A panel of five experts and an experienced moderator addressed the progress being made in creating effective processes to license advanced and non-LWR (light water reactors) at an ANS Winter 2022 panel session titled “Licensing the Future: How the NRC is Approaching Advanced Reactors.” Four out of five of the panelists were cautiously positive and provided descriptions of actions being taken and objectives that are still aspirational. //

Nordhaus then noted that the NRC staff had recently released a Part 53 draft for public comments. He described how the document is 1200 pages long, contains many prescriptive requirements that were cut and pasted from existing regulations, moves ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) directly into the regulation from its current status as the subject of Regulatory Guide 8.10, and adds qualitative health objectives that are firmly rooted in the linear, no-threshold dose model for radiation health effects.

A survey of advanced reactor developers showed that the overwhelming majority of them do not intend to use Part 53, opting instead for either Part 50 or Part 52.

Aside: Though Nordhaus did not mention it, there were numerous critical comments submitted after the draft Part 53 was released. According to Mo Shams’s presentation, the staff had been operating for some time under the belief that they could produce a final rule by 2024, but they have pushed their stretch goal to 2025 as a result of the need to resolve the large number of comments. By the NEIMA law, the agency still has a 2027 deadline. End Aside.

From his point of view, establishing a burdensome licensing process that is not optimized for efficiently reviewing reactor safety results in “down selecting not on best designs or best business plans.” Instead it chooses winners that have the “most patient investors with the deepest pockets or the greatest talent for rent seeking and getting various sorts of federal or government support.”

Nordhaus concluded his remarks by explaining why he and his organization are so passionate about creating an effective licensing process that is focused on enabling regulators that allow radioactive material to be used to protect public health and safety, protect the environment and contribute to the common defense and security of the United States.

Every reactor that we don’t build, license or commercialize increases public health burdens associated with the electrical system. Further results in higher CO2 emissions intensity. It adds to climate risks and also increases economic and geopolitical risks by failing to commercialize economically viable advanced reactors. The result of that is increasing US and global vulnerability to price volatility associated with coal, oil and gas.
-- Ted Nordhaus, the Breakthrough Institute, ANS Winter Nov 15, 2022