ML19310A788
| ML19310A788 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/22/1980 |
| From: | Hendrie J NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | Clark R AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19310A789 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8006230119 | |
| Download: ML19310A788 (2) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES g
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIOg o-E-
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20555 5'-
$0MESFon%c2 May 22, 1980 C FFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER Mr. Robert W. Clark, Jr.
2232 West Joan de Arc Avenue Phoenix, Arizona 85029
Dear Mr. Clark:
I have your letter of April 29, 1980, and the enclosed two chaptcrs of a book which I presume you are writing.
I will not comment upon your theories of thermodynamics, which I recommend you discuss in some detail with appropriate authorities at some institution in your area.
With regard to your comments about nuclear power, I would like to make several points.
The first is that for whatever claims of perfection the nuclear power industry may have implied in its public statements, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its predecessor regulatory staff in the Atomic Energy Commission have never made any such claims.
Our public documents recognize that accidents can happen and that it is our aim to reduce the likelihood of such accidents and the seriousness of their consequences to an acceptably low level.
The design philosophy for. nuclear pitnts that has been imposed by the NRC envisions that there will be equipment and human failures and requires safety systems to be provided to deal with those failures.
Further, it is expected that there may be malfunctions in the safety systems themselves, and safety systems are therefore required to be redundant.
With regard to your contention that the basic thermodynamic theory upon which nuclear electric steam plants are based is in error, I must inform you that you are simply wrong. The thermodynamic design for nuclear electric steam plants, as for steam electric plants fueled by oil, gas, and' coal, is based upon the experimentally determined properties of real fluids.
The difficulty at Three Mile Island had nothing to do with the difference between the behavior of real and perfect fluids.
It had to do basically with operator error arising from training deficiencies, some instrument a
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malfunctions and errors, and some equipment failures. One of the major errors that the operators made was to fail to realize for several hours that steam was forming within the reactor system because the system pressure had dropped below the saturation point.
But that had nothing to do with the difference between the behavior of perfect gases and real fluids but only with the operators' failure to use the steam tables that they had at hand.
Sincerely, I
\\6 Jos ph M. Hendrie Mmmissioner t
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