ML19291A475

Declines Invitation to Submit Paper on Risk Level Implicit in NRC Licensing Requirements at June 1977 ANS Meeting. Risk Assessment Criteria in Licensing Decisions Are Useless at This Time

ML19291A475
Person / Time
Issue date:	11/15/1976
From:	Hanauer S NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS (EDO)
To:	Erdmann R SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL CORP. (FORMERLY
References
FOIA-79-109 NUDOCS 7905160270
Download: ML19291A475 (1)

Text

.

DISTRIBUTIO:

Central Files EN RF o a,-, _.. - -

c Gs ShHanauer RF W0ircks R ".i nogue Stevine Mr. R. C. Erdmann Asst. Vice President Science Applications, Inc.

2650 Hanover Street Palo Alto, California 94304

Dear Bob,

Thanks fpr the invitation to contributa a paper en "The Risk t.evel Implicit in NRC Licensing Recuirements" in your special session at the June 1977 ANS Meeting en "The Role of Risk Acceptance Jriteria in the Writing of Codes and Standards."

I am going to decline, since I do not lik s eitner the tcpic of the meeting or the title proposed for my paper.

There are no risk acceptance criteria today in nuclear power.

I know you think there ought to be, but I don't.

I believe that the ef forts by you and others to push acceptance of quantitative prob-abilistic risk assessment into nuclear power plant licensing are prem u re and wrong at this time. The recent efforts - in this area by you and your colleagues appear to ?.e as nearly worthless numbers games about as useful for r.taking licensing decisiens as the famous tneclogical discussions on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Their acceptance at this time wuld in my cpinien lead to lifetime employment of every probabilistic calculation man in the U.S. without any significant improvement in safety or licensing.

This is because the expensive technique as you have been applying it still dces not include the real failures actually experienced in a way useful to making licensing dacisicas.

I believe that probabilistic analysis has many usas, and may scme day be useful in nuclear pcwer piant licensing, but not yet.

Sincerely, Original Sipe:1 b,-

Ste; ten H. Escaue:-

Stephen H. Hanauer Tecnnical Advisor to M_

Executive Director for.0ceritiens 2.#

-!i' k t l

h~, lc f t

4-xY

=

f'

x. _D 'DM N(N1 h

b.vo.!,

1W#

,w-y e

a.

. EDO yi f g,-g vp P. #

A T,A. ED0

%s.

RMinogue_.%g"CiPCks_

1 oc*

_f j,# 1 /., g A,}:

su==aws >

ShHanauer;mC. 5Ld ne

~

..$ l[ kNb

..ll[.$.[

11

!75 g 11// /76 h

O o*Tv 6 Form AIC 313 (ae'. 9-3 3) AIOt M A C w. s. oow a=.w s%v mvino o n nic a: i era-s:e-s e.

P l0 N J /3 79051609/10 uJd55 ~7 l-lO 9 DW l -he)0 silh