 Good afternoon all. Welcome to session T2. This is on New Fuel Licensing Readiness. And if you haven't figured it out by now, we're at the 2023 Regulatory Information Conference. Just a couple of, my name's Joe Donahue. I'll be facilitating the session today. We'll be hearing from key players in the important work being done to develop new types of reactive fuel for commercial reactor applications. A couple of housekeeping notes. The Wi-Fi code for attendees is RIC2023. Remember to silence your electronic devices, please. And the QR code up here is for the Q&A portion of the session after we do our brief presentations. If you haven't used it by now, just briefly explain. You can scan that and it should bring you to a page where you can click on Join the session. And you should see a tab for electronic Qs and As. And if you're remote, also welcome to you. And you can look for that on the screen that you joined the session on. And all the questions will be going to the same queue. We'll be getting them, I guess, in order. And we'll try to cover as many questions as we can in a time we have here today. At the end of the session, for those of you in person, if the questions continue, we can spend some time outside in the four-year in the hallway while they set up for the next session in this room. If we can go to the... I guess I click this. All right, good enough. So, new fuels licensing readiness. In the past, we've done... The NRC has held sessions at our regulatory information conferences on new fuels, accent on our fuel, you hear about that. And also other new fuel design concepts. So this isn't necessarily a new session, but it's about new fuel. I want to thank our panelists and welcome them. Up in front of you are Chris Van Wert from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. William McCahy from the US Department of Energy. Jonathan Chavers from Southern Nuclear Company. And remotely joining us is Dr. Didier Jacques Ma from the Nuclear Energy Agency. We'll have time to hear from each panelist, and then plenty of opportunity to include all of you in a conversation about the activities underway to develop and license new fuel designs. Again, I encourage you to, as you listen, you have questions, use the electronic means that we have available to submit your questions. Okay, now for my presentation on an overview of the NRC's activities. Again, I'm Joe Donnie, I'm the Division Director of Safety Systems in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation here at the NRC, where, among other things in our division, our experts review the safety of fuel designs for operating new reactors. Here I'm going to concentrate my presentation on Accent Tolerant Fuel and High Burnup Fuel designs that are being contemplated and developed for operating reactors. Chris is here to talk to you about advanced reactor fuel designs. On the slide you see this is a definition, as it appears in more concise form, as it appears in related legislation that directs us on what to do in this area. Accent Tolerant Fuel concepts gained attention following the events at Fukushima Daiichi, as you may know. My idea was to develop new fuel features that use new materials and configurations to improve the ability of the fuel to withstand accident conditions. Congress has provided direction to the NRC regarding Accent Tolerant Fuel development that's included the long-term goal, as you see up here, reducing the cost of electricity production. But I'll point out that here at the NRC we do our safety reviews without including cost criteria in our determinations. I want to point out that the NRC has not been working on new fuel development in a vacuum. As you can see depicted here, we participate in a number of domestic and international activities to understand the progress of the technologies, new development of analysis methods and so forth, to help gather activities to provide us confidence that we're preparing our licensing framework to support the foreseeable needs of the industry for the safe uses of new fuel designs. These relationships give us access to data, test data, also as I said, the development activities in the technical arena, and also help us to an international front see how international regulators are anticipating how they're working to anticipate these new fuel designs. Even before the accomplishments on this slide, the NRC made a lot of accomplishments before 2022. We issued guidance for coded cladding in an interim staff guidance document. We conducted phenomena identification and ranking table exercises for cladding and high-burnup and severe accidents. We've issued and revised our ATF project plan. We developed an ATF website that's available that we update to keep everybody all stakeholders abreast of our activities. And we've completed licensing reviews for topical reports related to new fuel designs as well as fuel facility license amendment requests and transportation certificates of compliance for higher enrichment. More recently, as you see on the slide, we've issued a regulatory information letter on fuel fragmentation, relocation, and dispersal to update our understanding on that topic related to high-burnup operation. We've issued a communication industry in a form of a letter to explain our generic licensing timelines. We've also have several licensing reviews underway. We've completed topical report reviews associated with new fuel designs. We've conducted workshops and a number of pre-submitted meetings related to future licensing. And we've updated the commission recently in two meetings, one on accident, a tolerance fuel, and another one on advanced reactor fuels. Activities that are ongoing right now include development of guidance for the radiological source term used for operating plant accidents to account for higher burn-up and increased enrichment changes. We're carrying out direction from the commission to develop the basis for rulemaking for increased enrichment fuel designs. We're planning to issue a regulatory information summary to gather additional scheduling information from the U.S. nuclear industry to understand the plans for future licensing. We're completing an environmental assessment of accident tolerance fuel and high-burn-up designs. We're developing a roadmap and an atlas for our activities and operating reactors and also in the storage and transportation arena to be able to better communicate the steps we are planning to take to be ready to license and continue licensing for new fuel designs. And we're focusing on continuing our focus on international program activities. In the future, you can expect additional activities to stem from these accomplishments. And we are always monitoring. We're engaged, as I pointed out, with a number of key agencies and activities to make sure we understand developments and to be able to adjust along the way as develops unfold. And we think that these continued interactions and our continued work will make sure that we're ready to license new fuel designs. So if you want additional information, besides asking us questions while we're here, you can contact us at the email you see on the screen. Also, that website I mentioned is available and we keep that up to date. It has a lot of information, including meeting summaries from meetings that we had, the high-burn-up workshops, etc. A lot of documents that we've issued, you can find there. And also, if you're interested in any upcoming meetings on the topic, you can check our NRC public meeting schedule. Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions when we get to that point. But right now, I'm going to ask Chris Van Wert to take over from here. Good afternoon. My name is Chris Van Wert and I'm the Senior Technical Advisor for Reactor Fuel in the Division of Safety Systems within the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. I'm pleased to be here this afternoon to discuss the NRC's readiness for licensing advanced reactor fuels, engagement efforts, and recent licensing activities related to advanced reactor fuels. So what exactly is advanced reactor fuel? Well, to some extent, the definition of advanced reactor fuel commonly used within the NRC is simply fuel that's not LWR fuel. And by that, of course, I'm referring to the standard uranium dioxide pellets enriched up to 5-way percent uranium within an array of zirconium-based cladding for use within the light-water reactor. The Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, frequently referred to as NEMA, provides the following definition of advanced reactor fuel, which is fuel for use in advanced reactor or a research and test reactor, including fuel with a low uranium enrichment level of not greater than 20 percent. Some examples include tristructural isotropical particles, usually referred to as trisoparticles, metallic uranium alloys, and liquid fuel salts. The staff has been actively preparing for advanced reactor fuel reviews by developing guidance for fuel qualification and developing tools for evaluating fuel designs. In order to reduce regulatory review scheduling uncertainty and to provide increased regulatory clarity in terms of fuel qualification, the staff developed technology-neutral reactor fuel qualification guidance in New Reg 2246, and contracted with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to provide similar molten-salt fuel-specific fuel qualification guidance. These documents help designers by providing a framework that would support regulatory findings associated with nuclear fuel reviews. In addition to providing fuel qualification guidance, the NRC Office of Research developed evaluation tools to assist in advanced reactor fuel licensing reviews by updating the NRC-funded fuel performance code FAST, which stands for Fuel Analysis under Study, State, and Transdience. The updated FAST program models fuel behavior for several advanced reactor fuel designs. These updates increase regulatory review efficiency by focusing the staff's review on topics that are of greater safety significance. In order to develop the guidance documents and to prepare the staff for advanced reactor fuel reviews, the staff formed and expanded engagements with domestic and international partners. The NRC has developed working relationships with the advanced reactor community that maintain NRC independence without isolation. These working relationships enhance our understanding of potential applicants' needs, leverage available experience at national laboratories, and facilitate participation in codes and standards committees related to advanced reactors. For example, the NRC staff has collaborated with various laboratories to provide input to our fuel qualification guidance and also to exercise this guidance. Additionally, NRC staff members participate as observers in advanced reactor fuel working groups to better understand likely future licensing applications and to prepare accordingly. As an example of this, NRC staff members attended the industry-led Accelerated Fuel Qualification Working Group as observers to better understand the advanced reactor stakeholders' concerns regarding fuel qualification testing and to learn about potential directions that future license requests might take. In addition to our domestic activities, the NRC staff actively engages with various international organizations to exchange information on the safety of advanced reactor fuel designs. For example, NRC staff representatives participated in the development of the report titled Regulatory Perspectives on Nuclear Fuel Qualification for Advanced Reactors through the Nuclear Energy Agency, or NEA, which later served as the foundation for the NRC's non-LWR Fuel Qualification Guidance found in New Reg 2246. Because the staff actively collaborated with the development of the NEA report and closely aligned our NRC-specific guidance to it, New Reg 2246 enhances regulatory predictability for fuel vendors seeking approval in multiple countries. The NRC is also collaborating with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission under our memorandum of cooperation to develop a joint position paper on trisofuel qualification. As mentioned previously, the NRC staff actively prepared for advanced reactor fuel qualification methodology reviews by developing guidance in addressing knowledge management via international and domestic engagement efforts. Recent licensing activities demonstrate the effectiveness of our efforts. The NRC staff has completed or is in the process of completing review of four advanced reactor fuel qualification and fuel performance topical reports and provided feedback on three similar white papers. Perhaps more important than the number of reviews completed is the method by which the staff and applicants have approached fuel qualification methodology regulatory reviews. This approach has led to a process that enhances regulatory clarity and reliability. This approach includes developing generic products like topical reports for use by multiple vendors where applicable, leveraging pre-application opportunities to increase submittal quality and scheduling certainty, and using vendor-specific topical reports in advance of construction permit, operating license, or Part 52 applications. An example of this process is the approach that was used to support triso-based fuel qualification methodology reviews. Before any triso-based advanced reactor designers were ready to engage with the NRC, the staff reviewed and approved a triso-particle fuel qualification topical report submitted by EPRI in collaboration with Idaho National Lab. The triso-particle design covered by this topical report is common amongst triso-based advanced reactor designs, and therefore the staff's approval is applicable to similar designs which meet the conditions of the topical report. This increases efficiency for future licensing request applications by allowing triso-based advanced reactor designers to rely on the previously approved particle topical report and to focus their regulatory application on the design-specific final fuel forms. For example, triso-pebbles or prismatic compacts. The staff further supported fuel qualification by encouraging pre-application engagements with interested advanced reactor designers. These engagements can include activities such as white papers or meetings to discuss future licensing requests and for the NRC staff to provide early feedback and clarity regarding requirements for fuel qualification. The approval of the EPRI triso-fuel qualification topical report and use of pre-application engagements has supported fuel qualification topical reports for applicants including Kairos and X-Energy. The use of this process resulted in higher quality topical reports middles and a more streamlined regulatory review. In closing, the NRC has demonstrated its readiness to perform regulatory reviews of advanced reactor fuel designs by publishing guidance, developing confirmatory tools, and engaging early with applicants and leveraging our international partners. Additional information on advanced reactor fuel qualification can be found on the first website listed below and the second link will lead you to the NRC's overall advanced reactors website. The listed references further explain some of the topics which I presented today. Thank you for your attention. Hello, and thank you for the invitation to participate on this panel. My office manages the department's support to industry in the development of accident-tolerant fuel for existing light water reactors and research and development of metallic fuel for future advanced reactors. We also support the high-assay low-enriched uranium availability program. We'll begin with the department's support for the development of advanced reactor fuels. There are three basic fuel types here. The tri-structural isotropic particle fuel or trisofuel, metallic fuel, and molten salt fuels. Most advanced reactor fuels require high-assay low-enriched uranium, so we'll touch on that as well. And then I'll conclude with our support for the development of accident-tolerant fuel for light water reactors. The department has invested more than $400 million over 20 years on developing trisofuel, conducting the experiments, generating the data needed to qualify the fuel for use in advanced high-temperature gas reactors. Many advanced reactor concepts now seek to use this fuel because of the investment the department has made. And notably, the X-E100 reactor, one of the two advanced reactor demonstrations funded by the department in a 50-50 cost share. The reactor developers and fuel fabricators will still need to qualify this fuel for their particular fuel forms and reactor types. Other advanced reactor concepts utilize metallic fuel, including Terrapower's Natrium Demonstration Reactor, the second advanced reactor demonstration funded by the department in a 50-50 cost share. And the department has initiated a development program to support industry similar to what was done with the trisofuel program. We're pleased to have received the first tranche of funding for this in this year to begin a five-year program described here on this slide. It begins with the historical data from past metallic fuel development in the department, most notably the EBR2 reactor that you can see there on the right. And then we will be adding modern experiments and modeling and simulation to improve metallic fuel performance to support industry. Then other advanced reactor concepts are planning to utilize molten salt fuel. That's not a new concept, but it's a significant departure from solid fuel forms that we are accustomed to. There are many potential advantages, but also many new challenges in development and qualification of molten salt fuels and molten salt reactors. So, high assay low enriched uranium is uranium enriched in U-235 between 5 and 20%. Nine of the 10 advanced reactor concepts funded by the department use HALU for reasons you can see there in the gray box. As shown in the green box, the department is producing small amounts of HALU in the short term from limited quantities of department owned uranium through chemical processing. And we're also working with industry to develop the capacity to produce large amounts of HALU in the long term through enrichment. The HALU availability program was authorized by Congress in the Energy Act of 2020. And on the left you can see the various elements of the program that were laid out in the Energy Act. And shown on the right, the Inflation Reduction Act provided $700 million to supplement the regular appropriations for implementing, for executing the program as described in the Energy Act. So between the regular appropriations and this funding in the Inflation Reduction Act, we're working on now the first steps in implementing that program. Shifting that accident tolerant fuels. Currently there is a sharp divide between the development of the near term concepts you see there and the longer term concepts. That's because of funding limitations and industry's desire to prioritize near term concept development. The long term concepts will require more research and development but have the potential to provide even greater performance benefits. Now I wanted to talk again about uranium enrichment here. The industry is seeking to qualify new fuel concepts for higher levels of burn up in the core. That requires enrichment slightly above 5%, perhaps 6% to 8% depending on fuel types and reactor types and how they operate. Enrichment above 10% for advanced reactors is a challenge requiring government support. But enrichment below 10% for light water reactors is not a challenge and won't require government support. These are the test facilities that provide much of the data that industry needs to qualify their accident tolerant fuel concepts for use. The departments invested a great deal into experimental test capabilities at these facilities. A dedicated water loop in the advanced test reactor. A new loop is being installed in the MIT reactor. And then the refurbishment and restart of the transient reactor test facility. Also the installation of the severe accident test station at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Now the severe accident test station is not a reactor. It consists of two modules, one for integral loss of coolant accident testing and one for beyond design basis accident high temperature testing. Both modules are in the hot cell at Oak Ridge National Lab allowing for testing of irradiated fuel samples. Now it's been a major achievement and a credit to industry that they've installed lead test rods of accident tolerant fuel concepts in eight commercial reactors. And our national laboratories conduct post irradiation examinations of test rods that are discharged from these reactors and shipped to them. The ship the first shipments began in 2020 and they will increase in 2023 and beyond. And because of that the department is preparing a national shipping and PIE plan in order to make sure that the future shipping campaigns become routine. And we coordinate the examinations among the national labs that have the capability to do so. Finally here's an example of how our investment in the state of the art test facilities and post irradiation examination equipment come together to address issues of importance to accident tolerant fuel development. This issue is the potential for fuel fragmentation relocation and dispersal of high burn up fuel during a large break. Devise this test plan in close coordination with industry. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Studsvik. The Swedish organization that conducted similar experiments in the past and is continuing to do so. In the bottom left you see the report cover. That's the test plan. But right next to it is a comment response document 25 pages long which is evidence of our commitment to coordinate closely with all of the accident tolerant fuel program participants and stakeholders. So in summary. Department supports the existing fleet and the deployment of advanced reactors. Part of that in support involves financial assistance and technical support to develop advanced fuels. Advanced reactors need HALU and we are working with industry to establish a diverse US based commercial HALU market. And thank you for your attention and I look forward to your questions and comments. Thank you. Good afternoon. As Joe stated I'm Jonathan Chavers and I have the privilege to serve as the Nuclear Fuel Analysis Director for Southern Nuclear. Southern Nuclear operates a diverse set of operating reactors in the states of Alabama and Georgia including the newest reactors AP1000 units have been discussed earlier today. Also service utility lead for the accident tolerant fuel safety and economic benefits task force which is under the ATF working group facilitated through the Nuclear Energy Institute. The ATF working group was established in 2016 to coordinate industries licensing research policy regulatory and communication activities. The working group members include utilities all the fuel suppliers licensing and engineering support organizations and the Electric Power Research Institute. As the previous presenters have affirmed ATF represents an unprecedented level of coordination and collaboration to achieve an innovation. Industry has historically only done this in response to generic issues or problems but ATF represents a paradigm shift where entities with distinct interest are coming together to remove generic barriers to fuel technology innovation. ATF represents an innovation with significant potential to not only enhance safety and improve planet economics. Joe and Chris both provided us with the definition of accident tolerant fuel. I'm going to restate it here and it's taken from the January 2019 Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act. ATF is defined as one making an existing commercial reactor more resistant to a nuclear incident and two lower the cost of electricity of the licensed lifetime of existing commercial nuclear reactor. I appreciate the congressional vision with the use of the word here or the word and in this context. Our existing fuel systems are highly optimized to maximize nuclear safety and maximize neutron economy. ATF is the next evolution in this journey which has been accelerated through congressional support. By endorsing this dual role of nuclear fuel, congressional leadership has enabled broad alignment with the national vision for accident tolerant fuel. Industry has fully embraced this congressional direction and is developing a diverse and innovative set of technologies that enhance our resiliency to nuclear events and improve economic viability of our commercial nuclear assets for years to come. It is important to emphasize that these are not mutually exclusive concepts. We do find ourselves at a critical juncture with the ATF program where continued DOE support and congressional support is necessary to achieve the technology development and establish predictable licensing pathways to ensure commercialization of both the near term and longer term concepts that Bill mentioned earlier. Industry has looked at this congressional direction in NEMA and has translated that into a set of strategic aspirations to line and guide the ATF stakeholder community towards sustainable commercialization of these bold innovations. For the Southern Nuclear Fleet, we believe the framework of aspirations presented in this slide would align our outcomes to those provided in the congressional vision for ATF. In addition to the opportunity to enhance safety and resiliency, the most impactful benefit we've identified from ATF technology advancements is the enabling a greater fuel utilization through increases in burn up and the application of slightly higher enrichments that Bill mentioned earlier. With enhanced accident tolerance and operational resiliency enabling this continued evolution and fuel utilization, industry fundamentally believes we can reduce the cost of electricity and maximize the value proposition of nuclear power to our customers. In response to the Inflation Reduction Act, the incentives and opportunities provided there within, utility interest has increased substantially in recent months as ATF technologies have been identified as required or complementary to other asset enhancements such as power upgrades or cycle extensions while also enhancing safety. Again, this is illustrating the complementary nature of the ATF suite of technologies. The first DOE supported ATF technologies to deployed in reload quantities during the mid-2020s will be those of doped and higher density U02 pellets. This morning, Westinghouse provided a trade media release marking a generic topical approval for their doped fuel technology. In their release, they stated they had contracted for reload deliveries in 2025. We're often asked the chicken and egg question regarding ATF. The first egg is hatching. Increased enrichment, advanced cladding, and burn-up extensions require a predictable licensing pathway that needs to be established in the next two to three years for broad commercial adoption of those. Simply stated, we need that in place by 2026. With the support and investment of Congress and the DOE, industry has achieved significant advancements of fuel technologies on timelines that we never believed achievable in the past. And we've learned a lot through these lead-test commercial testing. It is informing selection of technologies and manufacturing techniques that can be scaled up from lab testing to commercial volumes to sustain economies of scale. Commercial reactor irradiation of lead-test rods began in 2018 with Southern's hatch program, which included coated zirconium rods and ferritic steel cladding. All three fuel suppliers across eight plants have successfully installed lead-test assemblies of technologies including doped pellets, high-density fuel, and advanced cladding systems. As advanced ATF have matured and commercial testing programs ramp up, the ATF program is in an inflection point where the complexity of our licensing interactions has grown. Many of the early ATF LTA programs were installed under 10 CFR 5059 process without the need for license amendments. The recent regulatory engagements of the planned Vogel LEU plus ATF lead-test assemblies with increased enrichment and the Byron ATF higher burn-up program are two examples that highlight the increasing complexity of recent licensing interactions. They required license amendment, in one case required multiple exemptions to achieve installation. We believe it's critical that the staff continue with the themes laid out in the project plan and the tensions that Joe illustrated here today. Likewise, we ask that the NRC continue to support the exemptions for generic regulatory activities that promote efficiencies both at the regulator and at the industry. The next few years will be decisive in whether large-scale deployment of ATF technologies will occur. Outcomes do depend on creating an efficient and predictable regulatory framework that can support the licensing of near-term ATF technologies, including increased enrichment and higher burn-ups, while also ensuring that it's durable enough that the licensing infrastructure supports the longer-term concepts that Bill mentioned earlier. Industry appreciates the recent momentum on the proposed rulemaking for increased enrichment. I personally believe LEU plus ATF concepts that are being proposed here today lay the foundations and the framework for the advanced reactor fuels, including HALU that Chris mentioned earlier. I do want to identify a pressing need that we have and that needs to be resolved here in the next six months or so, and that's related to Red Guide 1.183 Rev.1. It enables a streamlined alternate search term methodology at mid-level increases in burn-up, and this will enable broader adoption of the ATF-doped pellets and PWR applications that we've already mentioned are starting to occur. Further and subsequent revisions of the AST Red Guide that looks to burn-ups that support 24-month cycles in PWRs, while also addressing BWR compatibility, it's necessary within the same licensing infrastructure aspirations as higher enrichment, effectively before 2026. In addition to the LOCA testing collaboration that Bill described to inform future fuel design and licensing strategies, I am personally very optimistic for the collaboration between EPRI and the PWR fuel suppliers in addressing fuel fragmentation, relocation, and dispersal. Within the next 12 months, we're expecting a generic topical submittal that demonstrates a substantial increase in our understanding of LOCA at a piping system level, effectively a robust extension of the methods to include the well-understood physical phenomena a leak before break, which has been used in other licensing applications. This creates an opportunity for industry to generically address FFRD in a manner that supports all PWR fuel systems, regardless of fuel design or LOCA methods. When I mention regulatory infrastructure, we cannot forget about the front end of the fuel cycle. Transportation canisters for LEU-plus products and assemblies need to be able to transit our global supply chain consistent with existing LEU. This remains the area of focus as the richers begin developing plans to respond to the LEU-plus demand signals. We are often asked, what will it take for utilities to sign contracts for ATF utility, for ATF technologies? It's really three-fold. The first is demonstrated benefit, safety, and economic. The second is security of supply or proven manufacturability as demonstrated through LTA programs. And the third is predictable licensing outcomes when engaging with the regulator. The DOPE G02 example that I provided earlier is an illustration of how this works. I'm not going to spend much time on this last slide. We've seen this several times, including in the last ATF presentation. But I do want to affirm that ATF innovations offer a new paradigm of opportunities from the traditional fuel technology evolutions. These higher performing fuels can improve resiliency, increase fuel efficiencies, reduce the amount of waste generated, and improve planned economics. Enhanced fuel utilization directly means less used fuel to disposition. While acknowledged there may be differences in spent fuel management schemes with ATF concepts, these are within the utility experience space, and fundamentally it will reduce the total number of assemblies to disposition when holding all other attributes equal. With the continued support and leadership of Congress, our DOE partners, the National Lab and Research Community, our fuel suppliers, and others, industry is up to the challenge of moving forward with ATF technologies in the near term. Thank you, Jonathan. I'm going to ask that we switch over to Didier Chakramat, who's joining us remotely. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, and thank you for the invitation to contribute to this panel. So I'm Didier Chakramat, a senior nuclear safety specialist at the Nuclear Energy Agency and technical coordinator for the Joint Nuclear Safety Research Projects in the Nuclear Safety Technology and Regulation Division. So the intent of this presentation is to provide an overview of activities and perspectives at the Nuclear Energy Agency to support advanced fuel technology deployment. NEA offers international collaborative frameworks with its 34 member countries working for accelerating the deployment of innovative design with activities looking for enhancing both the technology readiness level and the licensing readiness level. I'm sorry that I was supposed to be to have the end for going to the next slide, but I don't have the command. So maybe if you can on your side, go to the next slide please. Thank you. So under the Committee of the Safety of Nuclear Installations, so the CSNI and the Nuclear Science Committee and SC, research activities on conventional and advanced fuel include the development review and assessment of relevant technical basis for fuel and cladding behavior analysis for normal of normal and accidental situation in reactors and in fuel cycle operations. So among these both committees work through dedicated expert groups on the development of state of the art reports, status reports, technical opinion papers, phenomena identification and ranking tables, benchmarks, international standard problems, databases with providing recommendations on research prioritization, including on infrastructures and knowledge preservation and dissemination. The next slide please. Thank you under the SC, SNI and SCO species so review activities regarding technology readiness level and licensing readiness level of ATF technologies have been completed with recently the publication of a technical opinion paper on applicability of nuclear fuel safety criteria to various ATF technologies with a focus on technologies with near term deployment. Our current specific interest to expert groups are also I burn up and I enrich use and the status report on fuel safety implication of extended enrichment has just been approved by CSNI. Both reports provide views on applicability of safety criteria to this fuel and recommendation on needed research, including for safety and licensing. At this stage, opportunities for collaborative research for near term ATFs HPU and other fuel and the fuel have mostly been identified the next slide please. So any is also supporting international collaborative research projects for enhancing safety, and I will present afterwards examples of projects which address advanced technologies. I would like to highlight that in January this year, NEA has organized a series of webinars with a large participation from 450 experts in 60 countries to review the benefits, the applications, the perspective and the frameworks of the NEA joint nuclear safety research projects. This was done at the time when 50 joint projects have been completed and 20 more are expected to be completed by the next two years. And I will address the main recommendations from the event later, but all information from this event can easily be found on the NEA web pages. This includes presentations and preliminary recommendations. So regarding fuel performance and safety, 14 projects have been completed around the completion with the forcing closure of the Alden reactor project in 2024. All those projects mostly focused on conventional fuels and cladding and in reactor irradiation and transient testing for advanced reactor design and related advanced fuel remain today limited. So though it had been said that many research projects are ongoing nationally and internationally on advanced fuel, the technical basis to fully characterize the performance and safety of such fuels and better support the demonstration and the quantification of margin gains and risk reduction needs to be announced. So despite the efforts made at the NEA to enhance in-reactor transient testing capability with the FIDES-2 initiative, consolidating and increasing and further these test capacities in the near future is deemed necessary. So next slide please. Ongoing projects which address advanced fuel at NEA cover in-reactor transient testing, out-of-file transient testing and establishing thermodynamic databases. So regarding in-pile reactor testing, the Alden reactor end testing as ended in 2018 with the closure of the reactor and the Alden reactor was offering a unique testing capacity with the luxury of a large availability which is challenging to recover despite the essential FIDES-2 efforts. So FIDES-2 provides a unique platform for advanced fuel and material testing using the nuclear research reactors in NEA member countries such as the BR-2 in Belgium, the LVR-15 in the Czech Republic, NSR in Japan and treat in the US. As you know, the mere Russian reactor which could have offered additional capacity is not any more accessible due to the Russia-Ukraine war. The CABRI international project is also planning to perform in the short-term area investigation on libenap and mox fuel and advanced cladding. Next slide are providing more detailed information on some of these projects. So next slide please. Just key information about CABRI, the testing has restarted recently in November 2022 and the next four tests are planned in 2023 and 2024 with tests involving advanced cladding with inner liner. The Alden project is expected to close in 2024 with the remaining LOCA testing on ATF to be done at Studvik in the OTSEL for LOCA tests and transfer testing on ATF in the Alden reactor has been limited. There are some opportunities to test further fuels and material from Alden including ATF and these are being discussed with fuel and material from Alden library being transported to Studvik to DOE and back to the owners in the Czech Republic in France and Sweden. Next slide please. The slide presents the Fidesz 2 initiative which is working on establishing in-reactor testing capacities. So during the first phase and until the end of 2024, the work will mostly focus on this objective and advanced fuel testing is mostly planned for the programme of work beyond 2024. Next slide please. This slide provides some detail on the ongoing INCA and ERA Fidesz projects which until 2024 will work on establishing in-reactor testing capacity in the LVR-15 and the TRIP reactors. In-pile ATF cladding CRIP studies will be conducted in LVR-15 reactor and REA high burn-up investigation are planned at TRIP and NSR. Next slide please. As an example of out-of-pile testing, you have the recently launched quench ATF projects that includes three large scale bundles test with ATF cladding materials and testing is planned to cover both design basis and severe accident scenario. The next slide please. Another example is the SCIP projects example of out-of-pile testing which in its phase 4 investigate fuel behaviour in local transients and also fuel integrity aspects in interim storage conditions for conventional and end-up fuel. The next slide. Last example of joint projects, there is some interest in the nuclear safety community to develop the needed basic data to support the modelling of material interactions and severe accident conditions for ATF. And of particular interest are the effects of your testing formation which can affect the cladding and fuel integrity at high temperature. So generating such data is addressed in TIPO2 and TAPID projects which information is provided on the slide. Next slide please. I can go to the next slide. So at the Joint Safety Research Project event in January 2023, opportunities, challenges and possible way forward to advance the understanding of ATF fuel behaviour in accident conditions were discussed. And the amassed expertise for conventional fuels in relevant working group at NEA in particular the working groups on fuel safety. The established frame for research, for instance FIDES2 and the development of ATF simulation tools have been considered as opportunities. The main challenges are related to build the needed expertise to address new design and advanced fuel including the non-LWR designs, to the limited capacities for in-reactor transient testing and to address timely knowledge gaps to support the licensing of near-term development and to announce data preservation sharing and disseminations. So possible way forward may involve working on increasing the research capacities in particular for in-reactor transient testing, on easing lead road and lead assembly test irradiation in commercial reactors, and extend the expertise of safety working groups on advanced design and fuels and continue actions on data preservation. The next slide. So to conclude, major recommendation and the Joint Safety Research Project event concerned the establishment of high-level roadmap, identifying the major gaps and needed capacities to address them for advanced fuel, to work on facilitating the industry involvement in the projects including smaller companies, to enhance an integrated approach by enlarging the interactions between FIDES2 and out-of-file projects and promote the durable preservation of joint project data. So NEA will continue to assist its members with promoting international collaborations to support the development of advanced fuel technologies. And with this I conclude my presentation and hope the proposal for way forward will be discussed further. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, Denier. I appreciate all the panelists, the presentations. You can see there's a lot of activity, a lot of information on the slides in these presentations. All of that will be available for future reference after the regulatory information conference has concluded. All right, now we're shifting to our question and answer part of this session. And the good news is that the QR code works. So on this tablet here I have a lot of questions lined up. We're going to do our best to move through the questions. But I'll admit I'm not going to be completely fair because what I'm going to do is try to rotate through the panel, try to cover as many topics as possible. If you don't hear the precise wording of your question, forgive me. And if you'd like, like I said, we'll offer in time after the session, we can meet out in the hallway if you had more specific information you were seeking. All right, so basically I'm just going to read out the question. I'll try to ask a panelist or I'll give it a shot myself if it's appropriate. In NRC, do the existing domestic test and experimental facilities support the needed data for qualifying the array of fuel forms or new capabilities required? So I'll give this a shot. I know we have besides Chris Van Word, other staff who might be available here up front if they want to add to what I'm going to say. The collaboration I mentioned that we do with international organizations with the Department of Energy to understand all the capabilities appears to provide the kind of test capabilities needed for what we're aware of. I'm talking about ATF and high burn up. Of course you want to add about advanced reactor fuel you can, but for ATF and high burn up, we think that the capabilities exist. Vendors are using data and we see data in applications. So that's what provides the confidence that the capabilities exist. It's a matter of getting the tests completed and analyzing that data to inform the basis of licensing actions. Is there anything you can add to that, Chris, about new reactors or new fuels? So yeah, I think the message is pretty similar for advanced reactor fuel, not too dissimilar to what we're seeing with ATF. It might be a little bit more difficult for some of the advanced reactor fuel designs given that some of the more exotic designs that are out there might have limited DOE laboratories that are able to perform tests with those. But there are options available and I would say so far we have not had a show stopping issue. We could talk more about that, but I am going to move on to Bill, if you don't mind. You mentioned the PIE plan being developed by DOE to ensure uniform testing at the different national labs. Presumably this is to support use of ATF in reactors. Is there a chance that some testing and support of back end activities can be included in this plan? Back end activities are definitely part of the ATF program. We have the office of spent fuel management and disposal who have already been conducting experiments and doing examinations of light water reactor fuels, existing light water reactor fuels with higher burn up. And this is the accidental fuel concepts will be incorporated into their program as an extension and they will be conducting whatever experiments are necessary to meet the back end requirements for storage and disposal. Thank you. So you might predict that the next question is for Mr. Chavres. There you go. You mentioned predictable licensing pathways needed by 2026. Beyond current efforts, what strategies are necessary to ensure predictability and licensing? Yeah, a lot of times the utilities will say they won't certainty in the licensing. That is not a word I use by intention because to declare that there is certainty I think diminishes the role of the regulator which I appreciate the role they have. Predictability though is something that is necessary for us to be able to sign contracts and move forward and get these things to commercial scale. Predictability looks like a lot of times the word is line of sight. So what I would say relative to these LTA programs, many of them have been authorized either through license amendments or exemptions through cycle by cycle authorization. We cannot operate our plants that way for reload quantities. So we need to be able to make a reload transition without having the uncertainty of coming in for a license amendment or an exemption for each of those reloads. That is when we know we will have predictability. We can get reload quantities. All right, thank you. Dr. Jacques, if you hopefully can hear us. I have one for you. What do you see as the largest gap in testing capabilities globally for anticipated advanced reactor fuels? If you'd like to address accident-atolomer fuel as well, feel free. Well, I'm not sure I understand the question. So for me, as I have said in my presentations, I think there's really a need to have more capacities actually to include in reactor transform testing. I think this has been started in Alden and it's continued in the institute that we've limited amount of tests actually that have been performed on ATFs. In Alden, I think was testing have been done also with material that at low burn-up levels. So I would say that was something that was commented at the GP event that is clearly the need to work on developing further in reactor transform testing capacities on one side. And on the other side, I think that some industry participants at the GP event also said that they would benefit from having a more clear view of how they can actually perform lead road and least assembly testing in commercial reactors. And for that, I think they would be an interest of working on harmonizing actually the safety approach for this sort of testing. I don't know if I answered the questions. Thank you very much. I guess the next question is a multi-part question. It's probably going to require I'll warn people here and the NRC staff. I'm going to need help with this one, but I'll just start. ATF with higher enrichment will impact all aspects of nuclear safety, the source term storage and transportation. My question is the first part is what does the NRC staff see to be the most challenging issues in ATF safety review? I'll give that a shot in a second. The second part is do nuclear power panel licensees conduct cost-benefit analysis of loading ATF and existing reactors and can we share those conclusions? So let me try the first part there with some most challenging issues. The staff sees that we can license the Accentile and Fuel designs that we've been informed about. Code of cladding, dope pellets, and as a matter of fact, I think I mentioned that we have guidance that we've published in recent years for code of cladding. And right now the higher burn-up effects of FFRD, fuel fragmentation, relocation dispersal, is the most challenging technical issue that we anticipate for going up to the extended burn-ups that I think Jonathan mentioned to get to extended cycles. And FFRD is not new. We've been aware of that effect for well over a decade, but it's the going to the higher, much higher burn-up levels than we used in the past that exacerbates the effect and that we need to understand. I'll just say about cost-benefit analysis. I'm sure that nuclear power plant licensees do them, but we're not evaluating that. I think I mentioned in my opening presentation that although that's part of the definition in legislation, that's not the NRC's charge. We review the safety. I don't have that. The NRC does not have that cost-benefit information to share if you want to add to that. Yeah, I'll jump in here. Absolutely. So the one piece I will say there, though, is if you look at the definition of NEMA and look at the second part, it's the total cost of electricity. A lot of us are fuel-minded individuals, so it's not just the fuel costs. Your fuel costs may go up, but your total cost of electricity for your customer base may go down as a result of these new technologies. Another piece I would say is they're not mutually exclusive, and I'll use a dope-to-pellet example. So the new technologies of dope-to-pellets that recently have been licensed, they have dopants in there that have adverse effect on neutron economy. But we've also been able to increase the density of the fissile material in the pellet to overcome that adverse impact. The net benefits positive in the economic space. So they're not mutually exclusive. You can get safety benefits and economic benefits at the same time. So I'm going to change it up here, Jonathan, if you can keep your mic there. You kind of started touching on this already. What is your perspective on progress and addressing the need for HALU and to solve the challenge of FFRD? Relating HALU to FFRD? Well, it says the need for HALU, I guess, to get higher enrichments and the technical challenge of FFRD. So the economic case for 24-month cycles, I will tell you many of those for high-powered density PWRs do require enrichments greater than the 5-8% that we currently pursue. Corresponding to that, you need the, in burn-up increases, to maximize the value proposition of that increased enrichment. So they're not mutually kind of distinct. We have to look at that as a coupled pair moving forward. There may be some applications of LEU plus concepts. That's what I like to use the things, say, 6-8%, not the greater than 10 that was mentioned earlier. Say in PWR applications, they do not get up to the burn-ups that have susceptibility or concerns with FFRD. So the economic benefit may be there where you just reduce your fresh batch size. So, but for PWR applications, LEU plus directly ties to the business case and you need the burn-ups to maximize the value of LEU plus. All right, thank you. Okay, Chris, now you're in the box now. You focused a lot on Triso fuel in your presentation and its successes. Does Triso provide road map for other advanced reactor fuels? And if so, will NRC develop this road map or does NRAG 2246 already cover it? So 2246, of course, provides the overall regulatory guidance framework for advanced reactor fuel. It's technology neutral, so it will support metallic fuel, Triso, and the advanced reactor fuel, the non-LWR fuels that we've seen. But if you're talking about, from my presentation on the road map where we discussed the generic top report on Triso particles and how that supported multiple applicants at the same time, I think there's some areas where that could be leveraged. Of course, that's not for the NRC to tell the industry to do. It's up for the industry to decide if they would like to work together on that, usually in cooperation with DOE. And so there are some, I think, that have some similar designs that could better leverage that. I think some of the other designs are a little bit more unique and they might not be able to leverage other similar designs out there. I hope that answers that question. Thank you. Yeah, we didn't give a QR code for the thumbs up, thumbs down, like on a team's meeting, but we're doing our best. Okay, so this is for the NRC staff, and I know we have staff that work on storage and transportation, so be ready for this one. I'll give it a try to begin. Does NRC require new fuel approvals to include analysis and plans for waste storage? I'll start by saying when we get a fuel application for use in a reactor, the waste storage is not typically part of the application. We'll review the analysis and all the information related to operation and accident response within the reactor. I think for storage, that's going to be a separate application and that could come later. But if there's anything you can add, go ahead and introduce yourself. Thanks, this is Shayna Hell DNRC. Joe, if I could give you a thumbs up. People on teams can't, but that's right. The approvals to use the fuel in the reactor don't include considerations for storage or for transportation. And the licensing that we do in both of those domains, as well as for fuel facility fabrication, uranium enrichment. They're very, very specific regarding what's being produced, fabricated and rich, transported or stored. So that is something that we'll need to consider under licensing in other parts of the regulations, namely parts 72 for storage, part 71 for transportation, and part 70 and possibly part 40 for some of the fuel facility activities. Thanks. Thank you. Okay, foraging ahead. We still have lots of questions on this tablet unless the battery runs out. Okay, I'm going to direct this one to Bill. What actions has DOE, it's a detailed technical question maybe, Bill. What actions has DOE taken to develop new criticality benchmark data for advanced reactor fuel? That is an element of the Energy Act. And also it is funded under the Inflation Reduction Act. If you saw the slide I had that showed that, that's one of those elements that we are working closely with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on that. In fact, we're really getting started on that. We're going to have a kickoff meeting with the NRC the first time we get the experts, subject matter experts together to discuss what NRC's needs might be on criticality benchmarking for those elements that are in the Act including transportation packages, enrichment facilities, and fuel fabrication facilities. And so we have the funding available. We're getting the subject matter experts together and we're going to be working closely with the NRC on putting what plans together we need, whether it's analysis, whether it's existing data, whether in certain areas we might require new criticality benchmarking experiments. That is yet to be determined but it is definitely being worked. Thank you. Even I have an idea of the answer to this question Jonathan, but I'll ask it anyway and ask you to provide a better answer than I could. What are the drivers for a 24 month cycle beyond economics? The economics are certainly there and again I'll say it's lowering the total cost of electricity for our customers. But if we look at our assets, you know, we have the plant, but take a closer look and look at the people. So for the Southern fleet, I will say Vogel one through four presents a unique challenge to us from a work-life balance perspective. We will be in outage mode nearly all the time and we have plant hatch just an hour and a half down the road which we also share resources for. So moving to 24 month cycles, not only is that economic proposition for our customers, it is also a valuable component for the work-life balance for our employees. That is a significant driver while we're so bullish at Southern for this. Thank you. I'll take a shot at the next question and it's directed to the NRC and I'll abbreviate. What's the generic impact to licensees current licensing basis to adopt ATF designs? And are there resources in the NRC being devoted to understanding how much analysis needs to be re-performed? So I'll just say generally the license amendments are needed to change the licensing basis. And I think Jonathan, you pointed out for some of the LTAs, for increased enrichment, there's right now exemptions needed. But I think I mentioned we're embarking on rulemaking to adjust the regulations to the theme would be to be at the need for exemptions. I'll also say that there's going to be new materials and right now the tech specs at plants are material specific. But we're working with the tech spec task force on an effort to see how to possibly amend tech specs in the future to adjust that. And the increase in enrichment rulemaking was actually predated by an effort within the staff. And you can find this, I believe it's available on the ATF website, the RFA ATF. We did an analysis, it's in the form of a table that we had basically listed all the regulations and guidance that we thought applied that would be affected by new fuel design, including high burn up and increased enrichment, new fuel design features. And we had more than one public meeting to discuss that. And we put that on the website to elicit more comments in the future. And it really informed us on our first steps in the direction of increased enrichment rulemaking. So we're taking steps to make sure we've covered all the bases, so to speak, and to make a more, as Jonathan pointed out, we're working to make a more predictable licensing pathway for these fuel designs. As far as re-performing analysis, in the office of research, I know we have a representative here, we've been doing a lot of work to update our capabilities to be able to do any confirmatory analysis. And I know vendors have presented updates to our staff on their new methods to accommodate new fuel designs. That's all I was going to, I think I can, unless there's anything anybody else wants to contribute to that answer. I'm going to shift to, back to Jonathan, I think. I'm sorry, I just lost track of a question. Here we go. No, actually this is the Department of Energy. You stated that DOE spent $400 million on the qualification to try so, have similar amounts of funding been spent on metal and salt fuels were similar or more be spent on these fuels? And what lessons learned from the try so program could make development more efficient for the other types of fuel? No, we haven't spent that kind of money on, certainly not on salt fuels. Salt fuels were just really getting started on that. We're doing some kind of preliminary lab scale analysis of the properties of the salts. And what was the first, what was it, metallic fuel as well? Metallic fuel. Yeah, well that's hard to, it's hard to put a dollar figure on that. You're going way back to the EBR two days. But I would say in general, so I'm going to use this question for a plug on something I didn't discuss in my presentation, but we are really looking to accelerate fuel qualification. We would like to, we would like to have the next major fuel type be qualified for use in less than 20 years for less than $400 million. And we believe we can do that with modern methods, new advanced instrumentation and examination. And the folks at Idaho National Lab have put together some pretty impressive, pretty impressive radiation testing methods for getting radiations on very, very small samples of fuel types. We can do, we could run lots of different fuel types in a short amount of time. Now that's not sufficient for qualifying the fuel in a reactor of course, but we believe this is one element of how we can accelerate fuel qualification. And a plug also to General Atomics who a few years ago started this effort and all of the fuel suppliers and many of the national labs have joined on this accelerated fuel qualification initiative. And I think we'll see, we're already seeing results. We're seeing new types of models and codes and methods for fuel qualification. We're seeing, like I said, these mini fuels experiments. And I think that the advanced reactor concept developers and the fuel developers are going to take advantage of that and accelerate the, shorten the time it takes for new fuel qualification. Thank you, Bill. Okay, this is for the NRC, I think specifically Chris. You could answer, you know about Triso. More radiation and PIE data from the DOE Triso program may be provided by NUSA Middles. And could this data be used to revisit or change the licensing of Triso vendors applications? I guess it could be useful to, is it needed for? So if I understand the question correctly, it's more about timing. So I think it sounds like we've approved something and then data comes out later that contradicts our... Or updates it. If it's simply an update, then obviously we will be updating our guidance, but we would be looking at what was approved before, how it affects our safety conclusions. And then if there was, if we're just going to argue maybe a drastic turnaround, we have methods of revisiting our prior approval. But we do have, just to kind of speak a little bit to this specific fuel form, we do have statistically significant amounts of data on this one. So I would be surprised to see something that would contradict, but if it were to come to pass, there are methods that we could revisit as necessary. Thanks. I'll add for, in general, for ATF Triso, if new information comes to light. I mean, a lot of these research programs may well continue beyond the industry's goals for loading certain types of, certain designs of fuel. And that information could be used in an application to either supplement or an existing topical report, for example, or for maybe a new application. So that's always, our process allows that. It's happened in other technical areas. And in general, that's, we will practice that being able to update our approvals. This one, Jonathan, if you can help me with. I think in your presentation, you mentioned a goal in the mid-2020s for having the framework for licensing. But what's the timeline for batch loads? And what are the limiting factors? Yeah, so mid-2020s still remains the timeline for battery load of ATF features. I will tell you, those of you in the utility sector, you're familiar with INPO. And we have guiding principles that tell us how to make changes with our fuel design and core management. And those principles are defined in INPO documents 9602 and 0302. We're not going to go and make a snap change where all the ATF features are installed all at once. So that's the incremental phased approach, the law of tensionality. I will tell you, doped pellets will go first, followed closely by high-enrichments in encoded claddings. What we need in place by 2026 is to enable the higher-enrichment, higher-burnup encoded claddings so that they can be done in the late-2020s. So see doped pellets mid-2020s and those other ones to fall in the late-2020s. Thank you, Jonathan. I think we have time for just a couple more questions. You can hear the hallways already filling up, but we're going to try to get through as many as we can here. I think the NRC can handle this one. What are the remaining areas of research relating to fuel qualification required to improve the efficiency of our reviews? Do current memoranda of understanding with DOE regarding fuel R&D support resolution of these remaining issues? I'm going to start and I'll ask Chris or other staff are ready to add to my answer. We've worked with our, as I mentioned, we've worked with other organizations to understand the technical information available, make sure we're staying up to date, and we do think that with more information about different materials that are being applied or different processes to assemble fuel, that will increase the efficiency of our reviews. The more information there is, the more confidence we'll have. So I think that the areas that I mentioned already for high burn-up effects, that right now is the biggest, I'll say, speed bump we see for high burn-up increased enrichment. And there are efforts underway. Bill from DOE mentioned the LOCA test plan that covers some of that, and I know the international programs as well are trying to address those issues. The NRC has agreements with the Department of Energy. We'll work closely with them. Bill and I and other staff, and Bill's staff and our staff in the NRC, we participate in meetings about monthly to make sure we're staying abreast of developments, and, you know, I think that we definitely, we have the infrastructure to make sure that we understand what DOE is doing and we communicate with DOE on what we think the needs for supporting licensing will be. Unless there's something else that you wanted to add. Okay, okay. I think we have time for just another question, and I'm going to ask Bill to help us with that. Well, actually, I think this could be, I'll give it a try, and then maybe I'll shift the bill. Given the higher potential for increased coping times with long-term ATF concepts, how do we shift our focus to those long-term concepts while supporting the commercial deployment of near-term concepts? So I'll just talk about the licensing, and what I do, or what my staff does is, you know, we have resources, we have the technical resources to deal with the current licensing challenges for new fuel designs, as well as focusing on understanding the longer-term designs as they're developed. You know, we, like I said, we've been saying, we attend, we have interactions, we attend conferences with other organizations to stay abreast, and we are constantly making sure that we're looking ahead. I mean, the Office of Nuclear Research Research is always looking ahead to make sure that our tools can be, our analytical tools can be developed on time for these new kinds of designs. And I'll give you an example. Right now, I know there's people in research working on some of the deterministic aspects of dispersal of fuel. At the same time, we have other people who are looking at the possible pathways to use a risk-informed approach, you know, using some means to be able to change the focus on certain parts of the locust spectrum without getting into a lot of detail here. So we're looking ahead, and I think basically we're doing both. We're dealing with the near-term licensing, and we're looking ahead to the long-term aspects. Anybody in the panel want to add to that? Thanks. Well, as far as what we do in the department is support to industry for improved performance, you know, one of our two of our major objectives are to support the existing fleet and to also support the deployment of advanced reactors. And we will continue to do that. When it comes to how and when these new fuel types might get introduced, it has to do with funding. It has to do with what industry desires for their existing reactors and for the advanced reactors. And it also depends on the research. This is very much a research and development program, and that means that you develop an idea, you develop a fuel, you test it, and you see what happens. And sometimes you have setbacks and you have to go back to the drawing board on one thing or another, and so it's very hard to kind of put that all on a timeline and say this is how this is going to work, and this is when we're going to be introducing, this is when we'll be able to have these new concepts introduced in reactors. Because, you know, that's the nature of research R&D, really. All right. Thank you, Bill. We're just about out of time. Thank you to our panelists here and to Didier in Europe for your presentations participating in the conversation here. We kept your attention for an hour and a half. I didn't see many people leave, so thank you for your attention. I want to thank the staff, the NRC staff that provided the support for this session and also the AV staff who made this happen. We only had three questions. We only missed three questions that I see submitted here, so we did pretty well. So if you get a chance to provide feedback, I think that's on the website. Give us a thumbs up. In general, for the RIC, this is, again, the first hybrid RIC that we've conducted, so whether you're here in person or remotely online, give us feedback to improve how we do our conferences. With that, I thank you again for your attention. Thank you.