IAEA 6th INPRO Forum on Licensing and Safety Issues for SMRs - 29 July - August 2, 2013

The subject of the 6th INPRO (International Project on Innovative Reactors and Fuel Cycles) Dialogue Forum organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna from July 29th to August 2nd 2013 was Licensing and Safety Issues for Small and Medium-Sized Reactors, (SMRs) one of this blog's favorite topics. (The 3rd INPRO Dialogue Forum, held 14-18 November 2011, was also on SMRs, with the title "Common User Considerations for Small and Medium-sized Nuclear Power Reactors").

Dr. David Newland of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission was the Program Chair, with Poong-Eil Juhn of the Republic of Korea as Co-Chair. After an Opening and Introductory session, the second Session was on Experiences and Preparation for SMR Deployment, in which 8 Member States (MSs) of the IAEA - in alphabetical order: Canada, China, France, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the USA presented the status of their national licensing and safety programs for SMR licensing. There were two presentations from the USA - one each from the Department of Energy (USDOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC).

This was followed by a Panel Discussion on Licensing and Safety Issues for SMRs (with Dr. David Newland of Canada, R. Seban of France, M. Ricotti of Italy, S-H Rhee of Korea, and I. Bylov of the Russian Federation as panelists). The conferees then broke out into 5 groups whose topics the organizers had circulated beforehand: (1) Designs; (2) Siting ; (3) Graded Approach in regulatory and licensing process; (4) Legal (5) Public Participation, each of which was briefed by their Group Leader in Session 3, prior to breakout. Session 4 was devoted to presentations from International Organizations: ASME, OECD-NEA, WENRA, and WNA.

In Session 5, the Group Leaders of the Breakout Sessions reported back (1. Soderholm, 2. deVos, 3. Ramakrishna  and 4. Magruder), and Session 6 concluded with reports from:  Mr. M.H. Subki of the IAEA on the questionnaire distributed to participants, Dr. Daniel Ingersoll on a summary of the plenary sessions; a Meeting Summary by the Program Chair Dr. David Newland; and a final word each from Z. Drace of INPRO and J.K. Park of the NENP/IAEA.

The final report on the 6th INPRO Dialogue Forum on Licensing and Safety Issues for SMRs is available here.

(The IAEA also held a Technical Meeting on SMR Technology Development for Near-Term Deployment in Chengdu, China - September 2-4, 2013, and a Technical Meeting on Instrumentation & Control in Advanced SMRs, 21-24 May 2013.)

 

USDOE Issues Funding Opportunity Announcement for SMRs

The US Department of Energy (USDOE) issued a draft Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) this week, intended to support activities related to the design and licensing of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), defined as reactors with an electric output of 300MWe or less; which can be manufactured remotely, transported to point of construction, with on-site assembly largely limited to system integration of components for operation.

Importantly, the USDOE is interested in designs with passive safety (e.g., against consequences of a nuclear accident) as well as inherent safety (e.g., against natural catastrophes such as earthquakes, windstorms or floods), in addition to designs with long inter-refueling periods, low capital cost outlays, low maintenance and operating costs, and high proliferation resistance. The stated intention is to support up to 2 reactor designs through the USNRC design and licensing process, with the ability to be deployed ‘expeditiously’ being an important merit criterion. 2022, a decade from now, is the target year for commercial operation.

Proponents may choose to pursue licensing from the USNRC under either 10 CFR 50 or 10 CFR 52. Stakeholders are encouraged to form consortia, and proponents are encouraged to form design-centered working groups (DCWGs) across the supply and value chains e.g., SMR manufacturers, power utilities, local bodies; and the activities funded by USDOE are required to draw at least 50% of their total resources required, from internal sources. The total amount of funding available from USDOE is estimated to be $452 M, subject to Congressional appropriations. The current draft FOA will be issued in final form after feedback from, and consultation with, stakeholders.

International Topical Meeting on Probabilistic Safety Analysis - PSA 2011

The International Topical Meeting on Probabilistic Safety Analysis (PSA 2011), sponsored by the American Nuclear Society and Sandia National Laboratories, along with a variety of commercial sponsors, will be underway next week in Wilmington, North Carolina from March 13 to March 17, 2011. Dr. George Apostolakis of the US NRC is the Honorary Chair of the Organizing Committee, while the Technical Committee has four Co-Chairs, one each from the US, Europe, Japan and Korea.

A truly large number of technical sessions are planned, and include several sessions on PSA of New Reactors from internal initiating events (including a very interesting paper on incorporating PSA principles into fusion reactor design, and papers on both gas-cooled and sodium-cooled fast reactors). Also PSA of a variety of hazards including fire, seismic, and flood; as well as PSA of non-reactor nuclear applications. There are sessions on incorporating digital information & control (I & C) systems into nuclear plant PSA; sessions on dynamic PSA (incorporating the dynamic, i.e., changing aspects of a system in to the probabilistic safety assessment [including a very interesting paper using genetic algorithms to explore the space within the failure domain where at least one safety limit is violated].

Several sessions explore Ageing in PSAs - one very interesting paper interpolates state transition probabilities in a Markov Model for estimating reliability of passive components such as metal pipes using physics-based models of weld degradation, instead of in-service failure data for the entire piping component. The paper finds that incorporating such time-inhomogeneous and stochastic transition rates into the Markov Model causes it to become non-Markov.

Interesting panel discussions are planned on: Alternative Risk Metrics, which will consider, among other things, how the promised lower risk numerics for new reactors will be maintained over their reactor life; and how risk profiles will be affected by multiple units in a suite of SMRs (small modular reactors); PRA Standards Development (which will examine, among other things, how the regulatory endorsement of PSAs as a risk management tool impacts the development of risk informed applications).

The conference brings together practitioners of PSA from a variety of disciplines and countries, and promises to be very interesting indeed.

American Nuclear Society Annual Meeting - ANS 2010

The American Nuclear Society (ANS) will hold its 2010 Annual Meeting in San Diego later this month (June 13-17 2010). It will likely be the world's largest conference of nuclear science and technology professionals, and its packed program is breathtaking in the scope, breadth and depth of coverage it provides of the hottest current topics in nuclear science, technology and policy.

I will simply indicate a few of what I consider very interesting sessions and add a comment or two by way of context. As can be expected, most of these are in areas of my research or consulting interest.

First, the Conference will include an Embedded Topical Meeting on the Safety and Management of Nuclear Hydrogen Production, Control and Management - the second such (the first having been held at ANS 2007). Among other interesting papers in this session is one on Probabilistic Safety Analysis of a hydrogen production plant using the Sulphur-Iodine process, with process heat derived from a High Temperature Test Reactor by a Korean group. This directly relates to topics I have discussed in my earlier papers: Safety Issues in Nuclear Hydrogen Production with with the Very High Temperature Reactor and Nuclear Hydrogen Production: Scoping the Safety Issues.

Secondly, the Conference will include a Session on Key Licensing and Regulatory Issues for Small and Medium Reactors, followed by a panel discussion with panelists from INL and the US NRC - I have discussed this topic earlier in other blog posts, and its importance can scarcely be over-emphasized. A group from GE will be discussing the licensing strategy for the PRISM (Power Reactor Innovative Small Module) liquid sodium-cooled reactor, while a group from KAERI (Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute) will discuss the SMART (System-integrated Modular Advanced Reactor) - a water-cooled reactor with integral steam generators that is designed for power (about 100 MWe per module), seawater desalination, and process heat applications. A separate session on Safety Analysis and Licensing of non-LWR Reactor Concepts, should similarly be of strong interest - discussing gas-cooled and liquid-sodium cooled reactors from both an experimental and simulation perspective.

A related session will cover the Thermal Hydraulics of the VHTR (gas-cooled variant), relevant in the context of the licensing of the Next Generation Nuclear Plant. This session will cover ongoing experimental and computational/simulation of VHTR thermalhydraulics at the Oregon State University and INL - particularly on Loss of Flow and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown events in High temperature Reactors. The important issue of scaling - the ability to draw numerical comparisons and conclusions that are valid for real reactors from experiments and simulations done on smaller systems - will be the topic of a paper from Oregon State that should be of particular interest.

The issue of Scaling Methods will also be the topic of a special Tutorial Session, to be conducted by Dr. Pradip Saha of GE and Prof. Jose Reyes of Oregon State - that will discuss issues of scaling particularly with reference to LWRs - methods of dimensional analysis, method of similitude and normalization of governing equations will be discussed.

The topic of Nuclear Fuel and Structural Materials for Next Generation Nuclear Reactors will be the focus of another Embedded Topical Meeting, a topic I have worked on and discussed in several earlier papers and presentations (and blog posts: here, here and here).

I need hardly add that the Conference promises to be extremely interesting indeed!

Small and Modular Reactors

Small and modular nuclear reactors (those with a thermal power output below 200 MWTh) have become of strong interest, both in Canada and worldwide for a number of reasons. In Canada, the interest arises from the following sources:
(i) The need to replace the NRU (National Research Universal) reactor with another multipurpose research reactor, as recommended by the NRCan Expert Review Panel on Medical Isotope Production last year [Recommendation I, p. xi Executive Summary; also on p. 73 of the main body of the report]
(ii) The interest expressed by energy providers (as well as industrial users such as in mining and tar sands extraction) in off-grid electric and/or thermal process power in modular and scalable units - partly from remote siting considerations and also from emissions reduction considerations
(iii) University nuclear reactors for training and research
(iv) Reactors for dedicated medical radioisotope production.

Separately of the off-grid power reactor interest from resource extractive industries, there is also interest in small reactors as a possible solution for developing countries and first-time nuclear countries who have small or under-developed electric grids. They are also an attractive option for small gas- or coal- fired generating units as a direct replacement, where grid and transmission infrastructure already exist, as in rural areas of developed nations.

As well, the lower up-front capital cost of the smaller power reactors is a motivating consideration for the increased interest, as is the potential for upward scalability in total power output by addition of more units in a more graded manner. Given the lower radionuclide inventory as well as some passive safety features in some of the small reactor designs, they become of additional interest from both the safety and the proliferation-resistance standpoints.

Although some reactors have a thermal output as low as 20 KWTh, the 200 MWTh threshold is chosen to define the upper limit of 'small reactors' from the point of view of accumulation of the radionuclide inventory - which is much smaller below a threshold of 200 MWTh. As well, given that some reactors may have passive safety features, the balance of engineered safety requirements that are imposed could be different for smaller reactors than for large reactors. Consequently, it is possible to justify what has come to be called a 'graded approach' in the safety assessment of small reactors - a smaller reactor will have safety requirements commensurate to the relative risk, compared to a larger reactor, and not necessarily identical ones. This graded approach could reflect itself, for example, in the containment structure requirement, or in extent of the exclusion zone, where the regulatory requirement may not necessarily be identical to that for large power reactors.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) is currently in the process of developing regulatory & licensing guides and related requirements for small nuclear reactors based on these considerations, and will be holding appropriate stakeholder consultations, information sessions and technical workshops during the course of this year to disseminate information and solicit feedback before finalizing the requirements.

Postscript
US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu outlined the interest in small and modular reactors in his Wall Street Journal op-ed on March 23, 2010, a summary of his Congressional testimony of 3-3-2010.

In his 2011 budget request, President Obama requested $39 million for a new program specifically for small modular reactors. Although the Department of Energy has supported advanced reactor technologies for years, this is the first time funding has been requested to help get SMR designs licensed for widespread commercial use.

Right now we are exploring a partnership with industry to obtain design certification from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for one or two designs. These SMRs are based on proven light-water reactor technologies and could be deployed in about 10 years.

Expanding on the likely advantages of small modular reactors, he said:

Small modular reactors would be less than one-third the size of current plants. They have compact designs and could be made in factories and transported to sites by truck or rail. SMRs would be ready to "plug and play" upon arrival.

If commercially successful, SMRs would significantly expand the options for nuclear power and its applications. Their small size makes them suitable to small electric grids so they are a good option for locations that cannot accommodate large-scale plants. The modular construction process would make them more affordable by reducing capital costs and construction times.

Their size would also increase flexibility for utilities since they could add units as demand changes, or use them for on-site replacement of aging fossil fuel plants. Some of the designs for SMRs use little or no water for cooling, which would reduce their environmental impact. Finally, some advanced concepts could potentially burn used fuel or nuclear waste, eliminating the plutonium that critics say could be used for nuclear weapons.
[...]
To achieve this potential, we are bringing together some of our nation's brightest minds to work under one roof in a new research center called the Nuclear Energy Modeling and Simulation Hub.

Update The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL), the Energy Innovation Hub specific to Nuclear Energy, has been formed, with Dr. Douglas B. Kothe as Director. The Core partners are Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL), Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Idaho National Lab (INL), Los Alamos National Lab (LANL), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), North Carolina State University (NCSU), Sandia National Labs, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), University of Michigan, and Westinghouse Electric Company.

The operational structure and mission statement of CASL explicitly incorporates the vision Prof. Chu has articulated, for example, of 'Bell Labs-like institutions which are mission-driven but solve fundamental problems as well'. See here.

In CASL Director Dr. Kothe's words, (CASL):

• Focuses on a single topic, with work spanning the gamut, from basic research through engineering development to partnering with industry in commercialization
• (creates) Large, highly integrated and collaborative creative teams working to solve priority
technology challenges
• Embraces both the goals of understanding and use, without erecting barriers between
basic and applied research (emphasis added).

A second Energy Innovation Hub also announced is the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP), a partnership between Caltech and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory:

JCAP research will be directed at the discovery of the functional components necessary to assemble a complete artificial photosynthetic system: light absorbers, catalysts, molecular linkers, and separation membranes. The Hub will then integrate those components into an operational solar fuel system and develop scale-up strategies to move from the laboratory toward commercial viability. The ultimate objective is to drive the field of solar fuels from fundamental research, where it has resided for decades, into applied research and technology development, thereby setting the stage for the creation of a direct solar fuels industry.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Regulatory Information Conference NRC-RIC-2010

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will be holding its annual Regulatory Information Conference (NRC-RIC) from March 9 to March 11, 2010. The conference will bring together a variety of stakeholders in the nuclear sector with regulators and technical specialists, both from the NRC and from US national laboratories. While most attendees will be from within the US, there will also be a large number of attendees from other countries, including Canada, who will share their own experiences and provide their own insights into nuclear regulatory affairs.

Apart from plenary sessions addressed by NRC Chairman and Commissioners, there will also be technical sessions on a number of cutting-edge issues at the interface of regulation and technology. These include a session on Materials Degradation at the Containment and Reactor Coolant System Pressure Boundary [Audio], which will discuss probabilistic analysis tools for carrying out the assessment of materials degradation at the pressure boundary, incorporating insights from investigations of the Pressurized Thermal Shock phenomenon. This is expected to contribute, for example, to better understanding of the probability of leak before rupture of piping systems. There are also at least two technical sessions on international issues: one on International Coordination between countries pursuing New Nuclear Power, another on International Cooperation on New Reactors [including the activities of the Multinational Design Evaluation Program (MDEP)]. Another session is devoted to discussing regulatory applications of International Experience in Operating Nuclear Reactors.

A technical session on Regulatory and Policy Issues for Small Modular Reactors should prove particularly interesting - since there is now great interest in the possibility of constructing small and modular reactors (including for isotope production; research; and local, off-grid power or heat applications). [Audio of event].

A separate session discussing the interest in Small and Modular Reactors will also be held [Audio].There will also be a session devoted to new developments in Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA) for nuclear power plants, including a talk on peer review of the US NRC's SPAR (Standardized Plant Analysis Risk) model. [Audio]

There is also a session on technical, policy and R&D issues related to the licensing of the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP), a gas-cooled reactor currently under development. [Session; Audio]. This includes a talk on the US NRC's efforts to develop an evaluation model(EM) for the NGNP. Other sessions of interest include a poster session on Central and Eastern US Seismic Source Characterization (SSC) model development, which may have implications for characterizing seismic sources in Canada as well.

Overall, the conferences promises to be quite interesting indeed.

Update: The US NRC published a Commission Paper (SECY-10-0034) on Potential Policy, Licensing, and Key Technical Issues for Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Designs on 3-28-2010.