ML18079A417
| ML18079A417 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/26/2018 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| Govan T | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML18079A414 | List: |
| References | |
| NRC-3489 | |
| Download: ML18079A417 (168) | |
Text
- This document has been modified by NRC staff, using tracked changes, to correct errors in the original transcript.
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Public Meeting Regarding Draft Regulatory Issue Summary 2002-22, Supplement 1 Docket Number:
N/A Location:
Rockville, MD Date:
01-26-18 Work Order No.:
NRC-3489 Pages 1-167 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
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WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 1
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
+ + + + +
4 PUBLIC MEETING REGARDING DRAFT REGULATORY ISSUE 5
SUMMARY
2002-22, SUPPLEMENT 1, "CLARIFICATION ON 6
ENDORSEMENT OF NUCLEAR ENERGY INSTITUTE GUIDANCE IN 7
DESIGNING DIGITAL UPGRADES IN INSTRUMENTATION AND 8
CONTROL SYSTEMS" 9
+ + + + +
10
- FRIDAY, 11 JANUARY 26, 2018 12
+ + + + +
13 ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND 14
+ + + + +
15 The public meeting convened in Room O3B04 16 at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, One White Flint 17 North, 11555 Rockville Pike, at 9:00 a.m., Harold 18 Chernoff, Moderator, presiding.
19 20 PRESENT:
21 HAROLD CHERNOFF, NRC NRR, Moderator 22 KATHERINE AUSTGEN, Nuclear Energy Institute 23 STEVEN ARNDT, NRC NRR 24 MARIA ASSARD, Westinghouse
- 25 DAVID BEAULIEU, NRC NRR
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ERIC BENNER, NRC NRR 2
2 JANA BERGMAN, Curtiss-Wright 3
ROB BURG, EPM
- 4 MARK BURZYNSKI, NuClear Day
- 5 JERRI BYERS, Southern Nuclear
- 6 ROBERT CALDWELL, NRC NRO 7
NORBERT CARTE, NRC NRR 8
JOHN CAVES, Duke Energy 9
DONALD CHASE, Curtiss-Wright
- 10 SHELDON CLARK, NRC OGC
- 11 GORDON CLEFTON, INL
- 12 JOHN CONNELLY, Exelon 13 NICHOLAS DiFRANCESCO, NRC RES 14 VIC FREGONESE, Frammatome
- 15 WEST FREWIN, NextEra
- 16 ISMAEL GARCIA, NRC NRO
- 17 LOU GAUSSA, Westinghouse
- 18 PAREEZ GOLUB, Excel Services
- 19 TEKIA GOVAN, NRC NRR 20 JARED HANSON, Nuclear Energy Institute 21 RAYMOND HERB, Southern Nuclear
- 22 JOHN HERNANDEZ, Arizona Public Service
- 23 DAVID HERRELL, MPR Associates
- 24 ALFRED HYDE, Westinghouse
- 25 RONALDO JENKINS, NRC RES
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1 HEATHER JONES, NRC NRR
- 2 MICHAEL KING, NRC NRR 3
KENNETH KRAYVO, MEPPI
- 4 JERRY MAUCK, Lockheed Martin
- 5 ERICK MARTINEZ, NRC RES
- 6 CHRISTOPHER MILLER, NRC NRR 7
CHAD MODORO, MEPPI
- 8 WENDELL MORTON, NRC NRR 9
JOHNATHAN NAY
- 10 M. CHRISTOPHER NOLAN, Duke Energy 11 FRANCIS NOVAK, GE
- 12 WARREN ODESS-GILLETT, Westinghouse
- 13 TEDD QUINN, Technology Resources
- 14 DAVID RAHN, NRC NRR 15 CHRIS RIEDL, TVA
- 16 JASON REMER, Nuclear Energy Institute 17 TY ROGERS, GE
- 18 WILLIAM ROSCO, Member of the Public
- 19 KEN SCAROLA, Nuclear Automation Services, LLC
- 20 BRIAN THOMAS, NRC RES 21 LYNNEA WILKINS, NRC NRR
- 22 23
- present via telephone 24 25
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2
9:00 a.m.
3 MS. GOVAN: Good morning everyone. It is 4
9:00 a.m. and we're ready to get started.
5 On the line, can you hear me and see the webinar? One person can just shout, yes, I can hear you and I can see the webinar, that'll be great.
6 PARTICIPANT: Yes, we can hear you and see 7
the webinar.
8 MS. GOVAN: Thank you so much.
9 Good morning everyone. My name is Tekia 10 Govan.
I am the Generic Communications Project 11 Manager for RIS 2002-22 Supplement 1 entitled 12 Clarification on Endorsement of Nuclear Energy 13 Institute Guidance in Designing Digital Upgrades in 14 I&C Systems.
15 This meeting is being held to provide an 16 opportunity for discussion of the current draft RIS 17 Supplement between NRC and our public stakeholders.
18 This is a Category 3 meeting.
Public 19 participation is actively sought during this meeting 20 to have full engagement with the public.
So, that 21 just means that we're having open discussion during 22 this meeting and encourage you to chime in when 23 necessary.
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1 But, I should also note that, even though 2
we're holding this meeting to discuss the RIS, we'll 3
have no position being taken on behalf of the NRC 4
staff and no decisions will be made at this meeting as 5
well.
6 There are a few meeting logistics that I 7
would like to get out of the way before we go to 8
introductions.
9 This meeting is being hosted via webinar 10 and teleconference. We also have a transcriber, Mr.
11 Charles Morrison, in the room. He's over here. So, 12 that's why you see two different devices on the table 13 of the ones that look similar to a record is for the 14 court reporter.
15 And then, these are for the teleconference 16 line.
17 With that being said, please speak up and 18 before speaking, please identify yourself, first, last 19 name and affiliation so that the court reporter can 20 write you down accordingly.
21 For those in the room, the agenda calls 22 for one break. However, we will take them as needed 23 for the guests in the room.
24 If you go out these doors, straight ahead 25 are the restrooms, the ladies to the right, men to the
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1 left.
So, feel free to move through the room.
We 2
just ask that you do so as quietly as possible not to 3
disturb those on the phone and the recording of the 4
court reporter.
5 Let's see, if there's a fire, please take 6
the hand of one NRC employee and head out of the 7
building.
Make sure that you find me because I'm 8
responsible for making sure that we account for all 9
the visitors in the building.
10 Mobile devices, I'd like to ask that you 11 please turn your mobile devices on silent or off, 12 vibrate is even a disturbance, so silent or off.
13 And, so the people on the bridge line, if 14 you could mute your phones when you're not engaging in 15 a conversation in the meeting, that would be --
16 MR. HANSON:
I'm sorry to interrupt, I 17 just got feedback from one of our stakeholders that 18 the bridge line has reached capacity.
19 MS. GOVAN: It's 20 people on there.
20 Let me finish my introductory remarks.
21 I'll step out and get more lines added.
We had 20 22 lines on there, so this is a very popular meeting.
23 So, I'll do that as soon as we finish.
24 Well, I guess I am. With that being said, 25 I'm going to turn it over to Harold Chernoff who will
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1 provide us with some opening remarks.
2 MR. CHERNOFF: And just -- Tekia, we do 3
need to escort you so we'll have people, you know, go 4
out in the hallway. Some of these need to leave while 5
we're still in session.
6 And, I'm going to just kick it over 7
quickly. I'll be running most of the logistics of the 8
discussion as we go forward.
9 My name's Harold Chernoff. I'm the Chief 10 of the ROP Support and Generic Communications Branch.
11 But, I want to let one of our Division 12 Directors have a few opening remarks.
13 Chris, you're going to do that?
14 PARTICIPANTMR. MILLER: Yes.
15 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
16 MS. GOVAN: Chris, before you do that, one 17 quick important thing.
18 Let's go around the room and introduce 19 ourselves.
20 Again, I'm Tekia Govan, Project Manager in 21 the Generic Communications Branch.
22 And, we'll just start with Norbert and 23 work our way around the room. And then, start on the 24 phone.
25 MR. CARTE: Norbert Carte, NRC NRR.
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2 3
4 5
8 MR. BEAULIEU: Dave Beaulieu, NCR NRR.
MR. CAVES: John Caves, Duke Energy.
MS. AUSTGEN:
Katie Austgen, Nuclear Energy Institute.
MR. HANSON: Jared Hanson, NEI.
6 MR. MORTON:
Wendell Morton, NRC NRR.
7 MR. MILLER:
Chris Miller, NRC and the 8
Director of the Division of Inspection and Regional 9
Support and we have 50.59 and that's why we're kind of 10 a newer player in the game here.
11 MR. RAHN: I'm David Rahn. I'm with the 12 Office of NRR in the Division of Engineering.
13 MR. CALDWELL: Bob Caldwell, NRO.
14 PARTICIPANTMR. JUNG:
Ian Jung (phonetic),
NRO.
15 MR. REMER: Jason Remer, NEI.
16 MR. NOLAN: Chris Nolan, Duke Energy.
17 MR. DIFRANCESCO:
Nick DiFrancesco, 18 Technical Assistant for Office of Research. I'm here 19 listening for a student hereCRGR.
20 MR. BENNER: Eric Benner, NRR Division of 21 Engineering.
22 MR. KING: Mike King, NRR DIRS.
23 MR. JENKINS: Ronaldo Jenkins, Research.
24 MR. THOMAS:
Brian Thomas Office of 25 Research.
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1 MS. BERGMAN:
Jana Bergman, Curtiss 2
Wright.
3 MR. ARNDT: Steven Arndt, NRR.
4 MS. GOVAN: Okay, we'll start on the line 5
with NRC staff. Are there any NRC staff members on 6
the line? Can you please identify yourself?
7 MR. GARCIA: Ismael Garcia, NRC NRO.
8 MS. GOVAN: Anyone else from NRC staff?
9 (NO RESPONSE) 10 MS. GOVAN:
All right.
It's a lot of 11 people on the bridge line, so if you could introduce 12 yourself without talking over each other?
13 (Unintelligible introductions) 14 MR. CONNELLY: John Connelly, Exelon.
15 MS. GOVAN: That was Al Connelly?
16 MR. CONNELLY: No, John Connelly, Exelon.
17 PARTICIPANTMR. HITE: Al Hite (phonetic),
18 Westinghouse Licensing.
19 MR. NOVAK: Frank Novak, GEH.
20 MR. HERB: Ray Herb, Southern Nuclear.
21 (SIMULTANEOUS SPEAKING) 22 MS. GOVAN:
Can you try that one more 23 time?
24 PARTICIPANT: John, can you start?
25 MR. HERNANDEZ:
John Hernandez, Palo
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 10 Verde.
(Unintelligible introductions)
MS. GOVAN: Okay, has everyone on the line identified themselves?
PARTICIPANT: That was only 16.
MS. GOVAN: Okay, well, I'll turn it over to Chris for opening remarks.
MR. MILLER: Okay, thank you.
And, welcome to everyone here and folks on the phone.
I appreciate your getting together and also a fairly short time frame request.
We're happy to have this meeting because it's been a while since we've talked about this RIS and the changes to it.
16 Since we have last had a public meeting 17 and a public comment period, we've worked on the 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 public comments. We've, you know, addressed many of the pieces that go into qualitative assessment and how that fits into 50.59 framework.
And, frankly, we're getting pretty close to where we think we could issue RIS in short order.
But, before we did that, we wanted to have one last touch with the public so that we could let 11
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meet.
2 This is not a public comment period, but 3
we do solicit in this meeting format, you know, your 4
thoughts on it and if there are any, you know, 5
significant areas that we can address based on this 6
meeting, we would look to do so as we're finalizing 7
this product.
8 But, I think it's a good chance for us to 9
look at the product and to see if there are any 10 significant comments.
11 And, from our standpoint, to walk through 12 what are the changes, what's the nature of the 13 changes.
14 The document's going to look different 15 because we did some formatting changes, so it's going 16 to look different. You know, in my opinion, there's 17 not any significant changes, but you may feel 18 differently. So, we'd like to hear your feedback on 19 that.
20 And, with that said, again, thank you. We 21 look forward to a productive meeting going through 22 this and I appreciate it because that'll -- let me 23 just state it up front very clear.
24 This is -- this RIS is a part of NRC's 25 overall plan to have an integrated way of addressing
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digital licensing issues, modifications, the whole 2
suite. This is one important step in it.
3 It's not the only step, and it's probably 4
a minor step in the whole suite of things, but it's 5
one way to get some clarity on digital modifications 6
and we look forward to getting this part out.
7 And then, continuing to work on that whole 8
integrated suite of changes.
9 So, with that being said, I'll turn that 10 back to --
11 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you, Chris.
12 Remind everybody, as Tekia mentioned, we 13 have two audio systems running and, for the people in 14 the room, it's going to be really important that you 15 speak up if you're not right by both of the recording 16 systems. So, do that in advance.
17 And, for the people on the phone, of 18 course, we ask that everybody stay on mute unless 19 you're speaking.
20 We have a large group and we have a 21 limited amount of time. So, let me explain how we'd 22 like to step through this.
23 I've got a few areas that I want to 24 highlight just to give a flavor of the types of 25 changes that have been made.
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They -- as they get -- I'll go through 2
them, but they in no way should be construed as the 3
most significant changes necessarily. But, we tried 4
to present a spectrum of the type of things that have 5
changed rather.
6 The next thing, we'll do that.
7 After that, we'll basically step through 8
the document and solicit feedback section by section.
9 I don't think we have the ability, time to do it in a 10 line by line manner.
11 And, I want everybody to appreciate one of 12 our goals here is to give everybody a chance to weigh 13 in. So, there may be an occasion -- I would just ask 14 people to be succinct and our goal here is not to 15 resolve or debate, but to listen from the staff's 16 point of view mostly.
17 We may ask questions because we want to 18 make sure we understand what's being brought up. And, 19 we're going to try to stay focused in that regard.
20 It's generally a roomful of engineers and 21 a phone booth full of engineers and it's hard for us 22 all not to slip into solution mode. But, I ask that 23 you, you know, we all exercise a little bit of 24 discipline so that everybody will have a chance to 25 provide some input that they want to.
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With that, if there are no questions, if 2
you'd turn to slide 3, we'll go through and highlight 3
some of the areas that have changed.
4 In the room here and on the web, you have 5
the latest review version which is -- has a watermark 6
that says Draft for Discussion.
7 There's some extra copies in the corner if 8
you don't have one.
9 We will have that up on the webinar and on 10 the screen.
11 Also provided is a copy of the version 12 that went out with the Federal Register Notice in June 13 for reference.
14 With that, the first area I just wanted to 15 highlight is, we went in and one of the things that 16 changed, certainly visually and also content wise was 17 probably one of the key areas going in and reworking 18 the discussion of the relationship between the 19 terminology sufficiently low likelihood that's 20 presented in 0101 and the IO 101, NEI 0101, and now that flanges 21 up and can be used to address the criterion 1, 2, 5 22 and 6 of 10 CFR 50.59.
23 And, I think one of the key improvements 24 we made there is, I would call it bridging the 25 terminology when we're talking about possibility and
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frequency, et cetera and how that can directly, in our 2
eye, relate to sufficiently low likelihood and be used 3
as building blocks for the quantitative, qualitative 4
assessments in that regard.
5 We also went into the overall structure of 6
the document and we now have the qualitative 7
assessment 50.59-related part of the discussions, 8
primarily in Sections 2, 3 and 4 of the document.
9 Section 5 of the document is now primarily 10 devoted to engineering design process, engineering 11 modification process discussions.
12 So, we felt there was some clarity added 13 by a little bit of separation so it's clear when we're 14 talking about 50.59 process and when we're talking 15 about the engineering design process.
16 Section 6 is now limited to a discussion 17 of 10 CFR 50.59 documentation. There is embedded in 18 Section 5 some discussion of our thoughts on 19 documentation of the engineering work, the engineering 20 process and engineering modifications.
21 If you turn to page 4, in Section 2.2, 22 again, this is in the qualitative assessment 23 discussion. There's been an expansion of the process 24 discussion both in the number of steps described and 25 the sub-bullets within the steps.
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 16 And, also, an area that we spoke to directly was the analysis or re-analysis of results.
And, we want to emphasize that when you're analyzing results, this is a criteria 6 discussion primarily.
You need to do that consistent with your current design and licensing basis.
And, I think for most of the people that are familiar with 50.59, if you're using a different methodology, that's a different question and a discussion for a different day.
But, there was a little bit of lack of clarity in that regard with regard to assessing CCFs with best estimate methods and we want to try to clear that up. That doesn't give you the ability to go in and change your licensing and design basis analytical methods.
We also -- you also see there -- in the summary draft that went with the Federal Register 19 Notice, there was a process for determining safety 20 21 22 23 24 25 significance. That's been removed in its entirety.
We also added some explicit discussion that we did add a few things into the engineering process discussions that are not already described in 0101 and part of this is a reflection -- our staff felt it was warranted. 0101 obviously is a, you know,
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 17 more than a roughly ten-year-old document and endorses a Branch Technical Position that is also about ten years old and about four Revs behind the current.
So, there are a couple of areas that were added to try to address what our staff believes is the current thinking in some of the engineering areas.
And, I think we tried to be very direct that that was done.
The other thing which, just to give the spectrum is, there was a decision tree flow chart in 11 the June draft.
And, at this point, that's been 12 removed.
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 One of the things it did at that time, it reflected the way the document was written and included a mix of 50.59 and design information and processes.
At this point, that's not in the current draft.
Any questions on any of those items? And, obviously, when we step through the document, each of those sections will come up. So, specific comments or thoughts, we can hit as we go through the sections.
MS. SCAROLA: Yes, this is Ken Scarola from Nuclear Automation Engineering.
I have a
comment about definition
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sufficiently low which you address on the previous 2
slide.
Do you want me to hold that comment until 3
later? I'm not sure what format you want to use those 4
comments.
5 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes, that might be -- Ken, 6
that might be best as we get into that section. It'll 7
may be more apparent to people because they'll see it 8
on the screen while you're talking about it.
9 MR. SCAROLA: That's fine.
10 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay?
11 Okay, so there are two areas moving 12 forward, we'll go through section by section. We will 13 kind of monitor the time. We want to make sure we get 14 through the whole document.
15 So, if we're urging you on a little bit, 16 you understand why.
17 And, hopefully, we'll have some time at 18 the end for some general feedback. If we have extra 19 time beyond those things, we can entertain a little 20 more detailed discussions of what looks like maybe 21 some of the more significant topics that people bring 22 up.
23 Any questions? All right.
24 MR. REMER:
Let me mention one thing.
25 Jason Remer, NEI.
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We've had this document since Wednesday.
2 MR. CHERNOFF: Understood.
3 MR. REMER:
And so, we haven't had a 4
chance to fully vet the document. So, a section by 5
section review, we want to hear what y'all think about 6
it, for sure.
7 There'll be some who have had -- we've got 8
some comments, but it's drastically a different 9
document than what we saw in July.
10 And so, we're trying to struggle with --
11 and there wasn't a Rev thing that we can go from one 12 part to another, so we're kind of struggling to kind 13 of put everything together and figure out where it is 14 and where it goes.
15 MR. CHERNOFF: Understood. It's a lot of 16 information, yes.
17 MR. REMER:
So, a line by line or a 18 section by section --
19 MR. CHERNOFF: Well, we're -- I just want 20 to clarify, staff does not intend to talk through the 21 document.
22 MR. REMER: Yes, yes.
23 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay? So, our focus here 24 is on getting feedback from you folks.
25 If there is some need for additional
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exchange, more time, we can talk a little bit about it 2
towards the end of the meeting to see where people 3
are.
4 MR. HANSON:
This is Jared Hanson with 5
NEI.
6 To that note, we do have some people on 7
the line that are going to be providing some feedback 8
for certain sections of the document.
9 But, just to reemphasize what Jason said, 10 we've only had this for three days.
11 MR. CHERNOFF: I understand.
12 MR. HANSON: So, I think you are going to 13 hear some significant comments on part of this 14 document, but, again, that's only after three days.
15 And, all things considered, I think it 16 would be better to have a little bit more time to look 17 at this document and review it to --
18 MR. CHERNOFF: Noted.
19 MR. HANSON: Okay.
20 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes.
21 MR. HANSON: Thanks.
22 MR. CHERNOFF:
Yes, and we -- as Chris 23 mentioned, I mean, we understand there's a large 24 volume of paper here, 30-plus pages. And, while we 25 talk about a lot of content is the same, it's not
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intuitively obvious until you sit down and study it.
2 And, there are areas of change as well.
3 So, understood.
4 MR. HANSON: Just one thing -- one comment 5
I'll make on that is this is something I think has 6
been discussed in numerous other meetings with 7
numerous other products is that, if it does require 8
that much interpretation to people who have been on 9
board with the development of a document, if you 10 really think you need to put that much work into 11 explaining what something means, that could be -- that 12 could indicate that there is potentially a problem.
13 I just want to throw that out there 14 because if the people that are involved in the 15 development of it have that much of a problem 16 understanding something, then what would we expect 17 from someone working out at the plant that would 18 suddenly have this document in their hands and is 19 supposed to turn around and use it?
20 So --
21 MR. CHERNOFF: And, you're speaking with 22 regard to the volume and the amount of discussion?
23 MR. HANSON: Yes, not -- the volume and 24 perhaps some additional clarity that may be needed on 25 some sections.
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MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, understood, okay.
2 MS. GOVAN:
Before we dive into the 3
document, I apologize, but I want to make sure that 4
everyone on the line has an opportunity to actually 5
hear the meeting.
6 We had 20 lines set up and we reached 7
capacity. So, I need to step in with the operator and 8
actually add more lines to this bridge.
9 MR. CHERNOFF: So, we'll hold for just a 10 couple minutes?
11 MS. GOVAN: Yes, please.
12 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
13 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 14 off the record at 9:22 a.m. and resumed at 9:24 a.m.)
15 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. So, we'll step into 16 this.
17 Okay, so, the RIS itself is the first part 18 of the document. And, I guess what I would like to 19 suggest and we'll let anybody if they have anything 20 substantive, but, recognize that it's intended to 21 reflect the body of the document and we'll end up 22 making it conform at the end of the road.
23 But, anything specific on the RIS itself?
24 (NO RESPONSE) 25 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. One thing to note
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here, probably may or may not have constituents on the 2
line, but, this was expanded to apply also as an 3
addressee to non-power facilities as well.
4 Okay, getting into the beginning of the 5
document, Section 1, purpose section.
6 Any thoughts, comments on that?
7 MR. FREGONESE: Nick Vic Fregonese has joined.
8 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, thank you.
9 Hopefully, you can see the webinar and 10 we're currently stepping through the body of the 11 attachment.
12 MR. FREGONESE: Okay.
13 MR. HANSON: Sorry, this is Jared Hanson, 14 NEI.
15
- VicDave, did you want to make a general 16 comment about the RIS?
17 MR. FREGONESE: Yes, I don't know if the 18 NCOs others have made any comments about it. Jared, I'm just 19 trying to catch up because I couldn't get on the 20 phone.
21 MR. HANSON: So, we're at the point now 22 where we're making general comments about the RIS.
23 We're just beginning the section by section review.
24 But, Harold has asked if there are any
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general comments now would be the time to make those.
2 MR. FREGONESE: Yes, I could do that, if 3
that'd be okay.
4 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes, and I know some of the 5
folks may have missed the introduction but we are 6
having this court recorded, transcribed record. So, 7
please state your name and affiliation so the recorder 8
can get it properly captured.
9 MR. FREGONESE: Okay, Harold.
10 This is Vic Fregonese.
I'm with 11 Frammatome.
12 I'll make a couple general comments.
13 The first is that there appears to be a 14 lot of material that was cited or quoted that was 15 pulled in from NEI 0101 into the document that's 16 actually increased the size quite a bit.
17 And so, the first thing I'd like to 18 understand is why that is necessary if there's another 19 way to handle that?
It just makes the document 20 somewhat unwieldy.
21 So, that would be my first question. I'll 22 await your response.
23 MR. CHERNOFF:
Well, one of the other 24 things we talked about in the introduction is, the 25 structure of this meeting is, we want to solicit
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feedback and I think I understand your comment in this 2
area.
3 But, we're not, at this juncture, going to 4
try to solve or debate issues. We want to try to make 5
sure we allow time to understand all the things that 6
people want to bring to the table.
7 And, you know, I certainly understand your 8
comment, but with the interest of getting through the 9
entire document with all the people and the limited 10 amount of time, we're going to try to stay in that 11 mode of listening and making sure we understand what 12 people are saying rather than trying to answer 13 questions specifically.
14 MR. FREGONESE: Okay. So, the question 15 would be then, there's material in NEI 0101 that's 16 been quoted that does not necessarily align with the 17 current direction of say 96.07 Appendix D.
18 And, in some cases, it may not even agree 19 with 96-07.
So, that's my comment -- my first 20 comment.
21 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, thank you.
22 MR. FREGONESE:
The second comment that 23 we, in the attachment, and you still divide?
24 MR. CHERNOFF: We are just starting the 25 attachment. We're on Section 1 of the attachment.
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MR. FREGONESE:
Okay, I don't have any 2
comments until page 7, so I'll hold those until we get 3
to page 7.
4 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
5 Anybody else in Section 1 of the 6
attachment?
7 MR. SCAROLA: Yes, this is Ken Scarola.
8 I don't understand why did you skip to the 9
attachment and not first start in the body of the RIS?
10 MR. CHERNOFF: Well, actually, we didn't 11 skip, we asked for feedback on the body, paused a few 12 moments and then moved on.
13 But, we're happy to go back, Ken, if 14 you've got some items in the body of the RIS.
15 MR. SCAROLA: I'm sorry, I guess I missed 16 that. You know, when you said you have to get more 17 alignedlines, I went and I got a cup of coffee. I'm sorry, 18 I didn't catch that.
19 I do have a comment.
20 MR.
CHERNOFF:
The challenges of 21 teleconferences, yes.
22 MR. SCAROLA: Yes, I'm very sorry.
23 MR. CHERNOFF: No, no problem. So, I'll 24 go back to the RIS.
25 MR. SCAROLA: All right.
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The main body of the RIS, on page 3 you 2
provide a footnote which is a quote from NEI 01 on 3
sufficiently low. I have no problem with that.
4 Where I do have a problem comes later 5
where you have other inconsistent definitions of 6
sufficiently low, definitions that are not consistent 7
with this.
8 So, I just sort of blew want to bring it up at this 9
point that this definition of sufficiently low makes 10 sense. It did not -- it's in the NEI 0101 and we've 11 used it for a long time.
12 And, I'll focus on the words, and 13 comparable to other common cause failures that are not 14 considered in the FSAR.
15 Later, we talk about being able to exclude 16 failures if they are not as likely to happen as those 17 in the FSAR. This is a very different threshold.
18 As likely to happen are things like single 19 failures. Things that we don't consider at all are 20 things like seismic events that exceed the EQ 21 envelopes.
22 In between that, there's a big gap and we 23 have much NRC guidance that exists and aid to address 24 that gap.
25 So, I just want to point out that we need
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to address this.
I'm okay with it in the body, we 2
need to address it later.
3 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
Could I ask a 4
clarifying question? You reference much NRC guidance 5
to address said gap, can you give me an example or 6
two?
7 MR. SCAROLA:
SECY-93-087 says that the 8
design defects in digital systems are not as likely as 9
things we consider in the FSAR.
Therefore, we 10 consider them as beyond design basis.
11 They do require further consideration 12 because they are not as unlikely as things we don't 13 consider in the FSAR.
14 BTP-7-19 has similar language as we 15 consider design defects for the same reasons.
We 16 consider them as beyond design basis, we don't not 17 consider them.
18 MR. CHERNOFF: Which revision of the BTP 19 are you speaking to?
20 MR. SCAROLA: The latest revision SECY.
21 MR. CHERNOFF: All right, thank you.
22 Okay, anything else in the RIS body?
23 (NO RESPONSE) 24 MR. CHERNOFF: All right.
25 MR. SCAROLA:
Excuse me, this is Ken
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Scarola again. I have one more comment.
2 In the RIS body on page 4, when we talk 3
about the RIS being applicable to things of lesser 4
importance than the reactor protection system and the 5
engineered safety feature system, but we don't give 6
any examples here of things that are as important, but 7
are not reactor protection system and engineered 8
safety feature systems.
9 So, my concern is that someone reading 10 this might say, well, look, this is not RPS and ESFAS, 11 this RIS applies.
12 But, there are other things that are as 13 important as RPS and ESFAS that this RIS does not apply 14 to.
15 Very deep in the attachment, you refer to, 16 for example, load sequencer. I think someplace else 17 in the attachment, you refer to controls that support 18 credited manual actions.
19 These are all as important as RPS and ESFAS 20 and it should be pretty clear that this RIS is not 21 applicable to them.
Or, if it is applicable, if 22 that's your intent, then the RIS should clarify that.
23 Right now, we have contradictions in the 24 RIS that are very confusing.
25 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, thank you.
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2 3
4 5
6 7
30 And, I hesitate to ask one more time, anything else on the body of the RIS?
(NO RESPONSE)
MR. CHERNOFF: All right, let's move on, please.
All right, so we had talked about the purpose and I did not hear anybody identify a comment 8
in this area.
One last call before we move on to 9
Section 2.
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 MR. REMER: One, yes.
MR. CHERNOFF: Yes?
MR. REMER: One comment on purpose and we started the process off last January and basically we're at January 2016 that we would need an easier process, an easier more efficient process to do changes to upgrade our plans.
Using digital technology, it would be easier than the current process.
And so, that's the stated goal and some of the things we're seeing in here, though, are somewhat confusing at this point. And, it doesn't appear to be easier.
And so, our comments that you'll here are going to reflect that. We got rid of the flow chart.
25 Why?
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You know, we had run through a couple of 2
examples on the draft RIS in July that worked.
It 3
doesn't work anymore with this.
4 So, as we roll out the comments, you're 5
going to hear how it's actually, I'm wondering if it 6
meets the intent of what we started to do here.
7 So, that's my only comment.
8 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
And, just a 9
reminder, please identify yourselves.
10 MR. REMER: Jason Remer, NEI.
11 MR. CHERNOFF: Sorry, it just --
12 MR. REMER: That's okay.
13 MR. CHERNOFF: -- helps a lot in the end 14 product of the transcript.
15 MR. FREGONESE: What page are we on in the 16 attachment? I'm just trying to keep up.
17 MR. CHERNOFF: We are on page 9.
18 MR. FREGONESE:
Okay, so in -- I had a 19 comment on page 7 of the attachment.
20 MR. CHERNOFF: Page 7 is actually part of 21 the RIS, but that's okay.
22 MR. FREGONESE: Oh no, okay, I'm sorry, 23 then I'm looking at the wrong thing.
24 MR. CHERNOFF:
Hey, if you're on the 25 webinar, it should be up on the screen and you can
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follow along.
2 MR. FREGONESE: Yes, okay. The version 3
that we got I believe before just had page 7 of 27, 4
now we're looking at page 7 of 25, 7 of 35.
5 MR. CHERNOFF:
Yes, I'm not sure what 6
version you got or who you got it from because this is 7
exactly the same version we pushed out.
8 MS. AUSTGEN: This is Katie Austgen.
9 I think I understand Vic's confusion.
10 Even the handouts --
11 MR. CHERNOFF:
Is there a numbering 12 problem?
13 MS. AUSTGEN:
They don't have the same 14 numbering. So, the numbering that you're showing on 15 the screen has sequential numbering from the very 16 beginning of the document all the way through the 17 attachment.
18 MR. CHERNOFF: Got you.
19 MS. AUSTGEN: The numbering on the --
20 MR. CHERNOFF: So, the headers show --
21 MS. AUSTGEN:
-- handouts, yes, the 22 numbering on the handouts starts over again.
So, 23 there actually is no page numbers --
24 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
25 MS. AUSTGEN: -- on the first page of the
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attachment. And then --
2 MR. CHERNOFF: So, I understand the issue.
3 MR. FREGONESE: So, what was posted was a 4
PDF and the attachment is -- the numbering's just 5
different. So, I'm just going with what was posted on 6
the public access.
7 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes, we'll call them out so 8
we can make sure people are on the same wavelength 9
here. I understand the problem.
10 Okay.
11 MR. SCAROLA: Yes, I'm sorry. This Ken 12 Scarola, again.
13 And, I'm having similar confusion. I have 14 a comment on page 6, but I guess I'm on page 6 of the 15 RIS.
16 And, this is the very first paragraph 17 where it talks about a licensee may use the 18 qualitative assessment. And, I have no argument with 19 that.
That's certainly consistent with prior NRC 20 guidance.
21 But, what it goes on to say, that you can 22 use that assessment to reach a conclusion of 23 sufficiently low and then you previously defined 24 sufficient low to
- say, requires no further 25 consideration.
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That is not consistent with prior NRC 2
policy in the SRM/SECY-93-087 or BTP 7-19.
Those 3
documents say you can use the qualitative assessment 4
to conclude that the likelihood is sufficiently low to 5
be considered beyond design basis and, therefore, can 6
be further analyzed using best estimate methods.
7 The previous NRC policy does not say 8
sufficiently low to require no further consideration.
9 So, we have an inconsistency in this RIS 10 with regard to previous NRC policy. And, I'm -- it's 11 somewhat confusing to me as to how this RIS can change 12 that policy without sufficient basis?
13 The previous policy says you can get to no 14 further consideration but it requires deterministic 15 factors, not just qualitative factors.
16 So, I have a concern about that, about the 17 inconsistency with current policy.
18 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, I understand what you 19 said. We're switching to pull up the PDF copy that 20 was pushed out so we're working from the same 21 document. Give us just a second that should eliminate 22 our numbering conundrum.
23 (OFF MICROPHONE COMMENTS) 24 MR. SCAROLA: So, on the PDF, my comment 25 for change to the first paragraph on page 6 of 8.
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(OFF MICROPHONE COMMENTS) 2 MR. CHERNOFF: All right, what was that, 3
again, Ken? I'm sorry.
4 MR. SCAROLA:
Page 6 of 8, first 5
paragraph.
6 MR. CHERNOFF: And, let me just make sure 7
I think we're now have the same version on the screen 8
as what you guys are working from, that should help 9
us.
10 All right, go ahead.
11 MR. SCAROLA: So, the issue here is the 12 conflict in the definition of sufficiently low. If 13 you believe in this paragraph sufficiently low means 14 sufficient to be considered as a beyond design basis 15 condition and is further considered as a beyond design 16 basis condition, I'm perfectly okay with it.
17 But, based on the previous definition of 18 sufficiently low, sufficiently low means requires no 19 further consideration. And, that's a conflict.
20 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, thank you.
21 All
- right, now, let's make sure 22 everybody's on the same page, we're on page 7 of the 23 RIS.
It has about the middle of the page the 24 backfitting and issue finality discussion.
25 Anybody having a configuration issue that
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we're on a different page?
2 MR. FREGONESE:
No, this it.
I have a 3
comment actually on the attachment, so I'll hold my 4
comment.
5 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay, all right.
- Well, 6
we've solved one small thing anyway. We've got the 7
same versions now.
8 All right, so, as we go back into the 9
attachment, I believe we were done with the purpose 10 and we were trying to get started on Section 2 which 11 is getting into the application of qualitative 12 assessment and 50.59.
13 Let me open it up for thoughts on any part 14 of Section 2.
15 MR. HERB:
This Ray Herb, Southern 16 Nuclear.
17 If you look at the sentence right above 18 2.1 --
19 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
20 MR. HERB: -- it says, when discussing 10 21 CFR 50.59 criteria, the word met or satisfied means 22 that a yes or affirmative answer has been achieved and 23 an amendment is required.
24 It doesn't make sense at all specifically 25 because there's not really anywhere in the document
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where the words met or satisfied are even used.
2 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, we can look at that.
3 I will explain in one area here that this 4
convention is taken out of NEI 96-07. We wanted to 5
make sure that we're consistent with the use of those 6
terms if the terms have been edited out. So, we'll 7
deal with that, good thought.
8 But, I want to make sure people understood 9
what was getting out there because in colloquially 10 when we speak about something being met, it certainly 11 isn't obvious whether or not it means you need an 12 amendment or you don't need an amendment. Which way 13 are you meeting the criteria?
14 So, we wanted to be consistent with 96-07.
15 I think that's -- yes.
16 Other thoughts?
17 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola.
18 In the paragraph right above the heading, 19 Likelihood Thresholds, the 10 CFR 50.59, there's the 20 same discussion of using qualitative measures to reach 21 sufficiently low. I just want to point out the same 22 issue that I pointed out --
23 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. And, Ken, I would 24 ask --
25 MR. SCAROLA: I just point it out again
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because it shows up in many, many places.
2 MR. CHERNOFF:
I was just going to ask 3
you, I think we understand the comment and I was just 4
going to ask that exactly. So, it applies to various 5
parts of the document.
6 Anything else in Section 2 that people 7
want to discuss?
8 MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic FREGONESE, I 9
have a issue if we go to page 5 and I can -- is Katie 10 in the room, I assume?
11 MR. CHERNOFF: She is.
12 MR. FREGONESE: Okay. So, page 5, there's 13 a step 3, do you see that at the bottom of Section 14 2.2?
15 MR. CHERNOFF: It's on the screen.
16 MR. FREGONESE: Yes, correct.
17 So, step 3, the second bullet and it talks 18 about -- it pulls a quote out of NEI 0101 or Section 19 1010of 0101 and it talks about the level of detail to 20 consider which is design functions described in the 21 FSAR.
22 We've had a lot of discussions with the 23 staff about this topic.
And, here, it talks about 24 design functions assigned to the system level and it's 25 appropriate to evaluate the effects of malfunctions at
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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 39 this level.
I guess my question is, number one, is this consistent with the direction that 96-07 Appendix D is going?
And, number two, is this referring to a technical evaluation or the 50.59 evaluation?
I'm concentrating on the word, you know, evaluation. So, I wanted Katie to fill in the blanks.
That would my comment on this section.
MS. AUSTGEN: Thanks, Vic. This is Katie Austgen from NEI.
Vic raises an excellent point. This is a key item in the ongoing discussions on NEI 96-07 Appendix D.
It is not clear whether it is consistent with the direction that the industry has proposed in Appendix D.
If it's not consistent with it, then it's cutting off the discussion that we have been having in those public meetings. And so, that is a concern for us.
MR. CHERNOFF: I will try to clarify. This document is rooted in clarifying NEI 0101 and the 24 associated Branch Technical Position that was 25 referenced in that.
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 40 It cannot -- we cannot issue a document, a priori of decision making related to documents that are currently under review.
But, it also does not and wasn't intended to prohibit or predetermine the outcome for other parallel activities that are underway.
So, unfortunately, we can only deal with things one at a time. And, that's the challenge we've got.
Certainly, we've had some of those same internal discussions and the intent is to clarify the existing documents that have been on the street for quite a number of years and stop at that juncture for this document.
And, recognizing there's an overall integrated plan with, as Chris said, you know, and you 17 mentioned, additional
- pieces, additional work is 18 underway.
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 We've had t So, I'm not 96-07 Rev 1 And, I mean, we understand the issue.
hose discussions internally.
MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic Fregonese.
I'll make a follow up comment on that.
sure whether this is consistent with NEI which has been endorsed by the NRC.
So, if there is any inconsistency between
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NEI 0101 and 96-07 Rev 1, it should be at least 2
addressed. That's my comment.
3 MR. CHERNOFF: I understand.
4 MR. RAHN: This is David Rahn of NRR.
5 I'd like to ask Vic a question. Can you 6
be a little bit more specific in step 3, the clauses 7
that you're concerned about?
8 MR. FREGONESE:
It's the second bullet.
9 This is Vic Fregonese.
10 It's the second bullet and it was just a 11 comment on the level of detail at which design 12 functions are described in the FSAR.
13 And, it talks about assignment can be a 14 relevant design function at the system level. It's a 15 quote out of NEI 0101.
16 And so, the question is, when you evaluate 17 the malfunction results, we've had a lot of discussion 18 about kind of what level do you do that at? That's 19 the nature of my comment.
20 MR. RAHN:
Great, yes, thank you very 21 much, Vic.
22 MR. HERB:
This is Ray Herb, Southern 23 Nuclear.
24 I'd also like to point out that NEI 0101 25 was developed I think at a time before 96-07 was
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finalized. And so, some of these inconsistencies are 2
a result of that disconnect at that time.
3 And, I think that it's inappropriate to 4
call out the specific section of NEI 1010 that I 5
believe is directly in conflict with 96-07 Rev 1.
6 MR. CHERNOFF:
Well, so there -- 0101 7
certainly might have been being worked on somewhat at 8
the same time frame as parts of 96-07 but 96-07 was 9
finalized in I believe '99, a couple of years before 10 the finalization of 0101.
11 MR. BEAULIEU: This is Dave Beaulieu.
12 Could you clarify the specific statement 13 in 96-07 that it's in conflict with?
14 MR. HERB: I think we're talking about the 15 level of detail.
Just, again, I just want to 16 reiterate the same thing that Vic said, that Appendix 17 D, the level of detail has nothing that's in the 18 function -- I mean, that's in the FSAR, that's not the 19 issue.
20 It's the impact on the system level 21 analyses. And, some of my fleet FSARs have a lot of 22 level of detail and some of them have very little 23 level of detail.
24 Are you suggesting that I don't have to do 25 a LAR for my plant hatchHatch, but I might have to do a LAR
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for my plant Vogtle?
2 MR. CHERNOFF:
Well, clearly, 50.59 is 3
pinioned off of the level of information in the UFSAR.
4 So, you possibly may not get the same results for two 5
facilities that have two different FSARs with 6
different level of details. That's a known.
7 MR. HERB: I think that that was the whole 8
purpose of that discussion in 96-07 Rev 1 was to 9
eliminate that disparity.
10 MS. AUSTGEN: This is Katie Austgen.
11 So, I'll say I agree with Ray, but I 12 recognize that we may be getting into problem solving 13 space. This is part of why I said this is -- sorry, 14 I'm with NEI.
15 This is part of the active dialogue that 16 was ongoing with Appendix D. We were tying back to 17 NEI 96-07 Rev 1. That's why, you know, we understand 18 this is a little confusing to -- as the guidance is 19 evolving.
20 We want to be mindful of where we've been 21 and where we're going.
22 So, I think, in short, our point here is 23 that, while we all recognize these words that have 24 been quoted in step 3 are, in fact, in NEI 0101, it 25 has become apparent that we do not all view those
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words in the same light.
2 So, repeating them in this RIS does not 3
necessarily provide any clarity.
4 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you, Katie.
5 Anything else in Section 2?
6 MR. FREGONESE: Yes, this is Vic Fregonese 7
again.
8 I'm going to go to page 7 unless there's 9
some comments on page 6.
10 I'll make some general comments about some 11 of the wording in this section that I'd like to get 12 some clarification on and it may be -- it may go to 13 Katie's area again.
14 In this section, there is descriptions of 15 what's called implicitly described either design 16 functions or implicitly modeled safety analyses.
17 And, I'm not really sure what that means, 18 because implicit is the type of word that leads you to 19 believe it's something that was done perhaps and not 20 described.
21 And, I'm trying to understand why that was 22 used in that section. Or, if it's going to continue 23 to be used, and specifically, it's under, for 24 instance, number one on this page and down in the last 25 paragraph right before two, it talks about safety
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analyses that may have been explicitly or implicitly 2
modeled the equipment performed in design functions.
3 So, then, up above in one bravo, it talks 4
about functions -- design functions either explicitly 5
or implicitly described in the final safety analysis 6
report.
7 So, I don't know how you have a design 8
function that's implicitly described in the final 9
safety analysis report and wanted to know, perhaps, 10 there's some clarification needed on that or some 11 comments from perhaps our 50.59 folks.
12 That's my comment.
13 (OFF MICROPHONE COMMENTS) 14 MR. CHERNOFF: I think we -- I was just 15 consulting with Dave Rahn here, we understand the 16 point.
17 Okay, was there any --
18 MR. RAHN: It's not a 50.59 issue, it's a 19 documentation in the FSAR issue.
20 MR. FREGONESE:
Yes, this is Vic 21 Fregonese.
22 Once again, I think that the term design 23 function clearly is a 50.59 issue.
24 MR. RAHN: It's a 50.59 term.
25 MR. FREGONESE: In the document, the RIS
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seems to focus on equipment rather than design 2
functions.
And, that's something that has to be 3
sorted out because it goes back to the level of detail 4
in the FSAR that Ray described.
5 And, there's been a lot of discussions on 6
the 50.59 side about, you know, what design functions 7
mean in the context of the qualitative evaluation?
8 So, that's the end of my comment.
9 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you, Vic.
10 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola.
11 On page 3, actually, the bottom of page 2 12 and then the top of page 3, you have a statement that 13 says the increase in the likelihood of single failures 14 results in an increase in the likelihood of common 15 cause failures for redundant SSCs.
16 That's just technically incorrect.
17 Redundant SSCs have --
18 MR. CHERNOFF: Hang on for just --
19 MR. SCAROLA: -- resources.
20 MR. CHERNOFF: Hang on for a second. Can 21 you -- because we're going back again, help me with 22 exactly where you are.
23 MR. SCAROLA: I'm at the bottom of page 2 24 of 27 and the top of page 3 of 27.
25 MR. CHERNOFF: All right, I'm there now,
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thank you.
2 MR. SCAROLA:
By the way, you're going 3
through this so fast, you know, Section 2, you're 4
asking for comments on Section 2. Section 2 is a lot 5
of pages of material.
6 It might be better if you go through 7
Section 2 by subsections or by pages because, yes, we 8
are jumping all around because Section 2 is so big.
9 Anyway, my comment is that we need to fix 10 the technical correctness of this idea. If you -- the 11 single failures are random failures.
12 You can increase the likelihood of a 13 single failure a 100 fold and not increase the 14 likelihood of a common cause failure if the single 15 failure is not a shared resource.
16 And, this particular -- this specific 17 sentence refers to redundant SSCs where there are no 18 shared resources between redundancies.
19 And, if there are, then you don't meet the 20 single failure criteria or the independence 21 requirements.
22 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes, I understand, please 23 comment.
24 MR. RAHN: You know what? This is -- Ken, 25 this is Dave again.
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I'm not really following the -- your 2
point. So, could you try it one more time for me?
3 MR. SCAROLA:
Yes.
If I have two 4
independent relations, these are the redundant SSCs.
5 So, I have a Division A and Division B.
6 And I increase the likelihood of a single 7
failure in Division A. So, I use a power supply with 8
a shorter MTBF, I've increased the likelihood of a 9
single failure in that system.
10 MR. RAHN: Okay.
11 MR. SCAROLA: Well, that power supply in 12 that division is not going to cause a common cause 13 failure in Division B.
14 MR. RAHN: Okay.
15 MR. SCAROLA:
There's no compliment at 16 all. These are redundant independent SSCs.
17 MR. RAHN: I understand now, yes. Yes, 18 thank you, yes. Yes, thank you.
19 MR. SCAROLA:
Yes, that was just a 20 technical comment.
21 I'll tell you what my biggest comment is 22 in this section. Let me get the page number so we're 23 all in the same place. Excuse me one second.
24 On the bottom of page 5, we have a quote 25 from NEI 0101 that uses the word result and bounded.
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 49 There are no two other words that have caused more inconsistency in 50.59 evaluations than those two words.
And, this document does little to nothing to help clarify what those two words mean.
What is the result that we're talking about? And, what does it mean for that result to be bounded?
We've had this problem for years and we identified this problem back in 2012 when we first started all these discussions. And, I don't see that this RIS takes this any further along the path of really understanding what those two words mean.
MR. RAHN: I understand that.
MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
(OFF MICROPHONE COMMENTS)
MR. KING: Hi, this is Mike King.
Did the previous version of the RIS have language that helped to clarify? I'm just trying to understand if you thought that there was something 21 taken out.
22 MR. RAHN: No, no, no.
23 24 25 MR. SCAROLA: No, I don't recall we solved this in the previous version hereeither. But, I have no more comments on the previous version.
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 50 MR. CHERNOFF: Realistically, it's not within the initial scope of what we were trying to accomplish with the RIS. Notwithstanding the point that Ken is bringing up, the intent of the RIS was to focus on the ability to do a qualitative assessment in the 50.59, not to correct understandings of all the terminology that's created confusion over the 20 years of using 96-07.
I totally understand your point in the varied understandings and usage of those terms, Ken.
MR. SCAROLA: But, don't you believe that the purpose of this RIS is to clarify those misunderstandings?
14 MR. CHERNOFF:
Not at all.
15 MR. SCAROLA:
Isn't that --
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. CHERNOFF: Totally -- that is not the intent of the RIS, that was not published in the FRN, it was limited. And, that's in the bigger picture, we have other activities going on, but that's a fundamental 96-07 issue, it's not a digital I&C issue.
So, I don't disagree that it's been an issue, it continues to be an issue. I was, you know, involved in the original drafting of 96-07 and it was an issue then as to the clarity and what the meaning of that was.
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It doesn't mean that it wouldn't merit 2
some work down the road, but it wasn't within the 3
scope of what we were trying to do with this 4
particular RIS as published in the FR.
5 MR. SCAROLA:
Well, in the very first 6
paragraph of this RIS, it says purpose of this RIS 7
supplement is to clarify RIS 2002-22 which remains in 8
effect.
9 MR. CHERNOFF: And, the scope of that RIS 10 was limited to an endorsement of NEI 0101. It was not 11 12 MR. SCAROLA: But, these words are in NEI 13 0101.
14 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
15 MR. SCAROLA: These are the words from NEI 16 0101.
17 MR. CHERNOFF: We understand your point.
18 MR. FREGONESE:
Yes, this is Vic 19 Fregonese.
20 I'll just add some comments, extended 21 comments.
22 In the SECY letter that was written to the 23 staff recently, from the Commission to the staff about 24 the use of this RIS, the scope of the utilization of 25 the RIS in that letter, you describe that this RIS
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would clarify how licensees can develop and document 2
a qualitative assessment.
3 The use would provide reasonable assurance 4
that a digital modification will exhibit a low 5
likelihood of failure.
6 So, the clarification part, I think is 7
important to the industry, and that's the end of my 8
comment with respect to that.
9 But, if you look at the SECY letter that 10 was written, it described what the conditions were at 11 the time and it's SECY17-0096, it was written 12 September 21st, 2017 and it went to the Commissioners 13 from Victor McCree.
14 So, you can read that and see in there 15 what the kind of view was and what the RIS was trying 16 to accomplish.
And, we're just talking about this 17 clarification aspect.
18 So, thanks for that. That's the end of my 19 comment.
20 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you, Vic.
21 MR. HERB: This is Ray Herb.
22 I'd like to add also to the discussion, 23 these are sections that are new in this current 24 version. The previous version did not pull out quotes 25 from NEI 0101 that talked about bounding.
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This is -- and, so this is an added 2
obfuscation that was -- that came up as a result of 3
these recent edits.
It was not in the original 4
document.
5 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, thank you, Herb, I'm 6
sorry, Ray. Ray, sorry, my apologies.
7 MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic Fregonese.
8 Ken, do you have any more comments before 9
page 8, Ken?
10 MR. SCAROLA: Yes, page 6.
11 The very first paragraph on page 6, the 12 first sentence is a quote from NEI 0101 that says best 13 estimate methods are permitted.
14 The second sentence changes that and says 15 they are not permitted.
16 And, I would tell you that this is clearly 17 a contradiction in previous NRC policy.
18 Saying now that best estimate methods 19 can't be used contradicts SECY93-087 and BTP 7-19.
20 And, I just don't understand how a RIS can 21 contradict previous policy.
22 MR. CHERNOFF: Well, the issue at hand is 23 the RIS cannot counterman the plant's design and 24 licensing basis.
25 So, we cannot put permission in a RIS or
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 54 guidance document that would let a plant deviate from its design and licensing basis.
Specifically, we're using -- regarding the analytical methods used to analyze events. And, there's some statements in 0101 that are a little confusing in that area.
We certainly, in accordance with the SRM and the BTP, endorse the use of best estimate methods to assess CCFs, that's the language out of the SRF.
MR. SCAROLA: Okay, so I completely agree with you. A new analysis method cannot be introduced during a 50.59 evaluation.
But, every FSAR employs best estimate methods, not a new analysis method. We employ them for things like --
MR. CHERNOFF:
Just in the interest of 17 time --
18 MR. SCAROLA:
-- I'm sorry?
19 MR. CHERNOFF:
I was just going to say, 20 21 22 23 24 25 just in the interest of time, if we could move on, that would be wonderful because what you're saying seems to be very consistent with what we are trying to get across which is, you need to stay in conformance for your analytical methods with what's in your FSAR.
MR. SCAROLA: But, you're adding -- but my
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point is that you're adding confusion because the 2
analytical methods in the FSAR do employ best estimate 3
methods, but this says you can't employ best estimate 4
methods.
5 So, there is a clear contradiction here 6
that's going to confuse licensees.
7 MR. CHERNOFF: Well, I -- and I am doing 8
what I don't want to do, but it literally says in that 9
bullet, unless already incorporated into the design 10 and licensing basis.
11 So, if it is something that was employed 12 in your FSAR, you're clearly meeting that proviso.
13 So, I'm not -- I hear what you said. I guess, in this 14 case, staff might not understand the issue that you're 15 trying to raise because it seems like the words match 16 what you're saying.
17 MR. SCAROLA: But, let me ask a question.
18 Since I employ best estimates for ATWS in mitigation, 19 which can only be the result of a CCF, can I then 20 employ best estimate methods when analyzing CCFs for 21 new digital upgrades?
22 MR. CHERNOFF: The SRM is very clear on 23 this that you can use best estimate methods of 24 assessing CCFs broadly.
25 What it doesn't say is that you can use a
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best estimate analytical method to analyze an event.
2 MR. SCAROLA: Yes, but, the CCF is going 3
-- well, this gets back to what is the result that 4
we're looking for? It's back to the lack of a good --
5 MR. CHERNOFF: I think --
6 MR. SCAROLA: -- definition of results.
7 MR. CHERNOFF: And I --
8 MR. SCAROLA: You have a CCF, you clearly 9
need to understand the result on the plant and the 10 only way to understand the result on the plant is to 11 analyze the transient.
12 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes, with --
13 MR. SCAROLA:
But best estimate methods 14 would apply to that transient analysis.
15 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
With all due 16 respect, I think we need to move off of this issue 17 because we have a lot of ground to cover.
18 MR. RAHN: This is David Rahn.
19 This is a key message that we've been 20 struggling with as part of this RIS development. And, 21 so, to me, it's a topic that does require further 22 visiting.
23 The question is, are we going to fix it in 24 the RIS or is it going to be some other venue for 25 doing it?
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And, I think that's something that we need 2
to discuss. And, so, we'll talk about this with our 3
management.
4 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay, page 6, moving 5
forward.
6 MR. HERNANDEZ:
This is John Hernandez 7
from Palo Verde.
8 I have a comment along the slightly 9
different line, back on page 3 under the qualitative 10 assessment section, second paragraph.
11 MR. CHERNOFF: Go ahead.
12 MR. HERNANDEZ:
It states that, for 13 example, for a digital device that is simple and 14 highly
- testable, thorough testing may provide 15 additional assurance or low likelihood of failure that 16 helps compensate for a lack of operating experience.
17 And, my comment is, it's really a question 18 whether this potentially provides endorsement for 19 platforms that have greater market share?
20 So, if we're saying that a lack of 21 operating experience on a
digital system is 22 compensated for by that system being central and 23 highly testable, does this potentially mean that more 24 complex systems with less operating experience are 25 going to be hindered to compete in the market?
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And, that's the end of my comment.
2 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, thank you.
3 MR. RAHN: Could I ask again, who was that 4
that made the comment?
5 MR. HERNANDEZ:
This is John Hernandez 6
from Palo Verde.
7 MR. RAHN: Thank you, thank you, John.
8 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, I would like to make 9
one final call for anything up until page 6 of Section 10
- 2.
11 And
- then, I
would ask everybody's 12 indulgence that we not go back because we will not 13 complete our FAS today if we don't move forward a 14 little bit.
15 MR. HERNANDEZ:
This is John Hernandez 16 from Palo Verde.
17 The only reason I went back --
18 MR. CHERNOFF: No, it's fine, John.
19 MR. HERNANDEZ: -- to page 3, so I would 20 just recommend if we're going to employ that rule, 21 could we just call out then page number by page number 22 to ensure that we capture comments on that page?
23 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes, that -- I think that's 24 what we've started trying to do here, appreciate the 25 thought.
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And, no -- there's not a rule here, we 2
want to keep this relatively informal like we've been 3
doing it, but we also kind of want to push to make 4
sure we get done.
5 MR. HERNANDEZ:
Appreciate that, thank 6
you.
7 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay, anything else up 8
until page 6?
9 (NO RESPONSE) 10 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, anything on page 6?
11 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken.
12 I just want to point out that the words 13 result and bounded appear probably 20 different times 14 on this page with no definition of what they mean.
15 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, thank you.
16 Okay, let's move on to page 7.
17 MR. FREGONESE:
Yes, this is Vic 18 Fregonese.
19 I have a comment on page 7. At the bottom 20 of the page, there's a number two, and I'll ask for 21 some input from others on the team as well.
22 But, this states that reduction in any 23 aspect of independence or separation single failure 24 tolerance or diversity credited in the UFSAR, it 25 includes non-safety related functions.
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I'm not so sure that, in the previous 2
discussions and examples that we exchanged that there 3
was a complete understanding about this non-safety 4
related functional aspect be included in the scope of 5
the RIS.
6 So, I'll look for some clarification of 7
that.
8 But, any aspect is a pretty broad brush 9
and I'm concerned about interpretation of that.
10 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay, I understand that, 11 thank you.
12 Other comments on page 7?
13 MR. HERB: Yes, this is Ray Herb, Southern 14 Nuclear.
15 And, along those same lines, in the top 16 paragraph underneath 3 at the top of the page, the 17 last sentence says NRC assessed and determined that 18 proposed digital I&C modifications having all the 19 characteristics that will likely result in a 20 qualitative assessment results support a determination 21 of license amendment not required.
22 And, when you throw in non-safety systems, 23 many of those items, you know, are even not applicable 24 in some cases.
25 But, and also, it seems like there's not
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really a graded approach there and it kind of makes it 2
dependent of you have apply all those.
3 MR. CHERNOFF: Well --
5 MR. CHERNOFF:
And, I appreciate your 6
comment. I think clearly our intent here was to say, 7
in the cases where all these attributes are met, 8
you'll clearly have a sufficiently low situation.
9 But, I do not believe we intended to imply the inverse 10 that you had to meet all those criteria.
11 So, that's -- we understand that comment, 12 I think.
13 MR. MORTON: Ray, this is Wendell Morton, 14 NRC.
15 So, I believe in the previous version of 16 the RIS, we actually had a subsection in here 17 specifically about non-safety related SSC mods.
18 MR. HERB: Yes.
19 MR. MORTON: As an example, that was moved 20 to the new Section 5 of this version. So, take a look 21 at that, I think it's Subsection 5.4 when we start 22 talking about that.
23 MR. CHERNOFF: And, we may get to it.
24 MR. MORTON: And, we'll get to it. That's 25 where that information will be recognized, the
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consideration for non-safety related SSC modules are 2
captured there.
3 MR. CHERNOFF: I think we understand the 4
point you're making, though, as well here.
5 MR. MORTON:
And, we understand your 6
point. Thank you.
7 MR. HERB: Thank you, Wendell.
8 MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic Fregonese.
9 As we transition to page 8, my comment 10 actually applies to number three at the bottom of page 11 7 and it goes into page 8.
12 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, go ahead.
13 MR.
FREGONESE:
- And, there's some 14 terminology here and it's -- and under bravo under 15 three, it says, adequate internal or external 16 systematic diversity.
17 That also appears in one of the tables.
18 I don't believe this was discussed previously in the 19 examples we used or in the meetings. And, I think it 20 warrants a further explanation about what exactly that 21 means.
22 (OFF MICROPHONE COMMENTS) 23 MR. RAHN: This is David Rahn.
24 So, Ray, yes, my thought was to that I 25 think that wording was there, but it's true, we did
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not specifically discuss it during the workshops.
2 MR. MORTON:
Right.
This is Wendell 3
Morton, NRC.
4 So, the examples that were put together 5
just simply didn't incorporate internal or systematic 6
diversities, one of the design attributes that would 7
be decided as part of the qualitative assessment.
8 MR. FREGONESE: Yes, this is Vic.
9 Wendell, thanks.
I'm not sure that 10 appeared in the table. I didn't do a word search in 11 the previous version, I just don't know what that 12 means.
13 MR. CHERNOFF: The internal and external 14 systematic diversity, is that what you're specifically 15 referring to?
16 MR. FREGONESE: Yes, I'm just trying to 17 understand whether that's a reference to NUREG-6303 or 18 D3 analysis or what exactly it is.
19 Because, it has the word adequate in front 20 of it and that's somewhat judgmental what's adequate 21 or what's not. And, I was just trying to understand 22 what exactly that was about.
23 So, I'll go back and look at the previous 24 version, but my comment -- that's my comment.
25 Thank you.
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MR. CHERNOFF: All right, thank you.
2 MR. MORTON: Thanks, Vic.
3 MR. HERNANDEZ:
This is John Hernandez 4
from Palo Verde.
5 I had a few definition questions on this 6
page.
7 MR. CHERNOFF: On page --
8 MR. HERNANDEZ: The first --
9 MR. CHERNOFF: -- 8?
10 MR. HERNANDEZ: Oh, sorry, page 7 still.
11 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
12 MR. HERNANDEZ: The first is in 1a and 1b.
13 I could not find the definition for what vulnerability 14 meant, specifically, CCF vulnerability.
15 And so, I was wondering if maybe someone 16 could point me to somewhere where that is clarified.
17 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
18 MR. HERNANDEZ:
And then, the second 19 question I had was at the bottom of item 3 where it 20 states malfunction due to a design defect.
21 Earlier in the document on a footnote, it 22 reference the NEI 0101 and states that the common 23 cause failures that are not considered in the FSAR, 24 for example, design flaws.
25 So, my question was, is there a difference
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 65 between the design flaw and a design defect? And, if there is not, then aren't these malfunctions already considered non-credible?
That's the end of my comments.
MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, thank you.
MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola.
I had a comment on the same item 3 at the bottom of page 7.
So, here, we're saying that the only way that you can preclude further consideration of a malfunction due to a design defect is through these specific attributes, a 100 percent testing or 13 demonstration of diversity or through further 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 analysis.
In the previous sections, and there are several, we say that we can reach the threshold of sufficiently low which requires no further analysis through a qualitative assessment of design process and operating experience.
So, we clearly have a contradiction here.
This paragraph, although very conservative, is consistent with the current NRC policy.
So, we have to decide can this RIS change the policy as in the previous paragraph?
MR. CHERNOFF: So, let me --
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MR. SCAROLA:
But, either way, the RIS 2
itself should be consistent and right now, it's not.
3 This paragraph contradicts the previous paragraph.
4 MR. CHERNOFF: Let me ask, and I'm going 5
to restate what I heard, so paragraph 3 includes a 6
discussion of precluding and you're saying that 7
conflicts with the discussion that you can establish 8
a sufficiently low likelihood?
9 MR. SCAROLA:
Right.
Sufficiently low 10 likelihood the way you define it means requires no 11 further consideration.
12 MR. CHERNOFF: But, it does not preclude 13 it.
14 MR. SCAROLA:
Well, what else preclude 15 mean? Preclude means --
16 MR. CHERNOFF: Preclude means it will not 17 happen.
Okay?
Sufficiently low likelihood as 18 described in the document means that it's acceptable 19 for making a qualitative assessment under 50.59.
20 MR. SCAROLA:
I think you're splitting 21 hairs and just adding confusion to the industry.
22 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, I see heads in the 23 room are shaking no with regard to that, but we'll 24 move on.
25 MR. FREGONESE:
Yes, this is Vic
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Fregonese.
2 On this point number 3, I'm kind of with 3
the previous commenters, I'm not so sure it's 4
consistent with the way the document was structured 5
for qualitative assessment in this 100 percent testing 6
combination testing was discussed before.
7 And, you know, the 100 percent testing is 8
just something that's not really possible.
So, 9
there's other approaches I thought that could be used, 10 but I'm not so sure it's consistent with the use of 11 the table which has other adjectives.
12 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes, in Section 5, there's 13 some additional discussion about alternative things 14 that could be acceptable beyond a 100 percent 15 testability.
16 MR. SCAROLA: Yes, let me make a comment 17 about the use of the word precluded.
That word is 18 actually not the word that's in BTP 7-19. BTP 7-19 19 says if you have these attributes of a 100 percent 20 testing or diversity, the CCF or the malfunction 21 requires no further consideration.
22 It doesn't say precluded, it says requires 23 no further consideration which is exactly your words 24 that you get to through the qualitative assessment.
25 So, you can split hairs on the use of the
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word precluded or not, and if you use the correct 2
words from BTP 7-19 would clearly have an 3
inconsistency.
4 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. Can we move on to 5
page 8 now?
6 MR. CONNELLY: Yes, this is John Connelly 7
from Exelon.
8 I've got one particular comment. If you 9
look at the first major paragraph on page 8, and it 10 goes through and enumerates conditions.
11 One of those which didn't exist in the 12 previous version of the RIS, item 2, proposed 13 modification is not an extension of ESF actuation such 14 as emergency power of load sequencers.
15 If you go back in time, you know, as we 16 were working through these tabletop demonstrations, 17 there were a number of systems that we had pretty 18 broad agreement that we would be able to do a digital 19 modification to them under 50.59.
20 That included things like diesel 21 sequencers, relays, chillers. This seems to take that 22 completely off the table and that was the principle 23 focus of this entire exercise.
24 MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic Fregonese.
25 I guess the terminology that says an
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extension of an ESF actuation, that interpretation is 2
something that has to be clarified because we did 3
actually talk about sequencers and we did actually 4
present a tabletop on a diesel generator voltage and 5
reference adjusters.
6 So, there are words that say is not, so is 7
not means it's not. So, it doesn't say might be or 8
might not be.
9 That's my comment on this section as well.
10 MR. CHERNOFF: So, let me ask to clarify 11 what you're stating.
12 So, you're looking for a
better 13 understanding of what an extension of an ESF actuation 14 is meant to mean?
15 MR. FREGONESE: I would prefer that that 16 language not be there at all. Because, it will talk 17 about your safety related components, right, and you 18 can always draw a nexus back to, in many cases, you 19 can draw a nexus back to ESF actuation.
20 And, that takes a lot of these components 21 completely off the table and we can't -- the RIS loses 22 significant value.
23 MR. CHERNOFF: With that bullet 2?
24 MR. FREGONESE: With that bullet 2.
25 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. Thanks, that helps
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understanding, my understanding anyway.
2 MR. SCAROLA:
Yes, this is Ken Scarola 3
from the Nuclear Automation Engineering.
4 This issue gets back to the words that are 5
in the introductory sections of the RIS where we say 6
this RIS is not applicable to things that have equal 7
8 So now, the issue is, well, what are 9
equally important? Is a load sequencer as important?
10 Well, you know, you can probably look in your PRA and 11 find out what's equally important.
12 But, it very clearly, as John is saying, 13 brings a lot of confusion and ambiguity.
14 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, thank you.
15 So, we're on page 8, other thoughts on 16 page 8?
17 MR. FREGONESE:
Yes, this is Vic 18 Fregonese, Frammatome.
19 The end of the page under the qualitative 20 assessment paragraph 4, the last full paragraph, 21 there's an expansion of what is viewed to be 22 engineering judgment here with a bunch of bullets 23 underneath which may be a great idea.
24 But, as you know, engineering judgment is 25 something that's used in a lot of different areas.
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And, there are accepted, I would say, definitions or 2
approaches to engineering judgment, particularly in 3
the PRA world.
4 I'm not so sure why it was necessary to 5
include things in here like, you know, that the 6
utilities will use qualified people and use qualified 7
procedures.
I think that's just part of the entry 8
into the business.
9 So, I'm not sure why this expansion was 10 needed, number one.
11 And, number two, it's consistent with 12 other definitions and I didn't look, but I know there 13 are some.
14 And, I don't know if Craig Krieger is in 15 the room, Jared or Neal or Katie, but --
16 MR. HANSON: He is not.
17 MR. FREGONESE: Craig Krieger has a view 18 of this.
Because, there is -- are some accepted 19 practices. So, I'm questioning why this is needed and 20 what -- or if it adds any value for the purposes of 21 the RIS?
22 That's the end of my comment.
23 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. And, I -- just to 24 clarify, you said it talked about qualified reviewers 25 and I know that was in the previous version, I, quite
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72 honestly, I thought that had been removed.
Is it 2
still in there?
3 MR.
FREGONESE:
It talks about the 4
5 6
7 8
technical qualifications of the personnel performing the evaluations be appropriate and preferential in reviews.
MR. HANSON; The first bullet.
MR. FREGONESE:
And the appropriate 9
technical personnel for the judgment.
- Well, no 10 kidding.
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, okay.
MR. FREGONESE: I was wondering why --
MR. CHERNOFF: It's still the generalized statement in there. I understand, they were in the previous revisions and specific qualification statements, those were removed. Okay, I understand, thank you.
MR. FREGONESE: I don't understand why the term engineering judgment needs to be defined in this document.
That's my comment.
MR. CHERNOFF: Got it, thank you.
Okay, anything else on 8 before we move to 9?
MR. SCAROLA: Yes, this is Ken Scarola.
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In the paragraph right before the heading 2
of Section 4, you have the words using digital data 3
communications.
4 And, I just don't understand the basis of 5
this exclusion. If you have a new digital device that 6
has errors and it's communicating to the engineered 7
safety feature actuation system or the RPS, even 8
through hard wires, if it's sending erroneous data, 9
whether it's digital data communication or hard wires, 10 it has the potential to adversely affect the RPS and 11 engineered safety features.
12 So, I just technically don't understand 13 the basis of those words.
14 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
15 MR. RAHN: Yes, we captured it.
16 MR. CHERNOFF: All right.
17 Last call on page 8.
18 (NO RESPONSE) 19 MR. CHERNOFF: Moving on to page 9.
20 (NO RESPONSE) 21 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay, hearing nothing, 22 let's move on to page 10.
23 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola.
24 In the second paragraph, you talk about 25 limiting failures from occurring or mitigating the
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consequences of failures.
2 But, this whole section is about reaching 3
this threshold of sufficiently low likelihood.
4 Well, limiting failures or mitigating 5
failures has nothing to do with their likelihood. So, 6
I think this paragraph just adds confusion.
7 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay, I understand that 8
comment.
9 Other things on page 10?
10 MR. HERB: Yes, this is Ray Herb, Southern 11 Nuclear.
12 Below in the quality of the design 13 process, we used to have words in the previous section 14 about a non-safety system. Now, this seems, I mean, 15 we've included non-safety systems in the scope of 16 this, but this -- the development process in the last 17 paragraph seems specifically to only talk to Appendix 18 D processes or commercial grade dedication of non-19 safety equipment.
20 It says --
21 MR. CHERNOFF:
So, your point is, it 22 doesn't speak to just non-safety?
23 MR. HERB: Well, if we've included that 24 now in the scope of this RIS, then I don't think it 25 gives enough leeway for non-safety components.
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I think late inlater when you get into the 2
tables, it makes it even more difficult, but I'll wait 3
until we get there.
4 MR. CHERNOFF:
Yes, and the difficulty 5
here, obviously, is from a 50.59 perspective, it's 6
50.59 is agnostic with regard to safety related, non-7 safety related terminology.
8 On the design side, it obviously makes 9
quite a bit of difference.
10 MR. HERB: Exactly right.
11 MR. CHERNOFF:
Yes.
So, I think -- I 12 understand the comment and hopefully guys also 13 recognize the challenge in writing about the two 14 topics in a single document.
15 MR. HERB: Yes, but I understand, but, you 16 know, my concern here is that this draft RIS will be 17 utilized by inspection branch to grade my 50.59s going 18 forward.
19 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes, and let me speak to 20 that for just a minute.
21 I was going to do this at the end, but 22 since you've brought it up, do recognize that one of 23 our overall action plan items, and we clearly 24 recognize the need for that, is to go out and get 25 inspector contact time and training.
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And so, that's one of the elements that is 2
in our overall plan. And, it'll be near and dear to 3
my heart because that responsibility is in my group as 4
well.
5 So, that is a key element.
We want to 6
try the best we can to make sure that the inspectors 7
understand the purpose and when they're looking at 8
things are well versed in the intent and direction 9
that the RIS is trying to set.
10 MR. HERB: I appreciate that, but you need 11 to understand from a perspective of the industry, is 12 that there's a lot of consternation and there's a lot 13 of issues right now with our reluctance to do general 14 designs in safety and that would just increase this to 15 include non-safety.
16 So, if the purpose is for the digital 17 action plan to have a greater implementation of 18 digital technologies in the nuclear industry, I think 19 that this RIS may drive that in the other direction.
20 This is just a general comment.
21 MR. CHERNOFF:
And, I would -- I 22 appreciate the comment. I just -- a perspective is we 23 definitely -- our intents here are to make things as 24 direct and simple as possible, but not simpler.
25 So, yes, we are trying to remove
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unnecessary confusion and remove unnecessary burden in 2
what we're doing, and this one small part of that.
3 MR. CARTE: Norbert Carte, NRC.
4 Just a quick question, when you read the 5
last three lines on the screen right now, why is that 6
not sufficient to address your concern?
7 MR. CHERNOFF:
Norbert, you're pointing 8
out that it talks about for safety related equipment, 9
commercial grade dedicated or non-safety related?
10 MR. CARTE:
Equipment basically -- the 11 quality capturing process may not be readily available 12 and you rely on other things.
13 So, does that not address your concern or 14 why does that not address your concern?
15 MR. HERB: Again, I'm going to point out 16 that we've gotten this document for just two days and 17 so, my concern is a general concern.
18 And, once maybe we've had time to digest 19 this over a period of more than a couple of days, then 20 it may not be a concern, but I'm telling you, it is a 21 concern right now.
22 MR. RAHN: Yes, so, this is David Rahn.
23 So, Ray, this is a section where we go 24 into a little bit of detail on what we mean by design 25 attributes, quality of the design process and
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 78 operating experience.
And, later on in this document, it says, you're going to weigh the aggregate of information available from all three of these sources.
So, this section here is just describing the kind of things you would think about when you are trying to identify what is the quality of the design process.
Recognizing that you may not have as much information on things like non-safety related systems to go by, in which case, you would be relying a little more heavily on design attributes and operating experience.
MR. HERB: And, I hear what you're saying, David. And, I appreciate that.
16 But, this document doesn't read clearly 17 that way.
18 MR. RAHN:
Okay.
19 MR. HERB:
It really does not.
It seems 20 21 22 23 24 25 to be an all or nothing document. It says here's all the things you've got to do. The more things you do, the better off you reach the same conclusion as the NRC inspector may reach, that you know you do not require a LAR.
The less you do, the more, I guess, it
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 79 draws into question your assessment of all these failures going forward.
And then, it just leaves us open for, I think, an opinion of an inspector or the training level of an inspector or the training level of people doing the 50.59.
I understand that we're trying to provide additional detail on how to do these 50.59s. And, in some cases, for -- that's appropriate.
But, because the fact that we've stated earlier in this RIS that all digital things will screen in because of the screening criteria that says you have to consider -- I mean, all you have to consider are common cause failure or a software defect and so that's always going to adverse impact means that everything screens into an evaluation going 17 forward.
18 And, if we don't, because of the policy 19 that we can't eliminate defects in
- software, 20 everything has to screen in that that increases the 21 22 23 24 25 burden.
And then, now, we have this additional criteria that inspectors will use to grade the 50.59s.
A 50.59 is a roll-up document. And, in some cases, this engineering judgment adds more or less detail
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based on the actual risk and complexity of the design 2
mod.
3 It looks like we're going to make 4
everything fit into this same box, which I think, 5
again, to my point earlier, will cause a significant 6
reduction in the industry of implementing digital 7
designs going forward.
8 MR. CARTE: Norbert Carte.
9 One question, what in the RIS leads you to 10 believe that everything screens in?
11 MR. HERB: I have -- I read in here, it 12 says, it specifically calls out 96-07 in the screening 13 criteria, actually quote it. It says, bear with me, 14 Katie, maybe you can help me with this.
15 MR. CHERNOFF: Everybody in the room is 16 looking through documents.
17 MR. RAHN: What are the buzz words?
18 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola.
19 I have the same conclusion that Ray has, 20 that everything screens in and there are definitely 21 words. I've got to hunt for them.
22 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes, you, too.
23 (SIMULTANEOUS SPEAKING) 24 MR. CHERNOFF:
It's an important point.
25 Let's take a minute and do this because --
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MR. MORTON: I can say -- Wendell Morton, 2
NRC.
3 So, I can say, well, we specifically 4
mention screening because the goal was not to get into 5
any screening criteria in the guidance and the RIS.
6 In the second paragraph of the attachment 7
in the purpose section --
8 MR. FREGONESE: Page 5.
9 MR. MORTON: Page 5?
10 So, in the second --
11 MR. FREGONESE:
Page 5 of the second 12 paragraph. It talks about adverse effects, the change 13 should be screened in, is that what you're talking 14 about?
15 MR. SCAROLA: It says, if you use software 16 that's adverse and you have to screen it in. That's 17 every digital device.
18 MR. FREGONESE: Yes, that's right.
19 MR. CHERNOFF: Help me out just a little 20 bit on page -- I'm on page 5, it took me a little bit 21 to get there. Where on page 5?
22 MR. FREGONESE:
It's going to be the 23 second paragraph, it's like the next to the last 24 sentence. It talks about positive --
25 (SIMULTANEOUS SPEAKING)
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82 MR. FREGONESE: -- screened in. And, it 2
mentions software.
Is that where you're talking 3
about?
4 MR. CHERNOFF:
Hang on for a second, 5
you're --
6 MR. SCAROLA:
Yes.
7 MR. CHERNOFF: You're actually in the body 8
of RIS?
9 MR. SCAROLA:
Yes, body of the RIS.
10 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay, just a minute.
11 MR. FREGONESE Yes, I'm sorry.
12 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
13 MR. FREGONESE:
It says -- you can see 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that paragraph right below the sentence says, this RIS supplement emphasizes the staff's paragraph above.
It basically says, if you have software, since there's no -- there is no way to determine whether it's accurately for reliability of software, then basically everything's screened in.
MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
MR. BEAULIEU: Do you want me to -- this is Dave Beaulieu with the NRC.
The idea is that since this attachment deals with likelihood that that's the focus of the evaluation section is it has to do with the evaluation
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 83 and the magnitude of it.
Screening deals with the direction of the change, whether it's positive or negative. So, that
-- so, what we're just saying in that paragraph, you've already determined that the direction of the change is adverse and that you've screened it in and that, now, you're assessing likelihood to determine whether it needs NRC approval.
MR. CHERNOFF: Dave, so what you're saying is, the writing is presumptive on, you're in the evaluation process?
MR. BEAULIEU: Yes.
13 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
14 MR. MORTON: Also -- Wendell Morton, NRC.
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. CHERNOFF: But, obviously, there's a point of confusion here that's not going to cause --
MR. MORTON: We understand.
But, in the second paragraph of the attachment, Section 1, the purpose, we actually say that the qualitative assessment guidance in this attachment presumes you've already screened in.
We do not make any assumptions on the point of whether you screened in because of a common cause failure specifically or not as well. Just to tie into that paragraph that Dave Beaulieu was
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referring to.
2 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay, and the feedback 3
we're getting is that that's not coming through 4
clearly. Got it, okay.
5 MR. FREGONESE:
Yes, this is Vic 6
Fregonese.
7 One more time, page 5 of 8, I think what 8
Ray was saying is in that second paragraph of the RIS 9
body, it almost implies that if it's software, it's 10 adverse.
11 Maybe
- Katie, I'm not reading that 12 correctly, but that's kind of what I'm hearing.
13 MR. CHERNOFF: All right. I mean, you're 14 hearing from staff that wasn't the intent. So, we'll 15 look at that.
16 MR. GARRETT:
Hey, this is Ron Garrett 17 from TVA.
18 Hey, I got in late because I couldn't get 19 on the bridge.
20 But, I got a more overall global issue 21 with the inclusion of non-safety. I really don't want 22 the 50.59 process to tell medictating my selection of design or 23 product and that's what the current policy is right 24 now doing in the area of safety related.
25 I have now had three air wall (phonetic)
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 85 chiller designs which I don't feel would be as reliable as the digital chiller control system.
And, if by inclusion this -- this was supposed to free us up on some less safety significant safety systems.
I feel this RIS, by including non-safety in the scope will now push us toward, because of the licensing risk, potential licensing risk or perceived 9
licensing risk towards less reliable design and 10 products.
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 With my safety -- digital safety systems and non-safety are very reliable. But, my non-safety systems are ten times more reliable than my safety systems.
I had more products I can fit to. I can fit the product that makes sense for me and is better for that design.
So, that's all I wanted to say.
MR. REMER: Jason Remer, NEI.
Just to sort of highlight the previous version of the RIS, our comments, I think we had a 100 comments. One of the show-stoppers was inclusion of non-safety.
If this thing makes it harder for our companies to do non-safety more at risk, you may say,
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oh, that's not a risk, it's okay. If a perceived risk 2
is there, we've been working on this two years.
3 And, two days a review of this is coming 4
out with people that operate the plants are saying, 5
this is exposing us to risk. We've got mods going on 6
right now that a question is in their mind, if this 7
comes out, will that put this mod at risk?
8 That is a show-stopper for the industry.
9 So, we have to figure out how to make it clear, maybe 10 you didn't mean it, but that's the way it's coming 11 across.
12 I understand 50.59 doesn't care, I 13 understand that. I've been at the plant 18 years.
14 But, Appendix D requirements don't apply 15 to non-safety.
And so, we have to be clear about 16 that. So, how dohowever we do it?
We're going to bow up at 17 this because non-safety can't be included.
18 MR. CHERNOFF: Can't be included or --
19 MR. REMER: It will harm us.
20 MR. CHERNOFF: Cannot be included in the 21 what?
22 MR. REMER: In having to do requirements 23 for digital modifications.
24 MR. CHERNOFF: The design --
25 MR. REMER: Or the design.
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MR. CHERNOFF: The design basis? Yes, I 2
understand that.
3 MR. REMER: 50.59 absolutely, everything's 4
looked at, but it's got to be clear and that's what we 5
said earlier and we just want to reemphasize that.
6 Maybe you didn't mean for that to happen, 7
but that's the way it's coming across. So, end of my 8
comment.
9 Thank you.
10 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you.
11 MR. RAHN: This is David Rahn.
12 Just to clarify for the record, we're in 13 our tenth month of developing this document and we 14 have not been working at it for two years.
15 MR. REMER: I understand, yes, ten months.
16 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, let me suggest --
17 MR. FREGONESE: For the record, it's two 18 years in the making.
19 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes, let me suggest that 20 it's 10:42. This seems like a good time for a short 21 break.
22 Let's try to make sure everybody is back 23 ready to go within ten minutes. So, I've got 10:42 on 24 the computer clock now, so ten minutes from 10:42.
25 MS. GOVAN: Before the people on the line
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break, there were quite a large amount of beeps after 2
we got started. If you haven't identified yourself on 3
the line, can you please do so, so we'll know who's 4
listening in?
5 (NO RESPONSE) 6 MR. CHERNOFF:
Dave, could you do hall 7
monitor duty?
8 MR. RAHN: Sure.
9 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you.
10 MS. GOVAN: Any new people on the line?
11 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
I want to thank 12 everybody for getting back basically on time. That's 13 pretty good for a big group. We were on page ten. I 14 think we kind of had just gotten started on page ten, 15 so let me open it back up. I recognize we're a little 16 bit behind but, hopefully, we can catch up time-wise 17 here.
18 So page ten.
Any other comments or 19 thoughts on page ten that want to be brought up?
20 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. The 21 last paragraph above the heading "quality of the 22 design process," that paragraph is not related to 23 design attributes that reduce the likelihood of 24 failure.
It's about how you tolerate the failure.
25 This seems like it's completely out of place.
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MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
Anything else on 2
page ten? Okay. Let's move on to page 11. It starts 3
off with operating experience. All right. Last call 4
on that page.
5 MR. HERB:
This is Ray Herb, Southern 6
Nuclear.
I just want to make the comment that the 7
format of this document is very confusing. It looks 8
like you have drop quotes from NEI 01-01 and there's 9
no numbering anywhere on these bulleted sections. It 10 makes it difficult to provide comments, but it also 11 makes it a little bit more difficult to figure out 12 where the information comes from. If you look at the 13 top of page 11, you have the operating experience 14 bullet and Section 5.3.1 of NEI 01-01 states, and then 15 it gets a quote, and then below that has also an 16 indented piece. It looks like it's, I'm not sure if 17 that's also a quote from NEI 01-01 or it comes from 18 amplifying the information and why is it indented for 19 the same quote, whereas before it looks like quotes 20 were indented.
21 MR. CHERNOFF: Understood, yes.
22 MR. HERB: It's just a general --
23 MR. RAHN:
It should not have been 24 indented.
25 MR. CHERNOFF:
Formatting issues, yes.
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Okay.
Ready to move on to page 12 then, I think, 2
which is providing some
- examples, qualitative 3
assessment examples in the three bins.
4 MS. AUSTGEN:
This is Katie Austgen.
5 Sorry.
I was pulling up something to verify.
6 Understanding what you've said about this section that 7
we're in is intended to be more focused on the 50.59 8
process, yet some of these most recent quotes that 9
were pulled from NEI 01-01 or from the section that is 10 more technically focused versus 50.59 process, so just 11 the understanding of --
12 MR. CHERNOFF: The challenge here is in 13 01-01 it's blended together, and in 01-01 the somewhat 14 analogous terminology of dependability is used in lieu 15 of what we're trying to establish as a standard for 16 writing up the 50.59, the sufficiently low likelihood.
17 So you see in the quotes we're pulling the 18 dependability language from 01-01, which is in much 19 more detail than the few references to sufficiently 20 low likelihood. In 01-01, it clearly defines those 21 two things as equivalent in the explanations in 01-01.
22 Overview. It doesn't probably completely 23 answer your question but kind of the challenge we're 24 dealing with was to pull in enough information to 25 support where we were trying to explain how the
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qualitative assessments could be done using 2
information that was in 01-01, not creating something 3
out of the ether.
4 MR. MORTON: Wendell Morton, NRC. We've 5
had this conversation a number of times with our 6
Appendix D review. It's very difficult to completely 7
segregate all technical information for 50.59, so this 8
version of the RIS represents the best cut at doing 9
that and still maintaining sensible, reasonable 10 information in there for each portion of the RIS, 11 whether it's 50.59 specific or technical specific.
12 You're still going to see some when you get into 13 Section 5.
You'll see some small amounts with the 14 opposite effect, so just a general comment on sort of 15 t h e c o n t e x t o f t h e R I S n o w.
16 MR. CHERNOFF:
I think we're certainly 17 open to improvements that are suggested, you know, in 18 that context.
19 MR. RAHN: And this is David Rahn. So one 20 of the things that we did with this revision was, in 21 the main body of the RIS, we clarified what within NEI 22 01-01 we're really helping to clarify and we 23 specifically stated it's Sections 4, 5, Appendix A, 24 and Appendix B of NEI 01-01.
25 Now, the other thing that we did with this
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is, you know, formatting concern, was that we wanted 2
to be very particular about the language that we use 3
for accomplishing a qualitative assessment in a way 4
that can be used within a 50.59 environment but 5
knowing that the qualitative assessments rely heavily 6
on all the engineering evaluations that are done. So 7
what we did is we segregated out the discussion about 8
engineering evaluations, and we have sections in there 9
that have parallel sections within NEI 01-01 regarding 10 those engineering evaluations. That's what we call a 11 Section 5. And then you need the information that's 12 in Section 5 to help contribute to the information you 13 need for forming a qualitative assessment, which is 14 the earlier section. So that's part of the thinking 15 behind why it's divvied up like it was.
16 MR. CHERNOFF: I think we're on page 12 17 then, which is the table that I referred to.
Any 18 thoughts on that that want to be provided would be 19 appreciated.
20 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. The 21 word "acceptable" at the top of this table has me 22 troubled because I don't know what that means to be 23 acceptable.
Does it mean I need all of these 24 attributes, I need some of these attributes? So I can 25 tell you that there are some applications where maybe
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2 3
93 none of these attributes --
MR. CHERNOFF: Just to be very clear, the intent was not all of these attributes, and we can 4
deal with that.
This was --
5 MR. SCAROLA:
I think you just cite 6
examples. These are examples.
7 MR. CHERNOFF:
These are groups and 8
examples. Okay. Anything else on the table?
9 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken. In the next 10 section, I think there's a typo in 107339. Shouldn't 11 that be 30, 107330?
12 MR. RAHN: Yes, it should be 107330.
13 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you. Okay. Let's 14 move on to page 13 then, which has the tail-end of the 15 table.
16 MR. HERNANDEZ:
This is John Hernandez 17 from Palo Verde, and I have two questions on the table 18 that's at the top. The first one is with regards to 19 operating experience, and it's the last sentence of 20 the second bullet. It states it may be necessary to 21 delay major application software use and software 22 revision until the software version has sufficient 23 operating experience.
And my question is how does 24 this impact or relate to other regulations associated 25 with cybersecurity and the potential patching of
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digital assets at nuclear stations?
2 And the second question I have is is there 3
some way in this section that we could clarify or 4
distinguish between software that is, for instance, 5
part of an operating system, like a Windows system, 6
and software that is control logic software so the 7
specific software that's used by a particular digital 8
asset to perform a design function?
9 MR. CHERNOFF: And so in this section, you 10 might be looking for examples of either of those or is 11 that a more general comment about what we're talking 12 about operating experience other places than the table 13 examples?
14 MR. HERNANDEZ:
I suppose it's more 15 general, and I think examples may help to clarify. So 16 what I wanted to avoid is an unintended impact to 17 other regulations that I think are still even in flux, 18 for instance cybersecurity patching, you know, 19 associated with networking systems or user interfaces 20 like a Windows-based human-machine interface.
21 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. I think we got that.
22 MR. RAHN: Yes, I've written it down. I 23 don't know if you do, but I wrote it down.
24 MR. CHERNOFF:
We understand.
Okay.
25 Other things on this page, page 13.
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MR. HERB:
This is Ray Herb, Southern 2
Nuclear. We read the preamble to table one as just 3
exceptional examples, may consider additional design 4
attributes, qualities, or design processes, blah, 5
blah, blah. And from that, that discussion we talked 6
about, it seems that a lot of these things are just 7
examples. How much of the rest of this document is 8
just examples or is recommended and not mandatory 9
versus this table?
10 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. So this --
11 MR. HERB: You see, my confusion is that, 12 like, we started out in Sections 1, 2, and 3, and it 13 seems like, very pointed, this is what you have to do, 14 and then we get into the qualitative assessment and we 15 say here's a list of suggestions, things that you can 16 do, and then, from hearing Dave and everybody, these 17 aren't set in stone, you get to pick and choose. How 18 much of these do I need to reach that level? I guess 19 that's an engineering judgment. And then, when we get 20 further in the document, they talked about very 21 specific things in your key engineering evaluations 22 and, again, you say this is just a suggested format 23 and all of that going forward. So are you saying that 24 everything from Section 4 on, including this table, is 25 just nice to know, here's what we would like to see?
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MR. CHERNOFF:
Well, in the biggest 2
context, I mean, this is a RIS, so we're not conveying 3
or inferring requirements in any regard in this 4
document. We do speak with some more specificity, as 5
you pointed out, regarding the qualitative assessments 6
because, on our side anyway, we saw that as the area 7
where us explaining an approach that we found could 8
work would definitely be at least one hurdle that 9
could be addressed.
10 And as you pointed out, as you move 11 further back in the document, you'll see pointed 12 disclaimers regarding anybody's need to do anything 13 more than consider these, think about it, and that's 14 on purpose because they're not laying out 15 requirements.
And when we get to working with our 16 inspectors, we want to be very clear with them that 17 these are not things to go pick up, say, Section 5 and 18 try to find in someone's design work every attribute 19 in Section 5.
20 So I'm just trying to, what I'm saying is 21 intended to be amplifying what you said that is the 22 way the document is laid out, there is that transition 23 to less prescriptive and more these are approaches 24 that could be used, these are things that could be 25 considered. Does that help at all?
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MR. HERB: It does, but it keeps saying 2
these words several places, this is an acceptable 3
method or this is an acceptable set or one acceptable 4
set.
And when you say words like acceptable, that 5
reminds me of regulatory guides, and so some of that 6
wording almost says you either do it this way or have 7
a good reason why you didn't.
8 MR. CHERNOFF:
And, in effect, I mean, 9
your comment is well taken because the original 2002-10 22 was, in effect, a RIS trying to affect what a reg 11 guide would normally have done.
And so we are 12 extending upon that foundation, and it has that same 13 attribute of the original that, you know, in 14 hindsight, you know, a regulatory guide would have 15 been the normal way to endorse that document 01-01.
16 So I guess I'm agreeing with you.
17 All right. Anything else on page 13?
18 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. In the 19 first paragraph under 431, you talk about introducing 20 failure modes. I think you mean postulating them, not 21 introducing them. Later in the paragraph, you talk 22 about identifying vulnerabilities.
Well, if you've 23 got vulnerabilities, then you can't possibly reach 24 sufficiently low likelihood.
So I think you mean 25 identifying potential vulnerabilities and then
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explaining how you mitigated that potential. I think 2
you just need to fix some wording in this paragraph.
3 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. Thank you.
4 MR. SCAROLA: And in the second paragraph 5
in that section, the last sentence, the last line says 6
would be evaluated under 50.59. Does that mean would 7
be screened in? I'm a little confused. If it means 8
it would be screened in, it would certainly be a lot 9
clearer and less confusing to the industry if you just 10 said that.
11 MR. RAHN: Yes, it should have said would 12 need to be.
13 MR. CHERNOFF:
I guess -- could you 14 clarify what's confusing here?
Because I'm not 15 understanding it. It's --
16 MR. SCAROLA:
The last words that say 17 would be evaluated under 10 CFR 50.59.
18 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. So we're already in 19 the evaluative process in this write-up. We're in the 20 evaluative process.
And this is just saying the 21 results, malfunctions with different results would 22 need to be evaluated.
So you're dealing with the 23 second part of the criteria, if you would. You've got 24 the --
25 MR. SCAROLA:
You're missing the first
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part of the sentence. The first part of the sentence 2
says if you have certain attributes in your upgrade, 3
for example, control room with a common digital 4
component or employing the same software in separate 5
digital devices, then these would be evaluated under 6
50.59.
That sounds like screening criteria.
It 7
sounds like if I have a common digital component or I 8
use common software, I screen in.
9 MR. RAHN: I understand what he's saying.
10 I know how to fix it.
11 MR. SCAROLA: Which, very frankly, for me, 12 is fine.
I think they should screen in.
But if 13 that's what you meant, then it would certainly be a 14 lot clearer if you just said that.
15 MR. BEAULIEUBOLLYER:
This is Dave BEAULIEUBollyer.
I 16 think the wording that 50.59 process would be applied 17 is more accurate because, otherwise, you're right, 18 using the word evaluation infers that it screens in.
19 MR. CHERNOFF: We'll look at this. In the 20 context of the write-up here, you already passed the 21 screen point, so you're dealing with where you haven't 22 achieved sufficiently slow likelihood and you have to 23 deal with the second part of the criteria, and it was 24 just saying you have to do the results evaluation 25 under --
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MR. SCAROLA: Right. Therefore, you have 2
automatically screened in is what this says.
3 MR. RAHN:
That's the intent of this 4
section is that you are already screened in.
5 MR. MORTON:
The attachment to the RIS 6
presumes that you've screened in.
So everything 7
within the attachment itself is written from this 8
standpoint that you already entered the 50.59 process 9
and you have screened in to an evaluation and all the 10 guidance in there is tailored towards that effect.
11 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
12 MR. CAVES: Can I ask a question? John 13 Caves, Duke Energy. Again, at the last sentence about 14 4.3.1.1, if these individual SSCs are combined with, 15 and one of the examples is employ the same software in 16 separate digital devices, then the potential for 17 malfunction with a different result or accidents of 18 different type would be evaluated under 50.59. To me, 19 what that's saying is that, you know, just like we 20 talked about earlier, there's kind of two thresholds.
21 There's a probability, a likelihood threshold, and 22 that's what the qualitative assessment is talking 23 about. And then if you don't pass that, then you're 24 over in the other side.
25 What this tells me is that if you have the
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same software in separate digital devices, then you're 2
forced into taking a look at whether you've got the 3
different result. And to me, that's a showstopper.
4 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, got it.
5 MR. RAHN: Now we get it.
6 MR. CHERNOFF:
Thanks, John.
Anything 7
else on the 13?
8 MR. HERB: Yes, this is Ray Herb, Southern 9
Nuclear. 4.3.3.1.1, diversity in common cause failure, 10 there's a sentence in there that says design of 11 certain SSCs is required to include diversity to the 12 extent practical.
I think that, for example, for 13 protection systems and we've already stated in the RIS 14 beginning that, like, we've excluded those from this 15 process. Why are we bringing them back in here? It 16 just adds confusion.
17 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
Understand the 18 comment.
Kind of redundancy, adding confusion by 19 repeating something already stated, correct?
20 MR. HERB:
That's not what I said.
I said 21 22 MR. CHERNOFF: I'm sorry.
23 MR. HERB: -- said that you're required to 24 include diversity to the extent practical, and the 25 example is protection systems and protection systems
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have already been excluded from this RIS. And so why 2
are you, are you saying that diversity is required for 3
something that's not covered by the RIS?
4 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
5 MR. CARTE: So do you equate reactor trip 6
and ESFAS actuation systems as being the only 7
protection systems, or do you think there are other 8
systems besides those that are part of the protection 9
system?
10 MR. HERB: Are you asking me that --
11 MR. CARTE: Right. Because I think you're 12 equating reactor trip in ESFAS with protection systems 13 and --
14 MR. HERB: Yes.
15 MR. FREGONESECARTE:
Just look at IEEE 279 or 16 50.55(a)(h) defines what a protection system is, 17 right?
18 MR. HERB: Yes.
19 MR. CARTE: That would be the definition 20 that applies.
21 MR. FREGONESE:
Right.
Which is 22 everything but the actuation device, the final 23 actuated device.
So I guess there's some clarity 24 about what is a protection system that we can deal 25 with later.
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2 3
4 103 MR. FREGONESECARTE: For the purposes of the RIS, I think Ray's comment is, like, the reactor protection has been excluded, we shouldn't have a lot of reactor protection system discussion.
5 MR. CHERNOFF:
Vic, can you identify 6
yourself?
7 MR. FREGONESE:
This is Vic Fregonese.
8 And my other comment on this section is the first 9
sentence says exhibit a low likelihood. Throughout 10 the document, there's a couple of places where it will 11 say, like, really low, sufficiently low, kind of low, 12 low, and there should be kind of a reason why they're 13 different. It's not that widespread but --
14 MR. CHERNOFF:
Yes, we got it.
We'll 15 double check that.
But you use sufficiently low, 16 obviously, for the criteria and try to have a reason 17 to use the word likelihood otherwise that made sense.
18 So we'll go through that.
19 MR. FREGONESE: Thank you.
20 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. I have 21 a comment similar to Ray Herb's about the reference to 22 the diversity quote from GDC-22.
Over the years, 23 historically, GDC-22 diversity has been accepted to 24 refer to functional diversity, not implementation 25 diversity. We have control rods, and we have boron.
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That's functional diversity.
But they can both be 2
implemented on the same hardware.
There has never 3
been a requirement for different hardware diversity in 4
these applications.
5 This whole RIS, when we talk about 6
diversity, is referring to implementation diversity, 7
not functional diversity. So any discussion of GDC-22 8
in this RIS is out of place. It shouldn't be there.
9 It just adds confusion.
10 MR. CHERNOFF: All right. Let's move --
11 MR. SCAROLA:
I'm agreeing with Ray it 12 should be taken out but for a different reason.
13 MR. CHERNOFF: Let's move on to page --
14 MR. FREGONESE: I agree with you. That 15 just didn't point out the criteria of 22.
16 MR. HERNANDEZ:
This is John Hernandez 17 from Palo Verde. I have one more comment on this page 18 before we move on.
19 MR. CHERNOFF: Go ahead, John.
20 MR. HERNANDEZ:
The second paragraph of 21 4.3.1, it talks about systems being coupled to each 22 other and gives the example by digital communication.
23 I was wondering if we could add perhaps an example or 24 some clarification of what by digital communication 25 meant because a lot of our systems in the plant, for
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instance, would be technically coupled together by 2
digital communication by virtue of plant computer 3
systems, and I think every nuclear plant in the United 4
States has a plant computer system, a general display 5
system of information for the operations staff, and I 6
think that's not the intent of what this is trying to 7
say.
8 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. Thank you. Page 14.
9 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. In the 10 first line, it's an extension of the previous sentence 11 which refers to BTP 7-19 in establishing the design 12 basis of certain SSCs. Well, BTP 7-19 is all about 13 what's beyond design basis, so those words "design 14 basis" should be the licensing basis of certain SSCs, 15 not the design basis.
Common cause failure is a 16 beyond design basis event, so we design -- so the 17 attributes that we need to fulfill for these certain 18 SSCs in the licensing basis, not the design basis.
19 MR. CHERNOFF: So I'm going to ask, just 20 to make sure I understand, if the word basis were not 21 in that sentence, would that improve the clarity?
22 MR. SCAROLA: That would work, too, if you 23 just say establishing the design of certain SSCs.
24 That's fine.
25 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
That helps me
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understand the comment. Thank you. Okay. Anything 2
else on 14?
3 MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic Fregonese. On 4
digital communications, I want to follow-up with the 5
first sentence of 4.3.1.2.
It talks about SSC 6
independence credited or assumed in the FSAR and 7
reduction in independence may cause the possibility of 8
new failure. Once again, independence is a concept 9
that's generally in the design world in the context of 10 safety is around safety-related systems. So I'm not 11 sure about independence assumed in the FSAR. That's 12 kind of hard to draw a circle around, so there's 13 several areas where we've talked about assumed or 14 implicit things and that may need some clarification.
15 That's the end of my comment.
16 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. That's pretty clear, 17 I think. Additional comments?
18 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. In the 19 first paragraph on this page, you have discussions 20 about licensees have commitments to diversity. No, 21 licensees have committed to adequate defense against 22 common cause failure vulnerabilities. That may have 23 been through diversity, but it may have been through 24 other means. Diversity is not a requirement.
25 MR. CHERNOFF: Well, commitments are not
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requirements so...
2 MR. SCAROLA:
Yes, but they committed, 3
okay?
So they committed to defense against common 4
cause failure.
5 MR. CHERNOFF: Well, I --
6 MR. SCAROLA: That's all this should say 7
because this implies, well, the only commitment that's 8
important is diversity. No. The other commitments 9
may have been equally important.
10 MR. CARTE: Ken, this is Norbert. Don't 11 use the word commitment, say if it's in their 12 licensing basis the staff gets -- you understand it's 13 a very specific term for commitment, that is a 14 regulatory commitment as communicated in a certain 15 manner. Other things are part of the licensing basis.
16 There are things that are obligations. Try not to use 17 the word commitment.
18 MR. SCAROLA: Norbert, your words in this 19 paragraph are committed. I'm only using your words.
20 I don't care what that particular word is. All I'm 21 saying is that what they did to provide adequate 22 defense against common cause failure may not have been 23 diversity.
It could have been something else.
We 24 know that. It could have been 100-percent testing.
25 It could have been some other mechanical stops on a
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valve.
There are a lot of ways to protect against 2
common cause failure. We should not be focusing on 3
diversity and implying that that's a commitment.
4 MR. MORTON: Well, Ken, this is Wendell 5
Morton. Just for context, this particular subsection 6
is only referring to diversity in solving common cause 7
failure. That's why other aspects weren't referred to 8
or specifically written about or inclusive with that.
9 This is context for that particular subsection.
10 MR. CHERNOFF:
Let's please move on.
11 Other things on 14? Okay. Page 15, please.
12 MR. SCAROLA:
Excuse me.
This is Ken 13 Scarola.
I'm sorry.
On 4.3.1.3, we talk about 14 integrating echelons, but it is acceptable to 15 integrate echelons.
We've been through this many, 16 many times, ISG-02, Oconee.
You can integrate the 17 echelons reactor protection system and safety 18 features.
I don't think this RIS should open that 19 discussion at all.
I think all discussion of 20 maintaining independence of echelon defense is just 21 opening up a can of worms in this RIS because it's 22 addressed by other NRC guidance, and you don't always 23 need to keep them independent.
You can integrate 24 them.
25 MR. RAHN: But I think all this statement
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is saying is that it makes it more difficult to 2
analyze or to evaluate when you do that. I'm sorry.
3 This is David Rahn.
4 MR. SCAROLA: Well, in some cases, it may 5
if you're taking credit for the independence. But we 6
don't typically take credit for independence between 7
reactor trip and engineered safety between echelons.
8 They work together.
One without the other is not 9
effective. That's what ISG-02 is all about.
10 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. Into page 15. Thank 11 you, Ken.
12 MR. SCAROLA:
Well, I have one more 13 comment. I'm sorry. The second paragraph on 4.3.1.3 14 which says the qualitative assessment needs to weigh 15 the risks.
I'm sorry.
Risks?
We're not talking 16 about risks here.
50.59.
Do we create a new 17 malfunction? It's not a risk assessment.
18 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
19 MR. FREGONESE: Are we on 15 now?
20 MR. CHERNOFF: I would appreciate if we 21 would be on page 15.
22 MR. FREGONESE: Under 4.3.3, in the middle 23 of the paragraph, it says, the third sentence, it 24 looks like it says in all cases. And any time I see 25 that, that kind of raises a concern with me about do
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we really mean that?
2 MR. CHERNOFF: The absolute in all cases 3
language?
4 MR. FREGONESE:
Yes.
However, it says 5
help in all cases, and then it says however, you know, 6
it should be substantially similar. I think that's 7
really the key is that, you know, if you're going to 8
use the operating experience, it should be something 9
that's similar to what you're talking about in your 10 design. So that's my comment.
11 MR. CHERNOFF:
Got it. Other comments on 12 15?
13 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. In the 14 second paragraph, I'm sorry, the third paragraph, you 15 have the words about design processes that do not need 16 to be solely those endorsed by the staff. Yes, well, 17 I agree 100 percent for non-safety systems. But for 18 safety systems, even commercial-grade dedicated items 19 need to demonstrate that they are equivalent to the 20 endorsement by the staff or compensating measures are 21 provided. This was a little misleading. I think it 22 opens the door to what is commercial-grade dedication.
23 I clearly agree with the words for non-safety, but 24 when you use those words and apply them to safety 25 they're not accurate.
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 111 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. I understand your comment. Anything further on page 15? Okay. Let's slide into the Section 5 engineering evaluation discussions. We'll start at the bottom of 15 and then
- 16.
MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. I have a general comment about this entire section. Very simple. These evaluations seem to be completely redundant to the evaluations that are discussed in Section 4 that add significant additional length to the document. I don't understand why we need it. We're adding 11 more pages to say, from what I think, what was already said in Section 4. And if we're going to scare licensees away, we often just scare them away with the length of the guidance that they have to try and follow. What value are we adding here in this entire section?
MR.
CHERNOFF:
Okay.
Understand the general comment. Additional --
MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic Fregonese. On this page, on page 16, once again, there's several spots where it says low likelihood and one says very 23 low likelihood.
24 MR.
CHERNOFF:
- Well, we've got that 25 flagged as a global to go through.
Okay.
Other
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things on this page?
2 MR. HERNANDEZ: Sorry. Are we on page 16?
3 MR. CHERNOFF: We are, sir.
4 MR. HERNANDEZ: So this is John Hernandez 5
from Palo Verde. I had a question, it's the second to 6
last paragraph, item B, performance of adequate 7
deterministic failure analysis. I was wondering if we 8
could perhaps add some clarification here on whether 9
this is different or the same as a failure mode in 10 effects analysis which is referenced earlier in this 11 document, as well as enlist the component level, 12 system level, and plant level analysis. But earlier 13 in the document, we talk about analyzing at a system 14 level for malfunction and how that potentially impacts 15 this section.
16 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
17 MR. HERNANDEZ: Thank you.
18 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you.
19 MR. FREGONESE:
This is Vic Fregonese.
20 The bottom of the page going into the next page, 17, 21 there's a RIS discussion, and at the beginning of, at 22 the end of page 16, the last sentence goes into page 23
- 17. There's an emphasis-added section to this. I'm 24 just trying to understand what the emphasis is that 25 we're trying to get across here.
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MR. RAHN: This was a section that we're 2
amplifying within Section 3 of NEI 01-01, and we're 3
just pointing out the part of the quotation that there 4
applies to engineering evaluations being used. We've 5
had some internal discussions as to whether there 6
needs to be anything like this in here at all so --
7 MR. FREGONESE: You know, I'm thinking in 8
50.59 space, and what it says here is that, by the 9
time a proposed change is ready for implementation, it 10 will always lie in the region of negligible or 11 acceptable risk. I'm just questioning, you know, why 12 that's here. Maybe, Katie, do you have a comment on 13 that in terms of how that fits into the...
14 MR. CHERNOFF:
I mean, this is the 15 engineering design section, so the intent is that 16 that's speaking about the engineering design process.
17 And when you're done with that process, you're going 18 to either be negligible or acceptable. But, I mean, 19 you're bringing up the point that that's not coming 20 across clearly.
21 MR. FREGONESE:
Yes, that's right.
I 22 don't have NEI 01-01 open here, so I don't know what 23 Section 3.2 says.
24 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes.
25 MR. FREGONESE: Anyway, that's the end of
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 114 my comment.
MR. RAHN: Yes. This is David Rahn again.
So as I stated earlier, any of the discussions regarding qualitative assessments are supposed to be clearly linked to a 50.59 function, and any discussions regarding engineering evaluations are related to the design process. And so at some point, at the conclusion of all the engineering evaluations, you're going to have information that can be used to feed into the qualitative assessment. So in the flow of this document, I can see that it doesn't stand out to everyone the way we thought it would, so that's 13 something we'll take into consideration.
14 MR. FREGONESE: Thank you.
15 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you, Vic.
Okay.
I 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 think we're ready to move to page 17.
Okay.
I propose we move on to 18.
MR. HERNANDEZ: So just to emphasize a comment that I made earlier -- sorry. This is John Hernandez from Palo Verde. If you look at the first bullet under the NEI quote, it states identification of potential system-level failures and undesirable behavior, but earlier we talked about component-level failures. So to me, there needs to be some clarification, potentially some clarification here on
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the level of analysis of a failure analysis.
2 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. Thank you, John.
3 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. The 4
first paragraph on page 18, you talk in the middle of 5
the paragraph about software CCF potentially reducing 6
redundancy, separation, or independence. There is no 7
NRC criteria that requires consideration of software 8
CCF in the context of redundancy, separation, or 9
independence. You can have the same software, and you 10 can have a CCF, and you don't adversely affect 11 redundancy, separation, or independence.
Those are 12 different criteria because common cause failure, when 13 you have those other things, there's a beyond design 14 basis event.
15 I think we're mixing things together here.
16 We're mixing deterministic criteria for design basis 17 events with beyond design basis.
18 MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic Fregonese. I 19 have a similar comment. One of the reasons I thought 20 about this is the ending sentence to this paragraph 21 talks about the CCF vulnerabilities considered to have 22 such a low risk.
So, once again, we have adequacy 23 based on risk when we're talking about deterministic 24 criteria, like separation, in a sentence with software 25 failure. I'm not sure what you're trying to get to
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here because the following sections are just quotes 2
out of NEI 01-01, so I'm trying to figure out what the 3
punch line is for this section. What are we supposed 4
to take away from this?
5 MR. SCAROLA:
This is Ken again.
The 6
problem I'm having is that you can reach a conclusion 7
of adequate redundancy, adequate separation, and 8
adequate independence even if there is a potential for 9
a software CCF. That's what BTP 7-19 says. You just 10 have to analyze that CCF as a beyond design basis 11 condition. It doesn't reduce any of those independent 12 attributes.
13 MR. CHERNOFF: All right. Okay. Let's 14 move to 19.
15 MR. SCAROLA: Excuse me. Before you go on 16 to 19, the last section, the last paragraph on page 18 17 talks about a transient that could challenge safety 18 systems.
I think it's equally important that we 19 recognize that the transients that have never been 20 analyzed are the ones that we're also very concerned 21 about. Whether they challenge the safety systems or 22 not, we don't know because we haven't analyzed them.
23 So we should, so any place where we talk about 24 vulnerability, especially in this paragraph, we really 25 should be talking about unanalyzed conditions.
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MR. CHERNOFF:
And the paragraph you're 2
referring to is a quote, right?
3 MR. SCAROLA:
It doesn't have quotes 4
around it, but maybe it is.
5 MR. CHERNOFF: I just want to make sure 6
we're on the same place you are. Towards the bottom 7
of the page above an indented paragraph where it says 8
"NEI 01-01 Section 5 also states," and then --
9 MR. SCAROLA: Right.
10 MR. CHERNOFF: -- the paragraph starts "a 11 variety;" is that correct?
12 MR. SCAROLA:
Yes.
And then the last 13 words are "or transients that challenge safety 14 systems."
15 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes, yes.
16 MR. SCAROLA: And what I'm trying to point 17 out is this is one of the shortcomings in NEI 01-01 is 18 it fails to address on the analyzed transients that 19 you don't know challenge or don't challenge or just 20 unanalyzed.
21 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. All right. That is 22 literally the last sentence on page 18, so let's go to 23
- 19.
24 MR. HERNANDEZ:
This is John Hernandez 25 from Palo Verde.
I had a question on the last
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paragraph of the 5.2.1 just above the title 2
"dependability evaluation."
3 MR. CHERNOFF: Got it.
4 MR. HERNANDEZ: It says modifications that 5
employ effective design attributes and features such 6
as internal or external systematic diversity, and I 7
was wondering could we get a clarification of what 8
internal systematic diversity was? Because it wasn't 9
readily apparent to me.
10 MR. RAHN: Yes, thank you, John. This is 11 David Rahn. I think Vic asked a question about that 12 earlier, so we'll try to come up with an appropriate 13 way to handle that.
14 MR. HERNANDEZ: Thank you.
15 MR. CHERNOFF: Other items on page 19?
16 MR. FREGONESE:
Yes, this is Vic 17 Fregonese. We use the term -- I'm trying to find it.
18 I lost it. We use the term simple and then indented 19 paragraph above is talking about simple software 20 architecture systems that are sufficiently simple. Is 21 this a quote? Why --
22 MR. CHERNOFF:
Yes, it is a quote from 23 Section 4.1.2.
24 MR. FREGONESE:
Okay.
Yes, I'm not so 25 sure. I'm trying to think whether simplicity appears
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in the table.
I guess it still does.
What simple 2
actually means, simple, in some people's views, means 3
that it's 100-percent testable. We've talked about 4
the 100-percent testable criteria.
So I guess my 5
comment is what's our current view of what simple is 6
maybe defined somewhere else in the document?
7 MR. MORTON: Well, it's in Table 1.
8 MR. FREGONESE: Yes, I couldn't hear that 9
comment.
10 MR. MORTON:
I'm sorry.
Vic, this is 11 Wendell Morton.
It's referenced in Table 1 on the 12 fourth bullet under design attributes.
13 MR. FREGONESE: I'm looking. Right. So 14 my comment still kind of stands that if the only 15 definition, we may have another definition of simple.
16 Table 1 is not a requirement, it's just an example.
17 But simple can't just be 100-percent testing. So I 18 think my comment still stands. We'll have to figure 19 out whether simple, I don't know if anybody else has 20 any comments about that.
21 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
22 MR. FREGONESE:
This is Vic Fregonese.
23 I'm going to take it as a quote and move on. Thank 24 you.
25 MR. CHERNOFF:
I heard someone try to
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break in there.
2 MR. HERNANDEZ:
Yes, sorry.
John 3
Hernandez from Palo Verde.
Another clarifying 4
question on the second paragraph of page 19.
The 5
second line states that non-safety related designs 6
have been assumed in a safety analysis to remain 7
functional, and my question was is there a timing 8
aspect to the word "remains?" So for instance, in my 9
safety analysis, there's a part -- I'll give you a 10 very practical example. There's a small delay between 11 my feedwater isolation valves going closed when my 12 main steam isolation valves go closed. But if I were 13 to have a system that combined these in such a way 14 that they went closed at the same time or the timing 15 of that closure were to change, is that timing part of 16 this remain functional? I know that's maybe a safety-17 related example in a non-safety question. Hopefully, 18 you get the meaning of my question.
19 MR. RAHN: Yes, this is David Rahn. So my 20 thinking on this one is that the analysis identifies 21 specific systems that either function properly or are 22 misfunction. And there are other systems in the plant 23 that aren't even mentioned in the analysis and that 24 might have some commonality to the system that is part 25 of an analysis. And the assumption being that those
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other systems, because they weren't even mentioned, 2
there's an implicit assumption that they're still 3
functioning during that event.
4 MR. HERNANDEZ: So I think I understand.
5 So the remain functional is throughout the event, not 6
in the immediate initiation of the event?
7 MR. RAHN: Correct.
8 MR. CHERNOFF: This is Harold. I would 9
add maybe a little further.
It's as used or as 10 assumed in the analysis as far as the duration. So 11 it's not trying to add a duration or a concept of 12 mission time or anything like that. It's trying to 13 match up with what was analytically done.
14 MR. CARTE: And the point is -- Norbert 15 Carte. The point is be careful about violating the 16 assumptions of your accident analysis.
That's a 17 different way of saying it.
18 MR. CHERNOFF: And maybe that would be a 19 better way because -- yes, yes, because that's what is 20 trying to be brought to attention here is that in some 21 accident analysis things are explicitly very obviously 22 credited and used and sometimes not so much in other 23 analyses.
24 MR. HERNANDEZ:
And I would very much 25 agree with that and perhaps we can take this
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discussion as the comment to somehow clarify that.
2 MR. CHERNOFF: Yes, got it. Thank you.
3 Okay. Other things on 19? All right. We will boldly 4
got to page 20.
5 MR. HERB:
This is Ray Herb, Southern 6
Nuclear.
I hate to skip ahead in page but 5.2.3, 7
defense-in-depth analysis, the second paragraph says, 8
"Although a formal D3 analysis is not required for 9
non-protection systems, a defense-in-depth analysis 10 should also be considered for complex digital 11 modifications of non-protection systems to determine 12 the impact of any new potential vulnerabilities." I 13 don't think that whole paragraph has any place in this 14 document. It's not a requirement to do that, and we 15 certainly are not going to provide a diverse control 16 system or modifications to our control system that has 17 digital. I think it's inappropriate.
18 And in the paragraph above that, it talks 19 about the defense-in-depth for protection for reactor 20 trip and ESFAS, once again just obfuscating the 21 document purpose because we've already stated that 22 reactor trip and ESFAS are not included in the scope 23 of this. So I'm not sure what value this defense-in-24 depth analysis section even has beyond just a simple 25 statement or a paragraph that says...
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MR. CHERNOFF: Could you repeat the last 2
part of what you said?
3 MR. HERB: I'm not sure what the value of 4
having this section here is other than beyond a few 5
sentences that state that you can use defense-in-depth 6
analysis to determine whether or not you have 7
sufficient diversity. Again, the sufficient diversity 8
typically is in response to reactor trip and ESFAS and 9
not to control systems, and so, since we've excluded 10 reactor trip and ESFAS and we've now included control 11 systems, I'm not sure why we have this section at all, 12 especially related to high-quality non-safety systems.
13 MR. CAVES: And, in fact, you know, what 14 I'm saying is that --
15 MR. CHERNOFF: John Caves from Duke.
16 MR. CAVES: John Caves, Duke Energy. If 17 it is to be included, one of the things that would be 18 useful is clearly limiting its scope and not expanding 19 it.
20 MR. CHERNOFF:
Not expanding beyond 21 protection systems.
22 MR. CAVES: Beyond the protection systems.
23 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
24 MR. CAVES: But there, again, based on the 25 fact that, you know, protection systems are not, you
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know, precluded on the front end, then you need them.
2 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. I have 3
a comment in the same paragraph but from a different 4
perspective. As defined in BTP 7-19, a D3 analysis 5
has two parts. The first part is an assessment of CCF 6
vulnerabilities, and then the second part is 7
determining your defenses against those 8
vulnerabilities.
Well, to say that a formal D3 9
analysis is not required really contradicts everything 10 that this says because the first part documenting your 11 vulnerabilities is required by this RIS. So it is a 12 formal requirement for non-protection systems for 13 everything that's covered by this RIS.
14 So I think the problem is really the 15 ambiguity in the label D3 analysis. If you break D3 16 analysis into its two parts, the first part is clearly 17 required to be formally documented here. So I think 18 we just have contradictions here that have to be 19 fixed.
20 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
21 MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic Fregonese. I 22 have a comment on the paragraph above, still on page 23
- 20. This sufficiently dependable concept that's been 24 introduced here, and I know it's in quotes so I think 25 it's just that it's documented, the last sentence in
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the second full paragraph on this page says, it has 2
the words "staff believes that judgments regarding the 3
quality design process" and so forth.
So I'm not 4
sure, I know it's important to understand what the 5
staff believes, but I think what it's trying to say is 6
that use engineering judgment, that you still have to 7
consider design features and attributes, I can't just 8
use quality in operating experience because for a non-9 safety systems, you know, I could add some design 10 features, but I may not want to do that. So I'm not 11 sure what the last sentence, how I should take that, 12 what I'm reading.
I believe you understand my 13 comment.
14 MR. CHERNOFF: And I guess we would point 15 out the sufficient dependability is in quotes.
It 16 comes out of 01-01.
17 MR. FREGONESE: Okay. That's fine.
18 MR. CHERNOFF:
Yes, it's just a minor 19 clarification and doesn't affect your comment really.
20 MR. FREGONESE: Yes. And the other thing 21 is the staff believes or the staff's view is on 22 judgment.
I made a previous comment on that, so 23 that's the end of my comment here. Thank you.
24 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you. Okay. I think 25 we need to move on to page 21. This is really just a
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very short section.
2 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. Item 3
B of this paragraph on page 21 gets back to the issue 4
of allowing best estimate methods. The only way that 5
you can prevent crediting high non-safety systems is 6
if you consider the event a beyond design basis event 7
allowing best estimate methods. If you do not allow 8
best estimate methods, you cannot take credit for non-9 safety systems because if it's a design basis event it 10 must be mitigated by safety systems by definition.
11 That's what safety systems do, and those are the rules 12 for demonstrating mitigation of design basis events.
13 So we have this serious contradiction in 14 this RIS where we're not allowing best estimates but, 15 yet, later on we're saying you can take credit for 16 non-safety. We've got to fix this contradiction and 17 permit the use of best estimate methods.
18 And my second comment relates to Item C.
19 We state here that manual action cannot be credited if 20 they were not credited in the original FSAR. Well, 21 what's the basis of that? That is a really powerful 22 statement that's going to squash digital upgrades 23 significantly because manual actions are significant 24 in mitigating CTFsCCFs.
What's the basis of that?
There 25 is certainly no basis in SECY-93-087 or in BTP 7-19.
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MR. CHERNOFF: Now, this gets back, that 2
part of this discussion gets back to this distinction 3
between your licensing and design basis, your FSAR 4
analysis and what can be used and credited in there.
5 And there may be some confusion here with regard to 6
that and D3 assessments that are done to, if you 7
would, accept a digital approach. But that's the C 8
paragraph is related, was intended to be related to 9
the licensing design basis of record.
10 MR. SCAROLA:
Well, clearly, we take 11 credit for manual actions for design basis events for 12 13 MR. CHERNOFF:
But those are previously 14 reviewed and approved and staff has been very clear 15 over history that manual actions cannot be done under 16 50.59 outside of the small scope that we've identified 17 in information notice with special controls.
But 18 there may be some mixing of, in this paragraph, of 19 licensing basis analysis methods and D3 discussion 20 that --
21 MR. SCAROLA:
Well, I would certainly 22 agree that new manual actions could not be credited 23 for a design basis event.
But if you're in beyond 24 design basis event, we have many instances, many 25 precedences for crediting manual actions that the
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staff has not reviewed. We've credited them for fire, 2
for SBO. There's a lot of history here.
3 So I would take issue -- you know, I think 4
this all gets back to the problem of are we in design 5
basis or beyond design basis space.
If we're in 6
beyond design basis space, I think the rules are 7
entirely different than what you're describing here.
8 And, again, I view this as a showstopper.
9 If you're looking to expand the application of digital 10 technology, this is going to put a damper on it. It's 11 not going to expand it at all.
12 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
Thank you, Ken.
13 Let's move on to page 22.
14 MR. HERB: Wait, wait. This is Ray Herb, 15 Southern Nuclear. I would like to expand upon, like, 16 Ken's comment on Section C. I would like to reiterate 17 my earlier assumption that I think parts of this 18 document step upon Appendix D going forward and I know 19 that none of this can be predicated on the assumptions 20 of what happens in Appendix D, but I would caution us 21 to not go forward with something that may counter the 22 things that we do in Appendix D.
Specifically, in 23 Criterion 6, we talk about new FMEAs may be required, 24 and so part of that, in answering question six to get 25 to the higher level safety analysis, we would be
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necessarily possibly crediting some manual actions.
2 That would be allowed if that were to go forward, and 3
so it's basically --
4 MR. CHERNOFF:
You're talking about if 5
Appendix D were to go forward?
6 MR. HERB: Yes.
7 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
8 MR. HERB: And so I would caution us to 9
not put these types of words in there that may 10 counter-man that and maybe even wait on this document 11 until we get a little further clarification on the 12 Criterion 6 part, which is what this really goes to.
13 The defense-in-depth analysis really, I guess, credits 14 new accidents.
15 MR. SCAROLA: Just to expand a little bit 16
-- this is Ken Scarola again -- there's a big 17 difference between using manual actions on equipment 18 that the staff has never reviewed. But if the staff 19 has reviewed the equipment and the equipment has 20 always had the capability for manual actions, then, in 21 essence, the staff has reviewed those manual actions 22 because the equipment has the capability.
- Now, 23 whether we actually credited those manual actions is 24 a different story, but if the equipment has been 25 reviewed by the staff then I see no basis for
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excluding the manual actions --
2 MR. CHERNOFF:
There is a distinct and 3
important difference between things that are looked at 4
and things that are credited. But I really feel we 5
need to move on.
We only have an hour left, and I 6
would like to save a little time for some general 7
discussion at the end. So page 22, please.
8 MR. HERNANDEZ:
This is John Hernandez 9
from Palo Verde. I have a question at the very bottom 10 of the page.
11 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
12 MR. HERNANDEZ:
It says we could 13 potentially satisfy 50.59 criteria using an 14 alternative approach, and it gives an example of an 15 alternative approach is a deterministic conclusion 16 that your likelihood is less than comparable failures 17 in the EFSAR.
And my question is what does this 18 deterministic conclusion look like?
My confusion 19 comes from the fact that we've stated previously in 20 this document that quantitative analysis is not 21 possible for digital system, and, if the qualitative 22 analysis was supposed to get you to this point and 23 didn't, what is the alternative analysis method?
24 MR. CHERNOFF:
Dave, correct me if I'm 25 wrong here, I thought our thought in this regard was
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
131 to not foreclose future advances or possibilities that deterministic methods could address some things down the road, even if we don't currently have that capability?
MR. RAHN: Yes, so we're trying to open the door for things other than 100-percent testing and required diversity to be used as means for directly addressing CCF in a way in which you could reach a sufficiently low determination.
10 MR. HERNANDEZ: Thanks. I understand now 11 and agree.
Thanks.
12 MR. CHERNOFF: Additional thoughts on this 13 page, which is page 22?
14 MR. CAVES:
Yes, just based on that 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 information, you might consider that instead of saying deterministic conclusion that likelihood is less than possible to just go ahead as deterministic conclusion that also supports sufficiently low likelihood or keeps consistency in --
MR. CHERNOFF: With the other terminology we're using? Okay. Thanks, John.
MR. CAVES: That was John Caves of Duke Energy. Sorry.
MR. FREGONESE: The Section 5.2.3, my kind of takeaway is that, for the majority of modifications
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that are being done, you have to ask yourself how does 2
this apply in the context of the rest of the 3
modifications we're doing.
And if it does, we get 4
kind of mixing and matching between acceptance 5
criteria and methods that isn't even called D3 and 6
what's the basis for it, so I think some more thought 7
needs to be put into this 5.2.3 section.
8 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you for that.
9 MR. SCAROLA:
This is Ken Scarola.
In 10 previous sections, we talk about RPS and ESFAS and 11 other things of equal importance. On this page, we 12 exclusively discuss RPS and ESFAS. I don't understand 13 the -- inconsistency. I think we've got to clarify it.
Does this 14 page equally apply to the other things of equal 15 importance to RPS and ESFAS, or is it only intended --
16 MR. CHERNOFF: Ken, are you --
17 MR. SCAROLA: -- RPS and ESFAS?
18 MR. CHERNOFF: Ken, are you talking about 19 the paragraph that starts "for RPS and ESFAS" or some 20 other --
21 MR. SCAROLA:
I'm talking about every 22 instance of RPS and ESFAS on this page.
23 MR. CHERNOFF: Well, a number of them are 24 quotes, so I'm just trying to narrow down.
So the 25 first section is all quotes out of 01-01. Then the
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first paragraph where we, in something that's being 2
written uniquely here is right after that quote for 3
4 MR. SCAROLA:
Well, let me give you an 5
example.
When we get to the third paragraph, the 6
third paragraph talks about RPS and ESFAS. Then in 7
the middle of paragraph, it says for other systems.
8 I think that would imply that anything else that's not 9
RPS and ESFAS you can do these other things.
10 MR. CHERNOFF: That was what was intended.
11 MR. SCAROLA: That leaves out the systems 12 that are equally important to RPS and ESFAS, such as 13 load sequences. So that's -- I'm trying to understand 14 the scope of what we mean by other systems compared to 15 what we said in previous sections.
16 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
Thank you.
I 17 understand that. Okay, all right. And just to draw 18 people's attention in that paragraph, that for RPS and 19 ESFAS, this is one of the areas where we're drawing on 20 the current BTP, not the one that 01-01 was pinioned 21 on.
22 MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic Fregonese. We 23 had a discussion early on about the inclusion of BTP 24 7-19 information in this document, and I thought that 25 where we wound up was that BTP 7-19 doesn't apply the
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activities that are done under 50.59, that it applies 2
activities that are done under license amendment and 3
that's what the guidance was intended for. But just 4
getting back to my original comment about this section 5
about what criteria applies to what systems or what 6
functions, and I'm not going to repeat the comment but 7
I think that --
8 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay.
9 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. At the 10 bottom of the page, you have a footnote that says an 11 example of an alternative approach. Well, this is not 12 an alternative approach. This is your definition of 13 sufficiently low. Therefore, this is a pre-requisite, 14 not an alternate. You can't --
15 MR. CHERNOFF: This section is not talking 16 about sufficiently low. This section is talking about 17 approaches you might use to disposition identified 18 failures, and it's presenting some options that could 19 be used.
So, again, we're in the design section.
20 We're not in the qualitative assessment to support 21 50.59 write-up, per se. And what's intended here is 22 to provide that here are some step-wise approaches 23 that could be used in the design process.
24 MR. SCAROLA: Yes, I understand. But your 25 second bullet says "satisfies 50.59 using an alternate
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approach."
Well, an alternate approach from what?
2 From what is described in this document, right?
3 MR. CHERNOFF:
This is a discussion we 4
just had a few moments ago with Mr. Caves from Duke, 5
and what we were clarifying in that discussion was 6
that there may be other approaches, we wanted to leave 7
the door open that things that are not known now could 8
become viable in the...
9 MR. SCAROLA: Yes, I understand. I don't 10 think I'm explaining myself well. I agree with John 11 Caves. There are other approaches to 50.59. But the 12 approach that you describe in this document is 13 predicated on the conclusion that failure likelihood 14 is less than comparable failures in the FSAR. That's 15 not a good example of an alternate because that is 16 what is described in the RIS. If you want to --
17 MR. CHERNOFF: It's not being given here 18 as an alternate. That is --
19 MR. SCAROLA: An example of an alternate.
20 That's what the footnote says.
21 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. We're going to have 22 to, time-wise, move on.
23 MR. CARTE: Norbert Carte. I think the 24 distinction is between the method to get to the answer 25 and what the right answer is. I think the criteria is
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the same however you get there.
So what we've 2
described in the body is how to arrive at a particular 3
answer.
If you can get that same answer in a 4
different way, that's what we were trying to say.
5 MR. CHERNOFF: There's no way an intent 6
here that a qualitative assessment is the only 7
possible way to answer the 50.59 questions so that you 8
reach a conclusion that prior approval is not 9
necessary.
There are certainly possibly other 10 options. This is one way that we see as workable.
11 MR. CARTE: But I think we understand how 12 that quote could be ambiguous, how that phrase could 13 be ambiguous.
14 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. Page 23.
15 MR. SCAROLA:
I'm sorry.
This is Ken 16 Scarola.
In the middle of this page, you refer to 17 Section 5.1.4 of NEI 01-01, and you say you can rely 18 on existing backups.
Well, this gets back to the 19 issue of best estimates.
If you're using best 20 estimates, you can rely on existing backups. Backups 21 don't provide the same protection as the design bases 22 systems.
But if you don't allow best estimate 23 methods, then you can't rely on backups. So, again, 24 we have a contradiction and, again, that will put a 25 significant damper on -- and it's a contradiction to
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NEI 01-01. NEI 01-01 says you can rely on backups.
2 But now we're saying but you can't use best estimate 3
methods, so you can't rely on backups.
It's not 4
hanging together.
5 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
Anything else on 6
page 23? Page 24. I appreciate everybody's patience 7
and endurance. It's a long path we're on here for a 8
day altogether, so hang in there. As soon as we get 9
done with the document, we'll take a short break and 10 then come back and talk about some generalities.
11 MR. HERNANDEZ: John Hernandez from Palo 12 Verde. On page 24, the two bullets, first two bullets 13 on the page, the word postulated. I think the intent 14 may be to use something like credible or likely 15 because I think just because it's postulated that a 16 new --
17 MR. CHERNOFF:
Yes, understand exactly.
18 We probably won't use likely because we're trying to 19 minimize the use of that term but understand the 20 point.
21 MR. HERNANDEZ:
And then the second 22 question/comment I have is, again, on the use of 23 communications among two or more different non-safety 24 related SSCs.
25 MR. CHERNOFF: Help me with where you are
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exactly.
2 MR. HERNANDEZ: The first bullet.
3 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay, okay.
4 MR. HERNANDEZ:
I've got two more 5
questions on this first bullet. So the first one is 6
with respect to communication because it's been listed 7
several times in the document, and I'm wondering can 8
we get a clarification of what communications means in 9
non-safety systems?
10 And then an add-on to that is, if you read 11 the sentence in its entirety, there's a little bit of 12 a mismatch.
So the sentence says "postulated new 13 failure modes do not result in concurrent failures,"
14 and then it lists some things and then says "such as 15 combining of different design functions that were 16 previously separate." But to me, combining different 17 design functions is not a result of a concurrent 18 failure. If you just take a second to read the whole 19 sentence, it sort of, the beginning and the end, I 20 think, don't quite match.
21 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
Appreciate that.
22 You had an additional thought, I think, also.
23 MR. HERNANDEZ: That was it. Those were 24 the two, the communications and then the sentence --
25 MR. CHERNOFF: And then the structure of
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the sentence. Yes, okay.
2 MR. HERNANDEZ: Thank you.
3 MR. CHERNOFF:
Thank you.
All right.
4 Page 25? I'm sorry. Anything else on page 24 before 5
we move to 25?
6 MR. CARTE:
I had a 7
question on this communications.
I almost don't 8
understand the question. So if you have two analog 9
systems that are at the plant and then you replaced it 10 with two digital systems and then you communicate, use 11 digital communication between the two systems, do they 12 have the same level of independence? Do you believe 13 they have the same level or that connection between 14 the two systems in no way affects any constructed 15 independence between the systems or what is it about 16 communications that you believe doesn't somehow affect 17 independence? This was for John Hernandez.
18 MR. HERNANDEZ:
Oh, sorry.
Yes, so my 19 question was just to get a clarification on what is 20 meant by communications. So, for instance, let's say 21 you have multiple SSCs on the same network that we're 22 sending communications to a plant computer system, for 23 instance. Is this considered that all the systems are 24 now communicating with each other even though they may 25 not be utilizing any data from different systems, but,
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because they're on the same network and they both use 2
the same communication protocols and they're both 3
communicating with a common system, is this now --
4 MR. CARTE: Right. Norbert Carte. So I 5
guess you've got grades of independence, and there are 6
more and less robust ways to construct networks and 7
segment networks so that the failure of either the 8
network or a broadcast storm doesn't affect more than 9
two components. And then if you put everything in the 10 plant on one segment, you're obviously going to have 11 problems.
12 So there's various levels of robustness in 13 communications that can be implemented. But just the 14 fact that you have implemented a connection that 15 didn't previously exist implies some sort of need to 16 evaluate that you didn't create a malfunction that 17 didn't exist previously.
18 MR. HERNANDEZ: So the connection may have 19 existed before in an analog form and now exists in a 20 digital form.
21 MR. RAHN: Well, if it's talking to the 22 plant computer, is it still, did you replace the 23 analog communications with a digital form of 24 communications?
25 MR. HERNANDEZ:
And there are instances
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where, for instance, let's say a transmitter signal 2
goes into one system in an analog form and then in 3
analog form is then sent from that system to a second 4
system, but now that communication is turned into a 5
digital communication rather than an analog, is this 6
different?
7 So I'm not trying to debate whether it's 8
correct or incorrect or we should do it differently.
9 I'm just trying to understand or maybe get a little 10 more discussion or clarification in this document as 11 to what is meant by communication.
12 MR. RAHN:
Yes, I think we should have 13 inserted the word digital in front of the word 14 communication.
15 MR. CARTE:
I think we understand the 16 concern, but, honestly, there's a different mechanism 17 involved in that, too, and a lot of times when you do 18 digital you have more than one signal per wire. So 19 there's a lot of different things that go on. It's 20 not just an abstract analog to digital in most cases.
21 So if we understand the point...
22 MR. MORTON: Wendell Morton. Just to top 23 this point off, the context by which we reference 24 communications or in digital communications is simply 25 to identify one type of shared resource that could be
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between one or more SSCs. It wasn't intended to bring 2
any detailed information on whether you have one-way 3
communication or bi-direction of communication between 4
different nodes on a network, it was just to highlight 5
that's one form of shared resource that could 6
facilitate a fault or failure.
They need to think 7
about considering your engineering violation.
So 8
that's the general context.
9 MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic Fregonese. I 10 think the punch line here is the second bullet. The 11 details in the first bullet don't matter if the second 12 bullet is true, so it doesn't matter because some of 13 this hardware is common in these systems now and it's 14 failing. That's why we're replacing it. As long as 15 you don't in an analyzed condition, it doesn't matter.
16 That's the bottom line.
17 So you can have shared resources.
In 18 fact, shared resources makes a system more reliable, 19 rather than less reliable.
So I think the shared 20 resource communication, I understand what John is 21 saying, there's a broad term.
I think the real 22 acceptance of this would be to make sure that you 23 don't put the plant in a place where it's not been 24 properly analyzed, and that should be the emphasis, 25 not on sharing because, as you know, sharing, in some
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cases, is a way to make systems more reliable.
2 MR. CARTE: All right. Thank you.
3 MR. HERNANDEZ: You know, I'll just add in 4
one small comment, and that's that when I read through 5
this I struggled a lot with the idea of shared 6
resources. And this may sound silly, but I'll give 7
you an example that comes to mind, something like the 8
turbine building grating, right?
So if I have two 9
different systems mounted on the same grating of a 10 turbine building floor, I consider that a shared 11 resource. I know that sounds silly, but the general 12 term shared resource I feel brought around a lot of 13 questions to me as I was reading this document, 14 communications being one of the bigger ones.
15 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you.
16 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. I have 17 a problem with that same paragraph, the one that 18 starts "postulated new failure modes," but for a 19 different reason. My problem is that this paragraph, 20 the words concurrent failures and shared resources 21 implies that we have to consider concurrent failures 22 of multiple things.
This should say concurrent 23 malfunctions due to a failure in a single shared 24 resource.
We don't have to consider the current 25 failures and shared resources. We have to consider
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concurrent malfunctions due to a failure of a single 2
shared resource.
3 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you, Ken.
4 MR. SCAROLA: And my second comment is, in 5
any discussion of shared resources, software should 6
come out.
The software is not a shared resource, 7
unless, of course, you also share the hardware. If 8
you share the hardware that the software resides in, 9
well, then you have a shared software resource. But 10 it's different when the software resides in different 11 hardware. Then it's not a shared resource. Then we 12 have the potential for a design defect leading to now 13 multiple concurrent malfunctions, but not a shared 14 resource.
And the reason that's significant is a 15 failure of a shared resource is a single failure that 16 we need to treat as a design basis event. A design 17 defect in software that resides in multiple places we 18 don't need to treat as a design basis event. It's a 19 beyond design basis event.
20 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
Let's move on.
21 Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
22 MR. SCAROLA: I was just saying I'd like 23 you to scrub the document and make sure software is 24 not described in the context of a shared resource.
25 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. Let's please move on
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to Table 2 on page 25.
So this is presenting an 2
outline of engineering documentation. It is -- I'll 3
just anticipate some of the questions.
Obviously, 4
there is not an intent that each of the bullets and 5
sub-bullets always need to be addressed.
It's 6
basically intended to create a think through this kind 7
of list and consider.
And, of course, there's no 8
requirement here. It is just one way of looking at 9
this.
10 There's a couple of pages of table, but 11 any thoughts on the table or specific comments on the 12 table in its entirety?
13 MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic Fregonese. I 14 think we're not going to repeat all the comments we 15 just heard about, but there are terms in here, like 16 software, shared common hardware, take those all in 17 the context of the previous comment.
18 MR. CHERNOFF:
Understood.
Thank you.
19 Anyone else on the table?
20 MR. SCAROLA:
This is Ken Scarola.
ON 21 page 26, you talk about annunciating failures, I'm 22 sorry, annunciating failures on misbehaviors. Well, 23 misbehaviors don't actually require annunciators.
24 They can often be detected without annunciators just 25 through the transients that they cause.
There are
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 146 words in BTP 7-19 that talk about self-announcing.
Those are the right words. Self-announcing can be many different ways.
It doesn't require an annunciator.
MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. I'd like us to move to Section 6 which was just talking about, focused right in on the qualitative assessments and the documentation for the 50.59 evaluation, and we'll entertain any thoughts on that writeup.
MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic Fregonese. We had, there's a lot of documentation that's required as a result of NEI 01-01, a lot questions that have to be answered. I think my view of all this is that this would be kind of a stand-alone document, and then the 50.59 would reference this in terms of qualitative 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 assessment. You'd wind up with a 100-page --
MR. CHERNOFF: No, no, and this is exactly the point we want to try to make sure we're clear on is so this paragraph is just talking about what you would want to see in your actual 50.59 evaluation.
And so in the discussion what you see there is there is a lot of other discussion in 01-01 and in this RIS.
Obviously, none of that stuff is a requirement. And what we are trying to convey is a little bit of information specific to the qualitative assessments in
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the middle paragraph and that the overall standard of 2
how much information needs to be in the 50.59 3
evaluation itself is really not changing, save you 4
need to have a good clear explanation of how you 5
reached your qualitative assessment conclusion.
6 So the message we're trying to convey here 7
is we're not creating a new standard of 50.59 8
documentation. We would not expect or desire to see, 9
like you referred to, a 100-page 50.59 evaluation.
10 But same standard that's been used since the rule 11 changed in 2000 or 1999 that someone can follow the 12 logic and would be able to reach similar conclusion 13 with the information that's there and also clarifying 14 everything does not need to actually be in the 50.59 15 evaluation. It's still okay to reference things, but 16 we ask that, if you reference, it's most helpful to 17 include specific location of that information.
18 And just so everybody is clear, the point 19 is sometimes people reference a mod package and a mod 20 package may be 250 - 300 pages, and it saves your 21 independent reviewers and our staff a tremendous 22 amount of time to just, when you're referencing, it's 23 right in front of you, focus in and just page, 24 section, you know, yes, yes. That's just a, I mean, 25 that's a suggested approach. Does that help a little
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bit?
2 MR. FREGONESE: Yes, thank you.
3 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
Anything else on 4
Section 6?
Okay.
Let's do this.
I appreciate 5
everybody working through this. It's been a long day.
6 It's 12:25 by my clock. Let's take ten minutes, take 7
another break, and come back, and I guess I would 8
specifically ask people to kind of think about if 9
there are any generalities and any thoughts about 10 moving forward that you want to add to what's already 11 been said.
I mean, we'll have an actual record of 12 everything that's been said, so we don't need to 13 repeat everything, but kind of maybe take it to the 14 5,000-foot level when we come back and have a short 15 discussion for the rest of the time.
16 Okay. Thank you. So let's be back in ten 17 minutes. That would be 12:35 by this clock. Thank you.
18 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 19 the record at 12:25 p.m. and went back on the record 20 at 12:36 p.m.)
21 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay.
Thank
- you, 22 everybody.
I appreciate everybody being timely in 23 coming back.
So as I said on my way in to Jared, 24 let's try to finish strong. And so I want to kind of 25 open things up for more generalized thoughts that
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folks have, and, you know, I think feel free to 2
include recommendations. I think that's fair game.
3 Jared?
4 MR. HANSON:
This is Jared Hanson with 5
NEI. I do have a general comment I'd like to make 6
after everything that we've heard today. So just to 7
reiterate what was said earlier, we've only had two to 8
three days to look at this, and, as you can conclude 9
from this meeting, there are a lot of significant 10 comments that stakeholders have made on the document.
11 And you made the comment of finishing strong, and, to 12 that point, I think we have an opportunity to do that 13 because I think what we've been through in the last 14 few days, particularly with this, it shows kind of the 15 challenges that we've been experiencing in digital 16 I&C.
17 This is supposed to be what hopefully in 18 the near term will be our first real major milestone 19 in digital I&C and producing usable guidance for the 20 industry. And what we don't want to happen is for the 21 future MPs we have coming, we have Appendix D, we have 22 NEI 16-16, ISG-6, we don't want this to create kind of 23 a shadow or for industry stakeholders and even the NRC 24 to lose confidence in this process. And if we turn 25 around and we push this RIS out just because we're so
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anxious and we have a need and there's a lot of 2
pressure to get something finished and get something 3
across the finish line, this could potentially hurt us 4
in the long run.
5 So I think we have an opportunity right 6
now to stop, look at what we're doing, determine how 7
we should make some changes, and move forward so we 8
can put that confidence back in our process, so we can 9
look at our upcoming objectives with more light.
10 So what I recommend in how we move forward 11 with the RIS is we would like to have a three-week 12 period to produce or to give you further feedback.
13 Also, we'd like to recommend that another public 14 meeting be held to discuss this. Also, based on, I 15 think, a very positive experience we had in the past 16 with the RIS in October I believe it was, we had a 17 public meeting where we did, we took a couple of 18 examples and we tabletopped it. And when we finished 19 with that, we had a lot of confidence in how the RIS 20 was going to work and the fact it was going to work 21 for us.
Now, we've had just a couple of days and 22 we've lost a lot of that certainty. When we schedule 23 that public meeting, let's plan on running those 24 examples through again so before this even gets issued 25 we have that confidence back.
And once we get it,
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we're going to be able to turn around and we're going 2
to be able to use this.
3 MR. CHERNOFF:
So from a meeting 4
perspective, you're suggesting really more, not like 5
this but a working meeting --
6 MR. MORTON: Yes. Similar to what we had 7
August 2nd.
8 MR. MILLER: To work through the examples, 9
is that what you mean?
10 MR. HANSON:
Yes, yes.
So, basically, 11 what we did last time, we ran the examples, we 12 tabletopped it, taking the guidance from the RIS, and 13 saying, okay, here's two scenarios where we would use 14 this. We worked through it and we walked away, yes, 15 this will work, we can use this. I think we need to 16 do that again with the final product that we're going 17 to have so that the NRC, industry, we walk away 18 knowing we're going to produce something that we know 19 the industry can use. That's what we really want. We 20 want that for the RIS, and we want that for every 21 other modernization plan we have going in the IAP.
22 That's how we want all of them to work.
23 MR. CHERNOFF: So what would you suggest 24 with regard how to get to that point? In other words, 25 you know, like you said, there's only been a few days
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to look at this thing and it's changed a lot from the 2
last time we looked at it officially, so what would 3
you suggest as a way to get to a product that would be 4
suitable for that kind of a meeting?
5 MR. HANSON: Sure. So what we're asking 6
for is we need three weeks to get you some quality 7
feedback to help you, from this point, increase the 8
quality of the RIS right now. So how much time do you 9
need to work to incorporate that I think dictate when 10 we would need to schedule the public meeting. So we 11 provide feedback, make the necessary adjustments, and 12 we schedule the public meeting to tabletop those 13 examples of when we feel we're ready.
14 MR. CHERNOFF: It would seem like there 15 might be a need for another face-to-face interaction 16 before that in order to basically potentially, in a 17 public forum, hammer out diverse opinions on 18 particular language.
19 MR. HANSON: I agree with you.
20 MR. CHERNOFF: Because it's hard to do, 21 and you said those comments and we do our best to try 22 to understand and address them, but there's no surety 23 that we've closed that.
24 MR. HANSON:
I think, based on what we 25 heard today, I think that would be a very good idea,
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and I'd like to recommend that.
2 MR. THOMAS: Yes, this is Brian Thomas.
3 Okay. I think I understand, you know, the logic and 4
the scope of the activities going forward.
I was 5
wondering if you --
6 MR. HANSON: Sir, can you speak up or come 7
to the table?
8 MR. THOMAS:
I think I understand very 9
much what you are suggesting going forward.
I was 10 going to ask have you thought at all of what's the 11 time frame that's involved with that? I'm hearing a 12 3D 3-week time frame for you to give us some better
- comments, 13 right?
Beyond this session.
And in my mind, I'm 14 trying to envision what's the time frame involved with 15 the staff incorporating those comments into, you know, 16 the version we're working with.
17 And then the staff, too, has some 18 internal, you know, reviews and concurrences, if you 19 will, that it has to arrive at.
And then what I'm 20 hearing is then we'll have another session or we'll 21 have another face-to-face over what is produced. And 22 then, beyond that, what I'm hearing is that you will 23 then go through some sort of a tabletop, at least work 24 through some components in preparation for a tabletop 25 type workshop type setting. And so in my mind, I'm
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looking at time frames. Have you thought at all --
2 MR. HANSON: Yes. Here's what comes in my 3
mind when you say that.
So we did these tabletops 4
several months ago. We provided our comments, over a 5
hundred comments, several months ago, and it's been 6
five - six months. And just in the last three days of 7
what we've seen, there's a big difference between 8
where we left off and where we're at now, and it's my 9
opinion, my position, that we need to get back to 10 where we were. In that time frame, it seems like the 11 scope of the guidance that's provided in this has 12 expanded, and, based on the comments we're hearing and 13 I think what you will receive from us within the next 14 three weeks can help get us back to that level of 15 confidence.
16 So, yes, of course, it's going to take 17 more time. But the end result I think we need to be 18 focused on is that the industry has guidance that 19 they're ready to use. And I want us to get back to 20 that point.
21 MR. THOMAS: Right, right. And I agree 22 completely, you know. Err on the side of quality and 23 produce a quality document. What I hear you proposing 24 logistically going forward I think will help us get 25 there and would improve quality.
But concurrently
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with that, and I agree with that, concurrently with 2
that, I'm trying to, in my mind, get a sense of what 3
sort of time frame are we talking about to get to an 4
end product?
And, you know, from what I just went 5
through here with my hands and so forth in terms of 6
the time frames, I see easily something on the order 7
of three months, maybe even more.
When I think in 8
terms of three weeks, think in terms of time frame for 9
the staff to digest those comments and incorporate 10 them into, you know, what will be an improved version, 11 then time frame needed for us to then have another 12 face-to-face interaction. Then we'll have something 13 solid in terms of a version that goes through our 14 internal review circuit cycle, if you will, and get, 15 you know, different folks to weigh in on the quality 16 of it, for example, you know, we have to have a legal 17 review of it, we have to make determinations about 18 whether or not there's an OMB review that's needed, 19 etcetera, etcetera.
20 So, you know, I agree, from a quality 21 standpoint, to have something that's usable and it's 22 all done.
That's the ultimate goal here, and it's 23 better to err on the side of having something that 24 both the staff and the industry is in full agreement 25 with and it's implementable and we'll have some good
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2 3
4 5
6 7
8 156 results, but also I'm thinking of what's the time frame involved, and that's why I was asking. Maybe you need some time to think about what that time frame would be.
MR. HANSON: I mean, that's...
MR. THOMAS: But I'm sensing, just based on what you said, easily beyond a two-month time frame, let's put it that way, is what I'm getting out 9
of this and maybe more.
10 MR. BENNER:
This is Eric Benner. And I 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 agree that, you know, you would need to do a little more extensive review to provide the full state of comments. But I felt I heard even from initial comments today a coherence between what some of the fundamental concerns are with the language in the document.
So while I think your comprehensive review may result in more comments, I think there are at least some sort of generic things that came out of this. So I guess my plea would be would it be possible to get the comments in tiers? Could you, in a shorter time frame, say, hey, these are some of the more fundamental or generic concerns we have in the document, and we could get that sooner and we can start working that. And then there's, you know, here
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is where we did the complete scrub, and we see --
2 MR. HANSON: So the first tier, how long 3
are you thinking? When would you need that?
4 MR. BENNER: Well, I'm just proposing the 5
tiers as, you know, a way to not have this be truly 6
sequentially that we do -- that you guys have a time 7
block where we're not doing anything and then we have 8
a time block, I think -- again, I thought I heard from 9
a number of stakeholders comments that had a fair 10 amount of coherence that I think we could sort of, you 11 know, try to summarize and encapsulate and work on and 12 probably, you know, go a long way towards addressing 13 at least the concerns that hit our constituents on 14 first reading of this document. But I'm just throwing 15 that out as a possibility.
16 MR. HANSON: Okay, all right.
17 MR. CHERNOFF: If I could, let's make sure 18 we give others an opportunity to weigh in here. And 19 one overarching thing that we'll have to just think 20 about is, you know, are we in a mode where we have to 21 reconsider a solicitation of comments.
Those are 22 things we'll have to think about.
23 MR. NOLAN:
So I'm Chris Nolan.
I'm 24 Director of Regulatory Affairs for Duke Energy.
25 First, I align very much with NEI's comments, and I'm
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encouraged by, Brian and Eric, your feedback.
2 From our perspective, this is an important 3
issue.
We received the NCB on the SSPS at Harris 4
where the NRC started changing their position through 5
the enforcement process, and we've been following 6
along. There was a comment made during the meeting 7
that we've only been working on the RIS for 11 months, 8
but I think we've been working on the issue for a lot 9
longer.
10 I'm encouraged by the staff's 11 acknowledgment that we're kind of pushing the bounds 12 with the RIS.
We very much view this as guidance 13 that's going to be used by inspectors in the field, 14 and so we would hope that you would take our comments 15 about clarity and brevity to heart because we have a 16 lot of experience dealing with inspectors. And that's 17 where the real issues with this RIS are going to be.
18 And so, you know, I think, in many ways, 19 less is more. I think the staff tried to incorporate 20 all 50.59 about digital where there were other 21 guidance documents and other issues, and I refer to 22 operator manual actions. There was a rulemaking on 23 that that the staff backed away because of the 24 controversy and the disagreements on that. I don't 25 know why we would incorporate it into this document.
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You're just carrying those issues forward. They're 2
understood, they're workable. We've been, you know, 3
executing with operator manual actions for many years.
4 So from our perspective, I think we need to solve the 5
lack of clarity on the digital aspect and not solve 6
50.59 generic issues.
7 Regulatory risk. When we're faced with a 8
modification in the field, we have three options. We 9
can choose a non-digital solution, we can go through 10 50.59, or we can submit a license amendment. Right 11 now, with the regulatory instability, we're not 12 submitting license amendments and we're only applying 13 50.59 in the most basic simple and obvious cases. So 14 this current RIS right here would only 15 institutionalize that impediment and institutionalize 16 that practice going forward.
17 So I heard a lot of discussion about time 18 and, you know, the industry only having three days to 19 review the document, not enough time to get through 20 this during the meeting, how much time -- I don't 21 think time is the issue. We've been dealing with this 22 for years.
I think we need to get success, and I 23 think institutionalizing the problem would only make 24 success harder to achieve.
25 So, you know, Brian, from your standpoint,
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we could notice the next meeting right now and knowing 2
that there would be another one and that would solve, 3
and, Eric, that would address some of your concurrent 4
problems.
So I think the industry is anxious to 5
support and I don't think we would be an impediment in 6
terms of time.
I understand you have noticing and 7
comment periods and process issues that you have to 8
address, but if you want to expedite this dynamic I 9
think you'd...
10 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you.
11 MR. REMER: Jason Remer, NEI. I want to 12 first of all acknowledge and thank all of you guys and 13 others that have been working really hard on this.
14 And anything we said, we are not trying to imperil 15 your honesty and desire to make this better. We all 16 believe that. That's what we're all trying to. We 17 all think that.
18 Now, we've got some problems. We've got 19 a RIS, we got an issue, maybe a little late. But I 20 remind us of what the Commission said, that NRC 21 requirements and guidance should not pose unnecessary 22 impediment to advancement in nuclear applications of 23 digital technologies. We believe right now if this 24 thing came out it would actually be an impediment to 25 us and actually cause great harm to our industry. I
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think we can get this fixed. I think we can address 2
a few issues. Let's make the non-safety thing clear 3
so that's not a worry. Let's kind of tighten up some 4
of the language. I've heard today all the comments.
5 They do kind of come together. I haven't heard the 6
staff say absolutely not, that's a crazy idea.
I 7
heard, like, okay, I understand what you think.
8 It's a very complex issue, right? My dad 9
used to say if it was easy somebody else would have 10 done it, okay? No, here we are today. We've got to 11 fix this, so let's get some time. When is the best 12 time to plant a tree? Yesterday. We needed this. We 13 got guys, we got mods that are out there not getting 14 put in.
Our plants are not getting safer as they 15 could have if we had better guidance.
16 So let's get this done as fast as we can.
17 I'm confident that we can get it done.
Run those 18 examples. If the examples check out, let's issue the 19 sucker. So end of my comments. Thank you.
20 MR. CHERNOFF: I want to make sure we give 21 an opportunity for people on the phone, if somebody 22 wants to bring to bear some thoughts.
23 MR. HERNANDEZ:
This is John Hernandez 24 from Palo Verde. Sorry. This is John Hernandez from 25 Palo Verde.
I wanted to echo a bit of what Jason
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said.
So one thing I've seen today from everyone, 2
from all the folks who have spoken is a significant 3
amount of passion. To me, when I see passion, even 4
sometimes when it's turned against each other, tells 5
me that people care. So seeing the fact that not only 6
the industry but the NRC cares about this issue, to 7
me, as a member of a utility, is extremely important 8
and also uplifting.
It gives me hope that we can 9
solve this in the future.
10 We've been living with the current set of 11 regulations for a while and sort of struggling through 12 them. And so I would just like to throw my hat in the 13 ring behind the idea of getting this right, and I 14 think we can do that.
15 So thank you very much to the folks at the 16 NRC who worked hard on this. Clearly, there's been a 17 lot of work put into it and then also to my peers in 18 the industry for helping us to make sure we get this 19 right. Thank you.
20 MR. CHERNOFF:
Thank you, John.
Other 21 people on the phone, please.
22 PARTICIPANTMR. RIEDL:
I think the document has 23 come a long way, and I do have a concern on what is on 24 my side on the instrumentation. And, you know, I've 25 been involved in several RISs in the past and
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implementing those, and those were very simple RISs.
2 This is what I view as a complex RIS, and, you know, 3
a lot of the discussion today was among industry 4
experts and there was a lot of confusion, differing 5
opinions on what this did and what that did.
6 So when I roll this down to our working-7 level engineers, our working-level engineers at the 8
site, even the NRC inspectors that will be doing the 9
reviews, you know, normally we will roll out the 10 tabletops to that level. The people that actually use 11 this and have to, you know, how can we get their 12 feedback, you know. Doing the tabletop with a bunch 13 of experts is not necessarily the way to do a 14 tabletop. You need the actual users that are going to 15 go forward with this. You know, we're doing this in 16 our new design, standard design processes.
We are 17 using our site engineers to just document this 18 process.
19 So I throw that out there. It's a concern 20 to me on the actual implementation.
21 MR. CHERNOFF:
This is Harold Chernoff.
22 I guess what you said resonates strongly with me with 23 regard to who we involve in the tabletop, and I think 24 back, in some cases, to how we did some of the 25 security tabletops where we made sure we got field
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people, not people that have been fully inculcated 2
necessarily, to make sure that we got a spectrum of 3
people involved. Good observation. I think that's 4
very useful.
5 Other comments? We're about out of time, 6
and I'm afraid the webinar/bridge might terminate, so 7
I want to make sure anybody else on the phone gets an 8
opportunity.
9 MR. CONNELLY: Yes. This is John Connelly 10 with Exelon.
I just want to add on to a couple of 11 comments and try and bring them all together. It's no 12 secret that a lot of our plants are under significant 13 economic pressure, and they may not survive. We're 14 fighting a very harsh economic reality here. And for 15 us to be able to make it through these market 16 conditions, we have to innovate, we absolutely have to 17 innovate.
You know, we've got to be able to apply 18 technologies, and we've got to be able to make the 19 plants more viable. Without that, we're in trouble.
20 So we view this, the work that's being 21 done here on the RIS and the work that's being done 22 under ISG-6 as probably the most critical things for 23 the industry.
This really is going to define our 24 long-term viability.
25 So to amplify a previous, an earlier
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comment, you know, I'm much less concerned about 2
getting it fast than I am about getting it right 3
because this really is a lynchpin of what we're going 4
to have to do going forward. We've absolutely got to 5
get this correct.
6 MR. CHERNOFF: Thanks, John.
7 MR. SCAROLA: This is Ken Scarola. I'd 8
like to add a comment. Throughout my comments, I've 9
pointed out inconsistencies internal to this document 10 and also inconsistencies between this RIS and existing 11 NRC guidance. These inconsistencies create different 12 guidance for operating plants and new plants, and that 13 difference in guidance is directly contrary to the 14 Commissioner's direction in the SRM, the SECY-16-0070.
15 So I hope we do not pursue this path. I 16 hope we can find common guidance that works for both 17 new and operating plants because, in the longer term, 18 we are creating a much bigger debacle if we have 19 inconsistent guidance.
20 And, of course, you know, I spoke about it 21 many times, not the least of these inconsistencies is 22 the preclusion of best estimate methods. That is a 23 cornerstone of dealing with common cause failure on 24 new plants. There's a good technical basis for it.
25 It should be the cornerstone of dealing with common
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cause failure on operating plants, as well. Thank you.
2 MR. CHERNOFF: Thank you, Ken.
3 MR. FREGONESE: This is Vic Fregonese of 4
Framatome. We've been rolling along with the folks 5
working on this for the past six or eight months.
6 Let's keep rolling. I think we should get the next 7
meeting scheduled.
8 One request I do have is to get the 9
document in the form that we can comment on it 10 effectively. So perhaps a Microsoft Word version with 11 some kind of, I'll say, legal type numbering in the 12 margins or something so we can look more for comments.
13 And perhaps consider a, you know, rolled-sleeve, 14 shoulder-to-shoulder meeting to walk through some of 15 the sections to expedite this.
16 So I don't think we're really that far 17 off. I do think there's some top ten issues or eight 18 issues that need to be resolved so we can get the 19 words to align with those key points. So we're ready 20 to move forward to support it, and, Jared, you and 21 Jason and Eric set the meetings up and we'll continue 22 to stay engaged. Thanks.
23 MR. HANSON: Thanks.
24 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. We are basically out 25 of time.
I know, from my perspective, it's been a
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long day. I'm sure the rest of you feel the same way.
2 I think it's been productive and illuminating. It's 3
an opportunity we don't get enough to just, you know, 4
get a large spectrum of people together to talk 5
through an issue and put steering currents on how 6
we're addressing it from both perspectives.
So I 7
appreciate everybody's efforts, and we vividly 8
recognize the short time frame, and I hope you all 9
recognize that, you know, that's being driven by the 10 overall intensity to try to finish these products.
11 So any other -- Chris, I don't know if --
12 MR. MILLER: No. Real short. We heard 13 you. We've got some actions to take. We'll notify 14 you on how we're going forward with it coming out of 15 it, and we'll make it better. So thank you for all 16 participating. Good meeting.
17 MR. CHERNOFF: Okay. Charles, do you have 18 all the information you need about the people that 19 participated? Do you have any gaps?
20 MR. RAHN: We're working on it.
21 MR. CHERNOFF:
Okay, all right.
- Okay, 22 thank you. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it.
23 That will close the meeting.
24 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 25 the record at 1:02 p.m.)