ML25032A021
| ML25032A021 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/16/2025 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| Sarah Lopas | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML25032A020 | List: |
| References | |
| NRC-0168 | |
| Download: ML25032A021 (1) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Public Meeting on Advance Act Section 206, Regulatory Issues for Nuclear Facilities at Brownfield Sites Docket Number:
N/A Location:
teleconference Date:
Thursday, January 16, 2025 Work Order No.:
NRC-0168 Pages 1-155 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1716 14th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 234-4433
1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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PUBLIC MEETING ON ADVANCE ACT SECTION 206, REGULATORY ISSUES FOR NUCLEAR FACILITIES AT BROWNFIELD SITES
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- THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2025
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The meeting was convened via Videoconference, at 1:00 p.m. EST, Sarah Lopas, presiding.
PRESENT:
SARAH LOPAS, Facilitator; Senior Environmental Project Manager, NRC ALLEN FETTER, Senior Project Manager, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, NRC MIKE KING, Special Assistant for ADVANCE Act, Office of the Executive Director for Operations, NRC CHRIS REGAN, Director, Division of Rulemaking, Environmental, and Financial Support, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, NRC MATT BOND, Environmental Biologist, Radioecology Section Head, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories
2 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com CLIFF HALL, Manager, Superfund Branch, Division of Waste Management, Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet EVAN SPANN, Deputy Director of Field Operations, Division of Remediation, Tennessee Department of Environmental Conservation RICHARD TURTIL, Senior Financial Analyst, NRC CHRISTINE KING, Director, Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN), Idaho National Laboratory WILLIAM "BILL" RECKLEY, Senior Project Manager, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, NRC KATI AUSTGEN, Senior Project Manager for New Nuclear, Nuclear Energy Institute KARA COLTON, Principal, KacoGroup, LLC TRACY BOATNER, President & CEO, East Tennessee Economic Council ALSO PRESENT:
ANTHONY DIMITRIADIS, Branch Chief, NRC, Region I NATHAN HANCOCK, Superfund Branch, Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet DONALD PALMROSE, NRC CHRISTIANNE RIDGE, NRC ADAM STEIN, The Breakthrough Institute
3 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S AGENDA PAGE Welcome, Introduction, Agenda......................5 Panel 1 Feasibility of Brownfield Sites for SMR Deployment - Establishing Baseline Conditions to Support Regulation & Environmental Impact Assessment, by Matt Bond..........................13 Brownfield Redevelopment in Kentucky, by Cliff Hall Tennessee's Brownfields Redevelopment Program
-Remediation and Site Monitoring, by Evan Spann.....................................43 NRC's Decommissioning Funding Assurance Requirements and Existing Radiological Contamination at Brownfield Sites, by Richard Turtil..........................57 Panel #1 Discussion...............................62 Panel 2 Introduction to Panel 2 - Population and Community
4 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com Considerations, by Christine King.................62
5 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com NRC Population-Related Siting Requirements for Advanced Reactors, by William Reckley.............77 Considerations and Recommendations for Population-Related Siting Requirements for Advanced Reactors, by Kati Austgen.........................88 Workforce, Energy & Environmental Justice, by Christine King...................................102 Role of Local Governments in Support of New Nuclear Development, by Kara Colton......................110 Community Perspective, by Tracy Boatner..........123 Panel #2 Discussion..............................131 Question and Answer..............................133 Meeting Closes...................................155
6 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S (1:00 p.m.)
MS. LOPAS: All right, everybody. I'm just going to get myself to my slides so I can move forward with them, one moment. It is one o'clock, and we'll go ahead and get started.
Good afternoon and welcome to the NRC's public meeting on section 206 of the ADVANCE Act, which is regulatory issues for nuclear facilities at brownfield sites. My name is Sarah Lopas, and if you all will just give me a moment, I'm going to fix the screen for my folks here online.
I think there are folks here in the room with me and I think they want to be able to see the screen as well, so hang on one second here. Hang on.
We're going to do that, so if you'll just -- to not be able to see everybody. You can kind of see here too.
All right, apologies. I'm getting used to this conference room and figuring it out. My apologies. Okay. So section 206 of the ADVANCE Act is regulatory issues for nuclear facilities at brownfield sites.
My name is Sarah Lopas, and I'm a senior
7 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com environmental project manager at the NRC's Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, and my co-project manager over here for section 206 is Allen Fetter. He's a senior project manager in the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
I'm going to be helping to facilitate today's meeting like I did last time, back in November.
But before we get kicked off, I'm going to introduce Mike King, who's the special assistant for the ADVANCE Act in our Office of the Executive Director for Operations.
And then after Mike talks, we'll be going to my division director, Chris Regan, who is the director of the Division of Rulemaking, Environmental, and Financial Support in the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
So we're going to start with Mike, and Mike, I'm going to advance your slide and then try to get it to you to see what's going on up on the screen.
But go ahead.
MR. KING: Thanks for the technical support.
MS. LOPAS: Yes.
MR. KING: Welcome, everybody. The
8 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com President signed into law the ADVANCE Act back in July of last year. Time has flown by since then, and this will be the 20th public meeting that we've had on topics related to the ADVANCE Act.
So if you're paying attention, we have issued now three congressional reports consistent with the ADVANCE Act. In fact, two of them were released two days ago. Those are available on our public website. If you go to the next slide --
MS. LOPAS: Yes.
MR. KING: Yes. So this is our public website. If you're interested in topics, not just related to brownfield but to all the different activities we've got going on, what you'll see there is sort of a Gantt chart that shows the current status of all the different -- 35 different activities that we're tracking amongst the 20 different project teams that are diligently working.
If you go to the next slide, also on the public website, in case you were unable to go to any of the public meetings on this topic of interest, we've got a convenient link there. You can have access to any of the previous public meetings. And anything that's already been announced as a public meeting
9 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com upcoming, you can get to from that site. Next.
We made it easy for members of the public or interested people to give us comments, feedback, suggestions relating to any of the -- ignore that public website. You'll see a link there, contact us.
We daily look at the comments that have been submitted, and you won't get a response directly from us through this, but we are passing along everything we get to the appropriate project teams to assure that they're consider anything we'd gotten.
We have gotten a number of suggestions through here that have impacted the reports that we issued recently, so I'd encourage you, if you have an idea, please share it with us. Next slide.
Okay. And this is -- like I mentioned, this is just one of the 20 different project teams.
And so this particular topic, I think that -- is not until this summer time frame. But there's experience on the first few reports.
There's a lot of work that goes up leading up to being ready to issue those reports. So I encourage your active participation. There's a lot of things in the act, and this is all in line with really helping us be prepared for what's to come, advanced
10 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com nuclear in the United States, and helping to shape the future of the agency to be ready. So thank you so much for your active participation. Thanks.
MS. LOPAS: Chris, let me get back to slide
- 7. This is all you, Chris.
MR. REGAN: Very good. So good afternoon, folks. Again, my name is Chris Regan. I'm the director for the division of rulemaking and environmental and financial support.
I will echo Mike's gratitude to thank you all for joining us today on the second public meeting we're having on section 206 of the regulatory issues for nuclear facilities and brownfield sites.
I especially want to thank our panelists for taking time out of their schedules and joining us today to provide their expertise on the very topics we plan to cover today. It's a very esteemed group of folks who are going to be presenting to us today.
We're grateful to have them as representatives from a wide-ranging group of government organizations and external stakeholders today, including the Canadian National Laboratories, the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, Idaho National
11 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com Laboratories Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear, NEI, Nuclear Energy Institute, and the Energy Communities Alliance, and then also the Eastern Tennessee Economic Council.
Welcome to you all, and thank you very much for your participation. Your insights will help the NRC make the most of the opportunity provided in section 206 for us.
I'm sure many of you are aware, but section 206 of the ADVANCE Act directs the NRC to find ways to expedite nuclear facility licensing at brownfield or retired fossil sites while maintaining the NRC's core mission to protect public health and safety.
We've been looking at brownfield sites for some time, and were even exploring this long before the ADVANCE Act, to be perfectly honest. But the ADVANCE Act really gave us a shot in the arm to really sink our teeth into looking how we can leverage the benefits of brownfield sites.
In the process of having our external panelists share information with us, I wanted to especially thank Christine King, who's director for our Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear, or GAIN as we commonly refer to it, and her staff for
12 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com coordinating with and supporting the NRC.
We very much appreciate that. Among other information that we've presented and discussed today, some of the excellent work that GAIN has been doing to help communities across the United States assess the possibility of repowering their retired coal plants with advanced nuclear plants will be highlighted, and which, I believe, is something that Congress had in mind when they drafted the language in Section 406.
With that, let's get started. We're looking forward to hearing from the panelists and their insights, and the good discussions this afternoon that will happen. So again, thanks, and back to you, Sarah.
MS. LOPAS: Thank you, Chris. So just quickly, I'm going to run through this agenda. If you joined us back in November, the format of today's meeting is similar.
We're going to have two panels. After we hear from the first presentations and the panels, we're going to stop and have a 20-minute or so panel discussion amongst folks online and NRC staff and panelists.
Then we're going to have a break at about
13 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com 2:35 for about 10 minutes or so if we can stay on schedule. Then we're going to open up panel 2. So panel 1 is going to kind of focus on some of the issues around coal plants, maybe existing issues that need to be dealt with.
And then panel 2 is going to focus on population siting issues and community type issues.
So it should be a really great meeting, so we're looking forward to it. Again, we'll follow up the panel discussion after panel 2.
Then at the very end, we're going to open up for public comments and questions, and we'll try to close out around 5:00. I know last time we went a little bit late, and that's okay, too.
Everybody that's members of the public that are attendees, I am trying to -- your microphones should be muted and your cameras should be not enabled.
If they are enabled, or you are able to enable your microphone, just stay muted, please. It's just a Teams setting that I'm working on.
All right. So with that, I'm going to close out of this presentation and -- goodness. I am going to introduce our first presenter, who is Matthew Bond.
14 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com So Matthew is an environmental biologist, and he's the radioecology section head for Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. So Matthew's probably pulling up his slides and he's going to get ready to share his slides.
But we will first hear from Matt, and he's going to give us a presentation on feasibility of brownfield sites for SMRs, small modular reactor deployment, establishing baseline conditions to support regulation, and environmental impact assessment. Matt, if you're able to --
MR. BOND: Okay.
MS. LOPAS: Share your slides and go for it.
MR. BOND: Okay, great. Can everybody hear me all right and see my slides? Excellent, thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Matt Bond and I am an environmental biologist with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, or CNL.
If you've never heard of CNL, we are Canada's national nuclear laboratory complex, sort of like an Oak Ridge National Lab or Savannah River National Lab. Myself, I work in our radioecology section where we study the behavior and effects of
15 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com radionuclides in the environment.
So I'd like to thank the meeting organizers for reaching out to me and inviting me here today.
I'm very pleased to be here to speak about some research that really is just in the beginning stages, taking a look at the feasibility of brownfield sites for small modular reactor or SMR deployment here in Canada, specifically establishing baseline environmental conditions to support regulation and environmental impact assessment.
So the project has not actually begun yet at this point. We're really going to get off the ground in April, taking a deep dive into this. But today I'm going to try to set the stage about what we currently know and to present some of the future research plans.
Here we're looking at the electricity generation by fuel type here in Canada, and we can see that Canada is powered by a diversity of power generation types, so obviously the big blue bar there, hydropower, is the heavy hitter at about 62 percent of our power generation.
Traditional nuclear contributes about 16 and a half percent, and then we've got coal at about six percent. As coal-burning power production is
16 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com phased out, this leaves a gap which will have to be filled by other sources of power generation, very much like what's going on in the United States.
So in 2018, the Canadian Small Modular Reactor Roadmap was released by the Canadian federal government, which promoted the idea of deploying SMRs to fill this energy gap left by phasing out coal power.
The Roadmap involved engaging stakeholders on the future of SMRs in Canada through a series of working groups.
And then in 2022, the SMR -- was released which outlines the progress and ongoing efforts across the country to turn the SMR Roadmap into reality. So here we can see some of the responses from industry and various provincial governments in a series of headlines from World Nuclear News.
So these SMR proposals are all at various stages, but we can see a handful are proposed for Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission licensed nuclear sites. So we've got Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, where I am sitting today.
The Darlington Nuclear Power Plant, also in Ontario, and the Point Lepreau Nuclear Power Plant in New Brunswick all have SMR applications.
17 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com There have also been a number of proposals for -- at industrial reuse or brownfield sites, such as in Estevan, Saskatchewan at the former Boundary Dam coal-fired power plant, or at the former coal-burning power plant at the Port of Belledune in New Brunswick.
And really, it's these industrial reuse of brownfield sites that are the focus of this talk and the workshop today. So as with any proposed project, developing brownfield sites for SMR siting comes with some obvious pros and cons.
On the pro side, redevelopment of a brownfield site might be eligible for government grants and tax credits. Critical infrastructure may already be in place, things like connection to the power grid.
Brownfield sites may be located in a city or town with close proximity to amenities and a workforce, and it is likely to be more publicly acceptable to redevelop a brownfield site than to develop a greenfield site.
On the flip side, redeveloping a brownfield site may be more expensive than a greenfield site due to environmental cleanup and demolition if required. It may be difficult to secure financing due to contamination uncertainties at some sites. And
18 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com lastly, there may be some regulatory uncertainty in terms of baseline contaminant conditions and how this might affect site licensing.
And really, that's what we're going to talk about here. So here we can see a map of Canada showing the locations of fossil fuel power plants across the country. You can see the oil or diesel plants, the purple icons. You can see natural gas plants, the blue flames, and finally the coal burning plants are the white and black logos there.
So this is the same map, just showing the coal-burning power plants. Some of these plants have been phased out. Others are still operational, but will be phased out in the near future.
So in 2022, the provinces of Ontario, New Brunswick, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, which you can see highlighted in green there, partnered to release a strategic plan to advance SMRs in their jurisdictions.
And some of the potential SMR sites have been named in Saskatchewan, Ontario, and New Brunswick.
You can see those are the blue icons on the map here.
And many of these are at former coal-burning power plant sites.
19 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com So why is this of particular interest?
Well, storage and combustion of coal can result in environmental contamination with naturally occurring radioactive material, commonly called NORM, and technologically enhanced NORM, or T-NORM.
This is because coal deposits contain uranium and thorium and their decay products, which you can see in the figure on this slide. Coal also contains non-chain radionuclides like potassium 40.
So when coal is combusted to generate heat and electricity, the activity concentrations of a number of radionuclides, including uranium, uranium 226, thorium 232, potassium 40, lead 210 among others that are present in the source coal are enriched. So you can see this in the graph on the slide. This is called technological enhancement of these naturally-occurring radionuclides.
So when coal is combusted in a boiler in a power plant, we end up with bottom ash. That's the coarse particulate that is too large to be carried up the stacks. So it accumulates at the bottom of the furnace and typically stays in the plant.
But then we've also got fly ash, which is a very fine, powdery material that can leave the plant
20 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com through the stack and be deposited in the nearby environment.
So it's typically this fine fly ash that is most enriched in these radionuclides. And you can see that in the graph, so the green bars are the fly ash activity concentrations, and the blue bars are the source coal activity concentrations. So through the combustion process, we get a pretty substantial enrichment.
So the levels and types of radioactive contaminants in coal can vary considerably from deposit to deposit. The levels of release are dependent on site-specific factors, so things like power plant design, the source of the coal fuel, et cetera.
And volatile radionuclides -- things like radon -- that are present in the coal are lost through stack emissions as a gas. But it's the less volatile elements, so think thorium, uranium, and the majority of their decay products. Those are almost entirely retained in the solid combustion products so in that bottom ash and fly ash.
So modern coal-fired power plants tend to recover about 99.5 percent of the solid combustion waste, due in large part to the installation of
21 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com particulate emission control features, things like electrostatic precipitators or cyclone separators.
And in the green box on the slide here, you can see where an electrostatic precipitator is installed in the plant, and really that just uses an electrostatic charge to retain all that fine particulate so that it does not release to the environment.
But many of the early design or traditional plants did not have these technologies, and in those cases it was estimated that only about 87 percent of the fly ash was retained in the plant. So that means about 13 percent of that would have escaped to the environment.
So there's some literature out there on this T-NORM contamination in the environment around coal power plants, mainly from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Really, there has been minimal research done in North America.
So the map that you can see here, it's a series of maps. These are from a study on radionuclides in the soil around the largest coal fired power plant in Serbia. And the authors looked at radionuclide activity concentrations in soil around
22 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com the plant at two different depths.
So on the left side you can see it says depth A, and that's 10 centimeters in the soil profile.
And on the right side, it's got B so that's 10 to 20 centimeters in the soil profile.
What they found was uranium 238 concentrations were about 82 becquerels per kilogram.
Thorium 232 concentrations were up to about 61 becquerels per kilogram. The potassium 40 concentration is up to about 750 becquerels per kilogram.
So these were all considerably above the local background. What's happening here in Canada, like I said, there hasn't been too much work done looking at this. The best I was able to dig up was a 1985 study led by Environment Canada, which looked at radionuclide content of fly ash and bottom ash at a number of Canadian coal-fired power plants. The study also looked at American power plants.
So at the Nanticoke Generating Station, which is located on the shore of Lake Erie, uranium series radionuclides averaged about 92 becquerels per kilogram in fly ash, while thorium series radionuclides averages about 58 becquerels per kilogram. Potassium
23 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com 40 in the fly ash at the station was about 204 becquerels per kilogram.
So these were slightly lower than what was found in fly ash samples collected at American power plants, which is shown in the top table. And that would have been mainly a result of the type of coal being burned.
So American power plants fly ash typically contained about 107 becquerels per kilogram of uranium 238, about 93 becquerels per kilogram of radium 226, 167 becquerels per kilogram of lead 210, et cetera.
You can see all the values up there.
So we've got a 1979 study by McCormick who looked at radionuclide inventories escaping four Saskatchewan coal-burning power plants with fly ash.
These four plants were all burning the same Saskatchewan lignite coal, which contained between about 2.88 and 11 milligrams per kilogram of uranium.
And it was assumed that about 0.7 of the fly ash from the modern emissions controlled plants escaped to the environment. It was estimated or assumed that about 13 percent of the fly ash from the more traditional plants escaped to the environment.
So using these assumptions and historical
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com operating records, radionuclide releases to the environment were calculated. And what we found was pretty interesting.
So from a relatively small -- so we're talking about 70-megawatt electric Estevan generating station, about 33 to 123 kilograms per year of uranium was released with fly ash, which would have been deposited in the environment.
If we look at a much larger, so about 582 megawatt electric boundary dam generating station, about 193 to 753 kilograms per year of uranium would have been released with escaping fly ash.
So we've got a study by Barst and colleagues who looked at fly ash in the sediment record in lakes near Edmonton and Alberta. So this area has a pretty high concentration in coal-fired power plants.
There's about six around the city, which are shown on the map here.
And the authors looked at mercury PAHs and what they call spheroidal carbonaceous particles. I'm going to call them SCPs in the vertical sediment profile.
So these SCPs are basically just a component of the fly ash. These are basically just
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 a component of the fly ash, and then they radio-dated these cores. Found with increasing rates of these contaminants in the sediment profile during the late 1960s and early 1970s associated with coal combustion.
So this was followed by a noticeable reduction in contaminant inputs in the 70s due to technological improvements and stricter emission controls. So this study demonstrates the history of fly ash deposition from coal burning to the environment.
So where am I going with all of this?
Well, Atomic Energy of Canada, Limited, or ACL, operates the Federal Nuclear Science and Technology work plan, which is basically the funding stream for much of the nuclear-related research in Canada.
This FNST work plan performs nuclear-related science and technology to support core federal roles in Canada, and serves the interests of about 14 federal departments and agencies in the areas of health, nuclear safety and security, energy, and the environment.
This includes the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, who are the nuclear regulator in Canada, Environment Canada and natural resources Canada, among
26 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com others. So after some discussions with staff from a number of these federal agencies, we prepared and submitted a proposal to investigate the feasibility of brownfield sites for SMR deployment.
And really, the focus of this proposal is on establishing radiological baseline conditions in the environment at these brownfield sites to support regulation and environmental impact assessments.
This has been funded and we're really going to dive into it beginning in April.
So we planned to sample a number of former coal-fired power plants across the country to establish some general trends in radionuclide contamination and look at variability across sites. So things like what was the operating history of that site, what were the fly ash recovery methods, the sources of coal burned.
Sort of one footnote for this is given that the research is being funded by the federal government, we intentionally do not want to complete a full site assessment or baseline characterization for these sites. It kind of gets into a gray area, but that's really the responsibility of the SMR proponents.
Instead we're focusing on radiological contaminants and general trends at these sites.
27 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com But we'll also be looking at some other contaminants associated with coal combustion, so things like heavy metals, sulfate, PAHs, et cetera.
So the main goal is to understand general radiological conditions at these sites to help inform regulation and environmental impact assessment.
So what will the results mean for SMR-based
-- SMR siting and baseline characterization? Really the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is interested in the results to aid in their regulatory readiness so that they're not surprised by anything, and have some time to consider this information in terms of --
how should SMR proponents be doing an environmental impact assessment at a site? What exactly should they be measuring, to what depth, et cetera.
So in terms of regulation, speaking here in Canada, the big regulation with respect to siting and SMR are -- really there's three. The CNFC RAGDOC 111, which is really just a site evaluation and site preparation for new reactor facilities, then we're got RAGDOC 291, which is an environmental protection and environmental assessment regulation, and then the Impact Assessment Act.
And really the point of this slide is just
28 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com to call or to highlight that all of these regulations in one form or another call for baseline environmental characterization that considers contaminants of potential concern associated with historical present or proposed future use of the site.
So this is done because it allows for an assessment of cumulative effects associated with the project, which takes into account historical contamination. So the objective of the site evaluation stage is to assess whether the site is suitable for the construction and operation of a nuclear facility.
So you can see on the right side of this slide, there are sort of four theoretical scenarios.
So we have a theoretical regulatory limit, which is shown by the orange dash line at the top. This is the point where the cumulative effects or impact comes in, and output from a project becomes unacceptable to the regulator.
The green bars show current baseline ambient radioactivity, which will vary based on geography and geology and site history. And really, then, this leaves the area shaded in blue to be the SMR operating envelope.
29 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com So obviously if baseline ambient radioactivity is high from historic activity such as coal combustion, is this a good candidate for an SMR, or what is the overall impact? That's going to vary, I think, considerably from site to site based on local site history and other characteristics, right, things like prevailing winds.
So I have pulled from quite a few references for this. They're all listed here. I think this presentation will be shared, so you can take a closer look at some of these if you're interested, or reach out to me. I'm happy to discuss.
And I'll end with a question. What does all this mean in terms of siting, licensing, and operating SMRs at brownfield sites? So thank you very much for your time.
MS. LOPAS: Thank you, Matt. I know you have to drop off after panel 1, so thank you for sticking around for the rest of panel 1. We'll get into some discussions and questions coming up during that discussion, if that's okay.
MR. BOND: Yes, sounds great.
MS. LOPAS: Thank you. Next, we're going to hear from Cliff Hall. So Cliff is the manager of
30 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com the Superfund Branch and the division of waste management in the Kentucky Energy and Environment cabinet.
Cliff, if you can share your slides, then while you take your time kind of pulling up the slides, you and your colleague -- and feel free to introduce your colleague there.
I'm just going to let everybody know really quickly that we are -- we have a court reporter transcribing everything at this meeting. We aren't recording today's meeting, but we do have a court reporter.
Allen and I will put out a very detailed meeting summary within 30 days after this meeting.
It will include links to all the slides that you're seeing today, a link to the transcript, and a nice summary. So that's what you have to look forward to.
And with that, I'll be quiet. Thank you, Cliff.
MR. HALL: Well, I'm Cliff Hall, as Sarah said. I'm with the Superfund Branch in Kentucky, and with me is Nathan Hancock, who is a consultant for the Superfund Branch, part of the Department of Environmental Protection.
We've taken the vantage point of either
31 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com the NRC or a company that is regulated by the NRC will be purchasing these coal-fired plants. Their objective is how to purchase and not be responsible for existing contamination that occurred before purchase.
So hopefully that is a safe assumption.
At any point, I'm fine with -- and I think maybe the way this is working, I think this is a simple -- I don't know the audience level of, or understanding of environmental assessment.
So I'm happy to answer -- Nate and I are happy to answer any questions afterwards or during, but maybe it's limited during the presentation.
Objectives, to purchase -- and also I'll say that this is -- this presentation is specific to Kentucky. We're not going to make statements about any of the other states and proper redevelopment.
I'm sure each state has their own processes. But for the state of Kentucky, our objective is to purchase, redevelop blighted properties -- in this case, the former coal-fired plants, and not incur any of the potential already responsible party status that is in CERCLA.
There are two ways of going about limiting
32 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com your liability through CERCLA. And that is the federal bona fide prospective purchaser program that I will talk briefly about, and the Kentucky brownfield redevelopment program that's obviously more specific to our state.
Why do you need to limit or take efforts to limit your liability? Any person possessing or controlling a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant as it relates to the environment shall take necessary actions to control the effect of the release to the environment.
I think the state of Kentucky and probably any other state, and obviously EPA, will first pursue the call and responsible party, but the current owner or controller is a potential responsible party.
I'll get into now the bona fide respective purchaser tool, I guess, in our tool chest. This was created on November 1st, 2006. It introduced a defense. This is -- it allows -- again, I'll get into the defense.
It allows for purchase of a brownfield, and then that defense that you are not going to be responsible for releases that occur prior to ownership.
How do you go about making this defense?
33 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com There is the environmental site assessments. Environmental site assessment, that whole process is described in the American Society of Testing Materials method 5727, the 21-layer screen is just the last update here. And we refer to this in our world as all appropriate inquiries.
And then based on your assessment of a property, a brownfield property that you're going to purchase, then you must take all appropriate care to prevent exposures to those existing conditions. And again, as I mentioned earlier, this is a defense.
It is somewhat problematic in that you always can be second-guessed by a regulatory agent or agency of why didn't you take these precautions based on your information? So it's a defense, an affirmative defense. It's just facts, and then you're trying to make your case based upon those facts.
Is that good to go? Okay. Kentucky's brownfield redevelopment program takes the federal program, the federal BFDP program, but we have upgraded it. In 2012, we passed a statue through -- I think unanimously passed through our legislature that provides pretty much that loophole -- cuts that loophole off of the defense.
34 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com We offer a concurrence that your all appropriate care is appropriate. The bill was passed in 2012. In 2014, we established the regulations for applying to this program. And we, as I said, provide appropriate care up front, unlike just the defense that the federal statutes allow.
This allows a purchaser, before even buying the property, a prospective purchaser to know whether they're going to be eligible, at least with the state that they will not be held as a responsible party once they take ownership.
The program involves a -- well, you know, with this type of program, you are getting something and there is a little bit of -- there is a fee with that. That is a $2,500 fee with -- the fee's justification is for us to go and audit sites that are in the program.
So we don't just put it in our pocket and give each other raises. It's a -- it makes the program real. There is oversight by the Department of Environmental Protection.
The criteria for our program is the same as BFDP. There is no familial, operational, or business relationship with a responsible party. There
35 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com is -- and you cannot enter this program. This places great -- just like the BFDP, this places great importance on the environmental site assessment.
A site assessment is required for all applications, and there is an expiration date on the site that says -- on the site assessment that lasts 180 days.
If that is exceeded, then the application is -- or the assessment is void. But there are procedures that are ASTM to update that assessment.
The main takeaway here is make sure your ASTM is up to date on purchase.
Our program eliminates the uncertainty on appropriate care. This is a property management plan that is prepared by a professional geologist or professional engineer in the state of Kentucky.
So the PE has a little skin in the game.
That is submitted to us. We concur that that use is suitable and protected. Property management plan is a living document.
If new information becomes available in the future, okay. We find a release that we never thought we had, but it occurred prior to ownership, that doesn't throw you out of the program. You modify
36 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com the property management plan to account for perhaps this new exposure scenario. And each revision of the property management plan is certified by a PE or PEG.
The documentation that's involved, you can submit the application to us prior to ownership, and that -- and we can issue a notice of eligibility. And once the applicant takes ownership of the property, we will provide the notice of concurrence upon receipt of the deed.
So there's two -- one is the notice of eligibility that might give -- do we really want to do this? I'm not going to purchase this property unless the state buys off on it.
They also could purchase the property up front, as long as they are PE eligible, and then apply.
But there would be that uncertainty whether the state would concur with their all appropriate care.
The program is for the owner. It does not extend to a future owner, so a prospective purchaser applying for this program, it is only specific to that entity.
If there is -- for example in this case, if a power company sells to another power company, that
37 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com purchaser would have -- that second purchaser would have to reapply to our program.
Available to persons who are -- and having PMP status. I mentioned that a little bit earlier.
This is benefits to lenders. I don't know if that's applicable to the situation with the power companies that might be purchasing these properties.
But the notice of eligibility lets that lender now that that purchase is not going to be buying the liability at that particular property. This also allows -- there's benefit to the lender that they can take over the ownership of the site if there is a need for foreclosure.
So the lender can come in and feel with that comfort that they will not be held as a responsible party. Our review process is considerate of transactions. We often are contacted a couple of weeks before the transaction takes place, and we, by regulation, are bound to review these applications in 30 days. We, almost in all cases, meet that deadline.
And this is not a long, drawn-out process.
The state of Kentucky does try to work through emails, phone calls. We don't want this to be a letter writing campaign or any issues to resolve on whatever aspect
38 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com of an application might be problematic.
Normally environmental site assessments, we look at environmental site assessments and hopefully everybody kind of has at least a good general picture of this. We consider the environmental site assessment date as the digital site inspection date.
I mentioned earlier the 180-day expiration that is from the date of the digital site inspection.
If that is exceeded, then phase 1 needs to be updated.
Phase 2 is not really -- there's no deadlines or expiration dates, expiration times associated with it. It does not -- it establishes a baseline. For example, our company taking over from a power company, and you might want to conduct sampling at the property so you establish a baseline prior to your ownership.
This also, by conducting or creating data, allows you to manage for something that is actually there. Oftentimes we take presumptive remedies. We guesstimate, or we simulate something is there and we manage it, even though it might not be there.
So in phase 2 work, confirms the existence.
Additional characterization may always be, or is always required, for RECs that have vapor intrusion
39 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com conditions. We don't require -- this program does not require characterization of the site.
It will require some perhaps limited characterization that no one is being exposed on reuse of the property. Property management plans, precautions, this is, again, I mentioned earlier, prepared by PEs and PGEs to prevent exposures.
They're based on site assessments.
They're not required to have sampling unless there may be a residential use, or public use. I don't think that's applicable to what we're talking about today.
If reuse requires construction -- for example, a mitigation system, a barrier to protect workers from a contaminated soil, then we would require a construction completion report once you are entered into the program.
Presumptive remedies, I mentioned this before. This might work if -- in the case that I foresee here, with -- we're going to buy this property, and we're not going to use it. We're going to buy and hold, and we're going to assume these conditions are there. We're going to maintain security. We're going to maintain very limited use of the area or the property.
40 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com You would not have to generate all the data to know exactly what's there. Hopefully I'm clear on that. It just allows a -- okay. We think these conditions are there. If we secure it, we limit trespassers. We limit any long-term use of the site.
That can be appropriate.
And in the case of barriers, for example, it's -- in Kentucky, we all can hear urban fill. Urban fill is usually something with high PAHs, maybe lead.
Oftentimes we will -- it's visual. We pretty much know what the concentrations are, and we can put a cap in place and feel pretty good that we have no exposure afterwards.
Voluntary cleanup, in our program it's primarily development. It's redevelopment and not necessarily the requirement of cleanup. But in some cases when there's construction, there is a need to dig out foundations and so forth, and just kind of by coincidence, or that is in some ways a cleanup.
So the plan may go in. The property management plan may get into how are we going to manage soils that we disturb? The main goal of our program is not to exacerbate current conditions, the current levels. And the property management plan, if there
41 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com is some component of voluntary cleanup, that can be included in the plan.
But once there is a waste generated, it will be the responsibility of the applicant slash participant to follow all appropriate regulations and policies of disposal. There are also -- the state of Kentucky -- I'm kind of going off script here. There's also tax credits. I don't know if that -- how --
they're there. I'll just mention it. We also have another program of voluntary cleanup which got the statute there, and in it I don't recommend it. It's been in place for over 20 years, and we've had three or four participants.
The program that I mentioned, the voluntary -- or excuse me -- the brownfield redevelopment program, we have had since 2012 when we started the program, we have over 400 applicants and over 300 participants.
And in conclusion, it's -- we offer -- we differ from the federal program in the upfront concurrence, the upfront agreement on all appropriate care. I don't know if other states offer something similar.
Most releases do not rise to the level of
42 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com CERCLA, CERCLA being the national priority list or the time critical removals, emergency actions. BFPP may be offered in other states for this window of non or exempt CERCLA releases.
Before we created our program in 2012, we adopted the federal program. I would think if we did that, the state of Kentucky, I would think other states did something similar to allow for releases that don't rise, or allow for releases in their state that don't rise to a CERCLA -- what's the word -- CERCLA priority.
So I'm looking for any -- I know you're looking at redeveloping coal-fired, or I think you're looking beyond the state of Kentucky, maybe beyond Tennessee.
So I think that -- and my point here is that we're -- a lot of what I'm presenting, I think, may be available in other states. I'm sure there's different slang in varying -- I'll let Nate kind of clean up anything I've messed up.
MR. HANCOCK: I think you've covered it pretty well. Just some of the things and other notes, like once a property is actually in the program, Cliff mentioned there's a fee and that helps us run the program and conduct audits.
43 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com My audits, we handle -- we like to periodically check up on those that are still in the program, make sure the property is following its property management plan. It's not like a surprise or a line inspection.
We contact the parties and make sure we can get access, so we go on to take a look at the features and areas of the property management are being addressed as they're supposed to be.
Our program does require that if there is a release, that a responsible party or even the state wants to have access to, you do have to give access to those parties to get in there and do additional work if necessary.
And on the last things, that is that this is a -- our program is between the state and the participant of the program. It does not extend to any third party, that being a citizen or EPA. And with that, I think we've pretty much covered everything I intended.
MS. LOPAS: That sounds excellent. Thank you, Cliff. Thank you, Nathan. Appreciate that.
That's good. We're trying to wrap our heads around responsibilities and liabilities, so this is very
44 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com helpful.
MR. HALL: And know that I wasn't sure who was buying this property right as the presentation started.
MS. LOPAS: But you got it great. It can be for potential licensees coming to us for a license.
That's great. Thank you very much. We're going to
-- if you can stick around, if you and Nate don't mind sticking around till our panel discussion, we're next going to hear from Evan Spann.
So Evan is the deputy director of field operations, division of remediation, Tennessee Department of Environmental Conservation. Hi there, Evan, We appreciate you being here.
MR. SPANN: Good afternoon. How are you all?
MS. LOPAS: Great. We're great. Thank you so much. We're going to let you do your thing.
I'm going to mute myself here.
MR. SPANN: Are you all seeing the presentation?
MS. LOPAS: We are. We're seeing your
-- there you go.
MR. SPANN: Perfect. You'll hear a lot of
45 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com overlap between Kentucky and Tennessee's program.
I'll try not to go over the basics and perhaps hit the differences between the two programs that I understood from Cliff's presentation previous. I want to say the same as the other speakers.
Thank you for the invitation. We appreciate the opportunity to present to this group about Tennessee's voluntary oversight and assistance program.
I won't read this definition. I will point you all to the picture of the abandoned Hartsville nuclear power plant that was never developed here in Middle Tennessee as an example of a potential site that may be interesting to folks to redevelop for small modular nuclear reactors.
I know that the state of Tennessee is currently exploring this option with TVA on a number of fronts through an advisory commission established by the governor.
I'll repeat some of the laws that may be attached to brownfields and environmental liability.
There's obviously CERCLA and SARA at the federal level, and then in the state of Tennessee it's the Hazardous Waste Management Act of 1983, and then
46 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com specifically section 224 of that statute, which is the brownfield project's voluntary oversight and assistance program.
That's followed up by section 225, which is the section that allows the filing and recording of notices of land use restrictions. And then I'll expand on these a little bit more through the presentation.
Firstly, state law provides the commissioner has discretion and authority to establish the apportionment of liability for contaminates and a voluntary agreement or a consent order.
What's the difference between those two in the state of Tennessee? We use a consent order for parties that are liable for contamination, and we use a voluntary agreement or a brownfield voluntary agreement for those innocent purchasers, prospective buyers, whatever other term of art gets applied to prospective purchasers of contaminated properties.
I think a little bit different than Kentucky, the liability protections that are afforded in a completed brownfield voluntary agreement in Tennessee are extended to successor parties. So they get those benefits and those responsibilities, and I'll speak to the responsibilities here shortly.
47 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com And this is, as Cliff was speaking, a positive defense against liability for contamination that's identified and addressed. One of the benefits is that you can avoid potential environmental enforcement actions that impose penalties or costly cleanups and reduce the likelihood that contamination from that property results in an unacceptable risk for your future intended reuse of the property.
The program is also useful to establish the legal basis for enforcing institutional controls or land use restrictions to limit any future liability at a site resulting from changes in land use that may be incompatible with past use and contamination that occurred during that past use of the property.
And then as Cliff said, in Kentucky, Tennessee does the same thing. We have tax benefits that are associated with brownfield properties that are managed by our Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. Step 1 in getting those tax credits is entering into a brownfield voluntary agreement with us.
So what is a liable party in the stet of Tennessee? This is a different answer than in the federal statutes. But in Tennessee, it's the owner
48 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com or operator of what we call an inactive hazardous substance site. So some facility that used contamination, had a release, and either transported or generated waste, so it could be the recipient of waste in this case, or the generator of waste.
There are some exceptions to who gets called a liable party, and they start to reference here whether or not you exercised due care. Did you do your all appropriate inquiry? I'll echo previous speakers as to the importance of performing due diligence consistent with the ASTM standards.
I'll go ahead and flip to the next slide which, I think, is where I start talking about it --
oh, not quite yet. I'll just say here -- we'll hit it in a minute -- that the importance of due diligence really can't be understated. That is your first line of defense in establishing a defense against liability for contamination.
Our voluntary application is now online beginning in January of this year. What we ask folks is, tell us whether or not you are a liable party.
And then we verify that information. What we need in the signed certificate on our applications is an affidavit, more or less, that you did not generate,
49 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com transport, or release contamination that would be addressed under the agreement for this subject property.
We also ask that the potential buyer doesn't aggravate or contribute to any further contaminant around the site, and we need a summary description of all existing environmental information so we can start to build that database about what we know about your property, so we can help you to scope a remedy that's appropriate for your proposed end use.
`
And then also we are a fee-based program in the state of Tennessee. We establish fees. Those must be paid to remain active in the program and receive your closure letter. Again, just to sort of hit on the importance of doing due diligence, the statute allows us to provide liability protection for sites that are complicated, as I've indicated here, by real or perceived adverse environmental conditions.
Our take on the perceived there is that environmental conditions at brownfields, typically you look at a brownfield and you think that just looks dirty. That's your perception of the site. We can't give you liability protection for things that just look dirty.
50 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com You have to sort of lay out in detail what those things are, and so the real contamination is what you start to get liability protection for through a brownfield agreement.
I finally found my slide on all appropriate inquiry. The important part here is to perform that due diligence prior to taking ownership of the property. Ensure that it's performed in compliance with ASTM standard E 1521 or its most recent version.
And again, to repeat the previous speaker, ensuring that it's kept up to date and completed at least six months prior to the purchase of the property.
All appropriate inquiry sets out the pathway for performing, again, that first line of due diligence. What is the history of the site? What can you learn from the history of the site that might identify any recognized environmental conditions, or RECs?
The next step, then, in our process is to take those recognized environmental conditions and start to sort of drill down on each one of those, identifying whether those are, first of all, real.
Second of all, did they result in a release, and then how do we address that release to ensure the site is
51 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com protective of human health and the environment?
Just to reflect again on what Cliff said, AAI is necessary to avoid being a responsible party under CERCLA to either get one of these three sort of classifications of property ownership: a bona fide prospective purchaser, an innocent landowner -- that is the property next to me contaminated me -- or a contiguous property owner.
We issue a brownfield voluntary agreement to those parties who enter our program and work through our process. Section D is what we have started to call our all appropriate inquiry or due care section. What we have learned over doing this work for about 20-some years is that identifying the RECs is only part of the due diligence.
There are a number of things that may be identified through a phase 1 that perhaps don't rise to the level of needing to be addressed, but should be given as sort of credit for the investigation to the potential purchaser.
So what we tried to do here was identify a subsection on the agreement that says you did your due diligence. Here's what you found. And then in the next section, the matters identified and addressed,
52 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com the language there comes out of our statute.
Pull out the important items that need to be addressed through further remediation or mitigation, so that would be site-specific elements regarding the media, soil, for instance, the location on the site, and the specific contaminants that need to be addressed because they exceed some regulatory screening or have a risk-based action level that we need to address to ensure safety on the site.
That section then further goes on to clearly define how these matters will be addressed, whether that's a soil management plan, a vapor intrusion mitigation plan, what other plans that are set up as appropriate.
Our expectation here is that voluntary is
-- voluntary parties identify these matters. Each of them is addressed independently and mitigated so that we can ensure that there's no unacceptable risk to human health and the environment, including any ongoing monitoring.
I think in a world of vapor intrusion, it's important to make sure that folks understand that ongoing monitoring may be required to ensure the protectiveness of a remedy.
53 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com We also included language from the federal statute in our recent update to the model brownfield voluntary agreement where we draw in continuing obligations. Those are those legal obligations under CERCLA that are designed to protect public health and the environment, and ensure that a remedy remains in place on a property.
So those continuing obligations do apply.
We talked about responsibilities earlier. These continuing obligations would be the responsibilities that apply to successor parties to a voluntary agreement.
This may include something like a vapor intrusion mitigation system where the operation of that system is required to ensure that the building above a waste pile, perhaps, needs to ensure that it's protective of folks that work in a building.
And then many time we get a voluntary party who purchases a piece of property, investigates it, doesn't have a very particular plan for redevelopment of that property but could put in place this either site or soil management plan that would guide redevelopment of that property by some other successor party down the line.
54 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com I think it's important to note that we provide permit exemptions for any onsite cleanup activities related to those matters that are identified and addressed. You do have to work within the boundaries of the permit, but you don't have to actually go out and get the actual permit. So this is a value to our voluntary parties.
I mentioned notice of land use restrictions earlier. This is a document that is recorded on a piece of property that has completed its remedial or mitigative actions under a brownfield agreement.
It mirrors the brownfield voluntary agreements template to include media, location, and specific contaminants. These restrictions are intended to ensure that a remedy that may be put in place, let's say a cap over some contaminant pile, continue to be in place and don't get disturbed by successor users down the line.
So these restrictions may include a use restriction. This property is not appropriate for residential land use, or some sort of activity control.
Don't dig over there, or an operation and maintenance control. This is referencing maybe the vapor intrusion barrier or vapor intrusion mitigation system
55 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com that I mentioned earlier.
We added in an update to this notice of land use restriction based on some experience with this over the last few years, a written notice of presence of contamination. So this requires that each deed recorded after this notice of land use restriction has a mention of this deed restriction in it.
That would go with future conveyances.
There's a compliance reporting obligation as well, and it has a positive successor notification requirement for future purchasers of the property.
We do have some flexibility in our program to offer sort of levels of liability protection. So sometimes we will get in a phase 1 or a phase 2 that really just says, I just need somebody at the state to say this is okay.
So we're comfortable issuing what we call a no additional action letter, which is just a letter that says we've reviewed your phase 1. We've reviewed your phase 2. We concur with it. It does not provide any statutory liability protections, but we found that it's appropriate for some transactions in the state.
The no further action letter is used in the brownfield voluntary agreement and developed all the
56 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com statutory defenses that we've been talking about.
Then if a liable party is working with us, we issue them a consent order. We use the term a letter of completion for the letter. They get it at the end of work in our -- under that consent order.
So one of the things that Sarah asked me to talk about is our remedy strategies. So what are we looking for on properties that enter into our voluntary program? We want people to fully characterize their site on the front end.
We only provide liability protection for those matters that are both identified and addressed.
so if a client chooses not to explore groundwater on a site, they get no liability protection for the groundwater pathway.
So we ask for a very fulsome investigation of the site, and then we try and sit down with folks and understand and explore what is your redevelopment plan and how do we incorporate, say, targeted cleanups, the use of caps or covers for onsite management of materials, into your redevelopment plan, that typically will get reduced down into a soil management plan that I mentioned earlier.
We would limit future use of the property
57 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com via these notices of land use restrictions. And we're big fans of preemptive mitigation, especially when dealing with volatile chemicals, say, at a former dry cleaner, attacking source or installing vapor intrusion mitigation tools. I believe that gets me to the end.
MS. LOPAS: That was great, Evan. Thank you very much.
MR. SPANN: Absolutely. Thank you.
MS. LOPAS: So following up on those two presentations, talking about so much state requirements and lines delineating liability, we now have Richard Turtil, who is the senior financial analyst here in my division, which is The Division of Rulem, Environmental, and Financial Support.
He's the senior financial analyst, and he's in the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguard.
He's going to talk to us about decommissioning funding assurance considering existing radiological contamination at some of these brownfield sites. So Rich, I'm sorry. I feel like I always mess up your last name. My apologies for that. You're on. It's all you now.
MR. TURTIL: Turtil is fine. Can I be
58 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com heard? My audio is okay?
MS. LOPAS: We hear you. Thank you.
MR. TURTIL: I'll be checking that because I had some difficulties yesterday. I want to thank Sarah. This is a great combination of individuals who are presenting from the federal Canadian level and from our two states, Kentucky and Tennessee.
This is really providing a lot of insight and thought, so I'm going to follow up with where we are at and what we're envisioning in light of the ADVANCE Act. So, yes. We're going to discuss a little bit of financial qualifications, but certainly get into decommissioning funding concern or focus. Next slide.
Basically, I want to go over very briefly our current -- NRC's current financial qualification and nuclear decommissioning trust fund requirements.
The overview basically is our applicants must be financially qualified. So we will ensure through our requirements at 10 CFR 50.33, that's 10 Code of Federal Regulations 50.33, that an applicant has adequate funding and either they are in possession or have reasonable assurance of obtaining funds for these activities -- the construction of a facility, the operation of a facility, and also of course the
59 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com decommissioning of that facility.
So that's part of our review. We will look at everything from financial state, cash flow, statement of income, financial statements, and also looking at will this facility generate certainly enough revenue to cover its expenses.
Currently the current nuclear decommissioning funding assurance requirement, which is really the main focus and concern looking at ADVANCE Act, the applicant is to provide a certification of financial assurance for decommissioning, and that is the current requirement. These are all for power reactors.
These requirements are at 10 CFR 50.75, which is entitled reporting and record keeping for decommissioning planning. Now what we currently have in that requirement is a use of a minimum formula amount. That is for really very large, 1,200 to 3,400 megawatt thermal capacity facilities, reactor licensees.
So that would, in most all cases if we're looking at microreactor environment, that minimum formula would certainly not apply. So part of an additional allowance or an estimate would be based on
60 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com a cost estimate for decommissioning, a site-specific decommissioning cost estimate.
That is what we are envisioning for, if not all of these types of licensees coming in to acquire a brownfield site, develop whatever they may in terms of the capacity of their reactor. But we would be looking at likely a site-specific cost estimate.
So nuclear facilities at brown sites are envisioned to provide that kind of estimate. So in addition to meeting the financial qualification requirements, are they financially qualified? This is really going to get into a lot of what we heard at the state level.
Who's got the liability? Who might have liability for radiologic contamination before and certainly after operation? So the applicant is going to be financially qualified to address contamination issues at the site, and their plans must consider, of course, radiological contamination at the site from pre-brownfield activities, if any.
And the presentation that was provided by Matthew, I greatly appreciate the kind of detail that was provided in terms of radionuclides and other considerations, particularly from coal sites.
61 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com That being said, what we -- again, the kind of detail that we're considering, and this is really being informed now more so than I imagined before from what the state is communicating today, that kind of experience basically through site description and characterization prior to licensing.
So we envision that in doing our licensing and our reviews that we would be seeking a thorough and transparent understanding of the assumption of liabilities at the contaminated site, including liability for prior radiological contamination if it's present, and the liability for proposed operations radiological contamination.
As part of our review, I know that we would be looking at -- and the more I've heard now, both from Kentucky and Tennessee, looking at and understanding agreements and relationships between buyer and seller, and what is in place.
So we would be seeking and we would be wanting to ensure that there's adequate decommissioning funding assurance to address those site characterization elements of the site prior to the sale or the -- it could be a lease situation.
So we would be looking into the agreements,
62 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com the terms of lease or sale that would articulate specifically reference to the current site characterization and contamination, identifies which entities would assume liability upon the transaction.
And again, this is now being in my view informed very much from what we heard from Kentucky and Tennessee as to the kind of programs that they currently certainly have in place, and have had in place for it sounds like a good number of years.
So I hope that's giving you a bit of insight into what our requirements are currently, which has really been focused not on any pre-assessment of contaminated sites, but basically a licensing review, an application review, and the focus on radiologic decommissioning of what that new licensee would bring to the SEC.
And of course this new consideration for the ADVANCE Act would have us evaluating and considering both contamination prior to a license transfer or a site transfer or sale, and of course having adequate funding assurance to meet all of those requirements, post and pre whatever contamination may be there.
So it's of course a huge liability concern
63 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com and something we would be taking a close look at. And with that, I know my presentation's a bit shorter than the others. Again, really appreciate that which we've heard today, so thank you.
MS. LOPAS: It was perfect, Rich, because you caught us up. We were running a little bit late, so now we're only two minutes late. Thank you. So at this point, if I could invite Matt and Cliff and Evan and Rich, you can stay on camera, too, if you don't mind.
If they're comfortable popping back on camera, I want to first kind of open it up to panelists amongst yourselves, but also NRC staff because that's
-- we're going to kind of limit this panel discussion for the next 10, 15 minutes on any questions amongst yourselves. If you all heard anything that caught your eye or was of interest -- Mike, do you --
MR. KING: Yes. This is Mike King. I'm sorry. I have to step out here shortly, but a very interesting discussion so far and you've planted the seed of a question in my mind. I'd be interested in all stakeholders' perspectives on this.
Rich kind of shared some preliminary thoughts of how we think we would rely on a
64 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com site-specific as opposed to the standard approach to verify we have adequate funding to decommission.
Interested in stakeholders' thoughts based on your understanding, is there a more efficient way, do you think, for us to be able to do that verification, perhaps even beyond what's even there in place in terms of the two options we typically rely upon?
At this point, we're looking at any ideas.
Clearly using an existing site has some industrial uses. It has some pre-existing uses. What better use than to use it for another site, potentially for industrial purposes?
We're really kind of looking for ways that we can be smart about the approach and, you know, while at the same time assuring at the end of the day we've got adequate funds to clean it up as needed.
So all creative ideas on the table are welcome, and don't feel constrained to kind of just what we proposed. So thank you so much.
MS. LOPAS: Thanks. That was great. Let me introduce Tony Dimitriadis. He is -- Tony, I'll let you introduce yourself. You're a branch chief, but you do decommissioning up there with NRC's region 1, right?
65 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MR. DIMITRIADIS: That pretty much covers it. Tony Dimitriadis, region 1. That's near Philadelphia. It's outside of Philadelphia near one of the biggest malls in America, King of Prussia. We have been -- decommissioning projects from -- we're responsible from Maine to Florida. That's region 1 for decommissioning only.
MS. LOPAS: Okay. Anybody have any -- I did really like that idea. Picking up on what Rich was talking about, about site-specific going to be needed to demonstrate financial assurance, or decommissioning trust fund assurance. I mean, thoughts on that, Rich?
MR. TURTIL: Well, I'm intrigued by both the states' ability, what they have implemented at the state level in terms of their own legislation, of how they find a party no longer liable and how that is established, and how it is maintained and how it is, of course, followed up through the life of the new owner of that piece of property.
I find that very interesting, especially
-- and I'm thinking probably the most pressing issue that I can imagine is pre-site characterization. When I say pre, I mean of course prior to a transaction of a brownfield site, passing on a brownfield site.
66 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com So I'm very intrigued by how the states accomplish that and have that confidence that once that
-- and I don't have all the expressions. I was trying to get them -- the bona fide -- the BFF program.
Once that is established, I guess that's Kentucky. And then I think Tennessee had a similar kind of -- almost like you have passed and we're giving you that authority. How that is maintained, I find that -- I'd like to hear a little bit.
I know that could probably take a lot of time, but I find that an interesting process. And of course as I'm thinking this, as we engage at state levels, if we have responsibilities that are coming in West Virginia or Kentucky or Tennessee versus Nevada or somewhere else, I see us now an opportunity or a need maybe for us to reach down and certainly be communicating much more intently with the state. So those are some preliminary thoughts I have.
MR. HANCOCK: And I guess I'd turn to Evan or -- I'm sorry -- Evan or Cliff, if you have thoughts MR. SPANN: I think for us in Tennessee, once a party joins the voluntary program and completes their brownfield agreement, gets their letter of no further
67 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com action, the state considers them an innocent purchaser.
They will have certain responsibilities based on the contamination they identified and their proposed land use.
A lot of our projects, with the growth in Tennessee lately, have been former light industrial properties or I'm looking out my window at The Gulch in downtown Nashville. It's a former railroad yard that's been converted into residential ownership.
So that apartment complex you wouldn't expect would contaminate anything any further except during maybe Country Music Week here in town. But to lose your liability protection, you would have to have a release on site that's not associated with the contaminants you identified when you took the property on.
So if you came on, dropped a drum of TCE for whatever reason you did that, that release is yours.
You may be innocent for the previous releases you identified, but that one would be yours. I think maybe I'm answering your question. I hope so.
MR. HALL: I'll just add to that for the state of Kentucky, we offer a notice of concurrence letter that pretty much spells out what has to remain
68 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com for them to be in the program and to be in the program at good standing.
We have audits conducted that -- I mean, we get to maybe 10 percent of our sites in the program every year, and it's not -- one, a particular reviewer could not throw an entity out of the program. That would have to be elevated up to management, the director, the commissioner level.
And if anyone would lose status in this program, it has made it very high level. It would not be made at the project manager level, so I don't know if that's -- did that -- I would say we lay out what their responsibilities are.
We audit to make sure that they follow through with those responsibilities. If there's any kind of uncertainty, it will be a decision of loss of concurrence would be made by management.
MR. HANCOCK: And I guess I'll just throw in, in the case -- if someone has a subsequent release
-- let's say they have a fuel spill on this property.
Their property management plan wasn't designed to address that, so they don't get liability protection for that, something that's not pre-existing. So they would be responsible under our normal regulations to
69 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com address it. We wouldn't remove their letter of concurrence as long as they cooperate with us.
MR. HALL: We don't -- it's not illegal to have a release. It's illegal not to address your release. So just having a release does not prevent you from being in the program.
MR. HANCOCK: And most of the site that we work on, honestly they're going to be mostly industrial sites, dry cleaning sites, things like that. That's what you typically get in these programs. I can't say that we have anything where someone's going to put a nuclear reactor on a property.
I don't know that we can really answer, how would you assess that that small nuclear reactor is affecting the environment? I'm not qualified to tell you at this time. I learned a lot from Matt's presentation.
You would have -- before locating whatever, a small modular reactor or whatever type of reactor, you would want to make sure that you're hiring a competent environmental professional to perform the environmental site assessment that will assess a lot of what Matt was talking about so you can establish the baselines prior to ownership.
70 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MS. LOPAS: Hey Matt, you unmuted yourself MR. BOND: Yes, sure. Thanks. Just one thing to add to that, just the thought of some traditional brownfield sites might have a fairly small footprint relatively speaking in terms of contamination. And then there's different strategies depending on what that contaminant is to remediate that or not, or whatever the management action taken is.
But at least based on the regulations here in Canada, when we're looking at site characterizations, we have to take into account what are we seeing in terms of contaminants at the footprint, which is pretty small scale. What does that look like more locally, and then what is the regional background?
So depending on what the type of site is, that could tell a very different story. I'm thinking escaping fly ash from coal sites, we might actually be seeing elevated background regionally. How do we take that into account when comparing what we're seeing regionally, if that's elevated, compared to local scale or the footprint scale.
So these all sort of -- the questions that are driving the work that I'm starting up here. But
71 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com I won't say it throws a wrench into things, but I think maybe we need to think about things a little bit differently in those cases.
MS. LOPAS: Right, especially with the coal plants and the fly ash, and as you noted, the regional releases. Not to put her on the spot, but I wanted to introduce Christianne Ridge.
MS. RIDGE: I apologize, Matthew. I arrived in the middle of your presentation, and I look forward to going back to the beginning when I got the slides and from the second half, I found it really informative. But yes, thank you to everyone on the panel. I apologize for my tardiness from a previous meeting.
MS. LOPAS: It's okay. Now from a decommissioning standpoint, you would be interested in the baseline data that the applicant collected.
Is that right?
MS. RIDGE: Yes, absolutely. So our licensing authority would extend to the license so it's very important to understand the background. But we also need to be very aware of the safety, the radiological safety of any workers who are engaging in any construction on the site.
72 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com So if there are contaminants on site, that's before any construction starts. Obviously that's an NRC issue, is the safety of those workers as well.
From a decommissioning standpoint, obviously site characterization is extremely important, and knowing what was there on the site before a licensed facility was on the site is step 1 for decommissioning.
MR. TURTIL: And I think -- this is Rich.
I think internally amongst the NRC folks, what I envision would then probably be quite a bit more coordination internally with NRC's financial folks, with the environmental and the HP community within the NRC.
Again, the large reactors, it was -- I use the term slam dunk. It's relying on a megawatt thermal capacity that we are using from a table. It's very kind of plug and play, very rote, if you will.
As we get into this area of maybe greater reliance on site-specific, I could see a greater need internally for us to all coordinate amongst ourselves more so than was necessary with the larger reactors, so just a thought there.
MS. LOPAS: Okay. I want to open it up for
73 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com any other questions from the panelists before we take our break. All right. Matt and Evan and Cliff and Nathan, thank you so much. Rich, thank you too, obviously.
I really am very grateful for you all helping out during -- I contacted you right before the holidays and I said hi, help. And you all came through, so I really appreciated it so much. And Chris?
MR. REGAN: Yes. No, I -- yes. Again, my appreciation for all the panelists. It's a fascinating topic. It's technically interesting, legally interesting, and I really appreciate all the great information you folks have shared.
We have a lot of information to digest, which is good because it's a very rich environment for us to work within. So again, my appreciation for all the presentation materials.
MS. LOPAS: Okay. We're going to take a 10-minute break, so let's do, like, 2:47, ready to get started. Christine King will be taking us off with a quick introduction, then we'll move into -- we'll hear from NRC, NEI, Katie Austgen, and then we have some other excellent presentations after that. So 2:47, please, everybody. Thank you all. I suggest
74 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com not hanging up on the Teams meeting. It's easier that way. Thanks panelists. You can stay on if you'd like.
MR. BOND: Take care.
MS. LOPAS: Take care.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 2:37 p.m. and resumed at 2:48 p.m.)
MS. LOPAS: All right, everybody. Give me one second. All right, Christine. I'm sorry. We're going to hand it over to you. Let me give you your proper introduction, though. It's very important.
We have Christine King here. She is the Director of the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear, GAIN as it's called, in the Idaho National Laboratory Division of DOE. So thank you, Christine, and we'll hand it over to you.
MS. KING: Thank you, Sarah. It's nice to see you again. So I'm going to kick off the second part of this meeting, and we're going to switch gears a little bit. We're still going to talk about some regulation and calculations, but I think a lot of our time is really sharing where we have been bumping into them in some of the work that's been done in the industry.
So first, I'm assuming you can see my screen.
75 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com I'm going to carry on. I'm representing the group, a set of work that has many, many individuals that are participating in it. And I just open the door to anyone that's interested in more details.
If you'd like what I would call a nerd-to-nerd conversation, I'd be more than happy to make those arrangements. We've been working in the space for about three years. GAIN in particular has been doing pilot studies.
So we have three coal stations listed here, from the top to the bottom. They're in Arizona, Kentucky, and Montana. The utilities associated with these coal stations do not have nuclear in their portfolio.
We felt that it might be a higher hurdle for them to consider nuclear energy since they were not familiar with it. Each study is a little bit different, but they all include some form of screening the site. Looking at technologies that might fit the site, and in some cases we've done some economic impact and workforce studies.
In parallel to this, the systems and analysis and egression campaign of the DOE has been doing work since 2022. The picture on the left-hand side is a
76 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com comprehensive study that was done in 2022. I'll talk later about a guidebook they published in 2024.
But I really just wanted to introduce the topic that's coming after me, which is the challenges of where some of our brownfield sites are located, in particular coal stations and how that bumps into the regulations and how we calculate population density.
On the left-hand side, that's kind of the
-- it's not kind of. Those are the results of our 2022 study. We ended at 300 total coal sites amenable to siting either an advance reactor or a large light water reactor.
It's interesting to point out, though, that we started with many, many more sites. On the right-hand site, I want to walk through some of the details for the retired sites that we looked at.
First of all, we started from the EIA data with 349 retired sites. We removed sites that were not owned or operated by a utility or independent power producer, and we also removed sites and units that were retired before 2012. That was specific to the study that we were doing at that point in time.
But of the remaining sites, 229, we did a quick screen enabled by GIS factors of multiple
77 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com factors, including population. And we went from 229 down to 157 that were ultimately analyzed -- retired sites that were analyzed in the 2022 report.
And 57 of the 72 sites screened out in this step. And they screened out on population. We were using guidance from the Clinch River Early site permit application of 500 people per square mile at four miles.
And I think this is one of the challenges when we think about redeveloping brownfields. They may not have screened out when they were originally built either. And in some cases, it wasn't a challenge for the population that lives there now, but in the case of our station in Kentucky, it was a challenge during the construction phases of the project where the population criteria could not be met.
I'm going to come back after the next few presentations and dig a little bit more in to what we've learned about interacting with the community, talking about what we understand about workforce match, and how that flows into energy and environmental justice.
So Sarah, back to you.
MS. LOPAS: Okay. Great. Thank you for getting this set up. So Bill Reckley, I see you are
78 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com on screen. Bill is a senior project manager here in our Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, and Bill's going to take us through the NRC presentation on population requirements. So Bill, I'll hand it over to you. Thank you so much.
MR. RECKLEY: Thank you, Sarah. I assume you're seeing the presentation and hearing me okay?
MS. LOPAS: Yes, sounds good.
MR. RECKLEY: So as many of you would be aware, there's a lot of consideration given to siting.
I like to characterize it as the siting consideration is looking both directions. What can the nuclear plant do to its environment? What can the environment do to the nuclear plant?
So looking at normal routine effluence, looking at accident, potential releases of radionuclides during accidents, and then from the other direction, what site factors could affect a nuclear power plant -- seismic, winds, things like that, and nearby industrial and military complexes.
The issue of siting nuclear power plants became an issue as soon as the Atomic Energy Commission in the very early days moved to commercialize the technology. So one of the earlier products was how
79 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com to calculate distances from power reactors and test sites to population centers, and that's the 1962 technical information document listed there.
The NRC has since updated guidance in looking at what are the potential radiological releases and how are those factored into siting considerations?
A somewhat more recent study is referenced here in the commission paper SECY-16-0012 where we started to actually look at how things might change for small modular reactors, microreactors, in terms of changes to the accident source terms.
What would be the potential radiological releases -- maybe less conservative ways to model those, more mechanistic models, more realistic models.
The Atomic Energy Commission and also the NRC has looked at siting not only from a purely technical standpoint, but from a policy consideration.
And there were early proposals to site nuclear power plants in urban environments. That led to study, obviously, in the late 1970s, early 1980s after the accident at Three Mile Island.
There were additional studies. One major piece of work, although it's from 1980 which was going
80 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com on 50 years ago, was the report of the siting policy task force. And they looked at accident consequences, primarily from large light water reactors but also how the NRC would consider societal risk.
So this is where you move from the calculation of a dose as a result of an accident and think broader. What might be the economic impact?
What might be the consequences of relocating environments or communities, not because of high doses but sustained lower doses?
What would be the role of siting in defense in depth? We all are familiar with, or many of us familiar with the reactor technologies, and including within the reactor designs defense in depth, additional safety systems, and so forth.
But there are other elements of defense in depth like emergency planning and including siting.
The final rule on part 100, which is the NRC's siting regulations, again, it's nearly 30 years ago.
However, even in that rulemaking the commission included statements like it is recognized that advanced reactors may have lower consequences. However, siting away from population centers will continue as a measure of defense in depth.
81 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com Other siting considerations are in the environmental area, which the environmental impact statements and environmental assessments that are performed related to the siting of a power plant at a particular location.
One of the more recent things that we're going to talk about today primarily is more recent changes to the siting criteria, and how that fits into today's discussion on the ADVANCE Act and the potential location of brownfield sites.
So this slide is trying to show a few of the areas or zones that surround the nuclear power plant, and the NRC takes into consideration in terms of the potential consequences of a reactor accident. The distances shown here are the distances for the traditional operating fleet, large light water reactors.
But immediately around the nuclear power plant, you have an exclusionary boundary, then a low population zone that goes out for large light water reactors approximately three or four miles, then a population center distance, which is the distance between the nuclear power plant and the nearest population center of about 25,000 people. That goes
82 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com out to about five miles.
Up until the issuance of the recent guidance, the NRC had established that for a distance of 20 miles around a nuclear power plant, we would look at a population density and ensure that the population density was less than 500 people per square miles.
The emergency planning zone was traditionally set at 10 miles. And then you have a couple other areas and zones that the NRC would use in doing assessments, for example, against the NRC safety goals.
I forgot to do the top. The top line there is for normal effluence, and that's usually a smaller zone. But it's looking at the unrestricted area associated with the routine release of radionuclides as part of plant operations.
So the next slide just shows this again, somewhat in maybe a more clear graph. On the left is the zones or areas where the NRC and the applicant is doing an analysis of the potential radiological consequences of an accident, and using that to either determine or confirm a particular distance or area.
So the closest one, again, the exclusionary boundary, that is where the licensee has control of
83 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com that land area. They can dictate the behavior of what's going on in that particular area. The low population zone is the next one. It relates to that radius at which the accident analysis would show that the dose to an individual is less than 25 rem as a result of the release during the whole event.
Then AEC established and the NRC has maintained a population center distance, which is one and a third times the low population zone to the nearest distance to a town of about 25,000 people.
And then shown on the right side of the figure is the look at population density consideration. So this is not actually calculated or confirmed based on a radiological assessment of accidents. It's traditionally just been set at the generic value of 500 people per square mile, out to 20 miles.
But as we moved into the discussions of advanced reactors and potential implications of siting, a lot of these areas that had been fixed, we opened up to considering in potential consequence assessments.
So we changed the emergency planning zone regulations to now allow an emergency planning zone, instead of being the 10 miles, to be assessed with one
84 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com of the factors being the potential radiological consequences estimated from an analysis of accidents.
We did the same thing for siting, as I'll get into in the next slide or two. So this is just getting into our regulations, and the one that goes to population density is sited here, 10 CFR 100.21, paragraph H.
And it's an interesting rule. As siting has been throughout the history of the regulation of nuclear power plants, because you can -- it's one of the few rules that uses the word should, and we will consider.
But it does establish and reflect the longstanding policy of the NRC to prefer and push for the location of nuclear power plants to be away from densely populated centers. Then another thing that comes into play on occasion is the population center distance, the other green box there, that just basically says that a reactor should be some distance outside a population center of about 25,000 people.
This rule over the last 30 or 40 years has been implemented through the guidance in regulatory guide 4.7, general site suitability, and the guidance being that, as I've said before, the population density
85 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com being less than 500 persons per square mile out to 20 miles.
So with the changes in the discussions of smaller reactors, more passive reactors that have been designed in accordance with the NRC's advance reactor policy statement that might have lower releases, we re-looked and presented the commission with options on -- to change the population-related siting considerations.
That's reflected in this commission paper, SECY-20-0045 that was submitted in 2020. The commission chose an option and the staff has since revised the guidance in reg guide 4.7, and it's shown here in the brown box where it's consequence determined.
It now says as an alternative to just the fixed 500 people per square mile out to 20 miles, it can be 500 people per square mile out to twice the distance at which an accident consequence analysis shows that the accident has a dose of 1 rem over the 30 days following the release or following the accident.
We maintain that the reactor should be located outside of a population center of greater than
86 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com about 25,000 people. So then as I mentioned, that's our recent work, revision 4 to that reg guide where we put in the consequence-based assessments.
We are also working on a proposed rule on risk-informed technology inclusive regulatory framework for advanced reactors. That's the part 53 effort. I will only say here that part 53 currently reflects the guidance in reg guide 4.7.
We carried through the requirements from part 100 so the distances here are basically the same.
The exclusionary boundary is that distance at which 25 rem over two hours in a low population zone, 25 rem over the duration.
But keep in mind that what we're seeing in some advance reactors is that they're showing that these doses, 25 rem over the duration of the event, could basically be at the site boundary. So you're no longer having what was shown in this figure of exclusionary boundaries being half a mile, low population zones being four miles.
You're basically seeing these, if they're able to demonstrate it, collapse to the site boundary.
And then the low population -- the areas in which population density is considered can also be
87 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com consequence-oriented and be two time the distance out to which the accident is estimated to give 1 rem over the 30 days.
So I just wanted to mention that although part 53 is an ongoing rulemaking and still open for comment until the end of February if people have an interest in this topic, it does reflect basically this consequence-oriented approach.
Another activity that's going on right now is microreactors are receiving a lot of attention.
And we are -- we have prepared a couple commission papers related to microreactors. They're listed here in 2020 and last year, SECY-24-0008, listing out potential policy issues.
Siting is usually one of those issues that's discussed a lot in terms of microreactors. There's currently a white paper that's been released last September, and there will be a meeting in the next month or so to go over that white paper, solicit input on that before sending it up to the commission with options to consider.
Microreactors are also addressed in the ADVANCE Act under section 208, and then obviously were here today to talk about section 206 and the siting
88 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com considerations.
Sarah, that's all I have. I had a couple background slides. If there's a few minutes, I could go over them. But they're not critical.
MS. LOPAS: Let's hold off on those, maybe, but stay put, Bill. I do want to move to Katie, and maybe those background slides will be useful during the discussion.
MR. RECKLEY: Okay.
MS. LOPAS: So if you want to hang on and stop sharing your slides, but keep your slides handy if we need them. Does that work?
MR. RECKLEY: That works.
MS. LOPAS: Thank you very much. I appreciate that. So I'm going to pull up Katie's slides for her. We have Katie Austgen. She's a senior project manager for New Nuclear at the Nuclear Energy Institute. Hang on one second and Bill, you can just stop sharing your slides.
I will try to share in just a moment. It goes much better when everybody else shares their screen. Everybody's much faster than I am. Let me see if I can do this here -- view, screen -- I think we'll just do it like this, if that's okay. All right.
89 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com Katie is here.
MS. AUSTGEN: Let's go full screen mode.
It will be --
MS. LOPAS: You're right. Okay.
MS. AUSTGEN: The order of operations here.
There we go. Thank you so much, Sarah. We can go ahead and skip to the next slide, and I'll pick up sort of right where Bill left off on the reg guide 4.7 rev 4 outcome.
So we were involved, of course, in the public interactions as those updates were posed to the commission. The commission provided direction, and then the staff proceeded with the reg guide update.
And it certainly did clarify and add some flexibility in considering how commission-related sites, specifically the population density and distance, or PDD as I'm going to refer to it, for advanced reactor designs.
But one of the things that we realized, admittedly a little late in the process, was that we didn't think this revision adequately put population density siting considerations in context with the other siting elements, namely defense depth considerations.
Bill mentioned some of those, so I'll talk a little
90 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com bit more about that in later slides.
We also didn't think it adequately prepared the level of protection that was afforded for the advanced reactors as NRC had proposed to that which was currently applied to the existing light water reactors, and Bill talked about some of the history of existing light water reactors.
So of course now we're dealing with having that history but we're trying to figure out how to move forward with these reactors. So it's certainly complicated.
And then the third, we didn't think the revision identified whether NRC's guidance would result in undue burden, that is excessive restrictions on siting for an advanced reactor.
We knew it was going to be better because it gave you sort of that consequence-oriented option.
But we didn't know, is it going to be enough to avoid excessive restrictions on siting? Next slide.
So in our public comments on the draft guide, we endeavored to answer those questions. And as part of our comments, we provided a white paper. We concluded that with respect to context for siting-related considerations, population-related
91 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com siting considerations, the population density distance, it advises societal impacts following an accident involving significant fission products released on the environment.
So I think we can agree with the NRC there.
It does have that purpose. But on the level of protection indicating two times the distance of 1 rem every 30 days was more than a factor of five times more conservative than what the NRC currently finds acceptable for larger light water reactors.
And based on that, we thought this does still impose excessive restrictions on the ability to site advanced reactors, and then tie back to what Christine brought up for us. So you're seeing it all come together now. Next slide.
So the staff, of course, because we provided this as part of our comments on the draft guide which ultimately became the reg guide, they did disposition our recommendations. And we had proposed that a better population density distance criterion might be 5 rem in 30 days because that will align with the NRC accepted level of protection for large light water reactors.
The staff disagreed with our comparison, and of course there was all of that history that Bill
92 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com provided. There was also the fact that the commission had given the staff direction and we were providing this conflicting.
So we may still not fully align on all the implications of that history, but for better or for worse we said hey, maybe we can do better, and the staff said not in rev 4. Okay.
So then we said okay, you're also doing excessive baseline margin when you look at two times the distance of 1 rem in 30 days compared to what the large light water reactor licensing experience is.
So you shouldn't need excessive uncertainty analysis.
The staff agreed on the flexibility on the uncertainty assessments. They didn't agree with our characterization of the margin. But they also didn't make any further changes to the reg guide. So if you follow the paper trail, one might conclude there is no need for extensive uncertainty analysis, but that's not crystal clear from the reg guide.
And then finally we said best -- analysis approach is more than adequate for defining the population density distance, or as Bill said using realistic assumptions. And again, the NRC staff agreed, but did not provide any further clarification
93 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com in the reg guide.
So going forward and looking at the ongoing activities, whether it's part 53 microreactors, or what we're here for today, the ADVANCE Act, we certainly see a need to clarify any differences in views on the bases and the comparison and have we really done the best that we can to streamline the experience for brownfield sites or is there potentially more to do>
Next slide.
So thinking about that population-only siting more broadly, because remember the reg guide is really just looking at population density distance.
But as Bill shared with us, there are all those other criteria as well.
So we still view that the regulations, both various parts of CFR 100 including the population center distance, siting away from densely-populated areas, the definition for population center being 25,000 people, and then the reg guide 4.7 guidance, even updated guidance for advanced reactors may still challenge the business case for widespread advanced reactor deployment.
And so we still see some opportunities to better connect what was going on with that regulatory
94 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com history and the bases. Bill mentioned some portions of the considerations from the 1996 rulemaking, and I will keep those shortly.
But you can come to a couple different conclusions based on that, and knowing that licensing is an involving practice, and that we know more about advanced reactor designs than we did in 1996, there could be some additional bases for updating -- and this might lead to modifying the corresponding requirements.
Again, one thing we had not touched previously was the part 100 guidance. We were looking at guidance and what would be updated in guidance.
But the ADVANCE Act is prompting us right now to look at regulations as well.
So with all this, we have embarked on developing some additional white papers so we can get a better handle on that information. Let's go to the next slide. I took Bill's lovely figure from previous iterations, and just so we've got it handy, but agree that there have historically been several different distances.
We're now seeing that with what we know with different advanced reactors, there have historically
95 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com been several different distances. And we're now seeing that with what we know at different advanced reactors, those distances may not be so different from one another after all.
And so given their safety and environmental attributes, the NRC has been developing those various strategies to streamline the -- in advanced reactors, including light water SMRs, non-light water reactors, and light water reactors.
We need to include the increased use of risk-and performance-based approaches, as I mentioned.
Both NRC rules and regulatory guidance -- examples of the five-mile rule for SMRs and other new technologies, which might be able to set a site boundary during the planning. And that may also essentially also collapse your exclusionary boundary and population zone.
So the NRC's population siting requirements, giving the population center distance, the population density distance, should all be similarly -- and performance-based. I would note that the current population center distance, as Bill mentioned, is stated by definition in regulation.
So it's entirely prescriptive and it was developed for large light water reactors six decades
96 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com ago, using some extremely conservative assumptions on severe accidents having the highest consequences, where a core melts together or a bypass containment failure leads to large releases. Let's go to the next slide.
So some of the possibilities that we're starting to see and starting to explore further and would appreciate future dialogue with the staff on what might be done -- the clearest one that we see is that for sites with an emergency planning zone, call it sites with a site boundary, the inclusionary boundary, the low population zone, and we can see even the population's estimated distance and the population center distance can all be set to the site boundary.
Here where the commission amended part 100 in 1996 and retained that population center distance environment due to defense depth considerations that Bill mentioned, just before that they had expressly noted next-generation reactors are expected to have risk characteristics sufficiently low that the safety of the public is reasonably assured by the reactor and plant design and operation itself, resulting in a very low likelihood of occurrence of a severe accident.
They go on to say therefore, siting such a
97 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com reactor closer to a densely populated city, then, as current NRC practice would pose a very low risk to the populace. As I mentioned, we obviously know a lot more about these reactor designs than we did in 1996.
We're seeing designs using a variety of safety features, whether it's functional containment of the dual core itself, or operating at a very low pressure, or a source term that is exceedingly small compared to our large light water reactors, there are a number of ways that we are seeing through the safety review and through these other pieces of demonstrating compliance with regulatory requirements that it just doesn't make sense to retain some of these population-related siting requirements as we have.
So we could also look at alternate population density dose criteria beyond the two times the distance to 1 rem. We could look at others, like maybe 5 rem in 30 days or maybe even something else. But we might be able to look, considering all of those safety features, at something even more in line again with the characteristics of advanced reactors.
We could look at whether it's appropriate to say yes, reactors meeting a certain performance criteria can be sited in a population center of 25,00
98 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com people. Or maybe the population center changes.
Maybe it's not 25,000 people. Maybe it's 10,000 people, 15,000 people.
But we are sort of seeing that kind of no matter what number you pick, if you use a prescriptive requirement, that may ultimately cause for future applicants.
And then just in the mechanics of how some of these things work, clarity is needed on the modeling assumptions which heavily influence the dose criteria in these populations, including consideration with respect to the realistic exposure risk to the public that would be acceptable to the NRC.
You already have to do certain analyses for safety review, whether it's your accident analyses or for determining your emergency planning zone. Any one of those analyses would be equally suitable to identify the answer on population-related siting, or do you really need to do another variation of it to come up with things like population density distance.
Let's go to the next slide. So in the big picture, we know that there is huge demand for safe, firm electricity by 2050. We have surveyed our members and we know that they see the potential for greater
99 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com than 300 gigawatts electric of new nuclear by 2050.
This would result in the identification of tens to hundreds of sites per year, depending on what scale those reactors are, right? The name might be small modular reactors. Some could even be large light water reactors, and so there will be some light water reactors as well.
But any way you slice it, there's going to be lots and lots of sites that need characterization, evaluation, and ultimately review. We also know that the U.S. has stated that there is a desire for triple nuclear energy by 2050. So that also means many sites are needed.
As we discussed last time we had a meeting on section 206, brownfield sites were already impacted.
So site reuse may be environmentally preferable.
There's also questions of environmental justice and energy justice, providing that opportunity to communities so that they can consider whether they want to shift from having a coal facility to having a nuclear facility.
The next one is saved over my middle one there, but NRC's already looking very closely at the environmental requirements for siting, the safety
100 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com requirements for siting, so this is an opportunity with the driver of the ADVANCE Act to fully consider the population siting criteria.
Does it serve an independent purpose, or whether the analysis and justification necessary to site near a population is -- environment. The next slide is a repeat of one that I showed in November.
This just elaborates again that report that Christine previewed.
We found more than 400 existing or retired coal plants were suitable to host advanced nuclear.
They did screen out those that didn't meet current population siting criteria. If you look at the totality of coal powered plant communities and their characteristics, you see that only one-fifth of them fall below that population center of 25,000 people.
For purposes of this, I'm going to call 20,000 and 25,000 the same. I don't know how many are in that tier 2, but it would fit with the 25,000. I think it's clear that there are many more potential sites that perhaps could be on the table, and those communities should know whether or not they would be considered. So this would be a good way to provide that information.
101 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com We also know that obviously not every retired coal community's going to want a nuclear facility.
But all the same, if we need to build 300 gigawatts of new nuclear by 2050, we better have as good a view of our potential sites as we possibly can going into that.
Next slide. So with respect to the population related criteria, our desire would be that the requirements and guidance are updated to meet the ADVANCE Act direction, including increased used of risk-informed and performance-based approaches with additional stakeholder engagement to determine what those approaches are and figure out what's the right criteria, the right risk information, performance-based information.
We want it to be something that is scalable, that anyone can come in and work through the process and find what they should be thinking about. If the population-related criteria serve any purpose, then we want to clarify whether they meet requirements necessary, whether credit for other requirements and analyses performed can be justified.
And in particular we would want population center distance and population density distance to be
102 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com updated to reflect the characteristics of the advanced reactors. And there's that quote again from the final rule.
Notwithstanding the ultimate decision to retain the population center distance for defense in depth, it was recognized that characteristics were expected to be sufficiently low that the safety of the public would be assured.
I think that concludes mine. I had one more.
It's just the repeat of the other brownfield sites since it was already covered in November. We can keep those all together for you. Thanks so much.
MS. LOPAS: Thank you. All right, Christine. I think you are up next, if you're ready to go.
MS. KING: I am.
MS. LOPAS: Excellent.
MS. KING: All right. Let's pick up where we left off. So Katie was mentioning this, I think, under a slide called why it matters. And the only thing I really want to point out here -- this particular slide was pulled from the recent update of the loan program's office Liftoff Report for Advanced Nuclear.
And this is where we dive into looking at
103 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com energy justice and environmental justice as it affects the humans. So you can see here, if we do intend to build out 200 gigawatts of new nuclear in the United States by 2050, we need an additional 275,000 workers.
So the interest, as you can -- as kind of the interest builds in terms of our energy communities, some of the work that was done kind of in combination of some of the pilot study work that we did in Arizona led to a broader analysis that Katie was also pointing to.
The information guide is the shorter version of a more detailed report, and at the end of my presentation, Sarah, I have hyperlinks. These are all things that we've shared in the past, but similar to Katie I was trying to package it all into one place.
So diving in to what we learned relative to coal to nuclear transitions, we were looking at economic impact to a particular community. It is in comparison to the economic -- it's kind of two states of play -- the economic impact to the community of having an operating coal station, and then switching that to replacing that with various sizes of nuclear energy.
104 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com And so what does a nuclear power conversion offer a community? So I apologize, hopefully in the room the numbers aren't too tiny. But on the left-hand side, you can see the estimated employment by generation.
The coal stations are here in purple, and the nuclear plant is in green, in similar megawatt phases going along the bottom. And as you can see, generally the nuclear power plant does employ more people, and beyond the direct jobs created, there's also indirect and induced jobs created in the community.
With many nuclear power plants, or actually just energy power generating stations, you end up with supply chain jobs in the community as well. On the right-hand side shows you the dollars associated with that. So now this is for a smaller community as the chart that Katie had shows. We do have similar numbers if you wanted to look at those incomes for different populations.
I'm not a research economist, but the way that I understand it is as your population grows and you get closer to other metropolitan areas, your economic impact can blur. So it starts -- the closer
105 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com you are to a metropolitan area, your income may not stay local.
I think about that, having workers that are commuting longer distances if they are close to a metropolitan area. They might want to live there.
But you can see here that the income for a smaller community, generally what we see is nuclear has a multiplier of 1.5.
So for every hundred dollars of electricity produced, you induce $50 of economic activity. In the work that we're doing with Colstrip in Montana, we will also be looking at some of the tax impact associated with either the closure or the addition of nuclear energy in that community.
We expect that work to be coming out -- well, we're actually reviewing it with the community in two weeks. So we're pretty excited. Hopefully we'll be going public shortly thereafter.
Overlap in job types and education levels is another aspect here. So, a way a research economist looks at this, all of us have an occupation code. It's called a BLS code, I believe. It's a lovely term.
Everybody has their lingo, right?
If your occupation code matches, that means
106 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com you have similar skillsets and similar education requirements. And when the digits start to vary, starting from the right-hand side over to the left-hand side, that's how you start to see a variability in either skillsets or education required to do those jobs.
This is all quite logical, actually, once you kind of understand it. But what we've found is that 45 percent of the added jobs have identical occupation codes with coal plant workers. And then we found that 72 percent of the added jobs had a similar occupation code.
You can see the comparison on the right-hand side in terms of amount of education required, looking at total employment for the coal station, and total employment for the nuclear plant. So this was for a 500 megawatt power plant.
So we see this as very positive. If you've been at a coal station or at a nuclear power plant, much of the work is trades inside the plant, engineering. I think where we saw some of the biggest differences, and the study behind this shows you the exact differences in different job titles.
A nuclear power plant has more security than
107 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com a coal station. We have health physics and we have some nuclear engineers and things like that. So there's some obvious differences, but generally there is a lot of similarity and opportunity here.
And I think these two slides really speak to the energy justice aspect of these transitions.
There is a significant amount of interest in redeveloping coal, and this has -- these were just some of the headlines that came out in the fall of last year.
And the links are there. Hopefully you can access those. But I think there's a recognition.
Those that are wanting to reach a clean economy by 2050 and you start looking at how much we need to build --
in this case, these stories were exploring nuclear power. You naturally come to the need to repurpose our brownfields.
And Sarah, we've spoken about this a lot.
There's a lot of positive things available, and I think what we have found in our work, it's also a supportive community. So these are communities that have been operating industrial and energy facilities for some times, and are proud of that heritage and they would like to continue that heritage.
Here's the links I was mentioning. These
108 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com are all -- the Arizona studies are here. I'll point out that as a result of the work that we did in Arizona, which was actually initiated by the mayor's office, not the utility.
The utility is working and is actually talking to coal stations adjacent to them, and looking at potential nuclear deployment in northeastern Arizona. In the same region, southeastern Utah has coal stations that have joined.
They have a grant through NREL and EERE --
sorry, the National Renewables Energy Lab and the Energy Efficiency -- EERE is another office of the DOE, and I don't remember what it stands for, and shame on me.
So moving on, they have a grant to explore the transitions and putting nuclear energy in coal communities in southeastern Utah. We also have through that same program technical assistance with the Craig community out in -- sorry, I've got to get my directions right -- western Colorado.
And then we have, in eastern Montana, we have our pilot study that we're doing with them, and they also have a C-LEAP (phonetic) grant. So there is a lot of interest, and I think, you know, it's not easy
109 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com to consider the transition of these types of facilities.
However, there are dedicated people in these communities that are interested in continuing to produce -- to be power producers for our nation. If it's helpful to connect with some of them, I'd be more than happy to make those introductions.
One of the things that we're looking at in the coal strip study -- so the coal strip study is looking at various different transition pathways, or addition pathways. There's a lot of load growth, so there is a lot of consideration.
But one of the things we're looking at is the total greenhouse gases that might be produced.
So if you were to -- from a business perspective, can a utility raise the capital twice to convert to a gas plant and then convert to a nuclear plant later on?
So that's an interesting data point that will come out of our coal strip analysis as I mentioned wrapping up here shortly. My co-presenters on this panel, Kara Colton and Tracy Boatner -- I think, Sarah, you can give a more formal introduction for them.
But I've been working with them for several years. Kara in particular has been working with
110 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com communities that are host communities to Manhattan sites, and looking and working a long time about repurposing those facilities as well.
So I think she's got an excellent viewpoint on how local governments and state governments are thinking about repurposing different sites in their communities, similar to what we heard from SODI in November.
And Tracy in particular, if you have not been following what's going on in East Tennessee, I'll just say if you skip a week of news, you've missed probably three announcements in Tennessee. I think both of these organizations are seeing a significant ramp in interest, and I'm glad they were able to join us today.
And Sarah, I just want to say the kind remarks at the beginning of the meeting, thank you very much.
We are so grateful that the timing of the work that many of -- like I said, many of the folks that I front by doing this. We're just really grateful that the timing has worked out well.
MS. LOPAS: It's been great. Thank you so much, Christine. Kara Colton, I have you with your new title as principal of the KaCo Group, LLC, which is great. We're going to hear you talk about the role
111 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com of local governments in support of new nuclear development.
I know you've been with the Energy Communities Alliance and you're going to continue to work with them. But feel free to give a shout out to your new endeavor, and thank you very much for being here. We appreciate it.
MS. COLTON: Thanks. Thanks so much for having me. I'm just going to give a few opening kind of thoughts, and then I know Christine is going to hand it over to Tracy and then we might have a little bit of a discussion as well.
First and foremost, thanks so much for having me. Even though I have newly set up my own shingdig, I am still doing consulting work with the Energy Communities Alliance. Prior to that, I was with the National Governors' Association.
For anyone who's not familiar with ECA, which is what I'll be speaking about and what our efforts are, we are the association of local elected officials and economic development leaders in the communities that host Department of Energy's federal nuclear sites.
So our members include mayors, county commissioners, local economic development entities
112 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com like chambers of commerce, county commissioners, community reuse organizations and advisory boards.
As Christine was saying, historically we have been focused on the Department of Energy's environmental management and cleanup mission. And so we've really spent a lot of time on the back end of the fuel cycle.
In fact, we are one of DOE's 12 consent-based siting consortia working specifically to help provide information on all things nuclear, honestly, not just the back end although that effort is obviously focused on providing more capacity out in the world, if you will, on efforts to site a consolidated interim storage facility for the nation's commercial and federal high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel.
But as we've been doing our work on cleanup issues and as bipartisan growth continues at really every level -- local, tribal, state, federal -- we really recognized that we had an opportunity, A, to kind of look at the kinds of projects that our communities would want to attract.
As Christine was saying, there really is that sense of pride in these communities, these energy communities for what they have done and the role that
113 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com they played for the legacy communities for national security.
But they also now have a workforce. They also now have people who are in the service industry, all related to nuclear. And as this cleanup is happening, they kind of want to maintain this specialty that they've developed as a community and leverage it.
At the same time, they really understand that a rising tide lifts all boats, and so there's going to be more than enough interest in developing nuclear, as we look at Katie and Christine's slides, plenty of places that might need to be hosting nuclear facility.
And so we know that if you're wanting to do things like recreate the supply chain, you want to see more manufacturing done in the United States, that we need an order book. And in order for there to be an order book, it's not just going to be communities that have familiarity with nuclear because they were part of EM's mission. So we created something called the New Nuclear Initiative.
With that, what we've done is we've opened our doors to communities who are nuclear-curious, who are not familiar with nuclear, don't have a nuclear power plant in their backyard, but are looking for
114 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com things like economic diversity, or they have an industry closing down, or a coal-fired power plant.
They're trying to say, all right. How do we stay healthy? How do we replace the jobs? How do we maintain our economic situation, if not better it?
How do we look at customers we might want to bring in to our community?
Do we want a data center? Wait a second, a data center wants power supplied through a small modular reactor? Okay. What's that all about? So we've been trying to bring together everyone in these meetings, these New Nuclear forums. We're about to host our fourth. It's going to be in April in Idaho Falls. This is a shameless plug.
Last year, we actually had Ray Furstenau come, and he spoke at the meeting. The year prior to that, we had Commissioner Wright, which has been great.
So we really do want to have more NRC interaction because obviously the more transparency in these discussions that there are, the more you have people being brought along in an iterative conversation.
So that New Nuclear Initiative, it really
115 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com focuses around three key questions. What do communities need to know to attract and support new nuclear development missions? What and how do communities communicate to industry, to developers, to policymakers, to national laboratories, about the local resources they have and the development opportunities they're looking for?
And what hurdles and challenges are they going to face, like addressing waste or the safety issues, or long time frames that come with things like licensing, for example, and who do they need to work with to overcome those kinds of challenges?
So we often have meetings in smaller communities so that we're bringing everybody into the Paducahs of the world, into the Idaho Falls on the world so that you can see what are these -- what do they look like? What's the infrastructure there? How many restaurants are there?
For all of the reasons that -- if you're going to put a plant somewhere, if you're going to bring a new team of people to construct it and to work in it, and you want to maintain the community that's there by making their living situation more attractive, then you really need to understand, well, how long does it
116 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com take to get these things licensed?
If, for example, I'm in Kemmerer and I find out there's a two-year delay on my project, what's that mean to the community? What are my opportunities right now to plug in? Can I look at workforce training?
Should I get the unions in here? What are my retraining options for a coal to nuclear transition?
Who are the people that I can train? When do I start training them? What if I train them and the project is four years delayed? Are they leaving town? I don't want them to leave town. Do we have enough housing? Some of the other questions that we've been hearing are things that we never expected, like we're not concerned about waste or radiation. We're concerned about the nature of our community.
We have a certain value system here. We have a certain way of life here. Is that going to change beyond recognition? And so all of these things are not, you know, have one conversation and you're done.
These are all iterative.
And so a lot of the conversations that we're having around new nuclear, if stakeholder engagement needs to be considered with a timeline much like licensing has, or construction has, or financing has.
117 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com You've got to get in there. You've got to make sure you're building regular relationships and that there is transparency. Because even yesterday, I have to say I was quite happy to hear Chris Wright say in his confirmation hearing, if any project is going to succeed you're going to need local buy-in.
Another thought that that makes me think of, and before I get into -- I don't know. Christine, if you want me to, maybe some suggestions or things that we're hearing, but I think that it's really important that the local voice is amplified, but also that you identify trusted local voices.
I think it's very different, for example, looking at Katie's presentation about the population, the PDD, coming from industry that message has a different tilt than perhaps that message coming from me, the mayor of the town that has a nuclear facility that I walk past when I'm walking to my office.
And so those trusted voices are part of those partnerships we all need to build. You're just going to get a little bit more time if you understand how the community works, how they get their information.
Is it the 4-H Club? Is it a breakfast meeting at the chamber? Or is it from your mayor?
118 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com If there's a tribe nearby that's looking at reuse in that area that they've shared with the community, do they go to those meetings or do they have their own meetings? So these are the kinds of ecosystems, essentially, to use a 25-cent word of the day.
But we're trying to bring them all together to have these conversations so that we're not siloed out like we normally are. And hopefully that will mean these more honest conversations allow for these kinds of transitions -- coal to nuclear, reuse of brownfield.
Same thing with what's going on around our sites. Someone thinks, wait, if you cleaned it up, why are you going to bring industry in here again?
Or wait, now you're going to bring industry in and so you're doing lesser cleanup? What's that mean? When did we decide that that was okay?
So again, just trying to leverage the partnerships we've built over the different years and the different work that we've been doing as we move into what's the next phase of nuclear?
How do we not only benefit from it ourselves given our history, but also see it across the country so that we are, you know, energy secure, energy
119 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com reliable, all those good things with good jobs and economic opportunity that's multi-generational like most of these projects.
MS. KING: Kara, can you speak a little bit to the change? So you guys kicked off the New Nuclear Initiative a few years ago, and I can remember the first meeting fondly, my friend. But can you speak to kind of the diversity and the increased interest that you have had just by establishing that initiative?
MS. COLTON: Yes, absolutely. We have had our -- I would say a typical ECA meeting was about 40 to 60 people, and our New Nuclear initiative meeting, the last one we had was over 250. And so you assume there are only a few communities that are really at work at the table when it comes to EM, but we started to have other communities that, for example, Kentucky.
And we had Paducah and we could say to some of these new communities that were looking at retiring coal-fired power plants and say, your history, your state has a history of it. IT's been here. You have a community that knows what they're talking about, and frankly, they're interested in new nuclear.
So whatever's happened in the past, whatever
120 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com horror stories you've heard, or Three Mile Island resonates, Chernobyl resonates. This has been about 25 miles away from you for all of your life.
I think transportation is another good example of that. It's such a red herring, but I think that's kind of on us because it's been such a successful story in the United States and we don't tell it enough.
We hear that from a lot of these new communities coming in that, well, what about transportation? What about my neighbor, and that just
-- again, it's bring your neighbor to these meetings.
Let's have the conversation and let's look at who needs to be at the table from the beginning so that they understand what the discussion is. You'll understand things like, okay.
When should you pay attention to the fact that your coal-fired power plant is going to be retired?
When do you start planning for that? And I remember asking a mayor once, wow. You're starting to move this but you won't be in office. You won't even be a memory, frankly, by the time this thing is up and running.
Why do you care? Why are you putting your
121 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com reputation on the line for something that people aren't sure that they want and you're going to have to convince them that nuclear is okay?
The mayor's response was, well, that's my job is to care. My job is to care for the community whether I'm the one that's in the mayoral position or not.
But a lot of mayor's offices or local offices really don't get that planning horizon time, Christine, or they know that they want to keep jobs local but they don't know how to do it and incorporate it for the timeline for the development of a nuclear project.
But we've had communities from Alaska to Florida, West Virginia, Pennsylvania. I mean, I don't think that there's a region of the country that we have not had.
Areas of the country like Wyoming, for example, or Montana, even though they might not have the nuclear history, we hear what Christine said before. Hey, we're an energy state. They don't necessarily parse which source. They're just, like, we're an energy state and so we want to be all of the above. We need to do it for the cost of energy, availability of energy, and for jobs for our folks.
122 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com So hey, what are the energy options on the table? What are the ones that look good for us? I think all the way from New England, we were up at Maine Yankee looking at the spent fuel facility there, and they have a provision that says you can't rebuild anything nuclear here.
But that was put in a long time ago, and now the conversation is really different. Same in New York
-- you have in Ashford, New York with -- I always get
-- I'm always thinking WIP, but it's not WIP. It's West Valley. There we go, too many Ws.
But West Valley, suddenly you've got a nuclear history and a governor who is all for gigawatts.
And so the conversation with universities up there and in Ashford will suddenly sound a lot different.
The conversations with NYSERDA sound a lot different.
So I would say we really -- Texas, Puerto Rico, I'm trying to think of who else, Christine. It's really been almost everyone.
MS. KING: Yes. I appreciate that, and I think also what I've experienced in your meetings, and maybe this is a good transition to Tracy, is these conversations start with everyone having a
123 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com foundational knowledge.
And such that there's no -- the utility --
these are diverse stakeholders that have to come together around these projects. These are long projects, and you don't want people to be intimidated by the technology that prevents them from participating in the decision.
I think this is where being invited into the conversation by local and state leaders makes a big difference. Coming in as experts, especially in places where they haven't had the technology, I think, why would they listen to us?
We're smart people, generally nice, but I think this has been what we've experienced, is bringing facts forward, not advocating for the technology but advocating for full participation in the decision.
Tracy, I think you're online.
MS. BOATNER: Yes. I'm here. I'm here, and I do have some slides.
MS. KING: Okay.
MS. BOATNER: I promise they're not long and I will stay within my time frame, but I thought they would help me speak today. So thank you, Christine, for inviting me to be here. Let's see how I can --
124 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MS. LOPAS: Thank you, Tracy, for being here. Take your time. It always takes me a minute to share slides, but Tracy is the president and CEO of the East Tennessee Economic Council. Thank you Christine for reaching out to Tracy for us, and we're thrilled to have you here, Tracy.
MS. BOATNER: Thank you. Thank you. Let's see.
MS. KING: While Tracy is pulling her slides up, for those that aren't familiar with East Tennessee, they have a nexus of many, many things nuclear. It makes them a fun place to visit. You have Oak Ridge National Laboratory. You have the University of Tennessee. You have many, many developers in the area as well. You have the Y-12 facility.
And the home to several big announcements related to advanced nuclear. You have two construction permits. Well, you don't, Tracy, but in your area with Kairos Power, it's probably one of the most nuclear-rich communities that I've been engaged with.
And they definitely have consistent communications all the way from the local level all the way up to the state. Tracy, if you wanted to email
125 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com those to me I can help out. I can be your technical assistant.
MS. BOATNER: Oh, thank you. I will do that. It's sort of embarrassing because this is sort of what I do for -- oh. It says it's too large.
MS. LOPAS: You were good. You were showing them before. I think you just had to go into slideshow view. So it's on the top left. But even if what you were showing before was fine, too. We're okay looking at just the actual PowerPoint. Whatever you did before was totally fine.
Sometimes if you open up your PowerPoint presentation and click on slideshow, when you go to share, it may give you the option to share a window.
You can kind of pick the slideshow window, if that helps.
MS. BOATNER: I'll tell you what. I'll just speak to my slides without sharing them. There's not that much that is that impactful. I just really wanted to use them to remind myself and to keep myself on track.
I apologize for the delay in getting started here.
I don't want to cause any more delay, but again, thank you for having me.
I'm just going to talk a little bit about
126 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com ETEC and what we do, and talk a little about Tennessee's nuclear industry and a little bit about our Nuclear Is Here branding.
So I'm Tracy Boatner, president and CEO of the East Tennessee Economic Council, and I'm also a member of Tennessee Governor's Nuclear Energy Advisory Council that actually just sunset at the end of October, but it was a great experience being on that council and being a part of future policies that will impact the nuclear industry in the state of Tennessee.
So ETEC is an independent nonprofit organization, a membership organization, and we've been supporting these federal missions since 1973.
And we work to leverage our unique assets to create economic growth here in the region.
We consider our unique assets as the National Laboratory that works on every Department of Energy initiative that exists, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
We also have a national nuclear security facility, Y-12 National Security Complex, and the nation's largest power provider, which is the Tennessee Valley Authority. We also work with a lot of academic partners like the University of Tennessee.
They have a very strong nuclear engineering
127 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com program there, and also have partnerships with some community colleges that are creating some new nuclear technology programs, and even working in the high schools to create some programs where the students can graduate from high school with their associate's degree and have some experience working within the nuclear industry.
So we are primarily known for convening groups. We meet every Friday morning, and we usually have about 100 people in the room from all of the different departments here in Oak Ridge.
A lot of our folks are Department of Energy contractors, so we have folks from the lab and Y-12, UCOR, which is the cleanup contractor here, and then a lot of other smaller businesses who already do or want to work within the Department of Energy space.
And we discuss opportunities related to the Department of Energy's missions in the area, and how we can leverage what's happening here right now to create economic growth.
I'm sure you all know about the history.
Just to touch on, we -- Oak Ridge was formed during the Manhattan Project with the mission of winning World War II. And we were formed through innovations in
128 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com nuclear fission. That's how we were -- why we were formed.
And so over the past 80 years, the community has continued to find innovative and peaceful uses for nuclear fission, including fission energy, fusion energy, medical isotopes, and more. And so the K25 site that was located here was a gas -- fusion uranium enrichment facility.
And once that closed and the site was shut down, the Cold War ended, the Oak Ridge community has really been focused since that time on getting the cleanup finished and then reusing that site for purposes of growing the economy, bringing more jobs and more companies back here and all the while leveraging what we know and our unique assets, as I mentioned earlier.
Oak Ridge National Lab and all of the opportunities that are available when working with them, and so I think once the cleanup for that K25 site was finished, it was a catalyst for all of the growth that we are seeing here in Oak Ridge.
And that, along with new investments in clean energy initiatives and, of course, the governor's investment in recruiting new nuclear here to the state
129 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com to make sure that Tennessee has the power that it needs to recruit the companies that want to be here, all of that has been the catalyst for the growth that we are seeing currently.
And so as of today, we have about 250 nuclear companies or companies that do work in the nuclear industry in Tennessee. And about 155 or 56 of those are located here in the East Tennessee Oak Ridge Knoxville area. And there's about 350 locations of companies here, so there are some companies that have multiple locations in the state.
So we are experiencing a lot of growth, but we've had a lot of nuclear across the state, and of course we have existing nuclear reactors here with TVA.
Because of our federal assets, as I mentioned, and DOE, UCOR's cleanup efforts, the Oak Ridge corridor, in our opinion, is quickly becoming America's hub for advanced nuclear projects.
And we are working to make sure that we have a good workforce here to support all of those projects.
So a few those that I will name -- we have Kairos Power, and they are building a demonstration -- a Hermes 1 demonstration reactor and Hermes 2 reactor that will
130 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com provide a small amount of power to the grid. And they're partnering with Google on that project.
We have TRISO-X that's putting in fuel fabrication facility here, and they just established a new partnership with Amazon. We have the Orano Uranium Enrichment Project. That was just announced a few months ago.
TVAs, small modular reactor projects, where they plan to hopefully site four small modular reactors on their Clinch River site, that's a big one. Type 1 Energy is the first fusion energy project that has announced that it will be coming here, and it will be locating on TVA's former Bull Run coal site.
So that was a huge announcement that the governor's office made just last year that we're really excited about. So NANO Nuclear has also invested in Oak Ridge, and they have their headquarters here in addition to LIS Technologies and Standard Nuclear, which was formally Ultra Safe Nuclear.
Centrus Energy announced a huge investment within their company where they'll be building more centrifuges for their plant in Ohio. So lots going on, and a lot more interest we see and hear from companies weekly, if not every day, who are interested
131 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com in being a part of what's happening here in Oak Ridge.
And so obviously any help that we can get from the NRC as far as expediting and streamlining the processes to make them a little faster, of course, would be appreciated by the community. Of course we want to keep everything safe, and we really do appreciate everything that the NRC does to make sure that our communities are safe.
But anything that we can do to help with streamlining the process or making it faster, we would be all on board with. So I think that is everything that I wanted to share, and I hope, Christine, that I covered what you were hoping that I would talk about.
MS. KING: Yeah, Tracy. It's an exciting time in East Tennessee. One of the questions -- so since you were on the state's advisory panel, can you talk a little bit about the collaboration you're seeing between Tennessee and your neighbors in Kentucky and West Virginia and Virginia, it seems to me that there's a regular sharing of goals and objectives in that area.
MS. BOATNER: Yes, yes, absolutely. We certainly do want to partner with the states in the area, and particularly the Tennessee Valley Authority is within seven states. And so we really worked a lot
132 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com with trying to engage more with the other states that the Tennessee Valley Authority works within to make sure that we're aligning our goals, and when we talk about first of the kind costs and how can we maybe work together to share some of those potential costs, and those sort of issues.
Also policy has been -- state policy has been pretty big conversation, and with the fusion project, that one has been pretty big with the state, and I don't know if our friends from TDEC talked about that at all.
I'm sorry I had to miss part of the earlier program.
But I know they've been working a lot to sort of establish some policies related with fusion.
Obviously no one has really worked with that, and we actually have a project that's coming here and will be at the Bull Run site. So they're trying to figure out similarities and differences that they need to consider when they're talking about those policies.
MS. KING: I think one of the things I like that's going on between Tennessee and Kentucky is the wrap-up on -- I'm not sure reciprocity is exactly the right word.
But I'll just say the collaboration between the universities to look at the curriculum and
133 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com experience that University of Tennessee already has in this area, and sharing that in Kentucky so that if you have students at University of Kentucky, they can participate in the classes and things at University of Tennessee and get a certificate.
MS. BOATNER: Yes. The University of Tennessee, and particularly Wes Hines there is very
-- he has talked to universities all over the country, and also was very supportive in talking with community colleges and there are new universities in Tennessee that are starting nuclear programs.
He's very interested in helping any way he can, and I know the partnership with Kentucky is strong at the state level. I know there's a lot of conversations going on between Kentucky and Tennessee energy policy-wise, and lots of conversations about Coal-to-Nuclear, which I know you've been involved in.
Okay, Sarah. Time for questions.
MS. LOPAS: Yes. So I'm wondering if we can pull -- if Kara's still online. I'm not sure she is.
But if she isn't --
MS. KING: She is.
MS. COLTON: I'm here.
MS. LOPAS: I may jump in with a question,
134 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com and this is also to discuss Katie's presentation and Bill's presentation on population siting things. So I think that's an important topic to cover as well in this. Bill, if you happen to be still online we'd love to have you involved, too.
Kara, you mentioned working with tribes.
I'm hearing all this great discussion and I'm wondering how, Kara, your group and Tracy, your group, do you work with tribes? Are you assuring that they're in the fold, that they're being put into these conversations?
Clearly we have an obligation under various laws to consult with tribes, particular section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. But, you know, these facilities affect them and their communities as well.
We would like to go above and beyond, obviously, just what's statutorily required by bringing them in. So Kara and Tracy, if either of you could address that at all and how you're considering them, because we don't have to be siloed. They do receive special considerations, but we want to bring them in early. SO any thoughts or ideas about that, or good experiences?
135 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MS. COLTON: Sure, yes. So we have been working with ECA with the tribes and actually MGA as well. The Office of Environmental Management provides funding through cooperative agreements with the tribes, the communities, the Association of Attorneys General, the environmental commissioners of the state, and the nuclear legislators.
The State and Tribal Government Working Group, a.k.a. STGWG, is one of those groups. We always
-- unless it's a specific issue at hand, any of these bigger meetings we always extend an invite to the staff members.
It's run through NCSL, the National Conference of State Legislators, so we also run it through that. Then we also -- ECA has a cooperative agreement with the Office of Nuclear Energy, and through that work we have gotten to meet NTWG, which I know you all work with.
And so for any of our meetings, including what we've been doing under the consent-based siting work, we've also extended invitations through NTWG, and we offer the same financial assistance that we offer local governments because really that alignment is so important that we know it takes everybody -- and I'm
136 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com sure Tracy can speak to, and I know Christine can speak to.
For any of these projects where you're looking to create an environment, a business environment that brings the kind of customers the state's trying to see, the locals and trying to see, or the tribes are trying to see developed.
But there needs to be kind of one voice, so the developers are speaking to everybody. Everybody's hearing the same thing. And then sometimes the tribes specifically will want to have their own conversations as well.
But as local governments, our conversations are, look. This is a big project. It's going to be around for a long time, and whatever is being done, what legislation is being drafted or tax laws that are being written, we need to make sure that there are benefits at all levels that flow down, that flow up, and so we think that it makes the conversation that much better even if perhaps they're not -- some people aren't as ready to have the conversations as others.
Just note that the approach is inclusive, and so come to a few of these meetings. You don't have to talk, but just keep coming. And so we have been
137 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com seeing their participation grow just by continuing to reach out.
MS. KING: Sarah, I'll share a little bit how we approached it in Arizona. So the county that
-- Generating Station is in actually extends into Navajo Nation. So we use the existing relationships through the town council as well as the utility to make sure that the tribe was aware, even of a research project that was going on.
And that was because small towns, word gets around. I didn't want it to be misinterpreted that we were designing and building, right? This was an evaluation. It was a research project, all of those types of things.
So I think even just being clear sometimes about what it is and is not, because if you're -- again, starting to work with communities that are not familiar with nuclear energy, we don't speak English most of the time.
We are full of acronyms and it's -- sometimes I've heard proclamations of all the things that the NRC is going to do, which I'm like -- that's not exactly
-- the NRC does not do that, and just helping them understand what licensing is, what a federal review
138 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com gives you, those types of things.
I think that's important because they do need to not -- they need to be able to communicate with their state on local environmental quality, their permitting processes, all of those types of things.
MS. LOPAS: That is one of the challenges, because there are so many different permits and requirements that when you're going to build, you need.
There's lots of entities, and even us cooperating with the Department of Energy on some of these reviews is great.
But it also introduces a lot of confusion when we're meeting with the tribes. DOE's done one thing. We're doing something different. But where do they intersect?
MS. KING: I think Alaska did a pretty good job in the state rulemaking, in saying we are going to get this kind of information from a federal review.
It's going to -- the NRC will tell us about the safety associated with having radioactive materials in our plant and our communities.
Our state-level review will encompass the fact that we're going to have an industrial facility in our community. And so their permitting, then, kind
139 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com of followed those lines.
I think NEI had put in some comments to the Alaska rulemaking as they were considering their state permitting policies. Wyoming also did some work in this space.
MS. LOPAS: So I wanted to give an opportunity for Bill and Kati to bring up any of the points you covered in your various presentations. My thought was, it's this community-based, community perspectives with population perspectives.
We were considering some change to population requirements. I'm not going to stray any farther than that into Bill's area of expertise, because it is not mine.
I thought it was kind of interesting just to hear, and I would love to hear perspectives, too, from the community folks on community support for that, right? So I'm just going to stop talking there because I don't want to say anymore.
MS. AUSTGEN: I'll start by saying, obviously we won't get into all the details here. But I agree there's a connection and part of it goes back to sort of what Kara noted, which is where there's a lot of interest but there's also a lot of confusion,
140 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com right?
What about the transportation?
Transportation has been conducted safely for years, right? What about living near a nuclear plant? Well, lots of people live near current nuclear plants and it's just fine.
And at the same time, we need to look at the way the current criteria is phrased so that we're being clear with people and not saying, on the one hand, advanced reactors will be so safe and they will demonstrate all these things of risk-informed performance-based criteria, but you know what? We're just going to keep the populations anyways.
Maybe that is the right thing to do, but maybe it's not and folks are going to be, again, trying to come to the NRC and try to figure out, can I even host a nuclear facility? And they're going to get all kinds of confused.
MR. RECKLEY: I would just weigh in a little bit that it gets complicated, right? This is -- part of the papers on social license, we have to be careful not to oversell, right?
The nuclear power plant's always going to have some risk, at least the ones that we're aware of
141 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com today. And you've got to acknowledge that. Now the question is what do you do to address that? What's the role of siting?
I would never say that what we did in that first step of revision, revising one regulatory guide is the end product of where we should be. But it was a first step in changing a policy that's been in place for, you know, sixty-some years.
So it did maybe break the logjam a little bit. Maybe there's additional changes that can be made. But, you know, in terms of what we did, we did try to look at both -- at risk in terms of both the frequency of events that we would consider in terms of what is contributing to the risk and look also at the consequences of those events.
And so both of those things are being considered in the guidance that we put out, and 1 rem over a month is not a life-threatening dose. But it is a dose at which EPA, NRC, other federal regulators will start to consider relocating those populations.
That criteria is 500 millirems a year.
So that's part of that social, societal risk that needs to get taken into account. So again, I'll not say that we're closing the door to anything that Kati
142 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com or others are likely to propose, but our job as the regulator is to try to keep all those things in perspective and to see if siting plays a role, and if it does, what it should be. I'll leave it there.
MR. PALMROSE: Hi, Sarah, This is Don Palmrose. Can I add to that?
MS. LOPAS: Please, Don. Go ahead.
MR. PALMROSE: I just want to add on the fact that one of the things we have to do on NRC is we have to go through and do the environmental review in environments for national environment and policy act type requirements.
So the key part there is that we do inform members of the public about these environmental risks.
So that's another important key aspect of having that communication with the community. It's through that environmental evaluation and the way we publish and have a public meeting, and interactions with the public. So just something to -- it's another item under this that has to be kept aware of.
MS. LOPAS: Go ahead.
MS. COLTON: Yes.
MS. LOPAS: There you go.
MS. COLTON: I was just going to say, one
143 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com of the things we talk a lot about is you have to --
how do you find consent, for example, consent around a project. And is it consent, or is it informed consent, because if you don't know what you're consenting to -- and I hate the word consent, by the way. I think it sounds like you're accepting what you know is a crappy deal.
But if you're not informed on what you're consenting to, then therein lies the problem. I think that's what we've seen on the back end of the fuel cycle is there hasn't been that iterative conversation with people about the risks as they see them versus the risks that are presented to them, and then told why they shouldn't be concerned.
And I think that, you know -- Kati's heard me say this before. It's a lot of positive movement against the decide, denounce, defend approach. But I also think that developers, project developers in industry are saying the right things. But they have to figure out how to actually put them into practice in English.
And one of the things that I've heard before is risk is how you feel about the facts, not about the facts themselves. And so there has to be an
144 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com understanding and time for that allowance, which is
-- I may disagree with something that I don't understand but right now I'm going to stay at not agreeing with it because I don't understand it because I'm not sure I trust you.
And so again, it gets back to that conversation of one of the things ECA has said historically in most of the testimony that we've provided to anyone is provide the resources for an impacted community themselves to hire experts that they believe have their interests as the number one factor in what they're pulling together.
And maybe that doesn't seem like the greatest use of limited funding but if it does create a situation where people feel that they're informed enough to move forward with a project and support, and that support can go from the local government to state government, or the local government to their congressional delegation.
If their congressional representative is on appropriations or on the right committee, it just may matter that that local constituent is in there talking about something that they now understand a little bit better, and that could be beneficial for all.
145 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MS. LOPAS: Christine?
MS. KING: So I think one of the challenges
-- I guess I'm going to empathize with the NRC staff about is as we have these new reactors, how we compare them to the criteria that we had before for deciding where to put them. And we have -- one of the challenges we face in community with local all the way up to state is they hear marketing terms.
They hear passive and inherent safety. They hear walk away safe. They hear never melt down. I mean, it's full of a lot of things that are not being explained and walked back to how that might impact a particular criteria in the regulation.
And in some cases, the safety comes from the physics associated with this new reactor design. In some cases, it is a design choice. It's an engineering choice. But I think we could do a better job as an industry helping to make those links more understandable.
And we have struggled. I mean, I get the question all the time in public meetings. What does passive and inherent safety mean? And we've developed some real-world analogies to try to help people understand what a comparison might be.
146 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com But I think, especially when we have -- I don't ever show the chart that has the different zones.
I don't think I would want to explain that in public because of the nuances behind each one of those and what we're calculating and those types of things.
But if there is something about this new group of reactors that fundamentally changes the way we think about population, is there a way that we start from that and build out?
I think about TRISO-X and -- or the TRISO fuel particle. Again, out in the wild what you hear is it's a functional containment. Well, how does that change how we think about it? I don't have a good answer for that. I'm just empathizing.
MS. LOPAS: Do you want to say something?
MS. AUSTGEN: They're both on mute, but I'll say we received -- and I think that's part of where we're seeing things like the emergence of -- for SMRs and other new technologies.
That gives us a view of how we can leverage
-- can do all these analyses. We make design choices.
These enable us to determine that this should be set here. What can that mean for other things? It is not directly because they've never been directly affected
147 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com before.
Do we know now as we're constructing this, hopefully more technology framework will be -- looking at for microreactors. How can we better start to fit those cases together?
MR. RECKLEY: I was just going to weigh in.
Like Christine, I have many more questions than answers, I think. But one of the things to keep in mind as we've talked about this, and Kati mentioned it as well.
One of the reasons that the commission put this in place is a defense in depth measure. Defense in depth is what you add because you don't know everything. And part of the issue -- and I know this comes with its own problems, because it's a time thing here.
But one of the issues is, these reactors haven't been built yet. They haven't operated yet, and I think the NRC has gone a fair amount to say we see the potential that they could be much safer. We see the potential. We will make provisions that they could be much safer.
But we also are faced with the fact that they've not been built. They've not been operated,
148 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com and sometimes you come back to Admiral Rickover, right?
The academic reactors are safer, smaller, simpler, cheaper, all those nice things we like. And real reactors, by the time they get built, that fades away a little bit.
MS. KING: I think, you know, one way to approach it -- and I agree, Bill. We're in this phase, right? We're in the decade of prove it with advanced reactors. Maybe one pathway is with some experience we have a pathway by which we could come back and reconsider.
Maybe that would be good for those communities that maybe fail this criteria even with revision. But it gives them an idea of how to follow along if they're still interested and if there might be a pathway.
I don't think you can put a number on defense in depth. I get that. But is there a validation path by which we can come back to some of this and write that feedback loop today. Think about what that might look like?
MR. RECKLEY: Well, and from your perspective -- again, we have the benefit of not having to worry about everything you have to worry about.
149 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com But that can take a fair amount of time, right, to build the first, to operate the first can take a fair amount of time.
MS. LOPAS: Before I close the panel discussion, I wanted to see if anybody else had anything to add, or Tracy, if you had anything you wanted to add or ask, anything?
MS. BOATNER: I'm sorry that I missed part of the discussion because I feel like I might be able to contribute more if I had been involved in the whole day, and I apologize that I was not able to.
I guess I would just say with community engagement piece, I think we're fortunate here in the Oak Ridge community because we've all worked in this industry, some of us our whole lives. And so we're familiar and nuclear is a safe word to us.
But I do think that the regular conversations that happen on a weekly basis about the potential for nuclear and how it can provide clean, safe, reliable energy in a room that's not made up of all folks in the nuclear industry, so we bring government.
We bring academia. We bring industry together to talk about this every week. Almost every week we're talking about this subject. I do think
150 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com regular communication before it gets to the point of siting the reactor, it does benefit the community.
I know that's not possible everywhere, but as much as it would be possible to have more than just one conversation with community folks who are trying to learn about what this means for them and their community I think would be valuable.
I echo what Kara and what Christine said about speaking in English and the terms that you use are so important, and so many folks are afraid to speak up and say I have no idea what you're talking about.
But that's huge as well, so that's really the only thing I would add.
MS. LOPAS: Thank you very much. So what I'm going to do quickly here is I am going to open it up for public comment at this point. We'll go for about 10 minutes, a little bit late, but lots of interest.
I'm not going to share slides because I think most of you that are online right now that are members of the public know how to raise your hand. So raise your hand in Teams and I'm going to do something with my screen here. So please all just give me a bit of grace.
So you can raise your hand and I'm just going
151 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com to go through the order of folks raising their hand that want to comment. Just give me one moment here.
I'm trying to do something in the room that may or may not mess it up. Good, I did it.
Any members of the public, just use the raise hand icon. It should be maybe at the bottom of your Teams app. You just click that button and I'll see your hand raised and we'll go from there. If we don't have any raised hands, we can cut off a little bit early.
I do want to give people a couple seconds.
Adam Stein, Breakthrough Institute, you can go ahead and unmute yourself. You should be able to go ahead and do that. There you go. All right.
MR. STEIN: Hello. This is Adam Stein from the Breakthrough Institute. I appreciate the opportunity to provide a little bit of comment at the end. I really enjoyed the presentations by many of the folks on this call who I have worked with in the past.
There are a few things that I'd like to add to. I'm not sure I'm going to have enough time so I'd like to engage with the staff a little bit more at some other point, if possible.
Related to population siting, and we
152 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com provided comments on reg guide 4.7 rev 4 related specifically to brownfield sites. A lot of the discussion around building a community and great jobs that come with building new facilities increases population density over time, which becomes a potential inherent feedback for general siting suitability. You increase the population density.
If you're building out a new plant in sequence, and you're licensing either reactors or packs of reactors separately, what is generally suitable for the first one might no longer have the same population density for the second one.
And so that consideration, as you grow the community, as you build out the plant in sequence with smaller reactors can be a big regulatory issue potentially. I have -- the presentation really early on about characterization of coal sites, and constituent materials that are left behind, I think, is important.
But there's also uncertainty about site characterization in terms of underground conditions.
What would the NRC consider to be sufficient considerations to characterize a site, for instance?
How much providence of history of the site do you need
153 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com to know whether it's untouched or not, things like that.
Like I said, there are several other concerns that we'd like to discuss further but I don't have a presentation to give and probably shouldn't take up the rest of the time in case somebody else would like to comment. Thank you.
MS. LOPAS: Yes. Everybody is able to raise their hand. Absolutely. Adam, if you can send an email to me or Allen, we can figure out the best way to get additional information. It sounds like you do have a lot of comments, and we will check out your brownfield-specific comments.
Anybody else who's on the line, regardless of whether you're a presenter or you're an attendee, go ahead and hit the raise hand button. I'm keeping an eye out. There were several of you that have been here through the long haul.
So I appreciate all of you that logged on at 1 p.m. with us. Now is your chance to finally talk, so you can use it. Just hit the raise hand icon if you're still there and listening. I'm not really seeing anything, but I do just want to reiterate for everybody that we are accepting comments, ideas, as Mike King mentioned at the very beginning of the
154 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com meeting.
You can email them to Allen and I or you can use the ADVANCE Act. Just Google NRC and ADVANCE Act.
I think with that, I'm going to close this out. I want to thank Tracy and Kara and Christine. Tracy, I know it was very last-minute, so thank you so much.
I appreciate --
MS. BOATNER: Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for thinking of me.
MS. LOPAS: Thank you Christine, again, for making these connections. Kara, thank you very much too and I'm sure we'll be in touch in the future. The April meeting sounds great. Christine, obviously, more to come between us and that's great, too. Kati, I forgot Kati's here in the room with us. I'm staring down and I see her. Kati, I'll give you a chance for any last words or anything before we close out.
MS. AUSTGEN: Thank you so much for this opportunity and we look forward as we're pulling together the relationship between this piece of the ADVANCE Act and all the other pieces of the ADVANCE Act, putting together your report.
As Mike said, I know that's going to take a lot of effort. But if there's any additional input,
155 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com references, things we mentioned in one of these meetings that you're like, wait, where was that? Let us know and we're happy to provide that information and help craft a path forward so that you can answer the direction you have and all get to the place we all want to be.
MS. LOPAS: With that, we'll close out the meeting. Thank you all so very much. Have an excellent afternoon or evening, whatever it is wherever you are. Thank you.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 5:00 p.m.)