ML20034H255

A Short History of Nuclear REGULATION,1946 - 1990

ML20034H255
Person / Time
Issue date:	01/31/1993
From:	Jacqwan Walker NRC OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY (SECY)
To:
References
NUREG-BR-0175, NUREG-BR-175, NUDOCS 9303160277
Download: ML20034H255 (62)

Text

A Short History of Nuclear Regulation, 1946 - 1990 by J. Samuel Walker Historian

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Pre ace L

History, automobile maker Henry Ford once said, "is more or less.. bunk." Philosopher George Santayana was more l

charitable in his assessment of the discipline when he de-clared that "those who fail to study the past are condemned to repeat it."In a sense, both Ford and Santayana were right.

Much of the past has little meaning or importance for the present and deservedly remains forgotten in the dustbins of history. But other parts of the past need to be remembered and studied in order to make sense out of the present.To-day's events are a direct outgrowth ofyesterday's, and undet-standing the history of any given prob!cm is essential to ap-proaching it knowledgeably. It is the task of the historian to gather evidence, to separate what is important frcm what is not, and to explain key events and decisions of the past.

This short history of nuclear regulation provides a brief over-view of the most significant events in the agency's past.

Space limitations prevent discussion of all the important oc-currences, and even the subjects that are included cannot be covered in full detail. The first chapter of this account is drawn from the first volume of the NRC's history, Control-Img the Atom: The Bqinnmgs of Nuclear Regulation.

1946-1962 (University of California Press,19S4). 'Ihe sec.

ond chapter is largely based on the second volume of the NRC's history, Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment, 1963-1971 (University of California Press.1992).The findings and conclusions on events that oc-curred af ter 1971 should be regarded as preliminary and ten-tative; they are not based on extensive research in primary sources. It is my hope, however, that this overview will help explain how the past has shaped the present and illuminate the considerations that have influenced regulatory decisions and procedures over the years. It is also my hope that this outline will suggest that history should be viewed as some-thing more valuable than " bunk."

iii

Table of Contents Chapter 1. The Formative Years of Nuclear Regulation. 1946-62........

1 Chapter 2 The Nuclear Power Debate, 23 1963-75..

Chapter 3 A New Agency and Some 45 r

New Issues i

s

Chapter 1 The Formative Years of

\\

Nuclear Regulation, 1946-62 i

i

U o

Chapter 1 The use of atomic bombs against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima

? and Nagasaki in August 1945 ' ushered in a new historical epoch, breathlessly labeled in countless news reports, magazine articles, films, and radio broadcasts as the " Atomic Age." Within a short time after the end of World War II, politicians, journalists, scien-tists, and business leaders were suggesting that peaceful applica.

tions of nuclear power could be as dramatic in their benefits as nu.

clear weapons were awesome in their destructive power. Nuclear physicist Alvin M. Weinberg told the Senate's Special Committee on Atomic Energy in December 1945: " Atomic power can cure as well as kill. It can fertilize and enrich a region as well as devastate it. It can widen man's horizons as well as force him back into the

- cave." Newsarck reported that "even the most conservative scien-tists and industrialists (are] willing to outline a civilization which would make the comic-strip prophecies of Iluck Rogers look obso-lete." Observing that ideas for the civilian uses of atomic energy ranged "from the practical to the fantastic." it cited a few exam-ples: atomic-powered airplanes, rockets, and automobiles, large electrical generating stations, small "home power plants" to pro-vide heat and electricity in individual homes, and tiny atomic gen-erators wired to clothing to keep a person cool in summer and warm in winter.

Devel.sping nuclear energy for civilian purposes, as even the most entht siastic proponents recognized, would take many years. "Ihe govern,ent's first priority was to maintain strict control over atomic te 2nology ad to exploit it further for military purposes.

The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 passed as tensions with the Soviet Union were developing into the cold war, acknowledged in passing Ihe potential peaceful benefits of atomic power.13 ut it emphasized the military aspects of nuclear energy and underscored the need for secrecy, raw materials, and production of new weapons. The 1946 law did not allow for private, commercial application of atomic energy; rather,it creat ed a virtual government monopoly of the technology. To manage the nation's atomic energy programs, the act established the five-member Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).

I

The Formative Years of Nuclear Regulation, 1946-62 In 1954, Congress passed new legislation that for the first time per-mitted the wide use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.1he 1954 Atomic Energy Act redefined the atomic energy program by ending the government monopoly on technical data and making the growth of a private commercial nuclear industry an urgent na-tional goal. The measure directed the AEC "to encoumge wide-spread participation in the development and utdization of atomic energy for peaceful purposes." At the same time,it instructed the agency to prepare regulations that would protect public health and safety from radiation hazards. Thus, the 1954 act assigned the AEC three major roles: to continue its weapons program, to pro-mote the private use of atomic energy for peaceful applications, and to protect public health and safety from the hazards of com-mercial nuclear power.Those functions were in many respects in-separable and incompatible, especially when combined in a single agency. The competing responsibilities and the precedence that the AEC gave to its military and promotional duties gradually damaged the agency's credibility on regulatory issues and under-mined public confidence in its safety program.

The AEC's regulatory program was most directly affected by the agency's commitment to encouragmg the rapid growth of civilian nuclear power. The initial impetus for peaceful atomic develop-ment came mostly from considerations other than meeting Ameri-ca's energy demands. In the early 1950s, projections of future en-ergy requirements predicted that atomic power would eventually play an important role in the nation's energy supplies, but they did not suggest an immediate need to construct atomic power reac-tors. The prevailing sense of urgency, at least among government leaders that led to the 1954 Atomic Energy Act and to the growth of commercial nuclear power derived instead largely from the fear of falling behind other nations in fostering peaceful atomic pro-gress. The strides that Great liritain was making in the field seemed disturbing enough, but the possibihty that the Soviet Un-ion might surpass the Unit ed Statesin civilian power development was even more ominous. AEC commissioner Thomas E. Murray described a " nuclear power race"in a 1953 speech and warned that 2

Chapter 1 the " stakes are high."Ile added:"Once we become fully conscious of the possibility that power hungry countries will gravitate toward the USSR if it wins the nuclear power ace.... it will be quit e clear that this power race is no Everest-climbing, kudos-providing con-test." Like Murray, many government officials emphasized that surrendering America's lead in expanding the peaceful applica-tions of atomic energy would deal a severe blow to its international prestige and world scientific dominance.

The eagerness to push for rapid civilian nuclear development was intensified by an impulse to show that atomic technology could serve constmctive purposes as well as destructive ones. He asser-tions made shortly after World War II that atomic energy could provide spectacular advances that would raise living standards throughout the world remained unproven and largely untested. As the nuclear arms race took on more terrifying proportions with the development of thermonuclear bombs, the desire to demonstrate the benefits of atomic energy became more acute. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, spurred by the detonation of the Soviet Union's first hydrogen device, starkly depicted the horror of nu-clear warfare in a widely publicized address to the United Nations in December 1953. At the same time, he emphasized that "this greatest of all destructive forces can be developed into a great boon, for the benefit of all mankind." Eisenhower's appeal for peaceful nuclear progress and his affirmation of the potential blessings of civilian atomic energy were echoed by many other high government officials.

By 1954, a broad political consensus viewed the development of nuclear energy for civilian purposes as a vital goal.The Atomic En.

ergy Act of that year resulted partly from perceptions of the long-range need for new energy sources, but mostly from the immediate commitment to maintain America's world leadership in nuclear technology, enhance its international prestige, and demonstrate the benefits of peaceful atomic energy. It infused the atomic power prognm with a sense of urgency, and in that atmosphere, the AEC established its developmental and regulatory policies.

3

The Formative Years of Nuclear Regulation, i

1946-62 De 1954 act gave the AEC wide discretion on how to proceed. De-spite the general agreement on ultimate objectives, the means by which they shculd be accomplished soon created sharp differ-ences.

The AEC favored a partnership hetween government and industry in which private firms would play an integral role in demonstrating and expanding the use of atomic power. "De Commission's pro-gram " AEC chairman Lewis L Strauss explained,"is directed to-

)

ward encouraging development of the uses of atomic energy in the j

framework of the American free enterprise system." It was the AEC's conviction, he added. "that competitive economic nuclear I

power... would be most quickly achieved by construction and op-eration of full-scate plants by industry itself." To accom plish its ob-jectives, the AEC annconced a " power demonstration reactor pro-gram" in January 1955. The agency offered to perform research I

and development on power reactors in its national laboratories, to j

subsidize additional research undertaken by industry under fixed-rum contracts, and to waive for seven y ears the established fuel use l

charges for the loan of fissionable materials (which the govern-

)

ment would continue to own). For their part, private utilities and j

vendors would supply the capital for construction of nuclear plants and pay operating expenses other than fuel charges. The purpose of the demonstration program was to stimulate private participa-tion and investment in exploring the technical and economic feasi-bility of different reactor designs. At that time, no single reactor type had clearly emerged as the most promising of the several that had been proposed.

1 The AEC's incentives received a mixed response from private in-j dustry. For severalyears, some utility executives had shown a keen i

i interest in investigating the use of nuclear fission for generating electricity. B ut commercial applications of atomic energy had been thwarted by the severe 1 imitations on access to technical informa-tion dictated by the 1946 Atomic Energy Act. In 1953, when the j

Joint Committee on Atomic Energy created by the 1946 act to l

4

Chapter 1 Tearry out congressional oversight of the AEC. conducted public hearings on peaceful atomic development, spokesmen for private

~ firms emphasized that industrial progress was possible only if the restrictions on obtaining data were cased. By opening nuclear technology to commercial applications, the 1954 Atomic Energy Act largely satisfied those complaints. From the perspective of utility companies, the act offered an opportunity to participate in nuclear development and gain experience in a technology that promised to help meet long-term energy demands. Vendors of re-actor components welcomed the prospects of expanding their markets, not only in the United States but also in foreign countries where the need for new sources of power was more immediate.

The enthusiasm of the private utility industry for nuclear power development, however, was tempered by other considerations. Al-though experiments with AEC-owned reactors had established the technical feasibility of using nuclear tission to produce elec-tricity, many scientific and engineering questions remained to be answered, Despite the financial inducements the AEC offered through its power demonstration reactor program, the capital and operating costs of atomic power were certain to be much higher than those of fossil fuel plants, at least in the early stages of devel-opment. Across the industry, the prospects of realizing short-term profits from nuclear power were dim, An American Management Association symposiurn in 1957 concluded: "The atomic industry has not been-and is not likely to be for a decade-attractive as far as quick profits are concerned." When Lewis Strauss made his oft-quoted statement in 1954 that nuclear power could provide elec-tricity "too cheap to meter," he was referring to long-term (and far-fetched) hopes rather than to immediate realities. Iic knew as well as industry analysts that the heavy investments required were a major impediment to the growth of nuclear power.

In addition to financial considerations, recognition of the hazards -

of the technology intensified industry's reservations about nuclear power. Based on experience with government test reactors and the prevailing faith in the ability of scientists and engineers to solve 5'

The Formative Years of Nuclear Regulation, 1946--62 technological problems, the AEC and industry leaders regarded l

the chances of a disastrous atomic accident as remote.But they did j

not dismiss the possibility entirely. Francis K. McCune, general manager of the Atomic Products Division of General Electric, told the Joint Committee in 1954 that 'rio matter how careful anyone in the atomic energy business may try to be, it is possible that acci-l dents may occur."

t Mindful of both the costs and the risks of atomic power, the elec-l tric utility industry responded to the 1954 Atomic Energy Act and the AEC's demonstration program with restraint. Although many utilities were interested in exploring the potential of nuclear I

power, few were willing to press ahead rapidly in the face of exist-ing uncertainties. The AEC was gratified, and rather surprised, l

that by August 1955 five power companies-either as individual

{

utilities or as consortiums-had announced plans to build nuclear l

plants. Two decided to proceed without government assistance l

and three others submitted proposals for projects under the

-l AEC's power demonstration program.

The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy was less impressed with the response of private industry to the 1954 act and the AEC's in-centives. The Democratic majority on the committee favored a larger government role in accelerating nuclear development, which conflicted with the AEC's commitment to encouraging maximum private participation. The issue became a major source of contention between the AEC and theJoint Committee, contrib-uting a philosophical dispute to relations that were already strained by political differences and a bitter personal feud betw een Strauss and Joint Committee chairman Clinton P. Anders(m.

In 1956, two Democratic members of the Joint Committee, Repre-sentative Chet Holifield and Senator Albert Gore, introduced leg-islation directing the AEC to construct six pilot nuclear plants, each of a different design,in order to" advance the art of genera-tion of electrical energy from nuclear energy at the maximum pos-sible rate." Supponers of the bill contended that the United States was falling behind Great Britain and the Soviet Union in the quest 6

9 Chapter 1 t

i f

for practical and economical nuclear power. Opponents of the measure denied that the United States had surrendered its lead in l

atomic technology and insisted that private industry was best abic l

to' expedite further development. Strauss declared t hat "we have a

.l civilian program that is presently accomplishing far more than we j

had reason to expect in 1954." The Gore-liolifield bill was de-

. feated by a narrow margin in Congress, but the views it embodied and the impatience of the Joint Committee for rapid development placed a great deal of pressure on the AEC to show that its reactor programs were producing results.

i 6

De AEC's determination to push nuclear development through a j

partnership in which private industry played a vital role had a ma-l jor impact on the agency's regulatory policies. The AEC's funda-l

- mental objective in drafting regulations was to ensure that public j

health and safety were protected without imposing overly burden-i some requirements that would impede industrial growth. Com-l missioner Willard F. Libby articulated an opinion common among l

AEC officials a hen he remarked in 1955:"Our great hazard is that j

this great benefit to mankind wi!! be killed aborning by unneces-l sary regulation." Other proponents of nuclear development f

Shared those views.Dey realized that safety was indispensable to progress; an accident could destroy the fledgling industry or at

-[

Icast set it back many years. At the same time, they worried that i

regulations that u ere too restrictive or inflexible would discourage l

private participation and investment in nuclear technology.

-l

'l The inherent difficulty the AEC faced in distinguishing between essential and excessive regulations was compounded by technical

{

uncertainties and limited operating experience with power reac-f tors.The safety record of the AEC's own experimental reactors i

engendered confidence that safety problems could be resolved and the possibility of accidents kept to "an acceptable calculated risk." But experience to that time offered little definitive guidance j

on some important technical and safety questions, such as the j

cffect of radiation on the properties of reactor materials, the f

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l The Formative Years of Nuclear Regulatton, i

1946-62 l

durability of steel and other metals under stress in a reactor the l

ways in which water reacted with uranium, thorium, aluminum, j

and other elements in a reactor,and the measures needed to mini-l mize radiation exposure in the event of a large accident.

I De AEC's regulatory staff, created soon after the passage of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, confronted the task of writing regula-tions and devising licensing procedures rigorous enough to assure l

safety but flexible enough to allow for new findings and rapid changes in atomic technology. Within a short time the staff drafted j

rules and definitions on radiation protection standards, distribu-i tion and safeguarding of fissionabic materials, and reactor opera-tors' qualifications. It also established procedures for licensing j

privately-owned reactors.'l he 1954 act outlined a two-step proce-l dure for granting licenses. If the AEC found the safety analysis

]

submitted by a utility for a proposed reactor to be acceptable, it would issue a construction permit. After construction was com-pleted and the AEC determined that the plant fully met safety q

requirements, the applicant would receive a license to kud fuel and begin operation.

Because of the uncertainties in technical knowledge and the AEC's goal of encouraging different reactor designs. the agency had to judge license applications on a case-by-case basis. The early state of the technology precluded the possibility of formulating universal standards for all aspects of reactor engineering. He regulatory staff reviewed the information that applicants supplied on the suitability of the prorosed site, construction specifications, a detailed plan of opention, and safety features.The proposal re-ecived further scrutiny from a panel of outside experts, the Advi-

]

sory Committce on ReactorSafcpards(ACRS).The ACRS,com-i posed of part-time consultants wno were recognized authorities on various aspects of reactor technology, conducted its own inde-pendent review of the application. The recommendations of the-j staff and the ACRS went to the commissioners, who made the fi-

)

nal decision on whether or not to approve a construction permit or s

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Chapter 1 operating license. (later, the Commission delegated considera-tion of regelatory staff and ACRS judgments to Atomic Safety and

Licensing Boards while retaining final jurisdiction in licensing cases if it chose to review a board ruling).

The AEC did not require that a prospective power reactor outier submit finalized technical data on the safety of a facility to receive

. a' construction permit. The agency was willing to grant a condi-tional permit as long as the application provided " reasonable as-surance" that the projected plant could be ccmstructed and oper-ated r.t the proposed site "without undue risk to the health and safety of the public." He two-step licensing system enabled the AEC to authorize construction of nuclear plants while allowing time to investigate any outstanding safety questions and prescribe modifications in initial plans. Agency officials recognized that the wisdom of permitting ccmstruction to proceed without first resolv-ing all potential safety problems was disputable, but they saw no alternatives in light of the existing state of the technology and the commitment to rapid development of atomic power. They were confident that regulatory requirements were adequate to guard against the hazards of nuclear generating systems. De AEC ac-knowledged, however, that it could not climinate all risks. C.

Rogers McCullough, chairman of the ACRS, informed the Joint Committee in 1956 that because of technical uncertainties and limited operating experience,"Ihe determination that the hazard is acceptably low is a matter of competent judgment."

It soon became apparent h )w the / TIC's judgment on safety issues could be influenced by its ambition to promote the private devel-opment of nuclear power. The Commi;sion's actions in granting a construction permit for a commercial fast breeder reactor, despite the reservatians of the ACRS, ignited an acrimonious controversy with the Joint Committee and raised questions about the AEC's regulatory program. In January 1956, the Power Reactor Develop-ment Company (PRDC), a ccmsortium of utilities led by Detroit Edion, applied for a permit to build a fast breeder in I2gocma Beach, Michigan, kcated on 12ke Eric withir. thirty miles of both 9

- _ _ _ _ - _ _ = _ _ _ _ - - _ - _ -.

i 1

1 1

The Formative Years of Nuclear Regulation, 1946-62 Detroit and Toledo, Ohio.The AEC had already received applica-tions for two privately-financed light-water reactors, but the PRDC proposal was the first to come in under the power demon-stratien program.

i The fast breeder reactor that the PRDC planned was far more ad-vanced in its technological complexity than light-water models, with which scientists and engineers had greater experience and fa-miliarity. After review of the PRDC's application and discussions with company representatives, the ACRS concluded in an internal report to the Commission that there is insufficient information available at this time to give assurance that the PRDC reactor can l

be operated at this site without public hazard."The ACRS also ex-pressed uncertamty that its questions about the reactor's safety l

could be resohed within the PRDC's proposed schedule for ob-taining an operating license.The ACRS urged that the AEC ex-pand its experimental programs with fast breeders to seek more complete data on the issues the PRDC application raised.

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Chapter 1 The public dispute over the PRDC case was triggered by state-ments of Chairman Strauss and Commissioner Murray in congres-sional budget hearings. After the AEC requested a supplemental appropriation for the civilian power program, the commissioners were subjected to sharp criticism by Clarence Cannon, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, when they appeared to testify in June 1956 on the need for the expenditures. Cannon, a strong public power advocate, badgered Strauss about private in-dustry's lack of progress in atomic development and suggested that the PRDC had no " intention of building this reactor at any time in the determinable future." Strauss, anxious to show that industry was making good headway, replied: "They [PRDC] have already spent eight million dollars of their own money to date on this proj-ect. I toldyou they were breaking ground on August 8. I have been invited to attend the ceremony: I intend to do so." Inadvertently, he had revealed that he planned to attend the ground breaking ceremony for a reactor whose construction permit was st being evaluated by the AEC.

During hearings the following day, Commissioner Murray, in a i effort to demonstrate the need for research and development funds, disclosed the conclusions of the ACRS on the PRDC appli-cation. Murray was so uneasy about the safety implications of the committee's report that he went to see Joint Committee chainnan Anderson and outlined its contents.

Members of the Joint Committee were angered and disturbed by the revelations of Strauss and Marray, not only because of safety concerns but also because the AEC had failed to inform them offi-cially about the reservations of the ACRS.The AEC was obliged by the 1954 Atomic Energy Act to keep the Joint Committec

• fully.

and currently informed'* about its activities, and committee mem-bers believed that in the case of the ACRS report the agency had

' failed to carry out its charge. The Joint Committee immediately requestedacopyof the ACRSdocument.The AECwasreluctant to agree, and after long deliberation, offered to deliver a copy only if the Joint Committee would keep it " administratively 11

The Formative Years of Nuclear Regulation, 1946-62 confidential." The committee reiused to accept the report under those conditions. The AEC was even less accommodating with the state of Michigan. When Governor G. Mennen Williams, who i

learned of the ACRS report from Senator Anderson, asked the AEC for a copy, it refused on the grounds that "It would be inap-propriate to disclose the contents of internal documents."

Me:mwhile, the AEC's regulatory staff was completing its review I

of the PRDC's application. The staff took a more optimistic view j

of the safety of the proposed reactor than had the ACRS. Since the company had agreed to perform tests on the questions raised by the committee, the staff recommended that it be granted a construction permit. On August 2,1956, the Commission decided l

to issue the permit by a vote of three to one (Murray was the dis-senter). It acknowledged the concerns of the ACRS by inserting the word " conditional" in the construction permit to emphasize I

that the company would have to settle the uncertainties about safety before receiving an operating license. Commissioner i

Harold S. Vance summarized the majority's reasoning during dis-cussion of the application. "We are doing something that we ordi-l narily would not do," he said,"in that we would not ordinarilyissue a construction permit unless we were satisfied that reasonable safety requirements had been met." But he added: "It may be some time before reasonable assurance can be obtained. If we were to delay the construction permit until then, it might delay a very important program. If we didn't think that the chances were -

vey good that all these questions would be resolved, we would not issue the permit."

i The AEC's decision elicited angry protests from the Joint Com-mittee. Congressman Holifield, citing Strauss' earlier announce-ment of his plans to attend the groundbreaking ceremonies for the plant, charged that the AEC chairman was acting in a " reckless and arrogant manner " Anderson accused the agency of conduct-ing " star chamber" proceedings and pledged that the Joint Com-mittee would " ascertain the full facts involved in this precipitate action."

i 12 I

Chapter 1

- The Joint _ Committee soon acted to prevent a recurrence of the AEC's conduct in the PRDC case. Anderson ordered the commit-tee staff to prepare a study of the AEC's licensing procedures and z

regulatory organization, including consideration of whether regu-latory and promotional responsibilities should be carried out by separate agencies.ne staff concluded that the creation of sepa-rate agencies was inadvisable at the time, principally because of the difficulty of recruiting qualified personnel for purely regula-tory functions. It did, however, suggest other reforms in the AEC's regulatory structure and procedures. Anderson implemented his staff's proposals by introducing legislation to establish the ACRS as a statutory body, direct that its reports on licensing caser, be made public, and require public hearings on all reactor applica-tions. The AEC opposed all three measures, but muted its objec-tions because Anderson presented them as amendments to a bill to provide indemnity insurance for reactor owners, which the agency strongly favored.

The AEC regarded indemnity legislation as essential for stimulat-ing private investment in nuclear power, a view that industry spokesmen and the Joint Committee on Atoraic Energy shared.

Since they recognized that the chances of a severe reactor accident could not be reduced to zero, even the most enthusiastic industry proponents of atomic power were reluctant to push ahead without adequate liability insurance. Private insurance companies would offer up to $60 million of coverage per reactor, an amount that far exceeded what was availabic to any other industry in the United States. Elut in the event of a serious accident, it seemed insufficient to pay claims for deaths, injuries, and property damages in areas surrounding the malfunctioning plant.

Therefore, industry executives sought a government program to provide additional insurance protection.11. R. Searing, chairman of the board of Consolidated Edison, declared that although his company would proceed with the construction of its Indian Point plant near New York City it would not load fuel and begin opera-tion unless the insurance question were resolved. General 13 J

The Formative Years of Nuclear Regulation, i

1946-62 i

Electric's Francis McCune went even further by telling the Joint -

l Committee in 1957 that if Congress did not enact indemnity legis -

lation, his company would stop work on Commonwealth Edison's i

Dresden station, then under construction. }le suggested that with-out a government insurance plan, the market for civilian atomic energy would collapse and vendors would withdraw from the field.

i i

SpmTed by the industry's concerns both the AEC and the Joint Committee ccmsidered methods by which the government could

{

provide additional liability insurance for reactor owners. Their ef-i forts culminated in legislation introduced by Senator Anderson l

and Congressman Melvin Price, which proposed that the govern-ment underwrite $500 million ofinsurance beyond Ihe 560 million available from private companies.The AEC initially opposed set-i ting a specific upper limit on the amount because there was no reli-l able way to estimate the possible damages from a reactor accident, j

But Anderson, wanting to avoid a " blank check" for industry.

rather arbitrarily decided on the $500 million figure.The bill stipu-lated that Congress could authorize additional payments if neces-i sary and also required that reactor owners contribute funds to the insurance pool as their plants were licensed. With strong support i

from the AEC and the industry, Congress passed the Price-l Anderson bill in August 1957. In final form, the measure included Anderson's reforms of the AEC's licensing procedures. Although the agency disliked Anderson's amendments,it accepted them to avoid jeopardizing or retarding approval of the indemnity bill.The Price-Anderson Act was a regulatory measure in effect because it provided insurance protection to victims of a nuclear accident, but it was largely promotional in motivation. Industry, the AEC, and the Joint Committee believed that it would remove a serious ob-stacle to private atomic development.

The PRDC case a-d the Price-Anderson Act clearly illustrated the AEC's emphasis on developmental rather than regulatory efforts.

The precedence that the AEC gave to promoting the growth of nu-clear power resulted from a number of ecmsiderations. The 1954 14

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y Chapter 1

-r

'i J Atomic Energy Act made it a national goal to encourage the wide-i spread use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, but private in-dustry was often hesitant to assume the costs and risks of develop-ment, Therefore, the AEC sought to persuade or induce private interests to invest in nuclear power. This seemed particularly ur.

l gent because of the intense pressure the Joint Committee placed on the agency to speed progress and its persistent threat to require j

the AEC to construct prototype plants if private firms failed to act promptly. One important way that the AEC pursued its objective of private development was to write regulations designed to pro-tect public safety without being overly burdensome to industry.

Safety questions were largely a matter of judgment rather than i

something concrete oc quantifiable, and AEC officials found it i

casier to assume that such issues had been or would be satisfacto-rily resolved than to assume that reactors would be built. When it issued a construction permit for the PRDC fast breeder reactor, l

for example, the Commission's vision of an advanced technology l

plant that showed the effectiveness of its power demonstration re-

)

' actor program outweighed the reservations of the ACRS.Though aware of the implications that safety questions posed for the devel-l opment of the technology, the AEC believed that nuclear science, i

in due time, would provide the answers to any outstanding prob-a lems. In short, the desire for tangible signs of promise was more

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compelling than first resolving more ethereal safety issues.

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' The AEC's emphasis on stimulating atomic development did not '

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mean that it was inattentive to safety issues.The regulations that.

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- the staff drafted shortly after passage of the 1954 Atomic Energy l

Act reflected careful consideration of the best scientific informa-tion and judgment available at the time.The AEC recognized and publicly acknowledged the possibility of accidents in such a new l

- and rapidly changing technology; it never offered absolute assur-

]

ances that accidents would not occur. Nevertheless, it believed i

that cornpliance with its regulations would make the chances of a j

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serious accident very small. The agency did not view its develop-j mental efforts as more important than regulatory policies, but it j

l.

15

.L

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The Formative Years of Nuclear Regulation, 1946-62 clearly viewed the need to encourage industrial growth as more immediate.

Hy 1962, the AEC's efforts to stimulate private participation in nu-clear power development had produced some encouraging results.

In a report to President Kennedy, the agency proudly pointed out that in the short time since atomic technology had been opened to private enterprise, six " sizeable" power reactors had begun opera-tion and two of those had been built without government subsi-dies. Despite industry's lingering concerns about the costs of nu-cicar power relative to fossil fuels, the AEC's developmental and regulatory programs had fostered the initial growth of commercial nuclear power. 'lhe agency predicted that by the year 2000 nuclear plants might provide up to fifty percent of the nation's electrical generating capacity. Despite the AEC's claims, the fu',ure of the nuclear industry remained precarious. De fourteen reactors in operation or under construction were still far from being commer-cially competitive or technologically proven. and interest in fur-ther development among utilitics appeared to be flagging. Both the AEC and Joint Committee were acutely aware of and deeply disturbed about those uncertainties.

To make matters worse from the perspective of nuclear propo-nents, there were signs of increasing public opposition to, or at least concern about, nuclear power hazards. In the early days of nuclear power development, public attitudes toward the technol-ogy were highly favorable. as the few opmion polls on the subject revealed. Press coverage of nuclear power was also overwhelm-ingly positive. An article in National Geographic in 1958, for exam-plc, concluded that " abundant energy released from the hearts of atoms promises a vastly different and bett er tomorrow for all man-kind."In the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, the public be-came more alert to and anxious about the hazards of radiation, largely as a result of a major c<mtroversy over radioactive fallout from nuc! car weapons testing. One result was that the public be-came increasingly troubled about the risks of exposure to radioac-tivity from any source, including nuclear power.

16

Chapter 1 Before World War II, the dangers of radiation were a matter of interest and concern mostly to a relatively small group of scientists and physicians. Within a short time after the discovery of x-mys and natural radioactivity in the 1890s, scientific investigators con-cluded that exposure to radiation could cause serious health prob-lems, ranging from loss of hair and skin irritations to sterility and cancer. Ignorance of the hazards of x-rays and radium and use of them for frivolous aurposes led to tragic consequences for people who received Ir, doses of radiation. As experience with and ex-perimental data on the effects of radiation gradually accumulated, professionals developed guidelines to protect x ray technicians and other radiation workers from excessive exposure.

In 1934. a recently-formed American committee representing professional societies and x-ray equipment manefacturers recom-mended for the first time a quantitative " tolerance dose" of radia.

tion. 0.1 roentgen per day of whole-lxx!y exposure from external sources. Committee members believed that levels of radiation be-low the tolerance dose were generally safe and unlikely to cause injury "in the average individual." The following year, an interna-tional radiation protection committee composed of experts from five nations took similar action. Neither body regarded its recom-mended tolerance dose as definitive because empirical evidence remained fragmentary and inconclusive. They were confident, however, that availabic information made their proposals reason-able and provided an adequate margin of safety for the relatively small number of individuals exposed to radiation in their jobs.

Then came Hiroshima.The dawn of the atomicage made radiation safety a vastly more complex task for two reasons. First, nuclear fission created many radioactive isotopes that did not exist in na-ture. This meant that instead of considering only x-rays and ra-dium, professionals in the field of radiation protection had to evaluate the hazards of new radioactive substances about which even less was known. Seccmd, the problem of radiation safety extended to significantlylarger segments of the population who

-17 i

)

_y i

The Formative Years of Nuclear Regulation,-

1946 might be exposed to radiation from the development of new appli-cations of atomic energy. Radiation protection broadened from a medicalissue oflimited proportions to a public health question of, potentially at least, major dimensions.

l As a result of the drastically altered circumstances, scientific authorities reassessed their recommendations on radiation protec-tion.They modified thcir philosophy of radiological safety by aban-doning the concept of " tolerance dose," w hich assumed that expo-sure to radiation below the specified limits was generally harmless.

Experiments in genetics indicated that reproductive cells were highly susceptible to damage from even small amounts of radia-tion. By the early 1940s, most scientists had rejected the idea that exposure to radiation below a certain threshold was inconsequen-

-)

tial, at least for genetic effects.The American committee of radia-j tion experts, named the National Committee on Radiation Protec-tion (NCRP)in 1946, took action that reflected the consensus of opinion by repbcing the terminology of " tolerance dose" with

~

" maximum pern.issible dose," which it thought better conveyed the principle l'. tat no quantity of radiation was certifiably safe. It definca tic permissible dose as that which "in the light of present knowl :dge, is not expected to cause appreciable Imdily injury to a i

person at any time during his lifetime." While acknowledging the possibility of suffering harmful effects from radiation in amounts below the allowable limits, the NCRP emphasized that the per-missible dose was based on the belief that "theprobability of the occurrence of such injuries must be so low that the risk should be readily acceptable to the average individual."

Because of the growth of atomic energy programs and the substan-tial increase in the number of individuals working with radiation sources. the NCRP decided by 1948 to reduce its recommended occupational exposure limits to fifty percent of the 1934 level. Its international counterpart, named the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) after World War II, adopted the same maximum permissible dose. The new maximum permis-sible wMle body dose that the NCRP and ICRP recommended 18 l

1 l

Chapter 1

+e 4.

was 0.3 roentgens per six-day work week, measured by exposure of the most critical" tissue in blood-forming organs, gonads, and lens of the eye. liigher limits applied for less sensitive areas of the body. In addition to the levels established for exposure to x-rays or gamma rays, the NCRP and ICRP also issued maximum permissi-ble concentrations in air and water of a list of radioactive isotopes that give off alpha or beta particles, known as " internal emitters."

Alpha and beta particles cannot penetrate into vital human tissue from outside the body, but if they enter the body b: consumption of contaminated food or water or by breathing of contamictated air, they can pose a serious health hazard.

'Ihe allowab!c limits established by both groups applied c71y to ra-diation workers, but because of the genetic effects of radiation and the possibility that other people could be exposed in an accident or an emergency, each also issued guidelines for larger segments of the population. In view of the greater sensitivity of young persons to radiation, the NCR P recommended that Ihe occupational maxi-mum permissible dose be ieduced by a factor of ten for anyone un-der age eighteen. The ICRP went further by proposing a limit of one-tenth the occupational level for the general population. Nei-ther committee had any legal authority or official standing, but since their recommendations reflected the findings and opinions of leading experts in the field of radiation protection, they exer-cised decisive influence on government agencies concerned with radiological safety.The AEC used the NCRP's occ tpationallimits m its own installations, and after passage of the 1954 Atome En-ergy Act, in its regulations for licensees. The agency's radiation protection regulations, which were first issued for public comment in 1955 and became effective in 1957, followed the NCRP's rec-ommendations for radiation workers and set a permissible dose of one-tenth the occupational level for members of the general population potentially affected by the operations of licensees.

In the immediate postwar period, deliberations over the risks of radiation and perrnissible exposure levels were confined mostly to scientific circles. Concern about radiation moved from the rarified 19

The Formative Years of Nuclear Regulation, 1946-62

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$O i-realms of scientific and medical discourse to the front page r.s a result of the fallout controversy.'Ihe testing of nuclear weaponsin the atmosphere by the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain produced radioactive fallout that sprcad to populated ar-cas far from the sites of the explosions. The fallout debate made radiation hazards a bitterly contested political issue for the first time. Scientists disagreed sharply about how seriaus a risk fallout presented to the population, and the question became a promi-nent subject in news reports, magazine stories, political cam-paigns, congressional hearings, and scientific studies.This not only called public attention to the potential health hazards of relatively small amounts of radiation (as opposed to acute exposure), but i

also made clear that scientists did not know a great deal about the effects of low-!cvel radiation.

The fallout controversy affected the AEC's regulatory program in

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two important ways. First, it led to a tightening of the agency's radiation standards. In response to increasing public concern and

'i the findings of scientific groups, the NCRP and the ICRP both 20

i Chapter l '

i i

lowered their recommended permissible levels of exposure.ney acted to provide a larger margin of safety t>ot emphasized that there was no evidence that the previous levels had been danger-

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ously high. ney reduced their limits for occupational exposure to an average of 5 rem peryear after age eighteen while continuing to suggest : hat population levels be restricted to ten percent of occu-pational levels (0.5 rem peryear)for individuals.ncy added a new j

stipulation that, for genetic reasons, the average level for large population groups should not exceed one-thirtieth of the occupa-ticaal limit, or 0.17 rem per year. nc AEC promptly adopted the i

j new recommendations as a part of its regulations; it issued them for comments in 1959 and made them effective on January 1,1961.

l

%e fallout debate further influenced the AEC's regulatory pro-gram by arousing public anxietics about the health cffects oflow-level radiation. This was evident, for example, in citizen protests against the dumping of los. vel radioactive wastes in ocean wa-ters.The AEC had authorized the dumping of such wastes urtder prescribed conditions fer over a decade, but it became a subject of controversy only after the fallout issue sensitized public opinion to l

radiation hazards. In a similar manner, the first widespread objec-tions to the construction of proposed nuclear power plants arose in j

the wake of the fallout debate. Citizen protests against the construction of the Ravenswood plant in the heart of New York City in 1963 and the Bodega Bay plant on the coast of California near the boundary of the San Andreas fault in 1963-64 played a vital role in aborting both projects.

l At the end of the first decade that followed passage of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, the prospects for rapid nuclear power devel.

j opment were mixed. Impressive strides had been takc..,.'9 be sure, j

but many uncertainties remained. Public support for the technol-ogy appeared to be strong but, as Kavenswood and Bodega Bay

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had shown, it could not be taken for granted. Beginning in the

-l mid-1960s, however, a variety of considerations fueled an unan-

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ticipated boom in the nuclear power industry that resolved some of j

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E The Formative Years of Nuclear Regulation, 1946-62 i

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the unknowns about nuclear progress while raising a host of new -

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Chapter 2 The Nuclear Power Debate, 1963-75

Chapter 2 During the late 1950s and early 1960s the use of nuclear power to generate electricity was a novel and developing technology. Since relatively few plants were operating, under construction, or on or-der, the scope of the AEC's regulatory functions such as reactor siting. licensing, and inspection was still limited. During the later 1960s, however, the nation's utilities rapidly increased their orders for nuclear power stations, participating in what Philip Sporn, past president of the American Electric Power Senice Corporation, descr bed in 1967 as the " great bandwagon market." At the same time, the size of plants being built also expanded dramatically.The sudden arrival of commercially competitive nuclear power placed unprecedented demands on the AEC's regulatory staff and raised new safety problems that reactor experts had not considered previ-ously. De surge in reactor orders and the growth in the size of in-dividual reactors also spurred new concerns about the emiron-mental impact of nuclear power and intensified public uneasiness about the safety of the technology.

The bandwagon market was an outgrowth of several developments that enhanced the appeal of nuclear power to utilities in the mid-and late 1960s. One was the intense competition between the two leading vendors of nuclear plants General Electric and Westing-house. In 1963. General Electric made a daring move to increase its reactor sales and to convince utilities that nudear power had arrived as a safe, reliable, and cost-competitive alternative to fossil fuel. It offered a Nurnkey" contract to Jersey Central Power and Light Company to build the $15 electrical megawatt Oyster Creek plant ncar Toms River, New Jersey. For a fixed cost of $66 million, General Electric agreed to supply the entire plant to the utility

-(the term

• turnkey" suggested that the utility would merely have to turn a key to stan operating the facility).ne company's bid was successful, winning out not only over Westinghouse but also over manufacturers of coal-fired units. General Electric expceted to lose money o t the Oyster Creek contract, but hoped that the plant would help to stimulate the market for nuclear power.

i 23

1 I

The Nuclear Power Debale, 1963-1975 l

l De Oyster Creek contract opened the " turnkey era" of commer-cial nuclear power and came to symboli7e the competitive debut of

}

the technology. Glenn T. Seaborg, chairman of the AEC, told l

President Johnson that it represented an " economic break-through" for nuclear electricity. Westinghouse followed General-i Electric's lead in offering t urnkey contracts for nuclear plants, set-3 tingoff a fierce corporate battle. The turnkey plants were a finan-cial blow for both companies; their losses ran into the hundreds of f

millions of dollars before they stopped making turnkey arrange.

+

ments. One General filectric official commented: "It's going to i

take a long time to restore to the treasury the demands we put on it l

to establish ourselves in the nuclear business." Ilut the turnkey contracts fulfilled General Electric's hopes of stirring interest among and orders from utilities. They played a major role in trig-

-l gering the bandwagon market.

{

There were other important considerations that convinced a grow-j ing number of utilities to buy nuclear plants. One was the spread of l

power pooling arrangements among utilities, which encouraged the construe.on of larger generating stations by casing fears of ex-

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cess capacity and over-expansion. A utility with extra or reserve l

power could sell it to other companies through interconnections, j

The desirability and feasibility of using larger mdividual plants j

worked to the benefit of nuclear vendors.Dey emphasized that bigger plants would produce *cconomies of scale" that would cut capital costs per unit of power and improve efficiency. This helped to overcome a major disadvantage of nuclear pow er relative to fos-sil fuel-the heasy capital requirements for building atomic plants. During the late 1960s designs for nuclear facilities leap-frogged from the 500 to the 800 to the 1000 electrical megawatt range even though operating experience was still limited to units in the range of 200 megawatts or less. The practice of " design by extrapolation" had been emphryed for fossil-fuel units since the early 1950s. Before the mid-1960s this approach appeared to work well, and it was natural that vendors extended it to nuclear units.

24

Chapter 2 In addition to turnkey contracts, system interconnections, and in-creasing unit size, growing national concern about air pollution in the 1960s made nuclear power more attractive to utilities. Coal plants were major contributors to the deterioration of air quality and were otnious targets for clean-up efforts. As the campaign to improve the environment gained strength, the electric-utility in-dustry became more mindful of the cost of pollution control in fossil-fuel plants. They increasingly viewed nuclear power as a good alternative to paying the expenses of pollution abatement in coal-fired units.

'Ihe bandwagon market for nuclear power reached its peak during 1966 and 1967, exceeding, in the words of a General Electric offi-cial,"even the most optimistic estimates."In 1965, the year before the reactor boom gathered momentum, nuclear vendors sold four nuclear plants with a total of 17 percent of the capacity that utili-tier purchased that year. In 1966, by contrast, utilities Ivaught 20 nuclear units that made up 36 percent of the electrical capacity committed.The following year nuclear vendors sold 31 units that represented 49 percent of the capacity ordered. In 1968, the num-ber of reactor orders dropped to 17, but the pementage of the ca-pacity filled with nuclear plante remained high at 47 percent.

The bandwagon market orders were large facilities that far ex-ceeded the size of operating reactors. Hetween 1963, when the 515 electrical megawatt Oyster Creek reactor was ordered, and 1969, when the plant began operation, the AEC issued 38 construction permits for units that were larger than Oyster Creek; Of those plants,28 were in the range of 800 to 1100 megawatts.The degree of extrapolation from small plants to mammoth ones was a matter of concern even to some strong nuclear advocates. Ily the late 1960s,it was apparent that design by extrapolation was not as suc-cessful as anticipated earlier. "We hoped the new machines wouid run just like the old ones we're familiar with " complained one util-ity executive about his huge coal-burning stations. But, he added, "they sure as hell don't."

2.5

---__w.__

r The Nuclear Power Debate, 1963-1975 i

I r

'lle rapid mercase m the number of reactor applications and in the l

size of proposed plants placed enormous burdens on the AEC's I

regulatory staff.The flood of applications inesitably caused licens-i ing delays because the stafflacked enough qualified professionals.

[

Between 1965 and 1970, the size of the regulatory staffincreased l

l by about 50 percent, but its licensing and inspection case load in-creased by about 600 per cent. The average time required to proc-f ess a construction permit application stretched from about a year in 1%5 to over 18 months by 1970. The growing backlog drew bit-l ter complaints from utilities applying to build plants and from nu-l clear vendors. One utility executive predicted that if delays be-(

came commonplace, "it can safely be asserted that the splendid l

promise of nuclear power will have had a very short life." Another was even more critical, calling the licensing process *a modern day Spanish Inquisition" carried out by "AEC engineers, scientists.

l and consultants [who] have no serious economic discipline."The AEC attempted to streamline its licensing precedures but found it impossible to reduce review time or to satis.y the demands of the industry.

I i

The licensing process lengthened not only because of the number of applications that the AEC had to evaluate but also because of l

the complexity of the proposals it received.The growth in the size of reactors and the practice of design by extrapolation raised many complex safety issues that could not be easily resolved. The exer-cise of careful judgment in assessing reactor applications was al.

ways critical, but it became even more so as utilities campaigned to build plants closer to populated regions. Although the AEC adopted an informal prohibition against " metropolitan siting"in urban locations (such as the proposed Ravenswood plant in down-town New York), it was more receptive to" suburban siting" fairly l

close to urban populations.This redoced the emphasis on one tra-ditional means of protecting the public from the consequences of a j

nuclear accident " remote siting."It placed greater dependence j

on the other general method of shielding the public from the ef.

fats of an accident-enginected safeguards -(a term later super-seded by " engineered safety features") that were built into the 26 i

Chapter 2 plant. Even as the relative importance of engineered safeguards increased in the 1960s, questions arose about their reliability in preventing a massive release of rathoactivity to the environment in the event of a severe accident.

. The engineered safeguards in nuclear plants differed in design and operation, but they served the same basic functions. A number of systems were placed in reactors to remove heat and reduce exces-sive pressure if an accident occurred. They included, for example, passive core sprays and pressure suppression pools. " safety injec-tion" systems that would shoot large volumes of water into the re-actor vessel, and combinations of filters, vents, scrubbers, and air circulators that would collect and retain radioactive gases and par-titles released by an accident. 'lle final line of defense if the engi-neered safeguards failed was the containment building, a large, f

often dome. shaped structure that surrounded the reactor and as-

[

sociated steam. producing equipment as well as the safety systems.

' f Reactor experts were confident that in almost any situation the en-

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gineered safety features built into a plant and the ccmtainment structure would protect the public from the effects of an accident.

Ilut they were troubled by the possibility that a chain of events could conceivably take place that would bypass or override the afety systems, and in the worst case, breach containment. "No onc l

is in a position to demonstrate that a reactor accident with conse-

[

quent escape of fission prod'. cts to the environment will never

(

happen." Clifford K. Beck, the AEC's deputy director of regula-tion, told the Joint Committee in 1%7. "No one really expects f

such an accident, but no one is in a position to say with full cer-tainty that it will not occur."

The AEC strived to reduce the likelihood of an accident to a mini-mum. It based its decisions on the safety of reactor designs and plant applications on operating expenence,' engineering judg-ment, and experiments with test reactors. Experience with the first l

commercial reactors had been encouraging;it had provided a great

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deal ofinformation that was useful in understanding reactor sci-

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cnce. But it was of limited application to the newer and larger y

I it 27 I

The Nuclear Power Debate, 1963-1975 I

l i

reactors that utilities were building by the late 1960s. 'Ihe rapid j

growth in reactor size placed a premium on the careful use of engi-

- j neering judgment. In order to decrease the chances of a major ac-l cident that could threaten public health, the AEC required multi-i ple back-up equipment and redundancies in safety designs. It also employed conservative assumptions about the ways in which an ac-eident might damage or incapacitate safety systems in its evalu-ation of reactor proposals.

I The regulatory staff sought to gain as much experimental data as f

possible to enrich its knowledge and inform its collective engineer-ing judgment.1his was especially vital in light of the many unan-swered questions about reactor behavior.1he AEC had sponsored

~

hundreds of small-scale crperiments since the early 1950s that had yielded key informaticn about a variety of reactor safety problems.

l But they provided littic guidance on the issue of greatest concern

[

to the AEC and the ACRS by the late 1960s-a core meltdown j

caused by a loss-of-coolant accident.

Reactor expens had long recognized that a core melt was a plausi-ble, if unlikely, occurrence. A massive loss of coolant could hap-pen, for example, if a large pipe that fed cooling water to the core broke. If the plant's emergency woling systems also failed, the j

build-up of" decay heat"(which resulted from continuing radioac.

I tive decay after the reactor shut down) could cause the core to -

melt, In older and smaller reactors, the experts were confident that even under the worst conditions-an accident in which the loss of coolant melted the core and it,in turn, melted through the pressure vessel that held the core-the containment structure would prevent a massive release of radioactivity to the environ-ment. As proposed plants increased significantly in size, however, I

they began to worry that a core melt could lead to a breach of con-tainment.This became their primary focus partly because of the

. greater decay heat the larger plants would produce and partly be-cause n ucicar vendors did not add to the size of containment build-ings in corresponding proportions to the size of reactors.

28 4

1 i

i i

hapter 2 He greatest source of concern about a loss-of-coolant accident in large reactors was that the molten fuel would melt through not only the pressure vessel but also through the thick layer of con.

crete at the foundation of the containment building.He intensely radioactive fuel would then continue on its downward path into the ground. His scenario became known as the " China syn-drome." because the melted core would presumably be heading through the earth toward China. Other possible dangers of a core meltdown were that the molten fuel would breach containment by reacting with water to cause a steam explosion or by reltasing ele +

ments that could combine to cause a chemical explosion.De pre.

cise effects of a large core melt were uncertain, but it was clear tha' the results of spewing radioactivity into the atmosphere could t :

disastrous. De ACRS and the regulatory staff regarded .e chances of such an accident as low; they believed that it *.nsd oc-cur only if the emergency core cooling system (ECCS), made up of redundant equipment that would rapidly feed water into the core, failed to function properly. liut they acknowledged the possibility that the ECCS might not work as designed. Without containment as a fail-safe finalline of defenre against any conceivable accident, they sought other means to provide safeguards against the China syndrome.

At the prodding of the ACRS, which first sounded the alarm about the China syndrome, the AEC established a special task force to look into the problem of core melting in 1966. He committee, chaired by William K. Ergen, a reactor safety expert and former ACRS uember from Oak Ridge National 12boratory, submitted its findings to the AEC in October 1967.The report offered assur-ances about the improbability of a core meltdown and the reliabil-ity of emergency core cooling designs. but it also acknowledged that a loss-of-coolant accident could cause a breach of contain-ment if ECCS failed to perform.Therefore, containment could no longer be regarded as an inviolable barrier to the escape of radio- -

activity. Dis represented a milestone in the evolution of reactor regulation. In effect, it imposed a modified approach to reactor safety. Previously, the AEC had viewed the containment building 29 1

The Nuclear Power Debate, 1963-1975 as the final independent line of defense against the release of ra-diation; even if a senous accident took place the damage it caused j

would be restricted to the plant. Once it became apparent that un-i der some circumstances the containment building might not hold, i

however, the key to protecting the public from a large release of radiation was to prevent accidents severe enough to threaten con-j tainment. And this depended heavily on a properly designed and j

functioning ECCS.

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The problem facing the AEC's regulatory staff was that experi-mental work and experience with emergeng cooling was very lim-ited. Finding a way to test and to provide empirical support for the reliability of emergency cooling became the central concern of the AEC's safety rescarch program. Plans had been underway since l

the early 1960s to build an experimental reactor, known as the Loss-of Fluid-Tests (I OFT) facility, at the AEC's reactor testing 4

station in Idaho. Its purpose was to provide data about the effects

)

of a loss-of-coolant accident. For a variety of reas(ms, including j

weak mana3ement of the test program, a change of design, and re-l duced funding, progress on the l_OFF reactor and the preliminary j

tests that were essential for its success were chronically delayed.

I Despite the complaints of the ACRS and the regulatory staff, the

(

30 i

t Chapter 2

[

P AEC diverted money from I.OFI'and other safety research proj-ects on existing light-water reactor designs to work on the develop-ment of fast-breeder reactors. A proven fast breeder was an ur-j gent objective for the AEC and the Joint Committee: Seaborg described it as "a priority na tional goal" that could assure *an es-l sentially unlimited energy supply, free from problems of fuel re-sources and atmospheric contamination."

To the consternation of the AEC, experiments run at the Idaho test site in late 1970 and early 1971 suggested that the ECCS in light-water reactors might not work as designed. As a part of the preliminary experiments that were used to design the I. OFT reac-tor, researchers ran a series of"semiscale" tests on a core that was j

only nine inches long (compared with 144 inches on a power reac-tor). The experiments were run by heating a simulated core elec-trically, allowing the cooling water to escape, and then injecting the emergency coolant.To the surprise of the investigators, the

]

high steam pressure that was created in the vessel by the loss of molant blocked the flow of water from the ECCS. Without ever 2

reaching the core, about 90 percent of the emergency coolant i

flowed out of the same break that had caused the loss of coolant in j

the first place.

f I

In many ways the semiscale experiments were not accurate simula-l tions of designs or conditions in power reactors. Not only the size, scale, and design but also the channels that directed the flow of

}

coolant in the test model were markedly different than those in an j

actual reactor. Nevertheless, the results of the tests were disquiet-ing.They introduced a new element of uncertainty into assessing j

the performance of ECCS.The outcome of the tests had not been anticipaled and called into question the analytical methods used to

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predict what would happen in a loss-of-coolant accident.The re-l sults were hardly conclusive but their implications for the effec-

-l tiveness of ECCS were troubling.

j The semiscale tests caught the AEC unprepared and uncenain of how to respcmd. Harold Price, the director of regulation, directed a special task force he had recently formed to focus on the ECCS l

I

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31 i

The Nuclear Power Debate, 1963-1975 question and to draft a "w hite paper"within a month. Scaborg for the first time, called the Office of Management and lludget to plead for more funds for safety research on light-water reactors.

While waiting for the task force to finish its work, the AEC tried to keep information about the semiscale tests from gettmg out to the public, even to the extent of withholdmg information about them from the Joint Committee.~Ihe results of the tests came at a very awkward time for the AEC. It was under renewed pressure from utilities facing power shortapes and from the Joint Committee to streamline the licensing process and cl;minate excesure delays. At the same time, Seaborg was appealing-successfully-to Presi-dent Nixon for support of the brecJer reactor, and controversy over the semiscale tests and reactor safety could undermine White 3

House backing for the program. By 1he spring of 1971. nuclear crit-ics were expressing opposition to the bcensing of several proposed reactors, and news of the semieale experiments seemed hkely to spur their efforts.

For those reasons, the AEC sought to resolve the ECCS issue as

)romptly and quietly as possible. It wanted to settle the uncertam-ties about safety without arousing a public debate that could place hurdles in the way of the bandwagon rnarket. Even before the task force that Price established completed its study of the ECCS prob-lem, the Commission decided to publish "interirn acceptance cri-tena" for emergency cooling systems that licensees would have to meet. It imposed a series of requirernents that it belic ed would ensure that the ECCS in a plant would prevent a core melt af ter a loss-of-coolant acodent. 'Ihe AEC did not prescribe methods of meeting the interim criteria, but. in effect,it mandated that manu-facturers and utilities set an upper limit on the amount of heat generated by reactors. In some cases, this would force utilities to reduce the peak operating temperatures (and hence, the powcr)of their plants. Price told a press conference on June 19,1971 that although the AEC thought it impossib!c "to guarantee absolute safety," he was " confident that these criteria will assure that the emergency core coohng systems will perform adequately to pro-teet the temperature of the core from getting out of hand."

32

Chapter 2 he interim ECCS criteria failed to achieve the AEC's objectives.

News about the semiscale experiments triggered complaints about the AEC's handling of the issue even from friendly obseners. It also prompted calls from nuclcar critics for a licensing moratorium and a shutdown of the eleven plants then operating Criticism ex-pressed by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), an organiza-tion established in 1969 to protest misuse of technology that had recently turned its attention to nuclear power, received wide pub-licity. The UCS took a considerably less sanguine view of ECCS f

reliability than that of the AEC. It sharply questioned the ade-quacy of the interim criteria, charging, among other things, that they were " operationally vague and meaningless." Scientists at the AEC's national laboratories, without endorsing the alarmist lan-guage that the UCS used, shared some of the same resenations.

So did the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that was considering an operating license for the Indian Point-2 plant in New York. It announced that in light of the uncertainties about ECCS and the interim criteria, it lacked sufficient information to approve the li-cense application. This opened the way for intervenors in other proceedings to challenge the adequacy of ECCS regulations, and within a short time, led the AEC to convene hearings on the ECCS issue.

The AEC insisted that its critics had exaggerated the severity of the ECCS problem.The regulatory staff viewed the results of the failed semiscale tests as serious but believed that the technical is-sues the experiments raised would be resolved within a short time.

It did not regard the tests as indications that existing designs were fundamentally flawed and it emphasi7ed the conservative engi-neering judgment it applied in evaluating plant applications. But the ECCS controversy damaged the AEC's credibility and played into the hands of its critics. Instead of frankly acknowledging the potential significance of the ECCS problem and taking time to fully evaluate the technical uncertaintics, the AEC acted hastily to prevent the issue from undermining public confidence in reactor safety or causing licensing delays. This gave credence to the allega-tions of its critics that it was so determined to promote nuclear 33

The Nuclear Power Debate, 1963-1975 power and develop the breeder reactor that it was inattentise to safety concerns.

By the time that the I CCS issue hit the headhnes, other questions about the environmental effects of nuclear power had eroded pub-lie support for the technology.'the pr oblem of indus. trial pollution and the deterioratmg quahty of the natural environment took on prowing urgency as a public polig issue during the 1%0s. The in-creasmg puhhc and pohtical uncern with environmental protec-tion. occurring at the same time that demand for electcicity was douhhng every ten years or so, placed utihties m a quandary. As an artide in Forruce magazine put it:" Americans do not seem willing to let the utihties continue devouring.. eier increasing quantities d

of water, air, and land. And yet cIcarly they also are not willing to conternplate domg without allIhe c!cetricity they want 'lhese two wishes are incompatible. 'I hat rs the di!cmma faceJ by the utili-ties."

Utihties increasmply viewed nuclear power as the answer to that ddemma. It promi,cd the means to meet demand for power with-out causing air Jullution, and ensironmental concerns wcre a ma-P jor spur to the growth of the great bandwagon market. linviron-mentalists recognized the benefits of nuclear power compared to fossil fuel, but they were more equivocal m their attitudes toward the technology than u ere mdustry representatives. ~1 heir ambiva-lence was perhaps best summarved by the statement of a leadmg environmental spokesmen in 1967:"I thmk most conservationists may welcome the coming of nuc! car plants, though we are sure they have their own parameters of difficulty."

Officials of the AIT actisely promoted the idea that nuclear power provided the answer to both the environmental crisis and the energy crisis. Seaborg was especially outspoken on this point.

Although he acknowledged that nuclear power had some adverse impact on the environment, he insisted that its ef f ects were much

-i less harmiul than those of fossil fuel. In companson with coal, he n

once declared,"there can be no doubt that nuc! car power comes out looking hke Mr. Clean."

34

Chapter 2 The view of nuclear power as beneficial to the environment rela-tive to conventional fuels was undermined in the late 1960s by a major controversy over the effects of waste heat from nuclear plants on water quality, widely known as " thermal pollution."

nermal pollution resulted from cooling the steam that drove the turbines to produce electricity in either a fossil fuel or nuclear plant. The steam was condensed by the circulation of large amounts of water, and in the process the cooling water was heated, usually by 10 to 20 degrees fahrenheit, before being returned to the body of water from which it came. This problem was not unique to nuclear plants but it was more ac a in them, largely be-cause fossil plants used steam heat more efficantly than nuclear ones.The problem of thermal pollution created more anxiety than preTiously during the 1960s because of the growing number of plants, the larger size of those plants, and the increasing inclina-tion of utilities to order nuclear units.

Hermal pollution caused concern because it was potentially harmful to many species of fish. It could also disrupt the ecological balance in rivers and streams, allowing plants to thrive that made water look, taste, and smell unpleasant. Technical solutions to deal with thermal pollution were available, but they required extra costs in the construction and operation of steam-clectric plants.

Coohng towers of dif fcrent designs or cooling ponds, for example, would greatly alleviate the release of waste heat to the source body of water. Utilitics resisted adding cooling apparatus to the plants they planned to build, however, because of the expense and an ap-preciable loss of generating capacity.

Advocates of stronger federal action to protect the environment in the news media, Congress, and state and federal agencies urged the AEC to require its licensees to guard against the effects of thermal poilution.The AEC refused on the grounds that it lacked the statutory authority to impose regulations on hazards other than radiation. It argued that the 1954 Atomic Energy Act re-stricted its regulatory junsdiction to radiological dangers, a view that the Department of J ustice and federal courts upheld.This did 35

The Nuclear Power Debate, 1963-1975 not placate the AEC's critics, w ho accused it of ignoring a serious problem that nuclear plants exacerbated. Several members of Congress introduced legislation to grant the AEC authority over therTnal pollution but the agency opposed those measures unless fossil fuel plants had to meet the same conditions. The AEC feared that nuc! car power would be placed at a competitive disad-vantage if plant owners had to provide cooling equipment that was not required on fossil-burning facilities.

h e >-

[

[l Researcheni from i Argonne National :

taboratory take measurements of

~

the thermal da-charge plume from the Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant on Lake U

Machigan {.-

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%2W The AEC came under increasing criticism for its position. The most prominent attack appeared in a Sports Illustrated anicle in January 1969. It assailed the AEC for failing to reFulate against thermal pollution and attributed its inaction toa fear of the "finan-cial investment that power companies would have to rnake..to stop nuclear plants from frying fish or cooking waterways whole-sale." The article was a distoned and exaggerated presentation, but it contributed to a growing perception that instead of being a solution to the dilemma of producing electricity without causing serious environmental damage, nuclear power was a part of the problem.

36

Chapter 2 Eventually the controversy over thermal pollution died out, One reason was the Congress passed legislation that gave the AEC authority to regulate against thermal pollution and Ihat applied to most fossil fuel plants as well. A more important reason was that utilities increasingly took action to curb the consequences of dis-charging waste heat. Although they initially resisted the calls for cooling equipment, they soon found that the costs of resp (mding to litigation. enduring postpcmements in the construction or opera-tion of new plants, or suffering a loss of public esteem were less tolerable than those of building cooling towers or ponds. By 1971, most nuclear plants being built or planned for mland waterways (where the problem was most acute) included cooling systems. But the legacy of the thermal pollution debate lingered on. It under-mined confidence in the AEC and wakened public doubts about the environmental impact of nuclear power. It played a vital role in transforming the ambivalence that environmentalists had demon-strated toward the technology into strong and vocal opposition. As a result of the thermal pollution issue, the AEC and the nuclear industry frequently found themselves included among the ranks of enemies of the environment.

The thermal pollution question was the first but not the only de-bate over the c!fects of nuclear power that aroused widespread public concern in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A major contro-versy that arose over the effects W. low-level radiation from the routine operation of nuclear plants alsa fed fears about the ex-panding use of the technology. Drawing on the recommendations of the National Committee on Radiation Protection, the AEC had established limits for public exposure to radiation from nuclear plants of 0.5 rem peryear for individuals.To determine the allow-able release of radioactive effluents from a plant, it assumed that a person stood outdoors at the boundary of the facility 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day,365 days a year. Licensees generally met the requirements easily,in 1968, for examp!c releases from most plants measured less than three percent of the permissible levels for liquid efflu-ents and less than ene percent f or gaseous effluents.

37

The Nuclear Ptmer Debate, 1963-1975 The conservath e assumptions of the AEC and the performance of operating plants did not present criticism of the AEC's radiation standards. A number of observers suggested that, in light of the uncertainties about the effects of low-level radiation, the AEC's regulations were insufficiently rigorous and should be substan-tially revised. This first emerged as a widely-pubheiicd issue w hen the state of Minnesota, respondmg to questions raised by environ-mentalists, stipulated in May 1469 that a plant under ccmstruction must restrict its raJioactive effluents to a level of about three per-cent of that allowed by the AEC.

The adequacy of the AEC's radiation stand:trds became even more contentious in the fall of 1964, when two prominent scientists, John W. Gofman and Arthur R. Tamphn, suggested that if every-one in the United States received the permissible population dose of radiation, it would cause 17,000 (later revised to 32,000) addi-tional cases of cancer annually. Gof man and Tamplin worked at lavermore National 12boratory, funded by the AEC, an<l their po-Sition as insider > gave their claims special credibility. They initially proposed that the AEC lower its limits by a factor of ten and later urged that it reqmre zero releases of radioactivity.

Gofman and Tamphn not only argued that the existing standards of the AEC and other radiation-protection organizations wcre in-adequate but also challenged de prevailing consensus that the benefits of nuclear power w cre worth the risks. Gofman was espe-cially harsh in his analysis; he insisted that in its radiation protec-tion regulations, the AEC is statmg that there is a risk and their hope that the benefits outweigh the number of deaths."1Ic aJded:

"This is legrdized murder, t he only question is how many murders.

The AF" denied Gofman's and Tamplin's assertions on the grounds that they extrapolated from high doses to estimate the hazards of low-level exposure, and that, furthermore, it was im.

possible for the entire nation to reccise the levels of radiation that applied at plant boundaries. Most authorities in the field of radia-tion protection agreed with the AEC that the risks of effluents from nuclear power were far smaller than Gofman and Tamplin i

38 l

l

Chapter 2 maintained. Nevertheless, in an effort to provide an extra measure of protection, reassure the public, and undercut the appeal of its critics,in June 1971 the AEC issued for public comment new "de-sign objectives" for nuclear plav.s that would,in effect, reduce the permissible levels of effluents by a factor of about one hundred.

This action clicited protests from industry representatives and from radiation-protection professionals, but it did not impress many critics, who expressed doubt that the AEC would enforce the new guidelines. The controversy focused public attention, once again, on the effects of low-level radiation, but it did little to clarify a complex and ambiguous issue.

In addition to the objections that its positions on thermal pollution

[

and radiation standards stirred, the AEC provoked sharp criticism l

for its response to the National Environmental Policy Act l

(NEPA). 'Ihe law, passed by Congress in December 1969 and signed by President Nixon on January 1,1970, required federal agencies to consider the envircamental impact of their activi.ies.

1 -- -

• The measure was in many ways vague and confusing and it gave federal agencies broad discretion in deciding how to carry out its mandate.The AEC acted promptly to comply with NEPA, but its procedures for doing so brought protests from environmentalists.

The agency took a narrow view of its responsibilities under NEPA.

In a proposed regulation that it issued in December 1970, it in-cluded, for the first time, non-radiological issues in its regulatory jurisdiction. But it also stipulated that it intended to rely on the environmental assessments of other federal and state agencies (rather than conducting its own), it agreed to consider erwiron-mental issues in licensing board hearit.gs only if raised by a party to the proceeding, and it postponed any review of NEPAissues in li-censing cases until March 1971.

The AEC declined to take an expansive view of its responsibilities under NEPA for several reasons. One was the conviction that the routine operation of nuclear plants was not a serious threat to the erwironment and, indeed, vas beneficial compared to burning fos-sil fuel.1he major pmducts of nuclear power generation that 39

The Nuclear Power Debate, 1963-1975 affected the environment, radiation releases and thermal dis-charges, were covered by other legislation. Furtnermore, imple-mentation of NEPA might divert the AEC's limited human re-sources from tasks that were more central to its mission. The regulatory staff was "all but overwhelmed" by the flood of reactor applications and did not rehsh the idea of having to spend large amounts of time on environmental reviews. Most importantly, the AEC feared that u eighing environmental issues other than radia-tion and thermal releases would cause unwarranted delays in li-censing plants. The time required for evaluating applications was already increasing and the AEC worried that NEPA could force a "q antum leap"in the length of the process. It sought to strike a balance between environmental concerns and the need for electri-c d power in framing its regulations.

Environmentalists complamed that the AEC had failed to fulfill the purposes of NEPA and took the agency to federal court over the application of the AEC's regulations to the Calvert Cliffs nu-clear units. then under construction on the Chesapeake Ilay in ru-ral Manland. On July 23.1971, the United States Court of Ap-peals for the District of Columbia handed down a ruling that was a crushing defeat for the AEC. The court sternly rebuked the agency in its most widely-quoted statement: "We believe that the Com-mission's crabbed interpretation of N EPA makes a mockery of the Act." The Calvert Chifs decision was, in the words of Nuc! conics

(

Weck, a " stunning body blow" to the AEC and the nuclear indus-try.

The Calvert Clif fs decision was another in a series of setbacks for the AEC and nuclear power. It was apparent by the summer of 1971 that public distrust of the AEC was growing and support for nuclear power was declining. The cumuh.tive effect of controver-sies oser ECCS. thermal pollution, radiation standards. NEPA.

and other issues croded public confidence in the AEC's commit-ment to safety and raised doubts about the benefits of nuclear power. Antinuclear activists capitalized on growing uneasiness about the health and environmental effects of the technology.

40

Chnpter 2 Some of the critics were well-informed and responsible in their ar-guments, but others were one-sided and inaccurate. Attempts by nuclear proponents *.o correct a plethora of misleading and exag-gerated stories, advertisements, speeches, and other presco,ta-tions inevitably failed to win as much attention or produce the

~~

same effect.To make matters worse for the AEC, it suffered from the general disillusionment with the government, established in-stitutions, and science that prevailed by the late 1960s,largely as a result of the Vietnam war. One college student summarized the situation after listening to a debate between Victor Bond, a radia-tion expert from Brookhaven National 1.aboratory, and a vocal AEC critic: "Dr. Bond sounds good but we can't believe him. He works for the government."

liy the summer of 1971, the AEC was an embattled agency,largely though not exclusively because of regulatory issues. Seabc rg, after serving as chairman for ten 3 cars, resigned his post in July 1971 and Nixon appointed James R. Schlesinger, assistant director of l

l the Office of Management and Budget to take his place. Schlesin-per was determmed to make the AEC more responsive to environ-mental concerns and to improve its tarnished public image. As an important first step in those efforts, he and William O. Doub, who took a seat on the Commission at the same time that Schlesinger assumed the chairmanship, concluded that the AEC should not appeal the Calvert Cliffs ruling, and, after considering the alterna-1ives, their colleagues agreed.The AEC announced its decision on August 26,1971.

Die AEC's response to the Calvert Cliffs decision brought a storm of protests from utilities w ho fea: ed long delays in the licensing of plants that were nearly ready for operation. Schlesinger explained the AEC's new position in a speech he delivered to a meeting of industry groups in Bal liarbour, Florida on October 20,1971. He told his audience that although the long-term outlook for nuclear power appeared " bullish." the pace of development depended on two variables: "first, the provision of a safe, reliable product; second, achievement of public confidence in that prod uct."

41

The Nuclear Power Debate, 1963-1975 s

Schlesinger declared that the AEC's policy of promoting and pro-tecting the industry had been justified to help nuclear pow er get starf ed, but since the industry was " rapidly approaching mature growth " the AEC must redefmc its responsibilities. "You should not expect the AEC." he announced,"to fight the industry's politi-c:d, social, and commercial battles." Rather, he added, the agen-cy's role was "primanly to perform as a referee serving the public interest.' The message of Schlesinger's speech was unprece-dented; it proclaimed a sharp break with the AEC's history and a new direction in the agenefs approach to its regulatory duties.

Schlesinger's of forts to narrow the divisions between nuclear pro-ponents and critics and to recover the AEC's regulatory credibility produced, at best, mixed results. Many environmentalists were pleased with the AEC's acceptance of the Calvert Cliffs ruhng and with Schlesinger's Hal liarbour speech. 'Iheir guarded optimism about Schlesinger's attitudes was perhaps best summarized by the title of an article about him in NationalIrildhfe magazine:"There's a Bird IFalcher Running the Atomic Energy Commission." But major differences between the AEC and environmentalists re-mamed; many of the same issues that had aroused concern before Schlesinger's arrival continued to pencrate controversy.

One of those issues was the reliabihty of emergency core cooling systems. In light of the objections to the interim acceptance crite-ria for ECCS that the AEC had pubbshed in June 1971, the agency decided to hold a rulemaking hearing on the issue Ihat would apply to all licensing cases. It hoped that this would avoid repeating the same procedures and dehberating over the same questions in case-by-case hearings and that generic hearings would provide a means to resolve issues common to all plants.The ECCS hearings got un-derway in early 1972 and stretched into 135 days over a penod of a year and a half. When they ended, the transcripts of the proceed-ings filled more than 22,000 pages. The ECCS bearings led to a final rule that made some small but important revisions in the in-terim criteria. They also produced acrimonious testimony and 42

Chapter 2 front-page headlines that often reflected unfavorably on the AEC's safety programs and that further damaged its credibility.

Another issue that undcrmined confidence in the AEC in the early 1970s was its approach to high-level radioactive waste disposal.

The growth of the nuclear power industry made the safe disposal of intensely radioactive spent fuel rods and other waste materials an increasingly urgent matter.The AEC had investigated means of dealing with reactor wastes for3 cars, but had not found a solution to the problem. As carly as 1957, a scientific consensus had con-cluded that deep underground salt beds were the best repositories for long-lived and highly radioactive wastes. In 1970, in response to increasiag expressions of concern about the lack of a policy for high-level waste disposal from scientific authoritics, members of Congress, and the press, the AEC announced that it would de-velop a permanent repository for nuclear wastes in an abandoned salt mine near Lyons, Kansas. It aired its plans without conducting thorough geologic and hydrologic investigations, and the suitabil-ity of the site was soon challena,ed by the state geologist of Kansas and other scientists. He uncertaintics about the site generated a bitter dispute between the AEC on the one side and members of Congress and state officials from Kansas on the other. It ended in 1972 in great embarrassment for the AEC when the reservations of those who opposed the Lyons kuttion proved to be well-founded.

In addition to debates over ECCS and high-level waste disposal, questions over reactor design and safety, quality assurance, the probability of a major reactor accident, and other issues fueled the controversy over nuclear power. The number of contested hear-ings for plant licenses steadily grew.The ongoing controversy frus-trated Schlesinger's hopes of increasing public confidence in the AEC and of defusing the conflicts between opposing views. Ily highlighting the issues on which the AEC's performance was sus-pect, it also obscured the requirements that the regulatory staff imposed over the protests and against the wishes of the nuclear industry, the high standards that it demanded in the design and 43

The Nuclear Power Debate, 1963-1975 construction of nuclear plants, and the conservative assumptions that it applied in evaluating plant applications and formulating radiation-protection regulations.

O As the nuclear power debate continued, the AEC came under in-creasing attacks for its dual responsibilities for developing and i

regulating the technology.This became a major argument that nu-clear critics cited in their indictments of the AEC;it was, said one,

~like ! citing the fox guard the henhouse." The question of creating separate agencies to promote and to regulate the civilian uses of nuclear energy had arisen within a short time after passage of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. but in the early stages of nuclear devel-opment it had seemed premature and unwarranted. It gained greater support as both the industry and antinuc! car sentiment grew, and it took on greater urgency after the Arab oil embargo and the energy crisis of 1473-74. One of President Nimn's re-sponses to the energy crisis was to ask Congress to create a new l

agency that could focus on, and presumably speed up, the licensing of nuclear plants. After much debate, Congress divided the AEC into the Energy Research and Development Administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in legislation it passed in 1974. The Energy Reorganization Act, coupled with the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, constituted the statutory basis for the NRC.

The new agency inherited a mixed legacy from its predecessor, marked both by 20 years of conscientious regulation and by unre-solved safety questions, substantial antinuclear actisism, and growing pubhc doubts about nuclear power.

s J

I 44

Chapter 3 A New Agency and Some New Issues

Chapter 3 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission began its operations as a separate agency in January 1975. In many ways, it carried on the legacy inherited from the AEC. It performed the same licensing and rule-making functions that the regulatory staf f had discharged for two decades. It also assumed some new administrative and regulatory duties. The NRC, unlike the AEC's regulatory staff, was the final arbiter of regulatory issues; its judgment on safety questions wasless susceptib!c to being overridden by developmen-tal prioriticsflhis did not mean that the NRCacted without regard to industry concerns or that its officials always agreed on policy matters, but it did mean that the agency's statutory mandate was cicarly focused on ensuring the safety of nuclear power.

The NRC devoted a great deal of attention during its first few months to organizational tasks. At the same time it carried out a variety of regulatory responsibilities. It continued to review plant applications and to issue construction permits and operating li-censes for new units. The NRC deliberated over a number of pressing problems shortly after its establishment, including the identification of gencric safety issues, the safety of the nuclear fuel cycle, and the safeguarding of nuclear materials. It found that its role in international safeguards issues was more taxing and more complex than it originally anticipated, and it gradually developed procedures for granting licenses for the export of nuclear materi-als.

There were two events in the early months of the NRC's existence that commanded the particular attention of the agency and the public. The first was a major fire at TVA's lirowns Ferry nuclear plants near Decatur, Alabama in March 1975. In the process of

=

looking for air leaks in an area containing trays of electrical cables that operated the plants' control room and safety systems, a tech-sician set off the fire. lie used a lighted candle to conduct the search, and the open flame ignited the insulation around the cables.The fire raged for over seven hours and nearly disabled the safety equipment of one of the twi affected units. The accident was a blow to the public image of nuclear r,ower and the 45 6

A New Agency and Some New Issues recently-established MtC. It focused new attention on preventing g

fires from threatening plant safety and on the possibility of

" common-mode failures,"in which a single breakdown could initi-ate a chain of events that incapacitated cien redundant safety fea-tures.

The second source of unusually extensive discussion and consider-able controversy shortly after the NRC began operations was the publication of the final version of the " Reactor Safety Study" that the AEC had commissioned in 1972 'lhe purpose of the study was to estimate the probability of a severe reactor accident, an issue that the AEC had never found a satisfactory means of addressing.

To direct the study the AEC had recruited Norman C. Rassmus-sen, a professor of nuclear engineering at MIT. Rassmussen, as-sisted by AEC staff members, applied new methodologies and so-phisticated " fault-tree" analyses to project the likelihood of a serious nuclear accident. The final Rass.mussen report, relcased in Octobe r 1975, concluded that in comparison 1o ot her risks, includ-ing fires, explosions, toxic chemicals, dam failures, airplane crashes, carthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes, those from nu.

clear power were very small.

'Ihe Rassmussen report, while hailed as a pioneering effort that enlightened a complex subject, also drew cnticism from both in-side and outside the NRC. Some authorities suggested that the study failed to account for the many paths that could leaJ to major accidents. Others complained that the data in the report did not support its executive summary's conclusions about the relative risks of nuclear power. After considering the arguments on both sides of the issue, the Commission in January 1979 issued a policy statement that withdrewits full endorsement of the study's execu-tise summary.

Within a short time. discussion of sescre nuclear accidents ceased to be strictly a matter of theoretical projections. On March 28, 1979,an accident at Unit 2 of the Three Mde Island nuclear station near liarrisburg, Pennsylvania made the issue starkly and alarm-ingly real. As a result of a series of mechanical failures and human x

46

L t

Chapter 3

. errors, the accident (researchers later determined) uncovered the reactor's core and melted about half ofit. The immediate cause of r

the accident was a pressure relief valve that stuck open and al-lowed large volumes of reactor coolant to escape.The reactor op-erators misread the signs of a loss-of-coolant accack nt and, for sev-eral hours, failed to take action to cool the core. Although the plant's emergency cooling systems began to work according to de-4 sign, the operating crew decided to reduce the flow from them to i trickle. By the time that the nature of the accident was recognizeil and the core was flooded with coolant, the reactor had suffered is reparable damage.

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i Re credibility of the nuclear industry and the NRC fared almost as badly. Uncertainty about the causes of the problem, ccmfusion about how to deal with it, conflicting information from govern-ment and industry experts, and contradictory appraisals about the level of danger in tne days following the accide it often made the authorities appear inept, deceptive, or both. Press accounts fed publi; fears and fostered a deepening perception of a technology that was out of control. Walter Cronkite told television viewers that as a result of the accident,"the danger faced by man for tam-i pering with natural forces, a theme from the myths of Prometheus to the story of Frankenstein, moved closer to fact from fancy

47 t

a

A New Agency and Some New Issues i

Newspapers ran headlines warning, for example, of a " RACE WIT 11 NUCLEAR DISASTER"and -RISK OF MlilllDOWN."

long after the technological dangers had subsided, the psychologi-cal effects of the TMI accident linger' d on.

e In some ways, the TMI accident produced reassuring, or at least encouraging, information for reactor experts about the design and f

operation of the safety systems in a large nuclear plant. Despite the substantial degree of core melting that occurred, containment l

was not breached. From a11 indications, the amount of radioactivity l

released into the envir mrnent as a result of the accident was very

[

low. One estimate suggested that of 66 million curies of l

iodine-131 in the reactor at the time of the accident, only 14 or 15 curies escaped. Further, the emergency core cooling systems -

i worked effectively once plant operators allowed them to run ac-f cording to design.

I Those findings were overshadowed by the unsettling disclosures of TMI. it focused attention on possible causes of accidents that the AEC/NRC and the nuclear industry had not considered exten sively. Their working assumption had been that the most likely j

cause of a loss-of-coolant accident was a break in a large pipe that

[

fed coolant to the core. Ilut the destruction of the core at TMI had l

1 resulted not from a large pipe break but from a relatively mmor mechanical failure that operator errors had drastically com-pounded t

i Perhaps the most distressing revelation of TMI was that an acci-dent so severe could occur at all. Neither the AEC/NRC or the industry had ever claimed that a major reactor accident was impos-sib!c, despite multiple and redundant safety features built into nu-f clear plants. Ilut they had regarded it as highly unlikely, to the i

j point of being nearly incredible. The TMI accident demonstrated graphically that serious cimseque;ces could arise from unantici-j pated events.nis cnhanced the credibility of nuc! car entics who had argued for years that no facility as complex as a nuclear plant could be made fool-proof. Public opinion po!!s taken after TMI i'

showed a significant erosion in suppon for nuclear power. One t

48 i

I t

Chapter 3 -

i survey found for the first time that the number of respondents who

}

opposed building more nuclear units exceeded those who favored new plants. At the same time, the polls indicated that the public

[

did not want to abandon nuclear power or close existing plants.

The NRC responded to TMI by re-examining the adequacy of its i

safety requirements and imposing new regulations to correct defi-l

ciencies. It placed much greater mphasis on " human factors" in plant performance in an effort to avoid a repeat of the opemtor

.l errors that had exacerbated the accident. The agency developed j

new requirements for operator training, testing and licensing, and

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for shift scheduling and overtime. In cooperation with industry groups,it promoted the increased use of reactor simulators and the caref ul assessment of control rooms and instrumentation. In addition, the agency expanded its resident inspector program to station at least two of its inspectors at each plant site.

The NRC devoted greater attention to other problems that had received limited consideration before DTI. Hey inc!uded the pos.

sible effects of small failures that could lead to major conse-quences, such as happened at Three Mile Island.The agency spon-l sored a serics of studies on the ways in which *small breaks and l

transients" could threaten plant safety. A second area on which the NRC focused was the evaluation of operational data from li-censees. It established a new Office for Analysis and Evaluation of Operational Data to systematically review information from and the performance of operating plants. This action reflected the be-lated recognition that malfunctions similar to those at Bil had oc-curred at other plants, but the information had never been assimi-l lated or disseminated.

l

'Ihe NRC undertook other initiatives as a result of TMI. It decided to survey radiation protection procedures at operating plants in or-der to assess their adequacy and to h>ok for ways to improve exist-ing regulations. It expanded research programs on problems that j

TMI had highlighted, including fuel damage, fission-product re-lease, and hydrogen generation and control. In light of the confu-Sion and uncertainty over evacuation of the areas surrounding 49

)

A New Agency and Some New Issues TMI during the accident, the NRC also sought to upgrade emer-gency preparedness and planning. Those and other steps it took in the wake of the accident were intended to reduce the likelihood of a major accident, and, in the event one occurred, to enhance the ability of the NRC. the utility, and the public to cope with it.

While the NRC was still deliberatmg over and revising its require-ments in the aftermath of TMI, another event shook the industry and further undercut public support for nuclear power. This time, the NRC was a distant though interested observer rather than a direct participant. On April 26,1986, unit 4 of the nuclear power station at Chernobyl in the USSR underwent a violent explosion -

that destroyed the reactor and b!cw the top off it, spewing massive amounts of radioactivity into the environment. The accident oc-curred during a test in which operators had turned off the plant's safety systems and then lost control of the reactivity in the reactor.

Without emergency cooling or a containment building to stop or at least slow the escape of radiation, the areas around the plant quickly became seriously contaminated and a radioactive plume spread far into other parts of the Soviet Union and Europe. Al-though the radiation did not pose a threat to the United States, one measure of its intensity in the Soviet Union was that levels of iodine-131 around Three Mile Island were three times as high af-ter Chernobyl than they were after the TMI accident.

The design of the Chernobyl reactor was entirely different than that of U. S. plants, and the series of operator blunders that led to the accident defied belief. Supporters of nuclear power empha-sized that a Chernobyl-type accident could not occur in commer-cial plants in the United States (or other nations) and that Ameri-can reactors featured safety systems and containment to prevent the release of radioactivity. But nuclear critics pointed to Cher-nobyl as the prime example of the hazards of nuclear power. A representative of the Union of Concerned Scientists remarked:

"11e accident at Chernobyl makes it clear. Nuclear power is inher.

ently dangerous." A popular slogan that quickly appeared on the placards of European environmentalists was: CHERNOBYL IS 50

Chapter 3

. EVERYWIIERE, ne Chernobyl tragedy was a major setback to the hopes of nuclear proponents to win public support for the

technology and to spur orders for new reactors. U. S. utilities had not ordered any new plants since 1978 and the number of cancella-tions of planned units was growing "We're in trouble," conceded a

- spokesman for the Atomic Industrial Forum. "If the calls I have j-received from people in the industry are a good indication, they are all very worried."

The Chernobyl accident added a new source of ccmcern to long-standing controversies over the licensing of several reactors in the United States. In the aftermath of nree Mile Island, the NRC had w mended the gmnting of operating licenses for plants that weto.a the pipeline. The " licensing pause" for fuel loading and

- low-power testing ended in February 1980, In August 1980 the NRC issued the first full. power operating license (to North Anna-2) since TMI, In the following nine years it granted full-power licenses to over forty other reactors, most of which had re-ceived construction permits in the mid-1970s. In 1985 it authorized the undamaged nree Mile Island Unit 1, which had been shut down for refueling at the time of the TMI-2 accident, to resume operation.

Although many of the licensing actions aroused little opposition, others triggered major controversies. ne two licensing case: th..:

precipitated what were perhaps the most bitter, protracted, and widely publicized debates were Seabrook in New flampshire and Shoreham on Long Island, New York.ne key, though hardly the sole, issue in both cases was emergency planning.ne Three Mile Island accident had vividly demonstrated the deficiencies in exist-ing procedures for coping with an off-site nuclear emergency.The

' lack of effective preparation had produced confusion, uncertainty, and panic among members of the public faced with the prospect of exposure to radiation releases from the plant. After the accident, the NRC, prodded by Congress to improve emergency planning, adopted a rule that required each nuclear utility to come up with a plan for evacuating the population within a ten mile radius of its 51

A New Agency and Some New issues plant (s) in the event of a reactor accident. The rule applied to plants in operation and under constructinn. It called for plant own-ers to work with state and kical pohce, fire, and civil defense authorities to put together an emergeng plan that would be tested and evaluated by the NRC and the l'ederal limergeng Manage-ment Agency (IB1 A). 'lhe NRC expected cooperation between federal, state and kical government officials to upgrade emergency plans and provide better protection for the public if a serious nu-clear accident occurred.

The NRC did not, however, anticipate that state and hical govern-ments would try to prevent the opention of nuclear plants by re-fusing to participate in emergency preparations. That was pre-cisely what the states of New York and Massachusetts sought to do in the cases of Shoreham and Seabrook. In New York. Governor Mario M. Cuomo and other state officials claimed that it would be impossible to evacuate long Island if Shoreham suffered a major accident. 'Iherefore, the state refused to join in emergency plan-ning procedures or dnlis. The NRC granted Shoreham a low-power operatmg license, but the state and the utility, Iong Island Lighting, eventually reached a settlement in which the company agreed not to operate the plant in return for concessions from the state.

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Chapter 3 A similar issue arose at Seabrook, though the outcome was differ-

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ent ~Ihe plant is located in the state of New Hampshire, but the

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ten mile emergency planning zone extended across the state line j

' into Massachusetts. By the time that construction of the plant was j

completed, Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis, largely -

.j as a result of Chernobyl, had decided that he would not cooperate j

with emergency planning efforts for Seabrook. New Hampshire officials worked with federal agencies to prepare an emergency plan, but Massachusetts, arguing that crowded beaches near the l

Seabrook plant could not be evacuated in the event of an accident,

-f refused. As a result of the positions of New York regarding i

Shoreham and Massachusetts regarding Seabrook, in 1988 the NRC adopted a " realism rule," which was grounded on the prem-ise that in an actual emergency state and local governments would I

make every effort to protect public health and safety.Therefore, in cases in which state and/or local officials declined to participate in emergency planning, the NRC and FEMA would review and j

evaluate plans developed by the utility. On that basis, the NRC is-sued an operating license for the Seabrook plant. The arguments

[

that raged over emergency planning and other issues at Shoreham j

and Seabrook attracted a great deal of attention, spawned heated

'I controversy, and raised anew an old question of the relative i

authority of federal, state, and local governments in licensing and I

regulating nrclear plants.

t The lengthy and laborious licensing procedures that applicants had to undergo in the cases of Shoreham (which had received a construction permit in 1973), Seabrook (which had received a construction permit in 1977). and other reactors stirred new inter-

[

est in simplifying and streamlining the regulatory process. It seemed apparent that the complexity cithe licensing process was a major deterrent to utilities who might consider building nuclear plants. By the late 1980s, the nuclear option looked more appeal-ing to some observers, includmg some environmentalists, because

[

of growing concern about the consequences of burning fossil fuel, especially acid rain and global warming. Furthermore, nuclear

.[

53 l

A New Agency and Some New Issues vendors were advancing new designs for plants that greatly re-duced the chances of TMI-type and other severe accidents.

i One way that Ihe NRC proposed to facilitate licensing procedures i

was to replace the traditional two-step pmcess with a one-step sys.

tem.'lhis would case the burden on applicants. but it raised a vi-i tally important question: what level of detail would the NRC re-

)

quire in applications for advanced plants in order to satisfy its l

concerns about their safety? The agency had never required the detailed technictd information in construction permit proposals I

that it expected in operating license applications, but in a one-step licensing process it was uncicar how much data would be needed to evaluate and certify safety designs, j

After long discussions that reflected differmg views among com-missioners, statf, and nuclear sendors, the NRC reached a deci-l sion on what constituted an " essentially complete design." It es-i tablished a " graded approach" in which the level of detail that an applicant would be required to submit varied according to the sys-

[

tem's, structure's. or component's relationship to plant safety.The objective of the NRC's action was to ensure safety while providing j

I flexibility for the development of new designs.

i j

While the NRC was deliberating over a number of new regulatory l

procedures and problems, it was also reviewing some old issues.

l The most prominent of those questions was radiation standards.

)

l

'lhe NRC had begun work on revising its radiation protection regulations in the aftermath of Three Mile Island. Although the AEC had issued " design objectives" that in effect reduced the per-

)

missible lesels of radioactive effluents from nuclear plants in the l

1970s, the basic regulations for occupational and population expo-l sure had remained unchanged since 1961 (an average of 5 rem per l

l i

year for radiation workers and 0.5 rem annually for individuals in the general population). Based upon new recommendations of the NCRP and the ICRP and upon new research findings, the NRC l

tightened its regulations in several regards, the most prominent of which was to restrict population exposure to 100 (rather than 500) l mdlitem per year.

l l

54

d r

i

.I 1

Chapter 3 ji I

t L Despite new scientific information and epidemiological studies.

l the health effects of low-level radiation remained a source of un-

[

certainty and controversy. Some studies provided results that were l

very reassuring about the hazards of radiation emissions from nu-clear plants. A major survey conducted by the National Cancer In-stitute, for example, found no increased risk of cancerin 107 coun-ties in the United States located near 62 nuclear power plants. But other evidence was more disquieting, such as a cluster of cancer cases near the Pilgrim reactor in Massachusetts and a high inci-dence of leukemia in children around the Sellafield reprocessing

~

plant in Britain.

>t None of the studies on the effects of low-level radiation was, or i

claimed to be, definitive. The subject continued to be a source of interest to and debate among scientists. It also continued to be a source of considerable anxiety to the public. The most graphic evi-l dence of public apprehension about radiation was it reaction to i

the NRC's announcement of a new policy on radiatu sevels that l

were "below regulatory concern" (BRC). In June 1990, the NRC published a policy statement outlining its plans to establish rules

-f and procedures by which small quantities of low-level radioactive matcrials could be exempted from regulatory controls.He agency i -

proposed that if radioactive materials did not expose individuals to more than 1 millirem peryear or a population group to more than 1000 person-rem per year, they could be eligible for the exemp-

[

tion. This would not be granted automatically; the NRC would consider requests for exemptions for sites that met the dose crite-j ria through its rulemaking or licensing processes. It intended that the BRC policy would apply to consumer products, landfills, and j

other sources of very low levels of radiation. De NRC explained that the BRC policy would enable it to devote more time and re-sources to major regulatory issues and Ihereby better prot ect pub-l I

- lic heahh and safety.

!~

t The NRC's announcement of its intentions on BRC was greeted a

with a firestorm of protest from the public, Congress, the news media, and antinuclear activists. Some critics suggested that the f

55 i

i

ew Agency and Some New Issues agency was defaulting on its responsibility for public health and that IIRC would allow the nuclear industry to discard dangerously radiaactive wastes m public trash dumps. It was, alleged one anti nuclear group,"a trade-off of people's lives m favor of the fman-cial interests of the nuclear industry."In pubhc meetings that the NRC held to explain llRC, aroused citizens called rep'eatedly for the resignation of the commissioners or their indictment under criminal charges. Eventually, the Commission decided to defer any action on the HRC issue. The outcry os er IlRC underscored the difficulty of even attempting to sponsor a calm and reasoned discussion on the subject of radiation hazards.

The uproar us er liRC was one of sescral indications of how the regulatory environment had chanped since the passage of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act made powihic the development of nuclear power for electrical generation. A public that had welcomed the growth of nuclear power in the 1950s had become skeptical of the technology and suspicious of those responsible for its safety. Nu-cicar plants had become larger, more compheated, and more costly to build. He longest running nuclear plant until its closure in 1942, Yankee Rowe in Massachusetts, had a capacity of 175 electncal megawatts and was constructed for about $39 milhon. liy comparison, for example, Seabrook had a capacity of 1150 electri-cal mcpawatts and cost oser 56 bilhon to build. The length and compleuty of the licensing process had grown commensurately.

The owners of Yankee Rowe applied for a construction permit in 1956 and received an operatmg license m 1960 without a murmur of protest. Seabnmk's owners apphed for a construction permit in o

1973 and received an operating hcense in 1990 af ter long legal pro-ceedmgs and many angry demonstrations. The contrasts between Yankee Row e and Seabnok wcre results of a series of technolopi-cal. regulatory, admims.rative, and pohtical developments that have made nuclear regulation an enormously complex, highly con-troversial, and end'essly engaging issue.

56

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