ML19320B137

Requests That 800624 Fr Notice Be Reissued to Correct Implication That Farm (Tnrc) Owns Facility & Allegation That Plant Is Unable to Withstand Hydrogen Burn Pressure

ML19320B137
Person / Time
Site:	Sequoyah
Issue date:	07/01/1980
From:	Bates A AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED
To:	Harold Denton Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
References
NUDOCS 8007090347
Download: ML19320B137 (3)

Text

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• 1 June 1, 1980 _

Docket No. 50-327 THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Summertown, Tennessee INFORMATION REPORT For: Harold R. Denton, Director Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, USNRC Thru: Albert K. Bates, Director Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, TNRC From: The Commissioners

Subject:

SEQUOYAH CCNTAINMENT INABILITY TO WITHSTAND HYDROGEN EXPLCSIONS

Purpose:

To request a republication of the Federal Register notice making corrections of errors contained in the first publication on June 24, 1980.

Discussion:

The notice published in the Federal Register on June 24, 1980 falsely implied that the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant is owned and operated by The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (TNRC) and that the petition by the TNRC on May 28, 1980 alleged that the containment at Sequoyah Unit 1 would not be able to withstand a hydrogen burn pressure such as occured at TMI-2. The notice has caused TVA to publicly respond on the basis of these erronious allegations and should be corrected by republication.

A brief summary of the errors and requests follows.

Contact:

A. Bates 61596-43992 o) i 8007990

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- July 1, 1980 Mr. Harold Denton Director Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Comission Washington, D.C. 20555

Dear Mr. Denton,

The notice in the Federal Register published by you June 24th which concerned our petition under 10 CFR 2.206 contained a number of errors.

In the first sentence you stated that TNRC " requested that the low power operating license authcrizing limited operation of its Sequoyah commercial nuclear power p* ant be revoked." The sequoyah plant does not belong to us, but was built by the Tennessee Valley Authority. We merely pay for it.

Actually if TVA were to give it to us we wouldn't know what to do with it.

But I am sure we would study the matter and take appropriate action within a reasonable time.

You then went on to state that the bases of the request "is an allegation that the containment of the facility would not withstand pressures resulting from hydrogen explosions such as the one which occurred at TMI-2." As a result of this error, TVA promptly assumed this to be the full importance of the petition and publicly denied that the containment would not have withstood the TMI pressures. This serves only to obscure the real issues.

If you will examine our petition, you will see that we stated in paragraph 2 on page 2:

"A hydrogen combustion pressure spike of the magnitude experienced at TMI would exceed SQNP containment pressure Lating as built and could result in a loss of containment vessel integrity, an essential barrier to the environment." (emphasis added)

Paragragt 3 on page 2 states:

"Under some circumstances, actual structural material strengths will withstand pressure loads which exceed design specifications. These circumstances depend upon the particular and unique stress pattern created by the single-occurrence event causing pressure to exceed design limits, which is not predictable. Safety dictates therefore that design specifications should not be regarded as 'exceedable."'

The next paragraph, which carries over to the top of page 3, contains the following statement l "The containment building at Sequoyah Unit 1 could provide inadequate

! protection in the event of a TMI-type accident." (emphasis added)

We respectfully request that you publish a second federal register notice correcting your errors and that you serve a full copy of our petition to each party on the service list. We further urge, in light of your fetermination that immediate license revocation is unwarranted, that you not permit any increase in power at Sequoyah Unit 1 until remedial stept to deal with the hydrogen problem have been taken, and the containment has been tested under TMI-type conditions with any retrofitted systems or by full-scale mock-up testing.

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Bates to Denton 7/1/80 page 2 FOR THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Ib$h d Albert K. Bates Director Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation The Farm Summertown, TN 38483