National Academies Press: OpenBook

Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States (2023)

Chapter: 7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States

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Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
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7

Nuclear Regulation in the United States

Domestic power reactors are tightly regulated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in all phases of their life cycle—design, construction, operations, and decommissioning. The NRC is charged with licensing and regulation of plants to provide reasonable assurance of adequate protection of public health and safety, to promote common defense and security, and to protect the environment.1

The fundamental design of light water reactors dates from the early days of reactor operation, although there have been significant enhancements to improve operations and safety over the years. The NRC requires compliance with detailed regulations that are tailored to light water reactors (LWRs). The existing regulatory requirements may be inappropriate or inapplicable to non-LWR designs and some of the advanced designs present new regulatory issues. As a result, significant modification or adjustment of regulatory requirements is required to accommodate some of the advanced reactors.

THE REGULATORY PROCESS

All but the two plants now under construction in the United States (Vogtle 3 and 4) were licensed pursuant to Part 50 of the NRC’s regulations. Under this licensing process, an applicant first obtains a construction permit (CP). The issuance of this permit involves a careful examination of siting-related issues but requires only a general description of the specific reactor design. While the reactor is under construction, the applicant typically pursues an operating license (OL), which is required prior to the loading of fuel and the commencement of reactor operations. An applicant or an interested stakeholder can challenge the NRC staff’s proposed decisions before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (a panel of administrative judges employed by the NRC), followed by review by the Commission, and potentially by a U.S. Court of Appeals. The Part 50 process allows an applicant to proceed with construction before assembling all the necessary technical material that is required for an OL, but that presents the risk that the decisions at the OL stage might require extensive retrofits of a substantially completed reactor.

The NRC established a second licensing pathway in the late 1980s (NRC 2018a). Part 52 allows an applicant to apply for a combined license (COL) that authorizes both construction and operations (NRC 2018a). A COL defines the terms that must be satisfied to allow operation, thereby reducing the risk that new requirements might be imposed after completion of construction: Before fuel can be loaded and operations can commence, the NRC ensures that certain inspections, tests, analyses, and acceptance criteria (ITAAC) set out in the license are satisfied.

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1 The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to evaluate the impacts of proposed actions on the human environment. The NRC complies with NEPA through its regulations in 10 CFR Part 51.

Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
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FIGURE 7-1 Two licensing processes for new commercial nuclear power plants in the United States. ITAAC is inspections, tests, analyses, and acceptance criteria. SOURCE: J. Buongiorno, M. Corradini, J. Parsons, et al., 2018, “The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World,” Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative.

This verifies that the reactor authorized by the COL has been built and that any open issues have been resolved. See Figure 7-1.

Part 52 also allows, but does not require, certain ancillary regulatory actions that serve to provide early resolution of regulatory issues. For example, Early Site Permits (ESPs) allow the approval of a site for a reactor that meets requirements relating to environmental impacts, including evaluation of alternative sites, and site-suitability issues, such as emergency preparedness and security matters. An ESP can be sought before a decision is made to use the site or a specific reactor design is selected.

Another important innovation is the opportunity for a vendor to obtain a design certification (DC) for the full design of a reactor’s nuclear island, resulting in a rule that can be cited by an applicant for a COL to show satisfaction of all the licensing requirements resolved in the promulgation of the rule. Part 52 also authorizes a standard design approval (SDA), which does not have the full binding effect of a DC.2 A DC and SDA can be obtained before there is a decision to proceed with construction of the plant. A DC or SDA can be particularly attractive to a vendor because it covers all applications of the design. So, if a given design is constructed at many sites, there is only one regulatory review of the design.

Of particular interest to the vendors of some advanced reactors is the opportunity to obtain a manufacturing license that allows the fabrication of a nuclear power plant at a location other than the one where it is to be installed and operated. This license may be attractive to vendors that intend to establish a factory to build a reactor to be deployed at many sites.3

These various elements of Part 52 reduce regulatory risk because the matters resolved during the approval of the COL, ESP, DC, SDA or manufacturing license cannot be reexamined absent significant and new information that calls into question the previous resolution of an issue.4 But two problems remain. First, a drawback of a DC, an SDA, or a COL is that each tends to freeze the design at an early stage. There are issues that can arise as a design is finalized or that are found during construction, which may necessitate regulatory approvals of changes, resulting in delay and expense.5

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2 Although the staff is bound by a SDA, it does not affect the authority of the Commission or the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel in reviewing a license application. 10 CFR 52.145.

3 A reactor manufactured under a manufacturing license may only be transported to and installed at a site for which either a construction permit or a COL has been issued. A manufacturing license applicant may reference a standard design certification or a standard design approval in its application. 10 CFR 52.153.

4 The risk is not eliminated because of the need to satisfy the ITAAC. Moreover, the NRC has the authority to order modifications of any reactor, so-call “backfits,” if the change is necessary to provide adequate protection of public health and safety or if the change is justified by comparison of the costs and benefits of a change. 10 CFR 50.109.

5 The Vogtle plants that are being built in Georgia have been long delayed and far exceeded their initial budget. Part of the reason arises from the need to introduce significant modifications of the design that became apparent as construction was under way.

Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
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This obstacle can be overcome at least in part if a vendor uses both of the existing regulatory processes. An applicant can pursue a license under Part 50 for the demonstration of the design, thereby allowing the opportunity for problems that arise during construction to be corrected before the final design is submitted for approval of an OL. Based on the experience with the demonstration, the vendor could then adjust its design, if necessary, and seek a DC under Part 52, enabling the vendor to avoid repetitive review of the design in subsequent construction projects.

The second challenge is not so easily overcome. Under either Part 50 or Part 52, the vendor will incur substantial front-end expenses to assemble all the detail that is required to complete the relevant licensing process. (SEAB 2016). These expenses can be very substantial in the case of an OL or a COL in part because of NRC fees (many tens of millions of dollars) (NRC 2020a),6 but largely because of all the work that is required by the applicant to assemble the necessary tests, analyses, and documentation to support a license application (many hundreds of millions of dollars). This is an issue for any of the advanced reactors because there is a risk that after large expenditures, the NRC might find some features unacceptable or might impose unanticipated and costly additional requirements.

Over the years, the regulatory philosophy of the NRC has also changed. In the early years of nuclear power, the safety requirements were guided by deterministic analyses and engineering judgment, resulting in prescriptive requirements that form the foundation of the NRC’s rules. The capacity to undertake sophisticated probabilistic analyses of accident sequences was subsequently developed (NRC 1986). The probabilistic analyses support an approach to regulation in which a high-risk event must be prevented or mitigated to a greater extent than a low-risk event.7 Such probabilistic risk analyses (PRAs) provide a means to assess whether the existing prescriptive requirements should be relaxed or enhanced. This has resulted in a regulatory system in which risk-informed adjustments constitute an overlay on former regulatory requirements based on deterministic analyses (Kadambi et al. 2020).8 While the operators of the existing nuclear fleet are supportive of risk-informed initiatives, they generally endorse their usage only for adjustment or, as necessary, for supplementation of the existing prescriptive requirements; the operators value stability in regulatory requirements and are wary of sweeping modifications. As discussed later in this chapter, the vendors of some advanced reactors, on the other hand, seek significant departures from the existing requirements.

Concurrent with the development of probabilistic capabilities, the regulatory philosophy of the NRC, as with other regulators, has evolved to emphasize outcomes rather than prescriptive requirements (Walker and Wellock 2010). That is, the aim of regulation is to specify the safety objective to be achieved rather than a set of detailed engineering-level requirements to meet the safety objective.9 The licensee is then allowed to determine the optimal way to satisfy the performance objective.

An additional complication in the rigid application of Part 50 and Part 52 to advanced reactors is that many of the advanced reactors present safety- and security-related issues that differ from those of LWRs. If Parts 50 and 52 were taken as the model and the existing requirements for LWRs were adapted to accommodate other technologies, a tailored set of specific regulatory requirements for each different technology would need to be developed. Given the diversity of technologies that the advanced reactor vendors are proposing or could propose in the future, this would be a huge undertaking. To avoid these problems, there is significant interest in developing a technology-inclusive regulatory framework. In fact, in the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA),10 Congress directed the NRC to develop such a regulatory framework for optional use by licensees by the end of 2027. (The existing licensing pathways under Parts 50 and 52 would continue to be available.) The new rule will encompass not only licensing, but also the regulatory requirements for all stages of the nuclear plant’s life cycle. The NRC subsequently committed to promulgation of a final rule, to be designated as Part 53, before the statutory deadline.11 In the meantime, applicants can pursue the licensing of advanced reactors under Part 50 or Part 52 by pursuing exemptions from existing regulatory requirements where necessary.

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6 More than 90 percent of the NRC’s budget is recovered from fees paid by applicants and licensees. There are proposals to eliminate NRC review fees for advanced reactor license applications. H.R. 6154, 117th Congress, 1st Session (2021).

7 Risk is determined by consideration of both the probability of the occurrence of an event and the severity of the consequences of that event.

8 See also the NRC’s discussion of the history of risk-informed regulatory programs (NRC 2021).

9 The NRC often provides regulatory guidance documents that describe a way to satisfy performance-based requirements, but a licensee need not follow this guidance and can propose alternatives.

10 See Congress.gov, 2019, “Text—S.512—115th Congress (2017–2018): Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act,” https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/512/text.

11 The NRC originally set a deadline of October 2024 (NRC 2021a) but has since extended the deadline to July 2025 (NRC 2023).

Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
×

The Licensing Modernization Project (LMP),12 which was supported jointly by nuclear industry and DOE, was undertaken to provide a foundation for the licensing of advanced reactors in the interim before Part 53 is available. It uses probabilistic insights for the selection of licensing basis events (considered in the design and licensing of a plant), as well as for classification of structures, systems, and components to ensure that safety-significant components can fulfill their function (so-called “special treatment requirements”), and for the determination of the adequacy of “defense in depth.”13 The aim is to provide a comprehensive technology-inclusive, risk-informed, and performance-based means to guide licensing in a logical, systematic, and reproducible process. The LMP project has been followed by the industry-led Technology Inclusive Content of Application project (TICAP) to provide guidance on the structure and content of parts of the Safety Analysis Report, a critical element of an application to the NRC for the licensing of a design.14 At the same time, the NRC is developing guidance for other parts of the Safety Analysis Report.15

Some vendors have viewed the LMP approach as overly burdensome. They claim that their designs present so little risk that the sophisticated analyses demanded by the LMP are unnecessary. While not opposing the application of the LMP approach by others, they claim that alternative ways of establishing the safety case for an advanced reactor should also be allowed. For example, Oklo concluded that the LMP process was unnecessarily complicated for its microreactor design and submitted a COL application that was based on a deterministic analysis of safety. The NRC indicated that it was prepared to evaluate Oklo’s application, but it subsequently terminated its evaluation without prejudice on the basis that Oklo had not responded adequately to requests for information (NRC 2022c). Oklo has indicated that it will update its application and resubmit.

Extensive work by the NRC, the nuclear industry, and public commenters is under way to develop Part 53. The NRC issued a notice seeking comment on certain preliminary language for the contemplated rule.16 The NRC staff has indicated that the proposed rule will contain two alternative regulatory pathways—a “Framework A” that will be based on the PRA approach developed by the LMP, and a “Framework B” that would not require a PRA, but would use risk insights in a confirmatory role to a largely deterministic analysis.17 Framework B is based on the approach in the existing Part 50 and 52 while modifying it to be technology neutral. It provides a simplified approach that some vendors argue is appropriate for their designs.

Finding 7-1: In recognition that advanced reactors present different regulatory issues from light water reactors, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is allowing a degree of regulatory flexibility under the existing regulatory system (NRC Part 50 and Part 52). It is also pursuing a technology-independent, performance-based, and risk-informed regulatory process for advanced reactors to be promulgated as Part 53. These actions reflect reasonable flexibility by the NRC to adjust the regulatory system to accommodate reactors different from existing light water reactors.

REGULATORY CHALLENGES

The NRC plays a critical role in ensuring public safety and security, requiring careful, time-consuming, and independent analysis of a vendor’s claims. An applicant frequently must have extensive interactions with the NRC as the staff

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12 See Nuclear Energy Institute, 2019, Risk-Informed Performance-Based Technology-Inclusive Guidance for Non-Light Water Reactors, NEI 18-04, Rev. 1, Washington, DC: Nuclear Energy Institute. This guidance has been endorsed by the NRC in RG-1.233.

13 Defense in depth involves the establishment of multiple independent and redundant layers of defense to compensate for potential human and mechanical failures so that no single layer, no matter how robust, is exclusively relied on. Defense in depth includes the use of redundant and diverse means for meeting key safety functions, access controls, physical barriers, and emergency response measures. The consideration of defense in depth is a fundamental element in the design of NPPs. See generally International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group, 1996, Defence in Depth in Nuclear Safety, INSAG-10, Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency.

14 See Nuclear Energy Institute, 2022, Technology Inclusive Guidance for Non-Light Water Reactors: Safety Analysis Report Content for Applicants Using the NEI 18-04 Methodology, NEI 21-07, Rev 1, Washington, DC: Nuclear Energy Institute, https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2206/ML22060A190.pdf. This guidance is currently undergoing NRC review.

15 The NRC work is proceeding under the Advanced Reactor Content of Application Project (ARCAP).

16 See Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2020, “Risk-Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors,” Federal Register 85(216):71002–71003. Staff has engaged in several rounds of interactions with the vendors and other stakeholders in the development of rule language.

17 See Draft Statement of Considerations for Proposed Part 53 (NRC 2023).

Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
×

ask detailed questions to understand the safety and security implications of a proposed new technology. The NRC confronts very significant challenges in the regulation of advanced reactors. Some of these challenges are discussed below.

Safety

The development of a new framework for licensing is only the start of the work. An applicant must offer detailed analyses, backed up by test data, to show that its design provides reasonable assurance of adequate protection of public health and safety. Some of the new designs offer potential advantages that could ultimately simplify licensing. As explained in Chapter 2, many of the designs have reactor cores with less radionuclide content (and hence a smaller accident source term per unit) and some contemplate the use of advanced fuels that fail at much higher temperatures than the fuel now used in LWRs. Other designs operate at near atmospheric pressure, which can offer safety advantages because they avoid the high-pressure operation necessary for LWRs, reducing the need for robust piping and pressure vessels and limiting the propulsion of debris and radionuclides in an accident. Similarly, many of the advanced designs rely on passive systems—that is systems that use gravity, natural convection, or pressure gradients to achieve safety objectives—rather than pumps, valve actuators, and AC power. If effective, these changes potentially offer significant safety advantages as well as a means to simplify the reactor design in ways that reduce cost.

Nonetheless, careful analyses and tests will be required to establish safety given some of the significant changes from existing LWRs. For example, some designs propose novel fuel forms or contemplate relaxation of siting requirements. A massive, reinforced concrete containment is a required feature of existing LWRs to provide a final barrier to the release of radionuclides to the environment in the event of an accident, but some advanced reactor vendors claim that their designs are sufficiently safe and the source terms sufficiently small that this requirement can and should be relaxed, with resulting significant cost savings. While existing LWRs are operated by staff located at the plant, some vendors argue that their designs will allow remote autonomous operation or at the least the reduction of staffing requirements (NRC 2021b). These and many other such issues will have to be resolved through data and analysis in the safety review.

Microreactor designers seek to justify more significant modifications of the approaches to the assurance of safety than large reactors because of postulated lower risks.18 The NRC staff has observed that tailored modifications may be required relating to security requirements, remote and autonomous operations, siting considerations, environmental review, regulatory oversight, staffing requirements, manufacturing licenses, and annual fees, among other licensing issues.19 Again, a detailed review is necessary to justify any such adjustments of the regulatory requirements.

At the same time, the advanced reactors may present new challenges.20 For example, sodium-cooled fast reactors will require consideration of sodium-water and sodium-air reactions that have plagued many past versions of this design. If sodium coolant chemistry is not properly controlled, it can be corrosive and has often resulted in leaks and fires. Molten salt reactors will also require careful consideration of corrosion and erosion issues and freezing of molten salt in piping. The regulator will have to consider whether the risks posed by these new fuels, coolants, moderators, and designs require additional safety and security measures.

Box 7-1 shows an illustrative list of the regulatory issues that may require or warrant adjustment of the requirements established for the current generation of large LWRs. The issues will certainly differ among the various types

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18 Although there is not a precise agreed-upon term for what constitutes a micro reactor, such reactors are generally understood to have power levels generally on the order of tens of MWt or less (rather than the 3,000 MWt output of large existing LWRs), low potential consequences from radiological releases, small site footprints, increased reliance on passive systems, and inherent characteristics to control power and heat removal.

19 NRC, 2020, Policy and Licensing Considerations Related to Micro-Reactors (SECY-20-093), https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2012/ML20129J985.pdf. See also NRC, 2021, Micro-Reactors Licensing Strategies (staff white paper), https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=ML21235A418.

20 The ACRS has observed:

There is a tendency to believe in the perfection of new designs, especially when they are developed to eliminate the dominant failure scenarios in existing designs. However, one must remain vigilant and remember that nature provides surprises. There will be new accident scenarios and new combinations of events to be considered that challenge our expectations and our assumptions about these advanced reactor systems. Creative thinking will be required to identify such unique situations, to thoroughly identify the scenarios that will be the basis of the safety analysis and the source of releases, and to evaluate the suitability of sites.

Letter from P.C. Riccardella, ACRS Chairman, to Kristine Svinicki (October 7, 2019), https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1927/ML19277H031.pdf.

Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
×
Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
×
Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
×

of advanced reactors, and not all the issues will necessarily arise in the review of a particular advanced reactor. Nonetheless, the list demonstrates the wide range of matters that may arise in the NRC’s licensing review and that may require scrutiny. The NRC has undertaken considerable work to identify the matters with which it will be confronted and has interacted with vendors and other stakeholders to provide guidance as to how it plans to approach many of these matters.21 But hard decisions remain ahead as the NRC actually resolves the many new matters in the review of licensing applications.

Even in those cases in which the requirements are not changed, the details of how to show compliance—that is, specifically how the requirements are met—are likely to be considerably different from those for conventional LWRs. As a result, the NRC will have to develop new review processes and/or acceptance criteria to ensure that an advanced design provides adequate public safety. That effort will involve a wide variety of challenges, particularly when it comes to the analytical modeling of various aspects of plant performance (including accident analyses). For example, the NRC may need to develop its own computer codes to allow it to review and independently verify an applicant’s work. While the development of a risk-informed, performance-based licensing framework is likely to help focus the NRC’s effort, it is clear that the NRC staff has a major task ahead of it in dealing with novel features of an advanced reactor design or deployment strategy.

The licensing of a novel design will likely also require that the NRC develop new expertise on technical issues with which the staff may not now have extensive experience, creating the potential for delay in regulatory decision-making. The NRC will have to buttress its current capabilities given the scope of the future challenges with which it is confronted. In awareness of the need for expanded knowledge and new skills, the NRC has provided staff with supplemental training and has made organizational changes to facilitate more efficient interactions with vendors. There are limitations on what can be accomplished, however, without a substantial investment to prepare for the expected set of new applications with which the staff will be confronted over the next several years. The NRC may be cautious in seeking significant additional resources as a result of its past experience in building a capacity to accommodate an expected “nuclear renaissance” that never occurred in the early years of this century.

NEIMA requires that most of the costs of NRC operations be recovered from fees paid by applicants and licensees, except for certain exempted activities. Congress provided an exemption from fees for activities relating to the development of regulatory infrastructure for advanced nuclear reactors, and the fiscal year (FY) 2022 budget provides $23 million that is exempt from fee recovery for this purpose.22 But the excluded amounts do not cover expenses that can be attributed to specific projects and the NRC must develop the staff expertise and the tools to deal with specific advanced reactor technologies. Substantial efforts need to be undertaken now to prepare now for the anticipated applications, but it is inequitable to cover the costs from existing licensees (who may not benefit from this work), and some vendors may not have the financial depth to cover the costs, particularly in the period before they have a product to sell. Additional funds that are exempt from fees on the order of 10s of millions of dollars per year—a minimal investment in comparison with the federal funds that are being made available to develop advanced reactors—could enable the NRC to undertake the necessary preparations.23

Even more fundamental is the need to undertake cultural change. The staff is accustomed to undertaking an extended review before accepting the deployment of unfamiliar technology. For example, it has taken considerable time for the NRC to review and accept new technologies in currently operating plants—such as the transformation from analog instruments to digital instrumentation and control. Cultural change is necessary to avoid needless delay and conservatism, while simultaneously enabling and encouraging thorough

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21 The NRC webpage has a portal that provides access to the extensive work that has been undertaken by the staff to deal with the regulation of advanced reactors. See https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced.html.

22 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2022, “Revision of Fee Schedules; Fee Recovery for Fiscal Year 2022,” Federal Register 87(36):10081–10107. The NRC’s FY 2023 budget proposal for the regulation of advanced reactors is at roughly the same level ($23.8 million). See U.S. NRC, 2022, “FY 2023 Congressional Budget Justification Summary,” https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2208/ML22087A157.pdf.

23 See Nuclear Innovation Alliance, 2021, Unlocking Advanced Nuclear Innovation: The Role of Fee Reform and Public Investment, Nuclear Innovation Alliance, Advanced Nuclear Energy Fee Reform Brief (July 2021), https://nuclearinnovationalliance.org/sites/default/files/2021-08/Advanced%20Nuclear%20Energy%20Fee%20Reform%20Brief.pdf.

Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
×

scrutiny in the review of advanced reactor applications. Cultural change could be the biggest challenge that now confronts the NRC. The NRC should retain its capability for thorough and careful review, while simultaneously streamlining its processes.

Finding 7-2: Establishing the safety case for an advanced reactor will require a thorough verification of the validity of safety claims based on detailed analyses founded on experimental data. All should recognize that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will take its obligation to ensure adequate protection of public health, safety, and environment seriously and that the necessary thorough review of applications can be time consuming.

Recommendation 7-1: Advanced reactors will not be commercialized if the regulatory requirements are not adjusted to accommodate their many differences from existing light water reactors. A clear definition of the regulatory requirements for a new technology must be established promptly if timely deployment is to be achieved. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) needs to enhance its capability to resolve the many issues with which it is and will be confronted. In recognition of the urgency for the NRC to prepare now, Congress should provide increased resources on the order of tens of millions of dollars per year to the NRC that are not drawn from fees paid by existing licensees and applicants.

Recommendation 7-2: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission should undertake a lessons-learned effort as it processes the first group of applications for advanced reactors as a means to streamline its review without compromising its commitment to the public health, safety, and the environment.

Staged Investment

Although there is investor enthusiasm for advanced reactors, there is also considerable investment risk. There is the technical risk that an apparently promising technical approach proves on further review to have unanticipated vulnerabilities. There is market risk that a design may not prove attractive to customers because, for example, the hoped-for cost advantages are not realized. And there is regulatory risk because the NRC might reject a new approach or impose requirements that reduce a design’s attractiveness. The NRC review can also introduce costs and delays that are more than a vendor can bear. The regulatory risk may be particularly difficult for a vendor to evaluate because guidance from past NRC practice may not be available for a novel design. It must be remembered in this connection that some of the vendors are comparatively small companies that may not have the financial capacity to survive under circumstances in which there are substantial and unanticipated front-end costs long before revenue from sales can be realized. Even well financed vendors may be discouraged by the costs.24

Investments in advanced technologies are typically made in stages or graduated steps so as to avoid unnecessary and often substantial front-end costs. That is, the investment may proceed in a stepwise fashion to reflect the retirement of risk, with subsequent investment made only as early hurdles are overcome. Ideally, major investment is postponed until after there is confidence that the design is on a plausible path to success. The existing regulatory approach can be inconsistent with this investment strategy because of substantial cost that must be incurred before DC, an OL or a COL is issued. As a result, NEIMA requires the NRC to establish stages in the licensing process for advanced nuclear reactors.

The NRC has sought to encourage interaction between staff and a vendor to identify difficult issues at an early stage. It encourages vendors to work with the staff to develop a licensing plan that reflects a common understanding of the responsibilities of each party and sets a licensing schedule. The NRC staff will use existing regulatory vehicles—technical reports, topical reports, exemption approvals, white papers, templates, and generic environmental impact statements—to provide early guidance to vendors as to how the staff would resolve issues. This accommodates the desire for staged licensing to some extent.

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24 As discussed in Chapter 3, various governmental initiatives are aimed at providing financial support in connection with matters that must be addressed in licensing.

Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
×

The use of these existing regulatory vehicles to provide early guidance does not fully resolve the desire for early retirement of regulatory issues because the staff does not have the final word. Final action involves not only the staff’s recommendation for the issuance of a license (or DC), but also review by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, possible litigation involving intervenors before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, review by the five-member Commission, and ultimately possible review in the courts. this review of the staff’s work is a very important factor in providing the public with assurance of the thoroughness of the review and the validity of the NRC’s final decisions. Thus, the resolution of issues by the staff may provide a vendor with significant comfort, but the staff’s actions do not provide final resolution. But if each of the staff’s intermediate decisions were to go through the necessary further review to bring those decisions to finality, there would be inevitable additional delay and cost in completing the licensing process.

Finding 7-3: There is a need to ensure a balance between staged licensing and efficiency in the licensing process. The existing process of providing intermediate, but non-final, resolution of matters by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff is a reasonable and practical compromise to provide timely and informed input to license applicants.

International Harmonization

Many of the vendors clearly are hopeful of international sales. Indeed, given the anticipated efficiencies that may result from serial production, substantial foreign sales may be an essential part of their business plans. Some vendors hope, for example, that SMRs may be particularly attractive to developing countries because their cost should be more manageable than those of a Gwe-scale plant and the electrical output is more appropriate for small grids. SMRs also promise safety advantages, faster construction, and reduced operational costs. There is a danger, however, that adaptations or modifications may be needed to obtain licensing in each country in which a plant is sold, which could increase the cost of a plant and diminish international deployment.

Although efficiencies might be realized by establishing a transnational regulator, the current system of a network of national regulators will likely continue. National control over energy policy may be seen as so central to sovereignty that countries will demand continuing national regulatory control. Moreover, the affected population may require that the regulator be politically accountable and not reside in a foreign or transnational entity. And, of course, every regulator must accommodate local legal norms and societal expectations (Meserve 2009). Nonetheless, there are strong benefits from efforts to ensure that each regulator has access to the knowledge of others and that needless regulatory differences in approach and requirements are eliminated or at least reduced.

There are efforts to enhance international cooperation in ways that could lead to substantial harmonization in requirements. The NRC has bilateral arrangements with some 45 other nations that include technical exchanges, regulatory information sharing, temporary personnel exchanges, and assistance partnerships for regulatory program development (NRC 2022d), as well extensive international engagement through, for example, the International Atomic Energy Agency and Nuclear Energy Agency. The United States recently entered a Memorandum of Cooperation with Canada that is focused on a coordinated response to technical issues associated with the licensing of advanced reactors (CNSC 2022). Each country retains its regulatory authority, but coordination and communication can ensure that there is no duplication of effort or needless inconsistency in requirements.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is also making significant efforts to develop safety standards appropriate for advanced reactors and to allow a focused consideration of the appropriate regulatory regime through its SMR Regulators’ Forum. These activities involve regulators from around the globe and should serve, over time, to encourage consensus approaches. Moreover, the Nuclear Energy Agency has a similar effort under way, and its Multinational Design Evaluation Project, by which countries that are licensing a particular reactor coordinate their efforts, provides a model for harmonization of requirements for advanced reactors.

The aviation industry may also provide a model for international harmonization. Safety has been greatly enhanced in the past several decades in the aircraft industry, as indicated by a significant decrease in the fatal accident rate. National aviation regulators have the same degree of authority and responsibility as their peers in nuclear regulation. But the coordination among regulators is more effective, thereby allowing aircraft to cross national borders. The worldwide framework for aviation regulation is governed by the 1944 Convention on

Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
×

International Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). It does not involve the transfer of responsibilities from national regulators, but it sets a framework for each regulator to fully discharge its duties, encouraging standardization and harmonization of the design approval and change management procedures. Perhaps the role of the IAEA standards could be strengthened so the IAEA can play a role like that of ICAO in supporting harmonization of aviation requirements, while allowing individual nations to maintain sovereignty. Several reports have examined this paradigm and additional review and development of the concept is warranted to determine if it may accelerate deployment of the technology while limiting safety risk (NEA 2022; World Nuclear Association 2013).

In light of the importance of international markets, significant efforts should be undertaken now to reconcile needless differences in licensing obligations. At the same time, as discussed in Chapter 10, there is a need to develop a robust regulatory capability and infrastructure among those countries that lack that capability today. The necessary concerted international effort to build capacity in these countries should serve to encourage the harmonization of regulatory standards.

Finding 7-4: International sales may be an essential part of the business plans of some vendors. Regulatory requirements that differ from country to country can inhibit international sales.

Recommendation 7-3: In light of the importance of international markets, significant efforts should be undertaken now to reconcile needless differences in licensing obligations from one country to another. This should involve increased engagement with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Agency on these matters, as well as exploration of regulatory mechanisms like those used by the aviation industry. In the meantime, bilateral arrangements with other countries pursuing advanced reactors, such as the memorandum of understanding that the United States has entered with Canada, may pave the way for broader international harmonization.

Siting and Emergency Planning Zones

One of the aspects of the safety review that bears significantly on the business plans of the vendors concerns proposed modification in the requirements for siting and emergency planning zones (EPZs). Existing domestic nuclear plants have extensive owner-controlled areas, and their locations were selected to comply with siting requirements relating to the population density in the vicinity, typically within a 20-mile radius from the plant, as well as limitations on siting within the vicinity of large population centers. The NRC also has separate requirements for EPZs to control exposures to a radioactive plume arising from an accident, typically to a distance of 10 miles, and to control ingestion out to a distance of 50 miles (see Box 7-2). The vendors of some advanced reactors argue that their designs justify relaxation of these siting and EPZ requirements. They assert that their designs are sufficiently safe and/or that the consequences of an accident are sufficiently small or slow to develop that a modification of the current siting and EPZ requirements can be justified. Indeed, such relaxation would be absolutely essential if some of the proposed uses of the reactors are to be realized. For example, some of the vendors anticipate providing process heat for industrial applications, which requires the reactor to be in the vicinity of the industrial facility. The use of heat from an NPP at a nearby industrial site presents a regulatory complication because it requires the evaluation not only of the risk posed at the industrial site, but also the risk to the nuclear plant from the nearby facility.25 Some vendors contemplate that their designs might be deployed as replacements for similarly sized fossil plants, thereby benefiting from existing infrastructure, transmission capabilities, skilled workforce, and nearby cooling water.26 Siting considerations will arise in repowering fossil plants that are near to or in the middle of populated areas (Hansen 2022). Some of the proponents of microreactors claim that the risks are so small that they may be placed in middle of urban areas to provide power to microgrids or to power vehicle charging stations.

___________________

25 As a part of its existing requirements, the staff reviews manufacturing, processing, and storage facilities within 5 miles of a reactor to assess potential hazardous activities that could cause damage. Facilities and activities at distances greater than 5 miles are considered if they have the potential for affecting plant safety-related features. NRC, Standard Review Plan, § 2.2.1–2.2.2 (Identification of potential hazards in site vicinity) (NUREG-0800).

26 The replacement of coal plants by nuclear plants is encouraged by the IRA through tax incentives.

Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
×

Careful and early determination of the appropriate siting and EPZ requirements is necessary to define the range of siting opportunities that are available for advanced reactors. The NRC is pursuing the modification of these requirements in light of the lesser risks that are postulated for some advanced reactors. Consideration and early revision, if appropriate, of these requirements is essential for defining the prospects for novel applications of advanced reactors.

Finding 7-5: Some reactor vendors anticipate opportunities to deploy their reactors near or in urban environments or in the vicinity of industrial facilities that will use heat produced by the reactor. These applications of advanced reactors will present unique siting and emergency planning issues. Careful and early examination of such issues is necessary to define the future range of economic opportunities that are available for advanced reactors.

Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
×

Recommendation 7-4: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission should expedite the requirements and guidance governing siting and emergency planning zones to enable vendors to determine the restrictions that will govern the deployment of their reactors.

Security

As discussed in depth in Chapter 9, the current physical security framework constitutes prescriptive regulatory requirements for large LWRs that have been augmented over time as the terrorist threat has grown. See 10 CFR Part 73. Some advanced reactors are expected to include attributes that result in smaller or slower release of radionuclides as well as inherent safety characteristics and simplified safety systems that may be less reliant on physical security systems and procedures for protection against sabotage than current generation plants. (NRC 2018c; NEI 2016). Moreover, most existing reactors were not designed with security requirements as a primary concern. There is thus the opportunity and the need to incorporate security considerations in the basic design of the plant—“security by design”—providing the opportunity to improve security and perhaps reduce reliance on security personnel, which constitute a meaningful part of the operating cost at existing reactors.27 The possible improvements include, for example, to reduce the number of vital areas subject to sabotage and to locate them so they are easier to defend, to establish fighting positions with overlapping fields of fire and hardened defensive positions, to provide for nested security layers and more opportunity for delay (Duguay 2020). But in order to achieve these aims, some modification of the existing security requirements is required. Indeed, some vendors of microreactors claim that the risks are so slight that operation might proceed without a security force or even without operators of any kind.

As discussed in Chapter 9, the NRC staff has sought authorization from the Commission to publish a proposed rule that would offer voluntary performance-based alternatives for meeting certain of the physical security requirements for advanced reactors.28 At the same time, the heightened concern for cybersecurity means that the careful consideration of the associated regulatory requirements is essential for advanced reactors, particularly because many intend to place much greater emphasis on digital systems and automated intelligence than existing reactors. Chapter 9 includes findings and recommendations bearing on the NRC’s approach to these security requirements.

Transportable Reactors

Some vendors are exploring the possibility of having reactors in one location and then transporting them by truck, rail, or a barge to a site for deployment. Building a reactor on a barge or platform and installing it offshore to provide power to meet local onshore demand is also under consideration (Stauffer 2015). Nuclear reactors might also be used as a power source on ships to meet the needs of maritime commercial shipping.29

Small reactors or microreactors can be designed to be mobile and moved from place to place to serve a remote location or to meet emergency needs.30 Indeed, some analysts suggest that our energy infrastructure should be transformed to depend on widespread deployment of microreactors to provide power to microgrids collocated with end users (Buongiorno et al. 2021).

These applications present some novel regulatory issues, particularly if the factory construction and transport of fueled reactors is contemplated. As noted above, existing regulations would require additional licenses for fuel loading at the factory, for test operation at the factory, for transport of a fueled reactor to a site, and for transport back to the factory for refueling. Unique safety and security issues will arise in the transport of a fueled reactor, just as they arise in the transport of fresh and spent fuel. (Maheras 2020).

___________________

27 Safety and security need to be considered together so as to ensure that both purposes are served appropriately. See International Nuclear Safety Group, 2010, The Interface Between Safety and Security at Nuclear Power Plants (INSAG-24).

28 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2018, “SCY-18-0076: Options and Recommendations for Physical Security for Advanced Reactors,” https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1817/ML18170A051.html. See also Nuclear Energy Institute, 2021, Methodological Approach and Considerations for a Technical Analysis to Demonstrate Compliance with the Performance Criteria of 10 CFR 73.55(a)(7), Draft A, https://downloads.regulations.gov/NRC-2017-0227-0027/content.pdf.

29 NRIC is providing funding to the American Bureau of Shipping to research barriers to the adoption of advanced nuclear propulsion on commercial vessels (World Nuclear News 2022).

30 As discussed in Chapter 4, the Department of Defense is pursuing the development of small mobile reactors to meet its needs (Project Pele).

Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
×

As discussed in Chapter 10, the situation becomes even more complex if the reactor is fabricated in one country and then transported to another country for operation. In such a case there will likely be a complicated legal relationship among the supplier country and its regulator, the host country and its regulator, the vendor, and the operator, most notably with regard to nuclear liability and the governmental, legal, and regulatory framework for safety.31 A pathway for the resolution of these thorny regulatory issues must be established if these opportunities are to be realized.

Decommissioning

NRC requirements cover decommissioning of a nuclear facility to remove it safely from service and to reduce residual radioactivity to a permissible level. (See 10 CFR Part 20, Subpart E, and 10 CFR 50.75, 50.82, 51.53, and 51.95.) Some advanced reactors may present unique decommissioning challenges at the end of their useful life. Examples may include disposal of coolants that need to be treated as mixed chemical and radioactive waste (e.g., sodium or molten salts) or handling the dust accumulation in pebble bed reactors. Moreover, the storage and disposal of the unique fuels proposed for some designs may present new challenges beyond the formidable difficulty of disposing of conventional LWR fuel.32 Just as vendors should consider safety, safeguards, and security in the design of their plants, consideration should be given to facilitating decommissioning at the end of a reactor’s life. Lessons may be learned from the extensive DOE and DOD activities in decommissioning nuclear facilities,33 as well as from the decommissioning of commercial and research reactors.

Finding 7-6: Some advanced reactors are likely to present unique and difficult decommissioning challenges.

Recommendation 7-5: Reactor developers need to consider the challenges associated with decommissioning and address them in the reactor design. The failure to consider decommissioning issues in the design phase could result in large expenses at the end of a reactor’s life. Vendors should exploit the lessons learned from Department of Energy and Department of Defense decommissioning activities, as well as from the decommissioning of power and research reactors.

Fuels

Fuel types that differ from those used in existing LWRs are proposed for some advanced reactors. These include tristructural isotropic (TRISO) particle fuels, metallic fuels, and liquid molten salt fuels, in many cases with enrichments of nearly 20 percent 235U. The NRC requires that all fuels meet regulatory requirements under conditions of normal operation, anticipated operational occurrences (AOOs), and accident conditions. In the case of some advanced reactors, consideration must be given to an operating environment that will differs from that of an LWR—for example, different neutron energy spectra, fuel temperatures, cladding-coolant compatibility, and retention of fission products (NRC 2022a). There may be limited experimental and operational data on some of the proposed fuel types, which is likely to pose a particular challenge for some designs because of the need for extensive irradiation to provide the data necessary to support the safety case (NRC 2022b). At the same time, the production of some of the novel fuels will require the development of new fuel cycle infrastructure, presenting serious economic, regulatory, and policy challenges. Some of these matters are discussed in the companion study to this report (NASEM 2022). They are mentioned here because the challenges of ensuring fuel availability

___________________

31 See IAEA, 2013, Legal and Institutional Issues of Transportable Nuclear Power Plants: A Preliminary Study (NG-T-3.5). Complicated regulatory requirements would likely be associated with reactors used for propulsion for commercial shipping (e.g., unique inspection requirements at every port for a nuclear vessel landing to load/offload).

32 For more information on fuel cycles for new and advanced reactors, see NASEM, 2022, Merits and Viability of Different Nuclear Fuel Cycles and Technology Options and the Waste Aspects of Advanced Nuclear Reactors, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, https://doi.org/10.17226/26500.

33 See Deactivation and Decommissioning Knowledge Management Tool, 2018, https://www.dndkm.org/LessonsLearned/SearchLessonsLearned.aspx?Query=ProjectManagement.

Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
×

and fuel safety are likely to be pacing items for the deployment of some advanced reactor designs and they raise significant regulatory issues.

Finding 7-7: Some vendors propose to use novel fuels for which limited experimental or operational data is available. This is likely to present a particular regulatory challenge because of the need for extended fuel irradiation to provide the data necessary to support the safety case for the designs. Moreover, the development of the necessary fuel cycle infrastructure will require extensive new regulatory activity.

In sum, there are many difficult matters that must be resolved in the licensing of advanced reactors. Significant efforts are under way in the United States involving the generating companies, the vendors, DOE, various stakeholders, and the NRC to confront these challenges. But their early resolution is essential if timely deployment of non-LWR advanced designs presenting regulatory issues is to occur.

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Suggested Citation:"7 Nuclear Regulation in the United States." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26630.
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The world confronts an existential challenge in responding to climate change, resulting in an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors of the economy. What will it take for new and advanced nuclear reactors to play a role in decarbonization? Nuclear power provides a significant portion of the worlds low-carbon electricity, and advanced nuclear technologies have the potential to be smaller, safer, less expensive to build, and better integrated with the modern grid. However, if the United States wants advanced nuclear reactors to play a role in its plans for decarbonization, there are many key challenges that must be overcome at the technical, economic, and regulatory levels.

Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States discusses how the United States could support the successful commercialization of advanced nuclear reactors with a set of near-term policies and practices. The recommendations of this report address the need to close technology research gaps, explore new business use cases, improve project management and construction, update regulations and security requirements, prioritize community engagement, strengthen the skilled workforce, and develop competitive financing options.

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