ML19321A952

Transcript of Commissioners/Acrs Joint Meeting on 800711 in Washington,Dc.Pp 1-28

ML19321A952
Person / Time
Issue date:	07/11/1980
From:	Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards
To:
References
REF-10CFR9.7 ACRS-T, NUDOCS 8007240425
Download: ML19321A952 (30)

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"AA \\ COMMISSIONERS /ACRS JOINT MEETING { l ~,.. . In the Mattar of: Joint Meeting. O k DATE,:. July 11, 1980 pAggs ; 1 - 28 g:: Washington, D. C. l f.] REPORTUG ALDERSOX 400 Virg,4 a Ave., 5.W. Wash

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1 I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 / JOINT COMMISSIONERS /ACRS MEETING 4 5 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 1717 H Street, N.W. 7 8 Room 1046 9 Washington, D. C. 10 Friday, July 11, 1980 11 The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:30 p.m. 12 BEFORE: 13 MILTON S. PLESSETT, Chairman, 14 J. CARSON MARK, Vice-Chairman CHESTER P. SIESS 15 STEPHEN LAWROSKI MYER SENDER 16 DADE W. MOELLER 17 PILLIAM KERR MAX W. CARBON 18 WILLIAM M. MATHIS JESSE C. EBERS OLE 19 HAROLD W. LEWIS ^ 20 JEREMIAH J. RAY 21 Staff Present: 22 R. SAVIO 23 ALSO PRESENT: COMMISSIONER HENDRIE 3 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE Lo.~mbs.cvce c,,l M.ty (omeu.ve48<brk ALDER 1 SON AE?ORTING COMPANY. INC. 36YFLEtA 2bYAWu25FJ3C%tW

PCrkcr j y_g NRC Tcpo 11 j I 11 j ~ Cc Telly l 2 MR. PLESSET: I think we can start, so why don't we 3l proceed. We do not necessarily need to stick to the list. 'e 4 Dave, you are here, so why don' t you take advantage of l g .5j ig, R 4 0l 2 (Laughter.) R \\ 7I I know you had a comment you wanted to make, or have + 8 8 you decided against it? n d i i x 9 ~. MR. OKRENT: Well, I think it would be of interest to 2 i O y' learn or maybe talk about to what extent the Commissioners and 10 E 11 i you yourself have developed ideas on how to approach the various, 3 i i I l rulemakings that are in the wind, whether there has been consider- = l 13 i = ation of what information exists; if these has been identified, 3 14 l i are the necessary resources being allocated to them. So you will 15 I h have the information you will need for your decisionmaking at 16 j the time, other kinds of policy guidance that would be usef al at 17 y the beginning, whetner these kinds of things are available. j t 18 l: z It seems like there are some important, complicated, s" 19 8 difficult topics before the Commission, and it might be interesting ) I 20 '! to have a little discussion. 21 (Laughter.) 22 ' l COMMISSIONER HENDRIE: I can hardly wait to see what i 23 ' you are going to say. I may take notes. t 24 - I (Laughter.) 25 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: With those general statements I i I ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.

. c c,2 j 2 .. s ) certainly agree. 2 (Laughter.) 3 To try to be at least a little more specific, I would ( 4 guess that some of the major rules we have embarked on are the = 5, emergency planning, the site rule, the degraded core. Some have 3n 8 6 and some will take substantial resources. We have given a lot of a R g 7 guidance in the deve:.opment of the emergency planning rule, and it 8 is in the very last stages, I believe. It probably will be put d i g 9! out in the next couple of weeks, I would guess, as a final rule,, i 10 l particularly now that we have gone through the last set of z 5 11j listening to the spectrum of people who had objected to various <3 d 12, provisions of the rule and also who now -- now that we have z i 5 1 i 13 l Congress speaking to it in the FY authorization bill, what they E E 14 i view is a minimum set of requirements on the siting. w b l 15 l I think it will be published today in the Federal w l = '16 l Register, the advance notice, which will lay out a bunch of ques-3W p 17, tions. You are probably familiar with the Siting Task Force that w 18 l has produced a report last year. We modified that to some extent t I 19 l by adding additional options we thought ought to be examined, 2 5 i 20 i and that will lead to about a year and a half of major work. That I 21 i focuses to a large extent on population dencity as well as the 22 relationship of engineered features and demography and environ-i i 23 mental characteristics of the site. 24, The degraded core cooling rule is one that the gentleman, i' 25, on my right has been prodding the staff -- where are they, what i f I ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC. I

cc 3 ra'- 3 l are they doing? I think he is probably more familiar with the ) 7j status of that. 7l Have we given the staff guidance? Do we have enough resources? Is there enough work being done? I would guess we 4j l 5l have given them a reasonable amount of guidance. We don't have e i M l 3 enough resources, 8 0 _ and everybody is stretched thin. Most of the g schedules laid out are optimistic. 2 Il l 3l Joe. n 9 COMMISSIONER HENDRIE: I have talked to the staff some 9 o z' i 0j ab ut the degraded core rulemaking and other related ef forts. z I 5 Quine apart from the resource and scheduling difficulties that = 11, 5 I [. 12 l are apparent, it seems to.me there is a more profound one which z i 3 i has to do with how all of these assorted rulemaking initiatives = 13 i E E 14 : fit toge ther, and on the basis of what general principle that we W l-15 : all understand -- are they coordinated and lined up in a way that uw i accomplishes that general principle? And we are not, I would 16 4m say, making very much headway at all in that kind of a general i p 37 aW 5 I coordination in these rulemaking events. z 18 s j9' On one or another individual proceedings the progress 3n has been pretty good. We charged ahead with an emergency planning 20, rule which, as John says, is on the final track, and I would hope 21 I it w uld be out pretty soon. I signed off on it. But in making 22 that rule, in forming it, we have not paid very much attention 23 to what -- how it might fit, for instance, with the present j 24 i initiative that we have just started on new siting criteria, nor l 25 l [ ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.

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f I I 1! is it very clear to us in any organized way at least how we 2 would regard emergency planning versus requirements that we might 3 find it appropriate to institute as a result of proceeding on 4l events that lead te severe core damage. e 5i So individual things have gone ahead, some of them M 1 e 3 6.l tolerably well, I think; but we still have the major task before a I l 7i us, and that is to try to get enunciated some general principle K 8 8, and then to see that the subsequent rulemaking -- notably the n d i d 9 degraded core proceeding and whatever interim rule might be z 10 instituted on those matters -- how those things fit against that i_ I 5 11. principle or that standard. ~ <3 5 12, MR. KERR: May I ask a related question? In considering 3 = d 13 the treatment of the class 9 accident, it seems to me if you have E E 14 f not already provided it that the staff needs some rather specific w b 15 l guidance of the following kind: the treatment of LOCA with an 5 16 emergency core cooling system and the decisionmaking process takes g W p 17 a deterministic approach in which you describe with suitable E E 18 ! conservatism the course of various accidents. = u I 19 4 There has been a lot of discussion of the need to use x A i 20 ' probabilistic approaches to accidents, and now we have the degraded i 21 ! core. My perception, in spite of protests to the contrary, up i i 22 i to now at least the staff seems to be taking a mechanistic approach i i 23, toward treating the degraded core; that is, there will be made l 24{ an effort to describe on a step-by-step basis the progression of I 23 an accident. That is in principle a possible approach. l 3 ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC. l

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5 cc 5 1 It strikes me, however, it is going to be more diffi-2 cult than the mechanistic description of the course of a LOCA, 3 espacially if the ECCS operates. At this stage maybe one cannot 4 make a decision about the appropriate approach, but at least it u 5, seems to me one might want to try to lay out one.or two alternativeg M \\ n i 6! and look at them in some detail. i 7l Does one go about this probabilistically? Does one try E 2 i s I { 8l to say we are not going to prevent core meltthrough, something or I d d 9 other, but we are going to prevent it with a confidence level of Y i 5 10 l something or other, or does one say we are going to design subject n 5 11 to a single failure criterion a mitigation ~ system that will take 3 'd 12 i care of this accident? z = i 13 i Do you understand the question I am raising? E E 14 ! CCMMISSIONER HENDRIE: Very well. I have been thinking w i d 15 ! for some months about how one ought to structure these things E l 16 l and where reasonable -- where a reasonable place to go is. Go, 3 ^ l d 17 that is, from the present array of regulations and requirements. 5 E 18 ' And what I have concluded is the present design basis concept, _c { 19 l not necessarily the details of it but the concept of it ought to 5 \\ 20 i be retained as a licensing standard in the process, and that the i 21l design basis ought to be aimed at -- severe core accident events, I i 22 I core melting events should be reduced to some prescribed level, 23 ' prescribed in as quantitative a set af terms as we can agree on. i 24 And that beyond those events you then look at what are reasonable l 6 l 25, and' practicable measures to lir.it the consequences, taking some I I i I i ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.

sc.6 j c... g i l l 1 account of probability and expending less effort perhaps on l 2j extremely unlikely events than on more likely ones. l 3l But they are coming away from the proposition that 4l we have. operated out of the past, that events on a design basis 5l were of low enough likelihood so they could f all in the act of = 3 n I d 6 God category, and we did not do much of anything. e E 8 7, Now, the sorts of measures and standards for those i A i 8 gi measures to be used out beyond the design basis I eould think-N d d 9i could'usefully be more flexible than those for the design basis z^ b 10 l prescriptions. E l = There are sort of two general sets of measures. One E 11 !' <3 i 4 12 ' of them is obviously emergency planning. If things go to hell in z 3 1 = 13 a handbasket, you see what you can do to get people out of the way

== E 14 ! or get them to take shelter and thereby reduce the consequences 1 a. '= 2 15 i orfsite. E 16 i And I think that the emergency planning rule that we 3 A y 17 are about to lay on the table is pretty good in that regard. The E E 18 ' other things you can do have to do with plant design feacures or P I E 19 ' operating procedures that would tend to limit releases of radio-3= 20 ! activity. 21 It seems to me for those measures -- for accidents goinc 22 beyond design basis, one is going to have to work on pretty much 23 ' a best engineered design calculation. I have concluded for myselfi 24 that it is impractical to try to draw the design basis itself 25 for all of these events, since I can always enunciate one whole i i l i ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC. I

cc. 7 7 1 category of such events that you cannot cover. 2 I will say that in the event of any size of loss of 3 coolant accident, for instance, all the safety systems provided 4l to mitigate it fail, you will say ch, you mean all of the presently ! required safety systems. Well, good. I will now supply a 5l e A N s 6: redundant additional set of safety measures, the Z-system. R 7 Aha, I say. I just proclaimed that aZ failed. What 7j. 8 are you going to do? You are going to propose the X-set of a d i d 9, measures. So in a sort of logical basis you cannot get everything i 10 l under the design basis, and I think it is neither necessary nor i 5 11 wise to try. 1 j 3 d 12 ' Now, if we could gather our intellectual forces and z E I S 13 ; our courage all up together and come to the enunciation, a safety 9 E 14 ! objective for the design basis which I think I would like to see a c! 15 ; couched in terms of a fairly low risk level -- fairly low a r 16 l probability level for accidents that will cause severe core damage .'3m p 17, or worse, that will cover the design basis, then it seems to me E E 18 ; you need at least one further enunciated level of safety objective, I Cb 19 and that will deal with -- that will go beyond-the design basis En 20 i and probably ought to be expressed in terms of the likelihood l 21 I of exposure to the general public of any serious radiation exposure. 1 i 22 ! And that would take account of the efficacy of evacuation measures I i i l 23 and the whole realm of likelihood of courses and events beyond i i 24 the design basis. j 25 It appears to me if we could settle down on a framework I ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC.

cc.8-8 8-- 1 like that as a guiding principle, we then have a framework within 2 which to fit things like what do we do with hydrogen evolution 3 in severe core damage accidents, and what do we do in general with 4 degraded core measures, if any, for degraded core accidents. 5 It also provides a helpful framework to think about the e 3 m implementation of the emergency planning role and would provide, 6l Rg 7 I would think, some helpful background to eventual enunciation M 8 8 of a new set of siting criteria and a whole variety of other n d' thjngs. d 9 Y E 10 Without the enunciation of that sort of safety principle E i 11 l or safety objective, we are going to continue to carry on these <3 'i 12 individual efforts, and they are going to continua to not have 3 S 13 ! any consistency among them. I mm afraid we will beat ourselves E ~ E 14 i into a regulatory patchwork in short order from which we will not a b! 15 be able to extricate ourselves. w 1. i 16 ! You're speechless. 3 A y 17 ! MR. OKRENT: I am rarely speechless, Joe. E E 18 l COMMISSIONER HENDRIE: I was looking at Bill when I i E 19 i said that. R 5 20 l MR. OKRENT: One of the reasons -- not the only reason -- 21, that I thought it would be useful to talk about this, and I found e i l 22 it very interesting, I for one have not seen identified, even in l l -j i I 23 the ?Y 82 budget, let alcn9 the FY 81 budget, which is near what 24 ; I would have assumed was the research work -- I will use that tern 25 loosely -- that would be appropriate to try to help arrive at a f ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.

cc.9 l. I l oud'- 9 1l decision. 2i CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: You have the advantage over us. You i 3 have seen part of the FY 82 budget program. We have not yet. I 4; (Laughter.) i e 5 What kind of work specifically are you saying that you g n 3 6! do not see cresent? e R l 7l MR. KERR: While he is thinking, I have a slightly 3 ] 8l different point in that I have not seen -- perhaps it is my lack d 9 of communication or perception -- very much evidence that even Y t 10 ; these preliminary ideas have penetrated to the working level. Z E 11 It seems to me some kinds -- <3 12 l d COMMISSIONER HENDRIE : I think that is quite right. I z 5 l 13 i went out and had a rump meeting with some of the staf f a couple = l 14 f of we'eks ago, several meetings, and the first one was does anybody = 2 15 I here have clearly in mind all of the rulemaking and other require-E j 16, ments and other initiatives that we have underway that relate A t g 17 to this general area of severe accidents and all of the things you a E 5 18 - might want to think about, and the answer was no. Nobody even = a i 19 had the list in mind. M 20 I It took several days to compile what seemed to be a 21 ' fairly inclusive list, as a matter of fact. And then we had I whatpatternl 22 another meeting and said good, now we have the list; 23 do we see among these. 24 ' MR. KERR: I am not going to disagree with what I think I 25 Dave is going to say, but my emphasis would be on some initial i ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.

cc.la 10 1 planning toward an approach in order to have a framework in which i 2 to plan research. You can go ahead and plan research without 3l knowing what you are going to do with it, and if it takes a long 4l lead, that is perhaps necessary. i = 5 COMMISSIONZR HENDRIE: I thought from the size of the 3n budget our guiding principle was to do everything, and then we j 6l i N l E 7j would select the useful parts. j 8 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: Let me say just one more point on d d 9: that. Clearly, there are a number of changes and approaches. A Y 10 ; lot of the effort on the planning rule, the issues on alternate z = t j 11l site, it is not surprising that they are reflected in the FY S1 3 l j 12 l budget. Those philosophies or approaches were not really gelled 3 j 13 i into anything -- at least the office d_ rectors or Commissioners = y f4 i when the FY 31 budget was put together, getting the emergency l 2 15 ! planning rule together was not a breeze because there have been E_ l g 16 a lot of sticky issues, so I am not too distressed yet that the A y 17 i working level, the staff, has not got a clear picture that here B_ 18 : .is the direction we ought to be going, because it has been a =_ 19 i direction that is being worked on and formulated by a number of 5 20! specific actions. ^ 21 There have been many decates on the action plan in which you people participated heavily, and a lot of modifications 22 23 resulted from that. Clearly that could not have been automatically i 24 reflected in December or February. There is a lead time when 25 direction is trying to be imposed rather than circulating up. t ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC. I

sc.11 13 cnd tp ll i It takes longer to get back down. i2' So I am certainly looking with great interest at the 3, budget as it comes up to see what it does reflect. Whether we 4l can tell is a different question. / I 1 = 5i I presume from the comments you guys will be making on M I n i j 6l the research budget will reflect where you see work not being k7 done that ought to be done. And I also assume that where you see 8f work that you do not see as relating to the direction that you 8n d d 9 think we are going or ought to be going that you will comment on I E 10 that, too. f i 5 11 - MR. PLESSET: It will be a question of scrutability. l 3 -4 12 I think we have heard that word. E = ,= 13 ; (Laughter.) E 14 lI Let me increase my popularity with my colleagues and E 2 13 i turn us to another subject. Hal Lewis has a very short question. w f = g 16 l (Laughter.) -A i d 17 ' COMMISSIONER HENDRIE : It is a contradiction in terms, x= 5 18 : isn' t it? = i { 19 ; MR. LEWIS: I take it that is an assignment to ask a a i 20 question but to keep it short. 21 4 MR. PLESSET: That is correct. 22 MR. LEWIS: It has to do with reactor safety. There 23 ' -are enough reactors out there now so that it is becoming quite l l 24 ; clear we would be having a regular run of accidents, and we have j i I 25. been having them over the last six or eight months. We have had f ]' i i J ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.

sc 12 12 , e.. some pretty good ones, some zingers. One of the things that has been conspicuously absent in the analysis, and a study of these accidents is the office for i 4 :i the Evaluation of Operational Data, Carl Michaelson's of fice. What is the Commission's position or intent with regard to the g 5 n 5 0ll participation of that office with regard to accidents as they 3 { 7{ are beginning to come along? n 5 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: I think it is true. Let us take ' 8 8, a i i two of the more significant ones in the last six months, Crystal 99 i River and Browns Ferry. z i i Crystal River, Carl was almost entirely absent. In a 11 : i 3 i Browns Ferry, not so. He was much more heavily involved. Certain-c. 12 ! 3 ly he participated rather extensively in reviewing it for us. = 13 ' 14 ; As far as anyth).ng written coming out, I am not sure. =a i 8 -3 We don't have anything thar has come out of that yet. I think c 15 a* 16 ; getting Carl's operation started there was a balance between 3 i A trying to get it started rapidly and populated with people that ..g 17 a E Carl had faith in. z 18 ! E 19 l We opted for the second. It took longer than we had 9 n I 20l hoped. There is also the problem of trying to get agreements 21l; between the offices and Carl's office on what his role is going i, to be, and that has cycled several times; and my understandinc of. 22 ! I f it is it has caused -- his office has been strengthened as a 23 l result of that. 24 i i Y"Y" ^"

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speak for themselves. My view when the office was set up was 2l that it had two problems, one of which was giving some evaluation 3! to a pattern of accidents and trying to at least identify what 4 trends were there, what kind of information was getting lost, 5! because everybody was only looking at isolated events, if at all. = M i n 8 6l And then the second was on any major event, trying to bring to a R g 7 bear that sort of expert knowledge that they are generating. i A 8 8 The difficulty is they have been having a problem developo l d I d 9l ing that expert knowledge, and i.t is easy to get completely en-Y l E 10 l meshed in details and never provide a base for expert advice. I E 5 11 l think it is -- the effort has grown more sicwly than any of us 3 1 d 12 ;' would have liked, including Carl; but I do not think there is z= 3 13 any lack of commitment on the part of any people in the agency. E I know the offices had problems getting access to some E 14 N i I E 15 data, and we have taken steps to make sure that that does not 5 t 16 happen. 3 A

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MR. LEWIS: I'm not worried about recriminations abou t M = i 18 ' the past, because the past is over. E 19 ; CHAIRMAN AHEARNE : But the pas t -- 5n 20l MR. LEWIS: I like to say deep things. l 21 i CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: The past is prologue. l 22 i MR. LEWIS: That is a good line. It ought to be used 23 by somebody. l i i 24 Do you envisage that in the future the or:1ce will clav l l I l 25 a more prominent role in the analysis or accidents with real ALDERSON REPORTING.COMPANYn INC.

cc.14 l 14 . t-e e 1 implications ? Crystal River, for example, did have real implica-2 tions. COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I expected it to be. 3; ( 4 M:L LEWIS: So did I, but it ain't. =, 5 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: He is heavily involved in Browns 9 6! Ferry. He could not have been in Crystal River. R 5 7 MR. LEWIS: Okay. So you are telling me to have hope 8 8 and sit back. d:! 9 CHAIPMAN AHEARNE: I really believe that the office i i O 10 ; ought to be able to do both those things. The hard part comes E E 11 l when you have to make a choice that you can only do on~e or the i 3 l d 12, other. There are finite resources. There is a lot of stuff to 5 E 13 l look at. o= y 14 l If you had to just look at current accidents and not 5 l 2 15 ; look at the longterm, then I would say we need a standard or E I j 16 j another office because both tasks have to be done. A y 17 ' MR. LEWIS: At the level of you individuals is it your E 18. intent to solve those institutional problems which exist and have P f r 1 y 19 ; existed in such a way that it can perform both of these functions? n 20 ! CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: Just speaking for myself. i 21 MR. LEWIS: I understand. i 22 MR. PLESSET: Yes, Chet. i 1 23 MR. SIESS: If you did think that that office should i I j 24 ; serve as a mini-NTSB, or a maxi-NTSB for that matter, it would 25 seem that that would require that office to be the lead office ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.

sc.15 15 .i.- 1 in investigations of accidents or lessons learned from accidents, 2 not the implications in terms of licensing, whether it should be l 3 i shut down, whether they should be fined, etcetera. i I 4; I don't think it is a lead now, is it? e 5 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: Not in investigation in-the sense of -c An 6 l as you know, when we have a lead office for investigation, it R 7! really carries with it the potential threat of -- -n s l 8' MR. SIESS: I was trying to separate those two. d i n 9' CHAIRMAN AHE ARNE : In the past they were inseparable, io i g 10 j and that is a distinction that I think one has to keep in mind z = j 11 ; because the large bulk of the agency when an accident occurs turns 3 p 12 l to them. So at least in my mind I never thought it would supplant 5 i j 13 IIE in that role. i j 14 : In its examination of an accident it would try to figure I 2 15 l out what lessons -- why it happened, how did it happen. W I i j 16 MR. SIESS: That is what I had in mind, though. W p 17 ! COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: John made the point about the x= G 18 various line offices having specific responsibilities of their = l g 19 l own, and so they need to perform investigations for that purpose. M 1 20 The way I envisage this office operating is it would perform an i 21 l independent investigation, and that ;s really what I had in mind. I l 22 ' The NTSB is independent. 23 MR. SIESS: By " lead" I meant the lead in the non-i t 24 - licensing function, in the safety-related lessons learned. 25 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It may b'e a small fraction of I I ? ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.

sc.16 l .n Jg 1 the effort of the agency, but it is a very important one. It is 2 important to be taken -- that the investigation be performed by 3 the persons who do not have direct licensing responsibility. I 4 l MR. SIESS: Something like Browns Ferry, do you expect i e 5 l to get a separate and independent report from that office on the X j 6 accident and its implications and its possible precursors, that Rg' 7 is, independent from the other licensing-related investigations? A 8 8 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: Not nscussarily on Browns Ferry.. If n i d =} 9j Browns Ferry happened six months from now the answer would be yes. 3 l 10 l MR. LEWIS: May I ask a factual question along those z i r 5 11 l lines for clarification? I heard a rumor, which is like all <3 I d 12 l rumors, clearly false -- to put it differently,' may that office z= 1 13 l send an investigator to the site of an accident after the accident r E 14 i is over and there is no question of accident management, without a b l 15 ' being chaperoned by a member of I&E or NRR? E I i j 16 ' CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: You say you have heard a rumor. A f 6 17 ' MR. LEWIS: That he cannot. The rumor is that he cannot!. E i l = All I can say is my understanding is ! E 18 ' CHAIRMAN AREARNE: r 19,l V C t that he now cannot. x A i 20 l MR. LEWIS: Thank you, sir, i 21l (Laughter.) 22 ' COMMISSIONER HENDRIE: You have to define what you i 23 mean by " chaperoned." I think it would be inappropriate to have 4 i 24 NRC people including, I must say, Commissioners, arrive at a i i 25 licensed facility unbeknownst to make a visit independent of the i i i I 1 ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.

cc 17 I 17 1 1 1! assigned NRC officer who is the resident inspector there, for l 2 instance. 3 MR. LEWIS: I understand that. I 4 COMMISSIONER HENDRIE: That does not mean the resident 1 e 5 ' ' inspector is privileged to say don't come, nor does it say the 3a 3 6 resident inspector or his chiefs are privileged to say look only e R R 7 in building A but stay out of building B. But you know we are i 3 8 8 one agency, and where we have people who have assigned responsi-n d = 9 l bility to be the primary NRC representatives, why, you want other i o . NRC people who are coming in to talk to that licensee -- you h 10 l E = E 11 ! want your local man to know they are coming. <a d 12-MR. LEWIS: You certainly want them to know they are z 5 l j 13 i coming if this office is.to be a lead agency. Clearly these are = i E 14 ! questions that can be resolved with goodwill, with notification. s= 2 15 i You are right. It depends on the definition of " chaperoned." w 3 g 16 The rumor that I will not divulge to you that I heard W p 17 ! was rather more restrictive than what vou said. w = 5 18 ; MR. PLESSET: Steve? Peter? = I 5 E 19 I MR. LAWROSKI: I wanted to know whether you set up a x i M i 20 mechanism so that you get from this office the type of NTSB 21l performance that I perceive occurs with respect to air line t 1 3 22 transportation compared with the NTSB performance as I see it 23 in the case of the railroad transportation. 24 ' In my opinion there is a very big difference in results. i 1 25 In che latter' case it seems one way or another the NTSB or that 1 l ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC. l

sc 18 18 j part of it gets so submerged with a lot of detail that I do not l 2l see much good coming out of it compared to what I think comes out 3, of that part of NTSB whose mission it is to deal with air line ( 4 accidents. Do I make myself clear? i e 5 It is easy for that group, even if it is to get submerged 3 N 8 6 with a lot of paperwork -- e d 7 l' A CHAIBMAN AHEARNE: My comment would have to be my A 8 8, knowledge of the reports is primarily the aircraft side from n d =} 9l reading Aviation Week, and I do not follow an equivalent trans-E E 10 l portation journal, so as a result I do not know what kind of i, z 11 j reports they produce. 5<3 d 12 l MR. LAWROSKI: They have not had much impact. E I 13 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: I do not know that either. E E' 14 i MR. LAWROSKI: They don't seem to have. '? i C i 15 j CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: I guess from my view I think what W I 16 you ought to do is when the charter for Michaelson's group was 3 A d 17 agreed to -- it ought to come up to the Commission in the next ~ 5 i 18 ; couple of weeks -- you ought to look at it and see what kind of I e { 19 comments you have, see whether or not you agree with it. Then n 20 l you can give us your comments. i 4 21 l COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: At the risk of belaboring a i 22 point, you said lead office. I am not sure whether you really r 23 ' mean that. What I envisaged was this office would perform an t 24, independent investigation. j l 25 MR. LEWIS: That was certainly my original understanding!. l 1 i 6 ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.

sc.19 I I I . e-. Ig i l COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I would not put it as the lead 1 2 office for the overall agency -- 3; MR. LEWIS: I understand. It would make an independent l 4 investigation. When Joe made the comment about notifying the e 5 resident responsible person, it is in the same sense, as..I under-N 6 stand it, that if I were to work for the CIA and go into a-a R 7 country, I notify the Ambassador. You just do that. But it doesn '% j 8, mean he follows me around while I do my job. There are chaperones d l d 9j and chaperones. I i 10 ! COMMISSIONER HENDRIE : I am unwilling and unable to 5 'l E 11 comment on chat, whether or not the Ambassador is notified. l 3 d 12 ' (Laughter.) z 5 d 13 !- MR. LEWIS: Perhaps I. picked a bad example. i 1 5 E 14 l (Laughter.) x i 5 15 l MR. PLESSET: We have an agenda, but that is something 2 E I i g 16 l we will deviate from. I am going to ask Mike Bender to make a w I ,y 17 comment on this. 5 } 18 i MR. BENDER: Now I have discovered this is a meeting E i C 19 : to determine first whether we should create an aresenal and 5 n 20, if we do, what to do with it, I think this may be an appropriate 1 21 ! cuestion. i 22 ' (Laughter.) l t i 23 I know that resident inspectors exist now, and I have 24 always been somewhat curious about their functions ~. Recently whenj l 25 we asked the Admiral what the duties of his resident inspector L i -l ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC. I

- sc.20 go j were, he sent us a one-page summary of it. While I might not 2 agree with what the Admiral suggested his inspector should do, 3 I was impressed by the fact that it was a fairly concise statement. l When I asked a similar question about what the resident 4 i 5j inspector does for the NRC, I got a volume about three-quarters of e A i n ll 8 6 an inch thick which led me to believe that the definition of the I g 7j inspector's role is not all that well defined. 3 8 8 Now, I do not have any objection to inspectors. I think n d c, 9l they are very necessary. And I think for,most purposes it is z h 10 unwise to define tho dut'es of an inspector. But I think we have z= 1 ~ E 11 - made such a point of having resident inspectors at nuclear power <3 d 12 ; plants that the public probably by now expects something special 3 d 13:l about them. And it seems to me it would be wise if the Commission E E 14 took a step to define their role in a way in which the public N 5 2 15 would understand. w= 16, My own inclination would be to have the committee find 3^ l g 17 l out what they are doing just because I think the committee ought

• d i

5 18 to know, too. But if the Commissioners could define that role, =F i 19 l and we could take a look at what is being done, I think it might 3 I n 20 enable us at least to provide scme better understanding to us i l 21 I and to the public as to whether the inspectors are really providing I l l 22 I some public safety purpose or whether they are just some PR 23 provision that is out there. 24 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE : Let me ask one question before I l i theroleis! 25 answer. How clear are you on what the role of -- what i 0 1 i ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.

Dj "~ Ec'21 1{ of an inspector, an I&E inspector, non-resident? I 2l MR. BENDER: Not very, to'be honest about it. I 3 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: Because I think in our case as 4 opposed to the Naval Reactors case, the resident inspector really 5i started from the sense of what an inspector does, and from examin- = I 8 6i ing the utility of -- the advantages of having an individual = { 7 assigned fulltime to a specific plant as opposed to periodically fg along with a team coming to the plants, and the advantages arising dg 9 :t from being ab,le them to become so much more f amiliar with one z h 10 l specific plant -- at least I would preface it with that point. z l jj l I certainly agree there ought to be a way of explaining D l 4 12 j it, and you are right. There is a certain amount of public rela-z i = l 2 13 tions aspect related to it in the sense that whereas the normal a= E 14 l inspector or inspector team that ccmes in and maybe spends a W r N 15 l week or two weeks or less at a plant hardly ever has much in the G t = 7 16 way of interaction with the local public, that a resident inspector 3 A i 17 becomes a visible member of the ccmmunity and ordinarily is spot-d E 18 j lighted or highlighted as that is the NRC representative, or = I' 19, in many cases the federal government representative with respect 5 1 20 j to that f acility, and does end up playing a much more prominent i 2j ' role, and is therefore viewed as an individual with a lot greater i 22 i responsibility, certainly from the standpoint of the public. l l 23 And we have tended in the agency gradually to recognize ; 24 that and attempt to send more senior people and people to whcm we I i 25 are gradually giving more responsibility. It has been a long j 1 I l' ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC. i

cc 22 i 22 process, at least over the last year and a half, of trying to 2 define'what are the roles of resident inspectors with respect i to 3, the other inspectors, what are the differences other than ther=: 4 is so much more -- being more readily accessible. And we certainly e, 5 do not have any crystal clear set, as the one from the Naval N 8 6! Reactors certainly is. 4 i 7 It is a good point. We ought to force that issue and 8 get it more clearly defined. i d g 9; MR. MARK: The larger the responsibility he has might z 10 l go inversely proportional to the t.hickness of the instruction he z! 11 gets. Is that a fair characterization? u d 12 ! (Laughter.) z h 13 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: It probably is a reasonable rule of 5 l E 14 thumb in general. The difficulty is that a lot of the instructions w D! 15, still relate to the amount -- to the set of inspections that an w 16,!' inspector is required to do each year, and the resident inspector = 3 A y 17 to the extent that it begins -- he or she begins to pick up inspec-a= 18 tions that would normally have been done by the inspection team c t 19 ' from headquarters still has got that set to go through. So that A i 20 is a proviso, but still generally -- I 21 MR. PLESSET: Any other comments? I will go back to e 22 agenda. t 23 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: That was on the agenda. 24 MR. PLESSET: Yes, it was. 25 MR. BENDER: Maybe he took it off and the Chairman put i ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.

l cc.23 23 it back on. (Laughter.) 2 3 I thought you would appreciate that. i l 4' MR. PLESSET: Now, something -- g 5 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: Do you have a reorganization chart? N i 6 MR. PLESSET: They may after this meeting. There is E I R 7 some interest in the question of standardization of nuclear 1 i 8 8! plants, and actually' this review of the regulatory process that n d i n 9' we wrote had. a lot of words on that for which mostly Mike Sender i 10 l was responsible. i i = I j 11l CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: He already got his question. E d 12 (Laughte r. ) 3 13, MR. PLESSET: We will let him have another one. = E 14 l MR. BENDER: I did not put this on the agenda, but I w t l E 15 ' will comment on it if you like. w= 16 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE : Yes. 3* i i 17 ' MR. 3 ENDER: For a long time the Commission had a very w= 18 i active program in standardization, and I think when we took a E 19 look at what had happened at the time we were making our review, x ^ l 20 l ue sort of came to the conclusion that maybe the thrust of the i 21l effort, which was mainly to streamline the licensing process, i I 22 had not accomplished that. And further, it was not obvious to l i i 23 us that we could see something that was very standard about i 1 24 standardized plants. l i, 25 Now, the real question is is the standardization business i i i _ ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC. l m

sc,24 er-24 1 a real idea any more, and if so, what is the thrust of it? I 2 We have heard the GE people arguing fairly persuasively 3 that maybe the FAA approach is a better way to go with I 4 standardization. I am not sure that it fits nuclear power plants, 5 but some elements of it do. And I think it would be useful to a R 8 6! knew what the Commission's current view is about the matter of a R t g 7 standardization, whether it plans to proceed along the path that 8 8 it had before TMI, or whether it has some other view. N d i d 9; CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: As a Commission we really have not z, h 10 j addressed standardization since TMI really to any large extent. Z l 5 11 i For myself it did not seem to be one of the most pressing issues D d 12 l that we were faced with. 5 I = 13 - (Laughter.) ~ = E 14 l COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I do not have much to add to thate w 2 15 As John points out, given the paucity of orders, it is not as hot l a 16 l a question as it might be. I think if orders do pick up at some j A i 17 point, people will be ordering plants that are in some sense 5 5 18 i standardized plants. They were beginning to do that to a fairly = ( 19 f considerable extent in the last crop of orders, and the Commission M i 20 l made some efforts to accommodate that. 21 i Are you talking about something more radical? 22 MR. BENDER: I am talking about the fact th at the 23 standardized plants were no t very s tandard. i 24 COMMISSICNER GILINSKY: There are two aspects to i l 25 standardization. One is the idea of having designs which are l I 5l I ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC. I

cc 25 g5 i o e- - approved beforehand and employing those when you are actually ) g ing f rward and building a plant. The other is getting economy 21 t scale which is using that design for many, many plants. It 3! seems to me these two -- 4 i MR. BENDER: I am not talking about the latter at all. g 5; n 6j I am talking about the former which is preapproving a plant that a j 7 really has been preapproved. j 8l MR. SIESS: The powerworthiness certificate that OE i 9 presented, I believe they made a presentation to the Commission. 9 i 10 j COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: For that you need a plant that E 1 j

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is designed in detail. An airplane is designed down to the last <3 i i bolt. ,-g 12 ; 3 MR. SIESS: The most success'ful standardization 'as n 13 =_ E 14 l been of that type, including replication. N C k 15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What we are finding is a very w I I ? 16 different set of practices in the-industry. In the past plants 3 A p j7 ' were designed as you went along. The agency worked at the construc-E i w ( 18 tion permit stage witn preliminary designs, sketches. 5{ j9 l To move in the direction you are talking about one has l 20 l t be prepared to design plants in detail well before you are 21 l ready to start building. You made another comment about the degree to which the 22 23 FAA process is applicable here. I always thought nuclear plants 24 [were in some ways more like airports than airplanes. At least j i 25 there are certain aspects. 3 ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.

Oc.26 i ie-2$ MR. BENDER: I always thought that the power plant litselfwassomethingliketheairplane, that the site was not unlike -- the contairment was not unlike an airport. i 3 l COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: One has to obviously -- 4i MR. KERR: I am not sure it is possible to standardize 3 5 6l:> 9 something that costs several million dollars and takes tens of 3a . years to build. jn 7l A COMMISSICNEF GILINSKY: That is right. It is a differ-3 8 n d ent sort of animal. d 9l $. 10li MR. PLESSET: Yes,. Dave. b i l MR. OKRENT: Whether future LWRs are standard or not, E 11 ; r 8- ! it seems to me that it would be not only useful but in a sense 4~ 12 l z 13ll 4 copropriate for somewhere in the Commission, a group, perhaps a j .] j small group, a good group to try to develop what should be the = 14 w r ,5 15 lmodified general design criteria, plus whatever other supplemental r 3 w i information is appropriate for future reactors, and this would 16 i 3* i be somewhat in this coordinated context that Dr. Hendrie was y 17 m talking about. 5 18 : i j I myself as a citizen would hope tha t the Commission 19. -x i ~" ' would wait until orders are being placed to provide that kind of -- 20 l I guess you would call it guidance or whatever it is you want it 21 i I to be. 22 I i i i CHAIRMAN AHEARNE : David, let me ask you a question, l 23 because I can recall almost two years ago when I was involved with 24, i i i the Commission en this debate on standardization, the issue ended 25 i t i i ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC. I

r cc 27 i i ZQ' l , r.-- 1 1l up being can you conclude that if you enforced a standard, not i allowed but enforced a standardization approach, would you have 2i I j any greater confidence in the safe'ty of plants. 3i l 4l And if the answer to that is no, you cannot reach that 1 conclusion, then it fa..s back on where I think Vic's answer was: g 5 9 I would we allow it? Would we believe there was anything less safe 4g 6; g j about it. The answer seems to be clearly we would allow it. I 7 i I d n t think any ne has been able to come up with anything th.an E a! n i 9 f more or less intuitive arguments that it would be significantly 9, z' I an improvement to safety. 10 z I MR. OKRENT: I guess I have about reached the conclusion 5 11 ; = PiL that a standard plant approach properly done would lead to more 12 i z i safety. I think, for example, the effort that the architect I 13 I E g 4l engineer now puts into each plant would go into a few plants and a w E in fact be better directed. And certainly the operation and the 15 6 understanding of the operation would be -- 16 3 1~ I CHAIRMAN AHEARNE: Tha t is what I meant by intuitive ..g 17 a b 18 l arguments. The difficulty comes -- the difference is do we ~ E 19 l all w versus requirement. The intuitive arguments are fine for a e. 20 ! allow or encourage, but when you turn to the other side and say 21 ; we will g in the direction of requiring, then I tbink you need i 22,, a little bit more firm ground. l COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I am also cersuaded that therc 23 l are imp rtant advantages. In looking at the difficulties we 24 f 25 ' had fixing up plants, once we rea?ized the tremendous variety of i I l i ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC. l

2% cc 28 } systems we had to deal with -- this was a point made in your i 2l report, the variability and reliability of these systems, I think l 3 that your ability to actually understand the system when it is i 4! standardized is very much greater when you are dealing with a l 5l smaller number of reactor types than if you have to deal with e. 3 l n ] 6l systems that are much different -- a great number of architect R I R 7l engineers, an enormous number of utilities and so forth. ~ i E l 8 8: Anyway, this brings me to the conclusion we would be n i d i d 9 better off if we had standardization. I I 10 l MR. PLESSET: It is nice to end on a conclusion, Victor. E 5 11 ; I will take my prerogative as Chairman to recess the meeting. l 3 i c 12 Let's have a recess. z 5 i en j 13 ! (Recess.) to 12 = i E 14 l w 6 i 2 15 { w i 16 l A N 17 5 i 18 l ~ 19 ' 8 l 20 l 21 l t 22 - f i 23 ,l i 24 1 i 25 l l 9 i L 3 ALDERSON_ REPORTING COMP ANY_, INC. 1

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