ML15274A054
| ML15274A054 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Diablo Canyon  |
| Issue date: | 09/30/2015 |
| From: | Ayers R Ayers Law Group, LLP, Friends of the Earth |
| To: | Siva Lingam Plant Licensing Branch IV |
| Lingam S | |
| References | |
| 2.206, CLI-15-14, SRM-M150521A-2, TAC MF6443, TAC MF6444 | |
| Download: ML15274A054 (6) | |
Text
From:
RichardE.Ayres<ayresr@ayreslawgroup.com>
Sent:
Wednesday,September30,20154:00PM To:
Lingam,Siva;Lewman,Shelbie Cc:
JessicaOlsonEsq.;JohnBernetich
Subject:
[External_Sender]ElectronicHearingDocketNos.50275and50 323 Attachments:
150930letterto2.206panel.pdf;ATT00001.htm Ms. Lingam Attached is a letter to the 2.206 panel that is considering the issues referred by the Commission under Docket Nos. 50-275 & 50-323, regarding the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.
Please include this in the record of this matter and distribute to the panel, and inform us of further opportunities to communicate with the panel. My contact information is below in the event that the panel wishes to clarify or explore further the points made in this letter.
Richard Ayres
Ayres Law Group LLP
1707 L Street, N.W., Suite 850 Washington, D.C. 20036 202-452-9200 AyresR@AyresLawGroup.com
1707 L Street, N.W.
- Suite 850
- Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 452-9200
- Fax: (202) 416-0155
- Email: AyresR@AyresLawGroup.com
Ayres Law Group September 30, 2015
Ms. Siva Lingam
Petition Manager
Executive Director of Operations
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001
Re:
Request pursuant to 10 C.F.R. § 2.206 for suspension of operations and
enforcement of Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations to ensure seismic
safety of Diablo Canyon Power Plant
Dear Ms. Lingam:
This letter concerns a currently pending petition filed by Friends of the Earth
(Friends) pursuant to 10 C.F.R. § 2.206.1 The petition relies on significant new information
that increases the estimated capability of seismic faults surrounding Diablo Canyon Power
Plant (Diablo Canyon). The petition establishes that neither the licensee, Pacific Gas &
Electric Co. (PG&E), nor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Commission) has
demonstrated that Diablo Canyon can continue to operate safely in the face of reasonably
foreseeable and known seismic risks. Diablo Canyon has been allowed to continue
operating without evaluation to ensure continued safe operation under revised capability
estimates.
Friends therefore petitions the Executive Director of Operations (EDO) to enforce
agency regulations requiring Diablo Canyon, as a condition of operation, to demonstrate
that it is able to safely shutdown following occurrence of the safe shutdown earthquake,
defined as the maximum earthquake potential considering the regional and local geology
and seismology and specific characteristics of local subsurface material.2 Friends requests
that the EDO suspend Diablo Canyons operating licenses unless and until PG&E receives a
license amendment revising the plants seismic design basis.
1 See CLI-15-14, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, Units 1 and 2), 81
NRC __ (May 21, 2015), at *12 (referring portions of a petition to intervene, filed by Friends of the
Earth pursuant to 10 C.F.R. § 2.309, to the Executive Director of Operations to be considered as a
petition under 10 C.F.R. § 2.206).
2 10 C.F.R. pt. 100, App. A, § III(c) (emphasis added).
Ayres Law Group Page 2 Background
On August 26, 2014, Friends filed a Petition to Intervene and Request for Hearing
with the Commission pursuant to 10 C.F.R. § 2.309, seeking to intervene in a de facto
license amendment proceeding expanding the operating authority granted by the licenses
for Diablo Canyon.3 In the petition, Friends asserted that the Commission had de facto
amended the licenses to accommodate new seismic information indicating that nearby
faults were more capable than previously thought. Friends sought (1) a hearing on the de
facto license amendment and (2) suspension of plant operations pending resolution of the
issues.
On May 21, 2015, the Commission issued a memorandum and order that (1)
referred the request for a hearing on the de facto license amendment to a panel of the
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (Board),4 (2) denied the request for an adjudicatory
hearing regarding the plants ability to continue to operate safely but refer[red] the
concerns underlying that request, including asserted violations of the plants licensing basis
and asserted lack of demonstrated capability for safe shutdown to the Executive Director of
Operations for consideration under 10 C.F.R. § 2.206,5 and (3) denied the request to
suspend plant operation but refer[red] the concerns underlying that request to the
Executive Director of Operations, also for consideration under 10 C.F.R. § 2.206.6
Discussion
Neither the Commission nor PG&E has demonstrated that the plant is able to
continue safely operating following the recent discovery of new seismic information. Prior
to the issuance in the last year of two seismic reports,7 both the Commission staff and PG&E
maintained that the 1977 Hosgri evaluation spectrum provides the plants outer limits for
3 Petition to Intervene and Request for Hearing by Friends of the Earth, Docket No. 50-275, 50-323
(Aug. 26, 2014) (ML14254A231).
4 The parties submitted supplemental briefing to the Board, which heard oral argument on July 9,
2015. The matter is currently pending before the Board.
5 CLI-15-14, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, Units 1 and 2), 81 NRC __
(May 21, 2015), at *12.
6 Id. As noted in the Commissions opinion in CLI-15-14, the EDO has already considered and
rejected a Differing Professional Opinion (DPO) filed by the Commissions former Resident
Inspector for Diablo Canyon. See CLI-15-14, at *9; DPO Case File, Document 8, DPO Appeal Decision
(Sep. 9, 2014). Both the request for hearing currently pending before the Board and the portions of
the petition referred to this body rely on new and substantial information not considered by the
EDO in its consideration of the DPO.
7 PG&E, Central Coastal California Seismic Imaging Project,
http://www.pge.com/en/safety/systemworks/dcpp/seismicsafety/report.page (Sep. 10, 2014)
(ML14253A490) (notification of issuance letter); PG&E Letter DCL-15-035, Response to NRC
Request for Information Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.54(f) Regarding the Seismic Aspects of
Recommendation 2.1 of the Near-Term Task Force Review of Insights from the Fukushima Dai-ichi
Accident: Seismic Hazard and Screening Report, Encl. 1 (Mar. 11, 2015) (ML15070A607).
Ayres Law Group Page 2 seismic hazard and, accordingly, certified the plants ability to operate under that
postulated earthquake. But the two seismic reports showed that the Staffs and licensees
estimations of the maximum ground shaking that could be produced from the Hosgri fault
and other faults were erroneous and, in fact, that the faults were much more capable than
previously thought.
Despite this discovery, both the Commission and PG&E have maintained that the
newly updated Shoreline fault scenario resulting from the new seismic reports is a lesser
included case under the Hosgri evaluation, thus permitting PG&E to claim to skirt the
regulatory requirement that a licensee secure a license amendment before making any
change to the plants seismic design basis.8 Meanwhile, Diablo Canyon has continued to
operate without any upgrades to its structures, systems, and components to address the
new conclusion that nearby faults are more capable than previously thought.
The logic used by PG&E and the Commission to reach the conclusion that the
Shoreline fault scenario is a lesser-included case under the Hosgri evaluation is
fundamentally faulty. To make a valid comparison requires using the same variables for the
analysis of the new fault that were previously used for the analysis of the Hosgri fault. In
the alternative, PG&E might have adopted newer analytical methods, so long as the same
methods were applied to both the Shoreline and Hosgri analyses. But that is not what
PG&E did here.
Rather than use the same ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for both
faults, PG&E and the Commission utilized new, untested, and less conservative GMPEs to
forecast how much ground motion would be transmitted from the Shoreline fault to the
plant. The result was then compared with the previous analysis of the Hosgri fault, done
with a different set of GMPEs. Not surprisingly, the comparison allowed PG&E to argue that
the shaking at the plant predicted by the Shoreline analysis was less than that predicted
many years earlier, using different GMPEs, from the Hosgri fault. The GMPEs used to
estimate ground shaking resulting from earlier postulated earthquakes, such as the Double
Design Earthquake (DDE), were peer-reviewed, scientifically accepted, Commission-approved assumptions that were in the plants final safety analysis report (FSARU) and
part of the seismic design basis. The GMPEs used in the two new seismic reports, however,
are entirely untested, not found in either the seismic design basis or elsewhere in the
FSARU. Therefore, to compare ground shaking predictions resulting from applying the new
GMPEs to the Shoreline fault analysis with earlier analyses using a different set of GMPEs is
an apples-to-oranges comparison. On its face, such an analysis is invalid: it cannot
defensibly be used to reach the conclusion that the Shoreline fault scenario is a lesser-included case under the Hosgri evaluation.9 PG&E has thus failed to make a credible or
believable showing that the plant is safe in the face of newly discovered seismic hazard.
8 10 C.F.R. § 50.59(c)(1).
9 At the time the earlier Hosgri evaluation was conducted, even the GMPEs used then were deemed
by two Commissioners to significantly reduce the safety margin built in to the DDE. See Opinion of
Commissioners Gilinsky and Bradford, 1982 WL 31523, at 5-6 (Every advantage was taken of slack
in safety margins left in the pre-Hosgri analysis, both in developing the response spectrum and in
Ayres Law Group Page 2 Meanwhile, the Commission has failed to enforce its safety-related regulations
requiring that, as a condition of operation, a plant be able to withstand the maximum
possible earthquake, which in this case exceeds the greatest earthquake thus far evaluated
at Diablo Canyon. This technically faulty, dangerous, and unlawful practice, combined with
the Commissions failure to enforce its own safety-focused regulations, fails to ensure that
Diablo Canyon can safely shutdown following an earthquake that is known to be possible
from surrounding faults. Under Commission regulations, therefore, Diablo Canyon cannot
continue to operate unless and until it receives a license amendment. The Commission is
thus obligated, under its own regulations and the Atomic Energy Act, to suspend further
operation of the plant unless and until the Commission provides the process required for a
license amendment, and approves the amendment.
The Commission has on a number of occasions in the past ordered a licensee to
suspend reactor operations due to a licensees failure to evaluate adequately seismic risk.
In 1977, following discovery of a seismic fault near the General Electric Test Reactor near
Pleasanton, California, that was demonstrated to be capable of causing ground motion in
excess of the plants design, the Commission ordered the plant to be placed in a cold
shutdown condition and ordered GE to show cause why suspension of activities should not
be continued.10 In 1979, the Commission ordered five reactors to suspend operations after
it discovered that faulty inputs had been used to analyze stress levels on piping
components at the reactors.11 In 1982, after it became apparent that the now-shuttered San
Onofre Nuclear Generating Station might no longer be able to meet its original 0.5 g design
basis, the NRC ordered the plant to suspend operations until certain modifications were
completed and the NRC approved restart.12 In accordance with these precedents, the EDO
should order suspension of operations at Diablo Canyon until these issues have been
adequately addressed.
Accordingly, Friends requests that the petition be granted and that the Commission
suspend Diablo Canyons operating licenses unless and until PG&E receives a license
amendment revising the plants seismic design basis and completes any modifications of
its application.). This criticism is underscored by further reductions in safety margins taken in the
Shoreline fault scenario.
10 See General Elec. Co. (Vallecitos Nuclear CenterGeneral Electric Test Reactor), LBP-82-64, 16
NRC 596, 600-01 (1982).
11 See Information Notice No. 79-06, Stress Analysis of Safety-Related Piping (Mar. 22, 1979),
available at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/1979/in79006.html. The affected reactors were Beaver Valley Unit 1, Maine Yankee,
FitzPatrick, and Surry Units 1 and 2. Id.
12 Southern California Edison Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. (San Onofre Nuclear Generating
Station, Unit No. 1); Order Confirming Licensee Commitments on Seismic Upgrading, 47 Fed. Reg.
36,058, 36,059 (Aug. 18, 1982).
Ayres Law Group Page 2 Diablo Canyons structures, systems, and components required in order to assure safe
operation. Thank you for the opportunity to submit our views on this matter.
Sincerely,
/s/Richard Ayres
Ayres Law Group LLP
Counsel for Friends of the Earth
cc:
Electronic Hearing Docket Nos. 50-275 and 50-323