ML081300749
| ML081300749 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/01/2008 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NRC-2166 | |
| Download: ML081300749 (30) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit 1, License Renewal Evening Public Scoping Meeting Docket Number:
50-289 Location:
Middletown, Pennsylvania Date:
Thursday, May 1, 2008 Work Order No.:
NRC-2166 Pages 1-27 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR POWER STATION UNIT #1, LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION REVIEW ENVIRONMENTAL PUBLIC SCOPING MEETING
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LONDONDERRY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AUDITORIUM 260 SCHOOLHOUSE ROAD MIDDLETOWN, PENNSYLVANIA
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THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2008 7:00 P.M.
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2
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INTRODUCTION MR. RAKOVAN: (In progress) B Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC. It's my pleasure to facilitate tonight's meeting.
The topic of tonight's meeting is to discuss the environmental scoping process for the Three Mile Island nuclear station, Unit #1, license renewal application review.
I just wanted to start things off tonight by letting you know what to expect from tonight's meeting; kind of go over some ground rules; and then we will go ahead and turn things over to Sarah Lopas. She's a project manager involved with the Three Mile Island environmental
- scoping, and she'll be giving a
short presentation.
Then we'll be basically turning the meeting over to listening to your scoping comments. When you registered, or stopped off at the registration table, there were some yellow cards. If you knew you wanted to speak, you could fill out a yellow card at that point.
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If you want to fill one out now, I could certainly bring one to you. That way we have your name written down. And the reason that's important to us is, we are transcribing tonight's meeting. That's the reason that we have the microphones.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 And so if you are going to make a comment, we ask that you either come to the microphone in the center here or come up to the podium; speak into the microphone, not only so that people can hear you, but again, so that we can get a clean transcript of tonight's meeting.
The first time you speak if you could identify yourself as well as what organization you are with if that applies. Again, these are all things that help us get a clean transcript and know who is talking.
Sarah will be going over some of the details on the other ways that you can provide comments to the environmental scoping process other than being on tonight's transcript. And that'll be part of her presentation.
Please keep in mind that there is no smoking allowed, not only in the school but also on the school grounds. So if you do need to take
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a cigarette break, you are actually going to have to go across the street. Please keep that in mind.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 And in case you need to use the restrooms, just go back towards where you came in at the main entrance. Keep going a little bit past the NRC stuff that's up and it will be on your left.
If you have your cellphones, if you could silence those or turn them off at this time, that will help keep disruptions to a minimum during the meeting.
Again, what we are going to do is start off with a short presentation on the scoping process. And then I'll be back, and we'll open up the meeting to comments.
There were on the registration table copies of the slides. Hopefully you picked up one of those. If not, I'll go grab them and kind of hold them up while Sarah is talking just in case you didn't get a copy.
There is also public meeting feedback forms. These are forms that we ask you to fill out after attending our public meetings. You can either hand those to one of our NRC employees, or you can drop it in the mail. Postage is free.
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And we are just asking for your opinion on how the meeting went tonight. If you have any recommendations on how we could maybe change or improve on how we do these public meetings, we are certainly open to your input. So if you would just take a moment to fill those out, those will really help us out.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Having said that, I'll turn things over to Sarah Lopas who will be giving a short presentation on the environmental scoping process.
PRESENTATION MS. LOPAS: Good evening.
Good evening, my name is Sarah Lopas.
I'm a project manager within the NRC's division of license renewal. And I'm the project manager for the environmental review associated with the Three Mile Island Unit #1 license renewal review.
Thank you all for taking the time to come to this meeting. I hope that the information that we provide will help you understand the process that we are going through, and the role you can play in helping us make sure that we review the appropriate environmental information.
On March 4th, we held two meetings here in Middletown to provide an overview of the
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license renewal process, which includes both a safety review and an environmental review.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Tonight we will describe in more detail the environmental review.
But the most important part of tonight's meeting is to receive any comments you might have on the scope of the environmental review.
We will also give you some information on how you can submit those comments after this meeting.
At the conclusion of the presentation we'll be taking comments on the scope of the environmental review. As Lance has already indicated, this meeting is being transcribed, and all of comments recorded from this meeting will be reviewed and considered.
Next slide.
Before I get into the details of the environmental review process, I'd like to take a few minutes to recap some of the information that was presented back at the March meeting.
The NRC is a
federal agency established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 that regulates the civilian use of nuclear material.
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The Atomic Energy Act authorizes the NRC to grant a 40-year operating license for nuclear power reactors. This 40-year term is based primarily on economic considerations and antitrust factors, not on safety or technical limitations. The Atomic Energy Act also allows for license renewal.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, referred to as NEPA, was established as a national policy for considering the impact of federal decision making on the human environment.
As a matter of policy the commission determined that reactor license renewal constitutes a major federal action for which an environmental impact statement is warranted.
The NRC's regulations governing nuclear safety, security and environmental protection are contained in Title 10 OF THE Code of Federal Regulations, which is referred to as 10 CFR.
In exercising its authority, the NRC's mission is threefold:
to ensure adequate protection of public health and safety; to promote common defense and security; and to protect the environment.
The NRC accomplishes its mission
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through a combination of regulatory programs and processes such as establishing rules and regulations; conducting inspections; issuing enforcement actions; assessing licensee performance; and evaluating operating experience from nuclear plants across the United States and internationally.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 The NRC has resident inspectors at all operating nuclear power plants. These inspectors are considered the eyes and ears of the NRC. They carry out our safety mission on a daily basis, and are the front lines of ensuring acceptable safety performance and compliance with regulatory requirements.
Next slide.
Three Mile Island Unit #1, or TMI-1 for short, was licensed to operate in 1974. TMI-1's current operating license expires in 2014.
The NRC received AmerGen's application for TMI-1's license renewal on January 8th, 2008. This renewal application does not apply to TMI Unit #2.
Unit
- 2 has been defueled and decontaminated to the extent that the plant is in a safe, inherently stable condition suitable for long term management.
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As part of the NRC's review of the TMI-1 license renewal application, we will perform an environmental review to assess the impact on the environment of an additional 20 years of operation, and I'll explain that process in a few minutes.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I'll also share with you the schedule for the environmental review.
Next slide.
License renewal involves two parallel reviews, the safety review and the environmental review. These two reviews evaluate two separate aspects of license renewal application.
The safety review focuses on the aging of components and structures that the NRC deems important to plant safety. The staff's main objective in this review is to determine that the effects of aging will be adequately managed by the applicant.
The results of the safety review are documented in the safety evaluation report, or SER.
For the environmental review the staff considers, evaluates and discloses the environmental impacts of continued plant operation
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 for an additional 20 years.
The staff also evaluates the environmental impacts of alternatives to license renewal. The objective of the review is to determine that if the environmental impacts of license renewal are so great that license renewal would not be a reasonable option.
The staff prepares an environmental impact statement to document the environmental review.
This diagram illustrates the safety and environmental review processes represented at the top and bottom of the slide. It also features two other considerations in the commission's decision of whether or not to issue a renewed operating license.
Statutorily mandated by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, the advisory committee of reactor safeguards, or ACRS, is a group of scientists and nuclear experts who serve as a consulting body to the commission.
The ACRS performs an independent review of the license renewal application and the NRC staff's safety evaluation. The ACRS reports their findings, and recommendations, directly to the commission.
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Hearings may also be conducted.
Concurrent with the staff's review interested stakeholders may submit concerns or contentions, and request a hearing.
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hearing is
- granted, the commission considers the outcome of the hearing process in its decision on whether or not to issue a renewed operating license.
Now I am going to describe the environmental review in a little more in detail.
Next slide, please.
The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 requires that federal agencies follow a systematic approach in evaluating potential environmental impacts associated with certain actions.
We are required to consider the impact of the proposed action, and also, any mitigation for those impacts that we consider to be significant.
We are also required to consider alternatives to the proposed action, which is in this case, license renewal, and that includes any energy alternatives to the proposed
- action, mitigation alternatives, and the no action alternative, which would examine the environmental
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 impacts associated with not renewing the license.
The NRC has determined that the proposed license renewal of nuclear power plants is a major federal action, and as such, an environmental impact statement will be prepared for the proposed action.
In preparing an environmental impact statement the NRC conducts a scoping process. The purpose of the scoping process is to identify the significant issues to be analyzed in depth.
We are now gathering information for an EIS, and are here to collect public comments on the scope of their review.
That is, what environmental impacts should the staff consider for the proposed license renewal of TMI-1?
The staff has developed a generic EIS that addressed a number of issues common to all nuclear power plants. The staff is supplementing that generic environmental impact statement with a site-specific environmental impact statement which will address issues that are specific to the TMI-1 site.
The staff will also reexamine the conclusions reached in the generic environmental
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 impact statement to determine if there are any new or significant information that would change those conclusions.
For the environmental review we have established a team of specialists from the NRC staff who are experts in various fields and disciplines. This slide gives you an idea of the various areas that we look at during our environmental review. They include to name a few terrestrial and aquatic ecology, environmental justice, hydrology and radiation protection.
The scoping period started on March 28th when the notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement and conduct scoping was published in the Federal Register. The NRC will be accepting comments on the scope of the environmental review until May 30th, 2008.
In general we are looking for sources of information about the environmental impact of continued operation at TMI-1 that we should consider while we prepare our EIS. You can assist us in that process by telling us, for example, what aspects of your local community we should focus on; what local, environmental, and social and economic aspects the NRC should examine during
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 our environmental review; and what reasonable alternatives are most appropriate for this particular area.
These are just some of the examples of inputs that we're looking for, and they represent the kinds of information that we are seeking through the environmental scoping process.
Your comments tonight should be helpful in providing insights of this nature.
This slide illustrates the various considerations that are factored into a decision to issue a renewed operating license. So how do we use your input?
Public comments are an important part of the environmental review process. We consider all the comments that we receive from the public during the scoping process, as well as comments received from the draft environmental impact statement, which is scheduled to be published for comment in December of 2008.
Next slide.
In addition to providing comments at this meeting, there are other ways that you can submit your comments for our environmental review process.
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 You can mail your written comments to the chief of our rules and directives branch. You can also make comments in person at our Rockville, Maryland headquarters.
And we have also established a specific email address at the NRC for the purpose of receiving your comments. That email address is Three Mile Island EIS at NRC.gov.
All of your comments will be collected, reviewed, and considered.
Next slide.
This slide shows important milestone dates for the environmental review process. The notice of opportunity for hearing was published in the Federal Register on March 14th, followed by a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement and conduct scoping on March 28th.
The opportunity to submit contentions for a hearing closes on May 13th, 2008. And if you have comments regarding the environmental review, that you would like to submit after tonight's meeting, you have until May 30th, 2008 to do that.
Next slide.
This slide identifies the primary point of contact, which is myself, for NRC environmental issues. It also identifies where
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 documents related to our review may be found in the local area.
The Londonderry Municipal Township Building; the Middletown Public Library; and the Penn State Harrisburg Library have all agreed to make the license renewal application available for public review.
When we publish our draft environmental impact statement that will also be available at these locations for your review.
These documents will also be available on the NRC's website at the web address shown at the bottom of this slide.
In addition as you came in you were asked to fill out registration cards. If you included your address on that card, we'll mail you a copy of the draft and final environmental impact statement.
This concludes my presentation. I will bring it back to Lance Thank you.
MR. RAKOVAN: Thanks, Sarah.
Before we proceed to turn the meeting over to you, I just wanted to make a quick check to see if anybody had any questions on the presentation that Sarah gave, specifically the
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 environmental scoping process.
Okay, seeing no hands, we'll go ahead, and I'll go to the yellow cards that I do have.
If you decide at any point that you want to make a comment or ask a question, I've got the yellow cards right here. Just remember that we are specifically looking for comments on the environmental scoping, what we should take into account for that.
If you have a question, we might consider that as part of the scoping, or we might try to deal with the question kind of on the side since that is not the focus of the meeting.
I've got two cards to go to. We'll start with Michael Gallagher from Exelon, and then go to William Noll from AmerGen.
Michael. Okay, we can reverse it, that's easy enough.
William Noll from AmerGen.
MR. NOLL: Good evening. My name is Bill Noll, and I'm the site vice president at Three Mile Island.
I have the overall responsibility for the safe and reliable operation of the nuclear power plant.
Operating Three Mile Island safely is
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 a responsibility that everyone in the plant takes very seriously. We understand our obligations to the community, to the environment, and to ourselves to operate the plant safely every single day.
A peak commodity in a
thriving community like ours is the availability of clean, safe, and reliable electricity. As we look into the future, power needs across Pennsylvania and the nation are increasing.
At the same time there is a growing concern about the greenhouse gases and climate change that result from burning fossil fuels.
To help meet that growing power demand, and to keep our environment clean, AmerGen has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a 20-year extension to the plant's operating license.
TMI's current license will expire in 2014; that's six years from today. With license extension TMI can provide our region with clean power until the year 2034.
We understand our special obligation to operate the plant safely and reliably, while being open and honest with our neighbors, and we
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 pledge to continue that sacred trust as we operate the plant well into the future.
The 104 nuclear reactors in the United States provide roughly 20 percent of our nation's electricity. More than 45 reactors nationwide have already received approval from the NRC for 20-year license renewal, including Peach Bottom generating station which is operating in York, Pennsylvania.
Three Mile Island operates in a manner that preserves the environment.
The plant produces no greenhouse gases, and the plant conducts about 1,700 tests annually on air, water, fish, soil, cow's milk and other food products to measure for the environmental impact.
To ensure TMI continues to operate safely for years to come, AmerGen is investing in upgrades to plant equipment since 2000. AmerGen has invested more than $120 million to the plant, including installing a new reactor head, new turbines, new transformers, new valves, and also refurbishing the cooling towers.
TMI has made more than $17 million in physical security modification upgrades since 2001.
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 One of the biggest future investments that will occur in 2009, TMI replaces both steam generators, and completes other equipment upgrades. This is a $300 million investment. And just about every year we spend about $10 million in additional capital improvements.
As you can see we are investing in the future of TMI to ensure that the plant meets the power needs of our region and the nation in years to come.
Our investment in the future does not stop with equipment. We are hiring and training new employees, many from our local region. Last year we qualified 11 personnel to become licensed reactor operators, and this year we started a new class with an additional 17 people.
We have significantly increased the size of our security force, and hiring and retaining top talent is a top priority at Three Mile Island.
Over the last 20 years TMI has been one of the best performing and most reliable generating stations in the nuclear power industry.
During that time the plant has set four separate world records for continuous days of operations,
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the most recent being in October of 2005 when the plant continued a run of 689 continuous days of operation.
While we do not set out to break
- records, continuous operations is just one indicator of our excellent human performance including the liability that separates TMI from the rest of the fleet.
We also take pride in our investments in the community. In 2007 TMI donated close to
$250,000 to the community in contributions to the United
- Way, fire and ambulance companies, education, health and youth organizations, and many of our employees are volunteers in the local communities around the station.
In conclusion, Three Mile Island looks forward to working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as you review our license renewal application.
Thank you very much for attending tonight's meeting. Thank you.
MR. RAKOVAN: Mike, if you're ready.
MR. GALLAGHER: Okay, good evening. My name is Mike Gallagher, and I'm the vice president of license renewal for Exelon and AmerGen. I have
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 overall responsibility for the TMI license renewal application.
Exelon has a great deal of experience with license renewal, as we have already obtained the renewed licenses for our Peach Bottom plant, in York
- County, Pennsylvania, as Bill has mentioned; Dresden (phonetic) and Quad Cities plants in Illinois; and we are waiting for the NRC decision on our Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey.
Just briefly about myself, I have been working in the nuclear power industry for 27 years. I was a senior license reactor operator, and plant manager, at our Limerick plant near Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and I've worked at two other nuclear plants and our corporate office.
Mr. Noll, our site vice president for TMI, spoke about reasons for renewing the license for TMI. I'd like to speak briefly about the process for preparing this renewal application, and the amount of work and engineering analysis that we did to prepare this application.
Because TMI can be operated safely and reliably, Exelon decided to pursue license renewal for TMI. TMI is a very clean energy source which produces no greenhouse gas emissions. TMI is also
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 good for the economy in that it lowers market prices of electricity for the citizens of Pennsylvania to the tune of $288 million per year.
So in April, 2005 we announced our intention to seek license renewal for TMI. Later that year we started the work necessary to prepare the application.
After over two years of work, we submitted the application to the NRC on January the 8th, 2008.
The application, when you print it out, is about 2,550 pages. When you put it in binders, it's three very large binders, and that's a huge amount of information.
But that only represents a small part of the work that was done for the engineering analysis to prepare this application. The total amount of engineering analysis we performed, if we printed it all out, would be about 122 binders of information.
We invested over 60,000 man hours of engineering work. Once we had completed our engineering work, we brought in experts from outside Exelon to review our application to ensure that it was complete, thorough and accurate.
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Our total cost to prepare and get our application reviewed by the NRC will be approximately $25 million.
There are two parts to our application, a safety review and an environmental review. For the safety review, we took an in depth look at the history and condition of all safety equipment in the plant. We did that to determine whether the necessary maintenance was being performed on the equipment; to make sure that the equipment will operate when it's needed, not only for today, but for an additional 20 years of operation.
So when you look back at the operation of TMI, when it was built, all of the equipment was new. It was thoroughly tested to make sure it performed properly. But like anything else, equipment does age. That doesn't mean it won't work, but it does age, and certain activities need to be done with the equipment.
Preventive maintenance is performed, sometimes equipment is refurbished.
Some equipment may be replaced.
There may be modifications done to the plant to upgrade the equipment. In fact, as Bill Noll has told you, we
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 invested more than $120 million in equipment upgrades since we purchased TMI in 1999, and are planning to make more than $400 million worth of investments over the next 10 years.
We also reviewed calculations that were performed as part of the original design basis of the plant to ensure that the plant originally could operate for 40 years. We analyzed all those calculations, and were able to confirm, the plant would be able to operate safely for up to 60 years.
So overall our conclusions from our engineering review was that TMI could operate safely for up to 60 years.
We also took a
look at the environmental impacts of continuing to operate TMI. We looked at all aspects of continued impact of the plant on the environment.
Our conclusion is that the impacts on the environment are small, and I use the term, small, in the sense that it is in the regulation.
The regulations define small as the environmental effects are not detectible or are minor.
We also reviewed alternatives if TMI would not have its license renewed, and another
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 source of electric generation would have to be installed either on site, or someplace else, to generate replacement electricity.
We concluded that any other means of generating the replacement electricity would have more of an impact on the environment than the continued operation of TMI.
For instance of TMI were to be replaced by a coal-fueled generating facility, it would produce greenhouse gases, the equivalent of adding 1.3 million cars to our roads producing those exhaust fumes.
In conclusion we operate TMI safely, and we can continue to safely operate it for an additional 20 years.
TMI will provide approximately 800 megawatts of baseload generation. That's not only safe, but it's clean, reliable and economical.
Continue operation would benefit this community, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and our nation.
Thank you for this opportunity.
MR. RAKOVAN: At this point, those are the only two speakers that I have signed up to speak.
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 If there is anyone else who is attendance here tonight that would like to come up and give some comments in terms of what we should consider in our environmental scoping process, get my attention right now, raise your hand, come on up, you don't have to fill out a yellow card yet, but eventually of course we would like you to do so just so we make sure we have your name spelled right.
Anyone? Okay, that's all right, because this is not the only way that you can get comments in.
As Sarah went over, there are a couple of different ways that you can get your comments in. We would ask, though, that if you do have them, that you get them in by the end of the month, May 30th. And I believe, Eric, do you want to close things out?
Okay, Eric, if you could introduce yourself, please.
MR. BRENNER: Good evening. I'm Eric Benner. I'm the supervisor at the NRC that oversees the environmental review.
First, I want to thank you all for coming out tonight. I know this is on your own
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 time, so we appreciate your coming out to listen to what we have to say.
We didn't get a lot of comments specific to the environmental review, but I just want to point out that this is just one step in the process. You've heard what we've had to say.
We've pointed out some resources, including the environmental report from the applicant, and some of our documentation that discusses how we conduct our review.
If after what you've heard tonight, or after some review of those documents, that stimulates some thought, we are happy to hear your comments.
Like we said, there are multiple mechanisms, and we are seeking scoping comments until May 30th.
After we receive those comments and conduct our own review, we will be publishing a draft environmental impact statement, at which time there will be another opportunity for you to participate. And that'll be published, that document, for public comment.
So there you have the benefit of reviewing the staff's analysis, and that may
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 stimulate thoughts or comments on your part. So again, that is another opportunity.
With that, the last thing I wanted to do is thank Principal Lausch for allowing us to use this facility. It obviously met our needs, and we had the public meeting feedback form, so we used those forms to solicit feedback on the conduct of our meeting.
So if there is anything you thought we did particularly well, or could do better, please use those forms to allow us to improve in that regard.
And that's pretty much all I have to say. So thank you very much, and have a nice evening.
(Whereupon at 7:32 p.m. the proceeding in the above-entitled matter was adjourned.)