ML25139A570

M250513: Transcript- Strategic Programmatic Overview of the Fuel Facilities and the Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation Business Lines

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Issue date:	05/19/2025
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1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

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STRATEGIC PROGRAMMATIC OVERVIEW OF THE FUEL FACILITIES AND THE SPENT FUEL STORAGE AND TRANSPORTATION BUSINESS LINES

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TUESDAY, MAY 13, 2025

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The Commission met in the Commissioners' Hearing Room, at 9:00 a.m. EDT, David A. Wright, Chairman, presiding.

COMMISSION MEMBERS:

DAVID A. WRIGHT, Chairman ANNIE CAPUTO, Commissioner CHRISTOPHER T. HANSON, Commissioner BRADLEY R. CROWELL, Commissioner MATTHEW J. MARZANO, Commissioner ALSO PRESENT:

CARRIE M. SAFFORD, Secretary of the Commission MARY SPENCER, General Counsel (Acting)

2 NRC STAFF:

MIRELA GAVRILAS, Executive Director for Operations JOHN LUBINSKI, Director, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards (NMSS)

YOIRA DIAZ-SANABRIA, Chief, Storage and Transportation Licensing Branch, Division of Fuel Management, NMSS NATHANAEL HUDSON, Reactor Systems Engineer, Division of Safety Analysis, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research JEFF JOSEY, Chief, Decommissioning, ISFSI, and Operating Reactor Branch, Region IV SAMANTHA LAV, Chief, Fuel Facilities Licensing Branch, Division of Fuel Management, NMSS BARRY MILLER, Senior International Policy Analyst, Export Controls & Nonproliferation Branch, Office of International Programs KIMYATA MORGAN-BUTLER, Deputy Director, Division of Fuel Management, NMSS RAVI PENMETSA, Deputy Director, Division of Fuels, Radiological Safety, and Security, Region II CINTHYA ROMAN-CUEVAS, Deputy Director, Division of Fuel Management, NMSS

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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2

9:02 a.m.

3 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Good morning, everyone. I will call 4

this meeting to order.

5 In today's public meeting of the NRC, we are going to hear 6

from two staff panels. First we'll hear from the fuel facilities business line, and 7

after that we will take a short break. Then we're going to hear from another 8

panel from the spent fuel storage transportation business line. And as is our 9

custom, we'll hold questions from the Commissioners until the end of each 10 panel.

11 So before we started, I want to ask my colleagues if they have 12 any colleagues if they have any comments they'd like to make before we get 13 started? Anybody? Okay, with that I'm going to turn things over to our EDO.

14 Mirela, the floor is yours.

15 MS. GAVRILAS: Good morning, Chairman, good morning, 16 Commissioners. You will hear this morning about not just the technical 17 progress that the staff has made within these business lines, but also about 18 how we are transitioning from acquiring and displaying data to using it in 19 decision-making.

20 And with that, I'll pass the mic to John Lubinski.

21 MR. LUBINSKI: Thank you, Mirela.

22 Good morning, Chairman Wright and Commissioners. I 23 would like to provide an overview of the scope of the fuel facilities business line 24 and activities over the last year. Next slide, please.

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4 We oversee a total of eight fuel fabrication, enrichment, and 1

conversion facilities and one deconversion facility that is licensed but not 2

constructed. We are responsible for regulatory oversight for high-assay low-3 enriched uranium, or HALEU, that will provide fuel for advanced reactor 4

technologies and use in accident-tolerant fuels, or ATF.

5 In addition, we regulate licensees that possess greater than a 6

critical mass quantity of special nuclear materials, such as universities and 7

research and test facilities. Next slide, please.

8 We continue to see an increased number of licensing actions.

9 This slide shows the anticipated licensing actions for new facilities or major 10 license amendments to existing facilities for fiscal years '25 through '30.

11 Kimyata Morgan-Butler, the Deputy Director, Division of Fuel 12 Management, will discuss how we are improving timeliness of our licensing 13 reviews, including significant changes to our generic licensing targets.

14 Samantha Lav, Chief of the Fuel Facilities Licensing Branch 15 in the Division of Fuel Management, will discuss our licensing 16 accomplishments, several improvements we've made to our license process, 17 and how we ensure accountability and transparency.

18 Increased demand for HALEU production is one driver of our 19 increased workload. Barry Miller, Senior International Policy Analyst, Export 20 Controls and Nonproliferation Branch in our Office of International Programs, 21 will provide information on imports and exports of nuclear fuel, including recent 22 laws and legislation and legislative actions that influence domestic funding of 23 HALEU development.

24 Oversight for the business line resides in our Region II Office.

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5 Ravi Penmetsa, Deputy Director, Division of Fuels, Radiological Safety, and 1

Security in our Region II Office, will share activities for inspector training, 2

qualifications, and readiness to ensure we have the appropriate number of 3

inspectors. Next slide, please.

4 The business line supports domestic material control and 5

accounting, export license, international safeguards agreements, and bilateral 6

agreements with nuclear training partners for the entire agency.

7 NRC co-manages the Nuclear Materials Management and 8

Safeguards System, referred to as NMMSS, which is responsible for preparing 9

and submitting reports required under the U.S. International Atomic Energy 10 Agency, or IAEA, safeguards agreement.

11 During the bilateral meeting shown in the picture on last fall, 12 NRC, NMMSS staff, and IAEA developed a roadmap to fortify data exchange 13 focused on data quality. We successfully led an interagency team to host the 14 IAEA as they performed a design information verification, or DIV, to verify the 15 safeguards measures applied to a nuclear fuel fabricator, which was the first 16 selection of a U.S. licensee in over 20 years.

17 Significant preparation and coordination facilitated 18 interagency participation by NRC, the Department of Energy, Department of 19 Defense, Department of State to ensure that IAEA completed is mission while 20 minimizing burden on our licensee.

21 I would now like to turn the presentation to Kim.

22 MS. MORGAN-BUTLER: Thank you. Good morning, 23 Chairman Wright and Commissioners. In my presentation today, I will provide 24 an overview of process improvements and initiatives we are currently focusing 25

6 on to shape the future of the business line, covering both ongoing efforts and 1

those planned for the longer term. Next slide, please.

2 We've collected data on the implementation of our Smarter 3

Licensing and Smarter Inspection Programs, which are comprehensive reviews 4

of our fuel cycle licensing and inspection activities that put several 5

improvements in place. We're seeing encouraging results on efficiency and 6

effectiveness.

7 For example, we've completed 60% of licensing actions from 8

2022 to 2025 with no requests for additional information issued and developed 9

draft SERs with our RAIs to ensure we are only asking questions needed to fill 10 holes in our reviews. But we are not stopping there.

11 We seek continued improvement in our licensing process 12 while maintaining our focus on safety. We're using this data to drive further 13 process improvements.

14 One advantage we have is the small number of licensees we 15 regulate, which allows us to meet with them twice a year to discuss regulatory 16 topics. These meetings have been extremely instrumental in identifying 17 opportunities to strengthen and refine our programs.

18 We've also gathered input from internal partners across the 19 business line. Taking all of this together, we've pinpointed several areas where 20 we can improve, especially in pre-application engagement, licensing reviews, 21 communication and guidance, and our internal NRC processes.

22 One of our improvements relates to pre-application 23 engagement. We encourage applicants to identify potential issues months 24 before submission. This helps the NRC better allocate resources, engage the 25

7 right staff, align internally on key issues, and provide early feedback to the 1

applicant.

2 We've also implemented consistent use of licensing audits 3

and clarification calls to improve staff reviews of complex issues and ensure 4

timely docketing of information, which facilitates clear communication between 5

the NRC and the applicant while reducing multiple iterations on RAIs.

6 Additionally, we use requests for confirmation of information, 7

or RCIs, which simplify responses to yes-or-no questions. This allows 8

applicants to respond more quickly, ensuring the docket has the information 9

supporting our regulatory findings and enabling NRC staff to apply their 10 expertise while reducing the regulatory burden of documenting written 11 responses.

12 In the oversight area, since the last Commission meeting, we 13 completed the fuel cycle programmatic assessment for oversight, which 14 determined that the current program continues to provide safety and is 15 appropriately assessing risk.

16 Earlier this year, we hosted a fuel facility inspector town hall 17 to share proposals and gather feedback on recommendations for further 18 improvements identified by inspectors and oversight staff. These ideas focus 19 on increasing flexibility in inspection activities using data and risk insights to 20 adjust inspection requirements and streamlining assessments.

21 For example, we are eliminating public meetings for fuel 22 facilities with no areas needing improvement. This change will save staff time 23 and resource demands with a minimal impact on communication, as there 24 would be no performance issues to address. This approach mirrors 25

8 improvements in the reactor oversight program, where similar changes have led 1

to savings.

2 Another enhancement adds flexibilities to formal entrance and 3

exit meetings. Staff determined that holding exit meetings without findings or 4

observations were an inefficient use of resources. In such cases, inspectors 5

will still continue to address minor issues directly with the licensee as 6

appropriate.

7 We've evaluated coverage gaps at fuel facilities for senor 8

resident inspector. Based on risk in performance, we determined that the 9

allowable time without onsite coverage could be extended from six to ten days 10 at management discretion. This adjustment offers greater flexibility and yields 11 cost savings without compromising safety. Next slide, please.

12 We've reassessed how we measure our ability to keep 13 licensing case work on track and within established schedules, allocate 14 resources effectively for inspection and oversight activities, and set more 15 ambitious schedules that we believe are achievable based on past performance 16 and implemented process improvements.

17 For example, we reviewed our 24-month NEIMA generic 18 milestone target for amendments to determine if the metric is appropriately 19 placed. In the graph on the left, the green line shows data prior to the full 20 implementation of the Smarter Licensing Program. We completed about 94%

21 of amendments within 24 months, and 77 within 12 months.

22 The purple line shows the post-implementation data. We 23 completed 100% of amendments within 24 months and 92% within 12 months.

24 We analyzed our historical amendment completion times over 25

9 the last several years and are reducing the NEIMA generic milestone target 1

from 24 months to 12 months for routine amendments, the blue line in the graph 2

on the right, which accounts for approximately 90% of amendments. The red 3

line shows that 24 months is a more appropriate milestone for complex 4

amendments.

5 We applied the same data-driven analysis when evaluating 6

the NEIMA generic milestone target for other types of licensing actions, such as 7

license transfers, license renewals, exemptions, and new applications, and we'll 8

be revising many of them to be appropriately aligned with data we have in this 9

area and to encourage timely completion of licensing.

10 Going forward, we will continue to align our licensing efforts 11 with the level of risk and safety significance associated with the technical 12 issues, and use of data will help us to measure the improvements and blend 13 insights into where further adjustments may be made. Next slide, please.

14 We've taken proactive steps to keep licensing reviews and 15 oversight activities moving forward by working closely with our partner offices to 16 align on priorities in the use of resources. To stay ahead of potential challenges 17 like unexpected delays or staffing shortages, we strengthened coordination 18 across business line offices.

19 This allows us to quickly identify and utilize staff with the right 20 expertise, especially those in highly specialized areas. By staying connected 21 and flexible, we are able to respond quickly and maintain momentum, even 22 when circumstances change.

23 We've already seen the benefits of this coordination. For 24 example, in the TRISO-X new license application, we identify experts in risk 25

10 analysis and other specialized areas such as electrical systems, digital I&C, 1

human factors, fire protection, and hydro-geotechnical engineering to support 2

the review. The same approach is being used for LES Framatome and others.

3 When staff were temporarily reassigned to support other 4

critical agency efforts, we quickly worked with our business line partners to 5

leverage the use of qualified reviewers to keep the TRISO-X review moving 6

forward.

7 Also by using existing contracts, such as through the Pacific 8

Northwest Laboratory and CNWRA, we are building capacity for coverage for 9

unexpected workload fluctuations, such as more work materializing than 10 budgeted in the fuel facility business line.

11 Another key focus for us is knowledge transfer. We are 12 ensuring that critical expertise isn't lost when staff retire or move on. As early 13 adopters of the agency's project management initiative, we're actively tracking 14 specialized skills and identifying potential gaps so we can plan ahead and 15 sustain continuity in our work.

16 That concludes my remarks, and I'll turn it over to Samantha 17 Lav.

18 MS. LAV: Thank you, Kim.

19 Good morning, Chairman and Commissioners. It's a pleasure 20 to be here today to talk about fuel facility licensing. Next slide, please.

21 Interest in expanding the domestic fuel cycle has continued to 22 increase since we briefed you last year. Overall, we completed four major 23 licensing actions and 26 routine licensing actions since April 2024, three of 24 which were related to new fuels. All of these actions met the applicants' need-25

11 by dates, which were shorter than the generic NEIMA schedules.

1 With respect to new fuels, we've completed a total of 37 2

licensing actions since 2018. Some were major amendments, and others were 3

more routine, like security plan updates. Reviews for three major amendments 4

and one new application are ongoing.

5 Given our pre-application engagements, we anticipate an 6

increase in workload through 2030, with as many as 13 significant new fuel-7 related actions, including five major amendments and eight new fuel facility 8

applications.

9 Most of the applicants are proposing submittal dates that 10 would have them be under review in '27 and FY '28. However, we have varying 11 levels of confidence in the timing of these submittals.

12 To ensure we're planning for the most likely submittals, we 13 further revised our confidence ranking methodology to include quantitative 14 thresholds for each confidence classification based on weighted responses to a 15 series of questions derived from the definitions for each confidence level.

16 We continue to update these rankings based on new 17 information and use it for both budget formulation and to account for changes 18 during execution years. Next slide, please.

19 Some major accomplishments this year include the issuance 20 of an amendment to the LES license that would allow them to enrich uranium 21 up to 10 weight percent U-235. This amendment enables the first commercially 22 available domestic source of enriched uranium for fabrication of accident-23 tolerant fuel with increased enrichment.

24 Barry will provide more in context on the importance of having 25

12 a domestic supply of HALEU.

1 We also completed our review of an amendment for Centrus' 2

American Centrifuge Plan, supporting Phase II of the HALEU demonstration.

3 The amendment allows them to produce a greater quantity of HALEU under the 4

DOE program in support of advanced reactor fuel development.

5 This summer we're scheduled to make a licensing decision on 6

the Phase III amendment that if approved, would extend the HALEU 7

demonstration up to an additional nine years.

8 Finally, we completed the NIST license renewal, which piloted 9

the draft standard review plan for greater than critical mass, or GTCM licenses, 10 and changed the review philosophy from scaling down a fuel facility review to 11 scaling up a materials license review to better align with the relative risk of 12 these licenses.

13 The SRP is aimed at reducing potential inconsistencies and 14 inefficiencies that may be introduced when reviewing GTCM licensing actions 15 against guidance developed for fuel facilities that are subject to additional 16 requirements, such as the development and maintenance of an integrated 17 safety analysis.

18 We're now evaluating lessons learned from this pilot to inform 19 the finalization of the GTCM SRP. Throughout these reviews, we're identifying 20 and applying lessons learned to expedite and enhance licensing actions.

21 We've demonstrated the return on investment for these 22 improvements through progressively shorter reviews for amendments to 23 increase enrichment limits and decreased resources for subsequent criticality 24 methodology reviews.

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13 With respect to similarly scoped increased enrichment 1

amendments, we completed the first one in 12 months from acceptance, the 2

next one in nine months, and estimate completing our most recently accepted 3

one in six months. This is a six-month, or 50%, reduction in schedule from our 4

first review to our most current one.

5 We received positive feedback from LES that the staff's 6

actions during pre-application and the formal review for its increased 7

enrichment amendment led to a smooth and efficient process. For example, a 8

revised RAI process that included sharing draft RAIs and greater use of 9

clarification calls, allowed the licensee to develop responses before we formally 10 issued the RAI and respond 33% quicker, or ten days faster.

11 This resulted in a two-week, or 5%, reduction to the schedule.

12 We have since further revised the RAI process by setting the required 13 response data based on the draft RAI issuance versus formal RAI issuance and 14 setting specific timelines for requesting clarification calls. We're also increasing 15 the use of requests for confirmatory information.

16 In addition, we're leveraging related past approvals and 17 precedents to reduce resources for licensing actions. For example, we 18 completed a review of Framatome's criticality methodology to support 19 increasing enrichment in 220 hours0.00255 days <br />0.0611 hours <br />3.637566e-4 weeks <br />8.371e-5 months <br />.

20 We completed the subsequent review of their methodology to 21 support further increasing enrichment with 30% fewer resources by relying on 22 the previous approval with respect to the methodology and narrowly focusing on 23 the changes to criticality benchmarks and results. Next slide, please.

24 To improve our processes, we are identifying best practices 25

14 from across the agency and incorporating the licensing improvements that Kim 1

discussed. For near-term applications, we expect this will result in higher 2

quality applications, acceptance reviews without requests for supplemental 3

information, and fewer RAIs compared to similar reviews.

4 For several near-term applications, we expect this will result 5

in schedules that are 20-50% shorter and resource estimates that are 15-35%

6 lower. For example, we developed new internal guidance for reviewing 7

applications that are based on information in previous similar NRC-approved 8

applications. This will be applied to the GLE Paducah laser enrichment facility 9

and Orano Project IKE new enrichment facility applications.

10 These applications are based on, although not identical to, 11 the approved but terminated licenses for GLE andt Eagle Rock. This guidance 12 builds on the staff's methodology used to scale their review of the NuScale 13 standard design approval, which was based on the NuScale design certification.

14 The review resources and schedule will be driven by the 15 degree of changes from the previous license, site-specific review areas, and 16 environmental reviews. Areas that are identical will get a light review to verify 17 that the bases for the previous regulatory findings remain unchanged. And we 18 will rely on those previous findings whenever possible.

19 We are having focused, in-depth topical pre-application 20 discussions and performing pre-application readiness assessments where we 21 can review draft documents and provide substantive feedback.

22 This feedback includes best practices, the level of detail 23 needed in the application, and how to fill any gaps that could challenge the 24 acceptance of the application or progress of the review. We will document this 25

15 early alignment before the submittal to guide our reviews.

1 In addition, the staff is streamlining the environmental review 2

process through the use of incorporation by reference, designation of non-3 federal representative for the Endangered Species Act, and more than a dozen 4

other actions included in the NRC's ADVANCE Act Section 506 report.

5 Finally, in response to the Commission direction to simplify 6

the procedures for mandatory hearings and make them more transparent and 7

efficient, we'll pilot a streamlined mandatory hearing process for these 8

applications. Next slide, please.

9 We are using data to improve accountability and enhance 10 transparency in the licensing process. To improve accountability, the NRC is 11 developing licensing schedule and resource estimates using historical 12 execution data. We are then tracking licensing project execution, including 13 progress against schedule and resource estimates and metrics to ensure timely 14 processing of licensing actions.

15 This is done using internal and external tracking and reporting 16 systems such as dashboards and licensing status meetings. At routine 17 meetings with the project managers and management, we're using data to 18 guide discussions on project progress, risks, and mitigations, and to make 19 decisions that keep our reviews on track.

20 The data includes how open licensing actions are tracking 21 with leading and lagging metrics, estimated schedule and resources, and next 22 steps. If the project deviates from the planned schedule or resources, we 23 identify the causes and potential ways to resolve them, such as reprioritizing 24 workload and further optimizing schedules.

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16 We identify creative solutions, ensure we're focused on 1

making safety or security findings versus meeting guidance, consult with 2

subject matter experts not involved in the review, and provide additional 3

management attention.

4 We are also improving transparency in major licensing action 5

progress and project health through revisions to our public-facing licensing 6

dashboard, such as the two for LES and the one for TRISO-X. These 7

dashboards are used during discussions with licensees and applicants and 8

provide data on estimated versus expended resources and schedule, schedule 9

risks, and the status of RAIs.

10 These are features that the licensees and the applicants 11 requested so they can have more timely updates on staff progress and the cost 12 of the review. Applicants and our federal partners have told us that they 13 appreciate being able to use the NRC's dashboard as an unvarnished 14 assessment of progress when talking to their stakeholders.

15 As part of the agency's project management initiative, we are 16 also aligning across the agency on common definitions, visualizations, and 17 metrics that will make it easier for the public to understand how major licensing 18 actions are progressing across business lines.

19 That concludes my remarks, and I'll turn it over to Barry Miller.

20 Thank you.

21 MR. MILLER: Thank you, Samantha.

22 Good morning, Chairman and Commissioners. I'm pleased to 23 present today on the imports and exports of nuclear fuel. Next slide, please.

24 I'll begin with a high-level overview of the NRC's export and 25

17 import licensing program and how it supports the fuel facilities business line.

1 Under the Atomic Energy Act, the NRC has authority to license the import and 2

export of nuclear facilities and equipment, nuclear material, which includes 3

reactor fuel, as well as radioisotopes for medical and industrial use.

4 The NRC implements its export and import licensing program 5

under 10 CFR Part 110. Given the broad range of nuclear commodities under 6

NRC export and import licensing authority, this licensing program leverages 7

several of the NRC's business lines, including operating reactors, new reactors, 8

nuclear material users, and of course the reason we're here today, the fuel 9

facilities business line.

10 For exports of nuclear equipment and nuclear material, the 11 application of IAEA safeguards is a key licensing criterion and for exports going 12 to nuclear facilities overseas. The application of IAEA safeguards to exported 13 nuclear material is also a required provision of nuclear cooperation agreements 14 included under Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, which we more simply 15 refer to as 123 agreements.

16 These agreements create a framework that enable U.S.

17 companies to export nuclear material and equipment to countries with whom 18 the United States has such an agreement. The NRC's international safeguards 19 experts review export license applications and draft 123 agreements, and these 20 resources are leveraged from the fuel facilities business line.

21 To give some context, we issue approximately 50-70 export 22 licenses every year. And with regard to 123 agreement negotiations, which I 23 should note are led overall by the State Department, engagement with partner 24 countries remains ongoing and active. Next slide, please.

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18 About a year and a half ago, the Commission held a public 1

meeting on domestic uranium fuel strategies. And during that meeting, a 2

representative from DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy noted that reducing 3

dependence on Russian sources of uranium would be key to the success of 4

boosting domestic uranium enrichment capacity.

5 In the 18 months since that Commission meeting, legislative 6

actions have been taken by Congress related to this issue. And I wanted to use 7

this opportunity to provide an update.

8 On May 13, 2024, coincidentally a year ago today, the 9

Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act became law. The act prohibits 10 imports of low enriched uranium from Russia unless a waiver is granted by the 11 Department of Energy.

12 While the waiver process remains open, the NRC has no role 13 in waiver reviews or approvals. Under the legislation, any waivers granted by 14 DOE must terminate no later than January 1, 2028, effectively making a total 15 import prohibition after that date.

16 It's important to note that while the Act gave authority to DOE 17 to grant waivers, it did not alter or affect the NRC's existing regulatory authority 18 over imports. Therefore, imports conducted under an approved DOE waiver 19 are still permitted to use the NRC's general license for import, which requires 20 that the U.S. consignee has the appropriate domestic license to receive and 21 possess the material. Next slide, please.

22 So, what does this prohibition mean for the NRC's fuel 23 facilities business line? In recent years, imports of enriched uranium products 24 from Russia have accounted for upwards of 20% of the U.S. fuel supply.

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19 Recognizing that the import prohibition may cause a supply gap, Congress also 1

took action to help incentivize increased domestic uranium enrichment capacity 2

to offset the loss of imports from Russia.

3 Under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024, Congress 4

authorized up to 2.72 billion for DOE to award contracts to purchase uranium 5

from new domestic enrichment capacity. This funding was actually approved 6

several months before the import prohibition law was passed, but it was 7

conditioned upon an import ban being in place before the funding could be 8

used.

9 So once the prohibition law was enacted, it unlocked these 10 funds, and soon after DOE began issuing requests for proposals for new 11 domestic enrichment capacity. DOE has since awarded contracts under this 12 framework and this in turn has directly contributed to additional fuel facility 13 licensing work for the NRC, which Samantha had just holistically outlined in her 14 presentation.

15 And with that, I'll turn it over to Ravi Penmetsa. Thank you.

16 MR. PENMETSA: Good morning, Chairman and 17 Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I'll be 18 discussing how we ensure our fuel facility inspectors are trained, qualified, and 19 prepared to meet our today's regulatory requirements and adapt to future 20 challenges. Next slide, please.

21 I'll begin with the Smarter Inspection Program that Kim, 22 Kimyata mentioned earlier, or SIP, that was implemented in 2021. SIP used 23 historical data and risk assessments to focus inspection attention towards high-24 risk areas, such as criticality safety and chemical safety, while reducing 25

20 oversight at lower risk areas like fire protective.

1 Overall inspection hours have decreased by 10-25% or more 2

in some cases, depending on the type of fuel facility. And an example would be 3

fire protection inspection hours, where it reduced by around 40% from 51 hours5.902778e-4 days <br />0.0142 hours <br />8.43254e-5 weeks <br />1.94055e-5 months <br /> 4

to 30 hours3.472222e-4 days <br />0.00833 hours <br />4.960317e-5 weeks <br />1.1415e-5 months <br /> for a Cat. III facility by moving from an annual inspection to a 5

biannual inspection and eliminating tri-annual inspections. And that also has 6

implications on travel, travel dollars.

7 As part of the self-assessment of SIP implementation, we 8

analyzed performance across all technical areas to determine whether the 9

revised allocation of inspection hours affected our ability to maintain effective 10 oversight. The chart shows three-year moving average of event notifications by 11 technical area over the past decade.

12 An example of a notification in nuclear critical safety would be 13 a degradation of IROFS. In that case, the licensee will have to shut down the 14 equipment until the condition is rectified or an alternate comp measure has 15 been approved by NRC. A similar example in the area of chem safety could be 16 a report on employee chemical burn or a related medical intervention.

17 So based on what that data is showing in the chart, criticality 18 safety continues to be a high focus area as we've identified in the SIP program.

19 And even though radiation production shows an increase in average number of 20 events, the trend does not indicate a statistically significant change in number of 21 events per year between pre-SIP and post-SIP events.

22 Moreover, SIP only reduced inspection hours by 6% for 23 radiation protection, so we would continue to maintain our SIP-recommended 24 inspection hours at this time and continue to monitor trends in this technical 25

21 area.

1 We did not observe any other trends that would require us to 2

readjust inspection hours for the technical areas. SIP definitely provided a 3

strong foundation for future initiatives that are being considered under the 4

ADVANCE Act, where we are working with the Program Office on those 5

initiatives.

6 One of the SIP key improvements was introduced in clear 7

resource estimate thresholds, and the manual chapter discussed this clearly, 8

the ten plus or minus ten-person variation in resource estimates, and that 9

brought clarity to the field.

10 Before SIP, about 30% of inspections deviated from resource 11 estimates. That dropped to just 10% after implementation. Equally important, 12 inspectors told us the guidance helped them make better decisions without 13 adding unnecessary administrative burden.

14 We also standardized our templates to improve quality and 15 consistency of our inspection reports. And staff's feedback and side-by-side 16 analysis confirm that post-SIP reports are more structured, easier to follow, and 17 better aligned with procedure requirements. This shift not only improved report 18 clarity, it gave us a more transparent inspection record.

19 SIP self-assessment captured opportunities to further refine 20 the program, so we will be working with the program office to implement those 21 changes as, along with the ADVANCE Act initiative based on return on 22 investment.

23 Building on consistent inspector utilization achieved through 24 SIP, we are advancing efforts to improve how we plan and execute inspection 25

22 work for and by focusing on predictability. We are integrating data from multiple 1

internal systems, including those that track FTE utilization, project execution, 2

travel planning and expenditures to develop predictive models that align 3

inspection planning more clearly with fee-recovery activities.

4 Our early analysis shows that inspection hours have 5

remained stable across fiscal years, with deviations largely due to emergent 6

and unplanned activities related to enforcement and allegation follow-up. This 7

stability provides a valuable baseline for enhancing predictability of inspection 8

demands going forward. Next slide, please.

9 Next I'll turn to our workforce. We are currently adequately 10 staffed to meet our current inspection oversight requirements, including 11 upcoming operation readiness reviews at fuel facilities.

12 Our team of 17 inspectors include four inspectors in training.

13 They conduct core oversight functions of inspection, enforcement, inspection, 14 enforcement, allegation follow-up, and program management. Inspectors in 15 training, who typically require 18-24 months to become fully qualified, help 16 ensure workforce continuity as several senior staff members approach 17 retirement in the coming years.

18 Six of the 13 qualified inspectors are currently engaged in 19 cross-qualification training in the areas of material control and accountability, 20 nuclear criticality safety, and information security, which enhances our flexibility 21 and depth across inspection areas.

22 Nine of our fuel facility inspectors are cross-qualified in both 23 fuel facilities and reactors, and that gives us agility across multiple business 24 lines.

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23 We also have three construction-qualified inspectors 1

supporting both fuel facility and reactor construction oversight activities. And 2

their inspection is grounded in NRC construction qualification program, which 3

covers fuel cycle process, construction fundamentals, and inspection of both 4

fuel and non-power producing facilities.

5 In addition, we work closely with each applicant to ensure 6

inspectors receive tailored facility-specific instructions to focus their attention on 7

safety-significant areas.

8 In addition to formal qualification training, we're also exploring 9

ways to equip our inspectors with the latest technology. We are participating in 10 the agency AI initiative to develop test cases that'll explore a wide ability of 11 advanced tools to support our inspectors in tasks like reviewing prior inspection 12 reports, inspection preparation material, assist in inspection planning, and 13 drafting routine content.

14 By maintaining a robust pipeline of inspectors in training, 15 fostering a cadre of cross-qualified staff, we ensure our adaptability and 16 readiness to support the expected surge in fuel facility business line inspection 17 activities.

18 That'll conclude my presentation. I'll turn it over to Mirela.

19 MS. GAVRILAS: Thank you all. We're ready to answer your 20 questions.

21 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Thank you, Mirela.

22 And thank you for your presentations this morning. I'm going 23 to go ahead and jump right into questions here. And if you could pull up slide 9 24 back there, if our producer can.

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24 John, good morning.

1 MR. LUBINSKI: Good morning.

2 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: I'm going to leave this slide up here 3

for a minute because I'm going to come to it, okay, with Kimyata. But earlier 4

you showed on one of your slides a graph of anticipated new fuel licensing 5

actions through 2030. And as you alluded in that, the front of the fuel cycle 6

represents critical path, right, for the future of advanced reactor technologies.

7 So from a resource forecasting and planning perspective, do 8

you anticipate any challenges in meeting the potential demand of licensing 9

actions, or will you be taking from other areas in order to support this licensing 10 need?

11 And I guess my point here is will work in other areas be 12 stopped to get this work done when we really need to be getting all of it done?

13 MR. LUBINSKI: Thanks. So you know, the short answer is 14 no, we're not seeing any resource challenges at this point as we continue to 15 look towards an increased number of licensing actions coming in. We're also in 16 parallel identifying efficiencies that have been discussed already by Kim and 17 Samantha.

18 We're taking advantage of those efficiencies from the 19 standpoint of mostly on the more routine amendments. We have a provision 20 under Part 70 regulations, 70.72, that allows the licensee to do many of these 21 reviews without a review by the NRC, even for some of the more major 22 amendments.

23 As an example, Framatome recently came in with their 24 amendment request to increase their enrichment. The majority of what they 25

25 were doing to support that could be done under 70.72, and we're focusing on 1

what just needs to be reviewed under our regulations going forward.

2 So we're seeing those efficiencies helping us to decrease the 3

number of FTE needed per licensing action. With respect to staffing, we're 4

seeing pretty consistent attrition rates and we're expecting those attrition rates 5

over the next few years.

6 And then finally, you always have a contingency plan, right.

7 So you have plan b, plan c. As we continue, we've already demonstrated that 8

we can rely on working across business lines, including with the operating 9

reactor business line and with our folks in the Office of Research on our TRISO-10 X review recently.

11 We were able to pull in expertise staff in the electrical area to 12 help us from the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, which was an area that 13 I'll say we were thin with as far as our expertise. And we were able to do that 14 without impacting their licensing actions.

15 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: So if there's any, if I heard you right, if 16 there any like skill gaps or there are gaps that you need in order to do your job, 17 you're able to find that in other areas?

18 MR. LUBINSKI: At this point we're able to find those in areas.

19 If historically and it continues to be when we look at critical skills in the area, 20 definitely HPs and criticality expertise continues to be an area where we don't 21 have a lot of bench strength. And we'll have to continue to keep the focus on 22 that as we go forward.

23 But again, there's a lot of criticality experts in NRR as well that 24 we can rely on.

25

26 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: And when you're pulling those people 1

that you need from other areas, is that causing them problems?

2 MR. LUBINSKI: To date it has not been. And in fact, we 3

balance that out from the standpoint of the priority, their work that they have in 4

the office. We have not impacted any of their licensing actions.

5 And we also rely on the Office of Research, so some research 6

may be delayed. But from the standpoint of a prioritization of a licensing action 7

versus research activities, the delay in the research activity has not had a 8

significant impact.

9 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Okay, all right.

10 Kimyata, I'm coming to you now. And if you'll pull up slide 9 11 for me, I've got some questions.

12 And John, if you need to help out here, please jump in.

13 So on this slide here, you describe data-driven metrics and 14 that you're using to drive performance. And it's nice, I mean, really good to see 15 us using metrics. But I'm not sure I really understand what I'm seeing here, 16 okay. And I want to ask you some questions about it.

17 You talked about, I don't know, 94% of these license reviews 18 or amendments to, were 12 months. And then 77% were under 24 months.

19 And you also say 77% of these things were complex.

20 I'm trying to understand a couple things. First is what is a 21 complex license amendment? Can you give me an example, and how many of 22 them are complex?

23 MS. MORGAN-BUTLER: So examples of complex license 24 amendments are enrichments, are areas where we're looking to expand the 25

27 license. And so we are typically looking at adding new buildings or adding new 1

processes, those are complex. Usually complex amendments have 2

environmental assessments or EISs are associated, those are more complex.

3 Our routine amendments are in areas such as where we're 4

looking at changes in financial assurance or decommissioning plan funding, or 5

security plans, simple security plans, and John mentioned those.

6 Most of our amendments are routine. So I said 90% of them 7

were routine. The more complex amendments are those new applications, 8

those major license amendments.

9 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: So that's where I'm getting confused.

10 When you say 77% of your things are complex, and that's the danger of using 11 percentages, because I don't know if 77% is 77% of ten or if it's 100, or if it's 12 500. I don't know. I can't tell by looking at that slide.

13 MS. MORGAN-BUTLER: Agree.

14 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: And you know, if we're going to use 15 metrics, I mean, what is it that we're measuring, that's one question that I would 16 be asking, and how are we using it. What are we trying to learn from it, and 17 then how are we going to improve from it, you know, to further try to streamline 18 or get better, get faster, get smarter, right.

19 And so I don't, I can't tell from that. I mean, it's a good-looking 20 chart. And then I notice that you've got a 12-line, you got a 24-line, but that line 21 keeps going on out there. So I don't know numbers. Like how many of them 22 took 48 months, you know? I don't have a, you know.

23 That's what's going to help us, I think.

24 MS. MORGAN-BUTLER: Yeah, that's rare. There was one 25

28 which I believe was, yeah, there was one that was a longer, that took a longer 1

timeframe. For complex, we have, it's a small business line. So we have a 2

smaller number of course, and we're building up data in that area.

3 For more routine, over the last several years I think that the 4

end was 15 or 20, around that for amendments, around 15. For exemptions, 5

around the same amount for our smaller business line.

6 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Okay, all right.

7 MR. LUBINSKI: Chairman, if I could add in, put the graph 8

back up. And from an explanation standpoint, yeah, graph is probably a little 9

misleading if you look at the left graph. Once you get to that purple line and it 10 peaks out at 100%, that's really where it stops.

11 So if you read that line, it says within, between '23 and '25, we 12 had no license amendment that took more than when it peaked out at 100%,

13 which are shown as between the 19 and 21 months. So that's a good story.

14 Everything to the right of that purple line and once it goes out at 100, it is really 15 not necessary information.

16 I think the other part when, as Kim said, there's not a clear 17 definition in the regulations or even in our guidance of what is complex. But 18 what we're finding in this business line, because of the use of the ISAs, 19 because of the use of 70.72 and the regulations that allows that licensees to 20 make many of these changes themselves, we end up with a lower amount of 21 the routine amendments, and therefore you get the higher number of complex 22 amendments.

23 Also from the standpoint of what's driving the industry right 24 now, the expanded production that they're getting. So when we talk about new 25

29 applicants coming in, you're talking about brand new applicants or you're talking 1

about expansions, which are typically an entire process line that is built and a 2

new building attached.

3 So you're seeing more of those come in. Agree with your 4

point on the total numbers, and that's something we need to look at to improve 5

our data on collecting the total numbers and associating that with the total 6

number of the FTE in the changes as well.

7 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: How would you be using that metric 8

on that slide, the, how would you be using that to improve the process going 9

forward? I mean, that's more like a measurement of what's coming before you.

10 But how are you using that to drive improvements?

11 MR. LUBINSKI: So if I were to use the graphic again above, 12 when I said it stopped, it peaked out at 100%, the idea is to take that 100% line 13 where it peaked out and move it to the left. Right, that's the goal there. How do 14 you do that?

15 We're really focused on reducing the level of effort that we're 16 putting into each of the licensing reviews, working with the licensees to 17 understand what more they can do under 70.72 that does not need to come in 18 for a review. And then more so from our staff standpoint, understanding what 19 are we doing as the minimal amount necessary to get to a call of reasonable 20 assurance.

21 So it's the level of effort that you're putting into it. And for the 22 most part, the level of effort you put into it is commensurate with the timeline as 23 well, which will move that to the left. What you don't see on the graph and we 24 are looking at tracking is also the level of effort that you're putting into each of 25

30 the amendments.

1 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Right.

2 MR. LUBINSKI: When you look at the difficult part of the 3

expansions are they're not all the same. Samantha talked about benefits we 4

were getting from some where we could rely on precedent, and we're trying to 5

rely on precedent to approve that as well. So that's another area where we're 6

trying to track how much have we been able to use the precedent from a 7

previous application.

8 But it doesn't necessarily set the standard for the next one.

9 They may have no precedent at all because of the unique nature.

10 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Yeah, to what you're just saying, just 11 my comment to you would be those, how you're interpreting that graph and 12 how you're looking to make those improvements, that's the metrics you should 13 be using, right, is how you are setting that goal to improve.

14 And then what is that goal. And it needs to be something that 15 everybody can easily look at and understand. That's what I'm, you know. So 16 I'm hopeful that's where you're going to end up going.

17 MR. LUBINSKI: Setting the goal, as Kim said and Samantha, 18 to take that graph at the top where you're hitting the 100%, where you're hitting 19 the 94% and moving that target to the left.

20 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Right, okay. And Samantha, you got 21 off lucky because my time's up. We'll turn it over to Commissioner Caputo.

22 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: So good morning, thank you all 23 for your preparations today. I'm probably not going to let everyone off that 24 easy.

25

31 So we've heard a lot this morning about process 1

improvements and efficiencies we're gaining. And I'm kind of struggling with 2

doing the math on that. So that's pretty much where my questions are going to 3

go.

4 So for example, criticality methodology submittals for 5

increasing enrichment is 220 hours0.00255 days <br />0.0611 hours <br />3.637566e-4 weeks <br />8.371e-5 months <br />. But if increasing enrichment is a complex 6

license amendment, and it's going to require 30 fewer, 30% fewer resources, 7

I'm kind of struggling with how that's a two-year metric.

8 Part 70 is a bit challenging because there's a fair amount of 9

inherent subjectivity. These facilities are all different. Licensees have to 10 identify what their safety-significant components are, and then wrestle with the 11 staff over-reaching agreement on that.

12 That can be a pretty time-consuming process, certainly as 13 we've seen with one of the applications that's still under review. Two years of 14 pre-application engagement in a manner that really ends of being sort of a one-15 way discussion, not necessarily giving the applicant feedback.

16 We're hearing this morning that pre-application engagement 17 is now going to give applicants more feedback. Because that's really what's 18 necessary to improve the quality of the application, when they submit it to 19 reduce some of these timeframes. I hope that that's the case. I don't know 20 what metric exists to really measure that or even indication of that.

21 But when we look at licensing timeframes, and NEIMA gives 22 us metrics, NEIMA doesn't count pre-application engagement.

23 And the longer applicants are in pre-application engagement 24 with us and license review with us, the longer that comprehensive timeline 25

32 takes, the more likely their business plans are to change, particularly given the 1

environment that we're in, the demand that we're seeing, the level of 2

importance that this has for national energy security. So it's kind of a 3

challenging environment.

4 So principles of good regulation: regulation should be 5

coherent, logical, and practical. Agency positions should be readily understood 6

and easily applied. The subjectivity and the nature of how that can drag out the 7

process really to me is untenable considering where this field is going.

8 And the focus of, getting back to our principles, regulatory 9

action should be fully consistent with written regulations and promptly, fairly, 10 and decisively administered to lend stability to the nuclear operational and 11 planning process. So results matter, and we've heard about process 12 improvements and efficiencies this morning.

13 John, what resource savings do you estimate we're going to 14 see from all of this? Because she's talking about efficiencies in enrichment 15 complex amendment, Ravi was talking about efficiencies in inspection, 16 Samantha was talking about efficiencies in licensing. When I look at the 17 budget, I see a 40% increase since 2022 and only a $2.1 million increase in the 18 hourly work on licensing and inspection.

19 So while 2.1 million has gone up in licensing and inspection, 9 20 million has gone up in annual fees covering other expenses. And that's a pretty 21 significant difference to me that doesn't indicate efficiency and process 22 improvement.

23 MR. LUBINSKI: Thank you for the question. So with respect 24 to what's happened, as you said, in the 170 licensing fees, what we're 25

33 recovering from licensing fees, we are seeing more efficiency, meaning less 1

FTE per licensing action. And we have had that trend, and we're continuing to 2

account for that as we continue to move forward.

3 The different process improvements I can't give you an exact 4

number on how much it's going to be per licensing action because each of the 5

process improvements we're talking about have different levels as well as 6

different likelihood of panning out.

7 The majority of what we're seeing from the standpoint of the 8

171 fee increase that we've seen over the last couple years has really been in 9

the way we've been budgeting, not so much in the execution. We've been 10 planning for this expansion of the industry. We, based on letters of intent we 11 get from the industry, based on when they're telling us to come in.

12 And as the Chairman said, we really need to be on critical 13 path on the front end to make sure we're meeting the need today to review 14 those amendments. What has happened is the reality has stepped in and those 15 applications have been delayed.

16 When those applications have been delayed, we still have an 17 allocation from Congress that we need to recover. We're not recovering it 18 directly in the amount of applications that come in house. So therefore, a chunk 19 of that goes into the 171 fees that needs to be recovered.

20 What have we done to change that? We are now looking at 21 budget space, and I can't talk about what we're doing in the '27 budget, pre-22 decisional information. But we're putting more fidelity into the applications that 23 we budget for, which ones would come in. Looking at the high probability, 24 looking at the low probability of them coming in.

25

34 And as I said in response to the Chairman's question, putting 1

contingency plans if they do. Because that's the most important. If we have not 2

budgeted for them in '27 and they still come in, we need to be able to identify 3

what's the contingency plan.

4 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: John, you and I have been at 5

this for a while, and we've had this discussion before, and yet we don't actually 6

end up seeing what you're describing play out in these budget numbers. So if 7

you have excess funds that you were expecting to spend in licensing, why can't 8

that accelerate the licensing work that's in house?

9 Because I'm looking at a licensee that's had two years of pre-10 application, at least three years in application review, which is likely to continue 11 for at least another year or two, that's gone through three rounds of RAIs no 12 matter what process improvements we're seeing in RAIs, that's the track record 13 here.

14 And as soon as I say there are three rounds of RAIs, I'm now 15 going to get an answer that says well, you know, the licensee is untimely in 16 responding to the RAIs. Well, they've had three rounds, so. And then you're 17 going to tell me that it wasn't a quality application. Well, they had two years of 18 pre-application review.

19 So how does this story end with a better result that 20 recognizes the national position we're in and the urgency with which we need to 21 be executing this workload, managing appropriately, putting an appropriate 22 focus on resourcing and management? You know, we're seeing staffing issues 23 and staffing challenges here.

24 When I look at the amount of hourly work and calculate how 25

35 many FTE that is, that's 21 FTE in an office that has 84. So I'm having a hard 1

time doing the math here on what we hear in terms of the changes and what the 2

actual invoice says when it goes out to licensees and when the decisions 3

actually go out the door. Whether that's your resources or metrics.

4 MR. LUBINSKI: So in answering your question, two points I'll 5

make. One is adding additional people to the review is not necessarily going to 6

change how many rounds of RAIs you have. And in fact, that just puts more 7

people on the project, a higher bill to the licensee, which is what we don't want 8

to do.

9 Looking at it and what we're trying to achieve more in the pre-10 application and even more so in the licensing process, is identification of those 11 pinch points earlier in the process during the first round of RAIs to make sure 12 that there's a higher level of management attention in getting resolution of those 13 issues sooner.

14 And it's not just with respect to our management, but also 15 from the licensee management and having those meetings earlier in the 16 process, so that as you said earlier, we can reach resolution on what the 17 technical issue is or what the policy issue is and how we're making that decision 18 and providing clarity to the licensee earlier in the process.

19 When you look back and do a lessons-learned on the 20 activities that got us to where we are and multiple rounds with licensees, I think 21 that's number one the key point then comes up is decisiveness by the decision 22 maker and bringing them earlier in the process. And that's a change we're 23 looking to make.

24 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: We do a lessons-learned, we do 25

36 a lot of process improvements. How are we going to assure that the results 1

actually improve, in timeliness, in reduced cost, and ultimately in a more 2

adequate, more accurate budget?

3 MR. LUBINSKI: And that's where, as I said in response to the 4

Chairman, we've looked at timely right now, we're setting goals to move the 5

timeliness to the left. We also need to look at goals for the reduction in the level 6

of effort that we have in those areas. Those will be the indicators of whether or 7

not our lessons learned are actually making the appropriate changes.

8 As you said, we looked at pre-application meetings as one of 9

those areas. What we found is in some cases pre-application meetings, and we 10 have data that shows that it actually has improved licensing. On a recent 11 application we've had a, one of the examples Samantha brought up of the 12 reduction in level of effort was directly attributable to the decisions that were 13 made during the pre-application meeting.

14 Other pre-application meetings we found, you know, lesson 15 learned after the fact, were not as effective and therefore did not mean we had -

16 17 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: I'm over my time, but this takes 18 me back to my original question. You have several staff here who have tallied 19 up process improvements, savings, expected savings, anticipated savings.

20 What is that going to look like going forward?

21 Because if you've done the math to figure out these measures 22 of detail, you should be able to come up with an estimate of where you see the 23 overall performance of this office going.

24 MR. LUBINSKI: And as part of our development, and I can't 25

37 go through the details, part of our development of the '27 budget is accounting 1

for the efficiencies that we're identifying as part of these processes. So we are 2

lowering the budget to account for those efficiencies. And I can't go further in 3

that, but you'll see that in the '27 budget.

4 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Well, I'll be looking for it. Thank 5

you.

6 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Thank you, Commission Caputo.

7 Now we'll turn to Commissioner Hanson.

8 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

9 Good morning, everybody on a rainy and cloudy morning here in Rockville.

10 Ravi, I'd like to start with you because I want to pick up on 11 something the Chairman was talking about. And he was talking about staffing 12 and adequate staffing for licensing. But of course you had a great chart up 13 there about the number of inspectors that we have. And yet we saw a lot of 14 licensing actions, I think, in Sam and Kimyata's slides.

15 And all of that is going to do a combination of things, right. It's 16 going to change the licensing basis for existing facilities, and it's also there are 17 eight new facilities, I think, you know, major license amendments and other 18 kinds of things. We know where licensees are proposing to build new buildings 19 as an amendment on their existing footprint.

20 So where does that leave us looking forward? You know, you 21 talked about how we're adequately resourced today. That's great news, love it.

22 23 But how are we, either between Region II and John, your 24 office, coordinating either through a staffing roadmap or strategic workforce 25

38 planning or whatever to make sure that as these amendments get approved, 1

they're implemented, et cetera, that we've got the right number of inspectors on 2

board, trained up, ready to go?

3 MR. PENMETSA: So we work very closely with the program 4

office to track the licensing actions that they have. The good place we are in, 5

we have a lead time. If it's 18-24 months for licensing actions, that's my lead 6

time to work with the team to understand the probability of that facility actually 7

getting the license in that timeframe.

8 So my training timeframe is 18-24 months for a new fuel 9

facility inspector. So that kind of aligns where, and then I have the ability to use 10 the execution year scheduling to adjust to meet whoever I have on board at that 11 time and manage my training pipeline.

12 So I have a lot of tools for me to work with, as long as I am 13 directly connected with the program office and tightly engaged with each 14 licensee that they are working on have a time horizon. And our budget timeline 15 is two years out, so if there's a high probability of a facility showing up, we will in 16 budget formulation we'll lay some groundwork for some FTE required for the 17 inspection.

18 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Yeah, John, if you want to 19 answer that?

20 MR. LUBINSKI: If I could just add quickly, for each of the 21 types of facilities we regulate and -- we actually have a matrix that shows how 22 many FTE, and each of the disciplines that you need for doing inspections per 23 year.

24 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Okay.

25

39 MR. LUBINSKI: Even with the new facilities, when they come 1

in, some of them are unique, we're getting new Cat. II facilities. So, before we 2

start, and even when we start the two-year process, it's really deciding up front 3

what is the level of inspection effort going to be. Because you use that as the 4

model to then determine how many inspections you're going to do per year, 5

how many inspectors you need.

6 So, it's not just, I got one new facility, go up by X percentage 7

of facilities with that many more inspectors. Because, the newer facilities may 8

actually require more inspection effort, because you're talking about Cat. II 9

facilities versus a Cat. III facility coming in -- and category of fuel facility. So, 10 we use that as the model to help when planning.

11 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Well, this is a great -- that's 12 actually a great segue, John, kind of to my next question, right. And we're 13 seeing this across the Agency where we're seeing an increased workload but 14 we're also seeing the efficiencies, right, and how do those things kind of offset 15 each other, right? So, it's not a one-for-one, John, I mean, I think I -- I really 16 appreciate your saying that, but it's also about skill mix.

17 I appreciate the -- in the Smarter Inspection Program, the 18 emphasis on, for example criticality inspections, et cetera, but how do you -- it's 19 a complex planning problem, right? I won't call it the three-body problem, but it 20 feels like, you know, you're getting close to something like that.

21 MR. LUBINSKI: It's complex, but I'm going to say, not overly 22 complex. When we look at the matrix we're able to lay out from the standpoint 23 of the number of inspections, it'll lay out how many criticality inspection hours 24 do you need a year, how many chem safety hours do you need a year.

25

40 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Okay.

1 MR. LUBINSKI: As you're developing efficiencies, some of 2

those efficiencies may be cross-cutting and take everyone down by a 3

percentage, others may be more targeted to just one area. Our look at the 4

Smarter Inspection Program said there may be certain areas where the risk is 5

lower, and therefore you need to reduce the level of effort. So, you could do the 6

calculation at the end of that day, say for a Category II fuel facility you'd need X 7

number of hours per criticality inspector per year, divide that by the number of 8

FTE you had in and you can develop how many inspectors you need per year, 9

and you can lay that out on an annual basis going forward.

10 So, you know, the math actually works out pretty good in that 11 area based on the development of that matrix. As I said, when we develop a 12 new facility though, we're developing a new matrix of what that facility needs 13 from the standpoint of a level of effort.

14 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Okay. No, that's actually super 15 helpful. So, do you have an, you know, a rough estimate, understanding things 16 could change, applications are going to get delayed, the budget -- you know, 17 there are lots of things that go into the budget, but is there kind of a nominal 18 notion of retirements, new hires, replacements, and additive personnel in the 19 inspection field, that we need?

20 MR. PENMETSA: We have an Excel sheet that says, 21 depending on -- I have another variable number of inspection weeks per 22 inspector. So, we have the ability to figure out, how do I need to adjust that 23 inspection weeks per inspector if I have a surprise facility pop up -- they 24 wouldn't be a surprise. If I have an immediate source that I need to -- I don't 25

41 have a specific number for you, because I have the ability to adjust that.

1 My surprise would be, I have a few inspectors, senior 2

inspectors, that are eligible for retirement, they're not planning to retire. If that 3

happens that's when I'll -- that's my risk area that I have.

4 COMMISSIONER HANSON: All right, I'll let you off the hook 5

on the specific number. That's --

6 (Laughter.)

7 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Okay, so this is great. So 8

Kimyata, you mentioned your division is one of the early adopters of the EDO's 9

Project Management Initiative and one of her strategic priorities, so can you just 10 kind of recap that and how -- you know, how you all are implementing that, and 11 what benefits you're seeing?

12 MS. MORGAN-BUTLER: Yes, so as part of the Agency's PMI 13 effort, the Project Management Initiative, they're looking at strategic workforce 14 planning, portfolio management, enterprise workload management, and project 15 management itself. And so, it's -- we're looking at the workload that we have in 16 the future in matching our staff's critical, you know, skills with that need for the 17 workload, to fulfill the workload.

18 And so, we're planning that out, we know who -- and not just 19 within our division. So, our division is the Division of Fuel Management, which 20 has two business lines, and we're able to leverage skills across those business 21 lines. So, that's a big benefit, but we're also looking across the Agency where 22 we can find skill sets that can help us support our licensing, for example.

23 And so, we know -- you know, John mentioned Research, we 24 reached out to Research for ISA help, we have experts on human factors and 25

42 digital I&C and electrical, NRR, and also fire protection. We're working to train 1

staff coming -- we see fire protection down the line as a place where we need to 2

put more focus, and so we're working to train reviewers on the Part 50 side and 3

Part 70 for fire protection across the organizations.

4 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Yeah, I like the sound of using 5

that for, kind of, more accurate and kind of rigorous staffing management on 6

these things. But are you, for example, breaking down, you know, individual 7

tasks and using things like, you know, schedule performance index, cost 8

performance index, really applying earned value management principles and 9

stuff to the individual, to the licensing action as a whole, but also to the 10 subtasks within that licensing action, and how is that going? Maybe -- I don't 11 know if -- which one of you want to answer, but --

12 MS. MORGAN-BUTLER: Yes, well -- Samantha, you can --

13 (Simultaneous speaking.)

14 MS. LAV: So I'll start, Commissioner. So, yes, we are. So, 15 for each of our projects, we have a work breakdown structure which identifies 16 the specific technical skills that we need for each task, which subtask needs to 17 be performed when -- in the schedule we try and optimize that. Based on that, 18 we know how many resources for each subtask and when they're going to 19 happen, which month are we going to expect to see how many hours 20 expended, right?

21 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Okay.

22 MS. LAV: And so, we can take our schedule and our 23 resource estimates and we can map that, so now we know what is our expected 24 resource expenditure versus the schedule. And then, using data from, like, 25

43 HCM and other authoritative data sources, we can pull that information on 1

resource expenditure and map that with where would we expect to be versus 2

where we are.

3 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Okay.

4 MS. LAV: We also know what is the due date for each of our 5

interim milestones and we can track the project completion versus where we 6

expect to be at that point. And so, that's really what we're looking at in those 7

project management discussions I was talking about, and that's part of the 8

leading indicators, as well as the metrics that Kim was talking about, which are 9

lagging indicators, where did we end up at the end.

10 So yes, we are doing that and that's also part of the strategic 11 initiative for project management, and that's also how we're an early adopter.

12 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Okay.

13 MS. MORGAN-BUTLER: And those lagging indicators, 14 they're not schedules per se, they're -- you know, we're seeking to exceed 15 them. You know, we're putting in --

16 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Yeah.

17 MS. MORGAN-BUTLER: Yeah, so we're -- it's not that we 18 have to take 24 months, we're trying to figure out how to become more efficient 19 in the -- you know, as John said, move it to the left. But we also are looking at 20 the staff to, you know, their -- we're looking at staff who has previous history 21 with some of these types of reviews across the Agency, so that helps.

22 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Good. All right, well, thank you 23 both. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

24 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Thank you, Commissioner Hanson.

25

44 And Commissioner Crowell?

1 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and 2

thank you to all the panelists today for your presentations, and for the staff's 3

work in helping prepare you for today. Always helpful and informative. I'm 4

going to get through as many questions as I can, so I appreciate doing what 5

you can to be concise in your answers.

6 And I'll just make one comment off the top before I dive in, 7

you know, we talked a little -- the Chairman talked a little bit about, you know, 8

the fidelity and statistics, or the, you know, metrics. I think there's a little bit of 9

confusion sometimes between what a statistic is versus a metric, you know. A 10 statistic is just a number, a metric is the how -- you know, the what, why, and 11 the how in a goal. So, you know, sometimes when we see percentages on 12 slides, that's a statistic, it's not necessarily reflective of the metric, and we just 13 need to make sure we're clear on those things.

14 I'm going to pick up on some of the similar themes from the 15 Chairman and Commissioner Caputo. And John, I'll start with you and you can 16 hand off to whoever you want, but when we're looking at budget projections for 17 our licensing actions and needs, what's the source of the information we rely on 18 for that?

19 MR. LUBINSKI: Thank you. For complex amendments, 20 they're really done on a case-by-case basis looking at previous amendments, 21 how similar they are to --

22 (Simultaneous speaking.)

23 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Sorry -- like, when we're 24 looking at our workload going forward, like, how many actions we're going to 25

45 receive, is that based on external information or internal information?

1 MR. LUBINSKI: I'm sorry. External information, we work with 2

our regulated community, get from them what their plans are going forward, we 3

go down to what quarter they're going to provide their application in -- first or 4

fourth quarter. We actually layout the budget based on what the level effort 5

would be, right? If it's the end of the year, you're only looking at, probably, an 6

acceptance review versus, you know, if you get it in a whole year.

7 So, we plan that out, we plan it based on what we believe the 8

appropriate number of FTEs is based on each quarter as we go forward.

9 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: You've answered my question 10 already, and I appreciate it. And so, when we have a budget, either a budget 11 request or an enacted budget that doesn't match up with the reality of what we 12 had planned for, is that because something changed on our side or because 13 some external factors?

14 MR. LUBINSKI: Most of the time it occurs because of an 15 external factor, where the application is either coming in earlier or later than 16 expected.

17 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: And within that context, you 18 said you were working on what you could do to get more fidelity in our budget 19 projections and needs. What are some of the actions that you are specifically 20 thinking about, to get more fidelity? Is it -- are they external, internal, and what 21 are they?

22 MR. LUBINSKI: Let me turn to Samantha, because I think 23 she was one who was very instrumental in putting that process together.

24 MS. LAV: So the first part, from which projects do we actually 25

46 plan for, we have confidence rankings. And that's based on several factors, it's 1

based on our --

2 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Internal or external factors?

3 MS. LAV: Both, right, so some of the external factors are, you 4

know, from our potential applicant, when are they planning on coming in, what 5

is their source of funding, how much funding do they have and is that secure. If 6

they're going to use HALEU for example, have they identified where they're 7

getting that from, is there a related reactor licensing review that's driving that.

8 Then from an internal standpoint, we also look at the quality 9

of our pre-application engagement with them, what's their technical readiness 10 level, are they in very early conceptual design and saying they're going to come 11 in in two months -- that might --

12 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: But all those things should 13 allow us to set accurate budgets, so --

14 MS. LAV: Correct.

15 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: I'm trying to get at, what's the 16 cause of when we have a mismatch between what our planned-for activities are 17 and our budgeted activities are?

18 MS. LAV: So, in recent years some of that has been 19 geopolitical, right? So, you have the war in Ukraine for example which 20 disrupted the supply of HALEU --

21 (Simultaneous speaking.)

22 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: External entities have 23 changed their plans, not internal actions have upset the timeline?

24 MS. LAV: Correct.

25

47 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Or the budget expectation or 1

the budget need?

2 MS. LAV: Correct.

3 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Okay. And Samantha, I'll 4

come back to you in a little bit. Ms. Morgan-Butler, by the way, I wanted to 5

clarify a few things that I think I heard you say. New license applications for fuel 6

facilities are always considered complex?

7 MS. MORGAN-BUTLER: Yes, for the most part, for 8

enrichments and fabrication.

9 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: And moving ahead, what's the 10 balance between new license applications versus other licensing actions that 11 we expect?

12 MS. MORGAN-BUTLER: We budget for both. You were --

13 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Are you expecting more new 14 or more actions related to licensing actions versus new license applications?

15 MS. LAV: So, what we've seen in the past couple of years is, 16 we've seen a trend to fewer routine licensing actions and more complex 17 licensing actions. We used to see about 45 to 50 routine licensing actions, now 18 we're seeing more in the 20 to 30 range. And we used to see very few complex 19 licensing actions, and that's now increasing -- still fewer than the routine, but 20 the routine ones, some of them might be 200 hours0.00231 days <br />0.0556 hours <br />3.306878e-4 weeks <br />7.61e-5 months <br />.

21 Like the nuclear criticality safety reviews that Commissioner 22 Caputo mentioned, those are routine, versus now if you want to build, 23 essentially, a new facility under your current license, that would be a complex 24 licensing amendment.

25

48 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: But a brand new license 1

application in any context is considered complex versus for sake of planning 2

and timeline and budgeting?

3 MS. LAV: Yes, and those are tracked separately, that would 4

not be included in the metrics and the data that Kimyata showed.

5 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Okay. Mr. Miller, I'm going to 6

turn to you here. I think these two things connect, but you referenced the 7

Department of Energy has awards for enrichment -- expanding the enrichment 8

capacity, and that has resulted in more licensing activity or need on our end.

9 Can you connect the dots there for me, like what specific awardees received 10 awards from the DOE that are -- and then what have we heard from them here 11 that has resulted in more licensing or other action on our end?

12 MS. LAV: Yeah, so -- oh --

13 MR. MILLER: No, go ahead. No, you're better suited to 14 answer.

15 MS. LAV: I didn't realize that was a question for you. So, 16 there have been 16 awards under the three requests for a proposal. So, these 17 are for LEU enrichment, HALEU enrichment, and --

18 (Simultaneous speaking.)

19 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Are all 16 now creating 20 workload for us at some level?

21 MS. LAV: All of them have had some level of pre-application 22 engagement, some of them are currently under review, some of them we're in 23 pre-app and expecting soon. So for example, GLE and Orano were both 24 awardees for enrichment, those are expected in the next couple of months.

25

49 There are some longer-term ones for HALEU deconversion, which we're -- we 1

have long term planning for as well.

2 So, now all of those are on our radar. Whether DOE 3

determines to down-select at later point, you know, that's something that we're 4

watching for as well and we're going to take into consideration in our planning.

5 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Okay, and I'm going to try to 6

connect the dots back to something else -- and John, this may come back to 7

you. On slide five, John, you showed a drop in anticipated new fuel licensing 8

actions between '27 and FY 2030, a high of 11 down to just two. How does that 9

square with the activity, with 16 awards from DOE and the anticipated workload 10 coming from there?

11 MR. LUBINSKI: I'm going to turn back to Samantha since she 12 just has those numbers.

13 MS. LAV: That accounts for all of those. And so, as I 14 mentioned in my presentation, too, we have varying level of confidence. So, we 15 16 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Sixteen, 11, and two are 17 different --

18 MS. LAV: Oh, so that is not 16 distinct ones, right, so this is 19 looking at them -- you know, some of them might go two years, three years.

20 So, you have, you know, the years that will be under review is what was in the 21 slide that John had. So, there's a peak in the number of things that could be 22 under review in '27 and '28, although we might not receive all of those.

23 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: I appreciate that, I just want to 24 underscore the points that Chairman Wright and Commissioner Caputo made, 25

50 that I don't think our presentations are really -- it's hard to pin down what 1

numbers relate to what, and having to dig around about all these things about 2

these macro statistics, then -- and then actual numbers of actions, then -- and 3

percentages just are not matching up.

4 I would just encourage you all to just think more holistically in 5

terms of trying to provide a more succinct overview of what we're expecting, 6

and -- it's just -- there's too much having to read between the lines here, guys, 7

so -- and I think that's the frustration you're seeing on our end.

8 When we have a complex amendment, that's -- enrichment is 9

always kind of -- all enrichment things are complex and all things that require 10 NEPA actions are complex? Because that's what I thought I heard, Ms.

11 Morgan-Butler, you say that, but I may have misunderstood.

12 MS. MORGAN-BUTLER: No, I said, typically complex will 13 have EIS or EAs and the more routine will have CatEX reviews in general.

14 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Okay, so the level of the 15 NEPA review can impact whether it's a complex or routine action?

16 MS. MORGAN-BUTLER: Well, that's, yes, one of the factors 17 that we're looking at.

18 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Okay.

19 MS. MORGAN-BUTLER: And the -- but the decision maker is 20 the Branch Chief on whether it's routine or complex.

21 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Got it. Last question, and it's 22 going to go to you, Samantha, and it's going to be a softball. And if you'll 23 indulge me really quickly, Mr. Chairman. I do have some concern about the 24 elimination of public meetings for fuel facilities in instances where 25

51 improvements are needed. I think I understand the impetus there, but that's 1

also a good-news story.

2 So, how are we telling that good-news story if we're not 3

having a public meeting? What else are we doing to make sure that the public 4

is aware that our oversight enforcement actions have been working, and there 5

isn't any need for improvement? So, how are we telling the good-news story?

6 MS. LAV: I think, maybe Ravi can answer that better.

7 MR. PENMETSA: For some of the facilities, we do have a 8

public meeting. Last week, we had a public meeting for NFS, even though they 9

did not have an area for -- it didn't need an improvement, because there's a lot 10 of public interest. So, if we know that there is particular facility that has a lot of 11 public interaction, we are still keeping that meeting. But for some of the other 12 facilities, we either make it a virtual meeting where the public has an opportunity 13 to dial in --

14 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: In any place where we've 15 previously had communications with the public to improve things when 16 somebody needs improvement, instead of just eliminating that, I would 17 encourage you to make sure that there's a process for highlighting those 18 successes, so that the public is aware not only of when, you know, things go 19 wrong or unexpectedly, but to know that for the vast majority of things that we 20 do, the process is working and they're not just in the dark about it. Thank you.

21 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Thank you, Commissioner Crowell.

22 Commissioner Marzano?

23 COMMISSIONER MARZANO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

24 And I'm going to take this opportunity to, again, kind of talk a little bit about my 25

52 thoughts on this business line, introduce myself to my thinking on this topic. So, 1

I'll just start by saying, good morning, everyone, I want to thank you all for your 2

presentations. I especially want to acknowledge the staff who have supported 3

the preparation of this meeting, and who execute our mission-critical work to 4

enable a safe and secure nuclear fuel cycle.

5 While much attention is paid to the power facilities that use 6

this nuclear fuel, there would be no reactors without the front and back end of 7

the fuel cycle. As we have already heard today, these business lines are 8

poised for growth over the coming years in the wake of action by the Federal 9

Government to modernize the nation's fuel supply. Without you and your 10 expertise, we would not be able to accomplish this collective goal, so I thank 11 you for the work you do and choosing to be here every day to do it.

12 The front end of the fuel cycle and the facilities that support it 13 together represent a strategic national asset that sets the United States apart 14 from other nations. The continued success and sustainability of our operating 15 reactors in the future nuclear fleet rests on a secure fuel supply.

16 The unprovoked, illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia laid 17 bare the vulnerabilities of our own domestic nuclear fuel supply chain, in 18 response Congress passed the Nuclear Fuel Security Act to expend the 19 nation's capacity to produce fuels for the existing reactor fleet and to develop a 20 homegrown source of fuel for advanced reactors, namely high-assay low-21 enriched uranium or HALEU.

22 These efforts will require action by the NRC to support 23 innovation and development of new fuel cycle facilities, while helping to sustain 24 high safety performance at our existing facilities. Doing so will help deliver 25

53 safer, more economic fuels, to extend the operating life of existing reactors and 1

accommodate the need for next generation nuclear power systems.

2 As nuclear reactor technology evolves, so do the 3

development and manufacturing of new fuels. The future of nuclear energy use 4

in the United States is closely linked to the capacity to effectively regulate the 5

safe and secure deployment of innovative fuel types. Licensing and oversight 6

of new fuels and the facilities that manufacture them are essential to achieving 7

our broader energy and national security goals through improved reliability and 8

performance of our existing reactor fleet, and an assured fuel supply for 9

advanced reactors.

10 All right, getting into questions, and I'm going to kind of 11 continue along the themes here, I want to give -- Commissioner Crowell kind of 12 covered a little bit of my question and, Samantha, it's going to be a little bit, kind 13 of, focused on you. Is there anything else that you can offer in terms of the 14 work that the Department of Energy has done in their RFP process that we can 15 be gleaning as an agency, to help support the future licensing actions that 16 support those applicants' goals?

17 MS. LAV: Yes, so we have a very close communication with 18 the Department of Energy, with the Office of Clean Energy Deployment, and the 19 Office of Nuclear Energy. We meet with them routinely to understand their 20 plans, their projects, what's going to come in, when it could come in, and where 21 they're at with their decision-making. That is very helpful to us for our planning 22 purposes to making sure that we're putting a priority on the licensing actions 23 that have a national priority as well. And so we're focusing on what can we do 24 to make sure that we're making our decisions in a timely manner and that those 25

54 actions are the priority.

1 COMMISSIONER MARZANO: And again, I think you kind of 2

sense the theme here somewhere in the line of questions you're getting, the 3

nuts and bolts that make up the metrics, and a lot of those metrics depend on 4

the information that we receive and act upon in order to prioritize our work. And 5

so with that said, in terms of some of the proposals that have come in, are there 6

any kind of technological risks that you see right now that would present a 7

potential challenge to schedules with licensing?

8 MS. LAV: Not at the moment. One of the advantages of 10 9

CFR Part 70 is that it is a performance-based rule which allows us to really 10 license a significant variety of technologies and it's a technology-neutral rule, so 11 there hasn't really been anything that we see as challenging our ability to make 12 a licensing decision at this point.

13 COMMISSIONER MARZANO: Good to hear. And then 14 continuing along this theme, I was struck by the foresight, the forethought to 15 look at this confidence-ranking methodology. I understand that we're kind of 16 early in the game here, so in terms of the effectiveness of the changes that 17 were made in order to kind of get a better sense of how to prioritize work, has 18 there been enough time for that effort to kind of reveal whether or not those 19 savings have come?

20 MS. LAV: So from a confidence-ranking standpoint, we've 21 had confidence rankings for a while. The ones that you are seeing now really 22 are reflected most in the '26 budget with a further refinement into the FY27 23 budget, but we are using that also during budget execution, right? So we're 24 using that information to determine is there something that's now going to 25

55 change in that schedule? Is that going to shift? And when it does and we're 1

either right before the execution year and we can maybe make some changes 2

by talking to our appropriators or in budget execution and we can move 3

resources between business lines and therefore collect less fees, we're doing 4

that also. And so that's informing that sort of decision-making as well.

5 COMMISSIONER MARZANO: Okay.

6 MS. GAVRILAS: I'm going to chime in here. The confidence 7

model keeps evolving and we're learning both in reactors, advanced reactors, 8

and in particular, in fuel facilities what to build into these confidence models. So 9

only time will tell how good they are. What trips us up is usually environmental 10 factors, something outside of the walls of the agency, outside, external even to 11 industry that changes the dynamics.

12 COMMISSIONER MARZANO: Thank you. Yes, I think that's 13 clear we're in a rapidly evolving world and conditions change very quickly and 14 so it's understandable that that situation can occur. But that's a good segue 15 into my next question and I open this up to any of the folks on the panel to kind 16 of get into this, but so during the ADVANCE Act briefing in March, we kind of 17 talked a little bit about the difference between how we enable engagement on 18 regulatory topics versus what has been traditionally referred to as consulting.

19 So I do have the shared concerns with Commissioner Caputo 20 about the effectiveness of our pre-application engagement. It really should be a 21 tool, given how much we, as an agency, elevate pre-application engagement as 22 a way to drastically reduce time frames on the actual license reviews.

23 And so, you know, these benefits that are purported to come 24 from that process, can you talk about how we approach pre-application 25

56 engagement in a way that supports those milestones later on and maybe kind 1

of offer a little bit how we can get the outcomes that the agency needs from 2

applicants to the pre-application process such that those benefits can be 3

realized on the other end?

4 MS. LAV: Yes, thank you for that question, Commissioner.

5 So the pre-application engagement that we are doing now is not the same pre-6 application engagement that we were doing even a couple of years ago. So 7

we've learned plenty of lessons from that early pre-application engagement, 8

also with our discussions with our partners and other business lines including 9

NRR and what some of those best practices are.

10 So what we're looking at now is how can we walk that line 11 between providing guidance and consulting? And we're really leaning into that.

12 So in these pre-application engagements, we're encouraging those early 13 enough so that an applicant can take any feedback that we have and 14 incorporate into their application so that their submittal is better. We are having 15 more focused, detailed discussions. The applicants are typically providing us 16 material including draft chapters ahead of time and we are providing them 17 observations, things that could affect the acceptance, could result in RAIs, or 18 make things more effective for review. And we're having those discussions that 19 they can then take back feedback and then incorporate that.

20 We're also having a licensing best practice summit tomorrow, 21 so those sorts of best practices, including what level of detail do we need in an 22 application and some of the things that have really helped us and have more 23 efficient review, we're going to discuss those with our licensee community 24 tomorrow as well.

25

57 MR. LUBINSKI: If I could add one of the other items I know 1

Samantha has put into the process and it happens in pre-application and it 2

continues through the application review. When you're in the acceptance 3

review and other parts is really discussing with the applicant of what we see as 4

the level of detail and the information and the amount of effort. Sometimes in a 5

communication, you may leave the meeting thinking you're aligned, but if you 6

ask the question up front I'm really only looking for -- or make the statement, I'm 7

really only looking for like three sentences, not 50 pages to explain where 8

you're going, it kind of gives an idea of what the question is you're asking.

9 Okay, oh, you're just asking am I going down path A, path B. And sometimes 10 it's that simple in asking it that way and making that statement of what our 11 perception is, where we're coming from, what we would expect to see, and then 12 it allows the engagement to go further to get more explanation of what standard 13 we're trying to meet.

14 COMMISSIONER MARZANO: Yes, I think to me that signals 15 a need to work towards getting more standardized results out of pre-application 16 process such that if a pre-applicant comes in, we expect that a quality 17 application will result. And so I would encourage to continue to look at ways to 18 foster that. And then again, communication being extremely important here. I 19 do want to just -- one little detail about how we communicate once we're in the 20 license review itself. It seems like we have the RAI process, that we have 21 clarification calls, and there's -- I forgot the acronym for the other one, RCI, I 22 guess.

23 Can you talk about how the staff chooses between what level 24 or what threshold are you needing a more formalized communication, and is 25

58 there a way to, again, a lot of process improvements that we're talking about 1

here, but on the margins, I think these things matter over the long run in larger 2

numbers. So maybe just a little bit about how we can better leverage our tools 3

there.

4 MS. LAV: Thanks, Commissioner. So part of it is is what is 5

the complexity of the issue that we're dealing with, right? So if it's something 6

where we need a broader explanation of a methodology or why did you choose 7

to do something or why is that safe or how does that meet our regulations and 8

we need the information on a docket, that is likely going to be a request for 9

additional information.

10 If there's something that we've had a conversation and we 11 have an assumption that something is probably this way, right? And we need it 12 confirmed and we need it on a docket. For example, we had an application 13 come in where it didn't clearly state what the basis was for the amendment, but 14 we believed it was based on a previous approval. So an RCI essentially said 15 please confirm that this is based on your previous minimum margins of sub-16 criticality. That's a request for confirmatory information. And then they wrote 17 back on the docket, yes, it is. So that's a real easy kind of yes/no.

18 Clarification calls are typically more of can you explain this to 19 me quickly or is there something that you can put -- that I don't need on a 20 docket that maybe you can put on a licensee portal and I can review to help 21 give me additional clarification. So we use those tools depending on what the 22 need is, the complexity, and whether we need the information docketed or not.

23 COMMISSIONER MARZANO: Thank you. And I'm well over 24 my time, but just a couple points. Look at the dashboards that we have up on 25

59 the website, public-facing website for this business line. I'm encouraged by 1

that. I do like how that has been visually represented. I think we as an agency 2

need to be more standardized and consistent across business lines for that, in 3

addition to some of the process improvements that you're doing and encourage 4

sharing that broadly and widely. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

5 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Thank you, Commissioner Marzano.

6 And thank you, panelists, for the whole fuel facilities thing. It's getting busy. It's 7

very important to the future of this country and really how we're going to do 8

things to make the world safer, too. So I encourage you to be diligent and to be 9

efficient. So thank you so much and I guess we're going to take a break now 10 between panels. We will come back at 20 until, about 8 minutes. Thank you.

11 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 12 10:32 a.m. and resumed at 10:39 a.m.)

13 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Welcome back. We're getting ready to 14 get started with the second half of our meeting to hear from the spent fuel 15 storage and transportation business line. And once again, I'm going to turn 16 things over to Mirela.

17 MS. GAVRILAS: Good morning, again. I'm going to pass this 18 straight to John to introduce the topic and our panel.

19 MR.

LUBINSKI:

Good

morning, Chairman and 20 Commissioners. I'd like to provide an overview of the scope of the spent fuel 21 storage and transportation business line, or SFST, and the activities over the 22 past year.

23 Next slide, please.

24 We oversee 82 independent spent fuel storage and 25

60 transportation installations, or ISFSIs, and they're located in 36 states. We also 1

license and oversee storage facilities that support government programs, 2

university research, and the nuclear fuel cycle.

3 On the transportation side, we have 97 certified transportation 4

package designs currently in use for domestic shipments and about 50 5

packages used for international transport. These packages are specially 6

designed to ensure the safe movement of radioactive materials across 7

railroads, roadways, and even overseas.

8 Next slide, please.

9 We are consistently meeting our metrics including completing 10 100 percent of licensing actions within established generic guidelines and 11 meeting licensing need-by dates and we're identifying goals for even faster and 12 less expensive reviews.

13 Cinthya Roman, Deputy Director of the Division of Fuel 14 Management, will discuss how the business line is establishing new goals and 15 using risk insights to guide decision making. This include eliminating 16 requirements for some licensees performing some unnecessary aging 17 management inspections.

18 Yoira Diaz, Chief of the Storage and Transportation Licensing 19 Branch, will discuss how we are identifying licensing process improvements that 20 not only save time and resources, but align more closely with the NRC's 21 mission and goals of the ADVANCE Act. An example is improvements to the 22 rulemaking process that supports cask approvals which could result in a 30 23 percent schedule improvement.

24 On the oversight front, we completed 64 inspections of 25

61 storage facilities and transportation vendors in 2024, both domestically and 1

internationally. You will hear today that we continue to refine our spent fuel 2

inspection program, in part, from our self-assessment of the 2020 program 3

improvements for better resource utilization.

4 Jeff Josey, Chief, Decommissioning, ISFSI, and Operating 5

Reactor Branch Region IV, will share how recent changes to our inspection 6

procedures are expected to save nearly ten percent of oversight resources 7

annually.

8 NRC's computer codes and research activities assist in 9

identifying areas of unnecessary conservatisms including in cask design and 10 aging management.

11 Nate Hudson, a Reactor System Engineer in the Office of 12 Nuclear Regulatory Research, will discuss how we are identifying codes and 13 technical support that assist in storage design reviews of current and advanced 14 reactor fuels.

15 I will now turn the presentation over to Cinthya.

16 MS. ROMAN-CUEVAS: Good morning, Chairman Wright and 17 Commissioners. Today, I want to discuss where we are and where we are 18 going for the SFST business line.

19 Next slide, please.

20 Let me start with a quick overview of our performance last 21 year. In Fiscal Year 2024, we completed 96 licensing actions and 85 of them 22 were subject to the NEIMA timeliness requirements. We completed 100 23 percent of those reviews within the NEIMA generic schedules which is currently 24 36 months.

25

62 As shown in the graph, 92 percent of the licensing actions 1

were completed in less than three years. More than half of the actions were 2

completed in less than six months and two-thirds were completed in less than a 3

year. For most of the actions that were completed in less than six months, the 4

staff didn't have to issue requests for additional information, highlighting the 5

importance of high-quality applications.

6 Using the same approach discussed by Kimyata earlier, we 7

are revising our licensing metrics to be more ambitious, reflecting the 8

expectation that our reviews should be faster but without compromising safety.

9 Our licensing reviews efforts continue to be commensurate with the risk and 10 safety significance of the technical issues. We will closely monitor our metrics 11 to ensure we achieve our goals.

12 Next slide, please.

13 The number of licensing actions related to storage and 14 transportation activities is anticipated to remain consistent to 2030. However, 15 we are observing changes in the nature of the licensing actions we are 16 receiving. I am not going to cover everything on this slide, but I just want to 17 highlight a few things. We only expect the renewal of two storage cask systems 18 in the next five years. We expect more transportation actions for new and high-19 enrichment fuels. As we discussed last month during the Commission 20 meeting, in the next five years, we should start seeing a few transportation 21 applications for microreactors. Additionally, there has been an increase in 22 revalidation reviews of transportation packages from the Department of 23 Transportation. These revalidations ensure that packages already certified by 24 another country meet the applicable international regulations. Once 25

63 revalidated, a package can be used to import radioactive materials to or through 1

the United States.

2 Next slide, please.

3 As we are preparing to regulate new fuels and emerging 4

technologies, we have been looking for opportunities to improve the regulatory 5

framework. As you know, our current framework was developed for fuel cycles 6

using light-water reactor technologies. While we can continue to use that to 7

license new technologies, we will likely need to use conservatism, license 8

conditions, and exemptions. We aim to license new facilities more efficiently 9

and with less conservatism. To do that, we are conducting a regulatory 10 framework scan that will help us to prioritize research efforts and identify 11 potential guidance updates.

12 We're also looking for opportunities to leverage other agency 13 efforts to increase flexibilities where we can. For example, staff is proposing 14 some changes as part of the increased enrichment rulemaking. This would 15 support any transportation campaigns for uranium hexafluoride enriched up to 16 ten percent. This change, on its own, wasn't cost justified. However, given the 17 feedback received from stakeholders and that there is an on-going rulemaking 18 in this subject, we thought that including this change would increase regulatory 19 flexibility without significantly increasing regulatory costs.

20 We're also looking for opportunities to expand our technical 21 expertise in new fuels. Staff collaborated with EPRI to develop a TRISO 22 Phenomena Identification Ranking Table, or PIRT, for storage and 23 transportation. This approach allowed us to pinpoint the technical issues that 24 needed more attention. In coordination with DOE and EPRI, we conducted a 25

64 workshop to communicate and confirm the results of the PIRT. Over 300 1

participants from around the world attended the 3-day event last December.

2 The staff engaged subject matter experts and relevant stakeholders before the 3

meeting to ensure we had the right people at the table. This allowed us to 4

share the results of the PIRT and gather additional insights. Moving forward, 5

this ranking table, the regulatory framework scan and similar engagement 6

opportunities will help us identify additional efficiencies for the regulation of new 7

fuels and emerging technologies.

8 Next slide, please.

9 You probably hear this from us at every Commission meeting, 10 but it's true. We continue to look for opportunities to risk inform our program 11 and I want to highlight two examples. For many years, the NRC and the 12 nuclear industry have been studying chloride induced stress corrosion cracking.

13 I'm awful, I know. But to simply put, it's a type of corrosion that can cause 14 cracks in stainless steel when exposed to salty conditions. We have been 15 researching this issue in phases and we are finally seeing the return on 16 investment, not only from a safety standpoint, but savings in cost to the 17 industry.

18 Let me give you some background. At first, the goal was to 19 find out if this corrosion could happen in dry storage canisters for spent fuel.

20 The answer was yes. In 2012, NRC issued an information notice to share these 21 findings. Back then, we didn't have enough data to say that this problem only 22 affected sites near the ocean. For example, some canisters might be exposed 23 to other sources of chlorides such as salted roads and condensed cooling tower 24 water. So research efforts continued.

25

65 First, we investigated how well canisters could be inspected 1

with existing methods and then we evaluated actual chloride deposits on the 2

canisters. That helped us confirm that under real-world conditions, the risk of 3

cracking at many inland sites is very low. We used the data to work with ASME 4

since they set engineering standards. They recommended in-service 5

inspections every 20 years, but with new research, we found that many sites 6

could safely extend their inspection period to 40 years. Earlier this year, we 7

shared a decision in Regulatory Guide 3.78. This change could save the 8

industry around $26 million over 40 years. The NRC has spent about $3.3 9

million on this research since 2011 which means almost $7 in savings for every 10

$1 invested or a return on investment of almost 700 percent. Also, that 11 research has supported other regulatory decisions in the past, so the return on 12 investment could be even more.

13 Additionally, the staff is currently working on developing a 14 consequence analysis for the ISFSI sites that are more susceptible to corrosion 15 cracking. We anticipate that this additional research will demonstrate that in the 16 unlikely event of a crack in a container, the consequence for public safety will 17 be minimum even if the crack goes unnoticed for decades. This could justify 18 reducing in-service inspection frequency for sites with higher risk for corrosion 19 cracking and enhance public confidence. The research will allow us to better 20 risk inform existing guidance and potentially result in additional savings of $2 21 million for the industry. This additional research would cost about 15 percent of 22 the projected savings.

23 Next slide, please.

24 The second example is fresh out of the oven. We are still 25

66 looking on how to implement, looking at the guidance, but we wanted to share it 1

with you today. We are changing how we review and approve 2

decommissioning funding plans for storage facilities. After taking a close look 3

at the requirements, we realized that we do not need to review and approve 4

every funding plan. Our regulations say that approval is only required the first 5

time a plan is submitted to the NRC or if the financial assurance is being 6

reduced later on. If there is no reduction in financial assurance, then only we 7

have to do a light review. We just need to confirm that the new plan is still 8

consistent with what was originally submitted to NRC. Because no NRC 9

approval is needed in those cases, the action is not considered a major federal 10 action. That means a NEPA review would not be required. This change could 11 reduce the time and effort spent on each of these reviews by 50 percent or 12 more. For context, licensees must submit these funding plans every three 13 years. On average, we receive about 40 every year.

14 Changing this process will free up staff time and reduce the 15 overall licensing caused for these actions and no rulemaking was needed to 16 implement this change.

17 In closing, I hope our message today was clear. We are 18 committing to getting better every day for today's challenges and for the future 19 workload. Thank you for listening, and I'll turn the presentation over to Yoira 20 Diaz-Sanabria.

21 MS. DIAZ-SANABRIA: Thank you, Cinthya. Good morning, 22 Chairman and Commissioners. Today, I will provide an overview of key 23 activities focusing on storage licensing and transportation certification.

24 Next slide, please.

25

67 Highlighted by Cinthya, we completed close to 100 licensing 1

actions last year. Many of these had specific need dates to facilitate immediate 2

loading campaigns of spent fuel to dry storage or shipping the radioactive 3

material within the United States and internationally.

4 Today, I'll share some examples of how we meet these 5

demands and prioritizing our workload and resources and also by identifying 6

improvements in our processes.

7 First are the expedited reviews of two amendments for 8

singular source systems which supported loading campaigns across 20 sites.

9 In the first amendment, the staff quickly held classification calls with the vendors 10 to discuss key details needed for the safety review. The review was completed 11 ahead of time to support loading campaigns last year. Later, the same vendor 12 submitted a similar amendment for the second storage system. The staff 13 prioritized resources, leveraged insights and experience from the first 14 amendment to expedite this review.

15 In addition, the vendors' quick quality responses to staff 16 questions allowed early development of the safety evaluation. These 17 approaches ultimately resulted in completing the second review in four months, 18 reducing the schedule by eight months compared to the standard 12 months, 19 an estimated 60 percent of the scheduled savings.

20 We also made changes to the rulemaking timeline for a 21 storage certificate of compliance, or CoC, and put them into practice to support 22 several operational needs. The change consisted in conducting safety and 23 rulemaking reviews in parallel. For example, while the safety project manager 24 finishes the safety documentation, the rulemaking project manager was already 25

68 preparing the rulemaking package. This change saved up to 8 weeks of the 1

rulemaking schedule, achieving a 30 percent reduction and enabled early 2

issuance of the CoC, preventing interruptions in the licensees' operations.

3 The last example shows how we approved a CoC needed to 4

transport TRISO fuel for advanced reactors. Because the review was urgent, 5

we used a core team approach to agree on key technical issues early in the 6

process. This path proactively engaged in pre-application meetings with the 7

applicant, resulting in high-quality applications. In turn, only a single round of 8

requests for additional information was needed and the applicant responded 9

promptly and efficiently. These factors contributed to completing the review in 10 13 months and just over 500 hours0.00579 days <br />0.139 hours <br />8.267196e-4 weeks <br />1.9025e-4 months <br />. Approximately a 50 percent of the 11 schedule savings and a 60 percent of resources savings, compared to the 12 typical 2-year review initially estimated at 1300 hours0.015 days <br />0.361 hours <br />0.00215 weeks <br />4.9465e-4 months <br />.

13 I want to emphasize that while all these examples are very 14 specific, we are integrating all these changes in our standard processes and we 15 are evaluating new improvements for future implementation.

16 Next slide, please.

17 Collaboration with our federal partners is integral in the 18 transportation program. Let me share some key examples of our work with the 19 Department of Transportation, or DOT, and other federal agencies.

20 In the United States, DOT oversees the transportation of 21 radioactive material and collaborates with the NRC. Compliance with DOT 22 regulations is required for NRCs licensees transporting materials off-site and 23 on public roads. For example, last year, the NRC conducted an inspection at a 24 hospital where a removal of a cesium source irradiator was happening. The 25

69 licensee planned to use a service provider to move the source to a shipping 1

container and it wasn't clear whether the irradiator could be moved on a public 2

road. Depending on the regulatory decision, the licensee would either have to 3

repackage the radioactive material or leave the device in its existing 4

transportation package to move across the licensee's private roads to avoid a 5

public road. NRC staff discussed the issue with DOT and Agreement State 6

Program, realizing clarity on the guidance was needed.

7 Therefore, we issued a draft regulatory issue summary to 8

capture the learning regarding the movement of radioactive materials at 9

temporary job sites to reduce safety risks and unnecessary operational costs.

10 We also completed activities in support of the Department of 11 Energy's Foreign Research Reactor Program that helps secure international 12 transport of reactor fuel. For instance, in 2024, we revalidated transport 13 packages for shipments between the United States and France directly 14 advancing DOE's MARVEL microreactor design project.

15 Another example included working closely with NNSA to issue 16 certificates for package designs that are essential to national security for the 17 removal and secure management of unwanted sealed radioactive sources in 18 the United States and globally.

19 Next slide, please.

20 NRC operates within a larger system of federal partners to 21 ensure the safe transportation of radioactive material. Leveraging each 22 agency's expertise enhances oversight and maintains regulatory compliance.

23 To illustrate the value of these collaborations in 2024 during the Navy's 24 Emergency Preparedness Demonstration in Idaho, NRC staff observed 25

70 firsthand Navy's shipping practices which have been happening for more than 1

60 years and they have been done successfully. This exercise simulated 2

transport of spent nuclear fuel by rail using M-290 package from Newport News, 3

Virginia to Idaho National Labs. The staff saw an actual Navy transport 4

package appreciating its size and design.

5 My apologies. I lost my track. The staff saw an actual Navy 6

transport package appreciating its size and design, gaining insight into 7

emergency response, and the real-world challenges on emergency scenarios, 8

and understood why federal, state, Tribal, and local officials must collaborate to 9

ensure there is an effective coordination in preparedness.

10 We also collaborated with DOE on spent fuel storage and 11 transportation. In 2017, as part of a DOE High Burnup Cask Project, NRC 12 approved modifications of a cask containing high burnup fuel with temperature 13 sensors used to moderate conditions inside the cask. DOE recently announced 14 its plan to transport the high burnup cask from the North Anna to the National 15 Lab in Idaho in 2027. Data collected will help verify material properties in 16 storage and cask temperatures, changes during transport. This information will 17 also refine NRC guidance as needed and give insights regarding safety or 18 spent fuel in transportation following dry cask storage. This concludes my 19 presentation. I'll turn it over to Jeff.

20 MR. JOSEY: Thank you, Yoira. Good morning, Chairman 21 Wright and Commissioners. Today, I'll be presenting on the insights and 22 measures the regions are taking to ensure consistency in the inspection 23 program, while also actively seeking opportunities to gain efficiencies and 24 reduce burdens.

25

71 Next slide, please.

1 With the independent spent fuel storage installations spread 2

out over so many states and all four regions maintaining a consistent approach 3

to ISFSI inspections can be a challenge. That is why collaboration and 4

dialogue between the regions and headquarters is essential. As a proactive 5

staff, we've instituted routine scheduled communications, not only between the 6

branch chiefs, but also between Regional Inspectors and the Program Branch.

7 These communications have helped the team to foster consistency in the 8

application of the inspection program, for example, identifying staffing gaps and 9

engaging the team to get support.

10 A recent example of this is when Region 4 inspectors assisted 11 Region 2 with on-site inspections when the Region 2 inspector was called away 12 to work on a high priority programmatic issue.

13 We've also seen improvements in implementation and 14 management of the inspection process ensuring timely resolution of technical, 15 open, unresolved, and generic issues identified during inspections. This 16 communication avenue ensures there's a clear understanding of staff roles and 17 responsibility and allows for line of sight to who has responsibility for driving the 18 issues to closure. Examples include inspectors' identification of an issue with a 19 licensee's hydrogen monitor sensor during welding operations. Inspectors 20 worked through the technical resolution of the issue and then shared this 21 information via the monthly ISFSI counterpart meeting.

22 The following month, another inspector in a different region 23 used this information at a different licensee who had an identical set up.

24 Another example is when inspectors identified an issue where a licensee had 25

72 covered poor grading with temporary material which blocks airflow with 1

canisters placed in the canister processing area. Inspectors determined that 2

this material placement resulted in a licensee being outside the canisters' 3

thermal analysis because of blocked airflow paths. This was shared among 4

ISFSI inspectors and subsequently identified at other regional sites.

5 Another example, inspectors encountered a situation where a 6

cask was suspended in the air due to a crane malfunction. The site developed 7

a path forward and executed the manual lowering of the canister. Months later, 8

a similar situation occurred at another regional site and ISFSI inspectors 9

reached out and shared operating experience from a previous occurrence to aid 10 the inspectors, ensuring results could be replicated at another site. These 11 examples highlight how collaboration amongst the staff prevented duplicative 12 inspection efforts focused on safety issues and resulted in resource savings.

13 Next slide, please.

14 As a learning agency, the NRC is continually seeking to 15 improve and gain efficiency by critically assessing ourselves and our programs.

16 To that end, the results of the most recent ISFSI self-assessment show that the 17 inspection program is effective and is achieving program goals. Further, it 18 showed that the changes made to the program, because of the 2020 19 enhancement initiative, had the direct benefit of creating a more risk-informed 20 comprehensive and consistent inspection program across the NRC.

21 The self-assessment team also made recommendations to 22 further enhance the inspection program. These recommendations included 23 actions like revising Inspection Procedure 60855 to include a 15 percent range 24 to the resource estimate and providing guidance for inspectors on using the 25

73 allotted 10 additional hours for follow-up inspection. This revision would result 1

in an estimated savings of 0.4 FTE out of the current 15 FTE being used across 2

four regions.

3 Another initiative we have taken is to improve the ISFSI report 4

process. We're revising the Inspection Report Manual Chapter, Manual 5

Chapter 610, to better integrate ISFSI inspection report writing with the reactor 6

program system. This will allow for cross walk between the Part 50 and the 7

Part 72 to allow inspectors to link Part 72 inspection report numbers and 8

samples with the ROP resident inspectors' quarterly reports.

9 Currently, we're required to use a duplicative workaround for 10 the ISFSI quarterly reports inputs. This effort has a completion date of June 11 30th, 2025, and we anticipate the reduction in time spent on documentation to 12 equate to an overall 6 percent efficiency gain or 2 hours2.314815e-5 days <br />5.555556e-4 hours <br />3.306878e-6 weeks <br />7.61e-7 months <br /> per report, resulting in 13 40 to 50 hours5.787037e-4 days <br />0.0139 hours <br />8.267196e-5 weeks <br />1.9025e-5 months <br /> per years savings.

14 In parallel, while revising Manual Chapter 610, we're revising 15 the ISFSI security inspection procedure with more guidance such as flow charts 16 for security inspectors to streamline and enhance consistency of ISFSI 17 resolution and disposition. This is another area where we expect a moderate 18 efficiency gain through a reduction in time spent on inspection issues.

19 Next slide, please.

20 The regions are evaluating potential future initiatives under 21 the ADVANCE Act for the regional oversight programs. Some ideas under 22 consideration are eliminating requirements to inspect non-important safety 23 items such as for sites that are expanding their ISFSI pad, inspectors could 24 perform in-office document reviews for expansion during the triennial inspection 25

74 under Inspection Procedure 60855.

1 Another item is eliminating on-site inspections under 2

Inspection Procedure 60854 for non-important to safety concrete pad 3

inspections. We estimate these two changes would result in a combined 4

savings of almost one FTE out of the current nine FTE being used across the 5

four regions. This concludes my presentation. I will now turn it over to 6

Nathanael.

7 Next slide.

8 MR. HUDSON: Thank you, Jeff. Good morning, Chairman 9

Wright and Commissioners, and thank you for the opportunity to discuss key 10 research activities that the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research is performing 11 in support of the spent fuel storage and transportation business line.

12 Next slide, please.

13 The mission of our office is to provide technical analyses, 14 tools, and information to support the identification and resolution of critical 15 safety issues for regulatory decision making. As John mentioned in his opening 16 remarks, Research maintains and develops capabilities for its own codes and 17 employs a commercial, computational fluid dynamics code to independently 18 confirm the adequacy of the applicant's analysis and to develop the technical 19 bases for guidance.

20 The NRC uses SCALE for neutronics analysis including 21 criticality safety, radionuclide inventory generation, decay heat, and shielding to 22 ensure the safe storage and transportation of radioactive material. MELCOR to 23 evaluate severe accident progression; FAST to predict fuel performance for 24 spent nuclear fuel; and ANSYS/FLUENT to resolve the decay heat loads for dry 25

75 cask storage. Research has improved in evaluating its computer codes to 1

support NMSS and licensing advanced nuclear technologies including LEU+,

2 high burnup, ATF, HALEU, and non-LWR fuel cycle applications.

3 To support non-LWR licensing, research is responsible for 4

computer code readiness. One of the technical areas was the fuel cycle as 5

shown in the top left of the slide. Research implemented updates for the 6

phenomena that were identified to be most important in our code. We also 7

developed input models to analyze hypothetical fuel cycle accidents and held 8

public workshops for several candidate non-LWR designs including sodium fast 9

reactor, a molten salt reactor, a high temperature gas-cooled reactor, and a 10 microreactor to share our progress.

11 These efforts not only support the testing of our codes, but 12 also help staff gain insight into how these technologies will be deployed.

13 Models we develop include HALEU and non-LWR transportation packages 14 such as the DN30-X and the Versa-Pac as shown in the top right which are 15 licensed to move high-assay low-enriched UF-6 and fresh TRISO pebbles 16 respectively. To support accident-tolerant fuels at high enrichments and 17 burnups, research also completed enhancements to FAST and SCALE to 18 assess data needs and data availability and to identify key phenomena 19 important to safety.

20 For FAST, the database for spent fuel storage and dry 21 storage applications was expanded. For SCALE, several publicly available 22 reports were issued. Our computer codes are essential to our staff's regulatory 23 work and are often shared with external stakeholders including international 24 organizations and industry. Several licensees and applicants incorporate NRC 25

76 codes as part of their evaluation model. For example, NuScale used MELCOR 1

to estimate the source term for its safety analysis.

The bottom half of 2

the slide showcases Researchs support of licensing for the DN30-X and 3

OPTIMUS-L used to move fresh TRISO compacts. Here, NMSS staff used our 4

updated SCALE computer code to confirm packaged subcriticality as specified 5

in 10 CFR Part 71 by performing independent benchmarking calculations and 6

determining an independent upper safety limit.

7 With our support of these licensing reviews, we've 8

demonstrated that Research's codes are well positioned to support near term 9

future reviews. Additionally, staff developed expertise because of these efforts 10 that would be leveraged to support NMSS in the future including reviews of 11 microreactors which I'll touch on next.

12 Next slide, please.

13 We began the work described in the last slide in 2017, but 14 have found that this process is directly applicable to the requirements in the 15 ADVANCE Act for microreactors. This slide showcases our March 26, 2025, 16 fuel cycle demonstration project for a TRISO fuel heat pipe-cooled microreactor 17 prototypic for the eVinci design. As we did for the other reactor designs 18 covered on the previous slide, this workshop was widely attended by NRC staff, 19 external stakeholders and the public. We discussed the use of our codes, 20 SCALE and MELCOR, to model various postulated microreactor full-cycle 21 hazards during transportation of fresh and spent microreactor. Insights 22 obtained from these simulations such as the dose maps seen on the slide will 23 help staff conduct licensing reviews.

Holding these workshops 24 publicly allows us to transparently interact with the stakeholders and by posting 25

77 the meeting materials we are enhancing knowledge transfer for NRC staff as 1

well.

2 Next slide, please.

3 The success of our programs is due to our strong and wide-4 reaching collaborations, both domestic and international. One primary benefit 5

of our participation is access to experimental data that helps strengthen the 6

validation basis of our codes.

7 One of our programs is a DNCSH program which is short for 8

DOE/NRC collaboration for criticality, safety, support for commercial-scale 9

HALEU for fuel cycles and transportation. The goal of this program is to 10 produce publicly available nuclear data and criticality benchmarking data 11 specific to HALEU systems. For example, we will use DNCSH data to reduce 12 the uncertainty in SCALE and improve confidence of licensing-related 13 calculations for HALEU fuel transportation packages and manufacturing 14 facilities. This will reduce the amount of conservatism we need to make to make 15 regulatory findings, specifically, research and NMSS are aiming to fill data gaps 16 for fissile salts, 10 to 20 percent enrichment, advanced moderators, NEO-6 17 transportation in microreactors.

18 Another program with the Department of Energy in Oak Ridge 19 National Laboratory is aimed at generating radiochemical assay data which 20 supports Part 71 and 72 licensing. Here, RCA data is being generated for 21 several spent fuel applications specific for extended enrichment, high burnup 22 fuels, and even some non-LWR fuel designs.

23 This process generates precise elemental and isotopic 24 composition data on the spent fuel which the NRC uses to validate SCALE for 25

78 spent fuel applications. Having a high-fidelity source of data to benchmark 1

gives us confidence in the results and allows us to evaluate the uncertainties in 2

safety margins. The data is used to evaluate burnup credit for HALEU in the 3

back end of the fuel cycle.

4 The NRC has used CFD also to determine dry cask heat load 5

in its review since 2003 with CFD dry cask best practice guidelines being 6

published for NUREG-2152 by Research and NMSS staff. There have been 7

several collaborations between the NRC and Sandia National labs to provide 8

high-quality validation data and increase our confidence in CFT results.

9 Research is also supporting NMSS on licensing actions. For 10 example, we are assisting with Integrative Safety Analysis for the TRISO-X fuel 11 fabrication facility and the expected global laser enrichment UF-6 enrichment 12 application.

13 Next slide, please.

14 So now as I close my talk, I want to emphasize that these 15 research programs are forward looking and informed by industry priorities to 16 support regulatory decision-making and licensing activities. One of the ways 17 we stay engaged is the Extended Storage Collaboration Program or ESCP 18 which is the consortium coordinated by EPRI to investigate the technical 19 challenges associated with the storage of spent nuclear fuel. The program also 20 provides an opportunity to present NRC's priorities and progress to industry.

21 Related to high burnup PWR RCA data, the NRC leverages 22 this data in NUREG-7303 on the validation of burnup credit for criticality safety 23 analysis. This is used by NMSS reviewers to focus on the most safety 24 significant aspects of cask designs facilitating efficient licensing reviews and 25

79 informing potential requests for additional information.

1 The licensees can use the data to more economically ship 2

and store fuel with an acceptable decrease in criticality margin. In addition, as 3

Cinthya mentioned in her remarks, Research conducted a workshop for NMSS 4

this past December on storage and transportation of TRISO and metal spent 5

nuclear fuels in coordination with DOE and EPRI. During the workshop, 6

Research communicated the modeling and analysis capabilities of our fuels and 7

neutronics codes to external stakeholders and received feedback on future data 8

needs. Research recently published the workshop proceedings through a 9

Research Information Letter. This concludes my presentation. Thank you 10 again for the opportunity. I'll now turn it over to Mirela.

11 Next slide, please.

12 MS. GAVRILAS: Thank you to our panelists, and we're ready 13 for your questions.

14 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Thank you, Mirela. So again, thank 15 you for your presentations. And I will echo what Commissioner Marzano said 16 earlier to the first panel, appreciate the way you prepare and the people that 17 helped support you as you got ready today.

18 I'm going to go ahead. Cinthya, I'm going to start with you this 19 morning. How are you? On one of your slides, number 31 to be precise, you 20 describe the regulatory framework scan and the TRISO phenomena and 21 identification ranking table.

22 I understand you're still implementing the scan and the 23 ranking table. But tell me where we are right now. What do you know right 24 now, and are there areas where we can reduce conservatisms? And 25

80 Nathanael, you could probably pitch in on this too maybe. But what are you 1

actually looking at and where do we need to maybe do more research?

2 MS. ROMAN-CUEVAS: Okay. Great question. So for the 3

regulatory framework scan, we are at the very early stages. We are doing a 4

high-level review of the existing framework.

5 We're looking -- as you know, the framework was developed 6

for light water reactor fuel. We're trying to see what areas might not serve well 7

new fuels. That one right now, I'm not sure we have results that we can share 8

at that point for that one.

9 But the first reaction that we have is that we do need to revise 10 our reg guidance. Our reg guidance needs to be updated to account for the 11 new fuel types just because some of the specific requirements we have. In 12 terms of the TRISO PIRT, that one was completed.

13 That review looked at 12 different technical issues, 12 14 phenomenon. The issues were narrowed to 3. They were very technical.

15 There were 2 areas that were regarding fuel fracture.

16 One of them involve the fracture of the silica carbide layer.

17 The other one was the graphite inside of the fuel. And then there was a third 18 phenomena that was related to neutron multiplication. It has to do with 19 criticality.

20 The PIRT basically concluded that we have enough 21 information for normal transportation conditions. But we would benefit for more 22 transportation accident conditions for new fuels for TRISO. We also got 23 conclusions that we would benefit for more criticality benchmark sharing 24 information among the industry.

25

81 And I think that another conclusion that we had was regarding 1

the -- when we look at TRISO, we have to look at the full system. We don't 2

want to look at the fuel alone. We have to look at what the cask is going to be 3

for the storage and transportation.

4 So those were some of the conclusions of the PIRT. I think 5

that having additional criticality information will help us reduce conservatism.

6 And having some of the understanding, some of the properties of TRISO, we 7

think it can allow us to prepare -- use more novel technologies if we have more 8

information. That's another area where we can use some of the conservatism.

9 So I hope that helps.

10 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Well, thank you for the update, 11 explanation. So the guidance you talked about updating, that might need 12 updating, what is the timetable on that?

13 MS. ROMAN-CUEVAS: So the regulatory scan is going to 14 help us also to prioritize what guidance needs to be updated first versus which 15 one needs updated later. I'm hoping that we can finish the regulatory 16 framework later this year. And then we'll have a better timeline to -- what 17 guidance we will date first and the time frame for that.

18 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Okay. All right. Anything to add?

19 MR. HUDSON: She said it well. Just briefly, highlighted gaps 20 and criticality data and then the NCSH program, that's a tie-in to, like, a need 21 for criticality benchmarks with HALEU fuel, higher enrichment.

22 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Okay. Thank you so much. Yoira, 23 how are you? So for the TRISO fuel transportation package that you 24 referenced, you mentioned that because of the need date, the staff used a core 25

82 team approach that resulted in resource savings. Did I hear 60 percent? Is that 1

what I heard?

2 MS. DIAZ-SANABRIA: Yeah, it was 50 percent of schedule 3

savings and 60 percent of resources.

4 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: So can you explain how the -- maybe 5

the core team approach is different than the standard review approach?

6 MS. DIAZ-SANABRIA: Sure. Just to be specific about this 7

particular review, I will have to start by giving a lot of credit to the project 8

manager who maintained a very good relationship with the vendor that was 9

designing the package. So starting with early discussions with them and then 10 the applicant also was very good in giving very good quality information. So the 11 core team basically is taking a few staff members who are very -- have very 12 different expertise.

13 But they are very good in areas like criticality, shielding. And 14 depending on the changes of the design, these people then get together. They 15 look at what are the most challenging areas in the review.

16 They start grading those areas. And that information is taken 17 to the standard group just to look at where exactly the additional information is 18 needed. And that process will help also with creating the consistency that is 19 needed and discussions across other technical members. When you are having 20 applications that are similar in the type of designs, for example, we can 21 replicate the same approach in future designs that are of the same type, in this 22 case, using TRISO fuel as one of the major factors that are in the design.

23 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: So I mean, the goal here is to shorten 24 review times.

25

83 MS. DIAZ-SANABRIA: It does shorten the review time 1

because of the ability of the team to bring those issues early in the process and 2

the licensee and the vendor being able to respond to those quickly as well.

3 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: So how will you use the core team 4

approach? You're not going to say 60 percent for each review, right?

5 MS. DIAZ-SANABRIA: Right.

6 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: So at what point does that become 7

your baseline?

8 MS. DIAZ-SANABRIA: So right now, we're looking at how to 9

apply the core team across the board not only on transportation but also in 10 storage. We have used a core team in other activities. It hasn't resulted in the 11 same level as this one.

12 I think this one because there was a great understanding 13 among the staff and the applicant. We were able to realize those benefits. I 14 cannot put an actual number to how much it would be across the board. But I 15 can tell you that it's something that we're looking into it more -- with more detail 16 because this is one of the implementations we're going to take place as we go 17 through the licensing efficiencies effort.

18 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Okay. Thank you. Jeff, how are you 19 doing? So you mentioned two future initiatives that are under evaluation for 20 inspection and not important for safety kind of items. Tell me a little bit more 21 about what the expected reduction in inspection efforts look like.

22 Is it saving -- is it going to be saving like travel money? Or is 23 it going to be a change in inspection frequency with expansions to the ISFSI or 24 what? Tell me about it. Tell me a little bit.

25

84 MR. JOSEY: It's going to be both. So inspectors won't have 1

to travel for some of the non-important safety pad expansions. Some of the 2

expansions, we just won't do an inspection on because there's no need to.

3 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Right.

4 MR. JOSEY: So we look to save budget money on travel as 5

well as inspection effort. Also, streamlining the inspection process, doing 6

reviews in the office instead of having to travel to a site does two things. It will 7

reduce inspection hours overall and the travel savings.

8 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Okay. All right. Thank you. I've got a 9

couple of minutes left. And I want to go back to something from the first panel a 10 little bit. It was mentioned.

11 And I'd like to get your opinion on it, right? And it has to do 12 with Samantha made a comment on the first panel that I wrote down. And it's 13 where she was saying in the earlier engagement process, we're trying to follow 14 the line between providing guidance and consulting. All right.

15 What is that line, John? And then what happens if you cross 16 it? And quite honestly, is it something that's really real or not? And I'd kind of 17 like to know about that.

18 MR. LUBINSKI: Thanks, Commissioner. I really appreciate 19 that Mirela had identified this as a strategic direction initiative. A great team put 20 together a guidance document that's currently in draft.

21 It's not public yet, but we're starting to look at that and using it.

22 So I need to recognize that first. Let me go with your one point of what can go 23 wrong.

24 The concern is getting to the point where you're directing the 25

85 licensee to do something or applicant to do something a certain way. They 1

come in, make a proposal, and you say, I think you really should do it this way 2

instead. Now you're taking some liability there that you have provided to do 3

something, tell them to do something a certain way that maybe not even safe as 4

it was when they wanted to.

5 So you're taking on a liability effort. And that's the concern 6

that people get into is, am I taking on a liability by directing a licensee? So 7

that's where I'd say is in the back of everyone's mind.

8 The push that we're getting to now is to say when you really 9

know the simple answer and as I was saying to Commissioner Marzano earlier, 10 when you're telling someone, this is the kind of information I'm looking for, this 11 is where you can find it, this is what someone else has done before, you have 12 an option to do it or not. You can do Option A. You can do Option B.

13 These are clearly the ways. If you do Option B, here's the 14 savings you're going to get. Now again, people look at a caution and say, well, 15 I'm recommending them to use their business assets in some way.

16 Well, that's okay because you're actually -- from a liability 17 standpoint, you're giving them the choice of which way they want to do it. But 18 you're giving them two options that you have already set from a decisiveness 19 standpoint. Either one of these are good going forward. Telling them from an 20 answer, if you know the answer already that you're looking for to say, hey, the 21 SRP says if you tell me the number is two, that's where you get to the RCI 22 space that Samantha was saying earlier.

23 Always go to least amount of effort. Here, you're telling me 24 the answer is 2. If you're telling me it's 2, confirm it and I'm good to go. So I 25

86 think that's where we're trying to push into more of the assistance and trying to 1

look to say, what information do I have that can help the applicant make a more 2

efficient decision and provide new information to us?

3 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Right. So let me -- because the goal 4

in the whole early engagement process is to help develop the most robust 5

application possible that would be the most efficient to review when we get it.

6 And to me, when you talked about directing an applicant to do something, that's 7

not consulting. That's directing.

8 To me, when I hear consulting, that's why I was saying is this 9

really real. If I'm consulting, then I'm providing you as an applicant information 10 that I'm withholding in the same direction to you as an applicant. So that's what 11 I don't see. And just sometimes I think we hide behind that historically maybe 12 because of this concern for directing that you're talking about. So I think we 13 need to probably define that before because I don't know that it's a real issue.

14 MS. GAVRILAS: So we have draft guidance for the staff in 15 place. And it makes in addition to the point that John made when you're 16 directing people to publicly available information and you give them options, 17 you're not helping them out. So you're not giving one applicant an advantage 18 over another.

19 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Right, okay. Thank you so much. I'm 20 out of time. Commissioner Caputo?

21 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Good morning. Thank you all 22 for your presentations and thank you for being here. I'm going to start out with 23 a microreactor transportation question. And I think this is probably going to 24 have to go to John.

25

87 One thing when it comes to microreactors, it's just the nature 1

of our existing regulatory framework and how many different licenses it would 2

take to actually make microreactors happen. So I want to ask a question 3

focused on transportation because companies that might want to own and 4

operate may not want to be responsible for the transportation. They may want 5

to subcontract transportation to a company that is specialized in transportation.

6 What would it take to have some sort of a licensing structure to generally 7

license a transportation provider who is responsible for ensuring safe 8

transportation?

9 MR. LUBINSKI: Thank you for the question. I think from the 10 standpoint it would take a regulatory change of course. I think a model we have 11 right now is in the Part 72 area where we have general licensees that are using 12 spent fuel cask. We have the benefit that's in the same division.

13 I think setting up that same kind of framework where we're 14 allowing a general license for those transporters could be something that's very 15 viable. We do have to, though, work very closely with the Department of 16 Transportation as well as our international partners because as we continue to 17 look towards these standards, we have to have enough foresight that that the 18 reactors -- microreactors could move over international borders and the 19 Department of Transportation needs to be engaged. But I think it's very much a 20 viable effort that we could look towards putting some kind of framework for a 21 general license for transportation.

22 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: How difficult will that be 23 considering this is transportation of a reactor, not simply transportation of fuel or 24 spent fuel?

25

88 MR. LUBINSKI: I don't see a big difference between the two.

1 We're looking at the transportation package at the same way we would looking 2

at the transport of fresh fuel and the transport of spent fuel. So we'd follow the 3

same kind of methodology.

4 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay. Thank you. Jeff, when it 5

comes to inspections for ISFSIs, is your office maintaining any awareness of 6

NRR's look at re-baselining the ROP? And the reason I'm asking is if there are 7

going to be time savings for resident inspectors, there's an opportunity to 8

perhaps do some cross training here and relieve some of the inspection burden 9

from regional offices by having the residents execute it on site if there are going 10 to be efficiencies in the inspection process. So are folks sort of keeping an eye 11 on what that re-baselining looks like, what those changes might look like, and 12 how there could be some efficient gains here?

13 MR. JOSEY: We are watching the re-baselining of the ROP 14 or the effort that's going to be underway. We haven't explicitly discussed the 15 possibility of training and qualifying residents. But if there's a significant 16 savings and resident hours for inspection, that could be a possibility which 17 would help us do an overall efficiency gain.

18 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay. Thank you. John, 72.48.

19 So obviously we have an issue with dry cask storage and 72.48 which is just 20 one particular example where regulations are not appropriate for the level of 21 risk. We've seen compliance override common sense, driving significant 22 regulatory activity without a tangible change in safety benefit. What are you 23 doing in the area of deregulation to ensure that Part 71 and 72 are truly risk-24 informed? And in particular, are you looking at developing an off-ramp to 25

89 address situations like this where pursuit of compliance drives excessive 1

regulatory activity out of proportion to the safety gain?

2 MR. LUBINSKI: Thank you, Commissioner. I'd say we're 3

looking at several things in this area. First, with respect to general licensees in 4

72.48, we are looking at issuing an interim enforcement policy that would 5

relieve the general licensees of requirements to do duplicate reviews that the 6

vendor is doing.

7 We'll be providing that to the Commissioner for their approval 8

in the near future. We did get a letter from the industry through NEI that they 9

are supportive of the issuance of the IEP. We also are looking at 72.48 itself.

10 There are eight criteria which the licensees need to meet in 11 order to allow them to make the change without coming to the NRC. The 12 industry has recommended that we remove one of those criteria that has to do 13 with a method of evaluation and allow them even if it's a change in the method 14 evaluation to still make that change. We're evaluating that request to determine 15 if that's a change we can make to the regulation that allows more flexibility that 16 more changes could be done under 72.48.

17 From the standpoint of corresponding, we don't have a 18 corresponding 72.48 in Part 71 right now for transportation. That is something 19 we're investigating. But again, the bigger concern there is looking towards the 20 Department of Transportation and our international partners. That seems to be 21 the biggest challenge in that area to move forward with something under --

22 (Simultaneous speaking.)

23 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: I'm thinking more broadly 24 because obviously there's direction that we have to look for ways to deregulate.

25

90 And given the scope and scale of our regulations, there can be opportunities 1

where compliance with our regulations as it would be required drives a lot of 2

activity on our part and on that of the licensees when at the end of the day 3

there's not necessarily a safety gain. Or there's very low safety gain and we're 4

chasing incredibly low risk margins. So what I'm asking about is, are you 5

looking at more broadly, since it's awfully difficult to chase each and every one 6

of those situations, wherever they are in the regulations? Are you looking at the 7

opportunity to develop some sort of a compliance off-ramp to address that 8

general situation?

9 MR. LUBINSKI: The short answer is yes. And we're looking 10 at that across all of our business lines, not just in the spent fuel storage. We're 11 working with our Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.

12 We're developing a process where we're doing two parts of 13 the process. One is what we find is that many of these issues come that people 14 feel there may be a violation. But there's no safety significance.

15 But they feel they have to continue to dig because it's a 16 potential violation and it looks like there may be one. So we're developing 17 guidance for inspectors to say if it's low safety significance you still can't find 18 enough, just stop. Number two is we're working with the Office of Enforcement 19 and the Office of General Counsel to determine whether or not we can come up 20 with a better off-ramp when we identify, yeah, it's clearly a violation.

21 But we don't want to enforce this continuing to go forward.

22 And the second part I believe is more important. It's not just that it's a violation, 23 what's happened after you call it a violation.

24 That requires a change in the licensee procedure to do more 25

91 work, not just for that but in an ongoing basis to make sure they don't repeat 1

that. And that's why we need to work with the General Counsel as well as the 2

Office of Enforcement to say we're clearly saying this is a regulation. How do 3

we get to an off-ramp that is low amount of resources that allows us not to have 4

to enforce this regulation as we go forward on a generic basis?

5 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: So when can we expect to see 6

a proposal?

7 MR. LUBINSKI: We have just started to work with the Office 8

of General Counsel. Right now in my office, the priority is getting the IEP out 9

the door first from 72.48. Office of General Counsel proposed one option right 10 now that we're starting to look at.

11 But we need to do that more broadly and work with the Office 12 of Enforcement as well as NRR because it's more than just a spent fuel 13 storage. So it's early in the process. And again, as soon as the 72.48 issues 14 out the door, that's the next one we'll be looking at.

15 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay. But we receive plenty of 16 executive orders that have pretty ambitious deadlines. And you just managed 17 to not give me any kind of an indication of what that time frame would look like.

18 Are we talking two months, six months?

19 MR. LUBINSKI: I don't have a time frame for you at this point 20 because as you said, we have many executive orders where they're also 21 looking at sunsetting many of our regulations. And for many of these items, 22 we're looking to say we may be able to sunset some regulations which is going 23 to give us a bigger return on investment than this off-ramp. So we need to 24 prioritize this activity in accordance with those other activities. So I don't have a 25

92 schedule for you at this point.

1 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: I'm going to ask a question on 2

chlorine induced stress corrosion cracking. So the conclusion that in-service 3

inspections could be extended to 40 years is a good news story. But it took us 4

15 years to get here. And yet we're going to continue doing research and 5

further consequence analysis.

6 So I'm kind of curious as to if the in-service inspection for a lot 7

of plants can be extended to 40 years, exactly what kind of risk margin are we 8

chasing here that's going to warrant additional consequence analysis? How 9

long is that consequence analysis going to take? And is the juice worth the 10 squeeze? Are we really balancing what's important for safety versus chasing 11 ever smaller risk margins?

12 MS. ROMAN-CUEVAS: Great question. The additional 13 resource that we are thinking, it would only be a very limited time. It's going to 14 be one year. It's going to be about 150,000. And it's going to be less than one 15 FTE.

16 We think that we just need some additional research to just 17 put a bow on all this issue and kind of evaluate the consequences if there was a 18

-- if a cask were to -- a crack were to occur. In guidance 3.78, we were able to 19 reduce inspection frequency for certain sites. But there are about 11 sites that 20 are high risk, the ones that are close to ocean.

21 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Yeah, I understand that. What 22 I'm struggling with is the nature of what you're telling me you still need to do and 23 the reality that this research has already been going on for 15 years and the 24 fact that why wasn't this tying of the bow accomplished within that 15 years.

25

93 MS. ROMAN-CUEVAS: So I can talk a little bit about maybe 1

why the research -- the 15 year part. The question was changing every time 2

that we're doing the research. When we first started the research was to 3

answer, is this a credible aging mechanism in this cask? The answer was yes.

4 Then we switched the research. The research was to make 5

sure that we have the right equipment in place to detect were this to occur in 6

one of these canisters. We determined that, yes, the equipment that we have in 7

place is efficient, but the research was complicated.

8 Like, we didn't have operating experience. We had to rely 9

sometimes in other entities. Like, EPRI, they developed, like, a mock cask.

10 And then we were able to work with them to kind of see how these tools were 11 used to detect this type of aging mechanism.

12 Once we addressed that part, we started asking the -- we 13 changed the research question which was the probability of this happening. We 14 started to collect real data, chloride deposits at these sites. And with that data, 15 we were able to go back to ASME and say, you know, help us to kind of 16 develop a standard.

17 They developed a standard. They came up and we felt that it 18 was still too conservative. They were proposing 20 years. Some of the more 19 recent research was not taken in account by ASME. And the staff was able to 20 leverage that recent research and even go further and give 40 years for the 21 sites that are low susceptibility.

22 So we were able to answer those research questions. We 23 still have one left which is regarding the consequences where this were to 24 happen in one of these sites that are higher risk. And we think that the 25

94 consequences will be low to the public. And if that's true, we think this could 1

result in two million savings for the industry because then those 11 higher 2

susceptibility sites wouldn't need to do frequent inspections. It could also go up 3

to 40 years.

4 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: All right. I apologize to my 5

colleagues for going over. But I got to ask one question. Dry cask storage was 6

first implemented in the early '90s.

7 And I want to say one of the first if not the first site was 8

actually Oceanside. Has this phenomena actually been observed anywhere?

9 Or are we still postulating?

10 MS. ROMAN-CUEVAS: I'm not aware that we have seen it.

11 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: No? Okay. Thank you.

12 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Thank you, Commissioner Caputo.

13 Commissioner Hanson?

14 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

15 Good morning, everybody, again. Good to be with you. Jeff, I'd like to start 16 with you. I like this business line. It gets a lot of attention from the public, right, 17 transportation and storage of all kinds of things, whether it's microreactors or 18 spent fuel or what have you, even though we really have a long history of safety 19 and performance on the part of our licensees with NRC and other kinds of 20 oversight and Department of Energy performance as well and a really 21 remarkable safety record in this area.

22 But part of that safety record I think really revolves on our 23 oversight processes, Jeff, and our inspections. And in part, the knowledge that 24 the -- the confidence that the public has that all our inspectors are qualified to 25

95 do the work that we're asking them to do. So where are we on qualification for 1

ISFSI inspectors today? Are they all fully qualified for the work that they're 2

doing?

3 MR. JOSEY: Speaking for Region IV, I have two inspectors.

4 They're fully qualified. Not sure that -- I think Region III has one inspector that's 5

in quals. But anybody who touches the spent fuel program line is going to be 6

qualified. They're either in qualifications or actively seeking qualifications.

7 We're also looking at cross qualifications. So I have three 8

business lines that roll up under me. In those business lines, I'm trying to 9

facilitate cross qualification for all of my inspectors in all three business lines 10 which makes a more fungible agency which goes to more confidence in the 11 public when they look because I have an inspector that can inspect multiple 12 disciplines.

13 COMMISSIONER HANSON: No, I think that's a good point.

14 I'm a big supporter of the idea of cross qualification, whether it's our residents or 15 others within the program to be able to backfill and plug in. And it makes us, as 16 you said, much more agile and I think gives the public that extra confidence 17 boost.

18 How are we doing on kind of projecting forward? It was a 19 question I asked Ravi on fuel facilities, right? Projecting forward on where we 20 need to be in terms of staffing recognizing as you noted, right?

21 We're getting more efficient and we're cross qualifying people.

22 But we're also loading more casks in this country every day. And so how are 23 we in terms of projecting that staffing forward and where we need to be in terms 24 of educating and qualifying that next generation of inspectors?

25

96 MR. JOSEY: So it'd be kind of the same answer Ravi gave 1

you.

2 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Okay.

3 MR. JOSEY: Looking out across the board, we've had some 4

inspectors who have decided to retire. Unfortunately, a lot of times senior staff 5

don't give us a year's worth of notice that they're going to retire.

6 COMMISSIONER HANSON: True.

7 MR. JOSEY: But we are working toward ensuring that 8

everybody that we have is qualified. We're projecting out. Each region has two 9

inspectors that will be fully qualified looking at the potential re-baselining. That 10 gives us more flexibility within the resident ranks or potential flexibility. And 11 then looking at how we can cross qualify more people gives us the ability to not 12 only rely on a single set of inspectors but have a multitude especially looking or 13 trying to project what's coming with potential for an agency reorganization.

14 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Okay. Very good. Thank you.

15 MR. LUBINSKI: If I could add.

16 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Go ahead, Commissioner.

17 MR. LUBINSKI: If you look at adding onto forecasted 18 workload, right, as you go forward, the more casks that are on a pad does not 19 require more inspection.

20 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Oh, that's true, yeah, yeah, 21 yeah.

22 MR. LUBINSKI: So as you look at the program, those that 23 are on the pad already and Jeff talked about some areas where we're gaining 24 some efficiencies by basically reducing number of inspections we're doing 25

97 because of not important safety items. And then the number of loadings, right?

1 That's where you have the higher risk.

2 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Right.

3 MR. LUBINSKI: So again, there's only so much loading that 4

can be done because it's done during outages as --

5 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Right.

6 MR. LUBINSKI: -- they continue to move forward. So there's 7

an area there that again is pretty static. It just ends up the number casks that 8

are on a pad increases over time.

9 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Okay. I think that's a very good 10 and fair point, John. Thank you. And a couple of licensees that Ive visited, 11 they've been very eager to show off drone technology for their own pad 12 inspections, right?

13 And low flying zones, high resolution cameras, other kinds of 14 things, and they're at least in the couple demonstrations that I've seen, they're 15 still exploring what kind of data they can get out of that. What are they seeing, 16 et cetera? In the interest of using technology for our own programs, is there a 17 way for -- how are we engaging with licensees on that?

18 How are we -- are we able to kind of use that footage? Do we 19 need to be on site? Is it kind of, like, a drone fly-along that our people are able 20 to do? How are we approaching that, and how are we able to confirm or 21 evaluate data that maybe our licensees are gathering themselves?

22 MR. JOSEY: Most licensees who are using this technology 23 are recording while they're doing the flyovers.

24 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Okay.

25

98 MR. JOSEY: So it's twofold for us. One, inspectors are 1

aware that this is occurring. So a lot of times, they'll be in the area watching the 2

live flyovers.

3 And then we also ask for copies of the footage, and that's 4

shared amongst the regions so that we can see, hey, this is what is potentially 5

coming. This is what the licensees are doing. So it allows us to innovate along 6

with the licensees and learn as a regulator to try and figure out best practices, if 7

the licensee is going to do this, the things that we need to look at and how we 8

can facilitate better inspections.

9 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Great. Thank you. That really 10 helps. Nate, I'm interested to hear more about the criticality benchmark work 11 under the DNCSH which I won't pretend to remember what that means. But 12 what's the -- I think having that criticality benchmark data for package licensing 13 and so on and so forth is going to be really important. So what's the timeline for 14 the publication of some of that data?

15 MR. HUDSON: Just -- thank you for the question, 16 Commissioner. So there have been some publicly available reports issued last 17 year and this year. One was, like, a benchmark gap analysis --

18 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Okay.

19 MR. HUDSON: -- for fuels and facilities. And the national 20 labs, one at Oak Ridge, a report from Argonne, there's a microreactor report 21 that was just recently published by Argonne that demonstrate gaps as well.

22 With respect to the data, I think one of the experiments, there was one funding 23 call for -- that I mentioned in my slides for high enrichment and UF6 transport.

24 It started last year. And the benchmarks have started. I think 25

99 they were, like, 17 and one is finished up. So I would imagine the benchmarks 1

would be published in the near term, like, in a year or so or two years because 2

the program, it has to be -- the money has to be obligated by fiscal year 2026, I 3

think.

4 COMMISSIONER HANSON: The money to the Department 5

of Energy is obligating to the labs to perform the research and fill in the gaps?

6 MR. HUDSON: Correct.

7 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Okay, okay. That's helpful. But 8

I would -- I mean, the idea behind having these benchmarks is actually to kind 9

of get the safety envelope right, right? You don't -- excuse me. You don't want 10 too much -- we believe in defense in depth, right?

11 And so you want to have really accurate data because you 12 don't want to have to kind of overbuild a package because of uncertainties 13 around the analysis and so on and so forth. So I mean, what's your sense of 14 kind of the current limitations? And are there places where you think we have 15 excess margins that we're looking at in transportation packages or not?

16 MR. HUDSON: I mean, I can speak to, like, the funding call 17 specifically last year addressed there are limitations. There are gaps with data.

18 And so there's an international program for benchmark criticality evaluation 19 that's published, ICSB.

20 And the larger gaps are, like, 10 to 20 percent enrichment.

21 And so an applicant can either employ excess margin on their upper safety 22 limit, get more criticality data to back up their codes or employ other margins, 23 shielding or whatever to buy us the results to build in engineering safety. So 24 advanced moderators, everyone understands water.

25

100 Graphite, graphite dose, yttrium, there's other -- zirconium, 1

there's other advanced moderators that are going to be part of the future 2

funding calls or part of this funding, the first funding call. There were several 3

experiments that were funded. And they're led by labs, but they're partnered 4

with private entities as well as universities.

5 COMMISSIONER HANSON: Right, okay. All in an effort to 6

kind of hit the sweet spot --

7 MR. HUDSON: Right.

8 COMMISSIONER HANSON: -- in safety around these things.

9 Thanks very much, Nate. Mr. Chairman, back to you.

10 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Thank you, Commissioner Hanson.

11 Commissioner Crowell.

12 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

13 Again, thank you to all of the panelists for presenting today and to all of your 14 staff for helping get you prepared. I'm going to hit on similar themes as my 15 colleagues. And if I'm redundant, it'll just serve to help reinforce some of these 16 areas.

17 I'm going to start big picture first. And Mirela, I think this is 18 probably coming to you. Picking up on the Chairman's questions about 19 balancing guidance versus consulting and things like that, there's a direct nexus 20 there to our new mission statement and the use of the word, enabling. So as we 21 are implementing, so to speak, the new mission statement and you're doing 22 work associated with that, the portion associated with the enabling language 23 and the mission statement, will that be focused on, this guidance versus 24 consulting dynamic?

25

101 MS. GAVRILAS: It so happens that this guidance versus 1

consulting product that we're working on is explicitly mentioned in the 2

implementation guidance for the mission statement. So yes.

3 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Okay. Thank you. John, I'm 4

going to come to you next for kind of an overarching question. You've 5

exchanged some discussion with some of my colleagues on safety significant 6

and low safety significant issues.

7 And what I'm going to ask you is an NMSS-wide question.

8 But what about with regard to non-safety significant things? As the head of the 9

business line, do you feel that you've instituted a culture and a process to 10 ensure that requests for information are appropriately focused on things that 11 have a safety significance versus no safety significance? Have we made that 12 turn now in our request for additional information and focusing only on safety 13 significant issues?

14 MR. LUBINSKI: I believe we're getting there. We're not there 15 yet.

16 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: What is it going to take to get 17 there?

18 MR. LUBINSKI: I'm sorry?

19 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: What's it going to take to get 20 there?

21 MR. LUBINSKI: Let me start. We're doing it across all of the 22 business lines. As we continue to move forward, again, we have many different 23 professionals here, who have been doing it for many years.

24 So you end up with a disagreement of what is the actual 25

102 safety significance that we're going to deal with. What is the true definition of 1

risk that you're dealing with? So it's really dealing with one procedure 2

procedurally doing it.

3 But number two is within the organization as we're doing 4

these reviews, you need to explain to the individuals that are looking at some of 5

these what I would consider low safety significant or low risk issues. And 6

they're still seeing a higher importance. They're feeling like they're cutting into 7

safety margin when they stop doing that work.

8 And it's really being able, one, to explain why we're doing it, 9

what we're trying to achieve, and number two, being able to say that the agency 10 as a whole was standing behind this decision. They feel sometimes that they're 11 the ones who are left out. Okay. I'll make this change.

12 But when push comes to shove and I'm sitting in court in front 13 of a hearing, I'm the one who's going to have to defend this decision and I may 14 not think it's the right decision. So that's where we need to be able to tell 15 people that this is -- as we're making this change, we're operationalizing this so 16 that we can assure that all of management is behind the decision when it's 17 made. I think that's the biggest key we need to get across to people.

18 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: In practice when looking at --

19 is there ambiguity in practice between determining whether something is safety 20 significant and non-safety significant? Is it usually pretty clear or is there 21 ambiguity? And is that part of the problem in terms of sorting this issue out?

22 MS. GAVRILAS: It's a big part of the problem. If we were 23 aligned on what's safety significant and what isn't, we wouldn't have the 24 differing views process that take years and spend that many resources. That's 25

103 what it's all about.

1 But we're working on it. So we're trying to cobble together the 2

good practices that actually develop in the inspection realm where significance 3

determination has been a thing for a very long time. So we're trying to cobble 4

those together to come up with a more standardized approach to establishing 5

what is safety significant and what isn't and where the threshold is, some 6

objective criteria that everybody can use in the same way.

7 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Does that ambiguity exist 8

even in the context of something being non-safety significant versus having a 9

high safety significance? Or is it really in the none versus the very low?

10 MS. GAVRILAS: It's more of the latter. But it's not none 11 versus very low. It's medium versus low which people -- so medium, people 12 stand very firmly for. But rarely is it the matter of somebody thinking something 13 is high safety significance versus low safety significance. But medium and low 14 are often the subject --

15 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Between high and no, it's rare 16 that it's between high and no safety significance?

17 MS. GAVRILAS: Rarely.

18 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Gotcha. Okay. Thank you.

19 My next question is probably for Cinthya or Nathanael. So this was kind of 20 asked already. But in last month's microreactor meeting, I asked about a risk 21 study that staff completed that looked at just one shipment of a microreactor to 22 and from a prospective site. And on slide 31 in the presentation today, you 23 mentioned a regulatory framework scan that will prioritize research and data 24 needs. So does the NRC need more research and data to examine the 25

104 possibility of many microreactor shipments along similar routes else between a 1

single microreactor manufacturing and refurbishment facility and many sites in a 2

particular region of the country?

3 MS. ROMAN-CUEVAS: I think I want the opportunity to 4

clarify maybe something I said last time. So I think so the short answer, the 5

regulatory framework scan is not going to consider the risk associated with 6

microreactors. At the last Commission meeting, when I was talking about 7

additional assessment needed if additional shipments were to be made for a 8

project like Project Pele.

9 I was being specific for a project like that. Somebody that is 10 not meeting Part 71 requirements and they need an exemption. But if there are 11 microreactors that are planning to use Part 71, we assume that they will be 12 shipping this reactor the same as we have been shipping all the spent fuel and 13 fresh fuel.

14 We do about 200 and 300 shipments a year. So we have a 15 lot of operational experience. We don't think that having additional 16 microreactors on the road is going to increase the risk because the dose 17 associated with those reactors is going to be the same as a fresh fuel or a spent 18 fuel being transported. So from that standpoint, I don't think that additional risk 19 assessment is needed because we do have sufficient operational experience.

20 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Okay. Understood. I 21 appreciate that. There's probably some more questions I have for you at 22 another time, digging a little bit deeper on that. Along those same lines, as we 23 contemplate transporting used microreactors on public highways, it seems like 24 one factor is the time microreactors should cool off before it is packaged for 25

105 shipment down the road. This may require temporary storage in both the 1

operating location and a subsequent refurbishment location. So for a given 2

design from a transportation safety perspective, will we have a good 3

understanding of how long that time should be and/or do we need any more 4

research in that area?

5 MS. ROMAN-CUEVAS: You can correct me if I'm wrong. So 6

my understanding that they would have to have one year cool off period. They 7

could ask for exemptions and --

8 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: As a one year based on the 9

science --

10 MS. ROMAN-CUEVAS: It's the same requirements.

11 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: -- and the facts and the 12 technical aspects of it? Or is it a generic one year?

13 MS. DIAZ-SANABRIA: So the existing requirement is one 14 year cool off period. And that's not necessarily based on a technical basis, 15 more on a regulatory basis. What is needed for spent fuel mostly to have 16 proper sufficient time cool off period so it can be put into a package and 17 transported from that point on.

18 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: So if you have fuel cooling off 19 for up to a year, at what point are you in ISFSI land versus cooling off land, so 20 to speak?

21 MS. DIAZ-SANABRIA: Yeah, good question. And we're 22 looking into that as well. We applications -- not applications. We have 23 applicants and we engage with some of them already in terms of what are their 24 plans in terms of how they want to deal with the storage part of it.

25

106 This is the back end of the spent fuel. We have some 1

discussions with them in terms of they want to either have a cool off period of 2

one year versus some of the others have more -- deployments are faster. They 3

want to run these reactors faster and have them more in the road, like, 10 4

microreactors going in lines, like, mass production type of thing which is the fast 5

deployment of microreactors. So for those instances, we're looking further into 6

Part 72 regulations as to what is needed to answer the regulatory question 7

whether the one-year cool off period is necessary or not.

8 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Okay. As we look at this stuff, 9

I'm encouraged and I think you are, look at it in a high-volume respect, not a 10 one-off, one package, one microreactor necessarily. But the potential for large 11 volumes at one side or another moving across the roads at one time because 12 we really need to look at cumulatively. So I appreciate that. And John, you're 13 welcome to add, but I'm done with my questions as well.

14 MR. LUBINSKI: Just really quickly. That's one of the things 15 I'll say you take the lessons learned from the operating fleet. We're going to 16 look at that from the standpoint of licensing collectively.

17 When we look at the microreactors, how long these spent fuel 18 reactors, I'll call them, will remain on site. When we licensed the operating 19 power plants to begin with, we licensed the spent fuel pools to be there. We 20 knew fuel was going to be in spent fuel pools.

21 We had an impression it was going to be gone from the spent 22 fuel pools and leaving the site at some point in time. What we found out is that 23 was not the case. So we need to look at that lesson learned and say today, 24 yes, when we license these microreactors, we need to look at these potential 25

107 scenarios and ensure that we have a safety envelope that allows them to 1

continue to do that and give them as much latitude as we can.

2 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Agreed. Thank you.

3 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Thank you, Commissioner.

4 Commissioner Marzano?

5 COMMISSIONER MARZANO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

6 And thank you, again, for your presentations today. The future growth in the 7

use of nuclear energy in this country also depends on the safe, secure, and 8

efficient management of spent nuclear fuel.

9 By now, we've all heard that common refrain, what about the 10 waste, a call that will undoubtedly grow with the deployment of new nuclear 11 reactors. Thus ensuring the secure transportation and long-term storage of this 12 material is essential not only for the protection of public health and environment 13 but for maintaining public confidence. As nuclear fuel technologies evolve, 14 transportation and storage of nuclear material will present new logistical 15 regulatory and technical challenges as we've already seen.

16 And as you've highlighted, this safe and secure transportation 17 of spent nuclear fuel and nuclear material requires a strong relationship with our 18 federal partners, namely the Department of Transportation, Department of 19 Energy, as well as impacting states, Tribes, and communities. A unified 20 approach will enhance regulatory consistency, build stakeholder confidence, 21 and ultimately ensure public safety and environmental protection. By working 22 closely with our partners, we can uphold rigorous safety standards while 23 enabling the growth and modernization of the back end of the fuel cycle.

24 So with that said, my question is going to be kind of a 25

108 hypothetical here. So with this growth and a likely corresponding growth in the 1

transportation of nuclear material, both fresh and spent, what I want to ask is a 2

response to a member of the public who comes to the NRC who expressed 3

concern about the transportation of nuclear fuel for their community. So how 4

should the NRC as an agency communicate to that member in a way that 5

maintains public trust and confidence and the safe transport or nuclear fuel?

6 I think the basis for this question is oftentimes we're way in 7

the details in terms of verifying the safety of the analyses and everything else 8

that supports the safe transportation. But oftentimes, I think we miss the mark 9

on communicating plainly to the public what these efforts mean. So I want to 10 open up the panel. Please feel free to weigh in on this question.

11 MS. ROMAN-CUEVAS: So great question. I think that 12 maybe I'll start where I end with the question from Commissioner Crowell. In 13 addition of the 200 and 300 shipments that I mentioned for spent fuel, we do 14 about 3 million radioactive material shipments in a year for radioactive 15 materials.

16 They have to meet the requirements that we have for Part 71.

17 And the doses to the public and even the driver that is carrying the 18 transportation are very low -- millirems. So I don't think that increasing 19 transportation is really going to have a significant impact.

20 We have been doing it for years. We have many years of 21 experience. It's a well-coordinated effort. We have very robust regulations, 22 very great coordination with the Department of Transportation. And I think that 23 would be my message.

24 MS. DIAZ-SANABRIA: Sure. I can expand. So we have a 25

109 cadre of experts in the agency that have evaluated these packages for many 1

decades. If there's a member of the public that has asked me that question, I 2

will give them the confidence that they're in good hands, right?

3 So we have very good experts, people with a lot of 4

experience in the area. The second is NRC has done analysis and evaluations 5

of these packages. And they have demonstrated that they can withstand 6

accident conditions. So that's the other data point that is good for the public to 7

understand that.

8 They're very robust. They go through different, like, puncture 9

testing, 30 foot drop, side drop. So those are types of things, analogies for 10 people to have a good understanding of the level of robustness and vigor that 11 these packages go through in terms of analysis.

12 We also have good exchange with our partners in the 13 Department of Energy to get additional research information if they're needed. I 14 mentioned the high burnup dry cask that is going to be transported in 2027.

15 We're going to gain data from that where we can -- where confirmatory analysis 16 can be refined to ensure that we are in the right place with the safety margins.

17 And also we're going to gain a lot of information in terms of 18 aging management effects and mechanisms for these casks. More importantly, 19 when they go into a transit mode, right, they're going to be put on the road. And 20 they have been loaded for ten years or more. So those are kind of the areas 21 that I would say to convince the public that this is a very good transportation 22 program in terms of safety and security.

23 MS. GAVRILAS: Okay. I can't resist it.

24 (Laughter.)

25

110 COMMISSIONER MARZANO: Please.

1 MS. GAVRILAS: So there's -- I would recommend to anybody 2

from the public who's interested in this topic to see the videos of the testing that 3

these packages actually undergo. It's amazing, the type of loading that they are 4

subjected to before they are being released on the roads. And the second thing 5

is, and this is not on us, the staff.

6 It's on the entire industry. We actually all need to do a better 7

job at educating the public at large that radiation is natural. It's all around us.

8 And the contributions from any of these sources are just infinitesimal compared 9

to all the other exposures that we get just by walking in the sunlight.

10 COMMISSIONER MARZANO: No, I appreciate that. And I 11 think that's really kind of the heart of it is when you don't have something to 12 compare it to as the public, you see the East Palestine train derailment and that 13 disaster. And the difference between the canisters or packages that are holding 14 that hazardous material compared to the ones that we have that are 15 transporting spent nuclear fuel, fresh fuel, et cetera, are far beyond -- are much 16 different from each other in terms of the engineering, the validation, the 17 experience, et cetera.

18 So again, understand that the public hears all these things 19 oftentimes about all the work that we do and the analyses, et cetera.

20 Sometimes it doesn't land and we need to think, to Mirela's point, a little bit 21 more about how to talk to people on the level that they can relate to. All right. I 22 have three minutes left.

23 I do want to just really quick talk to you, Nathanael. The 24 Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research was established under our foundational 25

111 statute as a recognition by Congress that the NRC's mission requires robust 1

nuclear safety research to anticipate and address emerging issues and 2

continually improve our regulatory processes. So just briefly, I want to talk 3

about, what do licensees or applicants get in terms of benefits and the NRC 4

derives from the use of research developed codes?

5 This is kind of a little bit the first I'm hearing of licensees using 6

our own computer codes in their analyses. So can you talk a little bit about is 7

there greater opportunity for this kind of use by licensees? And what would that 8

actually means to a review that is supported by the use of those codes?

9 MR. HUDSON: Thank you for the question. So licensees --

10 so the benefit is two ways. So first with the licensees, they don't have to pay 11 the upfront costs of research and development to stand up a research program 12 or validation of a code.

13 Maintenance and development of a code if they can buy into, 14 like, something that's already developed or piggyback on it and just put their 15 proprietary information into it, specifically with respect to a nuclear analysis 16 code or a thermal hydraulics code. A lot of the technology and behind these 17 tools, it's pretty old. So there's legacy codes licensees have used. They've 18 adopted from NRC.

19 And so they branch to various points. So they receive a 20 benefit because they don't have to pay up front to develop their own suite of 21 analysis codes up front. And development is one thing.

22 Documentation is another. Then validation and assessment 23 is very expensive and takes years. So if they can buy into an NRC -- like, 24 adopted methodology, it minimizes the work economically they have to do.

25

112 And it is done with various codes that research sponsors.

1 Various applicants and licensees have used NRC codes, especially SCALE. Its 2

used heavily, it's like the gold standard in safety worldwide. So there's a lot of 3

history there.

4 MS. GAVRILAS: I have to jump in. So the reason why 5

licensees don't go directly to our codes is our codes are designed for safety.

6 They're tailored for specific application.

7 They're in the design process. They need more than what our 8

codes do. Otherwise when they can, they do use our codes. And that's been --

9 that's happened for a long time. They just take MELCOR, for example, and 10 adapted to their particular configuration, their particular phenomena, and go 11 ahead and use it. So there's a reason why what limits exist to their use of our 12 codes.

13 COMMISSIONER MARZANO: Thank you for that 14 clarification. I appreciate that. And I was hoping to give time back, but I failed.

15 My apologies, Chairman.

16 CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: That's okay. We're okay. So thank 17 you so much, everyone, for your participation today. This was good. I think I 18 would agree with Commissioner Hanson that we could spend a lot more time on 19 this. It's a very interesting topic.

20 So I want to thank everybody for their participation today.

21 And before we close, I'll ask my fellow Commissioners, any other comments or 22 anything before we close? If not, with that, we will adjourn this meeting. Thank 23 you.

24 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 25

113 12:09 p.m.)

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