ML19308C353
| ML19308C353 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 08/29/1979 |
| From: | Alvarez L LAWRENCE BERKELEY LABORATORY |
| To: | Rogovin M NRC - NRC THREE MILE ISLAND TASK FORCE |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NTFM-790727-12, NUDOCS 8001220815 | |
| Download: ML19308C353 (2) | |
Text
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Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory A
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University of California 5'
Berkeley, California 94720 Telephone 415/843-2740 August 29, 1979 Mr. Mitchell Rogovin, Director NRC/MI Special Inquiry Grm9 c/o Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 Reference : NTFW790727-12
Dear Mr. Rogovin:
I'm sorry that I wasn't able to attend the August 15 and 16 meeting of your panel IV, concerned with man-machine consideration, including, in par-ticular, the design of the control room.
I've been busier this summer than ever before, and I've just now found time to reread your letter of August 17,
.asking for my thoughts about " consultants comments," and how they should be incorporated in the report for which you have a personal responsibility.
My own views, which you probably won't find very helpful, are that neither of the solutions you propose in your letter appeal to me.
All panels on which I have served -- and there have been quite a few - have had a hand in the preparation of the final report, and have signed it.
On a few occasions, a panel member has appended a dissenting personal opinion concerning a specific conclusion, while subscribing to the others.
In my opinion, this is the proper way for a panel to present its report, but it only works when all the panel members are well grounded in the fundamentals of the problem they are addressing.
It is certainly true that I have no such background in reactor control room design.
('Ihe last reacton control room I've been in was in the old Argonne Lab, in 1943. Enrico Fermi taught me how to run CP-2, and I spent many dull hours pushing control rods in and out to compensate for barometric changes in the nitrogen " poison.")
So I couldn't operate in this (to me) preferred reporting mode, unless I had spent much of my time this summer visiting operating reactors, talking to cperators, designers, and other knowledgeable people.
I believe that two or three months of " total immersion" in reactor affairs could have prepared me to be a useful member of the panel, if it were to act in my preferred mode, But of course, there is no way to correct my present ignorance in the time avail-able, so I won't pursue this particular train of thought any farther.
It would be even more difficult for me to operate in the mode suggested by some of your panel members, because again, it requires a great deal of back-ground knowledge to read and digest a technical report, and then prepare in dro 01220 f/S 0
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O Mr. Michael Rogovin August 29, 1979 4
three days (to meet the 5-day deadline) a well reasoned dissenting or con-curring view, suitable for publication.
I think the best thing for me to do is to resign from the panel in my present naive state, and not undertake the enormous (and quite impossible) task of becoming an instant expert in control room problems. Since I had to miss the first 2-day meeting, I would find it doubly difficult to catch up with my fellow panel members, all of whom would have had at least a month to think about problems on which they had been briefed.
So in conclusion, I hope you will accept my resignation for the reasons given above.
I very much look forward to reading a copy of your Report of the NRC/D11 Special Inquiry Group, and I'm sorry that things didn't work out for me to be of any help to you.
Very sincerely, A $Adw y
Luis W. Alvare:
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