that the staff took the 8
recommendations from those letters to heart, and the 9
new -- the revised -- the updated rule reflects, in 10 large part, with a few principled exceptions, the ACRS 11 input. So the staff should be complimented on the 12 working through this, in spite of us taking an awfully 13 long time.
14 ACRS was established by statute and is 15 governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, FACA.
16 The NRC implements FACA in accordance with its 17 regulations found in Title 10 of the Code of Federal 18 Regulations, Part 7. The Committee can only speak 19 through its published letter reports.
20 We hold meetings to gather information and 21 perform preparatory work that will support our 22 deliberations at a full Committee meeting. The rules 23 for participation in all ACRS meetings, including 24 today's, were announced in the Federal Register on 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
5 June the 13th, 2019. That's a long time ago.
1 The ACRS section of the U.S. NRC public 2
website provides our charter, bylaws, agendas, letter 3
reports, and full transcripts of all full and 4
subcommittee meetings, including slides presented at 5
these meetings. Meeting notice and the agenda for 6
this meeting were posted there.
7 As stated in the Federal Register notices 8
and the public notice posted to the website, members 9
of the public who desire to provide written or oral 10 input to the Subcommittee may do so and should contact 11 the Designated Federal Official five days prior to the 12 meeting. As far as I know, nobody has.
13 Today's meeting is open to public 14 attendance, and we have received no request to make an 15 oral statement at the meeting. Time is provided in 16 the agenda after presentations are completed for 17 spontaneous comments for members of the public 18 attending or listening to our meetings.
19 Today's meeting is being held over 20 Microsoft Teams as well as in person, which includes 21 a telephone bridge line allowing participation of the 22 public over their computer using Teams or by phone.
23 A transcript of today's meeting is being kept.
24 Therefore, we request that meeting participants on 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
6 Teams and the bridge line to identify themselves when 1
they speak and to speak with sufficient clarity and 2
volume that they can be readily heard.
3
- Likewise, we request that meeting 4
participants keep their computer and/or phone lines on 5
mute while not speaking to minimize disruptions and 6
feedback. I'm going to ask people to make sure 7
they're muted.
8 I will make an additional comment. I have 9
a back brace on. I have back issues that I'm going 10 through. So, if I get up and walk around, it's not 11 out of disrespect or disinterest. It's out of self-12 preservation.
13 We'll now proceed, and I'll call Steve --
14 Koenick? Boy, I can't pronounce that -- Branch Chief 15 of the Division of Rulemaking Environmental and 16 Financial Support in the Office of Nuclear Material 17 Safety and Safeguards for opening remarks.
18 MR. KOENICK: Thank you.
19 Good afternoon. My name is Stephen 20 Koenick, and yes, that's how you pronounce it. Up 21 until a few weeks ago, I was the Branch Chief for the 22 Low-Level Waste and Projects Branch for the past five 23 years. And I'm very excited that the rulemaking is 24 progressing.
That's in the Division of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
7 Decommissioning Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs.
1 And we'd like to thank you for inviting us 2
to the ACRS to discuss the Integrated Low-Level 3
Radioactive Waste Disposal Rulemaking with the 4
Subcommittee. We appreciate this opportunity to have 5
this meeting to discuss the rulemaking effort, and the 6
staff has developed the proposed rule package that is 7
currently in concurrence. And our current schedule 8
is to submit to the Commission by May of 2024.
9 As you mentioned, this is a long-standing 10 rulemaking activity. The integrated rulemaking 11 combines two ongoing efforts. And as you've noted, 12 the --
13 (Off-microphone comments.)
14 CHAIR BALLINGER: I think we have some 15 background noise or somebody speaking. Whoever it is, 16 would you please mute yourself?
17 MR. KOENICK: Okay. So the integrated 18 rulemaking combines two ongoing efforts, some of 19 which, as you mentioned, the ACRS has previously 20 considered. There is the Part 61 rulemaking related 21 to large quantities of depleted uranium and then near-22 surface disposal requirements for greater-than-Class 23 C waste.
24 And the Commission has directed the staff 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
8 to combine these two activities, with the latter being 1
developing the licensing criteria to allow for the 2
near-surface disposal of greater-than-Class C waste, 3
and to allow for agreement states' regulation of GTCC.
4 We believe this rulemaking will increase 5
disposal options for currently stored GTCC waste, 6
develop consistent criteria for performing site-7 specific analysis of all low-level waste streams 8
disposed of at each disposal facility, and allow for 9
agreement states to incorporate these regulations in 10 their existing programs with compatibility, 11 flexibility.
12 The staff has carefully considered 13 previous stakeholder feedback in developing the draft 14 proposed rule package, including letters from the 15 ACRS. So I really appreciate the Subcommittee's Chair 16 acknowledgment of the staff taking to heart the ACRS 17 comments. And I believe we met with you in October 18 and November of 2016, and I have that letter being 19 dated November 2016. You're very close.
20 And the three main conclusions were that 21 the -- the first one was the draft final rule that was 22 presented in SECY-16-0106 that the staff submitted to 23 the Commission in September of 2016 can ensure that 24 facilities meet Commission public health and safety 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
9 objectives. So that was the first recommendation.
1 The second recommendation was related to 2
allowing grandfathering for existing operating 3
disposal facilities if they do not plan to add 4
substantial long-lived waste or disposal. And Priya 5
Yadav will discuss that topic in her presentation.
6 The third recommendation related to 7
compliance and performance periods. David Esh will 8
address that topic in our presentation.
9 Since the last time we met the Committee 10 in 2016, the now integrated Low-Level Radioactive 11 Waste Disposal Rulemaking includes the near-service 12 disposal of GTCC waste. We believe this rulemaking, 13 when finalized, will provide many tangible benefits to 14 industry and the public.
15 While the staff maintains the existing 16 low-level waste disposal regulatory framework is fully 17 protective of public health and safety and protects 18 the environment, a heavier reliance on site-specific 19 technical analyses will allow for better evaluation of 20 wastes that were not anticipated when the original 21 Part 61 rule was promulgated, or even wastes that may 22 not have been envisioned today, such as those that may 23 be generated by advanced reactor concepts.
24 The use of the safety case will better 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
10 align the U.S. requirements with international 1
standards to provide a platform for licensees to 2
clearly describe the technical basis for the 3
performance of the disposal facility. And overall, 4
the staff believes the public would have increased 5
transparency of the complex information in the 6
regulatory decision-making process.
7 So I'd like to introduce to you the staff 8
making the presentations today. But before I do, I 9
would like to acknowledge the efforts of the entire 10 rulemaking group for preparing this comprehensive 11 rulemaking package.
12 For today, you'll be hearing from George 13 Tartal, a Senior Project Manager in NMSS -- he's the 14 Rulemaking Project Manager for this effort -- Cardelia 15 Maupin, a Senior Project Manager in NMSS -- she's the 16 GTCC PM on this rulemaking -- Priya Yadav, a Project 17 Manager in NMSS -- she's the Part 61 PM -- and David 18 Esh, a Senior Systems Performance Analyst, and Tim 19 McCartin, a Senior Advisor in NMSS, as they are 20 technical leads on this rulemaking.
21 I'll turn this presentation over to 22 George.
23 MR. TARTAL: Thanks, Steve. And good 24 afternoon.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
11 CHAIR BALLINGER: I might add you're going 1
to have to almost eat the microphone. They're very 2
directional, very good, but you gotta get pretty close 3
to them.
4 MR. TARTAL: Gotcha. Okay. Thank you.
5 So, for today's presentation, we'll start 6
with some background information and discussion about 7
prior rulemaking efforts. Then we'll discuss the 8
safety case and technical assessments. Then we'll 9
discuss time frames for the technical analyses, and 10 then move on to GTCC waste considerations, waste 11 acceptance -- exception criteria in significant 12 quantities. And then we'll discuss implementation 13 guidance, and then we'll end with a brief update on 14 the next steps for the rulemaking.
15 So, at this
- time, I'll turn the 16 presentation over to Cardelia Maupin.
17 Slide 3, please.
18 MS. MAUPIN: Thank you, George.
19 It's my pleasure to be here today to talk 20 to you about something that I guess has a been near 21 and dear to my heart for almost 40 years. I was 22 talking to one of the consultants to the ACRS on 23 arriving here today. Back in 1982, we did something 24 phenomenal, and that was to establish low-level waste 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
12 regulations in Part 61, which is now right at a little 1
over 41 years old.
2 And you know a lot of things can happen 3
and change in 41 years, and you still have to change 4
with the times. And as knowledge increase, you must 5
rethink what you have to do. So that's why we're here 6
today. Back in 1982, it was a very important 7
rulemaking because it was right at the time of the 8
Three Mile Island, and waste was stacking up.
9 And the then-operating governors of low-10 level waste guys came together and pushed for the Low-11 Level Waste Policy Act and the Low-Level Waste Policy 12 Amendments Act. And in the midst of that, from 1980 13 to 1985, we had some very great movement in the area 14 of low-level waste.
15 So, when we developed the rule some 41 16 years ago, we planned that in looking at the hazards 17 because the waste was divided into Class A, Class B, 18 and Class C according to their hazards. And we 19 believed at that time that A and B waste would decay 20 to a point that an inadvertent intruder, say a farmer 21 or someone building a house, who inadvertently went 22 into that site 100 years later -- that it would be no 23 hazard to that person.
24 And we thought for Class C waste, that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
13 after 500 years, that it would have decayed to a level 1
that it would not be hazardous. But as I said, things 2
change in 41 years. And so the current practice is 3
that we have this thing called depleted uranium. And 4
then we had these licensees who wanted to get involved 5
in the enrichment of uranium. That was previously 6
something that DOE was doing.
7 So, at the time, in 1982, we didn't think 8
this depleted uranium would be a problem. But circa 9
presently, it is. When you're dealing with 10 radioactive material, time is important, right? So we 11 thought that by anything that was not in A, B, or C, 12 it defaulted to A. And as I said, we didn't think 13 that we would be handling this depleted uranium, whose 14 daughters over time -- say after 10,000 years have 15 passed, the issue is not getting better. It's getting 16 worse. Right?
17 So now we got to rethink our framework.
18 We have to rethink what we did in 1982 to think about 19 what is presently done and some of the present 20 considerations. So the Commission directed us to do 21 that in 2019 -- was to look at this issue of depleted 22 uranium and whether or not it was acceptable.
23 Staff did an analysis and said that in 24 order for you to determine that, you must do a site-25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
14 specific analysis. And then another practice changed.
1 We thought we had this thing all laid out. We thought 2
that, okay, the waste that's coming in as A, B, and C 3
-- you know, it was not going to exceed the framework 4
of what we had constructed in terms of public health 5
and safety and safety to the environment.
6 But then, of course, you always have 7
something that's going to trip up your system. And 8
that's what we call blending or concentration 9
averaging. So now we're at the third bullet there, 10 the averaging. So now we have this mixing of highly 11 radioactive waste and lower radioactive waste to fit 12 within a certain waste class, to get into a lower 13 waste class. The lower the waste class, generally the 14 less cost in terms of disposal, right?
15 So these are our challenges that we are 16 looking at in terms of this rulemaking. And then, lo 17 and behold, the state of Texas said they might be 18 interested in the disposal of greater-than-Class C.
19 We're down at that last bullet on the page.
20 So now, in addition to these other things 21 that we are being challenged with, we now are 22 presented with the challenge of greater-than-Class C 23 waste and considering what we have described as near-24 surface disposal, which is within that first 30 meters 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
15 from -- well -- the surface.
1 Next slide, please.
2 So, as I said, we had these challenges, 3
depleted uranium, and we had these challenges with 4
blending/mixing, and then now the issue of greater-5 than-Class C waste. So we were directed to address 6
these issues by the Commission.
7 And so, in SECY-16-0106, the staff was 8
moving along, and they presented to the Commission a 9
draft final rule. And in the midst of that, the 10 Commission decided, okay, we want you to look at this 11 greater-than-Class C waste issue as well. We want you 12 to develop a regulatory analysis showing how or if 13 this waste can be disposed of in a near-surface 14 disposal and, if so, which waste streams can go and 15 which waste streams cannot go.
16 And so, basically, what the staff had 17 thought -- well, we had two trains, basically, Part 61 18 and greater-than-Class C waste. But these two trains 19 are similar in terms of the things that are needed for 20 implementation. So we thought we were going to hook 21 the train up to Part 61, and then the Commission said 22 separate them.
23 Then they said -- we said, okay, after we 24 did the greater-than-Class C regulatory basis and we 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
16 saw these overlapping technical requirements, so we 1
decided to say, hey, we know that there are some waste 2
streams that can go, and we decided with the 3
regulatory basis that most of these waste streams 4
could go in those 30 meters considered near-surface 5
disposal. We also said there's a potential for 6
agreement state regulation.
7 Next slide, please.
8 So then, in a SECY paper in -- it was for 9
my daughter's birthday, October 21st, 2020, great 10 birthday present -- that we sent to the Commission a 11 SECY paper saying, hey, these rulemakings overlap.
12 They have similar regulatory -- need similar 13 regulatory guidance. They have overlapping technical 14 requirements. Logically, we should connect these two 15 separate trains back and have one rulemaking.
16 And so that's what we presented to the 17 Commission in 2020. And then, in April of 2022, the 18 Commission said, we agree with that, staff; move 19 forward.
20 Next slide, please.
21 So what we're here to talk about today is 22 basically those two trains that are now one train.
23 And that one train is called the Integrated Low-Level 24 Radioactive Waste Disposal Rulemaking. And in this 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
17 consolidated rulemaking, we're going to address some 1
of those things we've already talked about. We're 2
going to address greater-than-Class C waste issues.
3 We're going to address the depleted uranium issues.
4 We're going to look at a requirement for site-specific 5
analysis for all of those waste streams.
6 Also, we're going to look at -- we've 7
included a graded approach for compliance period. And 8
back in 1985, with the Low-Level Waste Policy 9
Amendments Act, they changed the definition of waste 10 to no longer exclude some transfer added waste. We 11 hadn't done that to our -- modified our definition.
12 So now is the time to modify that definition, and 13 we're going to do that, as well, as a part of this 14 rulemaking.
15 In addition to that, there are some things 16 over and above low-level waste when you're looking at 17 greater-than-Class C waste that we will have to 18 address as a part of this rulemaking. And that will 19 be physical protection issues, criticality concerns, 20 and also, we will provide for a mechanism whereby 21 agreement states can regulate some low-level waste --
22 GTCC waste streams.
23 That's the end of my presentation.
24 CHAIR BALLINGER: I have a --
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18 MS. MAUPIN: Oh. Okay.
1 CHAIR BALLINGER: I have a question. You 2
mentioned that -- you've used the term regulatory 3
basis. Is that the 7125 NUREG?
4 MS. MAUPIN: No. The regulatory basis was 5
a part of -- it is a published document, and in that 6
document -- it is basically used as what we call a 7
pre-rulemaking document.
8 CHAIR BALLINGER: I understand that, but 9
do we have that document? I don't think so.
10 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Can you provide it so 11 we have it?
12 MS. MAUPIN: Okay. We can provide that.
13 Yeah.
14 CHAIR BALLINGER: And 7125 -- so what is 15 7125, then?
16 MR. ESH: Are you referring to 2175?
17 CHAIR BALLINGER: Oh, excuse me. I'm 18 sorry. Anyway, 2175 --
19 MR. ESH: Yeah, NUREG 2175 is --
20 CHAIR BALLINGER: Yeah, 2175.
21 MR. ESH: -- is the draft guidance that 22 goes along with this regulation.
23 CHAIR BALLINGER: And that draft guidance 24 will -- according to the last slide or the second-to-25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
19 last slide, will not be ready by our April meeting?
1 MR. ESH: Priya, if you're on, can you 2
answer that?
3 I think we're trying really hard to get 4
that -- to get it --
5 CHAIR BALLINGER: Because that's probably 6
going to be a pretty important piece for us to take a 7
look at before the full Committee meeting. Thank you.
8 MS. YADAV: Yeah. So it is still -- hi.
9 This is Priya Yadav. I'm working with Dave on the 10 NUREG 2175, which has been published in various forms 11 in 2015 and 2016, but we have updated it for this 12 rulemaking. I'm sorry. I'm jumping ahead in the 13 presentation, so -- but it is currently going through 14 concurrence. So it won't be done with concurrence by 15 April. We will be submitting it to the Commission 16 along with the rest of rulemaking package in May.
17 CHAIR BALLINGER: Okay. Thank you. Have 18 to think about what we do.
19 MEMBER REMPE: Yeah. First of all, you 20 keep referring to April. I thought your full 21 Committee meeting was scheduled for March. Right, 22 Ron?
23 PARTICIPANT: It's February.
24 CHAIR BALLINGER: February.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
20 MEMBER REMPE: Oh, for February. Okay.
1 So you want us, ACRS, to write a letter solely on 2
this. You have not provided the regulatory basis 3
document, but we will be getting that soon, I guess.
4 But then you don't want us, then, to comment on 2175, 5
right?
6 MR. TARTAL: We have a draft version of 7
that document that we've been working on all along.
8 MEMBER REMPE: And ACRS has an MOU that 9
would allow you to have provided that to us.
10 CHAIR BALLINGER: Because it's -- and that 11 document's been updated to be more reflective --
12 MR. TARTAL: Oh, certainly.
13 CHAIR BALLINGER: -- of this? Because the 14 one that I've looked at is from the old -- from the 15 earlier --
16 MR. TARTAL: Yes. We have a draft of it 17 that's going along and making the same changes that 18 the rule is making. So it's providing updated 19 guidance to the updated --
20 CHAIR BALLINGER: I might add that the 21 FRN, the thing that we have -- there's enough 22 background information in there, so I'm guessing that 23 you could cut and paste it into -- it is the 24 regulatory basis. Thank you.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
21 MS. MAUPIN: I just wanted to say that the 1
GTCC regulatory basis was issued in August of -- July 2
2019. We did meet -- myself and the former leader for 3
Part 61 did have a meeting with, then, some ACRS 4
members to talk about what we were doing. I apologize 5
if that has not been passed on, but --
6 CHAIR BALLINGER: That's got to be my bad, 7
then.
8 MS. MAUPIN: -- Gary Comfort and I did 9
meet and brief members of the Committee, a smaller 10 group of the Committee.
11 MEMBER REMPE: It wasn't a Subcommittee 12 meeting.
13 MS. MAUPIN: It was not. No. It was --
14 (Simultaneous speaking.)
15 MEMBER REMPE: -- planning meeting.
16 (Simultaneous speaking.)
17 MS. MAUPIN: Yeah. Yeah.
18 MEMBER REMPE: Okay. Anyhow -- okay. So, 19 yeah, Please provide both of those documents to Derek 20 as soon as possible, please.
21 MS. YADAV: Yeah, so the regulatory --
22 the GTCC regulatory basis -- I can paste a link in the 23 chat. That is publicly available, and it's on our 24 website. So I can paste a link in the chat to that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
22 document. And regarding the updates to NUREG 2175, 1
yes, we can share draft versions with you if that's 2
okay with George, whatever the agreement is. I'm just 3
saying it's not going to be publicly available by 4
February.
5 MR. MOORE: Chair Ballinger, this is Scott 6
Moore, the Executive Director. Please don't --
7 CHAIR BALLINGER: Is your mic on?
8 MR. MOORE: Yes, it is. Please do not 9
post in the chat. We're only using the chat for IT-10 related issues. We would just ask that the staff 11 provide Derek with the actual document, and he'll make 12 it available to the members.
13 And also, with regard to the draft 14 document, we do receive public draft versions from the 15 staff and NRR all the time. So, if you could provide 16 that as well, that would help. Thank you.
17 MEMBER REMPE: Public and non-public 18 versions. I think you meant to say non-public.
19 MS. YADAV: Okay. Thank you.
20 (Off-microphone comments.)
21 PARTICIPANT: Right. We didn't proceed 22 with a final regulatory basis. Instead, we took the 23 path that the Commission directed us in integrating 24 the two. And instead of doing the final reg basis, we 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
23 just included that in the scope of the rulemaking 1
you're hearing about today.
2 PARTICIPANT: Okay. So, Ron, that is the 3
document I supplied to you, but the other members have 4
not got it.
5 CHAIR BALLINGER: Okay. Okay.
6 MR. SCHULTZ: This is Steve Schultz. Just 7
to follow up on Ron's comment, how does this relate to 8
the draft Federal Register notice, which is also very 9
detailed in terms of the description --
10 MR. TARTAL: I'm not sure I understand 11 your question, how does it relate to it? What does 12 that mean?
13 MR. SCHULTZ: Well, we have that one.
14 (Simultaneous speaking.)
15 MR. SCHULTZ: It's very detailed.
16 PARTICIPANT: Very detailed reasons for 17 the changes and things.
18 MR. TARTAL: Yes. So what's your 19 question?
20 MR. SCHULTZ: When we read the draft 21 document that we now have available, how's that going 22 to compare to what is in the notice?
23 MR. TARTAL: I think that's probably 24 better for Cardelia to respond to.
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24 MS. MAUPIN: Okay. Let me give you the 1
backstory on this. We had developed the draft 2
regulatory basis. We had public meetings on it. We 3
collected comments on it. We extended it -- we had a 4
six-month comment period. And then wouldn't you know 5
it -- behold, like I said, changes.
6 And in the midst of doing this draft 7
regulatory basis, the rulemaking procedures changed.
8 The EDO's -- with the agreement of the EDO's office, 9
the rulemaking procedures changed. And they directed 10 us not to go from this draft regulatory basis with all 11 the policies, technical basis, yada yada, and 12 incorporate the comments, which -- we got probably 13 over 7,000 if we include the form letters.
14 They said, don't make that a final 15 regulatory basis. They said, take those comments from 16 the public. Take that proposed regulatory basis.
17 We're no longer doing draft to final regulatory basis.
18 That will now be, quote unquote, in your mind, your 19 final regulatory basis.
20 So then we took what we now were told was 21 our final regulatory basis along with those comments, 22 right? And we implemented that into this effort. As 23 a part of this effort, we -- especially Tim and I had 24 to go through all those public comments, analyze those 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
25 public comments, and pull out from those public 1
comments information to be inputted in this proposed 2
rulemaking. That's the backstory.
3 CHAIR BALLINGER: I mean, again, the point 4
that I'm trying to make and I think Steve is trying to 5
make, as well, is that for the meeting that we have in 6
February, we need to have the members have a complete 7
story that's not confusing. And so it may be --
8 that's what we're shooting for. So it may be that 9
Derek and I can sit down with folks and make sure that 10 we don't have a lot of excess baggage that doesn't add 11 anything to the conversation for this meeting that 12 comes up in February but is complete.
13 MEMBER REMPE: So I guess, then, the 14 answer to the question that Steve has is that even if 15 we all had been given this draft regulatory basis 16 document, it might confuse us because what's important 17 is in what was posted in this rulemaking notice that 18 all of us did get, right? The --
19 (Simultaneous speaking.)
20 CHAIR BALLINGER: -- very detailed.
21 MEMBER REMPE: Yeah. So, basically, 22 that's what you're telling us.
23 MR. TARTAL: Yes.
24 MEMBER REMPE: Shaking hands is hard for 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
26 the court reporter to see or -- shaking heads. But 1
anyway, yes, what I wanted to hear. So that's good to 2
know. The only thing, though, is that it would be 3
good for us to still have the 2175, wherever it's at 4
right now, too, just --
5 CHAIR BALLINGER: Yeah. 2175 is the 6
guidance document, in effect. So that's the 7
important --
8 MS. YADAV: Yes. Okay. As long as we're 9
able to share non-public versions with ACRS, then that 10 is totally -- we can do that.
11 MR. BURKHART: Part of this is my fault.
12 Because it was a draft document, I just gave it to 13 Ron.
14 MEMBER REMPE: Fine. I think we're good.
15 And we always have MOUs with other offices in NRC, so 16 I don't think sharing us the draft --
17 (Off-microphone comment.)
18 MEMBER REMPE: You keep saying public 19 document, but --
20 (Simultaneous speaking.)
21 MEMBER REMPE: I thought that we often 22 have access to non-public versions before they go 23 through concurrence, too, that help us with our 24 decision-making and deliberations.
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27 MR. BURKHART: This is Larry Burkhart.
1 Yes. You can share non-public documents with the 2
ACRS. However, just be aware that you need to say why 3
it should be withheld. And from a FACA standpoint, 4
pre-decisional has no basis under FACA. So --
5 PARTICIPANT: So it can't be withheld.
6 CHAIR BALLINGER: Well, anyway, let's just 7
make sure we're playing with a full deck.
8 MEMBER REMPE: That's going to be 9
difficult, but anyway --
10 CHAIR BALLINGER: Well, whatever it is, 11 present company excluded. Okay.
12 MR. ESH: Okay. So I'm David Esh.
13 Next slide, please, please, Derek.
14 I'm a Senior Risk Analyst, and for good or 15 for bad, I've been involved in this from the 16 beginning, I think as Member Ballinger noted. We're 17 approaching or exceeding three cobalt-60 half-lives 18 now. So it's been quite some time.
19 So I wanted to start off with your 20 comments at the beginning, that I would say I believe 21 the staff fundamentally agrees with your remarks in 22 your last letter to us in
- 2016, especially 23 scientifically. When you move into implementation, 24 then that's where we might have some deviations. But 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
28 that's what we're going to talk to you about today and 1
explain, maybe, why we're pursuing something that 2
could look a bit different than your recommendations.
3 I would say on a fundamental level, 4
though, they don't differ substantially. So we're in 5
alignment with you and the previous feedback that we 6
got. And I'm going to talk with you about some pieces 7
of this rulemaking, pieces of the puzzle. There's 8
lots of puzzle pieces that make up low-level waste 9
regulation. We're only changing some of them or 10 adding some new ones. A lot of them are fundamentally 11 staying the same.
12 So there's not a lot of changes to this 13 puzzle. There's selective changes to certain pieces, 14 and we're doing that to try to modernize the 15 regulation, make it more efficient and risk-informed 16 without disrupting things, because as Cardelia noted, 17 this regulation has been in place for over 40 years, 18 it's been used very effectively in those 40 years for 19 the types of waste that were analyzed in 1982. So 20 there's not a need, an urgent need, to disrupt the 21 applecart, so to speak.
22 The first part I'm going to talk to you 23 about here is the safety case. So safety case is 24 terminology that's used internationally for waste 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
29 disposal, and it has many different components. The 1
staff's opinion and our approach in this rulemaking is 2
that the safety case is -- basically, our original 3
Part 61 has all the elements of the safety case. So 4
we don't need to do anything substantial to implement 5
safety case within Part 61.
6 Now, if you Google safety case radioactive 7
waste after you leave this meeting, you'll see 8
internationally there's lots of guidance documents 9
with the IAEA and other organizations about how to 10 develop a safety case. Some of it can get very 11 complex. We don't think that's necessary, as long as 12 you have the fundamental pieces, like -- I think last 13 October, I was over in Germany for a workshop, and it 14 was on the digital safety case.
15 And they were talking about things like 16 using virtual reality to allow people to go into a 17 disposal system and pull the information on the 18 barriers in the disposal system, see the inventory 19 reports, pull the technical reports and the licensing 20 basis for it.
That's the level that some 21 organizations are pursuing the safety case.
22 We don't think that's necessary. From our 23 standpoint, the main aspect of the safety case is to 24 ensure that the stakeholders get a good understanding 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
30 of what was done to make that decision to dispose of 1
the waste and then the regulatory review of what was 2
done. And I'll talk about that as primarily like 3
executive summary.
4 And then I'm going to step through on 5
technical analyses. Those are the components in 6113 6
in the regulation. There's basically five types of 7
technical analyses here that I'm going to talk about.
8 The first one, performance assessment -- it aligns 9
with 6141, the performance objective 6141, which is 10 protection of a member of the public. It's basically 11 off-site of the disposal facility after it closes.
12 So low-level waste, as Cardelia noted, is 13 disposed in the near surface. That's roughly defined 14 as upper 30 meters, but it's not a discrete line that 15 if you're below 30 meters, it's no longer near surface 16 or -- so it's a fuzzy line just to illustrate the 17 concept because when Part 61 was developed, the idea 18 was that most of the disposal facilities would be 19 trenches. And so they would be pretty close to the 20 surface. Thirty meters would describe that.
21 There is an operating facility in Texas, 22 but their depth is greater than 30 meters. But that 23 doesn't mean it's not near surface and needs different 24 regulatory requirements. It's still a trench-type 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
31 disposal system at the surface of the earth.
1 So 6141 aligns with performance 2
assessment. That's the new terminology. But the 3
requirements for what somebody had to do for technical 4
analysis for 6141 in 1982 are essentially the same as 5
now. It's been modernized. We have a lot better 6
tools.
7 People at the NRC were all excited 8
whenever the 286 computers came in and it was going to 9
allow them to do some of these fancy calculations for 10 low-level waste disposal. I mean, think about the 11 computing power you might have on your wrist or in 12 your pocket right now. Forty years is a lot of 13 technology change, and we expect people to take 14 advantage of that.
15 The next component, the intruder 16 assessment -- I'm going to talk about that in more 17 detail. That aligns with 6142 performance objective.
18 That's an area that has had a bit of discussion. But 19 this is the only essential component of this 20 rulemaking, is that the way the analysis was done to 21 develop the acceptable concentrations that define low-22 level waste -- that was based on an intruder 23 assessment performed by the regulator, performed by 24 NRC.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
32 So it's a generic assessment for a generic 1
site that then came up with these concentrations. So 2
I'll step through the challenges with doing that and 3
why it led us to the point that we're at now.
4 The third one there in the bulleted list, 5
the site stability assessment -- that isn't a new 6
requirement. It's under 6144. It would be somewhat 7
new for significant qualities of long-lived waste, and 8
I'll talk to that, too.
9 The fourth one, which is a little out of 10 order, aligns with 6143, the operational safety 11 assessment. That's only going to be new for some 12 types of GTCC waste, and I'll explain why that is.
13 With your backgrounds, I think that's an area where 14 you'll completely understand what we're doing there 15 and where we're coming from.
16 CHAIR BALLINGER: You know, you're 17 speaking of these numbers. And the FRN is very 18 detailed, but if you try to set that FRN next to the 19 old Part 61 and try to look where goes what, it's 20 impossible.
21 MR. ESH: Yeah. Yeah.
22 CHAIR BALLINGER: Is there a redline 23 strike-out version of this thing available?
24 MR. ESH: I don't know the answer to that.
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33 Does somebody else know the answer to that? You mean 1
the rule language itself, right?
2 CHAIR BALLINGER: Yes, the actual rule.
3 MR. ESH: Yeah. So what I usually do 4
internally is I will print out or have the old one, 5
and I'll have the new one side-by-side. And I compare 6
them that way and see the changes --
7 (Simultaneous speaking.)
8 CHAIR BALLINGER: We don't have the new 9
one.
10 MR. ESH: Right.
11 CHAIR BALLINGER: So we have the FRN --
12 MR. ESH: It's in the back of the FRN.
13 CHAIR BALLINGER: Oh.
14 MR. ESH: So the new rule language is in 15 the back of the FRN if you get to the end. It's a 16 long FRN.
17 MR. TARTAL: It's just not written like a 18 redline strikeout. It's written as a set of 19 instructions to the Office of Federal Register. So it 20 looks different. We do have a redline strikeout 21 version that we've been using as a tool for the 22 working group as we run along, but that's not a 23 required component of the rulemaking package.
24 MR. ESH: I'm very sympathetic to the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
34 Committee members that will be trying to wade through 1
some of these regulatory products and get your hands 2
around them. So --
3 CHAIR BALLINGER: I rest my case. So we 4
have the redline strikeout version?
5 MR. TARTAL: I think so.
6 CHAIR BALLINGER: Thanks.
7 MR. ESH: Okay. And then the last point 8
on here is related to time frames, the performance 9
period analyses. So I'll talk about that in great 10 detail because that seemed to be an area where there 11 was a lot of debate about over the last decade-plus.
12 That's going to be a new analysis that you would do if 13 you have significant quantities of long-lived waste.
14 Next slide, please, there.
15 The safety case. As I said, this is a 16 high-level summary of the information that's contained 17 information and analyses to support the 18 demonstration that the land disposal facility will be 19 constructed and operated safely. We're thinking like 20 executive summary.
21 In the international community, the safety 22 case is the collection of all the analyses, everything 23 that goes into the basis for the decision. It can be 24 very extensive, so -- even, in some cases, thousands 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
35 of pages. The regulatory information that goes into 1
supporting a licensing decision for low-level waste 2
may be in the thousands of pages when you look at all 3
the information the licensee submits.
4 But the safety case itself -- what our 5
intention is in this rulemaking is for people to 6
provide a clear summary of that information. We 7
think that'll help in a couple areas, especially with 8
stakeholders, because it is a lot of information. It 9
tends to be pretty highly technically complex. It can 10 get a bit intractable even for a bright person to work 11 through that.
12 So this is part of the information that 13 provides -- I think of it as, if a grandparent was 14 still alive and they asked me about it, how would I 15 explain it to them? Maybe a bit more technical detail 16 than that, but kind of common sense, what's the basis 17 for this facility both in terms of the licensee's 18 information and the regulator's review of that 19 information?
20 MR. BLEY: Excuse me.
21 MR. ESH: Yes.
22 MR. BLEY: This is Dennis Bley. You're 23 talking about the safety case, and it was mentioned 24 earlier. Is the NRC moving to a -- or parts of the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
36 NRC moving to something like the European description 1
of the safety case? Or is this just background 2
information?
3 MR. ESH: Yes. So that's what I was 4
talking to, Dennis. Thanks for the question. Yes, we 5
aren't moving to that extensive approach that's done 6
internationally because we feel that our existing, our 7
existing regulations kind of predated many of the 8
European or international regulations. And we feel we 9
got all the components of the safety case in there 10 when we started.
11 There are a few areas that, especially 12 people that practice in that area, in Europe for 13 instance, would debate with us. For instance, they 14 break up their, many of them break up their licensing 15 process. That they will do a safety case for site 16 selection. Then they'll do a safety case for 17 operation. Then they'll do a safety class for 18 closure.
19 Our licensing process doesn't work that 20 way. You do it altogether in one licensing action.
21 You do your justification for your study, your 22 justification for operations and the closure and all 23 of that put together. I think that's a more efficient 24 approach then continually iterating in the licensing 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
37 process.
1 MR. BLEY: That fits my image of the 2
issue. I'm just kind of curious why you're putting on 3
emphasis on talking about safety cases, is there some 4
international consequence of this rulemaking that 5
you're trying to cover?
6 MR. ESH: Not necessarily. I think the 7
main impediment is we did get a previous direction 8
from the Commission to put safety case within the Part 9
61 rulemaking scope.
10 MR. BLEY: Fair enough.
11 MR. ESH: I think that's where it came 12 from initially. And we're taking a light-handed 13 approach to it I believe. A fair but light-handed 14 approach.
15 Okay, so then this safety case, we think 16 it will help provide the reasonable assurance that the 17 disposal site is capable of isolating the waste 18 limiting releases, et cetera. And I will note that 19 isolating waste and contain, isolation and containment 20 are special terms in the international construct, and 21 they have special meanings.
22 So if you look at guidance that might talk 23 about time frames associated with isolation and 24 containment, they're talking about isolation means 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
38 nobody contacts the waste, okay? Containment means, 1
basically zero release.
2 Those are not necessarily concepts that we 3
apply in NRC's Part 61 space. We are more totally 4
performance based, so we acknowledge, and that's what 5
I'll talk about with the intruder assessment, that 6
there is the possibility that people may interact with 7
the waste in the future and what are the risks that 8
result from that.
9 And then in terms of releases, we don't 10 have a requirement for zero releases for some amount 11 of time. It's just a matter of whatever releases at 12 what time, and show that you can meet the performance 13 objectives reflected in 6141. Okay.
14 Now this safety case also will include a 15 consideration, just defense-in-depth protections, and 16 the safety relevant aspects of the site, the facility 17
- design, managerial, engineering, regulatory, 18 institutional controls. That's what I mentioned 19 earlier on is that we're not talking about all these 20 pieces with you here today. We certainly can in the 21 future if you want to dive into any one of them. Or 22 in the question and answer session afterwards.
23 For instance, defense-in-depth was also 24 given to us by direction from the Commission to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
39 include within the scope of the Part 61 rulemaking.
1 Defense-in-depth done in reactor space or in a 2
facility with active controls is different than 3
defense-in-depth implemented for a passive system, 4
like a disposal facility that you've closed. Nobody 5
is there taking active, actively maintaining it.
6 Doing any, there is no active barriers, you're all 7
relying completely on the passive safety of the 8
barriers.
9 So we went through that in detail. Tim, 10 myself and other staff members, to come up with what 11 we felt was a approach to defense-in-depth because we 12 didn't want to have a situation where, for instance in 13 maybe a reactor system you have a pump and you have a 14 backup pump.
15 Well, a disposal system doesn't work that 16 way. We don't have a drainage layer and a backup 17 drainage layer. Or you don't have a resistive layer 18 for infiltration and then a backup resistive layer for 19 infiltration.
20 You have various types of engineered 21 components that fit together with the natural system, 22 and all those managerial and operational controls.
23 All that fits together neatly to provide you some 24 redundancy and resiliency and performance, even if one 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
40 layer isn't necessarily doing everything in terms of 1
performance. That's what you want to try to avoid.
2 So that's pretty much it for safety case, 3
I think. I think we're on to a new topic next. I 4
don't know if you have any further questions on that 5
one or we'll just move on to first one? Okay.
6 Performance assessment. This is the 7
technical analysis completed for the existing sites 8
for the potential impacts to an offsite member of the 9
public. And they're consider synonymous with this 10 modern performance assessment.
11 So like I said, the technical analysis 12 work concluded in 1982. We're now calling them 13 performance assessment.
14 We have new capabilities. Understanding 15 in both in some of the technical areas the tools that 16 are available and the capabilities that are available 17 have significantly evolved, and we're taking advantage 18 of that here.
19 So whereas it would have been extremely 20 difficult to do, probabilistic assessment with 21 sensitivity and uncertainty analysis for these type of 22 systems in the early 1980s, now you can do that with 23 many different tools that we have available. And so 24 we're modernizing the regulation in this area.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
41 There is some text in the technical 1
analysis, in the 6113 section of the regulation that's 2
new there. And hopefully if they do get you a redline 3
strikeout you can see the new ones compared to the old 4
ones.
5 Significant guidance has been developed to 6
support these proposed requirements. That's something 7
you referenced, NUREG-2175. It's over 600 pages.
8 There are pretty much three new areas added to it for 9
this effort that you haven't seen previously. Maybe 10 comprising about a hundred of that total. The whole 11 document underwent revision though because the rule 12 language changed and so we had to update the whole 13 thing.
14 Some of it I looked at, or other staff 15 members looked at and they're like, hey Dave, what you 16 wrote here is confusing and junk, let's make this 17 clearer. So that sort of thing happened too. But we 18 can point you to the sections that are the 19 substantially new ones from the previous version, and 20 I think that would help you review so you don't get 21 lost in all the 600 pages of details. That's NUREG-22 2175.
23 And I would say, myself and Hans and Priya 24 and other staff members that helped with it, that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
42 document, I believe, is like 99 plus percent of the 1
way there. So technically I don't have any problem at 2
all handing it to you today and having you look at it.
3 So it's just a matter of the process and procedure of 4
how you can share that information.
5 And I wouldn't have any concern if the 6
current version even was released publicly. I think 7
it stands on its own merits at this time. It's 8
consistent with the current rule text.
9 Next slide please. Here is a picture.
10 They don't just have words and take to words the whole 11 time. Slide 10, yes.
12 So this is out of the guidance. You'll 13 see this sort of thing in there. This is what 14 performance assessment is all about. There's some 15 pictures at the top there of a real disposal facility.
16 It's the state license disposal area at West Valley in 17 New York.
18 There's a couple of pictures of trenches 19 there. The one the left actually shows some water in 20 the bottom of the trench as they were putting the 21 barrels in. So that was a practice pre-Part 61.
22 Then as you take the real system and the 23 data associated with it, and from characterization of 24 the site, you take that, you convert it into a 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
43 conceptual model, which is shown in the middle of the 1
left-hand side there, the diagram. That conceptual 2
model is the performance assessment conceptual model.
3 That then gets maybe broken down into submodels shown 4
by the dash line there at the bottom, which is the 5
whole figure on the right-hand side. That's the 6
hydrologic system that you might develop a whole 7
submodel and representation for.
8 So you have at the top kind of the picture 9
of all the science that's going on. In the middle 10 it's converted into a computer model. And the 11 computer model is representing some sort of equations 12 that are solved. And then the rest is all not new to 13 you guys, it's just unique maybe to the field, not the 14 science.
15 And then that then may be represented by 16 an abstracted model at the bottom. So the abstracted 17 hydrologic model that then is used to estimate system 18 performance.
19 So we'll use, and licensees will use, a 20 product like GoldSim where you can hook all these 21 submodels and models together. You can run it 22 probabilistically, you can run it deterministically.
23 You can do sensitivity analysis and optimization and 24 all sorts of fancy modern numerical things with it.
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44 But that's what performance assessment is 1
all about. And a lot of the guidance document are a 2
big section of them. Chapters 2 and 3 I believe are 3
about the performance assessment methodology.
4 MR. BLEY: Can I ask a general question?
5 It's Dennis Bley again.
6 MR. ESH: Sure.
7 MR. BLEY: You know, of course running 8
GoldSim and all this stuff through it, you can get 9
answers. But over the very long time periods, when 10 you get out to 10,000 years, or if you go even 11 further, things can happen that change many of the 12 assumptions of the analysis over that kind of time 13 frame.
14 My own thought is, the benefit here is to 15 identify potential pathways you might not have found 16 otherwise and to make sure something about the design, 17 for the long time periods, will help limit those 18 pathways. Is that way you guys think of it or are you 19 thinking the absolute numbers you get out of this at 20 the end are meaningful?
21 MR. ESH: Well, I think it depends. So, 22 it's a, it's probably a bit more convoluted than that.
23 Especially because, so in order to do an assessment of 24 these complicated systems, whether you're analyzing a 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
45 radioactive waste disposal system or a manufacturing 1
facility, the reliability of a manufacturing facility 2
for bulldozers or, you name it, there's a whole bunch 3
of things that fit together to do that evaluation.
4 And there is always going to be uncertainty in the 5
real world.
6 I agree with you that the uncertainties in 7
some aspects of these problems increase overtime. But 8
in other parts of the problem the uncertainties can 9
actually decrease with time.
10 So for instance, early on if you have 11 metallic barriers and a disposal system you may be 12 uncertain about when those barriers are going to fail 13 and how much water is transmitted through them as they 14 do fail. Maybe of differing materials. Carbon steel 15 fails generally a lot quicker than stainless steel or 16 other more exotic alloys.
17 So you have uncertainty about when those 18 barriers fail. And that's in the short-term. And it 19 can greatly impact the timing and magnitude of doses 20 that would result from disposing of radioactive waste 21 in metallic barriers in one of these system models.
22 As you go out to longer times, for 23 instance though, at some point you get to a time where 24 all of that metal has failed and there is no more 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
46 uncertainty in the performance of that component of 1
the system. And you'll see that in some of the 2
performance assessment modeling results. They 3
generate something that we refer to as horsetail plots 4
because they kind of look like the tail of a horse.
5 And sometimes the uncertainty range at 6
earlier times is broader because that's when the 7
shorter lived radioactivity might get out of the 8
system. You don't know when it's getting out or what 9
magnitude. It results in larger uncertainty while 10 that's happening.
11 And then you migrate out to longer time 12 and the tail kind of gets narrower because most of the 13 engineered components you can't justify at those 14 times. You're really looking at just the geology and 15 the long-lived radioactivity.
And so, the 16 uncertainty, the computational uncertainty for that 17 aspect of the problem can actually get a bet less with 18 time.
19 The one that we don't speak to, and I 20 think partly you might be talking to, Dennis, you can 21 correct me if I'm wrong, is we are operating in this 22 context of a human component, or a societal component.
23 You know, what people are doing, where they're living, 24 how they're living, et cetera. How technology 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
47 changes, which I referenced earlier in this talk.
1 That, if you can clear the technology 2
societal component than
- yes, it makes the 3
uncertainties intractable in this type of problem, 4
right? I'll freely admit that.
5 But I will also show that what's done, 6
what's being proposed by the NRC, and is done in the 7
international community, is basically you make some 8
cautious but reasonable assumptions for the society 9
technology part of the problem, and then that part 10 gets fixed for the project, for the estimates of 11 performance to the other parts of the system. So I 12 don't know if that completely answers your question.
13 We aren't trying to predict numerical 14 result at a particular time, we're attempting to 15 estimate, you know, especially preferably a range of 16 impacts at a future time, and understand the 17 uncertainties and how they may impact those range of 18 impacts at a time. And that's what goes into the 19 regulatory process.
20 So this
- stuff, waste disposal and 21 performance assessment, is not necessarily easy. It 22 does require strong licensees and strong regulators.
23 So you need both components.
24 The regulator has to know that I'm not 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
48 making a licensing decision based on the long-term 1
dose 24.9, and my standard is 25, right? The 2
regulator has to look at the output of the model and 3
say, okay, it could be above 25 and I can still make 4
an argument why it's an appropriate licensing 5
decision.
6 Especially at those longer times, which 7
we'll talk about. So it isn't, there is a firm line 8
and there is a compliance standard, but this is part 9
science, part engineered judgment and at least some 10 component of other considerations.
11 MR. BLEY: Now, thanks very much, that was 12 a really good discussion. Your assumption was 13 partially right. But I also think about the geologic 14 and hydrological things that can change it.
15 I can sort of think looking out 10,000 16 years, but then when you turn it around and says, well 17 let's go back 10,000 years.
18 MR. ESH: Yes.
19 MR. BLEY: Man, that's before recorded 20 history, that's beyond where the Egyptians were.
21 MR. ESH: Yes.
22 MR. BLEY: There is rivers that have 23 changed paths, parts of the world that have been 24 covered up with dust that's eventually become soil and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
49 buried under a hundred feet of it.
1 MR. ESH: Right. Yes. And I would say, 2
so I understand your comment completely. I don't want 3
people to confound this idea about uncertainty and 4
time with, there are, there disposal systems and 5
disposal sites, natural environments, that are 6
necessarily more stable than others, okay?
7 So for instance, even in the U.S. our 8
commercial facilities, the disposal site in Texas is, 9
I think geologically been shown to be quite stable 10 over a long period of time. As a very thick clay 11 unit. That they can date the clay unit, they can date 12 the water that's in the clay unit.
13 And this idea about uncertainty and how it 14 impacts the decisions, how it's managed 15 internationally is primarily with depth. Okay? So if 16 you think there is too much uncertainty with near 17 surface disposal, then you move to deeper disposal.
18 That's what's done in Germany for 19 instance. They decided, we're going geologic disposal 20 for all of our radioactive waste. Even the lowest 21 levels of low-level waste they're going deep geologic 22 disposal with it. That's not typical, right? That's 23 pretty extreme. But I'm just saying that there is 24 different methods to try to achieve safety if you're 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
50 concerned about the uncertainties.
1 MR. BLEY: Thank you.
2 MR. ESH: Yes, go ahead.
3 MR. BLEY: Thanks for the discussion.
4 That was very helpful.
5 MR. MCCARTIN: Yes, this is Tim McCartin.
6 One addition. And I know you brought up, you look at 7
the number you calculate. And Dave gave an excellent 8
explanation, but the advantage of that horsetail plot 9
is you get a lot of different realizations of what 10 might happen.
11 And you can look at those curves to see, 12 well, what happened when it was very large? What 13 failed, what worked, what didn't at that incident in 14 time. Or later in time.
15 And the performance assessment, in 16 addition to calculating the number, is that tool to 17 help you challenge your thinking. Why is it safe, why 18 were these numbers low, why were they high in certain 19 cases? And you can go back and look at the supporting 20 evidence that's been provided via part of the natural 21 system, part of the engineered system.
22 But that's where the power of doing the 23 site-specific performance assessment lies. It is way 24 more, yes, you ultimately end up with a number that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
51 you compare to a performance objective, but it's all 1
that information it provides you in addition to just 2
that number.
3 MR. ESH: Let's do the next slide please, 4
Derek? Switching gears a little bit to the intruder 5
assessment.
6 As I indicated earlier, this is the piece 7
that if you were doing anything in this rulemaking is 8
the one you had to do for the changes that we've 9
experienced, okay? So the way that this was developed 10 originally is, the NRC did calculations in NUREGs, 11 large kind of blurry NUREGs now if you decide to look 12 at them, where the calculations were described.
13 And basically the NRC made assumptions 14 about what waste would be low-level waste. And then 15 did what we refer to as an inverse calculation. So 16 they put a unit concentration of a particular isotope 17 into the calculation and then actually set a, sorry.
18 Put a unit concentration in, saw what magnitude of 19 dose that resulted in for different scenarios. And 20 then after establishing dose limits, then you could 21 determine,
- okay, what's the total amount of 22 concentration you could have in the system to achieve 23 that dose.
24 So it's inverse calculation that was based 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
52 on some impacts codes, which were written in FORTRAN.
1 Perhaps Derek wrote them. Or some of them.
2 (Laughter.)
3 MR. ESH: So we took those codes and we 4
converted them first into a spreadsheet and then into 5
a GoldSim model. And that's in a product now called 6
TableCalculator. It's on the NRC RAMP website. That 7
if you have the desire to understand where Table 1 and 8
Table 2 came from, you can go register on RAMP, 9
download that tool, install the GoldSim player, and 10 you can trace forward and back how the NRC 11 concentrations were developed.
12 What you'll see from that is that the 13 regulator, because tables are one-dimensional by 14 isotopes, so it's a vector but it's one, the street 15 value for each isotope, you had to choose the limiting 16 scenario and the particular disposal environment, and 17 make assumptions about the design and how the design 18 was going to be interactive with, by people in order 19 to derive those concentrations.
20 So they are based on a humid environment.
21 They are based on an excavation scenario by an 22 intruder. So the waste is buried with one meter of 23 cover, two meters of waste. Somebody digs into it to 24 build a house, they excavate the material, they spread 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
53 it around. They don't know there is any radioactivity 1
there, and then those calculations are run forward to 2
generate the values in the table.
3 If you look at that compared to modern 4
facilities, it's almost categorically very, very 5
restrictive. Right? So all the modern facilities, 6
they bury waste deeper. Some of the difficult 7
components are put in reinforced concrete or other 8
metallic barriers.
9 So is that, are those engineered materials 10 not going to be recognizable at 100 years, which is 11 what that calculation is doing? I would say no.
12 right?
13 And then the trigger for us in this 14 rulemaking was the depleted uranium, the GTCC waste, 15 potentially other waste streams that might be derived 16 from new fuel cycle or different reactor technology, 17 fusion for instance, those can be radiologically 18 different than what was analyzed by the regulator. By 19 NRC.
20 So those tables are only developed for a 21 certain type of waste, a certain scenario, certain 22 design, et cetera. So what we're proposing in this 23 regulation is to allow these revised requirements, 24 would allow for a site-specific intruder assessment.
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54 So that basically puts the analysis in the 1
hands of the licensee to reflect what their actual 2
waste is, what their disposal design is, et cetera, et 3
cetera. They can get a much more risk-informed 4
credible assessment of this intruder calculation. And 5
therefore would probably allow for considerable, 6
additional flexibility or margin on what they could 7
accept in a near surface disposal facility.
8 I think this approach is flexible and 9
risk-informed. One of the criticism that we had from 10 stakeholders is, this is putting the fox in charge of 11 the hen house. I don't agree with that because you're 12 always going to have a regulator, so there's always 13 the farmer to challenge the fox. So I don't know if 14 that's a good analogy or not.
15 Next slide please. So the intruder 16 assessment. This is some information that I generated 17 since the previous time we talked to you.
18 What's shown on this chart is the disposal 19 depth of different, these are all either operating or 20 closed facilities throughout the world and the U.S.
21 It's all the ones I could find information on. It was 22 no small task.
23 I'm going to show you a couple other 24 charts coming up. I think it's like, I don't know, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
55 30,000 pages of documents, or something like that.
1 All the references are going to be in our guidance 2
document that you haven't seen yet. 2175. But all 3
the references for these figures will be there if you 4
want to dig into them and try to do what I did.
5 There's a couple of things that I want you 6
to highlight on this chart. First, so when these 7
analyses are done and the intruder assessment, it's 8
assuming that somebody is on the disposal facility at 9
some point in the future, okay?
10 If you look at present day, where are 11 people, the way this information was generated is, I 12 gave the facility information, the names and country, 13 that sort of information, to Allen Gross, our GIS 14 expert, and I said, find me the nearest person to 15 these facilities. Then he used GIS to determine what 16 was the current present day receptors in relation to 17 these facilities.
18 And what you'll note is that, especially 19 say the green and the red, the green is DOE, the red 20 is U.S. Commercial. The present day receptors tend to 21 be pretty far from the facilities. That's good from 22 a waste isolation standpoint.
23 And that is in our citing requirements 24 that you basically need to consider a location that's 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
56 remote, avoid areas of high population growth. So 1
you're trying to get it far away from people. So 2
that's a number one component. The U.S. does that 3
exceedingly well.
4 The European community, you'll see the 5
blue ones, they tend to be closer. Still pretty far, 6
but closer. So the point up on the upper left, I 7
think it's a circle there, that's more Morsleben in 8
Germany. I was there last October. Great tour of 9
that facility.
10 But what was interesting is that the site, 11 the facility is an underground mine, so it's very 12 deep. But the fence at the top, it has crops growing 13 right up next to it, and there's houses like right 14 past the crops. Like, back in my young days when I 15 played baseball I probably could have thrown a 16 baseball and hit a house roof from the facility.
17 So you compare that to the U.S. where like 18 in the Clive Facility in Utah, the nearest receptor I 19 think was 17 kilometers. I'd have to check my data, 20 but something like that. Seventeen kilometers nearest 21 person from that facility.
22 So there is a margin of safety that's been 23 applied here in this regulatory construct, both within 24 the U.S. and internationally, by doing this intruder 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
57 assessment, considering that people aren't presently 1
located at these facilities.
2 But it's not unforeseeable that as time 3
goes by, something Dennis talked to in his comment, 4
that things change, people lose knowledge. We do have 5
a few examples.
6 There is one from the Ukraine that I had 7
just recently where there was a cesium-137 source that 8
was accidentally distributed or disrupted, I think at 9
a construction site. And so they basically had to dig 10 up all the material that was contaminated with cesium-11 137. And they took it and disposed of it, I don't 12 know, at some nearby location. And then over time 13 people forgot it was there, and some time later the 14 metal scrappers heard that there was metal buried 15 there and so they went and dug it up to get the metal 16 scrap out of the ground and spread the cesium all over 17 the ground that they didn't know was there.
18 That's kind of, that sort of scenario is 19 what this conceptually is trying to represent. Yet 20 probably pessimistic, but, you know, considering the 21 time frames that you're trying to keep people safe, 22 overly pessimistic, I don't know. It's a tough, it's 23 a really tough question to answer.
24 CHAIR BALLINGER: I'm not sure that it's 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
58 that pessimistic. You folks recall the issues at Los 1
Alamos where the metal detectors discovered trucks 2
that were carrying rebar that were radioactive that 3
came from somewhere? Some scrap dealer in some other 4
country.
5 MR. ESH: Yes.
6 CHAIR BALLINGER: Yes.
7 MR. ESH: Right. It's not, it's -- and 8
that's what some of our critics will say that this 9
whole intruder thing is based on Probability 1. It's 10 not based on Probability 1 because we're applying a 5 11 millisievert or 500 millirem standard for the 12 intruders. So it is reflecting that it is lower 13 probability compared to our offsite members of the 14 public, which are.25 millisieverts or 25 millirem.
15 So there is a, kind of an inherent probability 16 reflected in these two different scenarios.
17 Sir, you have a question?
18 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Yes. We interrupted 19 you with trucks.
20 (Laughter.)
21 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: I assume, in my mind, 22 for the next ten to 100 years the biggest probability 23 of accident is on transportation to and from the 24 facility. So if you look at the facility in the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
59 middle of the Everglades, it's pretty far away from 1
people. But you have to drive down I-95 through 2
millions of people. So is that considered?
3 MR. ESH: Yes. These regulations don't 4
deal with the transportation component of it, right?
5 I understand your comment on transportation risk. The 6
operating facilities that have been in implementation 7
for, you know, roughly a 160 facility years, or 8
something like
- that, I'm not aware of any 9
transportation accidents associated with those 10 facilities.
11 I know they use the approved standard 12 shipping containers that are pretty robustly designed, 13 compared to other industries. So we have to keep that 14 in mind too is, you know, nuclear has some high 15 standards for safety, especially radiation safety.
16 In my hometown, in my town near here, just 17 this summer there was a tanker truck that was in an 18 accident and blew up on the highway. And I think that 19 at least the driver was a fatality. And some nearby 20 houses basically had their roofs vaporized.
21 (Simultaneous speaking.)
22 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: --- by trains.
23 MR. ESH: Yes, there you go. Right?
24 Perfectly, right. Yes.
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60 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: In my mind there is 1
a the threshold. I don't if it's one year, ten years, 2
100, 1,000 years, but transportation is a risk.
3 MR. ESH: Yes. Possible. Right. On this 4
figure, you see the blue dot there, that's in 5
Australia on the far right. It's the Sandy Ridge 6
facility operated by Tellus.
7 They have a hundred kilometer access road 8
to the facility. 100 kilometer access road. And it's 9
fly in, fly out. They have trouble keeping workers 10 there because it's so remote. So they have to give 11 them a lot of incentives so it's an interstate.
12 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Don't want to overdo 13 it.
14 MR. ESH: Right. Fair comment.
15 CHAIR BALLINGER: You know, we deal with 16 license renewals, and there is one particular plant in 17 Texas, not Texas, excuse me, Florida, where over the 18 period, since it was constructed, the population 19 density has encroached.
20 MR. ESH: Yes. Yes. That's the challenge 21 in like the, you know, obviously if you pick a 22 location that's fairly inhospitable today for a lot of 23 reasons, it's hard to live there, it's likely going to 24 be hard to live there in the future. But not 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
61 guaranteed.
1 Obviously you wouldn't want to put a 2
disposal facility on the coast, which everybody loves 3
to live on the coast. And you have coastal impacts 4
then. Right?
5 In the U.K. they're dealing with that at 6
the Drigg Facility, so they expect that facility to be 7
eroded into the ocean at some time in the future. But 8
it's not guaranteed.
9 So the good example is Las Vegas. So if 10 you could go back in time 300 times and stand with 11 somebody at Las Vegas and say, is there going to be a 12 giant city here sometime in the future, they would 13 almost categorically say, no, there is not going to be 14 any giant city here. Right? They say you're crazy, 15 there is going to be no city here.
16 CHAIR BALLINGER: You should have talked 17 to the Gambino family.
18 (Laughter.)
19 MR. ESH: Now I will say that we are not 20 relying totally on just the fact that the environment 21 is going to be difficult to be there. These 22 facilities, when they're implemented, they require 23 landownership, deed restrictions. There's all these 24 other passive controls that go into, hoping to avoid 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
62 that scenario where somebody even ever does use it in 1
the future. You know, federal or state landownership 2
of the facility after the institutional control period 3
should hopefully be a barrier to usage, but, you know, 4
nobody is infallible, especially not the government.
5 CHAIR BALLINGER: I was just at Yucca 6
Mountain a couple of weeks ago, and that place is 7
remote.
8 MR. ESH: We have our expert right here, 9
which I don't think you want to get him started, Mr.
10 McCartin, on the Yucca Mountain.
11 So I think that's it for intruder 12 assessment. We can move on to site stability 13 assessment.
14 Okay. This one is a bit of a challenge 15 originally because the pre-Part 61 sites, they had the 16 idea that you didn't really need technical analysis 17 you could just design your site. You pick a location, 18 primarily clay, that is stable and has been there a 19 while. You dig a trench in it. It was pretty much 20 tip and fill type of disposal methods. So you bring 21 trucks in, you dump them, you cover it up, right?
22 And those just early disposal sites then, 23 there were a whole of variety of issues that arose 24 with them. They found that it wasn't as easy as that.
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63 As it usually isn't when you're dealing with nature.
1 And most of those problems were associated 2
with surface water management and being able to make 3
the closure of the facility as robust as the original 4
geology. So, you disrupt it, try to put it back.
5 It's hard to put it back the way it was. Those 6
problems were pretty much resolved through design and 7
site characteristic requirements as I talked about.
8 And the only difference here is that when 9
we move towards disposal of significant quantities of 10 long-lived radionuclides, then for certain sites you 11 may get into this situation that you need to do a long 12 term stability assessment. And what that means is, 13 and I'll point you to one of the examples that's in 14 NUREG-2175, hopefully when you get it, there's an 15 appendix in there with evaluation of what's being done 16 at the West Valley site in New York.
17 So the West Valley site in New York was a 18 commercial fuel reprocessing. There are two disposal 19 areas there. The state license disposal area and the 20 NRC license disposal area. Those two disposal areas, 21 and that whole location, they thought was sufficient 22 in the '60s and '70s. But what they've learned going 23 forward is there is a pretty high rate of erosion 24 there.
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64 So it's undergoing decommissioning. And 1
there doing a very, very complex evaluation of, when 2
is that, when are those facilities going to erode, 3
what's the release rates from those facilities and can 4
you leave them in place, do you need to do some sort 5
of engineered implementation to slow the release rate 6
or do you need to remove the material.
7 And that involves erosion modeling with 8
geomorphology tools, like SIBERIA and CHILD. It's 9
complex system modeling because once the erosion 10 occurs, that's the scenario that people are exposed 11 to, the material can be transported into the nearby 12 stream systems and eventually be transported into the 13 Great Lakes.
14 So it's a very complicated evaluation. If 15 you go through and you chose a site that has good 16 geologic characteristics, then you greatly lessen what 17 you might need to do for a site stability assessment.
18 If you choose a site that's not ideal or has some 19 temporal challenges with its behavior overtime, then 20 you get into a situation where you're going to need to 21 do some sort of site stability assessment.
22 But this only kicks in if you have long, 23 a significant amount of long-lived radioactivity. If 24 you don't, the risks are low, you don't need to worry 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
65 about this. So that's the kind of performance based 1
approach we're taking to this. Instead of requiring 2
everybody to do a site stability assessment, like 3
involving modeling, we believe what's being done now 4
for site stability is going to be sufficient for the 5
vast majority of sites and problems.
6 Next slide please. So operational safety 7
assessment. This aligns with our 6143. It's 8
basically safety of the public during operations, and 9
safety of workers during operations.
10 We have four operating facilities in the 11 U.S. In Washington, Utah, Texas and South Carolina.
12 They've been operating, as I said, for, you know, I 13 don't know, approximately 160 facility years. They've 14 been operating very safely.
15 So, I'm not aware of any significant 16 impact to workers or the public from the operations of 17 these facilities. It's a testament to the regulatory 18 frameworks that those agreement state regulators are 19 implementing. And the inspections and oversight that 20 they provide for them.
21 When NRC developed the concentration 22 tables in 6155, Table 1 and Table 2, accident 23 scenarios were considered. So those are reflected in 24 that TableCalculator product that I referenced you to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
66 earlier.
1 But those were not pulled forward to 2
result in changes to the concentrations, which are 3
reflected in Table 1 and Table 2 because NRC felt that 4
through a combination of systems, procedures, controls 5
and trainings you could mitigate the operational 6
impacts. And that's proven to be true, okay?
7 So nothing needs to be done at all with 8
respect to operational safety, existing facilities and 9
similar waste steps. For some types of GTCC waste 10 though they may contain sufficient radioactivity that 11 we believe operational safety assessment may be 12 necessary.
13 So this is where you look at, okay, what 14 are the potential events that could occur. Usually 15 the most risky one is fire. Secondary is a drop of 16 some sort or a mechanical damage to a container that 17 results in release. Fire is the main one, so what's 18 the possibility of potential of fires.
19 And then you go through the whole analysis 20 of like leak pathway factors, you know. How much is 21 released from the source, how much gets out of the 22 package, how much is the respirable fraction in the 23 air. And then some sort of, like shown on the right 24 here, atmospheric dispersion calculation of what 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
67 reaches the fence line and a member of the public.
1 It's all pretty straightforward and 2
standard. We don't believe even if you are dealing 3
with GTCC waste that you need to get into the 4
sophisticated atmospheric modeling that's done, like 5
for severe reactor accident consequences where they'll 6
do high split and particle tracking and all that sort 7
of stuff. We think the basic atmospheric dispersion 8
modeling is sufficient for analysis of operational 9
safety and low-level waste.
10 CHAIR BALLINGER: How many DOE sites are 11 there?
12 MR. ESH: There is a number of DOE sites 13 at, generally at each of their locations. And they 14 have a disposal facility in Savannah River. They have 15 one in Oak Ridge. They have at least one at Hanford, 16 Idaho, Los Alamos. I'm not sure --
17 (Simultaneous speaking.)
18 MR. ESH: Yes, Portsmouth.
19 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: They don't ship 20 anything there, but they store an awful lot of stuff.
21 MR. ESH: So I want to make it clear that 22 these regulations we're talking about do not apply to 23 DOE, they have their own regulations. Right? These 24 are only for the commercial disposal facilities.
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68 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: One advantage of the 1
DOE sites is that money is no object.
2 (Laughter.)
3 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Where the commercial 4
5 MR. ESH: These are all commercial sites, 6
and they're for profit, for profit entities. So --
7 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: DOE sites --
8 MR. ESH: They --
9 (Simultaneous speaking.)
10 MR. ESH: The commercial licensees, they 11 give us a lot of constructive criticism, and it's 12 fair, you know. We should only be applying 13 requirements that improve safety and do so in the most 14 efficient manner. I think we shouldn't doing things 15 that don't impact safety or unnecessarily complex --
16 or burdensome. So --
17 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: I want to change the 18 subject back to --
19 MR. ESH: Yes.
20 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: -- your last bullet 21 or whatever. Are we concerned about the concentration 22 or the total amount of the source there?
23 MR. ESH: Right.
24 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: And I'm worried about 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
69 this, the routine or mixing or blending. In the limit 1
I can take a spent fuel element, which is super high-2 level waste, mix it with enough sand and they can dump 3
it in the river.
4 MR. ESH: No.
5 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: And so, obviously you 6
wouldn't approve that.
7 MR. ESH: Yes.
8 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: At which point do we 9
step, we put our foot down and say, no, you can't do 10 that, this is too high?
11 MR. ESH: Well, the short answer to your 12 question is that we're concerned with both 13 concentration and quantity. So, in some instances it 14 can make sense to take a concentration of an amount of 15 material at a higher concentration and blend it or 16 average it, right?
17 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Have some material 18 that's ten percent over the limit --
19 MR. ESH: Yes.
20 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: -- and you mix it.
21 MR. ESH: Right.
22 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Whether you take a 23 spent fuel element, which is a hundred thousand times 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
70 MR. ESH: No, I understand your comment.
1 Yes. So for instance, you want to do two things in 2
this evaluation. You want to determine what is 3
appropriate for your facility design, geology, et 4
cetera, and then you also have to consider the various 5
scenarios, different scenarios.
6 So like an operational safety for 7
instance, maybe your system is such, your operation 8
controls, whatnot is such that you're only real 9
potential for a fire might involve a single canister, 10 right? The single canister fire then you might be, 11 you might have a canister limit for the amount of 12 radioactivity that you would try to mitigate, right?
13 (Simultaneous speaking.)
14 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: -- lit a fire. You 15 know what I'm talking about? That was huge. It 16 wasn't, it was not one canister.
17 MR. ESH: Yes.
18 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: I mean, it's possible 19 to do more --
20 CHAIR BALLINGER: At some point you run 21 afoul of federal law with respect to high-level waste 22 disposal.
23 MR. ESH: Well you can't --
24 (Simultaneously Speaking.)
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71 MR. ESH: You can't blend high-level waste 1
into low-level waste.
2 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Yes.
3 MR. ESH: So you can, within the low-level 4
waste space you can do things operationally, like for 5
instance, if you have low-level-waste that you need to 6
treat and stabilize and therefore you need to have 7
media to make it more robust to go into the disposal 8
facility, facility, that's a very appropriate way to 9
essentially lower concentration. You're doing it for 10 an engineered reason to improve the performance of the 11 facility.
12 But you can't take something that's high-13 level waste, blend it, and then dispose of it as low-14 level waste. You would run afoul of federal 15 regulations then.
16 (Off microphone comment.)
17 MS. MAUPIN: -- this one, because DOE did 18 this stuff with Savannah and their high-level waste 19 definition where they did take some, because high-20 level waste a lot of times is based on how it's 21 generated as opposed, not opposed to the actual 22 radioactivity that DOE came out with their definition.
23 And so, we have, I have had counterpart meetings with 24 DOE and they said they were able to take some waste 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
72 from Savannah River, do some solidification and was 1
able to dispose of it at Waste Control Specialists.
2 MR. ESH: Yes. And I think that situation 3
is a little bit different because, as Cardelia noted, 4
high-level waste is defined by how it was created, not 5
necessarily the radiological characteristics of it.
6 So, even within high-level waste you have the whole 7
continuum of risk and radioactivity.
8 In low-level waste you have the same 9
thing. And at the upper end of the low-level waste it 10 can overlap from a risk and radiological standpoint 11 with the lower end of high-level waste.
12 And so what Cardelia was talking about is 13 DOE goes through a process, waste incidental through 14 processing determinations or evaluations, where they 15 assess the material and then do an evaluation of, can 16 it be disposed as low-level waste and meet the 17 criteria? So it's dealing with that lower end.
18 It's not dealing with high-level waste 19 canisters or spent nuclear fuel, it's dealing with 20 some other materials that they go through a lot of, as 21 you indicated, add a lot of resources. So they go 22 through a lot of science to implement that process and 23 then demonstrate that they can dispose of those 24 materials as low-level waste.
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73 CHAIR BALLINGER:
This might be 1
apocryphal, but I, is it my understanding that the 2
tank waste out at Hanford is such that if they diluted 3
it they could dispose of it as low-level waste?
4 MR. ESH: I'll avoid answering that 5
question, so. We did do an evaluation of one of their 6
tank systems out there.
7 And at that time they're removing, they do 8
a step first where they remove all the radioactivity 9
to the maximum extent practical. Technically and 10 economically practical. And then what's left behind, 11 then they apply this evaluation process and show, 12 okay, if we fill the tanks with concrete and stabilize 13 the system we could meet the performance objectives 14 that are applied to low-level waste disposal. But 15 that's the way that process operated.
16 We also evaluated vitrified low activity 17 waste. So that's where they take the secondary waste, 18 they're running it into the glass plant, and then they 19 produce a glass waste stream and secondary waste from 20 that. We did an evaluation of that. They asked us 21 for our independent review of their, of their waste 22 determination for that to determine if they could meet 23 the performance objectives associated with that.
24 CHAIR BALLINGER: Ten billion here, ten 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
74 billion there. Who's counting.
1 (Laughter.)
2 MR. ESH: Yes. So I think next slide 3
please, Derek.
4 CHAIR BALLINGER: By the way, it's been an 5
hour and a half, and this is, we're liable to have a 6
fair amount of discussion on this one, so I would like 7
to propose that we take, unless there is another break 8
point that you suggest --
9 MR. ESH: Perfect.
10 CHAIR BALLINGER: -- a 15 minute break.
11 I don't, I'm looking at 33, let's just call it 2:45-12 ish.
13 MR. ESH: Sounds good. Yes.
14 CHAIR BALLINGER: Thank you.
15 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 16 off the record at 2:33 p.m. and resumed at 2:46 p.m.)
17 CHAIR BALLINGER: I think, Bob --
18 (Off microphone comments.)
19 CHAIR BALLINGER: Okay, let's -- thank 20 you.
21 MR. ESH: So, one thing. Before we move 22 into time frames a colleague here said I should note 23 is that, we do have a branch technical position on 24 concentration averaging that applies to the kind of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
75 discussion we had about how you can evaluate or blend 1
materials.
2 It's generally applied more on a disposal 3
package level rather than a facility level. So it's 4
not necessarily designed to implement large scale 5
blending at the facility level, but it does apply to 6
things like, if you have a discrete component in a 7
barrel, how do you average it or how much you can 8
average it. It's not unlimited so you can't, there is 9
constraints on the amount of averaging that you can do 10 that's described in that branch technical position 11 classification.
12 (Off microphone comment.)
13 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: We were mentioning it 14 before --
15 MR. ESH: Right.
16 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: -- commercial is, is 17 more involved. If you have a conflict of interest, 18 then if you allow it, they'll do it.
19 MR. ESH: That's a very good comment. So 20 it can be hard to write regulations because you have 21 to think of, you know, how somebody might, where 22 somebody might go with it. Right? Not necessarily 23 what you intended but what would they be allowed to do 24 if you don't word it differently.
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76 And so, we have very long discussions in 1
our working group about wording of various components 2
in the proposed regulation. We've met weekly for a 3
couple of hours. Or, I don't know how long, only 4
five. Over a year. Lots of hours of discussion on 5
the regulations.
6 So we're going to move into time frames 7
now. The first one is, it's attached at the end of 8
these other ones because it is analyses, but I'm not 9
going to spend a lot of time on this because it will 10 get into the time frame discussion. It's just to say 11 what this is, and then we'll see how it fits in, 12 hopefully, when we get done with the five slides after 13 or whatnot.
14 The performance period. The way that our 15 time frame approach is structured right now is we'll 16 have a compliance period, a proposed compliance 17 period, of a thousand years if you do not have 18 significant quantities of long-lived waste. And if 19 you do have significant quantities of long-lived waste 20 then you'll have a 10,000 year compliance period 21 combined with this performance period. So this 22 performance period only comes into play if you have 23 significant quantities of long-lived radionuclides.
24 The expected standard that we would apply 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
77 to this period, this very long term period, which is 1
I think something Dennis Bley was alluding to, is to 2
reduce exposures to the extent reasonably achievable.
3 So it's not a dose limit. There is not a dose limit 4
with this period, it's more a cost benefit type of 5
analysis. Not exactly cost benefit.
6 When I initially thought of this we were 7
going to do ALARA, but a lawyer who is retired from 8
the NRC explained why that wouldn't work. Just a kind 9
of complicated reasons that I partially understood 10 that why not to do that, but he convinced me, so.
11 And if you'll notice that the previous 12 times, speaking to redline strikeout, we did have this 13 performance period and a standard for it, that was 14 minimized exposures instead of reduced. So we changed 15 that to reduce. We think that's a substantial change, 16 even though it's one word.
17 There's a
different approach and 18 implementation to showing that you've reduced as much 19 as possible compared to minimize.
20 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: For my education, one 21 minute, I'm sorry, at most. What's the different 22 between a thousand and 10,000 years?
23 Because if you have a repository that is 24 good at 10,000 years, it remains good at 10,000, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
78 unless the geography changes and if the agreement 1
suddenly stops --
2 MR. ESH: Yes.
3 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: -- so, unless there 4
is a change in assumptions nothing changed, has it?
5 MR. ESH: Yes. So you ask a hundred 6
minute question with a one minute answer.
7 (Laughter.)
8 MR. ESH: So --
9 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Yes. I didn't want 10 to (off microphone.)
11 MR. ESH: Yes. So fundamentally, yes, I 12 agree with you. And if you ask many practitioners 13 they'll say, the amount of effort that you have to put 14 in to develop a thousand year performance assessment, 15 develop all those models, collect all the data, 16 describe your
- site, its characteristics, the 17 meteorology, the hydrology, the waste inventory, how 18 it's released, potential receptors, their intakes, you 19 know, it might be hundreds of parameters that you need 20 for a thousand year assessment, right?
21 If you have a site like West Valley that 22 is an area of higher erosion, then it will be a lot 23 more expensive to do a 10,000 year assessment than it 24 would to do a thousand year assessment because you 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
79 have a whole new set of processes that kick in. You 1
need parameterize them, model all them, put all the 2
information in for that.
3 If you go through the NRC safety and 4
characteristic and selection process and those 5
requirements, you should, for the most part, end up 6
with sites that are going to be reasonably similar 7
performance for that 10,000 year period as compared to 8
the 1,000 year period.
9 So, you know, somewhat more expensive but 10 not an order of magnitude more expensive, not even a 11 multiple more expensive.
12 (Off microphone comment.)
13 MR. ESH: Yes.
14 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: -- made a difference 15 of (off microphone.)
16 MR. ESH: Right. And so then, have you 17 justified performance if you have these major 18 processes that are going to impact your facility after 19 a thousand years in that one thousand to 9,000, or 20 10,000 year period.
21 If you justified performance if there is 22 these significant processes that are going to affect 23 your, the performance of your facility, right?
24 (Off microphone comment.)
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80 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA:
There is a
1 possibility, a likelihood that the ocean will move 2
material from the top --
3 MR. ESH: Yes.
4 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: -- site.
5 MR. ESH: Now, that reprocess is negative, 6
right? I mean, so --
7 (Off microphone comment.)
8 MR. ESH: Yes. So --
9 (Off microphone comment.)
10 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: -- year.
11 MR. ESH: Dilution and dispersion is 12 usually a good thing even though if politically it 13 might not be viewed that way. But from a risk 14 perspective that is. So the --
15 (Off microphone comment.)
16 MR. ESH: So the short answer is, I agree 17 with you, right? I think the comment that you 18 expressed --
19 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: If you go (off 20 microphone) excavate --
21 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Jose, microphone.
22 We cannot hear you well.
23 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: This is, again, my --
24 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC:
It's very 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
81 entertaining.
1 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: It is a bad 2
microphone. I'm sorry. I'm using two. One of them 3
is bound to be good.
4 (Laughter.)
5 MR. ESH: Defense-in-depth.
6 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Yes. The idea here 7
is, typically most sites go underground. They've done 8
it all, they don't clean up. So maybe one of the 9
requirements should be, when you evaluate these the 10 possibility, the likelihood exists that is going to 11 unearth it, maybe it's not a good sign.
12 MR. ESH: Yes. So, IAEA has a very figure 13 that they basically show different disposal concepts 14 and depths for different types of wastes. And they're 15 doing exactly what you said.
16 If the waste lives a long time and 17 therefore you have a lot of uncertainty about what's 18 going to happen with it, they mitigate those 19 uncertainties by placing the waste deeper. And we do 20 have some requirements that, I think Priya Yadav is 21 going to talk about, where we are adding some depth 22 requirements for certain types of waste in this 23 regulation for that exact reason.
24 So the performance period analyses, I 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
82 think I described them here. We view it as providing 1
transparency to the stakeholders on the expected long-2 term performance. And these are not a measure of 3
projected human health impacts. You know, it's a 4
common metric to compare apples-and-apples, but it's 5
not necessarily meaningful in terms of, if you 6
estimate a dose number at a long time.
7 We also stress that you can use different 8
metrics for that evaluation. So you don't just have 9
to calculate long-term doses.
10 There are some programs where they'll 11 specify a flux limit for long-lived radionuclides.
12 And usually they're developing that flux limit based 13 on consideration of natural radioactivity for 14 instance.
15 So that would make a lot of sense. If 16 nature is moving radioactivity through the system in 17 a certain quantity and rate, if your manmade system is 18 doing it similarly you're not creating any additional.
19 So that makes a lot of sense.
20 Let's go to the next slide please. 16.
21 Safety and compliance. There are some different ways 22 that you can achieve safety and compliance, as we 23 talked about probably in enough detail already.
24 The disposal concept. So how deeply 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
83 you're placing the waste or where you're placing it.
1 What sort of design you're using.
2 In the U.S. there tends to be towards the 3
lesser direction of waste conditioning and engineering 4
compared to the international community. In the 5
international community, if you just look at pictures 6
of some of their facilities, they're dealing with low-7 levels waste that is comparable to our Class A low-8 level waste.
9 And they are stabilizing it with cement 10 and containers. Those containers then get placed in 11 bigger containers and surrounded by cement. That 12 whole container then gets put in a vault system. A 13 lot of robust engineering goes into class, equivalent 14 Class A low-level waste disposal in some of these 15 international programs.
16 Part of that is, as I alluded to earlier, 17 the U.S. has a lot of land, and we have a lot of land 18 and space that might be suitable for disposal 19 facilities, even if we only have four operating.
20 People tend to be located pretty far from those 21 facilities, so we don't need as much engineering if 22 you have a less likelihood of people interacting with 23 the waste. And stable environments.
24 Now what we're doing in this rulemaking, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
84 as I've talked to, is we're relying more heavily on 1
technical analyses than the first two approaches 2
because we believe that that affords the most 3
flexibility. And in the U.S. especially flexibility 4
is needed.
5 And many in the international programs 6
they only have one disposal facility. We have four 7
currently. We could potentially have more. They can 8
be located in quite different environments. So 9
Barnwell, South Carolina is a lot different than West 10 Texas. You know, they have much more rain, shallower 11 water table.
12 So those sorts of considerations need to 13 come in to play and you can do that best with 14 technical analysis rather than us, the regulators, 15 trying to write these complicated regulations like, if 16 you're this type of site than you do this, and if 17 you're this type of site than you do this. It's not 18 very practical, and it would be difficult to 19 implement.
20 So next slide please. So one of the areas 21 that we had a lot of debate on over the years has been 22 the compliance period. I will stress that in the 23 international community they don't usually use this 24 terminology.
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85 They'll evaluate what they call, they'll 1
do post-closure safety assessments. And they'll have 2
a period that they analyze in the post-closure safety 3
assessment. That's usually it. And they don't use 4
compliance period. They don't usually use multiple 5
time frames, they just do an evaluation of post-6 closure safety it's called.
7 In this area we tried various iterations 8
of things. There's a huge diversity of opinion on 9
this topic. And some of it technical, some of it not 10 so much. And there is really no way to appease 11 everyone on it.
12 We've taken an approach where we think 13 what we came up is meeting the intentions of the ACRS 14 and others to try to provide a system that's going to 15 work effectively for our agreement state regulators 16 but still afford some flexibility that accounts for 17 the risk in the differences in the systems that I 18 talked to.
19 So the Commission gave us direction that 20 basically has two options. It says peak dose for use 21 of a different compliance period depending on the 22 long-living component of the waste. We're basically 23 considering the latter in our proposal. We think this 24 is flexible and safe. And can be site specific.
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86 And so as I indicated, the compliance 1
period would be a thousand years without significant 2
quantities of long-lived radionuclides. Otherwise 3
it's going to be 10,000 plus this performance period.
4 Next slide please. So the --
5 MEMBER PETTI: I had a, this is Dave, I 6
had a question on that. The last bullet.
7 MR. ESH: Yes.
8 MEMBER PETTI: Have you guys done any 9
analysis like was done in the, you know, original 10 rule?
11 And what is significant? Do you have an 12 estimate for what is a significant quantity?
13 What I'm worried about is two things. One 14 is impurities in some of the, base metals can cause 15 problems because they're very long-lived like niobium-16 94.
17 But also, a lot of these advance reactors 18 are using beryllium either in a coolant, molten salt, 19 potentially as moderator material. And with beryllium 20 comes uranium impurity. So you're fissioning, you're 21 absorbing neutrons in U-238 that eventually become 22 plutonium fissions. Have you guys looked at all that 23 to see what would that be significant?
24 Because I know in the existing rules the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
87 impurities can kill you, and they can be really small.
1 So, I'm just, I'm worried about what this may mean for 2
advance reactors.
3 MR. ESH: Yes, so that's a good comment.
4 Thank you. So what we've done is we've developed an 5
appendix in that guidance document, NUREG-2175, that 6
basically provides approaches that we would find 7
acceptable for somebody to determine what a
8 significant quantity is. That's going to be a site-9 specific determination.
10 There are some screening values in there.
11 So if you have low concentration, very low 12 concentrations and you didn't want to go through any 13 more detailed evaluation, there are screening values 14 in there you could use. And you say, okay, if I'm 15 below these then I'm not significant, here's a 16 thousand years and I'm done with the rest of them.
17 If you didn't, or couldn't use the 18 screening values, then there are progressively more 19 detailed technical approaches to quantify what would 20 be a significant quantity. But that would be like 21 disposal facility design and site specific.
22 MEMBER PETTI: Right.
23 MR. ESH: But it also --
24 MEMBER PETTI: Okay.
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88 MR. ESH: It also would reflect the waste, 1
as you indicated. So we didn't run like impurities 2
associated with new waste streams or advance reactor 3
technologies through that process, but the framework 4
would be there that you could calculate the value for 5
any isotope that you would then determine what is 6
significant or not.
7 MEMBER PETTI: Okay. I'll take a look at 8
that then. Thanks.
9 CHAIR BALLINGER: You know, apropos what 10 Dave was saying, might there be some kind of verbiage 11 in 2175 that identifies what might be red flags?
12 Because if you're designing a new reactor system with 13 new materials, that's a commercial decision. You have 14 to decide what you're going to do when you shut the 15 thing down.
16 And if there is a particular isotope that 17 you really need to avoid --
18 MEMBER PETTI: Yes.
19 CHAIR BALLINGER: -- that's a pretty 20 valuable piece of information for somebody that is 21 designing one of these plants.
22 MR. ESH: Yes. Like the world spends a 23 lot of money addressing technetium-99, iodine-129 and 24 carbon-14 in low-level waste and then near surface 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
89 disposal.
1 So the neutronics of how they end up in 2
low-level waste, or the production of those isotopes, 3
is important because they're long-lived and mobile and 4
they're difficult to deal with in a near surface 5
disposal system. So if there were other isotopes 6
similar, right, that would be derived in new 7
quantities from new nuclear technologies, you would 8
want to know that ahead of time, I would think, and 9
therefore minimize the impurities that would drive 10 those radionuclides.
11 The approach is all there that somebody 12 could identify that for their specific technology.
13 That would probably be beyond our capability to 14 estimate for a new technology what would be the 15 impurities and then what would be the ones that we 16 would need to run through the process. But the 17 framework is there.
18 CHAIR BALLINGER: Yes, okay, I don't mean 19 that you need to identify every isotope.
20 MR. ESH: Okay.
21 CHAIR BALLINGER: But some words in there 22 that says, you know, this is something you need to be 23 cautious about.
24 MR. ESH: Yes. I followed a lot of that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
90 development and discussion. And that's always the 1
question I've had is that they could learn from what's 2
been experienced to date in that area because it 3
doesn't matter, for instance, how much cobalt-60 you 4
generate in your technology. That doesn't matter at 5
all. It never drives the performance assessments that 6
we evaluate.
7 But there are isotopes that do stand out 8
in the current evaluations. And there could possibly 9
be new ones for other technologies that aren't 10 currently.
11 You can look at the geochemistry to how 12 mobile they are. And then basically if they're long-13 lived and mobile, those are the ones you don't want to 14 generate.
15 MEMBER PETTI: All right. So this was 16 done for the fusion program over 20 years ago where 17 they went through ever element in the periodic table 18 basically and activated it in a fusion spectrum and 19 backed out how low does it have to be to make sure you 20 don't get greater than Class C waste. And they always 21 were worried about niobium-94. It's an impurity in 22 steel. In many steels.
23 But then there were a couple others that 24 I don't remember now. But the whole issue about 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
91 impurities biting you is really the message. You 1
don't, you look at it on the surface and you go, oh, 2
I don't worry about that. Yes, you do have to worry 3
about that, but that's the concern.
4 MR. ESH: Yes. In the U.S. niobium-94 5
isn't one that we see all that often, but I think it 6
was just in Belgium. I was over in the U.K. for 7
DISPONET. It's like a near-surface disposal facility 8
operator and regulator forum. There were people from 9
40 or 50 different countries. And I presented some of 10 what work I'm talking with you about.
11 And I think it was Belgium that they had 12 a challenge with niobium-94 there. That they had 13 significant amounts of it and how to --
14 (Laughter.)
15 MR. ESH: I think the answer to that, how 16 it turned out is they collected some more data on the 17 geochemistry, which is reflected in something called 18 the distribution coefficient. It's partitioning of 19 the radioactivity in the solid media compared to 20 water.
21 And that new science allowed them to 22 justify that the absorption or the distribution 23 coefficient was going to be much higher than 24 previously anticipated and therefore it took care of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
92 the problem. But your comment on 94 generically is 1
well warranted as a proxy for --
2 MEMBER PETTI: Yes.
3 MR. ESH: -- proxy for any impurity that 4
could be enhanced through some process.
5 So let's step into the next slide then.
6 MEMBER ROBERTS: While you're on that 7
slide.
8 MR. ESH: Yes.
9 MEMBER ROBERTS: Can you explain the 10 difference between peak dose and performance period?
11 They seem like the same thing.
12 MR. ESH: Okay. So the peak dose is a 13 concept where you just run your analyses for as long 14 as necessary to identify when the peak occurs and see 15 how big it is. And that's what you compare to your 16 standard.
17 That is the regulatory easy approach, 18 okay? I wouldn't necessarily say it's risk-informed 19 or there can be unattended consequences with that 20 approach. One of them being, for instance, in the 21 U.S. a commercial entity can choose any location that 22 they can own the land and justify it meets the 23 characteristics to locate a disposal facility.
24 So if you're in the camp that the long-25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
93 term analyses are too uncertain or very expensive to 1
implement, if you're a implementer or a potential 2
disposal facility, you would necessarily, under a peak 3
dose standard I believe, choose a location that has a 4
- shorter, a
shorter time of arrival for the 5
radioactivity released from the system.
6 In your view it would be less expensive to 7
justify, right? But from a societal standpoint you do 8
want it to be as long as possible. You want it, you 9
know, the longer the better, right, for the time for 10 the radioactivity to reach people. So you have those 11 sorts of effects with implementing a peak dose 12 approach which in a practical world get complicated.
13 In the scientific world by far that's the 14 easiest, right? You just say, okay. And that's 15 what's done in Texas. They're regulation, our 16 agreement state, the agreement state regulator there, 17 their standard is a thousand years or peak dose, 18 whichever is bigger. Okay?
19 So they did license the disposal of large 20 quantities of depleted uranium in Texas, and their 21 peak dose was at about one million years. So they ran 22 the technical assessment, the licensee ran the 23 technical assessment out to one million years, and 24 that's what their regulator, the regulatory agency, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
94 the TCQ, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality 1
evaluated, and that's what they based their decision 2
on.
3 MEMBER ROBERTS: But in that, what 4
performance period is getting at? I've read the FRN, 5
I assume. It was more of a qualitative standard as 6
opposed to a quantitative standard.
7 MR. ESH: Oh, okay. Yes, yes.
8 MEMBER ROBERTS: You --
9 (Simultaneously Speaking.)
10 MR. ESH: Right.
11 MEMBER ROBERTS: -- if you do a 12 calculation out to a peak dose to make sure you 13 understood it.
14 MR. ESH: Yes.
15 (Simultaneously Speaking.)
16 MR. ESH: So the performance period is the 17 time after 10,000 years. And it could involve going 18 out to peak dose if you choose to use a peak dose 19 standard for that period. Or if you choose to 20 consider peak dose in that time frame.
21 But the way that's written, is it's 22 written in a flexible way that you don't necessarily 23 have to do that, right? So you can justify that 24 you've reduced the releases to the extent practical 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
95 for that time frame without necessarily being 1
obligated to calculate a peak dose.
2 You could calculate something else too 3
like a flux. A flux rate for instance and compare 4
that. So I think it affords a lot of flexibility for 5
those time frames.
6 If I was the licensee and I was faced with 7
that, I would just calculate the peak dose and make 8
the justification for all my sciences there to support 9
it. And if it's potentially bigger than my compliance 10 period standard, I'd make an argument for why that was 11 appropriate, you know. Or why the amount that I put 12 in to make the value what it is, is appropriate. Like 13 it's too expensive to do anything more in my 14 calculations.
15 MEMBER ROBERTS: So if the licensee 16 doesn't go to peak dose they have to show that the 17 release has reached some sort of a steady state value 18 that won't get worse over time, is that what you said?
19 MR. ESH: I don't know that the releases 20 are a steady state, but just basically like, if you 21 put in a certain amount of money to design your 22 system, characterize it, select your site, evaluate 23 the geology, what more could you do to improve the 24 performance?
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
96 So you might look at alternatives. Like 1
for instance, if you do minimal waste conditioning and 2
you run a calculation and you say the result is X, and 3
if I implement higher waste conditioning how does it 4
change it, right? Does it make it go lower, higher, 5
whatever.
6 The kind of a one at a time sensitivity 7
analysis perhaps. I think that would be --
8 (Simultaneously Speaking.)
9 MS. MAUPIN: I think here is that you have 10 to remember that your performance investment is a 11 living document, it's a living system. If you change, 12 like we're coming up with some things where it's going 13 to be dependent upon the waste that you put in there, 14 so then you might need to go back and reassess. Do 15 another performance assessment based on those types of 16 changes.
17 I just distinctly remember, you don't put 18 it on the back in that, in the back closet on the 19 shelf hidden away, you need to keep that as a living 20 document or a living procedure.
21 MR. ESH: The short answer to your 22 question, I think, is that the peak dose standard 23 would apply a dose limit regardless of the time 24 whereas the performance period standard is not 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
97 applying a dose limit. So you still might do long-1 term calculations, but you're going to apply a 2
different standard to the result of those 3
calculations.
4 MEMBER ROBERTS: Yes, thanks. That's the 5
way I read it. Thinking back to the history of 10 CFR 6
63, Yucca Mountain where they got a peak dose 7
remaining year period added, you know, later and just 8
kind of a change to the overall approach based on a 9
difference of opinion of how you would treat the time 10 period they got going out to peak dose.
11 I just have one other question. Again, 12 thinking of the Yucca Mountain experience. There was 13 some features, events and processes that were 14 terminated or truncated to 10,000 years even though 15 the overall TSPA went out to a million years. Is 16 there anything like that here or you have to trace all 17 FEPs out to the time period regardless of whether or 18 not, you know, you got analysis up just to 10,000 19 years?
20 MR. ESH: Yes. So that's a good question.
21 And we do have a very lengthy guidance section on 22 features, events and processes and development of 23 scenarios and different types of scenarios and how you 24 would incorporate scenarios at different probability 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
98 in the evaluation.
1 And so, depending on your site and your 2
design you could have new FEPs that are important at 3
longer time frames. But for the most part, I believe 4
our guidance says that the FEPs that you develop for 5
your 1,000 and 10,000 year assessment are generally 6
going to be suitable to implement in those longer 7
calculations. So you might have unique circumstances 8
where something would come in at that, a very long 9
time, but for the most part if you do a thorough 10 evaluation of your FEPs for those other time frames it 11 will apply to the longer time.
12 MEMBER ROBERTS: It seems like engineer 13 barriers, like your metal containment boundaries would 14 be ones that you would be concerned about because 15 sometimes you get to 10,000 years and your corrosion 16 models are getting to a million years. You probably 17 don't have any materials in the world that you could 18 demonstrate are good to a million years.
19 MR. ESH: Perhaps at Yucca Mountain their 20 C-22 or titanium scientists would argue with you, but 21 yes, I generally agree with you that their experience 22 base is necessarily limited unless you look at 23 meteorites as analogues I think. So.
24 And low-level waste disposal generally 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
99 limited metallic barriers are used in the designs.
1 And limited amounts of credit are applied to them.
2 To date in the U.S. they just don't use 3
metallic barriers or credit them in the analysis. But 4
the generic point is well founded. You know, there 5
are certain things that you could justify for a 6
thousand or 10,000 years might be more difficult for 7
longer.
8 And that's what we're looking for is like, 9
a commonsense evaluation of, what do you expect to 10 happen and what does it look like. And can you do 11 anything about it. That's what the performance period 12 is about I think.
13 MEMBER ROBERTS: Okay, thank you.
14 MR. ESH: So we carefully examined the 15 comments on this by the ACRS and others. We had lots 16 of comments. One of the primary considerations is the 17 current practices by the agreement states because all 18 these facilities are in agreement states regulated by 19 agreement state regulators and they are the ones that 20 have to justify for the people living near these 21 facilities that aren't necessarily all that close but 22 in these environments why it's appropriate to license 23 and operate this facility.
24 So we do feel that something you may not 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
100 be familiar with, perhaps you are, the compatibility 1
class of the regulations that determines, and Cardelia 2
is our expert on this, whether the requirements have 3
to be implemented exactly, whether the agreement state 4
can be more restrictive, or whether the agreement 5
state doesn't really even have to implement that 6
requirement.
7 There is various classes and I'm sure 8
Cardelia can give you a dissertation on it if you want 9
it, but that's the gist of it for, you know, my 10 engineering viewpoint.
11 So the compatibility class for the 12 timeframes in the agreement states, we heard this 13 feedback very loud and clear from them in the last 14 iteration, is they want to be able to preserve what 15 they are doing or be more restrictive than what the 16 NRC prescribes.
17 So from a high-level standpoint, you know, 18 if we said a thousand years for everything or ten 19 thousand years for everything, the agreement states 20 are still going to implement what they want to 21 implement anyway, right.
22 So I don't know how -- I know a lot of 23 attention has been given to it, but from a practical 24 standpoint what does it impact and at the end I don't 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
101 see it.
1 We have considered what is done 2
internationally and in the U.S. Some of the previous 3
commenters have asserted that what we proposed is not 4
consistent with international practice and I think 5
I'll show you in a few slides it generally is at least 6
now.
7 So let's go to the next slide. Something 8
we talked
- about, I
think Dennis mentioned, 9
uncertainties in society and environmental conditions 10 will increase over time.
11 This regulatory approval process to allow 12 disposal, it need to evaluate the impacts considering 13 uncertainty and stop the analysis. So I am not aware 14 of a nuclear safety, a case where you say the 15 uncertainties are so large, therefore, let's reduce 16 the requirements or let's take action not knowing what 17 will happen. I don't think that's the way the process 18 works.
19 I think if uncertainties are large you do 20 something to mitigate the uncertainties and as I 21 described what is generally done internationally is 22 you put the waste deeper.
23 If you think there is too much uncertainty 24 with near-surface disposal then you go to a different 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
102 disposal technology to mitigate the uncertainties.
1 It's plain and simple as that.
2 That is what is done in Germany. They 3
require deep geologic disposal. Almost all of the 4
international programs they place some restriction on 5
long-lived radionuclides appropriate for near-surface 6
disposal. Generally that value is at NRC's Class A 7
values.
8 Now you can debate, have a lengthy debate 9
about why that is. It could be that NRC's values came 10 out before many of these other requirements and they 11 copied them, it could be that they were derived 12 independently and they ended up at similar values.
13 You know, it would be an interesting 14 project to see where those values came from, but they 15 are generally all around that value. So when I talked 16 about this and presented it over at Disponet in the 17 U.K., even some of the international operators were a 18 little taken aback with like what NRC or the U.S. was 19 doing and that they said, well, we wouldn't allow 20 near-surface disposal of GTCC. They call that 21 intermediate level waste.
22 An intermediate level waste goes a hundred 23 plus meters in the ground. So we are pushing the 24 limits of what is appropriate, but when I talk with 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
103 them about it and say well where did you get your 1
limits from for, you know, where your boundary is 2
between low-level waste and intermediate-level waste 3
and they'd say, oh, well, it's to however many 4
becquerels per gram or kilobecquerels per kilogram or, 5
you know, whatever units they use, and I'd say, okay, 6
that's basically our Class A limit and that comes from 7
an excavation scenario where somebody is digging up 8
two meters of waste and spreading it around the land 9
surface at 100 years and you're talking about a 10 facility where your waste is 20 meters deep, it's 11 embedded in concrete with steel on top of it, you 12 know, so, yeah, you might say you're a little taken 13 aback by that we would allow near-surface disposal of 14 GTCC waste, but as Tim will talk about, there is other 15 requirements that get put in place to ensure that the 16 scenario is not an excavation scenario where somebody 17 could dig it up at a hundred years and spread it 18 around the surface.
19 So that's where I think it can get 20 appropriate and our requirements that we have 21 developed I think are smart and flexible and they are 22 going to work pretty well if we get to the point of 23 actually implementing.
24 You can use design requirements, so you 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
104 could say if I am worried about radon from depleted 1
uranium require a 10-meter disposal depth, you know.
2 Even in an arid location usually there is enough 3
moisture in the subsurface that is going to greatly 4
reduce the radon flux with ten meters of cover.
5 It's a
simple
- solution, a
simple 6
engineered solution, if you think that there is 7
problems with the long-term analysis.
8 Next slide, please. So this is another 9
dot plot that I developed. As I indicated there was 10 an awful of effort to develop this. I am going to 11 spend a few minutes on it because there is a lot going 12 on here.
13 First and foremost you can see that all 14 the dots kind of trend from lower left to upper right, 15 so as you are dealing with more concentrated waste, 16 and this long-lived alpha, so it's uranium, plutonium, 17 americium, I believe.
18 It's not the whole list of radionuclides 19 because as I dug through those, you know, 30,000 plus 20 pages of reports, it's hard to find this information.
21 So some facilities might have a list of their total 22 inventory, you know, 79 radionuclides, some might have 23 three, some might just saw how many total curies they 24 have, all right.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
105 So it's all over the board, but we took 1
all the ones that we could find in all these reports 2
and plotted it just to say, okay, what's going on.
3 So on the "x" axis is either the 4
compliance period, if it has identified that, or the 5
time evaluated in their assessment, that post-closure 6
safety assessment, and what you see here is that 7
throughout the world they are using very long-term 8
assessments to make these decisions.
9 So when people say, well, if NRC proposed 10 anything more than a thousand we're inconsistent with 11 international practice, I would say, no, international 12 practice is they are analyzing a lot longer timeframes 13 for a lot less concentrated waste.
14 Our GTCC is going to be falling above that 15 black line and potentially approaching those two green 16 squares up at the top that are WIPP for contact 17 handled and remote handled transuranic waste.
18 So you can have a lot of long-lived alpha 19 that might be present in some of this greater than 20 Class C waste, what's the appropriate way to analyze 21 it, how do you determine if it's appropriate to go in 22 the near-surface or not.
23 I think it's appropriate to do a long term 24 analyses, see what the impacts are, and then you know 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
106 is it appropriate for the near-surface or not. If 1
it's not you have other choices for what you can do 2
with it. You don't have to put it in a shallow 3
trench. So that's one point.
4 Second, you see the green dots there, 5
those are Department of Energy. They gave us some 6
good comments on this figure. One of the points they 7
expressed was like even for their low-level waste 8
points there that are found at a thousand, that's 9
their compliance period, but then they do a longer 10 term evaluation even though they use a thousand year 11 compliance period.
12 The reason that works for them is they are 13 both the licensee and the regulator in those problems.
14 They can look at the results that come in after a 15 thousand years and they can say you need to change, 16 you know, the waste that you can accept, how you are 17 disposing of it, they can basically implement changes 18 based on those results.
19 In our system, if we don't have a 20 requirement for what somebody needs to do or how they 21 do it say after the thousand-year period then we can't 22 require them to do anything.
23 So they could generate any number after a 24 thousand years and we wouldn't be able to say, well, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
107 you need to do something about it. In these sorts of 1
problems and systems many times there are delays and 2
lags in the impacts due to transport through the 3
environment, erosion of a metallic barrier, also 4
there's a dynamic system effects that come in that in 5
most of the modern systems the impacts are not even 6
realized in a thousand years.
7 Maybe tritium shows up, you know, possibly 8
strontium, those are two of the earlier ones. Cesium 9
in most of these systems doesn't make it out of the 10 system even, it all decays during transport.
11 It's the iodine, technetium, iodine-129, 12 technetium-99, carbon-14, they show up. Uranium 13 starts showing up usually after a thousand years, and 14 then things like plutonium, americium, thorium, those 15 sorts of isotopes are usually way out in time and 16 usually pretty minimal impacts in low-level waste 17 because there is not a lot of those isotopes present.
18 The open circles there in red, those are 19 the U.S. low-level waste facilities that are closed 20 and had to undergo remediation. Those are plotted as 21 having a compliance period of time evaluated but they 22 really don't.
23 It's a log scale, so they really shouldn't 24 even be on the figure because I didn't do technical 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
108 analyses for those facilities. I just put them on 1
there to kind of give some more data points in terms 2
of the concentrations, but the time presentation of 3
those is kind of wonky.
4 The red ones there are the commercial 5
facilities, you see there is four of them. The 6
original analysis in Utah used a compliance period of 7
500 years.
8 They are undergoing an evaluation right 9
now to accept large quantities of depleted uranium 10 disposal and they implemented a requirement that's 11 very similar to what we are proposing, which is a 12 10,000-year compliance period followed by something I 13 think they refer to as a deep time evaluation, but 14 basically a two-step evaluation analogous to what we 15 are proposing in this regulation.
16 Let's see. The red dot on 100,000 years, 17 that is the site in Washington, U.S. Ecology site.
18 They did a 10,000 year evaluation but then out through 19 100,000 years in their Environmental Impact Statement.
20 The red dot on the far side is the Texas 21 facility, WCS in Texas. Let's see, anything else on 22 this. That's probably it.
23 I think basically to me, I put this 24 information together after we came up with our 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
109 proposed approach in this rulemaking because I wanted 1
to see, okay, how much merit there was to those 2
comments that were being inconsistent either within 3
the U.S. or with the international community.
4 To me it says that what we are proposing, 5
which is kind of highlighted by the green area, it 6
overlaps a lot of the dots, so we are being consistent 7
with what is done internationally. That's probably it 8
for that one.
9 My last one, and then you get somebody new 10 and I think you're all going to applaud, is the 11 similar chart for long-lived mobile radionuclides.
12 This one is a little interesting and that one point I 13 would make is that you see almost all the facilities 14 in the world, the fraction of the Class A limits is 15 below 0.1.
16 So at a tenth of the Class A limits that's 17 the concentration of technetium, iodine, carbon-14, 18 and those are the drivers.
Even at those 19 concentrations those are the drivers for the offsite 20 doses for many of these facilities, okay.
21 So it doesn't take a lot of those. That 22 was a previous discussion we had about impurities, you 23 get the wrong impurities in there and you can have 24 quite a challenge, so those impurities at those 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
110 concentrations create a bit of a challenge.
1 You will see in some of the international 2
waste that they call low-level waste they have very 3
low amounts of those radionuclides and they are doing 4
very long assessments for those low concentrations, 5
which if you do a peak dose approach it could lead you 6
to that, right, and so is it productive if you 7
estimate, you know, 1/100,000 of a millirem or a 8
millisievert at, you know, 100,000 years in the 9
future, is that a good use of resources and money to 10 be performing that sort of assessment.
11 I would say no. I think our approach 12 would allow somebody to avoid that, but a peak dose 13 approach it could get you into that sort of 14 assessment.
15 I think that's it for me. We'll be moving 16 to Tim next. There are probably some questions now 17 and then again at the end, I guess.
18 MR. MCCARTIN: Okay. I am Tim McCartin if 19 there are no further questions for Dave at this time.
20 I was just going to talk, I have a few slides to talk 21 to some of the things we are doing in the rule to 22 account for some of the characteristics of GTCC waste 23 and recognizing that some of the concentrations and 24 quantities of long-lived radionuclides in some 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
111 specific radionuclides we wanted to point out specific 1
aspects of GTCC waste that would need to be addressed.
2 First, in terms of the near-surface 3
disposal and intruder protection, the current rule 4
requires for Class C waste to be either five meters 5
depth or an intruder barrier.
6 For greater than Class C waste we are 7
requiring both. It needs to be at least five meters 8
depth and an intruder barrier that is required to last 9
for 500 years, and that's to help decay some of the 10 material that is there.
11 Additionally, we noticed in looking at 12 some of the waste streams in DOE's EIS for greater 13 than Class C waste there are some streams that have a 14 potential for a very high concentration of certain 15 long-live radionuclides.
16 We are putting a limit at 10,000 17 nanocuries per gram as a threshold, that it's not 18 excluded from near-surface disposal, but if you have 19 concentrations at that level it would be decided on a 20 case-by-case basis by the Commission, so just it's 21 getting up there with pretty high concentration.
22 Additionally, there are certain 23 characteristics of the waste that would not have been 24 considered for Class A, B, and C waste previously in 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
112 any significant way, but we looked at you need to 1
consider the heat generation of some of these waste 2
streams, depending on the nuclides, and radiolysis 3
potential effects on the engineered barriers in some 4
of the environment of the disposal facility, 5
criticality, and non-dispersibility, and that's really 6
for the operational phase.
7 As Dave mentioned earlier, fires is a big 8
problem, dropping a container, and some of these waste 9
streams have a sufficient amount of plutonium that --
10 You really don't want to see a lot of plutonium get 11 released into the air, so we have some of these 12 considerations that need to be considered.
13 On the next slide I want to talk to there 14 is -- My next two slides are specific aspects that 15 currently are in Part 61 and there is a requirement 16 for demonstrating criticality safety procedures for 17 preventing accidents during operations.
18 Unfortunately, the regulation Part 61 has 19 no consideration for the concentration of the fissile 20 material, and so we're proposing to put in an 21 exemption for waste with very dilute concentrations of 22 fissile material.
23 This material, despite the amount of 24 fissile material there, it's in a concentration that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
113 there really is no credible means for having a 1
criticality accident so we would exempt material of 2
that waste concentration from the need to have 3
procedures for protecting against a criticality 4
accident.
5 Now that's one side that makes it a little 6
more flexible. The other part though is that there is 7
the potential for fairly, even at some of the 8
concentrations, a fair amount of fissile material in 9
a disposal unit, we're talking hundreds of kilograms 10 of fissile material.
11 So we have added in a particular 12 requirement that depending on the amount of fissile 13 material you have in a disposal unit they need to 14 identify the design measures that are being employed 15 to prevent a re-concentration of that fissile material 16 in the future and a possibility for a criticality 17 event. Yes?
18 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: The form of material, 19 you have U-235.
20 MR. MCCARTIN: Yes.
21 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: But there is no way 22 you can make it go critical really, it takes a lot of 23 effort, but you have plutonium that can be separated 24 chemically and concentrated in a location because if 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
114 1
MR. MCCARTIN: And this would be part of 2
their consideration that they would have to explain, 3
that it would depend on the form of the material and 4
5 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: As part of using it.
6 MR. MCCARTIN: Right, yes. And you could 7
make an argument, gee, this isn't going to separate, 8
it's not going to -- But there are some fairly high 9
masses of plutonium, you know, on the order of a 10 couple hundred kilograms, and if that's in a single 11 disposal unit you would at least want to consider what 12 might happen in terms of re-concentration --
13 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: -- in optimal 14 moderation condition. I think 300 oz of plutonium are 15 critical. It's a very small amount.
16 MR. MCCARTIN: Right. Right.
17 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA:
In optimal 18 moderation.
19 MR. MCCARTIN: Right. And that's why if 20 you now are disposing of a couple hundred kilograms at 21 least look at this problem and make sure that you have 22 designed it in a way that you are limiting the 23 possible concentration, and that's gets to -- Some 24 disposal units will have drains.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
115 Well if you have -- You know, maybe that's 1
not the best situation. It's a consideration that 2
depending on what you are disposing of and the form 3
then it needs to be considered.
4 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Yeah, I would find it 5
amazing, but gold mines, the gold has to be 6
concentrated over millions of years but it all goes to 7
the same place, so we have to prevent that, or at 8
least that.
9 MR. MCCARTIN: Yeah. Next slide. Also 10 with physical protection the current requirements in 11 Part 61 as in 150.14 for receiving special nuclear 12 material.
13 It requires a, it falls under a Part 73 14 requirement, which is common defense and security that 15 is enforced by the NRC, which for an agreement state 16 that is not under their purview to implement.
17 So we looked at some of the waste streams 18 and depending on the attractiveness of this material 19 for theft and diversion, consistent with other 20 exemptions that are provided in 73.67, which is the 21 security requirements for a fixed site, we are 22 providing a concentration limit that if you are below 23 a certain concentration of special nuclear material 24 you do not have to apply the physical protection 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
116 requirements of Part 73, and so giving a little more 1
flexibility and making sure that basically the 2
physical protection requirements are commensurate with 3
the threat and the attractiveness of the waste.
4 Regardless of the exemptions in Part 73 5
there still would be physical protection requirements 6
under Parts 20 and 37 that the agreement states do 7
implement, but once again it's looking at some of this 8
waste.
9 Yes, you will trip the threshold for 10 physical protection requirements, which is 15 grams, 11 which is not a lot, but the concentration is such that 12 it would be very -- You would have to divert a large 13 volume and then process it.
14 This waste really has been already 15 processed to get out all of the special nuclear 16 material you could, and so the threat is not there and 17 we have provided that basis for our thinking in the 18 Federal Register Notice and we'll be certainly 19 interested in the public comments we get on that.
20 Those are the two considerations that 21 you'll see changes in the rule to address some unique 22 aspects of the greater than Class C waste. If there 23 aren't any questions I believe Priya is next.
24 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: It's the isotope.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
117 It's not depleted uranium, is it? GTCC -- Is depleted 1
uranium or GTCC greater than Class C, depleted uranium 2
is not.
3 MR. MCCARTIN: I'm not sure -- Well, okay, 4
yeah.
5 MR. ESH: So uranium is -- This is David 6
Esh. Uranium is not in the Table 1 and Table 2 of our 7
regulations, so it falls to 61.55(a)(6) that any 8
isotopes that aren't in the table are Class A by 9
default, so depleted uranium is Class A by default.
10 GTCC isotopes can be any of the isotopes 11 that are above the Class C concentrations reflected in 12 Table 1 and Table 2. So you could have cesium GTCC, 13 you could have plutonium isotopes, the long-lived 14 transuranic GTCC.
15 Anything that is above the C values in 16 those tables would --- that's how it works.
17 MS. YADAV: Okay. All right, if there is 18 no further questions then I have about six more slides 19 and some of the points Dave has covered so we can go 20 through them pretty quickly.
21 I will have to apologize, I can't see 22 online, we can't see in the room, so if you have any 23 questions in the room just go ahead and, you know, 24 stop me and, you know, one of my colleagues can stop 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
118 me from talking also and we can stop for questions, 1
and online I should be able to see any hands that go 2
up.
3 So my name is Priya Yadav. I have been 4
working with Dave actually on Part 61 issues since 5
2008. We've seen many ups and downs over the years 6
and we have come to brief you guys often, so thanks 7
for inviting us back.
8 So first I'll talk about waste acceptance.
9 So we are envisioning with this rulemaking to allow 10 licenses the flexibility to develop site-specific 11 waste acceptance criteria.
12 This is a topic that was addressed, given 13 to us in one of the SRMs along the years and our 14 approach is similar to what we had in SECY-16-0106.
15 So the licensee -- Well, the Waste 16 Acceptance Program would have three components. The 17 licensee would specify the criteria, which is the 18 allowable activities in concentrations for each 19 radionuclide for disposal, they would specify the 20 waste characterization methods and then also have a 21 certification program to ensure that the waste to 22 certify that the waste when it arrives at the disposal 23 facility meets the waste acceptance criteria.
24 We envision licensees could either have 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
119 generic criteria, which would use the limits that are 1
currently in 61.55 and the waste characteristic 2
requirements in 61.56 or they could use their results 3
of their 61.13 technical analyses to develop site-4 specific waste acceptance criteria, and those analyses 5
are the ones that Dave just ran through.
6 Licensees would review their programs 7
annually and they would approach their regulators with 8
their criteria and if approved the waste acceptance 9
criteria would be incorporated into their license.
10 Now for shipping waste generators would 11 still be using the classification system in 61.55, so 12 they would still be shipping waste according to the 13 ABC greater than Class C classification system, and 14 those limits will not be changing during this 15 rulemaking.
16 Next slide, please. Okay, so a new area 17 that we have received in this rulemaking is the 18 concept of grandfathering, and this one of the 19 recommendations that the ACRS had in their 2016 letter 20 to the Commission, so I just wanted to touch on what 21 our approach is on this.
22 We are not using the term "grandfathering" 23 because there is some sensitivities with that term, so 24 we have developed the term "exception criteria." The 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
120 SRM on SECY-16-0106 directed us basically to allow for 1
an exception and they used the term "grandfathering" 2
for existing facilities who have indicated that they 3
do not want to dispose of large quantities of depleted 4
5 So to address this we are considering 6
including language in the purpose and scope section of 7
Part 61. To 61(1)(b) we would have some exception 8
criteria and those would be if the land disposal 9
facility license was originally issued before the 10 effective date of this rulemaking and the licensee 11 does not accept greater than Class C or a significant 12 quantity of long-live radionuclides after the 13 rulemaking those licensees that meet the exception 14 criteria do not need to comply with certain of the 15 revised requirements that we have kind of discussed in 16 this presentation.
17 So the main ones we see are the revised 18 technical analyses requirements. So all five of the 19 technical analyses that Dave has run through for the 20 performance assessment and trigger assessment, all of 21 those technical analyses.
22 In addition, they would not need to comply 23 with the revised performance objectives located in 24 61.41 and 61.42 and those two reference the compliance 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
121 period and 61.42 references the intruder dose limit of 1
500 millirem, and they would not need to comply with 2
the waste acceptance criteria that I just discussed.
3 Instead of complying with the revised 4
requirements, these accepted licensees would continue 5
to comply with the original Part 61 regulations for 6
these sections.
7 Okay, next slide. So Dave touched on kind 8
of significant quantities and we had a question on 9
that. We are planning to include a definition in the 10 rule to kind of help define what we mean by 11 "significant quantities" and that would be, you know, 12 an amount and concentration accepted for disposal that 13 if it was released could result in the performance 14 objectives not being met.
15 So that is the definition that we plan to 16 include in the rule, of course there would still be 17 calculations, site-specific calculations need to be 18 done based on, you know, specifically what is being 19 disposed and the disposal facility.
20 The amount of significant quantities would 21 be the amount that would be used to select the 22 compliance period. So if you don't have specific 23 quantities of long-live radionuclides 1,000 years may 24 be acceptable as your compliance period and if you do 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
122 10,000 years would be necessary followed by the 1
performance period.
2 It would also be the amount for 3
demonstrating meeting the exception criteria. So if 4
you are not disposing of the significant quantities of 5
long-live radionuclides then maybe you meet the 6
exception criteria.
7 So, okay, it would be a site-specific 8
calculation, but for purposes of this paragraph the 9
Staff has done work in SECY-08-0147 that has concluded 10 that up to ten metric tons of depleted uranium was 11 acceptable for disposal in the near surface.
12 So for purposes of this paragraph we are 13 considering including that less than ten metric tons 14 of DU is not considered a significant quantity.
15 Next slide, please. So as we mentioned 16 the calculations would have to be performed on, you 17 know, a site-specific basis depending on the specifics 18 of the disposal and the specifics of the waste stream.
19 These amounts would have to be reviewed by 20 the regulators and then they, the licensee and the 21 regulator, would come to agreement on whether or not 22 the exception criteria can be used and which 23 compliance period to use.
24 We do have example approaches in our NUREG 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
123 and, you know, a table of screening values that could 1
be used.
2 Next slide, please. Again, as Dave 3
mentioned, we are considering in this rulemaking 4
having adding a minimum depth of disposal for 5
significant quantities of uranium.
6 So because the decay of uranium can, you 7
know, produce radon that diffuses to the land surface, 8
as Dave mentioned earlier, even ten meters might be 9
appropriate depending on the quantities of uranium, so 10 we are considering for this rulemaking to include in 11 61.52 that significant quantities must be disposed so 12 that the top of the waste is a minimum of five meters 13 below the surface cover.
14 Okay. The next slide is about the 15 guidance which we also talked about. Between Derek 16 and George and I we will figure out how we can get the 17 guidance to you and what form and, you know, it's 18 definitely available for you to review and I also have 19 like a transmittal letter that has been following it 20 along and concurrence that identifies kind of the key 21 sections for you to review.
22 Chapter 1 would be the most important. It 23 gives an overview of the guidance and the regulation 24 and it kind of like steps through all of the changes, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
124 and then the appendices, each one for GTCC and one for 1
how to calculate significant quantities.
2 That's the last slide I have. Are there 3
any questions?
4 (No audible response.)
5 MS. YADAV: No, okay. Well then George 6
will take it away with some updates on the schedule.
7 MR. TARTAL: Thanks, Priya. This slide 8
shows the next steps in the rulemaking process and 9
where we are currently at. We have been developing 10 this proposed this over about the last year or so.
11 We held a public meeting in May of this 12 year and we have another one scheduled that we are 13 going to have in January of next year. We have been 14 presenting on this topic to a number of different 15 public audiences in public and non-public audiences 16 over the past year.
17 We plan to submit the proposed rule and 18 guidance to the Commission by May of next year, as 19 Steve mentioned in his opening remarks.
20 You see here from the pictorial that the 21 guidance has been following along with the rulemaking 22 and you see some very similar steps between the 23 rulemaking and the guidance, and so we plan to issue 24 draft guidance along with the proposed rule and final 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
125 guidance along with the final rule.
1 Any questions on the rulemaking process or 2
next steps?
3 MR. SCHULTZ: George, just one question, 4
and Cardelia brought it up earlier, that there have 5
been a number, and you just said, there has been a 6
number of interactions with the public associated with 7
where things are going.
8 In the information that we have received 9
associated with the public comments we haven't gotten 10 a lot of information about where things, what those 11 comments have been, except the number of public 12 comments, and I know some of those came in a bunch and 13 others came individually from various stakeholders.
14 MR. TARTAL: Sure. So let me address your 15 question. So I think the answer is, number one, some 16 of the public comments that we have addressed have 17 been dealt with along the first path.
18 If you remember Cardelia talked about the 19 two trains that are going on parallel paths, the first 20 train that was going along the path of the Part 61 21 rulemaking we had a number of public comments that 22 came in as part of the proposed rule and we resolved 23 those comments and we published a draft final rule and 24 sent that to the Commission.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
126 So there is a number of comments involved 1
in that part of it and then on the GTCC we did a draft 2
regulatory basis, we talked about that as well. We 3
got a bunch of comments on that.
4 In the proposed rule that you reviewed we 5
have a section talking about the comments that we got 6
in there as well as well as an ADAMS link over to the 7
public comment document that gives you kind of an 8
analysis, if you will, of the different comments that 9
we got on the GTCC reg basis.
10 So they are kind of scattered in different 11 places, if you will, but now that we are back into a 12 new proposed rule, so now we are kind of taking on a 13 new phase of public comments, if you will.
14 MR. SCHULTZ: Yes. And you've got in the 15 Federal Register Notice, and you've got it in your 16 schedule here, another public comment period, and in 17 the notice you've got some fairly interesting requests 18 for comments for the public to consider.
19 MR. TARTAL: Mm-hmm.
20 MR. SCHULTZ: A number of areas that you 21 are looking for feedback information.
22 MR. TARTAL: Mm-hmm, yes.
23 MR. SCHULTZ: Then what happens? Are you 24 going to be able to perhaps react to those, integrate 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
127 those into the process, in what will seem to be I 1
think a short period of time before everything is 2
finalized?
3 MR. TARTAL: Well in terms of period of 4
time I think that kind of depends on the kinds of 5
comments that we get, right. In any rulemaking you 6
can get one comment or 10,000 comments.
7 MR. SCHULTZ: Right.
8 MR. TARTAL: You could get comments that 9
are relatively easy to resolve and comments that are 10 really difficult to resolve. Some comments might 11 require you to go back and do further analyses or 12 significant revisions to the rule.
13 There is a lot of possibilities based on 14 what you receive in public comment. We react to them 15 accordingly. We deal with what we get. I know that's 16 kind of a very high-level answer to your question, but 17 that's probably the best one I can give you is we'll 18 react to whatever comments that we get and address 19 them in the final rule if that is the appropriate 20 thing to do.
21 MR. SCHULTZ: Yeah. The Notice also 22 demonstrated the number of different venues in which 23 you've sought public comments and that's been good and 24 that's been over time but also fairly recently you've 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
128 done a lot of work in --
1 (Simultaneous speaking.)
2 MR. TARTAL: Yes. We have been seeking 3
feedback in a lot of different venues like that. It 4
helps to inform and reinforce what we are doing.
5 MR. SCHULTZ: Good. Thank you.
6 MR. TARTAL: Other questions?
7 (No audible response.)
8 MR. TARTAL: Thank you. Chair, I turn it 9
back to you.
10 CHAIR BALLINGER: Questions? Other 11 questions from members or our members that are online 12 just to be sure we have an opportunity?
13 (No audible response.)
14 CHAIR BALLINGER: Well, hearing none, now 15 we need to go out for public comments. If there are 16 members of the public that would like to make a 17 comment please state your name and make your comment.
18 (Pause.)
19 CHAIR BALLINGER: Hearing none. There's 20 one? Uh-oh, what did I do.
21 PARTICIPANT: It's a hand up.
22 CHAIR BALLINGER: Oh, there is a hand up.
23 Number -- Whatever --
24 (Simultaneous speaking.)
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
129 CHAIR BALLINGER: Okay, please state your 1
name and make your comment.
2 (Pause.)
3 CHAIR BALLINGER: Fifty-eight is --
4 PARTICIPANT: I think you are muted, Dan.
5 (Pause.)
6 CHAIR BALLINGER: I think we don't have 7
somebody there.
8 (Simultaneous speaking.)
9 CHAIR BALLINGER: It will be Bobby 10 Janecka. Are you out there? Your hand is up if you 11 would like to --
12 MR. JANECKA: Hi, there. Yes, Bobby 13 Janecka here speaking. I just wanted to ask one 14 comment or suggestion. I appreciated Dave Esh's 15 portion of the presentation earlier and heard his 16 suggestion of going to join the RAMP website to get a 17 better idea of plugging things into GoldSim.
18 I am down in the State of Texas, by the 19 way. Bobby Janecka, Texas Commission on Environmental 20 Quality. We have relied on the use of GoldSim for 21 some of the license review that we have done from our 22 agency.
23 So I immediately perked up my ears and I 24 noticed that there is no clear opportunity there 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
130 through RAMP to join as a member of the public, just 1
a member of a non-profit or an advocacy organization 2
who may be curious and interested about this topic and 3
want to kick the tires themselves.
4 So for what it is worth I thought I would 5
offer the suggestion that you all might visit with the 6
entity that makes this valuable tool available and 7
explore how that might be possible, just to suggest we 8
make things more transparent and more open to the 9
public and I appreciate you all taking the time to 10 explain this to this advisory committee and get into 11 this level of detail.
12 CHAIR BALLINGER: Thank you. Our DFO and 13 I am sure the presenters know who you are and they 14 will take care of that. I don't see any more hands.
15 No more hands.
16 (Off microphone comment.)
17 CHAIR BALLINGER: Now what? Oh, Janet 18 Schlueter.
19 MS. SCHLUETER: Yes.
20 CHAIR BALLINGER: Okay.
21 MS. SCHLUETER: Yes, it's Janet Schlueter 22 from NEI. I think Dan can't get off mute, but he 23 wanted to know if the Staff has set a date for the 24 January meeting, that would be most useful.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
131 Secondly, thanks to the Staff because this 1
briefing I think was more informative than the last 2
public meeting, so we look forward to the January 3
meeting.
4 CHAIR BALLINGER: Thank you. If I say no 5
more public comments another hand is going to go up, 6
so I won't.
7 MS. SCHLUETER: Does the Staff has a 8
January date?
9 CHAIR BALLINGER: They can get back to 10 you. We can't respond in this forum, but I am sure 11 they will.
12 Okay. We have a compliance period. No 13 more hands.
14 PARTICIPANT: Amen.
15 CHAIR BALLINGER: No more hands. Thank 16 you very much. It was a very informative -- Now for 17 purposes of going forward, Derek has got a list of 18 things that we need to have and the vehicle by which 19 we can get them and things like that.
20 So we have to have them in enough time 21 prior to the -- And there are some rules about that, 22 so hopefully those will work out.
23 If there are no other folks -- Well, I 24 should ask, are there people in the audience that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
132 would like to make a comment?
1 (No audible response.)
2 CHAIR BALLINGER: I am so used to this 3
being remote and everything nowadays. Okay. Thank 4
you very much for the presentation and we will see you 5
or somebody like you in February. We are adjourned.
6 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 7
off the record at 3:59 p.m.)
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
INTEGRATED LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL PROPOSED RULE ACRS Subcommittee Meeting December 5, 2023 Cardelia Maupin David Esh Tim McCartin Priya Yadav George Tartal
- Background
- Prior rulemaking efforts
- Safety case and technical assessments
- Timeframes (compliance period)
- GTCC waste considerations
- Waste acceptance
- Exception criteria and significant quantities
- Implementation guidance
- Next steps 2
Agenda
1982 Assumption Current Practice Waste hazard to inadvertent intruder duration
Class A and B: 100 years
Class C: 500 years Some defaulted Class A wastes are being disposed of in greater quantities than assumed and could cause hazards past these periods (e.g., Depleted Uranium (DU))
DU only commercially available in small quantities Private sector entities are operating enrichment facilities Average disposed waste concentration expected to be well below class limit Blended wastes create wastes much closer to class limit and may be disposed in large amounts together Greater-than-Class-C (GTCC) waste disposal in geologic repository or by Commission approval Considering near-surface disposal (in top 30 m) for certain GTCC waste streams Challenges to the Current Regulatory Framework in Part 61
Background
3
- LLW Disposal rulemaking to address waste streams that differ significantly in quantity and concentration from what Part 61 originally assumed
- SECY-16-0106 to the Commission as draft final rule
- Regulatory basis for the disposal of Greater-than-Class-C (GTCC) waste through means other than deep geological disposal (SRM-SECY-15-0094)
- In 2019 the NRC issued the draft regulatory basis for public comment
- The regulatory basis concluded that most of the GTCC waste streams are potentially suitable for near-surface disposal 4
Prior Rulemaking Efforts
5
- NRC staff recommended combining the Part 61 and GTCC efforts to address overlapping technical requirements, streamline stakeholder outreach, and gain efficiency in proceeding as one rulemaking activity (SECY-20-0098)
- Commission issued Staff Requirements Memorandum (SRM-SECY-20-0098) on April 5, 2022 Commission Direction
6 Integrated Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Rulemaking Site-Specific Analyses Consolidate and integrate criteria for GTCC and 10 CFR Part 61 rulemaking Conduct site-specific analyses for all waste streams including DU and GTCC waste Include graded approach for compliance period Include TRU waste in the definition of LLW Address physical protection and criticality concerns in GTCC waste streams Provide for Agreement State licensing of certain GTCC waste streams Integrating the LLW Rulemakings
- Safety Case Widely recognized internationally Original Part 61 has many elements Useful to stakeholders to better understand basis for decisions
- Technical Analyses (§ 61.13)
Performance assessment (not new - renamed)
Intruder assessment (new)
Site stability assessment (new for significant quantities of long-lived)
Operational safety assessment (for some types of GTCC waste)
Performance period analyses (for significant quantities of long-lived) 7 Safety Case and Technical Assessments
- A high-level summary of the information and analyses that support the demonstration that the land disposal facility will be constructed and operated safely - think executive summary.
- Provides reasonable assurance that the disposal site will be capable of isolating waste and limiting releases to the environment.
- Describes the strength and reliability of the technical analyses.
- Includes consideration of defense-in-depth protections and safety relevant aspects of the site, the facility design, and the managerial, engineering, regulatory, and institutional controls 8
Safety Case
9 Performance Assessment
- The technical analyses completed for existing sites for the potential impacts to an offsite member of the public are considered synonymous with a modern performance assessment
- Understanding, tools, and capabilities have improved significantly since the early 1980s
- Significant guidance developed to support the proposed requirements for performance assessment (e.g., FEPs, uncertainty, model support)
10 Performance Assessment - Guidance Example
11 Intruder Assessment
- The basis for § 61.55 in the current regulation is an NRC intruder assessment
- Revised requirements would allow for a site-specific intruder assessment This is a flexible and risk-informed approach
12 Intruder Assessment
13 Site Stability Assessment
- Most problems with early disposal sites arose from short-term stability issues
- Those problems were addressed through design and site characteristic requirements
- Disposal of significant quantities of long-lived radionuclides may require long-term stability assessment
- Addressed in the context of § 61.41 and § 61.42
14 Operational Safety Assessment
- Operational safety (§ 61.43) is typically achieved through a combination of systems, procedures, controls, and training
- Accident scenarios were evaluated by NRC when Part 61 was developed
- Some GTCC waste may contain sufficient radioactivity that an operational safety assessment may be necessary
15 Performance Period Analyses
- Performance period only applies if significant quantities of long-lived radionuclides will be disposed
- Expected proposed standard is to reduce exposures to the extent reasonably achievable
- Provide transparency to stakeholders on the expected long-term performance of the disposal system
- Long-term results not a measure of projected human health impacts
16 Safety and Compliance
- Safety can be achieved through different means:
- Disposal concept
- Prescriptive design
- Technical analyses
- Proposed approach leans more heavily on technical analyses to afford greater flexibility
17
- Commission direction has two options
- Peak dose or
- Use different compliance periods depending on the long-lived component of the waste
- Staff is considering the latter option - flexible and site-specific
- Compliance period of 1,000 years without significant quantities of long-lived radionuclides otherwise 10,000 years and performance period Timeframes (Compliance Period)
18 Timeframes (Compliance Period)
- Carefully examined comments on this issue
- Primary consideration is current practices by Agreement States (AS)
Compatibility class will likely allow the AS to be more restrictive
- Considered what has been done in the US and internationally
19 Timeframes (Compliance Period)
Uncertainties in societal and environmental conditions will increase over time Regulatory approval to allow disposal needs to evaluate impacts, recognizing the uncertainty - not stop the analysis Other approaches could be used to mitigate uncertainties:
Require deep geologic disposal (i.e., Germany)
Place restrictions on long-lived radionuclides appropriate for near-surface disposal Use design requirements (e.g., 10+ m disposal depth for significant quantities of depleted uranium)
20 Timeframes (Compliance Period)
21 Timeframes (Compliance Period)
- Near-surface disposal requires 5 m depth and intruder barrier
- 10,000 nCi/g threshold Case-by-case approval by Commission
- Additional waste characteristics requirements in
§ 61.56 Heat generation, radiolysis, criticality Not dispersible 22 GTCC Waste Considerations -
Disposal
Current requirements under Part 61 require demonstration of criticality safety procedures for preventing criticality accidents without consideration of the concentration of fissile material in the waste (prior to disposal)
Provide an exemption for radioactive waste with very dilute concentrations of fissile material for which there are no credible means to achieve a critical condition Include an additional requirement for disposal units containing significant amounts of fissile material (following disposal)
Applicant must identify design measures that limit the potential for reconcentration of fissile material 23 GTCC Waste Considerations -
Criticality
- Current requirements mandate licensees receiving or possessing nuclear material (SNM) in quantities that exceed the 10 CFR 150.14
- Must satisfy the physical security requirements of 10 CFR 73.67, a common defense and security regulation that can only be enforced by the NRC
- Provide an exemption in NRC Regulations (10 CFR 73.67) for physical protection of waste at a near-surface disposal facility containing very dilute quantities of SNM
- Physical protection of radioactive waste commensurate with the threat and limited attractiveness
- Physical protection requirements remain under 10 CFR Parts 20 and 37 24 GTCC Waste Considerations -
- Site-Specific Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC) (§ 61.58)
- Generic: Use § 61.55 limits, § 61.56
- Site-Specific: results of § 61.13 technical analyses
- Licensees review their waste acceptance program annually
- If approved, incorporated into license
- Generators still use § 61.55 for waste classification 25 Waste Acceptance
- § 61.1 (b) (Purpose and scope)
- Exception criteria
- the land disposal facility license was originally issued before the effective date of this rule; and
- the licensee does not accept GTCC or a significant quantity of long-lived radionuclides after the effective date of this rule
- Licensees who meet these exceptions do not need to comply with revised Technical Analyses (§ 61.13), revised Performance Objectives (§ 61.41 and § 61.42), and WAC (§61.58)
- Excepted licensees would be required to comply with original Part 61 regulations for these sections above 26 Exception Criteria
- Definition in § 61.2
- Significant quantities of long-lived radionuclides means an amount (volume or mass) and concentration accepted for disposal after the
[effective date of this rule] that could, if released, result in the performance objectives of subpart C of this part not being met.
- Amount for selection of compliance period (1,000 or 10,000 years)
- Amount for demonstrating meeting exception criteria
- For the purposes of this paragraph, less than 10 metric tons of depleted uranium is not considered a significant quantity of long-lived radionuclides.
27 What are Significant Quantities?
- Site-specific calculations to determine what amounts are significant
- Though a simple approach is preferred, to properly account for the multiple key factors a more complex approach could be needed
- Determined by licensee and approved by regulators
- Example approaches included in NUREG-2175
- Table of concentrations of long-lived radionuclides for potential use as generic screening values 28 Significant Quantities
- Potential addition of minimum depth requirement
- § 61.52 Land disposal facility operation and disposal site closure.
- Significant quantities of uranium must be disposed so that the top of the waste is a minimum of 5 meters below the top of the surface cover.
29 Minimum Depth of Disposal for Significant Quantities of Uranium
- Draft NUREG-2175 issued in 2015 for public comment
- Draft final version of guidance published in 2016 on NRC Part 61 website
- Updates for Revision 1
- Appendix for GTCC waste disposal considerations
- Appendix for approach to calculate significant quantities of long-lived radionuclides
- Revisions based on proposed rule language 30 Implementation Guidance
Develop Proposed Rule that Integrates GTCC and 10 CFR Part 61 Rulemaking Hold Public Meetings and Comment Period Submit to Commission for Approval Develop Final Rule Revise NUREG-2175 and Develop GTCC Guidance Hold for Commission Approval of Proposed Rule Submit to Commission for Final Approval Publish Proposed Rule Hold Public Meetings and Comment Period Issue Final Guidance Publish Draft Guidance Develop Final Guidance May 2024 Publish Final Rule November 2025 Hold for Commission Approval of Final Rule 31 Public Meetings Onsite meetings at sited states and virtual meetings Rulemaking Guidance You are here Next Steps