ML21313A177
| ML21313A177 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 10/06/2021 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| Burkhart, L, ACRS | |
| References | |
| NRC-1708 | |
| Download: ML21313A177 (135) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: teleconference Date: Wednesday, October 6, 2021 Work Order No.: NRC-1708 Pages 1-96 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 689TH MEETING 5 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 6 (ACRS) 7 + + + + +
8 WEDNESDAY 9 OCTOBER 6, 2021 10 + + + + +
11 The Advisory Committee met via 12 Videoconference, at 2:00 p.m. EDT, Matthew W. Sunseri, 13 Chairman, presiding.
14 COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
15 MATTHEW W. SUNSERI, Chairman 16 JOY L. REMPE, Vice Chairman 17 RONALD G. BALLINGER, Member 18 VICKI M. BIER, Member 19 DENNIS BLEY, Member 20 CHARLES H. BROWN, JR. Member 21 VESNA B. DIMITRIJEVIC, Member 22 GREGORY H. HALNON, Member 23 JOSE MARCH-LEUBA, Member 24 DAVID A. PETTI, Member 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
2 1 DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL:
2 ZENA ABDULLAHI 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 (2:00 p.m.)
3 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Okay, it's 2 o'clock. We 4 will reconvene the 689th ACRS Full Committee Meeting.
5 I'll start with a roll call. And Ron Ballinger.
6 MEMBER BALLINGER: Here.
7 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Vicki Bier.
8 MEMBER BIER: Here.
9 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Dennis Bley.
10 MEMBER BLEY: Here.
11 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Charles Brown.
12 MEMBER BROWN: Here.
13 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Vesna Dimitrijevic.
14 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Here.
15 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Greg Halnon.
16 MEMBER HALNON: Here.
17 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Jose March-Leuba.
18 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Here.
19 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Dave Petti.
20 MEMBER PETTI: Here.
21 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Joy Rempe.
22 MEMBER REMPE: Here.
23 CHAIR SUNSESRI: And myself. So we are 24 going to continue with our agenda, starting at 2 25 o'clock here. We had the biannual review of NRC 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 Safety Research Program. And as the agenda is 2 currently laid out, we have another topic starting at 3 4:15, which is really an, you know, unassigned topic.
4 It's a clean-up -- It's clean-up time for finishing 5 reports, preparation for the commission of 6 presentation. And so what we may elect to do as we'll 7 see when we get there, extend the biannual review to 8 see how far we can progress this. We may get through 9 it all in the allotted time. We may need some extra 10 time. But the goal would be to get alignment of the 11 committee so that the draft letter report can start 12 being prepared. So that's where we are today. Just 13 to let you know where we're going. Any questions 14 about that?
15 Alright, well then I will turn to Vice 16 Chair Rempe to lead us through this session. Joy, 17 it's all yours.
18 MEMBER REMPE: Thank you. First, I want 19 to thank everyone, not only the members, but also the 20 research staff for participating in all the 21 information briefings we've had. And I especially 22 want to thank the three leads, which include Matt, 23 Dave, and Vesna for their support in this effort, as 24 well as the members. The Agency's research does span 25 many fields. It's important that we are able 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
5 1 benefit from the collective expertise of all of our 2 members.
3 Today, if you'll go to the next slide, 4 Hossein, we're going to go through a presentation that 5 contains our initial thoughts about key points to 6 include in our letter report. And we're currently 7 planning that our letter report will have the six 8 sections that are shown on this slide. Although as 9 typical of all our letter reports, the conclusions and 10 recommendations section will appear at the beginning 11 of the letter, but this is the order we're going to go 12 through our thoughts on what should be in each 13 section.
14 And I'm going to start off with some quick 15 -- with a quick overview of what will be in the 16 background section of our letter report. And then 17 we're going to have each of the leaders for the 18 reviews of each of the research divisions to present 19 their slides on what they have prepared. And then 20 I'll go back through and propose some points for our 21 integrated assessment and the basis for that 22 integrated assessment will lead to the conclusions and 23 recommendations.
24 I've emphasized to the leads, as well as 25 I'd like to emphasize to the members that we're not 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 looking for any sort of a line by line type of 2 comment. What we want to know is have we hit the high 3 points of what should be included in the letter 4 report? And where there are gaps, please notify us.
5 And then we'll work on the wording as we go through 6 this later on. Okay?
7 So let's go ahead and go to the next 8 slide. Are there any questions or comments on what 9 I've said so far? Okay, so in the background as in 10 prior years, I'll start off with some high level 11 remarks about what the Office of Regulatory Research 12 does and how they accomplish their mission. And the 13 words that you see here are typical of what we've had 14 in prior letters. Okay?
15 And if you'll go to the next slide, 16 Hossein. I'll include some historical information 17 about the process that's used by ACRS to review 18 research activities. And for those of you who've 19 heard me say this before, it will sound repetitive, 20 but because we have some new members, I will emphasize 21 the fact that we do review the research program 22 because there was an SRM issued back in 1997 that 23 tells us to do this. And so those three items come 24 from the SRM.
25 And then in addition over the years, 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
7 1 come to emphasize several other aspects such as are 2 they able to not only meet current and near term 3 agency needs? How well are they prioritizing new 4 research projects, their long-term planning. And then 5 how well they're responding to our prior 6 recommendations.
7 And then in the next slide, I'll just talk 8 about some of the process -- if you'll go to -- Yeah.
9 Slide 5. We'll talk about the process and activities 10 that we use to complete this report. And basically as 11 you all know, we had the meeting with the Director of 12 Research and then had three working group meetings 13 where we listened to each division discuss the 14 research. But then there are other briefings, some of 15 which have already occurred and some which are planned 16 in the future.
17 And actually in our conclusions and 18 recommendations discussion, although I don't plan on 19 putting those -- that list in the conclusions and 20 recommendations, I have gone through the transcripts 21 of each of our meetings and tried to list all the 22 possible topics that we might want to hear about for 23 some of our future updates, as well as we always do 24 these episodic reviews like the IDHEAS Research 25 Program on the Level 3 PRA.
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8 1 But anyway, I would like -- if we had time 2 today, to make sure that I did capture all the 3 possible follow-on discussions we might want to have.
4 And then we hopefully will get some insights on what 5 the membership would look like with respect to 6 priorities of those future discussions.
7 And so if there aren't any questions about 8 what would be included in the background, I'll turn 9 this over to Vesna who will start off with a 10 discussion about the DRA overview. But I'd like to 11 pause for a minute to make sure that members have an 12 opportunity to provide their input. And hearing no 13 additional comments, I'm going to turn it over to you, 14 Vesna.
15 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay. So we're here 16 to talk about the Division of Risk Analysis. So 17 (audio interference) discuss the necessary -- I mean 18 how I'm going to present that is just with our 19 discussion today. It doesn't necessarily mean what we 20 will be talking in our report or the letter. But it 21 is the summary of relevant facts.
22 So it's a prominent agency resource in all 23 risk-related matters. It maintains and enhances tools 24 and matters for (indiscernible due to accent) 25 evaluation, which supports the Agency's solution 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
9 1 current and anticipated regulatory challenges. It's 2 organized in four branches; the PRA Branch, Fire and 3 External Hazard Branch, Performance and Reliability 4 Branch, Human Factors and Reliability Branch.
5 How they define their main objectives is 6 to grow the Agency risk informed decision making 7 capabilities to be ready for future technologies, to 8 complete high quality research products. And this is 9 something that, you know, it sounds very general, but 10 they have this new role in the Agency which we will 11 discuss later. You know, of course, like everybody 12 else, they want to facilitate transformation and build 13 and enhance staff capability.
14 So the next slide -- Thank you -- The next 15 slide, we will -- I'm talking about -- I mean it 16 doesn't really have to be called highlights and 17 observation, but I tried to summarize what are the 18 plan -- what are the projects and plans for the future 19 work in the different branches. So this is for the 20 Performance and Reliability Branch. They're the one 21 who -- you know, that maintains the PRA guidance and 22 standards and same for the risk-informed decision 23 making. And their future directions, you know, they 24 have to plan to issue these new standards for the 25 regulatory guidance. And we had actually today, 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 discussion on Reg Guide 1.247.
2 Their plan is to enhance guidance on the 3 treatment of uncertainties. They're working with --
4 you know, on that, which is really positive because we 5 will discuss -- I will discuss this later. Also they 6 are -- They will offer guidance of risk-informed 7 decision making and uses of non-PRA techniques. And 8 they are developing two databases; one for PRA 9 standards and one for PRA matters.
10 So throughout the efforts in the branch of 11 Data Collection and Analytics, you know, they do the 12 regular job of elevating -- operating experience 13 information and also the (audio interference) is this 14 accident sequence precursors, which I will like the 15 operating experience from the Nuclear Plant, documents 16 of uncorporational events.
17 Next slide is talking about -- The next 18 slide is talking about the PRA Branch. They maintain 19 two models; SAPHIRE AND SPAR. They plan -- Their 20 future direction is to cloud-base SAPHIRE to do 21 application of IDHEAS-ECA and to expand enhance 22 (indiscernible due to accent) , you know.
23 And then we have a Level 3 PRA future 24 directions. We are sort of familiar with the effort 25 that they coming -- you know, causing to bend. 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
11 1 they are -- So they are planning release of the 2 reports. And they are planning to use Level 3 PRA to 3 support licensing of advance reactors, which makes 4 sense.
5 And then there is this new project, 6 Dynamic PRA. And supposedly they will be documenting 7 results, issuing final reports, and organizing 8 workshop and training, you know, for this new work.
9 And also seek and this work supports this changing 10 environment.
11 MEMBER BLEY: Vesna?
12 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Next slide.
13 MEMBER BLEY: Can I sneak a question in?
14 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Sure. Sure.
15 Whoever has a question, stop me in the middle. That's 16 the best way to go through this.
17 MEMBER BLEY: The dynamic PRA, that's 18 something Nathan Su has been pursuing for about 20 19 years or more.
20 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Right.
21 MEMBER BLEY: But he's gone now. Does 22 this have a champion left on the staff?
23 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: I don't know. I 24 don't know, Dennis. I couldn't tell this. However, 25 they did say that they're planning to, you know, 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 this all work, you know, documenting these results, 2 organizing workshop and training. So I assume there 3 is somebody, you know, taking this over.
4 MEMBER BLEY: Okay.
5 (simultaneous speaking) 6 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: -- talk a little bit 7 more about that because they're also considering using 8 this -- using this new -- you know, the non-PRA in the 9 licensing of advanced reactor. (indiscernible due to 10 accent) some function and bring some new insights.
11 Charlie had a question during the meeting 12 about what is it actually the non-(indiscernible due 13 to accent) PRA? And how does it differ from the 14 regular PRA? And it differs by this time component, 15 you know, how the -- Because in the PRA we can just go 16 back to events in the old, but we don't consider 17 timing dependency between them. So it's interesting 18 that they will consider how can that be used to bring 19 some insight. So for me, this isn't any new -- I 20 don't know -- I don't think, Dennis, we have never had 21 any presentation on it. Right?
22 MEMBER BLEY: Not since I've been on the 23 committee. I've been following it for a long time and 24 it was really impractical early on. Nathan wrote a 25 paper a couple years ago, which I can find out if 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
13 1 can share and pass it around. But he did mention 2 once, I think a couple years ago to me that one of the 3 new reactor folks was actually making some progress on 4 an application. And it's possible because the design 5 is pretty simple. So it will be interesting. And 6 I'll see if I can get that paper --
7 (simultaneous speaking) 8 MEMBER REMPE: This is Joy and actually 9 with questions like what you're raising, Dennis, I'm 10 making a list and we'll follow up to find out a bit 11 more about who's going to champion it since Nathan has 12 retired and what their vision is a bit more, okay, 13 beyond what we heard at the subcommittee meeting.
14 Sorry I interrupted you, Vesna. Go ahead.
15 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: I just noticed that 16 I was muted actually. Sorry. I wanted to say -- I 17 agree with Dennis that this is sort of unpractical in 18 a lot of ways. Even I have to say was the subject of 19 my thesis, which was then, you know, like I don't 20 know, 25 years ago or something. And it was already 21 considered in that time. But I do agree it's really 22 complex and impractical. And seeing the application 23 would be amusing. So I just -- I'm also concerned it 24 can just complicate things further. So (indiscernible 25 due to accent) really have a good hold on that -- on 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 all the aspects of the cool and statical PRAs. Okay?
2 Okay so the fire -- the next slide. So 3 the fire -- you know, some projects here are sort of 4 being sunset. So they will be localized work to be 5 done in this area in the future. The improving fire 6 PRA realism is now mostly in the EPRI code as I 7 understood. The high energy, action codes, which we 8 have discussed a lot. And now -- not considered 9 anymore, the accident -- the GI category and the 10 transfer back to research. And again, the EPRI, OECD, 11 and NEA are working to advance, you know, our 12 understanding of that risk and how can be included in 13 the fire risk analysis.
14 So for probabilistic fire hazard, the 15 assessment -- the pilot study will be completed in 16 2022, this year. And the regulatory guidance will be 17 issued the next year. And then we have this new 18 project, which is subsurface characterization and 19 waste covers. This is a new area that we're planning 20 to support NMSS -- NMSS and environmental projects.
21 And it provides expertise area of the element of 22 hazard analysis, including (indiscernible due to 23 accent) monitoring, radon barriers, and 24 evapotranspiration.
25 I don't know too much about that, but 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
15 1 is the -- you know, related to the NMSS environmental 2 projects, which supports some of the things we are 3 interested in. So you know, dry cask and the 4 decommissioning. But we will talk about that later.
5 MEMBER BLEY: Can I toss another one in 6 here?
7 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Sure.
8 MEMBER BLEY: This is probably more for 9 Joy, but maybe not, maybe for you, Vesna. There was 10 a meeting back in September on this standard. Joy had 11 (audio interference) about the transportation of small 12 reactors before they had been used and after they had 13 been used. And we got back that, that belongs to 14 NMSS. My question is -- because I haven't heard 15 anything more about that -- Is that something that 16 NMSS is addressing in guidance or rule? Or is that 17 something that really fits into this research topic?
18 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: There is a slide --
19 That was actually 11 out of 11. So let's transfer 20 that question and we get back to that on the slide.
21 MEMBER BLEY: Okay. You disputed me on 22 this one.
23 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay, we will not 24 forget this. Okay. Next slide. So this is on the 25 human factors and reliability. I actually have been 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 following, you know, this for a while. So you know, 2 the work on this advanced human factors; the license 3 review guidance and things like that. So they're 4 working now to have this scalable Part 53 review 5 guidance for human factor (indiscernible due to 6 accent). And also the -- related to Part 53, operator 7 licensing -- you know, definition of operator reactor 8 licensing requirements. So they're using this work to 9 support the Part 53.
10 Also because this is the branch which has 11 (indiscernible due to accent), you know, 12 organizational factors and agency innovation and 13 (indiscernible due to accent) changes. This actually, 14 innovation project become a part of that. And we will 15 talk in the later slides about that. This is just on 16 the branch level summary.
17 So they use this organizational factor 18 (indiscernible due to accent) to drive innovation and 19 culture changes in the NRC. And present enhanced 20 capability to perform external cloud sourcing for 21 significant tech challenges. And it's very 22 interesting that we don't know now from this moment 23 about that. And they also testing using ideas for an 24 NMSS application, which we will discuss later.
25 Okay, next slide. So this is -- because NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
17 1 we always want to discuss these core competencies in 2 the Agency. And you know, this is one of the 3 objective to building and enhance those core 4 competencies. So there is a shortage in core 5 positions and reliability of these engineers is 6 expected over the next five years because of the 7 retirements.
8 And the strategy to address this shortage 9 is, you know, normal about hiring next level and a lot 10 of staff and then develop the competencies of the 11 greatest need of cross-training staff across branches.
12 And currently there is an effort to find a way to 13 (audio interference) from different fields to become 14 experts in licensing review of human factors. They're 15 developing training program, which will be shared 16 internationally within country and internationally 17 through the Nuclear Energy Agency.
18 Okay, so next slide. The collaboration, 19 they have a really high, you know, collaboration, 20 which makes perfect sense. One of our comments was 21 that we will sort of -- in our previous slide, that we 22 would like to see that they define their goals of --
23 they have a clean definition of the goals of the 24 deliverables from those projects are. But we didn't 25 see that, but sometimes it's maybe obvious.
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18 1 So they're working in the, you know, the 2 CSNI and NEA for the extent of advanced human 3 (indiscernible due to accent) factors. And that's the 4 part where they address these PRA uncertainties, which 5 is, you know, especially useful to support advanced 6 reactors. Then they have the internal arrangement 7 with France to collaborate on flood-risk modeling.
8 This is one of the projects, which is actually being 9 sunset -- being finished, so we will talk about that 10 still.
11 They are exchanging human performance data 12 with Czeck Republic and South Korea, and also they're 13 participating in the Halden projects of the -- looking 14 in the -- in the operator performance and digital 15 control room. And human performance for small modular 16 reactors. And also for human performance in highly 17 automated plants, which will connect to which we 18 discussed earlier with Dennis and we could -- that 19 could be the new sub-group looking in this connection 20 between, you know, human performance and 21 automatization. And of course they base it, you know, 22 a lot of the operation with EPRI and NIST on the fire 23 modeling and these AGAF issues.
24 Okay, the next slide. So sunsetting 25 projects -- sunsetting projects of this AGAF Level 3 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 and probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment Project.
2 And it seems that only one of them has really 3 completed the Level 3 PRA Project is (audio 4 interference) to support licensing of advanced 5 reactors and you know, like assessing the risk for 6 multi-unit sites and integrated site risk. And the 7 HEAF, even we said the kinetic issue problem has been 8 (indiscernible due to accent) that there is still work 9 ongoing and they will be delivering those coming due 10 in '22. And this will be mostly to understand the 11 risk caused by this issue.
12 Okay, next. So (indiscernible due to 13 accent) Future-Focused Research Project. And they 14 should be getting prioritization in the ranking. We 15 actually didn't really discuss much this 16 prioritization throughout the principles of the 17 Preparedization Project even it was a -- one part of 18 our letter.
19 So what I'm doing currently for the 20 Advanced Reactor Program is developing PRA guidance.
21 We had the discussion this morning on this Reg Guide.
22 And this will also include the guidance to address the 23 PRA uncertainty. That's a very important issue for 24 the, you know, advanced non-light water reactors where 25 we don't have operating experience.
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20 1 And they also can do (indiscernible due to 2 accent), the graded approach to scale and target human 3 factor (indiscernible due to accent) reviews for small 4 and microreactors. And that will mean to develop 5 (indiscernible due to accent) and also develop in 6 technology inclusive operator training and examination 7 requirements. And they have this Future-Focused 8 Research Project on the use of this dynamic PRA, which 9 we just discussed and how could it be applied for 10 advanced reactor.
11 And now that Joy made this comment in the 12 reg, and I myself am not sure, do I really understand 13 Joy's concern here because I was not really -- it 14 wasn't my impression that this EPRI/Vanderbilt 15 approach is taking the role of pilot application. So 16 Joy, can you elaborate a little --
17 (simultaneous speaking) 18 MEMBER REMPE: Sure. Yeah, at the 19 beginning of our subcommittee meeting, I believe Mark 20 Thaggard was the one who addressed my questions on 21 this. Two years ago we were told that DRA would have 22 reference plant evaluations where they tried to use a 23 risk assessment for the various technologies similar 24 to what the DSA folks have done for source term 25 evaluations. And you know, the DSA folks have had 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 public, as well as staff workshops presenting their 2 results from evaluating reference plants for each of 3 the technologies and the type of results they're 4 getting.
5 For example, they had a pebble-bed HTGR or 6 a prismatic HTGR or different sodium reactors and 7 molten salt reactors that they presented results for.
8 And I have -- I asked Mark actually in our pre-meeting 9 before we actually heard from his division, what 10 happened to the reference part evaluations? What's 11 going on? And he said, well we're letting Vanderbilt 12 University do it. And then he mentioned some of --
13 briefly the results during our subcommittee meeting.
14 And I asked to hear more about it and see more about 15 it because it seems like the Division has basically --
16 they're involved in it, but Vanderbilt's going to have 17 the lead on it.
18 And I'm not sure that's the right approach 19 that should be taken. However, they sent me this 20 EPRI/Vanderbilt -- They sent it to all of us. Hossein 21 got it and forwarded it to us. And they basically are 22 using a concept called Safety in Design, which is a 23 process hazard assessment where they use HAZOPs. And 24 they did it for one molten salt reactor. And you 25 know, with -- And we discussed this during P&P today 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 when Dave was talking about the staff is looking at a 2 graded approach to PRA.
3 And actually in the Part 53 subcommittee 4 hearing last September, we heard that staff is also 5 because of stakeholder comments, they are thinking 6 about what could be done for the stakeholders.
7 They're saying we don't want to do a PRA at all, not 8 even in a secondary role. We just don't want one.
9 And this Safety in Design approach is something that 10 I think -- it would be good for the subcommittee --
11 the whole committee to look at. Because it is a 12 systematic approach to try and look at where the 13 radiological hazards are. And they try and identify 14 the initiating events and do something with that 15 approach.
16 So I think we -- we don't have enough 17 information to have a solid recommendation here. And 18 us folks just think it's a bad idea for the staff to 19 turn it over to the university and participate in a 20 secondary role, which is one thing -- Again, I don't 21 have the answers here. There's just possible options 22 that the committee may want to think about. But if we 23 hear more about it, which I would like to hear more 24 about it -- and it may be from this Part 53-related 25 subcommittee meeting, we might think this is a viable 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
23 1 approach for dealing with some of these non-LWRs.
2 And they actually -- they didn't get very 3 far, but they even talk about it in this 4 EPRI/Vanderbilt report about trying to think of other 5 risk metrics that could be used because we've also 6 struggled with that. We can't use core damage 7 frequency or some of the other surrogates for the 8 QHOs. And what they proposed was a huge -- a 9 significant change in release might be an approach.
10 But anyway, I think that we ought to have 11 some comment on it since it was brought up to our 12 attention in the research review about this approach.
13 And that we plan to investigate it further as a 14 minimum type of comment we ought to have on it. And 15 that's why I've had this comment and I didn't just 16 delete it like I have other comments I've had for 17 others because I wanted to make sure this got 18 discussed today. And again, there are some gaps.
19 There's nothing about transportation to or from the 20 site of a small modular reactor in what 21 EPRI/Vanderbilt did.
22 And your comment about -- that earlier 23 Dennis, it showed up in another subcommittee meeting 24 -- the EP meeting that Greg shared last month. And I 25 at the time asked about that. And I was also told oh, 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
24 1 transportation's an NMSS thing. And I made the 2 comment to myself, it sounds like a lots being turned 3 over to NMSS and we need to track that. So it's on 4 my list of to-do's to mention it somewhere, we need to 5 track it. Because it seems like it's being thrown 6 over the fence. And I'm not sure how -- you know, we 7 ought to follow up on that too by the way, Dennis. So 8 I'll shut up and let other people put their comments 9 in.
10 (simultaneous speaking) 11 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: -- on the 11th slide 12 of these observations. But however, what I want to 13 tell you that I didn't really visualize this as a 14 replacement. It totally didn't mean to me that NRC is 15 turning things to the EPRI and Vanderbilt University.
16 What they are exploring is one different method --
17 which is just one of the different methods that NRC is 18 actually considering using for the PRA partially or 19 the PRA replacement that we also had, you know, to 20 discuss the (indiscernible due to accent) objectives.
21 But the thing is for me, I don't know really why we 22 think is the -- are you told explicitly like this is 23 what they consider a place reference plant because 24 that would not make any sense.
25 MEMBER REMPE: That was my take from 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
25 1 subcommittee meeting and it's in the transcript. If 2 I'm wrong, let me know. But that's what I read and I 3 heard.
4 MEMBER BLEY: Well, if I could jump in 5 here a little bit since you mentioned me a couple of 6 times. Just a few different comments. One, this 7 Safety in Design, it smells a lot like PRA, but maybe 8 a modified approach to that. But you know --
9 (simultaneous speaking) 10 MEMBER BLEY: -- in developing this are 11 some PRA people. It's not -- It's pretty clear that 12 the Vanderbilt people are the organizers and got the 13 funding from EPRI. But the people who worked on it 14 are a real mix of people out of industry. Some might 15 now be at Vanderbilt or consulting with them. Also 16 one of the -- one of the vendors is in here pretty 17 strongly. So the staff can't be turning over this to 18 the vendors. There's more than meets the eye here, I 19 suspect. And if you look at the list of names of the 20 people who are heavily involved in that report, you'll 21 see an interesting range. Anyway, I'll step out.
22 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, so just real quick, 23 Dennis, it's two of the three questions. It's called 24 a process hazard assessment. So they don't address 25 frequency at all of the triplet three questions 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
26 1 answer. And that's identified in the report. And the 2 report talks about, it's supposed to be a PHA to PRA 3 approach. And then as they worked on this, they came 4 to the conclusion you don't necessarily have to go to 5 a PRA. And so again, we're hearing this from the 6 staff in Part 53, as well as from the research folks.
7 CHAIR SUNSERI: Hey Joy, Vicki has her 8 hand up patiently waiting to interject.
9 MEMBER REMPE: Thank you. Vicki, go 10 ahead.
11 MEMBER BIER: I'm muted. There we go. I 12 just wanted to comment kind of general. First of all, 13 I agree we should at least be keeping tabs on what the 14 Vanderbilt group is doing and how it fits into the NRC 15 plans. But also just in general, I think the idea of 16 doing safety analysis as kind of a qualitative design 17 process, rather than a PRA, whether that works 18 probably depends a lot on the simplicity of the 19 design. And part of why we end up with such 20 complicated PRAs is because we have complicated plants 21 with a zillion pumps and valves and everything else.
22 And there the frequency becomes really 23 crucial because there's so many zillion scenarios.
24 And you have to have a way to figure out which ones to 25 prioritize and really look at. And if you 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
27 1 really super simple design that's operating more from 2 the basics physics with fewer active components, it 3 may be possible to have a more qualitative approach 4 that does a pretty good job.
5 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Thanks, Vicki.
6 Thanks. I do agree on a lot of that. I had the 7 chance actually last night to look in this report.
8 And I have through our meetings in 53, advocated there 9 is a lot of portions of the PRA which are not (audio 10 interference) necessarily quantitative which can be 11 used, you know, to make conclusion. And if you need 12 to have a -- One of the -- why this study was built 13 based on what I have -- you know, I haven't studied in 14 detail is to -- if you have to make this design 15 decision early in the process when you're designing 16 plant and you don't have a fully developed PRA, there 17 should be some other approach actually available for 18 that. And in my sense, I think it's very interesting 19 work.
20 I agree with Joy that we should definitely 21 look in that. But I don't think that we should be 22 sort of concern that, that's replacing reference plan.
23 And we should definitely suggest to the staff to renew 24 their interest in the -- you know, having reference 25 plan for the -- you know, 10 CFR 53. Okay --
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28 1 MEMBER REMPE: Vesna, just a second.
2 Again, that's an important recommendation. And I'm 3 with you if that's what the ACRS wants to do. So I 4 just think that's an important recommendation we ought 5 to definitely --
6 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Right.
7 MEMBER REMPE: -- write up. So thank you.
8 I just didn't know what we should do --
9 MEMBER PETTI: So are we just personally 10 recommending that we want to hear more about this 11 under the umbrella of Part 53, which is sort of what 12 we decided this morning?
13 MEMBER REMPE: Yeah, we'll have some -- We 14 are pursuing this matter. We don't have to say where.
15 It gets very convoluted with what's going on now with 16 the Agency with Part 53 versus research and actually 17 even the Digital I&C and other places. It's an 18 integrated approach.
19 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Yeah. Okay, I'm not 20 sure how this -- technically that really works. So I 21 -- I mean I definitely would be interested to hear.
22 Can we recommend that or not? I'm not sure. So I 23 think we can definitely recommend they have a -- renew 24 this reference plan process.
25 Okay, so the next slide. So in the next 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 slide, I want to talk about this innovation -- the 2 process -- that actually this innovation activities is 3 now leading this department, which is very 4 interesting. So DRAs are one of two places as we have 5 been informing the Agency, which has this 6 organizational factor specialists. And that 7 department is this Office of Chief Human Capital 8 Officers. And the (indiscernible due to accent) 9 Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
10 And so when this push for the innovation 11 started looking for staff members from the Human 12 Factor Reliability Branch move to the ED Office and 13 provide the technical support role. So they help you 14 -- what they call innovate NRC to (indiscernible due 15 to accent) the program. And that program includes 16 infrastructures and the procedures and process for 17 maintaining and sustaining innovation.
18 So basically it's a part of this program 19 as I understand, that builds this infrastructure and 20 procedures and process for innovation in the Agency.
21 I am not going to -- You will see later in the 22 recommendations that, that's when ADR will be 23 interesting to see what they have done and how they 24 coordinate this and how do -- how does this process 25 work. We have not learned too much about that.
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30 1 Okay, next slide. The (indiscernible due 2 to accent) increasing the (indiscernible due to 3 accent) they have (indiscernible due to accent) having 4 innovation. Okay, so some of innovative as I put in 5 the (indiscernible due to accent); one is this 6 (indiscernible due to accent) PRA, which we discussed 7 before. And since it has this time element in the --
8 time dependency element, it has the potential to 9 provide, you know, additional use with (indiscernible 10 due to accent) and I mean, even there is not too 11 impractical.
12 So final report documenting those results 13 is expected in the middle of the next year, in July of 14 2022. Also they're doing limited work on artificial 15 intelligence, mostly with DOE and to use artificial 16 intelligence to analyze operating data. And possible 17 future projects they consider effects of extreme 18 weather events and security area -- support of the 19 physical security area itself. Those are the new 20 projects they're considering starting.
21 Okay, here comes this 11/11, which talks 22 about the transportation NMSS and the dry cask 23 storage. So yeah, they're currently looking to expand 24 their support to NMSS. That's the next slide. Sorry.
25 Sorry. Sorry.
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31 1 MEMBER REMPE: Vesna, before you leave 2 this just to emphasize what I was talking earlier 3 wasn't just for licensed geostorage and 4 transportation. I'm talking about people who want to 5 move us -- a small modular reactor with a loaded core 6 to and from the site. And they're also passing that 7 over to NMSS. Right?
8 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Well okay, they 9 cannot -- Sure, so I will tell you what they have --
10 the NMSS is doing, they're supporting them. And then 11 we can talk about it. I didn't get the impression if 12 you mean -- I know you're always concerned about 13 modules moving. So I didn't get the impression that 14 this is the -- that NMSS will be working on it.
15 MEMBER REMPE: Well whenever we ask what 16 are you going to do with the spent modules and what 17 about the risk and moving it to the site and starting 18 it up and then afterwards storing --
19 (simultaneous speaking) 20 MEMBER REMPE: -- marking a lot of them 21 and then taking them off site, we are now getting it 22 bounced over to well, NMSS will take care of that.
23 MEMBER BLEY: Joy, it's not really 24 bouncing over. That's always been a materials issue 25 and it's always belonged to NMSS. They gave the cask 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
32 1 certification. They do anything associated with 2 transportation and they always have as far as I know.
3 (simultaneous speaking) 4 MEMBER PETTI: And I think that it's 5 important to recognize that there is a regulation, 6 Part 71 is what is being used to look at requirements 7 for transportation. The biggest difference is that 8 it's not very risk-informed. It's very prescriptive.
9 But it's written at a high enough level that, you 10 know, it's used for spent fuel largely, but it can 11 easily be used for the reactor. There are 12 requirements on criticality. There are requirements 13 on radiation dose. You know, all the things you'd 14 expect to see.
15 MEMBER REMPE: But the kicker is then 16 okay, what about when you're trying to pick a site 17 boundary? If it doesn't go off site, it's another 18 source of radiological hazard. What if you have --
19 We've learned now that one of these advanced designers 20 wants to heavily emphasize the difference between 21 spent and used fuel. Again --
22 (simultaneous speaking) 23 MEMBER PETTI: -- that's not a -- that's 24 not a transportation issue. That's a site issue.
25 MEMBER REMPE: Well, if you don't 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 transport it off while you're -- Anyway, the issue is, 2 is that we need to have an integrated approach and 3 follow both. Right?
4 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah.
5 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Currently what this 6 Department is trying to do is to help NMSS to develop 7 risk tools to look in this, you know, dry cask storage 8 into the spent fuel dry storage. They're providing 9 both support in the risk tools and now the new thing 10 is the supplemental support, which we discussed. So 11 whatever, you know, currently is going -- and this 12 also covers transportation, you know, the risk tools 13 to help future review of transportation packages, 14 those tools and the supplemental support will apply 15 for extension that could be -- that would be different 16 model approaches. But it will apply to extension of 17 those -- you know, those activities.
18 So what we hope here is that 19 transportation, dry cask storage, the commissioning 20 problems, spent fuel dry storage. You know, so I 21 think at this moment how it works, it's perfectly 22 fine. But it needs to be extended to other things or 23 we can already discuss in our recommendation, you 24 know, they can keep in the -- the developing risk 25 tools that can keep this in their mind. They could 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
34 1 extended for blah, blah, blah.
2 You know, so we cannot let our recommendation that 3 this support to providing to NMSS to be, it would 4 never be covering risk associated with (indiscernible 5 due to accent) can be extended, to you know, different 6 subjects.
7 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, I've got it in the 8 notes. Thank you.
9 MEMBER PETTI: I mean is it worth -- Do we 10 think they should -- you say developing risk tools, 11 but risk informing some of the regulations in 12 transportation. Is that worth knowing --
13 (simultaneous speaking) 14 MEMBER PETTI: -- evaluate the potential 15 --
16 (simultaneous speaking) 17 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: -- risk tools.
18 Right? Does it cover risk tool --
19 (simultaneous speaking) 20 MEMBER PETTI: Okay.
21 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: -- then we could 22 consider what we would like to risk --
23 (simultaneous speaking) 24 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah, okay.
25 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: All right. Yeah, I 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 mean obviously there is no (indiscernible due to 2 accent). I mean there could be, I mean, you know, but 3 it's under different level. You know?
4 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah.
5 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: It's a different 6 frequency base.
7 MEMBER BALLINGER: I might add that there 8 is this ongoing or at least developing program at the 9 Agency to deal with the consequences. And I think 10 that will -- of dry fuel storage leakage. And that 11 may transition into a risk-informed operation, which 12 would then in the long-term affect Part 72.
13 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Right, Ron. This big 14 report was this EPRI report. I didn't remember seeing 15 this. I forgot who was it done by.
16 MEMBER BALLINGER: Yeah. There's a user 17 need that's going on and we're following that with 18 regard to the consequence analysis.
19 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Right. And that 20 would be part of the -- of the, you know, part of the 21 risk analysis. Okay.
22 MEMBER BALLINGER: Because Dave is right, 23 Part 72 has got to change if you're going to do any of 24 this. Because Part 72 simply says "no leakage."
25 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay, that's some 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
36 1 the -- I see some sign here. Does that mean somebody 2 raised their hand? I cannot see this. Okay, I don't 3 see any hands raised. Okay, so this was basically 4 everything what they're doing. And then I tried to 5 combine this in the conclusions.
6 So next slide. So next slide, I have this 7 high level conclusion. One is that they're sunsetting 8 some projects, which was a part of our recommendation 9 and discussion, you know, in the previous review. But 10 they's finally renewal for ongoing projects. And I 11 think that's -- I thought that was very positive. And 12 they are considering using Level 3 PRA to support 13 licensing advanced reactors because, you know, it goes 14 (indiscernible due to accent). And so it can support 15 the (indiscernible due to accent). And also to 16 develop the Part 53 human reactor review guidance and 17 also operator reactor licensing requirements for 18 advanced reactors. I think that's another positive 19 development for those two projects which were reaching 20 end -- (indiscernible due to accent).
21 And also as they said, DRA has this new 22 important role in the Agency transformation effort to 23 overseeing the innovation activities by utilizing 24 organizational factors expertise to drive innovation 25 and capture changes. And that sounds very good. I 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 just don't know how it's done. So we will support 2 this effort, but we don't have enough information to 3 analyze how it's being coordinated and what have been 4 accomplished so far. So we can, you know, maybe this 5 part is our next review to get familiar with that.
6 Okay, the next slide. Also they have 7 twice brought up their interest in addressing PRA 8 uncertainties in both the regulatory guidance, you 9 know, like for the advanced reactors and also for HRA 10 efforts. And I think we should strongly support this 11 effort because there is clear needs to have a guidance 12 on how to utilize uncertainty results in regulation.
13 And it's especially important when we now talk about 14 reactors where the new design features where we have 15 no operating data and also we don't really have 16 modeling experience in that -- in these reactors, you 17 know, so it will be -- I mean a lot of uncertainties 18 associated with that. So a little, you know, guidance 19 in this area would definitely help.
20 And the last one, these new projects --
21 they have new projects. One is to see how dynamic 22 PRA may be used for advanced reactors. And we have 23 this NMS-related support projects. And also they were 24 considering these possible future projects of 25 analyzing effects of extreme data and you know, 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 supporting physical security areas. I even saw some 2 risk with the (inaudible) program or something. But 3 I saw that in transcript; however, I didn't remember 4 that from discussion.
5 So what we can notice from there that all 6 of these new things are sort of general. And they're 7 not really projects that can eventually support 8 advance reactors like extreme data. But they're 9 currently more than 80 percent of DRA work is in 10 operating reactor business line and less than 10 11 percent in advanced reactors. So significantly less.
12 So I think that we should really, you know, express 13 our hope that we will see that those percentages are 14 changing in upcoming years. And that more work is 15 dedicated to the -- to the advanced reactors.
16 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Hey Vesna, I have a 17 question about that.
18 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Sure.
19 CHAIR SUNSESRI: I mean just think about 20 the presentations we had this week on the non-light 21 water reactor standards. I mean, you know --
22 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Right.
23 CHAIR SUNSESRI: -- much of the work that 24 is done for the operating fleet is applicable to the 25 -- I mean, you know, they're almost agnostic. Right?
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39 1 I mean, it's how you do analysis -- risk analysis.
2 It's a process, not necessarily technology-specific 3 things. So I mean is it fair to say just because only 4 10 percent of the work is advanced reactors that it's 5 not being advanced proportionately?
6 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay, well it's not 7 being advanced proportionately -- What would that 8 really -- What would that imply? That we are saying 9 that --
10 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Well, what I'm reading 11 this is saying is that we're doing 80 percent of the 12 work on operating reactors in (inaudible) and we want 13 to see that shift to I don't know, 50/50 or something?
14 You know, but --
15 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Yes. Yes.
16 CHAIR SUNSESRI: -- what advantage is 17 there? I mean is part of the 80 that is operating 18 reactors applicable to the -- to the advance as well?
19 I mean it seems to me it is.
20 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Yes, that's (audio 21 interference) -- big percentage of operating things is 22 applicable for the advanced, but may not. I mean you 23 know, it may be totally new design, totally new 24 issues. And the main point is that we already -- in 25 my opinion, that we already know a lot, you know, 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
40 1 the -- You know, like for example, let's say that we 2 are concentrating on the cable fires and the fire is 3 really sunsetting a lot. But you know, this will 4 definitely be applied for the all new designs. But 5 for example, some new type of the fire risk because of 6 the (indiscernible due to accent) interaction and we 7 are not looking at all. And that can come with the 8 new reactors. You know?
9 So I just want to say we have some, you 10 know, when it comes to research, you know, this is not 11 work in general (indiscernible due to accent). I 12 think that we should increase definitely searching 13 what we don't know.
14 MEMBER REMPE: So this is Joy. And I 15 think -- again, sometimes we get told to not focus --
16 We do ask them for percentages of funding, but that's 17 so we understand the resource allocation. And I think 18 a better -- because we get criticized if we swim out 19 of our swim lane. You mentioned already in your 20 presentation some ideas that would accomplish what 21 you're saying here, Vesna. Like you thought they 22 should reconsider the PRAs -- the reference plant PRAs 23 for non-LWRs.
24 There's the issue that has come up several 25 times that you've actually brought up Vesna, about 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 what metrics should be used for non-LWRs? It's for 2 surrogates for the qualitative -- the qualitative 3 health objectives. So I think we suggest some 4 projects, that they should reconsider for research, 5 dynamic PRA applications, et cetera that, that would 6 accomplish your objective. And maybe avoid what 7 Matt's suggesting as a comment. What do you think?
8 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: I mean, you know, I 9 wasn't sure that it would be necessary for this 10 (indiscernible due to accent). So in general, yes.
11 And I would be too like, you know, hesitant because 12 I'm not sure I completely understand the concern why 13 we object to increase. But that's okay. So Dave has 14 hand raised. Dave?
15 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah. My thing would be 16 maybe be a conclusion that they should engage more and 17 use their expertise as Part 53 with this graded 18 approach to PRA that they're struggling -- They've got 19 a working group, so they probably are doing that. But 20 they didn't really talk to us about that at all. And 21 given the stakeholder comments of late, I think it's 22 going to be a pretty important topic. I mean I'm 23 assuming that the Agency reaches out to the expertise 24 in DRA. I mean there's a lot of risk assessment 25 expertise, both in NRR and in DRA. So I'm assuming 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 that they know each other and they reach out as 2 appropriate as indicated by the, you know, the reg 3 guide we just looked at. And the presentation was 4 from somebody from RES and somebody from NRR.
5 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: So we should be 6 careful how we phrase this. I mean I can see that.
7 I just want to say we don't see -- we see a lot of 8 issues when we talked to NCSI, but we don't really see 9 the NRC is doing research. (indiscernible due to 10 accent) is this relative importance measures because 11 it's extremely important thing if we're going do this 12 risk-informed thing is to understand how you're going 13 to rank importance with the plants which already, you 14 know, low risk.
15 And you know, the thing is like we say 16 we're doing risk-informed applications, but you know, 17 nobody really defines what risk -- what the heck are 18 we talking about. So we are just trying to phrase 19 this without really trying to understand what we are 20 trying to accomplish. I mean the (indiscernible due 21 to accent) at this thing or at least maybe review of 22 the little (indiscernible due to accent) forming the 23 task, but maybe that's not for the NRC.
24 (indiscernible due to accent) I'm staying out of that.
25 I mean obviously the different departments do 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
43 1 different things. And maybe they didn't ask for help 2 from the Research Department.
3 Okay, well this is -- I'm sort of 4 basically done. I see that Joy put a little comment 5 here. I'm delighted to hear her comments on the 6 Vanderbilt things which we already discussed. Okay, 7 so basically this doesn't mean that this is going to 8 be our recommendation. That was my thinking in this 9 way when we write our letter and we will put on this 10 discussion and things like that, that we can ask 11 (audio interference) better. Okay.
12 MEMBER REMPE: Thank you, Vesna. And I 13 apologize. I should have cut off that comment on the 14 end there. It's late night changes that I didn't 15 quite incorporate, so my fault. But anyway, let's go 16 on to Dave's presentation. And let's try and go as 17 fast as you -- I mean let's try and do it in 25 18 minutes like we originally said. Okay, Dave?
19 MEMBER PETTI: Oh yeah. I only have, I 20 think, five or six slides. So, Division of Systems 21 Analysis talks about what they do. They develop and 22 maintain a wide spectrum of codes that are either 23 state of factors or state of the art. They're in four 24 branches. They have core competencies in the usual 25 things that you would expect given the system analysis 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 and the developing new competencies in -- I call it 2 advanced reactor behavior of data science and 3 artificial intelligence.
4 So next slide. In terms of prior 5 recommendations, they have been implementing the non-6 LWR code integrated action plans. Remember, the 7 multivolumes that Kim and her staff have talked to us 8 about, emphasizing simplified solutions for estimating 9 source terms, focused on developing and maintaining 10 in-house codes and capabilities and expertise. And 11 using these advanced reference plan evaluations to 12 assess the modeling capabilities and the data gaps.
13 They're trying to develop longer term 14 strategy for code maintenance. We heard about that.
15 They've got a new person that came out of, I believe 16 the DoD to help them think about strategic planning in 17 this area for code maintenance, consolidation, 18 development -- code development and how to integrate 19 the needs of the emerging technologies.
20 Next slide. So we suggest the findings 21 that -- I mean my draft write-up is that the breath 22 and depth of the capabilities in the division are 23 critical to providing that -- the technical basis for 24 the reasonable assurance findings that you know, the 25 Agency develops. We have numerous international 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 collaborations, you know, all of the different 2 departments, to leverage experimental capabilities 3 around the world. It would have cost NRC hundreds of 4 millions to replicate that in the U.S. So huge 5 leveraging, very valuable for them.
6 And also that the codes that they use, all 7 of them in this -- in DSA have a large international 8 set of users. And to me, that's a testament to the 9 quality and value of the DSA product to the 10 international reactor safety community. If you look 11 at -- I can't remember what it is -- the National 12 Academies were asked to talk about the quality of 13 research products. And they said that the best metric 14 for quality is being recognized internationally. And 15 I can clearly -- the DSA products given the use of --
16 international use meets that criteria.
17 Next slide. You know, they've got this 18 balancing act to look at current needs and future 19 needs, you know, acts in (inaudible) fuel, high burn-20 up fuel and advanced reactor applications. Those are 21 big issues on their plate. And I thought it was very 22 admirable, the balancing that they've been able to do 23 given the changing reactor technology environment.
24 Their preparation for advanced reactors, 25 the application is coming along well, I think, across 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 range of anticipated technologies. We expect to 2 hear more from them this year. The reference plan 3 evaluations have identified gaps to help prioritize 4 data needs and establish the adequacy of their 5 confirmatory tools. The recent daily funding awards 6 and the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Project has 7 helped NRC prioritize its research activities. And 8 just note that this balancing is critical to 9 performing code research at the right time.
10 Next slide. I thought the code investment 11 strategy was sound. It's a holistic assessment 12 focused on needs over a longer time period, five to 13 seven years over the historic three, to have the 14 greatest impact to the Agency. Also this new agency 15 wide data science and artificial intelligence 16 initiative seems to be a worthwhile endeavor. Good 17 definitions, standards, and use cases are going to be 18 critical to be a value to the NRC. The impact on 19 reactor safety, specifically the biggest areas, 20 autonomous control and vulnerability assessments needs 21 to be established. Getting started on this work 22 earlier I thought was laudable.
23 Next slide. That's it.
24 MEMBER REMPE: So you did it very fast.
25 This is Joy. So I know, you know, that I've made 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
47 1 comment about do you have any recommendations? You 2 know, something to help them do a better job. And 3 some ideas that I came up with when I was looking 4 through the transcript were coming from other member 5 comments -- from that meeting, as well as some prior 6 meetings.
7 For example, one member said about the 8 code investment strategy, they ought to try and go for 9 a longer period of time. I mean what they've done is 10 great because they have never tried to think about 11 five to seven years. But should we also say they 12 might want to consider going longer? There was one 13 member -- I know it's in the integrated assessment 14 about this is a substantial effort that may require a 15 lot more resources. The integrated action plan 16 reports that we reviewed as part of -- I don't know, 17 the non-LWR effort or future plants efforts. At one 18 time, we said are they ever going to update these 19 reports? Did we want as a group to say they ought to 20 consider updating these reports at some point in the 21 future? Do you have any ideas about what you'd like 22 to recommend for changes, Dave?
23 MEMBER PETTI: So I thought ten years was 24 too long right now in such a dynamic environment.
25 It's hard enough, I think, for them to see five 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
48 1 seven. So I mean if we put some words in, you know, 2 where practicable, they could look longer. But for 3 instance, you know, in the advanced reactors, we don't 4 know which ones are going to come through and make it 5 to the finish line. So I think that's difficult. But 6 in other areas like the dose calculation of stuff and 7 some of that, they may be able to look further and 8 still see value for looking longer. So we could work 9 that in.
10 MEMBER REMPE: So okay, the five to seven 11 year investment strategy, if you think about it, they 12 didn't develop any new codes for non-LWRs. They use 13 MELCOR. And for some cases, they were able to use 14 trace. For the dose calculations, they're using MAACS 15 and other codes that existed. So again, maybe not for 16 those models, but the codes are their codes. Right?
17 MEMBER PETTI: Right, although they have, 18 you know, agreed for some cases to go to the DOE codes 19 where they --
20 (simultaneous speaking) 21 MEMBER REMPE: And I'm guessing that the 22 investment strategy is not on any of the DOE codes 23 because DOE is paying for those. Right?
24 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah, I mean I guess I took 25 investment in a broader sense. Not just dollars, 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
49 1 you know, people, resources, just the whole 2 enterprise. But you know, until -- I think it's just 3 hard for them to see beyond what they -- where they 4 are today. I mean five to seven years.
5 MEMBER REMPE: I may agree with you. In 6 the U.S., it's always essentially -- although their 7 funding's reimbursable from licensees. But anyway, 8 it's always hard to predict the future.
9 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah.
10 MEMBER REMPE: You may be right, but I 11 just am trying to push it and think about is there 12 anything you want to suggest that they do differently?
13 Any gaps?
14 MEMBER PETTI: You know, until we get 15 further into the actual applications, I don't -- I 16 don't -- at this point, I can't see any gaps. I mean 17 I think that they're well set for both Natrium and X-18 energy, I think that they're good tools. Thir tools 19 obviously in salt systems, a little behind that. But 20 I don't think there's going to be something, you know, 21 pounding at the door immediately. In terms of the 22 dose, everything's sort of consequence. I mean we're 23 hearing about it in pieces and parts, but my sense is 24 that, you know, it's going to be -- they're going to 25 be in pretty good shape when we see all the pieces 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
50 1 the puzzle.
2 MEMBER REMPE: Okay.
3 MEMBER PETTI: And again, my concern 4 updating -- I just hate creating bureaucracy. I'm not 5 a big fan of -- I mean having lived in where you 6 update plans all the time. They're very limited on 7 resources and I'd hate to recommend something that 8 requires them to use resources on, you know, more 9 paperwork. If I saw a value to it, I guess I would.
10 But maybe what we would recommend instead 11 is, you know, not updating the four volumes, but sort 12 of a status report against that plan. You know, how 13 are we doing? What do we have to do different? Are 14 there course corrections? But it could be sort of an 15 annual addendum to those reports so that they don't 16 have to carry. And those are four very large reports 17 to have to carry on and do revisions.
18 So maybe something that says, you know, 19 just tell us where you are relative to where you 20 thought you'd be. You know, would be something that 21 would maybe balance the resources a little better 22 because of what it would take to get something like 23 that done.
24 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, I did. I'm just 25 trying to kick the tires a little bit. I'm not trying 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 to force you into anything, although I kind of like 2 the idea of a status report. But it's something to 3 think about.
4 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah.
5 MEMBER REMPE: Do any other members have 6 any comments or questions?
7 MR. WIDMAYER: Hey, Joy?
8 MEMBER REMPE: Yes.
9 MR. WIDMAYER: This is Derek. I think Kim 10 Webber from the Office of Research would like to ask 11 a question or make a comment. Is that okay?
12 MEMBER REMPE: Sure. Again, you're not 13 allowed -- I'm sure you know, Kim, so I don't have to 14 repeat it. But you're not allowed to give editorial 15 comments. At this point, we're kind of close to 16 letter writing. But factual corrections, updates.
17 MS. WEBBER: Sure. Yeah, the only thing 18 --
19 (simultaneous speaking) 20 MS. WEBBER: I was going to chime -- I was 21 going to chime in, but I think you got it. I just 22 want to clarify that the code investment plan is a 23 strategy document that identifies what the code 24 development needs are over five to seven years. And 25 so that helps for us in regard to budget formulation 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
52 1 and execution. Whereas the IAP strategy documents 2 identify the specific tasks and activities that need 3 to be completed to get us to a certain point relative 4 to readiness to perform, you know, analysis and 5 calculations. So the two are related, but they're 6 different. So I just wanted to put that clarification 7 on the table. But I think you understand that from 8 the follow-on conversation that you're having.
9 MEMBER REMPE: And so my interpretation is 10 that the investment strategy is not just limited to 11 non-LWR applications. It is for the whole thing, what 12 your (audio interference). For example, Fukushima 13 detects a new something or other for vessel failure --
14 that would be -- or instrumentation. That would be 15 included in this investment strategy and it has 16 nothing to do with non-LWRs. Right?
17 MS. WEBBER: So the code investment plan 18 broadly covers the NRCs 40+ scientific computer codes 19 of which the codes that we're working on in the 20 context of advanced reactors, BlueCRAB, MELCOR, and 21 MACCS, they're a subset of those 40+ set of codes.
22 MEMBER REMPE: That's my understanding 23 too. And I think Dave understands that too. It was 24 just the answer implied it a bit differently. And I 25 think we -- we beat that horse to death, but thank 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
53 1 you.
2 MS. WEBBER: Okay.
3 MEMBER REMPE: Any other comments from 4 members on Dave's -- Then let's go on to Matt's 5 section please.
6 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Thank you, Joy. One of 7 the advantages of being last is that a lot of this 8 stuff has already been said. So I'm not going to 9 repeat some of the things that have already been said 10 about competencies and how they're deploying. I'll 11 touch on the specifics related to DE. But design 12 engineering is right up their presentation on the 13 website, what they're responsible for.
14 So let's go to the next slide. The 15 competencies that were -- that were discussed, either 16 that I identified through looking at their public 17 website, the things that were mentioned in their 18 presentation and looking at their transcript, things 19 that were said in response to questions, these are the 20 various competencies. And it's a tough call to 21 separate our core and developing areas from a group 22 like this. So if you put them all together on one 23 slide, they seem appropriate for the level of work and 24 responsibilities that the group is embodied with.
25 And just as an example of 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
54 1 you might consider developing is you're looking at the 2 molten salt -- molten salt fuel cycle. So that's 3 obviously something new when you compare it against 4 metallurgy and NDE, which would be established 5 competencies that they've had. And you know, they're 6 deploying the entire variety of things that we heard 7 in the other presentations. You know, reverse of 8 rotations and national ads, and more use of virtual 9 technology because the pandemic has restricted cross-10 sharing of people if you will, and things like that.
11 So does anybody have any comments on just 12 competencies?
13 All right, we'll go to the next slide 14 then. They did a good -- They've done a good job of 15 addressing activities and prior ACRS recommendations.
16 They've obviously even through the pandemic, they've 17 increased external engagement through the virtual 18 platform, engaging in non-nuclear technology with 19 things like the Advanced Manufacturing Technologies 20 and a little bit of the big data stuff.
21 We had a recommendation about Halden Gap 22 at the time when the Halden was being taken out of 23 service. And they've actually -- we had a separate 24 briefing on that, so they're addressing, you know, our 25 comments from there. Although there's still some 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 longer term data that need to be addressed. And we'll 2 be following that with them.
3 Other things that are continuing to -- How 4 do I want to say this? Okay, so one of the things 5 that we look at is the nature of their work. Is it 6 ongoing? Does it need to be ongoing? Has it met its 7 objectives? Can it be sunset or whatever. They do a 8 good job of looking at their work critically. And we 9 would agree that to digitalize the action plan is on 10 track and these can be continued to develop and 11 progress on that. It's not quite reached its end 12 point yet as we know from our numerous subcommittee 13 meetings with various groups on the topic. And they 14 are being self-critical as far as sunsetting some 15 projects like the embedded digital device research.
16 They've discontinued that now because it's reached its 17 objectives. So good job there. Any other comments on 18 this slide?
19 We'll go to the next one. Some of the 20 highlights and observations, this is just stuff that 21 we've talked about. And this slide is -- I didn't 22 construct this very well here. Some of the things 23 that we've talked about coming into the meeting where 24 we were interested obviously in the digital twin 25 business and we got a good presentation on 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
56 1 advanced manufacturing technology, harvesting. These 2 are all things and areas that we were looking at going 3 into it. What we heard were some successes. They've 4 strengthened their reg guide group. They've combined 5 some things such as project management into the reg 6 guide review and a bit of process overhaul and the 7 turn around their reg guides in a much faster pace.
8 I do have a recommendation on the next 9 slide there that we'll talk about. We've already 10 talked about some of the project terminations. And we 11 were also interested in identifying areas that we 12 might interface with them in the future. This is just 13 kind of a list of things and we'll get to the details 14 on the next slide and the recommendations.
15 So let's go to the next slide. Here's 16 kind of the conclusion and the sum-up of the whole 17 review of the area. So in the area of -- in the topic 18 -- on the topic of advanced manufacturing technology, 19 we had a good discussion. And obviously there's a lot 20 of advancements, so there are parts being made right 21 now for reactor service in this. And not safety-22 related parts, but parts nonetheless.
23 So our questions were really centering 24 around what are the quality assurance requirements 25 going to be for really safety-related components 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
57 1 (inaudible) components if you want to call them that.
2 What the group is doing. What is the group doing to 3 identify what QA requirements might be unique to AMP 4 as opposed to any other manufacturing process? So I 5 guess the recommendation would be for them to 6 consider, you know, more emphasis on identifying what 7 the unique quality assurance requirements would be for 8 advanced manufacturing technology. And since they're 9 right in the middle of doing -- doing the work on 10 that, it would be a good opportunity.
11 I don't know a lot about this. I mean we 12 had a discussion about the progress and viability of 13 risk-informed performance-based seismic design. I 14 know the committee probably has some differing 15 opinions on performance-based seismic design and how 16 do you do that. So I just -- Vesna or Dennis, anybody 17 want to weigh in on this?
18 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: I don't really know 19 too much about that, Matt. I'm not sure how it will 20 work, so I would just have to get informed about it.
21 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Yeah, I -- you know, I 22 pulled this out the transcript. I'm going to have to 23 go in there and do some research on this. But I think 24 I cut somebody off. Dennis, was that you?
25 MEMBER BLEY: Yeah, it was me. I think 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 what they're after there -- and this is something that 2 will be good -- is being able to dig into things and 3 find out the physics of failure. Just what went wrong 4 so you can do a better job of designing and maybe 5 predicting failures. But I don't know much about it 6 beyond something like that.
7 MEMBER HALNON: I don't either, but I 8 think it's a continuation of, you know, I think 9 they're called the (inaudible) where you look at 10 experience and what happened and the structures that 11 you have (audio interference) I think it would be a 12 good topic to get to.
13 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Okay. Yeah, I'll do a 14 little bit more research on that. And we'll have 15 something better -- more descriptive for the letter 16 report. (audio interference).
17 Okay. All right, guys. Let's see here.
18 Plenty of discussion about digital twins and how that 19 technology might be used in the future. We had 20 internal questions from the members really setting on 21 digital twinning sounds a lot like simulation. And 22 we've been doing simulation. We have years of 23 simulation experience in various things and what is 24 the branch doing to leverage simulation experience and 25 their continuing development of these digital twins?
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59 1 So I think there might be a recommendation 2 in there for some partnering or some collaboration if 3 you will with other industry similar to what they did 4 with the Advanced Manufacturing Technology and the big 5 data stuff just to get the lessons learned out of 6 others that may have been down this road already. And 7 how it might influence what they are doing with the 8 digital twinning.
9 This next area, I mean we've been kind of 10 around the block on material harvesting. It's too 11 expensive. What value does it add? You know, all 12 these kind of things. There's a unique aspect of it 13 that was discussed in the working group meeting 14 because there is still some work going on here, 15 especially internationally. Of course, there's 16 unfortunate opportunities in the U.S. with some of the 17 plants that are being decommissioned and taken apart.
18 Since you're taking them apart anyway, can you harvest 19 that material effectively? But instead of using the 20 material as kind of a validation of things that have 21 happened, can this material harvesting data if you 22 will, be used to start tweaking models in a way that 23 makes them more predictive in nature?
24 In other words, you know, we've heard a 25 lot about interpolation. But what about 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
60 1 extrapolation? Can you use this information coming 2 from this new round of interest in material harvesting 3 to maybe think about the models in a different way and 4 make them more predictive in nature? Especially with 5 things like concrete and some of the other materials.
6 Okay, Walter had some thoughts ono this.
7 And I did not -- wasn't able to talk to him 8 beforehand. So before I get too far, I know Ron 9 Ballinger has some comments about the digital 10 twinning. So did you have anything you wanted to add 11 about the digital twins, Ron?
12 MEMBER BALLINGER: I mean -- digital twin 13 is at least in my mind, a buzz word now that will 14 change two or three years from now. But the advent 15 of these advanced computing systems -- high powered 16 computing systems, you can do modeling, which you 17 couldn't do before. So that's what digital twinning 18 really is. But you know, I mean it's the word that 19 people are -- people are using. I think the --
20 nobody's starting from scratch. They act as if 21 digital twin sort of came full blown from somebodies 22 forehead when in fact it was an evolutionary process 23 where you now have modeling capability that's much 24 more faster and you can be more detailed.
25 The comment I made in their presentation 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 was that they -- they don't -- they already have a 2 fair amount of expertise at the agency with their code 3 development and all that kind of thing. And they 4 should leverage that if they can. They don't need to 5 go hiring people to do digital twin modeling.
6 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Okay. Thank you for that 7 clarification and insights.
8 MEMBER BALLINGER: No, I mean I'd be 9 absolutely astounded if the NuScale plant, their 10 simulator is a digital twin.
11 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Right, yeah.
12 MEMBER BALLINGER: You know?
13 CHAIR SUNSESRI: And you're right about 14 the -- you're right about the concept of digital 15 twinning. I'm in an organization called the National 16 Associate of Corporate Directors. And I hear often 17 times presentations on organizational digital twinning 18 where they will go model an entire organization and 19 kind of run it in parallel to see how different, you 20 know, the product line changes might affect the 21 overall outcome. So it is interesting work and I 22 appreciate your comments.
23 (simultaneous speaking) 24 MEMBER BALLINGER: And if you go down to 25 oil industry, some of these refineries, the ones 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
62 1 aren't, you know, circa the Stone Age, they all --
2 they run digital twins of that system in real time.
3 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Right. Okay, thank you.
4 Just two more points here. The bullet that's here on 5 the screen is -- the next one is the effectiveness 6 and lessons learned from future focused research.
7 This is captured under this branch discussion (audio 8 interference). It broadly applies to everybody. So 9 the research office is undertaking this future focused 10 research project or process. I think this is maybe 11 the start of the second year of it. And so, you know, 12 it would be a good opportunity for them to kind of 13 step back from the process a little bit and see if 14 it's giving them the results that they were looking 15 for. And make any course adjustments for future --
16 you know, identification of future focused research 17 needs.
18 I know that the office director is very, 19 you know, supportive of this whole process. Ray has 20 talked to us a number of times on that. So you know, 21 making sure that they're getting the best out of --
22 the most out of this would -- most out of your 23 research and energy would be ideal and the basis of 24 our recommendation.
25 Anyway, the last thing I have is -- 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
63 1 kind relates back to a note on the previous slide 2 where I was talking about regulatory guides and the 3 process and improvements that they made. And it 4 didn't make this slide and I apologize for that. But 5 one of the things that's kind of a backwards 6 recommendation actually. Not withstanding the 7 successes that they've touted about the changes in the 8 regulatory process, they do see a continuing 9 opportunity to make it even better by engaging the 10 ACR. That's earlier in the process review of the reg 11 guides and particularly their thinking about the draft 12 stage before they go out for public comment. I know 13 a lot of times we wait until after public comments.
14 And you know this -- you've heard me say 15 also before, there's a balancing act sometimes on 16 these things because we don't want to get so involved 17 in the -- in the front of the thing that we actually, 18 you know, are co-creators if you will. Because at the 19 end we have to be independent and judge the work 20 independently. So it's something to think about and 21 I'll work with Joy to see how we might capture that 22 thought in the letter report. But it would be -- it 23 would be kind of like a mirror -- looking at the 24 mirror on that recommendation. What are we going to 25 do? Or maybe we can turn it into how can they help us 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 kind of a recommendation.
2 Anyway, that concludes my part of the 3 presentation. Any additional questions? Thank you.
4 MEMBER PETTI: So Matt -- Matt, this is 5 the last bullet on this slide. It seems like it's 6 something that cuts across all of -- all of them. So 7 it's a conclusion that we should put in the section of 8 the report that's not just DE specific, but --
9 (simultaneous speaking) 10 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Yeah, I agree with you 11 there.
12 MEMBER REMPE: I also agree. I have a --
13 in the integrated assessment, I have a topic of future 14 focused research with a recommendation. But I didn't 15 quite capture what you have here, Matt. And so when 16 we get to that slide, remind me and I'll type it in my 17 notes. But I think I got it in your notes too -- on 18 the notes on your slide, so we'll get it. But yes, I 19 agree.
20 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Thank you. All right.
21 Any others?
22 MEMBER REMPE: Thank you. So let's go on 23 to the next slide, Hossein. And it's the section 24 called integrated assessment observations. And I've 25 grouped them into four topics. And again, I went 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 through the transcripts and I pretty well tried to 2 just list everything. And so if folks say oh, don't 3 put that in there, Joy. This is a good time to tell 4 me so I don't put it in the draft letter. So I expect 5 some folks to jump in here and tell me some things are 6 bad and get rid of them. Okay?
7 So the first topic or point I'd like to 8 make in the integrated assessment is that RES is 9 addressing Agency existing and near-term research 10 needs. In our review, I didn't hear that there is a 11 big gap that RES has missed and they need to jump on 12 it right away. We had suggestions here and there, but 13 nothing that was a big ticket item.
14 I think that some examples to emphasize 15 this might be useful such as I thought what RES has 16 done on the accident tolerant fuel reviews was a good 17 way of using RES resources. They funded and developed 18 some reports related -- reports related to where there 19 are data and modeling gaps. And I would again 20 highlight the fact that some gaps may be difficult to 21 address without a Halden-type capability. And I know 22 we've been briefed on that, but I would still 23 emphasize that it's not clear we're going to get the 24 data like we had data from Halden.
25 I think that the initiaves are preparing 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 the Agency for non-LWR reviews. And I expect again, 2 a lot of this will appear in other sections that you 3 know, we can just say it's emphasized in other 4 sections. Again, as I get written in, I will probably 5 not reiterate what we already have discussed. I do 6 think that something about the DRA approach and how 7 we're going to follow on it, might be useful. And 8 with what Vesna has said about that they might want to 9 reconsider the reference plan PRA evaluations, I think 10 that they might be highlighted in this section again.
11 And I emphasize that it is very important as the 12 Agency identifies gaps in models and validation data 13 that they continue to communicate that to DOE and 14 design developers. Anything else from anybody or any 15 comments about deleting some of this?
16 So let's go to the next slide. Core 17 competencies and capabilities. Again, this I think 18 spans all of the divisions. Every division had 19 acknowledged this is a significant challenge and they 20 are tracking it and are trying to take action to 21 address it as they see it occurring. And I didn't 22 have any suggestions for improving what they're doing, 23 but I thought it would be worthwhile noting that we 24 explored that. And they are doing things that we 25 think are good ideas. And I've listed some of these 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
67 1 ideas on this slide. I think it's interesting that 2 they're taking this integrated university program 3 grants and trying to leverage it for projects that are 4 of interest to the NRC. Okay, not hearing any 5 comments, prior --
6 (simultaneous speaking) 7 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Joy, did we hear --
8 what I heard from three of us is this is not really 9 necessary connected because -- so I'm not -- there are 10 your specific notes. Right? Because I don't really 11 -- I mean I think we discussed this university problem 12 now previous, right up, you know, two years ago. So 13 is this something -- I mean are we bringing a lot of 14 the same things in this -- I don't remember anybody 15 discussing these problems. Did they discuss those 16 problems?
17 MEMBER REMPE: In Ray Furstenau's 18 presentation, he mentioned it. And again, it's been 19 a while since I've looked at the slides. But it's my 20 understanding that was something he suggested that he 21 would like to brief -- have his staff brief us on. So 22 we will have an upcoming presentation on that. And 23 Hossein, I believe this was the one that you said 24 you'd like go ahead and start scheduling for us.
25 Right? Hossein, if you're there, you're on mute. 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
68 1 can't hear you.
2 MR. NOURBAKHSH: Yes, we have mentioned 3 that. But we have to be at one some point to have 4 that briefing.
5 MEMBER REMPE: Okay. So that's where it's 6 at, Vesna. Okay? And I guess, you must have had 7 trouble sharing your screen and talking at the same 8 time. So we're going to need you to share your screen 9 again. Sorry.
10 MEMBER PETTI: So Joy, I had a comment on 11 that slide.
12 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, this is the slide 13 about the integrated -- the core competencies or the 14 next slide?
15 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah, yeah. Yeah and it 16 will be -- Well hold on, maybe not. It might be the 17 next slide. The hiring prioritization.
18 MEMBER REMPE: Uh huh.
19 MEMBER PETTI: So you know, what many of 20 the national labs do is they kind of try to prime the 21 pump. Right? They have people out giving 22 presentations at the universities because they offer 23 seminar series. I just wonder if NRC could do -- you 24 know, take a page from them. To get them out there so 25 that students think of them as a place to work coming 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 out of school. It might be that they focus a little 2 bit on that young end of the pipeline.
3 CHAIR SUNSESRI: There is a grant program 4 that they --
5 MEMBER PETTI: Right, right. So do they 6 follow up? I mean, you know, do they -- do they go to 7 the university and show interest and develop 8 relationships? That's the thing that is important.
9 Right? I mean so the professor goes oh, I know 10 somebody that might be really good. You know, calls 11 his friend at NRC and says hey, we've got somebody 12 here that would be perfect, that sort of thing.
13 MEMBER BIER: Yeah, another thing the labs 14 do is offer a lot of the summer internships for 15 students with the understanding that then hey, the 16 student might be interested. And maybe they get a 17 chance to see whether they want that student.
18 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah.
19 MEMBER REMPE: Well I know they do offer 20 internships. And I do know that they said that those 21 who have been their university grant recipients get 22 preferential hiring. I don't know about -- We could 23 ask for Ray to speak up and inform further if that's 24 allowed. And now I'm going to need somebody like 25 Scott to tell me no, that's not allowed. The 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
70 1 thing we could do is just encourage them to increase 2 proactive engagements with the universities early on.
3 And that would be something that would be factually 4 correct no matter what. And we could -- Perhaps Ray 5 would like to speak up and say yeah, we are doing this 6 to some level or something.
7 (simultaneous speaking) 8 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Ray has his hand up, so 9 you may call on him. Ray, go ahead.
10 MEMBER REMPE: Okay. Ray, please.
11 MR. FURSTENAU: Okay. Yeah, those are 12 really good comments, I think, that we provide 13 scholarships and fellowship grants as part of the 14 university program. There's a program called NRAN, an 15 apprenticeship program that started this past year 16 that drew heavily from the fellowships and scholarship 17 recipients. But we also have -- I know in research we 18 use the intern program and co-op program as well where 19 we get a lot of the early career -- target the early 20 career people. So we do have -- we do have programs 21 that help. Could we use them better? Certainly, I 22 think we could.
23 On the recruitment, I think, you know, 24 Dave Petti, you mentioned about what the labs do.
25 What we do with I think in turns is certainly not 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
71 1 the degree as the -- as the national labs. But we do 2 try to get undergraduates and graduate students 3 interested and bring them in during the summers. And 4 then the co-op kind of keeps them on during the year 5 to see if we can get a good fit with a student and 6 what we do. So we do have those programs, but I think 7 we can always do better.
8 MEMBER REMPE: Does that address Vicki's 9 and Dave's comments?
10 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah.
11 MEMBER REMPE: And I've taken notes -- And 12 I've taken notes and I'll try and write the section 13 accordingly. So thank you.
14 MEMBER PETTI: Thank you.
15 MEMBER BALLINGER: This is Ron. My 16 experience with seminars from national lab people and 17 things like that is they're very good, but they're 18 technically oriented. And they're not structured in 19 a general sense with the eye of finding somebody that 20 they might want to hire. And most universities have 21 at least two job fairs per year. And I've never seen 22 anybody from the NRC at any of the ones at MIT.
23 And the other question I might have is --
24 and I'm sure Ray probably already has somebody doing 25 this, but is there a dedicated person whose job 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 function is that? Is you know, dealing with seminars 2 and recruiting? Or is it kind of a catches, catch, 3 can kind of thing where you've got a friend that's at 4 a university and you get invited to do a seminar?
5 CHAIR SUNSESRI: We've got several hands 6 up here.
7 MEMBER REMPE: Since he asked Ray a 8 question and I think Ray's hand -- maybe it was left 9 over from before, but Ray, did you want to respond?
10 MEMBER BALLINGER: Let him follow up and 11 then we'll go to the other ones.
12 MR. FURSTENAU: Yeah, just quickly to 13 follow up to Dr. Ballinger's comment. It is -- It's 14 a little mixed. We have like in our personnel branch 15 -- in our personnel office in charge of the -- you 16 know, a person in charge of recruiting for example and 17 has other job duties as well. But then we do have 18 volunteers, you know, that are maybe graduated from a 19 particular university that will go on job fairs. A 20 lot of those are virtual right now. As a matter of 21 fact, you know, one that comes to mind right now we're 22 going to be participating in is University of 23 Michigan. MIT, I'm not sure. We'd be glad to 24 participate in a job fair for MIT certainly.
25 But it is kind of a mix of, you know, 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
73 1 people who have a fondness for a particular university 2 will help recruit people. It is formally 3 participating in job fairs as well. So it's not just 4 one thing.
5 MR. BURKHART: Yeah, do you have -- do you 6 have follow-through? A lot of times, you know, one 7 contact and you're done doesn't work very well. If 8 you find a contact and you follow through keeping up 9 -- keeping contact with them. Because they start out 10 as a freshman and then, you know, it may take two or 11 three years before they finally ended up having to get 12 a job. But if they have you constantly on their mind, 13 you know, that's a -- it's a longer term, higher 14 payoff thing, I think.
15 MR. FURSTENAU: Yeah, I agree with that.
16 You know, you have to start early if you want to get 17 the best, I think. I would agree with you.
18 MEMBER REMPE: Scott, you've had your hand 19 up for quite a while. What's up?
20 MR. MOORE: Thank you. I agree completely 21 with what Ray just said. We do have a recruiting 22 group within our office; a chief human capital 23 officer. We have people both go out to job fairs at 24 the universities and also job fair from other 25 organizations like the service academies get together.
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74 1 There's all kinds of job fairs. We also have people 2 that go along with the professional recruiters in 3 OCHCO that as Ray pointed out, have affiliations with 4 those universities.
5 With regard to the integrated university 6 program, I know for a fact that this past year, they 7 tried to mine that program to see if there would be 8 any good matches between that and the NRAN program.
9 So OCHCO provided names of people within that program 10 to offices to see if they would be interested in some 11 of them. So there was an effort to go -- to match the 12 two.
13 MEMBER BALLINGER: For example, do you 14 guys have an interface with the Women in Nuclear 15 organization?
16 MR. MOORE: I'm not sure personally, but 17 I would think so, yeah.
18 MR. BURKHART: Yeah, this is Larry. So 19 yes, there is all of that. There's a university 20 champion for most of the universities. So there's a 21 very well organized group that interacts with OCHCO.
22 And it's kind of a bridge between OCHCO and 23 universities and technical folks. But I think you 24 make a good point.
25 MEMBER REMPE: I had my mic on mute.
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75 1 Luis, do you have your hand up?
2 MR. BETANCOURT: Yeah, I want to say --
3 like I have been very active on the area of 4 recruitment. And OCHCO and SPCR, they have a very 5 detailed (indiscernible due to accent) all of the 6 recruitment at the (indiscernible due to accent) that 7 we have in the Agency. And we go off into this cool 8 spin, plus the question from the last meeting is we go 9 through the activities through the (indiscernible due 10 to accent) Service Program. So we know this question 11 that a member has. OCHCO has all of the answers. So 12 I think it would be beneficial, maybe OCHCO can make 13 a presentation to you guys and some other topics.
14 Because all of these topics, they are very involved.
15 And we need to start doing (indiscernible due to 16 accent) of recruiting (indiscernible due to accent) 17 guidance.
18 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, thank you. Any other 19 comments? Then let's go on to Slide 3. And it 20 highlights our continued interest in the way RES 21 prioritizes research activities and some of the 22 process improvements. And the first one emphasizes 23 their ongoing process to emphasize enterprise risk.
24 And here's where I would like to -- Again, I collected 25 items from various members that were comments 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
76 1 transcript. And so if you want to have me delete 2 them, I can. But again, there was one comment that 3 a member made about this code strategy and that code 4 maintenance requires continual support. And it's a 5 sustained support that's required. And it may be 6 something where additional resources may be required.
7 The other thing is that other projects 8 might be discontinued if it were -- they were 9 subjected to more rigorous evaluations. And one 10 member actually made a comment about maybe that user 11 needs should have a fixed end date and require 12 revisions to reflect redirection after the original 13 objectives are achieved.
14 I'm going to stop here. Are members okay 15 with something like this to be put in our integrated 16 assessment section or you want me to delete some of 17 these items? Okay, not hearing any comments, we'll go 18 forward with it then.
19 The second bullet just emphasizes some of 20 the process improvements we've seen happen within RES.
21 They are trying with the reg guides to have more 22 interactions with industry to emphasize which ones 23 should get updates. They have developed a risk app 24 for resident inspectors. So they're making use of 25 their risk insights. And then of course there's been 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 a lot of increased use of the virtual platforms. And 2 I've been very impressed with some of the seminars 3 that I was able to participate in, in the last six 4 months such as the source term results that DSA has 5 presented. And it's been helpful for me to understand 6 some of the non-LWR technologies. And they're there 7 for the staff, as well as the public. And it's been 8 a nice thing to have where you can't always (audio 9 interference) at NRC.
10 And then the last item I wanted to 11 emphasize is on slide -- the next slide. And it 12 actually spans two slides. So if you'll go to Slide 13 33 -- and you may already be there, but my -- oh, my 14 screen just updated.
15 Anyway, I think it's been interesting to 16 see RES try and take on some projects for the whole 17 agency. They have taken on this data science AI 18 implementation effort again. And they are not only 19 looking at outside organizations, but inside 20 organizations to develop an agency-wide strategy.
21 With respect to the future focused 22 research projects, I'd like to add here the 23 recommendation that Matt suggested. But also that 24 they're taking some of these FFRs and making them in 25 -- they're proposing that the FFR effort become 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
78 1 sustained R&D program to improve the agency knowledge 2 on some key topics. And during our discussion on the 3 FFRs, we recommended that they consider having an 4 annual status report. And I know after the meeting I 5 received what they provide to the commissioners and 6 it's just a list. And what we were thinking of is 7 just a highlight of what the FFR program has 8 accomplished might be a good idea to include as a 9 recommendation. Okay? Everyone understand what I'm 10 saying there?
11 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Yeah, I do but --
12 (simultaneous speaking) 13 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, then if you'll go to 14 the next slide.
15 (simultaneous speaking) 16 MEMBER REMPE: Sorry, I heard a comment?
17 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Yeah, yeah. This is 18 Matt. I want to ask Joy about the annual report. So 19 what are they doing? I mean I don't really know what 20 they're doing for the rest of their stuff. I mean, 21 you know, would this be separate from however they 22 report the results of all their research?
23 (simultaneous speaking) 24 MEMBER REMPE: Yeah --
25 (simultaneous speaking)
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79 1 MEMBER REMPE: -- this research report.
2 And it talks about all the research projects. But 3 what I'm thinking of is a short -- not a 50-page 4 report, but a short brochure that says, "Future 5 focused research projects". And not just talking 6 about what they are, but some of the accomplishments 7 of what they've learned and done with the funding.
8 Because this is -- you know, most of the research 9 projects are still user needs -- user need instigated.
10 And this is something where they are taking on 11 research-instigated projects, right, or initiated 12 projects. Does that sound good? And again, if you 13 think they shouldn't do that, this is the time to tell 14 me and I'll take that recommendation off.
15 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Well, I'd like to see --
16 Well, I don't know. It's fine, I guess. You know, I 17 just -- I worry about creating unnecessary work. If 18 they have something that is similar that they could, 19 you know, add this to it or make it a focus or 20 whatever. You know, any time you're asking somebody 21 to create a report, it just sounds like well what's 22 the value of this going to be? What's the goal? You 23 know, how does that fit in with their performance 24 model, things like that.
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80 1 think about like a one pager. I know that at the labs 2 -- the internal R&D, sometimes they just do sort of a 3 simple one pager to give you a sense of where it is.
4 So it wouldn't take a tremendous amount of effort and 5 it's all there together.
6 MEMBER REMPE: I think that's what the 7 intent was with that recommendation. A short 8 bulletin, like one or two page bulletin of 9 highlighting it. Because a list of -- I don't 10 remember now if it was ten projects that they send to 11 the commissioner or if it's just the topic -- the 12 headings or the title of the projects. And instead, 13 you know, what does it accomplish? You know, that's 14 what -- I'll light it up as a short bulletin 15 highlighting accomplishments. Okay?
16 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Yeah, that's fine. I 17 mean I just think about, you know, when we think about 18 asking staff or whatever to come to us and make a 19 presentation on that, we had one idea of what the 20 effort goes into that. And I think they put in way 21 more effort into it than what we think. So just as 22 long we can avoid that they don't go overboard -- You 23 know, creating a whole bunch of work to address to 24 address this recommendation, I'm fine with it.
25 MEMBER REMPE: Okay. When it 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
81 1 suggested to the staff -- and again, maybe they just 2 wanted to say something and move on -- but the staff 3 in the transcript said they thought that would be a 4 good idea and they weren't aware of any such document.
5 And I can't remember now if it was Dennis or which 6 member asked if they had such a bulletin. Okay?
7 MEMBER HALNON: Joy, just real quick.
8 This is Greg. You've just go to be careful. I hate 9 to be the negative, but unintended consequences of 10 putting out headlines or partial information on 11 projects and it's effect on the potential of the 12 nuclear industry relative to the folks that might use 13 that and expound on it in a way that research is not 14 going to be able to answer. So I don't know if I'm 15 saying that correctly. I'm trying to be politically 16 correct, but you've just got to be careful with the 17 headlines of future projects that people could use in 18 a toxic way.
19 MEMBER REMPE: Well, we could take this 20 off and not recommend it. You know, again that's why 21 I'm discussing it today to try and make the letter 22 writing go better.
23 MEMBER HALNON: I think the benefits are 24 good. And I think the staff just needs to be 25 cautioned not to say things in such a way 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
82 1 somebody can misconstrue them into a safety issue or 2 some ongoing issue that could be used in an 3 inappropriate way. It may be appropriate to have a 4 conversation about it, but not necessarily expound on 5 unfactual things that could cause problems. So I just 6 think that the staff needs to be aware and careful on 7 how they characterize these future projects.
8 MEMBER BLEY: I kind of get where Greg's 9 coming from. But I like Dave's comment and I've been 10 associated with organizations that require this one 11 pager. But often it's like a slide broken into four 12 pieces. And then you can get enough information down 13 that it's not going to get misinterpreted badly the 14 way it could. But you give a real quick summary of 15 where it's headed. So maybe some of us could find 16 examples of those from other places that would be 17 helpful to pass onto the staff.
18 MEMBER HALNON: Well, I think the staff is 19 well equipped to do it. I just wanted to make sure 20 that caution was out there that it's important on how 21 you put it across. Not as -- just avoid the 22 unintended consequences of a headline.
23 MEMBER BLEY: Yeah. We've heard quite a 24 few years -- we've mentioned the work that the fire 25 protection guys have done to promote their research 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
83 1 and usually that's done pretty nicely. So there are 2 some good examples from that, that other people could 3 look at.
4 MEMBER HALNON: Yeah, HEAF didn't go over 5 it that well though initially. I mean it was pretty 6 tense for a while.
7 MEMBER BLEY: Well that's true and it got 8 zeroed out at one point too.
9 MEMBER HALNON: Right. Just a caution 10 there and it doesn't even need to be in the 11 recommendation, but I just felt compelled to say 12 something.
13 MEMBER REMPE: So a couple of hands up.
14 But first of all, as I write this up, what would be a 15 nice way of doing this is to say "We suggest they 16 consider a short bulletin to highlight accomplishments 17 similar to" -- And if somebody will send me some good 18 examples, I'll point them that direction.
19 And so then I saw Vicki's hand and I 20 thought I saw Ray's hand. So Vicki, you go first.
21 Then I'll see if Ray's hand is still up.
22 MEMBER BIER: I just wanted to mention 23 that communicating for public consumption in this kind 24 of headline mode is kind of a whole different skill 25 than technical communication, you know, peer to peer 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 to be read by other engineers or whatever. And so I'm 2 kind of sensitive to Greg's issues about if we 3 encourage people to do a lot more publicity of their 4 work, they also have to have editorial support and et 5 cetera to make sure that it's done well. And I know 6 NRC has that internally, but it needs to be looped in, 7 in any publicity that they do.
8 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, thank you. And Ray, 9 did you have a comment?
10 MR. FURSTENAU: Yeah. I think the -- I've 11 been taking in the comments from Greg and Dennis and 12 others about how to present this. You know, we 13 intended to the periodicity I haven't decided yet.
14 Okay, here's this future focused research program that 15 started in FY20. Here's what it's -- you know, what 16 it's done for us. These are certainly like I user 17 need that could go on for several years and have 18 multiple reports. These are kind of investigative 19 things.
20 You know, it's kind of like a -- I hate to 21 compare it to LDRD, but it's LDRD very, very light, 22 you know, from a regulatory standpoint. So we do 23 intend to show okay, this new program's been 24 supported. I think we owe it to the commission to say 25 okay, you supported this. Now here's what we see 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 coming out of it as a whole. We're not quite sure 2 exactly how to do it yet, but it was good for me to 3 listen to the comments and cautions that you folks 4 have. So thank you for that. So we do intend to do 5 some sort of an accomplishment report.
6 MEMBER REMPE: Okay. So again, if someone 7 will send me some good examples, I'll cite them in the 8 letter and we'll include them in our reference list.
9 Okay?
10 MEMBER BLEY: Well one thing we've seen a 11 lot of in the last three or four months is NRR's, what 12 do they call it, Venture Studio. And they've been 13 turning out some really first rate presentation 14 material and graphics and that sort of thing. And I'd 15 hope if you guys over in research are following that 16 pretty closely because they could be a big help to 17 you.
18 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, that's a good point.
19 And I am aware of the EMBARK Studio folks and what 20 they've been putting out.
21 Okay, so then on slide -- the next slide, 22 which is 34. I was going to mention again the 23 Agency's code investment plan. And I guess this is 24 where I planned to talk about the substantial and 25 sustained research efforts to address these emerging 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 technologies and code maintenance needs, and 2 additional resources may be needed. And that's the way 3 -- Again, I'm not recommending additional resources.
4 I just am commenting as a member did during the 5 discussion that additional resources may be needed.
6 And I didn't like to say that we're going 7 to have some additional briefings that we plan on.
8 And I guess I didn't get to the list until I was 9 trying to draft up the slides for the conclusions and 10 recommendations. But I probably would list it in this 11 section. But if we go on to the last slide, I've got 12 that list and I'd like input if I've missed any 13 topics. Or if we could possibly prioritize that very 14 long list, it would be good to do that today so 15 Hossein and I know where to go on the future 16 briefings.
17 But anyway, I'm not hearing any big 18 changes in my integrated action plan. So I'd like to 19 go ahead and go through what I think might be good 20 conclusions and recommendations to have at the 21 beginning of our report. And again, starting off --
22 which I think this has been a conclusion from our last 23 -- I don't know how many biannual reports -- but we 24 continue to say that the current RES activities are 25 meeting the Agency's current and near-term needs.
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87 1 And that we do continue to support the 2 fact that they are using a systematic approach to 3 prioritize research, project selection, evaluation and 4 determination. And the importance of international, 5 as well as domestic collaborations. And then this 6 thing about the extend dates that we -- I discussed 7 earlier and noone told me to take it off.
8 And then if you go on to the next slide, 9 Hossein. I was going to emphasize about the RES 10 initiatives to address longer term agency research 11 needs and comment about the FFRs and the strategies.
12 The integrated code maintenance and development plan 13 and the ongoing efforts to emerging technologies. And 14 I think I've got some words that are repetitive and 15 I'll try and work on that in the next month here. But 16 I was going to comment additional agency resources may 17 be required in the conclusions and recommendations.
18 And then in this next slide, which is 19 Slide 37, I wanted to go through our additional 20 briefings that we're planning, as well as the episodic 21 reviews that we will continue going through. And so 22 I guess, let's go to the list of additional briefings.
23 I think we've heard from the staff. They'd like to 24 kind of give us an update on the Future Focused 25 Research projects, as well as the Integrated 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 University Program. Then during the discussions, 2 these other items came up like this safety and design.
3 It may be taken care of through the Part 53 discussion 4 that Dave's going to have in the next month or so.
5 But are there any other items that we'd like to be 6 briefed on? Or was there something that you don't want 7 to hear about? Because that's a lot of briefings.
8 MEMBER PETTI: Well yeah, I'm a little 9 confused. I mean we could talk about, you know, as 10 part of the source term briefing, they're going to 11 brief us on the RES contractors and their work on 12 calculating source term. It will be done under Part 13 53, but I don't think that -- that matters 14 necessarily.
15 MEMBER REMPE: So put down the reference 16 plant source term evaluations? Is that --
17 MEMBER PETTI: Something like that, yeah.
18 Or source term calculations.
19 MEMBER REMPE: I apologize, but I'm typing 20 and I'm sure you're going to hear it, but I'm hoping 21 not. And I -- When I write this up in the integrated 22 action section -- assessment section, I'll mention 23 that some of these are being covered other places.
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89 1 agreed upon. Anything else, folks?
2 (simultaneous speaking) 3 CHAIR SUNSESRI: You have some hands up.
4 MALE PARTICIPANT: Yeah. There's several 5 hands up, Joy.
6 MEMBER REMPE: Okay. Is there any member 7 first? Okay, so I see Mark.
8 MR. THAGGARD: Yeah. I just wanted to 9 provide some clarification if I could about the safety 10 and design, the EPRI report. We're not planning to 11 use that report to replace looking at the reference 12 designs or anything like that. Our intent on that 13 report was simply -- our initial effort was we would 14 -- we were planning to do -- to develop a PRA model 15 for one of the designs. And we picked out a 16 particular design that we wanted to develop a PRA 17 model on just to see what was the data gaps.
18 Then you've got the EPRI and Vanderbilt 19 was doing something similar. So under our MOU with 20 EPRI, we decided we'll just follow and see what 21 they're doing to see what kind of conclusions that 22 came out of it. That was really the only intent of 23 that effort. It was not to -- There was no intent to 24 use that to the plant, looking at -- you know, 25 different type of plant designs or reference of 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
90 1 plant designs or anything of that nature.
2 So I just wanted to make sure, you know, 3 I was clear on that. We have right now very little 4 involvement with the whole graded PRA approach. We do 5 have a staff member's that participating in it. But 6 that effort is being led out of NRR and we're 7 providing them support on it. But they currently have 8 the lead on it.
9 MEMBER REMPE: So I'm confused because 10 Vesna said she didn't -- her understanding is 11 consistent with yours. But when I looked at the 12 transcript and when I recall the discussion, I did not 13 hear that you have any plans -- and now even today, 14 you're saying NRR will do a reference plant 15 evaluation, instead of Research. Whereas research did 16 reference plant evaluations via saved it for the 17 source term. How will NRR do a reference plant 18 evaluation? And why are they doing it, instead of 19 Research?
20 MR. THAGGARD: I don't know that NRR is 21 doing that. I didn't say that. What I said is that 22 they have the lead for developing this approach for a 23 graded PRA. They've taken the lead on that. We're 24 supporting them on that. I don't know that anybody is 25 right now developing a graded approach -- developing 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 a PRA for reference. That work is not being done as 2 far as I know.
3 MEMBER REMPE: So two years ago, we were 4 told by your predecessor that they were going to try 5 and do reference plant PRAs. And you're saying now, 6 are you going to or are you not?
7 MR. THAGGARD: I will have to go back and 8 double check what was conveyed in that, Joy, because 9 that wasn't my understanding. But you know --
10 MEMBER REMPE: So the answer is right now, 11 you do not intend to or you do intend to?
12 MR. THAGGARD: No, we do not. We do not 13 intend to. That's not in our current plans.
14 MEMBER REMPE: So if we were -- again, I 15 don't know when we're doing the final letter -- but if 16 ACRS would say -- provide a recommendation saying that 17 we suggest that DRA consider reference plant PRAs, 18 that would be something different. Because right now, 19 I'm hearing you're not considering it. Right?
20 MR. THAGGARD: That would be -- That would 21 be -- You're correct. We're not considering that 22 right now.
23 MEMBER REMPE: Okay.
24 MEMBER PETTI: So Joy, I don't know how we 25 can tie this stuff together. Because when you get into 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 this graded approach for PRA, it gets a little 2 ethereal. And a recommendation of a use case, you know 3 -- you know, to take it out and see if it actually 4 works, that's done a lot. Right? I mean they did 5 that for LMP. And so maybe, you know, we could wrap 6 that idea together with the graded approach to PRA.
7 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, this helps. And then 8 Tim, you had --
9 MEMBER PETTI: You know, a PRA of a larger 10 design is a really a large exercise. But if these 11 graded approaches are simpler, then it implies that it 12 wouldn't be as much strain on resources to be able to 13 -- you know, to take it out and see if it actually 14 works.
15 MEMBER REMPE: Okay. So I'll put this in 16 the notes and we'll cogitate on how to do this or to 17 write it up. Kim, your hand's been up for a while.
18 MS. WEBBER: Yeah. Just a quick 19 clarification on the advanced reactor source term 20 work. Were you thinking about having a meeting that's 21 in context of the everything source term February ACRS 22 meeting or separate from that?
23 MEMBER PETTI: No, when I talked to 24 (inaudible) NRR -- we were talking about doing it all 25 in that.
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93 1 MS. WEBBER: Yeah.
2 (simultaneous speaking) 3 MEMBER PETTI: Wrap it all together.
4 MS. WEBBER: Yeah, that's what I thought 5 my understanding was too. That's why I wanted to just 6 double check.
7 MEMBER PETTI: Yep.
8 MS. WEBBER: Okay, thanks.
9 MEMBER REMPE: Are there any other items 10 you want to add to this first bullet on possible 11 briefings?
12 Okay, so then the second bullet is a bit 13 more straight forward, I think. That we're going to 14 continue episodic reviews on activities. I would 15 offer up that the non-LWR, it would be done something 16 done under Part 53. You know, but we continue to 17 follow these items. And the Reg Guide 1.247 is 18 actually done, so I guess I'll take it off the list 19 because it wasn't done at the time when I generated 20 this slide. Is there anything else I should be adding 21 or taking off?
22 CHAIR SUNSESRI: I know that it's a low 23 priority.
24 MEMBER REMPE: The research folks, so do 25 you want me to just take it off? And then it will 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
94 1 done as part of the research. I know that actually 2 during the subcommittee on this topic, I almost 3 thought it was Mark, but maybe it was a different --
4 maybe it was Mark Salley. But anyway, I thought they 5 said they would like to come back and brief us on it.
6 But do you want to have that taken off?
7 CHAIR SUNSESRI: I just said make it a low 8 priority. It's like number two on the list. I'd move 9 it to the bottom.
10 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, so I -- the list 11 wasn't meant to be prioritized, but I will move it 12 just right now since I'm doing that.
13 CHAIR SUNSESRI: I think Mark wants to 14 comment.
15 CHAIR SUNSESRI: Sure. Mark?
16 MR. THAGGARD: No, I was just going to 17 respond. So we are developing a number of reports --
18 highly technical reports that we should be finished 19 with next year. (audio interference) -- I think there 20 might be a desire to come back and brief the committee 21 on those reports because it's somewhat groundbreaking 22 in terms of how to analyze this HEAF events.
23 MEMBER REMPE: And I'm guessing again, if 24 we can accommodate it, we would like to hear about it.
25 Okay and so then there's just this last bullet about 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
95 1 -- and I'm not sure that's needed in the letter, but 2 we do continue to provide letter reports as needed.
3 It doesn't mean that there will be any letter 4 reporting on any of the above items. But if something 5 happens that we think is noteworthy, we would write a 6 letter report or if the staff requests one.
7 MEMBER PETTI: So Joy, the digital I&C 8 IAP, that's an NRR letter activity.
9 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, so is that on?
10 MEMBER PETTI: No, it's not on the list.
11 I mean it shouldn't be if it's not an RES activity.
12 I think it's an NRR activity. I'm just trying to --
13 (simultaneous speaking) 14 MEMBER REMPE: You know, when Charlie had 15 his meeting two weeks ago, it was I think the NRR 16 folks who were doing it. But it kind of spans --
17 sometimes there's research folks that are involved in 18 it too. So should I add it or should I not? Because 19 I mean some of these things kind of cross boundaries, 20 but it's up to you. I could add it in or leave it 21 off.
22 CHAIR SUNSESRI: I don't think there's a 23 need to add it. We have plenty of interaction on the 24 Digital I&C already, so I mean, yeah.
25 MEMBER REMPE: And that's it. And I'm 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
96 1 amazed we got through this with only being 15 minutes 2 over. Thank you for extending our schedule, Matt.
3 CHAIR SUNSESRI: All right. Well it was 4 important to get through this because then it 5 unleashes the letter preparation now. So we can go 6 forward with some pretty solid backing on putting 7 together a good draft for the committee to review 8 downstream. So thank you members for your indulgence 9 here.
10 What I'd like to do for the rest of the 11 day is take a short break here. We'll take a 15 12 minute break and then reconvene at 4:30. And then we 13 will pick up the letter report from the -- on non-14 light water PRA standard. And then I suggest we call 15 it a day and then we will pick up tomorrow with the 16 dry run, the Commission briefing, and that's all we 17 have for this week. So we can talk about that more 18 after the letter report today. So we are recessed 19 until 4:30. And at 4:30, we will reconvene on the 20 letter report for the non-light water reactor PRA 21 standard. Thanks. Did I say "adjourn"? I mean 22 "recess."
23 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 24 the record at 4:15 p.m. and went back on the record at 25 4:30 p.m.)
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ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION ACRS Research Review - Annotated Report Outline ACRS Safety Research Subcommittee 1
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION OUTLINE
- Background
- Division of Risk Analysis
- Division of System Analysis
- Division of Engineering
- Integrated Assessment
- Conclusions & Recommendations 2
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION
Background
- The Office of Regulatory Research (RES) supports the NRCs mission by providing technical advice, tools, and information to help resolve safety and security issues, make regulatory decisions, and promulgate regulations and regulatory guidance.
- RES activities include conducting confirmatory analyses, developing technical bases to support safety decisions, and preparing the agency for new technology safety evaluations.
These activities also enhance agency technical expertise, build staff competencies, and facilitate transformation.
3
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Background (continued)
- Our biennial review addresses 1997 Commission guidance:
- Examine need, scope, and balance of the reactor safety research program.
- Evaluate the progress of on-going activities to meet agency needs
- Consider how well RES anticipates research needs and how it is positioned for the changing environment
- Our letter report emphasizes several RES program aspects:
- Ability to meet current and near-term agency needs (including competencies and capabilities)
- Prioritization of new research projects
- Long-term planning
- Response to our prior recommendations and planned future interactions 4
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Background (continued)
- 2022 biennial report developed using insights from:
- Initial meeting with RES Director to obtain overview of program, plans, priorities, and areas of interest
- Three working group meetings to discuss research conducted by each RES division: Division of Risk Analysis (DRA), Division of System Analysis (DSA), and Division of Engineering (DE)
- Other briefings:
- Future focused program update
- Halden gap briefing
5
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION DRA Overview
- It is a prominent agency resource on all risk-related matters
- Maintain and enhance tools & methods to perform risk evaluations which support the agencys solutions to current and anticipated regulatory challenges.
- Organized in four branches: Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch, Fire and External Hazards Branch, Performance and Reliability Branch, Human Factors and Reliability Branch.
- Main Objectives:
- Grow the agency's RIDM capabilities
- Be ready for future technologies
- Completion of high-quality research products
- Facilitate Transformation
- Build and enhance staff capacity 6
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Highlights and Observations (1/11)
Performance and Reliability Branch (PRB) Projects and Future Work
Support issuance of L1/LERF, ALWR, Level 2, Level 3, LPSD PRA Standards, and Regulatory Guidance on PRA Acceptability (Issue RG 1.247), Enhance guidance on the treatment of uncertainty, Develop guidance on RIDM and on uses of non-PRA techniques, Develop a database of PRA standards and methods
- 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
- PRB3: ASP Program (Accident Sequence Precursors): Evaluates U.S. NPP operating experience to identify, document, and rank operational events 7
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Highlights and Observations (2/11)
Probabilistic Risk Assessment Branch (PRAB) Projects and Future Work
- SAPHIRE and SPAR Models Future Directions: SAPHIRE & SPAR Improvements, Expanding and Enhancing SPAR Model Scope, Cloud-based SAPHIRE, Application of IDHEAS-ECA
- Level 3 PRA Future Direction: Public Release of Reports, Knowledge Management and Risk Tool to Support Regulatory Decision-making, Using L3 PRA to support licensing advanced reactors
- Dynamic PRA Future Direction: Document model result (final report),
Workshops/Training, Support Changing Environment 8
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Highlights and Observations (3/11)
Fire and External Hazards Analysis Branch (FXHAB) Projects and Future Work
- High Energy Arcing Faults (HEAF) Future Direction: Exiting the Pre-GI 018 Aluminum HEAF and transferring back to research, working with EPRI, OECD/NEA to advance and understanding of the risk posed by HEAFs,
- Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment (PFHA) Future Direction: Pilot studies will be completed in 2022 and regulatory guidance will be completed in 2023
- Subsurface Characterization and Waste Covers: A New area develop to primarily support NMSS related environmental projects by providing expertise in the area of environmental hazard analysis including subsurface monitoring, radon barriers and evapotranspiration (ET) covers 9
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Highlights and Observations (4/11)
Human Factors and Reliability Branch (HFRB) Projects and Future Work
- Advanced Human Factors, Human Factors Licensing Review Guidance Updates Future Direction: Part 53 Scalable HFE Review Guidance and Part 53 Scalable Operator Reactor Licensing Requirements
- Organizational Factors, Agency Innovation and Culture Change Future Directions: Utilize organizational factors expertise to drive innovation and culture change at the NRC, Enhance capabilities to perform external crowd sourcing for significant tech challenges
- Human Reliability Analysis, Human Reliability Analysis Methods and Data Future Direction: IDHEAS testing in NMSS Applications, Dependency/Recovery, Minimum Joint Human Error Probabilities, Uncertainty, More plant participants, International HRA Data Exchange 1
0
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Highlights and Observations (5/11)
Key Core Competencies
- One of the objectives of the division is to build and enhance staff core competencies
- Shortage in core positions (reliability and risk engineers) over the next five years is anticipated due to retirements.
- Strategy to address this need includes hiring and training staff, rotational assignments, and staff developmental assignments:
- Hiring entry level staff provides an opportunity to develop the competencies of greatest need.
- Cross training staff across branches provides a greater flexibility in handling staff losses
- Currently there is an effort to find ways to train non-human factors experts from different fields to become experts in licensing reviews of human factors issues. A training program is being developed and expected to be completed in the October. There is a plan to share materials from that training internationally through the Nuclear Energy Agency.
1 1
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Highlights and Observations (6/11)
Collaborations DRA leverage resources and skills through collaborating with others. Some of the current collaboration efforts, both international and domestic, are highlighted below, showing benefits from these interactions:
- Participation in the risk, external events, and human and organizational factors CSNI working groups with NEA. In particular, the working group on risk is currently working on an effort to look at PRA uncertainties, which could be useful in the support for advanced reactors.
- Bilateral arrangement with France's IRSN to collaborate on flood risk modeling where they are sharing some of their modeling capabilities on riverine floods and storm surges.
- Exchanging human performance data with the Czech Republic and South Korea to expand human performance database.
- Recently signed agreement to participate in a newly formed Halden project, looking at operator performance in digital control rooms, human performance in operation of small modular reactors, operator performance in highly automated plants, and the effects of adaptive automation on operator performance.
- EPRI and NIST have provided a lot of technical expertise and modeling support for our work on the aluminum HEAF issue.
1 2
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Highlights and Observations (7/11)
Sunsetting Projects Objective is to complete several research projects, which include:
- Level 3 PRA Project, and
- Probabilistic Flood Hazard Assessment Project.
However, the work will continue in two of these projects:
- Level 3 PRA Project - There is an effort to leverage insights from the Level 3 PRA work to support licensing advanced reactors. For example, the Level 3 PRA Project is expected to provide insights on assessing the risks from multi unit sights and integrated site risks which could prove useful for licensing small modular reactors.
- HEAF project - Generic issue program has been exited, not coming to a resolution in a timely manner. The project is still ongoing: working with EPRI, OECD/NEA to advance and understanding of the risk posed by HEAFs, there are deliverables that will be coming due in FY22.
1 3
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Highlights and Observations (8/11)
Future-Focused Research Project: Advanced Reactor Program The advanced reactor program has picked up recently and is expected to increase over the next couple of years. Currently it includes:
- Developing PRA guidance that will be needed to support licensing non-light water reactors. This includes developing guidance to address PRA uncertainty (an important issue for non-light water reactors where we don't have operating experience).
- Conducting research on a graded approach to scale and target human factor engineering reviews for small and microreactors. This includes developing human factor engineering review criteria.
- Developing technology inclusive operator training and examination requirements.
- Future-focused research project on the use of dynamic PRAs which may have application for advanced reactors
- What about their decision to rely on EPRI/Vanderbilt University approach for SiD (using PHA);
are there any gaps such as transportation of a module with a loaded core; spent fuel modules, etc., not being addressed?; how will MCA be identified?, expand efforts to develop potential non-LWR risk metrics; apparently, there is a SNL database for SFRs, do other labs 1 have such databases? Are insights being communicated to those doing Part 53?) 4
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Highlights and Observations (9/11)
Facilitate Transformation Innovation Activities
- DRA has an important role in the Agency's transformation effort through:
Overseeing the innovation activities (Innovate NRC 2.0), or IDHEAS scale software.
- DRA is one of two places in the agency that has organizational factor specialists. There are some in the Office of Chief Human Capitol Officer (OCHCO), and the rest are in the Office of Nuclear Regulator Research.
- When the big push in innovation started, multiple staff members in HFRB move into the EDOs office in a technical support role.
They helped build the Innovate NRC 2.0. program. That includes infrastructure and the procedures and processes for maintaining and sustaining innovation.
1 5
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Highlights and Observations (10/11)
Innovative Projects
- Dynamic PRA refers to PRA approaches that simulate system behavior and accident scenario development over time. As a supplement to commonly used event tree or fault tree methods, the use of dynamic PRA has the potential to provide additional useful risk insights for both advanced designs and operating plant designs and operations. The final report documenting dynamic PRA model results is expected in July 2022.
- Limited work on artificial intelligence that includes a scope and assessment of AI use within the industry. DRA recently signed a MOU with DOE to work with them on sharing information and insights on the use of AI techniques for analyzing operational data.
- Possible future projects:.
- Effects of extreme weather events.
- Security area, support in the physical security area.
1 6
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Highlights and Observations (11/11)
Dry Cask Storage Licensing Fuel Storage and Transportation Business DRA is currently looking to expand their support to NMSS in areas of dry cask storage licensing, the spent fuel storage, and transportation, and decommissioning of low-level waste business lines, by
- Developing risk tools for dry cask storage licensing reviews,
- Providing environmental support for the decommissioning program,
- Developing risk tools to help scope future reviews of transportation packages,
- Developing risk tools for spent fuel dry storage - this work is nearly complete; a report was published last year. Additional support will be provided to NMSS during the implementation phase.
1 7
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION DRA Conclusions and Recommendations (1 of 2)
- DRA is sunsetting some projects and finding a new role for ongoing projects, for example using L3 PRA to support licensing advanced reactors, developing Part 53 scalable HFE review guidance and Part 53 scalable Operator Reactor Licensing Requirements. We strongly support such utilization of already performed work.
- DRA has a new and important role in the agency's transformation effort through overseeing the innovation activities by utilizing organizational factors expertise to drive innovation and culture change at the NRC.
That includes building infrastructure, the procedures and processes for maintaining and sustaining innovation. We support this substantial effort, but in this time we do not have enough information to evaluate how is being coordinated, and what have been accomplished.
1 8
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION DRA Conclusions and Recommendations (2 of 2)
- DRA is investing an effort to develop guidance to address PRA uncertainties, in both, Regulatory Guidance on PRA Acceptability and HRA efforts. We strongly support this effort, because there is a clear need for guidance how to utilize uncertainty results in the regulation. That is an especially important issue for advanced reactors, with new design features, where operating data are not available, and the modeling experience is somewhat limited.
- DRA has a few new projects in the process: Dynamic PRA, support NMSS related environmental projects by providing expertise in the area of environmental hazard analysis including subsurface monitoring, radon barriers and evapotranspiration (ET) covers. DRA is also considering possible future projects: analyzing effects of extreme weather events, support in the physical security area. While we can see a need for these projects, we notice lack of the project to support advanced reactors.
Currently, more than 80% of DRA work is in the operating reactors business line, and less then 10% in advanced reactors. We would like to see these percentage changing in the upcoming years. [this ties to my comments on 1 Slide 15] 9
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION DSA Overview
- DSA plans, develops, and manages research programs to develop and maintain broad technol expertise, experimental data, computer codes, and knowledge needed to support
- DSA develops and maintains a wide spectrum of systems analysis computer codes that are state-of-the-practice and/or near state-of the-art to support regulatory user and licensing needs
- Organized into four branches: Accident Analysis, Code and Reactor Analysis, Fuel and Source Term Code Development, and Radiation Protection
- Core competencies include neutronics and reactor physics, thermal hydraulics, fuel performance, severe accidents, source term and radiation health effects
- Developing competencies include advanced reactor behavior, data science and artificial intelligence 2
0
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Activities to Address Prior ACRS Recommendations
- Staff implementation of non-LWR code IAPs:
- Emphasizing simplified solutions for estimating source terms
- Primarily focused on developing /maintaining in-house codes, capabilities, and expertise
- Non-LWR reference plant evaluations to assess modeling capabilities and data gaps
- Staff developing longer-term (5 to 7 years, rather than 3 year) strategy for code maintenance, consolidation, and development, considering needs for emerging technologies (e.g., ATF) 2 1
Findings
- The breadth and depth of the capabilities in DSA are critical to providing the technical basis for reasonable assurance of adequate protection related to the safety of reactor designs as part of the overall licensing process.
- Numerous international collaborations used in the Division to leverage experimental capabilities around the world. These capabilities would cost the NRC hundreds of millions of dollars to replicate in the US. The codes used by all the groups have a large international set of users which is a testament to the quality and value of the DSA products to the international reactor safety community.
22
Findings
- The balancing of current needs and future needs (accident tolerant fuel, high burnup fuel, and advanced reactor applications) in the current ever evolving reactor technology environment is admirable.
- Preparation for advanced reactor applications is coming along well across a range of anticipated reactor technologies. More results are expected next year.
- The Reference Plant Evaluations have helped identify data gaps, prioritize data needs and establish the adequacy of confirmatory tools.
- Recent DOE funding awards have helped NRC prioritize its research activities.
- This balancing is critical to performing the right research at the right time.
23
Findings
- The code investment strategy is sound. The process is a holistic assessment focused on key needs over a longer time period (5-7 years) to have the greatest impact to the agency.
- The new agency-wide data science and artificial intelligence initiative is a worthwhile endeavor. Good definitions, standards and use cases are critical to its value to NRC. The impact on reactor safety (e.g., autonomous control, vulnerability assessments) needs to be established. Getting started on this work early is laudable.
24
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION DE Overview
- Plans, develops, and directs safety research technology and engineering programs and standards development to enable the agency to become a modern, risk-informed regulator
- Organized in five branches: Regulatory Guide and Programs Management, Reactor Engineering, Materials Engineering, Instrumentation, Controls, and Electrical Engineering, Structural, Geotechnical, and Seismic Engineering 2
5
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION DE Overview (continued)
- Maintains competencies in the following core and developing areas:
- Metallurgy, NDE methods, physical chemistry and materials science
- High temperature materials performance, design methodologies, component performance, molten salt fuel cycle, material safeguards and physical security
- Development, maintenance and deployment of advanced software tools
- Project management of cross-cutting technical projects
- Instrumentation, controls and electrical engineering
- Structural, geotechnical and seismic engineering, including seismology and geophysics 2
6
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Activities to Address Prior ACRS Recommendations
- Increase external engagement, including non-nuclear expertise, to prepare for emerging technologies, such as Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (AMT) and big data
- Progress to address Halden Gap (we had a briefing, but long lead times required to obtain data with limited facilities; need to publicize identified data needs)
- Progress related to on-going efforts:
- DI&C IAP - we continue to review and provide comments on progress
- Project sunsetting - (the branch continues to evaluate and sunset projects at appropriate conclusion, for example Embedded Digital Device research) 2 7
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION DE Highlights and Observations
- Possible topics/questions:
- Digital Twins current focus & recommendations
- AMT focus & recommendations
- Harvesting (expensive, is benefit appropriate? Noted that some activities in international programs were to emphasize areas of less interest to NRC)
- Successes
- Process improvements for RG updates, standard endorsement, and GSI closeout: Several key RGs issued or in-process (PFM, non-LWRs standards endorsements, such as HTGR components, PRA standard, etc.) Should we note that we support this effort and encourage early interactions with ACRS to increase effectiveness?
- Project termination (PWSCC, cable aging, irradiation effects on concrete, and NDE - programs have accomplished much, but continue; perhaps termination or refocus needed? For example, NDE may need to be refocused to enable AMT?)
- Future meetings? AI, AMT, Digital Twins, Materials Harvesting, RIPB Seismic Design?
2 8
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION DE Conclusions and Recommendations We continued to be interested in:
- the development of Advance Manufacturing Technology in particular defining quality assurance requirements for safety related applications
- the progress and viability of Risk Informed Performance-based Seismic Design
- the development of Digital Twinning and lessons learned applied from years of simulation experience
- use of Material Harvesting to create prediction modeling capability versus using empirical data
- effectiveness and lessons learned from Future Focused Research process experience 2
9
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Integrated Assessment Observations (1 of 5)
RES addressing Agency existing and near-term research needs
- Programs provide data and analyses required for regulatory decision-making
- Results facilitating ATF reviews
- PIRT completed to identify data and modeling gaps
- Some data gaps may be difficult to address without Halden-type capabilities
- Initiatives preparing agency for anticipated non-LWR reviews
- Advanced Reactor Code IAPs enable independent non-LWR analyses and identify technical gaps in capabilities and data
- DSA reference plant evaluations providing confidence about adequacy of selected computational tools and identifying data gaps; Something about the DRA approach to rely on the Vanderbilt MSR SiD evaluation.
- Important that gaps in models and validation data be communicated to DOE and design developers 3
0
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Integrated Assessment Observations (2 of 5)
Core Competencies and Capabilities
- Recognized as significant challenge (affected ability to complete several projects such as Level 3 PRA and HEAF and to start new ones)
- RES divisions track current and pending core competencies and capability gaps
- Several actions being taken to address capability gaps
- Access to high-performance computing through DOE laboratories
- International collaborations established to address some Halden gaps
- RES employing methods to maintain /develop core competencies
- Hiring prioritization
- Virtual /in-person assignments and staff cross-training
- Strategic partnerships to develop competencies in emerging fields (domestic and international)
- Integrated University Program R&D Grants/ Leveraging university grants to emphasize areas of interest to RES; ACRS briefing planned on Integrated University Projects (IUPs) 3 1
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Integrated Assessment Observations (3 of 5)
Prioritization and Process Improvements
- RES with input from other offices use systematic approach, emphasizing enterprise risk for research project selection, evaluation, and termination
- Many efforts, such as code maintenance, require continual support
- Other projects, such as concentrated efforts to obtain data to support regulatory decisions, may be discontinued or redirected, if subjected to more rigorous evaluations.
- We recommend that user-needs have a fixed end-date; revisions required to reflect redirection after original objectives achieved
- RES implemented several effective process improvements
- Increased interactions with industry to emphasize prioritization of RG updates, GI closeouts, and consensus standard endorsements
- Risk app for resident inspectors
- Increased use of virtual platforms for RES agency seminars 3
2
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Integrated Assessment Observations (4 of 5)
Efforts to Address Long-term Agency Research Needs
- Preparing to review New Technologies that enable Fleet Modernization
- Data Science/ Artificial Intelligence (AI) Implementation:
- DSA leading effort to develop agency strategy
- Fostering partnerships with other domestic organizations (DOE, DoD, NIST, EPRI, IEEE, NASA, ASME, etc.) and international organizations (OECD, IAEA, JAEA, KINS, GRS, etc.)
- Future Focused Research Projects:
- DE managing to prepare agency for innovative technologies
- We support the goal of having FFR becoming a sustained R&D program to improve agency knowledge on key topics (e.g., Digital Twins, AMT, AI, etc.)
- Recommend project accomplishments of FFR be published annually 3
3
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Integrated Assessment Observations (5 of 5)
Efforts to Address Agency Long-Term Research Needs (contd)
- Applaud effort to develop Agency Long-term (5-7 year) Code Investment Plan
- Includes maintenance, modernization, and consolidation of agency tools and ensuring that staff has access to high performance computing capabilities
- Work prioritized based on need for tool and impact if work delayed
- Substantial and sustained RES efforts required to address emerging technologies and code maintenance needs; implementation may require additional resources
- Planned CY 2022-2023 briefings will allow ACRS to monitor RES efforts addressing agency long-term research needs 3
4
ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Conclusions and Recommendations
- Current RES activities meet agency near-term needs for regulatory decisions-making and for anticipated near-term submittals.
- We continue to support the systematic approach implemented by RES to prioritize research emphasizing enterprise risk in project selection, evaluation, and termination.
- International and domestic collaborations required to leverage limited agency resources
- Additional measures, such as fixed end dates on user needs, may be needed to redirect resources when projects achieve original goals 3
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ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Conclusions and Recommendations (continued)
- New RES-initiated efforts address longer-term agency research needs
- The FFR projects are improving agency knowledge on key topics; progress should be published in annual reports.
- RES developing strategy to prepare for reviewing fleet modernization technologies.
- The integrated code maintenance and development plan should provide an important means to ensure that agency tools are available
- Substantial sustained RES efforts required to address emerging technologies and code maintenance needs; implementation may require additional resources
- Additional agency resources may be required 3
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ACRS WORKING DOCUMENT - NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMITTEE POSITION Conclusions and Recommendations (continued)
- Our review identified several risk-significant RES activities for which additional briefings are planned. Topics include:
- FFR project progress
- Progress on addressing Halden gap
- Long-term strategy for code maintenance, consolidation, and development
- Data science /AI strategy
- Integrated University Projects (IUPs)
- SiD/PHA approach for non-LWRs
- In addition, we will continue episodic reviews on activities, such as:
- Level 3 PRA
- HEAF
- ATF
- Non-LWR IAP codes
- Reg Guide 1.247 (non-LWR PRA standard)
- IDHEAS?
- We will continue to provide letter reports as needed.
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