SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- SAFETY AND REGULATORY ISSUES OF THE THORIUM CYCLE - Draft Statement of Work
- Notice Date
- 5/21/2012
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541330
— Engineering Services
- Contracting Office
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Administration, Division of Contracts, 12300 Twinbrook Parkway, Rockville, Maryland, 20852-2738, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20852-2738
- Solicitation Number
- RES-12-204
- Archive Date
- 6/14/2012
- Point of Contact
- Adelis M. Rodriguez, Phone: 301-492-3623
- E-Mail Address
-
adelis.rodriguez@nrc.gov
(adelis.rodriguez@nrc.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Draft Statement of Work SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE SAFETY AND REGULATORY ISSUES OF THE THORIUM FUEL CYCLE THE U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (NRC) is issuing this Sources Sought Synopsis as a means of conducting market research or as a market survey to determine the availability and potential technical capability of the business community to provide all management, supervision, administration, and labor for assistance of NRC with project work involving the investigation of the safety and regulatory issues of the thorium fuel cycle, and which is described below. Services are to be provided to the NRC in Rockville, MD. The acquisition will be for one period of 12 months. It is estimated that approximately 1140 staff hours will be needed to provide the requested supplies and/or services. The applicable North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code assigned to this procurement is (541330). The Draft Statement of Work is attached. THERE IS NO SOLICITATION AT THIS TIME. This request for capability information does not constitute a request for proposal; submission of any information in response to this market survey is purely voluntary; the Government assumes no financial responsibility for any costs incurred. BACKGROUND The NRC is responsible for the licensing and regulatory oversight of civilian nuclear power reactors in the United States. The Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research (RES) furthers the regulatory mission of the NRC by providing technical advice, technical tools and information for identifying and resolving safety issues, making regulatory decisions, and promulgating regulations and guidance. RES conducts independent experiments and analyses, develops technical bases for supporting realistic safety decisions by the agency, and prepares the agency for the future by evaluating safety issues involving current and new designs and technologies. RES develops its program with consideration of Commission direction and input from the program offices and other stakeholders. Although almost all of the world's reactors utilize uranium as their fuel, the nuclear energy community continues to maintain an interest in the utilization of thorium fuel both in current core designs, including pressurized water reactors (PWR) and boiling water reactors (BWR), and in next generation reactors. There are advantages in using nuclear fuel that can potentially reduce uranium utilization with higher conversion ratios, is far more abundant than the only other actinide found in nature, uranium, and appears to have several desirable safety features such higher melting temperatures and reduced radioactivity for long term spent fuel storage. There is a sizeable operating experience from which to obtain valuable data for further improved designs: over the past decades, various designs of experimental and commercial thorium reactors were built and operated in the US and abroad. In the U.S., several demonstrations of the use of thorium in nuclear reactors have been performed. These include irradiations in light water reactors including Elk River (BWR), Indian Point (PWR), and Shippingport (PWR). The Shippingport experience also demonstrated the breeding potential of using thorium in a light water reactor. The use of thorium was also widespread in high temperature gas-cooled reactors including Peach Bottom 1 and Fort St. Vrain. The regulations under which the thorium fuel operating licenses were granted to US plants four and five decades ago have significantly evolved and a scoping study of the safety issues and the licensing requirements of a thorium fuel cycle under the current regulatory environment will undoubtedly yield numerous areas where serious updates will be needed. The specific areas that need additional attention include a review of impacts of the introduction of thorium ranging from the front to back end of the fuel cycle including impacts on reactor operation and safety. This would include a review of the NRC analysis tools to identify development needs, the collection of available validation data and identification of validation data gaps, and an assessment of regulatory issues. Additionally, domestic and international activities should be reviewed and areas of collaboration considered. CAPABILITY SOUGHT The NRC is seeking to identify organizations capable of providing technical assistance in evaluating the safety issues and the regulatory requirements specific to a thorium-based fuel cycle for current and advanced reactor designs and identify gaps and recommended future research and development to support thorium license requests. The selected organization must have extensive research experience with demonstrated knowledge of historical and current thorium-based fuel cycles, fuel designs, and demonstrated expertise in the neutronics, mechanical, and safety aspect of these cycles. Based on knowledge of the current safety basis for LWRs, the organization is expected to perform an assessment of the impacts of thorium on reactor operations and safety to identify key phenomena that require alternative assessments or consideration The organization would need to provide a very broad technical expertise, including intricate familiarization with all technical, safety, and regulatory aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle associated with fabrication, irradiation in the reactor core, and waste management. The organization must have comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the current NRC regulation and associated design, testing, maintenance, surveillance, and mitigation criteria. With its combined advanced knowledge and experience with both the uranium and the thorium fuel cycles, the selected organization will provide recommendations for improvements needed in reactor analysis capabilities, potential impacts on safety requirements, and identification of knowledge gaps that require additional analysis or research to address. The organization will capture the evaluation results and recommendations in a draft NUREG/CR report for review by NRC staff and will provide a final report including staff comments. MANDATORY QUALIFYING CRITERIA: The investigators must have advanced levels of engineering education and experience commensurate with the complexity of this research, and exhaustive working knowledge of current and advanced thorium fuel cycle research. Specifically, the investigators must have demonstrated expertise in the following: - Thorium fuel cycles including U.S. and international experience - Current activities and research and development on thorium fuel cycles - Physics of reactors utilizing thorium including U-233 fueled reactors - Thorium fuel design, properties, and irradiation performance - Design, operation, and safety of light water reactors (LWR) and advanced reactor concepts (including high temperature gas-cooled reactors and molten salt reactor) - NRC safety regulations for LWR and regulatory experience associated with advanced reactors and fuels - Reactor physics and fuel cycle analysis - Fuel fabrication, transportation and storage (including criticality safety) - Issues associated with use of greater than 5 wt.% enriched uranium to support thorium fuels - Spent fuel characterization, storage, and disposal The purpose of this announcement is to provide potential sources the opportunity to submit information regarding their capabilities to perform work for the NRC free of conflict of interest (COI). For information on NRC COI regulations, visit NRC Acquisition Regulation Subpart 2009.5 (http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/contracting/48cfr-ch20.html). All interested parties, including all categories of small businesses (small businesses, small disadvantaged businesses, 8(a) firms, women-owned small businesses, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, and HUBZone small businesses) are invited to submit a response. The capabilities package submitted by a vendor should demonstrate the firm's ability, capability, and responsibility to perform the principal components of work listed below. The package should also include past performance/experience regarding projects of similar scope listing the project title, general description, the dollar value of the contract, and name of the company, agency, or government entity for which the work was performed. Organizations responding to this market survey should keep in mind that only focused and pertinent information is requested. If significant subcontracting or teaming is anticipated in order to deliver technical capability, organizations should address the administrative and management structure of such arrangements. Organizations responding to this market survey should keep in mind that only focused and pertinent information is requested. Submission of additional materials such as glossy brochures or videos is discouraged. If your organization has the potential capacity to perform these contract services, please provide the following information: 1) Organization name, address, email address, Web site address and telephone number as well as size and type of ownership for the organization; and 2) Tailored capability statements addressing the particulars of this effort, with appropriate documentation supporting claims of organizational and staff capability. Organizations responding to this market survey should keep in mind that only focused and pertinent information is requested. If significant subcontracting or teaming is anticipated in order to deliver technical capability, organizations should address the administrative and management structure of such arrangements. Taking into account the magnitude of the scope of this professional recruitment effort, organizations also should address the capacity of their financial infrastructure to coordinate and deliver contract performance. Although no geographic restriction is anticipated, if responding organizations are located outside the Washington Metropolitan area, indicate how the organization would coordinate with the NRC program office located in Rockville, MD to provide the support requested. The Government will evaluate market information to ascertain market capacity to: 1) potentially provide the services consistent in scope and scale with those described in this notice and otherwise anticipated; 2) potential capacity to secure and apply the full range of corporate financial, human capital, and technical resources required to successfully perform similar requirements; 3) potential capability to implement a successful project management plan that includes: compliance with tight program schedules; cost containment; meeting and tracking performance; hiring and retention of key personnel; and risk mitigation; and 4) potential to provide services under a performance based service acquisition contract. Interested firms responding to this Sources Sought Synopsis are encouraged to structure capability statements in the order of the area of consideration noted above. All capability statements sent in response to this notice must be submitted electronically, via e-mail, to Mrs. Adelis M Rodriguez, at Adelis.rodriguez@nrc.gov, in either MS Word, WordPerfect or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), by May 30, 2012 at 1:00pm EST. This market survey is being conducted through the FedBizOpps to reach the widest possible audience and to gather current market information. DISCLAIMER AND NOTES: Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's potential capability and capacity to perform the subject work. The Government may provide access to the information contained in the response to a contractor providing acquisition planning and strategic technical assistance support to the Government. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation.
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