ML20049K115
| ML20049K115 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Point Beach  |
| Issue date: | 03/23/1982 |
| From: | Wiesemann R WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC COMPANY, DIV OF CBS CORP., WISCONSIN ELECTRIC POWER CO. |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20049K101 | List: |
| References | |
| ISSUANCES-OLA, NUDOCS 8203290424 | |
| Download: ML20049K115 (7) | |
Text
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3/23/82
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UNITED STATES CF AMERICA CP--
NUCLEAR REGULATORY CCMMISSION Before the Atomic Safety and Licensing 3caroy t...; c PT'q'l t
In the Matter of
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)
WISCONSIN ELECTRIC POWER COMPANY
)
Docket Nos. 50-266-CLA and 50-301-OLA
)
(Point Beach Nuclear Plant,
)
Units 1 and 2)
)
SUPPLEMENTARY TESTI' MONY OF ROBERT A. WIESEMANN ON BEHALF CF APPLICANTS My name is Robert A. Wiesemann.
My business address is Westing-house Electric Corporation, Nuclear Technology Division, P.O. Box 355, 4
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15230.
My qualifications are as stated in my testimony served on the parties on February 25, 1982 with one addition.
I am a registered professional engineer in the State of Pennsylvania (PE-8772-E).
This supplementary testimony on behalf of the applicant is in re-sponse to certain questions raised by Judges Bloch and Paxton in a telephone conference between the parties to this proceeding.
(Tr.1084-1177, March 4, 1982).
Question 1 "Which of the tests performed by Westinghouse in order to comply with ANSI standards would be routinely performed by any company seeking to couply with those standards, or are in fact required to be per-formed by the standards themselves?"
(Tr. 1100), and
-Question 7 "I would like to explore... the extent to which the sleeving tests bear on publfc safety as opposed to the extent to which they simply represent sound engineering practice."
(Tr.1120)
C203290424 820323 PDR ADOCK 05000266 T
Since sleeving is a new industry process for repair of steam generator tubes there are no specific ANSI Standards that apply " routinely" which would cefine which safety tests are required.
Westinghouse is a pioneer in the sleeving process and has developed a set of applicable design and test criteria based on Regulatory Guides, the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Codes and sound engineering practice.
Satisfying the requirements of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Yessel Codes ensures safe in-service perfomance of the sleeves.
(See WCAP-9960, Rev. 1, pages 3.1 and 3.6. )
These ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Codes constitute the minimum requirements of the Commission's Regulation pertaining to steam generator tubing set forth in 10 CFR 50.55a.
There are important consider-ations that go beyond meeting safety requirements.
In order to have a competitive product it is necessary to be able to provide assurance that plant availability will not be aaversely affected.
For example, during operation plant safety is maintained by adhering to Technical Specification limits.
If the sleeved tubes develop excessive leaks, the plant would be shut down and the condition would be corrected without any safety impact.
Plant operators need assurance that the likelihood of this is sufficiently low.
The ASME code has no requirement which addresses leakage.
Never-theless, our testing program goes beyond the ASME " requirements" in this regard.
Sound engineering practice dictates that we go beyond the require-ments of the code in order to address other requirements of sleeving as a product line.
Leakage is only one such consideration that has been factored into our testing program.
The plant operator also needs assurance of a reliable installation process which can be completed without significant problems of acceptance that could extend plant downtime.
Even where ASME standards specify testing requirements, they are in most cases optional if analyses have been perfomed which meet ASME code requirements.
The exceptions are such things as hydro-tests upon completion and base-line examinations for inservice inspection.
Sound engineering practice, when considering the overall requirements for a competitive pro-
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S 3-duct, cictate the extent of sucn optional testing.
Thus, in accition to revealing oistinguishing aspects of our prccesses theaselves, revealing this information to our ccapetitors would reveal our Juagement and decisions regarding what is required to be ccmpetitive and is a type of infomation we woulo consider very valuable to obtain about our ccapetitors' activities.
We assute it would likewise be valuable to our ccmpetitors.
Question 4
" Histo,-ically, have FSARs filed by applicants claimed proprietary treatment for tests that were performed in orcer to establish the safety of applicants' power reactors?"
(Tr. 1104)
FSAR's are written to be non-proprietary.
In accordance with Cocuission Regulations (10 CFR Part 2.790 (b)) proprietary infcmation in support of the application is contained in separate docuaents.
There are numerous examples where proprietary treatment has been claimed by Westing-
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house and granted by the Comission for tests perfomed in orcer to estab-lish the safety of Westinghouse power reactors which were the subject of license applications.
In the ECCS hearing the Commission ruled that ter, results and related information are entitlea to proprietary protection (ECCS Tr 4487-86).
The appropriateness of affording proprietary protection to j
test results and relatec infomation recently was reaffirmed by the Commis-sion with reference to test results and data concerning equipment qualifica-tion for safety grade (Class IE) instrumentation and electrical equipcent in nuclear plants.
See SECY letter 81-119.
There were 434 Applications for Withhoicing filed pursuant to 10 CFR 2.790 by Westinghouse or by its cus-l tecers on behalf of Westinghouse in the years 1976 through 1981.
The pro-prietary infomation provided in these submittals was necessary to satisfy infomational requests of the NRC Staff in connection with their consider-f ation of issuing, amenaing, modifying and renewing licenses.
Of these 434 i
t Applications for Withholding, over 150 included proprietary test infomation y
and data.
A wide variety of different types of tests were involved such as
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equipment, process and nesign qualification and verification, heat transfer, fluid mechanics ano dynamics, mechanical, structural and physical proper-ties, vibration, corrosion and general performance.
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-4 This infomation was withheld frca public disclosure.
Sece of it was made available under protective agreement or order for use by interested parties in contested licensing proceedings.
Although our right to protect this infomation has been challenged in-a numbe'r' of these proceedings, that right consistently has been upheld by the Commission.
Question 6 "For what period of time is it necessary in Westing-house's opinion to protect the proprietary nature of its safety tests?
Does 6
the value of the protection decline rapidly as time passes?"
(Tr.1105)
I Westinghouse safety test infomatirn is protected as proprietary so 5
long as its value to Westinghouse is enhancea by such protection.
=;
Westinghouse test infomation is a corporate asset of Westing-i house.
Each request for public release of such infomation is evaluated on its own merits in accordance with established procedures.
No,speci fic period of time is established during which the infomation is to be kept proprietary.
Where the infomation is judged by Westinghouse to be more valuable in the public rather than in the private domain it may be released.
The value of protection may or may not decline rapidly as time g
passes, and in fact may increase as time passes.
Thus, so long as.the value.
to Westinghouse of keeping the information proprietary outweighs the value to Westinghouse of releasing the infomation, it is withheld frca dis-closure, regardless of the length of time involved.
i E
One of the alternatives proposed by the Ccamission when it was considering the promulgatibn of 2.790 in its present fora was to treat information proprietary only for a specific period of time, after which the I
infomation would be made routinely available to the public (38 F.R 31544; f
Alternative 4).
This alternative was rejected by the Corrission af ter
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comments demonstrated that any timelimits set for retaining proprietary g
infomation would be arbitrary and inconsistent with the underlying reasons for affording proprietary protection.
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Question 8 "My understanding is tha-
- this point you've never argued that there is a raosaic and that disclosure of one piece of the puzzle will cisclose the rest.
Am I incorrect in that?
- s there any evidence - "
(Tr 1137)
No one piece of information alone is sufficient to describe all the aspects of the proprietary processes in the Westir; house sleeving process.
In protecting our proprietary processes, we have. sed our best judgement as to that information which might benefit our compe-itors if they had access
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to it.
We can never know for certain how much if any of the information we are withholding he'may have or to which he may gain access.
We do know that each small piece of information we obtain about ole competitor's processes fills in another part of the overall picture.
This situation is analogous to the TV game show in which the contestants are faced with a large panel consisting of perhaps as many as 20 blocks.
As ea:h block is turneo over the contestants in turn attempt to solve the rebus that would be revealed when all the blocks are turned over.
Some contes ants are unable to solve the rebus even when all the blocks are turned over but scoe actually are able to solve the rebus with only the first bicck urned over. At some point, one piece of additional information, even -.ough it may be insigni-ficant in itself, enables one to ceduce the entire picture.
That last piece of inforuation is as valuable as the whole picture.
Since there is no way of knowing what piece of information is going to te the last piece, each piece, no matter how insignificant it appears to be, must be treated as having the value of the whole picture, the picture being the detailed nature and competitive advantages of our steam generator sice?ing process.
4 6
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RhTED COMEswann.,.:
U'*TED STATES 0.: AMERICA
. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSI0ft
'02 0 25 P107 l
Before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board l
f In the Matter of
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t
)
1 WISCONSIN ELECTRIC POWER C0!9ANY
)
Docket Nos. 50-266-OLA
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50-301-OLA (Point Beach Nuclear Plar.:,
)
Units 1 and 2)
)
CEEIFICATE OF SERVICE j
i The Supplementary Testi ony of R. A. Wiesemann in the above-
]
captioned proceeding was sersed upon the :ersons listed on the Service List in this manc.er: Judges Bloch and Kline, and Messrs. Bach and Treby were sent copies air express this 23rd day of March,1982, in care of F. Shomaker; Judge Paxton, Mr. Anderson 3
and Ms. Falk were sent ccpies air express this 23rd day of March, 1982; all others were serve: copies by de:osit in the United States Mail, First Class, postage ; epaid, this 23rd day of March,1982.
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Frarcis X. Davis Att:rney for Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Appearing Specially N
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SERVICE LIST j
1 Wisconsin Electric Power Company-l' (Point Beach Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2)
Peter B. Bloch, Chairman Atomic Safety & Licensing Appeal Board
- Administrative Judge U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety & Licensing Board Panel Washington, D.C.
20555 U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555 Atomic Safety & Licensing Board Panel U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Dr. Hugh C. Paxton Washington, D.C.
20555 Administrative Judge 1229 - 41st Street Docketing and Service Section Los Alamos, New Mexico 87544 Office of the Secretary U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Dr. Jerry R. Kline Washington, D.C.
20555 Administrative Judge Atomic Safety & Licensing Board Panel Bruce Churchill, Esq.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Lisa Ridgway, Esq.
Washington, D.C.
20555 Gerald Charnoff, Esq.
Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge Kathleen M. Falk, Esq.
1800 M Street N.W.
Wisconsin's Environmental Decade Washington, D.C.
20036 j
114 North Carroll Street Madison, Wisconsin 53703 Barton Z. Cowan, Esq.
John R. Kenrick, Esq.
j Richard Bachmann, Esq.
Eckert, Seamans, Cherin & Mellott Stuart A. Treby, Esq.
42nd Floor, 600 Grant Street i
Office of the Executive Legal Director Pittsburgh, PA 15219 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555 l
Francis X. Davis, Esq.
Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Appearing Specially P. O. Box 355 Pittsburgh, PA 15230 6
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