 Our session will explore the development of a new regulatory framework for new reactors that will provide flexibility for a variety of novel licensing approaches. My name is Andrea Vale. I'm the director of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, and I will be your chair for this session. We're very excited to be here on this first day of RIC 2022, and to have so many of you able to join us using this virtual platform. Our goal is to ensure that this session is informative and engaging, and we welcome your participation to make that happen. Let me start by describing a few details about the session. The session will follow a moderated panel discussion format. After some brief opening remarks, I'll lead a panel session on some key topics with our goal to bring you a broad range of perspectives on the development of the Part 53 rulemaking. During that discussion, we'll also be using some live audience polling questions. As a reminder, you can access polls by clicking the word poll on the right side of the screen next to the Q&A. Your responses will feed into our discussion real time. Finally, after the panel discussion, we've allotted plenty of time to take audience questions. So please first submit your questions via the Q&A box, and we'll try to answer as many of your questions as we can. The questions can be directed to me or to any other panelists. Please submit your questions as early as you can. There's no need to wait for the Q&A portion of the session to begin. I would now like to kick things off with our first live polling question. So we can really get a feel for the level of familiarity you have with the ongoing rulemaking. I'll begin introducing the panelists as the polling question is pulled up and give you a few minutes to answer. Again, you can access polls by clicking the word poll on the right side of the screen next to Q&A. Now I'd like to introduce the panelists and I'm pleased to start with Darren Gale. Darren is the vice president and ARDP program manager for commercial operations at X Energy LLC. Darren has been actively involved in the nuclear power industry for over 38 years with prior executive positions with Framaton, BWXT, Dan Zimmerman, and structural integrity. X Energy was awarded funding by DOE under the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. To construct its XE 100 high-temperature gas-cooled reactor near Energy Northwest, Columbia Generating Station, Nuclear Plant, and Washington State. Dr. David Petty is a member of the NRC's advisory committee on reactor safeguards. David was formerly the National Technical Director of DOE's Advanced Reactor Program. His work included numerous lead and chief scientist positions at the Department of Energy, Idaho National Laboratory, and the Phoebus facility at the Qatarash Nuclear Site in France. He was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Ed Lyman is the director of the Nuclear Power Safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Dr. Lyman is an internationally recognized expert on nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism, as well as nuclear power safety and security. He is a member of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management and has testified numerous times before Congress and the NRC. Ed has been actively involved in stakeholder discussions on the Part 53 room making. He earned a doctorate in physics from Cornell University in 1992. Dennis Henneke is a consulting engineer at GEH Nuclear Energy. Dennis is the technical lead for the PRA supporting the BWRX-300, VTR, and Natrium reactors and was the principal investigator for the DOE-funded project for the Prism Reactor on Development Modernization of an Advanced Non-Light Water Reactor Probabilistic Risk Assessment. Dennis is also the ANS chairman of the ANS-ASME Joint Committee on Nuclear Risk Management and has supported PRA standard development since 1999, including non-LWR PRA standard. Now let's take a look at the results from our first polling question before I begin introductory remarks. So it looks like overwhelmingly about 48% say I've heard of Part 53. There's 16% that said what is Part 53 so you're in the right place to learn about it. I've attended a few meetings 19% and 17% I've attended most meetings and have read preliminary rule text. So with this wide variety of familiarity with Part 53 I hope we can increase that level of familiarity today or fill in some of the gaps for those of you who are already familiar. Now I'll provide a brief discussion of the Part 53 rulemaking to provide some explanatory background before we move to the panel discussion. Next slide please. As required by the Nuclear Innovation and Modernization Act or NEMA, the NRC staff is committed to developing a technology inclusive risk-informed regulatory framework Part 53 rule that provides at least the same degree of protection of public health and safety and the common defense and security for advanced reactors that is required for current generation light water reactors. Our goal is to develop an innovative, predictable and appropriately flexible framework to enable a streamlined and efficient licensing process for advanced reactors. The regulations will accommodate various advanced reactor technologies prioritizing risk-informed and performance-based licensing approaches to protect public health and safety throughout the life of a facility. The NRC staff has engaged in extensive stakeholder outreach during the rulemaking process and has received diverse and significant input. The staff has been implementing a novel approach of releasing preliminary rule language to facilitate discussion. I'm proud to say we've now completed the first draft of all preliminary rule language. The staff has considered stakeholder requests for a more traditional deterministic licensing framework for advanced reactors. In addition, the staff recognized that more time was needed to further engage stakeholders including the advisory committee on reactor safeguards and iterate on rule language before sending a proposed rule to the commission. Several organizations also noted support for a scheduled extension for the proposed rule during our public interactions. At this end, in October 2021, the staff requested a nine-month extension to the commission directed schedule for Part 53 and the commission has approved the staff's request to fully develop this licensing alternative. The staff is committed to developing an effective rule and following the NRC's principles of good regulation. The NRC will continue to seek stakeholder input throughout the rulemaking process. I'm going to display live polling question number two now. While that question is coming up, I'll begin our panel discussion as we wait for the results to come up and we'll have plenty of time for you to input your answers. Now, just to note, we're going to stop the discussion at about 2pm to allow plenty of time for Q&A. So I'll first like to start with the first panel question. We've been meeting the objectives outlined in NEMA and are we headed in the right direction? And let's start with Darren and then any other panelists who want to speak. Thank you, Andrea. So, X Energy, I think most of you will recognize, you know, as Andrea pointed out, as one of the awardees under ARDP. I think that the Department of Energy and Congress had with ARDP, we have chosen to go the two step process, Part 50, for the deployment of our reactor at the station near, you know, at the site near Columbia Generating Station, because of the timing for us. We're not going to get through the 53 rulemaking in time for that. But there clearly are advantages to Part 53 in subsequent deployments of our XC100 plant. So again, the two things for us that are most important are the technology inclusive. We need to make sure that we're looking at all technologies here, not just, you know, focused on a select few, but very technology inclusive. And then the time making sure that we have the efficiencies with this process that we maybe haven't to this point realized with Part 52. We all thought with Part 52 that we were going to create something that was going to save us some time, but we haven't really learned how to do that yet and with Part 53. I think we've really, really got to do that. So, again, those two things the technology inclusiveness and the timeliness effectiveness of it. Those are the things that were really, you know, that if we focus on those, and continue to focus on those, I think we're going to absolutely be doing the right thing. So that's how I would answer that question. Thank you, Darren. And would you like to give your perspective. Yes, I would. I appreciate that. Thank you. So, in my view, the direction of part 53 is going in a way which I think is less consistent with the intent, and even the letter of NEMA. And just to be clear on this, and I was involved in many discussions on as NEMA was being developed and I testified twice in legislative hearings on it. My strong sense is that the purpose of that was to promote the development of advanced reactors. Although the definition of advanced reactors, you know, is up to the beholder, and there is a definition in NEMA. It just seems clear to me that it was meant to promote reactors with advanced reactor characteristics, additional safety features and the like. And so the recent change to the scope of part 53 to refer to any commercial reactor, which would also include large water reactors that have already been certified, for example, like the AP1000, I think is, or even reactors without the same passive safety features as the AP1000. I feel like that is missing the intent of NEMA, that there's a qualitative threshold for a reactor to be able to qualify for using a different approach than part 52 that would potentially provide an easier licensing path. And to qualify for that, I think there has to be a demonstrated threshold that this reactor actually is going to have credible, there's a credible reason to believe that it will have enhanced safety or security features compared to the current fleet. Although I understand the logic of opening up the scope to anything, I do feel like it is the energy is missing an opportunity to use this as an incentive for new reactor applicants to follow through on claims of having inherent or advanced safety features and their designs. And so this is also tied to the advanced reactor policy statement and the goal that NEMA or part 53 shall not let us say safety that's greater than the operating fleet. I do think that's also missed opportunity in the part of the NRC and the commission to move the commercial reactor fleet in this country in a direction of increased safety, which I think would be appropriate if there's going to be greater deployment in the future. So I am concerned about that direction and also with regard to NEMA's performance based licensing approach that had the NRC was given, NEMA gave the NRC the authority to determine where that's appropriate. And I would caution the NRC that it should keep in mind that the use of performance based and risk informed approaches is not always and not every instance, and that they should look at that constraint instead of doing what the staff is trying to do essentially rewriting the entire licensing framework for all new reactors in a way which may make it harder to understand where the risk informed approaches are more or less appropriate and maybe I went too long. Thank you. I'll stop there. No, thank you, Ed. Dennis, I see your hand is raised. Thank you, Andrea. Yeah, I'm going to kind of talk more about the risk informed portion of it, just to kind of give you a flavor of how we think we're doing in that portion. I'm a PRA guy doing risk and safety analysis for some 40 years and risk applications like risk informed text backs. You know, a lot of people have difficulty understanding what truly risk informed and what truly risk performance based applications are. And I think overall we're pretty excited about part 53 to be able to transition to a much more risk informed and performance based approach. And there's been a lot of great progress in that area. I agree with what Ed just talked about, trying to apply this to advanced plants. You know, what we're proposing for advanced plants with passive and inherent features are a factor of 100 to 1000 times safer for public safety standpoint than existing fleet. And when you look at that, you know, that should bias quite a bit on the regulatory leeway on certain aspects of it that can be supported by risk assessment. But I think the progress is slow simply because a lot of the first words of the preliminary words that come out in the rulemaking may appear on the surface to be a performance based risk informed but they end up having a deterministic underlying set of requirements. A good example of that is the seismic wording that came out just last month that talked about all components SSC set are safety related and non safety with special treatment shall be cyclically qualified. Well, that's not informed. We really only want to have those components that are required to safely shut down and in case of a seismic event seismic and qualified, and you would have different qualifications for those that are safety related and those that are non safety with special treatment. We make good progress on the operator side with good with the certification and requirements for operators, because a lot of these plants are going to have no significant operator actions. So called walk away safe although the industry doesn't like that term but you know there's passive and inherent features that operators really aren't needed to safely shut down the plant unless multiple defense levels fail. And so we're relaxing the requirements for operator certification, but on the other hand the human factors engineering the hfe program requirements that are underlying the design of the control room design of the plant are still very deterministic you still have to run scenarios on your on your simulator. associated with for example station blackout when station blackout may not be risk important at all so I think every time the words come out initially for preliminary words for rulemaking. There's almost always a deterministic portion of it that maybe the NRC hasn't thought well about that they really should have thought it can I risk and form this better can I do a better job on that ask your puree guys. And then, when you thought about that bring it because right now what we're having to do is the industry gets feedback. This is a risk informed. Let's go ahead and think about this better. And then we go into discussion and the NRC been very good about modifying areas where they can find leeway to give but in the meantime it's just constantly his time and schedule on the overall process but back to the initial like you know we're all happy with the direction of the rulemaking. And we just look forward to working with the NRC to improve the risk informed portion of the rulemaking requirement. Thank you Dennis and everyone for your perspectives on that question. And the second question we touched on a bit but I want to get a little bit more granular here. How can we start the appropriate balance between flexibility and predictability. And I'll throw that out to whoever wants to address it first. And I'll start with that. So, I think what, you know, if you can clearly define at the beginning. You know what are the, what are the measurable safety objectives. What, what are the functions what is the criteria that we're specifically, you know, managing and and what are the in the sources of uncertainty to that. If we can clearly identify all of those up front, then it will be more easy for us to approach the, you know, our preparation of the application preparation of the, you know, the technical papers that we put into the NRC for the reviews of these regulations, and our approach to that then so the balance will be able to help provide that balance between the flexibility and, you know, and efficiency if you will, but I think it's clearly defining all of those up front what are the true objectives what are the true measures, and then allowing the vendors and utilities the operators to then, you know, put, put that approach together that that can create the balance. And I saw it's hand and then Dennis. Yes, thank you. So I am concerned that I do think there is a tension between flexibility and regulatory. There is uncertainty, but maybe a shortness. And danger is that if you go too far in the direction, and I do fear that part 53 is going too far in this direction of not having a sufficient number of and clear regulatory criteria in the rule itself, that that's not only going to make it more confusing for the public to understand what is actually being accomplished and licensing these reactors but I think it'll be harder for the actual review because I don't believe these very complex safety security issues that are going to come up in these reviews that that will have to be dealt with at some level if it's on the rule, it's going to be in the guidance in a request for additional information in the back and forth. And the staff is forced to have to clarify over and over what exactly it means. And the applicants are going to have to explain, you know, in these how to have they interpret these vague rules. And I feel like that could actually lead to less certainty, because of this lack of clarity so I would, I think it would benefit every stakeholder, if the rule itself had some more specific performance and and in some cases where appropriate terministic requirements to reduce that uncertainty. Okay, I see Dennis and then Dave. Right, I appreciate it. The mostly what we're GHH is working on both the X 300 BWR X 300 reactor and the nature and reactors supporting tariff power. So those are currently proposing to go under the part 50 or 52 probably part 50 licensing approach, simply for predictability predictability is, is money right so it's, if we lose a year of schedule on a reactor the difference between becoming profitable and not profitable and then. And the other part is you know we're going to build a second or third plant in that in that reactor type so we have a predictable approach under part 50. And, and the problem we see right now in part 53 really has to do with the additional requirements under part 53. And many of which we've seen in industry letters to the NRC that maybe haven't been fully thought out as far as a support for why those additional requirements are in in the rule such as a Laura and other other areas that there's no addition that for advanced reactors is as alignment is mentioned, we are we're looking at much lower risk plants in general with advanced safety features so we expect to have some additional consideration for beyond design basis accidents, but, but to have a safer impact and then now add in additional requirements not part under under 50 part 50 like a Laura. It does remove the predictability does and so plants are going to continue until with part 50 until we can figure out if we can, if that burden to go into part 53 is not that large. I think I think rethinking these extra portions of it, some of which we expect there to be, you know, some advancements and some additional requirements, but as long as that's not too well really burdens on the industry would really benefit from that predictability. Thanks. Thank you, and Dave. So before I begin, I just want to let folks know that my opinions on my own up those of the ACRF, those are found on the official website. I think this is an inherent problem, even what the task at hand is to go across all the technologies that we're talking about. There has to be more flexibility, and you give up predictability as part of that. It's a, it's a fulcrum, you know, it's a balance. What's flexible for one technology may not be for another. And so it's very hard to write more prescriptive rules at higher at the higher levels when they may not apply to all the technologies because the technologies are very different. So I think we need to get into into the details and the, the, the devil is going to be in guidance because there's just no way to stick that all in the rule. So I think it's important to understand that that's sort of inherent in what, what the staff is trying to do. Thanks. Before we look at the results of pulling question to ask one more question and this is specific to Dan and Dennis. How important is part 53 to your business plans we heard about a little bit earlier from Dan with the timing issue but if we could just flesh flesh that out a little bit more. Andrea, thank you. So, again, your point about the timing, you know, obviously with what we're doing out in Washington State right now, and the time that we're moving forward with part 50 as Dennis talked about some of the same reasons we're doing that at this point. Again, the subsequent, the subsequent plants that we would deploy would clearly set themselves up for a part 53 type process. Again, anytime, you know, at this point, any first deployment without the predictability, you know, of a of a seasoned rulemaking, you're going to go with what you've done before for that very reason you got significant investment going on and the risk of going into uncharted waters with that people just aren't going to to take on so once we have an operating plant once we got a plant that is under regulatory approval. Then we'll have operating experience will have some other things that will probably help help get us through maybe an initial part 53 rulemaking process and then set itself up for subsequent ones. And, you know, after that so we clearly see that as we will definitely be looking at that type of approach down the road. If, again, if we do get the efficiencies out of the out of the part 53 process, we are certainly gearing up to going that approach down the road. So, that's so yes it to you the importance. Yes, we see it as a key part of our business down the road. Thank you. Dennis would you like to comment. Yeah, I think I'll keep it brief because I think I agree with Darren said that you know it's, we're moving under part 50 initially with all reactors but you can see longer term than the you make a safety case under your application and if the safety case for part 53 years is less burdensome to maintain. And then the operation of plan is less burdensome. Then, then the second and third and fourth plants that we build will definitely move in that direction and that that's going to be key to make it making sure the industry succeeds to not have the expense of maintaining license that we do under the current part 50 so I think for the initial licenses is not part of our business case but for long term survivability of what we're trying to do is very important. Right at this point I'd like to pull up the results of polling question to it's really relevant to our next discussion on stakeholder engagement. The engagement really has been a cornerstone you heard in the remarks I think by certainly by the chairman and other commissioners how extensively we've been engaging with stakeholders and that was part of the reason for requesting an extension. So the engagement is very important to us and we want to kind of get an idea of whether or not it's about right too much too little so as we're waiting for the poll questions to come up we can kind of start or the excuse me the results of poll question to we can kind of start the discussion. What do you think are the key lessons learned from stakeholder engagement so far. I think one of the key ones we've learned is just an appreciation for how challenging it is to develop risk informed performance rule performance based rules for a wide variety of technologies. You've heard Edwin you've heard Dennis pointed out. These are very different designs and key areas of their safety focus are maybe in completely different parts of the plant one may be a fuel based safety focus another one may be the operating systems based safety focus so it really it's difficult to you know to be all encompassing all at once and Dave I really appreciate your comments and that you know what what the NRC faces with how do you how do you make it efficient but make it good for every single design out there so I think that's a lesson learned is just an appreciation for that so it is difficult it's not something we can just turn out overnight you know and have a panacea so I think that's that's one of the significant key lessons learned I think. Okay, thank you. I see it and then Dave. Yes, thanks one of the my observations from this process and it is a different approach to rulemaking and then it's typical with this much higher degree of involvement of various stakeholders which primarily means the industry. It does not appear that it was the most efficient way to move forward with this and it does raise difficult questions in my mind about the influence of the regulated parties on the NRC's development of rules. And so I'm not sure it was really it's been superior to a more traditional process where there the NRC's notice and counter rulemaking where every stakeholder including members of the public have have a clear but relatively limited role in development of the actual language and then there's a paper trail, a very clear record of where the various parties can comment on those rules where they disagree with the NRC and how the NRC resolves those so I am a bit concerned that this has led to an excessive degree of industry involvement and the thing is the industry is not monolithic and that's led to some confusion as well. Another thing I would say is I do think a regulatory basis is needed was also decided not to take that step in this rulemaking but I think it's sufficiently complex that that would really suit. It would be appropriate for documenting why decisions were made as far as the particular rule text when it finally comes out and I really feel it's important to have some sort of a crosswalk. If this is going to be equivalent to the current level of safety that there has to be an understanding or everything has to be laid out every time there's a change to a current requirement explain what's the basis of that change and how it doesn't fundamentally change the level of safety of the current rules. Thank you and and before we go to Dave if we could get the results of polling question to display and Dave go right ahead. Okay. So, I just wanted to expand upon this balance that the staff is trying to strike between predictability and flexibility. If you look across the technology, Dennis is right. What I like about past 53 and particularly the risk based approach is that it should help you focus very quickly on what are the really safety important things to worry about design, and they're going to be very different across the technology, but you're not going to have a lot of time in terms of, you know, the review and being stuck on something because all that used to be an issue over here with technology X but it isn't an issue here with technology Y. It should help increase the focus and in fact we're seeing that today with some of the plants that are coming in in pre application. They're very different in their technologies and the issues raised to the rise to the top very quickly and they cause a focus and that I'm hoping will accelerate the overall review process. Thank you Dave. And I know the next question I'll go ahead and start with Dennis because I know he's going to want to speak on this one. What should the role of a PRA be in design licensing and operations for example, enhance traditional or not. I appreciate the question and stop me if I get too much into the PRA nitty gritty but that I think the the industry in the industry have had a lot of conversation on that I think I think the conversation has been really good. And to simplify it down just a little bit I guess the answer is it depends right so if we're talking about a, you know, talked about a variety of advanced plants all the way from micro reactors, all the way up to, as I mentioned, potentially a larger reactor, but generally SMRs right and most of them are quite safe. But there are reactors that are really safe from a public standpoint either through because they're such a small source term like a micro reactor, or because they have inherent features where the possibility of release is very unlikely even given severe acts and conditions where fuel damage would normally occur from it for most reactors so this is the advanced fuel type of a reactor approach. For these types of reactors you could make a qualitative argument that's still a risk assessment but it's qualitative and as a result a PRA may not be needed. Now for most of the advanced reactors we still have to prove our safety cage right so we have for the nature in reactor for example sodium reactor 300 megawatt. It's a very low risk reactor because it has a passive air cooling has passive features such as inherent activity feedback. Gravity rock drops. And if you look at the overall risk it's quite quite low, but still a PRA is going to be important especially if we now start using that the PRA to do risk informed applications such as the determination of safety classification for the components. So I think there is a range and I think the first attempt with the white paper from NDI and later the work from the NRC to look at a variety of approaches is correct. And I think a lot of it has to do really with the inherent features and the relative risk of that plan from a public risk standpoint. Thanks. Thank you. And I see Dave's hand and then Dave, is your hand still up from before? Did you want to comment on this? No, I wanted to comment but I can't. Oh, there we go. Okay. I wanted to say, you have to say that beyond, you know, what we think of it the traditional PRA done on large light water reactors. In favor with dentistry, the answer really depends on the system that you're looking at, but that there are a number of risk tools in the risk toolbox that provide a lot of value without necessarily going all the way to fault trees and event trees and cutsets and all of that. And they can be very important in design. They use heavily in other industries like the chemical industry to really get a better handle on what you think the system is like and how you think it actually behaves in an integrated manner. And this is specifically true for systems that we've had no experience with, where either the fuel, the coolant, the moderator, any of them, we've never used in combination. And so how it actually behaves is just not known well enough. These risk tools can be very, very helpful without going to a full quote PRA. Thank you, Dave. And before we go to it, I just wanted to comment on the results of polling question two. And the question was about how much engagement, and it looks like overwhelmingly 41% said unsure 14 not enough. 32 says just about right and 13% says too much. So add your next and then Dan. Yeah, just following up on Dave. I have pretty strong concerns about a licensing approach for new reactors that depends too heavily on PRA results that don't that haven't been validated with industry experience so you know again this goes back to where it's appropriate and where it isn't to use new platform approaches. That said, I don't see much value in developing a part 53 that does incorporate, let's, let's hope that it'll incorporate PRA where appropriate and respecting its limits in accordance with the PRA policy statement and not going anywhere and taking uncertainties into account and requiring a defense in depth and where and deterministic requirements where PRA use isn't appropriate. And then once you have that framework, then to come up with a deterministic alternative, which is sort of like part 50 light. So what I'm afraid is what was going on here, and this relates to the earlier remark I made about applying to current generation reactors, is that you may end up with a parallel licensing process that's mostly deterministic but not as stringent as the current process for you know under part 52 and 52 and then it doesn't seem clear to me that that's necessary that applicants who do not want to go the risk informed route with with a PRA can simply stick to part 1552. Right. Thank you. I see Darren's hand was up and it went back. Yeah, I would just say that, you know, beyond what what all the other panels have said that the PRA as a tool goes beyond just the regulatory side of it it's helped as a design tool for us when you go from the conceptual stage all through a final design informing you know maybe eliminating some of the, you know, the hazards or as you're going along so the PRA as a tool is helpful throughout the process. Now, again, in rulemaking and regulatory space, is it the right thing to do, you know, with Edwin's comments about untested or unproven and with certain things. Clearly, you know at this point in time where most of us are looking at both right we're looking at the deterministic values as compared to what the PRA is giving us so at this point in time we have no clear only PRA type approach that we're doing so we're getting some sense of how good the PRA approaches are because right now we're looking a lot of the key safety areas with both. So, you know, what's the best balance with part 53 again we'll have to continue to look and and I'll you know I'll defer to experts like Dennis on that where we go to that because I'm certainly not one of them I'll get that right now but again that you know it's more than just a regulatory tool at this point in time when we think of PRA because it's how how it's helping us inform inform the design throughout the process from conceptual to final. Well, thank you Dan and we'll do one more question before we move to the last polling question and then also to leave plenty of time for Q's and A's. So this question is, are there any unique considerations that should be considered in part 53 with regard to nontraditional uses of nuclear energy such as process heat or industrial applications and new entities that have not owned or operated nuclear reactors before. Dennis I see your hand so. I appreciate it. I mean, there are a lot of considerations there I've been in a number of IEA meetings where worldwide is quite interesting what what is being proposed to fall away from desalination to, you know, uses that already been in place other places just to provide heating and hot water to towns or industrial uses. I don't want to focus on one aspect of it that important from a regulatory standpoint is, and that is. We'll call it a decoupling process and the nature in reactor itself is use a molten salt core to heat up. A sodium loop that goes to so molten salt tanks that store up the energy and allow the plant to put out more power during the day when it's needed and less power at night when it's not needed and the reactor just remains at the same power level. And the hot tanks and the coal tanks go up and down depending on what power levels needed. And that decoupled that we call a decoupling because regardless of what happens on the turbine generator side. The balance of plant side you can lose cooling water you could trip the turbine generator that the reactor itself doesn't isn't initially affected. And you could depend on the level of the molten salt tanks continue to operate for some time or you could just reduce power down and continue to operate. That I mean if you can show a decoupling on whatever the industrial use is whether it's a molten salt tank, whatever you happen to be, as long as we can now take those traditional requirements that you might have had on the turbine generator. And on the intake structure and all those things that just really don't affect nuclear safety and simplify those down to reduce them to minimal that really is going to be helpful to these applications so we don't have anything in part 53 specifically on decoupling, but the risk informed approach would allow us to move in that direction so just just something to think about on that. Thank you. And I think I saw Dave, Darren and Ed and apologies if I got the wrong order. Yeah, I was going to make the same comment as Dennis that this decoupling of the reactor from the application. I think there are certain technologies and design solutions that work. So a bad designer can design a reactor that's going to have a huge interaction if there's an upset in terms of the end use of the energy but I think a good designer will look at ways to uncouple that. And I think in the advanced technologies there's more than one technology that has these positive attributes so that you can not have to be as concerned about the impact of the end use of the energy on the reactor. Thank you. Ed and then, or I'm sorry, Darren. Yeah, so I don't have anything different to say other than what Dennis and Dave just said but other than the fact that what we have seen globally is that the percentage of industrial applications that are much more carbon based than when you think when you look at electricity based generation around the world so that in fact, decarbonizing the planet on the industrial heat side is actually even more significant going to nuclear is a much it's a bigger, you know, decarbonization footprint by utilizing nuclear on the industrial heat side so this is a very key and important part of part 53 is knowing and understanding that down the road. The uses of nuclear power are going to be for companies that historically have not been in nuclear and have not, you know, have just been burning carbon based products to create that higher temperature process heat that they need so it's something we clearly need to focus on in this rulemaking. Thank you and Ed. Yes, I think there are certain aspects where that decoupling may not be possible. And in particular, if you're talking about process heat and the potential that you have a nuclear reactor close to, you know, chemical plant, then you're going to have to worry about the external hazards posed by the plan on the reactor now that I think is already should be accommodated by by the rule, but it may need to be a little more explicit on how you know those. Those impacts would be assessed and then it goes the other way as well. What about the impacts of reactor accidents on the safe operation of a hazardous facility. So there are interactions and it may make sense for some specific provisions to make sure those aren't. Those are fully addressed. Thank you. And your answers were so crisp that we can actually do another question before we go to falling question three. And that is, how do you see the role of prototype or test reactors in the deployment of advanced reactors and how should part 53 facilitate this approach. I see Dan or Dave's hand up. So, I think that prototypes are really important. If a concept's never been built before. So I'm not saying gas reactors are not saying sodium reactors, many of those have been built, but there are other technologies out there under consideration that had never seen neutrons. And that's why I think a prototype would be useful. It's also in the broader engineering sense I find it interesting to hear comments about this, the chemical industry use pilot plants for any new process that they develop. When you've got this first of a kind. The prototype really helps you in terms of scaling up the process from an engineering perspective, you've got to write procedures and operational procedures if you've never done anything at any significant scale beforehand, how does one do that. Now, usually, you start with components, and you write procedures and you learn from the components you integrate them together you have some sort of a loop, maybe a very small reactor. And, and from that, you then develop the bigger reactor that's how we actually development it's been done around the world. And it's not by accident, it's good engineering practice. And so I don't see us, you know, deviating from that. And I think it should be part of past 53 as an option. Yeah, I would I would strongly agree with that. I think that, and taking some issue with with Dennis. The problem is that if you do have reactors that have not had. You may have had some tester demonstration experience but not necessarily captured features of current designs that are critical for making that safety case that you do need a prototype testing to demonstrate some of these inherent safety features. Before, you can have confidence that they can be licensed with, you know, what are called operational flexibilities or have you want to characterize and I would say a margin reduction. So, I think prototyping has to be a critical part of that. And the current language and 5043 E I guess, regarding prototypes is ambiguous. And I think it has clear criteria for determining when or at what point the energy would decide that prototypes is information is necessary which could impact schedules. So I really would hope that part 53 we have more clarification of that, and perhaps milestones decision making where applicants are are notified that they're going to need to build and demonstrate a prototype if they want a particular. If they want a particularly regulatory relief to be able to take advantage of that so I really would hope that those requirements for prototypes should be clarified in the rule and Dennis. Thanks, Andrea. I don't disagree with Ed said I think the prototypes for reactors we haven't operated it prior. It's going to be super important. Luckily in the sodium reactor space we've had a long history of sodium reactor operation. For example, EBR two ran for over 30 years and we and it has a safety features that we're going to be utilizing in the current generation of sodium reactor fast reactor so. But you know molten salt reactors are going to be going to need that and I know Kyros is moving in that direction and so it's really important. The aspect that nobody else had covered yet though is let me talk about the testing. The Department of Energy is proposing to test a lot of the advanced fuels and materials in the first cell test rack to be TR and unfortunately the funding on this has dried up considerably and that is delayed. And as a result, you know a lot of what we're going to be building for some of these reactors will not have a lot of the testing we need for advanced materials, especially in our advanced fuels and so they'll move forward with what we know the types of materials and what we know and I think we can make a lot of progress in the area of safety. If the VTR were completed. So completed VTR is super important for I think everybody's everybody's sake. Thanks. And Darren. Yeah, you know, like what Dennis said, in the history behind high temperature gas cool reactors goes back to many decades, not just many years may decades. And we also at X energy will be, you know, our planning a series of helium loop testing that will do, you know, we doing a component so we will not be obviously setting up a prototype reactor. But we're certainly going to be doing some irradiation of our fuel compact the pebble and we're going to be setting up some, some temperature, you know, high temperature helium loop tests for the component so again we're we're pseudo setting up prototype testing and the reactor without actually doing a prototype reactor itself so I think clearly where you've got technologies that have never been used before, setting it up in some type of prototype reactor is probably, you know, probably the right thing to do from an engineering standpoint. Thank you Darren. And as we get ready to move into Q's and a's can we get the last polling question question number three displayed and then I will start with the quit with the Q's and a's. So, Darren is on the screen, and I believe the first note the first question is for Dennis Dennis. What is your view with regard to the security risk informed and the role of security vulnerability assessment in the context of performance based regulatory framework. That's a great question. Under the JCNR M or drunk man nuclear risk management we have a working group on risk informed physical and cybersecurity with two working groups that are looking at that. I need to correct Mr. Petty's wording. He used the word risk based for us in the PR a industry risk basis kind of like four letter word you know we try not to use it. What we're looking at is a risk informed approach. And, and there are different, different approaches but you know use, use the risk assessment that you have typically a PR a. You know, regardless of what the results show you you always ensure you maintain a defense in depth, and you ensure you have adequate safety margins when the risk assessment can't cover that aspect. Then we, then we move into a deterministic set of requirements. So if you if you haven't done the risk assessment even under the lights and modernization project for example, you would default to a deterministic approach. Now security is an interesting one we can do a traditional PR a because the PR a looks at both the consequences of, you know what happens when something is damaged, as well as the frequency and the frequency of the security event is the hardest thing to estimate. All right, you can't can't predict what somebody may do to the plant for a variety of whether whether they're an aircraft crash or just a security vent overall security breach. The risk informed security working group is working in that area to try to at least look at the relative frequencies and see if they can help. But I think the longer term and I'm sure Mr lineman would agree is I don't think in the short term we're going to be able to risk informed security fully we can, we can use risk information as the current fleet is using risk information as part of our the target sets from the PR a and in the level of damage and maybe, maybe seen for various events, but with regard to removing a lot of the term deterministic criteria associated physical security so it can, we can get to it there to a certain risk and take credit for passive features inherent features over the actor, but I still think that will be a fairly large deterministic overlay on requirements until we can do a little bit better job on estimating frequency of various events. Thank you Dennis. Now the next question is for me. It says, how has information from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, especially the SMR testing at chalk river, help support development of part 53 for addressing diverse safety and environmental points of view on licensing new and advanced reactors. And this is not specific to chalk river but we have a memorandum of cooperation with CNSC and we've been coordinating for a while with them on various aspects including development of part 53. And one of the specific examples is actually came from feedback and meetings as well is to make sure what we're doing is not impacting in a negative way international standards. So as we're developing part 53, we're interacting with CNSC to make sure there's this global approach, and we're also interacting with them on fusion as you heard the chairman mentioned, we're in a learning phase of giving options to the commission for their consideration and we will be submitting a paper to the commission with regard to fusion. So the next question is for Ed. This question combines two questions we received, and it says why would you exclude certain reactors from part 53, simply because of the kind of coolant they use, and likewise what specifically is your concern with all reactors including non passive plants using risk and form licensing. What in the process account for different types of technology. Yes, and to be clear I only singled out large light water reactors because that's what the current fleet consists of so we're essentially talking about anything new, compared to the current fleet. But the point, the point is if reactor design comes for, if there's an application for reactor design that doesn't have a clear case for saying that it has significantly enhanced safety which means that maybe the NRC can take certain changes with the existing licensing approach. Why should it have the benefit of being able to enter into this alternative approach and if, and again, it raises the potential that that these new facilities may be licensed under a regime which is not comparable to safety and I know the goal is to make part 53 comparable but you know again, there's some they're going to be a lot of, I think, lack of there's going to be lack of clarity and number of different areas that don't have to do with fundamental reactor design issues and operational programs like operation, operator licensing requirements, things like that is already well established for the current fleet, and I just feel like this is opening the door to a sort of parallel, but weaker process potentially writing new applicant, which could possibly lead to an overall decrease in safety of the fleet so that's my concern. Thank you. And the next question is for me as well. Does this mean we would develop a new SRP or standard review plan for advanced reactor reviews which would apply to all types of reactor designs? No, we're prioritizing the development of this technology inclusive regulatory guidance and consensus codes and standards. We have very significant activities underway now, for example, developing the technology inclusive guidance for content of application to help applicants that are coming in to be clear on what they need to provide. So the next question is for all panelists. Let's see the iterative rulemaking process with partial releases, comment taking, then reconsideration is inherently inefficient as ad notes that can result in a more widely accepted final product or not. Do you think use of this process for Part 53 has helped or has it just caused additional frustration amongst all stakeholders because of the multiple rounds of engagement? So let's start with I'm looking at Dennis, let's start with Dennis to get your thoughts on that and then anybody else can raise your hands if you want to comment. I appreciate Andrea. I think I mentioned it earlier and I wouldn't say it's so much frustration. I think it just takes extra time overall and I think it's going to delay the process. It's not that the overall process of engagement and discussion and then revision of the rule, the draft rule. I think it's very positive aspect of it because it's not just taking the industry comments. It's taking Mr. Lyman's comments, whoever wants to comment on it, and then the NRC raised that as they should independently and then come up with what they believe to be the best approach. The problem we're seeing is that the amount of engagement is just too high. For me, it's again back to that the original wording that was released is just too deterministic, too much similar to the old wording that requires a little bit too much engagement and if we can somehow have the NRC think about the wording a little bit better before it comes out and interface with their own PRA people, that would really reduce the amount of interaction required. What's really happening is the industry is focusing in on the things that they see, right, so that's important to them. But underlying that, right, we see, you know, the operator requirements for example, operator training and certification, that all seem to be very good. And then underlying that's the human factors, engineering stuff I referred to earlier, nobody's focusing on that because that's a smaller piece of the pie than we're worried about. And eventually we'll have to talk about these other things that we haven't yet had discussion on and maybe underlying like the number of the fire brigade for the fire protection program and the underlying deterministic fire protection requirements for suppression and detection and all that. How do you risk inform all that. So, I think it's just, you know, we foresee further delays because of that amount of interaction this is all the only problem with the underlying process I think we have to go through it. It's just get where we want to go I think we have to go through it. Thank you, Darren. Yeah, so to Dennis's point, I would tell you that I don't think it's the processes that make it slow it's just that this is hard. What we're trying to do is hard. And so it's not going to be just simple and quick that we get through this so the reason everyone is commenting on it because it is difficult and there's a lot of different things that we have to consider. We're going to make it technology inclusive. You have to have it very broadly based and the flexibility to it so again. Yes, it's going to make it longer than previously when the NRC was just, you know, focusing themselves on creating a language and then just letting us comment on the language but I would tell you that I think it's just hard it's long because it's hard to do, not that we've got the wrong process going. That's what I would say. I see hands up so I would add here to that I think the value and doing this the way we've done it so early. This is an unbiased opinion is that a lot of these really difficult issues are put on the table early. So you can iterate on the issues and there has been change there's been significant change that has come about because of this iterative process and just imagining having all of that and one. You know, submittal and then trying to resolve all of those issues in a public comment period, it would just kind of prolong it at that point. While we're taking the time up front to really kind of dig into some of these issues, I think it's the value and I see it's hand up. Yeah, since I raised this in the first place I won't say too much but there were more than one occasion I saw a process where the staff came out with a proposal. They were criticized by a number of industry stakeholders they went back and thought they changed it to accommodate what they heard, and then the industry attack again. And maybe even criticize why they were making the change in the first place even though they suggested it. So it seems like there was some going in circles at one point which is one fan flag. Thank you. The next question is for Dennis risk informed is a blend of risk insights with deterministic insights. Isn't what you're talking about discarding deterministic requirements risk base. I used the word discarding deterministic criteria requirements but the risk informed is using risk results risk information. Along with a deterministic overlay which includes defense and depth and and safety margin so regardless of what your puree said you still have a safety analysis and still have a safety case to be made. And when again you don't have risk information and risk results and you have deterministic you go with a deterministic set of criteria. So we would never discard deterministic criteria we may per se we may. If we can demonstrate the risk is sufficiently low with margin and and with adequate defense and depth and we may remove requirements for example for components to be safety related they may be still present but not safety related. Hopefully that explains it depends on the application of risk informed as far as what you're doing but for risk informed licensing. We still have deterministic requirements there in the area of defense and depth. The next question is for me. Does the advanced reactor guys being developed by NRC require any revisions additions in response to recent commission decisions to require a revised guys for subsequent license renewal review. And no the advanced reactor guys is before the commission now the staff is not planning on making any changes at this time we're waiting commission direction but it is before the commission now. Okay, Dennis you're very popular. There's another question I'm going to start skipping around because a lot of them are for you Dennis but I'm going to ask this one now. How does the proposed part 53 compare with risk informed licensing used or proposed in other countries. This is a great question and and if if you could if folks can understand this the answer to this, they can, a lot of progress can be made overall and let me let me explain. And then Andre mentioned the Canadian work of the X 300 right now is being licensed first at the Darlington site in Canada and then proposed as one of the possible plants to be put at the TVA site. And so it's going to be licensed under CNSC requirements, which apply by a guidance and say to requirements. The guidance is already and has been for some time risk informed and and from a, again, keeping a, my, my safety analysis had on the requirements really are to develop your license base events which determine your design basis accent evaluation and beyond design based action evaluation. That can be risk informed using using the PRA and then the levels of defense that are used to determine what responses design based accents can be risk informed. And the only and the only thing that the IEA has not yet done is go to the, the, the third stage of it's in licensing monetization. And that is safety classification safety classification for LMP initially comes from the recommendation from the quantification of the PRA. And then you go through a separate process which overlays deterministic requirements to what comes out of the safety analysis and goes through an independent decision making panel, and eventually you end up with a larger group of what safety related and what's non-safe to a special treatment. So that the last part that safety classification under the IEA approach is, is not allowed under IEA, current IEA methods, although they're working on it. What is stronger for the IEA, and we've mentioned a number of times, is the defense and depth. It has a more formal defense level, a one through five approach which is a systematic way to, to describe your safety case with regard to defense and depth, which currently is not under any of the NRC proposed approaches. Now the, we mentioned that in, in our, the NEI letter on, you know, the, the so-called IEA approach. But to me, the, when we look at the defense level approach for the IEA, it's much stronger defense and depth, systematic defense and depth approach than what's, what's currently under the current reactor fleet. And we all are looking also at that plan at defense level to the nature and plan, because it's just provides such a strong safety case for defense and depth. Thanks. Thank you Dennis. And before we move on to the next question, which is for Ed, could we get the results of the last polling questions display? And then for Ed, you noted the uncertainties associated with the proposed Part 53. So should we conclude that you may have a preference for one of the other current processes, Part 50 or Part 52? Yes. So, so clearly, you know, current processes are not perfect. They're a historical grab bag of stuff. And certainly trying to, trying to come up with a new framework that's more consistent overall is not a bad idea. And pointing back to the Fukushima Lessons Learned Task Force, there were a lot of issues with the regulatory framework that were pointed out then. But the commission decided that there was nothing wrong with the regulatory framework. Yet a few years later, they decided that they needed to transform everything, including the reactor licensing. I do think actually looking back at Part 50, I think there's already a lot of flexibility in the rule that maybe is not complete, is not appreciated. Certainly there are light water reactor specific requirements. Those can be pretty easily dealt with. So I, I thought instead of actually developing a new Part 53 where it's going to be a heavy lift to try to figure out how it corresponds to the current safety basis, that maybe you could deal with non-light water reactor designs through appendices to Part 50 and 52. In other words, let the staff do the exercise of determining what, you know, how safety functions will translate into these other designs. And, you know, the actual menagerie of advanced reactors is not, it's not really that big. If you think of it as just a combination of a few different coolant types, fuel materials, and spectra, neutron spectra. And so it seems like that's a finite problem that could be solved within the existing framework rather than throwing everything out and starting out. Thank you, Ed. And we do have time for one more question. And this is just directed to whoever wants to respond. And then we'll go back to the results of the polling question. There are about 40 reactors used in non-electric applications. It increases about 15% in efficiency. And that should be encouraged for industrial applications to help reduction in carbon and reduce energy costs. Did anybody want to comment on that? And I can start by saying, as a regulator, we don't have a role in encouraging any type of technology over another, any type of application. But we're just trying to make sure Part 53 supports whatever non-traditional technology is out there, hence the technology inclusive part. Any comments? I see tennis. A literal hand raise. Yeah, yeah, both redundancy. Yeah, I mentioned earlier the sodium approach for using molten salt storage tanks so that we can run a higher power level during the day. And then depending on the amount of molten salt you store and the size you're turning in, you could get quite a bit more power, say 50% more power during the days. You know, at times when the load at the grid is much higher. And overall, if you look at the carbon reduction for that approach, if you look at the plants that are running for peak power loads, these are generally from in the US, especially, these are your worst polluters. These are your worst CO2 emitters, right? We're trying to run natural gas plants, which are still large CO2 emitters, but not as bad as some of the coal fire plants and other oil plants and other types of plants that are running out there. So the carbon reduction for a load following a new plant of that type is probably 30% better than a similar plant that's a base load plant. So I think that, you know, a lot of people talk about innovation. I don't know if part 53 gives us so much innovation, but the industry is thinking about these sorts of things about carbon reduction. Trying to think about how we can reduce the carbon footprint, even more from just adding a whole series of base load plants. And I think the industry is going to find ways to do this. And the part 53 really needs to be ready to be able to facilitate that because these are all great ideas, you know, and nature implants are one of several great ideas out there for reducing the carbon footprint. Thank you, Darren. Yeah, to further Dennis's point, when you think about a high temperature gas cooled reactor, for instance, so the load follow capability of a plant like this is very significant. So, you know, in a typical light water reactor when you change the power, you typically have a pretty significant change in the temperature and the components in the reactor itself right you're going to be changing the, and that, and that's why it's so difficult on the fuel and difficult to the reactor itself to be changing power constantly, well in a high temperature gas cooled reactor it's literally just simply the mass flow of the helium itself. And you really don't change the temperature or the conditions in the reactor itself with the change in power. So, you know, it's almost like a, you know, it's a race car type of change and you know, being able to load follow when you compare to the typical light water fleet that we have now. And with that, with advanced reactors, one of the things you're difficultly you know you're definitely looking for is the ability to, as Dennis says, replace this load following portion of the fleet now and electricity in the electricity generation anyway. And so, Part 53, taking that into account in how we are addressing those reactors that are going to be focusing on those types of operations, being able to load follow being able to do that. You know, in a much more quick fashion than you would have done with the typical light water reactors. So, Part 53 is going to have to have the flexibility to be able to deal with that with those types of reactors. Thank you, Darren. And if we could have the results for polling question three, which is future focused. So we talked about what what you like to see more stakeholder engagement on and it looks overwhelmingly that experience with piloting risk informed licensing approaches at 58% 29% is flexible, flexible options for licensing. 4% is how to get more involved with part 53 and 10% is the rulemaking process. So we'll take this result into consideration as we do our continued public meetings future sessions like this, like the Rick and other sessions. And I thank you for participating in all of the polling. As we've gone throughout this session. Could we have slide for please slide for is going to tell you more information about how to get more involved in the in the rulemaking activity. And we have a website the link is shown on the slide there. The public comment period the official public comment period has been extended to August 31 2022. And submit comments on regulating on regulations that go under the docket shown there. And for further information you can contact Robert Bell and his contact information is available on the slide here. Before we end today's session I would just like to thank everyone for your attendance and in particular our panelists I know you're all very busy. Thank you for your active participation through law like polling and your thoughtful questions was much appreciated. I'd also like to thank our session coordinators Amy Cubbage and Steve Philpot we could not have done this without them. It takes a lot to do a Rick and in particular a technical session. I hope that the folks that answered polling question one that they've heard a part 53 but didn't have a lot of background. You know as more educated we had diverse views here and we have a lot of interaction and discussion. So I hope that next time we do a poll like this those folks would would tick up in their knowledge of part 53. And with that our session is now closed and I'd like to thank all of you.