 What I'd like to do is just do a quick introduction of our five panelists by name and organization And I'll give a little more details. I introduce each one of them for our talk So from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, we have Jason Beoder who will speak first We have or a whore a varnize from the Department of Energy We have Victoria Huckabee from the NRC under say I'm Huckabee. I'm sorry Huckabee from the NRC We have John Donaldson from Centris And we have John Luke Lucien from our ASN Our French regulator and he's one of our commissioners and appreciate that So let me start the presentation as I said with Jason Beoder Jason currently serves as a senior program manager for accident tolerant fuel and advanced reactor fuel activities in The division of fuel management in the office of nuclear materials safety and safeguards at the NRC He is also a senior mechanical engineer and technical reviewer for the containment structural and thermal branch within his office He started with the NRC in 2004. So he's just celebrated his 20 years at the NRC He received a bachelor degree in civil engineering from the University of Iowa and a Master's degree in structural engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University So let me turn to you Jason, and I apologize. I did have the titles of the slides up here Thank you Thank You John Good afternoon everybody. I'm the leadoff hitter for this session Hopefully everybody had a wonderful lunch, and you're all refreshed and ready to go for the afternoon As you all no doubt well know We're in a rapidly evolving environment that can have potentially Significant and far-reaching impacts on the number and scope of new fuels licensing actions that are submitted to the NRC We have seen significant interest in advancing nuclear power Including what appears to be unprecedented by partisan support for ATF and advanced reactors as Demonstrated at recent congressional hearings related to new fuels, and I think any objective observer This demonstrates that both legacy and accident tolerant LWR Technologies as well as advanced reactor technologies are all increasingly seen as a tool to reduce the nation's carbon footprint in addition Geopolitical issues and economic drivers may result in short-term or long-term supply disruptions Which has subsequently increased focus on enhancing and expanding the domestic fuel cycle for new fuels a Working understanding of these external drivers is essential to effectively plan regulatory workload skill sets and resources at the NRC and within the industry The NRC has been actively preparing for advanced reactor fuel reviews by leveraging past licensing experience performing preliminary technical evaluations and evaluating the regulatory framework and its applicability to non LWR fuel designs We have made significant strides in our readiness to review applications for licenses and certifications For fabrication and transportation of near-term advanced reactor fuels But a key point here has to be that we're not doing this preparatory work blindly or haphazardly our Preparatory activities build upon this previous experience. We have licensing and enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities at higher enrichments and certifying transportation Transportation packages also with higher enrichments and novel fuel designs We are actively gathering technical information for longer-term advanced reactor fuel concepts to support front-end fuel cycle licensing reviews In addition, we are actively seeking technical information Including fuel performance data, which will inform ongoing evaluations of the regulatory framework and Guidance for both the front end and the back end of the fuel cycle We've determined that the regulations are performance-based technology inclusive and are expected to be sufficiently comprehensive for risk-informed licensing of advanced reactor fuel processing and fabrication operations transportation and storage While the NRC has not identified the need to make any changes to the regulations for near-term fuel concepts such as trites or metal fuels or Longer-term advanced reactor fuel concepts such as molten salts We must continue to assess our regulatory framework to identify any challenge and or data needs To ensure continued readiness to support licensing and certification This must be done with a mindset of agility active awareness and flexibility So how do we test that how do we test? that what we're doing Leveraging our past experience and our preparatory activities will actually serve us well in the future and even in the now We look at what we are actually accomplishing in the licensing and certification space and it is a lot Those areas of focus at the moment are fuel fabrication and precursor activities Such as enrichment as well as transportation of feed material and fresh fuel for the front end of the fuel cycle Consistent with our current practice these applications for new fuel new fuel facility licensing design certification of fresh fuel transportation packages design Certification of spent fuel storage gas and design certifications of a spent fuel transportation packages must all demonstrate compliance with NRC regulations such that new fuels can be safely managed in all areas of the fuel cycle as I've already alluded to the NRC has recently issued 13 major licensing actions and two Authorizations including licensing of the high-assay low-enriched uranium Demonstration at Centris American centrifuge plant, which you'll hear about later And we also issued an amendment allowing global nuclear Nuclear fuels to produce accident tolerant fuel with increased enrichment up to eight weight percent We've also approved several nuclear criticality methodology amendments to support accident tolerant and advanced reactor fuels We have met the need by dates for all of these cases all while performing thorough transparent safety security and environmental reviews Currently we are reviewing three major licensing actions including the triso acts new fuel facility and over the next three years We anticipate between 10 to 12 additional major licensing actions Including increasing enrichments up to 20 weight percent for enrichment facilities fabrication facilities and amendments for down blending of high-enriched uranium in Addition to these higher certainty future actions We have many informal discussions with potential enrichers fuel fabricators and Reprocessors that would indicate sustained licensing activities for the near future While the number of actions we have completed and anticipate are similar The future actions are expected to be more complex including completely new fuel facilities as a result We are paying extra attention to those future licensing actions to ensure that we have the appropriate critical technical skills and appropriate and necessary regulatory research and guidance identified it in place when needed for storage and transportation So to date the NRC has issued 15 cocs and letter authorizations for Transportation of accident tolerant fuel halo including uf6 and triso fuel Further examples for triso fuel fuel include the versa pack in the optimus L packages And I think finally this is an important one the DN 30 transportation package which allows for the transport of uf6 Enriched up to 20 weight percent That was completed in March of last year and I think was a watershed moment for our activities in the new fuels arena In the near term we anticipate additional transportation packages for the back end of the fuel cycle as well as storage applications related to ATF and advanced reactor fuels Early work has begun both domestically and internationally to evaluate any new technical challenges That may result from those waste streams and that may present new phenomenon that we have not encountered before with traditional LWR fuels looking forward The NRC will focus on resolving technical issues as they become apparent and seeking ways to enhance efficiency and effectiveness With respect to the front end of the fuel cycle There are potential challenges for halo feed material and advanced reactor fuels such as limited critical experiments and benchmarks for higher enrichments the additional availability of those critical experiments for the entire halo range as Well as criticality benchmarks would support the efficiency and effectiveness goals that I mentioned earlier Similarly, there may be also operational challenges Such as chemical hazards or the security requirements for the possession use and transportation of category two materials Staff will continue to gather available information and develop guidance as needed Finally we are encouraged to see external stakeholders including the international community Starting to focus on the back end of the fuel cycle even at this very early stage of new fuels deployment The NRC will continuously evaluate our regulatory framework and assess information needs to support our readiness for the back end of the fuel cycle Including potential areas of technical focus such as source term evaluations criticality and shielding evaluations thermal performance material degradation considering both short term and long term performance To assist with these regulatory needs the staff and NMSS has begun to develop the new fuels atlas Which will provide a holistic picture linking regulatory technical communication and budgetary activities into one complete planning and action tool The atlas is intended to chart both the front end and back end of the fuel cycle for all near term and longer term fuel concepts By licensee or certificate of compliance holder So what does the new fuels atlas look like? Well, it comprises multiple things at this point one is an infographic Another is a web page and then we have what is called our regulatory planner And essentially it's a representation of everything that the NRC is working on Within the new fuels atlas umbrella When this is completed it'll help us identify the needed actions And activities to ensure the NRC's continued readiness to regulate new fuels The regulatory planner will consolidate information on current and future activities It will cover the programmatic areas such as licensing oversight and research activities associated with enrichment fabrication and transportation Of the different anticipated new fuel technologies Obviously, I think everyone is aware but in case you're not this includes things like triso metallic fuels and molten salt fuels you'll hear More about this regulatory planner over the next several months as we get ready to deploy it The atlas is also intended to enhance our stakeholder communications through the use of an infographic part of which is pictured in these slides And the new halo public website We hope to enhance public confidence in our abilities to effectively regulate these new fuel technologies By showing how our existing regulatory framework framework is able to accommodate them With respect to the communication tools our intention Is to enhance our stakeholder communications by providing a one-stop shop for everyone to find licensing And state of the industry information in a more user-friendly way One last area that I wanted to touch on before I close is how we will go about maintaining an enhancing situational awareness and cooperation I think to start with for a day-to-day activity is this includes things like letters of intent Pre-application engagements routine interactions with licensees and applicants This helps us understand their plans Their business needs the external factors that could they see could have infect the impact and timing and scope of their submittals I want to touch on the pre-application piece of this just for a second because I think this is one of those areas which is probably the most underrated and most valuable tools that we have in the licensing realm and one of the points that I really want to make about this is that when we're looking at these types of activities with with especially with new and novel technologies That we haven't seen before the place to sort of figure out what the path is going to be in terms of regulatory strategy Is not inside the review cycle Those things need to happen prior to the review cycle because the review cycle compresses a lot of what we do And so I can't stress this enough that any any applicant coming in that has Something that that's newer novel or something we haven't seen before that we haven't licensed before We must have these pre-application engagements It's it's absolutely critical to the success of of not only the nrc, but the nation as a whole To be able to deploy these new fuels A couple other points many of the licensing actions that will be needed at these facilities are interconnected Which means that we're going to have to make sure we understand what the flow of information is And how these licensing actions are going to come to us such that we're able to plan for our resources accordingly As I mentioned at the opening of the presentation this rapidly changing environment is and I think will be the norm moving forward So situational awareness and cooperation In areas slightly more removed from the norm or from the day-to-day operations are going to be just as important as those day-to-day activities This includes understanding what's happening with the uranium fuel supply itself And understanding where that where the industry is with that and where that feed material is going to be obtained from I think the other issue that we need to also make sure we pay attention to is what our other government partners are doing Understanding the role and responsibility that they have and understanding the actions that they're taking for this new fuels environment And lastly international engagement. I would say that when we look at the international community It is another backstop for us to be able to measure and assess Whether or not we're meeting the needs with respect to new fuels and new fuels deployment Final point. I'd like to mention here is that when viewed holistically our current state for licensing certification Our planning of preparation for the future and our proactive approach To understanding all facets of the uranium fuel cycle Have positioned us well to modulate our workload Our workforce and our innovation risks and to make the best regulatory decision we can to protect public health and safety Thank you Thank you. Jason appreciated and uh, you're one of your last couple points is a good lead into our next speaker working and understanding where our partners are Both in the inner US government as well as internationally and with that i'm going to turn to one of our partners at the department of energy whore Hey Narvize who is a general engineer at the us department of energy in the office of integrated waste management In the office of nuclear energy He leads a doe group test with the technical analysis and considerations for incorporating Small modular reactor and advanced reactor spin fuel into the waste management system Prior to joining the office of nuclear energy whore. Hey worked as a project manager in the private sector designing digital control systems for us and south korean nuclear power plants He has also served as a research associate for the white house office of science and tech science and technology policy And as a technical technology and national security fellow at the assistant secretary of the army whore. Hey received his bachelor science degree in physics and mathematics from adelphi university And his master's in nuclear engineering and engineering physics from the university of wisconsin madison welcome whore. Hey, thanks Thank you, john. Uh, good afternoon everyone. My name is whore hennar vies and uh in the next couple of minutes I'm going to be talking about some of the activities that the u.s. Apartment of energy office of a spin fuel and waste exposition is Doing to prepare to manage a spin nuclear fuel from advanced reactors This is just a disclaimer that more or less says that anything that I say to you today will not preempt anything that is in the standard contract There's a lot of interest around the world and also here in the u.s. To deploy advanced reactors The last time that I checked there's Around 20 advanced reactor designs from companies based in the u.s. And that's increasing every every single Month there you see in the news. There's a new advanced reactor company Proposing a new design I want to highlight three companies here Two of them are being funded by the advanced reactor demonstration program Which is trying to bring the x energy x e 100 reactor and also terror powers an asian reactor for Near demonstration and also kairos Which is working on the hermes reactor facility in Tennessee So there's a lot of advanced reactor interests many of these designs typically vary in the type of fuel that is being proposed to be used in the power levels and This is a challenge for the program that the department of energy is conducting Because the spandex fuel is going to differ from the current inventory of light weather reactor spandex fuel under the nuclear waste policy act of 1982 The department of energy is responsible to take title and control of the spandex fuel from the commercial utilities For any advanced reactor company planning on um Engage with the nrc to obtain a license typically two steps must be completed for Construction permit it would typically the nrc requires under the nuclear waste policy act it requires Proof that the company has obtained a letter of good faith negotiating with the department of energy and for a An operating license the nrc requires under the nuclear waste policy act That any applicant shows prove that The applicant has entered into a standard contract With the department of energy for the department of energy to take title and control of the spandex fuel for disposition services In this slide I'm showing on the left two examples These are publicly available documents that you can find on the nrc adams website On the left side, you can see all the way to the left. There is a letter issued by the department of energy office of general counsel to Kyra's power saying that Kyra's is engaging in good faith negotiating with the department of energy And this letter was used by the nrc as Checkmark to say that they fulfilled that requirement in order to get a construction permit To the right side, you see a letter from the nrc to abalone christian university Asking abalone christian university to provide proof That abalone christian university is engaging with the nrc with the department of energy to obtain a good faith negotiating letter So in the department of energy, there are different activities trying to Prepare to manage a spandex fuel from advanced reactors One of those activities is called the backhand management of advanced reactor or bmarr. I will be referring to To the working group as bmarr It's an integrated project management integrated project team, which is more or less a fancy work for a working group that we use in doe And it's being directed by the deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste exposition pulmuri But I do have to mention that some of the the work that we we are doing in bmarr Is also being directed by the doe office of general counsel For for the bmarr effort. We are using a systems engineering approach To to divide the work into a system of systems if you will And one of the main objectives a central work of the bmarr team is to collect And consolidate data from advanced reactor vendors To do the following two things First is to make a technical assessment on the feasibility of storage transportation and disposal For advanced reactors and the second one is to develop a rough order of magnitude Cost estimate and compare that to the same activities, but for live water reactors The reason why we're doing this is because eventually under the nuclear waste policy act doe is going to Take title of the spain nuclear fuel. So doe needs to understand what it needs to dispose of eventually However, at the same time the advanced reactor companies need to understand the requirements that they need to satisfy Under the nuclear waste policy act In the bmarr team we assemble a team that is composed of different offices So we have the office of nuclear energy, which is the office directing this work We also have federal staff from the office of clean energy demonstrations We have experts from five different national laboratories We also have a collaboration with the doe office of general counsel These are some of the advanced reactor vendors that we're working with And I mentioned before at the very center of our work is a data collection effort We are working with any advanced reactor vendor that is willing to work with us The data that we collect is not only going to help us understand what the the field looks like before it goes inside the reactor, but Also how it looks like after it comes out of the reactor To date we have collected hundreds of vendor proprietary and expert control data In the next few slides, I'm going to be talking about the different types of data that we collect So we're very interested in being able to characterize the data so that you know It requires DOE to understand how the The field looks like so we're looking at data. We're asking the vendors questions about The volume the mass the density of the of the fuel For the chemical composition, we're looking at the initial enrichment and any remaining enrichment after it comes out of the reactor burn up other types of data that help us Manage for storage transportation and disposal includes Looking at the composition of the fissile and fertile material any long-lived fission products and also Interesting data points that also help us plan accordingly is to look at the operations and the The met the rate at which spinocular fuel is being Um Discharged from a reactor. So that includes looking at The core how many fuel elements are in the core how often spinocular fuel needs to be removed What is a fell fuel element? among other things So once we collect all of this data, we start working at internal reports And these internal reports include the expected amounts of a spinocular fuel on high level waste that a reactor design or A company's plan planning on generating for the lifetime of the Of the reactor Some considerations for transportation for storage and disposal A rough order of magnitude cost comparison with live water reactors We I need to specify that this is not a Review by DOE. We're only looking to collect data so that we can inform ourselves and also the DOE office of general counsel So for the last couple of minutes that I have I want I want to talk about the near-term work The bmr is doing So under the leadership of deputy assistant secretary for spin fuel and waste exposition pulmary We bmr has been tasked to Analyze the generic types of a spinocular fuel from advanced reactors to think about Tries of spinocular fuel metallic fuel and molten soil reactor spinocular fuel And the goal of this is to answer the four following questions the first one is Can the spin the generic spinocular fuel be disposed of? in Generic repository that is similar to previous DOE concepts If not, then what what what is it going to take to dispose of the material of the spinocular fuel? So that that would involve what kind of treatment do we need to do on the spinocular fuel to make it disposable How long is it going to take? And how much is it going to cost to dispose of a spinocular fuel? Including any treatment cost if that's applicable to a particular generic type of spinocular fuel We are hoping to make the the results of this work available to the public That's going to be forthcoming. We started doing this work at the beginning of this year and Hopefully we can have some of that available to the public Maybe next year So while we are planning on making this publicly available We are required to protect vendor proprietary data against public release And I believe that's all for me. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hori appreciate it. And it's great to hear What our fellow federal agencies are doing it really helps us being independent from DOE to really get an understanding of Where we see some of the drivers out there And what we can see coming forward and having that coordination early really helps us jason said it helps with understanding where Where we can budget and engage in pre application activities Next i'd like to introduce victoria huckabay Victoria currently serves as a senior project manager in the nrc's office of nuclear reactor regulation and a division of new and renewed licenses She joined the nrc 10 years ago as a reactor operations engineer Prior to working at the nrc victoria worked in the private sector as an engineer and a quality assurance manager She graduated from georgia institute of technology with a master's degree in aerospace engineering. So thank you victoria Thank you So good afternoon. My name is victoria huckabay And today i'm going to discuss the nrc's perspective of the past present and future of spend fuel reprocessing I will briefly talk about the role of reprocessing in the manufacturing of new fuels provide an overview of the history of reprocessing facilities in the united states Discuss the ongoing Pre-application engagements with the nrc by potential future applicants for reprocessing facility licenses And close with an overview of the current regulatory framework for reprocessing facilities and a path forward for future development and enhancement Spend fuel reprocessing which is sometimes referred to as used fuel recycling is defined as the chemical separation of fissionable uranium and plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel Several processes exist for reprocessing of spent fuel with a chemical based plutonium uranium reduction extraction or purics process dominating This process works by chopping up fuel elements dissolving them and concentrating Neutric acid and chemically separating uranium and plutonium using tributyl tributyl phosphate There is a modified version of purex called urex, which does not involve the isolation of the plutonium stream Spend fuel reprocessing reduces the volume of material to be disposed of as high level waste and reduces the consumption of raw materials In addition the level of radioactivity in the waste from reprocessing is much smaller and after about 100 years falls much more rapidly than in the spent fuel itself The recovered unused plutonium and unused uranium can be used to manufacture new fuel Gaining some 25 to 30 percent more energy from the original original uranium in the process In 1964 the atomic energy commission granted an operating permit for commercial reprocessing to the new Nuclear fuel service for the west valley plant The west valley plant operated from 1966 to 1972 A total of 640 metric tons of spent reactor fuel was processed which resulted in a large amount of radioactive waste Which was left on site for many years. However, most of it went through a vitrification process in the early 2000s In 1967 the atomic energy commission authorized general electric to construct the spent fuel reprocessing facility in morris solenoid The facility was built in 1971 Unconducted functional testing but did not operate as a reprocessing facility on a large commercial scale In 1972 it received the license to store spent fuel and for many years morris served as a wet independent spent fuel storage installation In 1970 li general nuclear services began construction on a larger commercial reprocessing plant in barnwell, south carolina However in 1974 the atomic energy commission stated that any decision to permit nuclear fuel reprocessing on a large Scale would require the development of an environmental impact statement under the national environmental policy act In 1976 the facility was halted mid construction due to the risks of proliferation Although the ban on commercial reprocessing was lifted by president reagan in 1981 It did not regain support in the united states due to economics and historical changes in national policy There were no advances in the area of reprocessing in the united states until 2006 when the department of energy announced the advanced fuel cycle initiative To create a scale demonstration of your x plus separation process and develop an advanced fuel cycle facility The intent for the advanced fuel cycle initiative To develop proliferation Was developed a proliferation resistant nuclear technologies with the help of the global nuclear energy partnership or gene app The goals of gene app included reducing the us independence on foreign sources of fossil fuel and encouraging economic growth As well as recycling nuclear fuel using new proliferation resistant technologies to recover more energy and reduce waste However in the following years congress significantly reduced gene apps funding while do we continued moving forward with reprocessing research and development Starting in 2006 the nrc staff began interacting with the commission regarding the topics related to the development of conceptual framework for licensing gene app facilities As well as licensing of any commercial reprocessing facilities in the united states The nrc staff submitted several psyche papers to the commission some of which are highlighted in the slide Psyche 090082 In that paper the staff provided an update summary of the regulatory gap analysis and informed the commission of its plan to develop the technical basis For a proposed rule that would resolve the high priority gap In syche 11 0163 not shown on the slide the staff provided a draft regulatory basis for licensing and regulating reprocessing facilities That addressed the previously identified regulatory gaps and discussed a path forward for updating the regulatory framework Then in syche 13 0093 the staff recommended moving forward with developing a reprocessing specific rule part 7x Which would provide an integrated and cohesive regulatory framework that would address the specific safety and safeguards needs of a reprocessing facility And finally in syche 21 0026 the staff requested commission Approval to discontinue spend fuel reprocessing rulemaking activity The staff stated that in the event that the nrc received an application for commercial reprocessing facility The nrc would likely use the existing regulatory framework in part 50 Noting however that exemptions from certain part 50 requirements would be needed The nrc staff is currently in pre application engagements with two vendors regarding potential future applications for reprocessing facility The first vendor oklo has expressed interest in designing building and operating a fuel recycling facility that would produce uranium Transuranic bearing fuel referred to as u-tru fuel The facility would produce fuel for oklo's metal fueled fast reactors closing the advanced reactor fuel cycle The proposed facility would be Technologically different from the previously licensed facilities in the united states such as west valley barnwell and morris which were aqueous based facilities And would be based on electrochemical processing technology that has been extensively studied at idaho national laboratory and argon national laboratory In december 2022 oklo submitted the licensing project plan outlining the pre application engagements with the nrc Since then oklo participated in three public meetings with the nrc staff discussing topics such as the licensing strategy and approach And the preliminary material categorization for a fuel recycling facility Additional public meetings on technical and licensing topics will be planned throughout calendar year 2024 The second vendor shine technologies plans to construct and operate a used nuclear fuel recycling pilot facility to demonstrate the technology And economics necessary for the used nuclear fuel recycling to be viable Shine plans to extract usable materials including uranium and plutonium for next for new mixed oxide and recycled uranium fuel And valuable fission product isotopes such as newtonium 237 Shine also intends to harvest the actinides for sale of future destruction through transmutation Further reducing the toxicity and longevity of the remaining waste Shine estimates that after reprocessing approximately 95 percent of waste will be suitable for near surface disposal Shine's proposed facility throughput is estimated to be up to 200 metric ton of initial heavy metal per year The pilot facility will process spent fuel that has been decayed at least 40 years after discharge from the reactor Shine's reprocessing technology will use the codicontamination process called codicon Which is a modified version of the purex liquid liquid separation process that is used to separate the major actinides from the bulk dissolved spent fuel A key differentiation from the purex process is that plutonium is never separated from uranium which provides increased proliferation resistance Currently tensile far part 50 provides the licensing framework for production and utilization facilities A reprocessing facility would likely fall under the definition of a production facility in tensile far 50.2 In addition licensees on the part 50 most also comply with the requirements found in other parts of title 10 of the code of federal regulation Some of which are shown on the slide such as for example tensile for part 20 standards for protection against radiation Tensile for part 51 environmental protection regulations for domestic licensing and related regulatory functions and so forth There are approximately two dozen regulatory guides that provide guidance on various topics applicable to reprocessing facilities With a few exceptions the majority of these documents have not been updated since the early 70s And as a result the guidance contained in these documents is rather limited and may be inconsistent With the regulations as they have evolved in the past 50 years There is no standard review plan developed specifically for reviewing a fuel reprocessing facility application Which may present a challenge both for the nrc staff and potential applicants in terms of defining clear expectations For the format content and the acceptability of an application for reprocessing facility However regulatory guide 3.26 standard format and content of safety analysis reports for fuel reprocessing plants provides some guidance For various technical topics that the nrc staff would expect to see dressed in an application for reprocessing facility The nrc staff cautions however that this document has not been updated since 1975 and therefore the guidance contained therein Is incomplete and may be out of date in uh 2023 the nrc staff formed a working group eight aimed at evaluating the regulatory framework that would be used by future applicants for reprocessing facilities The staff is evaluating whether any updates would be needed to the existing guidance Or if new guidance would need to be developed to aid the applicants in the nrc staff The working group recommended the development of an annotated outline for a standard review plan that is specific to reprocessing facilities This work is currently in progress and the staff is planning to hold a public meeting in a few months and soliciting public feedback on the document The annotated outline will then be used in the development of the standard review plan The staff's view remains that licensing or reprocessing facility can be adequately and safely accomplished under the existing framework intensity for part 50 Moreover, the commission has not given any new direction to the staff to resume the reprocessing rulemaking However, the nrc staff continues to look for opportunities to develop and update existing guidance to improve the efficiency of the future licensing reviews of reprocessing facility applications And this concludes my presentation. Thank you Thank you, Victoria. Appreciate it. I think it's really great to hear the you know from the three presentations so far that Both the nrc and do we are looking at the entire fuel process and Not only the front end but the back end and even potential for recycling that we're starting to see as well. Thank you Next I'd like to introduce John m a donelson who is a senior vice vice president and chief marketing officer for centrist energy corporation Mr. Donelson joined centrist in 1995 in the advanced technology department He holds a bachelor of science degree in physics from hamden sydney college A master's degree in nuclear engineering from the university of virginia And a master's of business Master of business administration degree From queen's university. Thanks for being here with us. John Good afternoon. I was lucky enough at lunch today to sit in On a NEI hosted event where they had a speaker who has published a book called smart brevity And the gist of his presentation that is an audience when they receive a presentation only remembers one thing So unfortunately, I've already written this presentation before this lunch today. So so bear with me I work for centrist energy. We're a publicly traded company. We're traded on the new york stock exchange This is our safe harbor language It's our company disclaimer. My personal disclaimer is that I'm a nuclear engineer not a regulatory person However, I have brought our company regulatory expert with me So if you have any tough questions in that area, I may have to phone a friend Who we are centrist energy is the only american owned uranium enrichment company Our headquarters is in Bethesda, mariland. It's about two miles Straight out the back door there We have two business units. I run our commercial Broker trader leu low and rich uranium supply business We have customers in the united states asia and europe Our second business line is american centrifuge operations With locations in oak ridge, tennessee and python, ohio How did we get here? I know this past sunday the movie oppenheimer won a seven academy awards You know for those of you that are seeing the film a key part of the success that's Visually shown For the manhattan project was the ability of the united states to enrich uranium Increasing the level of u-235 isotope Uranium enrichment factored heavily in the cold war For both the weapons programs and naval propulsion president eisenhower Author of the atoms for peace program which gave the united states leadership in both commercial nuclear power And in not in a global non-proliferation As the cold war near near its end the united states was the dominant global supplier Of uranium enrichment But competition was emerging At this point in time in the mid 1980s the united states department of energy Enriched enough uranium for all of the reactors in the united states japan And most of europe Coming forward to today The total global enrichment market has had a complete reversal The united states is now dependent on imports for enriched uranium Russia dominates the global uranium enrichment supply with about 46 percent of capacity And together russia and china have about 60 percent of global enrichment capacity The future As western markets look to transition to more stable sources of supply We have built the american centrifuge facility And there is a clear need for a new us and richer Last october centrists started the initial production from our american centrifuge facility We hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony attended by high ranking officials from the department of energy The nuclear industry labor unions Various elected officials and representatives from the u.s. Military Our facility is multi-purpose It's licensed for the production of leu leu plus and halu which would be the fuel required for advanced many advanced reactor designs And it's applicable for both commercial and national security needs The american centrifuge enrichment technology is at tr nine It's technical readiness level nine meaning that Actual systems have been proven in operational environment But we need to expand this facility And we can do so with the 36 month Timeline between the Final investment decision to initial production For those of you that haven't seen the site Our our commercial site in python, ohio is a huge facility It has two million square feet Of area under roof There's two existing buildings there Each could house enough enrichment Capacity for about 1.75 million swoos per year of centrifuges So together at the 3.5 level of those two buildings were built out That would be enough separate of capacity to fuel about 25 percent of the entire us demand The situation today is where one company has a dominant position for the supply of uranium enrichment for the united states The only competition currently comes from russian supply Which is likely facing us sanctions Without an additional independent Hopefully us own production The united states will be dependent on foreign suppliers And without any downward pressure On price which will impact the competitiveness of commercial nuclear power in the united states In conclusion, we need three things to deploy our facility to commercial scale We need significant investment By the united states government to provide a more level playing field There's an update on that last friday the The bill was signed to appropriate 2.72 billion dollars to fund the NDA the national defense authorization act So we're hopeful in that respect Secondly, we need firm off-take commitments from our customers that would allow us to Do the third step which is getting equity investment from the private sector Thank you Thank you. John appreciate it and uh, I just want to say I I hope that uh Folks in a room will remember more than one thing from your presentation in all presentations And I hope the one thing if they go away with one thing from yours. I hope it isn't just that they'll remember one thing So, uh, hopefully more technical, um, I will say it was really for my standpoint at looking at your slides the the two graphs you have between 1985 and uh 2022 were pretty pretty dramatic so as uh Interesting to see that graph. Thank you Next I'd like to welcome asn commissioner john luke lucian Commissioner lucian was appointed by the president of the national assembly as asn commissioner in 2018 He is also currently the chairman of the association of the european radiological protection regulators h-e-r-c-a He joined asn in 1998 and in 2004 was appointed deputy director general He graduated from the french naval academy in 1980 and began his career in the french navy as a naval officer Welcome john luke Thank you for this kind introduction Uh, and thank you also to the usnrc for inviting me to be a speaker in this session It's very important for us And also i'm glad to be here Back in uh, washington dc area because it for me is the first time Since the end of the pandemic So I think it's a good thing But i'm here to speak to you about the regulatory challenges For asn as a french regulator. We are the counterpart of the usnrc With the future of nuclear fuel cycle So i have a short presentation divided in three parts The first will be to speak about the french context and french nuclear industry If you are not aware of second part i'll speak about smr and ATF challenges and then i'll conclude Here uh on this map is not the map of the french vineyards Even if there are some overlaps it's a map of The french nuclear power industry with the npp fuel cycle facilities Researcher activities also you can see it's all around france But what I want to mention here because I think it's important it's the To speak about the french specificities regarding nuclear industry The first thing That is important is that we have a very limited number of operators EDF for electricity production orano for fuel cycle Facilities andra for radioactive waste management and cea for nuclear research activities And specifically about fuel cycle In france except the mine We have all the Facilities Starting with a conversion facility called malvisie Enrichment facility called george bes two Two kind of fuel One of uranium fabrication owned by orat from atom It's in roman And the second is producing Mox fuel owned by Orano called melox And then for the back end of the fuel We already have a reprocessing plant under operation for a long time for more than 50 years In la ag it's in normandy And oh another characteristic That has consequences for the regulation is that we have only one kind of NPP one kind of reactor With its light water reactors And for the fuels are two main providers From atom and wasting house So now I come to one of the two specific aspects regarding this session It's about the small modular reactors In on this slide, you have the list in fact of the Main important projects In france for smr's They're supposed to produce either electricity or Industrial heat or hydrogen mainly So there are this About 10 10 projects On the top there are the most advanced projects And on the bottom the less advanced projects And indeed we have a three kind of categories The first category is light water reactors And the most advanced is a project called new order Led by edf The other is called calogena is less advanced But regarding the fuel the important thing to consider Is that they're supposed to use more or less a standard fuel With a level of enrichment And a five percent The second category of Of small regular reactors Are sodium fast reactors In france we still have some experience with sodium fast reactors So that's why the color we use here is yellow With four kind of projects The two first are called eczana and otrera They are sodium fast reactors The kind of reactors we know the better And in this category There are also high temperature reactors with two Two projects For the first kind they're supposed to use a fuel amongst sodium fast reactor fuel But for the second part They are supposed to use a trizo fuel This kind of fuel has already been mentioned During the previous presentations Regarding Our perspective It's a tricky issue for france and also for the regulator But first for the industry The first thing is that there is no industrial production capacity Of this kind of fuel in europe in france and europe And also it also has been mentioned during The first the previous presentation We have no halu Supply in europe The most important supplier was russia but today it's As you can imagine it's not possible to deal with them And on the bottom the more innovative reactors One is lead fast reactors But regarding fuel they're supposed to use also mox fuel And totally in the bottom it's very innovative reactors because they're supposed to use Molten salt reactors And clearly there there's no not at all any industrial production capacity in france or in europe And there are also complexity because there is a need To have a step of prior enrichment in chloride 37 needed So about the fuel challenges specifically I'm considering from the point of view of the regulator Clearly for us the old fuel cycle dismantling activity The radioactive waste management Have to be taken into account since the beginning And it's the same thing also here for the us and rc Clearly the specific issues we have In our agenda this year we should receive a license application for a modular construction facility By jimmy jimmy jimmy is the name of the company They are supposed to build a facility to build the reactor vessels They issued a press release last month saying that they will establish this facility In burgundy and second we should receive this year a license pre application For a mox fuel fabrication facility by nuclear We also consider the safety objectives about the small modular reactor With how safe is safe enough because A small modular reactor offers certainly interesting perspectives For enhanced capacities of safety But in the end for this This aspect of small modular reactors clearly it's a real challenge for us And at asn we have to adapt our Our organization and way to regulate this kind of facility So far we have created inside asn a small unit To deal with smr project and this unit is in close contact with Our with irsn we which is our technical support organization To be more effective to deal with very this very numerous project of smr Another point I wanted to to touch is the question of atf For us a atf is more a commercial issue issue than a safety issue Because fuel modifications we result from several industrial needs First to take into account operating experience or new operating constraints and also to improve the behavior of fuel assemblies under accidental conditions Regarding atf our main operators His strategy is based on evolutionary designs of the fuel rods With the development in cooperation with suppliers With a preliminary qualification including tests in nuclear Reactors, and I think there are currently some tests in Some us reactors But the important thing is that it takes time To implement modifications Probably five to ten years And probably more if It's about using a breakthrough technologies For edf mid-term strategy There are also there are currently consideration of Chromium coated cladding. It's already tested on some operating reactors Pellets doped doped with a chromium and Aluminium and chromium also But for the French Perspective it's important that this Has to be Taken into account with the possibility to reprocess the fuel Because it's not possible to use This kind of fuel if it's not possible to reprocess it because it's The french strategy to reprocess the fuel And along on the long-term strategy edf thinks about a Using a ceramic cladding and also identity pellets, but clearly this question of etf For asn we consider it's more as a Usual assessment process It's nothing new. It's what we are doing every day But to conclude with etf. I also Wanted to mention a specific european Concern Just for you to know Because in europe we have a so-called european taxonomy regulation It's about the classification of economical Activities having a positive impact on environment And regarding that the objective is for the european union To promote the investment on green activities And regarding that very recently it has been decided That nuclear energy could be Could be considered as Green activity regarding a u taxonomy, but with one thing that is curious It's if in european reactors By 2025 they are using etf So for us, it's not an obvious thing Considering the fact that there is no clear definition of one and etf Is we can consider that we already use In our french reactors A fuel tolerant For accident And regarding that There is a statement from our European association of nuclear reactor regulators called Wenra Drawing the attention of the commission on this issue Saying that if by etf it means A fuel with breakthrough technologies, it's not possible to implement It by 2025 I close it here because it's More EU cooking Than something else so To conclude for ASN the current main regulatory challenge is with small modular reactors With becky because we see coming many newcomers With sometimes a very limited nuclear experience Also innovative designs Innovative fuel concepts mainly not anticipated And also for us for ASN Limited capacity of assessment. So That's why international cooperation is us welcome Thank you for your attention Thank you very much commissioner will assume We're before we go to q&a Session and I do have a list of Questions online here I'd like to thank all the panelists for the presentation very informative I'd like to give him a round of applause So we have time to start going through the questions We don't know if we'll make it through all of them and i'm going to try to start with a couple easy ones here And and they may get hard pretty quick But we'll start so jason is the fuels atlas you mentioned available online So i'm not sure which heads words i'm going to use to start all my answers, but it depends Or it's complicated So part of the atlas is online i mentioned the infographic and i mentioned the web page those are sort of our two Initial efforts to get information to the public the regulatory plan or piece. That's the complicated part We're still working on that we're gathering information We're still trying to determine what that's going to look like both internally And then how we're going to take that information and get it to the public But as i mentioned the goal is to get as much information as we can to the public And to anybody else that's interested to make sure that we're communicating Exactly what it is. We're doing with respect to new fuels Great. Thanks jason The next one we had a question how can i get copies of these presentation slides and i'm looking to my folks over here And um The marisa they're all online correct. So if you go to the website How you logged into this session all the slides should be available If you're having trouble, please stop and see one of the ladies at the front desk here and they'll get you to the right person The next question i see victorian or a you're sharing a mic So i'm going to have them share a question here. They both may want to chime in on this one Are there any legal barriers preventing a private company who wants to do reprocessing Such as oak lower shine from taking the spent fuel from a utility Right so, uh, thanks john. So i i have to preface my answer with um statement that i'm actually not an expert on the possession of spend fuel So i'm i'm sure there's certain questions that need to be explored there. So, um, there's certainly going to have to be a conversation with We would encourage a conversation with the nrc about What plans such private entity whether that's oak lower shine or any other potential applicant would have with regard to Taking title of spend fuel and how that's You know how that's going to work out and sort of at what part in the process they plan to take possession if at all But uh, um, there there's perhaps another question I i'd like to kind of bring up just sort of thinking back to one of the Secure papers that i've mentioned and the specifically the 2011 second paper the draft regulatory basis um discusses another important question which was the The question of this position of high level waste is uh, and this was actually one of the regulatory gaps identified in the Uh in the regulatory basis and i just looked it up on my phone. It was regulatory gap number two. So, uh, this discussed the The potential issue of the generation of high level waste from reprocessing which we believe is likely And so the question to be that that would definitely need to be Reviewed very closely and addressed is what what's going to happen with the High level waste that may result from reprocessing And how that is going to be disposition. So, um, I think there is definitely a potential policy question there And definitely a regulatory Challenge that we would need to Take a look at closely Great if I could ask where if you would want it to add any to that response from DOE's perspective on legal barriers preventing the possession And maybe victoria already stood touched into something related to this and another question that, uh, was, um marked for your attention was Where is smr spent nuclear fuel likely to end up being stored? What is the physical location? So in regard to the first question, I cannot comment on any of the legal aspects of reprocessing However, I can I can tell you that the department of energy is learning on the the technical aspects that companies like oaklow and shine are proposing. So we're Trying to get an awareness of what's being proposed Um From the department of energy, there's another office in charge of Reprocessing research and development. So there might be more informed in terms of what what would that be um, and then for the smr question um, I can mention that um, some of the react the the The vendors working on near deployment or near demonstration Have designed, uh, spend nuclear fuel storage as part of their reactor designs So for some of them you would see some facilities Collocated in the in the reactor facility Where they are planning on storing spend nuclear fuel Thank you appreciate that and glad to hear that the oe as we said earlier like nrc is already looking at the back end from any of those processes So the next question I have was for uh, mr. Donaldson and I'll read the question verbatim Since losing out on a loan guarantee over a decade ago How much has centrist been able to bring down its cost per swoo? So that you can commercially compete with the likes of urenko or or rano Yeah, so centrist has made several changes from the prior program run by its predecessor usec um Now at the time usec was trying to replace not only our Gaseous diffusion plant that was a large facility made You know five million swoos a year or more. We're also replacing the h e u down blend deal So we needed to replace 11 million swoove capacity The program we're looking at now would be smaller in scope And with a smaller scope we're able to bring the manufacturing from being located in many states with many vendors Internally and that will reduce our cost uh, the second leg of the stool is that Uh, there's now an opportunity in haylou production that didn't necessarily exist in this fashion 15 years ago So that's not only a new opportunity, but with it there's a need for unobligated fuel Which we feel is a real differentiator for our technology versus some of the others And then the last thing I would mention is that the world's in a dramatically different place than it was in 2010 Now with russian supply in the market the enrichment market is over supplied, but if you remove Russia and china you take away 60 of the supply then the market's dramatically undersupplied so The united states government has a rfp out currently for haylou In that there is a strong preference indicated for new us production and We feel that the government will give priority to supporting new us production versus funding Uh, foreign governments to Further expand the the facilities that those governments stood up to start with Thank you, uh, the next question. I think was intended for also you mr. Donaldson, but I would ask You and then also maybe commissioner Lechum you may want to chime in on this as well. And I think it's coming your way mr. Donaldson basing your slides Demand for rich uranium. Uh, what is the outlook? Do we really need small modular or micro reactors for demand to pick up speed? uh in the west I think in the u.s. We have a heavy View of smr's being the the The key driver of new demand That's doesn't necessarily exist outside the united states. I got to participate in an ia ea ministerial meeting Last year and we met with different energy delegations and I believe it was poland, but it could have been another Similarly situated countries. They asked his united states given up on large lwr reactors and it's kind of a wake-up call for me that We haven't done a great job deploying new large lwrs in the u.s. But other countries have found ways to do them more on time And on on budget. So that's thing one thing to the existing lwr fleet You know when I started it had a 40 year license that most of the plants would have been closed by now But we've gone on to license extension and subsequent license extension With higher utilizations of fuel with higher capacity factors. So We we see a very sustainable business with the existing fleet Potentially more reactors being built in countries like the uk and poland and the check republic and I think any boost we get from the smr's You know gives us another platform to succeed Great. Thank you that and appreciate you touching on international. Um, commissure will assume did would you like to respond to that as well? Well regarding uh, this question of As smr's used, I think it's different for every country in europe Regarding france We We have in fact enough reactors for now and for the the future with big reactors to produce electricity and specifically for Electricity use as there's There's no need and no no room for smr producing electricity but We have large company edf and from atom was Builders of nuclear reactors so They have this project of small modular reactor called new order But clearly it's not for french domestic use Even if they Built one reactor of this kind in in France. I think it will be only one for the purpose of demonstrations of the Of the the design but not for use in France to produce electricity but there's not only The the use of electricity that is supposed to be done by small modular reactors considering The question of decarbonation of the industry There is also there are also other possible uses like industrial heat and in one of the project I mentioned Jimmy is It's especially for that It's specially to be used for a production of industrial heat And in this case probably there are some possible opportunities in France and elsewhere in in europe for all the kind of Use than a production of electricity Great. Thank you. Appreciate that. I have a question here that may be a slight bit off topic But i'm gonna Ask it directly and then maybe ask if you can expand on it a little bit commission or assume So directly i'll read in light of the increasing interest in space nuclear systems How can international stakeholders collaborate to establish unified safety regulations and standards? Ensuring that the development and deployment of these systems are conducted safely and sustainably across global space missions And i'll say i'll expand that a bit because it does talk about space and i would you know if you are interested in and have a Response that i would appreciate it, but i think the underlying part of working on international safety standards and regulations If you had any insights related to how Countries can can coordinate on those for the front end and back end of the fuel cycle. We'd appreciate that as well You mean useful space Yeah, the the question was In light of the increasing interest in space nuclear systems But again, if if you'd rather Respond from the standpoint of the front end and the back end of the fuel cycle I think the question still has a lot of applicability there of how can we Collaborate to establish a unified safety regulations and standards Regarding that as there's no specific Application as i can see in france, but regarding smr's About international cooperation. We see two Two axes of cooperation The first was mentioned this morning during the plenary session By lidi evra from iaa There are the this project in the end of the framework Of iaa, which this program called nasi for harmonizing the The regulatory processes And also a second aspect we are working on is more on bilateral Cooperation directly with other regulators with specific designs It's what is going on here in the u.s With canada and uk. I think it has been mentioned This morning and it's what we are doing in in france currently With the finish regulator and Check republic regulator or specifically on the new art design It's uh, I think it's a relevant way to cooperate on specific design and to deal with technical issues Thank you. Appreciate that answer Victoria had a couple questions here. I'll combine together and both related to reprocessing the first is isn't most of 10 cfr part 50 written specifically for Licensing light water reactors and therefore not applicable to a reprocessing plant And closely related are are there any plans to update the applicable nrc fuel reprocessing guidance? Right so to the first part of the question regarding part 50 so Part 50 is Part 50 licensing framework Is for production and utilization facilities and The nrc staff believes that a reprocessing facility would likely fall under the definition of a production facility so in that sense we find that Quite likely the regulations in part 50 will apply however It is fair to note that part 50 as it has evolved over the last several decades has become a reactor centric regulation and so there are certain aspects of Part 50 there are certain sections of part 50 that would not apply to every processing facility However, there are a number of sections that still do apply, right? so An applicant would definitely need to consider The applicable portions of part 50 and addressing them and and their application and again We certainly would encourage any potential applicant to Come in and talk to us during the and have a pre application engagement so that we could Make sure that we are on the same page regarding the The the path forward in the content of an application Regarding the plans to update guidance so as As I had mentioned I mentioned that during my presentation the staff is currently working on developing an annotated outline for a reprocessing Standard review plan so the annotated the the plan is to The the staff would then take the annotated outline and develop a standard review plan Using that annotated outline as a starting point There's other guidance available The the regulatory guides that are applicable to reprocessing facilities The staff is currently reviewing these regulatory guides and Discussing actively discussing whether Some of these regulatory guides need to be updated now in the future or not at all And we we do not yet at this time have a fully formulated plan as to How we're going to move forward with updating these regulatory guides, but this is something we're actively looking at Great. Thanks. Thank you. The the next question Was listed as intended for jason, but I'd say the first part of it or hey if you have any insights from doe's perspective We'd appreciate that as well as what is the latest data? What is the latest status and schedule of needed criticality benchmarks for higher fuel enrichments? And then does this schedule align with nrc licensing review schedules So I I see I'm going to use my phone a friend. You know, I'm just kidding So there's a couple different ways to answer this question. Um, I want to break it down Status we'll talk them just a real quick about what the schedule looks like And then how this feeds back into the new fuels atlas So as far as the status goes the energy act of 2020 and subsequently the inflation reduction act Provided both direction and appropriations for the nrc to work collaboratively Collaboratively with the doe to address this particular issue So there's active work going on right now. I would say that the status of that active work is in the scoping phase And that's going to start ramping up as we start looking into how we're going to start spending the appropriations that are associated with this activity So that's the first part of the question in terms of the initial status of it As far as how it aligns with some of our licensing activities I'm going to answer it in the way that's um, I guess a double negative is it's not Misaligned with our current licensing activities and the reason I say it that way is because we haven't found yet that The lack of those criticality benchmarks and some of the activities with the critical experiments Are not going to necessarily be a limitation in whether or not we can license It's going to be a limitation in terms of how we license and whether it's efficiently and effectively I think we've shown at least with some of the initial certification and licensing actions We've undertaken that we've been able to deal with enrichments up to 28 percent Even absent those critical benchmarks and in in the criticality experience But having those will make our work easier I think longer term as we start to see more and more of these facilities come online or more and more And these activities take place. So I think that's that's a big part of it You know one of the other things I would point out to is that you know Conservatism's and uncertain analysis are part of that activity So it's a way that we can do this safely without having those benchmarks in place at this point Jorge do you want to add what do you use interest there? Yeah, so from the back side All I can say is that there are some research and development activities that are looking at accident Tolerant fuel and high burn-up Spendable fuel And those activities I I believe it started Maybe last fiscal year. So it's a work in progress Thanks. And by the way Jason phone and friend is appropriate. It wasn't as long as it wasn't a person of your left I was good with that So I think we maybe have time for one or two more questions here Commissioner Lechum Have a two-part question here What is the current status of back end preparations for advanced reactor fuels in France? Is there any Certainty on waste forms or spend fuel storage and transportation packages? well like I said during my presentation we We require that the question of this back end fuel is Taken into account since the beginning and so far in fact The back end will depend on the On the technologies used If it's light water reactors I don't see many technical issues or regulatory issues For them to be treaty treated in the current fuel Fuel cycle facilities even maybe the need of some adjustments So It's not not for me a major issue But it's a different story for more innovative fuels Because for other kind of fuels like for example tries of fuel and and more It's probably more difficult also for more molten So react fuels because today's we have no idea of how it can be Twitted in the end so My answer is that if there is an existing Way to treat it. It's probably okay, but it's not it will be difficult Great. Thank you I think I have time for one last question and mr. Donaldson if I could direct this to you We heard a lot at our morning Plenary sessions about how nrc can be more efficient in adapting to the changing lands Scape as someone who just recently went through a licensing process with the nrc. Is there any recommendations for how Regulators can be more efficient in the way We're preparing and reviewing applications As I said in my disclaimer, I'd have to call on dan watts who's sitting there Yeah, I know that we have a very strong relationship with the nrc And I've worked at past jobs where that wasn't always the case So I think the general experience at least in the c level suite was that All the licensing was very positive and And we were happy with the interaction Great, and we'll reach out to dan since you gave us his name as a phone friend and we can talk to him as well But uh, yeah, our time time is up for this session. Uh, I want to again thank all the panelists I also want to thank all the attendees a very large number of folks in the room Large number of people online. Uh, we did not get through all the questions today Uh, so we will be looking at those and coordinating with our rec coordinators of uh, whether we could address some of those online after the session Also, you should get a qr code for providing feedback for this session. We would greatly appreciate that Um, and I hope everyone enjoys the rest of the rick. Have a great tuesday