ML19347C118
| ML19347C118 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 10/08/1980 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T-0788, NUDOCS 8010160627 | |
| Download: ML19347C118 (30) | |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA j
2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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4 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS a
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON ADVANCED REACTORS i
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7 Room 1717 j
8 1717 H Street, N.W.
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Washington, D.C.
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4 11 Wednesday, October 8,
1980 a
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13 The meeting of the Advisory Committee was O
44ce ve ea, vere = eat to etice, et 9:00 a.m.
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1 16 Present:
'DR.
MAX CARBON, CHAIRMAN l
17 DR. KERR j
18 DR. HAROLD W.
LEWIS i
DR. DAVID OKRENT 19 DR. J. C.
MARK DR. MILTON PLESSET 20 DR. PAUL SHEWMON 4
i 21 E
23 i O i
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lO acaciao 62 /
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MR. CARBON:
Let's start the meeting.
The meeting C'
2 will now come to order.
This is a meeting of the Advisory 3 Committee on Reactor Safeguards Subcommittee meeting on
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4 Advanced Reactors.
5 I am Dr. Max Carbon, Subcommittee chairman.
The 6 other ACRS members present today are:
Mr. Bender, Dr. Kerr, 7 Dr. Lewis, Dr. Okrent, Dr. Mark, Dr. Plesset, and Dr.
8 Shewmon.
9 The purpose of this meeting is to discuss plans 10 for the Subcommittee future activities.
11 This meeting is being conducted in accordance with 12 the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the 13 Government in the Sunshine Act.
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14 Dr.
R. Savio is the Designated Federal Employee 15 for the meeting.
16 The rules for participation in today's meeting I'7 have been announced as part of the notice of this meeting 18 previously published in the Federal Register on September 19 23, 1980, and October 1,
1980.
20 A transcript of the meeting is being kept ane will 21 be made available as stated in the Federal Register notice.
22 It is requested that each speaker first identify himself and 23 speak with sufficient clarity and volume so that he can be 24 readily heard.
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25 We have received no written statements or requests
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1 for time to make oral statements from members of the public.
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2 I would certainly welcome input from you and 3 discussion among us as to the direction to take in a program 4 that is somewhat laid out here, with the following 5 background.
I sort of initiated this prior to the last 6 meeting, or perhaps, without laying any blame on Bill, which l
7 I don 't want to do, I would say that he and I discussed this 8 prior to that.
In fact, we started out from the basis that 9 we don 't know, or I don't know at least, whether the 10 research people in the NRC are working on the right problems 11 or not.
12 And the main thrust here was to take a detailed 13 look at their research activities tha t they're doing and
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14 decide if they're doing the right things, whether they're 15 doing the right things, whether they are doing them fast 16 enough, whether they are doing them properly, whether they I'7 are covering all of the important ones, whether they are 18 doing them in the right sort of priority.
19 Then this was discussed a t the end of the last 20 meeting, the last monthly meeting, and I was not here.
It 21 is my understanding that the Committee's thought was that it 22 should be broader than just research, and we ought to look 1
23 really basically at coming up with criteria for elementary I'/
24 design, with the research as sort of a secondary thing.
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r 25 With that in mind and following discussions with i
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4 1 all three of you gentlemen, in fact, I put together this
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2 vriteup here, which is sort of a trial balloon, to discuss, 3 tear apart, and whatever.
I will go through it very, very O
4 briefly, and say that basically it is a thought that NRC of 5 the U.S. may initiate the design and construction of a
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6 demo-size LMFBR in the next two, three, four, five years.
7 NRC may be called upon to license that LMFBR.
At 8 the bottom of page 1,
I put on four important points or four 9 belief s:
i 10 One, that if the NRC is going to be prepared to 11 license a demo-sized LMFBR on a timely basis -- and to me a 12 timely basis is the NRC ought to be knowledgeable in the r
13 area, either ideally at the start of the conceptual design, I, )
14 bu t certainly at the start of a detailed design, on the 15 basis that if DOE says, gee, if they 're given the go-ahead 16 by Congress to come up with a detailed design, they will 17 have it worked out and a PSAR in to the NRC within the year.
18 If tney follow a time schedule like that, then the 19 NRC cannot sit back and wait until the Congress gives the 20 go-ahead for detailed design, if the NRC is going to have 21 an y significa nt input, at least in an efficient manner.
22 And I state down at the bottom of page 1 the 23 supposition that the NRC should maintain a r.adre of
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24 licensing personnel knowledgeable in LMFBR technology who 25 can begin providing what I call conceptual safety input to O
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5 1 the designers no later than the initiation of a demo design;
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2 B, maintain a viable safety research program 3 involving a suitable number of NRC staff members and O
4 contractor personnel.
A major purpose of this program 5 should be to support the licensing personnel in A.
6 And C, to support a research effort at 7 universities and elsewhere, national labs and so on, so as 8 to make available knowledgeable consultants who can be 9 called upon by both the licensing and research staffs.
And 10 these people, we hope, will provide new ideas as well as 11 serve as advisors.
12 And then finally, D, develop prior to initiation 13 of a design a set of safety design criteria.
And I comment
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14 here, and this is f or discussion, these should be more 15 specific than the general design criteria for LMFER's and 16 migh t be comparable in detail to the reg guidance for LWR 's.
I'7 And I state in there, there is risk in NRC doing 18 this, because a demo plant may not be built and so on.
But 19 I pu t words in people's mouths and say the Subcommittee 20 estimates there is a probability somewhere in the 25 to 75 21 percent range that design of such a plant would be initiated 22 in the next five years, and that it believes that the 23 possibility of enhanced LMFBR safety more than justifies the
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24 financial risk of NRC being prepared as described above 25 The current situation:
NRC doesn't have any O
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6 1 activity in licensing LZFBR's and hasn't for the last three
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l 2 years.
For the past three years, the safety research 3 program was sort of drif ting away, the personnel are sort of i O 4 moving off, and so on.
5 The bottom of page 2, timing.
We just go through 6 an exercise there which indicates tha t, for example, if l
7 Congress gave DOE the go-ahead in a couple of years or 8 something, it would be almost impossible for NRC to be 9 prepared to step in at that time and participate, providing l
l 10 saf ety input into that design on a timely basis.
And it l
l 11 ends up saying that a minimum preparation time of five or 12 six years is needed by NRC to handle the problem in proper 13 f ashion.
And if the Congress and the President accept the
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14 philosophy described above on NRC being prepared to 15 pa rticipa te, to provide safety input at the time of start of 16 detailed design or, better yet, conceptual d esign, then it 17 is urgent that NRC be directed to implement appropriate 18 action immediately.
19 Then the rest of the paper here goes into three l
20 proposed actions:
One is, since it looks like nobody else 21 a t NRC is going to do anything in this direction, that it 22 would be appropriate for this Subcommittee to initia te a l
23 study aimed at developing what I have termed specific design.
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24 criteria for demonstration LMFBR's and for practical 25 commercial LMFBR's, and these design criteria would cover ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
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1 the total breadth of safety areas of importance to LMFBR 2 design and operation.
3 And I go on to the LWR general design criteria and j
4 selected primary major topics there.
As I indicate, the aim 5 of these criteria would be to establish an envelope of 6 general safety requirements to ensure that all matters 7 important to L5FBR safety have received consideration.
8 But then it would be proposed that the design 9 criteria would be specified in more detail than the general 10 design criteria for LWR's, and I give an example thero.
One
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11 criterion might be sufficiently detailed as to specify that 12 there must be at least two plant protection systems, each i
13 to tally independent of the other, each designed by different
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14 organizations, each based on a different set of operational 1
15 principles.
16 I am not saying that should be done.
I am saying 17 th at is an example of what might be -- of the detail that is 18 sugg ested he re.
19 A tentative a pproach is laid out here for 20 something that would take perhaps 12 to 18 months.
We get 21 ourselves a group of consultants.
We get DOE and the NRC 22 staf f and industry to tell us what they think should be 23 criteria for demo plants.
And we also look at what foreign
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24 nations are doing; and then try and come up with a set of 25 criteria, discuss them with DOE and industry and so on, and
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8 1 make some refinements, and then come out of the first cut,
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2 hich wouldn't certainly be a complete set of criterion, but i
j 3 would be a first step, a first major step, on some time
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4 scale, again, like th e 12 to 18 months.
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5 Fo t-consultants in this approach I have indicated 6 possible people line Bob Avery and Dick Denise and Lipinsky I
j 7 and Monson and Nicholson and Speis and Siegel and Stra tton,
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8 and two or thrae people that I don 't yet know.
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9 And the primary goal of the effort would be to 10 provide recommended criteria that the NRC licensing people l
11 either would have available, might adopt, whatever, at the i
12 time of the start.
j 13 Then the second action would be, based on what we
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14 come up with in terms of design criteria, then to attack j
15 wh a t should a research program consist of, what activities l
16 should NRC be involved in, why and what time scale, things
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17 of tha t nature.
And this migh t be started nine months or a 18 year af ter we started the effort to develop criteria.
19 And then the third proposed action would be to try 20 and figure out some way that we could get some action 21 ta ke n.
For example, in the discussion with the i
22 Commissioners last month it seemed that Ahea rne at least 23 listened and didn't pay the slightest attention.
And I 4
24 guess that I thought that Gilinsky was paying attention, but 25 I do n ' t really know what he thought about it.
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But in any case, I doubt personally that the NRC
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2 will take much action, because the Executive Branch, as 3 currently constituted at least, wou1C. nre support it.
And I O
l 4 cannot imagine personally the Commissioners would go against J
Stheir implied wishes.
And I raise the question in here 6 whether we ought to go directly to Congress.
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7 Well, that is the trial balloon, so to speak.
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8 would like to call two other things to your attention.
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We got a letter from Charlie Kelper, which you I
10 ha ve in f ront of you.
I won't go througit all of it, but the l
11 second page of it says4 "I suggest that the ACRS review the 12 DOE safety program in some depth."
And he's talking there 13 about how it seems to be going off in a direction which is
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1-4 quite contrary to what was agreed upon earlier by all the 15 people involved.
16 I would also call your attention to something that 17 Carson informed me of.
The American Physical Society has 18 just put a proposal in to NRC and DOE and so on entitled "A 19 Study of Selected Safety Aspects of Breeder Reactor 20 Tech nolog y. "
And they have a proposal for, I think it is, a 21 on e-year, $650,000 study to look at the safety aspects of 22 LMFBR's and come up with a report in the same f ashion that 23 they did, I guess, on LWR's in 1975 or thereabouts, a year
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24 or so before the Le wis Committee started.
J 25 MR. OXRENT:
Gee, maybe we can do it for $500.
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MR. CARBON:
Well, that is the background, and I 2 think some of the questions that are obvious ares Can this 3 be done, should it be done, should we do it, is this the O
4 right way to do it, how should we change, are these the 5 righ t consultants?
That sort of thing.
6 I think it is very, very important to have a t 7 least some agreement at the start on what direction to go, 8 and I would propose to try and write out in considerable l
9 detail the direction we propose to take, so as hopefully to 10 avoid ending up a year down the road with some people having l
11 f elt we were going one way and some another, and a lot of i
12 conf usion resulting.
13 I will cease speaking and invite comment.
(_)g 14 MR. BENDERS If you do everything you have 15 outlined with the Committee, recognizing that the Committee 16 has essentially no staff, and the NBC is not going to supply 1'7 any manpower to it, the Committee 's going to h a ve to 18 generate its own information.
And in reflecting on what 19 th a t takes, I would have to say we couldn't do it in the 20 breadth you were suggesting in that time frame.
21 In principle, I think I agree with the approach 22 that you are taking.
I think it would be a good idea to get 23 a be tter idea of what the design criteria are for fast 24 reactors and try to get that out as an initial step.
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25 It may be that we could sta rt with one of the l
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i 11 1 European sets of criteria and refine those, in the absence 2 of anything around here.
And I guess I would be included to 3 say I would rather start with what is available f rom Super
. O 4 Phoenix, in whatever form it is in, and try to look at how i
5much of that is palatable and what things we might change if 6 we were doing it in this country, rather than to start with 7 a clean slate.
8 I think we do not have anything in this country 9 that represents a point of departure right now.
That is why 10 I am suggesting that as an alternativ j
11 MR. CARBON:
For my own clarification, it would 12 seem to me that if we contacted the CRBR people and said, 13 well -- well, contacted them, got their reports, talked to 14 th em, whatever, get their ideas of what they interpret their 15 criteria to be, and talk with industry and maybe with the 16 DOE headquarters people, that we could come up with loose, 1, tentative criteria that would be reasonably as substantial 18 as wha t we would get on an advanced Super Phoenix.
19 90 you not agree with that?
20 MR. BENDER:
At one time I would have said that is 21 a good course of action.
Right now I think the manpower 22 that is assigned to the CRBR does not have a high level of 23 expertise, and I am not confortable with that avenue because 24 of t ha t.
25 MR. CARBON:
But if we looked at the actual CRBR O
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12 1 design, whether it is good or bad, and said this is what 2 they are doing, wouldn't that e f f ec ti vely be their criteria?
3 MR. BENDER:
I think that is too constrained, to 4 be honest about it.
I think they started out with something 5 that was already --
6 MR. CARBON:
Well, excuse me.
I wouldn't mean to l
7 stop there.
8 MR. BENDER:
Vell, you could start there, but that 9 is designed more or less as an application of what is in the 10 FFTF.
And I think it led them into some things that maybe 11 they shouldn't have done.
12 But when you start reviewing something that l
13 exists, it is very hard to shift gears.
The plant didn't
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14 aven get far enough along to even allow the criteria to gel, 15 and that is why I am suggesting Super Phoenix.
That is 16 being built, and we may not necessarily agree with 17 everything that the French and the Italians and the Germans 18 are doing, but nevertheless they are challenged to build 19 something and they do have a regulatory approach.
And 20 because there's already been a fair amount of interplay 21 between them, I believe a lot of the rationale they have 22 already developed, I don't believe it is developed for the l
23 CRBR.
24 I have been frustrated by it, but I think it is a
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25 f act of life.
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MR. SHEWMON:
I guess two things:
One, whether j
3 you put it in terms of general criteria or not, it seems to l
4 me this is taking _a position of advocacy which is so strong l
I 5 that I feel distinctly uneasy with it.
What it calls to 6 mind is some nursery rhyme or Mother Goose tale sort of 7 thing where nobody else would do it, and so this particular 8 individual will go out and do it, because they felt in that 9 case it should be done for the public good.
I'm not quite 10 as convinced of that.
11 I guess I am willing to back off a little bit.
I l
l 12 think your arguments in front about the time scale are sort 13 of dic ta ting too strongly what you want to believe in, O)
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14 instead of what we do.
But again, the strong advocacy that 15 we would have to take this way, in the face of all of the 16 judgments in the political process at this point in time, 17 bothers me, and I don't think that is where the Committee 18 ough t to get itself.
l 19 The other thing is, I have real concern or i
20 question about whether one can evolve criteria in the l
21 absence of a dialogue.
It seems to me design criteria have 22 evolved out of discussions between designers and 23 regula tors.
For the regulators to say, we will do it on our
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24 ow n, talking to ourselves and our consultants, seems to me 25 missing a t least design criteria I have heard of in the 1
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14 1past.
And I suspect it is going to end up being a game that
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2 ce.n ' t be pla yed near as well as if we had some other people 3 trying to cut down costs or worry about other options for
, O 4 us, or things of that sort.
5 I guess both of these make me feel distinctly l
6 uneasy, especially the fact that you still have a lot of 7 work.
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8 MR. CARBONS Not to argue, but simply to discuss, o I was really trying not to put it on an advocacy basis.
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10 MR. SHEWMONs But it seems to me anything we say, 1
11 the whole rest of the world just doesn't have it right, or 12 the country.
But we can see the truth so :learly that we 13 will go do it on our own if they won't do it with us; tha t 's
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1-4 what you're saying.
And to me that's -- you can call it not 15 ad vocacy if you want.
16 MR. KERRs Paul, I think there is a significant l'7 budgetary commitment within DOE towards some sort of program 18 which is described as LMFBR 's, and maybe it isn't.
But it's 19 th er e.
Do you think it's just a sham?
Congress provides 20 the money to DOE to do some studies.
21 MR. SHEWMON:
Let me turn that around to you.
Do 22 you really think there's a sense of commitment on the part 23 of the country and the government to build the LEFBR's in 24 five years?
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25 MR. KERRs I don't know what there 's a commitment ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
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15 1 to do about LMFBR's, except there is a commitment, a 2 substantial financial commitment to study them.
3 MR. SHEWMON:
One can do that.
4 MR. KERR:
If one is going to look at the design 4
5 and if safety is an important part of the design, there 6 ought to be some groups thinking about safety.
Perhaps the 7 same group can think about safety as thinks about design.
l 8 And I think the point that Max is making is that that i
9 approach in light-water reactors would seem to indicate some 10 deficiencies.
11 MR. SHEWMON:
I guess my response to that would be 12 that it is one thing to say, are there certain long-term 13 projects with regard to research or the SUMMIT code, if you i
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14 va n t to pick a project at random which is at least big 15 enough to talk about a continuing effort, one can say that 16 we ought to keep going on that sort of a basis or tha t sort l'7 of an effort or certain other things.
18 It is another thing to say that we will scope, or 19 we f eel that in the absence of an active design program we 20 can independently do work on scoping the licensing criteria, 21 that they should be part of this design effort when we do Z2get around to it or they get around to it, or something.
23 I'll grant that maybe there should be a parallel effort, but 24 we aren 't talking about a pa rallel ef f ort.
We're talking
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3about going out and trying to create the framework which
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1 will last for a decade or two wi th regard to the regulatory 2 ef fort, in the absence of any design effort or any projected 3 design ef fort.
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4 I have the faint suspicion we are kiddiag l
4 5 ourselves.
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MR. CARBON:
I would put it in somewhat different i
7 words and really mean it in different words.
I go back and 8 think about CRBR, and t!.a t was pretty much signed and sealed j
9 before NRC got involved in it.
And I think that is the 10 wrong a p p ro a ch.
I think that is the basis of a lot of the i
11 problems that we have in the LWR field today, that the 12 designs were pretty much sealed and the NRC was brought in 13 at a stage where it almost had to react.
It was not really 1
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14 in early enough to get the kind of safety input that I think 15 should be there.
16 MR. SHEWMON:
That is nonsense.
l'7 MR. CARBON:
No, it is not, Paul.
18 MR. SHEWMON:
I don't think you can talk about it 19 -- you know, LWR designs were set up long before anybody 20 conceived of the NRC.
So you know, those things came out 21 with the naval program in 1950.
3 22 MR. CARBON:
The PWR desions came out with the 23 naval program, but the auxiliary feedwater systems and the
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24 kind of power supplies that they had didn't come out with 25 th e Navy design.
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1 MR. SHEWMON:
But there were reactors operating in 2 commercial and being sold before 1974, as I recall.
- Now, 3 maybe they should have created the NRC 20 years before they 4 did.
i MR. CARBON:
I'm saying the AEC safety people, or 6 I'll say the AEC safety people, because the NRC didn't 7 exist, obviously, the AEC safety people should have been 8 involved, I think, in some specifications having to do with 9 power suppies in LWR's.
10 I would take the example of the CRBB, where th ey 11 designed the damn thing and had no, what I would call, third 12 deca y hea t removal system.
They had a sodium purification 13 system, and when the CRBR design came to NRC for licensing,
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14 they said, gee, this is a deficiency.
You've got to have an 15 additional decay heat removal system here.
And so the PMC 16 people took this sodium purification system and made it into l'7 a decay heat removal system.
18 Well, I don't know whether it is good enough or 19 no t, but it certainly is an example, I think, of where they 20 carried through the design and then came to NRC and said, 21 here it is, and NRC said, we don't like it, you've got to do ZZsomething about it.
And so they jimmied something up and 23 pu t it together.
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24 And I don 't think that is the way to design the --
v 25 to have a safe system.
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MR. SHEWMON:
Well, that ge ts back to one of my 2 other problems, is that I think regulatory things are always 3 going to evolve out of a dialogue between designers and 4 regulators.
To say that one side of that dialogue can do it 5 all on their own if the other side doesn 't exist -- I say 6 th ere will be questions about it.
7 MR. CARBON:
Well, I didn't really have in mind 8 our doing this all by ourselves.
I envisioned lots of 9 cross-discussion and so on with DOE and industry.
10 I'll stop.
11.
MR. KERRs Paul, is the alternative that you would 12 sugg est, if you are suggesting an alternative, a different 4
13 approach or for the time being not trying to do anything, 14 for example.
15 MR. SHEWMON:
I guess, to take a page out of your 16 book from this evening at supper, I think we ought to be 17 ad visory.
And we have -- what we are doing here is deciding 18 th at, gee, they aren't doing anything in this area, we ought 4
19 to get out there and do it.
20 You know, if there is nothing to advise on, then I f
21 quess I get a little bit uneasy thinking we should go in and 22 give them something.
23 MR. KERR Supposing we perceive as a Committee 24 th a t there is a not insignificant activity within DOE
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i 25 without any concomitant activity at NRC.
Should we formally O
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19 1 say to the Commission, we think there should be some NRC 2 activity, or more activity than there now is?
3 MR. SHEWMONs Yes.
I think the budget report on O
4 research is a good way to do that.
We can send it out by 5 sepa rate letter.
6 MR. KERRs But this is more than research.
This 7 is a licensing staff that would be working on development of 8 criteria, f or example.
9 MR. SHEWMON:
Then it should be a separate 10 letter.
I guess on that basis what bothers me is to say, we 11 think you ought to do it, but if you won't we'll do it on 12 our own, by golly.
1 13 MR. KERRs You have a good point, and I have some
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14 of the same concerns.
I expect even Max does.
j 15 MR. BENDERS I think it is pretty likely that 16 within the next two years there will be a design effort on 17 some kind of fast reactor.
18 MR. CARBON:
There is a conceptual design under 19 wa y right now with no input from NBC.
20 MR. BENDER:
And because that exists, we could 211nf orm ourselves about the safety criteria by talkina to the 22 people that are doing conceptual engineering, and maybe get i
23 a feeling for what the current trends are.
/3 24 MR. SHEWMON:
This is in EPRI?
, V 25 MR. BENDERS I think there's an EPRI effort.
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20 1 had in mind DOE would sponsor a fairly strong design
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2 effort.
They would have done it this year if they could 3 have turned off the CRBR.
4 MR. CARBON:
Let me clarify something.
DOE is 5 currently carrying out a conceptual design study for a 6 1,00 0-meg a wa t t electrical LMFBR, and they have a report on 7 this to the Congress, I think, by March 31st.
That is in 8 progress.
9 MR. OKRENT:
Who is the contractor?
I 10 MR. CARBON:
I don't know, but it is 11 Congressionally dictated to DOE to do it.
That's been going 12 on, I think, f or about six months or perhaps a year or 13 some thing.
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'4 MR. OKRENT:
Is that the one that Boeing is 15 managing?
16 MR. BENDER:
I don't know tha t much about it.
As l'7 a matter of fact, I wasn't aware that it had s ta r ted.
18 MR. SHEWMON:
If Boeing is managing one, it sounds 19 like that may be the one.
20 MR. BENDER:
I think Paul is right in saying that 4
21 without some design initiative, it's very hard to try to 22 develop criteria.
It is hard to do it in the abstract, and 23 th a t is why I initially suggested the Phoenix, because I 24 think it is a going project.
But if there were an American
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Let me ask a diff erent question, I 3 quess that you may feel is a red herring, but I think it is I
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With regard to the argument one would make for an i
j 5LMFBR in this country in this century, it seems to me one of l
6 the main requirements is that you have to say plutonium is i
7 worth the money you pay for an LMFBR.
The French have made i
8 a damn good try at this and, according to Steve, are saying 9 that it costs twice as much per kilowatt.
i 10 And so it seems to me, if this is going to be 4
i 11 attractive as anything other than sort of as an exercise for 12 someplace in the next century, you have to say that you 1
13 think the :eparative work, or I guess basically the price of
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I 17 Have you looked into these things enough to feel 18 tha t one is justified on that basis, even with the reduced i
1 19 growth rate in demand f or electricity, which seems to be i
20 upon us and I guess will stay for some time?
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21 MR. CARBON:
Well, I guess I would have two l
l 22 answers to that.
The direct specific answer is that I 23 ha ven ' t really looked too much at that, other than to be
()
24 aw a r e, both from conversations and from reading, that the 25 French are trying to get the next generation of Super 1
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22 1 Phoenixes, Super Phoenix II, so-called, down to where the 2 capital cost is one and a half, one and three-quarters, what 3 an LWR is.
Because I think they feel then that it would be 4 economic.
5 But I am really going much more on the basis, one, 2
6 visether I advocate it or not, whether it is a good idea or 7 not, I don't even take a stand.
I simply say that I think 8 there is a pretty fair chance that the U.S.
is going to 9 design and build a demo LMFBR before long.
And if it does, 10 I think the NBC ought to be prepared to have an input from a 11 safety standpoint.
12 I am not advocating LMFBR's at all.
I am just 13 simply saying I think we missed the boat in the past.
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15 MR. SHEWMON4 You are not ignoring my question.
16 You are saying that, independent of the economics projected I'7 fo r the next 20 or 30 years, you feel that Congress will 18 mandate money for the design and construction of at least a l
19 serious demo?
20 MR. CARBON:
Yes, of the size, 1,000 megawatts 21 electrical or bigger.
22 Incidentally, Dick gave me the people,
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23 participants in the conceptual design, are AI, BCW, Bechtel, 24 Burns and Roe, Combustion, GE, Westinghouse, and Stone C
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25 We bs t e r.
But who's pulling it all together, I honestly i
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MR. SAVIO:
DOE's management structure.
2 MR. CARBON 4 DOE is tying it all together.
Boeing 3 is not in that, but that is correct, Paul, yes.
Your last O
4 statement.
I don't ignore your question.
I think there is 5an answer, but I am not sura I really know it.
Dave, you 6 have said nothing.
7 MR. CKRENT:
I said Boeing.
8 MR. SHEWMON:
You are not usually so concise.
9 MR. OKRENTs The study you just referenced could 10 serve as an interface, and a possible way of interacting, if 11 you were to try to begin this ef f ort.
In other words, these 12 people presumably have some design criteria, however they 13 were formed, however complete or incomplete they may be, and
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1<4 th at might serve as one vehicle for initiating a 15 consideration of design criteria and then having that, it 16 seems to me, one could try to see how they compare with what 17 the British or the Ja panese or the French or the German IE might propose for a future plan, and also perhaps what other i
19 people in this country who are not tied down by whatever 20 this ef f ort is doing.
21 There might be an avenue that way.
I don 't know 22 ho w far you would get.
It is not an easy job.
I think you 23 would find it is not a job that on can complete, but maybe
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24 the act of trying to do it would identify problems that 25 require f ocus one way or ano ther.
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MR. BENDER:
Max, let me offer a short-term action 2 as opposed to something that is comprehensive.
I suggest
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3 you just take the initiative in the beginning.
Why don't
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4 you just contac' that group that DOE has set up, and find 1
5 out whether they wouldn 't just like to come in and discuss 4
1 6 with us how the safety criteria for licensing in LMFPR i
7 should be attacked at this stage, rather than to try to 4
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8 formulate a whole program at this stage of the game and get i
9 some reaction on that side?
J 10 It looks to me like everybody generally agrees you j
11 need to have some supportive group of some sort.
i 12 MR. SHEWMON:
My guess is that they would jump at 1
j 13 the ch ance, because I imagine they feel it is a paper study
()
14 in a vacuum and nobody gives a damn, where they can't even 15 g e t competent people to talk to them about it.
16 MR. CARBON:
I am in no way opposed to what you i
17 are saying or suggesting.
I am a little bit unclear, 1
18 though, in making that statement, if we have the aen to talk 19 abou t it, is it your thought of simply asking them, could we 20 come up with some criteria, their view of whether we should 21 come up with criteria?
j 22 MR. BENDER:
My suggestion is, you try something 23 along these lines.
Ask them first how they would go about 24 developing criteria that could be the basis for NRC's review
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MR. CARBON:
This is to ask the DOE?
3 MR. BENDERS Yes, the DOE group, and secondly, 4 whether they would see any advantage to them in having the 5 ACRS establish some kind of preliminary review activity as a 6 soundingboard for their ideas, and having done that, then 7 the Committee might be able to formulate a position on 8 whether it could and would want to do something like that.
9 In the absence of it, it looks to me like we've 10 go t such a big can of worms to propose, that first the 11 Committee as a whole would have a hard time accepting the 12 ch allenge, and secondly, I think the physical demands on us 13 as individuals would be such that we couldn't bite it off.
14 If you could find som'. vay that doesn 't put so much burden 15 on the Committee, it might be practical to do something.
16 MR. CARBON:
But if I did what you are suggesting 17 here, and then if they happen to say yes, I guess that puts 18 us back to where we are righ t now.
Is that correct?
,19 MR. BENDERS I hope they would come in with some 20 more coordina ted idea, if they would do a lot of work for us 211n planning our approach.
ZZ MR. CARBON 4 I would propose to ask them that.
23 MR. BENDER:
I think it is obvious that you
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24 would.
And then we don't have to accept it as a package, 25 beca use they propose it, because it provides a vehicle to O
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27 1 develop something tha t the Committee could then 1cok at and
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4 2 say, we like 10 percent of it, or 50 percent of it, or 75 3 percent of it, and whatever part we don't like we propose to 4 alter in some way.
5 MR. CARBON:
But you would suggest doing that 6 before we make any decision whether to go ahead and try and i
7 develop criteria ?
8 MR. BENDER:
I think you have to in order to get 9 some understanding of the scope of the effort.
10 MR. KERR:
I like that suggestion.
j j
11 MR. OKRENT:
If you are going to invite DOE in, I i
12 would suggest you issue separate invitations to GE, i
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13 Westinghouse, AI, maybe Bechtel.
I am not si;re whether they
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15 feel they have something to contribute or not.
They were l
15 active.
But you migh t see whether the A. E. Bechtel or a
16 Bu rns -- think they want to contribute to this, so that you 17 h a ve tha,t part of it.
18 MR. CARBON:
Essentially to invite those people.
l 19 MR. OKRENT4 Ask if they want to, speaking for 20 themselves, and EPRI, by the way, because in the first place I
21 there are differences of opinion on the type of reactor.
22 These may reflect in one way on criteria, and so forth.
So, 23 I am just saying, if you are going to do it, do that.
24 And I think the other thing is, if you thought
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I even some way, I would myself, I think, try to have some of 2 the money that is in advanced reactor safety research
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3 assigned to one or more laboratories. It doesn't have to be d
4 a lot of money.
It can be a fairly modest amount.
But to 5 have some people trying to develop criteria.
In other
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6 words, as a research project, to give you a sort of a l
7 separate source of whatever you want to call it, inspiration 8 approach, and so forth.
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9 That could then provide some kind of support to i
10 the activity without tying up licensing staff, which I think i
11 you will find very hard to get at this stage.
In other 12 wo rd s, there are people at Brookhaven and Los Alamos and so 8 13 f o rt h, Oregon, whatever, who can provide some ideas on 14 criteria and some of our consultants in some areas can, but 15 I think the idea that Mike has proposed or whoever it was of 16 trying to meet wi th this group to see how they viewed it and 17 to what extent they thought they might participate would be 18 usef ul.
19 Now, you may just get the LOA approach, and that 20 is i t.
I don't know.
That wouldn't be too helpful by i
21 1t self.
22 MR. BENDER:
It is a positive outlook.
1 23 MR. KERR It is a change in the militaristic 1 ()
24 approach to the civilian.
4 25 MR. CARBON:
Well, I am certainly willing to do 2
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29 1 that.
I liked very much Mike's first suggestion in trying 2 to take something like Super Phoenix as a basis.
3 MR. OKRENTs I think that would be hard.
It is O
4 probably mostly written in French, and some of it may be 5 considered proprietary or suggest proprietary information.
1 6 It may not be easy to do.
7 MR. CARBON:
I guess the thing that strikes me is, i
8 one ought to be able to do -- a group ought to be able to go 9 to the DOE design team, including industry, and see what 1G they are doing, ask them what they are doing in the way of 11 criteria for this conceptual design, and get whatever we can 12 on Super Phoenix, and then with those two inputs, to have a 13 group such as our subcommittee and some good consultants and n
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14 be able to come up with some first shot criteria.
15 MR. OKRENT4 I think the British went pretty far 16 on criteria.
They built the PFF, and they were thinking t
I'7 abou t what a commercial fast reactor CFR might look like.
18 So, a t the point when you are trying to get outside input, 19 th ey would certainly be one, and the Japanese have a serious i
20 prog ram.
If you don't have a design team to interact, you 21 a re a t a big disad va n ta ge.
But you don't want them to hand 22 you the criteria, and you are not sort of very able to take 1
23 them apart.
Well, the preponderance of
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25 opinion is obviously this way.
I will back off and aim in
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You don't have to back off.
You just l
3 forge ahead in a slightly different direction.
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Paul, that last approach?
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6 MR. SHEWMON:
I think that would be fine.
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7 MR. CARBON:
Okay.
8 MR. SHEWMON:
I think tha t is doaole without i
9 trying to carry the whole world on your shoulders.
l 10 MR. CARBON:
Except I hope to forge ahead all the 11 way as we get down the road here.
12 The meeting is adjourned.
i 13 (Whereupon, at 9557 p.m.,
the meeting was I
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