ML25033A003
| ML25033A003 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 02/21/2025 |
| From: | Carolyn Lauron NRC/NRR/DNRL/NLIB |
| To: | Hayes M, Samson Lee NRC/NRR/DNRL |
| Shared Package | |
| ML25033A001 | List: |
| References | |
| Download: ML25033A003 (3) | |
Text
Enclosure 3 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
SUMMARY
OF THE JANUARY 28, 2025, COMMENT GATHERING PUBLIC MEETING REGARDING IMPLEMENTATION OF SECTION 207 OF THE ADVANCE ACT COMBINED LICENSE REVIEW PROCEDURE Meeting Summary The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) conducted a comment-gathering public meeting on the implementation of the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act of 2024, Section 207, Combined License Review Procedure.1 The NRC staff discussed each of the requirements in ADVANCE Act Section 207 and solicited public comments, questions, and ideas on the implementation of the requirements.2 The hybrid meeting had 67 attendees including members of the public, representatives from the nuclear industry, and NRC staff.
The NRC staff presented each subsection in Section 207 and previously received feedback before requesting comments, feedback, and ideas from members of the public related to an expedited combined license review procedure for qualifying applications.3 The following list summarizes the comments received during the meeting and previously received feedback that the NRC staff noted during its presentation.
Why does Section 207 list design certification and manufacturing license but not a standard design approval? This appears to be the only licensing path not listed.
The problem is the phrase substantially similar because a design can appear to have minor differences but could have major safety or security implications. How is the NRC going to address the vagueness of that particular provision?
Would the NRC use the existing change control processes, and all the standards associated with them, to evaluate any changes as if they were license amendments?
The NRC would need to make a finding at the beginning of the process whether it satisfies this provision and whether it can use this expedited procedure.
(Comment from December 12, 2024, public meeting) The NRC needs to determine or define substantially similar because the term is vague and that the public needs to know what the term means. The term could mean a different type of environmental analysis would be needed.
1 ADVANCE Act of 2024: https://www.congress.gov/118/plaws/publ67/PLAW-118publ67.pdf 2 U.S. NRC, 1-28-25 Public Meeting Slides re: ADVANCE Act Section 207 - Expedited Combined License Review, dated January 28, 2025, ML25021A161.
3 The NRC staff received shared information on Section 207 during the December 12, 2024, Advanced Reactor Stakeholder Meeting and received feedback during the meeting and shortly after.
2 (December 12, 2024, comment) The NRC should consider other environmental impact statements issued by other agencies for the proposed site.
Construction of known and approved designs on existing sites presents less uncertainty about the risk to the environment. The Commission needs to move forward with a vote to revise the environmental reviews including revisions to 10 CFR 51.20 to allow an appropriate level of review as required by the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.
The ADVANCE Act mentions the siting of new reactors with approved designs at existing or adjacent to existing sites should receive an expedited review, but many sites could have challenges due to site suitability since the population near those sites have grown since the first reactor went into operation. Regulatory Guide (RG) 4.7 should be revised to exclude existing or retired sites and determine these sites as suitable. This comment was also provided as a comment on the update to RG 4.7.4 (December 12, 2024, comment) The term directly adjacent needs to be defined because the term is vague and the public needs to know what the term means. Also, the term could mean that different environmental analysis would need to be done.
(December 12, 2024, comment) The NRC should consider a broader application for siting a new reactor for an industrial application on a site with similar site characteristic, like at a location of a chemical plant.
(December 12, 2024, comment) Would the expedited procedure apply to facilities that are not on a previously characterized site?
Sites with early site permits should also be considered for the expedited review because it aligns with the intent of a previously characterized and approved site.
We do not support mandated timelines for reviews like this because the NRC has to maintain its discretion to adjust those timelines based on what it finds and not curtail its reviews based on an external mandate. For the phrase, to the maximum extent practicable, the NRC has to provide a pretty ironclad carveout from these timelines if serious safety or security issues arise that require longer periods of time to resolve.
Review times in the ADVANCE Act could be reduced by completing actions in parallel wherever possible. For examples, completing an Advisory Committee on Reactor Safety review in parallel with a safety review as was done with the Hermes 2 application.
How is this effort being coordinated with other advanced reactor review efforts, specifically micro-reactors, that seek to reduce the review time to about one-third of this duration?
Does the NRC staff have any sense of when it anticipates the expedited process to be completed and available for use?
4 U.S. NRC Regulatory Guide 4.7, General Site Suitability Criteria for Nuclear Power Stations, Revision 4, dated February 2024, https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2334/ML23348A082.pdf
3 To confirm, if someone today submitted an application that met the criteria stated in Section 207, does the NRC think it could accomplish the expedited review within the timeframes that the statute mandates with existing processes, without a separate expedited review process?
If you look at the record at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island (TMI) 2, both were on a timeline where both started near the end of the year so they would meet their timeline and get bonuses. And in the case of TMI, get its tax break. Both were big mistakes. They should have taken extra time in Chernobyl to do the test before it went online and at TMI, they should have taken the advice of several engineers. The timeline should be thrown out in favor of finishing up before they went online.
Is there a report due to Congress on Section 207?
There are different meeting formats for the ADVANCE Act public meetings, e.g. a panel discussion with very limited time for public engagement or like today you have slides shared with the public so that the public can ask questions and comment. Some meetings are only questions and answers. I want to encourage that the ADVANCE Act core team think about a format of the meetings to make it easier for the public to engage and follow the intent of the ADVANCE Act. All comments, verbal or written, should be valued in a report or any deliverables for each ADVANCE Act section.
I appreciate that you attached the slides to the meeting notice but this is a PDF version so I cannot copy and paste and search anything from the slide and it is blurry compared with the version that we see during the meeting.
The concepts and goals in this section of the ADVANCE Act are commendable but I do not see how they address the unique characteristics and specifics associated with micro-reactors and for licensing multiple micro-reactor modules. Within the context of efficiencies of performing the license review, I would highly recommend that the team look at the section of this section of the ADVANCE Act and consider the input provided by the Nuclear Energy Institute in its letter on the rapid deployment of high-volume reactors.
Regarding comments in two Congressional reports, one on the advanced methods of manufacturing and construction for nuclear energy projects simply mentioned our letter as stakeholder feedback. In a second report on modernization of environmental reviews, it does not mention any comments provided in meetings. The NRC staff has been considerate and receptive of any and all questions and comments provided during the meetings, and we want to make sure that these are translated into writing into these Congressional reports moving forward.
The meeting adjourned at 2:00 pm.