ML20057A885
| ML20057A885 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 09/10/1993 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 9309160129 | |
| Download: ML20057A885 (94) | |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMIS SION 4
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BRIEFING BY ADVANCED REACTOR CORPORATION 0CBCOT:.'
RoCKVILLE, MARYLAhT b3I6*
SEPTEMBER 10, 1993 23g55 75 PAGES NEALR.CROSSANDCO.,INC.
COURT REPORTER $ AND TRAhSCRIBERS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, Northwest Washington, D.C.
20005 (202) 234-4433
)
l
DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on September 10, 1993, in the Commission's office at One White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland.
The meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding t as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as the commission may authorize.
HEAL. R. GROSS CoUtf Rftetttt! AHO TRANSCRfttt$
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(202) 234 4433 WASHfMOTON D.C. 2000$
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BRIEFING BY ADVANCED REACTOR CORPORATION h
PUBLIC MEETING Nuclear Regulatory Commission One White Flint North Rockville, Maryland
)
Friday, September 10, 1993 The Commission met in open
- session, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m.,
Ivan Selin, Chairman, presiding.
t COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
IVAN SELIN, Chairman of the Commission i
KENNETH C.
ROGERS, Commissioner FORREST J.
REMICK, Commissioner l
E.
GAIL de PLANQUE, Commissioner NEAL R. GROSS l
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2 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED-AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
SAMUEL J.
CHILK, Secretary l
MARTIN G.
MALSCH, Office of the General Counsel LOUIS LONG,. Chairman, ARC Utility Management Board t
PAT MCDONALD, Executive Director, ARC JOHN TAYLOR, Vice President, EPRI ZACK PATE, President, INPO JOE COLVIN, President, NUMARC 6
b U
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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2
10:30 a.m.
3 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Good morning, ladies and 4
gentlemen.
5 The Commission welcomes representatives 6
from the Advanced Reactor Corporation and from other 7
related industry organizations, the Electric Power i
8 Research Institute, the Institute for Nuclear Power 9
Operations, and the Nuclear Management and Resources 10 council, all of which are supporting the work of the 11 Advanced Reactor Corporation on. standardization of 12 future nuclear plant designs.
13 As I'm sure you're aware, the Commission 14 is considering these designs for certification based 15 on a partial design.
It's full in concept, but 16 partial in detail, and then the function of the 17 Advanced Reactor Corporation is to take two of these 18 designs and carry them out into greater detail so that 19 utilities, when and if prepared to order reactors, 20 will have a more full design to consider when they 21 make their decisions.
22 The Commission considers the licensing and 23 standardization of future nuclear plant designs to be T
24 one of NRC's highest priorities and we are very 25 pleased to hear today~
from our distinguished NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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a 1
representatives on the status of industry efforts in j
2 support of this effort.
Today we'll be briefed by i
3 these organizations on the status of first-of-a-kind
)
4 engineering, siting, utility requirements document, 1
5 design certification and life cycle standardization, j
6 and finally their views on predictable licensing and 7
stable regulation. The " finally" is to say don't give
)
8 us their views until you go through the other topics l
9 first.
Otherwise, we'll never get to the other 4
10 topics.
8 11 The Corporation last briefed the 12 Commission on the status of first-of-a-kind 13 engineering in June of 1992 We've been regularly 14 kept abreast of the activities through written 15 documents and staff presentations.
i 16 Copies of the slide presentation are 17 available at the entrance to the meeting room.
18 Commissioner Rogers?
19 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Nothing.
20 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Commissioner Remick?
l t
21 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Just a few comments
)
h 22 I'd like to make to hopefully put into perspective 4
23 this meeting from my'own viewpoint.
24 If we go back a few years ago, early on as 25 a Commissioner for me, we had in-depth discussions NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W l
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with the industry on the question of depth of detail 2
necessary for design certification. Within the Agency 3
we had differences.
There were some views that not 4
4 only should the depth of detail presented be adequate 5
to make the safety decisions that the Agency had to 6
make, but that the design should be complete and
)
7 complete so that the Agency could assure that there 8
would be standardization of the plants throughout the 9
life cycle of the plants.
Industry at that time i
10 expressed a view, and I think rightfully so, that 11 perhaps this was going beyond the authority and 12 responsibility of the Agency.
13 I remember in one of those meetings I 14 threw out the concept, just off the top of my head, 15 perhaps we should have something like ASARA, A-S-A-R-16 A,
as standard as reasonably achievable.
Of course 17 that idea kind of went with a lot of other good and 18 naive ideas, but industry did begin to talk then about 19 something called " commercial standardization" and how 20 they would assure commercial standardization and how 21 that was their responsibility and interest.
People 22 like Pat Mcdonald I know at that time were talking 23 commercial standardization should go to standardized 24 training programs and maintenance programs and things 25 like that and I think that's now become called "1ife NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1 cycle standardization. " ' And then something cropped up 2
called "first-of-a-kind engineering" and I don't think 3
I ever admitted outside my office staff I never quite 4
fully understood what that was.
I had some ideas, but 5
I was never completely sure what it meant.
6 And then it was a pleasure for me to be 7
asked several months ago to go to one of the early l
8 meetings of the ARC, Advanced Reactor Corporation, to j
9 give an after dinner talk.
While there, I spent some 10 hours1.157407e-4 days <br />0.00278 hours <br />1.653439e-5 weeks <br />3.805e-6 months <br /> sitting in and listening to the discussion.
I 11 think this was about the second official meeting.
At 12 least it was very soon, either the day or the day 13 after Westinghouse and DOE signed the contract on 14 first-of-a-kind engineering for the AP-600.
15 I came back and told my staff and some 16 others, "I think I finally understand what these words 17 mean," and I expressed to-them, I said, "I
now see 18 design certification as a process-to assure that the 19 plants are designed to be alike, that commercial 20 standardization is an ef fort to assure that the plants 21 are built to be alike and life cycle standardization i
22 is a process to assure that they are maintained to be l
23 kept alike."
And I thought, since the light had lit 24 in my head, that perhaps others maybe were in the same 25
- way, that they didn't completely understand what NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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first-of-a-kind engineering was, so I suggested this 2
meeting.
I 3
Now one of the reasons that I think that 1
4 I began to understand as a result of spending the day 5
there listening to the vendors, the utilities, the DOE l
6 and the INPO personnel talk about this is they used i
7 specific examples.
I began to realize that they were l
i 8
talking about minimizing the number of things like 9
breakers and motor control centers, motor sizes and f
10 characteristics, pump sizes and characteristics, even 11 pipe sizes and schedules and so forth.
In other 12 words, rather than allowing the designers for each 13 system to custom design those systems, that it was t
14 possible to use a minimum set of approved, let's cay, 15 motors or pumps and so forth, that they would utilize 16 those rather than going off in a custom area.
This 17 would have
- benefits, then, in writing the 18 prescriptions for ordering in procurement, in stock-19 piling spare parts, warehousing and things like this.
20 And then also, people talked about such things as 21 standardization in maintenance programs, in training i
22 and security and things like that.
t 23 My only purpose in bringing up this to 24 your point this morning, as I looked at your slides it 25 looked like you were going to be discussing mostly NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1 organization and process and I would hope that as you l
2 go through that, if you can give us specific examples t
3 of the type of things that this will result in, I 4
think it would be very helpful in also us seeing the 5
overall picture of what this process amounts to.
6 MR. MCDONALD:
May I make a comment on 7
that while your words are fresh?
Because, that was a 8
very good summary that the Commissioner gave.
9 Each of the two designs, as a part of the 10 FOAKE contract, provides a standardization plan that 11 provides the type of things you're talking about to 12 assure that you won't have ten different models of 13 valves where you could maybe get away with just three.
14 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Right.
15 MR. MCDONALD:
We are going to give you a 16 broad overview, but I hope we pick up this thread l
17 through the presentation.
18 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Thank you.
19 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Commissioner de Planque?
20 Mr. Long?
21 MR.
LONG:
Okay.
On behalf of the 22 Advanced Reactor Corporation, it is a pleasure to come I
23 back and kind of give you an update of what's happened 24 to us over the last year.
Frankly, quite a lot has 25 happened.
As you may recognize, to begin with, we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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have a little different set of characters up here, l
i 2
. partly due to the expanded scope of the Advanced 3
Reactor Corporation.
4 Last year we talked about FOAKE, first-of-5 a-kind engineering, and that was our total emphasis at 6
that time.
We had a contract that we signed back in 7
February of '92 with the Department of Energy to enter 8
into a cooperative agreement to manage the first-of-a-
)
9 kind engineering program, and so we've been proceeding 10 along with that.
But in addition to that, the NPOC 11 has assigned us some additional responsibilities fer 12 coordinating some of the other building blocks that i
13 are in the NPOC plan and Pat Mcdonald is going to talk i
14 a little more in detail about that later on.
So we 've l
15 got an expanded scope and that's why you see some 16 different people up here to reflect the kind of 17 additional support we've gotten in the industry that's 18 coming together under the Advanced Reactor l
19 Corporation.
!i 7
I've included in the set of slides kind of 21 a simplified chart.
One of the things the Advanced l
22 Reactor Corporation did do was change our managing
)
t 23 structure a little bit.
We changed our title from a 24 PMB to a Utility. Management Board.
I'm not sure i
25 exactly what the significance of that is, except that i
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we just wanted to show that we changed and we've just 2
got a more inclusive group of people on the Utility 3
Management Board, whereas before we had kind of a i
4 small subset managing the activities.
5 We have hired a
full-time Executive 6
Director, Mr. Pat Mcdonald, to manage our program as 7
opposed to a part-time executive.
Pat, by virtue of-8 his previous involvement and commitment to the 9
advanced light water reactor program has just been an 10 ideal fit to our organization.
11 We have instituted utility sponsor groups 12 to oversee the design of both the Westinghouse AP-600 13 and the GE ABWR.
14 We've developed project management staffs 15 that are actually out at the office of the reactor 16 vendors and that was kind of a major decision for us.
17 We're going to have kind of a
tight group in 18 Washington, D.C.
We're actually going to get out P
19 there where the work is being done and we decided to i
20 have our people out at the sites of the vendors so 21 they can work with them hand in glove getting our 22 input into their products as the products are being 23 developed.
24 As you know, we have a f airly broad set of 25 membership for the Advanced Reactor Corporation. Some NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1 15 utilities are contributing monies in times that are 2
very, very tight out there.
Even some people who have 3
dropped out of EPRI have remained in this program and 4
I think that reflects the commitment of the industry 5
to the program and I think reflects on how important 6
we see this as to the future of our industry.
Some of 7
this too, I think, reflects some of the results of a 8
survey that was done back in 1992 that asked of those 9
people who were considering baseload generation, 10 "Would you consider nuclear?"
Some 75 percent of 11 those people said that they would consider the ALWR if 12 the program goes forward as contemplated in the 13 strategic plan.
14 We are also considering expanding this 15 group and there's a solicitation to add others.
Even 16 some foreign utilities are expressing interest in i
17 joining our group.
j i
18 It was decided by NPOC, since these people l
19 are the ones who are most interested in the advanced 20 reactor program, that they ought to be the ones who 21 manage these other building blocks, so that's. kind 22 of -- because of their interest in this program, 23 that's why these utilities were assigned 24 responsibility for coordinating the activities in the i
25 other building blocks.
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Just a quick reminder of the DOE and EPRI 1
2 cooperative agreement. That was initially supposed to 3
be a S200 million program involving passive and 4
evolutionary kind of designs.
Because of the I
5 relatively limited funds that we had, we decided that 6
rather than just spreading the money over the four 7
designs, we would rather develop fully two of those 8
designs, one large plant and one small plant, and get 9
a good picture of what the cost of those plants would 10 ultimately be, rather than, again, just spreading the 11 money across all of them, and so we had a down-12 selection process and the ABWR and the AP-600 were 13 selected.
14 As part of that, we expanded that $200 15 million program into a $276 million program in order 16 to get all of the first-of-a-kind engineering work 17
- done, and the vendors committed to an additional 18 amount of support in order to get the total scope that 19 we had anticipated getting done completed.
We were 20 very gratified to finish those negotiations and sign 21 those contracts.
The selection process was obviously 22 a very complicated one and we had to be very careful 23 about how we did that-but I think we were satisfied 24 that the industry was satisfied with the selection 25 that was made.
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13 1
At this point, I'd like Pat Mcdonald, our 2
Executive Director, to go ahead and talk to you about 3
some of the details of our program.
4 MR. MCDONALD:
Thank you, Lou.
5 (Slide)
First, I'd -like to put on the 6
screen before you the assignment made by NPOC to the 7
ARC organization about the coordination of building 8
blocks 2, 3,
and 4.
That is significant and as we go 9
through I will try to talk about the management by ARC i
10 vis a vis the coordination by ARC.
s 11 The building blocks themselves are s
12 grouped, as you will see from your handout, by two 13 that are generic in nature and then four that are 14 project-specific.
In terms of the organization, I 15 have a busy organization and I'm going to break that
.I 16 down, but I would like to call your attention to the 5
17 overall organization and the fact that there are dark i
18 lines all through it.
That's meaning the word 19
" coordination" and not necessarily the ARC t
20 organization, because it will differ when you get down
?
21 to who is reporting to whom and the responsibilities.
22 (Slide)
So from that
- overall, I'll i
23 proceed to the next chart which says " ARC FOAKE 24 Management.
From that organization can be seen that 25 on the right flank and lef t flank the ARC ABWR utility NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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sponsor group is a key group that is intended to be 2
very active.
Supporting that
- group,
'we' have 3
contingents of people at hor.a corporate offices which 4
would be participating in the reviews which we 5
describe.
Today's electronic networks make that type i
6 of thing real possible on a real time basis.
i
}
7 The project manager location which Lou 8
talked about at each Pittsburgh and San Jose office 9
does have on-site people.
They're on the site there 10 now and they are really, you might say, the direct i
11 responsibility chain of command for ARC carrying out i
12 its direct management of the FOAKC process. Now those
?
13 are just mirror images, the same on both sides.
l' 14 (Slide)
So, to get on a little bit and 15 talk about what the scope of work is, the first thing
.i 16 on the docket is called " detailed engineering that is l
17 not site-specific."
Commissioner Remick mentioned l
18 that.
Let me state that detailed engineering again.
19 It's somewhat hard te get the words just right.
{
20 John Taylor is my automatic check speller 21 on these things.
Most of us use those in computers 22 these days and they're very handy.
Well, I'd like i
23 John to check on me on what I say.
24
- But, first-of-a-kind engineering is 25 intended to be all the generic detailed engineering i
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that's necessary for a plant that's not site-specific 2
and that leads up to a
- form, fit, or function
}
3 identification at that point for the major components, l
4 there's about seven or eight including things like the 5
pressure
- vessel, where-the very detailed 6
specifications are a part of the contract and the 7
remainder of data for detailed specifications and the 8
format and examples are provided.
So, if we were to 9
go any
- further, we would have to make some 10 arrangements for procurement.
So if we think of it as 11 all the generic design that's required in terms of 12 details before you have to make commitments for 13 procurement, that's pretty right.
14 John, would you add anything to that?
I 15 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
I'd just say our goal is i
16 to have done enough work that a cost and schedule 17 estimate could be made with the appropriate e
18 construction sequencing that would be meaningful in i
19 terms of a sponsor coming forth willing to make the j
20 commitments for procurement.
t 21 MR.
MCDONALD:
- Yes, and we were very 22 definite in that definition and in the detailed 23 deliverables to assure that we had a very well-24 identified scope of work for people to look at and go
)
25 forward with.
l l
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1 There are other deliverables other than 2
the detailed first-of-a-kind engineering details.
In 3
fact, the deliverables, there's some 10,000 individual 4
line items of deliverables and they're divided into 5
levels.
The level 1 deliverable, which is somewhere 6
in the neighborhood of 1,500, I think, requires-a 7
detailed review and approval by the ARC organization 8
according to the contract.
9 There are other deliverables other than 10 the strictly design deliverables.
Of course, there's l
11 the QA
- program, things for spare
- parts, the i
12 standardization plan.
The standardization plan, of 13 course, goes hand in hand with the spare parts and f
14 with 62most every aspect.
There's an information 15 management segment, and this is somewhat interesting L
16 and at the same time challenging.
17 We require each contractor to have an IMS 18 system to show how he is doing
-- he or
- she, f
19 Commissioner de Plangue, excuse me -- how they are 20 doing the design so we can follow what they're doing, 21 but it has to be convertible to a neutral file so that 22 it then can be taken up by a follow-on or some overall 23 IMS system and turned into a complete project.
Now 24 I'll make some more comments about that later. That's 25 one of the challenges we have downstream.
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There's also a construction plan and 2
several other plans that are trying to round this out_
3 to provide a good complete package to look at when l
4 FOAKE is done to proceed on with_further work where 5
procurement is required.
6 The basic process for this as far as the 7
management is really the deliverables.
We - have b
8 ourselves oriented around the deliverables.
We have 9
schedule for those deliverable.
We have a review l
10 process where they're reviewed by the utility sponsor 11 groups.
They're reviewed by the ARC staff and of 12 course by the extensions of those organizations at the f
13 home corporate offices of our members, and then the 14 approvals are done by ARC officials.
15 The oversight is very important in this l
16 process.
Its importance reaches beyond that of 17 assuring the contract is properly carried out and i
18 approved.
It goes into the participation which the 19 various utilities have in it.
We feel that only 20 through a strong participation can we really find the i
21 niche and crannies that we need to dig cut to develop i
22 things, can we develop the kind of attitude that will t
23 help us carry out the very strict standardization 24 we're trying to achieve like in the standardization 25 plans, so we've gone to great length to have a lot of i
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industry involvement.
j i
2 The utility sponsor groups have anywhere.
3 from up to 15 people on them and they meet about every I
4 other month.
It's quite a task to get that many 5
people together of those two organizations, in fact, 6
with the Utility Management Board, together, but we 7
have a lot of interchange that way.
8 I would also like to point out that on the 9
FOAKE contract we share this responsibility with the 10 Department of Energy, just like we also share a part j
11 of the responsibility for design certification, and I 12 think that that understanding of our sharing with DOE l
13 is basically the management of this contract.
We 14 actually have a contract with DOE to manage this 15 FOAKE, and so we're directly responsible just like in 16 any business venture.
17 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
So "USG oversight" 18 doesn't stand for U.S.
government oversight?
19 MR. MCDONALD:
No, no, no.
I wish I could 20 think of some quick come-back, but I can't.
21 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
To what extent are 22 DOE people actually involved in things like reviewing, 23 the reviewing process?
24 MR.
MCDONALD:
They're pretty deeply 25 involved and we work together quite closely.
For NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 234 4 33
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i 1
example, in virtually all the meetings of the USG, the 2
UMB, the Utilities Steering Committee we have~ DOE i
3 representatives attend.
I don't remember one there i
4 hasn't been representatives there.
5 Now in addition to the direct management 6
of the products, we look at other aspects of those, 7
and that is we conduct conformance assessments -- you j
8 might call those audits, but they go further than an t
9 audit'would -- of how the work is being carried out.
f i
10 Is it complying with the utilities requirement I
11 dcqument?
Is it complying with the submittals of the f
12 design certifications? It 's a check.
It's a check so l
13 that if we find a problem we can follow-up in more 14 depth.
15 Design reviews, we conduct design reviews l
16 of items.
If there's an area we don't quite 17 understand -- and some of those areas have been 18 involved, some of the passive features of the plants, 19 some of the innovative applications which are proven 20 technology but they haven't been used in this way 21 before -- we will conduct design reviews of them and 22 go into great detail and depth on those.
~
23 And of course we have schedular reviews at 24 the same time, because that's part of the contract, 25 part of the commitments made by the utilities we've NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPOR'.ERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1 contracted-with'for certain amounts of money over a j
2 period of time, and'we have to fulfill those..
3 There are a great many other day to day 4
actions between the on-site ARC staff and'the design 5
team and that's a very healthy part of managing that.
6 I could almost go on to more detail than 7
you want to hear about the amount of activities we 8
have.
I would like to mention a few, s
9 The testing progress.
The testing l
10 programs are very important and we have a test 11 committee set up which reviews the layout of those 12 test programs and tracks the result as we go along.
13 That is an important thing and we review the results 14 with the vendor.
15 The standardization plans which we were 16 just talking about.
l 17 The IMS systems.
18 Another one which I think most of you have 19 asked about in one way or another is what happens with j
20 time when our utility requirement document changes.
21 We expect that to be a living document as long as i
22 we're learning things and we will continue to learn 23 things throughout the FOAKE process, so we will make 24 changes to the utility requirements document as we 25 feel are prudent, are prudent for the overall vision NEAL R. GROSS CoVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
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t i
-21 1
of how we started
- out, and that is to make 2
requirements for plants which people will want to buy 3
and which they feel like they can operate in a very 4
safe and economical manner.
5 The utility sponsor group must have 6
concurrence with any changes which we make and the --
7 I can't stop this review process without talking about 8
cost.
We also review the cost effectiveness of the 9
programs as we go along.
We have those, as you might 10 expect, in progress now in both of our projects.
11 (Slide)
The coordination in this chart, l
12 I have dotted lines and hard lines and the dotted l
13 lines are coordination functions.
I'm not going to 14 say too much about this, because we have three other 15 parties who will speak quite well to the activities 16 going on.
John Taylor will follow me and talk about.
i 17 the center block that EPRI has, and then Zack Pate 18 will talk about life cycle standardization, and then 19 Joe Colvin about the regulatory stabilization.
1 I
20 You will notice that the coordination 21 blocks going to the design certification is a dashed 22 line.
That's because in our NPOC plan each of the two 23 vendors there have responsibility for those blocks and 24 then contractual-wise the contracts are not with ARC i
25 for that work.
The contracts are -- there's a l
l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l
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+-
I contract between EPRI and -- an agreement between EPRI 2
and DOE and then a DOE contract for the work wnich 3
John Taylor Will talk about.
But we nevertheless --
4 those all have to be coordinated together, 5
There are two little blocks in the center-6 there called " family standardization planning." They 7
should have been in light ink.
They're not-really 8
there yet.
They're what we hope to have as a follow-l 9
on as we get along in FOAKE.
We hope in a year or.so 10 to establish each one of those which will have some 11 commercial interest and will be planning for the 12 follow-on to the FOAKE and to the eventual building of 13 a plant.
14 In terms of how do we coordinate these, 15 first we need to know what the big picture is about 16 the objective status and problems.
Now this big 17 picture about this overall program includes the SBWR 18 and the System 80.
Although they're not in FOAKE, 19 they're very much in the LWR program and the full 20 support in review and participation in those programs 21 is ongoing and will continue to be ongoing, so we have 22 to have each of these utility bodies and the people 23 who are working in them to understand how these all i
24 fit together.
25 The interfaces and interactions among NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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23 1
i 1
those building blocks are numerous. They' re monitored 2
and encouraged to be in a constructive manner, as are-3 the schedules.
Scheduling meetings between-t 4
essentially four different oversight organizations and 5
trying to keep the travel to a minimum and trying to 6
keep the repetition to a minimum is our goal.
- Again, 7
we share responsibilities with DOE on doing this and i
8 they're a part of this coordination as well.
i 9
The bottom item that we
- have, the 10 integration of foreign and domestic utility one, has i
11 been perhaps one of the most interesting ones.
I 12 would like for you to come and visit one of our 13 Utility Steering Committee meetings sometime where the 14 foreign participants take part in it, because they are 15 very interested.
They give very good input and when i
16 you sit in a meeting like that there is enough of them 17 and different personalities and the different depths i
18 and technical part that it is truly an international I
19 working group.
Some of our very best support for the 20 LWR program is coming from foreign utilities.
21 COMMISSIONER REMICK: Pat, a question that i
22 might be properly addressed to John Taylor.
In the 23 EPRI utility requirement document effort there was 24 participation by foreign utilities and now in Europe 25 there is a
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24 1
developed.
Are any U.S.
utilities or EPRI 2
participating in that effort?
3 DOCTOR TAYLOR: Not directly, Forrest. We 4
have made arrangements that they will be reviewing 5
their work and will have a chance to comment, but l
r 6
we're not part of the working group that is developing 7
that.
We're generally aware of what they're doing.at 8
this point.
9 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
I see.
Okay.
I 10 MR. MCDONALD:
All right.
Let's talk a i
t 11 minute about how we do this coordination.
Well, it f
12 amounts to the exchange of information in most part, i
13 getting as many people as possible to understand l
14 what's going on and to each have their inputs into it.
T 15 We have several of the individual group participar.ts 16 participate in more than one of those committees that
[
17 we have.
We have electronic networks.
I f
18 And another thing we have is we have a 19 series of reports.
One of them which we've instituted 20 is putting out a bi-monthly report from each of the 21 parties involved.
When you count all the parties down 22 inside some of the blocks, there's a total of about 17 23 of them, and so we've instituted this where we list 24 our major problems on our schedule, progress on our 25 schedules in long-range plans.
Getting people to be NEAL R. GROSS CoVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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~
25 1
forthright in framing their problems is an interesting 2
challenge, but we're trying to do that, and each of j
i 3
those 17 people will make the reports to everyone else i
4 and so every one of those 17 parties will have at t
5 least 17 reports to see what's going on on a bi-6 monthly basis and then we update those at the meeting.
7 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Mr. Mcdonald?
i i
8 MR. MCDONALD:
Yes?
9 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I'd like to go back to 10 Commissioner Remick's opening remarks and in fact ask 11 you to not go so heavily into how you manage the 12 program and the process and talk a little bit more 13 about what's going to come out of it.
.What's the 14 level of detail?
How does this interact with.the 15 product of the certification process?
Would you see i
16 that the certification of the AP-600 would be any l
17 different from the certification of the small boiling i
18 water reactor, given that one is contracted and one i
19 isn't?
In other words, are you interacting with the 20 vendors now during the certification process?
How 21 will you depend on the output of the testing 22 processes? Because, the designs are likely to change 23 during the certification piece.
24 MR. MCDONALD: May I continue for one more 25 group and then answer that?
i i
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j 26 i
1 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Of course.
2 MR. MCDONALD:
- Okay, Among all of-these 3
people, I wanted to point out here a technical thing, 4
that as Executive Director I'm double-hatted.
That j
5 makes possible this coordination and I think this is 6
important for your people to understand when I'm 7
working with them where I'm coming from.
I'm double-8 hatted as the Chairman of the Utilities Steering 9
Committee of EPRI's group, so this makes me more in a 10 position of a management with respect to the EPRI work
[
i 11 associated with design and some of these other i
12 activities than a coordination hat under ARC, and I 13 wanted to say that.
14 You have a great number of questions and 15 let me tell you the topics of discussion.
Perhaps 16 you've reviewed the notes already, but I'd like to 17 briefly mention them with you.
18 One topic that's talked about is we have 19 got to get maximum safety and economy benefits out of 20 the standardization of each design plan. That doesn't 21 mean that we're trying to standardize the two 22 different models together.
There is some 23 standardization, but we're counting most heavily upon 24 the independent family standardization.
l 25 The second, we believe, and we're working NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISt.AND AVENUE. N W.
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with your people all the time, that plants in the 2
standardized family should be more efficient to 3
regulate and to be regulated.
By that I mean they're t
4 not going -- not only should they be easier for you to 5
manage, but they should be easier to be -- run a plant 6
and be managed when it's in a family of plants, and
[
7 that the plants in a family should be able to make 8
economical use of cooperative or pooled common support 9
to handle things that are standardized that don't need 10 to be done on site, very important.
What that means 11 is it simplifies and can reduce and simplify the 12 operation of a plant, which is a very challenging 13 thing to do.
14 And of course we come up to what you 15 suggested we might want to talk about and I'm only 16 going to say that people talk about it, what 17 constitutes predictable licensing and stability and 18 can the efficiency of regulation be improved with the 19 more robust plants.
We talk about that a lot and work
]
i 20 on it and we have a very good example going right now i
21 on trying to decide some of the issues on the URD.
22 We've been working very closely together on that and 23 I think we're doing well.
24 I would like to mention here that we do 25 need more effective management of the scheduling NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l
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interface between each ALWR design and its design 2
applicant with NRC.
I've talked about this with your 3
staff.
We're working on it.
I think we can make 4
great progress in that area.
We need to think of that 5
in some ways as you would think of a plant trying to 6
run an outage and the outage planning where you have 7
schedules.
You have a certain amount of money and 8
time and somehow we can manage that interface more 9
effectively for the overall good.
10 CHAIRMAN SELIN: Are you talking about the 11 planning of the certification process?
12 MR. MCDONALD:
No.
13 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Or what happens after 4
14 we're finished with certification?
15 MR. MCDONALD:
Right now all I'm talking 16 about is the simple interf ace between the NRC team and i
17 the vendor team who are going down the road toward 18 certification.
19 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Okay.
20 MR. MCDONALD:
They each have a schedule 21 and they have common milestones.
In their progress or 22 problems in meeting each one of those milestones they 23 have a dialogue to manage those.
24 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Okay.
At the expense of 25 being unnecessarily blunt, what business is that of NEAL R. GROSS i
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the Advanced Reactor Corporation?
I mean, that's a 2
step between the vendor and the NRC.
As I understand 3
it, the Corporation's job is to-take the product of 4
the certification process and carry it to the next 5
scage of design.
6 MR. MCDONALD:
Well, that's not right.
7 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Okay.
8 MR. MCDONALD: We have a contract with DOE 9
on FOAKE.
We have a contract, DOE, and in a memo of 10 understanding with EPRI on design certification where 11 we have money that we put into the design 12 certification process to get it done.
So we have a 13 very big stake, the utilities do, on having these 14 things move along in a predictable manner.
15 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
The ARC is a funding 16 mechanism for the certification as well as the --
17 MR. MCDONALD:
No, no.
18 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
So who is "we"?
Which 19 "we" are you talking about?
20 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
EPRI.
21 MR.
MCDONALD:
The industry.
The 22 industry.
23 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
You're really confusing 24 me.
You're wearing about five hats, not two.
25 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
We have a memorandum of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIDERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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understanding with DOE, not a contract.
2 CHAIRMAN SELIN: Doctor Taylor, every "we" l
3 should be qualified.
I was looking at this as an 4
Advanced Reactor Corporation briefing. I think you're i
5 talking about different groups and.I am confused.
6 MR.
LONG:
- Well, remember the only e
7 contract ARC has is with DOE for FOAKE.
8 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Right.
I 9
MR. LONG:
However, NPOC has assigned.us 10 coordination of the other activities even though EPRI i
11 has a
contract with the vendors for design 12 certification.
ARC has a coordination activity with 13 EPRI --
14 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
On behalf of NPOC?
15 MR. LONG:
Yes.
16 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
But from the NRC's point I
t 17 of view, we see only the vendors.
I mean, the vendor 18 comes in.
Whether the vendor is supported by the 19 utilities or EPRI or DOE or anybody else, our business 20 is with the vendor.
I 21 MR. MCDONALD:
That's right, and I was 22 very careful in this thing to say that the better 23 management between the ALWR design certification P
a 24 applicant and the NRC is needed.
I was very careful 25 to say that.
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1 Now we're interested because we have the i
i i
2 design schedules interfaced.
We.have our resources 3
going into those.
We have the FOAKE on top of that.
4 And so, whatever happens in those two-track designs, 5
the vendors and NRC, affects the industry's overall 6
plan to gain the end product and to do it with an 7
identified amount of resources.
8 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Okay.
I would like to i
9 make a point at this point.
I'm not so much concerned 10 about the evolutionary reactors because the k
11 certification process is pretty far along, even though 12 ARC has a contract with the one and not the other.
i 13 There are still some uncertainties, but I think those i
r 14 are measured in weeks, maybe months at the most.
And 15 in
- addition, the NRC work is based on design 16 documents.
But when you get to the passive reactors, 17 the small reactors, there's an extensive test program.
18 There's an extensive demonstration program.
i 19 I'll give you some friendly advice and l
20 then I'11 make' a
statement on behalf of the 21 Commission.
The friendly advice is don't get too 22 contingent on meeting any particular design objectives 23 in either schedule or design, because both of those l
24 are likely to change.
Presumably, all the money
)
25 that's being spent on these tests, particularly for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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1 the AP-600 since that's less of an extrapolation and 2
more some new work, it's going to change the design j
4 3
and'it's going to change the certification.
t 4
And the policy statement, I'll just say 5
very bluntly the NRC will not try to meet a DOE 6
schedule, an ARC schedule or a vendor schedule.
We're.
7 going to do the best we can to certify those small 8
reactors based on the safety information that we have, 9
but, if there are changes either because the designs 10 are imperfect or because the experimental work turns 11 up changes, we're going to change.
It would be very l
12 foolish to either have a lot of money expended that 13 turned out to have been spent prematurely because the 14 design took a left turn or to try to " coordinate" with 15 us to try to get us to meet some schedules that can't a
16 be met based on the facts.
17 MR. MCDONALD:
Mr. Chairman, you hit on a 18 subject which you wanted to discuss.
Let me respond 19 to you.
20 We have a similar activity that goes on 21 today once or twice a year for almost every company 22 that runs a nuclear plant.
It's called an outage, 23 refueling outage.
Each of those companies have a 24 budget to meet.
Your organization has requirements to 25 monitor what's going on.
They set out and they sit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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1 down and they do what's called an " optimum schedule" 2
for how long it's going to take.
They have numerous 3
parties involved, many of the same people who are 4
working here.
They set out a timeframe and then they
)
5 start trying to manage that overall project.
They 6
don't manage any organization except their own, but 7
they coordinate the various vendors and other p
8 activities that go along with that, and they have to I
9 have some overall object to go to and they have to l
t 10 jointly work together on the schedule in order to ever 11 have it contained.
i 12 What I am suggesting here on this whole i
13 effort, including the passive Ap-600, is that we have i
14 to have our schedules, our individual organization 15 resource schedules and the vendors, and we have to j
16 check the common milestones and we have to work to see 17 how we can make those milestones.
18 You're advising us not to get too far 19 ahead and that's good advice, because we too are 20 following these test programs as I described before.
I r
21 We're checking the progress.
We see where we have 22 problems already, but we must try to contain this and i
23 have an end point and have general agreement to where 24 we're going every step of the way or we will lose our 25 backing in terms of financial support and we will lose NEAL R. GROSS COURT RE"ORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, O C. 20005 (202) 234 4433
34 1
the strength of the intention that we're going to get.
2 there.
And so everything you say is well and good, j
3 but we must press on and we must have definitions-that 4
we're working for.
5 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE: Pat, what do you f
i 6
see as the root of the problem here?
Is' it a 7
communication problem or what's behind this?
8 MR.
MCDONALD:
Well',
I think I talked.
9 about the root of the problem.
I don't think -
.I 10 think the words can be summed up right here in this 11 one little word that I gave you, "more effective 12 management schedule interface between each design."
13 I heard the -- you know, in an outage you.
f 14 work it day by day, but this is something we can 15 probably work week by week.
If two parties are 16 generally working together and they're trying to match 17 each of their resources and all of a sudden one of 18 them comes up one day and says, " Hey, I've got to tell l
19 you I'm going to be two months late getting this to 20 you," then you end up making inefficient resources on i
21 both sides of that scheduling interface.
And that i
22 does not mean that one is trying to manage the other.
l 23 It means that they are communicating as they go along.
24 They're trying to manage the problems that each of 25 them incur and the effect that it has on each other.
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1 This is a more difficult one, because we 2
have four different vendors who are in this design i
3 process and we have to realize some overall 4
coordination as well.
So all I'm talking about is 5
maintaining individual management integrity and
[
t 6
command, but working on that interface on schedules,
(
7 and we do not have a pattern right now.
We don't have r
8 a concept of that close schedule interactions.so that 9
we track real time with each other so each party can 10 monitor and adjust its resources.
11 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Mr. Mcdonald, I need to 12 tell you two things.
Number one is, I flat-out don't 13 agree with that paragraph.
14 MR. MCDONALD:
I'm sorry, I didn't hear i
15 you.
16 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I flat-out do not' agree 17 with that paragraph.
In the case of the evolutionary 18 reactors, we have very good communication with one of 19 the vendors and we have very poor communications with 20 the other one of the vendors in terms of surprises, so 21 I just think that's too --
1 22 MR.
MCDONALD:
So this is a two-sided 23 fence and I_ agree with you entirely.
This is not 24 aimed at NRC.
It's aimed at both sides of that 25 interface.
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CHAIRMAN SELIN:
But it's not that we do 2
or don't need better communication.
In one case, the 3
communications are pretty good.
There haven't been t
-t 4
many surprises.
In one case there have been a lot of 5
surprises.
6 In terms of the small reactors, the so-7 called " passive reactors," it's really too early.
I i
8 mean, there have been some miscommunications, but the 9
big problem isn't what we know is going on and what 10 the vendors know.
It's very early in the i
11 certification process and there are going'to be huge
{
12 surprises.
I mean, it's almost inevitable.
13 I'm not going to debate with you on these i
14 points.
I'm saying some things.
I hope you listen to
)
1 15 them, because otherwise next year there could be some l
16 embarrassing miscommunications.
17 MR. MCDONALD:
Okay.
What I'm trying to 18 say now is we should have as our goal that we don't 19 have any embarrassing miscommunications. And the only 20 way we can do that with schedules is to have a 21 management attention given to those schedules so we 22 each know where we stand at any one time.
We don't i
23 have that set up yet.
24 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I doubt very much that 25 the Commission could spend any more attention on the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N.W.
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schedules and still function.
It's a question of the 2
very highest priority.
3 MR. MCDONALD:
But the Commission isn't
.4 the one that needs to spend it.
It's down through the l
5 organization at the working levels.
It's our 6
management responsibility and the vendors and ARC hnd 7
everyone else to make sure that we have that r
8 infrastructure that's communicating on at least a 9
weekly basis of where everybody is and where we're 10 going and not to have any surprises come on either 11 side of that interface.
12 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Why don't you continue f
13 with your presentation?
14 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
I just had one point. The i
15 utilities I believe have the same interest you do in i
16 the sense of the testing program providing the full
(
17 validation of these systems.
They don't intend to get 18 into a situation where the plant itself is going to be 19 the test vehicle.
j 20 As an
- example, just last
- week, Pat, 21 myself, DOE met with Westinghouse to discuss some 1
22 expansion of their test program.
Now we know there's 23 potential schedule implications to that, but we'll 24 accept that in the interest of getting a system which 25 utilities are not holding the bag of a
lot of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVENUE N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, O C. 20005 (202) 2344433
38 1
technical uncertainties.
2 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
We have nothing to say 3
about the interaction between the various utility 4
organizations and the vendors.
That's truly your 5
business.
But when you start getting into something 6
which I could crudely and probably somewhat unfairly 7
characterize as trying to manage the NRC schedule, j
8 which is not what Mr. Mcdonald said, but close to it,
)
9 then we do have an interest.
10 There are going to be some real surprises i
11 on the AP-600 and, you know, developing a reactor is 12 a little more of a research activity than an outage, t
13 although not as much more as I would have thought 14 before I got into this business.
l r
15 MR.
MCDONALD:
- But, Mr.
Chairman, you l
16 said, again, managing NRC's business.
In no way, in 17 no stretch of the imagination are we even suggesting 18 that.
All we're suggesting is the simple thing that 19 happens between any two parties that are working
)
l 20 together for common steps and goals.
That's all.
)
21 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Okay.
Fair enough.
22 Why don't you continue?
23 MR. MCDONALD:
Okay.
Well we really got 24 hung up on that, but I think it was a necessary 25 exchange because we need to clear the air on this I J
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think.
2 Let me go on a minute and point some other 3
points here that in their time could be as significant 4
as schedule.
5 We were wondering how we assure that the 6
updated and sophisticated techniques used in 9
7 construction by some of the Asian plants will be
)
i 8
available to us in the United States. We 're concerned 9
about that because we don't have ongoing construction 10 to exercise those.
't 11 We're also looking and working on the best 12 approach for identifying the essence of models, the 13 essence of something you call a standard or a model
~
14 for the best processes, procedures and organizations 15 and other functional standards which we need to adopt 16 for standardizations, and Zack Pate will talk about 17 that.
18 We need an adequate information management t
19 system for use through the entire scope of designs, 20 construction, start-up, and operation.
I only spoke 21 this morning to a part of that, and that is the part 22 that's used in the IMS part.
We need a part that will 23 continue through construction, the procurement, 24 construction and operation, which we don't have that 25 type of a recognized IMS system at this time.
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40 1
With that --
2 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Are you talking 3
there about engineering design-information as well?
4 I mean, are you talking about --
5 MR. MCDONALD:
Yes, that can capture all 6
the data and all the processes in it.
7 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
-- detailed 8
designs --
9 MR. MCDONALD:
Yes.
10 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
-- that can be 11 exchanged electronically?
12 MR. MCDONALD:
Yes.
13 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Where do you stand 14 on that?
How far are you?
15 MR. MCDONALD:
Okay.
Now let me repeat 16 what we have in the FOAKE. -Part of the FOAKE program 17 is to have each vendor have an adequate IMS system so 18 that all that is captured, the design basis and all
)
19 that, and then we require him by contract to be able I
i 20 to put that in a neutral file, a neutral file that 21 doesn't have an IBM or some other label on it, so that 22 we can then take it out of that file and it will be 23 fully useable in a fully developed IMS system.
24 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Now where does that 25 stand?
I mean, how far --
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MR. MCDONALD:
Well, we've reviewed the i
2 IMS program from both GE point of view and j
1 3
Westinghouse point of view and they seem to be in 4
pretty good shape on both of those.
For the overall 5
long-term, that's a challenge still ahead of us.
I 6
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, have they been
'7 able to create these neutral files?
8 MR. MCDONALD:
Both of them think and we 9
think, and we had a' contract to explore that,-we had i
10 a contractor -- who was the contractor on that one, 11 John?
Was it Sergeant-Lundy?
12 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
Yes.
13 MR.
MCDONALD:
We had a contractor in 14 phase two of our program.
We had a contractor 15 identify a neutral file capability for us.
16 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
And to what extent 17 have the NRC staff been in the loop on being able to 18 access that neutral file?
After all, one of the 19
- purposes, I would think, would be to be able to l
20 communicate that kind of information to-NRC as well, 21 not simply back and forth within ARC.
22 MR. MCDONALD:
Well, this is a recognized _
23 type of a file that many different companies and 1
1 24 organizations can access.
That's why it's neutral.
i 25 So if you have a system --
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'f 42 1
COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
No, I understand
- j 2
what the purpose of it is.
My question now is where t
3 does NRC staff stand with respect to being capable,
.j
~
4 able to access that?
}
5 MR. MCDONALD:
I don't know.
I'll find 6
that out and let you know.
j 7
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Is that part of your 8
thinking here, that the NRC staff should be able to 9
have access in some --
10 MR. MCDONALD:
I have to admit I have.not 11 heard that discussed.
i 12 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
We have not approached 1
13 that at this time.
14 One of the-issues that will have to be 15 worked out, and it can be, is that there will be a lot i
16 of proprietary data, one design versus another, and so 1
17 arrangements would have to be made with NRC to 18 recognize that.
19 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, We deal 20 with --
21 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
You've done that-before, i
22 so it can be worked out.
23 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
I mean, that's not
~
24 brand new.
{
25 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
But we have not. yet NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS f
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?
I addressed that, Commissioner.
{
2 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
That might be 3
helpful in setting up such an interface.
I don't
~
4 know, but one would imagine that in the long run it 5
certainly would.
I don't know how important it is 6
right now in being able to proceed, but I would think i
7 that that would be an important area for you to i
8 discuss with NRC staff, to what extent they can have 9
access to files that might make it easier for them to 10 proceed along with their work.
11 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
Well, we'll undertaka to 12 open that discussion.
13 MR. MCDONALD:
John, would you continue?
14 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
Yes, sir.
i 15 With the limited time, I'm going to go i
16 fast.
I just wanted to remind ourselves of our 17 initial vision, which was to create a foundation for i
18 better plans with real emphasis on simplicity, more i
19 rugged systems based on proven technology.
20 The outcome ten years ago of a detailed l
i 21 survey where we went from plant to plant and talked to l
1 22 the operators, what they thought about the future was, l
23 "This light water technology is okay, but these plants 24 are harder to run and to maintain than they really i.
25 should be.
Please make them simpler and easier."
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So to make that happen we set out to 2
establish utility requirements the designer would 3
utilize in the design of the-LWRs injecting 25 years 4
of utility operating experience with utility people 5
who had that experience, and we've come a long way in 6
that respect.
Of course, it's senseless to establish j
7 a bunch of requirements that in any way would conflict 8
with NRC's regulations, needs, and perspectives, so k
9 from the beginning'you were cooperative with us in i
10 setting up formal reviews of those requirements to 11 assure that there would be no conflict.
12 Now we've often been at this table 13 seemingly complaining about this or that and we've i
14 talked about schedule problems.
I just want to, and 15 I'm going to do it quickly, say we've made one hell of 16 a lot of progress and we owe NRC staff compliments for i
17 the hard work they've done,- the designers for the hard 18 work they've done, and the utilities for the hard work 19 they've done for that.
i 20 This program has expanded to cover a newer 21
- system, the passive reactors.
The DOE has put 22 tremendous support into it, more than we ever would 23 have thought, and the international utilities, both
~
24 finances and the key technical people with excellent 25 experience.
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45 1
And we've come a long way to resolve the 2
regulatory issues, moved into design certification and 3
first-of-a-kind engineering and you'll hear from 4
NUMARC and INPO on their-support in the j
j 5
standardization process where we look on the 6
requirements as a first step in standardization in 7
that the utilities are not individually asking for 8
something different but have a common view on what 9
they want. Then the Nuclear Power Oversight Committee 10 brought this program to a large whole by developing a l
11 strategic plan which includes more than just this i
12 technical work we're doing.
I 13
- Well, specifically, the requirement 14 documentation is in place now.
The FSERs have been i
15 prepared by the NRC staff and we've been using them i
16 and of course continue to use them as a basis for the i
17 design certification of the first-of-a-kind 18 engineering work.
We have had the use of those i
i 19 requirements already in the Taipower bid spec.
- Many, l
-l i
20 many of those requirements have been incorporated in 21 that spec, not all of them.
And, as you mentioned 22
- earlier, Commissioner
- Remick, the Europeans have 23 decided to develop their requirements.
Certainly a l
24 large amount of what we've done they've been involved 1
25 in will be utilized there.
1 l
l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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46
+
1 We're happy that a lot of very contentious
~
2 and difficult issues have been closed where we've had 3
to change and I think NRC has listened to some of.our 4
argumentation and they've made some changes too, so 5
it's been a fruitful closure.
6 In spite of our concern about schedule, 1
7 we're still making substantial progress in design 8
certification.
And, Chairman, in the EPRI element of 9
the program we're following all four designs, not just I
10 the two that are in the first-of-a-kind engineering, l
11 because those other two designs are still of potential 12 significant importance to the utilities.
The reason 13 they're not being sponsored in first-of-a-kind i
14 engineering is simple.
It's the money, monies that 15 available.
16 But we have a lot of work ahead.
We are 17 following the design certification and the first-of-a-18 kind engineering work to assure that we continue as we 19 get into detail maintained conformance 'with the
.i 20 requirements.
We have a few issues yet to close out 21 in finalizing the -- as NRC finalizes the FSERs, and_
22 we must keep the URD up to date.
These possible 23 changes, Chairman, you mention might reflect on some 24 inadequacy in the URD.
When that shows up, we've got 25 to step up to the bar and make an appropriate change NEAL R GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1 1
working with the staff so that they are fully 2
satisfied with such a change.
I 3
And then of course the big goals ahead are t
4 getting that final design approval and the l
1 5
certification from NRC and completing the first-of-a-6 kind engineering.
7 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Would you stop for a 8
second, Doctor Taylor?
i 9
DOCTOR TAYLOR:
Yes, sir.
10 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
The question I had 11 originally asked could be rephrased as what i
i 12 constitutes the completion of first-of-a-kind j
13 engineering?
In other words, what do you expect to f
I 14 have in reasonably concrete terms?
"You" being as
{
15 vague as I complained the "we" was.
l 16 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
Well, we'll have a design i
f 17 of the entire plant.
It includes all the balance of 18 plant, the switch yard side, et cetera.
That has to i
19 be done.
It will be carried out up to the point that 20 in order to get further detail you'd have to enter
)
21 into a procurement contract, except for six or seven 22 components such as the reactor vessel where you don't 23 really know where you stand for sure until you've done 24 that.
That will entail additional funds, money being 25 spent with prospective vessel manuf acturers and so on j
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48 1
to get that detail.
2 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I missed a point. At the 3
end of the first-of-a-kind engineering, except for six
\\
4 or seven components, you'll meet the --
i 5
DOCTOR TAYLOR:
We'll have the system 6
designs completed.
7 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Right.
t 8
DOCTOR TAYLOR:
We'll have form, function 9
specifications for all the subsystem components with 10 which a procurement step could be taken and, because 11 we have the form, fit, function of those components, 12 a reasonable basis for the cost which would be 13 entailed in procuring them and the cost which would be i
14 entailed in installing them.
15 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Except for the pressure 16 vessel, which will be in what status?
17 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
We'd in effect be engaged t
18 in work with the manufacturer to get all the details 19 of a specific pressure vessel design.
It 's so key --
20 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
So that would be in more 21 detail that produced at that point?
22 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
Yes.
23 MR.
LONG:
- pumps, 24 pressurizer, et cetera.
25 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Okay.
And you said that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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you would be as far as you could get without having 2
run a procurement, but --
3 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
And without a specific 4
site, which would entail adjustments where the envelop 1
5 that we've established in the requirements document to 6
cover as many sites as possible wasn't quite 7
sufficient.
There would have to be adjustments for 8
that.
9 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Let me take a specific 10 case.
In the case of the large advanced boiling water 11 reactor, would there be anything beyond paper? Would 12 there be models or prototypes of anything? What would 13 the form of this full design be?
Is it entirely a 14 paper design?
15 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
Certainly there will'be 16 models.
Now models in the more modern sense with the 17 3-D graphic capability that exists, you can have the 18 much better equivalent of a model.
We'll have very 19 great detail, layouts of piping systems, et cetera and 20 so forth through that capability, something even 21 today's models couldn't even do well.
22 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Would you expect any 23 confirmatory testing as part of --
24 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
Confirmatory testing on 25 the passive safety features, absolutely essential.
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CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I'm sorry.
I'm still 2
with the large boiling water reactor.
3 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
The large boiling water 1
4 reactors and the power package of the passive systems 5
is of conventional known technology.
In fact, in 6
order to provide the thermal margins that the 7
requirements documents pull out, it is less of a 8
challenge to the existing technology than otherwise 9
would occur.
So we don't see the need for 10 confirmatory testing on any of that portion of the 11 system.
I 12 But the passive safety features, very 13 essential to get that testing and make sure that the 14 plant is designed from that standpoint in the proper 15 way.
16 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Things like fine
{
17 motion control rods, internal pumps would already have r
18 been tested.
19 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
They've been tested, yes.
20 They've been tested.
21 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
As you are aware, the j
22 Commission is planning a
certain amount of 23 confirmatory testing on the AP-600.
Is there any 24 connection between what we're planning on doing and 25 what you're planning as far as confirmatory testing?
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DOCTOR TAYLOR: There's no disagreement to 2
my knowledge at all.
In fact,- as we pursue the 3
program, we'll be finding additional things that need l
4 to be done and we'11 be sharing that thinking with NRC 5
and I'm sure they'll find some things they want to be
{
6 done too.
7 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
So you -- I'm not sure 8
which "you" it is, whether it's ARC or EPRI, but 9
somebody on the industry side will be running a 10 parallel confirmatory testing program with ours?
11 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
We are working closely
. i 12 with the vendors and, in many cases, our international 13 associates to get that testing done.
In many cases 14 they are providing the funding through which the 15 testing is done, but we have helped to arrange through 16 the international participation we have to get that 1
17 testing completed.
i 18 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I'll try to follow-up on
)
19 this off-line.
I'd be very interested in looking at 20 a time line and saying, "On the AP-600, here's what
.21 the NRC plans to do for confirmatory testing.
Here's 22 what either the vendor or EPRI or some utility-23 representative plans on doing."
That would be a very 24 interesting topic, but I won't take --
25 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
We would be very pleased NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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v a
-c i
4 52 1
to provide that information to you, sir.
2 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Thank'you.
3 DOCTOR TAYLOR: We're very pleased for the I
4 question too.
5 MR. LONG:
One other thing too.
You'd 6
asked I think for some more concreteness on what's 7
FOAKE.
We do have a specific list of deliverables.
i 8
We've taken the words that John has said about 9
generally what it is to actually list out what we i
10 expect out of each one of the vendors and we'd be glad 11 to share that also with you.
12 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
We could furnish that to 13 the Chairman too, if you wish.
14 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Thank you.
15 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
What about sof tware 16 reliability and issues relating to digital system 17 instrumentation and controls?
What kind of 18 equivalents to testing to you contemplate-there?
19 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
Equivalent detection, did 20 you say?
21 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
No, equivalents to 22 testing.
I'm not saying necessarily one has a piece i
23 of hardware that one tests, but what would be the I
24 verification and validation procedures that you 25 contemplate for digital I&C systems and the control l
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. room?
2 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
What we see with the I&C 3
systems and control room systems is the utilization of 4
highly proven technology so that components themselves 5
in our judgement don't need the testing.
What is 6
needed is assurance that in the integrated form they 7
operate as they should, which would involve simulator 8
work which we were hoping will be carried out to 9
verify the design.
But the biggest challenge is.the 10 V&V of those systems.
11 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Correct.
12 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
A very, very thorough V&V 13 program that assures that small bugs cannot upset the 14 entire affair, and that's been a subject of intense 15 discussion between ourselves and NRC.
i 16 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, I know it has.
17 I had just a question of where does it stand, in your 18 view?
To what extent do you feel you've come to or
^
19 are at a meeting of the minds there?
20 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
Well, we haven't reached 21 a meeting of the minds, Commissioner, at this time, 22 but through the dialogue that has occurred I think we 23 see each other's viewpoints and I see some movement 24 toward closure there.
25 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Doctor Taylor, I'd like NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS a
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to follow-up on Commissioner Rogers' excellent i
2 question.
At the time of design certification, we 3
don't expect a design of the software.
We expect a 4
detailed specification, a so-called -- you know, the 5
functional specifications of the design acceptance 6
criteria.
7 Would you expect any of the sof tware to be 8
written during the first-of-a-kind engineering phase 9
or would that all be lef t to be written after an order l
10 were actually placed for the system?
11 MR. MCDONALD:
I don't know that.
I don' t 12 know that, John.
13 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
Well, I'm not an expert, i
i i
14 so I can give you just a broad statement on that.
The 15 evolutionary designs have a vast amount of software 16 completed.
The question would be, are there some 17 adaptations necessary because that work has been done i
18 in support of, say, the ABWR, the Japanese program at 19 this time?
There would probably have to be some 20 modifications, but I don't consider them myself to be 21 large ones.
22 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Actually, it's a very 23 interesting process.
What the vendors have done is 24 they've taken their software, they've gone back and 25 said "What are the specifications that would have led NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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- - - I
55 1
to this software?"
In some cases they changed them.
2 They submitted the specifications to us to see if they f
3 meet our objectives and they hope that the software j
4 will still meet those objectives, but those will have 5
to be tested and proved, but not as part of the design 6
certification process because we expect the software 7
to be rewritten during the lifetime of the system 8
without having to go back and change the 9
certification.
10 My question is, in the next stage in your 11 100 percent design, how do you expect to control the 12 software?
Do you expect, as part of accepting the 13 first-of-a-kind engineering, to actually have code l
14 that can be tested?
It's not necessarily a question 15 that needs to be answered now, but it's an important 16 part of what you're trying to --
-l 17 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
Yes.
Again, I'11 make a l
18 broader statement and then we can follow-up from i
19 there.
The experience that has been achieved in the
?
20 evolutionary design in heavy measure is and will be 21 applied to the passive plants. To expect that they'11 22 be at the same level of maturity at the same stage is l
23 probably asking for too much, so there will be a 24 similar situation where there is provision for 25 completion and adjustment as time goes on, but we I
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1 certainly want to know enough that we can have a i
2 sensible, dependable cost estimate of this plant.
3 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, I guess the-4 question I was driving towards and the Chairman really 5
got into it quite correctly is just one can visualize 6
first-of-a-kind engineering when you're talking about 7
hardware, and that's not hard to understand'how you 8
would do a certain level of engineering up to the 9
point where the only way that to specify anything more 10 precisely would be to actually get a bid back from a 11 vendor and it's easy to see how that whole process 12 might take place.
13 I find it a little bit more difficult when 14 you're talking about software systems that may or may 15 not be totally written.
It seems to me that it's very 16 likely a different kind of process that you have to 17 contemplate when you're talking about first-of-a-kind 18 engineering for software versus hardware and it's 19 really what your thinking is on that question, whether 20 you don't see a difference or whether you do see a 21 significant difference.
I 22 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
A difference --
23 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Between how one 24 would decide the end point of first-of-a-kind 25 engineering for hardware versus software systems.
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DOCTOR TAYLOR:
My own judgement is the 2
software will have progressed further than the 3
hardware, because the same issues of needing to get a J
4 contract for procurement are not as strong so that the
]
5 software will progress further.
There will be 6
simulation work done to have a much better idea of 7
what that software content will be in terms of the 8
operation of these systems.
9 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, I mean, my l
10 intuitive feeling, it would be just the opposite, but 11 you may be absolutely right.
So there's something I 12 don't quite understand
- here, because to me the 13 questions about sof tware are much more subtle than the -
14 questions about what hardware is going to look -- you 15 know, what the specs are going to be on a piece of 16 hardware.
17 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
Yes, and when you get to 18 the V&V, as I said, that's the biggest challenge of 19
- all, of developing a system of V&V which can be 20 utilized with what is defined and can be utilized 21 further as changes are made and further developments 22 occur and to be satisfactory to us and to you as an 23 effective V&V method.
24 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, I think I'll l
25 drop it now because I think it could lead us into too NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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long a discussion for our meeting this morning, but I 2
do see it as not the same, a qualitatively different 3
kind of problem of software versus hardware.
4 DOCTOR TAYLOR:
It is different.
I'm 5
suggesting perhaps that we will be at a greater level 6
of definition in that area because of its importance.
7 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, that would be 8
nice if it comes out that way.
9 MR. COLVIN:
May I just make one comment, 10 Commissioner Rogers, perhaps to put this in a little 11 dif ferent perspective and assist in the understanding?
12 I think that, if we look at the design certification 13 package and we split up the design certification into 14 tier 1 and tier 2,
then we have to develop the 15 inspections, tests, analyses, and acceptance criteria 16 that will come out of that design as in accordance 17 with the rule.
There are going to be elements of 18 those ITAAC that affect the software, as you're 19 indicating.
20 The next step in that process in 21 completing the first-of-a-kind engineering would not 22 necessarily lead to the completion of the software, 23 because that would be something that would have to be 24 completed in some cases at COL and in some cases 25 through the construction and tested in accordance with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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59 I
1 the.ITAAC.
So I think what we're going to see is a 2
mix, depending upon the system and the level of the 3
detail and the level of significance of that software 4
as it applies to the design.
I 5
CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Thank you.
6 MR. MCDONALD:
Doctor Pate.
7 DOCTOR PATE: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, 8
I am Zack Pate, President and Chief Executive of the 9
Institute of Nuclear Power Operations. I will briefly 10 describe the industry's long-range strategy for life 11 cycle standardization.
12 The strategic plan, the NPOC strategic 13
- plan, assigns primary responsibility for building 14 block 7 to the utilities and the industry lead to 15 INPO.
A position paper on standardization was 16 developed after the strategic plan was initially 17 issued.
The position paper represents a strong 18 industry commitment to life cycle standardization and 19 this position paper has now been made an integral part 20 of the strategic plan.
21 What I'll do now is describe six 22 underlying principles for standardization that are in 23 the plan and INPO's role in assisting utilities in 24 implementing these principles. The six principles are 25 important enough to standardization that I think-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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they're worth going through in some detail.
2 The first principle is that the ability to 3
standardize practices related to operational 4
performance, reliability and efficiency is dependant 5
on a strict adherence to maintaining life cycle l
6 standardization among all plants in_a family.
We 7
recognize that standardization among plants in a 8
family cannot be allowed to erode 'or slip ' away.
9
- Indeed, those experienced in this area, such as 10 Callaway and Wolf Creek or such as Byron or Braidwood 11 and including Electricite de France, have told us 12 repeatedly that once the elements of standardization 13 are lost they are very difficult to restore.
14 The second principle is that the industry i
15 development source documents already exist that relate I
16 to standardized nuclear plant operation.
Documents 17 such as INPO performance objectives and criteria as f
18 well as many other selected industry guidelines 19 provide an up to date framework for development of 20 standardized approaches for new plants.
These 21 documents are in use today.
The guidance in these 22 publications contains a
field tested basis for.
23 establishing many of the standardized practices for 24 new plants.
25 The third principle is that the processes NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W.
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61 l
1 or practices important to operational performance, to f
2 plant configuration management, to efficien.cy and to 3
economy of scale are consistent, that is standardized 4
among all plants in a family.
And by this we mean l
5 that all plants will have common procedures, practices 6
and training and other such measures in every area 7
important to achieving the benefits
'of 8
standardization.
9 The fourth principle,
. changes to 10 standardize elements of the organizational structure, 11 administrative controls and operating practices and 12 procedures or to the plant configuration that provide i
13 a clear benefit will be implemented uniformly at all j
14 plants in the family.
Over the life of these plants, 15 changes that will significantly enhance their 1
16 performance will be needed.
Once carefully reviewed 17 and approved by all the
- owners, they will be 18 implemented at all plants in the family to preserve 19 standardization.
20 The fifth principle is that life cycle 21 standardization will be implemented'in such a way as 22 to strengthen line management's ability to establish 23 priorities and direct plant activities on matters
)
24 affecting safety, operational performance, reliability 25 and efficiency.
Promptly selecting and implementing I
NEAL R. GROSS CoVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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standard procedures will free line managers from
'I 2
burdensome administrative tasks and allow them to 3
focus their attention on the more important management 4
and operational issues.
5 And then the sixth and final principle is 6
that life cycle standardization will accelerate the 7
learning process through the sharing of operating l
8 experience, also the better identification of root 9
causes.
Standardized plants greatly enhance the 10 ability to share operating experience and, unlike 11 today where every plant is unique, the lessons learned f
12 at a standardized plant will clearly apply to all l
u 13 plants in the family.
i 14 INPO has several challenges important to l
15 the implementation of standardization and adherence to s
16 these principles and I'll briefly go through some of l
l 17 these key activities.
.l 18
- One, to coordinate interactions - among 19 utilities, suppliers and potential consortiums that 1
20 may own new plants as these activities relate to 21 standardization.
[
22 The second INPO role is to act as a l
23 catalyst to establish the necessary agreements among 24 utilities or other entities that will own and operate 25 a family of plants.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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i 63 1
A third role is to ensure that operational i
2 experience of current nuclear plants'is incorporated 3
into the new plant designs, training, operations and 1
i 4
procedures.
5 The next role is to draft standard 6
policies and procedures with utility input.
Let me 7
give two examples of how this will work.
First, the 8
operating procedures will be identical at each plant 9
of a family.
These cannot, of course, be the same for 10 a different design or for different families, but, on 11 the other hand, the procedures to safety isolate 12 mechanical and electrical equipment for maintenance, l
13 the so called tag-out or clearance procedures, slould i
14 be the same not only at each plant of a family but 15 also for every new family.
16 As a
final INPO
- role, since t
17 standardization enhances safety, we expect that INPO t
18 will perform appropriate monitoring, perhaps as part-f 19 of our ongoing evaluation
- program, to see that 20 standardization is indeed maintained as planned.
21 This has been a brief summary of long-t 22 range strategy and a summary of INPO's role, Mr.
23 Chairman, and that concludes my remarks.
24 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Mr. Pate, I know this is l
25 sort of speculative since it's, as I've tried to say NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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.64 1
before, quite far ahead, but would you see another 2
element in your evaluations of reactors to be a 3
standardization evaluation which of course goes beyond 4
the particular reactor? In other words, when you look 5
at reactors to see how are the operations going 6
compared to what's expected at this particular plant, i
7 if you had half'a dozen of a family, would you expect 8
an evaluation of whether a given reactor at a given 9
site was getting pretty far off the common model?
10 Would you expect that the evaluation would include how 11 standard it is kept as well as how safe and how i
12 efficient it is kept?
13 DOCTOR PATE:
My own sense, Mr. Chairman, 14 is that we will end up in exactly that role.
15 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
That 's very interesting.
16 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Just with respect to 17 the common operating procedures of standardization, 18 would you actually envision suf ficient standardization 19 that an operator f rom one plant could simply walk into 20 another plant and start to function without any 21 additional training? This the same kind now.
I mean 22 the same family.
23 DOCTOR PATE:
Yes.
I think for a plant 24 within the same family, my expectation would be that 25 all the operator would need to learn or be trained on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 AHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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65 I
1 is site-specific differences that might result from 2
one plant being on a river and another plant being on 3
the ocean, that kind of thing.
4 CHAIRMAN SELIN: Mr. Colvin, you may think 5
that these questions were designed to keep you from I
6 telling us what you expect of our regulatory 7
environment, but that would be a completely unfair 1
8 assumption.
9 MR. COLVIN:
Yes, sir-.
I appreciate your-10 kindness in that regard.
11 DOCTOR PATE:
Excuse me one second, Joe.
12' Mr. Chairman, in a few minutes, probably 13 before he finishes his presentation, may I be excused 14 to make another commitment?
15 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Of course.
16 MR. COLVIN:
In that regard, I will try to 17 be extra brief.
I 18 Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, as you know, 19 NUMARC has been addressing the generic regulatory 20 matters associated with the building blocks within the 21 NPOC strategic plan and in particular we're supporting 22 the ARC activities on behalf of all the utilities as
[
23 well as all the designs from the regulatory 24 standpoint, because we are desirous of trying to 25 capture the lessons learned from each of those NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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66
.+
i 1
activities and provide that benefit in the future 2
designs.
3 (Slide)
In particular, the activities 4
that we're undertaking are shown on this viewgraph.
5 One of those may be new to the Commission and that is 6
that we're working very closely with INPO and EPRI and f
7 ARC on trying to figure out, out of the effort that 8
INPO takes in designing what's desired by the 9
utilities in the life cycle standardization area, how i
10 to bring that forth to the Commission on behalf of the 11 industry in the area of regulatory credit for those l
12 activities.
13 Through the efforts with the Commission 14 and with the staff, I think you've been aware that i
r 15 we've had a standardization oversight working group i
16 probably nigh on for seven or eight years working on l
)
17 this activity with the Commission with the primary 18 focus of working on Part 52 and the various and sundry j
19 issues that surround that as well as the design l
20 certification.
21 We've now made a change in this activity 22 and we've reconstituted this working group with a new l
23 focus, and that new focus is more on'the combined 24 operating license activities and the operational l
25 activities.
We have Dave Rehn, who is the Vice NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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~.
67 i
r 1
President of Duke Power Company -- he and also happens i
l 2
to be Vice Chairman of the Utility Management Board --
t 3
as an inter-tie with ARC in support of these 4
activities.
And the membership includes the 5
utilities, the vendors, as well as the major players I
6 in this and the Department of Energy on this working 7
group to again take those lessons learned from each of 8
the designs from the design certification of all four t
9 designs and carry those forward on behalf of the 10 industry.
11 The first near-term focus of that working 12 group will be on coordinating the support and 13 participation of the industry in the upcoming workshop 14 on design certification form and content, and we're 15 looking forward to that.
We believe that's an 4
16 extremely important activity on behalf of the industry 17 and the Commission as we are close to finishing that 18 first full complete design certification to ensure 19 that all process issues are dealt with expeditiously 20 so we don't slow down the progress in that area.
21 With that, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, I
22 that concludes my remarks.
1 accomplished my goal.
23 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Well, actually, you know 24 there is a very interesting topic.
The staff has 25 become very, very interested in understanding what's NEAL R. GROSS CoVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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4
...i
68 1
the secret of the Japanese construction processes and 2
whether our regulatory environment will support such 3
tight processes, encourage them or stand in the way of 4
them.
I don't know if I should ask whether you have 5
views on this at this point or whether you've thought 6
about working with us in trying to review our 7
environment to make sure that we don't inadvertently 8
preclude, not so much Japanese processes, but just 9
good preplanned construction processes as opposed to 10 a standardized design.
11 MR.
COLVIN:
Yes, sir, absolutely.
I 12 think through this, the ARC activities and a few of 13 the points that Mr. Mcdonald made on those slides, l
14 we're trying to take into account the broader aspects I
15 of that as an industry to capture those lessons 16 learned.
17 I think in the Japanese ABWR designs they 18 have a competition between two major vendors or two 19 major architect-engineers and we are involved as an 20 industry, mainly through the EPRI process, to look at 21 those lessons from that from the construction aspects.
22 That is an integral part, also, of building block 7 on
^
23 the life cycle standardization that INPO is supporting 24 under the ARC activities.
25 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Just on this subject NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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69 l
1 of the COL, you noted that one of your activities is
[
i 2
resolution of the COL implementation matters.
Have i
3 you commented on the April draft paper, review process 4
and COL form and content?
5 MR.
COLVIN:
- Yes, sir.
We supplied f
6 comments on May 25th to the Commission on SECY-287A, 7
our comments in writing, and then have been supporting 8
those through interactions with the staff.
?
9 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
No, I think it 's not 10 287A.
I'm talking about the paper entitled, "10 CFR, 11 Part 52, Combined License Review Process and COL Form 12 and Content," and my understanding is --
13 MR. COLVIN:
I believe the answer is yes, 14 but let me defer -- the answer is no.
I have a head 15 shake from up above that the answer is no.
16 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Last I'd heard, you 17 hadn't.
That's why I was asking you whether you had.
18 MR.
COLVIN:
I stand corrected, Mr.
19 Commissioner.
20 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, you didn't 21 know that you hadn't made it, so you can't tell me 22 when you will.
l
~
23 MR. COLVIN:
I probably won't be able to 24 answer your follow-on questions.
]
\\
25 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, I would hope NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISI.AND AVENUE, N.W.
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)
.70 1
that that would be forthcoming pretty soon, because I l
2 think that is -- if these implementation matters are 3
going to be resolved, we've got to get your comments 4
on that paper.
l 5
MR. COLVIN:
Yes, sir.
I'll look into 6
that.
t 7
CHAIRMAN SELIN: Mr. Long, do you have any 8
wrap-up comments?
9 MR. LONG:
I have no -- I guess we have r
10 had a number of questions.
I guess my only question i
11 now is -- you've posed a number of questions along the 12 way having to do, it seems to me, with kind of a 13 better definition of the various elements and I'm not 14 sure we answered those in a very concise form.
i 15 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
You said that you would i
16 send us material.
There were three questions that 17 came up that required or requested further 18 information.
19 One is perhaps a clearer understanding of I
20 the deliverables that you will have at the end, you 21 know, what constitutes the completion of the first-of-22 a-kind engineering phase.
23 The second is, at least in my case, 24 perhaps the other Commissioners might want to broaden 25
- this, in the-case of the AP-600, what kind of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
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71 1
relationship is there likely to be between the testing 2
that you -- in other words, ARC or EPRI -- will 3
- require, the confirmatory testing that you will 4
require, and our own confirmatory testing.that we're 5
planning to do in Japan?
In other words, I'm pretty F
6 clear what happens up to the point of the issuance of 7
the safety evaluation report,-but thereafter I'm not 8
at all clear of the interaction because we'll still be 9
doing things and you'll still be doing things.
10 And then the third is whatever thought 11 there might have been on the status of software past 12 the certification process, because we intend to 13 certify not based on a design of sof tware but based on 14 a detailed specification since, first of all, it's i
15 very hard to test the design for safety.
You have a 16 specification you can look at and then you have the 17 software.
And second, we don't want to freeze the 18 software.
We want that to be allowed to be upgraded 19 with some configuration control during the life of the 20 certification.
21 And then there was sort of general 22 discussion about what do you think about construction
~
23 interaction, but not a request for any particular --
24 at least, it might be a topic.
I'm sure you 'll f ollow l
25 that up with the staff anyway.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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72 i
1 And then Commissioner Rogers' request of i
2 the follow-up on the form and content, which maybe 3
you're planning on just doing at the conference, I 4
don't know how you plan to follow-up on that.
5 MR. COLVIN:
We'll respond back on that 6
question, Mr. Chairman.
7 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
I think the i
8 information management system relationship to NRC, the 9
access to your -- to the results of that, I think, 10 would be something that would be very interesting to 11 us.
12 MR. MCDONALD:
Yes.
We'11 discuss with 13 your people that concept of the neutral filing.
t 14 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Do you care to make any 15 wrap-up comments?
i 16 COMMISSIONER, REMICK:
I just might say 17 that I had hoped for some more specific examples, kind 18 of like what Zack gave of what the end result will 19 actually mean.
Being an old mechanical engineer, I i
I 20 always feel better when I have my hands on something 21 and so forth and I would have found that to be 22 somewhat more helpful to me.
23 I agree fully with what John Taylor said, 24 that I think a tremendous amount has been accomplished 25 over the last couple years.
When you look back when NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N.W.
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73 1
we were starting with a new Part 52 with a lot of-
.2 hope, didn't know if it would really work, I think it 3
has definitely held up.
When you think about the 4
discussions we've had across this table on things like l
5 depth of design detail, tier 1,
tier 2 matters, I i
6 don't think any of us knew exactly what an ITAAC was.
7 From that we went into DAC and those things resolved 8
and I think it's a real credit to our NRC staff and 9
including the staff management of sitting down and 10 working with the people from the various organizations 11 from industry in getting us through those hurdles and 12 seeing that Part 52 has held up to that, and there's i
13 no question about it.
14 You referred to the f act that Taipower is 15 using a large portion of the utility requirements 16 document.
That the European Community has found that 17 that's a way to go and they tell me that fundamentally 18 their document will not be greatly different than the l
19 EPRI requirement document I think indicates that the 20 U.S.
has taken a lead in this area and people are 4
i 21 watching very closely.
I'm very proud to have been a 22 part of it and I hope that the Commission sitting on 23 this side of the table has added some contribution to 24 the process and not too much impedance from time to 25 time.
I think we do deserve some credit also, but NEAL R. GROSS COUPT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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74 1
it's a credit to everybody invol'ved and I'm very j
2 pleased with'the process and hope to see it completed 3
to fruition.
I 4
I thank you very much for your 5
presentation.
6 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Commissioner de Planque?
7 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
I would l
8 certainly associate myself with those comments as well l
9 and I have no further questions.
I would just thank L
10 you for the briefing.
i 11 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I agree with everything 12 Commissioner Remick said.
I'm an information theory 13 fellow.
I've never had my hands on anything and I i
14 still feel unsatisfied that there wasn't enough 15 even coming from a very different' background from 16 Commissioner Remick, I share his observation that l
17 there just wasn't enough concrete feeling.
i 18 If you remember, Mr. Colvin, when I first j
19 went down to NUMARC to be briefed on your views on 20 Part 52, the briefing was all legalistic.
I said, l
t 21 "Look, let's forget the rule.
Let's talk about what 22 information is needed at what point to make us feel
^
23 comfortable that it's safe and then we'll see how the t
24 rule fits that."
25 I would hope we could follow something NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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75 1
more of that approach here, not so much about the 2
procedures and the management, a little more about i
3 what kind of information and what kind of design.you 4
would expect at different points in the way the next 5
time that we meet, and perhaps we don't have to wait 6
six months or a year for the next presentation. We're i
7 very interested in your progress, subject to the j
8 caveats that I
gave you earlier during the 9
presentation, and we'd like to follow-up on that.
10 Thank you very much for your presentation.
.i 11 MR. MCDONALD:
Thank you.
i 12 MR. LONG:
Thank you.
13 MR. COLVIN:
Thank you, sir.
14 (Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m.,
the above-i 15 entitled matter was adjourned.)
16 17 18 19 c
20 21 22 23 l
24 i
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
QO2) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIBER This is to certify that the attached events of a meeting f
of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
TITLE OF MEETING: BRIEFING BY ADVANCED LEACTOR CORPORATION PLACE OF MEETING: ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND DATE OF MEETING:
SEPTEMBER 10, 1993 F
were transcribed by me. I further certify that said transcription is accurate and complete, to the best of my ability, and that the i
transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing events.
0 A A R-L Iv Reporter's name:
Peter Lynch l
1 l
i i
HEAL R. GROSS cover anomas me vaanscasosas 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUt. M.W.
(for) 2544435 WAgnessTON DA 20005 (202) 232 6000 l
i
~
)
J 1
Advanced Reactor Corporation Organization and Activities p
i e
Presented to Nuclear Regulatory Commission-10 September 1993 i
Louis Long, Chairman, ARC Utility Management Board Pat Mcdonald, Executive Director, ARC John Taylor, Vice President, EPRI Zack Pate, President, INPO i
Joe Colvin, President, NUMARC
ADVANCED REACTOR CORPORATION (ARC)
ORGANIZATION BY LOUIS LONG CHAIRMAN, ARC UTILITY MANAGEMENT BOARD SEPTEMBER 10,1993 i
ARC ORGANIZATION H+
E:
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ARC MEMBERSHIP (Class 1)
Amencan Electric Power
. Commonwealth Edison Company Consolidated Edison Company Carolina Power & Light Duke Power Company Florida Power & Light GPU Nuclear Philadelphia Electric Company Pennsylvania Power & Light Pubic service Electnc & Gas southern Nuclear Texas Utilities Electric Tennessee Valley Authority Union Electne Wisconsin Electne Power Company 3
ARC MILESTONES DOE /EPRI Cooperative Agreement
- Evolutionary and passive designs
-$200 million program FOAKE Design Selection
- ABWR and AP600 selected
-Westinghouse and GE Contracts finalized
--$276 million program 4
Page 2
1 1
i ARC MANAGEMENT AND i
COORDINATION BY PAT MCDONALD EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ADVANCED REACTOR CORPORATION SEPTEMBER 10,1993 5
r STRATEGIC PLAN FOR BUILDING NEW NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS OF NUCLEAR POWER OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE "NPOC has asked ARC to undertake in the coming year the coordination of the safety regulation, utility requirements and project-specific Building Blocks 2,3,4,5, 6 and 7.." reporting its assessments to the NPOC Ad Hoc Committee.
Page 3 w
i.
ARC ASSIGNED BUILDING BLOCKS Generic Safetv> Environmental Reaulation and Industry Standards (2) Precictable Licensing (3) ALWR Utilny
& Stable Regulation Requirements (NUMARC)
(EPRI-USC)
Proleet-Specific Activities (4) NRC Design Certification (5) Siting (Plant Designers)
(EPRl/NUMARC)
(6) First-of-a-Kind (7) Life-Cycle Engineenng Standardization (INPO)
(ARC-EPRI) 7 i
ARC Organization and Coordination 8.
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ARC FOAKE MANAGEMENT ARC Utikry Management Board i
AAC Executive Director Deputy czewtive Director AAC ABWR ARC ABWR ARC AP600 ARC AP600 Uthry Sponsor Grouc Proiect M.anager &
Pro;ect Manager &
Uhhty Sponsor Group Staff Statt j
i 4
6 Utahry ABWR I
I Utility AP600 6
i
,'-- Aeview Coord.
'----- Aeview Coord. ']
==,4 i--
Utility ABWR Uthty AP600
'T Review Coord f
f pey,ew Coord, Y
u=v s GE ABWR H AP600 mai, e FOAKE Program FOAKE Program (BB6)
(BB6)
~
ARC MANAGEMENT OF THE FOAKE CONTRACTS The scope of FCAKE work
-Detailed engineering that is not site-specific
-Complete for certain major components
-Complete only to " form, fit, and function" for remainder of components (to proceed further would require component procurement commitments)
-Other deliverables 10 Page 5
i i
ARC MANAGEMENT OF THE a
FOAKE CONTRACTS I
The basic process
-Contract deliverables t
-Schedule for deliverables
- Reviewers
- Review bases-I
- Approvals
- USG oversight
- UMB top level management oversight
-Shared responsibilities with DOE -
11 ARC MANAGEMENT OF THE FOAKE CONTRACTS t
Other processes and activities j
-Conformance assessments of FOAKE work
- Design reviews t
-Schedule reviews
-Other day-to-day interactions between on-site l
ARC staff and design team 12 I
Page 6
e-
.j i
ARC MANAGEMENT OF THE FOAKE CONTRACTS F
Other processes and activities (continued)
-Reviews of testing progress and results
-Reviews of standardization plans and progress
-Reviews of the information Management System plan and status
-USG reviews of potential changes to the URD
- USG concurrence required for changes to URD
-USG cost effectiveness reviews 13 i
ARC COORDINATION ONLY ARC Utihty Management Board i
AAC Erecuteve Director Deputy Enocuuve Director i
ALWR Program Ottice e
8 8
I Regulatory URD (BB3) ute.cyos l
8 Statattranon Siting (BB5)
Stamam're l
rRB2)
SBWR Design Cert.
(687) 5.hng goas; Sysism 80+ Desgn Cert INPO e
i NUMARC
" ' AN I
t EPHI I
l i______________,
,.______,______i GEABWR GEABWR EAP600 EAP600 Desgn Famity Stdz Famity Stdz Deson Certifcation Planning Planntng Comication (BB41 (BB41 14 Page 7
r ARC COORDINATION ONLY Matters of coordination
-The " big picture" about the objectives, status, and problems
-Interfaces and interactions among building blocks
-interdependent schedules
-Shared responsibilities with DOE
-Support among building blocks
-Integration of foreign and domestic utility participation ARC COORDINATION ONLY Means of Coordination
-Extensive exchange of information among working groups
- Several working group members participating in more than one group
-Electronic networks among groups and utilities are being expanded
-The present Executive Director of ARC is
" double hatted" as Chairman, Utility Steering Committee of the EPRI ALWR Program 16 Page 8
TOPICS OF DISCUSSION AMONG PARTICIPANTS IN ARC ACTIVITIES The need to derive maximum safety and economic benefits from standardization among member plants of each design family Plants in a standardized family should be more efficient to regulate and to be regulated Plants in a family should be able to make economical use of a cooperative or pooled common-support group to handle standardized functions that need not be done on site 17 TOPICS OF DISCUSSION AMONG PARTICIPANTS IN ARC ACTIVITIES What constitutes " predictable licensing and regulatory stability" for future plants? Can the efficiency of regulation be improved with the more robust plants of the future?
More effective management of the scheduling interface between each ALWR design certification applicant and the NRC is needed 16 Page 9
I-l TOPICS OF DISCUSSION AMONG PARTICIPANTS IN ARC ACTIVITIES How do we assure that the updated and sophisticated techniques used in the construction of some Asian nuclear plants will be available in the U.S.?
What is the best approach for developing or identifying the essence or models for the best processes, procedures, organizations, or other functional standards which we need to adopt for new standardized plants?
The need for an adequate information Management System available for use through the entire scope of plant design, construction, startup, and operation is recognized 19 EPRI ALWR PROGRAM BY JOHN TAYLOR VICE PRESIDENT ELECTRIC POWER RESEARCH INSTITUTE SEPTEMBER 10,1993 Page 10
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ALWR--THE UTILITIES' INITIAL VISION J
Create a foundation for better nuclear plants: safe, reliable and economical--simpler, more rugged, based on proven technology, designed with the operator in mind Develop utility (owner-operator) requirements applicable to the design of ALWRs Solicit NRC's findings through a Safety Evaluation Report regarding licensability of a plant designed in accordance with utility requirements 21 EIGHT YEARS OF PROGRESS Evolutionary and passive ALWRs U.S. DOE support
-MOU on design certification
-Cooperative agreement on FOAKE International utility involvement
-Technical and financial participation l
-10 countries Resolution of regulatory issues n
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EIGHT YEARS OF PROGRESS (continued)
Engineering through design certification and first-of-a-kind engineering
- ARC established to manage / coordinate
- EPRI technical and administrative support
-NUMARC and INPO standardization support
- Partnership with DOE NPOC Strategic Plan--comprehensive, utility-driven plan to build new nuclear plants n
SPECIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS BY INDUSTRY & NRC Utility Requirements Documentation in place
-FSERs prepared by NRC staff
-Being used as a basis for DC and FOAKE Beginnings of international cooperation and consensus
-Taipower bid spec
-European requirements Closure on key issues Significant progress toward Design Certification 24 Page 12
1"'.
l WHAT'S AHEAD Conformance assessment of designers' implementation of the URD Continuing to close out issues (SECY 93-087)
Keeping the URD up to date Obtaining Final Design Approval / Certification from NRC Completing First of a Kind Engineering Some challenges:
-Testing--essential for NRC and owner-investor confidence in passive systems reliability
- Plant economics--first cost and life-cycle cost
-Operational factors--tech specs LONG RANGE STRATEGY FOR LIFE CYCLE STANDARDlZATION BY DR. ZACK PATE PRESIDENT INSTITUTE OF NUCLEAR POWER OPERATIONS SEPTEMBER 10,1993 n
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-ll, NUMARC SUPPORT OF ARC ACTIVITIES BY JOE COLVIN PRESIDENT NUCLEAR MANAGEMENT AND RESOURCES COUNCIL SEPTEMBER 10,1993 27 PREDICTABLE LICENSING AND STABLE REGULATION NUMARC is addressing generic regulatory matters associated with achieving the goals of the NPOC Strategic Plan, including:
- Part 52 implementation
- Regulatory aspects of life-cycle standardization issues
- ARC project interactions with NRC
- ALWR emergency planning requirements
- Early siting 28 Page 14
ke RECONSTITUTED NUMARC WORKING GROUP ALWR Regulation Working Group Succeeds the NUMARC Standardization Oversight Working Group (SOWG) increasing focus on COL and operational matters Chaired by Dave Rehn, Vice President of Duke Power Company and Vice-Chairman of ARC UMB Membership includes utilities, vendors, INPO, EPRI, ARC and DOE n
NEAR TERM FOCUS OF WORKING GROUP SUPPORT Design certification form and content (SECY -
287-287A)
- Assist in coordinating industry participation in NRC workshop
- Provide industry comments on forthcoming Federal RegisterNotice Resolution of COL implementation matters m
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