Dive Brief:
- The four-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission directed staff on March 4 to revise its Part 53 draft regulation, a new rule governing licensing applications for advanced nuclear reactor technologies. The revisions are expected to take about six months, after which NRC will present the revised rule for public comment, NRC said in a press release announcing the vote.
- NRC Commissioners are seeking “major changes to the draft proposed rule that reflect stakeholder feedback and comments,” said Patrick White, research director for the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, or NIA, in an email to Utility Dive. The changes include removing several new and potentially burdensome regulatory requirements, clarifying certain other regulatory requirements likely to remain in the revised rule, and emphasizing that the advanced reactor rule “should leverage existing regulatory requirements … where appropriate and applicable,” White said.
- The announcement comes nine months after a bipartisan group of 20 lawmakers urged NRC to address “key [unresolved] issues” in the draft rule and “ensure that the final rule meets the intent of the law.” In 2018, Congress passed the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, or NEIMA, directing NRC to establish a new regulatory framework for advanced reactors by Dec. 31, 2027.
Dive Insight:
Part 53 is the first U.S. regulatory framework devoted to advanced reactor technologies, including non-light-water reactor technologies like TerraPower’s Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor and Kairos Power’s Hermes fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor. Advanced reactor developers presently follow NRC’s existing Parts 50 and 52 regulations, which govern existing large light-water reactor technologies, but Part 53 provides “a clear, additional pathway for licensing,” NRC Chair Christopher Hanson said in NRC’s March 4 release.
NRC approved NuScale’s small modular light-water reactor design, the first SMR approved in the U.S., under existing regulations last year.
NRC’s announcement drew bipartisan praise from lawmakers who signed onto last year’s letter requesting revisions to the Part 53 draft rule.
Sen. Shelley Moore-Capito, R-W. Va., applauded the NRC for “addressing major shortcomings in the draft proposed rule,” in a March 4 press release, while Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., thanked the NRC for making “significant improvements … to better support the next generation of nuclear reactors.”
NIA’s White called the Part 53 revision request “an important step forward in creating a regulatory framework for advanced reactors that can provide both regulatory flexibility and predictability.”
A March 4 NRC staff requirements memorandum outlined several changes to the Part 53 draft. Among the most significant was the rejection of quantitative health objectives in plant safety assessments in favor of comprehensive plant risk metrics that inform NRC’s assessment of a proposed plant design’s cumulative risk to human health and safety.
Another proposed change rejected “a strict checklist of requirements” for probabilistic risk assessments while favoring a more flexible framework suited to simplified reactor designs with passive safety features that utilize natural forces, such as gravity or pressure differentials, rather than operator action.
NRC’s Part 53 rulemaking process is occurring alongside congressional efforts to further improve nuclear licensing and regulation.
On Feb. 28, the House of Representatives passed the Atomic Energy Advancement Act, which reduces advanced reactor licensing fees and instructs NRC to update its environmental review processes, modernize its regulatory oversight procedures and develop protocols for siting nuclear reactors on industrial brownfield sites. A similar Senate bill, the ADVANCE Act, was stripped from the National Defense Authorization Act in December, but both houses are working on a compromise package that could go to President Biden later this year.
