ML041840482

Issuance of Amendment Spent Fuel Pool Storage

ML041840482
Person / Time
Site:	Millstone
Issue date:	06/29/2004
From:	Wang A NRC/NRR/DLPM/LPD4
To:	Christian D Dominion Nuclear Connecticut
Wang A, NRR/DLPM, 415-1445
Shared Package
ML041890397	List: ML041840482 ML041880212
References
TAC MC0853
Download: ML041840482 (11)

Text

June 29, 2004 Mr. David A. Christian Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.

Innsbrook Technical Center 5000 Dominion Boulevard Glen Allen, VA 23060-6711

SUBJECT:

MILLSTONE POWER STATION, UNIT 1 - ISSUANCE OF AMENDMENT RE:

SPENT FUEL POOL STORAGE (TAC NO. MC0853)

Dear Mr. Christian:

The Commission) has issued the enclosed Amendment No. 113 to Facility Operating License No. DPR-21 for the Millstone Power Station, Unit 1. The amendment consists of changes to the Technical Specifications in response to your application dated September 18, 2003.

The amendment revises Technical Specification 4.2, "Fuel Storage," to eliminate all credit for Boraflex as a neutron absorber, reduce the number of fuel assemblies allowed to be stored in the spent fuel pool (SFP), change the required SFP keff, and eliminate design features requirements on new fuel storage.

A copy of our related Safety Evaluation is enclosed. The Notice of Issuance will be included in the Commissions next biweekly Federal Register notice.

Sincerely,

/RA/

Alan B. Wang, Project Manager, Section 2 Project Directorate IV Division of Licensing Project Management Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Docket No. 50-245

Enclosures:

1. Amendment No. 113 to DPR-21

2. Safety Evaluation cc w/encls: See next page

June 29, 2004 Mr. David A. Christian Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.

Innsbrook Technical Center 5000 Dominion Boulevard Glen Allen, VA 23060-6711

SUBJECT:

MILLSTONE POWER STATION, UNIT 1 - ISSUANCE OF AMENDMENT RE:

SPENT FUEL POOL STORAGE (TAC NO. MC0853)

Dear Mr. Christian:

The Commission) has issued the enclosed Amendment No. 113 to Facility Operating License No. DPR-21 for the Millstone Power Station, Unit 1. The amendment consists of changes to the Technical Specifications in response to your application dated September 18, 2003.

The amendment revises Technical Specification 4.2, "Fuel Storage," to eliminate all credit for Boraflex as a neutron absorber, reduce the number of fuel assemblies allowed to be stored in the spent fuel pool (SFP), change the required SFP keff, and eliminate design features requirements on new fuel storage.

A copy of our related Safety Evaluation is enclosed. The Notice of Issuance will be included in the Commissions next biweekly Federal Register notice.

Sincerely,

/RA/

Alan B. Wang, Project Manager, Section 2 Project Directorate IV Division of Licensing Project Management Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Docket No. 50-245 DISTRIBUTION PUBLIC

Enclosures:

1. Amendment No. 113 to DPR-21 PDIV-2 Reading

2. Safety Evaluation RidsNrrDlpm (HBerkow)

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TS Pages: ML041880212 Nrr-100 ACCESSION NO.: ML041840482 Nrr-058 Pkg No.: ML041890397 OFFICE PDIV-2/PM PDIV-2/LA SRXB* OGC PDIV-2/SC NAME AWang EPeyton FAkstulewicz CMarco SDembek DATE 6/18/04 6/18/04 6/15/04 6-25-04 6/28/04 DOCUMENT NAME: C:\ORPCheckout\FileNET\ML041840482.wpd OFFICIAL RECORD COPY

DOMINION NUCLEAR CONNECTICUT, INC.

DOCKET NO. 50-245 MILLSTONE POWER STATION, UNIT 1 AMENDMENT TO FACILITY OPERATING LICENSE Amendment No. 113 License No. DPR-21

1. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) has found that:

A. The application for amendment by Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.

(the licensee) dated September 18, 2003, complies with the standards and requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the Act), and the Commissions rules and regulations set forth in 10 CFR Chapter I; B. The facility will be decommissioned in conformity with the provisions of the Act, and the rules and regulations of the Commission; C. There is reasonable assurance (i) that the activities authorized by this amendment can be conducted without endangering the health and safety of the public, and (ii) that such activities will be conducted in compliance with the Commissions regulations; D. The issuance of this amendment will not be inimical to the common defense and security or to the health and safety of the public; and E. The issuance of this amendment is in accordance with 10 CFR Part 51 of the Commissions regulations and all applicable requirements have been satisfied.

2. Accordingly, the license is amended by changes to the Technical Specifications as indicated in the attachment to this license amendment; and paragraph 2.C.(2) of Facility Operating License No. DPR-21 is hereby amended to read as follows:

(2) Technical Specifications The Technical Specifications contained in Appendix A, as revised through Amendment No. 113, are hereby incorporated in the license. The licensee shall operate the facility in accordance with the Technical Specifications.

3. The license amendment is effective as of its date of issuance and shall be implemented within 60 days of issuance.

FOR THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

/RA/

Stephen Dembek, Chief, Section 2 Project Directorate IV Division of Licensing Project Management Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation

Attachment:

Changes to the Technical Specifications Date of Issuance: June 29, 2004

ATTACHMENT TO LICENSE AMENDMENT NO. 113 FACILITY OPERATING LICENSE NO. DPR-21 DOCKET NO. 50-245 Replace the following pages of Appendix A Technical Specifications with the attached revised pages. The revised pages are identified by amendment number and contain marginal lines indicating the areas of change.

REMOVE INSERT 4.0-1 4.0-1

--- 4.0-2

SAFETY EVALUATION BY THE OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REACTOR REGULATION RELATED TO AMENDMENT NO. 113 TO FACILITY OPERATING LICENSE NO. DPR-21 DOMINION NUCLEAR CONNECTICUT, INC.

MILLSTONE POWER STATION, UNIT 1 DOCKET NO. 50-245

1.0 INTRODUCTION

By letter dated September 18, 2003, Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. (the licensee) requested changes to the Technical Specifications (TSs) for the Millstone Power Station, Unit 1 (MP1). The amendment proposes to revise Technical Specification 4.2, "Fuel Storage."

Specifically, the proposed changes would eliminate all credit for Boraflex as a neutron absorber, reduce the number of fuel assemblies allowed to be stored in the spent fuel pool (SFP), change the required SFP keff, and eliminate design features requirements on new fuel storage.

2.0 REGULATORY EVALUATION

The staff finds that the licensee in Section 5.2 of its submittal identified the applicable regulatory requirements. The regulatory requirements for which the staff based its acceptance are:

 Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), Part 50, Appendix A, "General Design Criteria (GDC) for Nuclear Power Plants," provides a list of the minimum design requirements for nuclear power plants. According to GDC 62, "Prevention of criticality in fuel storage and handling," the licensee must prevent criticality in the fuel handling and storage system by physical systems or processes.

 10 CFR Section 50.68, "Criticality accident requirements," provides the NRC regulatory requirements for maintaining subcritical conditions in SFPs: "If no credit for soluble boron is taken, the k-effective of the spent fuel storage racks loaded with fuel of the maximum fuel assembly reactivity must not exceed 0.95, at a 95 percent probability, 95 percent confidence level, if flooded with unborated water. If credit is taken for soluble boron, the k-effective of the spent fuel storage racks loaded with fuel of the maximum fuel assembly reactivity must not exceed 0.95, at a 95 percent probability, 95 percent confidence level, if flooded with borated water, and the k-effective must remain below 1.0 (subcritical), at a 95 percent probability, 95 percent confidence level, if flooded with unborated water." The licensees amendment proposed to increase the SFP required keff from 0.90 to 0.95, as discussed in Section 2.2 of this safety evaluation (SE).

The NRC has also defined acceptable methodologies for performing SFP criticality analyses in the following documents:

 NUREG-0800, Standard Review Plan (SRP), Section 9.1.2, "Spent Fuel Storage," Draft Revision 4

 Proposed Revision 2 to Regulatory Guide (RG) 1.13, "Spent Fuel Storage Facility Design Basis"

 Memorandum from L. Kopp (NRC) to T. Collins (NRC), "Guidance on the Regulatory Requirements for Criticality Analysis of Fuel Storage at Light-Water Reactor Power Plants" The staff used the guidance contained in these documents as part of its review.

3.0 TECHNICAL EVALUATION

3.1 Background The following describes the proposed changes:

1. The licensee will delete TS 4.2.1 pertaining to new fuel storage.

2. In TS 4.2.2, the licensee will increase the required keff limit from 0.90 to 0.95, add the phrase "and with no fuel allowed in the storage locations shown in Figure 4.1," and add Figure 4.1.

3. In TS 4.2.3, the licensee will change the maximum number of fuel assemblies allowed to be stored in the SFP from 3229 to 2959.

The staff has reviewed the licensees regulatory and technical analyses in support of its proposed license amendment which are described in Sections 4.0 and 5.0 of the licensees submittal against the regulatory criteria described in Section 2.0 of this SE. The basis for the staffs acceptance and a description of the review it performed is located in Section 3.2 of this SE. The detailed evaluation below will support the conclusion that: (1) there is reasonable assurance that the health and safety of the public will not be endangered by operation in the proposed manner, (2) such activities will be conducted in compliance with the Commission's regulations, and (3) the issuance of the amendment will not be inimical to the common defense and security or to the health and safety of the public.

3.2 Technical Evaluation The MP1 SFP controls reactivity with two types of storage rack materials: boron carbide B4C plates and Boraflex. The licensee must demonstrate that subcriticality is maintained within the SFP at all times. The licensee submitted a criticality analysis with their proposed license amendment in order to fulfill this requirement (Attachments 3 and 4 to their September 18, 2003, submittal). The analysis demonstrates that for the spent fuel storage cells that currently use Boraflex for reactivity control, if fuel is limited to a 3-out-of-4 fuel storage configuration, keff of the racks will be maintained at < 0.95, on a 95/95 basis, without credit for any Boraflex. The 3-out-of-4 fuel storage configuration would require the reduction of 270 specific fuel storage locations. The licensees analysis conservatively assumes that all fuel in the SFP is at the most reactive condition possible, using the most reactive fuel design and at the most reactive normal

operating temperature. The analysis also considers abnormal and accident conditions. The licensee states that the revised criticality analysis for the Boraflex storage racks does not affect the other storage racks in the SFP.

In order to withdraw Boraflex credit, the licensee has requested increasing the allowable SFP keff limit from 0.90 to 0.95. The use of 0.95 as the SFP keff limit is an NRC accepted standard, as documented in the SRP (Section 9.1.2) and RG 1.13.

The NRC staff has reviewed the criticality analysis that accompanies the licensees request.

The licensee used KENO Va from the SCALE-4.4 code package to perform the necessary calculations on the 3-out-of-4 fuel loading pattern. This included benchmarking input files, and analyzing the results to determine trends in independent variable bias. The licensee then determined an upper subcritical limit for the SFP from those resulting trends.

The licensee also modeled potential biases and accident scenarios to determine the maximum keff possible for the SFP. After establishing a baseline keff for the 3-out-of-4 fuel storage configuration, the licensee developed independent bias models concerning channel swelling, pitch tolerance, stainless steel thickening tolerance, and eccentric assembly positioning. The licensee additionally modeled three single-accident SFP scenarios: heating of the SFP to boiling; a dropped fuel assembly on top of or next to the SFP rack; and a worst-case single assembly misload. Of these three cases, the misload yielded the highest keff. Combining the accidental misload keff with the net bias delta-K (calculated by way of root mean square from the considered biases) and a 3 sigma value created the licensees maximum determined keff. The licensee compared the max keff to the calculated upper subcritical limit, determined the max keff to be the lower number, and therefore stated that the new SFP configuration will maintain subcriticality without credit for Boraflex. The NRC staff has reviewed all the steps that the licensee has taken to perform this criticality analysis, and finds them acceptable. Additionally, the staff determined the licensee properly applied double contingency considerations in their analysis.

TS Figure 4.1 has been added to the TSs to prohibit fuel storage in 270 specific locations to maintain SFP subcriticality without credit for Boraflex. This loading pattern was assumed in the revised SFP criticality analysis as discussed above and is therefore acceptable. TS 4.2.3 will be revised to change the maximum number of fuel assemblies allowed to be stored in the SFP from 3229 to 2959. This reduction of 270 fuel storage locations, the new 3-out-of-4 fuel storage configuration, is needed to maintain the SFP keff limit at < 0.95. In addition, lowering the number of allowed fuel storage locations will not impact any other storage rack or heat load analyses. The NRC staff has reviewed this request and finds that decreasing the maximum number of fuel assemblies, as described in TS Figure 4.1, stored in the SFP will maintain the SFP keff limit at < 0.95 in the SFP assuming no credit for Boraflex.

The licensee requested a deletion of TS 4.2.1, which pertains to the keff of new fuel storage facilities. The NRC staff recognizes that MP1 has ceased power operation and will no longer receive new fuel; therefore deleting TS 4.2.1 does not increase the potential for criticality in the SFP.

3.3 Conclusion The NRC staff reviewed the proposed TS changes addressing fuel storage requirements.

These changes included elimination of all credit for Boraflex as a neutron absorber, reduction of the maximum number of fuel assemblies allowed in the SFP, increasing the required SFP keff limit to <0.95, and elimination of new fuel storage requirements. The staff finds that these TS changes meet the requirements of GDC 62 and 10 CFR 50.68, and are therefore acceptable.

4.0 STATE CONSULTATION

In accordance with the Commissions regulations, the Connecticut State official was notified of the proposed issuance of the amendment. The State official had no comments.

5.0 ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATION

The amendment changes a requirement with respect to installation or use of a facility component located within the restricted area as defined in 10 CFR Part 20. The NRC staff has determined that the amendment involves no significant increase in the amounts, and no significant change in the types, of any effluents that may be released offsite, and that there is no significant increase in individual or cumulative occupational radiation exposure. The Commission has previously issued a proposed finding that the amendment involves no significant hazards consideration, and here has been no public comment on such finding (68 FR 68659). Accordingly, the amendment meets the eligibility criteria for categorical exclusion set forth in 10 CFR 51.22(c)(9). Pursuant to 10 CFR 51.22(b), no environmental impact statement or environmental assessment need be prepared in connection with the issuance of the amendment.

6.0 CONCLUSION

The Commission has concluded, based on the considerations discussed above, that (1) there is reasonable assurance that the health and safety of the public will not be endangered by operation in the proposed manner, (2) such activities will be conducted in compliance with the Commissions regulations, and (3) the issuance of the amendment will not be inimical to the common defense and security or to the health and safety of the public.

Principal Contributor: M. Langschwager Date: June 29, 2004

Millstone Power Station Unit 1 cc:

Lillian M. Cuoco, Esquire Citizens Regulatory Commission Senior Counsel ATTN: Ms. Susan Perry Luxton Dominion Resources Services, Inc. 180 Great Neck Road Rope Ferry Road Waterford, CT 06385 Waterford, CT 06385 Deborah Katz, President Edward L. Wilds, Jr., Ph.D. Citizens Awareness Network Director, Division of Radiation P.O. Box 83 Department of Environmental Protection Shelburne Falls, MA 03170 79 Elm Street Hartford, CT 06106-5127 Mr. John Buckingham Department of Public Utility Control Mr. Allan Johanson, Assistant Director Electric Unit Office of Policy and Management 10 Liberty Square Policy Development & Planning Division New Britain, CT 06051 450 Capitol Avenue - MS# 52ERN P.O. Box 341441 Nancy Burton, Esquire Hartford, CT 06134-1441 147 Cross Highway Redding Ridge, CT 06876 Regional Administrator, Region I U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Mr. W. R. Matthews 475 Allendale Road Senior Vice President - Nuclear Operations King of Prussia, PA 19406 Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.

Rope Ferry Road First Selectmen Waterford, CT 06385 Town of Waterford 15 Rope Ferry Road Mr. P. J. Parulis Waterford, CT 06385 Manager - Nuclear Oversight Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.

Attorney Nicholas J. Scobbo, Jr. Rope Ferry Road Ferriter, Scobbo, & Rodophele, PC Waterford, CT 06385 125 High Street Boston, MA 02110 Mr. S. E. Scace Assistant to the Site Vice President Ernest C. Hadley, Esquire Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.

1040 B Main Street Rope Ferry Road P.O. Box 549 Waterford, CT 06385 West Wareham, MA 02576 Mr. J. Alan Price Mr. Evan W. Woollacott, Co-Chair Site Vice President - Millstone Nuclear Energy Advisory Council Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.

128 Terrys Plain Road Rope Ferry Road Simsbury, CT 06070 Waterford, CT 06385

Millstone Power Station Unit 1 cc:

Mr. G. D. Hicks, Director Nuclear Station Safety and Licensing Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.

Rope Ferry Road Waterford, CT 06385 Mr. A. J. Jordan, Jr.

Director - Nuclear Engineering Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.

Rope Ferry Road Waterford, CT 06385 Mr. S. P. Sarver, Director Nuclear Station Operations & Maintenance Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.

Rope Ferry Road Waterford, CT 06385 Mr. Chris L. Funderburk Director, Nuclear Licensing and Operations Support Dominion Resources Services, Inc.

Innsbrook Technical Center 5000 Dominion Boulevard Glen Allen, VA 23060-6711 Mr. David W. Dodson Licensing Supervisor Dominion Nuclear Connecticut , Inc.

Rope Ferry Road Waterford, Connecticut 06385