ML20003A121
| ML20003A121 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 08/08/1980 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 ACRS-T, NUDOCS 8101290656 | |
| Download: ML20003A121 (37) | |
Text
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t NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
/ /
COMMISSIONERS /ACRS JOINT MEETING In t e Matter of:
Joint Meeting.
SETURN TO SECRETARIAT RECORDS DATE:
August 8, 1980 411 - 446 pgggg AT:
Washington, D. C.
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20024 Talaphone : (202) 554-2345 8101290656 RETURN TO SECRETARIAT RECORDS
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEOUARDS 5
244th MEETING 6
Room 1046 7
1717 H Street, N.
W.
Washington, D. C.
20555 8
August 8, 1950 The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1suo 9 a.m.
10 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
11 COMMISSIONER JOSEPH M. HENDRIE COMMISSIONER PETER J.
BRADFORD 12 13 MEMBERS PRESENT:
14 M.
PLESSET, Chairman, Presiding.
J.
C.
5 ARK, Vice-chairman 15 D.W. MOELLER W.
KIRR 16 M.W. CARBON W.M.
MATHIS 17 J.C. EBERSOLE H.W. LEWIS 18 D.
OKRENT P. SHEWMON 19 DESIGNATED FEDERAL EMPLCYEEs 20 2.F. FRALEY 21 ALSO PRESENT:
22 J.M. J ACOBS, Secre tary 23 24 25 ALCERSON AEPCRTING COMPANY. lNC.
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YR. PlESSETTs Shall we get started?
3 Commissioner Bradford vill be here very shortly.
4 Commissioner Hendrie is here.
"e had outlined a few items 5 for discussion with the Commissioners.
We do not need to 6 cover them all or we do not need to treat them all in 7 detail, and that will leave some ti:e for them and for you 8 to ad lib possibly.
9 Cne thing ! know that some members have wanted to 10 talk about was the nuclear data link and wha t has developed 11 since we sent a report up to the Cc=nissioners, so if anyone 12 asks you -- I see Yr. Mathis is eager and willing.
13 Y3 YATHIS I don't know that I can contribute 14 too much, but the sore look at the nuclear data link, th e 15 less enchanted I become with it.
I puess maybe that is my 16 back ground.
Thinking back t o th e problems of an operating 17 organization, I can re: ember as a plant manacer one of sy 18 most useful duties was to act as a buffer zone, not only 19 between my boss and the operating organization, but also the 20 Commission, and I think the nuclear data link basically 21 penetrates anything of that nature, and it is going to make 22 life absciutely miserable for the operating organizations.
23 People are going to have access to the complete operating 24 conditions of the plant at any and all times, and I can just 25 envision this leading to nuisance calls, interference, 1
ALCEASCN REPCRDNG COMAANY, NC.
413 1 possible even what I would term harassment, and I Just have 2 a hard time seeing that this is going to enhance safety.
3 It is going to be a good communication media for 4 people on the outside, but from an operating organiration 5 standselnt, I just cannot see any benefit, and I can see a 6 big cost and a high nuisance value, and I just have trouble 7 with it.'
8 Now, this became more'and more clear day before 9 yesterday when we were talking about NUREG 197.
All th e 10 data, these longs lists of items, are scheduled to be flown 11 into the data link, and you begin to wonder if 1.97 is not 12 written with that and product in mind rather than, again, 13 the operator.
14 If you go back to TMI 2, one of the big problems 15 and the thing we are going to try to get around is to find 16 some way of assisting the operator, getting his some needed 17 information, some tools to d o his job, and I cannot see that 18 that data link is going to provide that in any way.
That is 19 the end of ry comments.
20 M2. PLESSETTs Your stand is unambiguous.
Peter, we are talking about the nuclear data link 21 l
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23 COMMISSIONE3 3RADFORD:
I gathered.
24 (General laughter.)
25 ME. PLESdET:
You could gather it as soon as you ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, lNC.
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414 1 opened the door.
Does anybody else want to make a comment 2 about that?
Jesse?
3 MR. E3E3SCLE:
'4 ell, I have always had a horror of 4 control rooms filled with a lot of people besides operators, 5 especially types that were not operator oriented.
this is 6 really a remote method of doing the same sort of thing.
I 7 don't know saybe what some of his concerns should be reduced 8 by severe constraints on the input to the control room.
9 The harassment I think he almost mentioned upon 10 receipt of da ta outside, because the control room operators 11 are certainly going to have a lot of things to be doing on 12 their own.
They have a continuous set of input instructions 13 f rom a variety of outside sources.
I certainly would share 14 his opinion about the consternation that would bring into 15 the control room.
16 MB. PLESSETT:
Bill, I think I have to call on l'7 You.
That comes under the purview of your subcommittee, 18 unless my memory is at fault.
19 MR. XERR4 Somebody once said of Mr. Humphrey, and 20 I must admit I was an admirer of Mr. Humphrey, that he ha.1 a 21 lot of solutions, and he was looking for problems.
n (General laughter.)
23 MR. KERR I would feel better % bout this 24 situation -- I don ' t know. hat to call it yet -- if I had a 25 better idea of what it was the NRC was going to do with ALDERSON REPORTING CCMP ANY, ;NC.
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1 something or other.
I am reluctant to be very critical, 2 because I do not know what I am criticiring.
! have seen a 3 list of about 100 parameters th a t are going to be used in 4 some fashion, and having seen physically a set of rooms 5 which I think is referred to as an emergency center, and 6 having had a description of the present mechanism for 7 calling people together when an emergency occurs, I can see 8 that that many people are likely to get extremely bored 9 unless they have something to do, and hence there may be 10 same logic in having a computer or maybe several computers 11 to give them some' thing to do.
12 I sound facetious, I know, but I am curried more 13 than anything else.
I am just not certain what it is that l
14 is going to be done with whatever it is that is in process.
l u5 If I had a better idea of what the mission was, and then a l
l 16 sequence of thigs tha t said, here is what we are going to l'7 do and here is why we think we are going to do it, and nov 18 this is the machinery that we need to de it, I would be in a up better position to make comments, I think.
20 MR. PLESSETTs P e '. e r ?
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21 COMMISSIONEE BRADFORD:
Have you all not had a 22 presen ta tion from the staff on the data link?
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23 MR. PLESSETT:
Yes.
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24 MR. KERE:
I have had a presentation.
I also read 25 the transcript of the presentation that was made to the ALDERSCN REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
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416 1 Commission.
I read a number of reports from Sandia.
2 C053 SSIONER BRADFORD:
What you are saying is, 3 even after all that, it is still not at all clear to you?
4 MF. KERR:
I have seen a description in very 5 general terms o-f some machinery.
I do not know what is 6 going to be done with the machinery, and I am not too sure 7 what the machinery will look like in detail, although at 8 this stage I suppose one cannot.
9 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Are you sa ying tha t it is 10 no t clear to you what type of machinery is best to do --
11 MR. KERR:
I am saying, first, I do ar+ know what 12 the Commission or the staff has in mind that it will need to 13 do in an emergency that it is not now doing and it will be 14 able to do much better with something or other.
15 I am not trying to be critical.
I just don't know.
16 COMMISSIONER 3R ADFORD:
I understand.
I have 1<7 looked into some of the instruments that have occurred in 18 th e last year or so -- whether the data link 19 MR. PLESSETT:
Peter, would you take the 20 microphone ?
There is one right here.
21 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
-- whether the data link 22 would have changed anything in allowing for different 23 perceptions in what the data link might in fact have been.
24 The cases in which the answers have been yes, Three Mile 25 Island asida, were Crystal River, with regard to the mix-up ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC,
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1 on just unit the pressure actually was in the rentainment 2 which acted for so:e hours, and I think St. lucie, in which 3 the staf f seemed to feel that it would have been very 4 helpful to them and then perhaps in turn what they could 5 have projected to the operators with regard to the -- time 6 when there was a good deal of confusion as to just what was 7 happening in that incident.
8 Certainly the members of the staff who are here 9 can respond better than I heyond that, but I gathered at 10 least in those three cases there was a feeling that one or 11 another among those 60 to 100 parameters would have made a 12 significant difference in the NEC's ability to appraise what 13 was going on.
14 Now, whether that in turn would have made a 15 significant difference in terms of the way the event was 16 handled at the time, I am not so sure.
ry MR. E3EE50LE.
fay I ask for refinement 18 MR. PLESSEETs I think 3111 was going to make a 19 consent.
20 YR. KEEas It seems to se that is a good question 21 for you to ask, and I have asked the same sort of question, 22 particula rly, I guess it was, with referencc co Crystal 23 Rive r, and I got a variety of ansvers.
One answer would 24 have convinced me that the :iRC person who was answering the 25 question vould have in ef f ect told the operator what to be ALOERSCN REoORTING COMP ANY. INC.
418 1 doing under the circumstances, because he didn't think the 2 operator was doing the right thing.
3 On the other hand, I have heard the response that 4 only under very axtreme circumstances
-- maybe this was an 5 extreme cirrumstance -- would the staff in effect rake
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6 recommendations to -- as to what to do next.
7 Now, there seems to be some difference of opinion 8 as to what constitutes opera ting a plant.
But I get the 9 impression, using the example that you mentioned, th a t there 10 migh t have been some staff member who would have sort of 11 taken'over, because they would have been a.ble to judge 12 better from data that they had in Washington that could 13 told the operating crew what should be done next.
14 I am reluctant to draw conclusions based on that 15 limited example, but it does cause me some concern to think 16 of a group in ~4a shing ton takinc over the operation of a 17 plant in an emergency.
I have some difficulty even 18 comprehending operating a nuclear plant from Washington when 19 it is operating normally.
(General laughter.)
20 21
.42. KERE:
And to extrapolate that to opera ting it 22 at a great distance when it is in an emergency situation is 23 sort of beyond my comprehension.
So, I assume that is not 24 the purpose of the data link, but as I say, since I am not 25 certain how it is going to be used, I as reluctant to draw ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
419 1 conclusions at this point.
2 M3. PLESSETT:
I think Ebersole and then --
.t me get a remark or two 3
COMMISSIONER HENDRIE 4 into the process here.
5 Bill, what occured at Crystal River, that was one 6 which had come at a time when John Ahearne had designated me t
7 as chief of the emergency management team, and I guess I got 8 about 40 minutes into the event, and there certainly would 9 not have been directives from the staff to the plant 10 operating group.
We in the course of Crystal River and a 11 series of drills made it very clear that staff members do 12 no t inst.:uct or recommend or otherwise pitch their two 13 cents ' worth into the proceedings at a plant, that those --
14 that if it is considered necessary for any kind of l
15 recommendation of that kind, the kind to come down from the i
16 staff group on an incident in Bethesda -- that it will be 17 done with the explicit -- at the explicit direction and very 18 likely by the head of the team.
19 So, you know, if you pick up fron one or another 20 staf f members what he would have done, why, that is not the 21 operating role in the circumstances.
As Peter noted, it l
l 22 would have been helpful to us in judging what was going on l
23 to understand th a t the containment pressure was being i
reported on an absolute scale rather than gauge pressure.
24 25 That got straightened out after a while.
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What is ricar from the incidents that have 2 occurred in the last couple of years and also the drills 3 themselves is that although our comnunica tion ability with 4 the operating staff when something rises to the level of 5 putting the response center into operation in Bethesda, it 6 is enormously improved by that direct telephone link, that 7 you continue to be highly. vulnerable to the availability of 8 human transmission in the circumstance, and that the ability 9 to have in Bethesda a decent picture of what is going on 10 while you know it is head, shoulders, and navel above Three 11 Mlle Island the first several days.
12 It is still less than satisfactory if the staff --
13 i # the agency's emergency response team is to have a fair 14 basis for knowing what is going on.
15 Now, to step back from the particular incidents a 16 little bit, what we have to realize -- and I recognize in 17 full measure the kind of difficulties that are implicit in 18 the concept that you mentioned -- but you have to recognize 19 that after Three Mile Island we have in effect changed in 20 part by our own feeling that it was appropriate, and it is 21 fair to recognize in part because any other direction would 22 have been unacceptable in the context of the Commission 's 23 directions from Congress, so we have changed from a 24 situation in emergency management where we had expected tha t 25 emergencies would run under the direction of the plant staff ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, iNC.
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421 1 and the people there, and we would get informed, and 2 presumably then have a more active role after the high 3 crisis phase of the emergency had passed and one was dealing 4 with an aftermath situation in terms of coordination with 5 other Federal agencies, the state, and so on, in terms of 6 subsequent actions to recover, take post-accident actions to 7 protect people, and so on.
8 As I read the environment in which we must 9 operate, that has been judged an unacceptable configuration 10 for this agency by the Congress, 11 Now, if we are to be in a position to have a more 12 knowledgeable and potentially direct role in an incident 13 situation where it begins to appear that off-site actions 14 may be necessary, having to rely on, you know, our man or 15 their man at the far end of that telephone -- single 16 telephone link or even two telephone lines when that gets 17 into shape is a pretty vulnerable situation.
That is, the 18 error rate in that system is just intrinsically high.
19 Furthermore, it is not too handy just from an 20 operating standpoint when you have things going on and fo 21 not want to be disttacted in the control room -- it is not n too handy to keep having one or another NRC people or even 23 plan t staff people assigned to the communications duty, 24 running into the control room, running around looking at 25 dials, running back and reporting numbers, or worse, and ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, !NC.
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422 1 more likely bothering operators on duty, and the shift 2 supervisor on duty saying, what did that read, and so on,
3 and then running back to the telephone in a great hurry and 4 signalling what is note than likely to be not totally a fair 5 reflection of what is going on.
6 So, I think my own assessment of the whole 7 proposition has been one of recognition of just the kinds of 8 difficulties that you mentioned.
It has built into it th e 9 possibility of an unendurable harassment from Washington.
10 On the o ther hand, to do without some increased ability to 11 read directly essential plant parameters is going to leave 12 us in very poor shape to play any part of the role that I 13 think we are unavoidably assigned in the matter.
14 Now, we have argued back and forth with the staff, 15 and staf f has argued internally and with you and so on over 16 what all ought to come up that data link and be reported on l'7 an automated basis away fron the plant. I think it is pretty ul clear that it is a handy proposition in emergencies f or the n) operating organiration to be able to transfer automatically 20 from the plant data sourres essential information out of the 21 control roon, and to a second location, the technical 22 support center where those legions which will gather they get to 23 connected with the operating organiration 24 mill around so that they are no t doing it and stepping all 25 over the operators in the control room.
ALDER $oN AEPCATING COMPANY. ;NC,
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423 1
I think that is a helpful step, and my impression 2 is that the people out on the operating organiration side, 3 you know, they are obviously not ha ppy about additional 4 expense in having to build -- fit up the room for the l
5 technical support center, but I think the overall judgment 6 is, it is a good idea.
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Then there is a further passage of at least a 8 portion of that information on out to the emergency response 9 center some distance from the plant where presumably people i
10 like corporate managers and local emergency plant 11 supervisors could acordinate and it would serve as a press i
l 12 center, and so on.
l 13 There is a further very useful aspect to this 14 information system, and one that I hope that people on the 15 industry side will im plement, and tha t is to arrange ways l
16 also to pass some of that stuff, the essential parameters, l
l 17 on in a semi-automatic f ashion to the vendor shops so that 18 if you have something that is running on for a while, and I l
l 19 begin to think tha t most of these things are not going to be 20 slam -bang, and in an hour and a half while you have had it 21 and are dealing with an af termath situation, but rather it l
l 22 would be hours or perhaps days in which you are struggling 23 to g et things back under control.
24 Decent advice from the plant designer and his 1
l 25 staf f is a very sort of useful thing to ha ve.
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424 1
Now, how nuch of all of that ought to come on and 2 be forwarded in an automatic fashion to the NRO?
'4 ell, I 3 doubt it can run less than 30 or 40 data points.
I think 4 the staff list is creeping up close to 100, sacething like 5 that, and we will continue to argue about it, I have no 6 doub t.
7 Bernie, what is the current -- wnat is the sort of 8 center of the current distribution of the NRC points?
9 VOICE.
Around 100, but it is still quite 10 unsettled.
All we are saying right now is, it is going to 11 be (inaudible).
12 C055!SSIONEE HENDRIE:
Yes.
So we will continue 13 to argue about it, and I suspect ny experience in the 14 governmen t's aff airs suggests that it will be toward the 15 more toward the 100 side than the 30 or 40.
It is going to 16 be very inportant, what we do with it and how we regard it.
17 As long as I an around, at least, I an going to 18 take strong exception to people sitting in Bethesda and 13 reading that console on sort of an hour to hour basis and 20 calling Plant Nunber 32 and saying, you know, I notice the 21 pressure has crept down a little, don't you think you ought 22 to correct that?
23 Anybcdy who does that is going to get his head 24 chopped off, and I hope that would be -- you know, that we 25 would not allow that kind of business.
ALDERSCN 9EPCRTING COMPANY. INC_
d2U e.r-1 Furthermore, in the avent of an incident when the 2 forces gather at the response center and you a re ritting 3 there and paying close attention to those things, then the 4 rule that people do not of fer advice, opinions, 5 recommendations, or directives to the operating staff short 6 of explicit decision and direction by the team leader on a 7 judgment that it is necessary to do so, will be very 8 important.
9 I think that while the possibility of misuse and 10 use in a way that is counterproductive to safety is you know, it is a possibility that is clear and 11 certainly 12 always will be when you have a system like that.
13 I also think that it is not rompelled that it be 14 tha t way, and that a sensible and reasonable management of 15 what comes in, the people that work with it can keep the 16 evil feat'ures out, bu t f;ankly, my opinion is, if we were to 17 decide tha t the potential down side of a system like that 18 were great enouch so that we just announce, well, we have 19 thought about it and agonized over it and studied it, and we 20 have decided it is a bad idea, I will bet you a cookie we 21 would have an anendment to the Atomic Energy Act to put into 22 the statute a requirement to do it.
23 I think the Congress would not allow us to stand 24 back.
In fact, there have already been some ventures along 25 that line in a legislative sense.
They have not, that I A'.CERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
426 1 know of, ;ro;rassed very far, because we are clearly holding 2 on the thing.
I think that is the way it would turn out.
3 MR. P1ESSETT I think -- Jesse, do you still vant 4 to comment?
5 ER. EBERSCIE:
Yes.
I think you mentioned the 6 Crystal River case and indicated that it sight have been a 7 help in that instance, and Dr. Hendrie, you said something 8 about measurement, the measuring of parameters directly.
I g think the Crystal Elver case and the Rancho Seco case, and 10 then extrapolate maybe Erown 's Ferry to a worse condition 11 than it really had, I think in the present concept of this 12 external information, the consternation as to what to do 13 would merely have been spread to a distant point because 14 this -- the idea of doing this at present involves really 15 retransmitting the standard set of information that the 16 operator uses, and one of the legitisa te classes of accident 17 is loss of information flow to the operator.
18
'4 e have not sorted out the degree of independence, 19 if any, that this information vill use to get its base 2; sources.
In short, we have not really thrashed out how 21 independent or dependent this remote -- these remete 22 receivers vill be of the in-plant systems.
It is related in e
i 23 part to the matter of having f acilities f or controlling the i
I 24 plant away from the control room.
25
- think we probably need to think a little bit i
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1 about how independent or dependent this external information 2 is going to be fros what the operators say.
I don't think 3 we have done that.
4 COMMISSIONER HENDRIE4
' Jell, in wha t I have 5 discussed with the staff plans, there has been some 6 consideration of that proposition, and I think the intent is 7 to tap the sense or communication lines so that -- let's 8 see.
As I recall it, the game is to get them ahead in the 9 plant process computer so that you are not vulnerable in 10 this forwarded information link to down time on the plant you know, necessarily 11 process computer, because it is not 12 a safety grade sort of situation.
13 But if you lose instrument power to the sensing 14 elements in the pre-amps and so on, why, you are not goin, 15 to get anything over that data link any better than you are 16 going to get from the control room.
I think I would object 17 to any proposition which suqqested that the data link or any 18 portion of it ought to depend on signals which do not appear 19 in the control room or the technical support center.
I am 20 no t about to want to see anything in Bethesda tha t the plant
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21 people do not see.
If it is worth seeing by anybody, it is 22 worth being seen by them, and first, but obviously the 23 system is vulnerable to losing pieces of the plant 24 instrument power or other causes.
25 You know, when the integrated control system began ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
428 1 to vobble because the're were come process instrumentation 2 inputs that got fouled up, why, our data link meters would 3 also flop around.
4 MR. ERERSOLEs Do you want the data link to see 5 precisely the same failures that the operator sees?
That 6 includes instrument failures.
7 COMMISSIGNER HENDRIEs Well, I don't see a way to 8 go -- if the instruments were both -- if the sensors -- 1f 9 the information channels were both tapping -- why, we will 10 see them both flop.
I do not see much way to avoid that.
11 MR. EEERSOLE:
There is a way of making them 12 independent, but one can argue the merits of not doing it.
13 COMMISSIONER HENDRIEs You know, you could run all 14 the way back and say, here are all the blue sensors, and 15 there are pre-amps and communication links, and that goes 16 into the plant control room, and any place else they want to 17 take it, and here are a green set of sensors, and those are 18 the NRC sensors.
19 What I am saying is, no.
You know, if there are 20 going to be additional sensing elements, I want the plant 21 staff to have them, as well.
22 MR. LEWIS:
Just one semi-facetious comment based 23 on w hat Joe just said.
I can see some advantage for the 24 people in Bethesda knowing the heart ra te and blood pressure 25 of the operators and not having it known on site.
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MR. LEWIS:
T h,a t was semi-facetious.
3 COMMISSIONER HENDRIE4 Do you suppose we could 4 arrange a polygraph arrangement to the shift supervisor?
5 MR. LEWIS:
! did not go quite tha t far, but I was 6 thinking of the space travel case.
That was the only l
7 exception to your general rule that I could think of.
8 Cne thing.
The issue, of course, centers around i
I g the role of NRC in the event of an accident, and I remember I
I 10 when we had this conversation around this table, I geess Vic 11 was he r e, and a number of -- he was asked, and the 12 transcrip t will show exactly what happened -- would you take 13 over the plant in the event of an accident?
14 He said, only if we thought they were doing 15 something very wrong, or something to that general effect.
16 I think that raised in many people's eyes, and it has been l'7 the subject of a lot of discussion, the whole question of, l
18 you can ' t take over a plant and then give it back and 19 resolve later the question of who was respon sible for the l
20 plant, and on the question of advice versus harassment, the 21 advisor always thinks what he is doing is good advice.
The 22 receiver of ten thinks it is harassment, so I think we are 23 all concerned about the issue of NRC's role.
24 On the other hand, it has always seemed to me that l
25 there is one genuinely 1cgitimate -- forgive me.
I did not ALCE9SCN REPCRTING COMPANY, ;NC.
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1 vant to prejudice the Other things -- but one clearly 2 legitimate role for a data link, and tha t was that the NRC 3 does play a role in decisions that have to do with 4 evacuation in civil response to an accident.
5 The argument that that information ought to be 6 available in Washington as well as at the emergency response 7 center has always seemed to me to be a good ona.
On the 8 other hand, I am troubled by the fact taat the proposed link 9 is not directed at that.
10 For example, if I take -- you know, let me use the i
11 methods of WASH 1400.
You have mentioned 30 and 100 12 parameters, so let me take the square root of the product of 13 the two and say we are talking about 50 parameters or 14 something to th a t effect.
If I want 50 parameters and I 15 vant to update them once a sinute and each parameter is five 16 or six bits or something lik e th a t, I am talking about five 17 or six bits per second of information, which all of the 18 information theorists around here know goes into a circuit 19 that has five or six cycles band width.
20 Now, I can do that on your existing dedicated 21 phone lines, either on a sub carrier with a beep e ve ry 22 minute or something like that in such a way that it would 23 not interefere with voice conversations, which do have the 24 advantage that if you want to know some parameter that is 25 no t in your set, then you can ask somebody what it is.
You ALDERSON REPCRTING COMPANY, INC.
431 1 cannot predict all accidents.
O So, the fact that I can do this with low bound 3 width provided I am willing to accept an update every minute 4 instead of every fraction of a second, and that nobody seems 5 to take that possibility seriously, makes me personally 6 suspicious that nobody has quite renounced the idea of 7 running the plant from here.
8 I can to that cheaply, I can do it well, and I can 9 do it now, and I do not see why it has been rejected.
10 COMMISSIONER HENDEIE:
You have managed to reach 11 promptly beyond ay range of ability to speak knowledgeably.
12 I will just look over at the collective staff and say, yes, 13 what about that?
14 (General laughter.)
15
- 33. STELL0s I am not sure I understood your 16 question, but we do -- are you assuming the update about 17 once a minute?
That is what the study is based on at the 18 moment.
19 MR. LEWIS :
Okay.
20 MR. STELLO I am not sure I understood wh a t your 21 alternate proposal was.
22 MR. LEWIS:
As I understood what was just said, 23 you sample much more frequently, but you update once a 24 minute.
25 70 ICE:
(Inaudible.)
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1 MP. LEWI55 If you update once a minute, why do 2 you need anything other than the dedicated phone line to 3 transmit a sub carrier?
You don't.
4 ME. STELL0s That is all we are going to have.
5 M3. LEWIS:
That is different than the version I 6 saw.
j 7
MR. STELL0s That is the version you saw.
8 MR. LEWIS:
That is not the version I saw.
9
- 53. PLESSETT He is talking about the present 10 telephone syster., Vic.
11 MR. STELLO:
We will have a dedicated phone line 12 if there is a Data Link installed f or transmitting the data 13 from the site to the center.
14 MR. LEWIS:
Okay.
What I am saying is that you 15 now have 116 MR. STELLO:
(Inaudible) -- meaningful way to do 17 i t.
18 MR. LEWIS:
I believe you now have a dedicated 19 phone line.
20 MR. STELL0s Yes.
21
- 53. LEWIS:
I am saying, if I have done my 22 arithmetic correctly, and I think I have, you can transmit 23 this level of information flow on that line on a rub carrier 24 or in a burst mode.
It does not matter.
Ihere are many 25 wa ys of doing it in such a way as not to interfere with f
ALDERSON REPCRTING COMPANY, INC.
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433 1 voire conversations on that line.
2 COMMISSIONER HENDRIEs Yes, but I think all that 3 leads to is a discussion of whether you use the single 4 dedicated line for double duty or whether you have a 5 dedicated line that is just carrying the data and a second 6 dedicated line that is for the voice link, and whether it is 7 one line or two, you know, is sort of -- from the way I am 8 looking at it these days, sort of down in the noise of g design details on the system.
10 A much more profound question is, what is the data 11 set that ought to come forward to NRC, and the hardware and l
12 sof tware interf aces in the plant, and how we set up Bethesda 13 and so on.
Is it a big chunk of money, in one line versus l
14 two?
l 15 MR. LE*4:Sa It is a matter of prin ciple, and my 16 memory may well be wrong, in which case I am honored to be 17 corrected,. b ut the version I saw was not being updated once I
than that.
18 a minute.
It was being updated much more rapidly 19 COMMISSIONER HENDRIE4 The current plan is for 20 Sethesda updating it about once a minute.
21
- 13. MINNERS:
There was a question in regard to 22 transients in which there was concern as to whether we ought l
23 to have a higher frequency to get some t ransients such as 24 changes in pressures or neutron flux, but we were looking 25 into different ways of getting that in terms of peak
(
l ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, iNC,
431 1 =easure:ents rather than upgrading the frequency with which 2 ve would sas;1e, but our needs for the center, right now, 3 the design requirement we are using is once a ninute, and 4 even that is flexible, depending on the situation.
5 If the designers come back and say it is going to 6 cost you another $1 million to do it once a minute, we could 7 do it once every two minutes and save you that money, but we 8 would consider that.
9 MR. LEWIS :
I an glad to hear that.
In that case, 10 I am really then not clear, and it ay be in the noise, but 11 I always worry that these noise things reflect design 12 philosophies.
Why are you not using the existing line.
13 HE. MINNERS: We have not gotten down to that 14 detail of design.
As f ar as we are concerned right now, 15 that is the simplest portion of the whole chain, 16 transmission of the data into the center.
We have concerns 17 th a t the committee has raised here with what is it that we 18 vant to collect and what is it that we vant to do, and we is have always considerad those the more pertinent questions.
20 The transmission, we have considered direct lines, because 21 that is the easiest way to go, but we have not made a 22 decision on that yet.
23 XR. LEWISs I agree.
I saw that in the past as 24 being reflected in the updated reg.
I will check my 25 reco rds, but I as certain I a: right.
O AL:EASON REPCRTING COVP ANY, INC.
435 1
3R. STELLO:
'4e are running the specifications for 2 the system now, and for sure if there is a way (inaudible) 3 we are going to do that.
That is going to be done -- that 4 is the way we would want to do it.
Clearly it is the most 5 economical way to avoid the high maintenance cost of running 6 an additional line.
7 MR. L E'4 I S :
Forgive me, Vic.
I am a little bit 8 confused.
At once a minute we a re talking about a few bits 9 per second, and a few bits per second to get a new line, it 10 should be obvious that you chould use the existing line.
It 11 is a vaste of the new line to put a few bits per second on 12 i t.
So I am really a little bit confused about the match 13 between the -- I don't want to make a big deal out of this, 14 but it led me to be concerned that there was another purpose 15 for the link.
16 MR. STELLO:
I will make sure you get an answer.
17 3R. PLESSETT:
I think I cannot shut off Joe and 18 Peter, but I can shut off the rest of you, except Jerry has 19 been very patient.
It is brief, I hope, Jerry.
20 MR. RAY I think I can make it brief.
I like to 21 look at the other side of the coin that Bill Mathis raised.
22 I think he has a valid concern, and as a matter of fact, the 23 same problem exists within the utility opersting overall 24 corporate organication, because in the past whenever there 25 has been a station emergency or a system emergency, there ALCERSON REPCRTING COMPAN% :NC.
436 s.--
1 has been natural curiosity and concern in the cor;craie 2 departments that were interested in that station other than 3 the operating people, so there was a tendency to flood the 4 control room or the system operator's office with questions 5 and queries.
6 This is solved by designating a representative of 7 the principle departments in the compan, a field engineer, 1
8 for instance, who is dispatched to the scene of the control, 9 whether it be the control room of the station or the system 10 operator 's of fice, and he went off in the corner, and he 11 received tha calls from his department.
12 In fact, he fed information to the department.
13 And therefore the control organiration, the opera ting Ir. organiration was buffered from the kind of calls that Bill 15 expressed his concern about.
16
. It seems to se that the present IE organ; ration 17 already has set the stage for that with, first, the resident 18 inspector to serve as a buffer between the operating 19 personnel and the NRC response people, and subsequently, if 20 the emergency is important enough or serious enough to have 21 had a team dispatched to the site, you have augmented the 22 personnel to serve as that buffer, and I would. succest that 23 if profiting by the TMI experience you have selected 24 parameters to be telemetered to your response center over 25 this nuclear data link to correspond with the queries that ALCERSON REPORTING COMPANY,.NC.
437 1 were generated by the lack of such in the case of TMI, you 2 should be getting information that would minimire the number 3 of calls to the site of the trouble rather than generate 4 them if you administer the controls at the response center 5 intelligently.
6 I would assume that you are going to have 7 procedures that would do that.
8 In the case of the internal organiration of an 9 operating utility, for instance, it was absolutely ruled to voi, that individuals in the engineering department call the 11 control room of the statian or the system operator's office 12 who calls.
There was one man in the department who would 13 initiate such calls, and there was one man at the station or 14 in the system operating office that would receive them, and 15 he was not the operating people, and ! would think that your 16 procedures would be comparable to that.
17 3R. PLESSETT
'4 ell, I as sure that that is a Kerr, do you have a real 18 point you and athis 19 substantive comment?
20 MR. XERRs I would hope the Commission has 21 profited from all this advice.
22 MR. PLESSETT:
I would hope so.
23 (General lauchter.)
24 COMMISSIONER HENDRIE:
Two of us are unable to 25 form a Commission, so --
ALDERSCN REPCRTING COMP ANY, INC.
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(3eneral la ughter. )
i 2
- 53. KIES:
I sean, I assume you are a data link, 3 however.
4 (General laughter.)
5
- 53. PLESSETT Yes.
I do think that one point, i
6 Joe and Peter, that maybe Hal might cormunicate with Vic and 7 vice versa a bit.
If i; is possible, it =ight be fruitful 8
Unless you have more, I would like to go to one 9 more item, to be sure we get it in, that I want Dade Moeller 10 to address that we are concerned about.
11 Dade, would you sake a brief comment about the 12 ener gency planning problem?
13
- 53. MOELLER:
In our review of the draft final 14 rule, and in fact in our letter to the Chairman of June 11, 15 1980, we simply commented on our observation that the final l
16 rule, the draft final rule requires that licensees submit to 17 the NRC th,o e=ergency response plans of responsible state l
l 18 and local governments, and that these plants must be j:dged 19 then acce ptahla by FEMA and by the NRC before the plant i
20 could begin to c;erate, and the ccmsittee no ted tha t this 21 situation could be interpreted as giving veto ;over on the 22 operation Of a nuclear power plant to state and local a agencies.
24 Now, we hasten to point out that it, I think 25 most all of us would agree that a state and local agency are ALCEascN agpe n sG ccupANy,inc.
439 1 the agencies, and the public in that area should have a 2 voice in what goes on in their area, but we saw the 3 possibility here that very f ew people -- 9ne or two people 4 in key positions could stall or could block the development 5 of an adequate emergency plan at the local level, and 6 th ereb y prevent the plant from going into operation, and we 7 simply wanted to hear your comments on this situation.
8 COMMISSIONER HENDRIE The plan as it has gone out 9 for Federal Register noticing does not co=pel an automatic 10 shut-down if a state or local plan f alls out of favor or is does not have final approval from FEMA and the NRC by 11 not 12 some specified date.
13
'de think that it is necessary to keep some strong 14 pressure on this system to produce these things, and this 15 again is one 'of the situations in which we hasten to advance 16 before the onrushing Congressional multitude, thus giving, 17 at least to the casual observer, the appearance of leading 18 cather than being overcome by the charpe.
There was strong 19 drive in this direction from a number of Congressional 20 sources.
21 The final rule ends up that there are -- that if a 22 set. cf plans are no t in a state of final approval, that we 23 look and see whether there are adequate interin compensating 24 actions or other compelling reasons to permit o;eration.
I 25 believe that after a considerable amount of discussion, of ALDERSON PEPCRTING COMPANY. INC.
d'k b rs--
1 words like " appropriate," " adequate," and other similar 2 words, we adopted " adequate interim compensating actions."
3 It would seem to me that one of the considerations 4 in such a case if one should arise would in fact be that 5 some county supervisor was a ttempting by preventing the 6 putting in place of adequate plans, sort of attempting a 7 unilateral shut-down mode, it would seem to me that would be 8 one of the things you would scratch your head over and see g whether -- what the state plans can do to compensate, and 10 what plans made by the licensee mi;ht do to compensate.
11 As far as I know -- and staff is invited to 12 correct me -- some local governments and states are moving 13 f aster than others.
I do not think we have run across 14 anybody yet that is just being flat, bull-headed with the 15 clea r intent of trying to get a plant shut-down by 16 preventing emergency planning.
1:7 Now, I think there are a number of difficulties 18 out there, particularly on the level of, you know, the 19 county emergency supervisor or whatever, in terms of 20 knowledgeable personnel resources, and funds for contract 21 assistance in preparing these plans, and I think that is not 22 an uncommon difficulty, particularly on the local government 23 side, the states a little less so, just because they tend to 24 be larger -- larger entities with more capacity.
25 I think in a number of cases why the utilities ALDERSCN REPCRTING COMP ANY. !NC.
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- 441 1 involved recognire, you know, the practical dif ficulties, 2 and are finding ways to provide resource support so that 3 those local governmen t agencies can get on with the planning 4 and laying out of what they hate to do and so on.
5 I do not see much -- as a practical matter, I do i
6 not see much alternative to that in the near term, you know, 7 any sort of legislative proposition to provide Federal grant 8 funds and so on are var down the line on tha t, and I am 9 afraid this sort of thing turns out to be another one of the 10 operating costs to make nuclear electricity.
11 I thi,nk it is always po:sible we will have some 12 odd cases, but so f ar I do not.
13 Does anybody want to commen t on the staff side?
14 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
I guess the only 15 elaboration I would make to what Joe said is, it seemed to 16 2e there were a range of concerns in your comment.
In the 17 one extreme, I certainly agree that one does not want to i
18 give one or two people the power in ef f ect to veto a plant's 1
l 19 operation simply by wilfully refusing to prepare a plan.
I i
l 20 think as Joe said the rule now is in a form which that would 21 not be the end result.
There ar= a whole range of middle 22 cases, and Joe has touched on those, and Je would have to 23 work our way through them as they come up.
24 At the other end, you also mentioned a concern 25 that this would give states a veto that they did not ALDERSON REPORTING CCMPANY, INC.
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d.l 2 1 otherwise have.
My only cooment there is that I think 2 states already do have a veto in a number of ways, on public 3 utilities commissions, through the O'.ean Air Act, and what 4 have sou, anc I would not wrestle the emergency planning 5 rule around' one way or the other and worry that a state 6 would use it to veto nuclear power plant operation.
7 I happen to think states should have a veto.
8 ER. MOElLER:
Sure.
9 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
And that the state's chief to executive is then accountable for his public for what he 11 does with regard to the state electric generating system, 12 and I look on states and their relationship to nuclear power 13 plant operation within their borders in a somewhat different 14 fashion than I do sort of the individual local and county 15 governments which might throw up a roadblock.
16 I think when you are talking about a state 1:7 government, you are talking about an entity that really is 18 en ti tled to a distinct say of its own on what its energy 19 generating mix vill look like.
.3.
MOELLER:
Thank you.
w 20 21
- 52. PlESSETT:
Let me just mention one last item.
Several members of the committee have been concerned about 22 23 the possibility of overloading the industry because of a 24 large number of requests, orders, and studies that have come 25 ou t since T5I 2 and are concerned about coordination and the ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
{
44J 1 establishment f priorities as regards all of these 2 requirements that have kind of flooded out in the past 3 year.
Can you give us some retssurance?
4 (General laughter.)
5 COMM!SSIONER HENDRIE:
Well, let's see.
6 Reassurance is not precisely the word that I would use.
I 7 do not perceive any very clear program agency-wide that 8 establishes priorities for required actions out in the g regulated sector, and that attempts to keep account of the 10 resource availability to that sector, and then perhaps down 11 the list comes to a point at:d says, nov, Requirement Number 12 412 vill take us into negative resource implications for the 13 regulated industry, and we yill therefore find some other 14 var to do that or hold it for six months or whatever.
15 That is not, as f ar as I can detect, the situation 16 on an agency basis.
There is a limited amount of that kind 17 of consideration given in NRR in the sense that Yatson's t
l 18 people have some staff members who are keeping track of l
19 requirements and resource implications of new requirements, l
20 but that is a long way fro-a full coordination even within l
21 NH3 22
. think that Vic has recently queried licensees 23 abou t the -- what they think the i= pact of the bulletins and 24 orders enterprise over the last year and a half has been, 25 and I do not kacv.
It comes back about ten sillion man ALOERSON f EPCATING COMPANY. INC.
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444 1 hours1.157407e-5 days <br />2.777778e-4 hours <br />1.653439e-6 weeks <br />3.805e-7 months <br /> in 1979.
2 Cf course, that sces -- that is total agency 3 activity, and is not just Three Mile Island-related.
So, I 4 guess as sort of a bottes line to my comment on your concern 5 is that I do not think any overall Egency coordination has 6 been take.n in this regard.
7 MR. KERR It seems to me 8
COMMISSIONER HENORIE.
The obvious follow-on 9 question, you know, don't bother to ask me why not.
You 10 know, we can all guess at assorted reasons, but clearly 11 shouldn't it be, and then, can it be.
Well, it is obviously 12 desirable that we not institute sets of requirements that 13 are impossible of accomplishment, but I think there is a 14 certain amount of difficulty in understar. ding what the --
15 what the full situation is out there and it does vary 16 considerably from licensee to licensee, and I guess one 17 thing which I would not care to do is to have us establish a 18 branch of licensee resource commitment data which could 19 capidly grow to having representatives in th e regions and 20 become a great enterprise of its own.
21 We obviously hear hollers of pain from the 22 industry side, and I guess, you know,.try to give them some 23 recognition.
24 MR. KERR:
Yes.
I think you know enough about 25 wh a t is involved in carrying out some of the directives, and ALDERSON REPCRTING COMPANY, INC.
44:3 1 I world not try to pick out any of the directives snd say 2 that they are trivial and uninportant.
I think =any of the 3 requirements that have been developed are important to 4 safety and one wants to gat them in s+.alle d, but because of 5 that, I think one wants to be as certain as one can that
~
6 enough thought and care is given to the planning and 7 installation that indeed they accomplish the proposed 8 objective.
9 As ! look at the correspondence that comes across to sy desk -- and it is a fraction of the total -- one sees 11 very fira deadlines now being established very soon for a 12 lo t of different activities, and I think it is a real safety 13 concern if we are saturating operating organirations to the 14 extent that they cannot do the things that need to be done, 15 so that they really work.
16 COMMISSIONER HENDRIE:
I think that is a fair 17 comment.
In the course of shaking down the action plan is through sultiple drafts, that was certainly one of the -- I 19 thought it was on balance a fair con =ent fron the industry 20 peopls who were reviewing it that while no single item in 21 that long array of things did not have some merit, certainly 22 in a safety sense, that taken all together it could very 23 well be an indigestible array of things, and in total night 24 cause enough confusion to be counterproductive, but I think 25 -- I think there was a substantial amount of consideration ALDERSCN AEPORENG CCMPANY. INC.
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1 of that poin t in the later f orma tion -- formation of the 2 later drafts of the action plan at any rate.
3 MB. MARK 4 I am sure this ic well recognized.
4 There is some need to watch the action plan, let us say, at 5 its fixed points as new requests are turned loose.
There 6 was a rather painful instance in connection with the Mark 1 7 c$ntainment inerting inquiry in which in the write-up that I 8 happened to see, it was confessed that due to the short time 9 allowed for response, the answers were not very good.
10 Therefore we concluded what the answers should have been.
11 This is the staff speaking.
12 MR. PLESSETTs Thank you very much.
13 COMMISSIONER HENDRIEs Glad to see you all.
In my 14 time on the committ'e, I could always depend upon Okrent's 15 pile to be higher than anybody else's.
I see that Dad's has 16 now progressively challenged and perhaps even taken over.
I 17 ope this does not indicate a slackening of the tension.
18 (General laughter.)
19 MR. PLESSETTs We will have a short recess.
20 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken. )
2?
22 23 24 25 ALDiRSON REPCRTING CCMPANY, INC.
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