ML20044B598

Responds to Invitation to Comment on Areas Where Regulatory Process Can Be Improved & Generation Costs Can Be Reduced While Current High Degree of Safety Maitained

ML20044B598
Person / Time
Site:	Calvert Cliffs
Issue date:	12/29/1992
From:	Creel G BALTIMORE GAS & ELECTRIC CO.
To:	Selin I, The Chairman NRC COMMISSION (OCM)
References
NUDOCS 9301190042
Download: ML20044B598 (6)

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. GASAND ELECTRIC 1650 CALVERT CLIFFS PARKWAY e LUSBY, MARYLAND 20657-4702 Geomorc caen Samoa Vect Passiotwf m on m.ua Dmher 29,1992 He HonorableIvan Selin .

Chairman U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Comminion Washington,DC 20555

SUBJECT:

Succestions to Improve the Rerulatorv Process

Dear Chairman Selin:

Baltimore Gas and Electric Company is pleased to respond to your imitation to comment on areas where the regulatory process can be improved and generation costs can be reduced while the current high degree of safetyis maintained.

We recently wrote NUMARC describing three specific suggestions to improve the current regulatory

' process. A copy of that letter is enclosed. First, both NRC and nuclear industry must strive to revise the regulatory structure. It must become more effectively geared to actual performance and risk than the current programmatic, deterministic approach.

Second, there are several current programs - including security, containment testing, and reporting requirements - that are overly prescriptive and unnecessarily expensive. Rese can be immediately revised without degrading safety. Adc itionally, we encourage and support merging the maintenance and license renewal rules to avoid duplication of efforts.

Third, we encourage NRC to re-focus their enforcement of current regulation to emphasize safety-significant issues. NRC management must take strong and unambiguous actions to motivate their staffs to carefully determine the safety significance of issues they are working on. Pursuing

. programmatic details ofissues that have no safety significance is a wasteful diversion of public and industry resources which we can ill afford.

f Flog Finally, we have reviewed the letter you received from Mr. John C. Brons, President and Chief Operating Officer of New York Power Authority. It contains an F.xcellent discussion of how procurement practices have driven up operating and maintenance costs. We agree with every point that he makes. Industry and NRC must revisit the procurement arena and correct the problems he describes.

He general public and our customers know, or at least are again starting to concede, that generating electricity from nuclear power is technically and environmentally sou,nd. De quality of energy produced versus its impact on the environment - a lot for a little- should not become a lost opportunity. We are, however, concerned that the nuclear option may not remain fiscally sound. It is unfair for the public to lose the nuclear option. Rising nuclear operating costs are caused in part by the inability of NRC and industry to work togeth'er, assess regulatory " lessons-learned" and revise regulations as necessgrgu cpust ensure the public only_ pay _s the correct cost of nuclear power

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,- Chairman Selin December 29,1992 Page 2 through regulation that ensures safety by resoMng risk.significant issues without wasteful distractions.

3 We look forward to discussing our ideas with you either personally or through NUMARC. Should you have any questions regarding this matter, we will be pleased to discuss them sit you.

Very trulyyours, t

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Enclosure cc: C. H. Poindexter Commissioner K. C. Rogers, hPC Commissioner J. R. Curtiss, NRC Commissioner F.J. Remick, hTC Commissioner G. DePlanque, hPC J. C. Brons, NYPA J. M. Taylor, NRC Document ControlDesk, NRC Nuclear Management and Resources Council D. A Brune, Esquire J. E. Silberg, Esquire R. A Capra, NRC D. G. Mcdonald, Jr., NRC T. T. Martin, NRC P. R. Wilson, NRC R. I. McLean, DNR J. H. Walter, PSC

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cat.TIMOPtE GAS AND ELECTRIC 1650 OALVERT CLIFFS PARKWAY e LUSBY, MARYLAND 20657-4702 Gnomot C Catti, ca. v cs e..... .n im os aso-mo November 3,1992 Nuclear Management & Resources Council 1776 Eye Street, NW, Suite 300 Washington,DC 20006 24 %

SUBJECT:

Industry-wide Initiative to Reduce Nuclear Generation Costs Gentlemem Baltimore Gas and Electric Co=pany considers the issue of how to improve the regulatory process to reduce nuclear generation costs while at the same time maintaining the current high degree of safety vital. We greatly appreciate Chairman Selin's invitation to identify areas where economics can be achieved without appreciable detriment to safety. We strendy urge NRC to pursue actions in response to this initiative.

Our suggestions fallin three areas. Em, we should strive to establish a revised regulatory structure more effectively geared to actual performance and risk than the current deterministic, programmatic appteach. Properly conceived, we believe this offers the long. term hope for regaining the nuclear option's competitive advantage in the nation's energy strategy.

Second. we believe that there are several current programs which are unnecessarily prescriptive and expensive - security is a prime example - and which could be immediately revised without degrading safety. We strongly urge the Commiuion to move promptly on these issues to demonstrate the practicality of reasoned reductions in regulation, thereby reversing the long. standing trend of expanding regulation.

Hid, we encourage NRC to take strong and unambiguous actions to encourage its staff to execute current regulation with a constant emphasis on safety. Pursuit of prograrmnatic details without safety ,

signi5cance are an inappropriate a!!ocation of both the regulator's and the utility's resources. '

SHirlING TO PERFORMANCE. BASED OR RISK. BASED REGULATION l This is the area in Nch we feel the greatest economics can be achieved. "Ibe initial basis for regulatory review of licenses was a deterministic approach in which nearly every plausible scenario was. evaluated, all equipment involved in the plant response was scrutinized, and detailed .

programmatic controls were established to assure the reliability of these components. We can now do better. As the technology has matured, we have developed extensive operating experience to focus our attention on the truly risk.signi5 cant equipment. Probabilistic Risk Assessment has been established as a meaningful quantifier of risk. These tools have enabled us to recognize and resolve many issues not fully apparent at initial licensing. They have also created the means to eliminate or reduce regulation in areas where safety is not materially affected.

NUMARC .

November 3,1992 Page 2 .

Procurement .

The prime impact of a proposed shift to risk- and performance-based regulation is in procurement.

We have many components designated as safety-related (SR) which do not contribute measurably to overall plant risk. The additional pedigree required for SR parts imposes a huge expense which is only justiSed for the limited number of components which truly affect plant safety. Restoring the abnity to use commercial-grade parts in the non-essential applications would substantiaHy reduce costs. In many cases, it would also improve the availability of these systems by allowing the utility access to the whole range of suppliers rather than the very limited (and dwindling) number.who maintain the certi5 cation required for SR parts. A second aspect of the burden created by overly-restrictive designation of systems or components as SR is the quality assurance / quality control standard imposed on their installation. DetaUed procedural controls and oversight requirements add sigmHeantly to our expense in areas which are often marginal to safety.

SurveiUance Another area in which a risk-based approach could yield substantial bene 5ts is survealances. Given the hundreds of surveillance tests performed with successful results, there should be a performance-based methodology to easily change test intervals based on the trend of these results. The current regulatory process to amend surveillance periodicity is too cumbersome to aUow routine adjustments.

Modifying surveillance periodicity based on performance will lead to reduced resounes demands and shutdown or system out-of-service time devoted to testing. It should improve true safety system availability by leaving the equipment in service.

A long-term objective should be a Safety Goal quantifying an appropriate assurance of safety while empowering the licensee to select the appropriate method to acec=plish it. Because of the large potential savings involved through improvmg current deter:ninisticaUy-derived regulatory rules, BG&E is ready to devote signi5 cant resources in cooperation with the industry and NRC to move forward in this area.

i BfPROVEMDT OF CURRDT RULES We have reviewed SECY-92-263, " Staff Plans for Elimination of Requirements Marginal to Safety."

We strongly encourage the NRC to aggressively pursue rulemaking to reduce the regulatory burden of containment structure leakage testing procedures (Appendix J), Ere protection features (Appendix R) and features for post. accident combustible gas control contained in it. The following other examples iUustrate areas where we feel an opportunity exists to quickly attain results:

s Securitv  ;

- For apprcximately the last twenty years, the securitf plan has been based on a specific tnrest concept. Has the NRC re-evaluated the credibility of the threat that the security plan is designed to address? Have actual security threats justi5ed the need for the current elaborate security plan? Do we need a paramilitary force or an enhanced industrial security force? A reduction in the postulated threat (which appears to be more suitable for a DOE weapons-grade plant) and commensurate reduction in stafEng and equipment could result in substantial annual savings. We wou!J be pleased to participate in a NUMARC. sponsored i effort to make speci5c recommendations regarding the relaxation of security requirements.

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( NUMARC

• November 3,1992 .

Page 3-l l Aeoendix 7 Containment Lenka re Testine 1

Our type A Conrainment Izakage Tests are perfonned roughly every thiny months. Over the remining life of our present licenses, we will perform about 21 more Tyx Atests.

Including set-up and restoration time, each test takes two-to-three days on critica, path at a replacement power cost of about $340,000 per day. The direct cost of performing the test is about $200,000. We believe that the demonstrated reliability of our containment justi5es reducing the fre3uency of this. test to once every six years. "Ihis could reduce the total number of remming tests from 21 to 7. These would represent an amidance of over j

$81/2 million with no appreciable reduction in safety. j i

l Renortine Recuirements ]

- We believe there is substantial economy in reducing the many bureaucratic requirements that have cropped up over the years. The recent NUMARC letter on Reporting Requirements is I an excellent compilation of the scope of the problem. 'Ibe cumulative effect of reducing these requirements should afford substantial savings.

IMPROVED DTORCEMDT OF CURRDT RULES Beyond the issue of the commitment and readiness of NRC management to institute change, we anticipate signi5 cant implementation difHeulties. Our own organizational experience shows that in I

addition to conceptual acceptance by management, there must be a parallel effort to revise the organization's culture. A well-conceived revision of regulation can be effectively nulli5ed if inspectors in the Seld or mid-level supervisors are not on board. Strong upper-echelon encouragement and clear incentives from management are necessary to accomp!Ish the desired results at the working level. The groundwork for this can be laid by continual reinforcement that safety impact is essentialin regulatory activities under the current rules.

While current enforcement policy makes distinctions between safety.signi5 cant and non. safety-signincant regulatory matters, there is often substantial effort consumed in review and discussion of many pure compliance concerns. Openness to change and innovation by the licensee is not always characteristic of NRC stati and Staff review of licensee internal process revisions, for example, can discourage change just through inertia. Aggressive management leadership can go far to eliminate these undesirable characteristics and thereby set the stage for effective implementation of new rules as they are adopted.  :

f In summary BG&E considers it essential that the nuclear industry and NRC aggressively revise the current regulatory framework. 'Ibe long:-term vision must be established and energetically pursued.

Equally important, we must take immediate action to reduce those marginal requirements already identiSed. We must act now! This industry is slowly bleeding to death with our own and regulator in5uenced bureaucracy. A joint effort aimed at a healthy review of these initiatives can lead to enbnced safety by focusing our mutual efforts in less prescriptive and more rational areas.

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• November 3,1992 Page 4 , ,

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