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| ML21154A041 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/06/2021 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| Burkhart, L, ACRS | |
| References | |
| NRC-1500 | |
| Download: ML21154A041 (115) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: teleconference Date: Thursday, May 6, 2021 Work Order No.: NRC-1500 Pages 1-78 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1
2 3
4 DISCLAIMER 5
6 7 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONS 8 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 9
10 11 The contents of this transcript of the 12 proceeding of the United States Nuclear Regulatory 13 Commission Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, 14 as reported herein, is a record of the discussions 15 recorded at the meeting.
16 17 This transcript has not been reviewed, 18 corrected, and edited, and it may contain 19 inaccuracies.
20 21 22 23 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 685TH MEETING 5 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 6 (ACRS) 7 + + + + +
8 THURSDAY 9 MAY 6, 2021 10 + + + + +
11 The Advisory Committee met via 12 Videoconference, at 9:30 a.m. EDT, Matthew W. Sunseri, 13 Chairman, presiding.
14 15 COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
16 MATTHEW W. SUNSERI, Chairman 17 VICKI BIER, Member 18 DENNIS BLEY, Member 19 CHARLES H. BROWN, JR. Member 20 VESNA B. DIMITRIJEVIC, Member 21 GREG HALNON, Member 22 WALTER L. KIRCHNER, Member 23 STEVE KRAFT, Public Participant 24 JOSE MARCH-LEUBA, Member 25 DAVID A. PETTI, Member NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 JOY L. REMPE, Vice Chairman 2 PETER RICCARDELLA, Member 3 DIEGO SAENZ, DHS 4
5 ACRS CONSULTANT:
8 DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL:
9 DEREK WIDMAYER 10 11 ALSO PRESENT:
12 CYRIL DRAFFIN, USNIC 13 SCOTT MOORE, Executive Director, ACRS 14 QUYNH NGUYEN, ACRS 15 DONALD PALMROSE, NMSS 16 WILLIAM RECKLEY, NRR 17 JOHN SEGALA, NRR 18 JOSEPH STAUDENMEIER, RES 19 MARTIN STUTZKE, NRR 20 NANETTE VALLIERE, NRR 21 DUNCAN WHITE, NMSS 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 9:30 a.m.
3 CHAIR SUNSERI: Good morning, everyone.
4 The meeting will now come to order. This is the 5 second day of the 685th meeting of the Advisory 6 Committee on Reactor Safeguards. I'm Matthew Sunseri, 7 the Chair of the ACRS. I'll now call roll to confirm 8 a quorum and that clear communications exist.
9 Vicki Bier?
10 MEMBER BIER: Here.
11 CHAIR SUNSERI: Dennis Bley?
12 MEMBER BLEY: Here.
13 CHAIR SUNSERI: Charles Brown?
14 MEMBER BROWN: Here.
15 CHAIR SUNSERI: Vesna Dimitrijevic?
16 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Here.
17 CHAIR SUNSERI: Greg Halnon?
18 MEMBER HALNON: Here.
19 CHAIR SUNSERI: Walt Kirchner?
20 Walt Kirchner?
21 Jose March-Leuba?
22 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Yes.
23 CHAIR SUNSERI: Dave Petti?
24 MEMBER PETTI: Here.
25 CHAIR SUNSERI: Joy Rempe?
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4 1 MEMBER REMPE: Here.
2 CHAIR SUNSERI: Pete Riccardella?
3 MEMBER RICCARDELLA: I'm here.
4 CHAIR SUNSERI: All right. And myself.
5 So we're just lacking Walt right now. I'm sure he'll 6 join when he can.
7 The Designated Federal Officer for this 8 meeting is Mr. Derek Widmayer. During today's part of 9 the session, we will take up an information briefing 10 on fusion that will end up sometime before lunch. So, 11 in the time period between the end of that session and 12 our lunch break, we will pick up work on the 13 recommendations and conclusions for our interim letter 14 report on Part 53.
15 We'll work on that until lunch, and then 16 following the lunch break, we will take up the NuScale 17 control room staffing letter report, and that should 18 begin at 2:30 Eastern Time for those wanting to 19 participate in that activity.
20 A phone bridge line has been opened to 21 allow members of the public to listen in on the 22 presentation and Committee discussions. We have 23 received no written or oral comments or requests to 24 make oral statements from members of the public 25 regarding today's session. There will be an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 opportunity for public comment. We have set aside 2 time in the agenda for comments from members of the 3 public who attend or are listening to our meeting.
4 Written comments may be forwarded to Mr. Derek 5 Widmayer, the Designated Federal Officer.
6 A transcript of the open portion of the 7 meeting is being kept, and it is requested that the 8 speakers identify themselves with sufficient clarity 9 and volume so they may be readily heard.
10 Additionally, participants should mute themselves when 11 not speaking.
12 And as a follow-up to yesterday's opening 13 remarks, you know that we have two new members of our 14 Committee that have been appointed since the last full 15 Committee meeting, Vicki Bier and Greg Halnon.
16 Yesterday, we got a chance to introduce Greg, and this 17 morning we're going to do the same for Vicki. I'm 18 going to turn on my camera and make this a little bit 19 more personal.
20 Dr. Vicki Bier is a professor emeritus in 21 the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering 22 and the Department of Engineering Physics at the 23 University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her areas of 24 specialization include risk analysis, decision 25 analysis, and operational research. She has more than NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 40 years of experience in risk analysis -- you must 2 have started when you were five -- for the nuclear 3 power, chemical, petrochemical, and aerospace 4 industries, as well as homeland security and critical 5 infrastructure protection.
6 Dr. Bier earned her bachelor's in 7 mathematical scientist from Stanford University and a 8 doctorate in operations research from the 9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
10 Welcome, Vicki. We're looking forward to 11 your engagement with the Committee, and if you have 12 anything you would like to say.
13 MEMBER BIER: You know what? Thank you 14 for the nice introduction, and I'm honored to be part 15 of the Committee. I've admired the work of the 16 Committee for, I mean, probably close to 40 years. So 17 it's a dream to be able to contribute. Thank you.
18 CHAIR SUNSERI: Great. Well, thank you.
19 And so we can close these cameras now.
20 At this stage, I'll open the floor to 21 members if you have any questions or comments before 22 we start today's deliberations.
23 (Pause.)
24 CHAIR SUNSERI: All right. Well, we'll 25 get into the first topic, then, which is the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 information briefing on fusion, and I'll turn to Dr.
2 Dave Petti to lead this session.
3 Dave?
4 MEMBER PETTI: Thanks, Matt. It looks 5 like I might be having some internet issues. So if I 6 drop off, just keep on going.
7 Bill, you're back. You've really a 8 glutton for punishment here. Does your management 9 want to say anything, or do you just want to start?
10 MR. RECKLEY: John Segala was going to 11 provide a couple opening remarks.
12 MEMBER PETTI: Okay.
13 John?
14 MR. SEGALA: Okay. Thank you.
15 Good morning. I'm John Segala, the Chief 16 of the Advanced Reactor Policy Branch in the Office of 17 Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
18 In January of 2019, the Nuclear Energy 19 Innovation and Modernization Act, or NEIMA, was signed 20 into law and required NRC to complete a technology-21 inclusive, risk-informed, performance-based regulation 22 for advanced reactors, which we're calling 10 CFR Part 23 53, as you all are aware.
24 NEIMA did define advanced nuclear reactor 25 as a nuclear fission or fusion reactor. On April 13th NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 of 2020, the staff issued a rulemaking plan for 10 CFR 2 Part 53 in SECY 20-0032. And on October 2nd, the 3 Commission issued its staff requirements memorandum 4 approving the staff's proposed approach for the 5 rulemaking, and they directed the staff to develop a 6 paper considering the appropriate treatment of fusion 7 reactor designs in our regulatory structure by 8 developing options for Commission consideration on 9 licensing and regulating fusion energy systems. This 10 paper is due by the end of 2022.
11 The NRC staff has been engaging with the 12 Department of Energy, the fusion industry, and other 13 stakeholders such as the joint DOE, NRC, and Fusion 14 Industry Association public forum on October 6th of 15 2020 and the NRC public meetings on January 26th and 16 March 30th of 2021, where the staff has begun seeking 17 stakeholder feedback on possible approaches for 18 licensing and regulation of commercial fusion 19 facilities.
20 Today we plan to provide the full 21 Committee an overview of the NRC staff's efforts to 22 develop options for regulating fusion energy systems, 23 as discussed in the NRC staff's draft white paper 24 entitled Preliminary Options for Regulatory Framework 25 for Fusion Energy Systems that was made public last NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 week. As we firm up the options, we plan to come back 2 and brief the ACRS subcommittee and full committees.
3 We look forward to having discussions 4 today and hearing the ACRS members' initial thoughts 5 and feedback. Thank you.
6 Does it go over to you, Bill, now?
7 MR. RECKLEY: Yeah, I think so. Thank 8 you, John.
9 This is Bill Reckley with the staff. So, 10 as John mentioned, we are in the beginning stages of 11 developing options. We have a working group with 12 representatives from NRR, NMSS, Nuclear Material 13 Safety and Safeguards, the Office of Regulatory 14 Research, Office of General Counsel, and members from 15 agreement states on our working group.
16 And what we're going to go over today is 17 just some of our first thoughts on options that we 18 might develop. And, as John mentioned, they would 19 ultimately go into a Commission paper, and we would be 20 back before -- our expectation is that we would be 21 back before the ACRS appropriate subcommittees and 22 then to the full Committee in regards to that options 23 paper.
24 So, just as a little bit of background, 25 back in 2009, the question was posed as to whether the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 NRC would even be the regulatory Agency for fusion 2 energy systems. And that resulted in that time frame 3 in a paper, SECY 2009-64. And the staff prepared and 4 provided, in that time, options for consideration, and 5 they are listed here, which was primarily just to 6 maintain the status quo and leave the questions 7 unanswered or for the Commission to actually make a 8 decision and affirmatively state that the NRC would 9 have regulatory jurisdiction.
10 And down below the SRM, the Staff 11 Requirements Memorandum, for that paper, the 12 Commission did make a decision and assert that the NRC 13 would have jurisdiction over commercial fusion energy 14 devices, provided that those -- the deployment of such 15 devices could affect the public health and safety of 16 the public.
17 The other direction in that SRM back in 18 2009 was for the staff to basically stand by and wait 19 for the technology to develop to the point where 20 things were more predictable before we spent the 21 resources to actually develop a regulatory framework.
22 So the staff between 2009 and the passage 23 of NEIMA, which is on the next slide, slide 3, the 24 passage of the Nuclear Energy Innovation and 25 Modernization Act, ten years after that original paper NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 -- and as John mentioned, within the definition of 2 advanced nuclear reactor, they included nuclear 3 fission or nuclear fusion. And so, with the passage 4 of NEIMA, we needed to start to think about that 5 question again and what would be a regulatory 6 framework for fusion.
7 So we prepared -- and John went over this.
8 We prepared -- and we talked about it yesterday to 9 some degree. We prepared a rulemaking plan primarily 10 aimed at fission -- advanced fission reactors. And, 11 again, that's the Part 53 effort. But we did address 12 fusion within the rulemaking plan, and the SRM.
13 For SECY-2032, the rulemaking plan, the 14 Commission gave us some direction on Part 53. And 15 largely, that was related to the schedule. And then 16 they also directed us to develop this options paper 17 for consideration of licensing commercial fusion 18 energy systems.
19 So, as soon as we got that, we began 20 interactions with the Department of Energy Office of 21 Science, Fusion Energy Sciences, to start the process 22 of education for the staff, in large part, and then 23 also to set up interactions with the community that up 24 to this point we have had limited interactions with 25 the fusion community.
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12 1 So that kind of brings us up to our 2 current activities. We are continuing our 3 interactions with DOE, and they've been a great help 4 to us in terms of both putting us in touch with 5 stakeholders, providing education on both the 6 technologies and on the safety analyses that have been 7 performed to date. We are continuing interactions 8 with stakeholders through, as John mentioned, a couple 9 different public meetings that we've had.
10 As we talked about yesterday on Part 53 --
11 MEMBER BLEY: Bill?
12 MR. RECKLEY: Yes?
13 MEMBER BLEY: I wanted to put you on the 14 spot, but I don't think I quite can. In the SRM, the 15 Commission said you should wait until the commercial 16 deployment of fusion is more predictable, but I guess 17 NEIMA just kind of voids that thinking. NEIMA says do 18 it now.
19 (Simultaneous speaking.)
20 MR. RECKLEY: Yes. And the schedule in 21 NEIMA, as we maybe go into the last bullet on this 22 slide -- the schedule in the legislation was to have 23 the rule -- the framework done by rulemaking by 2027.
24 The Commission's Staff Requirements Memorandum, or 25 SRM, on our rulemaking plan said to have Part 53 --
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13 1 set a goal to have Part 53 done by 2024.
2 In our response to the Commission's SRM, 3 which was, going back a slide, the 30-day response in 4 that memorandum that the staff sent back to the 5 Commission, we did make an observation that one option 6 would be to try to do Part 53 by 2024 but to 7 acknowledge that fusion, no matter which option might 8 be chosen, we could set out to complete by 2027. That 9 would still meet the legislative date but would give 10 us a little more time for the Commission both to give 11 us directional options and then to develop the 12 framework for fusion energy systems.
13 So, as we did mention yesterday --
14 (Simultaneous speaking.)
15 MR. RECKLEY: Yes? Please go ahead.
16 MR. CORRADINI: This is Mr. Corradini. I 17 understand what you just said, but I'm not completely 18 clear. So you're expecting to have a rulemaking 19 completed on fusion by 2027, or it's just a list of 20 options by 2027? That's what I didn't --
21 MR. RECKLEY: No, the rulemaking to 22 address fusion would need to be done by 2027. The 23 options paper that we're currently working on would --
24 we're setting out with a goal of having that done this 25 year or early next year so that the Commission could NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 then make a decision, and we could incorporate that 2 into our rulemaking activities to have it done by 3 2027.
4 MR. CORRADINI: Okay. Thank you for the 5 clarification.
6 MR. RECKLEY: Okay.
7 So, as we develop Part 53, the third 8 bullet on this slide -- as we develop Part 53 -- and 9 as we mentioned yesterday, we are trying to keep Part 10 53 technology inclusive up to the point that if the 11 Commission were to decide that the -- and we'll get 12 into the options a little bit in a minute, but if the 13 Commission were to decide to treat fusion facilities 14 as utilization facilities, similar to fission power 15 reactors, that we could come back in and make 16 adjustments to Part 53 and not necessarily have to 17 make major revisions to accommodate it.
18 And that's why we're up at basically a 19 fairly high level in that rulemaking in terms of 20 specific technical requirements. So that's one of the 21 reasons. So what we're doing at the current time is 22 starting to prepare for and put pen to paper on this 23 Commission paper that would identify options for 24 Commission consideration.
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15 1 that regard. So has the public meetings where 2 individual developers have provided summaries of their 3 designs and some of the safety considerations that 4 they are putting into their design efforts.
5 The second bullet is pretty -- it's an 6 important point here that this paper is looking at the 7 longer-term commercial deployment of fusion energy 8 systems. The ongoing research and development 9 activities by private firms or others that fall under 10 the NRC's jurisdiction we can handle on a case-by-case 11 basis. And that is largely through the materials 12 program because at this point in R&D, the amount of 13 radioactive materials is manageable and the machines 14 are running for short durations, so you're not getting 15 large activations of structures.
16 You're not getting some of the other 17 aspects of the longer-term commercial fusion program 18 like tritium breeding and some of those things. So, 19 at the present time, we're continuing, either the NRC 20 or agreement states, to handle R&D facilities under 21 the current program.
22 Yes, Mike?
23 MEMBER PETTI: Bill? Oh.
24 MR. RECKLEY: Dave?
25 MEMBER PETTI: Just a question if you've NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 thought about it. You know, there's the commercial 2 I'm-going-to-produce-electricity mission. There's 3 these really short pulse machines like you've been 4 talking about that would be handled case by case. But 5 there's a couple facilities in between there that --
6 this would be facilities to test blankets. Okay?
7 And there's lots of different options out 8 there. And you'd need neutrons and you'd need a fair 9 amount of tritium, but not run, you know, at higher 10 variability like a power reactor, but still enough.
11 Where does that fit? I mean, that could 12 also incite DOE, in which case, you know, you guys 13 wouldn't have to be involved. But if someone decides 14 commercially they want -- a private company wanted to 15 do that, you know, could that fit in the continuum 16 here of things we're talking about?
17 MR. RECKLEY: I think it could. And as we 18 talk about our options for even the commercial 19 facilities, I think you'll see that we have a lot of 20 latitude in the materials program to accommodate 21 something like that if it should be proposed.
22 But in addition to that, when I say on a 23 case-by-case basis, I mean, we could bring in -- even 24 if we treat it as materials licensee, bring in a lot 25 of different requirements to address the potential NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 hazards. And in a -- wouldn't even rule out that we'd 2 have the capability at that time, even for that --
3 well, I'll leave it there.
4 The case-by-case basis is kind of how we 5 would address that. And we would have all the options 6 the Agency has to address if that kind of a proposal 7 was brought forth. But --
8 MR. CORRADINI: Bill, just to follow on 9 Dave's point -- but he probably knows. I'm not clear.
10 Is there a clear demarcation in terms of inventory of 11 various radioactive species that would cross over 12 between a case-by-case review for a facility, or is it 13 the time of operation or some combination of those 14 that would be the point where you would go away from 15 case-by-case to this new process?
16 MR. RECKLEY: My short answer will be we 17 would go -- we would only be able to go beyond a case-18 by-case assessment once we get this rule in place. Up 19 until that time, we would have to address any -- or 20 we'd have to assess any particular activity on a case-21 by-case basis with the default being we would handle 22 them under the materials program.
23 MR. CORRADINI: So, just to follow that 24 up, then, what things are on the horizon between now 25 and 2027 that you would probably have to handle case-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 by-case?
2 MR. RECKLEY: All we're aware of at this 3 point is further progress on the actual machines that 4 are looking to advance the plasma side. So individual 5 developers, individual companies, are proposing to 6 build new test facilities of various -- we'll get into 7 the technologies, but of either the tokamak or TURis 8 designs, and other companies are looking at other 9 potential fusion designs. But they're still looking 10 primarily on the reaction side, the plasma side.
11 MR. CORRADINI: Okay. Thank you.
12 MEMBER PETTI: But I think that, you know, 13 that makes sense at this point. Just, again, 14 depending on how long your horizon is to think about 15 these things, I think there are some criteria that 16 could be established for when you get to a point where 17 you really have significant hazards that are 18 characteristics of facilities that you could put down 19 so that people would know, here's an off-ramp.
20 You know, you exceed these -- it's a 21 combination, in my opinion, of inventory and 22 characteristics of the plasma that lead to activation 23 that you could say, okay, you're here. You're going 24 to go in this direction. If not, you're going to go 25 in a different direction.
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19 1 I think you could kind of paint that road, 2 if you will, with criteria. I think it's doable.
3 MR. RECKLEY: And we'll actually get into 4 that discussion in terms of what we're considering or 5 what we propose to give to the Commission as options.
6 Well, what you just described there is our third 7 option, a combination approach.
8 So we are looking -- the third bullet here 9 -- at the fusion technologies. I won't even pretend 10 to be able to describe the science. So we have Joe 11 Staudenmeier from our Office of Research, and he had 12 some experience. And Don Palmrose in NMSS had some 13 experience.
14 So, for now, we have a few staff who have 15 some expertise, and then we're also, again, 16 interfacing with the Department of Energy, including 17 their Fusion Safety Program at Idaho, to help us in 18 this effort.
19 I mentioned we're coordinating with 20 agreement states, and they're actually participating 21 in our working group. And we're assessing and 22 developing options, and we'll get into that in the 23 next few slides.
24 I did want to mention that one of the 25 challenges is the diversity of designs and hazards.
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20 1 And much of the literature has focused on the magnetic 2 confinement, the tokamak designs that have been under 3 development both within the United States and Europe, 4 and now the big project to build such a facility, the 5 ITER facility in France.
6 So, although that's been much of the 7 focus, there are also other proposals that the 8 companies and the Department of Energy has looked at, 9 including inertial, such as the National Ignition 10 Facility, and magneto-inertial, which is a combination 11 of the two. And an example of that is perhaps the 12 general fusion design.
13 The diversity even extends to, what are 14 the reactions involved? Most of the discussion is 15 deuterium and tritium, the DT reaction. But there are 16 also proposals for the proton and boron-11 or 17 deuterium and helium-3. So those things are under 18 development, and the different designs have been a 19 variety in terms of the radiological hazards, the 20 chemical hazards, and other hazards associated with 21 the facility.
22 So one of the decisions as we developed 23 the options was and remains, do we try to make it 24 broad enough -- technology inclusive of all the fusion 25 technologies? Or do we focus, for example, on the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 magnetic or tokomak-type designs? At this point, our 2 plan is to try to be technology inclusive and develop 3 a program that could handle any of these technologies 4 should they develop.
5 So one of the questions I guess I'll leave 6 with the Committee is, as I go through the rest of the 7 slides, I'm not providing much discussion on the 8 technologies or the associated safety analyses. And 9 we could do that -- we might get the help of DOE and 10 maybe Idaho to help us with that.
11 But before we come with the options paper 12 or at the same time we come to the subcommittee --
13 again, the kind of question I'll leave is, if you want 14 briefings on the technologies, what to consider in the 15 safety assessments, we can help arrange that. But 16 you're not going to hear very much of that today.
17 So I'll leave that just as something for 18 you to ponder as you go through the planning process.
19 And when we give you a schedule for the paper, which 20 would likely be in the fall time frame, if you want us 21 to get about the same time or even before that 22 briefings on technologies and safety considerations 23 for fusion, we can do that.
24 MEMBER BLEY: Bill?
25 MR. RECKLEY: Yes?
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22 1 MEMBER BLEY: You mentioned you had to 2 decide whether you're focusing on one kind of machine 3 or others when you're trying to keep it technology 4 neutral. Have you thought about that -- it's hard for 5 me to think of a reason why you'd focus on one. I 6 mean, one's had a lot more work, but it's still not 7 there yet. And maybe something else could catch up 8 and pass it.
9 But where do you stand on that part?
10 MR. RECKLEY: We're planning to try to 11 develop this so that it would be inclusive of any of 12 these designs. And so where that can come into play 13 -- and Dr. Petti mentioned this a little bit, too, 14 when we get into the options later on is, are there 15 thresholds?
16 For example, I'll just mention the 17 inventory of tritium. That would be a consideration.
18 Well, for a large ITER-type machine, that's a large 19 inventory, kilograms. For some of these other 20 machines, even some of the other magnetic machines 21 might be smaller and have less inventory.
22 Some of the technology, such as those 23 using -- you know, that aren't using or would propose 24 not to use tritium in the reaction would then not have 25 any inventory, right? But right now our plan is to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 try to address any of those.
2 But when you look elsewhere -- and we've 3 participated in some discussions, for example, at 4 IAEA. Given other countries are more focused on one 5 technology, the discussions have been more focused, 6 for example, on the tokamak or variations of the 7 tokamak design.
8 MEMBER PETTI: So Bill?
9 MR. RECKLEY: Mm-hmm?
10 MEMBER PETTI: Just a number I wanted to 11 get on the record, kilograms of tritium sound like a 12 lot for ITER. But for a power reactor, the number is 13 55.8 kilograms per gigawatt thermal per year. Okay?
14 So if you had a gigawatt thermal plasma 15 that's only putting 300 megawatts on the grid, you're 16 burning 55.8 kilograms per year. That's a massive 17 amount of tritium. It's more tritium than we know 18 today, which is why they have to breed. Okay?
19 So the numbers can get staggering as you 20 go from the little experiments that you talked about 21 to the commercial reactors. It's a good number to 22 remember.
23 MR. RECKLEY: Yeah. And I'll just open it 24 up to people who may remember, but -- on our working 25 group, the discussion. But the -- once in a few NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 1 years, hopefully by the schedule, by the end of the 2 decade, when ITER was to start up, they were going to 3 use some significant fraction of the world inventory 4 of tritium at that point.
5 (Simultaneous speaking.)
6 MR. RECKLEY: -- going to Dave's point 7 that at some point, you need to start to breed tritium 8 to support the technology. So -- and that becomes one 9 of the -- again, I don't have many slides on the 10 technology, but that really does become, then, part of 11 the hazard assessment is the whole breeding and 12 separation and handling and storage of tritium that --
13 so it's not just the tokamak and the plasma. It's 14 also the whole rest of the facility that is 15 breeding/treating tritium to put back into the 16 machine.
17 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Bill, this is Walt 18 Kirchner. And at high temperature, if the breeding 19 blankets are part of the power conversion system, 20 which is very problematic with containing tritium.
21 MR. RECKLEY: Right. And -- yeah. Point 22 well taken. And in many cases, or what I've seen, 23 anyway, the blankets are right next to the plasma.
24 So, as we're looking at regulatory 25 approaches, even back in 2009, we looked at what would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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25 1 be the approaches we have, and as many of you are 2 aware, the Agency as a whole breaks down largely into 3 reactor and materials in terms of our regulatory 4 programs.
5 And so, in 2009 and up to this time, we 6 continue to look that we really have options that are 7 either treated as a utilization facility -- that is 8 like we handle fission power plants -- handle it like 9 a materials licensee, and examples there might be an 10 accelerator or a large radiator where the amount of 11 radioactive material can vary, but it can be 12 significant.
13 And the need to provide protections can be 14 significant, or to come up with a hybrid or new 15 approach for fusion, and what we have there is a 16 graded approach, as we've talked about, of trying to 17 accommodate a wide variety of potential inventories 18 and potential release mechanisms that might be 19 associated with various technologies.
20 So I'll talk about each of those options 21 a little bit, and this is really where we are. We've 22 identified them. We've done a little work to talk to 23 stakeholders about the various options and the pros 24 and cons. But we're just beginning to put down some 25 thoughts, and we are continuing to assess risks as one NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 1 factor. That's not the only factor, but it is one 2 factor that could go into the Commission's decision.
3 So, in terms of treating them as a 4 utilization facility, the legal and technical 5 framework in the Atomic Energy Act and in our 6 regulations currently, for a utilization facility, 7 focus on those that use special nuclear material.
8 This is the fission side.
9 But the Atomic Energy Act does give us 10 latitude to expand the definition, and it's largely up 11 to the Agency if we want it to include another 12 facility within the utilization facility definition.
13 And, actually, you could see an example of that for 14 the medical isotope facility SHINE because our 15 previous definition was for a reactor, which was self-16 sustaining.
17 And given SHINE uses a neutron generator, 18 an accelerator, it didn't meet the definition. So we 19 included it in a case-specific rulemaking to include 20 the medical isotope facilities within the definition 21 of utilization facility. So we could -- you know, as 22 a rulemaking activity, we could just generally expand 23 the scope of utilization facility to include fusion 24 devices.
25 As you're well aware, the focus on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 1 utilization facilities has been, up to this point, 2 large light-water reactors. That's part of the 3 challenge we talked about yesterday of trying to bring 4 in other reactor designs, even more so a challenge for 5 fusion because we'd actually even have to change the 6 definition of utilization facility to include it.
7 It does give us a good basis both within 8 the rules, whether it be Part 53 or longstanding 9 practice, to look at design requirements on the 10 design, construction, operation, decommissioning of 11 the machine, as well as all the controls on handling 12 specific radionuclides.
13 It has traditionally involved extensive 14 licensing reviews, environmental impact statements --
15 the Atomic Energy Act does include for utilization 16 facilities a need for mandatory hearings either at the 17 construction permit or the combined license stage. So 18 the legal and technical framework is there if we were 19 to choose this route.
20 The staff is currently looking at the 21 fusion technologies. We're looking at the DOE orders 22 and standards. I think it's Standard 6002 that DOE 23 prepared for fusion safety. It's looking at a 24 magnetic confinement machine, but it goes through the 25 considerations, as do other DOE orders on both reactor NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 and non-reactor sources of looking at inventories, 2 looking at energies that might drive their release and 3 so forth. So we're currently assessing that body of 4 work, which is actually quite extensive.
5 We are looking at the ITER safety 6 analysis. One of the contributions is -- ITER is an 7 international activity, and one of the U.S.
8 contributions was to work on the safety analysis. And 9 that was done by folks at Idaho National Lab. So 10 we're looking at that safety analysis and talking with 11 the Fusion Safety Program at Idaho and also the Fusion 12 Energy Sciences folks in Germantown.
13 Speaking of which, they have helped us, 14 the DOE -- our counterparts at DOE have set up 15 briefings for us, one of which was from the Idaho 16 folks on the safety analysis for ITER. Another one 17 was from representatives from ITER on tritium controls 18 that they foresee. You know, they're currently in the 19 process of looking how ITER will support the research 20 and development of tritium breeding, for example. And 21 also, that was an opportunity to also bring in some of 22 the historical DOE work at the national labs. So that 23 was very useful.
24 I mentioned we have interactions with 25 IAEA. There was a recent National Academy study.
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29 1 Actually, there was a couple National Academy studies.
2 And we're looking at the potential risks, and we're 3 also, in that vein, looking and interacting with 4 developers and other stakeholders through our public 5 meetings.
6 One of the things from the public meetings 7 is feedback -- and this is largely from developers and 8 industry organizations -- that they don't see the 9 utilization facility model as aligning with the risk 10 posed by fusion energy systems.
11 And so that's a point of discussion, and 12 again, one of the reasons for that is that the 13 developers are -- it's a wide range of technologies, 14 and so it's kind of understandable that they look at 15 both the ITER safety analysis as being -- as 16 addressing hazards beyond what they plan to have for 17 their facilities, and they likewise see the 18 traditional approach to fission reactors as being 19 built for hazards beyond what they envision for their 20 facilities. So --
21 (Simultaneous speaking.)
22 MR. CORRADINI: Bill?
23 MR. RECKLEY: Mike? Yeah. Go ahead.
24 MR. CORRADINI: So it's the inventory that 25 is the essence of their thinking it doesn't align? Or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 1 is it the way the designs are evolving that it doesn't 2 fit? Because based on what Dave said and what I 3 understand, the inventories for these large machines 4 will be significant. So what was their basis -- what 5 was their technical basis for saying it doesn't align?
6 MR. RECKLEY: Well, keep in mind, again, 7 that some of the developers have much smaller 8 machines, and some of them are proposing fusion 9 reactions that don't involve tritium. And so they 10 would see -- at least those developers would see that 11 even ITER would not represent what they think is the 12 risks.
13 Again, the staff's not making any 14 judgments at this point, but --
15 MR. CORRADINI: That's fine. But you've 16 answered my question. I forgot about that class of 17 machine. I should have remembered.
18 MR. RECKLEY: Dave?
19 MEMBER PETTI: Bill, just a question here.
20 In terms of utilization facilities, the TRIGA reactors 21 that sit at many of the universities, and there's one 22 at an Air Force base somewhere -- you guys regulate 23 those, right?
24 MR. RECKLEY: Yes, and they're under a 25 different class license. They're under the 104 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 1 research and test reactors. But yes, we regulate 2 those.
3 MEMBER PETTI: Okay. I mean, you know, 4 just the hazards, right? I mean, I'm sure there's a 5 fairly low hazard. So my view is there's lots of 6 flexibility with respect to hazard here that maybe the 7 fusion developers just don't appreciate the breadth of 8 regulation that you guys deal with.
9 MR. RECKLEY: Right.
10 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah.
11 MR. RECKLEY: And much of the concern goes 12 to this second bullet, which is the -- to some degree, 13 it's less technical. But one of the comments we got 14 specifically listed out kind of an assessment of what 15 comes along with calling it a utilization facility 16 beyond the technical reviews. And I already mentioned 17 mandatory hearings, so that's one.
18 Another is inclusion under financial 19 protection requirements, the Price-Anderson Act. Just 20 as an example, for a utilization facility over 300 21 megawatts electric or the equivalent, it's not only 22 the requirement that they have financial protection 23 against a potential release, but keep in mind under 24 Price-Anderson, it would also put them into secondary 25 pool, in which they would have to contribute if there NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 1 were an accident at another utilization facility, 2 meaning at a fission power plant.
3 There are restrictions because of the 4 history of utilization facilities and the use of 5 special nuclear material. There's limitations on 6 foreign ownership that come along with calling it a 7 utilization facility. I mentioned, again, the 8 licensing processes and mandatory hearings are defined 9 in the Act. So there are limitations in what we could 10 do on that administrative or licensing side. And if 11 it's a utilization facility, it does preclude 12 licensing by agreement states.
13 And then an observation, actually, from 14 the National Academy study is sort of a concern that 15 just to promote the development of the technology, 16 there needs to be a sense that the regulatory burden 17 is going to be commensurate with the risk. And 18 perception is that a utilization facility licensing 19 process is more onerous than it would need to be.
20 And so, again, these are largely the 21 feedback that we've gotten, so they're the 22 observations from stakeholders and including the 23 National Academy study. So that's basically where we 24 are in assessing utilization facilities.
25 MEMBER BROWN: Bill?
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33 1 MR. RECKLEY: Yes?
2 MEMBER BROWN: This is Charlie. When I 3 read the white paper that I guess you all developed, 4 you soft-pedaled -- I kind of read it -- maybe I'm 5 just being overly sensitive -- is that they viewed the 6 byproduct approach being allowing them to do things 7 with less oversight and less meddling by outside 8 activities and regulation. And that's why they were 9 really -- that's the way I read several of the 10 paragraphs in the white paper.
11 Maybe I'm just -- most people that develop 12 stuff would just as soon have nobody walking in and 13 out of their facilities and telling them how to do 14 things or what rules they have to follow, and that's 15 kind of the way I read it. Maybe I'm thinking about 16 it wrong, but --
17 MR. RECKLEY: I wouldn't disagree with the 18 premise, Charlie. I don't know I'd word it -- they 19 wouldn't word it exactly that way either, but --
20 MEMBER BROWN: Of course not.
21 MR. RECKLEY: -- but yes. And the 22 argument -- and I'm going to turn this discussion over 23 to Duncan White from NMSS to talk about byproduct 24 materials, but I think it's a perception that it's 25 less regulation. I think as Duncan's going to get NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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34 1 into, I'm not sure they fully appreciate the latitude 2 that we have to be intrusive, kind of using your term, 3 even for a materials licensee.
4 But with that, Duncan, are you on and 5 unmuted to take over?
6 (Simultaneous speaking.)
7 MEMBER BROWN: Can I ask one other thing 8 relative to that? The purpose is to develop 9 electrical power. And regulating based on byproduct 10 as opposed to utilization just seemed to be, again --
11 the intrusiveness or the approach -- power is power.
12 And byproducts are a material regulation as opposed to 13 generating what we really want to generate. Am I 14 thinking of that in the wrong direction, or --
15 MR. RECKLEY: Well, again, we're not 16 taking stands yet. But the only thing I would remind 17 people is that the structure that we have, based on 18 the history, the evolution, is production -- under 19 Part 50, we address production and utilization. And 20 what those facilities are producing or using is 21 special nuclear material, uranium, plutonium, so 22 forth, whereas fusion is not using those materials.
23 (Simultaneous speaking.)
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35 1 material. But just a distinction.
2 MEMBER BROWN: Okay. Thank you. Just a 3 slightly different perspective. That's all.
4 MR. RECKLEY: Right. Okay.
5 Duncan?
6 MR. WHITE: Yes. Good morning. I'm 7 Duncan White. I'm from the Office of Nuclear Material 8 Safety and Safeguards, and I'm going to talk about 9 byproduct materials.
10 Under this approach, the thing that is 11 frequently pointed out by industry that makes this 12 particularly applicable to this technology is that 13 when the Energy Policy Act was passed in 2005 and the 14 regulations were doctored by NRC in 2007, the -- we 15 included a definition of a particle accelerator.
16 Again, this was -- the purpose of the 17 Energy Policy Act was to add radium as a -- radium-226 18 as an isotope under NRC jurisdiction for security 19 purposes. But the other thing that was done at the 20 same time was there was an interest of regulating PET 21 isotopes to use in -- of course, use in medical 22 diagnostics. And they included the particle 23 accelerator definition in there, and there is one in 24 Part 30 for particle accelerators.
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36 1 material, Part 30 provides the basic framework for it, 2 and then there are additional parts from Part 31 to 3 Part 39 that are specific to different types of uses, 4 like radiography, well logging, commercial radiators.
5 Those who are not particularly a separate part, we 6 normally would use guidance as a means to do the 7 licensing for them.
8 I'll give you an example here on the third 9 bullet here. Volume 21, again, is specific to 10 materials used for accelerators. And again, just to 11 point out really clearly here, the NRC does not 12 actually regulate the accelerator per se, but it would 13 regulate the material produced by the accelerator.
14 For, again, the original intent back in '07, you would 15 have a particle accelerator that would hit a target.
16 We would regulate what's the target and the material 17 produced on the target and any activation products to 18 do that.
19 Bill talked about the flexibility in how 20 we do our licensing and the guidance, and again, our 21 approach to Part 30 does give us a lot of flexibility.
22 And again, in our design hazard analysis we'll trim 23 the scope of requirements for license use, again, be 24 it a portable gauge all the way up to a commercial 25 radiator or even a fusion energy system. But it would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 just be scaled up accordingly based on what's to be 2 regulated and what the risk and design needs are 3 particular to that.
4 Go to the next slide.
5 The scope of requirements here are on this 6 slide and the subsequent slides, what those particular 7 things are that we look at into Part 30 again. These 8 are the colorful topical areas we would look at and 9 how we would go through them.
10 But again, we should point out here 11 regardless of how -- if we use the byproduct approach, 12 the utilization or hybrid approach, we're going to be 13 asking for similar information to evaluate the hazards 14 for any fusion energy system. Again, be it a DOE 15 commercial or ITER type of thing, we're going to ask 16 a lot of similar questions.
17 And this gets back to, you know, Bill's 18 comment at the end before is that we can get very 19 intrusive and ask a lot of questions with regard to 20 Part 30 for licensing these things. Again, obviously, 21 for radionuclides, obviously we're looking at tritium 22 and activation products.
23 Just some things about emergency plans is 24 there is a requirement in Part 32 to require an 25 emergency plan if there's a potential to have an off-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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38 1 site dose of 1 REM, as we saw through the emergency or 2 critical accident.
3 There is a table in Part 30 that gives the 4 fault values where the applicant or licensee has to 5 consider that. And that threshold for tritium is two 6 grams. And, again, we have some R&D facilities out 7 there right now that are either using that amount or 8 plan to use about that amount, and they would have to 9 come in to look -- provide an analysis of what those 10 potential accidents would be, you know, least pathways 11 and such, to demonstrate that -- you know, why they 12 would not need an emergency plan.
13 Again, just because you're above two grams 14 doesn't mean you need an emergency plan. You have to 15 do the evaluation; demonstrate you're going to have 16 less than 1 REM at the boundary. If you're going to 17 be above 1 REM, then you have to have a full-blown 18 emergency plan.
19 And we do have -- there is one facility in 20 Massachusetts that does use large quantities of 21 tritium and does have an emergency plan. It's a 22 commercial manufacturer, and they do require -- they 23 do have an emergency plan for their tritium they have 24 on-site. So we have used this in the past.
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39 1 decommissioning is based on -- in large part based on 2 the possession limits for radionuclides. We have 3 training requirements. Again, for Part 30, we have a 4 named RSO and all licenses. You often have use -- and 5 anyone who's going to be using rad material and has to 6 do with -- they have -- are simply named on the 7 license or the requirements to use material is listed 8 on the license.
9 I'm sorry. Is there a question for Dr.
10 Petti or --
11 MR. CORRADINI: Just a quick question.
12 The example you said in Massachusetts with emergency 13 plans, are you allowed to say what the inventory is 14 that they had to develop or that is on-site?
15 MR. WHITE: Actually, I don't recall what 16 it currently is. It's changed over time.
17 MR. CORRADINI: So, in order of magnitude, 18 is it 10 grams, 100 grams --
19 (Simultaneous speaking.)
20 MR. WHITE: I think it's under 10 grams.
21 It's probably in the single-gram numbers.
22 MR. CORRADINI: Okay. Thank you.
23 MR. WHITE: Okay.
24 Dr. Petti?
25 MEMBER PETTI: Yes. My question is -- and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 1 again, this may not actually make sense legally. I 2 see this, you know, Part 30 utilization power reactors 3 sort of as a continuum. And when you -- you know, how 4 do you know when to go Part 30 versus utilization 5 versus reactors?
6 It sounds like the difference between Part 7 30 and utilization really is, are you using special 8 nuclear material? You know, if someone wanted to use 9 200 grams of tritium, could they come in under Part 10 30, or would they be pushed more towards a utilization 11 facility just because of the hazard of that much 12 tritium?
13 MR. WHITE: I think we would consider it 14 under Part 30, but again, that's something we would 15 have -- you know, again, what they're particularly 16 looking at. But no, we've never had to say something 17 like that.
18 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah. So there's no hard, 19 you know, criteria one way or the other; it's all sort 20 of case-by-case and looking at the whole facility and 21 what it's going to be doing and all that?
22 MR. WHITE: That's correct.
23 MEMBER PETTI: Okay.
24 MR. WHITE: Yeah. That's right.
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41 1 looking at facility design. Again, large number of 2 Part 30 licensing deals with particular uses, 3 material, particular devices. But the one description 4 that really stands out, and it's been probably the 5 closest we have analogy to a fusion energy system of 6 a large facility -- you know, a facility that may be 7 engaging in here -- is a commercial radiator is the 8 way that facility is licensed. It's licensed as a 9 facility.
10 Again, it's a whole integrated approach to 11 ensuring the safeties and protection of workers and 12 the public from, often, millions of curies of cobalt 13 that are used in the pool.
14 Going to the next slide --
15 MEMBER REMPE: Actually, before you leave 16 that slide, I have a question. Again, I'm not a 17 fusion expert. But I am wondering about site 18 requirements, size of the site with respect to how 19 much waste is produced and the need to be shipped 20 somewhere and how soon that shipping would need to 21 occur, and the facilities that would be able to 22 receive it, since Part 53 is supposed to be looking at 23 the whole life cycle.
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42 1 just kind of thinking, is there going to be some 2 additional concerns that ought to be considered in the 3 site itself?
4 MR. WHITE: That's a great question, and 5 it's going to be a point later on. In these set of 6 slides, I will be covering waste, and I'll be happy to 7 try to address your question there.
8 MEMBER REMPE: Sounds good. Thank you.
9 MR. WHITE: Okay.
10 Again, go to the next slide.
11 Again, important aspect of Part 30, 12 obviously -- and again, it'll be under Part 50 --
13 would be the Radiation Safety Program for workers on-14 site, for the public, and again, part of this safety 15 programs is operating emergency procedures. And 16 again, what you see listed up there is some of the 17 ones may be considered here.
18 Again, the number of procedures may be 19 extensive, and we'd expect so for a fusion energy 20 system to be -- required to be licensed. And these 21 procedures, again, a key one would be, obviously, 22 inspection and maintenance. Again, with the comps and 23 the complexity of some of these machines being talked 24 about, the rather extensive plans will have to be 25 reviewed for that. And again, under Part 30 -- we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 1 look at this all the time. Again, the analogy under 2 Part 30, current way to do this is for commercial 3 radiators.
4 Again, inspection and maintenance is 5 critical to the safe operation and continuing 6 operation of those facilities because of the high --
7 again, there they have high gamma fields that do play 8 havoc with equipment.
9 We mentioned testing requirements. We 10 mentioned before there -- again, under Part 30 and 11 similar requirements of radiography radiators sources, 12 there are agency standards and all sorts of third-13 party standards that have to be met. Again, these are 14 all -- would be covered and, again, required here too.
15 Again, another area would be, obviously, 16 routine safety audits, routine -- other routine 17 audits, and programs like that.
18 Yes, question?
19 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Duncan, yes. This is 20 Walt Kirchner. Have you any experience with 21 facilities that have associated chemical hazards and 22 byproduct materials as well?
23 MR. WHITE: Yes. That's on the next 24 slide, actually.
25 (Simultaneous speaking.)
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44 1 MR. WHITE: Great question. Great 2 question.
3 Okay. Let's go to the next slide since I 4 keep putting them off.
5 One of the questions asked about was waste 6 management. Again, these fusion facilities will 7 produce waste. Waste is considered part of their 8 inventory. They have to have their space to do that.
9 For example, one of the unique things that 10 you will have at a fusion facility is you're going to 11 have activated components. Those could be quite 12 radioactive, depending on what they're made of and how 13 long they're in the fields, in the neutron fields.
14 They have to be stored, safely stored. They have to 15 have a place to put them.
16 And to get back to questioning, that will 17 be done when licensing. Again, the licensee, the 18 applicant, would have to come in and demonstrate how 19 they're going to do that, how they're going to handle 20 that, before we'd issue the license.
21 Again, having spent a summer at a DOE 22 facility where they have accelerators, they had a 23 whole plot of land where they kept this stuff. And it 24 was cordoned off, it was controlled, and they had 25 maintained the area until they could properly dispose NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 1 of it or recycle it.
2 MR. CORRADINI: So, Duncan, this is 3 Corradini. You don't have to go back, but to kind of 4 follow on Walt's question and Dave's, are there 5 current facilities under Part 30 that are licensed 6 that not only have large inventories, as you were 7 talking, cobalt radiators, but also generate half the 8 deal with residual heat simultaneously as well as 9 other hazards?
10 It's the combination of the three to me 11 that make the fusion facility unique compared to some 12 of the examples that you were identifying for us.
13 MR. WHITE: Yes. There really isn't 14 anything to these -- with these scales. There are 15 small -- again, accelerators do -- there are small 16 accelerators, like used in PET facilities, that do 17 generate -- the device itself becomes activated.
18 There are some R&D facilities that do use 19 accelerators that use part of the building that do --
20 they have a similar type of, you know -- similar type 21 of waste and similar type of activities which make it 22 somewhat analogous here to fusion energy. But, again, 23 what's really being anticipated, no, there's nothing 24 -- I can't think of anything that's to that scale.
25 Again, this is what does make it unique is that --
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46 1 MR. CORRADINI: Okay. Thank you so much.
2 MR. WHITE: Yeah.
3 MEMBER HALNON: Duncan, this is Greg 4 Halnon. On the security aspect, what is the -- does 5 Part 30 encompass the security, or would you look at 6 Part 73 as part of the --
7 MR. WHITE: The way the materials work is 8 we do -- Part 37 of the regulation does deal with 9 material security. It is focused around the IAEA 10 isotopes that are -- there are 20 of those. Tritium 11 is not listed as one of them. So, from a security 12 standpoint, there wouldn't be a particular special 13 requirement beyond that. There is general security 14 requirements in Part 20 that would absolutely apply 15 here.
16 The other thing, obviously, that has been 17 raised by National Academy and has been raised 18 elsewhere is, obviously, when we deal with tritium and 19 large quantities of tritium, you're dealing with -- it 20 may -- that could be considered preparation concerns.
21 And that's something that's raised and the working 22 group's aware of.
23 But the way the current Part 30 license 24 regulatory structure is, material security is tied to 25 20 radionuclides and over certain quantities, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 1 tritium is not one of them right now.
2 MEMBER REMPE: So, with respect to the 3 waste management -- this is a little different than my 4 concern with the microreactors where there may not be 5 a place available that's licensed to take them and 6 take the lid off and take the fuel out and things like 7 that. They'll come in with a license, saying, we're 8 ready to go, and -- power production -- and let's send 9 it somewhere later.
10 Is there a place that can handle the waste 11 that's downstream, the large amount of waste that 12 would be associated with a power production facility 13 for a fusion reactor is what I'm curious about, 14 because if they say, oh, we'll ship it later, that's 15 okay with the current fleet, I guess, because we found 16 a way to deal with the instances on-site when they 17 didn't have a place to ship it to later.
18 But I'm just wondering if the NRC will let 19 that happen again, or is there a place that can handle 20 this so this isn't a concern with fusion is what I'm 21 trying to get to, if that makes sense.
22 MR. WHITE: It does. There are commercial 23 waste facilities out there that will take this waste 24 material for a price, of course. That's a viable 25 option. It's not cheap; it's very expensive.
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48 1 What people sometimes have done with 2 certain radiated components, they have recycled 3 material. For example, some material has been 4 recycled -- we've had cases where we've had 5 contaminated metal from inadvertent source meltings 6 and stuff, and some of that material ended up in 7 shielding at DOE facilities.
8 So there's ways to recycle some of this 9 material, but there are also other ways to -- there 10 are low-level waste disposal options for this, for 11 these --
12 (Simultaneous speaking.)
13 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, as long as they can 14 handle that capacity. I knew there were ways to do 15 it, but I didn't know --
16 MR. WHITE: Yeah.
17 MEMBER REMPE: -- if we'd be suddenly 18 flooding the system.
19 MEMBER PETTI: So, Joy, for the power 20 reactors, it's unclear, but there's a big push in the 21 community to develop what are called low-activation 22 materials so that they will all qualify for shallow 23 land burial. And that's all about the impurities in 24 these materials.
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49 1 material, but there are steels that are low activation 2 and there are other materials that qualify. And 3 that's where the push is to see if those materials 4 will perform the functions they need to do infusion.
5 But at the end, all you'd have is material in shallow 6 land burial.
7 Now, it is a lot of material when you look 8 at the power reactor. And so there's also been work 9 to look at recycling, but, you know, that's way down 10 the line. But that's --
11 MEMBER REMPE: It's way down the line, but 12 you've got to think about it with the way that Part 13 53's looking. And, again, the capacity is what I was 14 curious about. But if they can have a credible path, 15 then that needs to be established that they need to 16 think about that in this Part 53.
17 MR. WHITE: Yeah. That's true. One of 18 the things, too, with waste at fusion facilities, 19 again, is how much waste are you really going to 20 generate? If you take away the components, you know, 21 there's -- you're getting the tritium, and lots of 22 tritium. And tritium, as everyone knows, has a 23 propensity to absorb into a lot of things, metals, 24 everything. And how much waste will be generated?
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50 1 process, is there enough space to do that? Is there 2 a place to send all this stuff? That has to be 3 considered.
4 Regarding byproduct material -- was there 5 a question?
6 MR. RECKLEY: No, I was just going to say 7 Scott Moore has had his hand up.
8 MR. WHITE: Oh, I'm sorry.
9 Go, Scott.
10 MR. MOORE: Thanks, Duncan. It's good to 11 hear from you, Duncan.
12 Part 34 of the members is also unique in 13 one way, and it's that -- for the ACRS. And it's that 14 the ACRS's scope does not extend to Part 30. The 15 ACRS's scope only extends to reactors and waste. So 16 the only way that a Part 30 action could be reviewed 17 by the Committee would be if the Commission or the 18 staff referred it to the Committee. And so that's a 19 point for the Committee to consider.
20 That's it, Duncan. Back to you.
21 MR. WHITE: Thank you, Scott --
22 MEMBER BIER: I have a quick question 23 also. This is Vicki Bier. And this may be too far 24 into the weeds of the science. Maybe it'll come up at 25 a later time. But I just wanted to understand, with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 1 regard to material damage at operating fusion power 2 reactors, is there a thought that that might require 3 sort of more and more intense regulatory oversight 4 than what we have at fission reactors on the material 5 side at -- either because of risk or because of, kind 6 of, the uncertainty about the risk?
7 MR. WHITE: Bill, you want to take that 8 one?
9 MR. RECKLEY: I think that we'll have to 10 look at that, and as -- where they are now -- and Dr.
11 Petti mentioned they're researching materials. So all 12 of that would have to be considered.
13 So I'm not sure I can say it would be more 14 so, but certainly it's going to be an area that we 15 have to look at because an option to use better 16 material, as Dave mentioned, would be to actually put 17 constraints on when do you need to stop operation, 18 maybe replace components, because you want to keep 19 under a certain activation level.
20 But all of those things are kind of in 21 play right now. So I'm sorry I don't have a specific 22 --
23 MEMBER BIER: No, that's fine. Just 24 making sure it's kind of on the radar and whatever.
25 Thanks.
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52 1 MR. RECKLEY: Diego, you had a comment?
2 MR. SAENZ: Yeah. This is Diego Saenz, 3 and some of you may know me from when I worked at the 4 NRC. I did a lot of MELLA+ presentations. Now I'm 5 with the state of Wisconsin as the agreement state 6 representative, one of two.
7 But I wanted to contextualize something 8 for folks because I'm not sure this has been fully 9 appreciated. So NEIMA uses the term fusion reactor, 10 but that is not defined anywhere. And I also don't 11 think it lends itself to the self-sustained or 12 critical mass type quantity that we have with 13 utilization facilities.
14 So there's actually been quite a bit of --
15 I don't know if concern or anxiety, but if this were 16 to go forward, I know the ACRS is thinking a lot about 17 this ITER type and power facilities, but it's not 18 clear to me that this wouldn't just swallow everything 19 where fusion occurs. And that's where there's a lot 20 of concern.
21 So I think that there's been some 22 misunderstanding of the industry's concerns because I 23 think that they're -- they are thinking of these type 24 of devices, for example, those that we have currently 25 licensed in Wisconsin, which, as Bill talked -- it's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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53 1 an accelerator, and we license that tritium and those 2 activation products. But there is no risk of, you 3 know, self-sustained reaction or something like this.
4 These are --
5 (Simultaneous speaking.)
6 MR. SAENZ: Yeah. Go ahead.
7 MR. CORRADINI: So this is Corradini. Are 8 you talking about the Phoenix nuclear accelerators?
9 MR. SAENZ: Yeah.
10 MR. CORRADINI: Okay. So I guess I'm 11 aware of that, but when I put such a device in 12 combination with a subcritical solution, which you'd 13 find in SHINE, for example, then it falls into --
14 well, the rule has changed for it, but it seems to 15 logically fall into a utilization site.
16 I understand where you're coming from, but 17 as the systems get more complex, that's, I think, 18 where the hesitancy is by some of the members.
19 MR. SAENZ: Yes. So, to contextualize 20 this for you -- so you're aware of that. So imagine 21 that same device, they now want to do neutron 22 radiography. And that's what we've licensed them to 23 do. So not at SHINE, in other sites -- and even SHINE 24 has now come forward with a -- has requested a license 25 from our state for R&D, and we have licensed them to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 1 do R&D work. So that's currently licensed. So 2 that's --
3 (Simultaneous speaking.)
4 MR. CORRADINI: I just want to make sure 5 I understood the context of your example.
6 MR. SAENZ: Yeah. So the context -- and 7 that's a perfect example. They want to do neutron 8 radiography. They have no intention of being power 9 positive or anything like that, but they just want the 10 neutrons, again, for a different purpose.
11 So, in SHINE, they're using it to maintain 12 the subcritical configuration. But they see benefit 13 in using those for radiography. And there's some 14 concern that those would get swallowed up into Part 53 15 and, you know, into mandatory hearings and to all of 16 these things for devices that -- you know, frankly, 17 that is a huge burden for that scale of operation.
18 Thanks.
19 MR. WHITE: Thanks, Diego. Continuing on, 20 with regard to -- I'm sorry. Go back one slide. I'm 21 sorry.
22 (Simultaneous speaking.)
23 MEMBER KIRCHNER: -- going to ask, Duncan, 24 if you could address systems with chemical hazards, in 25 particular --
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55 1 (Simultaneous speaking.)
2 MR. WHITE: I remembered your question.
3 I was going to get there. Yes.
4 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Thank you.
5 MR. WHITE: Okay.
6 With regard to Part 30 and environmental 7 protection requirements in Part 51, again, licensing 8 for Part 30 does have to comply with Part 51. The 9 large majority of material uses are categorically 10 exempt under Part 51. There are some exceptions to 11 that. And, of course, their fusion is not covered --
12 currently not covered under Part 51 at all. So, 13 again, looked at it today. One would have to probably 14 look -- consider NEPA requirements with regard to a 15 fusion application to Part 30.
16 Some of the other hazards -- one of the 17 things was, yes, under Part 30, we do look at some 18 non-radiological and how they could impact the use of 19 their material. A good example, I think, of this is 20 with commercial radiator facilities. There are 21 limitations written into license that only allow the 22 radiation of only very small quantities of certain 23 chemicals, certain volatile chemicals and certain 24 other materials because of the potential fire hazard.
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56 1 the early days where they had some serious fires and 2 damages to radiators. And again, this is why this is 3 important, because commercial radiators do radiate a 4 number of surgical and medical products, which are 5 often kept in small quantities of chemical solutions 6 to keep them clean.
7 Also, one of the main fusion designs, the 8 inertial ones, use a lot of lasers, high-powered 9 lasers. And, of course, that would have to be 10 considered again when we're evaluating their use, the 11 use and how it impacts the radioactive material and 12 their safety systems within a facility.
13 Now, going to the next slide, I think 14 we've covered --
15 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Before you go on, 16 Duncan, this might be in the weeds, but I was looking 17 over your list of things, and one that comes to mind 18 is fire safety.
19 MR. WHITE: Yeah.
20 MEMBER KIRCHNER: So that's another factor 21 that looms pretty large with any system that would 22 have a significant inventory, particularly of tritium 23 or activated products, and/or using unique chemical 24 coolant systems, some that may be flammable and/or 25 toxic.
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57 1 MR. WHITE: Agreed. That's -- and, again, 2 we've seen such a wide range of designs out there and 3 proposed designs that that's something we'd have to 4 consider. That's why it's listed up there, because 5 we'd have to look at that and consider that when we do 6 the licensing. And it doesn't matter if you're doing 7 it under byproduct or utilization or hybrid approach.
8 You're going to have to do that evaluation.
9 Back to regulation, I think we've covered 10 most of this already. With regard to DOE and NEIMA, 11 there is an instruction to have a pilot project up by 12 the end of this decade. Again, that facility may or 13 may not be built on a DOE facility. If it is, it 14 would be under DOE regulatory oversight.
15 We've talked a lot about agreement states, 16 and Diego addressed a lot of this already. Again, 17 some of you probably -- most of you probably already 18 know agreement states do assume regulatory authority 19 from the NRC. NRC discontinues their authority. This 20 is based on Section 274 of the Atomic Energy Act.
21 And this would encompass fusion research 22 facilities. And, in fact, Diego mentioned that 23 Wisconsin does regulate Phoenix and some of their 24 work. There's also been other fusion work that's been 25 under agreement state jurisdiction for a while.
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58 1 There's the LLE at University of Rochester in New 2 York. There's a couple facilities in California. And 3 one thing that's being looked at and planned right now 4 is the Commonwealth Fusion System's SPARC facility, 5 which is -- they're talking to the Commonwealth of 6 Massachusetts right now to build that facility under 7 a byproduct license. Working on that now.
8 So we do have -- the bottom line is we do 9 have some experience here. The agreement states have 10 some experience here with working with fusion research 11 facilities, some commercial facilities. So that's 12 kind of -- and their participation in this working 13 group has been very helpful in terms of kind of 14 helping us, looking at the breadth of activities that 15 need to be done and some of the challenges common to 16 licensee facilities and some of the regulatory aspects 17 of it.
18 Okay. We'll go to the next slide.
19 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Duncan, this is Walt 20 Kirchner again. When the agreement states do that, do 21 they typically use Part 30 as the outline, or 22 something comparable?
23 MR. WHITE: Yes. Yes, they do. Agreement 24 states have to have compatible regulations to NRC, so 25 they have equivalent Part 30 in their regulations. So NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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59 1 they would follow that approach.
2 A number of agreement -- the guidance 3 documents I mentioned in earlier slides, the NUREG-4 1556, those are jointly developed with the agreement 5 states. And a number of agreement states either use 6 those guides or use very similar ones where they 7 insert -- basically, they insert their requirements 8 instead of the NRC requirements in there.
9 So agreement states generally use the same 10 approach that we would do. Again, there may be site 11 differences from state to state, but for the most 12 part, they use the same general approach that we do 13 for licensing byproduct material.
14 Then feedback we've gotten on this 15 approach, as Bill previously mentioned, industry and 16 the developers are very keen on the byproduct material 17 approach. Again, a thing that they point out numerous 18 times is how similar it is to accelerator provisions.
19 One thing that we have -- and, again, they 20 point out that Part 30 is designed for byproduct 21 material, what tritium is. It's not a fission 22 reactor. And, again, this is generally how they're 23 selling and approaching this.
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60 1 that agreement states do have experience with 2 licensing and inspecting fusion activities. In the 3 previous slide, we mentioned a few of those.
4 So I think the next -- I think we're going 5 to move into the hybrids discussion next. Are there 6 any more questions on byproduct?
7 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah, hold on. Just --
8 this is when we usually take our break, so this might 9 be a good spot as you finish the slide. But we take 10 our usual 20-minute break. So why don't we do that 11 and go into recess and reconvene at 20 after the hour?
12 CHAIR SUNSERI: That sounds good to me, 13 Dave.
14 (Simultaneous speaking.)
15 CHAIR SUNSERI: -- if that's okay with the 16 presenter.
17 MR. WHITE: Yes.
18 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay. So we'll recess 19 till 20 after. Thank you.
20 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 21 off the record at 11:00 a.m. and resumed at 11:21 22 a.m.)
23 CHAIR SUNSERI: So, we are ready to 24 reconvene. We will continue on with the fusion 25 discussion. Dave?
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61 1 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah. I don't know who's 2 talking. Is that Bill now? Are we back to Bill? Or 3 do I --
4 MR. RECKLEY: Yes, we did. Yep, this is 5 Bill Reckley again. So, we'll finish out with the --
6 with the last of the possible approaches we've 7 identified today for the options paper.
8 And it basically involves either 9 developing a new or taking a hybrid approach that 10 would try to take advantage of existing frameworks.
11 That includes those developed by the NRC for various 12 types of licenses, approaches taken by DOE, and 13 appropriate role for the Agreement States.
14 We would try to make it a graded approach, 15 looking at the hazard and the potential for 16 radiological releases. It's kind of a graded approach 17 is what we would set out to establish.
18 As I mentioned earlier, we would look to 19 try to make this technology inclusive for all the 20 different potential fusion designs, all the potential 21 fusion reactions that are being investigated.
22 And to try to reach that appropriate 23 balance where we're looking at the hazards and the 24 risks. And then the associated regulatory processes 25 that a license -- that an applicant would face.
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62 1 And try to make sure that the regulatory 2 process is not somehow out of sync with what we're 3 trying to accomplish in terms of public health and 4 safety.
5 So, the first of the two hybrid 6 approaches, when we presented this at a stakeholder 7 meeting, and it might have been better terminology, 8 but we called this a fragmented approach.
9 Where we would look at a potential 10 applicant, and have some kind of decision criteria.
11 This would go to, as we've discussed before, 12 inventories of tritium, or other radionuclides.
13 It may involve an actual calculation of 14 potential offsite consequences. But, come up with 15 some decision criteria and use that to channel that 16 application either to a byproduct material process 17 using the regulations largely as they exist now under 18 Part 30.
19 Or, if the decision criteria went the 20 other way, then the application would be channeled to 21 Part 53. And would be treated as a utilization 22 facility.
23 So, this -- this would result in the end 24 in at least the potential for some fusion energy 25 systems to be licensed under byproduct material, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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63 1 other fusion energy systems to be treated as a 2 utilization facility.
3 The other hybrid approach that we've 4 talked about, is where we focus on trying to 5 consolidate all fusion energy systems under one set of 6 regulations. And acknowledge that the variety of 7 technologies include a range of hazards and potential 8 consequences.
9 And we tried to grade the requirements.
10 And Duncan had gone through, you know, the ability to 11 set different thresholds for different regulatory 12 activities, including emergency planning and financial 13 protection.
14 The potential that we're going to get into 15 in Part 53 discussions going forward. You know, the 16 personnel and the requirements on potential licensing 17 or other requirements on personnel.
18 All of those things could be graded under 19 basically what would become a new regulation.
20 Potentially even a whole new Part.
21 So, just a working number. I sometimes 22 refer to this as Part 45. Somewhere between materials 23 and utilization facilities.
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64 1 consideration.
2 So, the feedback that we've gotten has 3 been limited for the hybrid model. I don't -- I'm not 4 sure many stakeholders have thought this all the way 5 through.
6 And the staff is still kind of 7 contemplating what could be associated with this.
8 This would also be an area or an approach that could 9 involve us going back to Congress and suggesting that 10 an actual change to the Atomic Energy Act would 11 facilitate us going forward.
12 I had mentioned before, there are some --
13 some issues trying to fit these into a utilization 14 facility, given the long history of utilization 15 facilities being really focused on special nuclear 16 material.
17 There's also some questions on whether all 18 the fusion technologies really fit kind of a 19 definition for an accelerator. Which was the, as 20 Duncan mentioned, which was the change to the Act in 21 2005 to include byproduct material produced by an 22 accelerator.
23 And there's been some discussion. And 24 back and forth as to whether various fusion 25 technologies actually are accelerators.
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65 1 The --
2 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Bill, This is Walt. If 3 I might just interject since I spend a lot of time 4 following EPAC 2005.
5 Those revisions were written specifically 6 with medical isotopes in mind. Production of the 7 radioisotopes for medical applications.
8 Perhaps the language is more generic than 9 that. But, certainly there was no consideration of a, 10 say a laser driven fusion system in the writing of 11 EPAC 2005.
12 MR. RECKLEY: And yeah, that goes -- thank 13 you. Walt. That goes largely to the point. That when 14 Congress was putting that language in, they didn't 15 have this in mind.
16 So, the question both from a technical and 17 legal assessment, will be whether there's enough 18 wiggle room in the language that they did put in, to 19 include fusion energy systems.
20 And that's an ongoing -- that's an ongoing 21 assessment that we have. The hybrid approach would 22 give us an opportunity to tailor the requirements to 23 the radiological hazards.
24 We can do that within Part 30. And as 25 Dave mentioned, we have the ability to do graded NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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66 1 approaches even for utilization facilities and the 2 technical reviews.
3 But, this we could actually write for the 4 specific hazards. And write the regulations in the --
5 using the terminology that fusion uses in terms of, 6 you know they don't -- they don't typically refer for 7 example to decay heat.
8 It's after heat or something to reflect 9 that the -- that the array -- that that phenomena is 10 associated with the irradiation of the structures and 11 so forth.
12 And so, in terms of the potential hazards 13 that you -- that we could write this part, if we write 14 a new part, in terms of threats, not threats. That's 15 the wrong word.
16 Potential sequences involving you know, 17 magnetic transients and dust, and as Dave mentioned, 18 focus on, particularly on things like the tritium 19 breeding blanket.
20 Just -- there's a whole bunch of things 21 that are different about these machines. And if we 22 started from scratch, we could -- we could tailor the 23 requirements to those hazards and to the actual 24 underlying technology.
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67 1 the hybrid model could work. And it was seen as 2 favorable by some.
3 But, I think those that would favor it 4 would not foresee some of the things in the Act from 5 the utilization facilities carrying over to this 6 hybrid. Things like applicability of Price Anderson 7 foreign ownership.
8 And maybe even ACRS review as Scott 9 pointed out. That's required in the Act for 10 utilization facilities, but not for byproduct 11 materials.
12 So, in summary, we are still closer to the 13 beginning then the end of this assessment. We're 14 looking at designs and technologies and hazards to try 15 to determine the right scope.
16 As Duncan mentioned, and I think it is 17 worthy of repeating and emphasizing, regardless of the 18 approach, we're going to be looking, technically we're 19 going to be looking basically at the same -- the same 20 information or requesting the same information in 21 order to make a safety judgement.
22 And that goes to the inventories, and the 23 energies that can drive the releases and so forth.
24 So, that would be done under any of the three options 25 that we talked about.
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68 1 And in the end, the Commission is the 2 decision maker. So, the product that we're currently 3 working on, that we've been assigned, is to develop 4 options for Commission considerations.
5 And we just thought that this would be a 6 good thing to come today, kind of talk to you about 7 where we are, what we're developing. Set out that --
8 that the schedule would be this fall.
9 Perhaps as early as this fall we would 10 have a draft of the paper that we would be preparing 11 to send up to the Commission.
12 And I think that the ACRS review of that 13 would be a good thing. And that we were planning on 14 it.
15 The other question about whether you would 16 want additional information, and we can line up people 17 from DOE or Idaho, or even individual developers, to 18 go into more discussion of the hazards and the safety 19 assessments.
20 You know, I'll leave that open, and you 21 can get back to us if you would have any interest in 22 us setting that up.
23 So, go ahead, Dave.
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69 1 you had talked about.
2 The key is the decision criteria, right?
3 What puts you on the road to Part -- to Part 30 versus 4 utilization facility?
5 That's where, I think, the rubber will 6 meet the road.
7 MR. RECKLEY: Yeah. If we reduce the 8 existing frameworks, and actually bifurcate, and treat 9 some, one way and the others, the other way, then it 10 would be very important to have.
11 And you do have to look, to be honest, you 12 have to look at when you set stuff up like that, do 13 you set out unintended consequences. Right?
14 So, you set that limit on X grams of 15 tritium. And then have applicants start to try to 16 gauge the whole technology to keep below that 17 threshold.
18 That might be an okay thing. But, it's 19 something to think about.
20 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah. But, I mean, even --
21 even in a graded approach, I mean, we -- mentally we 22 still have to have to have some sort of criteria on 23 how to figure out how to grade.
24 MR. RECKLEY: Right.
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70 1 licensing framework, right? Because there is a point 2 at which, you know, the hazards get significant when 3 you get lots of neutrons.
4 And you know, holding the plasma for under 5 a second is not an issue from a neutron standpoint.
6 But, holding it for about 15 minutes or a bit longer, 7 I can see, you know, you're going to start to activate 8 stuff.
9 And so you've got to worry, again, more 10 worker safety issues than public safety. But again, 11 important in addition to the tritium inventories.
12 MR. RECKLEY: Right. And again, as we've 13 gotten the feedback from stakeholders, one of the --
14 you know, one of the things to consider and one of the 15 things that consolidated approach, like the Part 45 16 approach could do, perhaps better than the bifurcated 17 either Part 53 or Part 30, is that distinction in what 18 comes with a utilization facility?
19 All of those legal requirements like Price 20 Anderson mandatory hearings, foreign ownership, those 21 restrictions, are they appropriate? Would people --
22 but again, the nice thing about where we are, is we 23 only have to point these things out at this point, for 24 the Commission to consider.
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71 1 developing a recommendation for them. But, we don't 2 have to solve all these problems right now.
3 We only have to identify them, say there's 4 a path to resolution, and what that might be for the 5 staff -- for the Commission to make a decision.
6 And then once they decide and tell us what 7 path to do on, we'd have to work out, no matter what 8 they decide, there's a whole bunch of details that 9 we're going to have to work out, as you've mentioned.
10 MEMBER PETTI: Okay. And is one path 11 seen, the amount of path just about the same? Or do 12 you think it's different?
13 MR. KRAFT: Bob, -- Bob, Steve Kraft. I 14 had my hand up. Sorry. Yeah, so I'll make this quick.
15 I think something that NRC needs to think 16 about, in the definition of advanced reactor, I went 17 back and looked at the staff --
18 (Simultaneous speaking) 19 MEMBER REMPE: So, there is someone on the 20 public line who is talking on the phone who needs to 21 mute himself now.
22 MR. KRAFT: I just believe that -- only 23 saying what Jeff said earlier.
24 MEMBER PETTI: Can we please mute the 25 public line?
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72 1 (Simultaneous speaking) 2 MR. KRAFT: In one respect, because of the 3 phrase such as. And I don't know how that can --
4 (Stopped public line) 5 MR. RECKLEY: Okay. I'm not sure at this 6 point, Dave, that we've made a distinction yet. And 7 it will be part of what we have to assess, is whether 8 any of those three options would be easier or harder.
9 I think in terms of time and level of 10 effort, probably developing a whole new part would be 11 the most extensive.
12 MEMBER PETTI: All right.
13 MR. RECKLEY: And that -- that usually is 14 the case, right?
15 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah. Yeah.
16 MR. RECKLEY: It might be the best answer.
17 I mean, if you ignore everything else, it might be the 18 best answer, because it could be -- everything could 19 be tailored to the technology and the hazards.
20 But, it also would be the most resource 21 intensive, so.
22 MEMBER PETTI: Right. But, that's part of 23 the paper you put will --
24 MR. RECKLEY: Right.
25 MEMBER PETTI: Flush that out.
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73 1 MR. RECKLEY: Right.
2 MEMBER PETTI: Great. Okay.
3 MR. RECKLEY: Right.
4 MEMBER PETTI: Thank you. That helps.
5 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Dave, this is Walt. You 6 know, one thing that occurs to me is that if you could 7 do Part 45, quote/unquote, that would cut lose the 8 staff from all the complications that trying to make 9 53 so inclusive that it includes fusion machines.
10 It would just -- it seems to me it would 11 make life simpler for the staff for -- getting to 12 closure on 53, if it could be cut loose from the 13 requirements to address fusion and public 14 considerations of the fusion machine in 53.
15 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah. I kind of thought 16 about that too.
17 MR. RECKLEY: Given I have a foot in both 18 camps, I think about it a lot, so. And it's a good --
19 it's a good point, Walt.
20 And that will also be something that we 21 would bring out later.
22 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Well, the other thing --
23 I guess it's not my place. This would be one member's 24 opinion, and not a recommendation from the Committee.
25 That Bill, that time is -- you're under a, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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74 1 already for 53, under a tight schedule with direction 2 from the Commissioners.
3 Realistically, a fusion reactor is still 4 a while off.
5 MR. RECKLEY: Yeah.
6 MEMBER KIRCHNER: To have it to the number 7 of advanced fission reactors that are potentially on 8 your plate already. And more may be coming.
9 So, I think a consideration of realistic 10 timing as to when a commercial fusion reactor that 11 could actually generate electric, would be available 12 to connect with the grid, is well off.
13 I don't want to debate how far well off 14 is. But it's certainly not near, anywhere near the 15 schedule that you're working against to complete 53.
16 MR. RECKLEY: Right. And yeah, just to 17 reinforce, the stakeholders generally, the fusion 18 related stakeholders basically agree that there's no 19 need for an aggress -- as aggressive a schedule for 20 fusion as there is for the advanced reactors on the 21 fusion side.
22 And just for calibration point, the 23 national academy study, when it was laying out what 24 would be an aggressive schedule to get a pilot plant 25 up to actually make electricity, was looking at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 1 period between 2035 and 2040, so.
2 Any other questions?
3 (No response) 4 MR. RECKLEY: Okay.
5 MEMBER PETTI: I guess not. Then I guess 6 we can open up the line for public comment now.
7 MR. DASHIELL: The public bridge line is 8 open for comments. So, please make sure you unmute 9 your device before speaking.
10 CHAIR SUNSERI: Go ahead Dave, make your 11 request again.
12 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah. Anybody on the 13 public line wish to make a comment?
14 CHAIR SUNSERI: It looks like somebody is 15 trying to talk, but I can't hear anything.
16 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah. I don't hear 17 anything either.
18 CHAIR SUNSERI: Well, this is the kind of 19 technical challenge we encounter when we are forced to 20 mute the public line because of disruption.
21 So, at this point, I would say it looks 22 like somebody is trying to say something. But, we're 23 not going to be able to get them connected.
24 So, anybody that's interested in making 25 some remarks, can provide those in writing to us. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 1 we will include them with the record of this meeting.
2 Go ahead Dave. Back to you.
3 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah. No, I think I'm 4 going to thank Bill. I think this helps kind of put 5 the whole fusion thing in a better context.
6 It's a difficult task given the really 7 wide range of facilities, both in terms of the 8 technologies, but in also the emissions.
9 When you're talking about a facility that 10 would hold a plasma for under one second versus 11 something, you know, steady state, there's huge 12 differences.
13 And that's the real challenge. And I 14 think Bill, you guys have done a good job at sort of 15 laying that out, and laying out the options, so.
16 MEMBER HALNON: Hey Dave, this is Greg 17 Halnon, just one more quick, if I could?
18 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah.
19 MEMBER HALNON: Just my opinion is the 20 statement on slide 21 kind of says it all. And I'll 21 just read it.
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77 1 something into a regulation that maybe or possibly 2 covers all the aspects.
3 I really think that in my opinion, we need 4 to keep nuclear, especially new technologies such as 5 fusion, and the potential unique hazards, in the 6 forefront from specific regulations. So, as we go 7 forward, we can talk more about that.
8 But, the second thing, there was an offer 9 for some of us novices in fusion to get some 10 additional training and oral presentations of the 11 different technologies.
12 I for one would vote that I could use 13 that. You know, I know very little bit about fusion.
14 Enough to know that it's opposite of fission.
15 But, other than that, I could use some 16 tutoring on the emerging technologies. So, as we go 17 forward, that might just be one vote for out of many.
18 MEMBER PETTI: Okay. Thanks. Any other 19 members?
20 (No response) 21 MEMBER PETTI: Okay. Then I turn it back 22 to you Matt.
23 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay. Thank you, Dave.
24 And thank you to this staff. And Bill, I don't --
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78 1 do this.
2 But, you're quite amazing. So, thank you 3 for hanging in there with us for a day and a half now 4 on some very technical stuff.
5 We are -- can do a transition here. Let 6 me check with Dennis Bley. Dennis, are you and Derek 7 prepared to start, to continue reviewing the draft 8 letter report on -- interim report to Part 53?
9 MEMBER BLEY: Sure.
10 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay. Well, let's make 11 that transition then. And we will work on this until 12 1:30. And then at 1:30, we'll take a lunch break.
13 So, I guess we'll turn it to you.
14 MEMBER BLEY: Okay. Before you do, I know 15 we had a break not too long ago. Maybe we could take 16 a short break before we get into this.
17 I don't know if Derek would too?
18 MR. WIDMAYER: Yeah. I second that.
19 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay. We need some time 20 to get this -- the stuff up. So, we'll take a what?
21 Ten minutes?
22 So, we'll start at 12:00? We'll recess 23 until 12:00. We'll reconvene at 12:00.
24 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 25 off the record at 11:48 a.m.)
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Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Developing Options for a Title Lorem Ipsum Regulatory Framework for Fusion Energy Systems May 6, 2021
Background
April 2009 SECY-09-0064
- Request for the Commission to establish Regulatory Jurisdiction over commercial Fusion systems. In summary:
- 1) Maintain Status Quo, or
- 2) Commission asserts (or not) jurisdiction over commercial Fusion systems.
July 2009 SRM SECY-09-0064
- Commission approved staffs option 2: the NRC has regulatory jurisdiction over commercial fusion energy devices whenever such devices are of significance to the common defense and security, or could affect the health and safety of the public.
- The staff, however should wait until commercial deployment of fusion technology is more predictable, by way of successful testing of a fusion technology, before expending significant resources to develop a regulatory framework for fusion technology.
Background
- Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA) was signed into law in January 2019 and requires the NRC to complete a rulemaking to establish a technology-inclusive, regulatory framework for optional use for commercial advanced nuclear reactors no later than December 2027 o (1) ADVANCED NUCLEAR REACTORThe term advanced nuclear reactor means a nuclear fission or fusion reactor, including a prototype plant with significant improvements compared to commercial nuclear reactors under construction as of the date of enactment of this Act, SECY SRM- 30-day NEIMA SECY response 20-0032 20-0032 to SRM Rulemaking Plan & Implementation 3
30-day Commission Direction SRM SECY response 20-0032* to SRM SECY**
on Rulemaking Plan
- In SRM-SECY-20-0032, the Commission:
o Approved the staffs proposed approach for the rulemaking o Directed the staff to provide:
a schedule with milestones and resource requirements to achieve publication of the final Part 53 rule by October 2024 key uncertainties impacting publication of the final rule by that date options for Commission consideration on licensing and regulating fusion energy systems o Directed the staff to develop and release preliminary proposed rule language intermittently, followed by public outreach and dialogue.
- (SRM 10/2/2020- ADAMS ML20276A293) **(30-day SRM response 11/2/2020- ADAMS ML20288A240) 4
Current Activities
- Continuing interactions with DOE/Fusion Energy Sciences
- Continuing interactions with stakeholders such as the October 2020 public forum and NRC public meetings held on January 26 and March 30
- Regulatory framework for advanced reactors (Part 53) being developed to accommodate fusion technologies as much as possible to maintain flexibility for future
- May recommend separate rulemaking for commercial fusion facilities that would extend beyond 2024 but would be completed before 2027.
5
Developing Commission Paper
- Gathering information on fusion technologies
- Focusing on potential long-term commercial deployment o Near-term R&D facilities handled using existing requirements on a case-by-case basis
- Assessing potential risks posed by possible commercial deployment of various fusion technologies and possible regulatory approaches for commercial fusion facilities
- Coordination with Agreement States, and
- Developing and assessing options for regulatory approaches considering technical, policy, and legal issues 6
Challenge - Diversity of Designs and Hazards Fusion Technologies
- Magnetic
- Magneto-Inertial
- Inertial Fusion Reactions
- DT
- P11B
- D3He Radiological Hazards Chemical & Other Hazards 7
Regulatory Approaches
- Preliminary assessments left open the regulatory approach for commercial fusion reactors
- Possible approaches include treatment similar to:
o Nuclear (fission) power plants o Materials (e.g., accelerator)
Requirements o Hybrid or new approach ?
Hazard 8
Regulation of Reactor Facilities
- Legal and technical framework defined in Atomic Energy Act and NRC regulations for utilization facilities (currently those using special nuclear material (SNM))
- SNM is plutonium, uranium 233, uranium enriched in the isotope 233 or in the isotope 235
- NRC historical focus on large light-water reactors
- Technical requirements on design, construction, operation and decommissioning
- Traditionally involved extensive licensing reviews
- Environmental Impact Statements
- Mandatory hearings
Assessing Fusion within Reactor Framework
- DOE safety orders
- ITER safety analyses and licensing
- DOE facilitated briefings from representatives from INL (safety analysis) and ITER (tritium controls) with more planned
- Interactions with International Atomic Energy Agency
- Interactions with National Academy of Sciences study
- Researching potential risks for variety of potential fusion technologies and designs
- Interacting with developers and other stakeholders
Feedback (Utilization Facility)
- General feedback from developers/industry organizations that they do not see utilization facility model aligning with risks posed by fusion energy systems
- Potential ramifications associated with utilization facility model, including:
- Price Anderson Act
- Foreign ownership
- Licensing processes and mandatory hearings
- Precludes licensing by agreement states
- Need for approach that minimizes unnecessary regulatory burden to support developing and deploying fusion energy
Regulation of Byproduct Materials
- Legal and technical framework defined in Atomic Energy Act and NRC regulations
- Revised by Energy Policy Act of 2005 to include material made radioactive by use of a particle accelerator
- Guidance for various uses of byproduct material provided in NUREG-1556, Consolidated Guidance About Materials Licenses
- Volume 21, Program-Specific Guidance About Possession Licenses for Production of Radioactive Material Using an Accelerator
- Flexibility in safety and environmental reviews given wide range of possible applications
Specific License Requirements for Part 30
- Radionuclides (maximum possession limits)
- Tritium
- Activation Products
- Financial Assurance and Decommissioning
- Training
- Operator training
- RSO qualifications
- Facility design requirements - construction, acceptance testing, codes and standards, facility modifications, equipment qualification
Specific License Requirements for Part 30 (2)
- Radiation Safety Program
- Personnel monitoring
- Radiation monitoring
- Routine surveys
- Contamination control
- Effluent and Environmental Monitoring
- Operating and Emergency Procedures
- Procedures for safe use of radionuclides
- Security of materials
- Inspection and Maintenance
- Equipment Testing Requirements
- Attendance during operation
- Reporting Requirements
- Routine Audits
Specific License Requirements for Part 30 (3)
- Waste management
- Environmental protection regulations - Part 51
- Other Hazards - e.g., ozone, chemicals, lasers
Regulation by DOE and Agreement States
- Pre-commercial demonstration of fusion may be conducted under DOE oversight and requirements if the private sector fusion company performs activities at a DOE facility. The company would not be subject to NRC/Agreement State licensing or specific regulations.
- Agreement States have licensed fusion research facilities. As a general matter, the byproduct material licensing of fusion-related activities have not gone beyond the requirements for possessing tritium or production of neutrons by companies, universities or other research institutions. Examples include:
- Phoenix Neutron Generators (Wisconsin)
- Laboratory for Laser Energetics (New York)
- Planned approach for Commonwealth Fusion Systems' SPARC facility (Massachusetts)
Feedback (Byproduct Material)
- General feedback from developers/industry organizations that byproduct material approach is favored
- Stakeholders view NRCs regulations in Part 20 for general radiation protection and Part 30 for handling byproduct materials as appropriate for fusion energy systems
- Possible questions on the applicability of accelerator provisions to all fusion technologies
- Agreement States have experience with licensing and inspecting R&D fusion activities that can be leveraged
Possible New or Hybrid Approaches
- Leverage existing framework (NRC, DOE, Agreement States, etc.) to extent practical,
- Risk-Informed, Performance based approach,
- Technology-Inclusive for various Fusion systems (fuel types and facility designs), and
- Graded and scaled approach that balances requirements against hazard/risk and consequences.
Hybrid Approach
- 3a-Within current framework (fragmented):
Hybrid Approach
- 3b-Within a dedicated Fusion framework (consolidated):
Feedback (Hybrid Approach)
- Limited discussions with developers/industry organizations on possible hybrid approaches
- Could be associated with changes to the Atomic Energy Act to better accommodate fusion energy systems
- Opportunity to tailor regulatory requirements to specific radiological hazards for various fusion technologies
- Opportunity for graded approach based on potential consequences
- Stakeholders favored establishing a regulatory approach for Fusion systems outside the 10 CFR 53 due date of October 2024 but before October 2027.
Summary
- Design and hazard analysis will determine the scope of requirements needed for a license for the safe use of radioactive materials
- Regardless of the regulatory approach, similar information will be needed to evaluate the design and radiological hazards associated with a commercial fusion facility
- The NRC Commission will make the final decision on the regulatory framework prior to the start of any rulemaking for fusion energy systems
Path Forward
- NRC Developing Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework
- 10 CFR Part 53, Licensing and Regulation of Advanced Nuclear Reactors
- Decide on how to address fusion either within Part 53, within existing regulations, developing new regulations within materials realm, or combination
- Scope to also include accelerator-driven system designs
- Process to include extensive interaction with public stakeholders
Discussion Backup Slides
Agreement State Program
- Section 274 of Atomic Energy Act
- Established federal/state roles
- Recognized States experience
- Promotes cooperative relationship
- Promotes orderly regulatory pattern
- Established in 1959
- First Agreement State in 1962 88% NRC
- Currently 39 Agreement Agreement States States Specific Radioactive Material Licenses
Integrated, Risk-Informed Approach (e.g., internal failures, (e.g., protective actions, (e.g., dose to external events) siting restrictions) public)
(e.g., release of radionuclides)
Bow-Tie Risk Management Figure 28
Fusion Technologies Magnetic Confinement Fusion Inertial Confinement Fusion
Fusion Technologies Magnetized Target Fusion Field Reversed Configuration
Fusion Technologies Stellarator