ML24355A200
| ML24355A200 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/20/2024 |
| From: | Weidong Wang Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NRC-0129 | |
| Download: ML24355A200 (1) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
teleconference Date:
Wednesday, December 4, 2024 Work Order No.:
NRC-0129 Pages 1-11 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 721ST MEETING 4
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 5
(ACRS) 6
+ + + + +
7 WEDNESDAY 8
DECEMBER 4, 2024 9
+ + + + +
10 The Advisory Committee met via 11 Video/Teleconference, at 8:30 a.m. EST, Walter 12 Kirchner, Chairman, presiding.
13 COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
14 WALTER L. KIRCHNER, Chairman 15 GREGORY H. HALNON, Vice Chairman 16 RONALD G. BALLINGER, Member 17 VICKI M. BIER, Member 18 VESNA B. DIMITRIJEVIC, Member 19 CRAIG D. HARRINGTON, Member 20 ROBERT P. MARTIN, Member 21 SCOTT P. PALMTAG, Member 22 THOMAS E. ROBERTS, Member 23 MATTHEW W. SUNSERI, Member 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
2 DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL:
3 ALSO PRESENT:
4 LARRY BURKHART 5
6 7
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
3 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 1
8:30 A.M.
2 CHAIR KIRCHNER: Okay. Good morning. The 3
meeting will now come to order. This is the first day 4
of the 721st meeting of the Advisory Committee on 5
Reactor Safeguards, ACRS. I am Walt Kirchner, chair 6
of the ACRS. ACRS members in attendance are Ron 7
Ballinger, Vicki Bier, Greg Halnon, Bob Martin, Scott 8
Palmtag, Matt Sunseri. And members attending 9
virtually are Vesna Dimitrijevic, Craig Harrington, 10 and Thomas Roberts.
11 If I have missed anyone, please speak up.
12 I think that's -- we have a quorum.
13 Christopher Brown of the ACRS staff is the 14 Designated Federal Officer for this morning's closed 15 meeting. No member conflicts of interest for 16 identified for today's meeting. And as I noted, we 17 have a quorum.
18 For this morning's topic on Material 19 Reliability Program, a member, Craig Harrington, has 20 recused himself due to a conflict of interest.
21 The ACRS was established by statute and is 22 governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, or 23 FACA. The NRC implements FACA in accordance with its 24 regulations. Previous regulations and the committee'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
4 bylaws, the ACRS speaks only to its published letter 1
reports. All member comments should therefore be 2
regarded as only being the individual opinion of that 3
member and not a committee position.
4 I want to note that information related to 5
ACRS activities such as letters, rules for meetings, 6
participation, and transcripts are located on the 7
NRC's public website. It can be easily found by typing 8
about us acrs in the search field on NRC's home page.
9 The ACRS, consistent with the agency's 10 value of public transparency and regulation of nuclear 11 facilities, provides opportunity for public input and 12 comment during our proceedings. We have received no 13 written statements or requests to make an oral 14 statement from the public.
- However, written 15 statements may still be forward to today's Designated 16 Federal Officer. And we have also set aside time at 17 the end of the meeting for public comments.
18 A transcript of the meeting is being kept 19 and will be posted on our website. When addressing 20 the committee, participants should first identify 21 themselves and speak with sufficient clarity and 22 volume so that they may be readily heard. If you're 23 not speaking, please mute your computer on Teams. And 24 if you are participating by phone, press *6 to mute 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 your phone, and *5 to raise your hand on Teams.
1 The Teams chat feature will not be 2
available for use during the meeting. For everyone in 3
the room, please put all your electronic devices on 4
silent mode and mute your laptop microphone and 5
speakers.
In
- addition, please keep sidebar 6
discussions to a minimum since the ceiling microphones 7
are live.
8 And then we often tell our presenters that 9
the table microphones are unidirectional and you'll 10 need to speak into the front of the microphone to be 11 heard on line.
12 Finally, if you have any feedback for the 13 ACRS about today's meeting, we encourage you to fill 14 out the public meeting feedback form on the NRC's 15 website.
16 Today, joining this meeting's morning 17 session we will discuss the Material Reliability 18
- Program, Pressurized Water Reactor Internals 19 Inspection, and Evaluation Guidelines RP-227, 20 Revision 2.
21 Do members have any other additional 22 comments? If not, then I am going to turn to Ron 23 Ballinger, who is the chair of our Fuels, Materials, 24 and Structures Subcommittee.
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 Ron?
1 MEMBER BALLINGER:
Thank
- you, Mr.
2 Chairman. We had a subcommittee meeting on this topic 3
in November and I forget which day, but it was a 4
pretty extensive discussion. The Revision 2 of MRP-5 227, the major components of that are updated to 6
include issues related to SLR, as well as issues 7
related to plants that might want to actually load-8 follow. So those are the two main issues addressed in 9
the guidelines. There are several appendices that 10 allow for alternate paths forward for inspection, but 11 through NEI 03-08, MRP-227 is effectively part of a 12 plant's license, so they have to adhere to that and so 13 this revision is pretty significant.
14 At the end of that discussion, we had 15 decided that a letter was not needed. That was the 16 consensus of the members there. One of the questions 17 that did come up had to do with what happens if a 18 plant is shut down and then at some point in the 19 future, an owner or a new owner decides that they want 20 to start the plant back up again. The comments were 21 that MRP-227 would not fly and there would have to be 22 a revision of that document in order for that to work.
23 So that was a comment.
24 So that was pretty much the discussion 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
7 I was provided a summary of that discussion for the 1
members. And so that was the extent of everything.
2 Thank you.
3 CHAIR KIRCHNER: Thank you, Ron. Members, 4
any comments?
5 MEMBER SUNSERI: Yes, I've got a few. Are 6
we going to discuss how many are in the P & P? We'll 7
go over it in detail because I had a couple of 8
comments on it.
9 CHAIR KIRCHNER: Could you share them now?
10 Actually, that would probably be appropriate.
11 MEMBER SUNSERI: So I had -- I mean 12 they're minor. It's just confusing language. Have to 13 have permanently shutdown, but wish to restart. I 14 think the official -- not the official, but I think 15 the common language is cease operation. Plants that 16 cease operation or wish to continue. There's a 17 nuance, but --
18 MEMBER BALLINGER: The last paragraph by 19 the way, Larry sent it over to staff for their 20 comments and edits. So the last paragraph reflects 21 their comments and their suggestions.
22 MEMBER SUNSERI: Okay, so that's the way 23 the want it.
24 MEMBER BALLINGER: Well, I mean we can put 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 1
MEMBER SUNSERI: I don't care. I was just 2
bringing it up because it seems -- it just doesn't 3
seem good English to say they were permanently shut 4
down, but they're going to restart. There's no such 5
thing as permanently shut down.
6 VICE CHAIR HALNON: And I agree with that.
7 But the language that has either ceased operation and 8
entered decommissioning or has entered decommissioning 9
because we're really not talking about plants that 10 shut down for performance issues or something like 11 that. We're talking about these plants that shut down 12 for economic reasons.
13 MEMBER BALLINGER: Well, I don't know what 14 the appropriateness of what we're doing is, we're in 15 the middle of -- we're not letter writing, but I would 16 be happy -- I don't know what I'd be happy to do on 17 this.
18 VICE CHAIR HALNON: We can adjust the 19 words later, but I think from a preciseness 20 perspective to reflect the discussion that we had at 21 the time, we were talking about the plants that have 22 entered decommissioning.
23 MEMBER BALLINGER: Is that right?
24 VICE CHAIR HALNON: Yes. If we can get 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 some more precise --
1 MEMBER BALLINGER: I'm happy, if it's 2
appropriate for people to send me comments. I sent by 3
email this document for everybody and we've got plenty 4
of time this week. I'm happy to produce a second 5
revision.
6 MEMBER SUNSERI: These are good, nuanced 7
comments just for clarity. I don't think it changes 8
the intent of what you're providing.
9 The second comment I had is regarding a 10 phrase in here just after that, plants that would need 11 to justify the use of MRP-227 Part -- and here's the 12 part I have a question about, license renewal of 13 subsequent license renewal. That's a phrase that 14 doesn't make any sense. It doesn't resonate with me.
15 I don't know what that means. License renewal of 16 subsequent license renewal.
17 MEMBER BALLINGER: You know what, I just 18 accepted changes and it may be that we've got to fix 19 that.
20 MEMBER BIER: I'm guessing that means 21 license renewal for subsequent license renewal.
22 MEMBER BALLINGER: Yes, yes, yes.
23 VICE CHAIR HALNON: I think it's talking 24 about the period of extended operations beyond --
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 MEMBER BALLINGER: Okay.
1 MEMBER SUNSERI: Really, at the end of the 2
day, all this is is a revision of AMP.
3 MEMBER BALLINGER: Yes, the AMP is derived 4
from this.
5 VICE CHAIR HALNON: It just needs to say 6
for periods of extended operations. Period. That 7
covers license renewal periods and subsequent --
8 MEMBER SUNSERI: Yes, my hang up on that 9
wasn't so much that, but it was NRC has changed their 10 process for reissuing the license for a plant that has 11 declared ceased operation and entering 12 decommissioning. So it seemed like you're --
13 MEMBER BALLINGER: Is that written 14 somewhere?
15 MEMBER SUNSERI: It's in the Federal 16 Register.
17 MEMBER BALLINGER: Oh.
18 CHAIR KIRCHNER: Okay, those are good 19 comments. Thank you. Yes, and we can work with that.
20 Then, this afternoon for P&P, and make an adjustment 21 to the summary that will be entered into the record.
22 Further discussion?
23 Okay, thank you again, Ron. So with that, 24 we are actually finished with our morning business 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
11 for the court reporter, we will not need your services 1
again during the course of this meeting.
2 MR. BURKHART: Correct. This is Larry 3
Burkhart. We should take public comment.
4 CHAIR KIRCHNER: Okay, with that, we'll 5
take public comments on this subject of MRP-227 or any 6
other comments.
7 Unmute your mic, identify yourself and 8
state your affiliation, if appropriate, and make your 9
comment.
10 Okay, hearing none, then we are finished 11 with the services of the court reporter. Thank you 12 very much. And we are going to then go into recess 13 until this afternoon and start at 2 o'clock Eastern 14 Time with our planning and procedures session, 2 p.m.
15 Thank you. We are in recess.
16 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 17 off the record at 8:43 a.m.)
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