ML20002D405
| ML20002D405 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 04/25/1980 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8101200552 | |
| Download: ML20002D405 (81) | |
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REfURN TO SERETARIAT RECOR U NIT ED STATES N UCLE AR R EG UL ATO RY COMMISSION in the matter of:
O BRIEFING BY R & D ASSOCIATION r]
ON CONTAINMENT
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WITHSTAND A CORE MELT
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PIaee:
Bethesda. Maryland Date:
April 25, 1980 Pages:
1 - 79 INTDtNADONAL VntaAnu REPcwtTots INC.
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49 SOUTH CAPfTOL STREET. S. W. SU!TE 107 WASHINGTON. D. C. 20001 331 M 8101200
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA f
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION I
_________________________________x i
In the Matter of:
l BRIEFING BY R & D ASSOCIATION l
e ON CONTAINMENT CONCEPT TO 4
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i WITHSTAND A CORE MELT l
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9 Room 550 j
East-West Towers 10 i
4350 East-West Highway Bethesda, Md.
i 11 Friday, April 25, 1980 i
1:
1 12 l
The Commission met pursuant to notice, for 14 l
oresentation of the above-entitled matter at 1:00 p.m.,
13 John F. Ahearne, Chairman of the Commission presiding.
,l id BEFORE:
17 VICTOR GILINSKY. Commissioner ta PRESENT:
I' l
DR. A. LATTER gg MR. P. HAMMOND 1
MR. S. ZIVIE i
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PROCEEDINGS 2
DR. LATTER:
I'll tell you right off that I am 3
getting expectations more or less of misfortunes of what 4
one might -- what we think might arise and hopefully --
5 We hope.(continued on page 2...)
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i That people don't have the feeling thati I
i we have engineering drawings of changes that can be made in I
i reactors; and somehow, all the problems would go away.
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Probably helpful if I explain, Just take a minute, 3
to explain how an organization like RDA that hasn't tradition
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ally been involved in the reactor technology business at all 1
l finds itself here under these circumstances and pretending to l
9 say something to a bunch of people who know a heck of a lot f
more about the subject than I think we do.
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The, just, we've got a bunch of nuclear physicists
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there.
Most of them, you may know, or many of them, who 4
haven't emigrated from the nuclear weapons laboratory --
Id SPEAKER:
That's not all bad.
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(Laughter.)
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DR, LATTER:
We have an ex-associate director for the design of nuclear weapons from Livermore -- you probably l U
is.
I know most of these people -- and an ex-associate director for' 19 j
the weaponization; so we're, we're good on exy.'.tions.
We i
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hope.that has very little to d,o with the prob.ams we're going; to be discussing today.
But we found ourselves after that, that, that l
unfortunate reactor incident discussing the point that, while:
I on the one hand we were going home in the evenings and i
i assuring all our nontechnical acquaintances that nuclear i
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I reactors are absolutely safe, but when we get together at I
I lunchtime all thuse ex-nuclear types were arguing amongst themselves as to whether they really believed that.
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And we thought as a matter of good censcience it J
might be worth spending some time in trying to get at least i
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i enough enlightenment so that we could speak intelligently to
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each other, if not to other people, the result of which was a
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l letter which I sent to the Chairman.
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9 And I thought the way we might proceed in this l
f meeting, unless you'd like to deflect this into another 10 ti channel is that I'd like to remind people who probably haven' i
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II seen this letter of the main points contained therein.
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to some degree our thoughts have sharpened up a little since 13 I4 i
that time.
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IJ And then if there aren't, if there isn't a major t
I4 reaction to the conclusions that are drawn there, proceed to I7 the what I hope will be the heart of a, the meeting; namely, I
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18 the technical reasons why we think a design philosophy of a i
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l sort we've advocated here and which I'm sure other people 3
i have advocated also -- might be implemented.
f Il CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Sounds fine.
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DR. LATTER:
Does that seem like a reasonable way I
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Well, I just -- we collected our thoughts.
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2 I'll just try to put them in a few words.
When we finally f
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I got straight on, on, on facts about the industry and policy I
i with, regarding safety, I think what we learned -- a.;
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l correct me if we have a misunderstanding as of the policy --
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well, I'm sure there's a tacit policy, is of course, make i
3 accidents of any kind as unlikely as possible, f
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l And that more or less goes without saying.
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But that for certain kinds of accidents, I guess if 1
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I've got the jargon straight, so-called design-basis acci-9 denus have a second line of defense.
1 to If for some reason those accidents occur in spite i
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of the low probability, be prepared. to contain them.
J 12 Then my understanding is that for more severe is accidents, if I.'ve got again the right terminology, so-called class 9 or core'-melt accidents, Jane Fonda-type -- those ta i
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j accidents, there is no policy of containment, no requirement.!
i td And the justification for that policy seems to be reasonably C'
well founded; namely, that the likelihood of such an accident t
i is is estimated to be exceedingly small and, for all practical 19 '
purposes, negligible, as I understand it.
23
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Now, we asked ourselves whether this, a policy of 21
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this nature, could be, could be criticized on technical grounds.
One possibility is that the, that this large anti-i f
nuclear sentiment in the country is just based on utterly IA irrational behavior.
It wouldn 't be the only segment 'of our !
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society in which we see evidences of irrationality.
That j
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4 level valid criticisms against a policy of this nature.
4 And we found ourselves really making two criticisms I.
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that various people believing tiiem with more or less convic-I tion.
But at least two that we got out in the open that we 8
f believe have to be faced.
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to be a very low probability, viewed from a point of view of I
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an accident occurring at a specific reactor site.
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report; namely, if I remember correctly, 5 times 10 for one I
IJ of these very serious accidents per reactor year.
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14 17 number is either right or wrong, if one accepts that, it has l
la the curious consequence that if you consider all the reactors l
19 that are expected to be in operation over let's say the next j
l 10 period of, that's still within our purview -- I don't want toi f
go out into the indefinite future -- but, say, the next 15 21 I
years, we estimated that within the Free World, not to count,
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other parts, but there would be a total of something like I
i 24 4,500 reactor years' experience in that time frame.
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the probability that at least one of these reactors is, might I
undergo a major core melt.
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And the answer to that, however low the 5 times i
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10 may seem, the answer to this other number, which is I
3 probably more nearly the question that society would ask --
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but I'm not sure of that, bitt --
10 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Some oscillating --
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DR. LATTER:
Right.
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CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Some distraction in society.
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DR. LATTER:
Some part.
Right.
I 14 The cluestion that could be asked, in any event.
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i And the answer to that was let's, a much more i
14 disturbing one is 20 percent.
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Now, that isn't; but then one gets to the real i
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I don't take that point so seriously.
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point is that nuclear reactor technology is relatively new.
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of that sort, we all know that, that, by the time you multi ;
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something which, in which you can't have a heck of a lot of l
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SPEAKER:
Yes.
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DR. LATTER:
Until you 've accumulated some years of l
experience, this is true not just of this business.
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say it's true of any complex engineering field.
And it's not 3
4 because it's nuclear; I mean, it's, it, it's, I'm sure it i
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would be started out building DC-10's instead of the way the i
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Wright Brothers did it.
We could have asked all the same 9
questions.
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Now, so the probability that we're concerned with I
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here is the, is something which is in part visceral.
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Now, I might say this is no different from what is other parts of.the government are forced to do.
You go to la the CIA, and you ask them what the Russians are up to; they I
IJ always give you an answer.
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But if you have any experience with those kinds of e i
17 people, you, you just discount it by some large factor, i
i la (Laughter.)
knd, and, and that doesn't mean to say that there 19 '
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aren't a lot of things that they do do well.
I mean --
CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
It depends though on which type Il
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i DR. LATTER:
Yes.
Very, very much so.
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So, in any event, that's a worrisome thing.
Then i
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that the, that, that, that a, that the machinery is so complex and the sequence of events that could lead to one of these i
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very serious accidents, so involved and so multifarious in I
l nature, you begin to worry even when you're all done, and you I
look at the 5 times 10
, you have to wonder whether there f
was some sequence of events that you may have overlooked IO entirely.
II Now, you can probably persuade yourself that, well, f-t f
you don't think so; in fact, people tend to feel that when C
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they've thought about a matter long enough that, well, they I
probably got iti straight now.
But disappointments of that Id i
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kind are, abound in history.
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overlooked.
But most importantly, it seems to me what's t
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ability.
And I.think. that, in spite of the fact that that's '
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true, even though I suspect si,nce I know some of the people i
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probably the best possible job that the country could U
possibly do that's been done.
And that's my guess, in i
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I, you, you may know better than that.
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I won't, because I'm not that familiar with --
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i MR. BUDNITI:
They did a real good job, and there l
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are major uncertainties.
I DR. LATTER:
Yes.
Well, okay.
That's what I like L
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9 MR. BUDNITZ:
Ten, ten words only.
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DR. LATTER:
I think that's just fine.
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Well, then we, then we say, "Okay, fine.
Is there t
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i any constructive action in something that one could do to II improve this situation?"
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And I'm sure we've, we've came to thoughts you've l
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l all had thousands of times.
And I guess all I can do is 1
bring our emphasis to it for whatever that is, because we're 14 i
T7 not, we're not going to tell you anything you haven't thought i
la about before, probably again and again.
i 19 But it seemed to us rather obvious that there were l
2 three kinds of action, actions that, that might be helpful.
f One is just remote siting.
You know, get the thing to land.
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I guess a variant of that, since I don't think it l
O solves any real problem -- and you, you know I've always been, l
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J very close to Edward Teller.
And for as long as I can 1
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CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Not necessarily always agreeing I
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f DR. LATTER:
Well, not always.
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But he, he's always said only tha, even when I knew i
4 him, and I guess when he was still the chairman of the reactor.
I safety committee.
And he would always say, "These things are I
3 absolut9.ly safe."
And then he'd just add, "But we ought to 9
stick 'em under ground."
l IO (Laughter.)
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And, well, I think that's more -- I, I don't know.
i n1 12 Maybe it has some merit.
But technically, I'm not sure about O
l that point.
It.does solve the, it does deal with the out-of-i 1
Id sight /out-of-mind principle and may have some value in that M
i respect, I don't know.
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I id In any event,, remote siting was one possibility.
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Second one is, start all over and build reactors 14 that don't have such a huge inventory of radioactive material lp i
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practical and much more, well, much less futuristic and much E
more interesting for that reason -- and that is, consider the; i
U possibility of changing the containment policy, so that you say not only for classes 1 through 8 do we contain in the l
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f but for class 9, as well, we're going to put a shield around r
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the reactor, between the reactor and the public, and they go i
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to sleep at night.
And while we will assure them that class d I
j can't occur, if it does by some, some remote chance like they t
3 say in the POD, "we're deterring war; but if by some remote r
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chance,it should occur, then we'll - " and then, unfortunately,-
i in the DoD they don't have a very good way of ending a 7
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g sentence.
9 The policy is always stated in terms of we're i.
to primarily interested in deterrents, but they -- presumably, i
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there is something we do if deterrence fails.
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So the second line of defense, containment, seemed t:
like just the right answer.
- a Now,'then we ask ourselves, "Well, you know, as I
ta simple-minded and as obvious as that conclusion seems to be, l 1
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this experience that most of us have had with people make it 17 pretty sure that some bright guy's going to find some objec-14 tion to the argument anyway.
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So we asked ourselves, "Well, what's the objection
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And just'on philosophic ground, quite apart from t
the technical or economic feasibility -- and an objection, we assume, would go something like this:
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"Well, the first place, the 20-percent figure -- in!
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bequeathed to us, low as they seem at first, on second thought I
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appear to be higher -- someone's going to say,
'Oh, yes, but I
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without going to a new, new policy involving containment, just with the current policy, if we keep working away at this, we can get that 20 percent down to any number like.
In fact, in 4
i this game, I mean I'll undertake to get it zero in any, you l
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know, a reasonable amount of time.
It'll take a little 3
effort, but I'm sure we could do that.'"
9 But under the current policy,> wercan r,easonably i
10 count on the 20 percent gradually decreasing to a point where II l
it may seem acceptable in, in, in quantitative terms, to the f
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extent that the people who have to understand this number C
have any apprehension of these kinds of numbers anyway.
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It's hard to explain to the public that there's I
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only a 10-to-the-minus-something probability and have that U
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U Somebody usually has to interpret it.
But in any it I8 event, I'm sure the 20 percent figure can be lower.
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And so the next argument would be:
and now we've 2
l got the probability so low tha,t if you put in containment, U
what will you have accomplished?
O Practically nothing.
You will have made a zero f
probability just more zero.
So this is ourselves trying to I
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on the benefits side; there's no benefit, in other words --
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there's bound to be some cost.
We're not going to completely
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contain class 9 accidents without spending some money.
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So there's a cost and little or no benefit.
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3 So that, that, that's kind of a - that's the r
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objection.
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I And then we said, "Now, what's our answer to that i
3 objection?"
I mean, it, it wouldn't be appropriate for us to 9
come and bother busy people unless we had some answer to that, to And I think there's a very important fundamental Ii i
answer.
I, I continue to beg the question of technical
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feasibility, but I want to come back to all that.
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one zero probab'ility with another zero probability.
When youl, l
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tell someone that the probability of a dreadful accident 14 I
occurring in a nuclear reactor is, can be made virtually zero$
17 it has this defect that it's not what, what a scientist means is i
by a probability; he means relative frei:Juancy.
And relative 19 '
frequency has always got to be related finally to experience.-
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There has to be a lot of experience.
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We believe that a die gives a phase 1 with a
- 1 probability of a 6 because we've thrown the darn thing so I.
many times.
And now, if you go to containment however, then ;
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the interesting thing if you do it right, it's done right, the
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I CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Sure.
It's a different tech-I I
nology.
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DR. LATTER:
It's a, it's a, it's a te.chnology which l
4 everybody suddenly has a lot of experience, that he can, that t J
he can relate to.
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And so while it's true, it's just another prob-I 7
l ability.
And someone might say, "What's the probability that 3
your containment may fail?"
And it will never be utterly I
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nonzero.
At least if he 's convinced that it's a very low I
f probability and it's a container, he can have a different to Ii j
kind of confidence.
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What's more, I believe there's an even more, a far 3
l more important point.
If it's containment -- in other words, l
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if you say, " Suppose the core melts," and you start with it, I
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IJ you can actually -- I mean that can not only, I mean you can l l
I4 not only calculate pretty well or do engineering analysis, 17 but you could have stimulation of that kind of thing.
You I
14 could do a lot of things --
19 '
CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
It's called --
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DR. LATTER:
Pardon?,
II SPEAKER:
Originally called --
2 (Brief discussion.)
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Incidentally,you'llsoonfindIdon'tknowmuchatl O
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I can design a nuclear weapon, but I l
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f CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
No, no.
No. No. No, no. No, no.
I I found out a long time ago that there was the idea that l
we're, we're going to contain the containment.
And they 4
i started with an experiment.
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DR. LATTER:
- Right, i
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CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
And it, along the way it I
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increased in cost by factors of 10.
It got changed i
8 completely, so they never did it.
9 MR. HAMMOND:
It's an important fact that they, 10 that once the containment is called upon to do its job, then II' l
all the uncertainties have vanished.
You know exactly what's f
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You know what properties it has, and you know the f
physical laws that are going to control it.
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so it comes from a, uncertain as to how the thing I
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happened to a very, very bounded problem at that point.
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f4 All right.
Now, of course, the, the obvious U
question even if you go along with all this, is "Well, that is sounds great; but is it really technically economically 19 '
I feasible to do this kind of thing?
And most especially since-M we left it there.
Most of the reactors that we know about at.
.I any rate exist.
It would be nice if they were retrofittable 2
actions that you could take.
That would be great.
U So those are the good things.
I --
i Well, that's the question.
AndIthink, John,youl
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l tell me that it was your understanding -- and since then, we, f
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I, we found that to be the case -- that in fact, the i
philosophy I just enunciated is the way it all began.
I mean, L
that is the way people thought about it.
And I expect when-l-
ever the decision, we got to the crossroads -- and I think J
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that John pointed out, that probably happened somewhere around 7
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65 megawatts or whatever -- at probably no precise moment in 3
l history, but somewhere about that time the power levels began t
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f 10 MR. BUDNITZ:
It was a precise moment in history.
l (Laughter.)
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I DR. LATTER:
Oh, really?
All right.
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I'm sure as the power levels started to increase, j
l I4 the natural tendency -- and if I were a utility, that's how l
l I'd feel.
I'd say, "Oh, my gosh; this is going to cost me M
I4 more money.
And, and, and I, I would, you know, since I'm E
sure the people who build these things have great confidence r
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that that they're safe and all."
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If I had the other responsibility, I'd try to 3
discourage this view.
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CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Yes.
Now, these guys may know i
t a lot more about it than I do.
I would guess that at some O
stage also there are utility people saying, "Well, if I got x dollars to spend, and on one side I can spend it so that when my reactor gets completely destroyed, nothing gets out;
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I on the other side I can spend it so the reactor doesn't get a
f destroyed."-
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.i CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Right.
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A DR. LATI'ER:
It's a simple choice between those 4
dollars.
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CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Right.
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l MR. BUDNITZ:
I wasn't involved in that history.
3 l
Some, some people in the room might have been.
But I don't I
l 9
think that that was the way it was framed.
10 They came to a stage where they realized that they l
6 If I
couldn't contain it.
And so the concept of perfect contain-f II i
ment was abandoned.
I3 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Yes.
I4 MR. BUDNITZ:
And this happened about 1965 or
'6.
1.!
j Is that accurate?
l l
14 MR. FRALEY:
It was around that time, yes.
U DR. LATTER:
That, that, that is the action and I8 I
objectively concluded that it was indeed valid.,
t'1.
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Actually, Ergin's report said that, that the way 1
t 3
to go is to prevent the core melt, but, but we should have a i
II little bit of research on containing the molten core and tube O
(Laughter. )
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Unfortunately, that was never implemented, you knowi, M
in a, in a, in a serious way.
In connection with fast l
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CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Yes, right.
l DR. LATTER:
But not, they're not really wate reactors.
But Mr. Shaw used to say, "We 're doing all that f ast I
reactor work is going to be applicable to water reactors."
t 3
MR. BUDNITZ:
Until it turned out to,be true.
~
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(Laughter.)
l 3
MR. KELBER:
The primary, as I rsicall --
9 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Mr. Charlie Kelber.
The primary impetus was from the need 6
i feltbythejointcommitteetoprepareafindingofcommerciad it i
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value.
And that was a fairly long struggle, as I recal.1, M
about a year to.a year and a half before they made the Id findings.
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But to make a finding of commercial value, they l
f4 could not have a significant unresolved safety issues staring, U
them in the face.
And so it was decided that this was not a 14 significant unresolved sa'fety issue.
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19 j
(Laughter.)
3 MR. FRALEY:
- Well, I,-- the members of our task
,l i
force were, were heavily from industry; and I think there was a lot of thinking that you mentioned, that if I got two ways :
to go, the way to save my reactor -- and I, I think there wasj a --
DR. LATTER:
Now, now, now of course, an interesting i
me==s me==m mus s I
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f point is that the - I think back until the mid-60 's, what I i
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think you were saying -- that was a rather different world i
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that we lived in.
I think our thoughts about energy and L
availability were quite different then from what they are now, f
and frankly I just came from a couple of days of meeting on 3
i 4
the subject of Afghanistan and Iran and military actions and l
7 j
all of it.
4 The problem of living in the world possibly cut off f
from our oil supply and all that is pretty, pretty frighten-f ing.
And I think the general attitude of the public, perhaps 10 i
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i of industry, might be a little bit different.
I suspect in
,m
--/
TI mid '65 a mil per kilowatt-hour this, this way or that, was a II l
big thing.
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I wouldn't be surprised if the industry thinks in IJ terms of larger units now, because I -- well, I don't know.
14 I guess in summary I'm saying it's a very different world; I7 and perhaps what was a wise decision in those days might not I
18 be all that applicable to the present time.
19 ^
So in any event, at, at this stage we'found our-20 l
selves saying, "Well, all of this is, you know, good Il philosophy.
But is it, is it really sensible to talk abcat containment of extreme accidents of this nature?"
I mean, is;,
i is that something that is doable' IA Now, there we had the advantage over other people j
3 with the exception cf the two people here who have had some l
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I experience in this field.
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just decided we'd sit down and ask ourselves whether it violated physical principles or something like that.
}-
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Since then, we've, I should explain there's been a l
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short-term effort, intermittent use of time of four or five l
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people.
So I hope you all understand that we're not prepared 8
to do anything in depth.
But --
9 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
I think they understand.
10 DR.. LATTER:
But what we did do --
l l
II CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Certainly you made that clear
,-s C
when I talked to you on the phone.
4 DR. LATTER:
Right.
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What we did do'was ask ourselves whether there were l
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any, whether it was plausible that, whether you find plausible Id arguments for believing.that this is an exceedingly difficult' U
i problem, either technically or economic' ally, or whether it 1
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l I8 appeared to be the other way around, that it looked as though!
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it was something that might be rather tractable.
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where we came out.
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pick up a, a report from one of the national laboratories or,
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some expert in the DOE or whoever, and that we could just
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'd find means described that would satisfy all of the conditions.
we thought ought to be imposed in trying to maintain control.
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of this, of, of a fission products when, it's, if there were l
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have access to all the information -- there may be perfectly A
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good solutions that other people have found, but we at least r
1 4,
j tried to invent one for ourselves that seemed plausible enough '
i 7
l so that we're, we're willing to come here and at least urge a
that. serious consideration be given to'this point of view.
9 And perhaps that's what we could turn to now.
to CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Fine.
l 5
11 i
DR. LATTER:
Kind of a technicri detail.
t l'
i CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Good.
Good.
13 DR. LATTER:
I'll just make a comment.
When I was 14 much younger, I,
I was asked to give a briefing.
It was the i
only time I ever gave a briefing in the State Department, f
!J And it was the time that Christian Herter was the Secretary 14 17 of. State.
And he said to me:
14 l
"Okay.
Your turn.
Get up and speak."
I 19 And my answer was:
"Well, what in the world can I 2
say?
I don't see a blackboard."
- t (Laughtcr.)
i
" Blackboard?"
He almost didn't know what it was.
i And so while they sent out and looked for one, which they
{
l 24 finally found, not in the State Department, but in the 2
Treasury Building, I gave a lecture on how impossible it is l
l as umssue em sensur. s. mane er
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w.as.
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l to do anything useful without one.
And maybe that's why we're I
in trouble in the State Department.
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l (Laughter.)
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So I really don't need one.
A 3
(Laughter.)
i a
8 4
i CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
John, that's a li*.tle bit like --
I 7
l MR. HOYLE:
Let me run over to Treasury.
3 (Laughter.).
9 DR. LATTER:
They may have that old board there.
s i
10 I
(Laughter.)
i 11 i,
But anyway, it's a little bit hard to proceed.
We, 12 we have some -- I'think we have some --
13 l
' SPEAKER:
We have some vuegraphs.
l 74 DR. LATTER:
-- vuegraphs or -- oh, that's plenty.
I i
t.!
j Thank you.
It'd be helpful to.have a picture of a, at least I 14 4
a schematic picture c2 ; seactor on the --
17 (Laughter.)
1 14 MR. HAMMOND:
All you'11 see is schematic.
Don't 19 -
l look at, don't look at the mess.
"O (Brief discussion.)
- l MR. FRALEY:
Will a grease pencil help?
O DR. LATTER:
While he -- probably has that.
i O
(Pause.)
i.
s Okay.
Well, we said -- that's a -- what?
Megawatd "A
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electric or -- I mean a gigowatt electric and, and that i.
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speckled stuff is concrete, I guess.
And that's a, I think g
I it's somewhat surrealistic, but maybe not too bad.
i Well, we, we said, "Okay.
For the radioactivity to cause the problem, some energy's got to get out of control. "
4 That'd be art energy problem.
"And well, we could, you could i
4 get some kind of a critical, a little nuclear excursion."
l I
l And we'll say a word about that.
We understand that there 3
are steam explosions, and maybe because of the zirconium that 9
you might get some hydrogen, which later could combine with I
to oxygen and you get an explosion that way.
II But in any event, whether there are some explosions l
II or not, if, if that, if we'have by definition core melt,- the
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water, loss of coolant, or whatever, that object in the C
I4 middle is going to start melting.
And under the most benign i
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i circumstances, let's say even without explosions, and then U
Id I'll come back and address the explosions, which seem like a U
very complication to us, the best you could hope for would be 14 that that, that that reactor after some period like a half an.
l I'. l l
j hour or an hour would begin to be melting and slumped on the, 3
j on the floor there of that co;.tainment facility.
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.)
l Now you could sort of have, I guess you can think 2
about it in two ways.
One is, "Well, let's try to keep it in, i
the building and somehow cool that,"that, that object as U
nearly as I can tell -- and these engineers put it in terms l
M of it's got to, it will eventually release an amount of energy
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in fission, fission product d.: ay, which is equivalent to 40 I
hours at full power of the reactor; that is, the 3,000 mega-t I
watt.
My way of saying that is, since I'm used to explosions, is that's roughly a hundred and some kilotons.
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And if you got a hundred kilotons of energy that t
4 i
eventually will be released by those fission products, and l
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unless there is some means of getting that energy out of
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8 there, well, you certainly rupture the containment building, 9
if that's where it were being released.
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And I guess I understand why people who thought 10 f
about this in the early days, I understand, preferred just to '
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let it melt through and get out of there and let it be some-
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body else's problem.
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such a dumb idea, actually -- just to let it get into the i
i ground.
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14 I suppose a problem with that is that then you get U
all kinds of reaction without, well, what if there are i
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And you've lost control, in other words.
19 -
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And since it is a lot of radioactivity, I suppose l
it would, I believe it's a lot,better, safer, to maintain l
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control of it.
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picture of sort of, well, we, this, this is all, we're, we're u
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l not advocating the system.
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attempu to find a means where at least we couldn't criticize i
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ourselves and say, " Hey, this is obviously dumb; and we ought l
to throw it out."
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j there's a way in which you do it.
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that there are a hundred ways that are better, because we I
didn't spend a lot of time on it.
8 9
MR. DENTON:
At, a year ago one of our esteemed was to that we could have a mile-deep hole --
1 I
IT i
DR. LATTER:
Is that right --
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12 MR. DENTON:
-- underneath each reactor --
12 DR. LATTER:
Well, we thought about 60 feet might 14 i
be all right.
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(Laughter.)
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14 We, we did have in mind, we would like to be able T7 to retrofit it, whether -- that, that's a pretty ambitious t
i 18 notion, but might as well be ambitious --
19 '
MR. HAMMOND:
The bottom of that hole is called i
l 3
j Peking, junior.
I II l
(Laughter.)
2 DR. LATTER:
Well, okay, so vne idea was that we'll.,
we'll,we'llsupposethatthisthingmeltsandstartsonitsl i
'A way to China or wherever it's supposed to go l
- 3 MR. ZIVIE:
Australia?
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DR. LATTER:
Austritlia -- I'm never sure.
I And it has - and let's say it has some kind of a i
l flow material here, for the moment it could be dirt or sand.
1 l
One might want to control that.
But -- and it starts melting 4
J down.
And this dimension, I am told, is a little bit large i
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i for our purposes.
It's something like 6 meters or so.
And 7
we prefer it for heat transfer reasons to have dimensions j
3 more like a couple of meters, by which I mean you want, if f
you're going to transfer, take heat out, the first thing a i
i IC heat-transfer guy likes is area, or whatever form he's going i
II f
to take it out in.
12 And so we said, "Well, maybe we dare to taper this I3 rather gradually.
We don't want the shucks getting into the 14 i
wall and getting away from us."
l f
We decided that a good thing to do would be to use !
U i
id refractory materials.
This -- the refractory materials, if i
U you lie them down, they're right here but they actually go i
6 18 on down in the water-coolant region.
1 II And then in the event that solid hunk of matter, l
3 say solid UO r whatever were,to hang up there for a while, 2
l we don't want it melting its way out this way.
And so we'll "I
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put some material here that melts at a higher temperature j
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l than the UO And that way, we're always sure that the UO 2
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down.
So it's always going down.
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In the picture we have of it, that finally -- I, I
I don't know how long this takes; I would guess a good fraction 1
of the day or more, before it would go down some 10 feet, 60 l
feet.
And I'll explain why we wanted it to go to 60 feet in J
a moment, and not just do this much closer to the reactor.
4 i
But they, in the idealized picture now, this stuff i
I l
would melt, melt its way through the floor onto the filter 3
l and get down here and occupy a region about two meters in i
9 i
diameter and my recollection is about 10 meters or so in this 10 dimension.
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intuition that it'll work anyway -- that you can take the, i
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when this goes off, by the way, my recollection is that you s
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go from 3,000 megawatts almost instantaneously to something i
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!4 like 200 megawatts, 220-something; and by the time it gets j
U down here, it probably would be of the order of 40 megawa'tts:
14 40, 50, 30 -- I just don't ramamber.
19 So you got to take out that amount of heat.
- Now, 3
i you have a -- well, you see, there's going to be water coming I
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in here and water going out.
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picture of what seeAs likely to happen, almost certain to l
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going to be molten for a long time, but it's bound, it's'got!
to convect.
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suppress the motion of this meeting, you'd soon vaporize i
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material in here, and that would produce bubbles which would
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force it to convect in any event.
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So this is a big convecting region.
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convecting region you have water, you have water, a water cool -
7 jacket.
I think I pointed to the right region.
Is that a
right?
The water cool jacket right there.
9 And therefore, what you expect to happen, since
' 10 there 's bound to be some kind of a boundary layer fcirm --
i i
11
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here -- you expect a, that there'll be a little bit of I:
material that will freeze between the cold collector and the, 1
l and the molten material -- you will, there will have to be a l
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frozen region.' And we've estimated, as best we can, with thel l
IJ kind of heat conjunctivities as we know them -- you've i
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probably done much better numbers.
But that this would, l
17 after a very short time, become -~- it's not a big process, i
i is but some good fraction of obsenity (phonetic spelling) 19 ^
that's the kind of thing that we think will happen:
have a l
20 fraction of a centimeter there.
11 i
And then this thing is boiling around, doing its thing.
And I suspect in here are calculatedly saying, "We j
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have better numbers."
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So now, now -- and then, and then, of course, 2
at other levels they anticipate that lighter materials will i
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be falling through similar kinds of motions, because there I
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picture now; and I'll come back to some of the things that A
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would worry us about it -- in which, down here, through pipe, i
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through a pipe that comes from someplace well removed from i
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l this containment building -- we don't want to take any chances i
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on this wire -- there are no pumps here.
This is just a big
.nd T-1: 6 78 9 water cooler, as you'll --
i.
aps 2:000 to CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Could you just go back and i
1i i
repeat all that --
I 12 l
(Laughter.)
13 Back up one slide.
I ta DR. LATTER:
Okay.
l 1.!
j COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I apologize.
I had to deal!
t 14 I
with another container problem.
17 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
I see, i
18 I
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
You don't know of any 19 '
krypton, do you?
l 22 (Laughter.)
11 (Brief, discussion and laughter.)
0 DR. LATTER:
Okay.
We're, we're describing not the, O
way to do something, but a means of containing a molten core ;
24 which allowed us to think it was plausible to suggest that U
this, the containment for class 9 accidents, molten-core L._
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w e,
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i accidents in particular, ought to be taken seriously.
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And this is an attempt not at finding the way, but i
some way that seemed plausible to us that had a good chance of working with it.
And there may be better ways that I
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experts in the room here are, already know about; and it sort E
of works like this:
7 i
We said, "Well, I'll come to explosions later.
But I
for a moment, suppose it.'s core melts."
It starts down and j
it's doing its China -
s to I
l And then it runs into a region with some kind of t
filler material.
We can talk about what that might be, but I:
for the present let's say it's just some sand and/or dirt.,
1 And refractory material is placed along here.
They simply extend that down farther, mainly for the purpose of making l
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sure that as we narrow this thing down -- it's rather diffi l
u i
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14 cult to explain why we do that at the moment -- as we narrow i T'
j down this region, we don't have pieces ~of this material is
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trained to werk their way out of this, out of our container.
19 j
We don't want them, we don't this stuff to get away
- 0 t
from us.
And so we choose a. material here that melts at a
.)
higher temperature than the temperature at which UO melts.
2 And therefore, we're reasonably assured that before this I
i loses all of its strength, and even with this gradual taper-i 3
ing, that we are sure that none of this will get away, because a
this is goi,ng to melt before that melts and therefore drip onj t.
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down any level, but finally getting somewhere near the bottem q I
l at which time we're going to cool it.
r The reason for tapering it is that we 're interested in retrofit.
It's a little blissful, but I mean we might as I
well try it, or we're in trouble.
And this thing is about 6 1
5 i
meters, and we find that for heat transfer reasons with a lot;
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4 7
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of area you'd rather squeeze it down to a couple of meters or I
so, which gives you more area in which to extract heat.
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j so that's the reason for this, is to take us too. literally.
f We were thinking of dimensions like 20 meters here, so --
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f down at the bottom -- and tapering it this way to get the II i
!I maximum amount of heat transfer area.
I l
Now, the next. picture kind of shows what we think M
we're looking --
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MR. DENTON:
What does that have to do with retro-i fitting?
i j
DR. LATTER:
Well, as this -- one thing you could 14 do is make this a mile long, in which case some of the t
l I'
I problems would be simpler but less credible that you'd really l
3 ever be able to do it.
=1 r
MR. DENTON:
Yes.
aa i
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DR. LATTER:
With 60 feet, or some such number, we.
i felt we were still talking about, we were still in the realm ;
i e,
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of practicality, as far as back tape is concerned.
MR. FRALEY:
Did, did you do any kind of a cost i_.
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DR. LATTER:
Well, yes, we haven't come to that.
l Not a good one.
Well, this, this is -- as a picture, l
probably everybody knows, it probably visualizes it.
This is 4.
i 3
a bunch of physicists and a few engineers standing at a black-I 4
l board mostly and arguing with each other.
I 7
j So, we, we -- again, it's not an in-depth engineering 3
analysis.
9 Now, what we imagine would happen after whatever it i
10 is, a day or however long it takes for it to get through here ti i
and that depends to some extent on our decision as to what to I;
l put in there, what sort of material.
1::
You finally get down to something that -- this, this I
tA l
is a dimension 'of like_10 meters; and this might be a couple I
[
of meters, and the physical picture is believed to be some-l 14 l
thing like this.
We have liquid UO nye ting here, and a 2
17 water-cooled jacket around, which keeps this surface at a low i
14 I
temperature and just to stay in the gradient between the i
1 l
19 '
temperature of the local material, which I understand to be i
3 something like, what, 2,700 Fahrenheit degrees?
21 i
MR. HAMMOND:
Between 2,000 and 3,000 somewhere.
I DR. LATTER:
Somewhere between two and three ll l
thousand degrees Centigrade.
- 2 You would therefore have a little frozen crest of l
2 00.
We estimate that as the fraction of a centimeter.
And 2
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so here this starts percolating around like so, convecting, a,
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little solid layer there, and water that keeps it cool.
At i
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the time of interest, 40 megawatts or thereabouts being i
l generated; and you have to kick all that heat out.
A f
L CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
What, are you taking the containetr r
I l
4 out of there?
i I
T DR. LATTER:
Pardon me.
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s The container is, it probably would just be -- well, 9
I, I don't know.
That's an intangible question, but we were i
10 thinking- -
6 Ii i
MR. FRALEY:
What kind of coolant flow velocities IT are we talking about?
13 DR. LATTER:
All right, we'll give you all those 14 i
numbers and --
MR. BUDNITZ:
But you did say that this is natural !
14 unforced --
T7 DR. LATTER:
Right.
It is.
And in --
i' la MR. BUDNITZ:
Normal cycle.
No pumping.
I 19 '
DR. LATTER:
No pumping.
3 If you'll do the analysis, which is an easy one to 11 show that that is --
I MR. BUDNITZ:
Yes.
Right.
i O
DR. LATTER:
And hopefully did it right.
I didn't !
I i
24 do that.
i (Laughter.)
i i
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34 I
MR. BUDNITZ:
That's easy to believe.
It's harder, I
I it, it's, it's many harder to show that you really can main-i I
i tain that with the reliability, i
L DR. LATTER:
That's right; that -- these, of course l
we've set the goal of only trying to make it plausible enough, J
4 i
so..that you might then want to, to consider the possibility of l
I l
getting some really good work done on it.
I mean, detailed a
engineering analysis'.
I 9
CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Sure.
Sure.
You made that cleaq l
f 10 on it.
II'
{
DR. LATTER:
Yes, that's pretty clear to me, even i
II l
though it's dark.
The picture looks quizzical, so I'm --
12
[
Well,.okay.
So this is what we think of it.
It I4 i
looked like your other materials in there, and it would I
probably keep floating on it.
U 14 i
And now, now I talk about what started it with, now U
that you say, "Oh, but we've invented this great thing.
Look 14 I
how easy it,is.
Now I want to start talking about the things 19 that seem worse to us.
I mean, because I think there are a --
2 there's a lot to be worried about here.
You want to --
U And, well, no, no, no.
Let's go back to the, to 2
l the first vuegraph, because I haven't really said anything i
2 about explosion.
And I think it's a lot easier to take care !
j I
of this China syndrome if, if you don't have explosions.
l
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For instance, if you had an explosion, let's say a,!
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a nuclear - you can't much nuclear energy out of there.
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3 1
pretty unenriched.
But you sure as heck can some, and if you I
toller all those rods, some excess reactivity in that thing L
can go prompt critical.
I don't know just how much energy it can release, but some of our guys were guessing it might be 20 i
tons.
And that's not enough to melt -- it's probably, it may i
7 l
be on the high side.
I don't, I,
L don ' t know.
That was the 8
worst case that we could dream up, and it's probably much too 9
bad.
10 But in any event, most of that doesn't go into a
{
form that produces pressure anyway.
That, that isn't enough II l
e
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to --
13 MR. DENTON:
Calibrate me in terms of megawatt-I la i
seconds.
Is th'at --
l t
l (Laughter.)
IJ l
l l
1 14 DR. LATTER:
A megawatt is 10 to the -- a megawatt '
U second is 10 ergs.
Okay?
Megawatt:
10 ergs.
16 la And a ton, 18, in ergs is 4 times 10 ergs.
So 19 '
it's 1/4,000 of a ton.
i i
3 l
MR. HAMMOND:
It's something like 40 seconds full f
Il power --
i E
DR. LATTER:
I guess a megawatt-hour -- and there O
is a good way to remember it -- a megawatt-hou" --
i M
MR. BUDNITZ:
Wait.a minute.
Wait a minute.
None i
~2 of us, none of us dispute here that issue.
And that is, we i
L..
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I don't generally think that getting that sort of release is onej I
i that we deal with as a vital safety issue.
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i DR. LATTER:
Sure.
All I, I --
l 1
MR. BUDNITZ:
So we don't have to worry about the I
numbers too much.
t 4
i DR. LATTER:
No.
The reason, the reason I worry i
l about it is that I don't have your responsibility now.
And I, 7
3 I,
I got to convince myself that there isn't some kind of l
9 nuclear aberration that could on.
And we, we couldn't --
i i
10 MR. BUDNITZ:
Megawatt-seconds here.
i 6
II i
DR. LATTER:
Pardon?
i e
II l
MR. BUDNITZ:
Charlie Gilbert says a hundred M
l megawatt-seconds.
I4 i
DR. L'TTER:
Okay.
Well, the --
A M
i Well, the --
I4 I
t (Brief discussion.)
1 l
U I said that it was imaginative.
You can't get much 18 t
of this, but it was imaginable to some of us that in a worst 1
I If -
l i
possible case, if you created all the excess reactivity that !
i l
2 you could possibly find around,here, that you might get some l
21 l
tons of energy released.
2 And while that wouldn't be enough to produce any i
2 pressure or do anything harmful, it just heats up the UO '
Il 2
'd suppose there's always a worry of differential heating and 2
some object being impelled and some -- you get some kind of a j
e1m,ses easma.sumer. t e. uset e
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9 az.
37 i
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l flying object, get some of the UO m ving ar und.
So one, 2
t l
since we propose to come in right here, which is 6 meters, as 1
i opposed to this dimension, which I understand to be closer to 60 meters, we don't want to lose control of this stuff, even I
in the containment program.
4 So we want to take advantage of the f act that there 's. l l
I l
a huge shield that's built around most of these things anyway, 3
l and we want to beef up that shield if it isn't already good 1
9 enough.
And I just don't know the. answer, so that we can say 10 with confidence that even if there is a small amount of f
nuclear energy released or, in case this things falls and II i
U I
there's some water in the bottom and we get a steam explosion U
of some kind, no matter what happens in there, that all that Id I
radioactivity will remain confined to this region, because if l
j it ever --
U I
i 14 SPEAKER:
All,the UO '
l 2
U DR. LATTER:
All the UO.
The radioactivity, some, 2
i la of it will --
l 1
1 II l
Oh, I'm sorry:
not the volatile stuff.,Yes, the l
3 molten stuff.
Right.
I Because if it ever gets out here, then we've got an 1
E additional problem on our hands of how you collect that? and j f
l I want to keep it as much under control as possible.
And I'dj i
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U confine it within the, within a volume, within!
like to start, this volume.
And then if it starts to,. when it starts
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38 3
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t melting, it will melt down here, rather than all over the i
i place, because -- I'm not saying that principle there's any i
difference, but my guess is that the cost of retrofitting it, i
i 4.
you'd have to start fooling around with this 60 meters instead!
I y
[.
of the 6 meters.
l 4
l It'd be highly different.
But that, that was the I
7 reason for wanting to be able to say that even in the presence l
of explosions that we would have, we would hope that all this g
9 material would find its.way straight down.
f a
l to Now comes a fundamental difficulty in that this t1 i
is now in the phase of self-criticism.
Say, well, all of that t
(,
t-is great; and it sounds so good.
And you have a nifty way of 1:
extracting the 40 megawatts.
And down at the bottom there.
I ta And then you say, "But what if nature is unkind?
I What if core catchers are a lot easier than we think they are?
u I
And, as a matter of fact, whatifthisthingstartsdownherel 14 I.
T7 gets part way, and all the steam that's going to be in this e
13 building begins to circulate around this object, and we were I.
able to extract enough heat from it, whatever it is -- it's 11 '
[
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40 megawatts -- so the thing doesn't go to China?"
21 Then it will stay in the building.
And if it stays I
in that building, then the 40 megawatts is built into this j
s i
building, rather than down -- we've got a great collector l
- 4 sitting down there at 60 feet waiting for the 40 megawatts,
- J and it never gets there.
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So you say, " Wait a minute.
We'd better be prepared I
for those possibilities. "
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i And so we find ourselves putting a requirement on this core catcher, that even if it stays here, then we've got L
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to be able to take the heat out.
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whether it goes to the bottom, and I don't think it can do any, t
3 it's got to do one or the other -- we'.ll take the heat out.
9 And I'll explain how we do it, if it stays here.
10 Well, essentially, you'd come in with the side of II I
the containment building; and for instance, you cool it -- I i
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mean this is just straightforward in a sense -- you cool it M
j at, I don't know, Fahrenheit, I guess.
I just don't know what i
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to do about -
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j (Laughter.)
l l
te Well, anyway,,since it's colder here, then the U
gases are going to flow this way.
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18 gradient.
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!? -
i i
In a closed system, as I, as I see it; I,
I'll just put it in' M
my terms:
You put a pipe here,and a pipe, you..run a proposed i
l pipe around.
And you cool the lower pipe, and it will just
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calculating, making sure you have enouch surface area.
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l And now there's one thing that worries me about
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Since this part is not t
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in, in this part now is not in the, is in the containment i
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building, we've got to worry about something about explosions, f
and I guess I should go back now and, and clarify something I I
left rather confused, as to why we went down 60 feet and h
didn't do, try to do the cooling closer to the containment.
3 l
4 i
And we want to show the second slide.
l I
l And then I'll also answer the question of what 3
worries us about, well, I -- here isLthe whole thing, then.
9 Next slide.
Next slide.
l Here is the picture of what I showed before with to II' water coming in here to cool the, this region, coming out I
n(.
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here, some kind of a -- this is not meant to be right next to C
l the building that may be removed quite a ways.
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And then the heat pipe here with, okay, some kind i
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of heat exchange.
i 14 i
Now, the reason we went down as far as did was thatj U
we said, "Where is the worst explosion that is, credible?"
I8 And the answer to me -- I, I don't know if it would, 19 '
have to be done with crater assignment -- but maybe it's 10 l
l times, maybe it's 20, I doubt it; but whether it's 10 or 20 3
f
~1 doesn't matter.
What you have to make sure of is that you're E
not going to wreck these pipes if that explosion occurs, and,
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particularly as I understand that some of these things are j
i sited at hard rock, if you have an explosion over hard rock, f M
a terrible thing can happen to you.
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I It -- well, the shock'll go down, b.it, but this awful thing happens in rock.
There are faults in it, and you I
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l can get block motions in it.
Just what you're saying, that's exactly right.
Mid so you've got to worry about that.
h And so we said, "That's the kind of thing we do J
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know something about, even if we don't know anything about i
I
[
reactors.
And so we asked some of our guys, and.we have the 3
l experimental data taken from a lot of explosions in Nevada, 9
some of them nuclear, but many of them nonnuclear."
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10 And we try to go down far enough -- and whether we'Ne II
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got the right, exactly the right depth or not -- so that this c.
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12 environment will be sufficiently benign and you won't have to U
l worry about the. engineers.
14 i
Yes?
j MR. BUDNITZ:
If it wasn't true hard rock, you'd U
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have to work out some way to insulate those pipes from that l
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U hard rock environment --
II MR. HAMMOND:
They're in a big tunnel.
If '
l MR. BUDNITZ:
Yes, yes, but --
l 3
l DR. LATTER:
That's exactly right.
Il MR. BUDNITZ:
That's knowing how to do it.
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DR. LATTER:
Yes.
Right.
Sure.
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Otherwise, that distance doesn't l
I allow you very much.
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DR. LATTER:
No, because it doesn't fall off very
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fast.
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I What, what buys you the most - now, this goes to a i
t 1
very important point.
The thing that buys you the most is the I
free surface.
4.
l If energy -- you see, the way I described up till l
4 now, I said we're going to continue on these -- well, uranium 1
7 l
oxide materials inside of this sheath, which exists and could I
I a
be modified and improved.
9 But if I did that at the expense of containing all I
to the pressure there as well, and if, if I don't have pressure i
i 11 j
equilibrium between here and the rest of this containment I
7 t:
building, there'll be an enormous pressure build-up here, and we won't have these things probably to worry about; this parta l
in my opinion will take off and go right through the ceiling.
ta i
I
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So you have to have, you have to have a means of I
i letting gas -- I'm sure,you do.
I mean, I'm sure it exists iq 14 17 the reactor, even though I've never seen one, there must be i
la i
big enough vents that allow any gas pressure build-up here to 19 equilibrate rather rapidly with the surroundings.
22 j
But that requirement has to be matched to the 21 l
requirement or mated to thg requirement that we don't want
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l U0 fragments, we don't want UO fragments getting out through 2
2 l
O those vented regions.
l i
24 Well, you can invent an answer to that in your own l 22 mind.
You have a labyrinthine package laid here, then the l
t
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I gas can get out.
But any particle which -- or macroparticle I
I ti.at's on a straightline trajectory can be stopped, because i
t 1
it can't turn a corner.
A So, so just to make that clear, we have to assume i
here if you get into all kinds of trouble, that, that the I
4 i
pressure that develops in here relieves rather quickly coming i.
T l
into equilibrium with this entire, with that entire volume.
8 And at the same time you don't want any UO being 2
9
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ejected into the rest of the container.
10 So those, those are the requirements.
11~
i And putting in the pressure, when you have an
.I 12 explosion on a surfsce now, determining what can happen down 13 f
here, it's not like having it fully buried in the ground.
It) 14 i
it now has a free surface; and the energy preferentially wants, IJ j
to go out in the easy direction, which is into the atmosphere.!
I i
i 14 Nevertheless,,we know from cratering experience thay 17 energy will go down.
And therefore, this must be far enough Ii
- 14 down and lined appropriately as was mentioned before, so that, 19.
l l
j these, these pipe ~s can.'t be shared.
That's an extrcauely I
3 j
important point, but there's a, lot of experience and I believe
~1 that that's all doable.
T l
Now finally, because of these pipes, which again j
i O
you're going to be utterly dependent on, we'd rather not havej i
3 explosions out here.
Now we've asked ourselves how you can l
2 get explosions out there anyway, But if you really confine
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the molten material to this region, then the explosions have I
I f
got to occur in here, while any criticality energy, if you I
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l believe in that stuff, will take place in here.
i l
And the only one that's worrisome is this crazy A
J hydrogen stuff which, since you've got zirconium in there, but.
t I
i l
that looks like a trivial matter.
It must be possible to make.
I T
l one of these poly things recombine us.
1 I
And for that matter, you can just have an inert 9
atmosphere and, and no way to make hydrogen expl, ode if I don't, t
10 have oxygen.or I don't put fluorine in there.
I mean if you do it sensibly, that should be a really trivial matter to keep 11 I
i
's, 11 the hydrogen from exploding, in which case the only, the only i
I:3 things that can. hurt these pipes, then, would be objects that la are identifiable beforehand.
I IJ You can go in the reactor and you can say, "Oh, I4 look, there's a thing that looks like a gun pointing right at ;
o it."
i is
.I Well, fine.
You can put a shield on that.
I mean, 19 '
j we can go in tnere and methodically make sure that there's 3
j nothing that's in that reactor that could hurt these pipes,
- 1 except for the case in which the explosion occurs everywhere.
2 l
And so I'd say, "Let's suppress that."
And I belleye i
O the only case of, that could be of that nature is hydrogen; 3
and I believe that must be thoroughly manageable if you want 2
to manage it.
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So this kind of -- you know, it's an arm-waving l.
exercise.
But we had some pretty good critical guys stand i
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there with us, and I mean to get some more in eventually.
)
I'll drag in Hal Lewis and, you know, all his critics, and --
I But we've had some good scientists; and we've said, 4
j "Okay, find some reason why it's, it can't work."
i I
l And so far we 've passed that test.
I don't mean 1
3 that that's a subject to go deep into here and now.
But that s d
9 kind of where we are at the moment, and we felt,-- well, as I I
IO explained, all of us have been in the position of seeming an f
ardent proponent of this industry, and I, and I must admit I, II s~
C when people say, "How do you know it's safe?"
M But my friends tell me it's safe, and I --
\\
k (Laughter.)
I l
U i
Well, in any event, I in fact think there are some l 14 valid concerns, just to summarize, that can be made of the U
present policy.
How cogent they are with respect to the i
14
[
public conceptions issue, I don't know.
But those concerns I
19 l
can be overcome, I believe, by a policy of complete centain-l 22 ment.
i 1
And whether that's portable or not -- and the way we estimated costs, by the way, I didn't say that, but at l
t i
least in my world; it isn't the very best way of doing it; 1
2 but since costing comes up again and again, whe ther you 're
~
talking about a new carrier or a missile or wha.tever, about t.
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saac.%
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I the way to do it is to just take away the whole thing that i
I you.'re going to --
i And then start quibbling about how many dollars per' I
pound.
I mean, you know it for how many, for excavation you I
h know that the AEC or now called the DOE pays for tunneling in i
4 i
Nevada.
Okay.
And then you can take that number, and you I
can -- you know what it costs for iron or steel, at some many I
3 dollars a pound.
But you're going to have to put it in place, 9
and you can fiddle with it.
And let me say:
it's very hard
~
10 - }
to make this add to much money.
l II l
It may add up to a lot of ingenuity.
I don't want
!T to say anything, but it's hard to make a facility of this U
kind add up to much money.
l Id I
CHAIRMAN ASEARNE:
Even on a retrofit?
l DR. LATTER:
If it's retrofitable.
I, I, Iwanttol U
f id qualify it.
If there isn't some important engineering U
l consideration that, that we aren't familiar with, and there 14 i
could well be -.that would make it literally impossible to I? '
retrofit without extraordinary measures.
l i
E i
But if it, if that isn't the case and it looked as l
Il though there was some hope that it might not be a problem, E
then I would assume that the cost would come out.not -- well,-,
O it'd be very, very reasonable, meaning -- well, I'll say whati l
I mean by " reasonable" -- considerably less than 10 percent f
.J of what you paid for it on this containment stuff -
l e umasse empse. suumer. s e. esce er i
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47 8,
meer.ee.
l f
(Brief discussion.)
[
r i
DR. LATTER:
That may be optimistic, I don't know.
I I
Pardon?
l i
MR. FRALEY:
How long would it take?
t SPEAKER:
No, we haven't done that, Ray.
That, that e
l 4
we're, we're just, you know, we are really seeing the whole ---,
7 I
MR. FRALEY:
The cost of that might not be much i
I compared to --
3
[
CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
As Al made clear --
t to DR. LATTER:
Yes, I thought it would be helpful just.
I ti i
as a provocative --
.t I-l Sure.
Sure.
13 (Pause.)
l 14 MR. STELLO:
When you think this through, are you r
I j
thinking it through with the asscmption that the container l
IJ
!d i
is not violated, does not leak excessively, and its integrityIi 17 is intact?
i 13
[
DR. LATTER:
That's what, yes, that's what we 're 19 '
assuming.
l I.mean, well -- we, now, we made some assumptions
- c 11 that the building has indeed been designed to withstand the
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sudden flashing in a pressurized water reactor.
i, t
i
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MR. HAMMOND:
What about the four bars?
j i
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- A DR. LATTER:
If you 're fooling around in licensing 22 reactors that don't have that inch of steel or whatever l
i, L._
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I around there, I don't know.
We were looking at what we --
i MR. STELLO:
Considerably more than the four bars I
forward pressure --
)
DR. LATTER:
Well, we hope not.
Why, why, why is f
I that?
3 i
MR. HAMMOND:
It will be four bars when the primary 1
I l
system is released, but then when you release and react all 3
the materials, the older pressure of all of the gases and the increased energy in the containment and --
10 DR. LATTER:
Well, but we're planning to remove l
f energy continuously.-- to me.-..So that the four bars will 11
, ~ '
g
'~
probably start down before it starts up.
l i
i In other words, we, we had, we were going to remov' Id the 40 megawatts from the top containment building, as well i
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l as from here.
It, it, that starts at once.
And, and maybe l
14 that this stuff will never even get down there.
If we're U
going to be prepared to live with the, this material in the i
18 containment building.
II i
MR. STELLO:
I don't remember whether the liquid 3
f pressure of:.:the_ gases themselves that gets in there --
i
.I MR. HAMMOND:
If.it's heating concrete and adding i
CO, that would add to the pressure.
The. steam pressure is 2
U normally 60 percent of the total in a PWR.
l l
For example, theamountofhydrogenyou'regoingtof M
have in the reactor, planning that, that was small.
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start reacting with metal -- excuse me.
Reaction rates are I
i steeling phenomenally, the amount of hydrogen evolves the t
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triggering level.
So the reaction -- I can't remember whether
}
or not an overpressure by itself is a melt-down -- I don't L
I l.
think that does it by itself.
I 4
l SPEAKER:
No, not the gas pressure ---
i 7
j MR. STELLO:
When you add all of the reactions and l
I 3
then any final slump in the water, I think that the pressure l
l 9
would be a very large impact.
10 I
DR. LATTER:
Numbers we have, the molten material li i
would be falling into the water?
Numbers like some number of 12 I
tons.
13 And we understand that _this thing is felt to with-la i
stand a --
I IJ MR. DENTON:
Tons of energy?
DR. LATTER:
Tons of energy -- and that we, we 14 17 l
understand that when there's something like 60, it I remember 13 correctly; you correct me if I'm wrong -- sodething like 60 19 '
tons of water in this -- well, it's maybe 10 tons that are in I
the reactor vessel themselves and another 50 tons in the 2
r l
- 1 I
primary water line.
I'm not talking -- some 25 percent of l
I all of that will flash over into steam.
Is that --
C MR. DENTON:
That's about right.
I
- 4 DR. LATTER:
I thinh. that's right.
"J SPEAKER:
I have a, a paragraph here.
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50 l
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I DR. LATTER:
Yes, we did c*.aal with your question to l I
some extent.
This, I think thi.= comes out of the Sandia --
i I
i SPEAKER:
That's right.
DR. LATTER:
-- report on it.
I f
MR. ZIVIE:
This was taken from a Sandia study of l
advance containment, in which they calculated the constituents 4
7 l
of the atmosphere at, at incipient failure of the containment.
I I
1 And we see that, we see how much steam it represents there, 9
which gives us encouragement. that if we can condense the stean 10 as well as keep the other gases cool that we won't over-f
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pressurize --
II'
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II DR. LATTER:
Now, your point's well taken.
We, we M
I did not do this. calculation carefully ourselves; this is a I4 i
Sandia calculation that is an objective, that in fact what U
i we're doing might not have too much of a --
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Id MR. BUDNITZ: -Charlie wanted to say something, but j U
can add first:
18 That particular accident did not necessarily --
I9 - lj DR. LATTER:
Yes, a good point.
i 3
MR. BUDNITZ:
Charlie Kelber is going to say some-p U
thing about that.
O MR. KELBER:
Actually, IthinkPatrick'sincontrolj O
I think Vic is absolutely correct.
Nitrogen control is a I
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You yourself have --
2 DR. LATTER:
Yes, indeed.
L.
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i MR. KELBER:
-- alluded to this.
That's to be i
f worked out.
1 Yes.
But we did find in our most recent study is that we predict a steam spike, a very rapid i
[
rise in steam pressure which then rapidly falls off when the 3
4 core is dropped into the water.
Or when accumulators come on l
It doesn't matter which way.
You just have to get the t
l 3
accumulators' water to dump on the, on the dry molten core, f
And you've. evaporated all the steam in a real hurry, less 10 than a minute, according to the Code, which is very conserva-II tive.
(
l Il Now, if that pike is correct, then even though that i
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steam does start to condense, it takes quite a long while for 1:2 I4 l
it to do so, several minutes.
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the region where they expect the containment to fail.
You 14 i
have roughly twice the static design.
l U
DR. LATTER:
Okay.
1 II MR. KELBER:
So that's, that's the problem that's, I' '
that we face, and that, that, we find, governs whatever i
8 mechanism you use to reduce the steam pressure, whether you
.I want to spray it out, condense it out on a cold surface or l
i i
ventilator.
j t
MR BUDNITZ:
But, but there's a problem.
You know;,
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I'm not, I, I, I'm not an expert the way Charlie is.
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understanding of the problem is that to try to do that
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calculation more accurately than factors of -- really gets l
into details that are hard to do.
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Yes, that's probably true.
And you i
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may, you may want to do some experimental work --
t MR. HAMMOND:
I imagine in the course of some of I
i 4
the normal accidents there have been a certain amount of your i
7 l
standard 'contaimnent cooling, has gone into operation and is I
3 then somehow failed or didn't go into operation.
9 MR. BUDNITZ:
You. assume that.
I 10 I
DR. LATTER:
What we're talking about is something
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in addition to that.
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MR. KELBER:
The postulated system, the postulated i:
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!J systems.
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14 that might help, you can ameliorate that spike for a while.
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19 SPEAKER:
In fact, by putting a tank on the roof, l
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you could almost have one that didn't require pumps --
Il MR. KELBER:
Well, we've talked about this, it was l
speculated, some speculation about it.
I think about this in
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another connection with this, using water as a hydrogen i
24 control.
But I guess the point that we have to make is that 2
we get involved -- once you postulate the failure for any l
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engineer safety feature -- and that's what gets you into this i
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j So what we find is that system interactions tend to 3
f be very complex.
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4 one strategy is superior to another one, because you have to i
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look at them, the question of what is the effect of failure or, i
8 your system and are inadvertent to operation under circum-9 stances where you don't want to, could make a small accident i
f into a big one, for example.
10 l
I 11 And I think that's as obvious to you as it is to us, 1:
DR. LATTER:
Sure.
Sure.
13 l
MR. KELBER:
So -- but I must say that I'm glad I l
34 i
came this afternoon, because I think that the thought of i
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j putting a natural convection coolant on this, on the contain-!
IJ 14 ment is a valuable idea.
The question I would have is, I am ;
I?
not sure what the square foot of the wall surface is in the It containment.
If '
j DR. LATTER:
There's plenty of wall surface, but we'-
l 2
l really don't intend to use the wall surface.
We would, we i
U would design a standard heat transfer bundle and then protect it from the --
O DR. LATTER:
At least that's one way of doing it.
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MR. HAMMOND:
The wall surface would do it, but j
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54 DR. LATTER:
Apparently, in some of the reactors I
i there's a space between the -- and you really could go and do i
l it easily.
1 MR. KELBER:
Well, if the pressure builds up, that's, 4.
b it ' ll -
(Laughter.)
I 7
(Briefdiscussion and laughter.)
i I
8 Well, we found there might be an engineering con-9 i
sideration.
10 (Laughter.)
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MR. STELLO:
I think there are certain containments
,t 12 i
for which the gases have evolved by themselves, get you in an 13 l
overpressure condition, so you might have them.
14 i
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that, that l t
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is the final straw.
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and we may want to line that J
17 attack of concrete is limited, e
14 l
SPEAKER:
Try to minimize the --
19 '
MR. STELLO:
-- with something that will not j
3 l
generate CO
- 2 21 For new plants I think there's an awful lot you can i
O do to minimize --
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We'd like to stick to the retrofit if i l
we can, as long as --
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Until we really die.
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i SPEAKER:
There might be one other dimension to thee problem that needs to be looked at in terms of. feasibility.
I And that's a way which is accommodated, you know, assuming A
that you don't have that hydrogen explosion to deal with, 3
just accommodating the extra, the mass of gas that you --
4 I think you also need to look very carefully at the i
7 l
There's a fantastic amount of energy in the primary 3
system.
9 All right, that's a single -- dealing with that to particular --
it i
Primary and secondary, you're talking on the order V
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of what?
v 13 (Brief discussion.)
14
,i MR. HAMMOND:
The stored, the stored water amounts l
l 1.!
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to a hundred full-power seconds.
MR. BUDNITZ:.That's about right.
That's got to bec I4 17 l
about right.
i 18 I
MR. FRALEY:
Well, once that, the, your 40 megawatts i
19 '
of decay heat, when you look in your crucible, the time that's
- 0 about half a million BTU per hour.
And you think you can l
.1 I
remove that by natural circulation?,
O DR. LATTER:
Well, that's what we' intend to do, try; i
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MR. HAMMOND:
You haven't got the water
-- this I
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very easily.
It's a big enough pipe so this friction is --
i DR. LATTER:
And that takes -- was it 5,000 gallons i
a minute that we calculated would take away the 40 megawatts.
A So that's a -- and that's not a -- 5,000 gallons a minute isn't a lot of water.
4 MR. ZIVIE:
And so, Ray, the heat rocks need not be 1
7 l
500,000; depending on the dilution and the geometry, it would i
I a
be lower than that by a factor of 5 or more --
9 MR. FRALEY:
Do you expect to fill the mouth --
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to (Brief discussions.)
DR. LATTER:
Doesn't your present safety requirement
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l demand that you worry about pressure spikes of that sort?
13 Oh, you don't have to do that today?
14 i
MR. STELLO:
Not in.a class 9 accident.
I CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Worry about --
l IJ t
14 I
(Laughter.)
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1 T7 DR. LATTER:
I didn't realize that you didn't have i
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Other than that, sort of worry about l
l 19 '
them.
MR. DENTON:
What do you say as to the advantages 20 j
f of this sort of system versus going down to the 10 feet with 1
l magnesium oxide to provide a non-melt-through base mat and i
i then taking all the heat cut --
14 DR. LATTER:
Well, if you take out the heat, the l
2 only worry I had -- that led to this one -- is that we
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figured -- I think there is a magnesium oxide system that can I
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Is that right I,
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system to detain the -- okay.
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f means you're going to put some kind of. pipes or whatever in I
3 there, we wanted to get down deep enough so that we felt l
comfortable that no violence in the building could do damage T
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to that equipment.
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right about it till I get to something like 30,,40, or 50 10 feet.
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1 I
down a ways.
That, that was the main point.
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additional work.and you can change your mind and get bolder l
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l on that score and dare to come up closer.
I, I -- certainly, l
the amount of work we did, we were constantly saying, "Well, l r
U Id if we 'd go this far, we. feel all right. "
l C
That doesn't mean with a lot of additional tension 18 f
you wouldn 't feel confident in -- that requirement.
i l
19 MR. HAMMOND:
It's partly for the mining problem..
l 3
You wouldn't want to bore in right under the foundation.
U You'd want to get down far enough so you could go in, main-tain support, and then raise, raise bore to get your central j i
cole.
?
- A SPEAKIR:
That 's right.
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Let me, let me make another
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I observation which -- if you set about to design this today, 1
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l partitioning would be in the course of -- you have a little tact core and openly it ends up as a molten something or other,.
l We don't, we don't really know the part.itioning of 3
I l
where all the fission products go.
As in the course of this 7
melting and whatever, how much of it is -- what gases and i
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what other things are. going to go out and get the water 9
around, go into them?
where it's going to go from there, i
i 10 what the, what the partition is.
i i
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In fact, at TMI there was what amounted to a
( %
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surprise to a lot of people that so much of the island, but 10 l
in the water it!s a little of the gas compared to what had I4 i
been some people's kind of rules of thumb.
l And until you knew that, you'd have to worry about !
I!
I4 how much radioactivity was still left hanging on that contain-U ment after the thing went down.
la I
SPEAKER:
Well, the point -- one thing --
!?
MR. BUDNITZ:
In the water.
j i
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You're going to contain that melt.
What are you leaving behind upstairs in that --
l i
O DR. LATTER:
Well, that's why I said that --
~A See, that's why we --
'J MR. BUDNITZ:
The design is the way it is.
You're!
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just on the -- but we figured -- well, you guys would know I
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even you don't know -
L (Laughter.)
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I MR. BUDNIT :
We don't know how much radioactivity i
would be left in that containment after that dropped down.
I I
l DR. LATTER:
That's why we said that we, we're going 3
to take out the 40 megawatts here and here.
9 MR. BUDNITZ:
No, I'm not arguing that,there's a i
10 lot of heat generation from the'radionuclear effect upstairs.
II But I'm arguing that there's a lot of hazard from some of t-t 12 l
them.
U DR. LATTER:
Oh, look.
When this time, a year, 14 i
let's say it's a year later.
Let's say we did our job, and I
j we've got it all in there.
You just got a mess.
You got l
U l
14 this -- but at least it.'s under our control, and nobody can U
say that if --
14 MR. STELLO:
Do you really care as long as you 19 '
are sure you have containment. integrity?
3 If you have containment integrity, I don't care II whether they're up there, down here,. or --
E MR. FRALEY:
Well, one of the benefits of your O
design is that you do keep on inside the biological shield.
l SPEAKER:
That's right.
And --
2 MR. FRALEY:
But, but what he's worried about is if t_
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l scmething gets those, much of those fission products outside the biological shield, then you got a problem.
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DR. LATTER:
Oh, sure.
And it's going to be a lot t
of -
I (Brief discussion.)
4 l
DR. LATTER:
Several questions raisegl by your l
l i
question.
I 3
l The first one might be:
if you left enough of that I
behind, whether the, you then have a, you would,then have to i
I0 take a large part of the heat being generated by --
II MR. BUDNITZ:
No, this is not a question of the I
heat.
7 DR. LATTER:
Okay, that wasn't the question, but i
Id this is a --
i i
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SPEAKER:
A question of the time?
{
14 i
MR. BUDNITZ: No, his question is:
it's got a lot U
of radioactivity up here now.
Most of the items, nearly all i
14 the items.
'IMI didn 't have water.
l D
i DR. LATTER:
Of course, one nice thing about D
i iodine, as I remember, is it's, got a half-life of eight days; 7
and we aren't geing to go back in here for a long time.
So I i
i wouldn't worry about the iodine.
SPEAKER:
Well, but there's the 30-year stuff,
~#
which is --
j
-e DR. LATTER:
Well, I understand it.
I just --
b l
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I (Laughter.)
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MR. BUDNITZ:
Cesium, no.
1 1
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DR. LATTER:
You mean strontium gets in here?
i f
MR. BUDNITZ:
L i
L DR. LATTER:
Well, all right.
i l
4 i
MR. BUDNITZ:
That'.s the same thingq i
I
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DR. LATTER:
Is that true:
that cesium gets in the I
3 water?
9 MR. BUDNITZ:
That's where it is.
i t
l 10 MR. STELLO:
Beaucoup.
I II i
MR. BUDNITZ:
And that's 30-year stuff.
That's the 7..
(
t2 worst possible stuff.
1Z DR. LATTER:
I would say that is part of our
.i 14 problem of whati we do with this.
j SPEAKER:
We're running a big experiment up at tJ Id Three Mile Island.
The cesium, t
17 l
(Laughter.)
i 1
14 l
DR. LATTER:
Well, tell us about that.
What, what l
19 happened there?
i l
3 i-SPEAKER:
There's no problem.
i l
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MR. BUDNITZ:
You're cleaning it up?
rnd T-2 DR. LATTER:
You, you're on the --
i i
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- 0 Oh, sure.
We're --
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- 4 SPEAKER:
One inch of steel -- and if that's not
'J enough, well, got to have --
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I MR. BUDNITZ:
I'm still thinking about protection l
l DR. LA N :
I think the pressure will drop within i
I f
days.
MR. BUDNITZ:
Depends on what it is.
That's CO2 u
e 3
you're stocking.
1 4
MR. NIO:
You're not going to drop the pressure I
l in this system unless you put a system to interrupt the 3
pressure, and that you're going to have a hell of a lot of I
gas.
You're going to be at least of hours, maybe several --
IO DR. LATTER:
Well, let me ask you a question:
how II bad is it, just so I understand?
How bad is heat transfer j
l
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12 from CO t, to the cooling system?
2 t*
ER ETELLO:
No problem.
U DR. LATTER:
So what if there is CO in here?
Then l
2 U
i you're circulating the thing, and it's been cool CO 7 2
t
!d (Brief discussion.)
j I*
MR. BUDNITZ:
But if you're sitting there with 18 several bars of stuff above ground, Vic is saying we have no I'
l easy way to release that right now.
It's been hard about 8
l that.
t i
DR. LATTER:
No, all we can talk about doing is M
i cooling it so that it can't rupture -- that's our first goal.,
t i
MR. HAMMOND:
There's two categories.
It's either!
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If it's nitrogen, you're going to have a hard time.
3
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DR. LATTER:
But let's, let's make sure.
I, I have never carefully factor these metals, knowing that I appreciate i
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the importe.nce of the problem you're talking about.
But the L
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And the j
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factor that gets in the CO I don't consider to be a serious 2
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i problem.
I mean I'd rather it didn't..
i 7
l But as long as we keep cooling the CO, then we'll 2
t I
8 contain everything.
And now a problem of eventually getting 9
in there and letting go of all of that is a nightmare, but I 10 mean it's better than having it out in the public.
11 i
SPEAKER:
But have you looked at the distribution of f'
O' t
I2 i
fission products so you're sure it won't burn through some 1:
place because of a hot spot where it collects in a corner, 14 i
and it doesn't get to your heat pipes?
I f
Have you thought about that?
l IJ DR. LATTER:
Well, that's why I said I was very l
14 I
17 anxious to make sure that, except for gases, which don't 14 collect in corners -- I mean like krypton.
I don't expect 19 '
krypton 85 will go and collect in some corner.
i I
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l I'm pretty --
i 21' I
(Laughter.)
l l
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24 where it was under our control.
And there may be others.
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Let me just try to --
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Right.
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MR. BUDNIT'::
-- clarify the point:
1 I
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The fact that at Three Mile Island that containment l
had remained in good shape is not to me a sufficient demon-A I
stration that it'll do so for all the accidents we --
I We're talking about, we're only talking about 4
i, 7
l containment integrity.
And there are some very subtle systems 8
interactions questions that you have to address which haven't
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been addressed yet before we can assure ourselves on that.
t 10 I
DR. LATTER:
Oh, I,
I fully agree --
l II i
MR. BUDhITZ:
And that's, that's almost a, you know, O
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II that's a trivial statement to say.
But that --
13 DR. LATTER:
It's a terrible, thing:
I keep wanting 14 i
to make my apology --
I IJ l
MR. BUDNITZ:
You don't have to make --
14 DR. LATTER:
John's tired of --
-17 (Laughter. )
~
14 MR. BUDNITZ:
That's the job we have to press in i
f 19 detail.
j i
I 3
i MR. DENTON:
From listening to this, it seems to me j
- 1 it would'be feasible to design a system like this for a plant i
that's never been built.
i DR. LATTER:
Yes, I agree that is --
- A (Brief discussion.)
~2 No, all I meant was that, all I meant was that I
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l think it's worth exploring retrofit, and I didn't want to I
i abandon it on the grounds that it's obviously a much harder l
job.
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retrofit, there's so many things you do right from the start.
4 i
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business is to -
I 8
l MR. BUDNITZ:
Would you do anything very differently i
i 9
i if you were not thinking about retrofitting?
10 I
DR. LATTER:
Well, a lot of the uneasiness one might I
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have about the pressure spike or something that you might just.
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I say, "Well, okay, we estimated the absolute upper limit is 10 such and such, and you might sort of cope with that."
And 1t's just a lot more flexibility --
14 i
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MR. STELLO:
What about this below-ground --
l t
DR. LATTER:
No, I,
I -- that still looks like a td 17 sensible thing.
But again, that's a -- I feel it needs a lot i
i 14 more careful work --
i 19 ' l I want to endorse it, because it seemed like an i
- D interesting enough thing for a discussion of this sort to --
31 And at least I've come away believing that in the i
real hope that you might be able to say to the public some i
C day, "Well, for all types of accidents -- and we have provided I
2 a defense.
We don't -- for these accidents are not likely tej
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ordinary engineers, guys who work at, you know, in aerospace i'
1 industry, can look at it and say, 'Well, that looks pretty i
i good to me.'
We won't all be mystified."
i 7
l MR. STELLO:
Now wait a minute.
Let me follow this i
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philosophy.
f 9
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DR. LATTER:
Okay.
g 10 I
MR. STELLO:
Let's assume we had this --
li' i
And all of a sudden we have a set of class index t
h 10 f
instead of class 10.
The definition of a class 10 accident in I'
13 an accident where you have a melt down, and this is --
i What 'got us into this in the first place is some 14 i
t quantitative an. attempt to trying to decide how safe -- or l
I4 i
how we are.
T7 SPEAKER:
Right.
14 MR. STELLO:
And then we said, "Well, we have 5 i
j times 10-5 " and I suspect that now with this new approach we 1F.
i l
2 might be talking in 1984, well, what's the probability of the 11 class 10 accident? which means you had, if you did know
-5 better, 5 times 10 And you put this system in, what I
really do you get in terms of true, true addition of safety. !
3 Aside from the philosophical question, for the
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mcment.
And did I really change it from 5 times 10 " to 5 L._
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-5
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, would I really make it 5 times 10 5 times 10 I
(Brief discussion.)
I i
l What I hope, and whether it's truly achievable I don't know, I. hope that by going to containment technology l
instead of accident technology, which leads me to fault-tree 3
l
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4 analysis and all that, I hope that I can look and say, "This
.I I
is an engineering problem.
As soon as this core starts to 3
melt, assume x amount of energy is released" -- these are 9
problems that engineers can deal with, not so much on IO probability terms -- I mean when a guy says a bridge is going ti to work, we know they sometimes fail, now I don't think he i
U means the probability is.9999; he means it's going to work.
g.
MR. BUDNITZ:
No, sir.
No, no.
He means that the" l
Golden Gate Bridge will survive a certain earthquake that he I4 i
U designed against.
M DR. LATTER:
Well,-okay, if you want to, if you 1
U want --
4 MR. BUDNITZ:
No, no.
That's what he means, and f
II that's what we mean when we talk about a design basis earth-l 3
quake.
We mean the earthquake,that designed against.
i
- 1 DR. LATTER:
Yes.
Yes.
I a.
MR. BUDNITZ:
And if one comes along that's bigger,,
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t while we assume there are engineering margins and so on, we f
liaven't designed against that; and that's all we --
l DR. LATTER:
But you're focusing on a point I'd
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1 MR. HAMMOND:
But that's a crit 1011 point.
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I DR. LATTER:
But there's a different point.
The guy l
who designs the bridge doesn't believe that there are any A
4 l-factors that may have been overlooked.
Where he put in l
l l
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judgmental probabilities and all of that kind of thing --
j T
l (Brief. discussion.)
8 MR. ButN1T::No, but really, the Bay Bridge is buil,t' 9
with a lot of judgment in it.
And, and what it has, it has i
I 10 safety margins to account for that, which, which is --
i II i
DR. LATTER:
Well, fine.
Fine.
p.
II i
No, I understand there are certain --
u-13 l
MR. BUDNITZ:
Uses the ASME Code and so on,'and he l
l 14 l
chooses his material to make sure the impurities are such andl i
Il such; and he -- these conservatisms.are over and above to I
I Id provide the safety margin for his ignorance.
I7 DR. LATTER:
Sure.
But, but he knows where his 18 I
ignorance lies, and he can do something about it.
I 19 -
l j
The trouble with this thing is it's complicated 20 enough so they can get bright guys in a room, take a reactor i
(
U and say not what will happen if this pressure vessel f ails or O
whatever.
But what do you think the likelihood is that this,
i core could melt?
l l
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'4 You could keep a hundred people, no matter how j
l smart they are, in a room arguing with each other for a i__-- M me
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hundred years on that.
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SPEAKER:
That's what we did.
I I
I (Laughter.)
l MR. STELLO:
Why don't you just go to Tennell and I
say, "The new argument in 1984 is with 200 guys in the room" - -
4 i
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Now, wait a minute, Vic.
I, l
7
[
I think it is worth saying that the idea used to be that the I
containment was an independent line at the time.
9 MR. STELLO:
It used to be.
I 10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
So what Al is talking about i
i II' is restoring it --
i p,
v F-l MR. HAMMOND:
That's what I'm trying to do is make II l
it independent.. And if it's not independent, then we -- it, I
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okay?
U COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
But I've let that go some-l l
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where along the way.
7 MR. STELLO:
In 1964.
i i
18 f
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Fine.
Okay.
And so it II.
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isn't a matter of just saying "yes."
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h step; and then somebody will say, "What about that?
What if l
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Il that fails?"
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f You're really getting back to a concept that was an!
t important part of the --
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M MR. STELLO:
You either decide we're going to talk for the moment philosophy of safety or quantitative systems,.
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which we'll talk about.
So if we talk quantitative, we're i
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I back to the same identical issae.
It just has a few twists q
i COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I don't want to put words l
in his mouth, but what he 's saying is that when you. start 4
a 3
calculating these numbers you 're not really sure you know how r
4 l
to calculate it.
i 7
l MR. STELLO:
When you have this system, you're not I
3 going to be certain'that--
9 DR. LATTER:
Well,a if you are right about that, 10 l
then I want to be the first to agree.
If it turns out that i
ti i
when you go to design the containment system, you find your-f^
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self as confronting judgmental issues constantly asking the 13 l
question, "Will.this work?" -- and not being able to say with~
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absolute convic' tion, as well as just simply by saying, "Well, i
I IJ I'll put in the safety factor" -- okay?
l i
is;i it If it turns out you say, "Well, even with that, I
17 it possible that there's some devious physical phenomenology i
14
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going on and I haven't been aware of it," in short we're back 19 in the same position.
l l
I guess the right way to say this:
sappose you 3
II l
tried to make your c rgaintent system very sophisticated, you decide, "Well, I'm not going to spend money; I'm going to be,
i very clever.
I'll use, I'll use microelectronics or what-t 24 ever."
2 Well, pretty soon your safety system would probably!
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be much, much less reliable; and then you prefer to go back t I
the old way -- is my guess.
And I'm asking whether just to l
j understand the philosophy, I'm saying, "Can I make a hole?
Can I appeal to some rudimentary nature, natural law that I
says, 'Well, this way is down; and it can't do anything but 4
go that way.
And it's all that simple.'"
i I
l I can't do it.
You can't engineer that.
And it's 1
3 a failure.
But that's the suggestion.
9 MR. STELLO:
Let me tell you the arguments that f
have occurred to me that! come up in that meeting.
10 II l
DR. LATTER:
You're really worried about my --
(,
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(Laughter.)
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1 MR. STELLO:
If you have a hole in that --
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But if we get two valves that somehow didn't close l
f and had to close, all on the very same arguments we have f
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14 today, because if you did, you don't need a very large failure U
to contain it.
Smaller, I hope.
Smaller than the size of 18 the tipe of my finger.
They're going to dump those fission 19 products out there like you wouldn't believe.
j l
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i DR. LATTER:
Sure.
II MR. STELLO:
So you really are dealing with this very complicated issue, even though you have heuristically a,
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'd MR. DENTON:
That, that'stheargumentasyoulowerf lower lake level you see more rocks, but you may have really t_
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things.
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MR. HAMMOND:
You brought up another requirement we i
l didn't mention because we, we know you already deal with; and 4
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that's the question of a reliable means of isolation.
But if.
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l that doesn't operate, you've lost it.
And I think in the lonc l
3 run you would have to provide a passive means of isolating it 9
that was independent of the operator's volition., It might be i
10 l
owned and operated by the NRC and not by the operator, in i
s 11 i
addition to the ones that are there, f
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MR. STELLO:
The reason I bring up the issue is that II in order for us.to decide we're going to either go down a t
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truly independent philosophical path for which there's no U
i doubt in my mind I'd love to be --
I I4 (Laughter.)
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We're not, we're really not vulnerable to all these.
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very damn same arguments for which it would have a sensitive Il a hundred.
And the engineers arguing about the number is 200,,
2 DR. LATTER:
Sure.
You're just right, Vicq
- And, O
and that's what we're advocating, folks.
That's at least l
what we'd like to explore, the possibility that you could go '
2
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engineering, actually stand up and say, "My gosh, independent 1'y i
of all these complex problems that we're used to, we've super' i
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imposed a containment, but that in principle you can do this,
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I've made plausible in myself in the following way."
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I isn't just a cartoon, and I don't, I don't mean it seriously.
t 6
l Suppose you say, "There's a containment building."
i T
And you go out somewhere, and I'm about a hundred yards away I
l I
3 and I start building a steel wall around this thing.
Wherever 9
t you say, if you're short of a real estate.
And I'll just put, I
to l
make a wall so thick that no matter what happens in there, l
11 i
that the U and dts 3-percent stuff, all de sides that 235 b
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collect.on.one end, you know, and those critical -- I'll, I'1:.
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l claim in principle that I can build an object -- I might not 14 i
be able to afford it or -- I.can build an object where I'll l
{
say, " Fine.
It won't hurt anybody on the outside."
l IJ Id So that's an illustration of how you can implement 17 philosophy in an impractical manner, but at least clearly I
i l
la illustrates the difference in philosophy.
I can go and quite 19 '
independently of every detail that you're left with, I can go 20 containment system and say, " Don't worry."
f 11 MR. STELLO:
I, I agree.
That's precimiely my point, i
It's truly independent philosophy --
i DR. LATTER:
Right.
24 MR. STELLO:
-- then that's what matters.
But this; 2
to me, you've got to recognize where we do come out.
And i
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that's, I think we're still stuck without the quantitative --
I t
DR. LATTER:
Well, Iwould propose that we system-t I
l atically go about reducing all those.
That's what a program i
A l
would consist of.
I You see, if we had done all the homework, we 'd come 4
in and say, "Oh, no."
And then we'd give you the reasons why I
T l
you don't have to worry about_that.
I 8
But the homework hasn't been done.
It takes a lot I
f i
more talent than this little group of people could put to together.
But if you do it right, you may come up with a li i
system where you say, "Yes, indeed, this is like the big stee]
p' 4
stair around it.
It's independent, and we, and if the other i
12 l
thing can fail, then it has no influence on us."
l la I
And I"believe that's what it's -- if I caught the i
14 spirit of your question.
l 14 (Pause.)
17 MF.. BUDNITZ:
I guess philosophically it's one of i
is the most attractive notions I've heard in a long time, and I 19 '
have tell you that, although this is very nice, this is not l
22 l
brand new to me.
Wha',was brand new to me, what was brand i
Il new to me was only just last week Vic steered me to some of I
the data compiled, which I read and which illuminated for me -
i how those decisions were made in the middle 60 's about con-l f
'J tainment.
- 3 MR. HAMMOND:
The Dave Okrent report, yes.
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I MR. BUDNITZ:
Yes, okay?
I And although I was aware of it, it crystalized for i
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me the process whereby the people making these decisions, the Commission, and so on -- went from a containment that was supposed to contain to one that was not necessarily going to 4
l contain.
So this discussion has added another, dimension.
I T
l But the question that has to be faced here and in I
3 the industry is, to what extent should a record offense be f
urged?
I
,f 10 And to me there is some limit.
I'll tell you what li i
the limit is, in my view:
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The record could cost a factor n.
I don't know of II
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more than building a new better.
l I4 i
DR. LATTER:. Oh, sure.
IJ j
MR. BUDNITZ:
Comprenez?
l I4 MR. STELLO:
Gees, don't say that; we've done that 17 already.
i la (Laughter.)
19 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
You didn't agree to a --
l l
2 MR. BUDNITZ:
On the,other hand, if one ends in a II
,, big number, why, that's, you know, very attractive.
l l
2 And what it really will cost depends on some of i
O these engineering thoughts that you've heard that, really we !
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not even in a position to regard some of the l--
2 have, we don't, 2
DR. LATTER:
Well, you know, I ask myself the l
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l
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l following questions:
I'm getting now, I understand parts of I
I the Washington bureaucracy.
Anything that has to do with the s
Department of Defense, I,
I don't have any idea about this bureaucracy, but I'm sure it's --
I CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Any of us --
1 4
{
(Laughter.)
F I
l MR. BUDNITZ:
Join the club.
I 3
(Laughter.)
f DR. LATTER:
Would it be utterly unreasonable for 10 the NRC to issue some kind of a directive to, to your own 1!
.l agency and DOE or whoever supports what I -- and say that 12 you'd like seriously to consider over some coming period of I3 l
time, you 'd like to consider the possibility of modifying i
Id l
regulations or the safety policy to include containment for l
class 9.
l U
14 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:'.-We,.we.do that.
U DR. LATTER:
Oh, okay.
I, I didn't know whether --
14 MR. STELLO:
Is it out yet?
19 CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
No, it, it's not out.
They're --
1 l
i 3
i (Brief discussion.)
- I CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
Yes, we have to consider class 9 O
f
' accidents.
And as far as the regulations on what plants have, 9
f l
O to be built, well, yes, we issue those.
'd SPEAKER:
Right.
'J CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
As far as research developed, l
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f there's a split between dealing from some of it and --
l 1
l (Brief discussion.)
l (Latghter.)
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i DR. LATTER:
Well, I was thinking you go to your own J
L lab and you tell them you're interested in this, and you, and I
f 6
you will be, you will undergo serious consideration and you'd 7
like information of various types and they start generating, i
I 1
and, and you may set the target --
9 (Laughter.)
~
10 I
SPEAKER:
The key, that's what I call the Form 189.
f i
11 i
(Laughter.)
II CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
But the, yes, there are,.there 1::
are mechanisms.that -- at least we can, we can have the sense I
that we are trying to get our act together.
14 i
IJ (Laughter.)
MR. KELBER:
I'd like to make a comment here.
I4 17
[
There, the concept of a completely containment is i
I la
. topologically impossible, because you must have a heat 19 '
j rejection.
The heat rejection, although heat rejection is l
3 universal -- Sam knows what I'm talking about -- and I guess r
l what I'm getting at is that even conceptually you must allow II some way for heat to be transported out of the system, saving.
i i
on electricity.
24 MR. HAMMOND:
But not radioactivity.
l 2
MR. KEIBER:
I'm not, I'm not arguing with that.
l I
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point.
What I'm saying is that the concept of completely I
I containment -- and let's not talk about practicality; let's I
talk about the impervious steel sphere - is not tenable, because of this question of transport.
i
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And obviously, in a practical system you have to 4
provide ways for materials to be brought in and out -- and I I
l know of at least incidence; no, two now -- where reactors have p
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operated with, with equipment doors wide open.
l 9
So this does happen.
And it's nothing that hasn't I
i 10 been taken into account.
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And once we 've done some thinking about this, for V
C some that many years and lately in a very concentrated way, I l
think the point.that was made by a number of the office 4
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directors here and others earlier, is a extremely important i
I i
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one:
that they're, as you lower the level of the lake, some 5
of the other rocks come,up.
f l
14 l
C But I think it will be reasonable in talking about i
la retrofitting plants, to aim for at least a factor of 10 in 19.
l i
reduction of the relative risk, and possibly as much as a 1
20 factor of a hundred.
And I think that going beyond that is Il going to be extremely difficult.
O DR. LATTER:
Yes.
I'm not sure it makes sense to i
retrofit at all.
I just said --
l 2
MR. KELBER:
Well, Ithinkitmakesagreatdealoff sense.
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I, yes, I --
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Well, let me ask you --
2 i,
SPEAKER:
(Brief discussion.)
I One other technical point on the l
MR. GILBERT:
4 Our postulates now are that --
4
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discussions of core melt.the molten core will solidify relatively containments at least, 4
hion with a early into the sequence; aatd you then deal in a f as i
T h may if question of a penetration of this copper flag, whic say, may never get discussed.!.
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f.
you have a very thick basement, J
the virtue of the idea is to suggesy i,
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therecare other alternatives.
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that if it doesn't, So I think that the latest data do suggest that O
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s there, you know, there's a range of alternat ve.
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(Brief discussion.)
t i
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i (Laughter.)
1 tJ I think we're going to have to CHAIRMAN AHEARNE:
i i
14 I
i I*
break.
This falls in my corner.
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MR. BUDNITZ:
j 14 Yes, I want to talk some more l
I CHAIRMAN AEEARNE:
19 '
l l
l 3
about it.
It was very informative.'
r And I want to thank Alex.
21 (Laughter.)
j d)
(Thereupon, at 3 :00 p.m., the meeting was ad our End T ' 325
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