NRC Chair hails culture change at regulator
Reuters Events Nuclear
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We launch our biweekly Nuclear Insights newsletter with an interview with NRC Chair Christopher Hanson. Find out how the U.S. regulator is acting to accelerate the deployment of advanced reactors, emboldened by the ADVANCE Act approved by President Biden in July.
Also below, Kairos start building its Hermes demonstration reactor, the Nuclear Company sets out plans for six large U.S. plants and long-term uranium prices hit 16-year highs.
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NRC Chair hails culture change at regulator
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is implementing an efficiency drive and streamlining practices to meet the unique challenges posed by next-generation reactors, Chair Christoper Hanson says.
There are over 70 advanced reactors in development worldwide, many using technology that is distinct from the traditional light water reactor (LWR) design found in most Generation III nuclear plants in operation today.?
The NRC has faced criticism from within the industry for presiding over a slow, out-of-date regulatory process that is too rigid and too slow to effectively usher in the new generation of nuclear reactors.
To meet the moment, the regulator is streamlining policy implementation and making the reactor licensing process more efficient, Hanson says, a cultural shift in the NRC’s practices which, in the past, have been mostly prescriptive and focused on LWRs which make up the bulk of the commercial nuclear industry since the sixties.
The reforms are being given a push by the ‘Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act of 2024’ (ADVANCE Act), passed by President Joe Biden in July.
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The Act, which uses the words ‘efficient’ or ‘efficiency’ 21 times in the 90-page document, calls on the Commission to speed up licensing for new nuclear technology, among other directives.
“The ‘efficiency’ message has been received loud and clear,” NRC Chair Hanson tells Reuters Events Nuclear.
The cultural shift at the NRC was already in motion, and the ADVANCE Act will help consolidate that change, he says.
“We've been undergoing a cultural change … but it is incredibly helpful to have Congress come over to us, and say, ‘here's the efficiency mandate.’”
Streamlining drive
The NRC has already implemented policies that focus on a performance-based, rather than prescriptive, reactor licensing process.
In June, the NRC reached a final decision on emergency planning zones (EPZ), which will amend regulations to include alternative preparedness requirements for small modular reactors (SMRs), a ruling that takes into account alternative safety needs for next-generation reactors.
“We're making changes to our physical security requirements to account for these new reactor types, siting guidelines, environmental reviews, etc. These are things that the Commission and leadership at the staff level here at the agency can really drive forward,” says Hanson.
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When the Chair called for a streamlined mandatory hearing process, the Commission voted on the motion and passed it within 90 days, a far cry from past votes that can take months, if not years, to pass.?
The NRC is forming dedicated, core teams to focus on developers’ specific requests during pre-application, a significantly more agile process than allowing applications to be passed from one team to another.
The new approach can be seen in the NRC’s latest treatment of Kairos Power’s Hermes 2 advanced test facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, says Hanson.
The NRC completed its final safety evaluation for the facility late July, four months ahead of schedule and at around two thirds the expected cost.
“One of the things I admire about this agency is our ability to learn, take those lessons learned, and apply them to the next thing,” says Hanson. ?
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Staffing a new era
Staff resourcing has been a perennial challenge for the nuclear regulator and the ADVANCE Act calls on the NRC to take on 140 extra highly-qualified members.
Hanson believes there is a talent crunch in the industry.?
“Even four or five years ago, the industry globally was in a really different place and so the talent pipeline has been trying to catch up with the dramatic changes that we're seeing,” Hanson says.
At the NRC, on top of monitoring the operating fleet, the Commission is working on plant license extensions, plant restarts, license applications from the two Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) developers, microreactor license applications, and calls for new, large, gigawatt-sized LWRs.
Finding the right people to lead this unprecedented growth in the time required is a challenge facing the nuclear industry worldwide.?
“Whether it's at universities or mid-career folks, knowledge management is going to be really critically important, and we've got some initiatives here that are really focused on that," he says.?
The NRC is working to attract young applicants while harnessing the deep knowledge and experience of the Commission’s more senior staff, with retiring and retired? staff being brought back into the fold to help transition some of the new talent.
“We’re capturing as much stuff that is resident in their brains as possible to help with the transition … while empowering the new folks and telling them ‘bring us your creativity, bring us new ideas, bring us your way of thinking about these things,’” says Hanson.
New nuclear fleets
Hanson was re-appointed to a second five-year term as NRC Chair in June, and he sees the next five years as consolidating the culture change in the agency and preparing for multiple deployments of standardized reactor designs across multiple sites.
“Nobody wants to just build one of these things. They want to build 20 or 50 and helping people understand that we're ready for that is one of the highest priorities going forward,” says Hanson.
By September, the NRC hopes to have its latest regulatory process, Part 53, in the hands of the public for comment with a final rule leading to full implementation within 12-18 months from there.
Part 53 will be an optional regulatory path, offered as a risk-informed, technology-inclusive, performance-based rulemaking framework aimed at licensing the next generation of advanced reactors. ?
“Let's face it, our existing regulations are pretty prescriptive, and they're for large light water reactors, and so not everything's going to apply,” Hanson says.
“Part 53 rule really makes it explicit that we're putting risk information at the center to help to get to that performance-based approach.”
Another hinderance to the new generation roll out is prohibitively expensive construction norms, where every nut and bolt must meet nuclear regulatory standards, a system that Hanson says the NRC is working on.
The NRC has joined Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to initiate a project that will look specifically at the codes and standards surrounding the steel and concrete infrastructure used in nuclear plant construction.
By Paul Day
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