CoP webinar explores reactor developer’s perspective on RIPB regulation

The American Nuclear Society's Risk-informed, Performance-based Principles and Policy Committee (RP3C) recently held another presentation in its monthly Community of Practice (CoP) series, the RP3C's final CoP of the year.

Former RP3C chair N. Prasad Kadambi opened the meeting with brief introductory remarks about the RP3C and the value of risk-informed, performance-based (RIPB) techniques as opposed to conventional prescriptive and deterministic approaches.

Kadambi then introduced this month's speaker: Rani Franovich, vice president of regulatory strategy at Deep Fission, who presented "Performance-Based and Risk-Informed Design Reviews: The Next Challenge in U.S. Regulatory Modernization and International Harmonization."

Watch the full presentation here.

A brief history: The history of U.S. regulatory modernization "began with the NRC's near-death experience in the late 1990s and the commission's 1999 direction to apply RIPB approaches to regulatory decision-making," Franovich said. This led, in 2000, to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission implementing the Reactor Oversight Process (ROP), but it didn't modernize other regulatory functions.

Legislative mandates under the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA) and the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act in 2019 and 2024, respectively, "served as reminders to finish the work," that is, by modernizing the rest of the NRC's regulatory functions. These reminders were further amplified by President Trump's 2025 nuclear-related executive orders.

Looking closer: Franovich zoomed in on one part of the timeline: the implementation of the ROP. As she explained, since the process was implemented, the NRC has provided extensive training on probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) tools and methods. However, the commission "neglected training and reinforcement of performance-based attributes." Over the years, this imbalance led to "risk-informed" becoming practically synonymous with "PRA" and performance-based concepts fading into obscurity.

According to Franovich, the resistance at the NRC to modernize on this front "has been deeply cultural" and has been exacerbated by two factors. One is a "legal preference" for prescriptive regulations, which exists "because attorneys think they're easier to enforce."

The other is what Franovich referred to as "the old guard industry establishment," who have already cultivated deep expertise in "navigating the old NRC" and have invested significant resources in developing and maintaining sophisticated PRA models.

While Franovich appreciates this "protectionism of vested interests," she nonetheless argued that regulatory modernization is necessary for the economic viability and survival of new entrants and start-ups like Deep Fission.

A look at the DOE: Departing from her focus on the NRC, Franovich also spent some time in the webinar covering Deep Fission's experience with the Department of Energy's Reactor Pilot Program. The company recently submitted its preliminary documented safety analysis (PDSA) to the DOE, the third of five major milestones in the DOE's reactor authorization process.

While much attention has been paid to the way DOE authorization differs from NRC licensing, Franovich pointed out that, interestingly, "the standard governing DOE's authorization pathway for nuclear facilities applies a decision-making structure very similar to that of the ROP."

There are four fundamental safety functions involved in DOE authorization, she explained: radioactive material confinement, nuclear reactivity control, fission and decay heat removal, and preservation of adequate radiation shielding. These functions represent a combination of the ROP's fundamental objectives of reactor safety and radiation safety.

The DOE's high-level performance objectives "represent modern RIPB principles" in Franovich's view, and the NRC's observation of the DOE authorization process provides an opportunity to see "how performance-based decision-making is applied in a different federal agency."

Deeper analysis: The remainder of Franovich's presentation went into a deeper analysis of several topics, including potential modifications to the ROP, the complexities of 10 CFR Part 53, the potential of Part 57, and proposed revisions to Part 73. To hear more on each of these topics, watch the full discussion on the ANS Standards YouTube channel.