ML021970375
| ML021970375 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Mcguire, Catawba, McGuire  |
| Issue date: | 07/10/2002 |
| From: | Besa J Neal R. Gross & Co. |
| To: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| Byrdsong A T | |
| References | |
| +adjud/rulemjr200506, 50-369-LR, 50-370-LR, 50-413-LR, 50-414-LR, ASLBP 02-794-01-LR, NRC-464, RAS 4635 | |
| Download: ML021970375 (147) | |
Text
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~1365 Titl Docket Number:
Location:
Date:
50-369-LR et al.
(telephone conference)
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
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CA)
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Cc3 C C C,-
Work Order No.:
NRC-464 Pages 919-1063 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 i= k ~y-o3A
&cy-o Official Transcript of Proceedings
.'ý,*NUCLEAIR trAECOMMISSION e:
Duke Energy Corporation McGuire Nuclear Station Units 1 & 2 Catawba Nuclear Station Units 1 & 2 S AC Y- 0 V-
919 1
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 IN THE MATTER OF DUKE ENERGY CORPORATION (McGuire Nuclear Station, Units 1 & 2, Catawba Nuclear Station, Units 1 & 2)
- Docket Nos.
- 50-369-LR
- 50-370-LR
- 50-413-LR
- 50-414-LR x
Wednesday, July 10, 2002 The above-entitled matter came on for hearing, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m.
BEFORE:
THE HONORABLE ANN MARSHALL YOUNG, Chair THE HONORABLE CHARLES N.
KELBER THE HONORABLE LESTER S.
RUBENSTEIN NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD PANEL LICENSING RENEWAL TELEPHONE CONFERENCE CALL
x
920 1
APPEARANCES:
2 On Behalf of the Licensee, Duke Energy Corp.:
3 DAVID A.
- REPKA, ESQ.
4 Of:
Winston & Strawn 5
1400 L Street, NW 6
Washington, DC 20005 7
AND 8
LISA F.
- VAUGHN, ESQ.
9 BOB GILL, ESQ.
10 Of:
Duke Energy Corporation 11 422 South Church Street 12 Charlotte, NC 28202 13 14 On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
15 SUSAN L.
- UTTAL, ESQ.
16 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 17 Office of the General Counsel 18 Mail Stop-0-14D21 19 Washington, DC 20555-0001 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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APPEARANCES:
(cont.)
2 On Behalf of the Intervenors:
3 MARY OLSON, Director Southeast Office 4
Of:
Nuclear Information and Resource Service 5
729 Haywood Road, 1-A 6
P.O. Box 7586 7
Asheville, NC 28802 8
9 LOU ZELLER, Executive Director 10 Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League 11 P.O. Box 88 12 Glendale Springs, NC 28629 13 14 15 ALSO PRESENT:
16 Duncan Barrett 17 Brew Barron 18 Duncan Brewer 19 Diane Curran 20 Lee Dewey 21 Raju Goyal 22 Jared Heck 23 Ed Lyman 24 Michelle Mendelson 25 Robert Palla NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ALSO PRESENT:
(cont.)
Greg Robison Mike Snodderly James Wilson NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2
10:08 a.m.
3 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
On the record.
This 4
is Judge Kelber and I are here in Rockville.
Judge 5
Rubenstein -- and we have our Counsel, Lee Dewey with 6
us along with Lockhard Mendelson and Raju Goyal here 7
in Rockville.
I want to ask the
- Staff, the 8
intervenors and Duke if you would all introduce 9
yourselves and all those present.
Why don't we start 10 with Duke as we did before?
11 MR.
REPKA:
Yes.
This is David Repka for 12 Duke Energy.
With me at McGuire Station near 13 Charlotte are Lisa Vaughn, Associate General Counsel, 14 on a separate line from Washington is Anne Cottingham, 15 also with me at McGuire are Brew Barron who is the 16 site Vice President of McGuire Station, Duncan Brewer 17 who is the Manager of the Severe Accident Analysis 18 Group for Duke Energy, Michael Barret who is the 19 Senior Engineer of Severe Accident Analysis, Greg 20 Robinson who is the Project Manager for the McGuire 21 Catawba Renewal Project, Bob Gill who is the Senior 22 Licensing Consultant for License Renewal.
23 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
Thank you.
Ms.
24 Curran for the intervenors.
25 MS.
CURRAN:
This is Diane Curran.
I am NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 924 representing Friedel (PH) and NIRS this morning.
With me in my Washington, D.C. office is Dr. Edwin Lyman.
On a separate line is Louis Zeller of BREDL and Mary Olson who's on yet another line of NIRS.
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Thank you.
Then Ms.
Uttal for the Staff.
MS.
UTTAL:
Susan Uttal, Counsel for the NRC Staff.
With me is Jared Heck, Counsel for the NRC Staff, James Wilson member of the Staff, and Robert Palla also a member of the Staff.
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Thank you.
Also we have on the line Mr. Mike Snodderly who is serving as the adjudicate.
Mr.
Snodderly, why don't you give your title?
MR.
SNODDERLY:
Sure.
Reactor Systems Engineer Probablistic Safety Assessment Branch, Office of the Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
What was the title that you're serving as?
MR.
SNODDERLY:
Adjudicatory employee advising the Commission on behalf of this hearing.
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
All right.
We have an agenda for today.
There are six items listed.
The first item on the agenda is to let us know whether you've made any further progress in your settlement NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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negotiations on contention two.
Do you have anything 2
to report on that?
3 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka for Duke 4
Energy.
I would say the short answer to that is no.
5 We have nothing to report.
We have a standing offer 6
to discuss settlement.
We have heard nothing on that 7
issue.
In fact, we felt on the last conference call 8
that the focus of the opportunity for amended 9
contentions would be to narrow the issues, to in fact 10 potentially foster settlement discussions.
What we 11 got clearly was not that.
It expanded the contention.
12 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
- Well, let's not get 13 into that at this point.
All we need to talk about at 14 this point is whether -- And I realize in saying that 15 obviously when the determination was made that there 16 might be an issue of possibly moving out contentions 17 by the RAI responses, a need for the filing of amended 18 contentions and all that goes with that without making 19 any value judgements, the whole issue of settlement 20 did get pushed somewhat into the background.
We want 21 to hear what everyone has to say in appropriate time 22 on the amended contention.
On settlement, I hear you 23 saying that there has been no progress.
Does any 24 party have anything to add?
25 MS.
CURRAN:
I would agree with Mr. Repka.
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It seems like -
2 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Is that Ms.
Curran?
3 MS.
CURRAN:
I'm sorry.
It is.
4 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
We need to identify 5
ourselves.
6 MS.
CURRAN:
Sure.
The sticking points in 7
our first discussion still remain, so it didn't seem 8
like we were able to make any progress on that.
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
And Ms. Uttal, do you 10 have anything to add?
11 MS.
UTTAL:
No, Your Honor.
12 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
The next issue 13 on the agenda is whether there are any continuing 14 Commission proceedings that would affect this 15 proceeding before this Board.
I think what we were 16 contemplating when that was placed on the agenda was 17 the possibility that the Commission might be close to 18 a decision on who's going to staff the appeal of the 19 Board's decision on contention two.
20 Mr. Snodderly, you indicated earlier that 21 you were here to listen and report back to the 22 Commission in the Appellate Counsel's office.
If you 23 have anything to add at this point please feel free.
24 Or does anyone else have anything to add on that item?
25 I'm not sure.
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MR.
SNODDERLY:
- Yes, Your Honor.
I've 2
been advising Cecilia Carson of the Commission Staff.
3 No, I don't have anything to report at this time.
4 COURT REPORTER:
I'm sorry.
This is the 5
Court Reporter.
Could you please identify yourself 6
when you speak?
7 MR.
SNODDERLY:
I'm sorry.
This is Mike 8
Snodderly.
I've been working with Cecilia Carson of 9
the Staff.
I'm not aware of any additional 10 information at this time, Your Honor.
11 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Thank you.
I'm 12 probably going to be talking more than anybody else, 13 so if I forget to say who I am feel free to interrupt 14 me too.
This is Judge Young.
15 The third item is any relevant information 16 related to Generic Safety Issue 189 that would affect 17 this proceeding.
I should note that Ms.
Uttal has 18 told us all on May 22nd I believe noted of the ACRS 19 meeting with regard to Generic Safety Issue 189.
The 20 Board is aware of that.
As a matter of fact one of 21 our law clerks attended that.
We have looked at the 22 transcript of that, some of us anyway, the ACRS's 23 discussion on that.
24 Do the parties have anything to report?
25 I guess we should start with the Staff on this.
If I
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am assuming incorrectly please feel free to correct 2
me.
I am assuming that everyone is aware of that 3
meeting since I believe NIRS was present.
I'm not 4
sure whether Duke was.
But everyone was aware that it 5
was occurring.
6 JUDGE KELBER:
This is Judge Kelber.
If 7
you aren't aware, let me give you the --
numbers of 8
the transcripts of the meeting and also of the ACRS 9
letter that was subsequently sent to the Executive 10 Director for Operations.
11 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
And I believe just 12 anticipating these are all public documents.
13 JUDGE KELBER:
Yes.
They're all publicly 14 available.
The transcript comes in two parts.
The 15 first part is ML02170012.
The second part is 16 ML021700307.
The discussion of the ACRS's 17 presentation by the Staff to the Committee is found in 18 part one starting at page 110.
19 Letters on the topic have been received by 20 the ACRS from Anne Harris and Ken Burgeron.
Dr.
21 Burgeron was a co-author of NUREG CR 6427.
He was 22 represented at the meeting by David Lockbaum of the 23 Union of Concerned Scientists.
Ms.
Harris and Dr.
24 Burgeron's letters are found near the end of part two 25 of the transcript at pages 146 and 151 respectively.
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The letter which was written by the ACRS to the 2
Executive Director of Operations was dated June 3
17,2002.
It's available on Adams as exception number 4
5 MS.
CURRAN:
Judge Kelber, this is Diane 6
Curran.
Would you please repeat the session number of 7
the first part of the transcript?
8 JUDGE KELBER:
Certainly.
9 MS.
CURRAN:
I missed the last couple of 10 digits.
11 JUDGE KELBER:
Is that all 12 right?
13 MS.
CURRAN:
Yes.
Thank you.
14 JUDGE KELBER:
Anything else?
15 (No response.)
16 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
So I guess, Ms.
17 Uttal, this is Judge Young again, do you have anything 18 to report on the progress of the Staff on Generic 19 Safety Issue 189 since the ACRS meetings?
Does anyone 20 wish that Ms. Uttal would address any progress up to 21 that point?
I'm assuming that everyone knows up to 22 that point.
If not, be heard at this point.
23 MS.
UTTAL:
Your Honor, this is Susan 24 Uttal.
One thing I have a different Adams session 25 number for the letter from the ACRS to Dr. Travers.
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I'd like to give that to everybody.
2 JUDGE KELBER:
I thought that's what I 3
said.
This is Judge Kelber.
4 MS.
UTTAL:
Oh.
Maybe I'm reading it 5
- wrong, Judge Kelber.
I'm sorry.
I have several 6
numbers in front of me.
I have no additional 7
information regarding Staff action after the June 17 8
letter.
The Staff has not yet responded to this 9
letter.
10 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
Thank you.
11 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka.
May I add 12 one thing?
13 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Sure.
14 MR.
REPKA:
We are aware of a June 27 15 Staff requirements memo from the Commission on SECY 16 02-0080 in which -
17 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
What's that number 18 again please?
19 MR. REPKA:
It's a Staff requirements memo 20 related to SECY-02-0080.
I don't have the Adams 21 session number.
But the Commission directs the staff 22 to go forward to resolve GSI 189 in a timely fashion.
23 MS.
UTTAL:
Your Honor, I have the session 24 number for that.
25 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Go ahead.
Is this Ms.
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Uttal?
2 MS.
UTTAL:
Yes.
3 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
Mr. Repka, did 4
you have anything that you wanted to say about that or 5
just to share the information that it had been issued?
6 MR.
REPKA:
No.
Just to share that it had 7
been issued and the fact that it represents the 8
Commission's direction to go forward with that 9
resolution.
10 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I don't have that in 11 front of me.
I don't know whether Judge Kelber does.
12 But may I just ask whoever knows, Mr.
Uttal or Mr.
13 Repka or whoever else, does the Commission direct the 14 Staff to go forward with the rulemaking or is there 15 any particular direction that the Staff is to take?
16 MS.
UTTAL:
This is Ms. Uttal again.
This 17 says to move toward a resolution of the issue.
18 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka There is no 19 particular resolution identified nor is there a means 20 for resolution.
It could be rulemaking.
It could be 21 some other means potentially but that's not 22 identified.
23 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Are there any time 24 lines set?
25 MR.
REPKA:
"In a timely fashion" are the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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words of the SRN.
2 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Thank you.
Anything 3
else on Generic Safety Issue 189 at this point?
I 4
realize it may come up in some of the amended 5
contentions.
Hearing none, moving on to the next item 6
on the agenda.
Staff's objections as expressed in the 7
May 16, 2002 letter to the Board members regarding a 8
document referenced in the May 13 order.
9 I just want to report first of all I
10 believe Judge Kelber, you were not aware that the 11 document in question was not public.
The Board has 12 taken measures to assure that we know when documents 13 are public and are not public.
That had to do with 14 how the Adams window was set up.
We should be more 15 aware of that in the future.
I'm not sure that 16 there's any need to talk any further on that.
Does 17 anyone see any need to address that any further?
18 (No response.)
19 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
All right.
The next 20 two items on the agenda are any questions arising out 21 of the parties filings related to late filed 22 amendments to contention two including the need for 23 any further argument on these and then finally any 24 other pertinent subjects relating to this proceeding.
25 Before going on to the late filed amendments, let me NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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just ask a question.
Are there any other items that 2
any party thinks that we should address today?
3 MR.
REPKA:
Dave Repka for Duke.
We don't 4
have any other items.
5 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Any other?
The Staff 6
or intervenors?
7 (No response.)
8 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
All right.
We have 9
discussed ways of --
to the amendments to contention 10 two.
We on the Board have some questions that we 11 would like to pose to the parties on each of these.
12 I guess now might be a good time to address whether 13 these are separate contentions or part of a
14 contention.
Let me get back to that.
15 We did not anticipate hearing any oral 16 argument today from the parties on the contentions.
17 What we would like to do is pose our questions to you 18 so that you can see what our concerns are.
We may or 19 may not have time to get into discussion on any of 20 those questions today.
Depending upon how we proceed 21 today and the progress that we make, we may or may not 22 need to discuss further oral arguments which I think 23 in our discussions we had been anticipating that it 24 would be in person if we do need further oral 25 arguments.
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Just on the issue of what to call what's 2
been filed, the intervenors titled the first part of 3
what I
have been calling parts of the amended 4
contention "Amended Consolidated Contention Two" which 5
says "The Duke SAMA, S-A-M-A, Analysis is incomplete 6
and insufficient to mitigate severe accidents in that 7
it fails to provide an adequate discussion of 8
information from NUREG/CR-6427."
I've been calling it 9
NUREG 6427 for short.
10 Continuing now "The discussion of 11 information from NUREG 6427 and a dedicated electrical 12 line from the hydroelectric generating dams adjacent 13 to each reactor site.
In particular the SAMA Analysis 14 contains the following deficiencies."
Then there are 15 eight listed.
What I have been looking at is sub 16 parts.
I noticed that Duke and possibly the Staff 17 refer to those as separate contentions.
If we need to 18 clarify anything on that, now might be a good time to 19 do that.
If they are anything other than simply a 20 difference in terminology that people have used, 21 anything more substantive with regards described that 22 anyone would like to speak to.
23 MS.
CURRAN:
Judge Young, this is Diane 24 Curran.
I wonder if it would help if I explain how it 25 got to be structured this way.
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CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
If you can do so 2
briefly, I think that would be appropriate.
3 MS.
CURRAN:
I have to tell you that I've 4
been trained by lawyers for various applicants to 5
start doing contentions this way because I used to 6
have a lot of information in the basis.
I wound up 7
with responses to contentions that basically go down 8
the basis that constituted propositions and said these 9
are actually sub-parts of the contention, aren't they.
10 And I had to agree.
11 I think of a basis as an explanation in 12 support for a proposition.
There's various sub 13 propositions to this contention.
So that was how it 14 was meant to be, that there's an overall proposition 15 but then it breaks down into more specific parts.
16 That's why the contention is broken down the way it 17 is.
I know that Duke and I think the Staff refers to 18 the separate parts as separate contentions.
I think 19 of them as sub-parts of the main contention.
20 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
This is Judge Young.
21 Probably the confusion arose by the use of the word 22 contention at the beginning.
You're saying you meant 23 those to be sub-parts of the amended consolidated 24 contention two.
25 MS.
CURRAN:
Yes.
I should have probably NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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called them sub-contentions.
2 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Any other issues on 3
that which Duke or the Staff wishes to raise at this 4
point?
5 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka for Duke.
6 I'm not sure it matters what you call them.
I know 7
that Ms.
Curran maintains that they are sub-parts of 8
the admitted contention, but I think substantively 9
they are not so limited.
We tried to address them 10 that way.
11
- Again, I'm not sure the name is really 12 important.
What's important is what they say.
I 13 don't think there can be any doubt that there are 14 really eight new issues.
Therefore, we tried to deal 15 with them as the new issues that they are.
They 16 clearly exceed the scope of the original consolidated 17 contention two.
That's explained in our papers.
18 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
All right.
This is 19 Judge Young again.
In terms of how we spend the 20 remainder of our time together today and just to 21 follow up on what Mr.
Repka said I'll just make the 22 following observations.
It might be helpful and this 23 is not to indicate any suggestion on how I or the 24 Board might rule on any of these, but it might be 25 helpful to think of them in a context of the second NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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sentence of the amended consolidated contention two, 2
in particular the SAMA analysis contains the following 3
deficiencies to read into that, in particular the SAMA 4
analysis with regard to information from NUREG 6427 5
and a dedicated electrical line from the hydroelectric 6
generating dam adjacent to each reactor site contains 7
the following deficiencies.
With that limitation, Ms.
8
- Curran, would you disagree because Mr.
Repka has 9
raised the issue of the scope that it implicitly 10 contained in that sentence that you've written?
11 MS.
CURRAN:
Yes.
I would agree with the 12 way that you amended it if that is what is meant.
13 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I don't mean to amend 14 it.
I'm just saying there seems to be in light of how 15 all this arose obviously these are not just amended 16 contentions on anything based on the RAI responses.
17 But they are proposed amendments to contention two 18 which had two parts.
So it sounds as though you agree 19 with that.
That fits with what Mr.
Repka says.
20 Obviously the parties have disagreements on whether or 21 not the particular sub-parts do relate to the two 22 subject areas contained in the original consolidated 23 contention two.
24 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka.
I just 25 wanted to react to that and say I certainly have no NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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objection to putting that limitation in there.
But by 2
no means do I think that cures the admissibility of 3
the contention.
4 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Sure.
You raised 5
numerous issues relating not only to the basis but 6
also to the timeliness.
We're aware of that.
Is that 7
what you meant to say?
8 MR.
REPKA:
Yes.
Absolutely.
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Right.
I guess the 10 way that the Board is somewhat looking at this and 11 Judge Rubenstein and Judge Kelber correct me if I'm 12 wrong, but just to put a little structure on this is 13 that we're looking at it as a three part analysis.
14 The first is the amended consolidation contention two 15 with all its sub-parts, timely under the timeliness 16 criteria for late contentions.
The second is do the 17 sub-parts fall within the scope of the original 18 consolidated contention two and its two sub-parts.
19 Then third is assuming we get past each of these in 20 order, do any, all, or none of the sub-parts meet the 21 regular contention admissibility criteria of 10 CFR 22 2714.
23 So I guess it might be appropriate to 24 start with our questions on the contentions in order.
25 It's a
little past ten.
If we can get very brief NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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responses to our questions as we go and move along 2
fairly
- quickly, that might be appropriate.
Judge 3
- Kelber, I was just saying if we can get very brief 4
responses to our questions as we go and we seem like 5
we're making some progress that might be appropriate.
6 Otherwise if it looks like it's taking some time, we 7
may want to move along, share our questions with you, 8
and then consider, if we don't give you an opportunity 9
to respond
- today, what would be the appropriate 10 setting for responding to those questions.
Does that 11 sound all right with you, Judge Kelber and Judge 12 Rubenstein?
13 JUDGE KELBER:
Yes it does.
14 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Yes.
15 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
All right.
At the end 16 of each one if any of the parties have any questions 17 that you'd like to raise or brief statements that you 18 would like to make in response to anything or any 19 issues that you would like to point out to us as long 20 as we keep these concise and move along with them, we 21 will permit that as well.
On the amended consolidated 22 contention two itself as opposed to the various sub 23 parts, are there any questions Judge Kelber or Judge 24 Rubenstein?
25 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
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Rubenstein.
Do you want to address timeliness first?
2 Why don't we do it in the order that you laid out the 3
criteria for acceptability?
4 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
That sounds like a 5
good idea.
Judge Kelber, do you agree?
6 JUDGE KELBER:
No problem.
7 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
All right.
Judge 8
Rubenstein, why don't you go first if you have any 9
questions on the timeliness issues?
10 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
I really don't have 11 much on timeliness.
I'm going to yield to you, Judge 12 Young or Judge Kelber.
When we get to scope, I have 13 some questions.
14 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Judge Kelber?
15 JUDGE KELBER:
- Well, I don't understand 16 why it is thought that material which is obviously 17 outside the scope of 6427 is to be considered timely 18 in any way.
I understand the references to the use of 19 the word "extent."
I think that's quite a stretch.
20 It comes from the same root as extend.
I think that's 21 quite a stretch.
22 I
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should have put you on alert that this really is a
2 late filed contention and that it has to meet the 3
timeliness criteria.
You cannot site the use of the 4
word "extent" as extenuating.
5 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Ms.
- Curran, do you 6
have a brief response to that?
7 MS.
CURRAN:
- Well, I think Judge Kelber's 8
question is going back to the discussion that we had 9
in the last telephone conference where I explained our 10 interpretation of the Board's order of meeting the 11 contention.
I did interpret the language of the order 12 as allowing us to litigate questions regarding of the 13 extent of consideration of NUREG 6427.
So I don't 14 think I have anything more that I can add to that 15 except that we relied on the language in that order.
16 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge 17 Rubenstein.
It appears that we have gotten into 18 scope.
If I can pick up on that at this time and 19 Judge Kelber will yield to me on it.
20 JUDGE KELBER:
Certainly.
21 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Judge Rubenstein, 22 that's fine with me as well although I did have a 23 couple questions on timeliness.
24 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
We seem to have drifted 25 into scope.
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CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I can come back.
2 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Through a discussion of 3
the transcript from the April 29 meeting, I'd like to 4
give a little background on what one could reasonably 5
view this extent question and the scope, both the 6
written contention and of the scope of the hearings 7
which would allow a certain degree of latitude.
I'm 8
sorry we didn't have a Statement of Considerations 9
when we wrote our consolidation contention two.
10
- However, we did take great care to narrow the issues 11 and to try to be specific.
12 The original contention as proffered by 13 the intervenors was that the SAMA analysis was 14 incomplete in that it did not take into account (1) a 15 dedicated electric line from a hydroelectric source 16 and (2) the calculations and values used in the -
17 Contractors Report, shorthand notation 6427.
There 18 are consolidate contentions.
It was the intent of the 19 Board to provide the relief sought by the intervenors 20 in their original drafting of the contention which was 21 consideration of these two items in the SAMA analysis.
22 In the April 24 teleconference, the 23 question of ambiguity in our wording was raised by Ms.
24 Curran.
In effect, Counsel suggested a broader 25 interpretation of the applicant.
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person could conclude that this interpretation was 2
consistent or not consistant with the discussion in 3
the background section of the Board's January 24 4
memorandum and order LBP 02-04.
5 In that place, we discussed the various 6
arguments of the parties regarding the original 7
contention.
From this, we had hoped an understanding 8
of our redrafted contention could arise.
For example, 9
on page 94 of our memorandum and order we wrote "Duke 10 has not considered or applied the values for 11 conditional containment failure probabilities in the 12 NUREG, particularly on containment, vulnerability, and 13 failure probabilities and any consideration of a
14 dedicated line."
15 Our accent or at least certainly mine was 16 "has not considered."
Then in the last sentence on 17 page 96 we state, "The intervenors would be entitled 18 to their relief.
They seek consideration in Duke's 19 analysis of the NUREG information as a dedicated 20 electric line."
Subsequently on page 97 we note "Our 21 ruling admitted only those issues in the refraining of 22 the contention that do not reasonably fall within it."
23 I have to admit we didn't say it, but this 24 was mentioned to be exclusionary as opposed to 25 inclusionary particularly as to the extent of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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responses.
Finally at the teleconference Judge Kelber 2
reiterated "The contention was carefully rewritten and 3
was quite limited in scope."
This is from the 4
transcript on page 866.
5 Later on Ms.
Curran clarified her 6
interpretation when she stated that "As the Board 7
admitted the contention it was not just a question of 8
whether Duke discussed the NUREG or the alternatives 9
but to what extent."
That's the first time we really 10 got into a little different interpretation.
I'm sorry 11 to say this was then clarified by Judge Kelber and I 12 might add that if he hadn't done so I would have when 13 he stated on page 889 lines 8
through 12 "The 14 contention is solely based on the question of 15 consideration of NUREG 6427.
It doesn't address the 16 question of have they estimated the core damage 17 frequency correctly."
18 So based on my selected portions of the 19
- record, is there anything you could briefly add that 20 is beyond what was is your submittals that would help 21 clarify this or focus it more clearly?
If you're not 22 prepared today, I guess we could entertain some sort 23 of a written response.
I'm done, Judge Young.
24 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Ms.
Curran, did you 25 have a response?
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MS.
CURRAN:
- Well, I guess for the most 2
part I
go back to what was said in that last 3
teleconference which I think I represented what our 4
good faith interpretation of the order was and the 5
language on which we relied.
I also think going back 6
to the original contention, it did go into quite a bit 7
of explanation as to the importance of considering 8
NUREG 6427 and how and why it should be considered.
9 The intention of the original contention 10 was to get into the rationale for incorporating that 11 and the importance of having a good analysis that 12 would address it.
So I guess the other thing I would 13 refer back to is the original contention which was 14 quite lengthy as I recall.
I guess I really don't 15 have too much more to add other than our reliance on 16 what it says in the Board's decision.
17 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I have a question on 18 the timeliness issue.
19 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Excuse me.
This is 20 Judge Rubenstein.
Does Duke or the Staff wish to add 21 anything to this?
22 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka for Duke.
23 The only thing I
would add is I
think we're in 24 complete alignment with the position inherent 25 observations of Judge Kelber and Judge Rubenstein.
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The language to the extent of the analysis in the 2
contention that intervenors are relying upon so much 3
is really a red herring.
The fact is the information 4
that was relied on in the contention was the NUREG 5
6427 data on the conditional containment failure 6
probability and whether that was used versus Duke's 7
site specific analysis.
8 Really what we have is a binary situation.
9 It's either been considered or it's not been 10 considered.
What the company did and the response to 11 the RAI was is the NUREG 6427 conditional containment 12 failure probability.
So there really is no issue of 13 the extent.
There is no in between state between not 14 using it and using it.
I think that whole issue is 15 really a red herring and the language doesn't expand 16 the scope of the contention in any way.
17 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Anything further on 18 that?
I would like to ask a question on timeliness to 19 Duke.
20 MS.
CURRAN:
Could I just add one more 21 thing please?
This is Diane Curran.
22 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Just briefly, yes.
23 MS.
CURRAN:
Just looking back to the 24 language of the reframed contention.
The second part 25 refers to an evaluation of a
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Mitigation Alternative.
I think the word "evaluation" 2
carries with it the concept of an analysis and what 3
that would consist of not just that it was addressed 4
but that it was evaluated.
Implicit in that was there 5
was a PRA evaluation of their analysis.
6 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge 7
Rubenstein.
Do you not feel or believe that the 8
clarification in 429 by Judge Kelber and the one I 9
would have offered at that time carries equal or 10 greater weight than that interpretation of what we 11 meant to be a
fairly narrow and specific and 12 exclusionary contention?
13 MS.
CURRAN:
- Well, Judge Rubenstein, we 14 are judged in terms of our timeliness based on that 15 decision admitting the contention.
So I would say had 16 we not understood your order the way we did we might 17 have leapt on the RAI responses right away and amended 18 the contention.
In which case, we wouldn't be arguing 19 about timeliness now.
So I think it is important that 20 we relied on that language.
21 I mean, now it is clear that it was not 22 what you intended.
You've explained that.
But I 23 guess the question is did we reasonably rely on that 24 because it certainly has been argued by the NRC Staff 25 that we sat on our hands while these RAI responses NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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came out and we didn't amend the contention.
We did 2
that because we thought we were entitled in the 3
hearing to question the extent to which the analysis 4
incorporated the NUREG.
5 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge 6
Rubenstein again.
I would agree that it is not 7
unreasonable for each of the parties and the Board to 8
slightly differ in interpretation.
I guess I hinge a 9
lot of it on the clear statement by Judge Kelber on 10 what we meant subsequently.
I guess it explored the 11 subject adequately at least in my mind.
I would 12 suggest to Judge Young that we can move on.
13 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I do have a question 14 about timeliness before we move on.
I'd also like to 15 just say obviously whenever any tribunal issues and 16 order, memorandum and order, the interpretation of it 17 is something that can differ depending upon the 18 reader.
I am very hesitant as the Administrative 19 Judge to go back and state what I meant or did not 20 mean by certain words because I think that the words 21 of our memorandum and order have to stand as they are.
22 I do not undertake here at all to indicate 23 in any way what I intended by any of the language in 24 the order.
I think what we need to look at is what 25 the order said and what could be drawn from that since NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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we are in this position of evaluating the timeliness 2
of the late filed contention which leads me to my 3
question of Duke and the Staff.
I went back and read 4
through some of the transcripts of our conferences 5
after issuance of our memorandum and order.
6 I found several places in the transcripts 7
in which the discussion in so far as it addressed 8
contention two seemed to assume that litigation would 9
proceed forward on contention two if the settlement 10 discussions that were based on the RAI responses were 11 not successful.
I would direct the parties to pages 12 846 to the end of the April 10 conference and pages 13 741 to the end of the March 13 conference.
14 Mr.
Repka, just to help you out a little 15 bit realizing that you can't quickly read through all 16 those
- pages, on page 845 after talking about 17 contention one and recalling that what we were doing 18 at that point was proceeding to our planned hearing on 19 contention one and in effect putting off the 20 consideration of contention two until after we had 21 concentrated on contention one with however the 22 continuing settlement discussions based on the RAI 23 responses going on to the extent possible.
In the 24 context of that at the after we've been discussing 25 contention one on April 10 I think it was on page 846 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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I said what kind of progress are you making on 2
contention two.
3 Mr. Repka, you said Mr. Zeller and I have 4
spoken.
I think it's fair to say we've not made any 5
progress.
At this point I think the assumption is 6
we're proceeding on that contention.
There are 7
several other similar references by all of us that 8
might arguably lead one who was in the middle of that 9
to conclude that hearings would proceed on the 10 contention notwithstanding the RAI responses had been 11 filed.
12 I think it was not until April 29 when you 13 indicated that it was your belief that the RAI 14 responses had in effect mooded out contention two.
So 15 in view of all that long preface, Mr.
- Repka, do you 16 find it unreasonable that a party in that context and 17 given the language in our order, using the language to 18 what extent, might conclude that we were in fact 19 planning to go forward to litigate contention two if 20 settlement negotiations were not successful.
21 MR.
REPKA:
- Yes, Judge Young.
This is 22 Dave Repka.
The first thing I
would say is our 23 position with respect to the mooding of the 24 contentions has been public since we filed our appeal 25 with the Commission.
We did take that position in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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951 1
appeal to the Commission.
I don't remember the exact 2
date, but that's long prior to April 29 or whatever.
3 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Well, let me interrupt 4
you.
You'll forgive me if I'm concentrating more on 5
the proceedings before us.
One of the things that we 6
always ask and obviously we know you had filed that 7
contention but I'm a little confused about why you 8
continued to go forward with negotiations and didn't 9
state that to all of us in the context of this 10 proceeding.
11 MR.
REPKA:
Our feeling was that if we 12 went forward on that contention there would be an 13 opportunity for dispositive motion set in the 14 schedule.
That clearly would have been our intent to 15 file a dispositive motion at the appropriate time.
16 The feeling was that the Board wouldn't set a schedule 17 for that until after (A) settlement discussions had 18 failed and (B) that there might be some period for 19 discovering.
We clearly intended and it would have 20 been our plan all along to file a dispositive motion.
21 I don't think any of that would make any 22 of the intervenor's amended contentions timely.
I 23 don't see the relationship whatsoever.
The fact of 24 the matter is these contentions far exceed the narrow 25 issue of the data in the NUREG.
It's really based on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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952 1
information that was available in the PRAs.
It was 2
available in the original SAMA evaluations.
The time 3
line for judging when a lot of this information was 4
available really goes back to the original application 5
and the original SAMA evaluation.
So I'm not sure 6
where we even get into this idea that there's some 7
ambiguity in
- early, the first quarter of 2002 8
justifies untimely raising of concerns related to core 9
damage frequency.
That simply doesn't follow.
10 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Mr.
- Repka, let's 11 separate out those issues because I think you have a 12 very good point with regard to any information that 13 was previously available.
I think we'll get into that 14 definitely in discussing individual parts of the 15 contention.
But assuming for the sake of argument 16 that there may be some parts of the late filed 17 amendment to contention two that are based on the RAI 18 responses, let's address those solely at this point on 19 the issue of timeliness.
20 Assuming that the only reference to your 21 belief that the RAI responses mooded out the 22 contention was in the proceeding before the Commission 23 and not before the Board that the only reference of 24 that nature prior to April 29 was to the Commission.
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MR.
REPKA:
I'm not sure that's factually 2
correct either Judge Young.
I certainly had 3
discussions in the time after the appeal was filed in 4
the context of settlement discussions with Ms.
Olson 5
subsequent to that with Ms.
Curran.
I'm certain that 6
in our position that we had done precisely what the 7
contention asked for has been articulated.
Whether 8
it's on the record or in the settlement discussions I 9
can't tell you.
By no conceivable stretch can you 10 conclude that the position was a secret.
11 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
The position -
12 JUDGE KELBER:
Might I
interject an 13 observation?
This is Judge Kelber.
I do believe that 14 from one of the early telephone conferences where we 15 focused mainly on contention one that you did indeed 16 bring up the mooding of that.
Let me ask you.
Is it 17 necessary for us to ask you to make a motion to 18 dismiss?
19 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
We did as he said put 20 that issue off.
I think he's right on that.
We 21 decided that we'd put everything off on motions and 22 discovery on contention two until after we had 23 finished with this preliminary hearing on contention 24 one that we were planning to do.
So I think Mr. Repka 25 is right on that.
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954 1
But Mr.
- Repka, if you are right and you 2
did make any statements earlier than April 29 on your 3
position that contention two was mooded out by the RAI 4
responses then certainly I think that's something that 5
we would like to know because my question was really 6
based on my understanding that you had not said that 7
prior to April 29.
That's when Ms.
Curran responded 8
with the to what extent language.
I think that's when 9
I went into the discussion about the precedent on 10 mooding out contentions and deadlines for late filed 11 contentions and so forth.
12 If you don't have anything to add on that, 13 then I agree with Judge Rubenstein.
We can move on.
14 I would suggest that on the scope issues that those 15 are probably dealt with more efficiently by taking 16 them part by part.
Judge Rubenstein, would you 17 disagree with that?
Is that all right with you?
18 Judge Rubenstein, are you still on?
19 (No response.)
20 MR.
REPKA:
Apparently we've lost him.
21 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Maybe we need to take 22 a break and find out what the situation is with the 23 phone connection with Judge Rubenstein.
24 MS.
CURRAN:
Judge Young?
25 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Yes.
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955 1
MS.
CURRAN:
To give some input on that, 2
the Board's voices periodically break up for me.
3 That's why I had to ask Judge Kelber to repeat that 4
number.
It doesn't last very long, but I'll lose a 5
word or two every couple of minutes.
6 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Right.
And actually 7
that's Judge Rubenstein?
8 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Yes.
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Oh good.
How long did 10 we lose you for?
11 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
A few minutes.
12 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
Let me back up 13 to address Ms.
Curran's point.
Ms.
Curran, and this 14 is for the Court Reporter, that's why I told the Court 15 Reporter at the beginning please interrupt us if we do 16 start breaking up.
Anyone please interject if anyone 17 is breaking up and we're not hearing someone because 18 we want to make sure everyone hears everyone else and 19 that the Court Reporter gets everything down.
20 Judge Rubenstein, what I had just said was 21 to move on from the timeliness issue now.
It seems 22 that it might be more efficient to discuss the scope 23 issue in conjunction with each of the contention parts 24 and discuss that along with the admissibility 25 requirements rather than discussing the scope issue NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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with regard to each and then going back and discussing 2
the admissibility issues with regard to each.
Do you 3
have any -
4 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
No objections 5
whatsoever.
6 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
Great.
Judge 7
- Kelber, is that all right with you?
8 JUDGE KELBER:
Yes.
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
10 MS.
CURRAN:
Judge Young?
11 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Yes.
12 MS.
CURRAN:
This is Diane Curran.
I 13 don't know when a good time would be but at some point 14 I would like to ask for a short break.
15 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Anyone object to 16 taking a short break right now?
17 (No response.)
18 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Then we'll put you on 19 mute.
20 COURT REPORTER:
Judge Young?
21 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Yes.
22 COURT REPORTER:
We're still on the 23 record.
24 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
We can go off the 25 record right now for about as close to five as NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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957 1
possible.
We're going to put you on mute.
Off the 2
record.
3 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 4
the record at 11:05 a.m. and went back on 5
the record at 11:16 a.m.)
6 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
On the record.
7 MR. REPKA:
Judge Young?
What about Judge 8
Rubenstein?
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
He's here.
I heard 10 you Judge Rubenstein.
Didn't I?
11 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Yes you did.
12 MR.
HECK:
This is Jared Heck from the 13 Staff.
We're here.
14 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Great.
All right.
15 MR.
REPKA:
Judge Young, this is Dave 16 Repka.
17 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Yes.
18 MR.
REPKA:
May I bring up one thing 19 before we move on to your next question?
20 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Please go ahead.
21 MR.
REPKA:
I would like to respond to I 22 think a question that Judge Kelber started to ask.
I 23 think his question was do we need a motion to dismiss.
24 I think my answer to that question would be at this 25 point no if the Board came to that conclusion that the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the record.
been on the during the (202) 234-4433 JUDGE KELBER:
I would like We're on Aren't we?
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Court Reporter, we've record since I started talking.
Correct?
COURT REPORTER:
Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Great.
Thank you.
JUDGE KELBER:
Okay.
Just to say that break I took a look and the first issue NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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In any event, we have made the suggestion in our June 10 filing in the conclusion that previously admitted consolidated contention two should be dismissed as mood.
It doesn't have the title motion on there but if that needs to be a motion we're happy to make that a motion.
So just to respond to that question, I think the answer is no other paper is necessary but if the Board thinks such a paper would be necessary we're happy to make such a motion.
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Given what you said, I'm not sure that any paper is necessary.
Does the Staff or intervenors have anything different to argue?
MR.
HECK:
Jared Heck from the Staff, Your Honor.
We don't have anything else to add.
MS.
CURRAN:
Neither does Friedel (PH) and NIRS.
959 1
instance that I can find where there's a discussion of 2
mooding of contention two is mentioned on page 696 of 3
the transcript.
4 COURT REPORTER:
I'm sorry.
Could you 5
identify yourself please?
6 JUDGE KELBER:
Judge Kelber.
It's page 7
696.
It's in the February 12, 2002 teleconference.
8 MR.
REPKA:
- Yes, Judge Kelber.
We have 9
not completed our search of the record, but that would 10 seem to make sense.
The RAI responses were on 11 February 1 and January 31 I believe.
12 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Thank you.
Then with 13 regard to any need for a motion to dismiss I think the 14 posture of the case at this point is if the Board 15 finds that any or all parts of amended consolidated 16 contention two would be admitted, then there would be 17 no need to address a motion to dismiss --
If on the 18 other hand the Board were to determine that no parts 19 of amended consolidated contention two be admitted, 20 then we would consider the motion to dismiss --
at 21 that point.
Does anyone disagree with that statement 22 of the posture of the case?
23 MR.
REPKA:
No, Your Honor, from David.
24 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
And from the Staff and 25 intervenors.
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MS.
CURRAN:
This is Diane Curran.
We 2
wouldn't disagree with that.
3 MS.
UTTAL:
Staff does not disagree.
4 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
Then we'll 5
consider that that's how we will proceed.
With that 6
- said, Judge Kelber or Judge Rubenstein, I think I 7
asked you before we went off into the more organized 8
questions about timeliness first but do you have any 9
questions about the first paragraph of amended 10 consolidated contention two before we get into the 11 sub-parts?
12 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge 13 Rubenstein.
I don't.
14 JUDGE KELBER:
No.
I do not.
This is 15 Judge Kelber.
16 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
There are 17 several general questions that I have.
They don't 18 necessarily relate to any particular part but may 19 relate to more than one.
So it might be efficient if 20 I
just
- Well, I
was going to say read those but 21 maybe that's not true.
Maybe I'll just save them for 22 as we go through the contentions.
23 So as to sub-part one "The SAMA analysis 24 contains the following deficiencies:
(1) failure to 25 evaluate alternative of -- licenses.
Judge Kelber or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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Judge Rubenstein, do you have any questions on that 2
sub-part?
3 JUDGE KELBER:
This is Judge Kelber.
Sub 4
part one?
5 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Right.
6 JUDGE KELBER:
No.
I do not.
7 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge 8
Rubenstein, no.
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I guess my question on 10 that one is to the intervenors.
How does this 11 contention arise out of the RAI responses as opposed 12 to being something that could have been raised 13 earlier?
14 MS.
CURRAN:
This is Diane Curran.
First 15
- off, I would like to say that there is a clerical 16 error in this contention that I did not mention the 17 regulation that applies here but which did identify 18 the proper regulation.
It's 10 CFR 51.95 sub-section 19 C,
sub-section 4.
20 This sub-part of the contention relates to 21 the significant conclusion of NUREG/CR 6427 that the 22 containment would not be strong enough or robust 23 enough to withstand a
hydrogen explosion.
This 24 information from the NUREG was not specifically 25 addressed in connection with compliance with that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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standard.
2 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge 3
Rubenstein.
Would this not be covered by the current 4
activity on Generic Safety Issue 189 and be part of 5
the current licensing basis?
6 MS.
CURRAN:
Well, that's a good question 7
that has come up a number of times in this case.
Let 8
me tell you how we view that.
It seems to us that 9
there's two regulatory rule books here.
One is the 10 safety and design basis rule book that has to do with 11 resolving Generic Safety Issues.
The other is NEPA.
12 The context in which this contention is 13 being brought is a NEPA context.
The fact that an 14 issue is being dealt with in the safety realm does not 15 necessarily resolve the NEPA issue.
It's really 16 possible that the staff will come to a resolution of 17 Generic Safety Issue 189 that will satisfy the 18 intervenors and we will decide not to pursue this 19 contention.
That's very possible.
But that will 20 happen at some point in the future.
21 In the meantime, the fact that an issue is 22 being dealt with in the safety realm does not mean 23 that it's precluded from being addressed under NEPA.
24 I also had a difficult time understanding how that 25 argument could be advanced because NEPA of course NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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requires the Agency to address significant adverse 2
environmental impacts.
As long as those impacts are 3
out there and have not been resolved then this is a
4 live NEPA issue.
5 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge 6
Rubenstein again.
Our carefully drawn reconstituted 7
contention two is highly focused.
Is there an exit 8
between this and the REI responses?
9 MS.
CURRAN:
Well the REI responses 10 purport to specifically address new reg 6427.
This is 11 one aspect in which they don't.
12 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I guess I would also 13 add.
I understand that you're saying that your 14 position is the matter in which Duke addresses 6427 is 15 inadequate and that one of the ways in which it's 16 inadequate is that it does not consider the options of 17 not renewing the license.
But I guess it does occur 18 to me that that argument could have eased prior to the 19 responses to the REI.
20 One of the things that should be 21 considered based on 6427 or based on the statute or 22 based on NEPA that all of those arguments could have 23 been made earlier just as easily as they could been 24 raised now.
I'm not really following what was 25 different then such that you could not have raised the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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issue at that point.
2 MS.
CURRAN:
This is Diane Curran.
I 3
think we did really the general issue that USCR-6427 4
was not addressed at all.
5 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Right.
But I'm 6
limiting my question to failure to evaluate the 7
alternative of not renewing the licenses.
I could be 8
wrong but I don't recall that that was raised before.
9 I don't see how it was impossible to raise that 10 earlier.
That it barely arises out of the REI 11 responses to the exclusion of raising it earlier.
12 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge 13 Rubenstein.
I'll give you a chance to think.
I have 14 the same problem as Judge Young does.
I fail to see 15 the relationship.
16 JUDGE KELBER:
Now this is Judge Kelber.
17 NUREG/CR 6427 addresses among other things the 18 activation of igniters and air return fans.
It does 19 not address at any point simply abandoning the site or 20 abandoning the plant I should say.
I don't really 21 understand what this has to do with NUREG/CR 6427.
22 DR.
LYMAN:
Hi, this is Dr. Lyman.
Can I 23 just interject?
On this point, the hydrating (PH) 24 ignition is not the only containment failure mode that 25 it is analyzed in NUREG/CR 6427.
So from that point NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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965 1
of view even providing a power to the ignators and the 2
SBO will not completely eliminate the risk of early 3
containment failure due to other modes including DCH 4
or containment liner meltthrough.
5 JUDGE KELBER:
I think everybody 6
understands that, Dr. Lyman.
7 DR.
LYMAN:
From that point of view then 8
even the power of the ignitors and the air return fans 9
will not necessarily completely eliminate the risk to 10 the public and the sites.
So from that point of view 11 it does provide evidence that the option of not 12 renewing the license has an environmental impact and 13 should be considered.
14 JUDGE KELBER:
This is Judge Kelber.
Dr.
15
- Lyman, the point is that the Commission has in fact 16 issued guidance to nuclear plant operators on the 17 value of their early containment failure frequency.
18 That guidance is based on the environmental effect of 19 such failures.
So that's true for all plants.
20 But NUREG/CR 6427 does not discuss that 21 alternative of shutting down the plant.
Moreover 22 that's part of the current licensing basis because the 23 period of license renewal comes sometimes in the 24 future.
25 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Before you answer, I
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think really without getting into the merits even my 2
question was could this issue not have been raised 3
earlier.
Was there anything that prevented this issue 4
from being raised earlier prior to the following of 5
the REI responses?
6 MS.
CURRAN:
This is Diane Curran.
I'm 7
sorry if I seem to keep repeating myself but we feel 8
that the issue was raised in a general sense.
That 9
first contention said this application does not take 10 NUREG/CR 6427 into consideration.
11 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Let me interrupt here.
12 I'm really trying to zero in on a very small point but 13 it's critical with regard to this particular part of 14 your amended consolidated contention two and that is 15 I do understand that the previous contention raised 16 the due lack of reference two or reliance on NUREG 17 6427.
My question is could you not have raised the 18 issue, the alternative of not renewing license earlier 19 and I'm not hearing a response.
- Moreover, I don't 20 think that saying that you raised the lack of 21 consideration earlier to be equivalent to having 22 earlier raised the alternative of not renewing the 23 licenses.
24 MR.
ZELLER:
This is Lou Zeller.
But we 25 do go further in that in our original contention we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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said that licensing not only failed to address it but 2
that our searches of the 626 page application and 3
Appendix B of the application for NUREG 6427 yielded 4
no information.
5 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Mr. Zeller, I'm going 6
to ask you to do the same thing that Dr.
Lyman did.
7 That is normally in a legal proceeding Counsel speaks 8
for the client.
So if you want to speak ask if you 9
may be heard and then the Board will determine whether 10 you may.
11 I would prefer to start with Ms.
Curran 12 and then to the extent that Dr.
Lyman's expertise 13 might play in that might be appropriate.
But with 14 regard to the general legal arguments, Ms.
Curran is 15 your lawyer and I would like to hear from her.
16 MS.
CURRAN:
Judge Young?
17 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Yes.
18 MS.
CURRAN:
Diane Curran.
In response to 19 your question I think I understand what you're asking.
20 I guess that part of the answer is yes we could have 21 raised Duke's failure to address that requirement of 22 looking at the option of not seeking license renewal.
23 But I think the important part is that NUREG/CR 6427 24 makes that option more significant.
25 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Right.
But you could NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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have raised that earlier also.
Could you not have?
2 I understand what you're saying that it does raise the 3
significance from your position but you could have 4
raised that argument earlier because you were aware of 5
6427 or aware in your mind Duke had not addressed or 6
included those calculations.
So you could have in the 7
initial contention said and also based on the findings 8
of NUREG 6427 Duke failed to sufficiently evaluate the 9
alternative of not renewing the license.
10 MS.
CURRAN:
I think what we thought was 11 that the failure in any respect to consider mentioning 12 6427 that was the first thing that we focused on.
13 This hasn't been dealt with at all.
Then of course 14 once they do deal with it, you look at each aspect in 15 order to say deal with it and then say okay they 16 missed this or that or the other thing in dealing with 17 it.
That was the practice that we went through.
18 Our first concern was this isn't anywhere 19 in here.
Nowhere is this significant document 20 mentioned.
The second step that we took in this 21 amended contention was to once they had addressed it 22 to go into specific aspects of whether that was 23 sufficient.
24 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
The only other 25 question I
have on this one and then I think we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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probably need to move along unless Judge Kelber and 2
Judge Rubenstein have more questions on this is I
3 would like to hear from you or if you would prefer it 4
might be appropriate to be done in writing responses 5
to the citations that the staff provided on page 12 of 6
this response regarding the scope of alternatives that 7
are intended to be addressed in the SAMA analysis.
8 I'm reading into that as opposed to an 9
environmental report or EIS in which I understand the 10 staff and possibly Duke's position to be that this 11 alternative has been considered in the ER and EIS or 12 DEIS.
Even though I understand your arguments not 13 that you don't find that it does that sufficiently but 14 the staff has cited some authority for its focus of 15 the SAMA analysis.
Do you have any response at this 16 point on that?
17 MS.
CURRAN:
I'm sorry I don't and I would 18 like an opportunity to address it in writing.
19 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
All right.
Any other 20 questions on subpart one?
21 (No response.)
22 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Then moving on to 23 subpart two.
24 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Judge Young.
I merely 25 say that your concern would be better served if you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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follow Dr. Lyman's logic by filing a 2.206.
2 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
That's on number one.
3 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
That's right.
4 JUDGE KELBER:
Going on to subsection two.
5 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Yes, go ahead, Judge 6
Kelber.
7 JUDGE KELBER:
I have just two questions 8
which really go to the scope.
Does NUREG 6427 or the 9
response to REI 3C or 4 contain any discussion of the 10 analysis of cost benefit ratios?
The second question 11 does the SAMA analysis present in the environmental 12 report contain any discussion of the PRA?
Now I'm 13 restricting that to the SAMA analysis.
Those are the 14 two questions I have.
15 MS.
CURRAN:
Can you repeat the first 16 question?
17 JUDGE KELBER:
Does NUREG 6427 or the 18 response to REI 3C or 4 contain any discussion of the 19 analysis of cost benefit ratios?
20 MS.
CURRAN:
The response to REI 4 does.
21 I'm not sure it's in
- 3.
22 DR.
LYMAN:
But it should be.
Number 23 three has implications for the cost benefits.
24 MS.
CURRAN:
The issue is that the answer 25 to three has implications for the cost benefit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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analysis.
2 JUDGE KELBER:
I understand that.
I 3
didn't ask that question about implications.
I asked 4
the question about is it referenced in there at all 5
explicitly and not by implication.
6 MS.
CURRAN:
Not explicitly referenced but 7
we would direct you to the answer to four.
What was 8
the second question if I finished answering the first 9
question?
10 JUDGE KELBER:
Where in four do you see 11 anything about the SAMA analysis?
12 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Back to REI four.
13 JUDGE KELBER:
Okay.
I take that back.
14 MS.
CURRAN:
But have we answered your 15 first question completely?
16 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I have a question.
17 You questioned the adequacy of these responses in 18 their failure to provide the PRA to show the basis for 19 its conclusions.
My question is do you demonstrate 20 the inadequacy in any other way or show that the lack 21 of PRA affirmatively indicates specific problems as 22 opposed to what Duke and the staff would and I'm 23 paraphrasing merely raising what could arguably be 24 termed speculative questions.
25 In other words, you say with active PRAs NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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we cannot evaluate it but do you say there is any 2
affirmatively wrong based on the lack of the PRAs or 3
in the responses themselves that you refer to here.
4 MS.
CURRAN:
This is Diane Curran.
5 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
It just to add to your 6
thinking process.
The staff did indicate that there 7
has been publication of portions of the PRA.
I was 8
wondering whether you had looked at those.
9 MS.
CURRAN:
We looked at the information 10 that is provided in the REI responses.
But I'd like 11 to get back to the question of what you would call a 12 circular problem here.
We haven't been given any of 13 the details of the PRA analysis that would allow us to 14 make a meaningful critique of it or of how NUREG 6427 15 was taken into account.
16 Therefore the staff and the Applicant 17 argue that we haven't been specific in making 18 criticisms of the analysis.
I would like to back-up 19 a step and look at the whole approach to the use of 20 PRA and this particular licensing proceeding and also 21 in others.
22 There is an NRC regulation, NCFR 51.45 (c) 23 which pertains to environmental reports and states 24 that environmental factors should be quantified to the 25 fullest extent practicable.
Certainly it's the case NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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that more and more and to a great extent in this case 2
Probablistic Risk Assessment is being used to address 3
compliance with NEPA.
It's very much relied on in 4
this case.
5 So that it seems to us that if this is to 6
be relied on, if the use of PRA is going to be heavily 7
relied on by applicants for licenses they have to take 8
the bitter with the sweet.
They have to expose to the 9
public what it is they are using, the details of what 10 they are doing because in a PRA the devil is in the 11 details.
We are somewhat hamstrung by the fact that 12 we can't get at the details.
It isn't exactly 13 surprising that we can't make a detailed critique of 14 the analysis that was done because we have no access 15 to it.
16 Our only recourse to deal with that was to 17 frame this as a
contention.
This particular 18 application relies to a significant extent on the use 19 of PRA.
But the PRA itself is not being disclosed so 20 that one can see if it was done adequately or whether 21 the new information from NUREG/CR 6427 had been 22 incorporated adequately into that quantitative 23 analysis.
24 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I understand that and 25 I do appreciate your point about the circularity.
As NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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a matter of fact, I intend to ask and I want to ask 2
Duke to address this issue of it's almost a line 3
drawing analysis.
If an applicant came in and just 4
made a bare statement, we've analyzed this and we've 5
concluded X, Y, Z.
6 I think probably, Mr.
- Repka, you would 7
agree that there is some point at which an application 8
can provide such minimal information and basis and 9
analysis for the conclusions or the propositions that 10 it's making in the application.
- Well, do you agree?
11 There would some point at which it could be so minimal 12 that it would not acceptable.
That's why for example 13 staff follows REI.
Mr.
Repka?
14 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka.
The 15 burden is always on the intervenor to provide basic 16 specific contention.
17 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I understand that.
18 What I'm trying to get you to address though and what 19 I would really like both parties to address that is 20 there is issue and I've seen it come up in other cases 21 where the contention is that an application has not 22 sufficiently explained how it's going to handle X, Y, 23 Z to protect the public health for example.
The 24 applicant says something to the effect of we don't 25 have to tell you how.
The intervenor has the burden NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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of providing a contention that explains where we've 2
gone.
It becomes a head-knocking kind of exercise at 3
that point.
4 What I have more or less concluded is that 5
it's a line drawing exercise that a contention can 6
challenge the adequacy of a portion of an application 7
but obviously there's a line drawn between what's 8
sufficient to be able to demonstrate that whatever is 9
being undertaken will be safe for the environment and 10 the public and so forth.
It's something that's either 11 too minimal to provide any or sufficient information 12 or that would require too much and be overly 13 burdensome.
I would like to ask Duke to address this 14 line drawing question.
It's that question alone.
15 Then again back to the intervenors my 16 question was very narrow and focused on parts of a 17 line drawing issue which I think is a valid question.
18 Apart from that are there any specific problems that 19 you have posed in this particular subpart of amended 20 contention two apart from alleging that the failure to 21 provide the PRAs is a problem?
22 So you can take that in whichever order 23 you want.
Whoever needs time to think can go second.
24 Who would like to go first?
Did you understand the 25 two fairly focused questions I have?
One for each of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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you?
2 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka.
I think 3
I understand the question.
I think the question is 4
can the intervenor allege if there's insufficient 5
information and therefore have a contention based upon 6
that alone.
7 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
- Well, insufficient 8
information to meet whatever standards at issue.
9 MR.
REPKA:
And the answer is no.
I don't 10 think you can just say there's insufficient 11 information.
You still need an affirmative showing of 12 something on some basis that you think is missing.
13 That's number one.
Number two in addition you have an 14 iron clad obligation to search the record, the public 15 record, to review what is available publicly in order 16 to make that finding that there's an affirmative 17 deficiency in your view.
In this particular case, I
18 think you, Judge Young, have raised the possibility of 19 a scenario in which an issue is simply not direct or 20 there is no information available.
21 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
But I pose that to 22 illustrate the line drawing quality because if we had 23 that scenario and I realize it's extreme but say 24 there's nothing in the public record on a particular 25 issue and an applicant provides just bare bones, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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minimal conclusory information I
think you would 2
probably agree that a contestant could challenge that 3
as being insufficient.
4 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
A contestant could 5
challenge that as being insufficient but still would 6
need an affirmative showing as to what it is that must 7
be addressed and what the basis for that conclusion 8
is.
That's number one.
9 And number two in this particular case 10 we're talking about a
demo evaluation that was 11 submitted last year that's just a fairly detailed 12 description of what's been done that in fact included 13 references in section 8.0 of both demo evaluations to 14 substantial docketed material on the PRA including in 15 the case of McGuire the fact that the PRA had been 16 submitted on the docket and it's available on the 17 docket.
18 With respect to Catawba, the submittal had 19 included the prior version of the PRA.
So there was 20 substantial information out there.
So the scenario 21 that you raised simply doesn't exist here.
22 In the third argument among others here is 23 simply that none of this in any way is dependant upon 24 NUREG 6427 and the REI response.
All of this are 25 issues and substantive material that was available NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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since day one in this proceeding.
Apart from just the 2
lack of an affirmative showing, there is also the time 3
in this argument.
4 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Actually that was my 5
next question for the Petitioners.
How does this 6
particular subpart relate to the REIs and arrived out 7
of them as opposed to being something Obviously 8
you're saying that they failed to provide adequate 9
support for the concluding results and the REI 10 responses but was not a
lot of the information 11 available in the public record?
12 MS.
CURRAN:
Okay.
This is Diane Curran.
13 I want to get back to your first question too.
14 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Right.
15 MS.
CURRAN:
But maybe I can do both as I 16 go through.
What we tried to do in this subpart of 17 the contention was to provide examples of the 18 difficulty of verifying the reasonableness of the Duke 19 SAMA analysis.
We specifically referred to REI 20 responses and general statements that were made in 21 those responses.
So we did tie this back to the REI 22 responses.
23 One of the problems we raised is that the 24 things are factors that are described in qualitative 25 terms and we don't have a way of determining what the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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quantitative factors that were used.
We also point 2
out things that seem to be anomalous that raise red 3
flags for us.
We're doing as much as we can do based 4
on incomplete information.
We're trying to identify 5
places where qualitative statements are made that we 6
have no way of evaluating whether we would agree with 7
those qualitative judgements.
8 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Have you in this part 9
of the contention asserted apart from your failure to 10 analyze any impact of the failure to provide the PRA?
11 In other
- words, public
- safety, environmental 12 considerations.
I think that's what Mr.
Repka was 13 getting at and it's also related to the first question 14 I asked you.
What's the impact of not providing the 15 PRA responses other than you're not being able to do 16 an analysis?
And without putting any value on that 17 one way or the other, do you have any response on the 18 impact?
19 MS.
CURRAN:
There's an overall question 20 of public confidence in the results here.
If you 21 can't evaluate what went into this analysis how can 22 you have confidence in the ultimate result?
There are 23 qualitative judgements least significantly reduced.
24 What does that mean?
Unless you can look at the whole 25 picture you can't come out with your general NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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bottomline statement unless you had a chance to look 2
at how the pieces fit together.
3 It seems like the more handicapped we are 4
by the failure to disclose information the more 5
difficult it is to get to that bottomline and show 6
that this affects the bottomline.
We don't know 7
because there's a whole array of things we haven't 8
seen.
We would also differ with Mr. Repka on how much 9
of this PRA is on the record.
It's only parts of the 10 PRA.
The IPE is but there's parts of the PRA that 11 have not made it on to the records.
It's very clear.
12 JUDGE KELBER:
Ms.
Curran, this is Judge 13 Kelber.
When you say you referenced REI you are 14 referencing actually REI 1 a, b, and c.
Is that not 15 correct?
16 MS.
CURRAN:
It's part of the contention.
17 JUDGE KELBER:
Correct.
18 MS.
CURRAN:
It looks like it, yes.
19 JUDGE KELBER:
Okay.
Those have nothing 20 to do with 6427 of course.
Did you in fact look at 21 the parts of that PRA that are published and are 22 available?
23 MS.
CURRAN:
Hold on just a minute.
Could 24 Dr. Lyman answer this question because he's the person 25 that would be responsible for looking at it?
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DR. LYMAN:
I certainly was not aware that 2
the entire McGuire PRA was being available to the 3
public.
But certainly the most recent conversion is 4
not.
That is what we would need to assess the 5
information that is in the -
6 JUDGE KELBER:
You did not look at what 7
exists in the public record.
8 DR.
LYMAN:
I would like to ask Duke if it 9
is true that the higher McGuire PRA is available to 10 the public right now.
11 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka.
First I 12 would say that the reference as to what's been on the 13 public docket were included in the original SAMA 14 evaluation so this is not new information.
Second 15 thing I would say actually I will let Mr. Brewer with 16 the leave of the Board describe exactly what's in the 17 March 19, 1998 submittal from McGuire and in a similar 18 submittal from Catawba.
19 JUDGE KELBER:
Thank you.
Mr. Brewer, you 20 may proceed.
21 MR.
BREWER:
This is Duncan Brewer.
I'm 22 the manager of the PRA group at Duke Power Company.
23 As part of our IPE submittal rather than submitting 24 only the information required by the NRC we submitted 25 our entire PRA for both McGuire and Catawba.
So the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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full PRA is on record including all fault --
and all 2
data that were used and all initiating event 3
frequencies.
The human reliability actions and the 4
basis for this so the original IPE and the full PRA 5
was submitted to the NRC on the docket.
6 DR.
LYMAN:
But how does the current PRA 7
8 MR.
BREWER:
I'm not finished yet.
If I
9 could finish.
10 DR.
LYMAN:
This is Dr. Lyman.
11 MR.
BREWER:
Dr.
- Lyman, I would like to 12 continue.
Following that whenever we did a revision 13 to that PRA we submitted a very detailed summary 14 report that included the system models, the data that 15 was used in the PRA, the initiating event frequencies 16 and how they were calculated, the human reliability 17 data, and the top 100 cuts for both internal events 18 and external events as well as an explanation for the 19 difference in the results between that and the 20 original IPE submittal.
That is on the docket also 21 for both McGuire and Catawba.
22 Following that we revised Catawba one more 23 time.
That was the verdict that was used for the SAMA 24 analysis for Catawba.
Then we put on the docket a 25 summary of the changes and the results for that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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particular PRA.
This combined with the responses to 2
the REI I
think provide an adequate amount of 3
information that someone could very easily take our 4
PRA along with the NUREG containment failure 5
probabilities and the level three analysis that we 6
provided and do a
SAMA evaluation for virtually 7
anything.
In fact that's what the university did do 8
and reported it in their environmental impact study.
9 JUDGE KELBER:
Mr. Brewer, this is Judge 10 Kelber.
As I understand your answer, you could take 11 the original IPE report which as you say contains 12 levels 2 and 3 as well as level 1.
13 MR.
BREWER:
That's correct.
14 JUDGE KELBER:
You would take the 15 subsequent summaries of the changes to revise it.
16 MR.
BREWER:
That's correct.
17 JUDGE KELBER:
Then you would have the up 18 to-date PRA.
19 MR.
BREWER:
Yes.
20 JUDGE KELBER:
That material has all been 21 published.
22 MR.
BREWER:
- Yes, and the NRC has 23 essentially clarified that with REIs.
That was the 24 reason for our qualitative discussion which was to 25 provide additional discussion for how they could use NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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that information.
The REIs themselves do not provide 2
adequate information but in combination with all the 3
other information that's available it is possible and 4
the NRC did do it and presented it as part of their 5
environmental impact study.
6 JUDGE KELBER:
I understand that.
Thank 7
- you, sir.
I have one final question for you, Mr.
8 Brewer.
If I wanted to replicate the type of results 9
in NUREG/CR 6427 with perhaps some other plant in 10 mind, would I have to have the plant's PRA to do that 11 or could I simply use a containment of entries from 12 NUREG 1150?
13 MR.
BREWER:
The information provided in 14 that NUREG is specific to the ice condenser plants so 15 it has to be an ice condenser plant.
16 JUDGE KELBER:
Of course, that's Kowhia 17 (PH) for example.
18 MR.
BREWER:
Yes and then it does provide 19 information in there on how it quantifies the 20 containment failure probabilities for each of those 21 individual plants.
What you would need is the station 22 blackout frequency as calculated by the current PRA 23 and then you would need the level 3 PRA associated 24 with that for an early containment failure you would 25 need to know dose impact and the potential doses NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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associated with the early containment failure.
2 JUDGE KELBER:
Mr. Brewer, I simply wanted 3
to note about how you calculate and what you would 4
need to know to calculate the conditional containment 5
failure probability.
6 MR.
BREWER:
You would imply that an early 7
containment failure due to hydrogen burn as a failure 8
is an early containment failure.
So all you would 9
need is the conditional probability of containment 10 failure which was provided in that NUREG along with 11 the station blackout core damage frequency.
12 JUDGE KELBER:
I understand that.
Thank 13 you, Mr.
Brewer.
14 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka.
I would 15 just like to add that again none of these questions or 16 alleged questions that are being raised with regard to 17 the PRA are unique to the issue of consolidated 18 contention two.
The fact of the matter is you could 19 raise those questions without any particular SAMA and 20 they all could have been timely raised back at the 21 beginning of the proceeding.
22 All we did with respect to addressing the 23 REI response with respect to the NUREG 6427 data was 24 take the conditional containment failure probability 25 and incorporate them into the PRA SAMA evaluation that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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had already been done.
Again we're not changing 2
anything or doing anything differently based upon the 3
NUREG and the particular contention.
4 MS.
CURRAN:
Judge Young, this is Diane 5
Curran.
I wonder if Dr.
Lyman could have an 6
opportunity to comment on Mr. Brewer's answer to Judge 7
Kelber's question.
8 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Sure.
Let me just 9
mention to everyone.
It is 12:00 noon.
I would in 10 particular like to get at least to part four of the 11 contention today which I think brings together a lot 12 of the issues.
So if you wish to go forward now with 13 Dr. Lyman, that's fine.
Then we can move on.
14 DR.
LYMAN:
Just to point out the footnote 15 number two in our amended contention two which shows 16 why not only conditional containment failure 17 frequencies would be required but also some level one 18 information is necessary.
19 In particular other issues such as the 20 probability that the primary system will depressurize 21 is an important and coming up with the weighted 22 containment failure frequency and station blackouts.
23 So some of the lower level PRA information will also 24 be necessary with the NUREG 6427 results.
25 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Did Mr.
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1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 987 that that was also available?
Did I misunderstand?
MR.
BREWER:
That's actually included in there.
MR.
REPKA:
Mr.
Brewer is saying that's actually included in the NUREG itself.
That information is in NUREG 6427.
Correct?
MR.
BREWER:
Yes.
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
But you used the same PRA that was used.
MR.
BREWER:
- Yes, this is Duncan Brewer again.
What that NUREG did is it developed a
simplified containment of entry where if you input the station blackout core damage frequency it would calculate conditional core damage probability or conditional early containment failure probability.
That's what we reported it for that REI.
The only two things that were potential inputs that we had to clarify where whether or not they were slow station blackout sequences or fast station blackout sequences which we did provide in response to the REI.
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
If Dr. Lyman has any further remarks that's fine.
Then I think we need to move on.
If anyone needs one, we can take a short break before we move on.
I think Judge Kelber and I would like to especially get to subpart four.
Do you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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have anything further?
2 MS.
CURRAN:
Mr.
Lyman does.
3 DR.
LYMAN:
Just one point.
In the 4
NUREG/CR 6427 the only information from Duke's 5
submittal was from the original IPE not any of the 6
revisions that were referred to.
So one question is 7
I'm curious why -- didn't have available these updated 8
PRA results if they were indeed available to the 9
public.
Another is I'm certainly surprised that Duke 10 has made all this information available since to my 11 knowledge PRAs are generally proprietary information.
12 I would just like to ask Mr.
Brewer if there is no 13 part of the current PRA that is considered 14 proprietary.
15 JUDGE KELBER:
I think the question is 16 beyond the scope of what we are here to talk about 17 today.
18 MR.
REPKA:
I would like to respond.
19 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Hold on just one 20 second.
Mr.
Repka, I think it's you that has spoken.
21 MR.
REPKA:
That's correct.
22 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Since you are arguing 23 that they were available I think it is appropriate for 24 Mr. Brewer to answer and I think he wants to.
So let 25 him go ahead and answer.
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MR.
BREWER:
First of all the question of 2
why that NUREG didn't use the up-to-date information 3
has been one of the main issues that we've had with 4
that report since it was published.
We've stated that 5
in many public meetings that we felt that should have 6
been done and was an error in using that report to 7
make any decisions on 10 CRF 5044 using risk 8
information.
In the fact the GSI 189 is attempting in 9
use the most current information on station blackout 10 core damage frequency.
11
- Secondly, Duke has begun doing PRA long 12 before the IPEs were requiring it and had seen the 13 value in doing risk analysis and looking for ways to 14 improve the safety of the plant and felt that that was 15 a necessary thing to continue especially as we move 16 into risk informed regulations.
17 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
And on the question 18 of them being proprietary, I think you were going to 19 respond to that.
20 MR.
BREWER:
That's why we considered 21 submitting the entire PRA as a revision whenever we 22 did the current revisions.
We developed a summary 23 report that provides enough information that someone 24 could determine controlling factors that are driving 25 the PRA without giving the entire PRA.
There is a lot NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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of proprietary information, not only proprietary but 2
also from our vendors that is necessary to do a
3 complete PRA.
4 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I didn't catch the 5
last part that you said.
6 MR.
BREWER:
There is a lot of due 7
proprietary information that is contained in a PRA.
8 There is also a lot of vendor specific proprietary 9
information that is contained in a
PRA.
So as a 10 result we have decided not to put the entire PRA on 11 the docket but to put together summary reports that 12 give the information necessary to understand the risk 13 insights for the plant.
14 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Is that applied to the 15 original PRA plus the revisions or only to the 16 revisions?
I thought that it has been said that the 17 complete original PRAs were out there and with regard 18 to the revisions the relevant information on how the 19 original PRAs were changed were publicly available.
20 Is my understanding incorrect?
21 MR.
BREWER:
Your understanding is 22 correct.
The original PRAs contain the entire 23 documentation of the PRA.
24 DR.
LYMAN:
Dr. Lyman.
I would just like 25 to point out that what information is or is not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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necessary for a full understanding of this is a
2 subjective judgement and therefore a large part of the 3
PRA or proprietary that are being withheld is a
4 subjective judgement whether the proprietary 5
information is just allowing to filter into the public 6
domain is sufficient for the public to understand 7
this.
8 JUDGE KELBER:
Dr. Lyman, we want to take 9
a little break now.
But let me say.
Did you try?
10 DR.
LYMAN:
Some of the summary 11 information that has been provided by Duke is 12 generally simply numerical results and it is very 13 difficult to establish the entire reasoning behind 14 some of the numerical results that are produced.
15 JUDGE KELBER:
Like if the original PRA 16 could incorporate the new results?
17 DR.
LYMAN:
There is no original PRA.
18 There is an IPE.
As the staff review indicates, the 19 original IPE had numerous inconsistencies with their 20 own understanding and licensing to perform so I don't 21 consider the original IPE as a document which is 22 reliable.
23 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Let's take a five 24 minute break and then come back and move on to subpart 25 three and then try to move through that as quickly as NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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possible and then on to four which I think Judge 2
Kelber and I are fairly interested in asking several 3
questions on.
I have 10 after.
Come back at quarter 4
after and we'll get everyone set on mute until then.
5 Off the record.
6 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 7
the record at 12:10 p.m. and went back on 8
the record at 12:17 p.m.)
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Is everyone still with 10 us?
If there is nothing else on contention two, 11 hearing nothing, can we move on to contention three?
12 Judge Kelber, I think you had a question.
13 JUDGE KELBER:
- Yes, my question maybe is 14 addressed to the staff.
In as much as the station 15 blackout is the subject of 10 CFR 50.63 and is there 16 for part of the current licensing basis, to what 17 respect is that properly a subject of a contention on 18 a license renewal case?
19 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Then let me add to it 20 so you can address it and get the whole context of 21 this.
If station blackout comes into play in a
22 particular SAMA, namely the one we are talking about, 23 the fact that it would otherwise be part of current 24 licensing basis, how relevant is that if it comes into 25 play in a particular SAMA?
So Mr. Uttal or Mr. Heck.
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JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Judge Rubenstein.
My 2
staff member, Bob Palla (PH),
just reentered the room.
3 Could you please repeat your question in his presence?
4 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
This is Judge Kelber 5
and Judge Young.
6 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
I'm
- sorry, Judge 7
Kelber.
8 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Judge
- Kelber, you 9
start and then I'll give my part.
10 JUDGE KELBER:
In as much as station 11 blackout is the subject to 10 CFR 50.63 and it's there 12 for part of the current licensing phase.
In what 13 respect is it properly a subject of contention in a
14 licensing renewal case?
By the way I do have a second 15 question on this but we will get to that later.
16 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
And then my question 17 so that you can address these similar issue altogether 18 is even though a particular subject would normally be 19 part of the current licensing basis and I'm raising 20 this question because there are several places where 21 either Duke or the staff or both say that a particular 22 issue is part of the current licensing basis.
Even 23 though something would ordinarily be part of the 24 current licensing basis if the subject comes into play 25 with regard to a particular SAMA which is a legitimate NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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issue for litigation in the license renewal 2
proceeding, how does the fact that it would otherwise 3
be part of current licensing basis take it out of the 4
consideration of the SAMA?
5 MR.
HECK:
Judge Young and Judge Kelber, 6
one moment while I confer with Bob Palla (PH) please.
7 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
And if you need to 8
wait for Ms. Uttal.
Is Ms.
Uttal back yet?
9 MR.
HECK:
- Yes, she is.
10 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay, good.
11 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka.
When the 12 staff is done I think we would like to address that 13 issue as well.
14 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Yes.
Actually if the 15 staff would prefer that you go first, we don't have 16 any problem with that.
17 MR.
HECK:
Judges Kelber and Young, this 18 Jared Heck for the staff.
We agree that station 19 blackout does have to do with the current licensing 20 basis but when it comes to SAMA analysis and license 21 renewal it may be appropriate in some circumstances to 22 address that event occurring.
As far as contention 23 three goes, our position is that the reason why Duke 24 have not stated a contention with a real factual 25 basis, Duke has described and supported its conclusion NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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that the frequency of SBO events is lower than 2
previously predicted in its responses to REIs from 3
McGuire.
It's also described risk reduction measures 4
and on-going initiatives associated with operation of 5
both play-offs in its environmental reports.
6 JUDGE KELBER:
Now let me follow that with 7
this question and then Mr.
Repka would like to 8
respond.
This is Judge Kelber.
Is the fact that the 9
station blackout frequency has been lowered by various 10 plant modifications described in the original 11 application?
12 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Were you directly that 13 to the staff or Mr.
Repka or either one?
14 JUDGE KELBER:
Either one.
15 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka for Duke.
16 That question and it's our belief and we're discussing 17 this right now but it's our belief that there's a 18 reference to that in the original environmental report 19 SAMA evaluation the fact that there has been 20 generator reliability improvement programs that have 21 resulted in a
decrease in the station blackout 22 frequency.
We believe that was in the environmental 23 report.
24 JUDGE KELBER:
Okay.
25 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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Rubenstein.
I believe I remember that in the oral 2
arguments in Charlotte.
3 MR.
REPKA:
I do as
- well, Judge 4
Rubenstein.
Beyond that would you like me to address 5
the first question?
6 (No response.)
7 MR.
REPKA:
I'll take that as a yes.
8 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Yes.
9 MR.
REPKA:
I'm sorry I didn't hear.
10 JUDGE KELBER:
Yes please.
11 MR.
REPKA:
With respect to the issue of 12 whether station blackout is a current licensing basis 13 issue or not I think the answer is yes.
It clearly is 14 to the extent that the argument would be that measures 15 would have to be taken to address station blackout 16 frequency.
That's clearly a CLB issue and not a 17 license renewal issue.
18 Now with respect to the argument that it's 19 somehow germane to the SAMA evaluation and that brings 20 it within scope, I think it's theoretically possible.
21 But it's not the case with respect to this contention 22 three in the first place because the narrow question 23 raised related to NUREG 6427 really doesn't offer any 24 basis to put the station blackout frequency that is 25 used in the Duke PRA in dispute.
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to challenge that station blackout frequency.
2 In addition if there were in 6427 which is 3
the very basis for the contention that we are talking 4
about it could have been more timely raised.
It 5
hasn't been timely raised.
Then I think the final 6
point is the fact that what we're talking about is the 7
SAMA evaluation here.
The SAMA evaluation has been 8
done.
9 It's concluded by at least some lights 10 within the NRC staff and elsewhere that there is at 11 least depending upon what assumption is used that 12 there may be cost beneficial SAMA related to the early 13 containment failure rate in 6427.
So that then is the 14 reason for all the discussion of GSI 189 and what 15 specific changes might actually be warranted, what 16 specific changes might cost beneficial to address 17 that.
18 That issue which may be affected to some 19 degree one way or the other by station blackout 20 frequency is precisely the GSI 189 that is clearly a 21 part 50 current day licensing basis issue.
We're 22 beyond.
23 To argue station blackout frequency now in 24 license renewal proceeding under SAMA, frankly we are 25 beyond that.
The SAMA evaluation has been done.
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Everything else at this point goes to the question of 2
whether or not a specific fix can be identified as 3
cost beneficial.
That's where the staff is right now 4
with 189.
Although the station blackout frequency 5
might in some sense be relevant to a SAMA evaluation 6
we in the NRC staff are beyond that in reviewing 7
within part 50 space as a current licensing basis 8
issue.
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
But you're not arguing 10 by the fact that you and the staff as you say are 11 beyond that.
That a challenge cannot be made to it 12 separate and apart from timeliness issues assuming 13 that we find this intervenor get over the timeliness 14 hurdle.
Raising questions about how you deal with 15 6427 is something that you're not arguing that that's 16 not open to question.
17 MR.
REPKA:
I'm not arguing that 6427 is 18 not open to question.
It is and that's the 19 contention.
That in fact has been addressed.
I am 20 arguing that station blackout frequency is not open to 21 question for at least two reasons beyond timeliness.
22 Timeliness is clearly a reason it's not opened.
But 23 beyond that there has been no basis presented as to 24 why the station blackout frequency used in the PRA is 25 not accurate.
So there's no affirmative basis for a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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challenge to it.
2 Number two is in any event it's in effect "3
irrelevant and immaterial because it really goes to 4
the question at this point of you could vary that 5
frequency and yes you might have a small effect one 6
way or the other on the cost benefit numbers but 7
frankly given that GSI 189 exists to resolve the 8
technical issue there is no point in that.
9 You are now arguing points that go to the 10 technical resolution of the issue.
Whether any 11 technical resolution can meet the NRC's back fit 12 criteria in current day part 50 licensing space.
So 13 yes I am arguing that that's not open to challenge in 14 a part 50 for license renewal proceeding even if it 15 were timely rated.
16 And the last thing I say is NUREG 6427 17 itself does not provide a basis for challenging that 18 station blackout frequency number.
It does not 19 address that issue.
20 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I want to hear 21 arguments from all sides on that.
But if you are 22 correct that it does not I'm not sure you are but 23 let's say if you were not correct in your assertion 24 that 6427 has nothing to do with station blackout and 25 does not address station blackout -
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MR.
REPKA:
That's not really what I said.
2 What I said is that the NUREG does not provide a basis 3
for challenging the station blackout frequency number 4
which is different than saying it has nothing to do 5
with it.
6 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I'm simply not clear 7
on how you argue that even though station blackout 8
would normally be a current licensing basis issue that 9
in the context of SAMA and in the context of NUREG 10 6427 are you saying it does not come into play at all?
11 That's what I heard you to be saying.
12 And I'm curious about that because it 13 seems to me that from my understanding of 6427 and 14 generic safety issue 189 and the relevance of that is 15 another issue we need to talk about but that all of 16 these issues at station blackout in ice condenser 17 plants in McGuire and Catawba all that is very much 18 tied into the issues addressed in the contention and 19 in NUREG 6427.
20 MR.
REPKA:
Let me try again.
My first 21 point is if you were arguing that some further measure 22 had to be taken to reduce station blackout frequency 23 that's a
CLB current day part 50 issue.
The 24 intervenors to the best of my knowledge are not making 25 that argument.
They are raising a question that they NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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i001 1
don't know or don't understand or can't follow or 2
whatever.
But they are not making that argument.
If 3
they made that argument it would be out of scope.
4 What they might be arguing -
5 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
It would be out of 6
scope.
Why?
7 MR.
REPKA:
It would be out of scope as a 8
current day part 50 licensing basis issue.
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
And I'm not 10 understanding your argument on why that would be so.
11 MR.
REPKA:
Because it relates to the 12 current day operation of the plant.
It's not an 13 equipment aging issue, not an aging management issue 14 unique to the period of extended operation.
15 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
But it's related to 16 the SAMA which is a licensing issue.
17 MR.
REPKA:
That's the second question.
18 If you then said it's related to the SAMA issue, then 19 you have to (a) show its timely rated and it's not 20 because of the -
21 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Apart from timeliness 22 I'm trying to get you to focus on -
23 MR.
REPKA:
And I'm trying to go through 24 the chain of logic in the order that makes sense.
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aside.
Let's try to focus in on how it is not related 2
to SAMA pure and simple assuming no timeliness.
3 MR.
REPKA:
It's related to SAMA in that 4
it's an input to the evaluation.
But you would have 5
to have a basis to challenge the station blackout 6
frequency number that in fact is used in the SAMA 7
evaluation.
That has not been provided.
There is no 8
basis whatsoever for that.
The NUREG 6427 doesn't do 9
that.
It doesn't address that.
10 It isn't in the NUREG what they did when 11 the Duke IPE station blackout frequency number and 12 simply plug that into their analysis that helped lead 13 to their conclusion about early containment failure 14 event.
They didn't comment one way or the other about 15 on the correctness of that number.
So the NUREG 16 provides no basis for a challenge to that number.
17 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
But I'm trying to get 18 you to address all the things that the petitioners 19 have raised.
The petitioners do say that NUREG talks 20 about the robustness of ice condenser plants to 21 station blackout.
So even though it may have taken 22 the numbers from the IPE it does address the issue of 23 the vulnerability or the robustness with regard to 24 station blackout.
25 MR.
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let Mr. Brewer address that further.
2 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
3 MR.
BREWER:
This is Duncan Brewer.
The 4
particular item number three, the contention three, 5
talks about the failure to provide a basis for our 6
station blackout frequency that we currently used in 7
the SAMA analysis.
That is essentially the level one 8
part that the PRA calculates the frequency of a core 9
damage event one scenario which can be station 10 blackout.
11 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
12 MR.
BREWER:
So that part was input to the 13 NUREG analysis.
They took their numbers from our IPE 14 submittal.
15 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
And then you changed 16 your numbers and you're saying that your new numbers 17 are more accurate.
18 MR.
BREWER:
That's correct.
The NUREG 19 really didn't do anything with that number other than 20 use it as an input.
It then went on to calculate what 21 is the likelihood of early containment failure given 22 that you have a station blackout scenario.
So when 23 they refer to the robustness of the containment they 24 are talking about the consequences of the core damage 25 accident and how it affects the containment.
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That was what we took to be the issue that 2
was allowed this particular contention which was the 3
NUREG took a different view on the robustness of the 4
containment and how it performed during the station 5
blackout core damage frequency.
So that is the part 6
where when we respond to the NRC questions and I think 7
that was their understanding too is how does the 8
analysis provided on this NUREG change the result of 9
the early containment failure probability given the 10 other parts of your PRA.
11 JUDGE KELBER:
Mr.
Brewer, this is Judge 12 Kelber.
Can I
do a calculation similar of the 13 conditional containment failure probability similar to 14 that done in NUREG/CR 6427 without even knowing the 15 value of station blackout frequency?
16 MR.
BREWER:
- Yes, you can do it.
The 17 conditional probability of early containment failure 18 given that you have a station blackout.
You could 19 assume that the scenario is a station blackout and it 20 would tell you the conditional containment failure 21 probability.
22 JUDGE KELBER:
Not knowing the frequency 23 of station blackout?
24 MR.
BREWER:
That's correct.
25 JUDGE KELBER:
Thank you, sir.
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1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 accurate calculation of what the station blackout frequency is is of great importance.
Therefore that has to be documented extremely carefully and explained to the public in enough detail so that the public can understand it.
A reduction of the station blackout frequency using a qualitative argument about improving diesel generator liability is fine but we just want to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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And you're saying just so I can understand this that 6427 doesn't really say anything about level one and start from level one and does its analysis from that point forward?
MR.
BREWER:
That's correct.
It's really a level two PRA that utilized information from our level one PRA that was submitted in our IPE submittal.
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I think we could probably move on unless Judge Rubenstein has a
question or Ms.
Curran has a short response.
MS.
CURRAN:
I think Dr.
Lyman has a
comment that he would like to make.
DR.
LYMAN:
Yes, this is Dr. Lyman.
Our point on this contention was that the significance in NUREG/CR 6427 demonstrates the severity of the station blackout accident at ice condenser plants.
That is its main significance.
To that extent the definition and the
1006 1
see the documentations for that because we understand 2
how severe this accident can be.
That is an important 3
part of understanding why severe accidents 4
mitigational alternatives need to be considered as 5
thoroughly as we believe they do.
6 JUDGE KELBER:
Dr.
Lyman, this is Judge 7
Kelber.
If there were no license renewal application 8
appending, would the station blackout frequency still 9
be an important parameter?
10 DR.
LYMAN:
- Yes, absolutely but in the 11 context of -- as is well understood.
12 JUDGE KELBER:
I just wanted to get the 13 yes or no.
14 DR.
LYMAN:
Yes.
15 JUDGE KELBER:
Thank you.
16 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
And just so I
17 understand what you are
- saying, Dr.
- Lyman, I
18 understand you to be saying that the significance of 19 station blackout in the NUREG 6427 and in the 20 arguments that you are making is that it is a
21 significant factor in determining the level of risk.
22 DR.
LYMAN:
- Yes, that's right.
That's 23 the implication as of the NUREG analysis demonstrates 24 how severe a station blackout accident is.
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well documented because of its significance.
2 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Thank you.
- Okay, 3
anything else on three?
4 (No response.)
5 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Hearing none, let's 6
move on to subpart four.
7 MR.
REPKA:
Judge Young, this is Dave 8
Repka.
Before we leave three, Mr. Brewer did not want 9
leave anything in the fact that the number that Dr.
10 Lyman is referring is documented.
11 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Go ahead.
12 MR.
BREWER:
- Yes, it's documented in the 13 submittal that we provided on our docket.
It is 14 included in those submittals, the station blackout 15 core damage frequency and the cutsets associated with 16 it.
So to say that it's not no basis is provided that 17 isn't really true.
There really wasn't a basis 18 provided in the REIs other than a qualitative basis.
19 But in the information we have on the docket it gives 20 the diesel generator reliability, initiating event 21 frequency and the top cutsets associated with that 22 scenario.
23 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Is the word you are 24 using cutset?
25 MR.
BREWER:
Yes.
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1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 station blackouts, but also other accident contributors that lead to core damage.
In particular we brought up the issue of sump clogging.
I would like to point out that -
JUDGE KELBER:
Dr.
Lyman, this is Judge
- Kelber, let me interrupt you.
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Thank you.
That's what I thought.
Then moving on to four -
MS.
CURRAN:
Excuse me, Judge Young.
Just one quick response.
DR.
LYMAN:
But we would need I think more information about the actual diesel generator properties to be able to verify that the systems will do what Duke claims they will do.
And simply by looking at a probability value, and changing that value, without understanding what the systems entail, won't do it.
That is our view, thank you.
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
That was Dr.
- Lyman, for the Court Reporter.
Maybe I went too quickly before.
I will wait a longer moment now.
Does anyone have anything else to say with regard to Part III?
MR.
LYMAN:
This is Dr.
- Lyman, again.
Just on the point --
Part III doesn't only deal with
1009 1
Does that occur during the course of 2
operation in the current license, or is it essentially 3
a license renewal question?
4 DR.
LYMAN:
It is a
question in that it will mean that the actual -
6 JUDGE KELBER:
Does it occur now, could it 7
occur now, as part of a current licensing basis??
8 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I think what he is 9
saying is
- yes, it could, but it 10 JUDGE KELBER:
Well, I think it is part of 11 the current licensing -
12 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
-- to the degree that 13 it 14 DR.
LYMAN:
For the same reason that 15 station blackout is part of the current licensing 16 basis, but is relevant to SAMAs.
So any frequency 17 that we go into a SAMA analysis in determining the 18 risk of the plant, and so that is why it is relevant.
19 JUDGE KELBER:
I understand.
Thank you, 20 sir.
21 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
There was one thing 22 about this, the sump clogging, I believe that Duke 23 says that since there is no, in a station blackout, 24 for damage sequence there is no power to the 25 recirculation pump, the clogging is irrelevant.
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And so since you raised that, what is your 2
response to Duke's argument in that regard?
3 DR.
LYMAN:
- Yes, I want to raise that 4
point.
If there is no recovery of power, then that is 5
clearly true.
But I believe that in some station 6
blackouts Duke must assume that power is restored, and 7
that the core damage can be arrested in at least some 8
of the sequences.
9 I
don't think that in their PRA they 10 assume that every station blackout is unrecoverable.
11 So it will certainly affect the station blackout 12 frequencies, because it will affect the probability 13 that recovery will occur.
14 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka, and I 15 would respond by saying that that is another current 16 day operation issue that is being addressed as another 17
- GSI, I believe it is 191.
18 And, Mr. Brewer, do you have something to 19 add to that?
20 MR.
BREWER:
- Yes, I was going to say that 21 the station blackout core damage frequency, for both 22 McGuire and Catawba, are dominated by scenarios for 23 which we do not take any credit for recovery.
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take any credit for recovering power, therefore there 2
is no potential to swamp the recirc.
3 However, if you wanted to look at the ones 4
which are recoverable, the likelihood that you would 5
actually succeed, sometime between getting a seal 6
- LOCA, and then having the opportunity to prevent core 7
damage, is a pretty small contributor to overall risk.
8 So although there is a very, very minor 9
tie between the two issues, it so insignificant, that 10 it wouldn't make any difference in the SAMA 11 evaluation.
12 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
Now maybe we 13 can move on.
And before we start on 4, I just want to 14 say a couple of things.
And what I'm going to suggest 15 is that we hold off further argument on these two 16 general subjects until after we finish going through 17 the contention subparts.
18 And those two things are references to 19 current licensing basis and generic safety issues.
20 The fact that the Staff is at work on GSI189 is 21 something that I think the parties need to address.
22 And there is a case that relates to this.
23 It is it is another Duke Energy case, the Bell 24 County case, CLR9911, and on page 345 the Commission 25 discusses the relevance of current rulemaking that was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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going on.
2 And the Commission notes that even though 3
the Petitioners there argue that there was no 4
guarantee that the proposal would proceed unimpeded, 5
the Commission noted that there had been no delays.
6 We are looking at that case which our 7
excellent law clerks, Ms. Mendelson in this case, and 8
we want the parties to address that.
But I think it 9
would probably be more efficient to hold off argument 10 on that general issue, rather than raising it with 11 regard to each separate one.
12
- And, again, with the current licensing 13 basis I think that sort of becomes a definitional 14 issue of, even though I'm not convinced at this point, 15 and I would like to hear argument not in the context 16 of the individual subparts of the Contention, but at 17 the end, or in some other way, about the degree to 18 which something can be part of current licensing 19 basis, and also be a license renewal issue, in this 20 case in the context of being tied up in, or related to 21 a SAMA issue, which is definitely a license renewal 22 issue.
23 49NRC328 is the CLR99 cite.
- Yes, thank 24
- you, I did need to do that.
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issues as I've just defined them? And the efficiency 2
of just holding off on those as we go through the 3
remaining four subparts of the Contention?
4 And with regard to timeliness I suggest 5
that to the degree you are raising the general 6
timeliness issue, we've already sort of dealt with 7
that, to the degree that Duke or the Staff wants to 8
argue that something is not timely because it was 9
available prior to the RAI responses, then I would say 10 you are free to include those in your answers.
11 Just sort of move this along a little more 12 efficiently.
So on number 4,
the SAMA analysis 13 contains the following deficiencies, for failure to 14 justify departure from NUREG CR-6427.
15 Questions, Judge
- Kelber, or Judge 16 Rubenstein?
And then I might have some, also.
17 JUDGE KELBER:
Judge Rubenstein, do you 18 have anything?
Otherwise I will go.
19 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
No.
I carefully read 20 REI B, C,
and 4, and I have to admit I am a little 21 confused as to the basis proffered by the Intervenor.
22 JUDGE KELBER:
Do you have a question 23 there?
24 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
No, there isn't.
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of
- all, why are there values in NUREG CR-6427 2
superior, either morally or technically to those views 3
by Duke?
4 And since Duke has provided a
SAMA 5
analysis using the 6427 values, what relief would be 6
possible if they were to, say, adopt NUREG CR-6427 7
wholesale?
8 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Ms.
- Curran, I think 9
that is directed to you and Dr. Lyman.
10 DR.
LYMAN:
Yes, this is Dr. Lyman.
The 11 first point is we don't know that NUREG CR-6427 is 12 superior to Duke's analysis, but that is the core of 13 the issue.
We need to see all the technical basis 14 supporting Duke's
- position, so that it can be 15 compared, so that a credible value can be obtained.
16 In particular this is an issue that was 17 raised by the Staff.
And as far as we know has not 18 been resolved, in particular Duke's assumption of what 19 the potential for ignition, spontaneous ignition of 20 the hydrogen is, and also the amount of hydrogen 21 generated.
22 These are open technical issues that have 23 not been resolved and, therefore, we need to see that 24 resolution before we can have any confidence in Duke's 25 SAMA analysis..
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1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 1015 JUDGE KELBER:
NUREG 6427 there are basis for the choice of 58.5 percent full total, whatever it is.
Is there a basis to apply for that number, other than it is somewhere at the high end of the range?
DR.
LYMAN:
No, they, in both -
JUDGE KELBER:
There is no basis for applying NUREG 6427?
DR. LYMAN:
Computer analysis were done to estimate the core degradation, the hydrogen generation.
So it comes down to competing codes.
Although one, I believe -
JUDGE KELBER:
I think if I
wanted to compute the hydrogen generation, I
would use a
combination of RELAP and SCDAP to get the metal water reaction.
DR.
LYMAN:
That is why I believe that Duke uses MAAP.
JUDGE KELBER:
- Well, MAAP is used for a different purpose.
MAAP is not a code used for generating the amount of hydrogen generated, or computing the hydrogen generated.
DR.
LYMAN:
- Well, if you read Duke's response to RAI 3C they say they used MAAP to generate the fraction of core oxidize, which is the amount of hydrogen generated.
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Judge Kelber, if you would like Mr. Brewer 2
to clarify, he will.
3 JUDGE KELBER:
Yes, please.
4 MR.
BREWER:
We do use the MAAP code.
You 5
may be confusing it with possibly MAX or some other 6
code.
But MAAP is the MALCOR accident assessment 7
program.
It was a computer code that was developed as 8
part of the resolution of the degraded core issues.
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Mr. Brewer?
10 MR.
BREWER:
Yes?
11 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Let me interrupt you 12 for just a second.
I have a feeling that the Court 13 Reporter is having a
hard time with all these 14 acronyms.
Would it be helpful, Court Reporter, if you 15 can come back and get them later, that is fine.
16 But would it be helpful to stop and just 17 spell out all the codes that we just made reference 18 to?
19 COURT REPORTER:
- Yes, it would.
20 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
- MAAP, I know is 21 M-A-A-P, all caps.
MALCOR is 22 MR. BREWER:
I'm sorry, it is actually the 23 modular accident assessment program.
24 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I was trying to spell 25 out the acronyms.
Why don't you do it, you spell out NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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all the acronyms for the Court Reporter so that he 2
will -
3 MR.
BREWER:
I'm not sure that I know all 4
of them, but MAAP is the modular accident assessment 5
program.
It was developed by the industry degraded 6
core rulemaking working group.
7 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Mr.
Brewer -
8 MR.
BREWER:
Yes?
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I really wasn't asking 10 you to explain what it was, just tell what the letters 11 are, M-A-A-P, for example.
12 MR.
BREWER:
Okay.
13 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
And then MALCOR is M
14 A-L-C-O-R, in all
- caps, again.
And there were a
15 couple of other codes that were mentioned.
16 MR.
BREWER:
SCDAP I think was mentioned.
17 I'm not sure how that goes.
18 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
And then there was one 19 other, I think.
20 MR.
BREWER:
R-E-L-A-P.
21 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Thank you.
And if 22 anyone else mentions another acronym it might be 23 helpful for the Court Reporter, and also for me at 24
- times, to have the acronym spelled out, because 25 sometimes it is hard to keep up.
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JUDGE KELBER:
Mr.
- Brewer, tell us what 2
you do with MAAP?
3 MR.
BREWER:
MAAP is an integrated program 4
that does the core degradation, it includes hydrogen 5
generation, it includes (inaudible) from the primary 6
system to the containment.
7 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
We lost you for a 8
moment.
Say that last sentence over again.
9 MR.
BREWER:
MAAP is an integrated program 10 that does severe accident analysis modeling.
It does 11 the fuel
- melting, it does the primary thermal 12 hydraulics, it does the fission product releases, it 13 calculates hydrogen
- release, it calculates the 14 containment performance in terms of fission product, 15 transport.
16 It does the containment thermal hydraulics 17
- analysis, and if the containment fails it will 18 calculate the releases to the environment.
So MAAP is 19 an integrated program that does what those other 20 programs do as separate parts.
21 JUDGE KELBER:
The code I referred to 22 before RELAP/SCDAP also does --
formulated on behalf 23 of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do much the 24 same thing in more determinative fashion.
25 And then MALCOR does the input in a more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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approximate form for PRA work?
2 MR.
BREWER:
That is correct.
I think 3
MALCOR actually is primarily containment response.
4 And the other codes were primary type response.
So in 5
combination they can do essentially the same thing as 6
MAAP.
7 DR.
LYMAN:
Now, this is Dr. Lyman, just 8
to clarify, the NUREG CR6427 used SCDAP/RELAP and Duke 9
used MAAP.
10 JUDGE KELBER:
- Now, tell us again, why are 11 the 6427 values better than the MAAP values?
12 DR.
LYMAN:
- Well, when at least the NRC 13 code is one that NRC staff is comfortable with, and is 14 validated, while the industry has not allowed NRC, to 15 my knowledge, to validate MAAP to the full extent 16 possible, and there are inconsistencies as a result of 17 those codes in important ways.
18 JUDGE KELBER:
Mr.
Brewer, does not MAAP 19 contain benchmark problems?
20 MR.
BREWER:
- Yes, it
- does, it is 21 benchmarked against the different experiments that 22 have been performed (inaudible) by both the industry 23 and the NRC.
24 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Mr. Brewer, let me ask 25 the Court Reporter, did you get all that?
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sort of fade out, and I want to make sure that you get 2
all that you said.
3 COURT REPORTER:
If you could just repeat 4
the last
- sentence, Mr. Brewer?
5 MR.
BREWER:
Has been benchmarked against 6
both experiments performed by the industry, and by the 7
- NRC, and foreign organizations, in trying to 8
understand severe accident behavior.
So, yes, it has 9
been benchmarked.
10 JUDGE KELBER:
Mr.
12 MR.
BREWER:
Not in performing the 13 accident analysis assessment for the level 2 part of 14 the PRA inconsistent with the IPE.
15 JUDGE KELBER:
Have they ever seemed 16 uncomfortable with you using it?
17 MR.
BREWER:
The only area where I'm 18 familiar with them being uncomfortable is in the 19 performance of the thermohydraulics, in using MAAP to 20 do thermohydraulics success criteria.
I'm aware that 21 they are uncomfortable with using MAAP to strictly do 22 thermohydraulic analysis.
23 But in terms of performing fission product 24
- releases, and hydrogen generation, I'm pretty sure 25 that it is reasonable.
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use of the SCDAP/RELAP in the NUREG, there were a very 2
few scenarios that were modeled.
3 And the NUREG points out that they 4
developed conservative hydrogen source terms and used 5
those, because they were doing a simplified analysis.
6 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge 7
Rubenstein.
They assumed the hydrogen ignition vessel 8
leak, which is quite conservative.
But I'm a little 9
concerned with what kind of release the Intervenors 10 want.
11 When one looks at the averted risk values 12 between Duke, and using the more conservative NUREG 13 numbers code, what one talks about 121K versus maybe 14 462K, and 161 versus 264K for Catawba.
15 So what is the release one wants?
The 16 original reworked Contention was, from my viewpoint, 17 take the NUREG into account, do the calculation, and 18 now we are into a fine structure of the calculation 19 and the asserted deficiencies in the code.
20 So where do we go with this?
And I would 21 like to hear this from Ms.
Curran and/or Dr. Lyman.
22 DR.
LYMAN:
- Yes, this is Dr.
Lyman.
I 23 think the relief we seek is that there seems to be a 24 technical dispute between values that we've discussed, 25 that were provided by Duke in the RAI response, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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those that were assumed in the NUREG, and also in 2
Staff meetings that I attended, it seems that the 3
Staff has concerns with Duke's assumptions with regard 4
to hydrogen combustion.
5 And, to my knowledge, those haven't been 6
resolved.
7 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
So what do you want, 8
you want resolution of the codes?
9 DR.
LYMAN:
No, we want -
10 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
You want hydrogen 11 igniters 12 DR.
LYMAN:
Well, one is the quantity of 13 hydrogen to be generated, and what is a credible, 14 appropriately conservative value.
Another is what is 15 the probability of random ignition.
And those are two 16 of the examples.
17 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Those are steps towards 18 release.
What release do you want in the context of 19 a license renewal application hearing?
20 DR.
LYMAN:
- Well, ultimately we want a 21 SAMA analysis that has appropriate values that are 22 technically defensible, so that we can have confidence 23 that the cost benefit analysis are done appropriately.
24 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
But if you have a
25 clearly stated conservative calculation, as the NUREG NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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purports to be, one can now only go, as one fine tunes 2
the calculation, down in averted risk value.
3 DR.
LYMAN:
- Well, I
don't see the 4
conditional containment failure probability may not be 5
the most conservative one from NUREG CR6427.
That 6
also has assumptions associated with the 7
depressurization of the primary.
8 JUDGE KELBER:
Dr. Lyman, it appropriate, 9
in a
PRA to use a
most conservative
- value, or 10 shouldn't they use assessment values?
11 DR.
LYMAN:
Well, I think as we argued, in 12 another contention, there needs to be uncertainties 13 estimate in addition to the central or -
14 JUDGE KELBER:
We will come to that.
But 15 is it appropriate to use best
- estimate, or 16 conservative values?
17 DR.
LYMAN:
- Well, in my view conservatism 18 should be the rule, in any kind of nuclear regulation, 19 or environmental assessment.
20 JUDGE KELBER:
utility of PRA, does it 21 not?
22 DR.
LYMAN:
I'm sorry?
23 JUDGE KELBER:
Doesn't that vitiate the 24 utility of PRA?
25 DR.
LYMAN:
Not necessarily.
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JUDGE KELBER:
I think you are wrong, but 2
Judge Rubenstein's question of what relief is 3
possible, since they've already provided an analysis, 4
SAMA analysis, using the NUREG 6427 numbers.
5 You seem to be suggesting that 6427 is too 6
- liberal, and perhaps something more conservative 7
should be used.
8 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Yes.
In that regard do 9
you have a basis for saying 58.8 is too small?
10 DR.
LYMAN:
- Well, even in the actual 11 assumption in the Rule it is 75 percent, I would have 12 to check that.
I don't have 10CFR here, but in the 13
- LOCA, the -
14 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
I think you are in part 15 50 now, aren't you?
16 DR.
LYMAN:
Yes.
But I'm just saying, as 17 a conservative figure for the amount of clad react in 18 the
- LOCA, that would provide a more conservative 19 value.
20 It is not really our expertise to 21 determine, all we see is a dispute between Duke's 22
- values, between the NRC Staff, and I've witnessed 23 discussion when NRC Staff have raised concerns about 24 the assumptions Duke has made and the technical staff 25 of the consultant's report.
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We see a technical dispute, and we can't 2
determine, at least at this point, what the most 3
appropriate numbers are to be used.
And therefore we 4
can't have confidence in the SAMA analysis.
5 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Judge Rubenstein, were 6
you finished with your questions?
7 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
I'm ready to move on.
8 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I have a question, and 9
I actually have two questions.
First of all I think, 10 Dr.
Lyman, you've expressed that the dispute, and I 11 just looked back at 714, and 10CFR2.714, and also in 12 our Memorandum in Order of January 24th, on pages 14 13 and 15, we included a summary list of all that a 14 Contention is required to contain.
15 So assuming we get past the timeliness 16 issue, of the late file timeliness issue, a Contention 17 must contain a specific statement of the issue of law 18 or fact that Petitioner wishes to raise or controvert, 19 and a brief explanation, statement of the alleged 20 facts, or expert opinion that supports the Contention, 21 references to any specific documents.
22 I
understood you, Dr.
- Lyman, and Ms.
23
- Curran, I want you to step in here too, as much as 24 appropriate, that there is a genuine dispute on the 25 material issue of law or fact is, as I understand it, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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whether the numbers that -- the assumptions that Duke 2
has used, or the assumptions in calculations in NUREG 3
6427 are more appropriate to be used in the SAMA 4
analysis.
5 And what I understood Dr. Lyman to say is 6
that the relief requested is to have, ultimately, a 7
SAMA analysis that provides the, and I can't recall 8
your exact words, but best assurance that -- why don't 9
you repeat that for me?
10 DR.
LYMAN:
- Yes, the SAMA analysis in 11 which the parameters are used to determine the cost 12 benefit analysis are credible to the public, and that 13 we in particular can have confidence in those 14 analysis.
15
- And, therefore, if there are ranges of 16 values or if there is any technical difference in 17 opinion that we witnessed, we want to know that the 18 final values that are used are the appropriate ones.
19 And if there is an uncertainty associated 20 with them, that the uncertainties are also applied.
21 So our interest is simply in seeing a SAMA analysis 22 that does the cost benefit calculation appropriately.
23 And, therefore, you need to know what the 24 risks are, and you often need to know how they vary 25 with these assumptions and the parameters.
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1027 1
the bottom line.
To the extent that there is a
2 technical difference we want to see technical support 3
and backups for the parameters that are used.
And 4
that is what is missing from Duke's RAI response.
5 JUDGE KELBER:
Is there technical support 6
in appendix, in NUREG CR 6427?
7 DR.
LYMAN:
- Well, it is a large document 8
with lots of footnotes, I could go through and pick 9
out -
10 JUDGE KELBER:
Does it have, for example, 11 the explicit calculations of the hydrogen generated?
12 DR. LYMAN:
No, it references studies that 13 do.
While you will have to agree that the number of 14 references in Duke's RAI response is considerably 15 fewer.
And I don't see any reference -
16 JUDGE KELBER:
If I
were to do a
17 calculation for a
plant one reference would be 18 sufficient.
You raised the question on Part 50 19 appendix K, part 1.5 is the metal water reaction rate, 20 not the total amount.
21 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
If I may go back to -
22 going through the Contention admissibility criteria, 23 looking at the Contention, I'm assuming that there is 24 a
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to incorporate NUREG 6427 in toto in its SAMA 2
analysis?
3 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka, for Duke.
4 I don't think we believe that there is a basis for a 5
conclusion that there is a difference of opinion.
6 JUDGE KELBER:
I was going to ask the same 7
question, Mr.
Repka.
I was going to ask Ms.
- Curran, 8
what is the basis for making that statement?
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Go ahead, Ms. Curran, 10 and then I will ask.
11 MS.
CURRAN:
We are starting from the 12 premise that NUREG CR6427 is a comprehensive analysis 13 of this issue, that represents a significant amount of 14 study and choice of values that went into the 15 analysis.
16 And here Duke purports to take NUREG 17 CR6427 into account.
But it seems to us that when you 18 take something into account like that, if you don't, 19 if you reject some of the values in the study, that 20 one would expect to see some explanation of why those 21 values were rejected.
22 And that is what we believe constitutes an 23 inadequacy.
24 JUDGE KELBER:
Is the statement in the 25 response to RAI's
- receipt, that was
- made, an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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inadequate explanation? It seems to me that they state 2
by the way nobody, I think, claims that NUREG CR 3
6427 was comprehensive, it is a simplified study of 4
something which, by the way, is known to be a problem 5
for 20 years.
6
- Now, let me read you a statement from 7
Duke's response, and ask you in what way it provides 8
an affirmative basis for your statement.
The Duke 9
analysis estimated that the hydrogen release of the 10 containment, or the sequence specific analysis using 11 version 3P of the MAAP code, fraction of clad oxidized 12 typically 13 percent to 53 percent, is less than the 13 approximately 59 percent value that is applied in 14 NUREG CR6427.
15
- Now, in what respect, is that either -
16 well, in what respect is that not a justification?
In 17 what respect have they
- failed, in making that 18 statement, to justify their use?
19 DR. LYMAN:
This is Dr. Lyman.
Well, they 20 have not tried to explain why their code results yield 21 a different value in any sense.
As a scientist I 22 would say, if you get a result which differs from the 23 result of the different codes, we would want to try to 24 understand the differences, and identify them.
They 25 don't do that.
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JUDGE KELBER:
They say they have a
2 fraction of clad oxidize, and is that not a measure of 3
factor?
4 DR.
LYMAN:
What I'm saying is that they 5
produced the results from the code which is clearly 6
inconsistent with the results that was provided in 7
NUREG CR6427.
8 JUDGE KELBER:
- Well, let me ask Mr. Brewer 9
a question.
If you had used a 58.5 percent value for 10 hydrogen release, would you have calculated something 11 similar to NUREG 6427?
12 MR.
BREWER:
- Yes, sir, we would have.
13
- And, in
- fact, I
can explain the difference in the 14 fraction of clad reacted on the hydrogen generation.
15 It is very sequence dependent.
And if you take --
if 16 you look at what was done in the NUREG, they only ran 17 very few cases.
And they did it in a conservative 18
- manner, because they were trying to do a simplified 19 analysis.
20 I think that is a pretty clear explanation 21 of why ours is different.
Ours is sequence dependent, 22 and theirs is not.
And if we had used that in our 23 original analysis we would have seen similar results 24 in terms of the amount of hydrogen produced, and the 25 pressure that would be generated from a hydrogen burn NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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at vessel failure.
2 JUDGE KELBER:
I believe you just said 3
that it is a sequence specific analysis?
4 MR.
BREWER:
- Yes, it is.
5 JUDGE KELBER:
I'm quoting from your 6
response.
7 MR.
BREWER:
- Yes, it is.
And, in fact, in 8
response to the RAI we did exactly as the NUREG did to 9
calculate the change in the risk and the potential 10 benefit of the SAMA if we had used the NUREG.
11 So we've incorporated the NUREG assumption 12 about hydrogen generation, we incorporated the NUREG 13 assumption on the probability of burn at vessel 14 failure, by adopting their early containment failure 15 probability.
16 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge 17 Rubenstein.
When you submitted your RAI's did you get 18 some sort of response from the Staff?
Did they 19 disagree with your submittal?
20 MR.
BREWER:
No, in fact they agreed with 21 it, and they incorporated it into their AIS.
In fact 22 they've explained that it is dependent on this, and 23 that is (inaudible) why they approached it as a
24 generic issue, issue 189.
25 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
We lost the end of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1032 1
that, Mr. Brewer.
2 MR.
BREWER:
The Staff recognized that 3
there is sensitivity to these assumptions, and they 4
don't
- know, particularly, which is the right 5
assumption, so they reverted over to the generic issue 6
for resolution.
7 MR.
REPKA:
Not to put too fine a point on 8
it,
- again, but there is no further release.
RAI 9
response and the SAMA evaluation incorporates the 10 NUREG
- values, both for hydrogen
- produced, and 11 probability of vessel failure.
12 There is now two SAMA evaluations, one 13 that we think is more realistic than the other.
But 14 the fact remains that there are two that have been 15
- done, there is no further relief in SAMA that is 16 justified.
And now you have an issue that is thrown 17 over to GSI 189 for resolution in the Part 50 context.
18 There is really no other relief related to 19 license renewal, or SAMA evaluation that can be given 20 here.
21 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
But what is it that 22 you are saying that 189 would resolve, this is Judge 23 Young here, what is it you are saying that the Staff 24 will resolve in generic safety issue 189, that you 25 have not resolved in your SAMA analysis?
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MR.
REPKA:
What 189 will look at is we 2
will take a closer look at the issue of the risk here 3
and the averted risk benefit, by looking at issues 4
like the backup power to the hydrogen igniters, what 5
size the power supply would need to be, how much 6
seismic qualification, whether it needs to be tornado 7
protected, all of those kinds of issues go into it, 8
along with, I
- suppose, if there is any further 9
analysis of what is the most realistic risk benefit.
10 But those are all issues that pertain 11 today.
They are not limited to the license renewal 12 period, so that is an issue that is being evaluated 13 today in the context of the GSI to determine what 14 action, if any, is appropriate.
15 In license renewal we are required to do 16 a SAMA evaluation, a reasonable assessment of severe 17 accident mitigation alternatives.
Duke has done that, 18 they've done it twice.
They've done it using its own 19 view of what is reasonable, and they've done it using 20 the NUREG 6427 data.
21 And all of the issues that go into 22 resolving the issue beyond that are current day Part 23 50 issues, subject to the GSI.
24 DR.
LYMAN:
This is Dr.
- Lyman, I would 25 like to look at that a slightly different way.
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fact is that the issue is being considered now in the 2
generic safety issue resolution, implying that it is 3
not now --
yet today we are talking about a SAMA 4
analysis which Duke claims is already done.
5 The fact is, the fact that there is a Part 6
50 Proceeding going on, and that hasn't been resolved, 7
indicates that there is a technical issue there, and 8
that is what, in my mind, that means that the issue 9
still hasn't been resolved, and is not ripe for 10 incorporation into a revised SAMA.
11 MR. REPKA:
And that is precisely what the 12 Commission has made their expectations very clear 13 about the scope of the license renewal proceeding.
It 14 relates to equipment aging, and aging management, and 15 aging effects that are unique to the period of 16 extended operation.
17 Yes, a SAMA evaluation is required, but we 18 can't take a SAMA evaluation and inflate it to now it 19 is ripe to litigate in license renewal context 20 everything that is a current operating issue because 21 it might have a SAMA implication.
22 I think that is just wrong, and I think 23 that would clearly exceed the Commission's 24 expectations for license renewal.
25 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Mr. Repka, I want to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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ask you something, this is Judge Young.
2 What I
said at the beginning of our 3
discussion, was that I would like, is possible, to ask 4
the Parties to address all the issues separate and 5
apart from the GSI issue, and the CLV issue.
Those 6
are all caps, for the Court Reporter.
7 And so I would like for you to address 8
that now. And in addressing that I would like for you 9
to consider the Commission's rule at 10CFR51.53 10 subsection C, small roman number II L that states:
11 If the Staff has not previously considered 12 severe accident mitigation alternatives for the 13 Appellant's plant and an environmental impact 14 statement, or an environmental assessment, or 15 alternative to mitigate the accident must be provided.
16 Now, setting aside for a moment the issue 17 of generic safety issue 189, I would like for you to 18 address how all of the issues raised by NUREG 6427, 19 which aren't being dealt with by the Staff, GSI 189, 20 and which the ACRS has considered, apart from all 21 that, how they don't fall within that definition of 22 what a SAMA is.
23 And, also, address how those issues should 24 be resolved, and how there is no dispute if you don't 25 rely on saying, well, GSI 189 will take care of that, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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or that is in current licensing basis.
2 Do you follow me here?
I'm asking you to 3
answer the question without reference to GSI 189, or 4
current licensing basis, in the context of the rule I 5
just read to you.
6 MR.
REPKA:
I think the short answer is 7
that what is required by 51.53(c)3 little 2 L, is a
8 SAMA evaluation.
Duke has done that.
They have done 9
precisely what the rule requires.
And they've not 10 only done it once, they've done it twice.
11 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
But you are not saying 12 by that, that Petitioner and Intervenor cannot dispute 13 how appropriately, or how adequately the SAMA 14 evaluation is, no matter how many times it has been 15 done, are you, you are not saying that, are you?
16 MR.
REPKA:
No, I'm not saying that.
But 17 the relevant question is what is the standard for a 18 SAMA evaluation.
And the standard is that it is a
19 reasonable assessment of the severe accident 20 mitigation alternatives, and the risks and benefits 21 related to them.
22 And to allow, and I believe the words of 23 the cases we cited was informed decision making.
We 24 think that standard has been met.
25 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
- Right, and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1037 1
Intervenors think that it has not been met.
2 MR.
REPKA:
Right.
And let me address 3
that, because they think it has not been addressed, 4
because in the context of this case they are saying, 5
because of 6427.
6 And the answer to that is that the only 7
issues raised by NUREG 6427 relate to the hydrogen 8
event, and early containment failure.
And that has 9
been addressed.
There is nothing in NUREG 6427 that 10 has not been addressed in Duke's SAMA evaluation.
11 We believe that those
- issues, the 12 substantive issues were actually addressed in the 13 first SAMA evaluation.
Given the RAI response we 14 actually went a step further, of taking the simplified 15 NUREG numbers and using them in those numbers.
16 So the issues of the NUREG, again, have 17 been addressed.
They have been addressed two 18 different ways.
Most importantly, given the context 19 of where we are right now, they've been addressed 20 using the very NUREG data that is the basis for the 21 Contention.
22 Beyond that, the dispute, and I use that 23 word dispute in quotations, today are not issues that 24 A, have any real basis; B, are not issues that could 25 lead to any further relief in this Proceeding.
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So putting (inaudible) that is all the 2
reason why -
3 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Excuse me, Mr. Repka, 4
I don't know what is happening.
Are you at the same 5
phone as Mr.
Brewer?
6 MR.
REPKA:
I am.
7 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Because you are doing 8
the same thing as him, you are fading in and out.
9 MR.
REPKA:
Okay.
My mouth is about six 10 inches from the microphone, so I'm not sure what the 11 explanation for that is.
Can you hear me?
12 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
- Yes, now I can hear 13 you, I can hear you better.
Go ahead and finish what 14 you are saying.
And then what I would like you to do 15 is
- address, in a moment I want to ask Ms.
Curran and 16 Mr.
Lyman, to address what you've said about nothing 17 in NUREG 6427 has not been dealt with.
18 And so Dr.
Lyman and Ms.
- Curran, if you 19 could keep that in mind?
And, meanwhile, Mr.
- Repka, 20 what I would like you to address is, we are not, at 21 this point, determining the merits of this.
22 And I think we need to keep that in mind.
23 We are not looking to see whether what you have done 24 is the best, or accurate, or whatever.
At this point, 25 what we are looking at, at this point, is whether NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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there is a genuine dispute of material fact or law, 2
and the other primary issue seems to be whether there 3
is any relief that can be granted.
4 So in that context I would like for you to 5
explain, again for me, why there is no dispute.
Since 6
what I hear being said by the parties is that, the 7
Intervenors are saying that you do not incorporate all 8
the assumptions used in NUREG 6427, or justify your 9
failure to do so.
10 And you are saying that you do, in fact, 11 incorporate all the assumptions used in NUREG 6427 and 12 there is no dispute, and no room for relief?
13 MR.
REPKA:
The latter is what we are 14 saying.
That we have incorporated all the information 15 from NUREG
- 6427, and so there is no basis for a 16 Contention, and there is no further relief that can be 17 granted.
18 I think your first statement of what they 19 are saying is that there is a technical difference as 20 to whether or not we have, in fact, done that.
That 21 is not really what Contention 4 says.
22 What Contention 4
says is we haven't 23 justified the differences between NUREG 6427 and the 24 original SAMA evaluation.
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because it is irrelevant, it is immaterial, to justify 2
the differences between the two SAMA evaluations.
3 The fact of the matter is that the SAMA 4
evaluation based upon 6427, the very reason we are 5
here today, on consolidated contention 2, has been 6
performed.
7 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
And you are saying 8
that that more recent SAMA evaluation incorporates all 9
the assumptions in 6427 without changing any of the 10 calculations, values or assumptions?
11 MR.
REPKA:
That is true.
Except Mr.
12 Brewer tells me except for the station blackout 13 frequency, which we talked about
- earlier, which 14 really goes to the level 1 issue, not the level 2 15 issue.
16 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
Then I would 17 like to hear from Ms.
Curran and Dr.
Lyman on that, 18 and concentrating on the issue of what is the dispute, 19 and what is the relief available.
Go right ahead.
20 MS.
CURRAN:
Basing the Contention on the 21 response to the
So 23 I guess I'm a little confused as to where -- well, let 24 me cede to Dr. Lyman, because he has something to say.
25 DR.
LYMAN:
This is Dr. Lyman.
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Duke did is change the, as far as I can tell, change 2
the condition of containment failure frequency, and 3
use the NUREG CR6427 value.
And that
- was, 4
essentially, the only change they made to their 5
calculation, as far as I can tell.
6 But NUREG CR6427 is quite a
large 7
document.
And -
8 JUDGE KELBER:
- But, sir, this is Judge 9
Kelber, does it not calculate simply the conditional 10 containment failure probabilities, it doesn't 11 calculate anything else?
12 DR.
LYMAN:
No.
I mean, it is a large 13
- document, and it actually -
14 JUDGE KELBER:
It is a large document, but 15 doesn't it 16 DR.
LYMAN:
But it goes to the extent of 17 analysis.
You can't just adopt the level 2 results 18 without justifying them from a -
19 JUDGE KELBER:
But doesn't it just 20 calculate the CFP?
21 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
If I could follow up?
22 Dr. Lyman, what I want you to address, and Ms. Curran, 23 is in what way does Duke not incorporate assumptions 24 used in NUREG 6427?
25 Mr.
Repka says that Duke has done that.
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And that there is no failure to do that.
And so what 2
I would like for you to address is in what way, in 3
what way are you asserting that the assumptions in 4
NUREG 6427 are not incorporated in the most recent 5
SAMA analysis?
6 DR.
LYMAN:
I can give you several 7
references in NUREG CR6427 where the Catawba and 8
McGuire IPE's are singled out as having questions 9
raised about
- them, and I don't see that Duke has 10 actually addressed where NUREG CR6427 has singled out 11 the Catawba and McGuire IPE's for assumptions that the 12 authors of NUREG CR6427 do not believe are reasonable.
13 My view of taking into account this 14 document is not simply swapping one conditional 15 containment failure frequency for another, and getting 16 out a single number.
It is taking into account, and 17 examining, and comparing, Duke's PRA analysis from the 18 beginning with all the assumptions and discussion in 19 NUREG CR6427, and indicating all the places where they 20 are different, and making the appropriate adjustments.
21 JUDGE KELBER:
Where is that brought out 22 in the Contention?
23 DR.
LYMAN:
This is our Contention -
24 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Let me interject here, 25 if I could, with a question for Mr.
Repka and Mr.
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Brewer.
2 In the basis for the subpart 4 of the 3
amended Contention 2, the Intervenors say that Duke 4
states that it has calculated lower containment 5
failure probabilities than NRC did in NUREG 6427,a nd 6
also that the assumption about the fraction of clad 7
reaction is different.
8
- Now, those are two differences that are 9
stated in the basis for this subpart.
And I guess I'm 10 a little confused, now, in terms of, Mr.
Repka, your 11 earlier statement that there were no differences.
12 MR.
REPKA:
Those differences are 13 referring to differences between Duke's original SAMA 14 evaluation and the evaluation based upon the NUREG 15 6427 data.
16 Those are not statements that are 17 evaluation using NUREG 6427
- data, are somehow 18 inadequate.
What they are focusing on is the delta 19 between the two SAMA evaluations.
There is absolutely 20 nothing in this amended Contention 4 that suggests the 21 evaluation based upon NUREG 6427 data is inadequate.
22 Do you understand the distinction I'm 23 trying to make here?
24 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
I'm afraid I don't.
25 Because now looking back at your response to RAI 3C, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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you respond to, as the Contention basically reads, you 2
say the primary -- well, first of all, you talk about 3
the differences in conditional containment failure 4
probabilities.
5 You say the primary difference is the 6
amount of hydrogen assumed to be in containment.
You 7
refer to appendix B of NUREG 6427, and you talk about 8
the differences that you, in your calculations, based 9
on the MAAP code.
10 So I'm not understanding where, in your 11 response to RAI3C you say there are differences, now 12 you are telling me there are no differences.
And 13 maybe you need to simplify it, because I'm not 14 understanding how there can be differences here, and 15 now you are saying they are not different.
16 MR. REPKA:
I'm going to try, and then I'm 17 going to let Mr.
Brewer try.
The RAI 3 response is 18 attempting to explain differences between the two SAMA 19 evaluation results.
20 The first result that Duke did, based upon 21 its own IPE/PRA data, and the second evaluation based 22 upon the NUREG 6427 data.
23 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Where do you say that 24 in your response to RAI 3C?
25 MR.
REPKA:
That is correct.
And so that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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is 2
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
No, it was a question.
3 Where does it say that you are comparing your two SAMA 4
evaluations?
I read, on RAI 3C, let's see.
5 A comparison of the conditional early 6
containment failure probability for McGuire to the 7
conditional early containment failure probabilities 8
reported in a recent NRC sponsored study by Sandia 9
National Laboratory, in other words NUREG 6427.
10 In other
- words, compare your own 11 calculation to those in NUREG 6427.
Then in your 12 response to that you say the primary difference, and 13 presumably the difference that you are referring to, 14 is the difference that the question asked you about, 15 namely between your calculations and NUREG 6427.
16 So I'm not understanding how in the answer 17 to the question about what is the difference in NUREG 18 6427 and your calculation, you talk about differences, 19 and now you are telling me they are not different.
20 I'm not following it.
21 MR.
REPKA:
The RAI 3C asks for a
22 comparison of the conditional early containment 23 failure probability for Catawba.
I'm looking at the 24 Catawba one, which is what was used in the first SAMA 25 evaluation, to the conditional early containment NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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failure probability reported in the NUREG 6427.
2 They are asking, the NRC is asking us what 3
is different between what you submitted the first 4
- time, and what is used in the NUREG 6427, in that 5
evaluation.
6 So we are explaining, in response to 3C, 7
what are the differences, why did we come to a 8
different result in our submittal back in the original 9
environmental report in June or July of '01.
10 Then in RAI 4 the Staff asked us, go ahead 11 in light of the NUREG 6427 data, recalculate the SAMA 12 results, which then in response to RAI 4 we do that.
13 So these differences in RAI 3 are not differences 14 between the second SAMA and what we did.
15 These are differences between the first 16 SAMA and what was done in NUREG 6427.
The comparison 17 is to the first SAMA and NUREG 6427 itself.
Then in 18 RAI 4,
when we submit our revised SAMA based upon 19 NUREG 6427, there are no differences.
20 And that is what I'm saying.
What we did 21 for RAI response 4, incorporated the hydrogen produced 22 from 6427, incorporated the probabilities of vessel 23 failure and containment, of early containment failure 24 based upon NUREG 6427.
There are no differences.
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ask you this, because and I
appreciate your 2
explaining all
- this, and I
want to hear from the 3
Intervenors as well.
4 But in the final sentence to your response 5
to RAI 4, well in the next to the last sentence you 6
say:
The risk and benefit value is reevaluated using 7
NUREG 6427, made a containment failure probability for 8
McGuire yield an estimated 21.0 person REM, with an 9
averted risk value of 462,000 dollars.
10 Then you say:
This result overestimates 11 the benefit of all of the early containment failure 12 risk can be eliminated by providing hydrogen control.
13 The other early containment failure mode is still 14 so is your response to RAI 4 intended to mean that you 15 are going to do exactly what NUREG 6427 suggests, in 16 its assumptions and calculations?
17 MR.
REPKA:
What that response says is 18 that the estimated containment failure probability the 19 person REM, with an averted risk value, are exactly 20 based upon the NUREG 6427 data.
21 So that is what it is providing, it is 22 providing a recalculation of averted risk value based 23 upon NUREG 6427 data.
The following sentence then 24 explains a reason why we think that is an over 25 statement of risk.
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- And, again, it is going back to the 2
difference between the NUREG calculated value versus 3
our original calculated value, based upon, really, the 4
potential of early containment failure.
5 Mr. Brewer will add to that.
6 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
So then what we get 7
down to is that what we get down to is that you are 8
saying that you are not going to apply the 6427 values 9
because you believe that that over-estimates the 10 benefit?
11 MR.
REPKA:
It is not a matter of applying 12 or not.
They have both been done.
And what we are 13 just saying is the one we think is slightly better 14 than the other, but it doesn't matter.
15 And the Staff has taken both values for 16 their FDIS draft, and said that based upon the range 17 of values calculated, some changes may be cost 18 beneficial, hence we need to look at that in Part 50 19 space, hence GSI 189.
20 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
But apart from GSI 21 189, you keep coming back to that -
22 MR.
REPKA:
That is because all roads lead 23 there.
24 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
But what I'm saying 25 is, let's assume for a moment, and it may not be the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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case, but let's assume for a moment that GSI 189 is 2
not out there.
3 Because if GSI 189 resolves everything, 4
and I think every single conference that we've had, 5
for the last several months, we've asked as a 6
matter of fact, Judge Kelber is the one who even told 7
the Staff that GSI 189 was out there, and we've 8
continued to ask, what is the relevance of 189, does 9
that resolve anything in this case?
10 And it has remained an issue.
So let's 11 if it resolves everything, then we don't need to be 12 here.
But let's put it aside for a moment.
And what 13 I want to get an answer for you on, is if 189 is not 14 there, what I understand you to be saying is that you 15 do not plan to proceed in a fashion that would follow 16 from following every recommendation, calculation, 17 value, assumption, in NUREG 6427?
18 Am I correct in assuming that?
If I've 19 misstated, restate it for me.
20 MR.
REPKA:
- Well, first Mr. Brewer wants 21 to respond to the difference of --
go ahead.
22 MR.
BREWER:
In that particular paragraph 23 that you were referring to, where it talks about, it 24 says:
The risk vested value is reevaluated using the 25
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McGuire yields an estimated 21 person REM, with an 2
averted risk of 462,000 dollars.
3 That is a statement of what happens to our 4
analysis if we use the NUREG numbers.
So, therefore, 5
we have evaluated our SAMA analysis for hydrogen 6
control, giving the calculated risk change.
7 But then we clarify it with the next 8
sentence by saying, really this is an overestimation 9
of the benefit, because simply providing hydrogen 10 control doesn't eliminate all of this risk.
By 11 providing hydrogen control there is still risk of 12 early containment failure from other means.
13 So you can't eliminate all of this.
We 14 are not even disagreeing with the assumptions in the 15 NUREG here.
We are just stating that this is an upper 16 bound to the change in risk if you provide hydrogen 17 control.
18 MR.
REPKA:
- Now, Judge
- Young, your 19 question is what are we going to do with it?
I mean, 20 in a sense, where do we go?
21 Well, the answer to that is we have, in 22 effect, provided the SAMA evaluation done both ways.
23 It is now in the docket.
We aren't required to go 24 anywhere beyond that.
The Staff will publish their 25 supplemental environmental impact statement, and they NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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will write it the way they want to write it, and the 2
way they determine it to be correct, or most correct.
3 And we don't have to do anything further, 4
we don't have to decide whether we think 21 person REM 5
and averted risk value of 462 is right or wrong.
The 6
fact is we provided the value.
7 The SAMA evaluation doesn't force any 8
further action, it is just an evaluation.
The person 9
that would make us go any further would be the NRC 10
- staff, and the NRC through the Part 50 rulemaking 11 process, or some other means.
12 But in terms of where do we go on a SAMA, 13 we aren't picking one over the other.
We are not 14 required to pick one version of the SAMA evaluation 15 over the other.
We were asked to do it, and we did 16 it.
17 JUDGE KELBER:
Let me ask a question.
Mr.
18 Repka and Mr. Brewer, did the SAMA evaluation, remind 19 me, did the SAMA evaluation you did in the 20 environmental report move the risk from other, of 21 early failure from containment failure, from other 22 contributors?
23 MR.
REPKA:
- Yes, it did.
24 JUDGE KELBER:
Thank you.
25 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
My next question is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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for the Intervenors.
Having heard what Duke has to 2
say on this, I haven't asked the Staff because I'm 3
assuming, maybe incorrectly, but -- well, let me just 4
ask, before we move on to the Intervenors.
5 Does the Staff disagree with anything that 6
Duke has said?
7 MR.
HECK:
Your Honor, this is Jared Heck.
8 No, we are in agreement with what Duke has said 9
regarding SAMA evaluations, and their responsibilities 10 in that regard.
11 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
Then what I 12 would like to ask, and we are going to need to either 13 reconvene at a later
- time, if we can't finish up in 14 the next 15
- minutes, or extend the telephone 15 conference.
16 But I would like to ask the Intervenor to 17 respond to what Duke has
- said, which may have 18 clarified the situation somewhat, or may at least help 19 you to focus on, again, what is the dispute, and what 20 is the relief that could be provided.
21 DR.
LYMAN:
This is Dr. Lyman.
Before we 22 get to that I would just like to provide the citation 23 I was referring to before, with regard to the hydrogen 24 generation fraction.
It is 5044C5B.
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hydrogen generated in a
LOCA when designing the 2
igniter
- system, that is 75 percent of the fuel 3
cladding.
4 JUDGE KELBER:
That is the design 5
- criteria, is that correct?
6 DR.
LYMAN:
That is right.
So one could 7
argue that 8
JUDGE KELBER:
The design criteria is not 9
necessarily what you expect to happen, is it?
10 DR.
LYMAN:
No, I'm not saying that, I'm 11 just 12 JUDGE KELBER:
You design a bridge to 13 carry 40 tons, do you expect it to carry 40 tons?
14 DR.
LYMAN:
That is not the point I was 15 making.
I was simply pointing out the reference I was 16 referring to, as an upper bound that was regarded as 17 the conservative upper bounds for setting the design 18 criteria.
19 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Okay.
So then could 20 you go on and respond to what Mr. Repka and Mr. Brewer 21 have said about whether there is actually any dispute 22 here, and any relief available to you?
23 DR.
LYMAN:
I only reiterate the point we 24 made before.
And that is that simply substituting the 25 conditional containment failure probability, swapping NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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what they've used for the one from NUREG 6427 does not 2
meet the -
3 (Telephone operator interruption.)
4 DR.
LYMAN:
does not meet the concern 5
that we've expressed, that NUREG 6427's assumptions 6
have been fully incorporated, and particularly refer 7
those who have read the document to the numerous 8
places where Catawba and McGuire IPE's -
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Excuse me, Mr. Lyman.
10 I'm sorry, I didn't hear that, because we are going to 11 need to end this conference shortly.
And so I do want 12 to hear your response, but rather than be cut off in 13 the middle of a sentence, I think probably we need to 14 take a break here and decide how we are going to 15 handle the remainder of the questions on the 16 Contention.
17 I'm hearing one indication that going on 18 longer is not something that we want to do.
We have 19 the choice of scheduling another telephone conference.
20 We
- could, Judge Kelber had suggested earlier the 21 possibility of going back to Charlotte.
22 I think that that is something that we 23 need to consider before we get cutoff in the middle of 24 a sentence.
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you.
2 So do I hear any suggestions on how we 3
handle the remainder of the questions?
4 MR.
REPKA:
This is Dave Repka for Duke.
5 I think it is very important that we answer your 6
questions, and I think that the best way to proceed 7
would be to set up another telephone conference to 8
continue this discussion.
9 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Anybody else have 10 anything to say on that?
I don't have any problem 11 with that myself, and if everyone has their calendars 12 we can talk about another date.
13 As a matter of fact, I have tomorrow open, 14 if we want to continue tomorrow.
15 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
I'm in a travel status.
16 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Judge Kelber is saying 17 that we really need to stop shortly.
I do want to 18 hear Dr. Lyman's, at least preliminary, response to 19 the last question before we go.
20 But I don't think that we have any more 21
- time, as a practical matter, today.
Next week I'm 22 going to be traveling on another case, and doing a 23 site visit Monday through Wednesday.
I will be in 24 next Thursday, and possibly Friday.
25 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Thursday works for me.
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CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Thursday the 18th?
2 MS.
CURRAN:
Judge Young, I'm going to be 3
out of town starting the --
what is this Friday, the 4
12th?
I will be out of town starting the 19th, so the 5
following week.
6 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Would you be available 7
on the 18th, then, same time, anyplace you can make a 8
phone call?
9 MR.
ZELLER:
The 18th is not good for me.
10 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
What about Friday of 11 this week?
I don't think we discussed that.
I do 12 have a doctor's appointment -- Judge Kelber can't do 13 that on Friday.
14 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
I'm not available this 15 Friday.
16 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Tomorrow somebody -
17 who was not available?
18 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
I'm not available in 19 the morning.
20 JUDGE KELBER:
I'm not available on the 21 morning.
22 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
The afternoon of 23 tomorrow?
We don't need to have this on the record, 24 I don't think.
25 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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went off the record at 1:49 p.m.
and 2
went back on the record at 1:55 p.m.)
3 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Just to go back on the 4
record, recount what we've just decided.
We are going 5
to reconvene, by telephone conference, on July 29th, 6
Monday, at 10 o'clock, be prepared to go through until 7
2 o'clock, if necessary.
8 We will continue with questions from Judge 9
Kelber, Judge Rubenstein, and myself.
10 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
On Items 5 through 8.
11 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
And finishing up on 4 12 as necessary. And then at the conclusion of that, if 13 the parties have any points that they feel have not 14 been addressed, then time for them to do that in a
15 concise --
so hopefully between now and then we will 16 use the transcript from today to focus our questions 17 and comments, and arguments on the 29th.
18 The Board will issue an Order, in the near 19 future, indicating whether we wish to have any further 20 written filings summarizing any additional arguments 21 on the issues we've already limited this to, would be 22 appropriate, and if so, setting a deadline for that.
23 We do have a few more minutes, and I'd 24 like to give Dr. Lyman, who was literally interrupted 25 in the middle of a sentence, a chance to finish what NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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you were saying.
2 And I believe my question was to respond 3
to what Mr. Repka and Mr. Brewer have said about there 4
being no dispute here, because Duke has already done 5
the, incorporated the assumptions used in NUREG 6427 6
as one of the quantitative SAMA
- analysis, as I
7 understood it.
8 So to address that, and also to address 9
what relief would be available to you under this 10 Contention subpart 4.
- And, Ms.
- Curran, if you have 11 anything to add, as well?
If both of you could just, 12 concisely, do that and then I think we would adjourn 13 for today.
14 DR.
LYMAN:
This is Dr. Lyman.
As I was 15
- saying, we do not believe that simply taking Duke's 16 existing SAMA analysis, and replacing the NUREG 6427 17 initial containment failure frequency value, meets the 18 remedies or objections.
19 It doesn't make technical sense, I would 20 think everyone agrees, to take a PRA and artificially 21 insert a different condition of containment failure 22 frequency without having evaluated that from 23 considering each accident sequence, propagating that 24 to the level 1, to level 2, and then tabulating the 25 results.
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So NUREG CR6427 to the extent it goes 2
through an analysis of the initial sequences that can 3
lead to hydrogen generation containment failure, as 4
well as the non-hydrogen generation events, including 5
direct containment heating and liner failure, those 6
individual end points need to be evaluated, partly so 7
that we can asses when Duke asserts that their results 8
are overly conservative, we need to know how overly 9
conservative those are.
10 Because unless we understand the 11 contribution of the non-hydrogen combustion events, 12 the containment
- failure, we can't understand how 13 conservative those results are.
14 So we don't think that that simple 15 substitution is technically sound, or provides enough 16 information.
Thank you.
17 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Excuse me, does that 18 address the relief you wanted?
19 MS.
CURRAN:
Let me address the relief.
20 And that is that underneath one of the prime 21 purposes of NEPA is disclosure of relevant 22 information that is relevant to environmental impacts.
23 So to have a factual discussion of, that 24 is based on credible information, and an adequate 25 analysis is important.
And the NEPA analysis is not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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just a matter of throwing something out and saying we 2
did it.
3 The Statute demands what they call a hard 4
look.
In other words, is it reasonable.
So that is 5
we feel that it is
- relief, the kind of relief we 6
are looking for at the analysis is based on a
7 reasonable facts and reasonable methodology.
8 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
But you are asking the 9
Board to determine if the current calculation status 10 is reasonable?
11 MS.
CURRAN:
- Well, I guess that is the 12 underlying premise of the Contention, is that there 13 hasn't been a demonstration that the analysis that was 14 done is reasonable.
They just said, you wanted us to 15 put this input in, so we did it without going the next 16 step and doing it in a way that adds up to credible 17 and thorough analysis.
18 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Thank you, I understand 19 where you are at.
20 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
All right.
One of the 21 things that I would just like to say before we close, 22 and Ms.
Curran reminded me, there are several issues 23 that I
would like the parties to be prepared to 24 addresses in a fairly focused way.
25 And those
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citation to the case relating to the relevance of 2
generic staff action that is in progress.
And if you 3
need that again it is 49NRC328, and then the citation 4
in particular was 345.
5 So whether we indicate that we want that 6
in writing, or verbally, we would like the parties to 7
address that.
And Judge Kelber earlier gave you the 8
citation, the Adams citation for the ACRS meeting 9
where this was discussed.
10 It is, obviously, a significant issue, and 11 how it is handled is a significant issue as well, 12 particularly in the context of this case.
I would 13 like to ask the Intervenors to be ready to respond to 14 the Staff and Duke's arguments on the hard look 15 doctrine that you raised in your amended Contention.
16 And then insofar as this current licensing 17 basis issue plays into when that might take some issue 18 out of a SAMA or not, or how these interrelate, if 19 there is any further, or anything that anyone wants to 20 offer on that.
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
All right.
Then if there is nothing else that anyone --
go ahead.
JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Are you going to thank the parties, I'm sure, for their participation today?
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Yes.
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JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Judge Young?
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Yes.
JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Do you think you want to reiterate this in the Order, so the instructions are clearer to the participants?
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Right.
And we are going to issue an order indicating how to do it, and so forth.
But mainly I just wanted to let everyone know today, and it will be on the record that these are issues I would like to have addressed.
I would like to ask you, Judge Rubenstein, and you Judge Kelber, if there are any other specific points that you would like the parties to be prepared to address when we reconvene on the 29th?
JUDGE KELBER:
Just specific questions about the particular Contentions, not the intent.
CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Judge Rubenstein?
JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
I'm satisfied at this moment.
1063 1
JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
If so, I'm going to add 2
my thank you.
3 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Thank you all, and 4
also thank everyone for their fortitude in sitting by 5
a phone for four hours.
And at least it saves travel 6
- expenses, even though we don't get to smile at each 7
other face to face.
I think we have made some 8
progress
- today, and I
appreciate everyone's 9
participation, and I'm sure all of us do.
10 So if there is nothing further for today?
11 (No response.)
12 CHAIRPERSON YOUNG:
Hearing none, we will 13 adjourn for today and reconvene on the 29th at 10 14 o'clock.
15 (Whereupon, at 2:06 p.m.
the above 16 entitled matter was concluded.)
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding: Duke Energy Corporation Docket Number:
50-369-LR et al.
Location:
Teleconference were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
! rge esa Official Reporter Neal R. Gross & Co.,
Inc.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com