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{{#Wiki_filter:Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
{{#Wiki_filter:}}
 
==Title:==
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Safety Research Program Subcommittee Docket Number:    (n/a)
Location:        teleconference Date:            Monday, September 20, 2021 Work Order No.:  NRC-1680                          Pages 1-135 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1716 14th Street, N.W., Suite 200 Washington, D.C. 20009 (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.
(202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701  www.nealrgross.com
 
1 1                      UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2                    NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3                                  + + + + +
4            ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 5                                      (ACRS) 6                                  + + + + +
7                SAFETY RESEARCH PROGRAM SUBCOMMITTEE 8                                  + + + + +
9                                      MONDAY 10                          SEPTEMBER 20, 2021 11                                  + + + + +
12                    The Subcommittee met via Videoconference, 13 at 2:00 p.m. EDT, Vesna Dimitrijevic, Subcommittee 14 Chair, presiding.
15 COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
16            VESNA B. DIMITRIJEVIC, Subcommittee Chair 17            MATTHEW W. SUNSERI, ACRS Chairman 18            JOY L. REMPE, ACRS Vice Chairman 19            RONALD G. BALLINGER, Member 20            VICKI M. BIER, Member 21            DENNIS BLEY, Member 22            CHARLES H. BROWN, JR., Member 23            GREGORY H. HALNON, Member 24            JOSE MARCH-LEUBA, Member 25            DAVID A. PETTI, Member NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309    www.nealrgross.com
 
2 1 DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL:
2            Hossein Nourbakhsh 3 ALSO PRESENT:
4            Christian Araguas, RES 5            Holly Cruz, RES 6            Michelle Gonzalez, RES 7            Alan Kuritzky, RES 8            John Nakoski, NRR 9            Sean Peters, RES 10            Mehdi Reisi-Fard, RES 11            Mark Salley, RES 12            Mark Thaggard, RES 13            Jason Thompson, RES 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309    www.nealrgross.com
 
3 1                                  AGENDA 2 I.        Opening Remarks and Objectives              . . . . . .          4 3 II.        Overview of the Division of Risk Analysis                        6 4 III.      Discussion of Technical Research Activities 5            and Focus Areas 6
* Performance and Reliability Branch              . . . . 39 7
* Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch                . . . 55 8
* Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch . 69 9
* Human Factors and Reliability Branch                . .      101 10 Adjourn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .                          135 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
4 1                        P R O C E E D I N G S 2                                                                  2:00 p.m.
3                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                Okay, I have 2:00 4 p.m. here, so I think we can start our meeting, so the 5 meeting will now come to order.                    So, this is a Safety 6 Research Program Subcommittee meeting in preparation 7 of Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards biennial 8 review of the NRC Safety Research Program.
9                    I  am  Vesna      Dimitrijevic,        Chairman        of 10 today's Subcommittee meeting and the ACRS lead for the 11 review of the activities in the Division of Risk 12 Analysis of the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
13                    Members in attendance as I saw last is 14 Dave Petti, Greg Halnon, Jose March-Leuba, Joy Rempe, 15 and Matt Sunseri.            I have not seen Ron Ballinger or 16 Vicki Bier, and Charlie Brown will a little late, and 17 I think Dennis had some obligation and Walt Kirchner 18 is traveling, so.
19                    We hold these open meetings to gather 20 information to support our biennial review of the 21 NRC's Safety Research Program.                    The ACRS sections of 22 the U.S. NRC public website provide our charter, 23 bylaws, agendas, monthly reports, and full transcripts 24 of    all    full  and  subcommittee            meetings,    including 25 slides presented there.
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5 1                  The meeting notices and agendas for these 2 meetings are also posted there.                    We have received no 3 written statement or request to make an oral statement 4 from the public.
5                  The Subcommittee will get the information, 6 analyze relevant issues and fact, and formulate a 7 proposed      position    and      action        as    appropriate        for 8 deliberation by the full Committee.
9                  A transcript of the meeting is being kept 10 and      will  be  made    available.              Due  to  the    COVID 11 pandemic, today's meeting is being held over Microsoft 12 Teams for ACRS and NRC staff.                  There is also an audio 13 line allowing participation of the public over the 14 phone.
15                  When  addressing          the    Subcommittee,        the 16 participants should first identify themselves and 17 speak with sufficient clarity and volume so that they 18 may be readily heard.              When not speaking, we request 19 the participants mute their computer microphone or 20 phone.
21                  Okay, we will now proceed with the meeting 22 and I will call up Mark Thaggard, Director of the 23 Division of Risk Analysis for the NRC Office of 24 Nuclear        Regulatory        Research,          to    begin    today's 25 presentation. We can see presentations on the screen, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
6 1 so Mark, please proceed.
2                  MR. THAGGARD:          Okay, good afternoon.              As 3 was mentioned, I'm Mark Thaggard. I'm the Director of 4 the Division of Risk Analysis. I assumed this role at 5 the beginning of 2021 with the retirement of Mike 6 Cheok, which I think many of you may remember.
7                  For those of you that don't know me, I've 8 been with the agency for more than 30 years.                            I've 9 worked in various offices at the agency, including 10 NMSS, NRO, NSIR, and Research, as well as I spent some 11 time working for former Chairman Meserve.                      Prior to 12 becoming the Division Director, I served as the deputy 13 in the division since 2016.
14                  I do appreciate the opportunity to come 15 before the Committee this afternoon to go over the 16 activities within the division.                    We always value the 17 feedback        and  insights      that      the    Committee  provide 18 through these biennial assessments.
19                  Our plan this afternoon is for me and my 20 deputy,        Christian    Araguas,          who    you'll  hear      from 21 shortly, to provide a general overview of the division 22 activities, and then you'll get a briefing from each 23 of the branch chiefs on the specific activities within 24 each of their branches.              Can I have the next slide?
25                  So, I want to begin by going over five NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
7 1 primary objectives for the division.                  The first is to 2 be ready for future technologies.
3                One of the initiatives that we have been 4 following with respect to advanced reactors is a joint 5 effort by EPRI and Vanderbilt University to look into 6 conducting a safety assessment for advanced reactors.
7                We had started a similar initiative, but 8 decided to forego our effort to see what insights we 9 could gain through following the EPRI effort.
10                The EPRI/Vanderbilt assessment included 11 looking at existing tools, methods, and best practices 12 that could be applied to analyzing the safety of 13 advanced reactor designs.              This project showed how 14 hazards could be identified early on in the design 15 stage.
16                This work has been completed. We're still 17 looking at their reports to see what possible insights 18 that we can gain from it.
19                MEMBER REMPE:          Mark, this is Joy.              You 20 sounded like you were getting ready to change to 21 another slide or topic and I wanted to ask questions 22 on this, but if you had more on this topic --
23                MR. THAGGARD: No, no, I was getting ready 24 to change to the next topic, so go ahead.
25                MEMBER REMPE:          I'm good with my ESP over NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
8 1 virtual        reality  software.              Okay,    elaborate      more 2 because I know I just recently became aware that your 3 division had done this, and did this Vanguard/EPRI 4 effort cover all different types like a gas reactor, 5 a molten salt reactor, and a sodium reactor?
6                  Did it consider all the hazards, the spent 7 fuel, for the ones, the microreactors as they're being 8 placed on site when they're loaded with a core?                                I 9 mean, how much depth did you cover?
10                  MR. THAGGARD:          So, I don't have a lot of 11 the depth personally.              Maybe one of my staff members 12 can jump in if one of them -- but the reactor that 13 they focused on, and it was EPRI and Vanderbilt 14 University that did the work, the design that they 15 focused on was primarily the molten salt reactor 16 design, although they conducted it with the mindset of 17 it being technology neutral.
18                  So, they wanted to try to see if, you 19 know, whatever they came up with, it could be applied 20 to any type of design.            So, you know, they focused on 21 the      molten    salt  reactor.            Supposedly,      from      the 22 insights that have been provided, it could be applied 23 to any type of design.
24                  I don't recall specifically whether or not 25 they looked at all of the different type of hazards.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
9 1 That's a level of detail I don't specifically have.
2 I don't know if one of my staff members who followed 3 that work, if they're on, maybe they could chime in on 4 it.      If not, we'll have to get back to you on that.
5                  MEMBER REMPE:        So, I'm not hearing anyone 6 chime in, so I would like more details about this 7 because, again, I keep seeing the public workshops 8 where the DSA staff has gotten a source term for each 9 type      of  reactor,    and      there's        different  types        of 10 initiating events and different challenges.
11                  And so, again, I don't mean to be overly 12 skeptical, but it just doesn't have the same -- it 13 doesn't appear on the surface to have the same amount 14 of depth that we're getting for these other reactors, 15 but maybe I'm wrong because I don't have all of the 16 details.
17                  MR. THAGGARD:          Okay, yeah, we'll have to 18 follow up with you on that, Joy, to get you more 19 information.        I thought one of my staff members were 20 going to be on, but they may have gotten tied up.
21                  MEMBER REMPE:          Thank you, because again, 22 that was one of our conclusions from prior times was 23 that we actually would like to have seen the same 24 plant analyzed with the same -- with different tools 25 from DRA, and DSA, and now we hear only one is being NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
10 1 done by DRA, and so you understand where I'm coming 2 from.
3                  MR. THAGGARD: Yeah, and so when we were 4 going to undertake this effort, our initial thought, 5 we were going to focus on the high-temperature gas 6 reactor, that design, because we thought, in terms of 7 trying to develop a PRA model, we thought there might 8 be the most amount of information available on that.
9                  I'm      not      exactly            sure  why        they 10 particularly, they selected the molten salt reactor 11 design, but as I said, their focus was trying to be 12 technology neutral.              I think presumably they could 13 have selected any specific design.
14                  And I see somebody's got their hand up, so 15 maybe they --
16                  PARTICIPANT: Michelle Gonzalez has her 17 hand up.
18                  MR. THAGGARD: Oh, okay.
19                  PARTICIPANT: Go ahead, Michelle.
20                  MS. GONZALEZ: Hi, Mark, this is Michelle 21 Gonzalez from the Nuclear Regulatory Research Division 22 of Risk Analysis.            I was involved in this work.                      I 23 came      in  later  on    when      we    were      pretty  much      just 24 completing the work and finalizing the document.
25                  But at least what I remember from this, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
11 1 pretty much the objective of the work was to achieve 2 meaningful integration of safety throughout the full 3 design process since the start of the design process, 4 so this would help to fill a void in early stages of 5 safety for non-LWRs.
6                So, in terms of if it covers all the 7 hazards or all the -- I'm not sure, and I'll follow up 8 with Mark and I'll provide additional information on 9 that.
10                MEMBER REMPE:            Yeah, when you say the 11 molten salt, is it something with the pebble fuel or 12 is it something where it's got the fuel floating 13 around in the coolant?              What type of molten salt 14 reactor are you looking at?
15                MS. GONZALEZ:        So, it started off, it was 16 divided into phases.          The first phase was a focus on 17 the molten salt reactor and it was pretty much from 18 utilization with the technology and all of that for 19 molten salt.
20                The second phase used the MSRE Project, 21 and then they refined the methodology pretty much with 22 what they call learn by doing, and then for the pilot 23 study, they used a Kairos Power fluoride-salt-cooled 24 high-temperature reactor.
25                MEMBER    REMPE:          Okay,        yeah,  please        do NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
12 1 follow up, and if you can, clarify to me why you think 2 this        will  help    you      with      evaluating      PRAs      from 3 microreactors and gas reactors, and why it's believed 4 that this is a justified exercise that's technology 5 neutral, okay?
6                    MS. GONZALEZ:          Will do.
7                    MEMBER REMPE:          Thank you.
8                    MR. THAGGARD:            Okay,      so  our    current 9 support for the advanced reactor program has picked up 10 recently and is expected to increase over the next 11 couple of years.
12                    One of the primary areas of support that 13 we're providing right now is in the PRA standards 14 development area.          This is an important area because 15 the standard is needed in order to provide the basis 16 for determining the acceptability of PRAs that will be 17 used in support of any license submittals.
18                    Our staff, along with the staff at NRR, 19 were      heavily  involved        in    reviewing        and  providing 20 comments        on  the  recently        piloted        non-light      water 21 reactor PRA standard, and we're currently working on 22 the regulatory guide that will endorse the use of that 23 standard. The Future Plant Design Subcommittee of the 24 ACRS was briefed on that this morning and I think that 25 just completed.
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13 1                    And as you heard during that briefing, a 2 significant challenge is that the non-light water 3 reactor PRA standard is going to cover areas not yet 4 endorsed by the light water, covered for light water 5 reactors.
6                    Also, in support of the advanced reactor 7 program,      we    are  conducting            research      on  a    graded 8 approach to scale and target human factor engineering 9 reviews for small and microreactors.
10                    This    includes        developing        human      factor 11 engineering review criteria.                  We're also working with 12 the      NRR  staff    in    developing          technology      inclusive 13 operator training and examination requirements.
14                    Through our involvement under a recently 15 signed agreement to participate in a newly formed 16 holding project, we're looking at operator performance 17 in      digital    control        rooms,        human      performance          in 18 operation        of    small        modular        reactors,      operator 19 performance        in  highly        automated          plants,    and      the 20 effects        of    adaptive          automation          on    operator 21 performance.
22                    We also have a future-focused research 23 project on the use of dynamic PRAs which may have 24 application for analyzing passive systems.                              You'll 25 hear more about this project in one of the branch NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
14 1 presentations.
2                  We also recently signed off on the user 3 need with NRR to develop PRA guidance that will be 4 needed to support licensing non-light water reactors.
5 This will include developing guidance to address PRA 6 uncertainty, which would be an important issue for 7 non-light water reactors where we don't have OpE 8 information.
9                  In addition to work supporting advanced 10 reactors, we are finishing up development of SPAR 11 models for Vogtle Units 3 and 4 which will be needed 12 to support oversight of these units when they become 13 operational.        We're also continuing to maintain and 14 make      enhancements    to    SPAR      models    for  operating 15 reactors.
16                  Like the other two research divisions, we 17 are        doing  some      limited          work    on  artificial 18 intelligence. This includes a scope and assessment of 19 AI use within the industry.                As part of this effort, 20 we recently issued a Federal Register Notice to get 21 specific feedback on anticipated AI use.
22                  We also recently signed a MOU with DOE to 23 work with them on sharing information and insights on 24 the use of AI techniques for analyzing OpE data.
25 Again, we will come back to this in one of the branch NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
15 1 presentations.          Another --
2                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              So, Mark, I ask you, 3 so you are giving us just a general high-level picture 4 and all of those things will come again in the slides 5 for the branch work things?
6                    MR. THAGGARD: That's correct. I mean, if 7 you got questions now, we can handle them, but our 8 intent was to cover them in a little bit more detail 9 in the branch presentation.
10                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                Okay.
11                    MR. THAGGARD:            Another objective of the 12 division        is  to  complete          several        launch    research 13 projects.        This includes work on the aluminum heat 14 issue, the Level 3 PRA Project, and the probabilistic 15 Flood Hazard Assessment Project.
16                    We    have        faced        some      challenges          in 17 completing these projects, but our aim with each of 18 these        activities      is    completion            of  high-quality 19 products that are useful to the program office.
20                    Again, you'll hear about each of these 21 projects during the branch presentations.                          However, I 22 would like to point out one thing regarding the Level 23 3 PRA Project as it relates to advanced reactors.
24                    We  are    looking        for    ways    to  leverage 25 insights from the Level 3 PRA work to support our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
16 1 readiness        for  licensing        advanced        reactors.        For 2 example, the Level 3 PRA Project is expected to 3 provide insights on accessing the -- excuse me, is 4 somebody trying to ask a question?                          If you're not 5 asking a question, can you put it on mute? Thank you.
6                    So, as I said, we are looking to leverage 7 insights from the Level 3 PRA work to support our 8 readiness        for  licensing        advanced        reactors.        For 9 example, the Level 3 PRA Project is expected to 10 provide insights on assessing the risks from multi-11 unit sights and integrated site risks which could 12 prove useful for licensing small modular reactors.
13                    We are also attaining insights on the use 14 of    the    License  Modernization            Project    and  use      of 15 alternative risk metrics.                  Our plan is to document 16 insights we gain from the project so that they can be 17 readily used for licensing advanced reactors.
18                    A third objective of the division is to 19 facilitate transformation.                DRA has an important role 20 in      the    Agency's      transformation              effort    through 21 overseeing the innovation activities.
22                    Innovate NRC 2.0, if you've heard of that, 23 or the IDHEAS scale software, both of those are 24 managed by staff within the division.
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17 1 grow      the  Agency's      risk-informed            decision    making 2 capabilities.        In line with the emphasis that the 3 Agency in recent years on using risk insights in 4 decision making, we are looking for ways to provide 5 risk tools for non-risk practitioners.
6                  This includes developing SPAR, ASP, and 7 human factor dashboards to help inspectors and license 8 reviewers in understanding the risk importance of 9 reactor systems and initiating events.
10                  We are also looking for opportunities to 11 expand our support beyond NRR.                        We are currently 12 working with NMSS in developing risk tools for dry 13 cask        storage  licensing          reviews          and  providing 14 environmental        support        for      their      decommissioning 15 program.
16                  We see a potential need for support by 17 NSIR and their efforts to use risk insights and fiscal 18 security.        We also see a possible need for more 19 research on the effects of extreme weather events.
20                  The fifth objective of the division is to 21 build and enhance staff capacity.                        One challenge to 22 the      division  is    staffing.            Based      on  our    recent 23 strategic workforce planning assessment, we anticipate 24 having a shortage in one of our core positions over 25 the next five years.              This anticipated shortage is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
18 1 expected with our reliability and risk engineers due 2 to retirements.
3                    Key competency is the greatest focus for 4 us or risk analysis and quantification methods and 5 risk integration.          Our strategy to address this need 6 includes        hiring    and      training          staff, rotational 7 assignments, and staff developmental assignments.
8                    We recently hired entry level staff and 9 have converted a couple of summer hires into co-op 10 students, which we hope will give us some opportunity 11 to develop the competencies of greatest need.
12                    We also recently started an effort to 13 cross train staff across branches to give us greater 14 flexibility in handling staff losses and to broaden 15 staff skills.
16                    This overview of the division's key focus 17 areas shows that we have efforts underway to be ready 18 for future technologies while also supporting key 19 Agency        priorities    such      as    risk-informed    decision 20 making and transformation.                  We're also aggressively 21 working to address anticipated staffing issues.
22                    To ensure that we manage these activities 23 in a smart way, we recently started an effort to 24 revise our strategic plan to ensure that we are 25 working on the right activities and to anticipate NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
19 1 future changes in line with the Agency's environmental 2 scan.        Can I have the next slide?
3                  So, we're always looking for opportunities 4 to leverage resources and skills through collaborating 5 with      others.      This      slide      reflects      our    current 6 collaboration        efforts,        both        internationally          and 7 domestically.          I  would      like      to    highlight    a    few 8 specific examples to show some of the benefits that we 9 get out of these interactions.
10                  We are active participants in the risk, 11 external events, and human and organizational factors 12 CSNI working groups with NEA.                        In particular, the 13 working group on risk is currently working on an 14 effort to look at PRA uncertainty, which as I've 15 previously stated, could be useful in our support for 16 advanced reactors.
17                  We  have      a  bilateral          arrangement      with 18 France's IRSN to collaborate on flood risk modeling 19 where        they  are    sharing        some      of    their  modeling 20 capabilities on riverine floods and storm surges.
21                  We are exchanging human performance data 22 with the Czech Republic and South Korea to expand our 23 human performance database.
24                  And lastly, I would like to mention that 25 both EPRI and NIST have provided a lot of technical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
20 1 expertise and modeling support for our work on the 2 aluminum HEAF issue.
3                  So, with that, I will turn the briefing 4 over      to  Christian    unless        you    have    some  specific 5 questions on the items I've gone over so far.
6                  CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                  Well, I have one 7 specific question.              I assume though the technical 8 staff will come to the presentation of the branches, 9 but this high-level stuff which you brought, like 10 facilitate transformation, grow risk-informed decision 11 making capability, building capacity, in this area, I 12 have a question which I think will be best addressed 13 by you.
14                  When you say facilitate transformation, 15 how do you guys visualize the goal of transformation?
16 What are you trying to facilitate?
17                  MR. THAGGARD:          With transformation?
18                  CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              Yeah.
19                  MR. THAGGARD:            Okay,      so  one  of      the 20 Agency's      efforts,    part    of    this      transformation        is 21 innovation, and so we, right now, we have the lead for 22 that whole effort.          So, right now, we're facilitating 23 staff's ability to submit ideas when they -- new ways 24 of doing things, and we also facilitate crowdsourcing.
25                  I believe Sean Peters, his branch runs NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
21 1 that effort.        I believe he's going to cover this in a 2 little bit more detail when it gets to his briefing, 3 but the bottom line --
4                  (Simultaneous speaking.)
5                  CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              Yes, please.
6                  MR. THAGGARD:          Yeah, the bottom line is 7 that so we have staff in our division that, you know, 8 that basically runs that whole effort.                        They help 9 staff in terms of when they come up with ideas, help 10 them either get that in the right place or, you know, 11 or if staff have suggestions, they help facilitate 12 getting that suggestion in the right place.
13                  So, as I said, you know, all of that is 14 run through our IDHEAS scale software platform, and 15 our staff, they run that platform.
16                  CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: I have a specific 17 actually -- is something I struggle with because in 18 the general, I thought that this transformation should 19 result in better focused regulation, right, something 20 which        is streamlined        and    not    overly  complex      and 21 unpractical.        So, you know --
22                  MR. THAGGARD:          Well --
23                  CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                -- is that how you 24 visualize this transformation?                    Because it's not the 25 more we learn, the more innovation which we have.                          It NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
22 1 seems like the process is becoming more complex, and 2 complex, and complex, and wants more and more details.
3 So, my question was sort of how do you guys visualize 4 what this transformation is leading to?
5                MR. THAGGARD: Well, the whole idea of the 6 transformation of the Agency is to become a modern 7 risk-informed regulator, and it's got more than just 8 the innovation piece of it.
9                There are pieces related to, as I said, 10 you know, using risk insights.                You've probably heard 11 of like Be RiskSMART, that whole initiative.                      That's 12 part of the Agency's transformation effort.
13                And I'm kind of failing openly, but there 14 are      like  five  components          to      the  Agency's      whole 15 transformation effort.          The innovation piece of it is 16 just one part of it, but the overall transformation, 17 part of it is the change in culture, which we also 18 have a piece of that too.
19                But the overall effort is to become a 20 modern risk-informed regulator, and so your ideal 21 about, you know, streamlining regulations and, you 22 know, doing things in a more streamlined fashion, 23 that's all part of the overall transformation effort.
24 The innovation piece of it is just one part of that.
25 I don't know if that --
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23 1                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                No, no, that's all 2 right.        Yeah, okay, I was basically trying to define 3 what does it mean, modern? I mean, you know, you have 4 so many loose ends, you know, which can be tied to 5 make these things more efficient, but we also have a 6 lot of unanswered question.                  All right, all right, I 7 will address that --
8                    MEMBER REMPE:          Well, Vesna, I'd like to 9 chime in with the first part of your question because 10 when I heard about this a while back, maybe a couple 11 of years ago, it sounded like John and his branch were 12 basically        helping    to    develop        a  spreadsheet-based 13 software for taking the input, you know, sending out 14 a call to the staff for good ideas to put in to some 15 sort of software, and then tabulating them and ranking 16 them, and is that what you're meaning, Mark, when you 17 say they facilitate?              Do they develop the software?
18 Do they help rank --
19                    MR. THAGGARD:          No, the --
20                    MEMBER REMPE: -- the ideas, or what is it 21 that they do?
22                    MR. THAGGARD: So, I think one of my staff 23 members probably want to weigh in on that, so I should 24 probably let -- and maybe Nev.                      She's running that.
25 So, if you want to go ahead, Nev?
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24 1                    MR. PETERS:        Mark, this is Sean Peters.
2                    MR. THAGGARD:          Oh, Sean, okay, yeah, go 3 ahead, Sean.
4                    MR. PETERS:          Yeah, so innovation is a 5 couple of things.              Our human organizational factor 6 specialists signed in with the EDO's office.                                  We 7 distributed three people to the EDO's office to help 8 them design and modify the innovation program so it 9 could be sustainable.
10                    So, we actually develop the pieces of, you 11 know, how you solicit ideas, how you process those 12 ideas, and then how you, I want to say staff and fund 13 the ideas, and how you get those ideas forward.
14                    And  so,    the    actual        software  that        we 15 utilize is an organizing aspect of it, but it's not 16 the entirety of the program, right? You actually have 17 to build an infrastructure and teams that implement 18 the innovation.
19                    The other thing that we're doing, and this 20 kind of may answer some of Vesna's questions, you'll 21 see later in some of our presentations that our groups 22 are developing risk tools and evaluation criteria that 23 are scaled based upon the risk of the facilities, and 24 so when I get into our human factors presentation 25 later,        I'll  be  talking      about        our  scalable    human NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
25 1 factors engineering guidance.
2                  The old human factors engineering guidance 3 we had was developed for large light water reactors, 4 big Part 50 applications, and applying a major cross-5 sectional look at entire human factors engineering 6 programs      is  kind      of    ominous          for,    like,        say 7 microreactors.
8                  So, what we do is we develop that scalable 9 criteria,      and    that's        one        of      those    kind        of 10 transformative concepts that we have for applying the 11 right level of review to risk of the facilities.
12                  MEMBER REMPE:        So, this is Joy, and thank 13 you, and it's coming back to me. This was actually an 14 EDO user need request, right, that --
15                  (Simultaneous speaking.)
16                  MEMBER    REMPE:            --    to    address      this 17 transformation.
18                  MR. PETERS:        Absolutely right.              So, our 19 team worked in the EDO's office, but we just couldn't 20 indefinitely loan them to the EDO's office, so what we 21 did working with them, we transitioned the entire 22 program over to the Office of Research to run that 23 innovation piece.
24                  So,  Innovate        NRC    2.0      is  run    out      of 25 Research      with  those      same        organizational          factor NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
26 1 specialists, and what that does is allows us to 2 continue        operations      efficiently          whenever  we      have 3 changes in the organization.
4                  MEMBER REMPE:          Thank you.
5                  MR. THAGGARD: Okay, if there are no other 6 questions for me, I guess we'll go ahead and turn it 7 over to Christian.
8                  MR. ARAGUAS: All right, so I'm looking at 9 the time. I know we're over our allotted for this, so 10 I'm going to try to move us through the continuing 11 theme of the high level.              I've got about three slides 12 to get through and then we'll get to the branch 13 presentations.
14                  So, with that, again, good afternoon, 15 everybody, and my thanks as well for the opportunity 16 to come and speak with you today. So, as Mark alluded 17 to, I'm the newest member of the DRA leadership team 18 having joined in February of this year, and I am the 19 Deputy for the Division of Risk Analysis.
20                  And I'll take a minute here as well just 21 to share a little bit about my background.                        I came 22 into        the  Agency    with      a    degree      in  electrical 23 engineering, and over my 20-year career here at the 24 NRC, I've had the opportunity to work on operating 25 reactors, new reactors, advanced reactors, and as well NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
27 1 on our materials programs serving in a variety of 2 different roles.
3                And I also spent three years in the EDO's 4 office as an executive technical assistant servicing 5 a number of offices, but more notably, the Office of 6 Nuclear Regulatory Research, so I was able to see 7 firsthand the critical role that we play in supporting 8 the Agency's mission.          So, next slide?
9                So, just like you saw with the Division of 10 Systems Analysis and the Division of Engineering, you 11 know, we too play an important role in supporting the 12 Agency's mission.
13                We  do      so    through          establishing        and 14 executing timely research programs that support our 15 partners in the reactors and materials business lines.
16                And I'm really proud of the work this 17 division performs and I wanted to take a moment just 18 to acknowledge some of our achievements depicted on 19 this graphic since we last briefed you.
20                We completed a major effort to update all 21 68 of our Standard Plant Analysis Risk or SPAR models 22 for all sites to allow for the use of diverse and 23 flexible mitigation capability or flex equipment for 24 licensing and oversight applications.
25                We issued over 30 technical reports or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
28 1 guidance documents in the form of NUREGs, research 2 information        letters      of    RILs,        white    papers,        and 3 regulatory guides, and we also held over two dozen 4 public        meetings    and      workshops          and  seminars          on 5 technical topics.
6                    Most notably, this spring we held the 7 sixth annual Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment 8 Workshop which had over 300 attendees, and then most 9 recently this summer, we had the Subsurface Soil 10 Surveys Public Workshop which had just under 200 11 attendees.
12                    We also became the permanent home, as we 13 just talked about here, for the Agency's innovation 14 program, successfully transitioning the program into 15 the division, putting in place the infrastructure and 16 processes          to      maintain            long-term          program 17 sustainability.
18                    And I'll just add before we move off this 19 slide, I wanted to revisit -- I know one of the 20 primary focus areas of the ACRS during the last 21 biennial and as highlighted during this year's kickoff 22 in April, which was better understanding whether the 23 office has sunset any research activities.
24                    I'll say that so we interpreted that as to 25 cover        both  work    completed,            or    work  that        was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
29 1 terminated, or work that was no longer -- I'm sorry, 2 work that we terminated because there was no longer a 3 need or work that we sunset because we felt that 4 sufficient research had been completed.
5                  I think, as I shared, you know, we've 6 completed several research activities.                      I think one 7 that I didn't even capture on the list is user need 8 driven for NRR and this was the work on human factors 9 for non-destructive examination.
10                  A fair amount of reports were developed, 11 and we're in the process of developing a summary NUREG 12 and plan to close out that user need.
13                  But I will say that in terms of looking at 14 research      activities        where        we    would  have      been 15 terminated or sunset, we haven't terminated or sunset 16 anything, I think, in that time period.
17                  But I wanted to highlight, you know, I 18 believe the question is absolutely valid.                          As Ray 19 mentioned previously in April, you know, we should 20 strive to understand when enough research has been 21 done        to support    our      role      as    a  regulator,        or 22 additionally, when our priorities have shifted such 23 that a specific activity is no longer needed.
24                  And  I'll      just    say    I'm  confident      that 25 between the monthly counterpart meetings we have with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
30 1 our partners, leveraging our work request processes to 2 align on specific work, our quarterly work request 3 status meetings with division management, our annual 4 program review meetings with our partners, our annual 5 review of prioritization for the budget cycle, and 6 certainly our engagement with you, that we have a 7 sufficient framework in place to align on needed 8 research or when, in fact, there needs to be a course 9 correction.
10                  And I'll just highlight I think a good 11 example of this is our recent course correction on the 12 research that we've been doing on high energy arc 13 vaults, and I don't want to steal Mark Salley's 14 thunder as he plans to cover this a great deal during 15 his presentation.          So, next slide?
16                  Let me just turn to how we are organizing 17 the division.        Our division is responsible for the 18 establishment        and    execution          of    research  programs 19 relating to probabilistic risk assessments, human 20 factors, and human reliability analysis, performance 21 and        reliability      analysis,            and    movement          of 22 radionuclides through environmental systems, operating 23 experience, and generic issues and fire safety.
24                  Our mission is to provide, as stated here 25 on the slide, is to provide world class technical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
31 1 support        for  the    implementation              of risk-informed 2 regulatory activities and decision making in nuclear 3 safety and security.
4                    We are comprised of four branches being 5 led by a technically strong group of branch chiefs 6 that in most cases have been in their respective 7 positions for a number of years.
8                    The first branch you'll be hearing from 9 will be our Performance and Reliability Branch or PRB.
10 Mehdi Reisi-Fard, who you heard from this morning, is 11 the branch chief, and he is the newest branch chief in 12 the group joining in 2020, but he brings a wealth of 13 experience having joined the NRC in 2007 as a risk and 14 reliability analyst, and serving in this capacity in 15 both research and NRR before assuming his current 16 role.
17                    His team is responsible for managing the 18 operating experience data collection analysis program 19 which serves as the foundation for keeping our risk 20 tools current, and is in charge of the Accident 21 Sequence Precursor Program.
22                    PRB is also the lead for developing and 23 maintaining risk-informed decision making guidance 24 documents, as well as development and endorsement of 25 PRA standards.
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32 1                  Next,    you're      going        to    hear  from      our 2 Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch, PRAB.                                John 3 Nakoski is the branch chief and he has been the branch 4 chief in the division for the last eight years, and 5 serving in this current role for the last four years.
6                  John is currently on rotation, so Holly 7 Cruz, who is acting branch chief, will be presenting 8 on his behalf.          She is no stranger to research as 9 she's        a technical    assistant          for      the  Division        of 10 Engineering and has been doing a great job backfilling 11 for John.
12                  PRAB    is      primarily            responsible          for 13 maintaining and enhancing computer codes and methods 14 used by the Agency for conducting risk analysis, so, 15 for example, our SPAR models or SAPHIRE code.
16                  And then next, we'll hear from the Fire 17 and External Hazards Analysis Branch.                      Mark Salley is 18 the branch chief there and he's served in this role 19 for the last 17 years.            His branch is responsible for 20 fire risk, external hazards, and environmental hazards 21 research.
22                  And then we'll wrap up with a presentation 23 from Sean Peters who also is no stranger to the ACRS.
24 He is the branch chief for the Human Factors and 25 Reliability Branch and has served in this role for the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
33 1 last 13 years.
2                  His    branch        is      responsible      for        the 3 planning, developing, and managing research programs 4 related to human performance and human reliability 5 analysis,      and  as    previously          mentioned,      he's      also 6 responsible      for    managing        the      Agency's    innovation 7 program.      Next slide?
8                  So, I'll just spend a few minutes here 9 providing a high-level overview.                      I know you've seen 10 this similar view graph before for some of the other 11 presentations,        but    a    high-level          overview    of      our 12 program's resources.
13                  At a glance, our overall budget for the 14 Risk Analysis Research Program in fiscal year 2022 is 15 about $16.5 million, which equates to about 36 expert 16 staff overseeing nearly $10 million.
17                  While    this      represents          a  six    percent 18 increase      from  our      fiscal      year      2021  budget,        the 19 majority of that increase was driven out of the 20 decision to have DRA serve as the new home for the 21 Agency's innovation program.
22                  So,  our      program        resource    levels      have 23 remained largely flat over the last few years and will 24 likely continue to remain so into the future.                        Having 25 said that, we would expect there to be variability in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
34 1 the resource levels across the business lines to align 2 with Agency priorities.
3                  For  example,          we    know      that    advanced 4 reactors is a high priority for the Agency, and we are 5 working on a few work requests, user needs that could 6 support increases in our advanced reactor budget over 7 the next five years.
8                  Conversely,        we    would        see,  with        the 9 wrapping up of HEAF activities, such that resource 10 needs for fire research could significantly decrease 11 in the out years.
12                  And just to help make this slide and 13 budget discussion more meaningful, we use the same 14 categories that we typically use when we develop our 15 budget input to the program offices.
16                  But for additional context and similar to 17 what        you  saw    or    heard      from        the    Division        of 18 Engineering, about 84 percent of our work is in the 19 operating reactors business line, seven percent is 20 associated      with    new      reactors,        five    percent      with 21 advanced reactors, and four percent for the materials 22 business lines.
23                  And now I'll just kind of roll through 24 very      quickly  the    line      items      on    the  slide.        So, 25 starting with the first line item, about 20 percent of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
35 1 our budget is planned to support the development and 2 enhancement of risk analysis tools. Most of that goes 3 towards maintaining our SPAR models and the SAPHIRE 4 code used to run those models.
5                  About    19    percent        of    our  budget      goes 6 towards operational events analysis programs.                            This 7 includes      implementation        of    the      accident    sequence 8 precursor program, as well as assessing operating 9 experience,      maintaining        operating          experience      data 10 systems, and leveraging insights from this data to 11 enhance our risk tools.
12                  Our guidance and development budget sits 13 at about 15 percent of our overall budget and includes 14 support for risk-informed decision making activities, 15 development of PRA standards, updates to PRA guidance, 16 and technical support for human factors guidance.
17                  About 14 percent of our budget supports 18 work on human reliability analysis methods and data 19 collection, and this also includes our involvement in 20 the Halden human technology organization project.
21                  Our fire research program makes up about 22 11 percent of our resources in FY 22, and includes 23 work on improving fire PRA realism and our efforts to 24 complete research on high energy arc vaults.
25                  Our external hazards budget makes up eight NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
36 1 percent of our budget, and includes work on our 2 probabilistic          flood      hazards        analysis,  and    that's 3 basically the primary driver.
4                    We have another eight percent that is a 5 mix of smaller projects or areas where we provide some 6 nominal level of support.                  That includes support for 7 the materials business lines, our work on the Level 3 8 PRA, and future focus research items which you'll hear 9 about in the branch presentations, and our ownership 10 of the Agency innovation program.
11                    For NMSS, we support, you know, both the 12 spent          fuel    storage,        and        transportation,        and 13 decommissioning of low-level waste business lines, and 14 this is an area that we are also looking to expand our 15 support.
16                    An example I can give is related to the 17 spent fuel storage and transportation business line, 18 and that is they have expressed interest in leveraging 19 DRA to develop a risk took to help scope future 20 reviews of transportation packages.
21                    And lastly, about five percent of our 22 budget is focused on research to support the Agency's 23 readiness to review advanced reactor applications. As 24 I mentioned earlier, this is certainly an area that we 25 expect to increase over the next several years, and a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
37 1 lot of the focus up to now has been on our code work, 2 but      as    you're  aware,        there's        a  fair    amount        of 3 attention shifting towards guidance needed in the 4 human factors area and in PRA acceptability.
5                  And with that, that wraps up the budget 6 discussion,        so  I'll      open    it      up    for  questions.
7 Otherwise,        we'll    turn      it      over      to    the    branch 8 presentations, starting off with Mehdi Reisi-Fard to 9 kick us off.
10                  CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                  I have a general 11 question because obviously there is a lot of cross, 12 you know, cross interaction within this area, and when 13 you said they're developing advanced standard, the reg 14 guide        for  advanced      reactors        belongs      to  guidance 15 developed.
16                  I  noticed        when      I    compared      your      2018 17 presentation        and  distribution,              the  guidance        have 18 increased significantly by advanced reactor bodily 19 change in two years, which is strange for me, but now 20 I understand there is a lot of cross things because 21 you are developing guidance for advanced reactors, but 22 that's classified under guidance development.                              Am I 23 right there?
24                  MR. ARAGUAS:          That's correct.
25                  CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                  So, therefore, we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
38 1 cannot really -- when you are in charge of innovation 2 as you say, innovations can be anywhere in any area, 3 even probably most of innovations will be, you know, 4 connected to advanced reactor business, right?
5                MR. ARAGUAS:        So, yeah, I would look at 6 innovations as really sort of us serving as the 7 support for the Agency and trying to embrace being 8 more risk informed through the various tools, whether 9 that's guidance for advanced reactors, whether that's 10 updating our SPAR models to support NRR, or even, as 11 I mentioned, in the materials business line.
12                I think for the spent fuel storage and 13 transportation business line that doesn't lend itself 14 to traditional PRA, you know, how can we support them 15 to be more risk informed, more focused for their 16 licensing reviews?
17                And so, that's where I see, you know, as 18 Mark alluded to in his response, us supporting the 19 Agency's goals of being more risk informed, so I think 20 it spans the full gamut of the items on this list.
21                CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              Well, another thing 22 I noticed, I mean, after our discussion this morning, 23 that since the PRA requirements for the non-light 24 water advanced reactors will require a lot of PRA, you 25 know, this bullet with the Level 3 PRA also applies to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
39 1 advanced reactors.          So, basically, there is a lot of, 2 even I will say this is just such a --
3                  I mean, five percent on advanced reactors 4 now, it doesn't sound at all, I mean, you know, should 5 meet the Agency needs, but actually since you have 6 this cross interference, you can define all of the 7 efforts which are applicable for advanced reactors.
8                  MR. ARAGUAS:          That's correct.        Okay, I 9 will turn it over to Mehdi.
10                  MR. REISI-FARD:          Good afternoon.      My name 11 is Mehdi Reisi-Fard.              I'm the Branch Chief for the 12 Performance and Reliability Branch in the Office of 13 Nuclear Regulatory Research.
14                  I joined the Agency in 2007 and I've 15 worked in research and NRR as a reliability and risk 16 analyst, and later as a team leader before starting as 17 the branch chief in PRB in May of 2020.                    Can we go to 18 the next slide, please?              I'm on slide number nine.
19                  PRB supports, my branch, PRB, supports the 20 mission of the division and the Agency's risk-informed 21 activities by planning and managing research programs 22 to systematically collect operating experience and 23 assess        reliability        information,          perform      event 24 assessments, and support development of guidance for 25 risk-informed decision making.
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40 1                  As shown here, PRB activities cover three 2 major        areas. The      first      area      is  coordinating 3 activities to develop and maintain guidance related to 4 risk-informed decision making and PRAs.
5                  Under this area, we develop approaches to 6 determine the acceptability of PRAs used to support 7 regulatory        applications,        and      we    also  address      the 8 development of guidance for licensing and oversight 9 using risk information.
10                  Under this area, we support developing 11 processes, develop process tools to risk inform dry 12 cask storage licensing and oversight of regulatory 13 activities.
14                  Another example of activities under this 15 functional area is the future-focused research on 16 using the Licensing Modernization Project known as LMP 17 for operating reactors, and I'll get into a more 18 detailed discussion about all of these in future 19 slides.
20                  The  second        functional          areas    is      the 21 Accident Sequence Precursor or ASP program.                        The ASP 22 program involves the systematic review and evaluation 23 of operating events that have occurred at U.S. plants.
24                  The ASP program identifies and categorizes 25 events which have the potential to lead to core damage NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
41 1 under a set of hypothetical circumstances.                          This 2 evaluation is performed with the goal of gaining 3 operational experience insights.
4                The third area is collection, review, and 5 evaluation    of  OpE      information            under Management 6 Directive 8.7.        Through our processes under this 7 functional area, we generate reliability data that are 8 used by NRC and industry in risk models and risk-9 informed decision making.
10                I will provide more details on ongoing 11 projects, accomplishments, and future direction for 12 each functional area in the next slides.                      Can you 13 please move to the next slide?                  I'm on slide number 14 ten now.
15                This slide provides a list of ongoing 16 projects.      In the area of risk-informed decision 17 making and PRA guidance, we have the major task of 18 endorsing the non-light water reactor standard that 19 was published early in 2021, as well as the industry 20 peer review guidance in NEI 20-09.
21                Endorsement of this standard, as you heard 22 this morning, was a significant effort as the PRA 23 standard covers most hazards and radiological sources, 24 and the endorsement may affect potential endorsement 25 of future standards such as low power shutdown, level NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
42 1 two, level three, and other standards.
2                    The staff values guide is developed under 3 a very aggressive schedule to support the regulatory 4 needs.        Staff determined that issuing a trial use is 5 most appropriate, similar to the first endorsement of 6 level one standard.                That gives us the ability to 7 review the trial implementation and make necessary 8 adjustments in the final guide.
9                    With  respect        to    light      water    reactor 10 standards, we support issuance of a number of PRA 11 standards.        Level one is expected to be published by 12 the end of the calendar year.
13                    Other standards such as level two and 14 advanced        light    water      reactor          will    follow        the 15 publication        of    level        one,        and    the  staff        is 16 participating in various working groups for developing 17 and finalizing those standards.
18                    Besides these items, we have several other 19 activities that are driven by a work request that we 20 expect to be formalized very soon.                          Some examples 21 include two databases that we plan on developing, one 22 for      PRA    standards    and    one    for      PRA  methods.          We 23 anticipate working on enhancing guidance on treatment 24 of uncertainties and developing guidance or reg guides 25 on PRA acceptability.
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43 1                  One area to highlight in the area of risk-2 informed decision making guidance is development of 3 risk tools for spent fuel dry storage.                      This work is 4 nearly complete.
5                  A  report        was      published        last      year.
6 Research      will  provide      additional          support  to    NMSS 7 during the implementation phase, and we support making 8 any additional changes as needed to the guidance.
9                  The last item --
10                  CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                I just want to say 11 that I think this was my favorite slide when I went 12 through this because, you know, it was a typo which 13 says treatment of certainty, because we always talk 14 about treatment about uncertainty, but here we get to 15 develop treatment of certainty and I thought that was 16 a pretty nice typo.
17                  How do we treat certainty actually, you 18 know, what we know versus what we don't know? I don't 19 know did you notice this typo, but it was sort of 20 interesting.
21                  MR. REISI-FARD: Yes, definitely thought-22 provoking and it was not intentional.                      It's a typo, 23 but interesting concept though.
24                  MEMBER REMPE:        So, this is Joy, and since 25 we've already broken your flow, you said a database to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
44 1 support the guidance and standards.                        What's going to 2 be contained in that database?
3                    MR. REISI-FARD:            I get to that a little 4 bit more later on --
5                    MEMBER REMPE:          Oh, okay.
6                    MR. REISI-FARD:          -- but at a high level, 7 it's      going    to  be    repository          of    all  standards, 8 published        standards,        as    well      as    some  trial      use 9 standards and relative standards, and it's going to 10 create a workflow process so that the staff can see 11 the interconnections between different requirements in 12 the standards.
13                    And the staff will be able to use the 14 database to document their positions and endorsements, 15 and that documentation, that workflow process will end 16 result        in  having    kind      of    the    database    basically 17 publish the endorsement of the staff, basically a 18 workflow process from entering all of the requirements 19 in the standard to staff developing their position on 20 different requirements.
21                    MEMBER REMPE:          Thank you.
22                    MR. REISI-FARD:            Sure, the last item in 23 the area of risk-informed decision making is the 24 future focused research that utilizes the NRC's Level 25 3 PRA model and the LMP methodology to gain risk NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
45 1 insights on operating reactor technology.
2                  Phase    one      of    the      FFR    used  selected 3 initiating events, SSCs, from the existing Level 3 PRA 4 results for internal events.                    Phase two will expand 5 the scope of the project to include the results from 6 the expanded Level 3 PRA model that includes external 7 events and credit for flex.
8                  Phase    one      is    complete.          We  completed 9 several other things and the final report.                        Phase two 10 was started early in the summer and we expect to 11 complete it by early 2023.
12                  For the ASP program, in addition to our 13 normal activities regarding screening and analyzing 14 events, we are collaborating with NRR, especially 15 after the Duane Arnold derecho event, to explore how 16 we      can    better    use      ASP    insights        in  regulatory 17 activities.
18                  In the area of operating experience, last 19 year,        the PWR    Owners        Group      raised    a  number        of 20 technical issues in one of the reports primarily 21 related to the analysis and derivation of basic event 22 parameters used in the NRC and industry risk models.
23                  In  the      last      year      or    so,  the    staff 24 evaluated those issues, developed and published a 25 response to the PWR Owners Group.                        In that process, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
46 1 the NRC response identified a number of enhancements 2 to the NRC data and analytics activities.
3                    We continue to issue our periodic reports 4 on initiating event rates, LOOP, system studies, and 5 component reliability.
6                    The  last      item      on    this  slide  is      the 7 development of AI machine learning and data analytics 8 tools to analyze OpE and risk information.                    This is a 9 somewhat limited scope activity and is mostly focused 10 on activities under the newly established MOU with DOE 11 at this time, and I will discuss that in the next 12 slides in more detail.              Can you go please to the next 13 slide?        I'm on slide number 11.
14                    In the next few slides, I highlight some 15 recent accomplishments and future direction for each 16 functional area. Starting from RIDM and PRA guidance, 17 staff published Reg Guide 1.200 and the revision to 18 Reg Guide 1.200 in December of last year.
19                    Their revision endorses the PRA review 20 process and criteria for reviewing the newly developed 21 methods, as well as it endorses the seismic code case.
22                    In addition to Reg Guide 1.200, we revised 23 three other reg guides which include Reg Guide 1.177 24 for risk-informed decision making for tech specs, Reg 25 Guide 1.178 for in-service inspection of piping, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
47 1 Reg Guide 1.175 for in-service testing. Revisions for 2 these          guides    provide          updated        guidance          for 3 consideration of defense-in-depth among other changes.
4                    We supported issuance of the non-light 5 water reactor PRA standards.                        As I said, it was 6 published earlier in 2021.                  The last accomplishment 7 that I'd like to highlight in this area is completing 8 the framework for the database for PRA standards.
9                    The  database          includes,      as    mentioned 10 earlier, a repository of published, and in some cases, 11 trial use, and balloted PRA standards.                        It provides 12 tools for staff in their review of standards to 13 identify connections among numerous requirements in 14 the standard, and provides the workflow to develop and 15 publish the endorsement.
16                    Right now, a framework is complete.                        We 17 have some more work to do to complete it, to populate 18 the database and, you know, have all of the functions 19 in place before we can fully utilize it.
20                    MEMBER    HALNON:            Mehdi,    this  is      Greg 21 Halnon. Is that going to be available to the industry 22 or public, or portions of it to help them navigate the 23 same?
24                    MR. REISI-FARD:          Some aspects of it, yes.
25 So as you all know, the standard itself is copyrighted NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
48 1 material,        so  we  can't      make      the    entire  database 2 publicly available, as we planned on making the staff 3 endorsements publicly available. And it's going to be 4 through the database, and it's going to have, you 5 know, the flexibilities that a database would provide, 6 such as search functions, sorting, and publishing 7 functions that typical databases provide.                            So the 8 short answer is yes --
9                  MEMBER HALNON:          Okay.      Thanks.
10                  MR. REISI-FARD:          So for future direction, 11 all the items under the future direction are from the 12 work request that we expect to be formalized soon. We 13 are closing the existing user need in this area. It's 14 NRR-NRO 2011-009, which we are planning on closing.
15                  The new user need will have an expanded 16 scope.        The expanded scope addresses the necessary 17 activities to support the integrated framework for 18 risk-informed decision-making, such as issues related 19 to work on PRA acceptability for non-light water 20 reactors, enhancements to the risk-informed decision-21 making framework for light water, as well as advanced 22 reactors.        The user need also addresses the increased 23 use and development of PRA consensus standards, as a 24 number of new standards are expected to be published.
25 And, finally, it addresses the need to enhance and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
49 1 somewhat modernize the tools to enable us to maintain 2 review        and  endorse      the    newly-published          industry 3 documents consistently and efficiently.
4                    Can you go to the next slide, please? I'm 5 on slide number 12.
6                    I start talking about the area of data 7 collection and analysis.              We're talking about some of 8 the accomplishments in this area.                      We responded to a 9 work request to identify gaps in implementing the 10 causal alpha factors in modeling CCF and to determine 11 whether the existing alpha factors accurately reflect 12 current industry performance.                    A report on this task 13 was that included our technical analysis was published 14 in early 2021.
15                    We have issued on-site electrical system 16 reliability          study.          That        study    represents          a 17 comprehensive evaluation of the performance of key 18 electrical        components.          We      supported    audits        and 19 interactions with PWR Owners Group on FLEX reliability 20 data, and we issued a number of components reliability 21 reports,        system    studies,          and      reports    on      LOOP 22 evaluations and initiating events rates.
23                    On the future direction, I have already 24 covered some of these items.                      A couple of items to 25 highlight.          The first is that we are renewing our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
50 1 contract with INPO.          This will be another five-year 2 contract to gain access, to be able to gain access to 3 input data. The other item is on efforts to explore 4 the use of advanced computational tools to analyze 5 OpE.
6                In June, we formalized an MOU with DOE to 7 collaborate in the areas of operating experience and 8 applications of data analytics.                The MOU supports us, 9 you know, both the NRC and DOE, in the development of 10 tools and techniques to analyze OpE data and by 11 sharing data; technical information; lessons learned; 12 tools; and, in some cases, the cost related to the 13 development of approaches and tools.
14                We have had period information exchange 15 meetings with DOE for several months now with broad 16 participation from all interested organizations in the 17 agency.
18                On a related note, we plan on issuing a 19 report on potential uses and applications of advanced 20 computational tools and techniques for nuclear power 21 plants. This report included an analysis of responses 22 to an FRN that was issued earlier in the year.                          We 23 issued and Mark Thaggard talked about it earlier in 24 his presentation, the issue of an FRN requesting 25 public comments on the emerging role of AI immersion NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
51 1 learning in the U.S. commercial industry, nuclear 2 industry.        Comments were requested in response to a 3 series        of  questions        focusing          on  the    potential 4 application and perceived efficiencies from adoption 5 of these new tools.              As I said, the report that we 6 plan on finalizing in the next month or so will have 7 an evaluation of the responses received from the 8 industry.
9                    Can you go to the next slide, please?
10                    Last  area      is    the      ASP    program.        Some 11 accomplishments            include          revising          the      office 12 instruction        for  the      ASP    program.          The  revision 13 includes some new information on including the risk of 14 all hazards for which the SPAR models are available, 15 treatment        of  missing        hazards          as  a  source        of 16 uncertainty,        and    more      explicit          consideration          of 17 uncertainties in general.                The revision also includes 18 guidelines to include the timeliness of the analysis.
19                    We  developed          and      released      the      ASP 20 dashboard.        This dashboard is an attractive source of 21 precursor information that provides various filters 22 and slicing tools.            All final precursor reports are 23 hyperlinked within this tool.                        This is the first 24 Microsoft Power BI dashboard that is available on the 25 NRC's public page.
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52 1                  For future direction, we participate in 2 efforts        to  identify        methods        for    improving        the 3 application of ASP information in the ROP.                      The Duane 4 Arnold derecho event, as I mentioned earlier, it has 5 some important risk insights, and we are trying to 6 find a way to better incorporate lessons learned from 7 the ASP program in the oversight activities.
8                  Again, under the MOU with DOE, we are 9 exploring the use of AI immersion learning and data 10 analytics to identify risk insights and trends from 11 past ASP analysis.          In the long run, we are exploring 12 whether we need to modify the ASP program framework or 13 risk criteria to make them more suitable for risk 14 evaluation of operational events for a broader set of 15 reactor designs, including advanced reactors.                        And we 16 continue providing our knowledge management sessions 17 to staff at the headquarters, as well as regional 18 offices.
19                  Next slide, please.                  This is my last 20 slide, and this is just a snapshot of the dashboard 21 that I mentioned earlier.                Without getting into any 22 detail, I just wanted to show how we can communicate 23 and      categorize    various        information          using      this 24 dashboard related to hundreds of ASP analyses that 25 were done in the past 30 - 40 years.
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53 1                MEMBER REMPE:          So before you leave us, I 2 have another question about this database.                    From the 3 guides and standards, was that motivated by a user 4 need or self, I don't know, initiated?                    What caused 5 you guys to decide to do this?
6                MR. REISI-FARD:            It is part of the user 7 need that we are formalizing now, but when we started 8 working on the PRA acceptability for non-light water 9 reactor, we kind of, you know, it kind of became 10 obvious that we had to look at a number of other 11 standards in order to develop our positions for the 12 non-light water reactor. And, you know, currently, we 13 have the 2009 version of Level 1 LERF standard.                          We 14 have a number of balloted standards for Level 1 LERF 15 in the past few years or so.
16                So  we    were    dealing          with a  number        of 17 standards, and it became clear that we need to better 18 understand      the    connections              between    different 19 requirements and different standards, and it was born 20 out of that. And, you know, once we tried to put it 21 together, we saw this is kind of something that can 22 help us in the long term as more standards will be 23 published. In fact, not speaking for JCNRM but, you 24 know, kind of having heard some of their discussions, 25 I think at the industry level they are also moving to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
54 1 develop,        I  don't    want      to    call      it  similar    but      a 2 database, as well, for their own, so that they can 3 track different standards that they're developing.
4                  MEMBER REMPE:            Sounds like a good idea.
5 I'm a little puzzled when you said you're starting to 6 do this before the user need is written, but I don't 7 quite understand how that works, but maybe it would be 8 better, it might be something you might want to 9 clarify.
10                  And then, last, it seems like there might 11 be a way you guys could coordinate somehow or other 12 with this effort or perhaps not.                        Maybe you want to 13 have an independent NRC database.                        Any thoughts on 14 that?
15                  MR. REISI-FARD:            We did think about that.
16 There        are  advantages        to      have      some  level        of 17 independence.          We are maintaining and updating this 18 database        for,  you    know,      for      specific    regulatory 19 reasons and uses.            The industry database may serve 20 different purposes.            So I think we thought that it's 21 better to have some level of independence.
22                  And, you know, when I mentioned the --
23 just one clarification on the database.                            When we 24 started working on this, it wasn't really -- again, it 25 started as an idea to compare different standards. In NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
55 1 fact, at the beginning, we used to call that, even now 2 in some cases we call that the comparison database, 3 basically      comparing      different        standards.        And      we 4 needed to do that to support the non-light water 5 reactor PRA acceptability project.
6                Later on, when we started on engaging with 7 NRR to formalize this new user need that I mentioned 8 in my presentation, we kind of worked with them more 9 in this area and developed a kind of more specific 10 framework to develop that database.
11                MEMBER REMPE:          Thank you.        That helps.
12                MR. REISI-FARD:            Sure.      So with that, I 13 turn it over to Holly Cruz, the acting Branch Chief 14 for Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch.
15                MS. CRUZ:          Thanks, Mehdi.            For those 16 following along separately, I'm on slide 15.
17                As Medhi mentioned, I'm Holly Cruz.                      I'm 18 acting for John Nakoski as the Branch Chief of the 19 Probabilistic      Risk    Assessment          Branch,    PRAB.          My 20 background is in mechanical engineering, and I've been 21 with the agency for 15 years, primarily in NRR.                            As 22 Christian mentioned, I've been in research for the 23 last year and a half as the technical assistant for 24 the Division of Engineering.
25                Next slide.          This is slide 16.                PRAB NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
56 1 plans, develops, integrates, and manages research and 2 development programs relating to probabilistic risk 3 assessment models and methods and supports agency 4 efforts to use risk information in all aspects of 5 regulatory decision-making.                        PRAB activities fall 6 under two functional areas: risk-informed decision-7 making activities where we support the agency by 8 developing probabilistic risk assessment guidance and 9 methods for new and emerging areas and the development 10 of risk models and tools, including software, to 11 support agency-wide risk-informed regulatory programs.
12                      Next slide.        This is slide 17.            The work 13 captured            under      risk-informed                decision-making 14 activities includes the full-scope comprehensive Level 15 3 Probabilistic Risk Assessment, which we'll talk 16 about more on a follow-on slide; external hazards and 17 FLEX      modeling,      recovery        and      restoring      functions 18 credit, international standards participation where we 19 have John Nakoski as a member of the committee on the 20 Safety        of  Nuclear    Installations            Working    Group        on 21 External          Events.        Additionally,            PRAB  staff        are 22 involved with the International Common-Cause Failure 23 Data Exchange Project led by the Organization for 24 Economic          Cooperation        and    Development        through        the 25 Nuclear        Energy    Agency.          We      also    plan  to    have      a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433              WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
57 1 Japanese foreign assignee join us in early calendar 2 year 2022.
3                  Continuing on, this work includes PRA 4 research on accident-tolerant fuel, dynamic PRA as a 5 part      of  future  focused        research        --  we  have        an 6 independent slide on that, as well -- and advanced 7 reactor and regulatory guide support.
8                  The work captured under the development of 9 risk models and tools includes: SPAR model updates 10 with      current  plant      information;            all-hazards      SPAR 11 modeling including seismic, high winds, and internal 12 flooding.        One or two models include fire, as well.
13 The      SPAR-DASH    risk      data      dashboard,      IDHEAS-ECA 14 application,          SAPHIRE          software          updates          and 15 enhancements, and cloud-based SAPHIRE.                        We'll talk 16 about these risk models and tools more on the next 17 slide.
18                  This is slide 18.              A large part of the 19 work PRAB does supports the SAPHIRE code and SPAR 20 models.        These risk tools have been developed for 21 event        assessment,    reactor        oversight,        and    reactor 22 licensing,        and  to    maintain          staff    PRA  skills        and 23 knowledge management.                Under accomplishments, the 24 staff have incorporated FLEX modeling into 68 SPAR 25 models and completed 12 significant model updates NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
58 1 since the last ACRS manual. We complete approximately 2 six updates per year.              Idaho National Laboratory 3 completed six models in 2020, and they're in the 4 process of completing the last two models for 2021.
5                We developed a pilot version of the SPAR-6 DASH data visualization dashboard using Microsoft 7 Power BI. The SPAR-DASH project is aimed at providing 8 a user-friendly format of risk-informed information 9 regarding the operating fleet of nuclear reactors.
10 This project supports the use of risk-important data 11 and      regulatory  decisions          associated      with    the      Be 12 RiskSMART      framework      and    has      three    stages:      data 13 extraction, cleaning, and visualization.
14                Looking      forward        for    SAPHIRE  and      SPAR 15 improvements, we plan to expand and enhance the SPAR 16 model scope and implement a cloud-based SAPHIRE code.
17 We talked a little about SPAR-DASH.                    We've developed 18 a communications plan that includes sharing the pilot 19 with partner offices to obtain feedback and developing 20 staff guidance and workshops.                We also have some SPAR 21 model reassessments under development, such as the 22 human failure event reassessment using IDHEAS-ECA, a 23 software tool capable of modeling both internal events 24 and the use of FLEX equipment.
25                Next slide, please.              Could you advance to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
59 1 the next slide, please?
2                  MR. THOMPSON:          Past Level 3 --
3                  MS. CRUZ:        Pardon me?
4                  MR. THOMPSON: I think it showed the Level 5 3 PRA.
6                  MS. CRUZ: Okay. Sorry. It's not showing 7 on my screen. Is that still showing SAPHIRE and SPAR?
8 But I'll go ahead.
9                  So I'm on slide 19.              The next project I'd 10 like to talk about is the Level 3 Probabilistic Risk 11 Assessment.      In a staff requirements memorandum from 12 2011, the Commission directed the staff to develop a 13 full-scope site Level -- sorry -- site Level 3 PRA to 14 support risk-informed decision-making, reflect State-15 of-the-Art      Reactor      Consequence            Analysis,    SOARCA, 16 insights in the proper risk context, and further 17 enhance staff PRA skills.
18                  In March 2012, the staff provided the 19 Commission with the initial Level 3 PRA project plan, 20 and,      in  September    2012,      the      staff  provided        the 21 Commission with its plans to apply the Level 3 PRA 22 project results to the NRC's regulatory framework.
23 Since that time, the staff has provided annual project 24 briefings to commissioners' assistants.
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60 1 on the Level 3 PRA projects, including incorporation 2 of      the    SOARCA    technical          and      project  management 3 insights.          To  provide        some      context,    the    staff 4 completed 19 base case models, which translates to 90-5 percent completed for phase 1.                      Phase 1 covers the 6 development of the initial model and internal report.
7 Phase 2 covers development of the final model and 8 internal report, incorporating review comments from 9 the Level 3 PRA Project Technical Advisory Group, 10 feedback from the ACRS, and any other reviews.                            The 11 technical advisory group consists of NRC technical 12 advisors in PRA and related fields, as well as two 13 senior        PRA    experts        from        industry,    one      from 14 Westinghouse and one from EPRI.
15                    The staff have also completed three 2020 16 FLEX models which translates to 18 percent completed 17 for phase 1 and completed five public reports which 18 translates to 23 percent of the draft reports under 19 review.        We plan to complete the technical work in 20 early 2023 and to submit a final NUREG summary volume 21 publications by mid-2024.
22                    As  we      move      forward        towards      these 23 milestones, we plan to release project reports to the 24 public in batches.                Research will work with the 25 program offices, the Office of Public Affairs, and a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
61 1 voluntary licensee on releasing the reports.                                  In 2 addition, we plan to present the public reports to the 3 ACRS for review and comment.
4                  We previously briefed the ACRS Reliability 5 and PRA Subcommittee on many of the phase 1 models and 6 results.        Due to the pre-decisional status of the 7 information, most of these subcommittee briefings were 8 conducted in closed sessions.                    We plan to brief the 9 ACRS      on  the  phase    2    models      and      results  in    open 10 sessions and will work with the ACRS staff to schedule 11 the briefings likely in calendar year 2022.
12                  The staff envisions this model will be 13 used as a tool to gain risk perspectives on some of 14 the NRC's current or emergent activities, such as 15 accident-tolerant fuel or the licensing modernization 16 project.
17                  Next slide.
18                  MEMBER PETTI:          I have a question.
19                  MS. CRUZ:        Oh, okay.
20                  MEMBER PETTI:        This is Dave.          In terms of 21 the number of plants that are going to be looked at at 22 Level 3 PRA, are they bound or, you know, we've got a 23 couple of the old BWIs and a couple of the newest ones 24 and PWRs from the different vendors.                          How was the 25 subset picked?
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62 1                  MEMBER PETTI:          So I believe we have Alan 2 Kuritzky, who is our lead for the Level 3 PRA project 3 on the line, and I will defer to Alan on that question 4 if that's okay.
5                  MEMBER PETTI:          Okay.
6                  MR. KURITZKY:          This is Alan Kuritzky with 7 the      Division  of    Risk      Analysis        in  the  Office        of 8 Research and the lead to the Level 3 project.                              So 9 we're actually looking at a single plant.                          It's a 10 Westinghouse four-loop plant, large dry containment.
11 We always intend only to look at a single site, a 12 single plant, just due to the vast scope of the 13 project.      And the determination of what plant to use, 14 we had actually come up with some criteria at the 15 beginning of the project, at the outset, and actually 16 held some public meetings to go over and describe what 17 we were looking for and to get feedback from industry 18 and their support. The Commission actually told us to 19 in the SRM to work with industry to come up with a 20 volunteer licensee, and there were actually several 21 volunteers that we were going to choose from.                          But, 22 unfortunately, because it was timed right around the 23 Fukushima accident and, once all the post-Fukushima 24 PRA responsibilities were starting to fall down on the 25 industry, they quickly backed off supporting the Level NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
63 1 3 project, so we ended up with a single volunteer, 2 fortunately,      that    was      able      to      support    a    very 3 significant effort in supporting us and we're very 4 appreciative of that.              So there's only one plant, 5 again, a four-loop Westinghouse, unlike the --
6                  MEMBER PETTI:          Okay.        That answers --
7                  MR. KURITZKY:            -- where, of course, we 8 looked at all different types.
9                  MEMBER PETTI:          Right, right.        Thanks.
10                  MS. CRUZ: Thanks, Alan. So I think we're 11 ready for the last slide, which is slide number 20.
12                  The last project I'd like to cover for 13 PRAB is dynamic PRA.                Dynamic PRA refers to PRA 14 approaches that simulate system behavior and accident 15 scenario development over time.                    As a supplement to 16 commonly used event tree or fault tree methods, the 17 use of dynamic PRA has the potential to provide 18 additional useful risk insights for operating plant 19 designs and operations.
20                  PRA-based        applications            can  also        be 21 anticipated      for  future      advanced          reactor  designs.
22 Dynamic PRA also plays a major role in university PRA 23 and      research  and    development            programs,    and      the 24 Department      of  Energy        is    supporting        significant 25 national laboratory work, including large-scale tool NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
64 1 development at Idaho National Laboratory.
2                    The    objective          of    this      future-focused 3 research is to prepare NRC staff on the efficient use 4 of      dynamic      PRA    tools      for    anticipated          submittals 5 developed using dynamic PRA methods.                          This study will 6 primarily focus on staff development for the efficient 7 use of dynamic PRA tools and methods and consists of 8 three main tasks.            The staff will initially complete 9 a literature review to leverage ongoing dynamic PRA 10 activities          identifying          methods,          approaches,        and 11 available dynamic PRA tools.                        The staff will also 12 participate          in    training          exercises          to    develop 13 capabilities for using the existing dynamic PRA tools, 14 and the staff will develop hands-on experience by 15 using dynamic PRA tools to develop a simple dynamic 16 PRA model.
17                    The results of the study consists of three 18 main deliverables noted under accomplishments and 19 future        direction.          First      is      an    interim      report 20 documenting          literature        review          and    dynamic        PRA 21 activities.          We have a draft in progress expected to 22 be complete by the end of October.                        Next are training 23 sessions on the use of dynamic PRA tools.                            Three of 24 them completed to date, including an introduction to 25 dynamic        PRA    virtual        workshop        in    November      2020, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433              WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
65 1 training on the Event Modeling Risk Assessment using 2 Linked Diagrams, EMERALD, software tool in January 3 2021, and the Reactor Analysis and Virtual Control 4 Environment, RAVEN, tool training in May 2021.                            The 5 final report documenting dynamic PRA model results is 6 expected in July 2022.
7                We hope to leverage this work to maintain 8 awareness      of  a  still-developing                cutting-edge        PRA 9 technology and monitor industry interest to ensure 10 readiness for future licensing activities.
11                That's all I have for PRAB.
12                MEMBER BROWN:          Can I ask a question?
13                MS. CRUZ:        Sure.
14                MEMBER BROWN:        I was a non-PRA person, so 15 bear with me. What's the difference between a dynamic 16 PRA and the standard PRA I've been listening to for 17 the last 13 years?
18                MS. CRUZ:        So, again, I'm going to phone 19 a friend, and I think we have Michelle Gonzalez on the 20 line who is the lead for this effort.                    So if she's on 21 the line, I'm hoping she can address that question.
22                MS. GONZALEZ:          I'm here, Holly.              So in 23 very short words, basically, for dynamic PRA, we use 24 simulation      tools.      We    have      incorporation      of      the 25 programs to obtain the results or what we want to look NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
66 1 at instead of just using the regular event tree, fault 2 tree approach.
3                    MEMBER BROWN: Excuse me. So you're using 4 transient analyses type approaches?                          When you say 5 simulation, that's what that means to me.
6                    MS. GONZALEZ:              Well,    no.      We      can 7 incorporate, it's an incorporation of different tools 8 actually. We can use tools for thermal hydraulics and 9 see how the things react over time.
10                    MEMBER BROWN:          That's a transient then, 11 right?        I mean, you're talking about time transients 12 for certain events or certain types of parameters that 13 you monitor in the PRA and see how the transient 14 performance        affects      your      various        parameters      that 15 you're looking for in determining whether everything 16 is okay or not?          I'm just trying to understand what 17 the difference is; that's all.
18                    MS. GONZALEZ:          Yes.        John has his hand 19 raised.        John, if you want to add something to this.
20                    MR. NAKOSKI:        Yes.      This is John Nakoski.
21 I'm the Branch Chief.              Holly is acting for me.                  I'm 22 listening in.        The simple way I think about this is a 23 dynamic PRA, and it was mentioned, uses, like you 24 said, a transient analysis, thermal hydraulic codes, 25 to see what the effect of an action is over time.
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67 1 Simply thinking, I think, of our current models as 2 more static.          There are some time dependencies in 3 there, of course, but they're more a static snapshot, 4 a moment in time on what the risk is based on that.
5 And I think that's the biggest difference, simply 6 speaking, in my mind.
7                  MEMBER BROWN:          Okay.        I look at the event 8 tree approach and how you come up with your final 9 answers as being, like you say, a static specific type 10 of an analysis.          So you're just trying to make other 11 time-based tools in order to make some of these 12 assessments, as well.
13                  MR. NAKOSKI:          That's correct.          And, you 14 know, you're looking for one of the things that we 15 have in our mind is looking at recovery actions: are 16 there some things, you know, time dependencies in 17 there that perhaps we could leverage some of the 18 dynamic tools that are, dynamic PRA tools that are out 19 there to give us insights on the timing of recovery 20 actions so that is there a credit that we can give and 21 what      impact  would      that      have      on    the final      risk 22 assessment.        That's kind of looking over the horizon 23 a little bit.        That's not something we're going to be 24 doing tomorrow, but, you know, looking three, five 25 years down the road, what can we do.
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68 1                    MEMBER BROWN:          Okay.      It's an interesting 2 thought.          I hadn't thought about it in that way 3 before, so thanks.
4                    MR. NAKOSKI:          Yes.
5                    MS. CRUZ:        Thank you, John and Michelle.
6 So I'd like to now --
7                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                  I have one short 8 question on Level 3, and then I think this is a good 9 time for us to take a break.                        We are right in the 10 middle of the presentation.
11                    So I have a question on Level 3.                      Would 12 Level 3 include the risk integration for the multiple 13 plants on the site?              I think somebody mentioned that 14 today, and I was wondering, I was wondering, since you 15 only      have    one    unit      as    an    example,    would      risk 16 integration be part of some of Level 3 consideration?
17                    MR. THAGGARD:            So I can answer that, if 18 you want, Holly.            The answer is yes.              The site that 19 we're using actually has more than one unit, and it's 20 not only the multiple units but we're also looking at 21 spent        fuel  pool    and      dry    cask      storage.      So      the 22 integration, so integration is a big piece of that.
23                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Excellent, excellent.
24 Thank you.        So I propose, now is like around 3:30, I 25 propose that we make 15-minute break and then we get NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
69 1 back at 3:45 and then continue with our, I think the 2 fire and external hazards is next, right?
3                  MS. CRUZ:        Yes.
4                  CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay. Excellent. So 5 we will reconvene at 3:45.                Thank you.
6                  (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 7 off the record at 3:31 p.m. and resumed at 3:45 p.m.)
8                  CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                  We can resume the 9 meeting.      I guess that Mark Henry Salley will be our 10 next      presenter  on    the    Fire      and    External    Hazard 11 Analysis Branch.        So, Mark, please take it over.
12                  MR. SALLEY:          Thank you very much.                I'm 13 Mark Henry Salley.          I'm the Branch Chief for Fire and 14 External Hazards Analysis.
15                  Background        on    me,    I    started  the      fire 16 research team actually back in 2004.                      It grew into a 17 branch.
18                  Back    around        the      2016      time  frame        we 19 combined the fire research with the environmental 20 transport branch.            And that's the fire hazards and 21 external, excuse me, the fire and external hazards 22 analysis branch as we know it today.
23                  Prior to that I was eight years in NRR in 24 plant systems branch. And ten years before that I was 25 the      corporate  fire      protection          engineer    for      TVA NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
70 1 Nuclear.
2                    Go to the next slide please. A little bit 3 about FXHAB.          We have three distinct areas, three 4 diverse areas, that we have that make up this branch.
5 The first one if the fire research branch.                      Or excuse 6 me, the old fire research branch.
7                    The fire research area looks at two areas.
8 There's two tracks basically.                    As you're well aware, 9 half the industry stayed with the 10 CFR 50 Appendix 10 R licensing basis.            The prescriptive licensing basis.
11                    The other half evolved to the 10 CFR 5048 12 C, which is the risk informed performance basis, 13 licensing basis commonly called NFPA 805.                      And that's 14 the work that's done in this area to support those two 15 different tracks.
16                    A second functionally area is the external 17 hazards.        Of course the big one that we talk a lot 18 about        there  is    the      probabilistic        flood    hazards 19 assessment.        It worked PFHA.
20                    We're also looking at other things that we 21 don't want to miss.              For example, high winds, we're 22 going to talk a little bit about, we well as some 23 other weather affects that we should deal with.
24                    The one thing we do not do in external 25 hazards        is  seismic.          So    the      earthquake  and      the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
71 1 seismic, that belongs to DE, the civil engineering 2 folks.
3                The third area, it's kind of a new area 4 but it's not really new.              And I've got it here as 5 environmental hazards.          I really should have titled 6 this as environmental impacts.                And it's some work we 7 do, typically with our partners in NMSS.
8                Next slide please.              We'll just touch on 9 the major projects and then we'll take a little deeper 10 dive into each of them.
11                If we look at fire PRA, the term you'll 12 hear today that's thrown a lot is fire PRA realism.
13 But if we go back to 2004 there was a report, it was 14 the first time we worked together really closely with 15 the Electric Power and Research Institute, EPRI.
16                And we jointly published a report commonly 17 referred to as NUREG-CR-6850.                It's actually that or 18 EPRI-109-1989. Like I said, it was the first time we 19 ever jointly published.
20                And this is basically the method of how do 21 you do a fire PRA.        This report was important for a 22 couple of reasons.
23                It affects some of the how we do risk 24 informing with fire for STP, but it also formed the 25 basis for the plants that wanted to go forward with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
72 1 NFPA 805.      As this gave them methods on how to do the 2 fire PRA.
3                We can't forget post-fire safe shutdown.
4 That, of course, goes back to March 22nd, 1975, the 5 Browns Ferry fire in Appendix R.                  And there still was 6 an amount of work that we've done in there.                            And 7 occasionally things come up that we still support 8 that.
9                An area that's probably the biggest thing 10 we're working on today in fire research is high energy 11 arcing fault, or HEAFs.            You can think of those as a, 12 first steps would be an arc flash, which is something 13 that's fairly commonly, but when the fault stays 14 locked in it develops into a HEAF.
15                And I'll just point out that this is kind 16 of a newer area.        This was not in our lexicon until 17 really the 2004 time frame.                  The first place that 18 you'll really see this mentioned is in NUREG-CR-6850.
19                This is kind of a newer phenomena.                  Based 20 on a lot of what we've seen in operating experience 21 has lead us to this.        And also, be aware that it's not 22 unique to nuclear power plants.
23                Anywhere there is a lot of electricity, 24 specifically medium voltage, HEAFs can occur.                            So 25 that's the area.
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73 1                And the final area that I want to touch 2 on, that I think is important, is training.                    You can 3 do a lot of really good research things but if you 4 don't get it out in people hands in training them how 5 to use the models and tools sometimes it's all for 6 not.
7                Other major projects we got, the external 8 hazards of course if the PFHA work.                        PFHA we're 9 completing the first part of raising a seven year 10 project getting Phase 1 completed where we're working 11 into Phase 2. I'll talk about that in a little bit.
12 There is three phases to that project.
13                High winds is a newer area that we're 14 looking at. There has been some research done. We've 15 supported part of it with other partners.                      We will 16 discuss that with high winds.
17                And another area that we're starting to 18 explore is weather extremes.                This past year, anyone 19 who's just watched the news saw that with the cold 20 weather in Texas, as well the hot weather, some of the 21 things that their nuclear plants have gone through.
22 So weather extremes/intensity is something we want to 23 take a look at.
24                The  other      area,      like      I said,    is    the 25 environmental impact.          I shouldn't have used hazards NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
74 1 there it should have been impact, I think is a better 2 description.
3                  But here we're looking at things like 4 subsurface characterizations, radon and ET covers, as 5 well as the MARSSIM's agreement, which we'll talk 6 about in a little bit.            So those are the ten thousand 7 foot      major projects      that      you'll        see  within      this 8 branch.
9                  Next slide please.              As I said, the thing 10 you'll hear a lot in industry is improving fire PRA 11 realism.      That seems to be the goal.                That's what we 12 strive for.
13                  If I take you back in time to, I think 14 August 24th, 2018 we were in front of the ACRS, and if 15 you remember it, we showed you a graph that EPRI had 16 put together and presented in a RIC session, and we 17 called it the skyscraper chart, if you remember it.
18                  And it listed the first 16 or so plants 19 that had come in for NFPA 805.                    And where they were 20 finding their high fire risks.
21                  And if you remember the first one, it was 22 electrical enclosures, cabinet fires.                      The second was 23 transients.        And the third was high energy arcing 24 faults.
25                  Since that time we've been doing a lot or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
75 1 work.        Most of it, many times, in partnership with 2 EPRI under an MOU.              And we've reduced some of the 3 conservatism, brought a little more realism to how we 4 model things like electrical enclosure fires.
5                  The picture off to your left there is an 6 experiment we ran at NIST. And where we were modeling 7 how group cable trays burn and the flames spread and 8 the heat released produced from these cable tray 9 fires.
10                  So we've done a lot of work in that area.
11 And we're brought a lot more realism to those types of 12 fires.
13                  Transient      was    another        one. We      just 14 completed a big project. EPRI did half the testing at 15 Jensen Hughes, we did the other half in NIST.                                We 16 combined our data and we developed some methods on how 17 better to model transient fires.
18                  That's    an    area      that      we're  going        to 19 continue to do a little more research on and come up 20 with simpler methods for our inspectors to model 21 transient fires and what risk they play when they find 22 them in the plants.
23                  The third area that we're going to talk 24 about, of course, is the high energy arcing faults.
25 That we'll have a separate slide on, and we'll get NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
76 1 into that in a little bit.
2                We've produced a number of work.                        The 3 joint work with EPRI was NUREGs.                      Some scientific 4 research we were also able to do with NIST.
5                For example, where the fire is located in 6 a compartment actually makes a difference when you 7 model it or when you see it in real life.                    So we've 8 done some testing with NIST and published those as 9 research information letters.
10                Next slide please.
11                CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              I have a question.
12                MR. SALLEY:        Sure.
13                CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              I have a question of 14 this slide because I think some of those failures are 15 very, very, you know, very crucial areas for that 16 area, I mean, the fires, as much as I remember when I 17 was doing fire PRAs.
18                When it comes to the cabinet fires, there 19 is another topic which is slightly different than 20 which you define here.            This is, you know, you can 21 analyze inside fire and propagation as an (audio 22 interference).      But also you can analyze cabinet 23 inside the area which is being heated up by fire.
24                Was any research done on what temperatures 25 in the elemental temperature the cabinets are, should NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
77 1 be considered to start failing their functions and 2 what type of failure modes are these associated with 3 it.
4                  MR. SALLEY:          That's a very interesting 5 question.        And yes, cabinets tend to make up one of 6 the major risk factors.
7                  Simple things we looked at was, early on, 8 was the cabinet opened or closed with the ventilation 9 makes a very big difference.                    But your question, it 10 deals with fragility.
11                  And if there is another cabinet on fire or 12 a ground based transient fire, whatever the source may 13 be, it could be an oil fire, et cetera, when does it 14 take the cabinet out. We are actually looking at that 15 right now with the high energy arcing faults because 16 one of the things we look at with the high energy 17 arcing faults is we developed, which we call a ZOI, a 18 zone of influence, we do the same with a thermal fire.
19                  And the question becomes, what temperature 20 do I get when I see the fragility of the cabinets of 21 fail.        Now, the big thing is cables.              Cables tend to 22 be the big target that we see in cable trays and 23 conduits.
24                  But that project right now is actually 25 looking at that.        And we're doing some modeling with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
78 1 the HEAF at the source term, if you will, to see when 2 we get that failure in cabinets and other targets. So 3 that's --
4                  CHAIR    DIMITRIJEVIC:                Okay. All      the 5 breakers and switches too, you know, in addition to 6 the cables.          So then you can start, you know, can 7 consider spurious operations and things like that.
8                  MR. SALLEY:          Most      definitely.            Most 9 definitely.        And the cabinets by you a bit.                    I mean, 10 we see with things like conduits, if a cable was at 11 least an air drop versus one that's in a medium or a 12 rigid        conduit,  of    course        the    material      adds      some 13 thermal heat sink for you and it actually buys you 14 some time.
15                  So we have an ongoing effort right now 16 doing that as part of the HEAF program.
17                  CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              Okay, thanks.        Thank 18 you.
19                  MR. SALLEY:        Sure.        Sure.      And again, to 20 follow up on your point, one of the research projects 21 we got going, that we'll deal with NIST, and again, it 22 gets      to  the  ventilation          control        with    the      fire 23 obviously, heat, fuel and oxygen, but again, the 24 ventilation can control about how much oxygen you're 25 getting in for combustion.
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79 1                  And that's something that we saw early on.
2 Just to touch on the conservatism that came up with 3 the early cabinet fires.              And the Europeans still do 4 a lot of this, is that if you open the cabinet door 5 and burn what's inside, obviously there is ample 6 oxygen.        So it becomes a fuel limited fire.                  And you 7 tend to see the larger fires that way.
8                  However, what we see in OpE is a lot of 9 times the cabinets are closed so all you have is a 10 ventilation louvers to lobby oxygen in.                      So you can 11 think of it like your fireplace.                      If you're limiting 12 the oxygen then you're controlling the combustion.
13                  And that's an area that we still want to 14 do a little bit of work with NIST. And scientifically 15 we can nail that down for our models.                      So that's the 16 last item on there.
17                  Next slide please. HEAF. HEAF is the big 18 one we've been working.              We've been working on this 19 one for quite a while.
20                  I guess the most recent news is that this 21 used to be known we pre-GI 018 for the aluminum high 22 energy arc faults.          In the past month we have exited 23 the GI program.
24                  Right now there is nothing.              This was the 25 last item that was in the generic issue program.                            So NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
80 1 that program is currently vacant or empty.
2                  We brought this back to research. We need 3 to do a little additional work.                        It's work that's 4 ongoing, along with EPRI.
5                  We formed a working group a couple of 6 years ago to really, on this side.                      This is kind of a 7 new area for us to go into.
8                  It's    not      an    area      that's    very      well 9 explored, which you'll find a lot in the literature.
10 I mentioned earlier was arc flashes and NFPA, the 11 IEEE.        They've done a lot of work in this area.                      But 12 again, their primary mission there was electrician 13 safety for personnel safety.
14                  So  their      durations        of  the  event      were 15 limited, roughly, to two seconds.                        When we see the 16 HEAFs, it's basically an arc flash that has stayed 17 locked in for some reason and it grows quite a bit 18 from what we see in the arc flash.
19                  So that's an area that we're still doing 20 an amount of work on.            Again, with that, NRR is going 21 to do a LIC-504 project to try to get a handle on some 22 of the risk insights for this so they can get some 23 decision making.        And that is ongoing.
24                  Final    piece,      with      HEAF,    is  this      all 25 started out as international research. Research we've NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
81 1 done with the OECD, NEA.              And that's kind of where we 2 were trying to get a handle on it.
3                  And actually what we were trying to do was 4 to do the research to validate Appendix M in NUREG-CR-5 6850.        Which is how we model the HEAF events.                          Of 6 course, things were going fairly well until we ran 7 into some aluminum components and we saw a different 8 failure mechanism.          A much more energetic fault.
9                  And from there we kind of entered the 10 generic issue program, which we've since exited.                            But 11 that's where we're at with that.                          We've done an 12 information notice, 2017-04 I believe it is.                          And we 13 put that out.
14                  As a final thing with the HEAF project, 15 like I said, it's still ongoing.                      There is a lot of 16 deliverables that are going to be coming due in FY22.
17                  We've created a website.                  And all the 18 latest information on this project can be found on the 19 website.
20                  MEMBER    HALNON:            Hey,      Mark,  this      Greg 21 Halnon.
22                  MR. SALLEY:        Go ahead.
23                  MEMBER HALNON:            Yes.        When this issue 24 first came out it caused a lot of consternation 25 throughout both regulatory and the industry.                          How do NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
82 1 you guys stay in sync with the inspection folks and 2 what's going on at the sites when you have an issue 3 like this?
4                  Did it get into the generic energy program 5 late or did it, what happened there and why now are we 6 kind of deciding that it's not as serious an issue as 7 it was?
8                  MR. SALLEY:        I don't think seriousness is 9 the key.      I think what brought us out of the generic 10 issue program is that you're not supposed to stay in 11 a generic issue program forever.
12                  And this program, this research, was there 13 for five or six years and we weren't making enough 14 progress.      There still needed to be some additional 15 research done.
16                  So following the process is pretty much 17 why we had to remove this from the program and bring 18 it back to research until we complete those pieces and 19 then reevaluate it as to where it needs to be.                              We 20 still follow all of the regions quite a bit.
21                  December 16th last year the Harris plant, 22 they      experienced    a    HEAF      due      to    some  insulation 23 problems on the aluminum bus stop.                    So we try to stay 24 well informed and work with our original partners on 25 that to get the last information.
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83 1                  MEMBER HALNON:          Okay.
2                  MR. SALLEY:            The thing with HEAFs is 3 they're not super rare, but they're super common.                            So 4 every few years we tend to see one.                      And that was kind 5 the crux of the information notice that we needed to 6 stop, go back and look at the OpE over time and 7 connect the dots, if you will.
8                  MEMBER HALNON:          Okay.
9                  MR. SALLEY: So that's where we're at with 10 that.        Mark Thaggard, do you want anything else on 11 existing the generic issue process?
12                  MR. THAGGARD:                No,      I  think        you 13 characterized it correctly.                So it's not a, we didn't 14 make any determination on the significance of the 15 issue, as Mark Henry said.
16                  If you look at the criteria for getting 17 something        into  the    GI    program,          there  is  certain 18 criteria.        One of them is whether or not you can make 19 a, come to a resolution in a timely manner.                          And we 20 just haven't been able to do that yet.                      We need to get 21 some more work done.
22                  MR. SALLEY:        Okay.
23                  MEMBER REMPE:            So this is Joy.            And I 24 really appreciate this discussion because I've read 25 the industry notices or the popular press notices and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
84 1 they      clearly  say  it      was    pulled        out  because      you 2 couldn't, you can't do research for a long period of 3 time for a GI issue, or generic issue.
4                  But  I  haven't        heard        anything    in      the 5 popular press saying, with an additional research it 6 can go back in.        And that's what I'm hearing from you 7 guys        today,  which      we    just        don't    have    enough 8 information        to  evaluate        it      and    maybe  it  got      in 9 prematurely?
10                  MR. SALLEY: Yes. When we originally went 11 in, I think we thought we had a little better handle 12 on what we needed to do from the research side. There 13 was a lot of confusion back then.
14                  Part of the thing, if you go back in time 15 and look at it was just how much aluminum was out 16 there.        And from the informal surveys that NEI did 17 it's like, well, there's little to none.                        So it was 18 kind of framing itself as a different kind of problem.
19                  As we look further, EPRI just finished a 20 survey this past year and found that aluminum is 21 basically in every plant in the country.                          So we're 22 still learning a lot about it.
23                  Yes, I believe it can reenter the program, 24 but for the decision makers in the regulatory office 25 I think they need to move ahead faster and further NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
85 1 than us.      And that's what the LIC-504 process should 2 help them to inform their decision.
3                  MR. THAGGARD:          Well, the other thing is, 4 I wouldn't say it was entered prematurely, I think 5 we've learned a lot.              I mean, that's part of the 6 working.
7                  One of the thing that we've learned is 8 that there are some issues here that are a lot more 9 complicated than I think we originally understood when 10 we first got into it.
11                  MEMBER REMPE:          Okay, this really helps.
12 And I get, that's why I'm kind of repeating my take on 13 it so I can make sure my take on it is correct, so I 14 appreciate you pointing that out to me.                Again, this 15 has been a very helpful discussion.
16                  MEMBER BROWN:          Can I speak up?      This is 17 Charlie.
18                  MR. SALLEY:        Sure, Charlie.
19                  MEMBER BROWN:          Can you hear me?
20                  MR. SALLEY:        Yes, sir.
21                  MEMBER BROWN:        My mind is blowing.        Five, 22 six, seven years ago, this issue of the energy arc, 23 how the energy arc faults came up.
24                  And back in the early to mid-'80s we had, 25 I was in the naval nuclear program, submarines and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309      www.nealrgross.com
 
86 1 aircraft carrier parts of it. And arc faults are not, 2 it's not a matter of aluminum or copper it's a matter 3 of loose connections, and aluminum just contributes to 4 loose connections better than copper does, for the 5 most part.
6                And it was a big problem in submarines and 7 aircraft carriers.        And we almost killer people with 8 a couple of high energy arc faults.                  It blew out of 9 the panel.
10                Fortunately the petty officer happened to 11 be leaning over tying his shoe strings at the time and 12 he didn't get a fireball through his back.                      And we 13 embarked on a huge program which we then developed arc 14 fault detectors.        They were installed in all the 15 submarines, as well as in aircraft carriers.
16                And I brought this up to the research 17 group, and I forgot who else, pointed them to the 18 documents and their hardware.                I mean, you can really 19 search the hell out of this, but it's fixable.
20                It doesn't seem like anybody wants to fix 21 it, they just want to research it. I'm being a little 22 bit sarcastic when I say that because I was surprised 23 that this pops back up again like this and all we're 24 doing is worrying about all the aspects of analysis 25 and research and can you predict it and all this other NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
87 1 kind of stuff when it's fixable.                      Why research it if 2 you can fix it.
3                  MR. SALLEY:          Yes, Charlie, Commissioner 4 Ostendorff used to also beat me up with this too with 5 his navy background.            He'd hit me in a few commission 6 meetings with the same thing.
7                  But again, it takes us into the world of 8 backfit.        And I don't know that we're there to even 9 consider that yet.
10                  MEMBER BROWN:            Well why research it if 11 they're        going  to    fix      it?        I    mean,  researching 12 something that's a fire, put out the fire then if 13 they're not going to fix it.
14                  I know you can't mandate anything. But it 15 seems resources spent time studying it when you're not 16 going to do anything about it seems like the money 17 would be better spent in some other areas.
18                  MR. SALLEY:        You know, one of the things 19 with the HEAF, and when we entered the generic safety 20 issue program, the mantra, or the thing that we heard 21 a lot of was, oh, here we go again, another GSI-191.
22 And it's going to develop into that.
23                  Part of the reason to how we work through 24 the GI program, and the reason it stayed a pre-GI it 25 never went to a generic issue, was that we didn't want NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
88 1 to repeat the same mistakes.                    We wanted to have the 2 full understanding of it, we wanted to have the 3 analytical tools.
4                  When we do an analysis, or a plant would 5 use our methods to go out there and analyze if they 6 have a potential risk, we wanted them to be the best 7 we could possibly be, not some overly conservative 8 method.        And if that's --
9                  MEMBER    BROWN:        Why      bother?      You      can 10 analyze the heck out this stuff.                      And if industry is 11 not worried about it on the small occurrences that 12 they have, that they wouldn't backfit stuff to prevent 13 them,        then I  have    a    hard    time      seeing  why    we're 14 spending research money on it.
15                  MR. THAGGARD:          Well, we need to spend --
16                  (Simultaneously speaking.)
17                  MEMBER BROWN:          -- a little bit critical 18 here because you cannot mandate backfit, I agree with 19 you, but I don't see that.                We had a reason to do it.
20                  When you're enclosed in a submarine hole 21 or you're enclosed in a machinery space in an aircraft 22 carrier, you've got some real severe problems when you 23 have one of these things blowout.                        So we had a real 24 incentive.
25                  I don't know how that applies to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
89 1 commercial world, but you say it doesn't happen that 2 often, and obviously the industry is not interested in 3 backfitting any equipment in there to prevent them so, 4 or respond and de-energize stuff when they occur.
5                MR. THAGGARD:          Well --
6                MEMBER BROWN:          There are ways to do it, 7 so, I'm sorry for my, I'm not trying to be mean or 8 nasty, it just seems to me that if we're looking for 9 resources we ought to be using them in the places 10 where they might be more, have some results when 11 something gets done.
12                MR. THAGGARD:          Well, the reason that we 13 were doing the research is to determine whether or not 14 that something needed to be done.                    We haven't made 15 that decision.
16                And then if we make that decision that 17 something needs to be done, then we need to have 18 information to be able to support that.                  But also to 19 determine what is the fix that we would recommend. So 20 we have to do the research to understand whether or 21 not this is an issue or not.
22                MEMBER BROWN:        You've got the data of how 23 often it occurs. You don't have to figure out all the 24 nuances and micro details about why they may or may 25 not occur.
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90 1                    MR. THAGGARD:          Well, we need to know, I 2 mean, Mark mentioned earlier this thing, the zone of 3 influence.          So you take that for an example.
4                    We need to know how big this zone of 5 influence to know what equipment is impacted.                            If it 6 turns out that nothing is impacted, then you know you 7 don't have an issue.
8                    MEMBER BROWN:          Well --
9                    (Simultaneously speaking.)
10                    MR. THAGGARD:            Well, there hasn't been 11 enough        of  these  things      to    be    able  to  make      that 12 conclusive          statement      because        it    hasn't  happened.
13 Something isn't going to happen in the future.
14                    MEMBER BROWN:          That's the point.            There 15 are      not    enough  of    them.          And    industry    is      very 16 particular about stuff that damages plants and takes 17 things out of commission.
18                    So apparently it's not a big enough of an 19 issue that the industries and the utilities have not 20 gone after that to install or prevent them.                                So I 21 just, hey, I'll quit.                I'm just bringing it back up 22 again.          It just seemed like resources that would be 23 better spent other places.                  Just an observation.
24                    MR. SALLEY:        No, Charlie, I respect your 25 comment.          And there's a lot of frustration on this, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
91 1 with this project.
2                    As we get into it, there is still things 3 we learned. And Mark was talking about the ZOIs. And 4 one of the things we're looking at is the different 5 voltages, the different ways that you can get it.
6                    Whether it's feed from the generator, if 7 a    plant      has  a  main      turbine,        excuse    me,    a    main 8 generator breaker.            A lot of different scenarios.                      So 9 when we're trying to work through that.
10                    A couple of things. One thing, by looking 11 at it and studying it, EPRI has put out a couple of 12 documents, a couple three documents, on not just the 13 survey of what's out there and where they see the 14 potential risk, but also on some good preventative 15 maintenance          in  that.        So    it    brought    it    to      the 16 forefront there.
17                    And as you well know, in a defense-in-18 depth        environment,      prevention          is    always  the      best 19 thing.        If you can do prevention.
20                    So hopefully we've done some good there 21 with industry doing some good PMs. And hey, if we got 22 to go thank the bolts and the buses and that's for 23 this outage, but we're going to put that off until the 24 next outage.          Maybe that's not a good idea.                  Maybe we 25 need to go and look at that because we are seeing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
92 1 these types of events.
2                So hopefully we've done some good there.
3 But again, I think we need to shake the research out 4 the whole way to see just how bad it is.
5                And it's going to be very plant specific.
6 Some plants may have no issue at all.                Other plants, 7 again, it's just like an Appendix R circuit analysis 8 where you get a pinch point.
9                Where you have the wrong two pieces of 10 equipment, the wrong two trains of equipment coming 11 together. And that's kind of what we're trying to get 12 the methodology and the tools out there for someone 13 who wants to look for that to be able to find that.
14                MEMBER BROWN:        Well this stuff happens in 15 450 volt circuits just like it does in medium voltage 16 circuits.
17                MR. SALLEY:          Yes.        Yes, it does.          It 18 happens in D/C as well as A/C.
19                MEMBER BROWN: Yes. So zone of influence, 20 obviously it just has not been a problem for 40 years, 21 50 years and nobody has done anything about it.                    So I 22 will reiterate my comment that it seems to me that, 23 and I'm not worried about it being a generic issue or 24 not a generic issue, that's not the point, the point 25 is, this is fixable.
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93 1                  And trying to fiddle around with figuring 2 out what zone of influence this is, you're going to 3 try      to    convince    the      industry        to  go  off  and      do 4 something.        Their experience doesn't prove necessary.
5                  And I'm not arguing for or against, I'm 6 just saying there are ways to do it.                        The navy has 7 equipment already developed with technics for more 8 open        switchboards        as      opposed        to    watertight 9 switchboards.
10                  So I just, it's like spinning your wheels, 11 as far as I'm concerned.                It's just an observation.
12                  MEMBER REMPE: So, to just cut it bluntly, 13 the only way the Commission usually does something 14 like what Charlie wants, is that they perceive it's an 15 adequate protection issue or they need to issue an 16 order or something like that.
17                  And I don't think you have enough evidence 18 to motivate the Commission to do something, so you 19 have to make it into a fact that you have to do the 20 research.        Is that a true statement, Mark?
21                  MR. SALLEY:            That's spot on.              You're 22 exactly right.          And that's the due diligence that 23 we're going for.
24                  And, again, Charlie, I sympathize with 25 what you're saying.            If we look at Japan, we're doing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
94 1 a lot of research with Japan.                  If we go back to 2011, 2 the great earthquake, the plant that was closest to 3 the epicenter was a plant called Onagawa.
4                  Of    course,          Fukushima        overshadowed 5 everything, but if we look at the operating experience 6 at Onagawa and they had multiple HEAFs there that 7 lasted up to eight hours.                      Japan has a very big 8 research programing, bigger than ours, that's going on 9 to explore this.
10                  And their regulatory stance, as we seem to 11 understand it, is they're going for that being able to 12 limit it to less than two seconds with things like you 13 use the sensors and the detectors.                      And that's what 14 they're doing in Japan.
15                  I don't know that we would ever get to 16 that.        But again, we're trying to do what Dr. Rempe 17 said and get to that due diligence in research.
18                  So this is the problem, we understand it 19 and this is the risk it poses.                  And those are the hard 20 questions that we're trying to answer right now.
21                  MEMBER BROWN:          I give up.
22                  MEMBER REMPE: I think we can't change the 23 way the rules are about the whole Commission, Charlie.
24                  MEMBER BROWN:          No, I think --
25                  MEMBER REMPE:          So we should move on.
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95 1                (Laughter.)
2                MEMBER BROWN:        No, I understand.          I mean, 3 I'm not arguing for backfits or not, I'm arguing that 4 I don't see where there is a huge problem that we need 5 to spend research money on, that's all.
6                MR. SALLEY: If I can bring that around to 7 what I said earlier, and I which I had some backup 8 slides here, but if we go back to the EPRI skyscraper 9 chart, this was the number three risk driver they saw 10 when they did the 805.
11                We've been very successful in bring down 12 the first two, but when you get into this game, as you 13 suppress risk in one area often times it pops up in 14 another area. So this was their third big risk driver 15 for the plants that we're doing the transition to NFPA 16 805.
17                We've lowered the first two, cabinet fires 18 and transients.      But I think with HEAF, again, in the 19 vein of looking for realism, we're going to see that 20 there is a potential increase here.                  So, that's what 21 I would say, would be some of the justification to 22 continue on forward with it.
23                CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              Okay, thank you.          We 24 have interesting discussion on this topic obviously.
25                MEMBER BROWN:          I quit.
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96 1                (Laughter.)
2                CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                Not much we can do 3 about it.      So, okay, so we can continue then please.
4                MR. SALLEY:        Okay.        So that pretty much 5 takes care of HEAF.          Good flip on the slides there, 6 Jason.
7                The second area that we'll talk about is 8 our work in PFHA.            Very busy year for us.                  We're 9 winding down roughly the first seven years of the 10 program.
11                This is where we develop a lot of the 12 technical basis.        We looked at things like climate, 13 precipitation, riverine flooding, paleoflooding, some 14 hydrology,      coastal        flooding          and  some    combined 15 mechanisms.
16                The reasons for this was to establish the 17 technical basis.      And that's basically what the first 18 phase of the program has done.
19                Again, right now we're doing a lot of 20 knowledge transfer from our contractors who had done 21 work for us to the research and the NRR staffs and 22 sharing that information.              And we're moving into the 23 phase two, which is at the bottom there.                    The three 24 pilot studies.
25                That's going to be the big effort for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
97 1 2022.          We're  roughly      three-quarters          of  the      way 2 complete.
3                  And we're looking at three pilot studies.
4 A site scale flooding study, including LIP, which is 5 local intense precipitation.                      A riverine flooding 6 model, which includes a dam failure.                      And also some 7 coastal flooding.
8                  After we've completed those pilots, then 9 in 2023 we will start to start thinking about, do we 10 need to do some regulatory guidance.                      And that would 11 be the third phase of the PFHA program.
12                  Another      very    important        piece    of      this 13 program, and I'm very so proud of my people that have 14 worked on this, we'll talk about, I have a separate 15 slide, is on the workshop that we do.                    We've done six 16 of them, and we're going to be doing our seventh one 17 this year.        We've already got our dates.                The seventh 18 one will be held February 15th through the 18th of 19 this year.
20                  And we're learning, and also expanding 21 this, to pick up other external hazards.                        High wind 22 being one thing that we definitely want to look at.
23                  Next slide please.              So, you can see some 24 of the topics. We've already covered these. Our last 25 workshop and agenda are listed there.                      These are all NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
98 1 the presentations.
2                    The  last      years        was      done  completely 3 virtual.          It  was    very      well      received.        Over      300 4 attendees.
5                    I think we can go to the next slide, 6 Jason.        And I love this slide that the guys made up 7 and worked on it.
8                    And this is kind of drilled down a little 9 bit to who is looking at this workshop and where is 10 the interests. You can see that it's pretty broad and 11 it's international.
12                    We've    got      academia,          we've  got    other 13 federal agencies in here.                A lot of participation.                A 14 lot      of    conversation,        a  lot      of    good  exchange        of 15 information.
16                    And as you well know, one of the big 17 things with the NRC is communication.                      And being good 18 communicators          and        sharing          technology,          being 19 transparent.
20                    This workshops is a model of that.                        And 21 it's brining all the right people together to discuss 22 all the right information.                And like I said, I really 23 enjoy this slide because it kind of brings it all 24 together.
25                    The seventh one is scheduled.                    It will NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
99 1 probably        be  virtual,        although          we  do  have      the 2 auditorium scheduled for this year. We'll have to see 3 what COVID does.            But we're looking for bigger and 4 better.
5                  And like I said, expanding into some other 6 areas of, we've expanded a little bit into OpE.                            With 7 some of the stuff like the Fort Calhoun flood.
8                  We've had presentations, as well as the 9 events that have happened in France.                        And this year 10 we're looking to bring in a little bit more of the 11 external hazards.
12                  Next slide please.              The next area that I 13 just want to touch base on, I said this is an area 14 we've done a little bit in the past.
15                  If you remember around 2017 time frame we 16 had a NUREG, I believe it was 7231.                        I know it's one 17 of Mark Thaggard's favorites, but this is when we 18 modeled the radioactive, excuse me, we modeled the 19 radionuclide transport in fresh water.                            Which was 20 lakes and rivers.
21                  It shared a lot of good information that 22 we had put together.                We expanded some of the work 23 that we're doing with our partners in NMSS.
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100 1 geomembranes, guidance for how to look at this.                            And 2 we're also looking at the MARSSIMs.
3                  There is a revision coming up.                Of course 4 that's NUREG-1575.            That program is one that we're 5 with a number of partners.                DOE, the DPA is a lead on 6 it and the DOD.            And it's for the, a lot of the 7 cleanup work.        It's kind of the go to document that's 8 out there.
9                  Another area that we're working with here 10 is we had a workshop, I believe the next slide if we 11 could Jason, on subsurface monitoring and how this 12 went.        Using PFHA as a model we tried to do something 13 similar        with  our    partners          at    NMSS  to  look        at 14 subsurface.
15                  And this is kind of, again, the drill down 16 for the first time we've done it.                        Some feedback on 17 this that we received has been very well. You can see 18 we've had a couple hundred people, just under 200 19 people, I believe, attended.                        If my numbers are 20 correct.
21                  The agreement states.                  I had so much 22 positive feedback from the agreement states it seems 23 that we don't maybe cater to them or involve them 24 enough.          But  this      workshop        really    brought      them 25 together.
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101 1                    And a lot of the feedback that I got from 2 a few of the states was, hey, this really wasn't a 3 workshop we viewed this as a training because we just 4 learned so much listening to what's going on in so 5 many different areas that they were very pleased with 6 this.
7                    This is something that we hope to grow in 8 the future. We're going to have a RIL, we're going to 9 put out a research information letter, a RIL, and 10 document everything that we have. And you can see the 11 workshop materials right now if you care to take a 12 look at it, it is there.
13                    So  this      is  an    area,        again,  with      our 14 partners in NMSS that we're hoping to expand.                                And 15 again,        the  idea  of      communication            throughout        the 16 industry and with all the best practices and the best 17 information is what we're striving for here.
18                    So I believe that brings me to the end of 19 my presentation.          If there is no further questions, I 20 will turn this over to Sean Peters.
21                    MR. PETERS:        Thank you, Mark.            I'm Sean 22 Peters, I'm from the Human Factors Liability Branch.
23                    From a background for myself, I'm a space 24 mechanical engineer in my background. I worked in the 25 Air Force 1 and Air Force 2 projects in technical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
102 1 support.        I worked in the space programs as a design 2 engineer for space shuttles, space station and Delta 3 IV rocket programs.
4                  I've done research in seismic engineering 5 and alternative energy.                  I've worked in the oil 6 industry.
7                  And then after that long, I guess resume 8 right there, I've also spent 22 years with the Nuclear 9 Regulatory Commission.              Came in as a inspector in 10 Region I, safety system design inspector.
11                  I was a reactor systems engineer doing 12 accident analysis in NRR and worked as a project 13 manager in technical system throughout NRR before I 14 came over to research.              And research I did a brief 15 stint        as a  branch      chief      over      our  nondestructive 16 examination groups.
17                  And now I work in the human factors and 18 reliability branch and I've been here for 13 years.
19 So thanks for having me.                And I know you guys have 20 heard a lot from me over the years so I'll try to be 21 brief on the areas you've heard a lot from me on.
22                  Next slide.        So, HFRB, we developed and 23 maintain state of the art human organizational factors 24 and human reliability analysis guidance and methods.
25                  You guys know a lot about my HRA work, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
103 1 from a human factors perspective it's about half of 2 the branch work and human organization factors.                              And 3 what we do in the human factors world is we provide 4 expertise to support human factors technical issues 5 across all business lines.
6                    Historically we've worked with the Office 7 of    Administration,        we've      worked        with  ENSR,      we've 8 worked with the regions, we've worked with NMSS, NRR.
9 If you name an organization that involves a human, 10 we've worked with it.
11                    We typically develop human factors rule 12 language and review guidance for, well, I'm sorry, not 13 typically,        typically      we    do      human    factors      review 14 guidance        development.            We      developed      that      rule 15 language.
16                    Right now one of the more high profile 17 items we're working on in the human factors world is 18 developing        review    criteria          for    new  and    advance 19 reactors.        Including looking at things like advance 20 operations, automations and control concepts.                                I'm 21 going to talk a little bit more about this on a 22 further slide.
23                    For  organizational            factors    we    provide 24 technical support for implementation of our safety 25 culture        programs.        We    support        the  NRC's    desired NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
104 1 culture initiative.          And we develop and implement the 2 integration programs.            I will also talk about that on 3 a further slide.
4                  HRA methods and human reliability data 5 will also have its own slide.                  And the ACRS is pretty 6 familiar with what we're doing, at least on the HRA 7 methods.
8                  HRA, data we collect data from utilities, 9 from our own, given from its test facility where we 10 have our own pressurized water reactor simulator and 11 we      collect  human    data      for      that    to  support        our 12 programs.
13                  And we also work with our international 14 partners.      Mark Thaggard alluded to it that we work 15 with the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute, 16 KAERI, out of Korea.
17                  And we also work with UJD Res out of 18 Czechia, also known as the Czech Republic.                        We work 19 with the groups there to collect human reliability 20 data.
21                  And    we      also        try      to  coordinate 22 internationally with the Holland Reactor project to 23 establish new data programs to improve that data.
24                  So next slide.            So human factors.              I'm 25 going to tell you a little bit about the projects that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
105 1 aren't as well known.
2                So fitness for duty is one of our longest 3 standing projects that we've had in HFRB. And fitness 4 for duty, it encompasses both drugs and alcohol use 5 and abuse and detection and fatigue.
6                And what we've learned with fatigue is 7 that fatigued is a very subtle science.              There's not 8 a lot of work going on in there anymore now that we 9 have rule language in place and implemented across the 10 industry.
11                But drugs and alcohol, at least on then 12 drug side of it, are constantly evolving.                It almost 13 seems to be an exponential rate increase in the number 14 and types of drugs and evasion technologies.
15                So we're trying to stay on top of that by 16 having a program that looks at international best 17 practices.      What are they doing overseas to detect 18 these and how can we affect our own regulations to 19 catch up to the different technologies that are out 20 there.
21                Nondestructive examination is another item 22 that we were looking into.                It stemmed back in the 23 mid-2010s from items where our NEA folks were finding, 24 or at least NEAs were finding flaws in some of the 25 vessel piping welds.
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106 1                  And what they were saying is that these 2 flaws should have been detected on numerous, previous 3 attempts      but  weren't      and      they      were  trying        to 4 understand why were they found in this final attempt 5 and not in the early attempts.
6                  And so, one of the things that came up was 7 that there are significant human factors challenges 8 when you look for welds. When you train operators and 9 they get their, I'm sorry, when you train inspectors 10 and they get their licenses for doing them, to start 11 the      examination    of    facilities,          they    train    in      a 12 classroom      type  environment            where      they  have      easy 13 access, controlled temperatures, controlled lighting.
14 But      when  you're  out      in    the      field    it's  just        a 15 completely different beast.
16                  And so we did an evaluation of that.                        We 17 looked at the training practices. And we have reports 18 that have been completed on this activity that tell 19 about these best practices and best ways to train.
20 And look at the human factors challenges out there in 21 the industry and what can be done about it.
22                  So,    human      factors          training    program 23 development, so the NRC has hired several new staff to 24 do human factors technical review for NRR.                      And when 25 we know that this is kind of a pipeline to other jobs NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
107 1 throughout the agency, we know there is going to be a 2 consistent turnover in that field.
3                And so, what they're looking at is trying 4 to find ways to train non-human factors experts with 5 a base set of knowledge so that they can apply that in 6 their field and become experts in licensing reviews of 7 human factors issues.
8                So we developed this training program and 9 we expect to have it completed in the October time 10 frame of this year.          And the materials we have for 11 that training we plan to share internationally.                        Not 12 just with the U.S. but with our counterparts through 13 the Nuclear Energy Agency, through our working group 14 of human organizational factors.
15                And then OpE reviews.              We constantly scan 16 the operating experience out there in the industry to 17 understand what are the human factors challenges out 18 in the world and what can we do about it in our 19 regulatory programs.
20                So, new advance reactors.                I'm going to 21 talk about that on a later slide.                        Organization 22 factors also.
23                But    from        an      organization        practice 24 perspective, one thing that we won't talk much about 25 is our reactor oversight process tech support.                        This NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
108 1 kind      of  builds  off      the    human      factors    operating 2 experience review.
3                  We look at the, as implement inspection 4 programs, and well look at ways that we can enhance 5 those programs and improve how they examine, not just 6 human factors issues but also the safety culture 7 issues at facilities.
8                  So, I'm going to go to the next slide.
9 This is going to be Slide 34.                        So, advance human 10 factors licensing review guidance updates.
11                  This  is,      again,        a  very    high    profile 12 project.      And what we do in human factors, we have a 13 strange regulation that says, licensees must design 14 controls      with  state      of    the      art    human    factors 15 principles.
16                  And because it dictates that they have to 17 state of the art not just adequate, it means us, as a 18 research entity, we have to stay on top of what that 19 state of the art is and what those new principles are.
20                  So what we've done, since I've come here, 21 I came here in 2008 and we were at the advance stages 22 of      the,  well,  the      early      stages        of  the    nuclear 23 renaissance, there was a lot of look into seeing what 24 were the new reactor technologies that were coming out 25 and what kind of human challenges were going to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
109 1 associated with that.
2                So remember that time that we developed 3 six technical reports on the advance technologies, 4 we've developed enhance guidance for small modular 5 reactor reviews based upon our experience supporting 6 the NuScale reviews.        And this is, we've updated that 7 through our NUREG-0711.            Which is our human factors 8 engineering program review model.
9                And NUREG-0700, which is our human system 10 interface design review guidelines.                  And so, we've 11 updated those guidance, both for small modular reactor 12 and advance technology control and reviews.
13                But one thing we're finding with advance 14 control room reviews is that they are definitely 15 different than what we used under Part 50. So Part 50 16 reviews are for large light-water reactors.
17                Our full program review, while we'll going 18 right down to the details and the nut and bolts of the 19 entire program, and doing cross-sectional looks at how 20 they implement that in the facilities looking at the 21 control room technologies and doing integrated system.
22 Integrated system validation of those technologies and 23 how they operate at the control room side. And that's 24 been very useful for even our part 52 applicants 25 looking out at the Vogtle Plant.
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110 1                  But  when      you're        looking      at    advance 2 technologies or advanced reactors, there is a wide 3 scale.        There  are    large      ones      that    are  not      too 4 dissimilar for the scope and feel of a Part 50 type 5 review, all the way down to almost plug and play type 6 reactors. Little tiny batteries that you kind of push 7 a button and leave and leave it alone.
8                  So the challenges are review guidances 9 built for that large review, but not for these tiny 10 reactors.        And so, we've been developing right with 11 NRR      scalable    human        factors        engineering        review 12 guidance.        So we're looking at, how do we scale that 13 based upon the details of reactors that come in.
14                  And we're also looking at how we scale the 15 operator        licensing      requirements            based    upon      the 16 reactors that are coming in the door.                      Like a reactor 17 knowledge set in training needs to be a certain level 18 for large light-water reactors, but probably not so 19 much for some of these smaller plug and play type 20 reactors.        So we'll looking at how to scale that.
21                  MEMBER HALNON:          Hey, Sean, this is Greg.
22                  MR. PETERS:        Yes.
23                  MEMBER    HALNON:            I'm      going  to    ask      a 24 question and give you some clarifying comments.                                  I 25 assume that when you say state of the art control room NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
111 1 designs you're saying that state of the art is better.
2                And I ask that because the touchscreen 3 aspect of the new control rooms and digital control 4 rooms takes what an old operator, like myself, takes 5 the human machine interaction piece, the feel of it, 6 the listening of it, out of the picture.              And I think 7 that's not better.
8                Now, it may just be that I'm an old guy, 9 but I've operated a digital plant, I've operated a 10 normal plant. When I say normal I mean the 1970, '80s 11 vintage.
12                And now I have a car that I can't figure 13 out how to turn the air conditioner on and off because 14 I had to go through three pages of touch screens.
15                (Laughter.)
16                MEMBER HALNON:          Are you guys looking at 17 that aspect of it from the perspective of, is state of 18 the art better all the time?
19                MR. PETERS:        Yes.      So, the state of the 20 art, we have to look at our state of the art human 21 factors engineering design principles.                  And so, we 22 have to make sure that how we evaluate that is state 23 of the art.
24                So    those        new      technologies,      you're 25 absolutely right, some can have detrimental effects.
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112 1 There not always for the positive.                        Right?
2                    What you're alluding to are things like 3 key-holding where you have to go through menu after 4 menu      to    find  the      item      you      want.      That's        not 5 necessarily a good thing.
6                    And you're looking at this kind of tactile 7 response you have from analog control rooms are really 8 great.        You know when you flip the switch.
9                    But I've also got to work on the generic 10 PWR up in Idaho and I got to try to close valves and 11 operate pumps. And I had to touch that thing like two 12 or three times just to get it to work.                        And then you 13 got to play real close attention if it actually 14 flipped        because  you      weren't        getting    that    tactile 15 response.
16                    So you're right, there are challenges.
17 And that's what we do with our scalable guidance.                              We 18 get to tackle those particular challenges.                        And we do 19 research that. And we have reports out there on that.
20                    And one of the things we found, at least 21 for the touchscreen, is that they tend to be more 22 difficult for people to navigate then, what do you 23 say, like a mouse click type interface for some of the 24 newer designs.
25                    So what we see out in France is that they NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309            www.nealrgross.com
 
113 1 don't really do touch screens, they go to the mouse 2 click type interface.
3                MEMBER    BALLINGER:              Hi,  this    is      Ron 4 Ballinger. And I'll beat a dead horse.
5                (Laughter.)
6                MEMBER BALLINGER:            Have you read the book 7 called the Glass Cage?
8                MR. PETERS:        I have not.          No.
9                MEMBER BALLINGER:                Highly recommended.
10 Highly recommended.
11                MR. PETERS:        I'll look it up.
12                MEMBER BALLINGER:            By me. By me anyway.
13                MR. PETERS:        Okay.
14                MEMBER BALLINGER: It's about what happens 15 when you, basically when you become fixed and captured 16 by the screens.      And you lose track of things in two 17 ways.
18                One, you lose track of things because 19 you're like doing a video game.                    And you also lose 20 track of things because the computer software that's 21 behind all that stuff becomes a surrogate for your 22 brain if you're not very careful.
23                And  so    it    allows        you  to,  you      make 24 mistakes, but in addition to that, that software 25 compensates for the competency of the operator, to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
114 1 some extent.        And you have to be very careful because 2 it allows you to, in affect that I don't think the NRC 3 does this, but in some cases it allows you to hire 4 somebody that would not otherwise be hired because of 5 competence thresholds.
6                    MR. PETERS:          Yes.        And I think you're 7 describing what we have a concerns about, which are 8 these kind of, we call it just the black box, that the 9 machine is doing something and you don't comprehend 10 how it's working and then it spits out a direction for 11 you      to    go. And    that      loss      of    connectivity      and 12 understanding a plant physical processes, that's a 13 very important factor that we look at with our advance 14 principles.
15                    Next slide.        Okay.
16                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              Yes, I would like, I 17 just would like to add one small comment about this 18 enhanced guidance for small modular reactor.
19                    The NuScale was specific in this area that 20 this was a small modular reactor, the significant 21 passive features.            Which actually allowed plenty of 22 time for the human actions.
23                    If  this      is    not      the    case  that    having 24 multiple modules on small location should make an 25 operator        actions    much      more      complex    and  it      will NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
115 1 introduce, like if you have a 12 unit, there is a 2 likelihood that each of them could be a different PRA.
3 One would be under schedule.                  Or the other thing is 4 you can have initiated events, which affect all 12 5 units in the same time.
6                So basically, small modular reactor have 7 a, there's a small modular reactor, just small modular 8 means the operator actions can be much more complex.
9 And they're both introducing a NuScale case that 10 different relaxation is it has a significant passive 11 features.
12                So this thing, you have two different.
13 One is bringing the more complications and one is 14 simplifying the human actions that NuScale was having 15 about characteristics.
16                MR. PETERS:        Yes.      That's why the review 17 is absolutely needed because you have to do the 18 combined effect, right.            If it was just one module, 19 oh, advance reactors would be easy.
20                CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                Right.
21                MR. PETERS:          Much easier than operating 22 reactors.        But    when      you're          throwing    12      open 23 simultaneously, yes, absolutely, you have to prove and 24 validate that you can actually maintain these if there 25 are these large accidents.
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116 1                  CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              Right. And because 2 they're the regular, you know, performance shaping 3 factors have changed, you know.                    Stress level like is 4 completely different if you have things happening in 5 multiple units versus that single.                        And so, all 6 performance shaping factors will be affected with a 7 number of the units.
8                  So, I just wanted to make these comments 9 because I know we just adjusted the views, the number 10 of operators in the, but that's because of the passive 11 features not because they're small modular reactors.
12 Okay.
13                  MR. PETERS:        Yes.        Passive features and 14 longtime        frames      for      performing        the    actions.
15 Absolutely.        Thanks, Vesna.
16                  Next slide.        So, one of the things that 17 consuming, oh, we got a hand by Vicki Bier.
18                  MEMBER BIER:        I don't know if this is the 19 right time for the question or not.                        Feel free to 20 defer it if you prefer.
21                  But this morning there was a very brief 22 discussion about errors of commission and whether we 23 are or not yet ready to handle them more broadly in 24 PRA.      So at some point, can you give a bit of where we 25 are in that process and whether there is any ongoing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
117 1 research, et cetera?
2                MR. PETERS:        Yes, I can talk about it on 3 my next slide.
4                MEMBER BIER:        Super.
5                MR. PETERS:        I can talk about HRA methods 6 on the next slide.
7                MEMBER BIER:        Great.        Thanks.
8                MR. PETERS:          Awesome.          Thanks, Vicki.
9 Make myself a note here.
10                So, organizational factors.                The things 11 that are consuming a lot of staff energy in HFRB right 12 now are agency innovation and agency culture change.
13                So, we are one of two places in the agency 14 that has organizational factor specialists. There are 15 some in the Office of Chief Human Capitol Officer.
16 And the rest are in the Office of Nuclear Regulator 17 Research.
18                And back when innovation started, this big 19 push in innovation started, I think OCHCO was just 20 hiring specialists into OCHCO.
21                So we had multiple staff members in HFRB 22 move into the EDOs office in a technical support role.
23 And they helped build the innovation program from its 24 Innovation 1.0 over to what we call InnovateNRC 2.0 25 program.
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118 1                  And what that helped was we built that 2 infrastructure        and      we    drove        the    procedures        and 3 processes for maintaining and sustaining innovation.
4 Using that organizational factor of science of how do 5 you actually keep these things in a perpetual state.
6                  So, we built that program.                We brought it 7 over it to HFRB and we're actively running it.                              And 8 the goal of it is to help us improve in all aspects of 9 our operation of the NRC.
10                  Before all of our organizational factors 11 specialists supported our safety culture commonly 12 language programs and the inspections and technical 13 support out there at the, at licensee's facilities.
14                  So we were out there on a regular basis 15 looking at issues and problems that we could see in 16 licensee operations.            But we weren't applying that to 17 our NRC operations.
18                  And so, this was a great opportunity to 19 not just have this outward look on how organizations 20 performed but take our expertise and help the agency 21 itself improve its performance and become this modern 22 risk informed regulator that we're looking for.
23                  So,    our      staff      is      still  doing      that.
24 They're        still  doing        the      safety      culture    common 25 language, we're still doing support for 95002 and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
119 1 95003 inspections where we're looking at multiple 2 degraded cornerstones.
3                    And we are supplying the technical bases 4 behind        these    determinations              of      operators,        or 5 operational capabilities at plants. And so, on top of 6 NRC, again, we're trying to help both NRC and the 7 industry and prove their organizational capabilities.
8                    And    finally,          safety        agency    culture 9 improvements.        Our Staff are major supporters of our 10 desired        culture    initiative.                And    you've      seen 11 presentations from our staff members and they help 12 target improvements, not just in research, but in 13 individual offices around the agency.
14                    So the future for this program, we would 15 like to take a look at, we'd like to continue to 16 foster the culture of continuous innovation at the 17 NRC.      And we also, we've worked really hard and have 18 major        successes    in      our    internal        crowd  sourcing 19 capabilities.
20                    And  that      helps    us      a    lot  in  internal 21 processes. And sometimes in technical challenges that 22 people want to get outside of that, of their existing 23 mind set and framework and get other people from the 24 NRC to weigh in on.
25                    But we've gotten to see presentations from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
120 1 external organizations where external crowd sourcing 2 is a major component to their programs that helps them 3 solve longstanding technical issues that you've had in 4 their technologies.
5                    And so, what we're doing right now is 6 we're working on developing MOUs and getting the 7 contracting processes ready so that we can start 8 harnessing the power of external technical experts in 9 different fields to help weigh it and maybe provide 10 new ideas to solve some of our longstanding challenges 11 in the NRC.
12                    And I have a couple in mind in HRA that 13 I'm trying to hash out the additional stages of it 14 right now.        But they're out there.
15                    And one that Vicki may have alluded to is 16 errors of commission. So I'll get to that on the next 17 slide.        Any questions on Slide 35 here.
18                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                  Are you going to 19 extend looking on that human actions to shut down?
20                    MR. PETERS:            From        a  human    factors 21 standpoint we are not doing anything in human factors 22 and shutdown, but on HRA, the IDHEAS method was 23 specifically built to help the human factors and 24 shutdown.
25                    But let's move over to Slide 36.                  And we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
121 1 can get into some of the HRA discussion.
2                  So, shutdown involves a lot of manual 3 actions        and  some    reduction          in    defense-in-depth 4 simultaneously and kind of weird configurations of the 5 facility.
6                  So what we have developed with IDHEAS-ECA 7 was this human-centered technical approach where you 8 can      apply    it  to    areas      that        just    aren't    highly 9 proceduralized control rooms, like our old HRA methods 10 were. And these are actually field operations you can 11 apply in those areas.
12                  So what we're doing in our HRA methods and 13 data, at least for the, maybe the few ACRS Members who 14 haven't been in all the IDHEAS presentations, but 15 we're trying to improve HRS realism. And we're trying 16 to do that through enhancing our methods, reducing 17 uncertainty, and utilizing data.
18                  So, enhancing the methods, we're trying to 19 make strong scientific links between the HRA methods 20 and the existing scientific literature from human 21 factors.        And when we do that, we're trying to reduce 22 uncertainty because uncertainty is a major driver of 23 HRA.
24                  Large orders of magnitude in uncertainty, 25 what we found in some of our background research. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
122 1 so      we    had  targeted        work    in      improving  what        we 2 considered a couple of high aspects of uncertainty in 3 the methodology.            And of course, we're trying to 4 collect as much data as we can to try to data inform 5 those methods.
6                    So, over the time I've been here on this 7 program, we've developed 14 technical reports, we've 8 developed two improve HRA methods, we've developed a 9 comprehensive database of human error data.
10                    This is our IDHEAS data, which the ACRS 11 got to look at late last year.                    No, I'm sorry, early 12 this year.        I'm getting my (audio interference) as I 13 meet with the ACRS, or at least the Subcommittee and 14 PRA regularly, so.
15                    We also have a software tool for HRA 16 implementation,          which      is    our      IDHEAS-ECA  software 17 method.          And we have a software tool for HRA data 18 collection, which is our SACADA method. SACADA is the 19 scenario authoring characterization and debriefing 20 application.
21                    And  that      took    is    implemented    out      our 22 partnering utility.            And we collect all the training 23 data from every scenario that they run on their 24 simulator at that facility.                    And that provides us a 25 plethora of data.
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123 1                We also collect data from our own testing 2 platform that we have.          Our pressurized water reactor 3 that we test with our partners at University of 4 Central Florida.        And we collect human factors and 5 human reliability data out of that.
6                Feature directions for the program. Right 7 now we are testing our IDHEAS-ECA and CN3 (phonetic) 8 applications in NMSS.          We plan to get that report out 9 here in the late fall, early winter time frame.
10 Depending upon how many technical revisions we need to 11 make to it.
12                And once that is in play, NMSS has plans 13 to try to promote the use of our IDHEAS-ECA software 14 tool for the fuel cycle industry.                    And once we get 15 into fuel cycle we're also going to be looking at 16 other, because the method is human-centered, it's very 17 technology neutral.
18                We're looking at also expanding that into 19 other applications in NMSS.            Of course, we've already 20 IDHEAS-ECA in all of our reactor operations.                          It's 21 already built for applications in all of our operating 22 reactor applications.
23                The other thing we're working on right now 24 is, I just got a dependency model, a new dependency 25 model, based upon the ACRS recommendations back in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
124 1 summer        of  early  to      mid-timeframe          in  our    IDHEAS 2 program.          And so that's on my desk.
3                    I hope to be able to review it this week 4 or get it out for concurrence for everybody, but it's 5 a much stronger method.                It gets into more details as 6 to what are the causes and implications of dependency, 7 which        allows    a  better      focus      on    targeting    safety 8 related improvements to those interdependent actions.
9                    Once we get that dependency method out the 10 door we would like to take a look at what can we do 11 for crediting recovery in our HRA methods.                          Is there 12 something that we can build off the dependency or is 13 there something new that we need to create.
14                    Other things we're looking into, we're 15 developing a draft report on new and joint human error 16 probabilities.            Trying      to    understand      what's        the 17 current state of the art, the technology behind it and 18 what can we do to enhance that.
19                    And finally, uncertainty.                Just starting 20 now, now that we go to this dependency model in place, 21 we're trying to understand other major sources of 22 uncertainty          in  HRA      and    looking        at,    basically 23 prioritizing ranking of which ones can we tackle now 24 and where can we get our best bangs for the buck.
25                    And finally data.                We, again, we have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
125 1 utility partners and we're looking for more utility 2 partners.          We have several international partners.
3 And we're working with our, through the Halden Reactor 4 project.
5                    We created a new task for international 6 HRA data exchange. And so, what we're trying to do is 7 get that data out there so that our analyst can 8 collaboratively work on it from the data that we 9 capture from all over the world and see how we can 10 inform        our  human    error      probabilities          with    it      to 11 provide        a  more  granularity,            more    realism  to      HRA 12 methods.
13                    And that is my last slide.                  So I know 14 there may be some questions out there.                          Vesna has 15 already unmuted so --
16                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              Yes. I have a very 17 short question because it just reminded me when you 18 mentioned the criticality.                  Did you use this when you 19 were completing the FLEX models?
20                    MR. PETERS:          So no, we did not credit 21 recovery when we did the FLEX models.                          So that's a 22 great, it's a great insight there.
23                    So once we get this understanding of how 24 we can, you know, credit recovery then we can start 25 applying it back to some of our old models.
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126 1                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              So wait, wait, wait.
2 But you couldn't do the FLEX without human actions 3 even if you didn't call them recovery, right? I mean, 4 that's all human actions.
5                    MR. PETERS: Yes. I mean, human action is 6 the primary driver for risk and FLEX scenarios.                            Once 7 you get to that world it's all, what does the human do 8 and how can they get the equipment running properly.
9                    There are, there tend to be long lead 10 times        in  that,    so      you    tend      to    have  multiple 11 opportunities for recovery over that.                          Those time 12 frames for human actions and FLEX scenarios.
13                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                Okay. All right.
14 Well, the other thing which I just want to mention, 15 because I, one of the reason I ask about shutdown 16 because        earlier  we    were      talking        about  errors        of 17 commission, errors of commission, and you said that 18 you're outsourcing that program, if I understood you 19 well.        Right?
20                    MR. PETERS:        Um --
21                    CHAIR    DIMITRIJEVIC:                  That  you      have 22 external        experts      looking          in      these    errors        of 23 commission.        I just want to mention, I don't know, 24 significance of error of commissions, it could be much 25 higher in shutdown because that's where, you know, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
127 1 we may have a backup knowledge in data but not that of 2 commission and shutdown.                I just want to make this 3 comment for you all.
4                  MR. PETERS:          No, thank you very much.
5 Yes, to get to Vicki's question about errors of 6 commission.      So thanks for the reminder.                  Definitely 7 a high error probability on my side for remembering 8 that.
9                  But errors of commission, there was a 10 project that the NRC did, and I think Dennis Bley was 11 one of the team members on that project, when we 12 developed the ATHEANA methodology.                        They developed 13 that method specifically to try to create a way to 14 help      identify  what    we    consider          logical  error        of 15 commission.
16                  It's a very good methodology.                  There's a 17 very high quality qualitative analysis piece to it.
18 It's not very much -- it's not implemented in a lot of 19 places in the industry right now. It's one of the two 20 methodologies        that      they      can      use,    can    do      the 21 quantitative        analysis        --    I'm      sorry,    qualitative 22 analysis for fire HRA.            So there is an approach.                But 23 the challenge was that errors commission that it's 24 very, very resource-intensive to try to understand how 25 to capture the data definition into a PRA model.
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128 1                  So that's probably the main reason it's 2 not implemented.        And I guess with that, I think it's 3 a very tough question, how do we deal with that in the 4 future.        I  mean,    I    don't        know    that  we    got      a 5 comprehension or understanding of how we can totally 6 capture errors of commission.
7                  So I think getting our experts together, 8 understanding that we do have this ATHEANA method, are 9 there things that we can do to enhance that? Or other 10 different, like, computing tasks that can complement 11 that qualitative analysis.
12                  MEMBER BIER:          Thank you.          And I wasn't 13 particular pushing that it should be done, I just 14 wanted to kind of come up to speed on what the current 15 status was, so.
16                  MR. PETERS:        Yes, not a problem.            So yes, 17 as far as status, we haven't touched it for a while.
18 It is one of those longstanding issues in HRA.                        But I 19 always call certain projects like our holy grails.
20 And that's one of our holy grails.                      To try to really 21 capture the Commission to try to tackle uncertainty.
22                  I mean, these are these kind of things 23 that      are really    nebulous        problems        for  the      HRA 24 community.      Thank you.
25                  So that concludes my presentation. So the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
129 1 next presenter will be Mark Thaggard.                  Thank you.
2                CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              Thank you.
3                MR. THAGGARD:            Okay.      So  before        we 4 conclude the presentation this afternoon I would like 5 to take a couple of minutes and go over a couple of 6 years for anticipated future engagements with the 7 Committee.
8                I just listed three here, there may be 9 others. We anticipate coming back to the Committee as 10 we've prepared published reports for the Level 3 PRA.
11 I think that was highlighted.
12                We also anticipate coming back to the 13 Committee to brief the Committee on the HEAF project 14 as that projects draws to closure. As well as, excuse 15 me, someone have a question?                Okay.
16                As well as we anticipate possibly having 17 additional engagement on Reg Guide 1.247, as was 18 mentioned at this morning's meeting.
19                And we're certainly open, interesting in 20 hearing from the Committee if there are other specific 21 areas that they would like for additional engagement.
22                So, can I have the next slide, Jason.
23 Well, the, one more.          Okay.        So let me conclude by 24 saying that the division of risk analysis activities 25 align with the Agency's efforts to accommodate modern NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
130 1 risk-informed regulator.
2                  Our  effort        in      leading    the  agency's 3 innovation activities is an important part of the 4 agency's transformation efforts, as we've mentioned.
5 And we are fully engaged in efforts to be ready for 6 future technologies.                We also have activities to 7 support the use of risk and decision making.
8                  Hopefully what we --
9                  CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC: Sorry to interrupting 10 you, but I would also like if you touch on that 11 because I thought that his miss, this is something 12 we're missing in presentation.
13                  What    do      you      see      as your    biggest 14 challenges?
15                  And, you know, basically on the status of 16 those        efforts.      Do      you    see      that anything        has 17 shortcoming stops or any other big challenges?
18                  MR. THAGGARD:          So, I think, you know, I 19 mentioned that one challenge we have is a staff area.
20 We are a small division.
21                  We anticipate losing some of our core 22 positions. Maintaining risk and reliability engineers 23 is a real challenge for us.
24                  In terms of the technical areas, some of 25 the big projects that we've been working on that we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
131 1 face a number of challenges.                      And some of those also 2 relate to staffing.
3                    And so, one of the big challenge is trying 4 to get those projects concluded. Come to a conclusion 5 on them.
6                    The  Level        3  PRA      project    is  a    prime 7 example.          That project has gone on for a number of 8 years.        And the biggest challenge we've had there is 9 staffing.          You know, we keep losing, keep people on 10 project.        And that's kind of pushed the schedule out.
11                    So, clearly, one of our challenges is 12 getting those projects, also the aluminum HEAF, we've 13 had some discussions on that, getting those projects 14 to a conclusion is a challenge. Some of it's related, 15 as I said, to staffing.
16                    The other thing is, I alluded to this at 17 the      beginning      of    my,      at    the      beginning    of      the 18 presentation, there are some areas where I think that 19 we would like to move into, and has some additional 20 research in the area, for example, in the security 21 area, I think we could maybe have more, provide more 22 support in the physical security area.                            So we are 23 trying to do some work in that area.
24                    And I think there is a need for more 25 research in terms of looking at some of these extreme NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
132 1 weather events.      As I think Mark Henry pointed that 2 out.
3                So I don't know if that gets to your 4 question, Vesna, but I tried to highlight some of the 5 things that I think I see as challenges or areas that 6 we need to look at in the future.
7                MEMBER HALNON:          Mark, this Greg.
8                MR. THAGGARD:          Yes.
9                MEMBER HALNON:          So extreme weather events 10 and how that, I was going to ask you about that, and 11 how the --
12                MR. THAGGARD:          Yes.
13                MEMBER HALNON: -- weather transpositions 14 may effect guidance going out to the large light-water 15 reactors would be a really good, maybe a single slide 16 on that next time you do an update.
17                MR. THAGGARD:          Okay.
18                MEMBER HALNON:          Because we've seen a lot 19 of heavy, heavy storms that have drawn precipitation 20 down. And when I look at how we used to transposition 21 some of those storms to other areas, it could really 22 affect the guidance coming out just based on maximum 23 probability, probable floods and those types of ravine 24 levels and whatnot.        So a single slide on that would 25 be excellent.
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133 1                    MR. THAGGARD:          Okay.
2                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                  This answered my 3 question.        My concern was, is there something we can 4 do to help you in the overcoming challenges and things 5 like that?          I was curious how do you see them.
6                    MR. THAGGARD:          Okay.
7                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              Okay. Anybody, any 8 Board Members have questions or comments they would 9 like to make?
10                    All right.        If not, we thank you for a 11 wonderful presentation, which was finished right on 12 right        time.      That    was    very        nice. Slides      were 13 beautiful and we stayed within the time frame.
14                    MEMBER REMPE:          Vesna?
15                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              Yes. Yes. Yes.
16                    MEMBER REMPE:          Can you hear me?          This is 17 Joy.
18                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              Yes.
19                    MEMBER REMPE:          I'm a phone line.
20                    CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:              Oh, okay.
21                    MEMBER REMPE:        So I tried to cut in early 22 and it takes a while to unmute mute.                          But anyhow, 23 Mark, I'm wondering if we could request, after we hear 24 a    bit      more  about    what's      going        on with    non-LWR 25 technology neutral report, PRA, is that something that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433            WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
134 1 we should asked to be briefed on?
2                  MR. THAGGARD:            Yes, we can provide a 3 briefing on it.      You know, it may be a short briefing 4 but we can provide a briefing on it.
5                  (Laughter.)
6                  MEMBER REMPE:          Yes.      Let me learn a bit 7 more about it.
8                  MR. THAGGARD:          Yes.      Yes.
9                  MEMBER REMPE: I just am kind of wondering 10 about why there has been such a change.                      And so, it 11 might        be something      where        we    might    have      some 12 suggestions on what else might be needed to make that 13 exercise fruitful. But anyway, let's kind of exchange 14 information, if we can see the reports.                      I think it 15 might be helpful.
16                  MR. THAGGARD:          Yes.
17                  MEMBER REMPE:          Okay.
18                  MR. THAGGARD:            Yes.        We can certainly 19 provide the reports. So that might be a good starting 20 point.
21                  MEMBER REMPE:            Okay, that sounds good.
22 Thank you.
23                  MR. THAGGARD:          Okay.
24                  MEMBER REMPE:          Sorry to interrupt.
25                  CHAIR    DIMITRIJEVIC:                Thanks,  Joy,        to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433          WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309          www.nealrgross.com
 
135 1 remind us that that stays as an open --
2                MR. THAGGARD:          Yes.
3                CHAIR DIMITRIJEVIC:                Okay. If no any 4 other Members have comments we can ask the public, if 5 anybody from the public would like to make a comment?
6                Okay, hearing none, this means we are 7 finished for today.            Thank you very much for the 8 presentation. Thank you for everybody's participation 9 and have a nice evening.
10                (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 11 off the record at 5:03 p.m.)
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433        WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309        www.nealrgross.com
 
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Biennial Review September 20, 2021 Mark Thaggard, Director Division of Risk Analysis Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
 
Key Messages Our Vision Be a prominent agency resource on risk-related matters developing and pursuing solutions to current and anticipated regulatory challenges.
Our Objectives Be ready for future technologies Completion of high-quality research products F a c i l i t a t e Tr a n s f o r m a t i o n Grow the agency's RIDM capabilities Build and enhance staff capacity 2
 
Collaborations 3
 
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Biennial Review Christian Araguas, Deputy Director Division of Risk Analysis Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
 
Accomplishments DRA remains current on relevant risk-informed and other related regulatory issues and anticipates and meets the future needs of our stakeholders.
S PA R M o d e l s 68                                                  Preliminary L3PRA Models HRA methodologies Improved E n h a n c e d licensee flood hazard submittals 7 reviewed 27                        2                                      Licensee Event 12 303 Public Meetings Events Identified Workshops, and Seminars Research                                              Reports Reviewed 6    Information RGs Revised                        NUREGs 4                          New staff, Co-Ops, 9
as potential Letters Issued 9                                                                    Issued Events Identified and summer precursors Reports on interns Component as precursors Reliability and Systems Studies innovateNRC2.0                40                7                        19 5
 
Division of Risk Analysis Mission: To              provide world class technical support for the implementation of risk-informed regulatory activities and decision m a k i n g i n n u c l e a r s a f e t y a n d s e c u r i t y.
Performance and Reliability Branch Mehdi Reisi-Fard Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch John Nakoski (Holly Cruz, Acting)
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Mark Henry Salley Human Factors and Reliability Branch Sean Peters 6
 
Program Overview 16.5                  million FY22 Resources 20%
Risk Tools 19%
Operational Experience 15%
Guidance Development 14%
Human Reliability Analysis Methods 11%
Fire 8%
External Hazards 8%
NMSS, L3PRA, FFR, Innovation Support 5%
Advanced Reactor Readiness                          7
 
Performance and Reliability Branch Mehdi Reisi-Fard
 
Performance and Reliability Branch About PRB PRB plans, develops and manages research programs to systematically assess reliability information, perform event assessments, and support the RIDM framework Functional Areas RIDM AND PRA GUIDANCE                    ACCIDENT SEQUENCE                OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE, DATA AND STANDARDS                  PRECURSOR (ASP) PROGRAM                COLLECTION, AND ANALYTICS Develop and maintain guidance        Evaluate operating experience to      Direct the collection, review and and tools for risk-informed          identify, document, and rank          evaluation of OpE Information decisionmaking and use of            operational events by calculating      for maintaining risk models used PRAs                                  the risk associated with events or    in risk-informed decisionmaking.
conditions.
9
 
Performance and Reliability Branch Major Projects RIDM AND PRA      Issue Trial Use Guide 1.247 GUIDANCE AND      Support issuance of PRA Standards STANDARDS Tasks under the newly established UNR related to Regulatory guidance on PRA Acceptability and Integrated Risk-Informed Decision Making, treatment of certainty, the PRA database, Glossary of risk-related terms, Database of Methods Used in PRAs Development of risk tools for spent fuel dry storage Future Focused Research on LMP for Operating Reactors ASP PROGRAM      Routine screening and analyses of events Support activities to enhance the application of ASP information in the ROP OPERATIONAL      Address the issues identified in PWROG-18029 EXPERIENCE, DATA  Issue the IE, LOOP and CCF summary reports COLLECTION, AND Develop AI, ML, and data analytics tools to analyze OpE and risk information ANALYTICS                                                                                  10
 
Performance and Reliability Branch RIDM and PRA Guidance and Standards Develop approaches determining the acceptability of PRAs to provide confidence in the results of the PRA for risk-informed decision making; Address development of guidance for licensing and oversight of risk-significant technical areas Accomplishments                        Future Direction Issued RG    1 . 2 0 0 , R e v. 3 ;
Issue RG 1.247 RG 1.177,    R e v. 2 ;              Support issuance of L1/LERF, ALWR, Level 2, Level 3, RG 1.178,    R e v. 2 ;                LPSD PRA Standards RG 1.175,    R e v. 1                Regulatory Guidance on PRA Acceptability Enhance guidance on the treatment of uncertainty Supported issuance of t h e N LW R P R A Update of glossary of risk-related terms Standard (Jan. 2021)                  Develop a database of methods used in PRAs Develop guidance on RIDM Develop guidance on uses of non-PRA techniques Developed the PRA Standards Database 11
 
Performance and Reliability Branch Data Collection and Analytics Directs the reviews and evaluations of OpE Information for the purpose of maintaining and updating models used in risk-informed decision-making Accomplishments                      Future Direction Finalize resolution of issues identified in Implemented causal alpha factors in modeling CCF PWROG-18029 Renew the contract to access INPO data Issued On-Site Electrical              Explore the use of advanced computational System Reliability Study                tools to analyze OpE Supported audits and Use data visualization tools to present LERs, interactions with PWROG                  other OpE information on FLEX reliability data                Issue the IE, LOOP and CCF summary reports 12      Reports Issued 12
 
Performance and Reliability Branch ASP Program Evaluates U.S. NPP operating experience to identify, document, and rank operational events by calculating a CCDP or a CDP Accomplishments                  Future Direction Improve the application of ASP information in ROP Revised Office                    Use of AI/ML and data analytics Instruction                        Event risk assessments for a broader set of reactor designs Continue providing KM sessions Developed and released the public ASP dashboard Completed Duane Arnold derecho event risk analysis 13
 
Performance and Reliability Branch 14
 
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch John Nakoski (Holly Cruz, Acting)
 
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch About PRAB PRAB plans, develops, integrates and manages research and development programs relating to probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) models and methods, and supports agency efforts to use risk information in all aspects of regulatory decision making Functional Areas RISK-INFORMED DECISION-MAKING ACTIVITIES              DEVELOPMENT OF RISK MODELS AND TOOLS Support agency RIDM activities by developing PRA    Develop and maintain PRA models and software to guidance and methods for new and emerging areas      support agencywide risk-informed regulatory programs 16
 
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch Major Projects RISK-INFORMED    Full scope, comprehensive Level 3 PRA DECISION-MAKING  External Hazards & FLEX Modeling ACTIVITIES      Recovery/Restoring Functions Credit International Standards Participation WGEV, ICDE, Japanese Foreign Assignee ATF PRA Research Dynamic PRA (FFR)
Advanced Reactor Support Regulatory Guide Support DEVELOPMENT OF  SPAR model updates with current plant information RISK MODELS AND All Hazards SPAR Modeling TOOLS SPAR-DASH risk data dashboard IDHEAS-ECA application SAPHIRE software updates and enhancements 17 Cloud-based SAPHIRE
 
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch SAPHIRE and SPAR Models Develop risk tools for event assessment, reactor oversight, and reactor licensing, and to maintain staff PRA skills and knowledge management.
Accomplishments                  Future Direction SAPHIRE & SPAR Improvements:
Incorporated Flex                      Expand and Enhance SPAR Model Scope Modeling into 68 S PA R M o d e l s Cloud-based SAPHIRE SPAR-DASH:
Share/Obtain Feedback (partner offices)
Staff Guidance/Workshops 12      Significant Model Updates                        Application of IDHEAS-ECA Pilot-version of S PA R - DA S H d a t a visualization 18
 
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch Level 3 PRA Develop full-scope, site Level 3 PRA to support risk-informed decision making, reflect State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analysis (SOARCA) insights in the proper risk context, and further enhance staff PRA skills.
Accomplishments                    Future Direction ACRS Interaction Base Case Models                      Meetings/Public Release of Reports 19      (90% completed Phase 1)
Knowledge Management and Risk Tool to Support Regulatory Decision-making 2020-FLEX Models 3    (18% completed Phase 1)
Public Reports 5    (23% of draft reports under review) 19
 
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch Dynamic PRA Future Focused Research to prepare NRC staff on the efficient use of Dynamic PRA (DPRA) tools for anticipated submittals developed using DPRA methods.
Accomplishments                      Future Direction Final Report (document model result)
Interim Report                          Follow-on Workshops/Training 1      (literature r e v i e w, a c t i v i t y summary)
Support Changing Environment S taf f Tra i n i n g 3      on the use of D P R A To o l s 20
 
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Mark Henry Salley
 
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch About FXHAB FXHAB is responsible for Fire Research and External Hazards Research (except earthquakes)
Functional Areas FIRE RISK RESEARCH                      EXTERNAL HAZARDS                ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS RESEARCH                              RESEARCH Provide expertise in the area of        Provide expertise in the area of      Provide expertise in the area of fire hazard analysis and fire PRA        external hazard analysis except for    environmental hazard analysis seismic 22
 
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Major Projects FIRE RISK        Improve Fire PRA Realism RESEARCH          Post-Fire Safe-Shutdown High Energy Arcing Faults (HEAF)
Training EXTERNAL HAZARDS  Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment RESEARCH          High Winds Weather Extremes ENVIRONMENTAL    Subsurface characterization HAZARDS RESEARCH  Radon and ET covers Multi Agency Radiation Survey and Site Investigation Manual (MARSSIM) 23
 
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Improving Fire PRA Realism Working with EPRI to advance and improve the realism when performing Fire PRAs Accomplishments                Future Direction Prepare NUREG-1805 Supplement 2 to implement new tools, methods, and data developed for NRC Inspectors 4  NUREG Reports from recently completed research projects Work with EPRI to support additional improvements in fire PRA realism Research Provided comments on draft EPRI report 3002020747, 2  Information Letters                          Modeling of Oil Fires in Fire Probabilistic Risk Assessment Provided comments on draft EPRI report 3002020746, Small Electrical Enclosure Testing - Fire Test Report Ventilated Controlled Cabinet Fires with NIST 24
 
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch High Energy Arcing Faults (HEAF)
Working with EPRI,OECD/NEA to advance and understanding of the risk posed by HEAFs Exiting the Pre-GI 018 Aluminum HEAF and transferring back to research NRR performing LIC-504 evaluation Accomplishments              Future Direction Complete and publish WG tools and methods Support NRR with LIC-504 evaluation 2  Public Meetings Resume Phase 2 of OECD/NEA Program NRC HEAF Public Website Completed draft RIL characterizing                    https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/research/fire-zones of influence                research/heaf-research.html Developed web site and published detailed project plan                                                                              25
 
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment (PFHA)
The PFHA Research Program is developing the technical bases, tools and guidance needed by NRC staff to reviewing regulatory submittals that apply a risk-informed approach to determine a sites flood hazards and potential consequences. The PFHA research comprises three phases: (1)
Technical Basis Research; (2) Pilot Studies; and (3) Guidance Development.
Accomplishments                Future Direction Pilot studies will be completed in 2022 Te c h n i c a l          Regulatory guidance will be completed in 2023 20            Reports Published Expand Workshop into other External Hazards Te c h n i c a l s u p p o r t ,
workshops, and staff training pilot studies 3      on flooding initiated 26
 
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment Research Workshop On February 22-25, FXHAB held the 6th Annual PFHA Research Workshop. Participants provided information on recent results, current activities, and perspectives on future research directions.
Wo r ks h o p To p i c s :
* Climate
* Precipitation
* Site-scale, riverine, and coastal flooding
* Modeling frameworks
* Flooding Events and Operational Experience
* External Flooding Probabilistic Risk Assessment
* 7th Annual PFHA Scheduled for February 15 -18, 2022
* Phase in other External Hazards Workshop Agenda and Presentations: ML21064A395                                                27
 
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment Research Workshop 28
 
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Subsurface characterization and waste covers Provide expertise in the area of environmental hazard analysis including subsurface monitoring, radon barriers and ET covers. This is a new area in the branch we are developing to primarily support NMSS related environmental projects Accomplishments                    Future Direction Develop Guidance on Subsurface Contamination Radon Barriers Project NUREG/CR-7288 in                  Survey publication process            Develop Guidance for Evapotranspiration (ET) Covers 2 peer-reviewed                  Develop Guidance for Evaluation of Geomembranes publications Research Assistance Request (RAR) NMSS-2021-005 (ML2119A221)
Subsurface Soil Survey                Assistance with the finalization of MARSSIM Public Workshop                          Revision 2 based on public and peer review comments to be published as NUREG-1575 Rev. 2 29
 
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch Subsurface Soil Surveys Public Workshop On July 14-15, RES/NMSS held a public workshop on    Federal Registrants the technical basis for guidance on conducting and evaluating surveys of residual radioactivity in the subsurface soils of licensee sites. The NRC began to address this problem in NUREG/CR 7021, A Subsurface Decision Model for Supporting Environmental Compliance, issued January 2012.
State Agencies:                                        Industry 30 Workshop materials: ML21208A206
 
Human Factors and Reliability Branch Sean E. Peters
 
Human Factors and Reliability Branch About HFRB HFRB Develops and maintains state-of-the-art human and organizational factors and human reliability analysis guidance and methods Functional Areas ORGANIZATIONAL              HUMAN RELIABILITY    HUMAN RELIABILITY HUMAN FACTORS                          FACTORS                ANALYSIS METHODS        ANALYSIS DATA Provide expertise and            Provide technical support  Develop and improve  Collect and analyze data support for human factors        for implementation of the    HRA methods for        to improve the NRC's technical issues across all BLs  NRC's Safety Culture        agency risk            human factors guidance Develop human factors rule        programs                    applications          and HRA methods language and review              Support the NRC's Desired guidance for new and adv          Culture Initiative reactors, including for adv      Develop, implement, and operations, automation, and      improve the NRC's 32 control concepts                  Innovation programs
 
Human Factors and Reliability Branch Major Projects HUMAN FACTORS    Operating Reactors:                New and Advanced Reactors:
International Fitness for Duty    NUREG-0711 and NUREG-0700 Practices                          Part 53 scalable HF licensing HF of Non-Destructive Evaluation      guidance Techniques                        Part 53 scalable operator HF Training Program Development      licensing guidance HF Operating Experience Review ORGANIZATIONAL    Safety Culture Program Tech Support FACTORS            Reactor Oversight Process Tech Support Agency Desired Culture Initiative InnovateNRC2.0 HUMAN RELIABILITY IDHEAS-G, IDHEAS-ECA ANALYSIS METHODS HUMAN RELIABILITY  SACADA ANALYSIS DATA      Human Performance Test Facility 33 IDHEAS-Data
 
Human Factors and Reliability Branch Advanced Human Factors Human Factors Licensing Review Guidance Updates Develop state-of-the art human and organizational factors guidance for advanced technologies and concepts of operation Accomplishments                  Future Direction Part 53 Scalable HFE Review Guidance 6 Technical Reports                Part 53 Scalable Operator Reactor Licensing Requirements Enhanced guidance for small-modular reactor reviews Updated guidance for advanced technology control rooms 34
 
Human Factors and Reliability Branch Organizational Factors Agency Innovation and Culture Change Utilize organizational factors expertise to drive innovation and culture change at the NRC to ensure that the NRC is a modern, risk-informed regulator Accomplishments                    Future Direction Foster a culture of continuous innovation at the NRC Developed InnovateNRC2.0            Enhance capabilities to perform external crowd Program sourcing for significant tech challenges Safety Culture Common Language and Tech Support Support Agency Culture Improvements 35
 
Human Factors and Reliability Branch Human Reliability Analysis Human Reliability Analysis Methods and Data Improve realism in HRA through enhancing methods, reducing uncertainty, and utilizing human performance data Accomplishments                  Future Direction Methods:
Technical Reports 14                                          IDHEAS testing in NMSS Applications Dependency/Recovery Improved HRA                        Minimum Joint Human Error Probabilities 2    methods Uncertainty Data:
Comprehensive database of          More plant participants human error data International HRA Data Exchange Software tool for HRA implementation Software tool for HRA data collection                                                                    36
 
Areas for Future Engagements L e ve l 3 P R A H EA F R .G . 1 . 2 4 7 37
 
Acronyms CDP      Increase in Core Damage Probability                LOOP      Loss Of Offsite Power ACRS      Advisory Committee for Reactor Safeguards          LPSD      Low Power Shutdown AI        Artificial Intelligence                            MARSSIM  Multi Agency Radiation Survey and Site Investigation Manual ALWR      Advanced Light Water Reactors                      ML        Machine Learning ASP        Accident Sequence Precursor                        NASA      National Aeronautics and Space Administration ATF        Accident Tolerant Fuel                            NEA      Nuclear Energy Agency BL        Business Line                                      NIST      National Institute of Standards and Technology CCDP      Conditional Core Damage Probability                NLWR      non-Light Water Reactor CCF        Common Cause Failure                              NMSS      Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards DPRA      Dynamic PRA                                        NOAA      National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration DRA        Division of Risk Analysis                          NRR      Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation EPRI      Electric Power Research Institute                  OECD      Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development ET        Evapotranspiration                                OpE      Operational Experience FFR        Future Focused Research                            PFHA      Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment FLEX      Diverse and Flexible Coping Strategies            PRA      Probabilistic Risk Assessment FXHAB      Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch          PRAB      Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch GI        Generic Issue                                      PRB      Performance and Reliability Branch HEAF      High Energy Arcing Faults                          PWROG    Pressurized Water Reactor Owners Group HFRB      Human Factors and Reliability Branch              RAR      Research Assistance Request HFRB      Human Factors                                      RG        Regulatory Guide HRA        Human Reliability Analysis                        RIDM      Risk-Informed Decision Making ICDE      International Common-Cause Data Exchange          RIL      Research Information Letter IDHEAS    Integrated Human Event Analysis System            ROP      Reactor Oversight Process IDHEAS-ECA IDHEAS-Event and Condition Assessment              SACADA    Scenario Authoring, Characterization, and Debriefing Application IDHEAS-G  IDHEAS-General Methodology                        SAPHIRE  Systems Analysis Programs for Hands-on Integrated Reliability Evaluations IE        Internal Event                                    SOARCA    State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses INPO      Institute of Nuclear Power Operations              SPAR      Standardized Plant Analysis Risk IRSN      Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire SPAR-DASH SPAR Dashboard KAERI      Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute            SSC      Structures, Systems, and Components KM        Knowledge Management                              STP      South Texas Project L1        Level 1                                            UNR      User Need Request L3PRA      Level 3 PRA                                        USGS      United States Geological Survey LER        Licensee Event Report                              WG        Working Group LERF      Large Early Release Frequency                      WGEV      Working Group on External Events                                          38 LMP        Licensing Modernization Project
 
Thank You 39}}

Latest revision as of 20:09, 19 November 2024

Transcript of Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Safety Research Program Subcommittee Meeting - September 20, 2021, Pages 1-135
ML21271A167
Person / Time
Issue date: 09/20/2021
From:
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards
To:
Nourbakhsh, Hossein, ACRS
References
NRC-1680
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