ML26012A013
| ML26012A013 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/03/2025 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NRC-0499 | |
| Download: ML26012A013 (0) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
Rockville, Maryland Date:
Wednesday, December 3, 2025 Work Order No.:
NRC-0499 Pages 1-17 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1716 14th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 234-4433
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1
1 2
3 DISCLAIMER 4
5 6
UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONS 7
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 8
9 10 The contents of this transcript of the 11 proceeding of the United States Nuclear Regulatory 12 Commission Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, 13 as reported herein, is a record of the discussions 14 recorded at the meeting.
15 16 This transcript has not been reviewed, 17 corrected, and edited, and it may contain 18 inaccuracies.
19 20 21 22 23
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
+ + + + +
3 731ST MEETING 4
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 5
(ACRS) 6
+ + + + +
7 WEDNESDAY 8
DECEMBER 3, 2025 9
+ + + + +
10 The Advisory Committee met at Two White 11 Flint
- North, 11545 Rockville
- Pike, Rockville, 12 Maryland, and via videoconference, at 1:00 p.m. EST, 13 Walter L. Kirchner, Chair, presiding.
14 COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
15 WALTER L. KIRCHNER, Chair 16 GREGORY H. HALNON, Vice Chair 17 DAVID A. PETTI, Member-at-Large 18 VICKI M. BIER 19 CRAIG D. HARRINGTON 20 ANNIE KAMMERER 21 ROBERT P. MARTIN 22 SCOTT P. PALMTAG 23 THOMAS E. ROBERTS 24 MATTHEW W. SUNSERI 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
2 DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL:
1 LARRY BURKHART 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
3 A-G-E-N-D-A 1
Opening Remarks by the ACRS Chairman (Open) 2 Opening statement.............
4 3
Agenda and items of current interest
... 11 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
4 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 1
1:00 p.m.
2 CHAIR KIRCHNER: Okay, good afternoon.
3 The meeting will now come to order. This is the first 4
day of the 731st meeting of the Advisory Committee on 5
Reactor Safeguards, ACRS. I'm Walt Kirchner, Chairman 6
of the ACRS.
7 We are indeed happy to be back to normal 8
operations after the lapse in appropriations and we 9
are looking forward to staging the final full 10 Committee meeting of the 2025 calendar year. ACRS 11 members attending this meeting in person are Vicki 12 Bier, Greg Halnon Craig Harrington, Robert Martin, 13 Scott Palmtag, Dave Petti, Tom Roberts and Matt 14 Sunseri is attending virtually.
15 We would like to welcome our newest 16 member, Annie Kammerer. Welcome, Annie. I'm going to 17 just take a moment here to introduce her further. She 18 currently is the lead for the Army Nuclear Energy 19 Office which is the Executive Agent for the DoD as 20 they reestablish a nuclear energy program for 21 installations and power.
22 Annie comes us with a very strong 23 background. She is an expert in nuclear power plant 24 seismic hazards evaluations, seismic probablistic risk 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
5 analysis, soil structure interactions and nuclear 1
regulatory processes related to sighting and site 2
valuation. That's a mouthful. I'll add to that, she 3
was the lead in developing several -- actually 4
principal author and lead in developing guidance on 5
seismic hazards assessments for nuclear facilities, 6
that's nuclear reg guide 1.208 and also guidance on 7
seismic margins assessments.
8 She has led the development of the initial 9
guidance for seismic isolation systems for nuclear 10 power plans. She was involved in the post-Fukushima 11 response and led a seismic technical team tasked with 12 developing the post-Fukushima reevaluation activities 13 that led to seismic walk downs of all 104 operating 14 U.S. nuclear plants at the time.
15 Prior to that, she has three degrees from 16 the University of California Berkeley including a PhD 17 in Geotechnical Earthquate Engineering, so it's all a 18 mouthful. Welcome, Annie.
19 MEMBER KAMMERER: Thanks very much, I 20 appreciate that warm welcome and look forward to 21 working with the Committee on the important path 22 forward.
23 CHAIR KIRCHNER: Okay, glad to have you.
24 Moving on, for this meeting today, consultant Ron 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
6 Ballinger is scheduled to join us. Are you on the 1
line, Ron?
2 MR. BURKHART: No, he'll be here tomorrow.
3 CHAIR KIRCHNER: Okay, he'll be here for 4
tomorrow's session. If I missed anyone, please speak 5
up now. I note that we have a quorum. Larry Burkhart 6
of the ACRS staff is the Designated Federal Officer 7
for this morning's full Committee meeting.
8 No member conflicts of interest were 9
identified and the notice for this meeting was 10 published in the Federal Register on November 18th, 11 2025. The ACRS was established the Atomic Energy Act 12 and is governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
13 Under the Atomic Energy Act, ACRS shall advise the 14 Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the hazards of 15 proposed and existing reactor facilities and the 16 adequacy of proposed safety standards.
17 Following Executive Order 14-300, the 18 Committee has narrowed its focus to only those 19 activities necessary to fulfill its statutory 20 obligations. As a result, ACRS is prioritizing the 21 review and reporting of new reactor facilities and 22 proposed safety standards with particular attention 23 to issues that are unique, novel and noteworthy. The 24 Committee will also consider other nuclear safety 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
7 matters at the direction and referral by the 1
commission.
2 Please note that the ACRS speaks only 3
through its published letter reports. All member 4
comments therefore should be regarded as only the 5
individual opinion of that member and not a committee 6
decision. All relevant information related to ACRS 7
activities, such as letters, rules for meeting 8
participation and transcripts are located on the NRC 9
public website and can be easily found by typing 10 Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards in the search 11 field on the NRC's home page.
12 The agenda for this meeting was published 13 in the Federal Register on November 18th, 2025. The 14 agenda may also be found on the ACRS public website 15 and the NRC's public meeting notification system.
16 The ACRS, consistent with the Agency's 17 value of public transparency and regulation of nuclear 18 facilities, provides opportunity for public input and 19 comment during our proceedings.
20 There is a minor change to our agenda and 21 that is we had self-assessment and lessons learned as 22 a topic. That will be moved to our February 2026 23 meeting as it is not ready for full Committee 24 deliberation.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
8 We will begin this afternoon's meeting 1
with our planning and procedures session. Tomorrow 2
morning, the Committee will take up the topic of the 3
Palisades Steam Generator operational assessment. The 4
Committee has received written comments from several 5
members of the public on this topic and these will be 6
made part of the record. We also had received a 7
request from one member of the public to make an oral 8
statement on the topic and again that will take place 9
tomorrow morning.
10 Any additional written statements may be 11 forwarded to today's designated federal officer. We 12 have also set aside time at the end of this 13 afternoon's session for any public comments.
14 A transcript of the meeting is being kept 15 and will be posted on our website. When addressing 16 the Committee, participants should first identify 17 themselves and speak with sufficient clarity and 18 volume so that they may be readily heard. If you are 19 not speaking, please mute your computer on Teams. If 20 you are participating by phone, press *6 to mute your 21 phone and *5 to raise your hands on Teams. The Team 22 chat feature is only for communicating IT issues or 23 brief meeting logistic items. Please do not use it 24 for comments or questions on the topics under 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
9 Committee discussion and deliberation.
1 Finally, if you have any feedback for the 2
ACRS about today's meeting, we encourage you to fill 3
out the Public Meeting Feedback form on the NRC's 4
website.
5 Before going on, I would like to also 6
offer a short statement. This is my final committee 7
meeting as the ACRS Chairman. It's been an honor and 8
privilege to serve in this capacity. I need to thank 9
Chairman Wright, Commissioners Crowell and Marzano and 10 former Commissioners Hansen and Caputo and their 11 staffs for their continuing support of the committee.
12 In addition, I want to thank my colleagues, all of 13 you, in particular, Vice Chairman Halnon and Member at 14 Large Petti, Craig and Dave, and all of you and our 15 ACRS staff as well for supporting me as the chairman.
16 The NRC's historian recently stated that 17 the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards is the 18 oldest committee in the world devoted to reactor 19 safety. Over that time, the committee has been an 20 important element of the NRC licensing process and has 21 made major contributions to resolving a wide range of 22 technical safety issues that shape the regulatory 23 landscape. Its statutory mandate, in my opinion, is 24 as relevant today as it was 70 years ago, providing 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
10 public confidence that continue in operation currently 1
and deployment of new reactors is achieved in a safe, 2
timely and transparent manner to benefit the nation's 3
energy priorities.
4 Our activities conducted in the public 5
forum and our reviews of new reactors to assess the 6
overall safety case of a proposed facility's design 7
and operation with focus on unique, novel and 8
noteworthy features helps us in providing timely 9
advice and recommendations to the Commission on the 10 safety, technical rigor and completeness of a 11 licensing or rule making action. In accomplishing 12 this role, we provide a technical complement to the 13 Commission's policy and regulatory decision making 14 responsibilities in ensuring safe deployment of 15 nuclear power and, as stated in the recent Executive 16 Order, maintaining the NRC's leading reputation for 17 nuclear safety, both at home and internationally as 18 the gold standard for nuclear regulation.
19 I thank you for this opportunity to serve 20 as Chairman and with that, we will move on to our 21 planning procedure session and our Executive Director, 22 Marissa Bailey, is participating remotely. Marissa, 23 go ahead.
24 MS. BAILEY: Thank you, Chairman Kirchner.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
11 First, before we get started, I'd like thank you for 1
your service, your leadership and your guidance as our 2
ACRS Chairman this past couple of years. Just to 3
remind everyone, we are going to end this P&P session 4
with election of new officers, that'll be at the end 5
of the session.
6 I also want to take this opportunity to 7
welcome Member Kammerer, looking forward to working 8
with you and welcome back to the NRC.
9 Let's go ahead with our usual first agenda 10 item and that is the anticipated workload and I'll 11 turn that over to Larry.
12 MR. BURKHART: Thank you, Marissa. I will 13 be referring to what we call the rainbow chart, which 14 I distributed to everybody prior to the meeting and 15 that is the calendar for the ACRS subcommittee/full 16 committee meetings and engagements over the next six 17 months as well as the anticipated workload schedule, 18 which is the anticipated full committee agenda items 19 over the next six months.
20 I pulled up December on the rainbow chart.
21 I won't go over thing, of course, we're in the midst 22 of a full committee meeting, we're at the beginning of 23 the full committee meeting. There are no subcommittee 24 meetings scheduled for the month of December, so I 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
12 will move into the new year.
1 Per our bylaws, there is no full committee 2
meeting in January. We do have something tentatively 3
scheduled for January 15th in the afternoon on EO 4
14300 related rule making activities; however, you 5
will hear later that that is likely to be moved and an 6
event might be put in its place to do an 7
administrative meeting on bylaws.
8 Moving into February, February 3rd, 2026, 9
we have reserved time for the Clinch River 10 construction permit application to talk about unique, 11 novel and noteworthy topics. You'll hear more about 12 the proposed topics for discussion by the committee 13 later from Member Harrington.
14 On February 4th through the 6th, is the 15 next scheduled full committee meeting and potentially 16 on that agenda is a Westinghouse Topic Report on Full 17 Spectrum LOCA, which you will hear Member Martin lead 18 the discussion about very soon in this P&P agenda. The 19 self-assessment lessons learned and paths forward 20 topic will also be discussed at the February full 21 committee meeting.
22 Going back to the rainbow chart, the 23 February subcommittee week, February 17th in the 24 afternoon is a Field Material Destruction Subcommittee 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
13 meeting on a Framatome Top Report on increased burn up 1
for PWRs. February 18th and 19th, we have the two 2
days reserved for potential closed engagements with 3
the staff on various aspects of EO 14300 rule makings.
4 We're going to talk on that a little bit later.
5 Moving into March, we have the March full 6
committee meeting from the 4th through the 6th. On 7
that agenda, we have some time reserved for the 8
microreactor rule making as part 57. That is 9
contingent on the draft rule being made public. Also, 10 we have reserved some time for EO 14300 draft rule 11 language letters and, again, that would be contingent 12 upon any such draft rule being made public.
13 Just to note on the calendar, we see that 14 the RIC is March 10th through the 12th. Some of you 15 may be attending. The March subcommittee week, March 16 17th in the afternoon is the EPRI Top Report o 17 Alternative Licensing Strategy, LOCA, FFRD. March 18 18th and 19th, we have reserved times to talk about as 19 yet to be determined topics for the Clinch River 20 Construction Permit Application.
21 Moving to April, we have the April full 22 committee from April 8th through the 10th. On that 23 agenda potentially is the EO 14300 draft rule 24 language, preparation for a commission meeting and the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
14 EPRI Top Report on Alternative Licensing Strategy for 1
2 Back to the rainbow chart, right now there 3
are no subcommittee meetings scheduled for that week 4
and in April.
5 Moving into May, May 6th through the 8th 6
is the next full committee meeting. We have some 7
reserve time for EO 14300 draft rule language letter 8
and commission meeting dry runs.
9 We have no meetings right now scheduled in 10 May for the subcommittee. Any questions, comments on 11 the rainbow chart for the next six months, we just 12 talked about until May, that's the next six months.
13 CHAIR KIRCHNER: I would just like to 14 observe there's a lot of blank space there. I would 15 propose that as Larry is showing for the March 16 subcommittee, we consider two things. One, moving any 17 subcommittee activities where possible to the Tuesday 18 and/or Wednesday before the full committee meeting.
19 Secondly, I think we should a little bit further out 20 because we know that both the Long Mott CPA with X-21 energy and the Clinch River CPA with GE PWR x300 are 22 looming just off to the right so to speak in calendar 23 space, roughly early next fall, for a conclusion for 24 those activities. To the extent that we can bring our 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
15 review activities forward, whether the staff is ready 1
or not, and use the time to deliberate over what we 2
think are the key issues, I would encourage that with 3
that span between April, May and June.
4 I think that one of the immediate 5
decisions that we will have to make today is whether 6
we'll have a hybrid meeting in February, whether 7
that's mostly virtual for members or in person just 8
with an eye on travel expenses if nothing else.
9 We have full spectrum LOCA and lessons 10 learned.
11 MR. BURKHART: We may not have the full 12 spectrum LOCA.
13 CHAIR KIRCHNER: And we may not have that.
14 MR. BURKHART: Yes.
15 CHAIR KIRCHNER: We'll come to that topic 16 in a little bit here.
17 MR. BURKHART: We will be dealing with the 18 end of the continuing resolution at the end of 19 January.
20 MEMBER PETTI: I think one of the key 21 issues is whether or not the staff will be ready for 22 with the GE PWR x300 discussion. Even if we're not 23 meeting again, we have to kind of make a decision at 24 this meeting to decide what we're going to do. Do we 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
16 have any insight into that?
1 (Simultaneous speaking.)
2 MR. BURKHART: Yes, I suggest we discuss 3
the UNN topic and then make a decision there.
4 CHAIR KIRCHNER: Yes and maybe we move it 5
over to Wednesday too, that would cut down a day of 6
travel.
7 MR. BURKHART: Yes and if we're going to 8
travel, yes.
9 CHAIR KIRCHNER: And a day of expenses for 10 travel is a better way to say it.
11 MR. BURKHART: I do anticipate after the 12 committee's talk about the UNN for Clinch River and 13 Long Mott and there then able to be an interaction on 14 the planning with NR that you'll hopefully see some of 15 these subcommittee interactions on this too, but let's 16 wait and see. Okay, anything else on the rainbow 17 chart and AWS? Okay, Marissa.
18 MS. BAILEY: All right, our next item, our 19 Regulatory Guide reviews. We've got one reg guide to 20 talk about, that's Reg Guide 14220, Acceptability of 21 ASME code OM2 for code component testing requirements 22 at nuclear facilities. Member Harrington recommends 23 not reviewing this one and so I'll turn it over to 24 you, Member Harrington.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
17 CHAIR KIRCHNER: That was several months 1
ago now that we're checking on it.
2 MR. BURKHART: Yes, it was, it started 3
from this and you'll see under Top Report review 4
recommendations, we carried over some things from 5
previous full committee meetings. On that note -- I'm 6
sorry to interrupt, we do have the court reporter on 7
still, so I think we can let him go for now and I have 8
told him to be back for 8:30 or whoever's is covering 9
it for tomorrow morning, so we're in the midst of P&P.
10 We usually don't have this transcribed.
11 CHAIR KIRCHNER: Okay.
12 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 13 off the record at 1:21 p.m.)
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