ML20034F460
| ML20034F460 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 02/26/1993 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20034F461 | List: |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 ACRS-GENERAL, NUDOCS 9303030247 | |
| Download: ML20034F460 (68) | |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMIS SION
+
f S*
PERIODIC MEETING WITH ADVISORY COMMITTEE
~ ~ ~
ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW)
LOCitiC3.
ROCxvittE, xARytAND b3I6l FEBRUARY 26, 1993
?Eg65.
67 PAGEs NEALR.GROSSANDCO.,INC.
COURT Rt. PORTERS AWD TRANSCRIBERS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, Northwest Washington, D.C.
20005 (202) 234-4433 s
(
DISCLAIMER J
i This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of l
the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on February 26, 1993 in the Commission's office at One I
l White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland.
The meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general
(
informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is j
i not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this
.(
transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination
.l or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with 1
the Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or
-i addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
-k I
i I
L i
l NEAL R. GROSS CoWRT RfpoRTERS AND TRANSCRIBER 5 4
1313 RHoOf IELAND AVENUE, N.W.
1 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGToH, D.C.
20005 (202) 232 4 600 O
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION f
PERIODIC MEETING WITH ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW)
PUBLIC MEETING Nuclear Regulatory Commission One White Flint North Rockville, Maryland Friday, February 26, 1993 The Commission met in open
- session, pursuant to notice at 9:00 a.m.,
Ivan
- Selin,
)
Chairman, presiding.
COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
IVAN SELIN, Chairman of the Commission KENNETH C.
ROGERS, Commissioner FORREST J. REMICK, Commissioner l
JAMES R. CURTISS, Commissioner l
l cs l
l NEAL R. GROSS l
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\\
2 STAFF SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
)
SAMUEL J.
CHILK, Secretary i
i WILLIAM C.
PARLER, General Counsel ANDREW BATES, Office of the Secretary I~
DADE W. MOELLER, Chairman, ACNW MARTIN J.
STEINDLER, ACNW PAUL W. POMEROY, ACNW WILLIAM J.
HINZE, ACNW NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2
9:00 a.m.
r 3
CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Good norning, ladies and 4
gentlemen.
s 5
The Commission is meeting at this time to 6
receive a
periodic briefing from our Advisory-i 7
Committee on Nuclear Waste and we welcome Committee 8
Chairman, Doctor Dade Moeller, and the other members 9
of the ACNW in attendance.
10 We'd like to congratulate you on the 11 milestone that you reached in January when the 12 Committee held its 50th meeting and just yesterday l
13 completed its 51st meeting. The Commission takes note 14 of this accomplishment and extends its congratulations 15 to all the Committee members.
16 Safe and effective management and disposal 17 of nuclear waste, both high and low-level, are 18 fundamental in increasing importance to the beneficial i
19 use of nuclear materials.
In fact, it's probably f air 20 to say that without a perceived solution of the high-
+
21 level waste problem, then much of the work that we've 22 been doing on license renewal and on Part 52 will not I
23 be all that productive in the long run.
24 The Committee plays an important role in l
25 advising the Commission on nuclear waste issues and
'f
~!
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the Commission, as always, has a great deal of 2
interest in what the Committee has to say.
3 You have a very interesting agenda today, 4
Doctor Moeller, and we look forward to what you have
/
5 to say.
6 But first, I'll ask my colleagues if they 7
have any remarks.
8 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Nothing.
9 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Thank you.
10 DOCTOR MOELLER:
Well, thank you, Mr.
11 Chairman.
We came at your invitation to discuss the 12 two reports specifically that we submitted during the 13 month of February.
One of them on February the lith 14 was our -- well, we titled it, "Significant Issues in 15 the High-Level Waste Repository Program," and in 16 essence-it was another step forward on our systems 17 analysis of the various issues there.
Then, Doctor 18 Steindler will be responding or leading us in that l
19 discussion.
Then, on the second item, the issues 20 related to the Energy Policy Act, Section 801, I'll be 21 handling that.
So, we'll call on Marty to move 22 forward.
23 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Thank you.
24 If you recall the background, we had a 25 discussion with the Chairman who expressed an interest
)
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3, I
5 1
in finding out whether or not the high-level waste 2
program had any significant
- holes, major show i
j i
3 stoppers, and suggested that perhaps the thing we 4
ought to do is have a look to see whether or not one e
j 5
could conveniently, or even inconveniently, do a 6
systems analysis, top down systems analysis of the l
t 7
overall program to uncover any such difficulties.
We 8
looked at that, reported back to the Commission last j
9 year that we didn't see anything major and that 10 systems analyses were being pursued by both the staff 11 to some extent and certainly DOE.
12 Following that, the focus shif ted slightly 13 and we were asked to specifically enumerate, if we 14 could, any major issues that we thought should be I
15 brought to the attention of the Commission.
We have I
i 16 had a number of discussions on that topic. We elected 17 to broaden the discussion beyond purely technical 4
18 issues and found a number of interface issues.
We i
19 wrote you a letter, a report in December of last year 1
20 on the item and the staff has recently responded to j
21 some of the points that we raised in that.
I want to l
1 22 kind of briefly touch on a number of those issues and j
t 23 certainly not go through them all again that we've 24 already covered once.
25 Let me give you a summary, however, of the i
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6 1
conclusions one might draw from that particular 2
exercise.
3 First, we found no major show stopping r
i 4
holes, technically describable, that would lead to I
=
5 what we might call a hemorrhage of the program to be 6
life threatening to it.
We did identify some issues 7
that are much less than huge, but if not attended to 8
could become Achilles heels later on when the 9
licensing process draws closer.
Those things, which 10 I'll touch on, require resolution to keep the program 11 going and particularly to keep it on schedule.
i 12 Schedule is an important issue as implied in the 13 notion of having a solution at hand.
i 14 The things that we're going to talk about 15 may seem like trivial minutia, but they are not 4
16 necessarily so and they will become less so as time t
17 goes on.
The fact, I think, remains that the
[
18 technical aspect of building a repository is not a
19 show stopping issue.
And it really within very wide 20 limits doesn't make any difference whether you focus 21 on Yucca Mountain or some other reasonably suitable or l
t 22 equally suitable site.
There is a presumption that 23 Yucca Mountain is suitable.
I don't know that and i
24 we're presuming that, but for the moment Yucca l
. 25 Mountain is the target and it seems to be an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS j
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1 interesting target.
2 Let me simply walk through then to at 3
least identify some of these issues that we talked j
4 about and then come to focus on those where the staff t
5 and we are not quite in agreement and tell you what L
6 our view is and what kind of things we're going to l
t 7
follow up on.
8 The first one that we cited, of course, is 9
one that's already being taken care of and that is i
10 that we thought it was very important for the 11 Commission and the staff to forward to the National 12 Academy in response to the Energy Policy. Act its i
13 advice on the kind of things that the National Academy l
14 report should contain.
That's in process and it 15 remains to be seen what the National Academy Committee r
16 will do with that.
1 17 We indicated that the role of enhancing j
l 18 one barrier in a multi-barrier system to offset either i
19 deficiencies to some extent or uncertainties in other
-l 20 barriers in this multi-barrier system ought to be i
21 something that the staff should begin to tolerate more 1
22 so than they're currently tolerating.
I'll touch on that a little bit more.
23 24 We have recently had some additional
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25 discussion on the issues of expert judgment and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (20?) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
,s.
8 1
technology that is likely to be involved in the 2
licensing process is such that expert judgment, we 3
feel, is a mandatory process that will have to be 4
used.
The protocols for that are subject to, we i
J l
5 think, a horrendous amount of argumentation, since 6
that's not a well developed, long established science, 7
and we urge the consideration of providing through 8
rulemaking some of the bases under this decisions j
i 9
about what is the suitable protocol and what is not, l
10 that that be done.
I'm going to touch on that a 11 little bit later.
l 12 In addition, I think the other point that f
13 predictive science and technology has to look at is 14 the utilization of models and the qualification of 15 both models and the data that goes into them.
It 16 isn't clear to us, and it still is not clear to us, 17 that the methodology for deciding what is a good model 18 and what is not has been given sufficient guidance.
19 I will touch on that also.
20 There were a number of other points, most 21 of which, I think, are of, we think, less importance 22 as time goes on, which we can certainly touch on if 23 you like.
But I'd like to then pursue some of these 24 a little more closely.
25 Let me say at the outset that none of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N.W.
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those issues that I've touched on represent what I 2
would' call explicit scientific issues.
They're all 3
interface issues and that's in keeping with the 4
general notion that the science and technology is not 5
an area where there are severe uncertainties of such 6
magnitude at the moment that would represent show 7
stoppers. It's true that investigations in some areas 8
are still exploring ways of doing the job.
That is 9
the science folks have not learned how to get the 10 right answer on the first try, but that's not 11 something that we see is going to be permanently 12 debilitating.
13 So, the things that I intend to talk about 14 will be interface issues between what I guess either 15 are institutional licensing issues and the scientific 16 community.
17 Well, let me touch on a couple issues.
18 The staff seems to have taken a fairly rigid position 19 on this role of exchanging capabilities of one of the 20 barriers for the deficiencies or uncertainties in the 1
21 other.
Specifically, the issue arises in the j
22 enhancement in the way in which the enhancement of the 23 engineered barrier system could be offset for 1
24 uncertainties that you would encounter when you're 25 doing geologic studies.
It may also be that some of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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10 1
the geology is not exactly what you would like it to 2
be.
I think the position that says, "No, you're not 3
really allowed to do that,"
is not particularly 4
productive.
It doesn't seem to us to be in keeping
~
5 with what the regulations indicate.
Equally 6
important, it removes from the Commission the 7
flexibility that was specifically built into the Part 8
60 for making decisions and potential tradeoffs. This l
9 is an issue that looks to us as though it may well
?
10 turn out to be difficult in the licensing process and i
11 we probably will need to continue our discussion with i
12 the staff on that, f
13 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Could I stop you for a 14 second?
O 15 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Yes.
l 16 CHAIRMAN SELIN: Is there a possibility of 17 coming up with a couple of examples that would satisfy t
18 both the Committee and the staff as opposed to arguing 19 on such general terms about one
- says, "The r
20 probabilities can't just be divided into equal parts 21 a priori," and the other one says, "You're against t
22 defense in depth," and these are sort of extreme i
?
23 positions.
Is there some way to illustrate the --
24 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
I would think we could 25 do that.
The specific issue that, for example, has l
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most recently come up is whether or not a significant l
[
2 enhancement in the performance of the engineered 3
barrier system, for example the canister, could be l
4 used to offset inadequate geochemistry in the far 5
field.
6 The argument is fairly simple.
If, in i
7 fact, the Department can provide a robust package and 8
demonstrate its likely robustness over a period that 9
pushes close to the 10,000 year period rather than the 10 substantially complete containment 1,000 year period, j
t 11 then the source term for the far field migration, and j
12 hence presumably the release into the f ar field, could 13 be significantly reduced and the requirements on the 14 quality of that geology or geochemistry can be dropped i
15 while still achieving the same generr.1 level of l
16 protection for the health and safety of the public.
17 CHAIRMAN SELIN: It would be useful if you 18 could follow that up. The kind of thing that occurred
[
19 to me when I read the two comments was if you're 20 talking about the basic underlying risks, the idea 21 that you have to distribute the uncertainty is pretty i
22 powerful.
But if you're talking about some of the i
23 peripheral criteria which are dominated by the j
r 24 ancertainties rather than anything else, if you're i
25 talking ' what's going to happen in the far field, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1 what's going to happen 10,000 years from now, if one 2
part could be shown to have more confidence than one 3
- thought, then one wouldn't have to be quite so 4
conservative in some of the other criteria.
5 Well, the example you brought up appears 6
to be relevant to the thinking I had on that.
I would 7
be useful if you could follow up on it, f
8 DOCTOR HINZE:
Well, that is not to say i
9 that you disregard the geology and the geological i
10 factors.
I want to make it clear that that's not to 6
11 stance we're taking. You don't build a battleship and i
12 drop it down the mouth of a volcano to store it.
That 13 kind of thing.
But there are legitimate tradeoffs in f
I t
14 the uncertainties that are going to remain after the 15 characterization.
16 COMMISSIONER REMICK: Marty, I understand 17 your arguments on balancing and tradeoff and initial 18 inclination is to agree.
But laying this on the 19 staff, isn't this something that DOE itself proposed 20 in 10 CFR 960 and which we then concurred in?
In 21 other words, didn't DOE put itself in this position by 22 proposing this in their siting guidelines back in the 23 mid '80s in 960?
24 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
I don't know.
You may 25 be right.
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COMMISSIONER REMICK:
They did.
i 2
DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Yes.
i I
3 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
I can read you one j
4 paragraph. It says, "Furthermore, engineered barriers 5
shall not be used to compensate for an inadequate 6
site, mask the innate deficiencies of a site, disguise 7
the strength and weaknesses of a sit and the overall 8
system and mask differences between sites when they t
9 are compared." We went on to concur with that then in 10 the Federal Reaister.
So, I don't think it's f air, as i
i 11 I understand it, to lay it completely on the staff.
i 12 I think it has to be something that DOE and the staff
]
i 13 have to --
14 DOCTOR STEINDLER: Quite so.
I don't mean 15 to identify --
16 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
- Sure, j
17 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
-- blame.
That's not 18 the issue.
I think -- all I guess I'm stating is the l
19 notion we had was that there should be some reasonable 20 tradeoff allowed again, as Bill pointed out, not to l
I 21 offset a totally inadequate site. The only reason the 22 staff role comes in, it comes in for two reasons.
One j
because of the response of the EDO and the other one 23 24 is the communications that they've recently had, 3
e 25 relatively recently had with DOE when that issue came
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t 14 i
i up.
t 2
But our intent, I guess, is to pursue that i
in our December 1st 3
with the staff.
We've had 4
letter, we also pointed out the distinction between 5
960 and 60 and their relative roles in this process b
l 1
6 seemed unclear to us and the staff, I think correctly, l
7 pointed out to us that their interest is Part 60.
b 8
It's that that we try to focus on to the extent we i
9 can.
i 10 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Just a little bit on 11 that, Marty.
It occurs to me that if one gives more 4
12 credit for the barriers, that that might be done l
13 through dealing with not the suitability of the site 14 but the uncertainties in the measures of suitability, 15 rather than -- so that you're not in the business of j
16 accepting in a
sense a
site that's less than 17 desireable, but that the credit that you take for the 18 engineered barriers is to make up for uncertainties in l
19 how well you can actually establish that suitability.
j 20 DOCTOR STEINDLER: Right.
I think that's l
21 precisely correct and I would guess that is the 22 context in which the 960 description was likely to be i
23 vritten.
- )
l 24 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, it seems to me 1
25 if that's the approach, that that's a little more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSORIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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sophisticated concept than the simple one of making a 2
tradeoff of a barrier against a site deficiency.
It 3
relates to your knowledge and ability to establish the 4
suitability of the site.
But in other words, you 5
might tolerate a little bit broader uncertainty in 6
certain parameters, but not necessarily the mean value 7
would be changed that you'd be willing to accept, if 8
you know what I mean.
9 DOCTOR MOELLER:
Reviewing the history of 10 this though, and it may be that we were failing to 11 communicate with the staff or we don't understand what 12 they're saying or vice versa, but Commissioner Curtiss l
13 I'm sure recalls a couple years ago when you directed i
14 to us the question to review the subsystem 15 requirements of Part 60.
The Committee did that.
We 16 met with the staff and I need to look up that letter, l
17 but as I recall at that time when we discussed it with 18 the staff, we all came to the bottom line that it was 19 the system that must perform and meet the standards 20 and that you could have some flexibility in the 21 subsystem requirements.
Am I wrong in that?
22 COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
Well, I think, as 23 I recall the discussion at the time, the staff's 24 position as they reflected it in their February lith 25 response has been consistent throughout, which is to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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i i
say that Part 60 requires that each of these subsystem s
2 performance criteria in 60.113 be viewed as a minimum 3
and independent criterion.
I'd have to go back and 4
look at the letter specifically, but I don't recall 5
that their position has evolved on that point.
i l
i 6
Go ahead, Ken.
7 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
No, no.
That's my 8
recollection as well.
So, if you really want to take 9
some credit for the engineered barriers, then what you 10 do is you take credit through being willing to stop in l
11 a
certain sense and accept a
little bit more l
l 12 uncertainty in the mean value of one of these 13 essential parameters rather than change the mean value 14 that's acceptable.
15 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
- Well, that i
1 16 fundamentally has been perhaps our ill-explained 17 focus.
Our concern was driven by the notion that if
]
l 18 you require far field precision, you may be engaged in 19 the process that is a 50 year exploratory operation, 20 which you simply can't do, whereas you can solve that 21 problem I think a lot easier.
Again, schedule, I 22 think in this case, is the driving force.
23 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, it seems to me 1
24 if you take this approach you can still be consistent 25 with the necessity of satisfying individual NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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17 1
requirements, but as best you can but willing to j
2 accept, as I say, a little bit more uncertainty.
3 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
We would certainly 4
agree with that.
5 DOCTOR HINZE:
In our letter we used the 6
term " potential difficulties," and that was really
[
7 said in the context of uncertainties.
8 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Yes.
9 DOCTOR HINZE: We didn't perhaps say it as i
10 precisely as we should have.
11 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Okay.
Well, let me 12 move on to one --
13 COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
- Marty, could I i
14 just --
j i
15 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
I'm sorry, yes.
'I 16 COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
Excuse me.
If I 17 could just carry it a step further.
This-is an issue 18 that, as the Chairman indicated, I've been interested l
1 19 in pursuing.
I guess the challenge that I see, and i
20 I'm not sure how to come to grips with it, is this.
21 Whether you view it on sort of a rough level ' of 22 trading off the performance that would be achieved t
23 with respect to each of the subsystem performance 24
- criteria, the release rate, the package and' the 25 groundwater travel time, or in what I think is a more t
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18 l
I sophisticated way to look at it, the trading off of l
2 uncertainty and the way you calculate that, take f
3 advantage that you're probably going to be much more
)
i 4
highly certain of the performance of maybe the 5
container than you would perhaps on groundwater travel 6
time.
I 7
Either of those two approaches, and this 8
is the challenge that I haven't been able to come to i
9 grips with, but either of those two approaches, it l
10 seems to me,
presupposes that the subsystem I
11 performance criteria in the aggregate are designed to i
I 12 achieve what I think you've referred to here as an j
13 overall level of protection.
That is to say if you 14 add up the release rate and the package requirements l
i 15 and the groundwater travel time, the sum of those 16 three vill give you a level of performance, defense in i
17 depth, that accumulates to that level of performance 18 that is X.
In reviewing the history of this issue and 19 in looking at the way those requirements were 20 formulated in 113, I'm not sure that's the case.
I'm 1
21 not sure it was ever determined back in the late '70s l
22 and early '80s that what we've done in Part 60 was to l
23 define a level of overall performance that we would 24 expect the repository to meet and then in a relatively 1
25 disciplined way laid out the three subsystem NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N.W-(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 (202) 234-4433
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_ =.
8 f
19 1
performance criteria, the sum of which would yield j
2 that level of performance.
?
3 So, as you look at this question over 4
time, it seems to me it's important, if that's in fact l
5 the case, and I think it is, to recognize that as you 6
say, "Let's trade off performance on one or the other 7
or maybe on the trading off of uncertainties," that f
I 8
that approach almost presupposes that you've defined f
9 an overall level of protection that you can then, as i
j 10 you trade off these things, recalculate and see if I
11 you've achieved that.
I'm not sure how to do that.
I i
12 If your deliberations on this issue lead you to a 13 solution to that question, enlighten me.
14 Secondly, getting down related to that but i
15 also related then to the trading off of one or two of j
16 these issues, it seems to me what you need is an I
17 algorithm in order to permit you to accomplish that.
18 Commission Rogers' notion strikes me as a very J
19 attractive one and it's a much more sophisticated
)
20 approach than simply saying, "We'll take a notch down l
21 here and crank it up a notch here."
But again, here, 22 I'm not sure what the algorithm is for making that 23 kind of tradeoff in the context of dealing with 24 uncertainties.
At some point, of course, all of this 25 will come before a board and when you say, "We're a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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20 1
little bit more confident here,.perhaps a little bit i
2 less confident there," sometime between now and then, t
3 if that's an approach that the current regulations l,
i 4
permit or that makes sense, it seems to me there'd be 5
some merit in defining in more detail how you make i
6 that rather than just a subjective sense that we have 7
a little bit more performance here, a little bit less 8
here and it all sums up to the same thing.
9 So, you don't need to address those here, j
10 but as your deliberations go on, I think those are on j
i 11 the key ~ issues that I see in this arena, j
12 DOCTOR STEINDLER: Well, if we can digress
(
13 into that issue for just a second, the assumption has
[
J 14 been all along, but it may not have been explicit when j
t 15 the original regulations were written, for obvious i
16 geometric reasons, that the EPA criteria will be the
[
i 17 final determiner of having met the requirements.
j l
18 That's still the case.
So, you know what the sum is, 19 you simply don't know what the components are.
4 20 COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
Well, just to be 21 precise here, we also know that if you meet the 22 subsystem performance criteria, you may or may not --
23 it doesn't follow that you meet the EPA standards and l
24 vice versa.
So, I'm not sure I agree that we've 25 established that clear a link between the two and that i
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21 l
1 you can therefore use the EPA goal, whatever it might t
2 be, as the mechanism for defining how you approach the 3
issue of 113 subsystem performance criteria.
t 4
DOCTOR STEINDLER:
There are some there is at least one subsystem i
5 subsystem 6
performance criteria, namely the release rate, that 7
has run into problems, arithmetic problems in a sense 8
with the former table in the EPA rules.
That fairly 9
minor glitch, although two orders of magnitude may not 10 be viewed as a minor glitch by some people, but that 11 arithmetic discrepancy is the only one that I can see t
12 offhand where you clearly have an existing conflict.
13 The sum of the subsystems criteria, coupled with the 14 site qualification process, is alleged to provide a l
15 repository framework that can meet the EPA criteria.
16 The issue really is to what extent _do you want to hold 4
17 stringent requirements to the subsystems criteria, at 18 the same time holding to the EPA criteria?
l 4
19 I think the point that you make is the i
20 only good one that needs to be answered in this case.
t 21 We will know some things a lot better than others and i
22 it's that offset of uncertainties which sum to the l
c adherence to the EPA criteria which should determine 23 L
24 the performance of repository.
25 I think the problem basically comes down
~
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1 to how much attention do we want to give to the rigid 1
I 2
interpretation of how the various nested systems i
3 function.
Looking at it from our standpoint, and of
+
j 4
course we don't have the job you do, but looking at it
)
5 from our stanapoint, one can simply recognize that
~
)
6 there needs to be flexibility in the system while 7
keeping rigidly to the bottom line.
I think that 8
would be the mode that we would go to.
But yes, we 9
can probably find other ways of addressing the issue j
10 of uncertainties in specific technical terms and i
11 provide some examples.
12 We would like to continue to discuss with 13 the staff their views on this and perhaps we can j
14 sharpen our respective views upon this issue and come
}
t 15 back later.
i 16 Well, let me move on to at least one other
{
17 area, perhaps a few more.
I mentioned the role of t
I 18 expert judgment and we've recently had some i
19 discussions in our meetings on the whole question.
{
f 20 Expert judgment continues to be a fairly new and-21 somewhat unrefined technology, if you want to call it f
22 that.
The various protocols that people use to make j
23 decisions on how to implement expert judgment are 24 subject to a lot of argument.
There's no doubt that-
~ f l
25 the role of expert judgment will be important in this
[
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i 23 1
whole process of defining whether or not a particular 2
site is suitable and whether or not the performance of repository can be estimated into the future well 3
a t
4 enough.
5 Superimposed on that is the most recent, 6
we think somewhat interesting issue of the Supreme P
7 Court beginning to address the question of what is 8
good science and how do you know or who do you trust 9
to tell you that.
All of those issues are 10 sufficiently flexible, so our contention is that it 11 needs to be addressed in some sort of a firm fashion i
12 in order to avoid a great deal of difficulty later on 13 at the licensing process.
-Again, this is an issue-14 that has an institutional interface, but really deals 15 with how do you address the problems of handling j
f 16 models and so on and so forth.
17 Paul Pomeroy has been our resident expert 18 on expert judgment and he may have a few words to say 19 on the issues that we've raised here.
20 DOCTOR POMEROY:
Fine.
I would like to 21 say that there are at least two things going on right l
22 now that may help us to reach some closure with the j
23 staff on the question of how much guidance in the use 24 of expert judgment is appropriate.
The first one is j
25 the Supreme Court case that Marty has mentioned.
It's i
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tentatively expected.
I gather that there might be a 2
decision by the Supreme Court in the fall with regard 3
to some of the issues that are brought forward there.
4 These are particularly in regard to the Rule 702 and 5
703 and the Frye Doctrine.
The Supreme Court may 6
provide us some guidance in the appropriate way to 7
utilize expert judgment in the decision making 8
process.
9 It's my feeling, of course, that the 10 existing evidentiary rules are excellent in the sense 11 that they do allow us to eliminate a lot of junk 12 science in the hearing processes.
At the same time, 13 they do give rise to some concerns that they could be 14 used to eliminate much of the expert judgment that is 15 brought forward by all of the parties in the process.
16 So, we're looking forward to their decision on that 17 matter.
18 The second thing is, of course, as you 19 probably are aware, the staff is pursuing Phase 2.5 of 20 its iterative performance assessment.
Phase 2.5 21 involves the actual selection of one area within the 22 repository process where expert judgment will be 23 extensively used and after that selection carrying out 24 the entire elicitation process of expert judgment and 25 carrying that through as far as possible to a botton NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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25 I
line conclusion that the staff might reach.
We feel i
f 2
that that's going to be a very educational process and 1
{
3 we're following the planning and execution of that t
4 phase with rather keen interest.
Following.its 5
completion, we're going to explore with the staff t
j 6
again the question of what their feelings are t
7 regarding the appropriateness of issuing guidance,
?
[
8 whether that guidance is in the form of a staff i
9 technical position initially followed by rulemaking or 10 some rulemaking activity.
I 11 I think I just want to say also that these j
12 concerns as evidenced by a three day meeting sponsored i
13 by DOE in Albuquerque last November and conversations 14 with individual members of most of the interested 15 parties involved, those conversations all indicate 16 that there is a concern for this guidance, the t
a 4
17 existence of this guidance and a concern regarding the f
18 legal aspects of the admissibility of some of the r
19 expert judgment that may come forward.
We're working 20 with those groups also to try to coordinate our
[
i 21 efforts and not duplicate efforts within the entire 22 program.
i 23 So,. I think we will revisit the issue with l
24 the staf f following the Supreme court decision and the i
25 completion of Phase 2.5.
{
i NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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f 1
26 1
DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Okay.
Let me touch on i
2 one or two other subjects.
The whole question of how 3
do you qualify data that has not been -- that you pull 4
out of the literature that's been done some time ago
~
5 continues to be one that we're not very comfortable 6
with.
The staff has issued a set of guidance.
DOE h
7 has done the same thing.
On how you do that, let me l
8 simply say we plan to test the system, so to speak, by j
9 looking at selected documents in the literature to see i
10 whether or not they would or would not with those j
i 11 guidelines qualify. One of the ones that I personally i
12 would like to pick on is Pons and Fleshman's paper on i
13 cold fusion, to see whether or not it would qualify as 14 an acceptable piece of science under the guidelines 15 that are currently being used.
We haven't done that, l
16 but perhaps with some dialogue with the staff and i
17 ourselves, we may be able to test that system as a way 18 to determine whether or not those models or that-i 19 protocol is functional.
i 20 There is a presumption, to be sure, which 21 we have to be a little careful of and that is the j
22 presumption is that that paper probably is not goori 23 science.
We'll see what comes out of it and whether 24 the system works.
25 COMMISSIONER REMICK: Marty, why would you I
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1 use that particular paper rather than a specific 2
reference that might be at issue in the high-level 3
waste program?
There certainly have to be examples
?
4 there.
5 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Just because it 6
isn't?
7 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
That's the point.
8 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
No.
I think it' 9
would be very valuable to know a specific example in i
10 the high-level waste area.
i 11 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
There's nothing that 12 prevents us from also doing that.
If, in fact, 13 there's general agreement, which at the moment I think 14 is probably to be found, that that particular paper is I
L 15 not particularly acceptable.
It's not a particularly 16 good science and would not serve -- if it dealt with 17 the subject that's pertinent to the repository, it i
t 18 would not serve the repository well. What we would be 19 looking for is to make sure that the protocol that's 20 going to be used would, in fact, reject that paper.
21 That's what we're looking for. But clearly that's one 22 sided.
23 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
I think you're
}
24 getting into a very delicate area.
'25 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Yes.
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DOCTOR STEINDLER:
- Well, on the other l
t 2
hand, that system hasn't been tested and that's been i
I 3
a concern of ours because models are going to have to l
4 use that.
What you don't want to do is get to the l
5 licensing process and then argue about how to qualify
{
6 the information that goes into the models.
l
[
7 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, if I could l
8 just ask a question here, it.seems to me that you're 9
talking about two different things.
One is bad 10 science and the other is out of date science.
Out of I
11 date science was good science at one time.
There are l
12 a lot of things we know today that at the time they
{
13 were done were the best there was and perfectly 14 acceptable within the state of scientific knowledge 15 and classical physics versus relativistic physics, for t
16 example, or quantum physics. And we know that some of 17 the elements of what were incomplete early science 18 have still a certain degree of validity, but are 19 incomplete.
So, that's a different issue from what is l
l 20 good science versus bad science.
What it seems to me j
5 21 that's a more relevant concern here is early data that
}
22 may have been incomplete or early experiments that l
23 were done that represent the only thing that exists in j
t 24 the literature that really are not quite good enough 25 for today's needs, but at the time they were done were j
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perfectly acceptable, ground breaking perhaps and 2
represented the end of the work that was done.
There 3
wasn't anything done after that.
But today we may 4
feel that we need a
better job on some data
(
5 acquisition or something.
6 So, it seems to me that's a different 7
question from good versus bad science.
It's 8
incomplete studies that may be perfectly -- I wouldn't 9
want to call them bad science, just the best there was i
10 at the time, but today the instrumentation and other f
11 things might allow for much better studies and much 12 better acquisition of data than was done say 20 years I
13 ago or something of that sort.
14 So, I would think that that would be more 15 the serious problem than the introduction of bad 16 science into the arguments.
l 17 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Well, let me make a 18 couple of comments.
One, I don't have any quarrel 19 with the general notion that early work may be 20 incomplete or certainly doesn't carry a subject far 21 enough for our current needs, and that early work, 22 nonetheless, can be perfectly good.
But that tends 23 not to be the problem.
Let me draw on some personal i
I 24 experience.
{
25 One of the difficulties we had in the area l
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i 30 v
1 of materials and the engineered barrier system is 2
examining data that may be, at most, ten years old,
[
3 which is not very long ago, and recognizing the use to f
4 which that data is going to be put.
The difficulty in 5
assessing whether or not, for example, a particular 6
leach rate or corrosion rate or a model of a surface l
7 reaction is applicable to a particular model that 8
somebody is using for prediction requires -- in order 9
to be able to do that, you have to have a pretty hard i
10 look to see how it was done and how well it was done, 11 and whether or not that extrapolation is, in fact, a 12 valid exercise of both the experimental method and the 13 results that are published in some journal done long 14 before QA was involved.
15 By the way, we draw a sharp distinction f
16 between quality assurance and the assurance of 17
' quality, which is not often done.
It's in that 18 context that you want to try and make sure that the 19 system that's been established is, in
- fact, 20 functional, so that you don't get into interminable 21 arguments about whether John's data published in an 22 electrochemical journal is, in fact, applicable to the 23 model that you're trying to use for extrapolation.
24 That's probably the major issue.
That involves --
25 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
I missed a point.
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t i
31 l
1 1
DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Well, I think that 1
f 2
involves the question of good science versus bad 3
science.
f i
4 Now, insufficiency will become obvious.
5 If you don't have acceptable kinetic data, for 6
example, because that's not what the individual was i
7 looking at at the time, I think then the issue is 8
fairly clear.
You can't use it or you won't use it.
t 9
Whether or not you have some mechanism of qualifying j
10 it is somewhat immaterial.
11 Maybe you and I need to --
12 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
No, I
think I t
I 13 understand what you're -- I think there are several 14 different issues here that are all involved in this.
15 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Right.
Right.
There
[
l 16 may well be.
The concern again -- I mean our focus
+
17 tends to be somewhat long-range in the sense that we 18 look at the licensing process and what we really want t
19 to do is avoid arguments at that time because 20 resolution of arguments on the protocols of how you do f
21 the selection, if you have to go back and do that, now 22 represents a
significant delay.
If there's a
i 23 challenge to how that was done, then you basically l
l 24 have to start over again.
That's the point.
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32 I
reservations about us getting into a subject of good 2
or bad science in an area where we don't have 3
jurisdiction.
I certainly would much prefer you to 4
take some specific examples where we might rely on 5
some information in high-level waste if you're going 6
to do such a test and put the test there.
We've at 7
least accomplished something we can directly use then.
8 If you decided that particular example is worthwhile, 9
then we know something or if it isn't.
But I 10 personally have reservations about getting into a 11 question of good or bad science in an area in which we 12 just are not involved.
13 DOCTOR STEINDLER: Well, I hear you and we 14 could certainly do that.
15 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
That's personal 16 opinion.
17 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
No, no, I understand 18
- f. hat.
I think that's certainly worthwhile.
We would 6
19 try and find suitable accumulations of data in the 20 literature that were done before the advent of a more 21 rigorous control to see whether or not we can make 22 some judgment about it. What we would then have to do 23 is engage people in discussion as to whether or not l
24 others view that data to be suitable.
That would be
, l 25 the point that we, I think, might have already had i
i' NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W, (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
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33
-i 1
accomplished for us if we picked on something like the 2
cold fusion ' program.
But I hear you and we can 3
certainly do that.
4 Well, the final point that I would make
(
5 for you, without going through the letter from l
6 December 1st, is the lack of progress on the licensing 7
support system. It's difficult to determine where the 8
difficulties are.
It's an issue which both the staff f
9 and DOE have been attacking in one fashion or another.
10 Here also the role of qualifying data to be inserted i
11 into that system re. mains somewhat uncertain.
The 12 administrator apparently is not the person to make 13 decisions as to what goes into that system.
He is a i
14 keeper of a complex information recovery system.
.i 15 Nevertheless, we can envision challenges to what has 16 gone into that system based on applicability based on 17 the ground rules that have been used by the i
18 Commission.
i 19 We're a little concerned that the progress 20 on that is slow.
It is not, as are most of these 21
- issues, life threatening, but they do have to be 22 resolved in some reasonably short period of time in order to not become as severe an offense.
23 24 Well, we could probably walk through the 25 rest of our concerns, some of which are relatively NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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l 34 1
minor in the context of major show stoppers, but I 2
think our conclusions are simply this.
We don't see 3
any major difficulties in the technical area.
We see l
4 some interface problems between the procedure that's 5
required for licensing and the technology.
We intend 6
to, to the extent that we find it either desireable or
?
7 convenient to discuss this with the staff to pursue 8
some of these issues, taking into account what we've i
i r
9 heard here.
10 One other set of comments.
The last time i
11 we talked to you the issue was raised as to whether or
[
12 not the DOE system study was going to be available to 13 us to do the things that we said that should be done 14 but somebody else was already doing.
Progress on 15
- that, apparently, has become difficult and the l
16 originally designed October schedule has now slipped.
17 As far as I know, the document is not done.
The 18 technical review board has recently had a discussion 19 with DOE on that score and has not found the thing to 20 be complete and had some comments on it.
We continue 21 to watch to see what comes out of this and we'll let 22 you know as soon as we get some insight on that.
23 That, I think, is probably all I should 24 comment on at this point. We've skipped over a number 25 of things, but I'd be certainly happy to try and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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address questions that may be of interest to you.
2 CHAIRMAN SELIN: Why don't we go on to the 3
second half and then if we have a little time --
4 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
All right.
~
5 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Excuse me.
Do you 6
want to hold off the questions on this --
I 7
CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Oh, no, no.
If you have j
8 an immediate question, that's fine.
Go right ahead.
9 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Okay.
I could wait 10 or --
11 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
No, no.
Go right ahead.
j 12 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Okay.
There are a 13 couple things in the letter, Marty, I wasn't quite 14 clear.
You raise the question about the properties 15 and suitability of the waste form and perhaps the t
16 staff should undertake to define this.
I'm thinking i
17 of the glass, borosilicate glass and the spent fuel i
18 rods themselves.
Do you think this is ripe for 19 rulemaking to try to get that issue out?
20 DOCTOR STEINDLER: Well, I must say I read l
21 the staff's response and their response has a
p 22 significant amount of merit in the sense that their.
j 23 argument, as I interpret it, is within very wide 24 limits that's not our focus.
Our focus from the i
25 regulatory standpoint comes at the ' edge of the
[
t NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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engineered barrier system.
How the rest of that 2
package looks and what's being done inside within very 3
wide limits is not a place where we should be making 4
specific guidelines, setting out specific guidelines 5
or regulations.
That's certainly a functional view.
6 It's not the one that we had.
Our view was that it 7
would be useful if specific guidelines on how you 8
design criteria for a suitable waste form, which after 9
all determined to a large extent what your source term 10 looks like, that that should be done.
11 I don't think the staff is so far off that 12 we would jump up and down and say, " Gee, guys, you 13 really ought to rethink this issue."
We have 14 therefore not given any additional thought, but that I
15 was the logic that we used.
16 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Okay.
Another 17 question --
18 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
There is -- I'm sure 19 you're aware of the fact that there is a significant 20 difference in the properties of glass versus spent 21 fuel.
Spent fuel has attributes that make it much 22 less stable to potential attack for groundwater than 23 glass.
This is why glass was elected and that 24 particular composition chosen.
25 COMMISSIONER REMICK: That's assuming the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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1 spent fuel is intact.
1 2
DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Yes.
3 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
'I thought you were 4
addressing that question too after long-term storage 5
and so forth.
6 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
The long-term storage t
7 issue, yes.
i 8
COMMISSIONER REMICK: Okay. Another thing
(
r 9
that was not quite clear to me in addressing the MRS, i
10 you said the required life of the MRS needs to be i
t 11 defined but you didn't say by whom.
I wasn't quite l
12 sure if that was an NRC or a DOE type of thing.
I'm 13 thinking of DOE in light of the overall plan of MRS 14 and repository.
You didn't say who should define it.
15 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Yes.
That was y
16 deliberate.
6 17 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Okay.
I see.
18 DOCTOR STEINDLER: How that you raised the 19 question again.
It wasr 't very clear to us who should 20 do this.
Our view, I guess, is that this is really an 21 NRC function. But that gets you into the role and the 22 scope of activities in setting boundaries like that of 23 the Commission.
We elected to leave it blank because 24 that's not really something we're very smart on.
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38 1
indicate in that same thing the Commission should 2
request the NRC staff to develop the details of 3
regulations related to the licensing on MRS.
But I f
4 thought Part 72 was --
j 5
DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Yes.
The staff 6
correctly pointed out to us that as far as they're i
7 concerned Part 72 covers all that needs to be covered.
8 We have no reason to doubt that.
9 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
You also had the 10 statement in there, "There has been little planning 11 for this eventuality," and that means suppose that a 12 site for an MRS is not found.
I assume that's moot in 13 light of the DOE recent indications that they may
[
14 begin to look at federal sites?
15 DOCTOR STEINDLER: Correct. Circumstances 16 overtook us on that one.
17 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Okay.
All right.
18 DOCTOR STEINDLER: We hope that that issue 19 can get resolved because that is the only game in town j
I 20 for backup planning.
That's right.
21 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Doctor Moeller?
1 23 DOCTOR MOELLER:
Okay.
The second item, 24 of course, was the letter on issues raised in the 25 Energy Policy Act.
I thought I would just highlight i
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4 39 1
a few of our statements in there and amplify on them, j
2 give you a little bit of the background and thinking 3
that went into them.
One of our first statements was f
4 that although they would be developing standards.for a
P 5
specifically directed to Yucca Mountain, they did word.
6 it as generally applicable standards.
We said that I
7 those were much preferred to site specific standards.
e 8
And so now, why did we say that?
Well, one of the 9
reasons was that we felt that standards that were i
i the 10 tailor made for a specific site might lose I
11 people who prepared them might lose sight of some of l
i 12 the fundamental principles and concepts and so forth i
13 that would underlie them.
Also, if you're writing f
i 14 standards for a specific site, the standards may very 15 well imply that you have more knowledge of that site, 16 that you know a lot more about it than later you find j
17 out that you do.
j 18 We noted that the Board on Radioactive j
i 19 Waste Management of the National Academy in their 1
20 report a year or so ago on rethinking the high-level i
21 waste program called for flexibility in standards and, f
i 22 of course, if you have site-specific standards, you 23 run the risk of losing that flexibility.
And then f
24
- lastly, we were somewhat fearful that standards 25 developed for a specific site might lose some of the NEAL R. GROSS l
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objectivity or another way of saying even handedness 2
of the work that goes into them.
So, those were our 3
thoughts there.
4 The second thought, and if you don't mind
[
5 maybe I'll zip through and then come back for l
i 6
questions.
The second thought was we suggested that L
7 there be different standards for different time 8
periods. The reason we were thinking in terms of that
}
t 9
was, of course, the farther out you go, the longer you 10 go into the future, the greater is the uncertainty.
11 We also viewed that standards applying during the time t
12 in which institutional control is being exercised, i
13 those standards might be somewhat different than those 14 post that period when institutional control is 15 available because specifically so long as t
16 institutional control is being exercised, of course 17 human intrusion hopefully would be prevented.
But i
18 furthermore, remedial action could be taken and people 19 would be watching over the site and be prepared to
'i 20 take such action.
i 21 Then we also said next that we endorsed i
22 the health-based, which we interpreted as a risk-based 23 standard.
Now, we have a variety of reasons for 24 making that recommendation and these included the fact f
25 that health or risk-based standard would permit the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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41 l
I 1
public or other scientific groups to compare the 2
stringency or the care of the protection of the public i
3 at Yucca Mountain or wherever the repository is with 4
standards for other everyday risk, an item, of course,
)
5 that Commissioner Remick has been very interested in.
i 6
Further, a risk-based standard does permit i
i 7
you to set a limit on the risk.
Then if the i
8 quantification of the health effects that result from i
9 a certain dose, if those change in the future and we l
i 10 can anticipate they will because they've changed in j
l 11 the past, you at least don't have to keep changing j
i 12 your risk limit.
The risk limit is a fixed number.
l
\\
13 At least you don't have to change it for that l
}
14 particular reason.
You might have to change it for l
i 15 other reasons.
But that puts some continuity to the 16 risk-based limit and allows it to be firm.
I forget our exact 17 We did say that interestingly we 18 wording, but we did say that a 19
- said, "This approach, if adopted, would place an 20 annual versus a cumulative limit on permissible doses j
21 to members of the public.
That is, I would say in 02 hindsight, probably not as much of an absolute truth i
23 as one might say.
I mean if you had an annual risk i
l l
24 limit, you could certainly multiply it by 70 years or j
25 whatever the lifetime of an individual is and you j
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F 1
could.come up with a lifetime risk.
2 I think the main point we would make to 3
you is that when we were talking about a cumulative 4
- limit, we're talking about a lifetime limit for 5
individuals, not about a 10,000 year risk limit.
6
- Also, I
- thought, and the Committee 7
discussed it briefly, subsequently to preparing our 8
letter, we thought of the fact that maybe there would 9
be some benefit in a lifatine limit versus an annual 10 limit.
Certainly that, I'm sure, is something that 11 the staff and the academy will want to think through.
12 A lifetime limit would allow the doses, the annual 13 doses to vary up and down as long as the lifetime 14 limit didn't vary.
So, I thought immediately, "Well,.
l 15 that might be a benefit."
But the Committee on repository is not 16 discussing it pointed out that a 17 necessarily going to release pulses or major 18 differences day to day or year to year in the amount 19 coming out.
It will be more of a steady state or a 20 slow release.
So, a cumulative release or risk limit i
21 would not have that benefit.
Furthermore, a
22 cumulative risk limit would introduce its own problems 23 in record keeping. You'd have to find out what annual i
24 risk each person was suffering for every year of their l
25 life and total it up at the end and so forth.
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would be very difficult.
2 The next item, and I'll digress for a 3
moment, but I believe one of the places that the staff 4
has consistently thought in terms of one thing and we have thought in terms of several others is in terms of 5
6 the radionuclide release limit versus an individual 7
risk or cumulative risk ]init for the public.
The 8
staff has said consistently that a
radionuclide 9
release has limit, has an advantage of being more 10 easily interpreted and enforced.
Well, when we were 11 looking at the individual risk limit, we were viewing 12 it also in terms of its case of enforcement.
The 13 difference, I believe, is that the Committee was 14 looking at the standard in terms not only as a design 15 guide for the repository, but were looking toward its 16 application after closure of the repository.
17 Let me show you what I
mean.
A 18 radionuclide release limit of course could be used to 19 design the repository.
But so could a limit on 20 individual risk to members of the public.
After 21 you've closed the repository, a radionuclide release 22 limit which requires you to know releases in a 4 pi geometry, you know releases from the repository in 4 23 24 pi geometry and in gaseous forms and liquid form.
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44 I
post-closure and
- say, "Yes, this repository is
(
t I
2 continuing to meet the standards," or, "No, it's not."
3 We have, I guess, in the backs of our minds, always 4
held the thought that at some time in the future,100, 5
200, 300, 500 years, someone is going to say, "How's 6
the repository doing?"
It would be nice to say, "Oh, i
7 it's continuing to comply fully with the standards."
l 8
If you had an individual risk limit, you P
9 could say that because you could go out and take i
I 10 samples of drinking water or the air that the people 11 are breathing or the potatoes they're eating. And you 12 could say, "Yes, indeed, they're still complying."
j 13 It's possible, but it would be extremely difficult to l
14 respond to ar. inquiry in terms of radionuclide release
[
15 limits and
- say, "Yes,
- indeed, this repository i
16 continues to meet the standards, a particularly because 17 we are postulating that there will be no post-closure 18 geologic types of monitoring systems. We're not going 19 to have underground detectors at the accessible i
20 environment to see how many radionuclides have reached 21 that point.
22 So, we like the risk-based standard.
We 23 also thought that a
risk-based standard helps
" l l
24 significantly in overcoming the concern that people
, l 25 have said, "Oh, we have a site with very little water.
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We'd better go to one - with lots of water so the 2
radionuclide Icakage or releases will be highly 3
diluted and the individual doses will be small."
4 Well, the risk-based limit overcomes that in many 5
- ways, an individual risk limit, because maybe if 6
there's little water
- there, perhaps there is a
7 probability that any radionuclides that are released 8
will be dissolved in a small volume of water and if 9
someone drinks that water, they will receive a high 10 dose.
But the probability of a particular individual 11 out there in the public being that single one, two, 12 ten who drink this small amount of water and receive 13 that high dose, that probability is very low, so the 14 risk is comparably low.
15 Furthermore, the small volume of water 16 assures us that the collective dose, that the number 17 of people who are able to obtain and drink that water 18 is going to be limited.
So, it tends to take care of 19 itself.
We like it and we therefore pursued or 20 endorsed it.
21 We took up the issues.
I believe I've 22 already in a sense covered issue 1.
Issue 2 in terms 23 of long-term post-closure oversight, we simply 24 concluded that you cannot anticipate that there will 25 be oversight of the repository thousands of years into NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCHIBERS 13?3 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W
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46 i
1 the future.
Why not just assume there will not be 2
such oversight.
Above all, even if you assume there W
3 is post-closure oversight, we emphasize that should j
p 4
not be used as a justification to lessen or reduce the 5
stringency of the design of the facility.
f t
6 Furthermore, even if you assume as part of this post-l 7
closure oversight that equipment and techniques for l
- i 8
mitigating any releases will readily be available, do j
9 not let that be used as a justification for reducing 10 the conservatism of the design.
11
- However, the Committee continues to i
12 promote post-closure monitoring for the simple reason i
13 that we believe it's an opportunity to collect data j
l 14 and to learn some lessons from this initial repository 15 and that those lessons then could - be applied on 16 similar facilities in the future.
l 17 The next item was human intrusion.
We j
18 tended to concur with the Board on Radwaste Management f
)
i 19 which says it's best to assume it will occur.
So, we 20 said, " Assume a probability of one," or we suggested i
21 that for human intrusion.
As I read it, I'm not a 22 statistician.
I thought maybe it should have said
)
23 probability of 14 or something.
We say one meaning t
i 24 that someone sometime, maybe many people many times, l
25 will intrude.
P P
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1 We also called for or re --
2 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Excuse me, Dade.
f 3
DOCTOR MOELLER:
Yes.
4 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
By intrude you mean 5
breach?
i 6
DOCTOR MOELLER:
- Yes, we mean really
[
t J
7 breach.
Yes, we did offer several suggestions that 8
someone who just comes close to the repository, you 9
should treat them differently than the people who 10 really drill all the way down and the right into the i
11 high-level waste.
We do believe that if someone has 12 the technology to do that, surely they'll have the l
13 technology to look at what they're bringing up and l
14 hopefully monitor it and take appropriate precautions.
15 We also reemphasized one of our earlier i
16 recommendations at human intrusion in terms of risk
{
17 assessment be separated out from the normal procedure j
18 similarly to the way or handled in a manner similar to 19 sabotage, how that is handled in the nuclear power 20 plant arena.
21 Then lastly, we put in a statement or a that effort i
22 recommendation that scientifically 23 should be done to make scientifically supportable 24 predictions and the probability of breaching the 25 various barriers in the repository due to various i
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l 48 i
r i
1 natural events that could occur over the next 10,000 l
i 2
years.
1 3
As a last comment, I would mention that in 4
our letter we said we had not had an opportunity to
~
5 read SECY-93-013, which was the staff's comment and 6
background information on this same subject.
Since f
i 7
that time, we have had an opportunity to read it 8
individually.
I would not say that we as a Committee I
i 9
have discussed it sufficiently to make a lot of i
10 comments, but I think in general we'd say that the i
11 staff has done a good job of showing the pros and r
12 cons, the advantages and disadvantages of each of the i
13 various positions that could be taken on the issues.
{
14 The only places we would have questions would be --
(
15 well, one that I've already cited and one that I've
(
e 16 not.
The one that we would take issue with or we i
17 would encourage them to be more specific in how they 18 say it.
That's when they say that a radionuclide 19 release limit is the easiest type of a standard to l
20 enforce or to apply.
Maybe apply is a better word.
l f
21 I think they should always say in terms of the design 22 of a repository.
We do not agree with it if they're 23 looking out in the future in terms of monitoring the 24 performance of a repository.
25 The second area where we have had a 1
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49 t
i 1
professional interchange, and I'm pleased to comment
'{
f 2
on this one, that's the concept of the critical group e
3 versus the maximally exposed individual.
We see i
t i
4 definite signs that the staff is coming around to our
(
l 5
way of thinking in their tentative preliminary b
6 response in terms of EPA's proposed standards for the 7
WIPP facility.
They're coming around to that way of 8
thinking and we think it's the way to go and we've 9
learned from then.
It appears they've learned 10 something from us.
J t
11 We will certainly be pleased to take i
i i
4 12 questions.
I 13 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Commissioner Rogers?
14 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, just on this, f
r 15 I
did want to come back to Doctor Steindler's 16 presentation for a moment also.
How in your risk-I l
17 based approach do you think about a
very low l
c 18 probability event that might result in a significant 19 dose to a large number of individuals?
I mean, you l
4 20
- know, the small probability, high consequence 21 situation.
What is your thinking there on your risk-22 based standard?
23 DOCTOR MOELLER:
Our thinking is that the t
24 risk-based approach accommodates that.
Maybe t
25 accommodate is not the right word, but it encompasses f
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i
-~
.~
?
So j
i 1
it and it takes care of it.
Sure, you'll have a dose
(
i 2
limit as well as a risk limit.
The dose limit may j
I 3
very well be exceeded, but if the probability of t
4 exceeding that dose limit is very small, then it's l
5 acceptable probably, perhaps. But you could calculate l
6 and see if it's acceptable within the risk envelope.
7 We believe, therefore, a risk-based approach permits I'
8 you to account and to accept those rare occasions of i
9 high dose that may occur to single individuals.
j 10 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Is your reference to i
i 11 microrem to nega people, in effect?
l 12 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Yes, that large --
i 13 yes.
Well, or putting it that way, yes.
Yes.
There 14 the probability might be reasonable though --
15 DOCTOR MOELLER:
Oh, yes.
for microrem.
16 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
17 No, I'm really thinking of more the low probability 18 but high consequence rather than reasonable 19 probability of small exposures to large groups of 20 people.
I think that one is dealt with a little more 21 easily.
I 22 DOCTOR MOELLER:
And the staff has been
[
23 concerned, and rightfully so, that if you had a Yucca i
i 24 Mountain with a
small amount of
- water, they've j
25 estimated that a person could receive rems under l
I I
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certain situations.
But the probability of a given i
2 individual being that one person is extremely remote.
3 Therefore, it would be acceptable ender our risk-based 4
approach and would not rule out what is a site that is 5
preferable to one with lots of water.
6 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
But then aren't you i
7 really talking about the probability rather than what 8
we normally call risk?
Namely the product to the 9
consequences and the probability?
10 DOCTOR MOELLER:
Yes.
Yes.
11 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
You really are i
12 talking about the probability.
It's the low 13 probability that makes it acceptable rather than the j
14 low risk?
a 15 DOCTOR MOELLER: Well, if we calculate the 16 consequence, the product of the consequences times the 17 low probability, the product is low enough to be 18 within the risk or hopefully low enough to be within I
19 the risk limit.
r 20 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Suppose it's not?
l 21 DOCTOR MUELLER:
If it's not, then --
I 22 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
But the probability 23 is still very low.
l 24 DOCTOR MOELLER:
I'd have to think about 25 it.
Sure, there could be some cases where --
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COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
It's a little bit 2
hypothetical.
3 DOCTOR MOELLER:
But at last a risk-based j
4 approach gives you a lot more flexibility in my l
5 opinion and a lot more reasonableness, and yet you are 6
protecting the public health and safety.
It does not 7
lessen that objective.
8 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Just one comment.
9 There are a couple of cutoff limits that people 10 occasionally propose and really what you're asking is j
11 where do those come into play.
We have, I think, in 1
12 the limited discussions we've had, we've not found I
13 clearly acceptable governing principles on whether to 14 implement cutoff limits.
Organizations have -- the 15 microrem for mega people issue has been addressed by 16 ICPP, I believe, and there is a general consensus, l
17 there seems to be a general consensus that events that 18 have a probability below a certain value need not be i
19 considered further.
Those are clearly kind of 20 societal arbitrary cutoffs that you make.
[
21 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, it may be that 22 being a little more explicit in your thinking to us on 23 the cutoff question with respect to this point of view 24 that you've been taking here of a risk-based standard 25 might be helpful.
l I
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DOCTOR MOELLER:
Thank you.
We certainly i
2 can consider that.
As you note in our letter, we did 3
have extensive interactions with a representative from 4
the National Radiological Protection Board in the U.K.
5 and they indeed have suggested cutoff limits on risk, f
6 yes, or on probability.
Excuse me.
i 7
COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
On probabilities?
J' i
8 DOCTOR MOELLER:
Yes.
1 9
COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Marty, I wonder if 1
10 you could just describe what the methods were that you l
11 employed to identify your issues in your issues paper?
{
j i
12 What was the process that floated issues up? Did you 13 sit around and scratch your noodles? How did you come l
14 at this?
Was it something systematic?
15 DOCTOR STEINDLER: To some extent. No, it 16 was a little bit more systematic than that. Actually, i
t 17 we prepared several. levels of diagrams for various 18 aspects.
You saw the one overview that we submitted 19 with the letter in response to an urging to do so.
t 20 But buried underneath that, for example, were -- one i
21 of the things that we put together was a detailed j
22 analysis of the system of qualifying the engineered 23 barrier system.
We prepared a diagram that indicated 24 to us what kinds of information had to be available, 25 where it was going to come from and how it would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTER $ AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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interact into the final designation of what the i
2 engineered barrier system's performance was likely to
{
3 be.
4 We did that explicitly for some things and 4
5 implicitly, you can call it scratching your head if 6
you like, for others and from that generated a much i
7 larger list of issues that we thought at the time when 8
we thought about them were either unresolved or could 1
i 9
lead to difficulties.
The next two processes were 10 fairly straightforward.
One, we looked at the issues l
11 and then prodded around the system to see whether or i
12 not they in fact were uncovered.
That is there was j
13 nothing that we could see being done about them.
And j
14 then
- two, we did have some fairly extensive 15 discussions among ourselves as to what's important and
?
16 what isn't and what the role of these various issues 17 are.
So, we eventually narrowed that down 1
i 18 considerably and we had a discussion with the Chairman 19 on a list that included a number of items that did not j
20 make the final cut.
-l 21 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Their chairman.
l l
22 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Yes, I'm sorry.
And 23 the logic for throwing those out seemed eminently i
24 sound to us in essentially all the cases.
That's the t
i t
25 mechanism we used to eventually get down to the final j
}
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t t
i 55 r
1 list.
l 2
The final list has a number of strange
{
3 attributes.
Frankly, I'm not as happy with that list l
l 4
as I might be on a personal basis, largely because it
{
4 5
tends to be almost non-technical.
The specific 6
technical issues that you and others have prodded us i
F 7
to think about simply don't show up in a series of 8
issues where the question is, "Tell ne something about f
9 major show stoppers."
We didn't see any.
You know, 10 the thermodynamics seemed reasonable.
You can build l
11 a repository.
We think we know and the staff knows 12 what to look for when somebody says, "I've got l
13 corrosion rate data which show that a six inch thick l
l 14 canister is going to do the job for X years."
t i
15 The detailed data for that may not be at j
t 16 hand at the moment, but it looked to us that people i
a 17 know how to go about getting it and people are in the 18 process of getting the data.
We didn't think that 19 that kind of issue should be raised, but we don't 20 think that's a show stopper.
If it were 1998 or the i
21 year 2003 and those data were not at hand and it I
i 22 didn't look like anybody was going to get there, then 23 we might raise for the Commission that as being, " Hey, l
24 it's way too late."
But that's not the place we're l
25 in.
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COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
- Well, I wonder l
this is very interesting to me and I 2
though if 3
think might be very useful for us at a later date to 4
review the process that you've gone through here 5
because this seems to me to be a process that maybe 6
should be revisited sometime by another Commission at l
7 a later date.
The approach that you've taken, rather
?
8 than just the results of the issues that you've 9
finally winnowed out of this from this process seems t
10 to me equally interesting to the results themselves.
11 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
We were explicitly j
12 told, thankfully, that weren't going to have to do the 13 systems analysis because we would figure that would be i
14 an enormous task.
So, the examples that we picked j
15 were simply examples out of our own experience.
We a
16 were looking forward to seeing the DOE-completed i
17 package where most of the steps for that kind of a 18 process should be fairly evident and from that we i
19 could then do the job that we had to do ourselves in 20 several areas.
I'm still hoping that that will be the
[
21 case.
?
4 22 When we do that, I for one would like to J
23 go back and see what they've done and see whether or 24 not we've got a reasonably complete package.
We may 25 come back to you at some time saying, " Oops, we missed l
a l
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L 57 1
a few things."
We don't think so.
We think we're
(
f 2
well enough acquainted with the system at large and 3
we've talked to a lot of people so that we don't think 4
there are any holes in that.
The staff has not given
~
5 us any indication that we've missed something 6
horrendous and we have a reasonably good working j
i 7
relationship with the staff.
8 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Thank you.
9 CHAIRMAN SELIN: They're not going to tell l
i 10 there's something horrendous and have a whole --
11 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
They have not been l
12 particularly hesitant in telling us where they think l
13 we're not on the right track.
l 14 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Doctor Hinze?
j 15 DOCTOR HINZE:
Well, a good example of t
16 trying to look for the show stoppers was the 17 occurrence of the Little Skull earthquake this past l
4 18 summer in the inmediate vicinity of the repository.
19 We gave that a great deal of thought.
Paul and I are t
20 extremely interested in that, visited a tunnel which l
21 is just above the epicenter and we were looking at 22 that as a possible show stopper.
But indeed the DOE i
1 23 is doing an adequate job of investigating that and is f
24 on track, we believe, with their analysis.
That's 25 been stepped up, as you've heard from Carl Gertz.
So, r
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4 58 l
1 we just couldn't provide that as an item to include in j
2 here. But a lot of investigations have gone into this l
l 3
that have unfortunately, if you will, dead ended, j
4 We've looked at these in terms of the early site i
5 suitability evaluation, the work of the staff in f
6 relationship to this and with our own view on these r
7 topics.
8 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Commissioner Curtiss?
9 Commissioner Remick?
l l
10 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Yes.
I don't think l
i 11 I have to say that I agree with your risk perspective i
12 and I think on the large consequence, low probability i
13 one has to limit the probability when you get down to l
14 the area of striking meteorites or asteroids and i
15 things like this.
The comparative type of thing has j
i 16 to enter in.
i 17 The thing that I had difficulty with was 18 your suggestion that assuming a probability of one for j
19 intrusion, certainly my trips out West I always am 20 just amazed how big that is.
To think that a hundred l
21 acre site, that the probability is one that sometime j
i 22 somebody will come in there and drill and breach, I j
23 don't know what the probability is, but to me it has 24
.to be less than one if you look at the space in this
+
25 country and the probability of that being selected.
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But I don't know what the probability is.
All you're 2
doing is assuming that it's perhaps a reasonable thing i
3 from a conservative --
l 4
On the question of how do you prevent that type of intrusion, there have been a number of things 5
6 that have been around a long time, pyramids.
You go 7
to Upsula, Sweden, you see the burial mounds for t
8 Viking kings that have been there a long time.
You go 9
to Korea you'll see the burial mounds for kings there.
10 Everybody seems to know that they're there and they've i
11 been a long time and so forth.
So, the thought went 4
12 through my mind, well, maybe we should build a pyramid 13 on top of the repository. Then I thought, "No, that's 14 probably expensive."
I came up with another idea.
15 Maybe we should establish a government agency at the l
16 site.
They never go away.
But then I conclude that 17 that would probably be more expensive, so I came back 18 l
to the idea of something like a pyramid.
4 19 Why isn't it possible to conceive of 20 something like a
burial mound or a pyramid or i
21 something like that?
l 22 Also, I just came back from observing the 23 enhanced participatory rulemaking out in San Francisco j
l 24 and listened to Russell Jim from the Yakima Indian l
25 Nation who, by the way, was in the United Airline l
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commercial back some months ago.
A very interesting 2
person.
But he made a very impassioned plea.
It had 3
to do with storing low-level waste on
- sites, 4
particular Hanford, but pointing out from their 5
standpoint that they've had thousands of generations 6
in which things are passed down from person to person 7
and he claims that there's something there.
That's 8
passed down by word of mouth.
Now, we're not all from 9
the Indian nations and therefore don't always live on 10 the land.
11 But I have a tough time feeling that there 12 isn't some way with the record keeping ability we have 13
- today, even if the United States was somehow 14 destroyed, I'm sure the people in Europe would know 1
15 that we would have had a site like Yucca Mountain and 16 so forth.
It just doesn't seem possible to me that 17 the records of such a unique type of site would be 18 lost and that there isn't a way of ensuring that.
I 19 have a difficult time assuming that there's just no r
20 way of identifying those sites.
If we're talking 21 about intrusion from the standpoint of somebody 22 walking the site, no question about that.
If we're 23 talking about somebody going in there and drilling, I
- i l
24 certainly can't necessarily preclude it, but I'm not 25 sure you can't prevent it to a large extent.
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.. =.
61 i
1 DOCTOR POMEROY:
Can I make two comments 2
on that?
j 3
COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Yes, please.
4 DOCTOR POMEROY:
One is, of course, the 5
pyramid question has been considered extensively and 6
some of the internal structures in the pyramids have 7
been effectively looted at one point in time.
8 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Sure.
Sure.
i 9
DOCTOR POMEROY:
So, there has been i
10 intrusion into the pyramids.
In fact, they tend to I
11 attract people's attention in the sense that --
12 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
I'm talking about a -
t 13 pyramid above ground and a repository is a couple j
14 thousand feet below that.
j 15 DOCTOR POMEROY:
But wouldn't another i
?
g 16 argument be made that if that pyramid is out there, 17 it's probably marking something extremely important P
18 and perhaps very valuable --
19 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Sure.
20 DOCTOR POMEROY:
-- and therefore perhaps
[
21 we should look, we should intrude.
-l 22 COMMISSIONER REMICK: My argument would be f
23 that the record of what is there would certainly to 2.
presumably be known.
In other words, the people 25 looted because they knew the kings were buried in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 234 4433
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there, right, and there was loot in there.
2 DOCTOR POMEROY: The other comment I would 3
make is that, as you know, there have been various 4
nuclear tests conducted offsite, off the Nevada test 5
site, specifically in Central Nevada.
You and I t
6 probably could go there today and I would suspect we 7
could at least wildcat drill immediately into that 8
area. There's almost no physical marking in the area.
r 9
There probably is a record someplace, but I suspect 10 that record for that single test event will get 11 progressively more lost in time and I think that P
12 that's --
13 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
That's because no 5
14 effort is being made to mark it.
i 15 DOCTOR POMEROY: That's correct. In fact, 16 the efforts to mark it were minimal to start with.
17 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Yes.
18 DOCTOR POMEROY:
And they have i
19 progressively decreased.
There was a fence at one 20 time.
Now there's no longer a fence.
There was a 21 sign, now it's sort of faded and difficult to read.
22 That's only 20 or 30 years ago.
23 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Yes.
But once 24 again, there was not a real intention to mark it.
I 25 just don't think you can remove the possibility of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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63
?
s 1
marking things.
l l
2 DOCTOR POMEROY:
Oh, I think markers are 3
important, but I'm not sure they're a
perfect f
4 solution.
S COMMISSIONER REMICK:
No, they're not.
6 Nothing is perfect.
7 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Let me just make the 8
comment that the focus of the regulations are not l
9 necessarily to agree on what the real world can do.
10 On the contrary.
We take extreme positions and 11 scenarios in order to see whether or not the system 12 that we've designed could withstand it.
I don't think j
13 any reasonable person would disagree that you ought to j
i 14 be able to mark this area for extremely long periods l
15 of time.
But that's not the way the regulations tend 16 to be written.
They tend to be written for those i
f 17 events far out, and it gets back to Commissioner 18 Rogers' issue, that seem unlikely on the surface but 19 whose consequences could be pretty severe.
f 20 It's in that context that we're stuck in 21 a sense by having generated the policy of doing that, 22 looking at microrem for mega people, looking at some 23 arbitrary and argumentative issues on where do you cut i
l 24 your probabilities off and whether or not you can mark j
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the same question that New York and the other low-2 level burial sites that have been currently 3
essentially abandoned or they're no longer in 4
business.
5 Is the Sheffield site going to allow its 6
markers to remain there for prolcnged periods of time?
7 Highly likely.
But yet people worry about them 8
disappearing.
9 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
No, I understand.
10 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
That the county court 11 records are suddenly lost.
It's possible, but it 3
12 seems unlikely. The issue only comes when we make the 13 extreme assumptions and then we're stuck with that.
14 COMMISSIONER REMICK: Right. And my point
)
15 is I think the extreme assumption of assuming that a 16 probability of one is extreme in my mind also.
17 DOCTOR STEINDLER:
Yes.
18 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I just wanted to make a 19 couple of comments.
One thing I think you might do, 20 one thing I think you have done but you might think t
21 about making the part more explicit.
22 The thing that you might do is take a look 23 at following the basic rule of systems analysis.
l 24 Doctor Steindler, you said you didn't want to do any 25 because they're complicated, but this part is very NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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simple.
That sort of stuck with what you think you 2
know and then solve for what you don't know instead of i
3 following a more logical conclusion.
You certainly l
4 would have a
much clearer idea of what the j
5 characteristics of a particular engineered facility 6
might be a few thousand years from now than you would i
7 what the far field effects would be or the geology.
i 8
So, when you're talking about these r
9 defense in depth questions and doing the analysis, 10 it's not a bad idea to say, "Well, let's just assume 11 that the barrier had these characteristics," and then l
12 how much more would we spend to try to reduce the l
13 uncertainty in some of these fairly artificial 14 calculations to begin with?
There are other places l
l 15 where it's not a philosophical argument about defense f
16 in depth versus putting all your eggs in one basket, i
17 but as Commissioner Rogers said, if I understood him 18 correctly, how much you want to spend at the margin to i
19 reduce some uncertainties which are basically 20 calculational or definitional in the first-place.
I 21 The second question, one thing you've l
l 22 done, which I find very useful, is to take a look at I
23 the rules and see if you come up with. things that 24 violate the intuition to see if we should go back and 25 take another look at the rules.
The carbon-14 issue l
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has always been one of them.
There are a number of 2
things that you've done.
But it would be good if you 3
did that a little more explicitly as you go into these A
4 points where we're looking for safety and some 5
assurance.
We're not looking to just set down some 6
definitions and then slavishly carry them out.
7 So, as you come to conclusions which most 8
reasonable people would say don't have much to do with 9
health or safety, then you lead us to go back to look 10 at the rules, be they our rules or EPA standards or
.i f
11 DOE.
12 The general thing, you sort of seemed 13 unhappy that you couldn't find technical issues that 14 were as important as management issues, behavioral 15 issues, philosophical issues or definitional issues.
16 I think that's a great strength.
I think you're 17 actually characterizing a current situation where the 18 scientific issues just are not the most pressing at 19 this poirt.
As you pointed out, later on in the 20 process progress has to be made on these, but the long 21 lead issues, the real potential show stoppers, are not 22 ones that are amenable to a physicist's analysis.
23
- Also, you
- know, I've sat next to 24 Commissioner Remick for almost two years now.
I've 25 never heard him so poetic or so philosophical.
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[
t 1
There's got to be something in your presentation that 2
brought it out today.
I find it stimulating also and 3
I've enjoyed this very much.
I think it's been 4
particularly useful to continue to follow this top-f I
5 down approach that you've taken to keep looking for i
6 issues that really have to be attacked as opposed to 7
just trying to do something a little better or in a
)
8 little more depth than the other people are doing it.
i I
9 So, I think we can all thank you very i
i 10 much.
11 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Yes, very much.
t 12 (Whereupon, at 10:33 a.m.,
the above-k 13 entitled matter was concluded.)
l s
14 j
15 I
16 t
I 17 7
18 I
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CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIBER This is to certify that the attached events of a meeting a
of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
TITLE OF MEETING:
PERIODIC MEETING WITH ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW)
PLACE OF MEETING:
ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND DATE OF MEETING:
FEBRUARY 26, 1993 were transcribed by me. I further certify that said transcription is accurate and complete, to the best of my ability, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing events.
falw l G M
Reporter's name:
PETER LYNCH
)
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