ML20062G690
| ML20062G690 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 08/11/1982 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T-1122, NUDOCS 8208130134 | |
| Download: ML20062G690 (179) | |
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ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE SAFETY RESEARCH PROGRAM I
DA*I:
August 11, 1982 PAGZs:
1 - 150 Am.
Washington, D.
C.
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ls ul] LULL ALDERSOX REPORTING
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UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
3 O
4 ADVISORY C3MMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS S
6 7
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE SAFETY RESEARCH PROGRAM 8
9 Room 1406 10 1717 H Stree t, N.W.
11 Washington, D.C.
12 Wednesday, August 11, 1982 13 The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 14 8:35 a.m.
15 ACRS MEMBERS PRESENT:
16 C. SIESS, Chairman 17 J. C. MARK 18 D.
A. WARD 19 D. OKRENT 20 M. BENDER 21 P. G. SHEWMON 22 M.-PLESSET l
23 D.
W. MOELLER i O 24 otSIcxATro EtozaAt Emet 0IEE.
25 S.
DURAISWAMY O
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINtA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
2 1
Ma. SIESS:
The seeting will come to order.
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2 This is a meeting of the ACRS Subcommittee on 3
the Safety Research Program.
O 4
I am Chester, Subcommittee Chairman.
The 5
other members present today, starting on my left, are 6
Carson Mark, Da ve Wa rd, Dave Okrent, Bill Kerr, Paul 7
Shewmon, and Dade Moeller.
8 The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the 9
format, the content, and the approach to the NBC's long 10 range research plan for FY-85 through FY-89.
11 The meeting is being conducted in accordance 12 with the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee 13 Act, and the Government in the Sunshine Act.
The
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14 Deignated Government Employee is Mr. Sam Duraiswamy, who 15 sitting on my right.
16 The rules for participation in the meeting 17 were announced as part of the notice previously 18 published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, July l
19 21st.
20 A transcript is being kept and will be made 21 available as indicated in the Federal Register Notice.
22 It is requested that every speaker identify himself or 23 herself, speak with sufficient volume, and use the
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24 microphone.
25 We have received no written statements from l
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members of the public, and no requests for time to make
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2 oral statements from members of the public.
3 The meeting is being held for a couple of O
4 reasons.
We reviewed the first long range research for 5
'83 through
'87, NUREG-0740 in April of 1981, and wrote 6
a letter to the Chairman at that' time.
The draft plan 7
for '84 through
'88, NUREG-0784, we looked at, made a 8
limited review, and wrote a letter on that in April of 9
this year.
10 We discussed the question of reviewing the 11 long range research plan with the Commissioners at a 12 meeting.
Since they have re que sted our review, it 13 became a part of the process, and a document referred to 14 as CONJA-6013, wha tever that was, the procedures for 15 endorsing research contracts.
16 As I said, research to develop a long range 17 research plan was based on programs that we believe 18 should be initiated and used for office needs.
In 19 February of each year, the ACRS will review and comment 20 on the plan, and the Commission would review the plan 21 for approval.
22 That particular requirement gave us a problem l
23 of timing -- various problems.
One was that it has
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24 never met the February schedule, although the next one 25 presumably would, and the other was simply the process l
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of the committee formally reviewing and commenting on
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2 anything having to do with research would have to be 3
done through the process of subcommittee reviews.
O 4
We discussed this with the Commissioners in 5
June, and said that we would rather not be involved that 6
formally in the review and comments on the plan.
7 Chairman Palladino asked if we would write him a-note to 8
explain that to him, and we did that in a letter dated 9
June 7.
10 We said, we propose that we discontinue our 11 formal report to the Commission on the long range 12 research plan.
However, we expect to continue to 13 receive the plan, both in draft and final form, and we 14 plan to utilize it in our review of and report on the 15 NRC Safety Research Program for the budget and for the 16 report to Congress.
17 We have'not, to my knowledge, had a response 18 from the Commissioners or from the Chairman on that 19 proposal.
I have heard a rumor to the effect that they 20 still wanted us to review it, that is why I put down as 21 one item on the agenda the role of ACRS, and it says 22 here in the NRC Safety Research Program, bu t I suppose 23 it should be the long range plan document, I think.
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24 We made a promise that we would meet with 25 Research at about the time you were starting to work on O
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 the next long range research plan, and gave you the 2
benefit of our advice on format, arrangement, content, 3
etc., and that is really the purpose of this meeting.
4 It is still clear to us, since we have not had 5
a response to our letter from the Chairman, as to just 6
what exactly our formal role is.
In has been my j 7
position, in fact backed to some extent by the committee 8
to the extent that we have discussed it, that this 9
formal rola is almost impossible to carry out within the 10 framework of your time table and ours.
11 I think you know that for us to do a complete 12 review and comment on the long range research plan, we 13 have to refer it to the various subcommittees which are 14 knowle.lgeable about the program.
Even if they have a 15 continuing contract with the research program and the 16 needs, they still will have to have at least one 17 meeting, and prepare some comments, and there are 18 between six and ten subcommittees involved in this.
19 To get those meetings scheduled, and then a 20 full committee meeting, a full committee letter, and so 21 forth, we are talking about two or three months, and 22 your schedule does not allow two or three months for 23 ACRS review and comment on anything.
O 24 1 thiax the commi eto= aad some iaee taet out 25 review and comment on the plan before they got it would O.
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somehow ensure the plan being better, or would be an
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2 endorsement of the plan and fit into this " endorsing 3
research project" concept.
Anything you can say about
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that during the course of the morning's discussion would 5
be helpful.
6 We started off about a year ago, or a few 7
months ago, realizing that we were reviewino the 8
research plan formally about three times a year, and 9
that in my opinion was at least two times too often.
We to review it for the Commission, the Congress, and the long 11 range plan.
12 Would you like to say something, Bob, before 13 we get into the remaining part of the advice, and so
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14 forth, about what you think or what Research thinks the 15 role of the ACRS should be in regard to the long range 16 research program, the approval, and the endorsement type 17 of process?
18 MR. BERNERO:
If you don't mind, I would like 19 to lead right into the opening thing, because this is 20 exactly what I would like to address right now.
21 MR. MARK:
Could I ask a phrase to your 22 question of what the role should be and by that, I at l
23 least would think from your point of view, what would 24 the most useful role be, as opposed to what might be
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l 25 defined by some memorandum.
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1 MR. BERNERO:
Indeed.
I think to a very great 2
extent the Commission's requests of the committee are 3
tempered by what we can suggest to the Commission or the O
4 committee can suggest to the Commission as a useful use 5
of the committee's time and attention.
6 As Dr. Siess just said, we review it about 7
three times a year, which is at least two times too 8
many.
I sometimes find it a blurred distinction to 9
separate the one, the two, and the three times per 10 year.
From the staff's point of view, we seem to be 11 trooping in and out, and I lose track of which budget, 12 or which long range plan edition we are talking about.
13 We, too, recognize the difficulty that fo r a 14 responsible comment by the committee, you have to use 15 your subcommittee structure, and we have to cooperate 16 with that subcommittee structure in a coherent way.
And 17 this blurring of activity -- are we reviewing this 18 year's budget or last year's budget, or this edition of 19 the long range research plan -
pervades down to our 20 interaction with the subcommittees.
21 I think that one fundamertal truth that we 22 have before us is, there is too confused a relationship 23 and interaction of comment and advice right now.
It has
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24 to be clarified.
I don't think that we have right now, 25 the Research staff at least, a clear understanding of O
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1 the optimum way to do it.
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What we wanted to talk about today is an 3
approach to the long range research plan in particular, rsU 4
and how that relates to our interaction with the 5
committee in general, where you have even statutory 6
responsibility to advise the Commission or the Congress 7
on budget.
Perhaps from the interaction today, and 8
following today, we can develop a much more effective 9
way-to do this.
10 Many times, I know, members of the committee 11 are concerned that we are rejecting your advice or, as 12 would a rgue, when you give us advice, we sa y, "Oh,
- yes, 13 ve agree," and then go on and do otherwise anyway.
The
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14 committee represents a singular group of technical and 15 scientific comment on the research program that should 16 not be wasted.
17 MR. KERRa Don't ignore the accumulated wisdom 18 and good judgment.
19 MR. BERNER0s I will go so far.
20 (General laughter.)
21 MR. BERNER0s Sam has some copies of the 22 vie wg ra phs', but I don't know that you will have to refer 23 to them.
I have tried to put together a statement of
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. 24 the role of the ACRS in the Research Program that 25 combines both what I perceive as a functional, useful ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 role, and an organizational role that you have put on 2
you by Commission procedures, and even by the Congress.
3 Basically, if I look at the technical side, I O
4 see the two functions of the ACRS as technical and 5
policy advice on needs and directions -- where are the 8
risk significant uncertainties, where are the areas of 7
research relative to nuclear safety, material safety, 8
waste management safety.
Whatever the area of 9
jurisdiction of the agency, the committee is in a 10 position, by the way you are selected and empaneled, to 11 provide useful technical advice on where research ought 12 to be done.
13 Secondly, and this is a very important part, 14 the committee, often very effectively through its 15 subcommittee structure, can provide a technical critique 16 of results.
The Research Program is not an 17 instantaneous thing.
One does not go out and set up a 18 big program, do it in the closet, and come in here with 19 an answer.
It is an iterative process.
20 The programs go on for several years, and the l
21 committee is in a position to provide directly through 22 its members, and with the consultants that you can 23 marshall through your subcommittees, to provide
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24 technical critiques of results that are very useful.
25 So those are the two areas where we need the
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advice, we want the advice, and we want the oversight of 2
the committee in an ef ficient way.
Now, the vehicle by 3
which you provide this advice, the vehicle by which the O
4 committee as a whole reacts with us, are first of all 5
what you are mandated to do.
6 The Commis sion, of course, has you as a 7
federally constituted Advisory Committee, and the 8
Commission has given you the task of providing annual 9
advice on the research budget.
In addition, the to Congress four or five years ago, it seems, called on you 11 to provide direct advice to the Congress on an annual 12 basis concerning our budget.
13 These are activities that you cannot casually
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14 manipulate, and even before we had a long range research 15 plan in being as a further chip on the table, there was 16 the problem of desling with the review of the budget for 17 the Commission, and dealing with the review by 18 Congress.
So there was already the beginning of some 19 blurring there, and that problem I think remains.
It is 20 not so severe as having this third thing, the long range 21 research plan in the bargain as well.
22 Then two years ago, the staff prepared its 23 first long range research plan, and I forget the number t ()
24 of it, but I think --
25 MR. SIESS:
NUREG:-0740.
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MR. BERNERO.
It was 0740 or 0784, or 2
comething like that.
We prepared our first long range 3
research plan, and although we look back on that with O
4 some dissatisfaction, I think it is worth singling ovt 5
some of the strengths of it, the things that we don't 6
vant to lose.
7 It was a comprehensive display of current and 8
future programs.
If you look at it, it represented tha t 9
I look back on with some pride, a major activity in the to agency of putting into a single document, albeit 11 imperfectly, a statement of everything or practically 12 everything that it was doing.
13 It makes it very useful for all parties, the p ()
14 user offices, teh administrative offices, the 15 Commission, the outside world, to see in one single 16 place what is going on and what is expected to go on in l
17 the next few years.
I will talk about scme of the 18 deficiencias of that display shortly.
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19 By having that single display, we are also 20 wide open for comment and advice, and it f acilitates 21 constructive advice about the overall program, the 22 overall objectives of research, because there is in this 23 one place this comprehensive display of programs.
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24 I will just single out one example that we can 25 come to again and again.
When you are commenting on ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 risk flood work, the risk analysis flood work, you can
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2 also flip a chapter and look at the flood phenomenology l
3 research for its relationship, for the sense of the O
4 over'all direction of the program.
A t least it is 5
there.
It may not be well put there.
It may not be 6
coherently analyzed, and coherently presented, but at 7
least it is there, and it is open for comment and 8
advice.
9 Lastly, you have here a display of programs 10 and activities tha t is coordina ted with the budget 11 cycle, so that one is not forced to deal with a 12 n ecessa rily truncated budget presentation.
13 I sometimes wonder why the Government uses
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14 E-38, you know those budget forms that end up being 15 collections of jargons, and repeatedly edited te paragraphs.
I find them almost distasteful.
They 17 really explain the program.
They don't give any logic.
18 They are far too terse and they are far too loaded with 19 super-edited jargon.
20 So havino a document that at least has the 21 possibility of going into a more intelligent display of 22 the overall program, having that document coordinated 23 with the budget cycle, is a strength that ought to be
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24 taken advantage of.
But. le t's be ca ndid, and let 's talk 25 about the weaknesses.
O ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 As you know, the first two long range research 2
plans went out and put together all the programs, but 3
they did just that.
They put together programs, and not O
4 plans.
In fact, we should have called them the long 5
range research program description, rather than the long 8
range resesrch plan.
7 Basically, they lacked clear planning for 8
regulatory issues, for the definition of the regula tory 9
process -- Where are we trying to go?
What are we to trying to do with an individual program?
What is the 11 fundamental regulatory need?
12 They also lacked clear definition of 13 objectives, sufficient technical information to make a 14 rule, sufficient technical information to put aside a 15 concern.
They just lacked tha t.
16 We tried in the second plan to superimpose an 17 editorial structure by going into the plan and forcing 18 the authors to at least sta te their objectives and their 19 regulatory needs, and so forth, but frankly I don't 20 think that was very successful.
21 It helped in some rega rd, but you could not 22 sit back with our second year plan, let alone with the 23 first, and see overall problem analysis, regulatory
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24 analysis, saying, this is what this research is intended 25 to do, and here are the priorities and the objectives of
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it.
This was not clear.
It was clearly a compendium of
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2 programs worked backwards.
It was a bottom-up plan.
3 We also divided it according to our budget O
4 decision units and organizational structure, and as you 5
know t! at tends to bend people to put the plan in narrow 6
categories.
You will find as a result some overall 7
issues are divided, and I will use that same example 8
again.
9 If you go in last year's program plan, and you 10 vant to ask about a regulatory issue I know this 11 committee is interested in, you want to ask about 12 flooding research, where would you find it.
I can tell 13 you.
You go to Chapter 10, and you will find the guys
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who were paid under the risk decision unit fiddling away 14 15 with their part of flooding research.
Then you go,into 16 Chapter 9, and you will find the Geo-Science Group, Leo 17 Beratan's group in Frank Arsenault's division, talking 18 about what they do.
But you don 't find a coherent 19 address of the problem.
20 You find the activities divided according to 21 the budget decision units, which fund the activity, and 22 the management structure which controls the~ activity.
23 You don't find a coherent cross-cut or a coherent
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24 analysis of the problem.
25 The organiza tion of the plan is such, ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGlNIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 following budget and management structures, that it puts 2
that burden out there that there must be a cross-cut.
3 There was an additional burden, and we didn 't carry the 4
burden last year.
That axample,.I think, is a singular 5
case of it.
6 The third item that I.have here needs some 7
explaining.
It is incompatible with program and policy 8
guidance input, it can only follow program and policy G
guidance output.
10 What I mean by that is, the Commission 11 consicts of five human being with significant 12 responsibility, you cannot give them a 200-page document 13 and expect them to analyze it, to go through it, and to 14 turn back to the staff and say, "In your next approach 15 to these areas, let's say research, here is some 16 coherent guidance from the Commission itself."
It is 17 too indigestible a blob, it is too incoherent a blob, 18 they would have to analyze it.
19 The result is that there is only a very 20 limited and very, I would say, informally conducted 21 dialogue between the Director of Research, and his upper 22 staff, and the Commission before the PPG is generated, 23 and as you now it addresses only one or two or three
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24 aspects of research at the most.
25 It is very general, and very vague.
It is not ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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offered a coherent menu of possible directions on which
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2 to comment and, therefore, the Commission, not having an 3
adequate staff document before them, is not able to give 4
what I would consider adequate policy and planning 5
guidance.
We, of course, having gotten the Commission's 6
policy and planning guidance can act on it, but it is a 7
very limited influence on the generation of the plan.
8 MR. SIESS:
Bob, since you mention PPG, in the 9
last budget material I got there was a section called 10
" cross-cuts on PPG."
Do you know what I am talking 11 about?
12 MR. BERNER0s I believe so.
13 MR. SIESS:
It divided up into operatino 14 plants, near term licensing, regulatory requirements, do 15 you know what I mean?
16 MR. BERNERO:
I think so.
17 HR. SIESS:
It listed the effort in dollars 18 across the Commission, and it listed Research.
About 19 three-fourth of the research budget was accounted for in 20 those cross-cuts, and about one-fourth wasn't.
As I 21 looked at it, it says that a quarter of what Research is 22 doing is not in response to PPG guidance.
Is that what 23 it says?
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24 MR. GILLESPIE:
Bob was not involved in 25 putting those cross-cuts together.
Besides looking at
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the cross-cut number itself, you have to look at the 2
definition that went with the term.
Sometimes the 3
definitions were narrow, and sometime they were broad.
O 4
As an example, one of the cross-cuts was scientific code 5
development, code validation work, and it some cases it 6
was not included under that category.
7 The definitions became really tricky in those 8
cross-cuts, and in some cases some of our money is 9
double-counted because it fit in two areas.
So the 10 cross-cuts are not going to add up to anything.
11 MR. SIESS:
What the heck are they good for?
12 MR. GILLESPIE:
That came out of a Commission 13 meeting.
14 MR. SIESS:
That was to satisfy the 15 Commission?
16 MR. KERR:
Mr. Siess, as you know, cross-cuts 17 are part of any careful planning these days.
You have 18 to have cross-cuts 19 HR. GILLESPIE:
It was something on the order 20 of 20 projects.
The question came up, does risk 21 assessment go under severe accident, or does risk 22 assessment go into these other things, if you are asked 23 the question of how much money are you spending on risk O
24 assessment.
The decision wes mede to put it in heth 25 places, so that people can see what we are spendino.
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3R. SIESS:
In what I have, risk assessment
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2 vent under improved regulatory tools.
The thing that 3
bothered me was that only three-quarters of the program O
4 could be accoun ted f or in PPG, where was the other 5
quarter justified?
6 MR. BERNER0s In a way you are making a case 7
for what I was trying to say.
The PPG has the character 8
in its present format for the Office of Research of "Go 9
do good things in an area."
It is very general.
It is 10 very, very limited.
11 It does not have singular and coherent 12 regulatory objectives because we don't offer the staff 13 work for the Commission to react to, or to choose from
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14 that would enable them to give us that kind of advice.
15 3R. BENDER:
I wanted to raise two points that 16 You may cover, but I will anticipate that you are not 17 going to cover them.
One is the question of what can be 18 accomplished with a given amount of money.
19 It seems to me that the logic of developing a 20 research program has to deal with the matter of given so 21 much money, can you get to a specific answer with that 22 money.
If you can't, you may be just throwing money 23 away because ycu are not going to get very far.
The 24 other is the timeliness of the need.
You may be going
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25 to cover both of those.
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MR. BERNEB0:
We are going to come into this
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2 because one of the crucial things in going into the 3
simple delineation of programs the way we have in the O
4 past, it is not an effective vehicle for addressing 5
these questions, unless you start f rom the top down with 6
a statement of what am I.trying to achieve.
7 You can 't coheren tly and properly address 8
questions likes Can I even get there from here in a 9
timely ways What are my priorities?
Are the tools 10 available to me suitable and affordable to ao that way, 11 because we could well reject the research objective.
12 There are a number of reasons that we might 13 decline to do research.
One, of course, is that it is w
14 not our job, it is DOE's job, or the industry's job.
15 Another is that there is simply not enough money in the 16 world to do it, or it is not cost effective to do it.
17 We have this problem, and it is the subject of 18 vigorous debate now, on the fission product played out 19 or attenuation in the reactor coolant system. -We all j
20 have very strong f eelings about how and where fission 21 products from core melt might be transmitted through the 22 reactor coolant ~ system toward some exit, but is it i
23 feasible to do a definitive research program that would
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sequences.
2 It may be horrendously expensive.
By looking 3
at our regulatory needs from the top down, then we are O
4 in a much better position to speak to the real issues of 5
a program like that.
Is it affordable?
Is it 6
sensible?
7 MR. OKRENT:
You have something called basic 8
and specific objectives, and the implication from the 9
slide is, since it says previouA LRRP's weaknesses, that 10 this has now been dealt with in thb current version.
11 MR. BERNERO:
No, by the' current version, you 12 are referring to 0784.
13 MS. OKRENT:
That is right, the one that was 14 handed out this morning, or are expected to have had by 15 now.
16 NR. DURAISWAMY:
That is the one we looked at 17 and mailed.
18 MR. OKRENT:
So there is a future one?
19 MR. BERNER04 We are talking today about how 20 can we approach the third long range research plan to 21 svoid these weaknesses.
?fie weaknesses.I refer to, 0784 22 that you have in v%
h..1 has them, and the previous 23 one has them in trani..
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24 MR. OKRENT:
I thank you for clarifying that 25 point.
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1 MR. MARK:
This is s-trivial point, but when 2
you said that the Commission couldn't be expected to 3
take a 200-page document and draw its conclusions from 4
it, this is a 300-page document.
5 MR. BERNER0s There is one other thing that 6
enters into this.
I was there at the time, and I really 7
don 't know how we got into this approach, but we got 8
into a long range planning approach that had a very far 9
horizon.
10 If you go to the first two long range research 11 plans, you find that they deal with two years of 12 programs by way of status.
They say, you need to kn-v 13 what is going on, and what is going on is the year we 14 are just going into and next year, and those budgets 15 have already been dealt with.
16 Then in the long range plan, the actual scope 17 of the plan is the two-year budget cycle which is now 18 the third year out and the fourth year.
We get our 19 five-year scope by adding three more future never, never 20 years after that.
We get these very high numbers.
We 21 get these very long range, far off horizon things.
22 Now, this is a problem, and this is going to 23 lead into Frank's Gillespie of what we are trying to do
()
24 with th e n e w pla n.
I made a little sketch to better 25 understand this.
If you look.here, in the coming fall O) l x
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1 of 1982, in the old scope of the long range research 2
plan, you would be covering the budget years '83 and 3
'84, fiscal 1983 and 1984.
This is merely a status, yet 4
you are at the very beginning, or the threshold of 5
FY-83.
You are in the throes of argument about whether 6
or not you will continue BPF phase II or things like 7
that.
8 Very crucial research programs and decisions 9
are in this status.
You are talking about the '85 and 10
'86 budget, but the scope of the long range research 11 plan spans way out to 1989, and who of us is a sharp 12 enough seer to see that f ar out, or can make any 13 meaningful comment about it.
(}
14 An alterna te scope tha t might be considered 15 is, as I bracketted it underneath here, taking the two 16 existing years already budgeted, but subject to limited 17 reprogramming, and the two budget years after that as F
18 companions, and then a year beyond.
Then, there are 19 subsets that you could shift one year and compromise the l
20 difference.
21 I would like to use this as the lead-in to l
22 Frank Gillespie's discussion of the mechanics now of how l
23 can we approach this new plan and how can we make it
( ()
24 work, so that we can keep the strengths and solve the 25 weaknesses.
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MR. BENDER:
Put the slide back that you just
)
2 had a minute ago, I want to make an observa tion.
3 I think you are right that we can't look out O
4 to 1989, but there are some intermediate steps that have 5
to be defined in the long range research plan as a basis 6
for judgment.
I think a little bit of discussion of 7
that ought' to show up in the plan.
8 MR. BERNERO:
Yes, I think Frank is going to 9
address that, because in a way it is important to 10 recognize this, when you are speaking of the objectives, 11 of regulatory needs, and where we are going from here, 12 this sort of a scope makes a whole lot of sense.
But 13 sooner or later, we must get to the compatibility or the 14 utility of programs to get there, and that is when the 15 focus of attention an'd the real need comes to this group 16 here.
17 We have this incompatibility.
We.need the 18 vision, and that is exactly what it would be.
It would 19 be statements of vision or projections, and not 20 statements of programs.
What we tried to do in the 21 first two editions was, we tried to make statements of 22 programs out here, without the vision.
That, of course, 23 lacks utility.
24 Let me turn the floor over to Frank.
()
25 MR. GILLESPIE:
I will not use the viewgraphs, O
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1 unless I have to.
2 In looking at the long range plan this yea r, 3
the basic decision was that if we can't recover anything O
4 from the last formats, then we will try starting from 5
ground zero again, that is not necessarily on content, 6
but on format, also recognizing that the long range 7
research plan tended to duplica te the budget, because 8
you don't like reading twice.
9 The other thing we wanted to get into was the 10 early submission of-the long range plan and to get 11 comments from the Commission to get to the Commission 12 before they write their PPG guidance, so we have an 13 opportunity to input to them.
14 In doing this, we are actually saying now that 15 we are not going to duplicate the budget in the long.
16 range research plan.
We are making the conscious 17 decision that the long range research plan will serve 18 one purpose and the purpose another, and not duplicate.
19 So the purpose of the long range research plan 20 is intended to define the regulatory goals and what 21 information we want to develop from a research program 22 to meet those goals.
We are going to try to get 23 agreement of the parties on the program goals as best we
()
24 can prioritize them.
25 We want.to get agreement on the information 1
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1 tha t is needed to fill-them.
A goal may require a 2
revision of a particular part of the standa rd review 3
plan.
It may indeed lead to a rule.
We want to get S
V 4
agreement that that is something that is in f act 6
needed.
6 We want to get agreement tha t this type of 7
information, if th e resea rch program generated it, would 8
fulfill that need.
If we gave that information to NRR, 9
it would satisfy their needs.
Where we ourselves could to write the rules and do what was needed with it.
11 Another thing we would like to do is stimulate 12 technical advice on how to achieve th'e inf o rma tion.
13 What we don't want to do with the plan is have infinite 14 detail on how we are going to get the information.
That 15 is intended to be in the budget.
If we get agreement 16 that this information is needed to fill these needs, 17 then in the budget planning process, we would detail how 18 we are going to do that.
19 Inherent in the decision on priorities, is the 20 need for some kind of estimated cost.
So, indeed, there 21 will be a money figure with each of milestone that we 22 are expecting to reach in the research program for 23 purposes of prioritization -- we would expect that this
()
24 is worth $10 million, and this is worth $5 million, or 25 this is worth a half a million dollars.
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1 MR. WARD Wait a minute, Frank.
You say that 2
you are going to estimate this as worth $10 million, or 3
do you think that it is going to cost $10 million?
4 MR. GILLESPIE How much is it going to cost 5
based on information that we have.
PBF costs $16 6
million a year to run.
If our intent is.to use PBF to 7
get this piece of information, then we automatically 8
know that there is a base cost of $16 million, and other 9
things are much, much cheaper.
10 MR. BERNERO.
Excuse me, Frank.
I think there 11 is something worth adding.
12 In certain area, when one looks at the 13 long-range plan and one looks at the budget, there can 14 certainly be a need for more detailed programmatic 15 discussion and planning at a much deeper level.
16 The approach with the budget and the long 17 range research plan doesn't preclude having a detailed 18 program plan for severe accident research, or heavy 19 section steel research, or something like that, where l
20 you need to go into a specific area, go in deeply.
21 We can have separate supporting documents that 22 can be treated by reference, but we don't want to have 23 them in the long range plan and end up with 374 pages,
()
24 because then it is an unusable document, and it is going 25 to miss its real point or the overall objective.
I O
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1 MR. GILLESPIEa That is the objective, our k'"/
2 audience, which becomes very important.
We have written 3
a very voluminous document which has failed in its O
4 reaching of the Commission.
It-is too long for Office 5
Directors to generally spend auch time with it.
Then we 6
get the complaint from the staff, particularly NMSS, 7
that it lacks sufficient detail for them-to comment on 8
it.
So we have missed both audiences.
We fit in the 9
middle and satisfied no one.
10 We made a conscious decision this year that 11 this plan is intended for Office Directors and above.
12 it is intended for agreement on need, agreement on 13 information that is required to fulfill those needs and
()
14 program direction.
15,
MR. MOELLER:
Excuse me, but that is a point 16 that I would like to discuss.
17 You have listed your purposes and I think 18 those are well specified, or spelled out here.
But as I 19 went through the material that we were provided, and as 20 I read Martin's comment on waste management or 21 Cunningham's comments, I have no way of knowing in 22 fact.
The only conclusion I can reach is that you did 23 - not get agreement on goals and needs, and you did not
()
24 get agreement on priorities.
25 Now maybe there has been a lot that has f~
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1 occurres since those memos were written, and I'am sure 2
there has been.
But how am I to know how successful you 3
have been on these goals and purposes?
Are there O
4 subsequent menos from Cunningham and Martin that say, we 5
agree fully with what is in it?
6 MR. GILLESPIE:
In general, there is not.
7 What has happened is that Minog ue has met with Davis, 8
and they have worked it out at the Office Director 9
level.
Then through the budget review process, it got 10 worked up to Dircks, and then through to the 11 Commission.
So the process itself worked it out without 12 a written record of each step.
13 MR. MOELLER:
Like in the Dircks memo that we 14 were given, the SECY document of May 2nd, it says in 15 there that all of the problems have been worked out.
16 MR. GILLESPIEs The problems were not worked 17 out with Martin and Cunningham.
They were worked out 18 between Minogue and Davis.
19 NMSS, I don't know why, but they are always 20 different from NRR.
NRR, we seem to be able to deal 21 with the division level, and the Office Director seems 22 to always agree.
23 MR. MOELLERa He says, "RES believes that most
()
24 of the significant comments received have been addressed 25 and resolved."
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MR. GILLESPIE Indeed they were, and it meant
)-
2 going higher than Cunningham and Martin.
3 MR. P3DDLAK:
Ed Podolak of the staff.
f)
V 4
There was a memo from Martin to Minogue, which 5
said that the comments on the long range plan gave the 6
impression that the programs were not well coordinated, 7
when in fact they have been well-coordinated, and the 8
comments were on details.
9 So there was a meno to document that, and I 10 think it underlies your point that the feeling of the 11 staff at NMSS was that there was not enough detail in 12 the long range research plan for them to evaluate it 13 from a staff level.
That underlines your comment.
()
14 MR. GILLESPIEs Yes, but Martin never wrote 15 back and said that he agreed with the priorities.
He 16 agreed on the basis of what his disagreemen t was.
He 17 agreed that we had a well-coordinated program, but he 18 didn 't agree with the priorities.
So what happened was, 19 we missed both audiences.
20
.MR.
KERR Does this mean that he agreed that 21 you had a well-coordinated lousy program?
22 MR. GILLESPIE:
Or we had a well-coordinated 23 good program, but he didn't say it either way that l ()
24 either letter.
We have a well-coordinated program, so l
25 we are satisfying his needs within the money we have got O
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1 in there.
He stands by the fact that he would like to v
2 have four or five more people put in waste management to 3
write standards, which was his biggest gripe.
O 4
MR. SIESS:
There are two themes to this 5
meeting.
One is what should be in the long range 6
research plan, and the other is what should the role of 7
the ACRS be.
8 In connection with the letter, to make clear 9
what I am talking about, it is an interesting point, if 10 the ACHS provides comments to the Commission on the long 11 range research plan -- I make a distinction between 12 comments to the Commission and comments to the staff, or 13 advice to the Commission and advice to the staff -- do 14 we concern ourselves with only what we think should-be 15 in the research program or the research plan, or do we 16 concern ourselves with what the user offices think 17 should be in there?
18 That is, do we start locking at what the 19 offices say their needs are, evaluate those needs, then 20 evaluate the program against those needs?
Or, do we 21 simply come in and say, this is all righ t, this is not 22 all right, based on our own views?
23 Do you get the distinction, because there is
()
24 one?
(
25 If we are going to look at how Research O
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resp 3nds to user needs, I think we have to look at the 2
expression of those user needs, because they may not be 3
good needs, which means a lot of involvement with user O
4 offices -- why do they need something, what are they S
using now?
I just wanted to bring that point up.
6 MR. GILLESPIE4 I think what we would be 7
looking for is independent technical advice.
8 MR. SIESS:
Let me go back and point out 9
something which was in a memo I wrote sometime ago for 10 the committee.
11 We have been doing two different things.
We 12 have been interacting with the Research staff, or what I 13 say, giving advice to the research staff.
In our 14 reports to the Commission, and in our reports to 15 Congress, major portions of those are addressed not to 16 the Commission or to congress, but to staff.
All of our 17 oral interchanges are directed to staff.
18 In addition, we give advice to the Commission 19 on the budget at a certain time of the year, and advice 20 to the Congress.
Our advice to the Commission and 21 advice to the Congress is not the same as our advice to 22 the staff, and the staff response to our advice, 23 frequently with a time lag of one year to infinity.
The 24 response from the Commission or the congression'al
()
25 response is something entirely different, if it exists.
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1 So I have always made a distinction between
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2 our advice to the staff and our advice to the Commission 3
at a particular point in time, on a particular budget or O
4 program, and our advice to the Congress.
The same is 5
going to be true about the long range research plan.
6 MR. WARD:
Chet, what do you mean by advice to 7
the staff?
I was interested in Bob Bernero's first 8
chart where he talked about the role of the ACBS.-
9 Bob, you did not mention at all advice to the 10 staff.
You talked about the advice, needs, and 11 directions, and then you said that the advice came 12 through the reports to the Commission on the budget, and 13 the report on the budget to the Congress.
(
14 Chet is saying that there is some mechanism, 15 he thinks, working for advice to the staff.
Do you feel 16 that there is a mechanism for advice to the staff ?
17 MR. BERNERO:
I was intending the first two of 18 those items as being primarily advice to the staff, and i
19 the second advice to the Commission.
l l
20 MR. WARD:
How do you perceive that you get 21 that advice?
22 MR. BERNERO:
By interaction.
23 MR. SIESS:
Take our report to the Congress, I l ()
24 consider all of Part II of that report to be addressed 25 chiefly to the staff.
I doubt that the Congress pays O
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1 any attention to it.
2 MR. BERNER0s That is exactly it.
The formal 3
aechanisms which the ACRS uses to communicate with the-4 Commission, whether it be in a licensing case or the 5
research budget, or something like that, it is the staff 6
that is here, that is in the dialogue with the ACRS, and 7
the first fruit of that is advice to the staff on 8
technical detail.
9 MR. OKBENTs Since you are talking about the to ACRS' role, I would like to raise two rather different 11 points for consideration.
12 The first is, is our interaction with the 13 Commission what it should be?
When I read the 14 transcript of the staff meeting with the Commission on 15 the budget, and I read the discussion of ACRS comments f6 and the response that the staff makes to these, I myself 17 do not feel that the ACES position has been adequately 18 dealt with much of the time.
19 The committee, of course, writes a very 20 cryptic comment and it doesn't usually write even half a 21 paragraph on an item, and maybe it should.
22 MR. SIESS:
The staff has spokesman, and we 23 have to speak for 15.
-( )
24 MR. OKRENT:
Let me go on, if I may.
25 Nevertheless, wha t happens seems to be that j
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the Commissioners pick up some of the comments, or many V
2 of the comments, the staff responds in certain ways 3
which I think would be different, or at least the O
4 overall discussion would be different on many issues if 5
there were an ACES representative there to interject a I
6 comment now and then.
7 So if we are going to spend all the time that 8
we do reviewing these things, maybe we should carry it 9
one step further.
This is the thought I want to leave, 10 and tha t leads me into the second point.
11 In my opinion, we have gotten way out of 12 balance from the point of view of time that we spend 13 reviewing the Safety Research Program and the time that
)
14 we spend trying to develop, as well as react to 15 technical positions on major regulatory questions like 16 implementation of safety goals or severe accident 17 rulemaking, and so forth.
18 Finally, it seems to me a thing that we have 19 done only on an ad hoc basis, and might want to consider 20 is tha t we, in fact, try to look at the various 21 functions that the regulatory staff does in its
(
22 regulatory role, and see whether we have any comments 23 along these lines.
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24 What we do, it seems to me now, is look, let's 25 say, at the unresolved safety issues.
There may be a O
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detailed look for a period of time at decay heat
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2 removal, or pressurized thermal shock, but we don't have-3 in effect the kind of, at least once through, somewhat O
4 systematic look at the regulatory aspects of things.
5 That is a big package to swallow, but I would 6
like to raise these points all quite seriously.
7 MR. SIESS:
They are both good points, Dave.
8 The first one does present us with the problem of having 9
a representative that can speak for the group.
I speak 10 from experience, because I have had to go up to the
- 1 Congress two or three times and presumably speak for the 12 ACRS on the Research Program.
.lgain, I am trying to 13 speak for the ACRS, which is difficult.
14 The point Dave made is a good one.
We put i
15 down a recommendation in writing, and it is filtered 1
16 through the committee.
Bob Minogue can come back as 17 individual and spoke to that much more strongly than we 18 could, and it is hard to rebut.
19 HR. BERNER0s Because you are not speaking at 20 all.
21 MR. SIESS The other poin t, which is exactly 22 why we are in this meeting, I wrote a memo for the l
23 committee a year ago, or thereabouts, saying that we
()
24 were doing this thing too many times, and we were 25 spending too much time reviewing the research program l
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1 with a lot of formslities.
2 We wrote a letter to Joe Palladino in October 3
of 1981 where we proposed to cut down on that.
He
,O 4
agreed to cut down on the report to the Commission in 5
July, but he still wanted a review of the long range 6
research plan.
His. response came back and said, yes, we 7
realize that you and Research, both, are devoting too 8
much time, but he still wanted a review of the long 9
range research plan.
10 I will come back to that because he still 11 wants it, and he wants it in a schedule that is 12 impossible to review the long range research plan and 13 the budget at the same time, when they are covering 14 different periods, etc.
As I said at the beginning, we i
15 don 't want to do that.
We have not gotten the word back I
16 f ro n the Commission agreeing to it.
17 I am thoroughly in agreement with Dave that we 18 are not de vo ting a tremendous amount of eff ort to this, 19 but I don't see where would find the time to do so, and 20 still be devoting time to other things.
I think that we 21 have more contact than we need with Research.
22 HR. BERNER0s I would like to remark on what 23 Dave has said, sni back up to the question that you
()
24 raised that triggered this discussion about, should you 25 address what is in the research program, or should you O
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37 1
as well address the user needs.
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2 If we go back and ask ourselves what are the 3
regulatory needs or the regulatory programs of the O
4 agency, we don't really have a long range regulatory 5
plan or progran approach of some sort for the user.
In 6
other words, NRR doesn't public annually some sort of 7
long range plan that provides a vehicle whereby those 8
who advise the Commission, where the Commission and 9
others can comment on directions and objectives and 10 priorities.
11 The fact that there is a research plan that l
12 incorporates significant elements of regulatory l
l 13 directions, I think forces you to address not only what
()
is in the plan and your own views of what is in the 14 15 plan, but by extension your own. views on.what NRR or-1 16 NMSS should be looking for.
j 17 I think that you have no chcice, it is the 18 only game in town.
That is the only place you can go.
l 19 MR. SIESS:
That expands what we are doing 1
20 because we have our ideas, and sometimes they don't i
21 agree with what NRR thinks.
22 Then sometimes NRR has something that they l
23 think is important that we don't know about, and we have
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24 to then sit down with them and understand what their 25 needs are.
That is an extension of this, and it is even O
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE, S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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2 We vill sit in a meeting, and we will have 3
George Knight come up and present a few comments, but O
4 that is not an in-depth review with the NRR people as to 5
what they think the problems are, why they think they 6
are problems, and why they think there is a high 7
priority on. them.
Unless it is obvious, we don 't go 8
into that depth, I am talking about right down into the 9
$2 or $3 million items.
Let me go back to the example 11 that I cited.
12 MR. SIESS:
We have not-talked to NRR about 13 serious accidents that much.
14 MR. BERNERO:
That much, but you have talked 15 about them.
16 MR. SIESS:
Some, but we have not heard them 17 list the alternatives to rulemaking, or the alterna tive 18 decisions that they need this information for.
19 MR. BERNERO:
The only vehicle you have is the 20 research in severe accidents in SECY-82-1 and 1A.
21 MR. SIESS They tell us a lot about what they 22 vant to know, but not why they want to know it, or why 23 they need to know it.
()
24 MR. BERNERO:
I think if the committee is 1
25 looking1at the research program, and confines itself to
)
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addressing what is in the plan, and what the committes
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2 affirms should be in the plan, and what the committee 3
says should be in the plan but is not in the plan.
If
()
4 you just take that narrow a view, as you defined it, not 5
looking at the user needs, I think there is a vacuum 6
then, because the example I cited on floods, the 7
committee has expressed a strong priority f or flood 8
related research that would lead to a better regulatory 9
basis for floods.
10 NRR, on the other hand, has expressed a much, 11 auch lower priority for that, and you have what amounts 12 to a substantive difference of views about regulatory 13 objectives and priorities, and the only vehicle in which
()
you can address this difference is the research 14 15 program.
16 MR. OKRENT:
There are other vehicles.
We 17 could write something saying, on this particular plan, i
18 we think they had better go back and look at the design 19 basis for floods.
If you write this several times, and 20 suggest that it is an unresolved safety issue, this may 21 get their attention, even though they came noting 22 something different to you.
23 MR. BERNERO:
But is that an effective way to
()
24 do it?
25 MR. OKRENT:
It may be more effective.
\\
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1 MR. MOELLER:
I wanted to comment on one 2
thing.
3 I agree with what Dr. Okrent has said.
- Yet, O
4 when I look at the long range research plan, and note 5
tha t in FY-88 you project a total budget of less than 65 6
percent of that for FY-84, I don ' t know to interpret 7
that, but one way to interpret it is that you do not 8
have a long-range research plan.
9 In other words, all you are doing is taking 10 the projects that are currently underway, and you are 11 sho wing that you hope to complete them, and they are 12 going to phase out, but that is not a long range 13 research plan.
fm
(_)
14 MR. SIESS:
We made that point before, I think 15 in our first letter, of the projection of current 16 projects and current needs.
17 MR. MOELLER:
But the budget clearly brings 18 tha t home.
19 MR. BERNERO:
If.I could add to that.
On the 20 bottom up plan, you bound to show that where you merely 21 tabulate current programs and show them winding down 22 completely.
You are going to have that kind of a budget 23 tail-off.
()
24 It merely displays that the current activities 25 will phase out.
There is no evident planning of future O
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activities that would absorb or call for further V
2 budget.
However, if the plan were done from the top 3
down, as we hope this next version is, there might be O
4-explicit address of that very thing.
5 One of the hidden facts in current trends is 6
INPILE test capability, and the NRC research program is 7
winding down, it is going to disappear in about a year 8
and a half to two years.
It is projected to stop and 9
that would have that kind of a bud,qet effect, because 10 these are big overhead programs.
If that is explicitly 11 planned, it should be there and you should be able to
~
12 see it.
It should be spoken to directly.
13 MR. SIESS:
Dade, I want to tell you
(
14 something.
In our report that we j'2st wrote to the 15 Commission on the 1984-85 budget, you will recall that 16 we propose no increare in the total amount for 1984, but 17 we did propose that the 1985 number be increased by 56.5 18 million, chiefly because we thought some an ticipation of 19 future problems needed to be included.
The Commission 20 did accept that advice, and that was our first step 21 toward just wha t we are talking about here.
I just 22 thought I would let you know that the Commission didn't 23 accept too much of our advice, but they did accept 1
()
24 that.
25 MR. MOELLER:
I would say, too, to contrast O
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this plan, and I am not using this as the perfect
{)
2 example, but I recently read through EPRI's long range 3
research plan, which I found very exciting, interesting 4
and well-d e veloped, and so forth.
I don't remember 5
their specific budget figures, but I would venture to 6
say that they didn't follow the pattern that yours do.
7 MR. BENDER:
Bob, there are some other aspects 8
of this. business of matching budget with anticipated 9
programs tha t might be cranked into the points you are 10 making.
11 Of course, if you are going to phase out some 12 big f acilities, and that is what is in the plan, it is 13 easy to show that the budget should be cut back.
But
()
14 among the things that I have always thought were 15 important was to make some early showing or to take some 16 position on what kinds of expertise are being maintained 17 by the Commission through its research program, and that 18 never comes out in the program.
19 It may not be political to identify it, but 20 nevertheless it seems to me that if you are expecting to 21 have a certain number of people there to answer 22 questions, you have to be able to say, we are 23 establishing a center somewhere, which ':e intend to
( ])
24 continue for X years in order to have that knowledge.
25 MR. BERNERO:
You can only find that now in a ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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few areas.
I guess in nuclear reactor research plan,
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2 you will find that explicitly, that there is a certain 3
amount of activity that has that character.
It is O
4 keeping expertise in place.
5 That same question can be asked about test 6
capability, thermo-hydraulic test capability, and INPILE 7
test capability, and so on.
Again, if one merely 8
tabulates projects, you don't have the proper vehicle to 9
make that priority sta tem en t.
10 You have heard many times the Ross criteria 11 for research, that is an explicit criteria to maintain 12 capability.
13 MR. BENDER:
I don't think that point came up
()
14 previously in this discussion, and I wanted to make sure 1
15 that it wasn't ignored when the long range research plan i
16 report was developed.
17 MR. SIESS:
I would like to point out that in 18 1972, when we were a rguing with the then Chairman of the 19 Atomic Energy Commission for research capability on the i
20 regulatory side, that was one of our arguments.
21 MR. BEACH:
Bill Beach from the Division of l
22 Accident Evaluation.
i 23 Year after year we have tried to get just
()
24 exactly what you have suggested, continuing expertise in l
25 certain areas.
Whenever we do that without having a l 0 i
l ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
44
(}
1 specific user need for it, we get shot down in the 2
budget process so fast that it makes your head spin.
We 3
are not even allowed to say that we want to do that.
O 4
HR. BENDER:
The tone of the Commission 's 5
approach changes from year to year.
You have a 6
different make up in the Commissioners now, and a 7
dif ferent budgetary process.
No matter whether you have 8
been able to do it before or not, I think that is a 9
defeatist attitude to say that you are going to quit 10 trying.
11 HR. BERNERO:
Stifle yourself.
12 MR. BEACH:
It is from the OMB that we get 13 this reaction.
14 MR. BENDER:
God Bless their soul, but keep 15 trying anyhow.
16 MR. HARK:
I would like to complicate this 17 line of thought slightly.
18 In reading the comments from NRR, I was really -
19 offended and alarmed by such phrases as "this work 20 should be done if consistent with the completion of the 21 rulemaking."
If you can do it by the time that they 22 vant it, then they want it, and if you can't, then you
(
23 might as well save the money.
()
24 This is their line of thought, they are not 25 interested in research, they are interested in l
O i
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45
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1 rulemaking, and they have a self-imposed schedule for 2
completing this rulemaking, so only the work that you 3
can accomplish prior to that date is worth doing.
O 4
Now these kinds of remarks, which don't come 5
in every paragraph, but they come in a fair numbe'r, do 6
they influence you?
7 That is, equipment qualification, you know 8
that it is worth doing, and you know that it will take 9
time, you don't know how much time.
They say that the to LRRP should be consistent with their. plan to stop the 11 work in 1984 Do phrases of that sort have any 12 influence on the form of the long range research plan, 13 they shouldn't, of course.
14 MR. BERNERO:
They do.
15 MR. MARK:
Then I would think that an ACRS 16 function, not perhaps through talking to you, might very 17 vell be to say that this is the wrong way to think of 18 things.
19 MR. GILLESPIE4 In some of the occasions where 20 they have put remarks like that, that gives us a feel 21 for the product.
If it means that something needs to be 22 cut, or something is going to be boosted up to get it 23 done faster if that possible.
Sometimes pouring more
()
24 money doesn't get something done faster either.
25 MR. MARK:
If it means,taking more money for O
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that reason, and cutting down something which you 2. perfectly well is going to take longer and should be 3
funded, then it is having the wrong effect.
4 MR. GILL ESPI E:
George Knight is over here, 5
and he would like to get a word in.
6 I don't know of.an occasion when we said that 7
we weren't going to do something that we ' thought needed 8
to be done because it was not going to meet an 9
arbitrarily self-imposed date.
What we would do is make 10 every effort to get it done by that da te.
11 MR. MARK:
But you have a limited budget, so 12 something has to give to do that.
13 MR. GILLESPIE:
Normally, NRR gives us a list
()
14 where they try to give us their higher and lower 15 priority items, and.we will get letters even during the 16 year that will say, "We need to get this thing done.
If 17 you have to take it from some place else, take it from 18 over here."
We get that kind of inpur f rom NRR, and I 19 think that it is useful input.
It gives us an idea of 20 what they are willing as a user not to have rapidly in 21 order to get something else faster.
22 3eorge, do you want to add to that?
23 MR. KNIGHT 4 George Knight, NRR.
24 I thought I might respond.
Remember that the
()
25 letter you are reading is a letter from Denton to RES, O
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presenting NRR's needs in the licensing process.
This
\\m/
2 is not necessarily NRC's needs in performing their 3
duties.
O 4
Mr. Denton, when he reviewed the needs, which 5
form something on the order of 80 to 85 percent of the 6
research budget, has-to try to direct their attention to 7
his real needs and his real priorities, and that is why 8
the words are in the letter that you see there.
If this 9
work has to be done, and it is very expensive, but it is 10 directed to the successful conclusion of the hearing and 11 address whatever is it, and not go off into longer and 12 deeper studies of fuel damage, let's say, that aren 't 13 pertinent to the hearing.
(
14 MR. SIESS:
I hate to think at the hearings-l 15 are driving the research program.
I 16 MR. GILLESPIE:
No, but it is one input.
17 MR. MARKa It is 80 to 85 percent of the 18 research as we have just heard.
19 MR. GILLESPIEa No.
NRR requests deal with 80 t
1 20 to 85 percent of the research budget, but 80 to 85 l
l 21 percent of the budget is not driven by those comments.
l 22 MR. MARKa I hope not.
23 MR. KERRa Let me add that I can find repeated
(])
24 instances in which we have encouraged the staff to i
25 define needs which exist because of licensing and
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{}
1 rulemaking considerations, and use those needs in 2
planning their research.
What we are saying is, the 3
staff ought to do good research independently.
f-O 14 I want to put myself on the other side of the 5
question.
I think that one csn do good research in 6
response to these, if the needs are well defined.
7 MR. SIESSs Let's o back"to where we were.
8 MR. GILLESPIEs Basically, we are sayin' 'that g'
9 we are aiming the long range research plan this year at 10 a particular audience, Office Directcrs and above.
11 Below the Office Director level, the companion document 12 will be the budget.
It is not our intention to repeat 13 all the same information twice.
)
14 MR. OKRENT:
Whoever the audience is, are you 15 going to in some way provide a meaningful evaluation of 16 whether the research you are planning is really going to 17 give the information that you needed?
18 MR. GILLESPIE:
We are going to try this year 19 to go from the top down, and go the other way to develop 20 the list of needs, and then design wha t inf ormation is 21 needed to do that, to fulfill those needs.
Then we get 22 to the question now, can we realistically expect.to 23 develop that information.
If the answer is no in the
()
24 prioritization of it, then that is kicked out.
Or if it 25 would be incredibly expensive to do it, it would be O
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()
1 kicked out.
2 MR. OKRENT4 What is it you are throwing out?
3 MR. GILLESPIEs What we are trying to get from 4
the plan and hopefully.it will be clear as I go through, 5
what the basically chapter outline would contain is a 6
definite agreement of what are ther regulatory needs 7
that need research to provide information to answer 8
them.
9 What type of research results, what kind of to information -- information from an integral test, 11 information from INPILE experiements -- is needed to 12 fulfill that need, we want to get agreement on that 13 before we go designing a real detailed program.
O 14
,If we state a need to support some particular 15 rulemaking three years from now, and the Commission 16 says, no, that is not a very important rulemaking, and 17 NRR tells us, we don't think that is needed, or we don't 18 need tha t to license plants, we don't need a revised t
l 19 code, then we want to know tha t before we get into the 20 budget process.
21 MR. OKRENT:
Let me follow up, if I can, but 22 in 1700 there was a need to measure the speed of light 23 from the physics point of view, but people didn 't know
()
24 how.
So to identify the need, and then to put it in the 25 1701 research plan would not have meant very much.
They
! ()
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could have gotten a lot of interesting information for a
({}
2 hundred years or even two hundred years, and have spent 3
a substantial part of the national budget, as it were.
()
4 MR. SIESS:
Let me put it this way.
You agree 5
that there is a need.
You agree that there is certain 6
information required.
Now on some basis you decide that 7
there is no way that you are going to get that 1
8 information.
Now what do you do?
You tell the user 9
office that, and say, figure out a way to get around 10 it?
11 MR. GILLESPIEs We would work with them to try 12 to 'figuro out a way to get around it, yes.
That is what i
13 we have to do.
(
14 MR. SIESS:
Would that show up in the research l
15 plan, or would that kind of stuff be eliminated before, 16 it ever gets to us?
J 17 MR. BERNER04 Let me try to use an example and 18 modify it.
The need could be stated, thermo-hydraulic 19 uncertainty in response to certain class of plants.
The 20 long range plan, with the depth to which we see it 3
21 going, can iden tif y the need, can identify the timing, 22 can identify a basic program and dollar values, $25 23 million over a period of three or four years to resolve
()
24 that need.
25 There is still necessary a detailed discussion 3
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and investigation of the Girda System, and that you
}
2 can't do the job for T25 million, but you can do a job 3
for 555 million.
So you are lef t with the dilemma that O
4 it is either $55 million, or a conservative bound as a 5
fallback position, some regulatory resolution that moots 6
the research.
Tha t is still necessary, and that will 7
not necesssrily show up in the long range plan.
8 That debate we have it in spades on the long 9
range severe acciden t plant.
There is much debate about 10 what can you do in PBF, or what can you do with SCRR, or 11 what can you do with many of the big ticket research 12 programs, and there is still going to be a need related 13 to the long range research plan for much more specific O) address of the actual viability of individual research
(_
14 15 programs and their effectiveness in getting information, 16 their ef fectiveness in satisf ying the stated need.
17 MR. OKRENT:
If I can remake the point.
If I 18 vere an Of fice Director, or a Commissioner, and so 19 forth, it seems to me I would want to know not only what i
20 are the objectives of the research plan, and what are 21 the information needs that arise f rom trying to deal l
22 with these objectives, but realistically can I get this 23 information, and if not what should I do, and so forth.
24 If that part is not given to the Office Director, it is
()
25 a very incomplete picture.
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1 MR. GILLESPIEs Part of what we intend to have 2
in here is a schedule of when t' hat information would be 3
achieved, so that if it were measuring the speed of O
4 light in 1700 and you wrote a plan that said you are not 5
going to achieve tha t un til 1900-something, then someone 6
can make the decision that it is not worth messing 7
around with now.
It is just not worth doing at this a
stage in history.
9 We intend to have -- We are looking for input 10 in this, this thing is not c'ast in stone, we only have 11 12 pages written so far.
We intend to have a timeline 12 or schedule under each major program which would show 13 what information would be available to satisfy what need
)
14 that was listed based on the judgment of the Research 15 staff.
16 If there is a need which could never be 17 achieved, then I would think that possibly that need is l
18 not going to show up in the plan.
If it is a need that l
19 could be achieved with a very large expenditure of 20 money, but still not unreasonable, that would show up in 21 the plan to off er the Commission an alterna tive.
22 The next step you are asking for is an 23 analysis of the alternative to'those things that are
()
24 prohibitively expensive, or unachievable.
It wasn't our 25 intent righ t now to include an analysis of alternatives
-~
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53 1
on those things identified as either prohibitively
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2 expensive to do or impossible to do, and how do you meet 3
it halfway.
O 4
MR. KERR:
I get the impression in reading 5
some of the memoranda on the plan that in those cases in 6
which it may be difficult to determine whether 7
information can be gotten better by research, an 8
approach which carries is to hire a contractor and ask 9
him to find out whether an answer can be gotten by doing 10 research.
t 11 I am not being critical, I am saying that that 12 is what I see indeed in some cases, tell us if by doing 13 research we can get information in this field.
Is that 14 an approach?
15 MR. BERNER0s That approach is used.
I 16 Obviously, you would go to an experimentalist to say, in l
17 two years, for a reasonable amount of money, and you 18 might give him some bounds, can you give me a good heat 19 transfer coefficient for that kind of a situation.
He 20 will tell you what facility is available, the manpower, 21 the people, the state-of-the-art, whether it is feasible 22 or not, and tha t is a logical thing to do.
I dont see l
l 23 why one would quarrel with that.
()
24 MR. KERRa It is a logical thing to do, but I 25 am not sure that it is always a logical thing to do, O
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, l
400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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unless you make certain that the person who is answering
)
2 you is not the person who is going to do the research.
3 I don 't mean that people are dishonest, I don't in O
4 general think that people are, but if you put a lot of 5
pressure on somebody, if you live by research funding, 6
and you go to him or her for this research, you may just 7
not get an answer that is the proper one.
8 NR. SHEWMON:
Another part of this thing, they 9
can take this approach today, and on other days we have 10 been known to say, go do us a study on systems 11 interaction before we will grant you a license.
If the 12 operator says, we don't know how.
We don't think it is 13 productive.
Then, we would say, try harder.
(/
14 So I suspect that if we look real hard.at the 15 report to Congress and to the Commission, we might find 16 a few examples where the committee has said to staff, 17
" Gee, you may have looked at this before, but you really 18 ought to try harder, because you say tha t you don 't 19 think that it is productive research that would be 20 cost-effective.
But we are sure that if you looked j
21 under enough rocks, you would find the right kind of i
22 something or other.
So one can take either side.
23 MR. KERB:
That is different.
()
24 MR. OKRENT4 You are correct, and the 25 committee has supported what I will call exploratory O
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research.
There are times when you don 't know in f act 2
whether the resesrch will be productive.
3 You have, let's say, either a concern that O
4 there is a problem, and you don 't know how to deal with 5
it; or that there is an area where there may be a 8
problem, it is an area that has not been explored, and 7
so forth.
So that exploratory research, but not the 8
grandiose, is one of the uses of safety research funds.
9 MR. SHEWMON:
What you were talking about was 10 not exploratory research.
11 MR. OKRENT:
I think when you are getting into 12 large programs, whether it be in loss of coolant 13 accident, or in systems analysis, reliability analysis,
()
14 or fuel behavior, and you are talking about large 15 commitments of funds, one should devote a considerably 16 greater effort to trying to ask himself what is the 17 purpose of this programs what are the needs I have; what 18 is the information that meets these needs; can I really 19 get important information, or information from this 20 program, not just useful information, because you are 21 talking about substantial parts of the budget.
22 MR. SHEWMON:
When we talked about seismic 1
23 safety marginal probability and risk assessment, it is (V~h 24 worth exploratory research to see if we can't cope with 25 these things better.
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MR. OKRENTs In some cases, you have to do
(}
2 scoping work.
But on the seismic safety thing, for 3
example, th.
committee has questioned whether the fairly 7gV 4
extensive computational system that was developed was 5
necessarily the best way to go in view of the 6
anticipated large uncertainties that might arise at 7
various steps.
8 That it might make sense to understand better 9
wha t these uncertainties are, and where to put your 10 emphasis.
Not to try to go into the whole, let's say, 11 super-calculation.
12 MR. SHEWMON:
My main point is that there is 13 always an element of luck and guess that is worth its O) k-14 salt as to whether you are going to be successful.
So I 15 think in a sense we are urging the Research people to 16 exhibit judgment, but we can always second guess them 17 on, "Goe Whizz, you should have known better," or "I l
l 18 disagree with that."
19 MR. OKRENT I think you are correct that i
20 research, especially if it is into an area where you 21 have f ar less than complete knowledge, is not f requently 1
22 subject to a quarantee of results.
However, there are 23 many research programs which you can look a t, at their
()
24 initial stage, and even if you do a very good job, the 25 information is not going to have a big impa ct on an AV ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
57 1
taportant issue.
If you can do that, I would say, you
(}
2 will have to ask yourselves, is it worth substantial 3
effort, even if it is good research.
O 4
MR. KERRa Mr. Chairman.
5 MR. SIESS:
Dr. Kerr.
6 MR. KERR.
Bob, I don't know how to put this 7
question, and I know even less how to put the answer, 8
but I would be interested in some sort of candid 9
comments on how useful ACRS comments are to research.
10 Not in terms of an absolute standard, but is there some 11 way that our advice could be more useful or the process 12 could be more useful.
13 I am groping for a way to put the question 14 because I am trying to put myself in your position 15 cecasionally, and I don't know how you decide which of 16 the advice you get from us to listen to.
It is clear 17 that you get a lot of different directions.
18 I guess I will ask my colleagues later on, but 19 I am curious as to what fraction of our advice we can 20 expect to be followed.
I would be concerned if I 21 thought you listened to everything we say, and I mean 22 listening in the sense that you went. ahead and did it.
23 But I don't think you should address that question.
()
24 MR. BERNERO:
I will not address the question 25 then, other than to give you assurance that we won't O
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listen to everything that you say.
2 The type of advice tha t the ACRS can give is, 3
I think, best viewed by comparing to the other advice we O
4 get.
The Research staff is trying to see in its own 5
aind wha t are the real needs of the agency; what are the 6
reculatory needs; what information is needed to either 7
affirm or change the current safety review process; the 8
current standards for safety.
9 When we deal with the user offices, and I 10 speak from experience, as many of you know, I spent a 11 good part of my time in this agency as s licensor in 12 both NRR and NMSS.
When we deal with the user offices, 13 we can always see their sense of urgency, that is driven 14 by being in the trenches, confronted with hearings, 15 conf ronted with licensing decisions.
They find it hard 16 to take a long view.
17 The ACRS, on the other hand, though it follows 18 licensing casework as it has for many, many years, has 19 the benefit of distinct steps of detachment from that, 20 and the ability to see a long view, to raise and resolve 21 issues, while we are continuing to license plants 22 without consideration of that safety question or that 23 one.
You can look at the research program in that same
()
24 way by seeing a broader view.
25 Now when one has that benefit, a knowledgeable CE)
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body, diverse experience, diverse backgrounds, and in
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2 particular a fair body of credentials in research 3
itself, that can be the most valuable comment.
A 4
detached long range view f rom a mixture of expertise in 5
the field a t issue here, sa f ety research.
I think that 6
is the heart of the value of the ACRS comments on the i
l 7
research process.
8 Obviously, you won't always be listened to, 9
because we do have to satisfy those people in the 10 trenches.
They do have needs, and they are real needs, 11 and they may end up making regulatory decisions with 12 imperfect knowledge, putting bounds on things, or just 13 making judgments.
The research process, on the other
()
14 hand, has to keep trying to give them better 15 information.
16 I think if the ACPS focuses on the unique 17 position it has of being separated by that substantial l
18 step from the immediate regula tory decisions of the 19 agency, and able to take a longer view, and uses the 20 expertise that is deliberately selected into this body, 21 then you can give us the best advice.
22 Now, we have to give you some planning.
We 23 have to give you some lucid statement of what we are
()
24 trying to do, what are these directions we are trying to 25 follow, and that we haven' t done.
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{}
1 MR. KERR:
One additional question.
Do you 2
feel, from our sometimes cryptic comments, tha t you 3
understand in most cases what we have in mind?
O 4
I ask this because as I read the responses, 5
for example, to this year's most recent comments, it is 6
clea r that the commentor either didn't understand what.
7 we had in mind in some cases, or chose to ignore it.
I 8
don 't know which, it could be either.
9 But is there enough interaction that maybe in 10 spite of what we write, Research has s fairly good idea, 11 in your view, of what we are have in mind?
12 MR. BERNER0s I think so, to me.
To practical 13 about it, when you write us a comment on our budget that
(
14 we don't intend to follow fully, there will frequently l
15 be an attempt to gracefully give you the stiff arm and te to say, th a t was a very nice idea, but forget it.
Many 17 times, you will,see what appears to be a dissembling Perhaps that is not 18 response, we agree with you, but 19 a well-written, gracef ul a ttempt.
20 You certainly know and have criticized where 21 we are obviously not taking your advice.
In the areas 22 where we have had argument or debate with the ACRS, we i
23 have had enough communication that I know what you O
24 e"-
25 MR. KERR:
I was not getting at the other O
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question, only'this.
Is it your feell'ng, at least from 2
the interaction and the written material, that you have 3
a fairly good idea of what we have in mind?
4 MR. BERNER0s Yes.
5 What I wish that we had had in the past, and 6
would have before us now, is a much more logical 7
presentation of what we are doing and where we are 8
going, to f acilitate that exchange of information.
I 9
think we suffer from that lack.
But once in the 10 dialogue, whether it is at the subcommittee level or the 11 full committee level, I think there is no doubt.
12 When I go to Dave's subcommittee, and I argue 13 about flood research, there is no doubt what our 14 differences are, at least in my mind, and what the 15 agreements are.
16 MR. WARD:
It strikes me as though this whole 17 process suffers because the emphasis on long-range 18 planning within the Commission seems to be exclusively 19 on what we call research.
I have trouble in using that 20 term research.
21 There isn't a corporation plan and if you look 22 at the business enterprise model, the business 23 enterprise has some RCD activities, and a certain O
24 frection of the Rco ectivities are driven br what the 25 researchers perceive as interesting to pursue, because AU ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
62
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Jose good things come out of that, it keeps the creative 2
juices, and so forth.
3 But also the RCD plan has to conf orm itself to O
4 some sort of corporation plan -- where is the 5
corporation going in 1989.
It doesn't make much sense 6
to talk about what research is needed, if you don 't know 7
where the corporation wants to go in 1989.
8 So it seems to me that all this carrying on of 9
activity might be better spent by having NRR, and I 10 quess NMSS, come up with long range plans for 11 regulations, which is the business of the NRC, and 12 whether or not there would need to be long range plan 13 for research or not maybe is questionable.
14 I think that the emphasis is in the wrong 15 place.
Researchers are going to tend to do the things 16 they know how to do, or are scientifically interesting, 17 and certain good comes out of that, but tha t isn't any 18 sort of comprehensive plan for where the agency is l
l 19 going.
i l
20 I think if _some f raction of this ef fort were 1
21 spent on an agency plan, a lower level of effort, fewer 22 than a 370-page research plan might kind easily f all out l
23 of that.
(j 24 MR. GILLESPIE:
I think you will find -- We 25 have not gone past my first page, but let me answer r
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Dave's question, which I haven't answered yet, that he
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2 asked a while ago.
The feasibility of accomplishing 3
something with research, this is something that we will O
4 definitely have to address in prioritizing what will be 5
in the plan, a justification of why we want to do it.
6 I am saying, I agree with what you have said, 7
and that does have to be addressed if.we expect to be 8
successful in doing it, or what we expect to be the 9
chance of success in accomplishing something that we are to going to spend $50 million on.
The answer to tha t is, 11 yes, we will have that.
12 If there was an agency plan which listed the 13 various needs of the agency to fulfill its mission, as
(
14 the mission stays the same until 1989, you are righ t, we 15 would not have to, as part of the research plan, detail 16 what needs we are trying to fulfill because the needs 17 would be there.
But given that we are the office that 18 is writing the five-year plan, and the research is 19 supporting the direction of the Commission, we are 20 proposing to write down as best we can, and coordinate l
21 with the other offices what that direction is.
22 What we are trying to get on the line range 23 plan is direct agreement on direction, and then with the f(])
24 budget.
Then when we have agreement on the direction 25 and the priority of what is needed to achieve that O
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()
1 direc tion, then with the budget detail down to the
~
2 individual lines, down to the million dollar or less, 3
how we are going to achieve that objective.
4 So we are definitely separating it.
You might 5
say that we are attempting to do, as best we can, what 6
the agency could in fact do as a whole.
7 MR. PLESSET:
Has research look into a point 8
of some interest, which is, is the money reasonably 9
spent.
For example, there are people in NRC who very 10 zealously trying to keep on going, and the minimum they 11 got to now, if they get a lot of help f rom abroad, ther 12 go out for six or seven years with big money.
As 13 Research looked at this and said, this is great, or this 14 is terrible, because that is the biggest thing you have 15 in your budget, I think.
16 MR. GILLESPIEs FBr is pretty close to being 17 even.
18 MR. PLESSET:
I think the ACRS has indicated 19 that they don't think it is worthwhile, that is the 20 starting point.
Has Research looked at tha t?
Did they 21 have ideas about it or not?
22 It seems to me that it is terribly important 23 when we are talking about a long range plan.
What are
()
24 some of the big ticket items that are in there, and can 25 they be redirected to be more useful.
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1 MR. GILLESPIE:
That is part of what Bob and I 2
talked about last night, do we want to maintain a 3
facility, a center of expertise.
Is there justification O
4 for keeping something going at such a price.
5 MR. PLESSET:
That is a big ticket.
6 MR. GILLESPIEs It has never been accepted in 7
the past as a justification for keeping something.
8 HR. PLESSETs But does Research really look at 9
this, or leave it at "we don't give a damn!".
10 MR. BERNER0s Research has.
I have 11 participated in one group a year ago last winter, the 12 LOFT Specisl Review Group, that was drawn from other 13 people as well as Research, and we looked at LOFT and 14 what was worth doing.
We concluded that the sensible 15 thing to do was wind it down.
16 We came up with a test matrix that was sort of 17 a compromise, and Research looked at it and said, even 1
18 that is more than is justified, and came up with an even 19 shortened test matrix.
It expressed the intent, and it I
l 20 established a program to phase out LOFT.
Other factors 21 force us to do other things, congressional directives 22 and stuf f like ths t.
23 MR. BENDER :
I want to go back to Dave Ward's
( ()
24 point.
25 I hate to use this analogy, but when the O
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{~ )
1 Commission decided to deal with the safety goal 2
business, to develop the safety goal policy, and then it 3
developed an implementation plan to go with it.
It O
4 seems to me that the staff ought to try to get a similar 5
kind of a document developed, something which provides 6
policy, which the Commissioners can agree upon, and that 7
can form the basis for the plan.
I think that would 8
satisfy the kind of thought that Dave has.
9 I am not a believer in the offices themselves 10 being able to look ahead and decide what the 11 Commissioners want to do, but I think you put something 12 in front of the Commission separately and say, "Here is 13 the policy we want you to give to us," and let them
)
14 react to it.
15 3R. GILLESPIE:
If I can get to that slide, we 16 intend to try to do that.
17 3R. SIESS:
Let me go back to your first 18 slide.
You said the LRRP purposes, and you have listed l
l 19 four purposes.
Since we have said, and there has been 20 some agreement that there really isn't a long range 21 plan, but simply a projection into current programs, 22 would not all these purooses le achieved equally well if 23 it were a two-year plan rather than a five-year plan?
()
24 MR. GILLESPIE:
They could be.
l 25 NR. BERNER0s I would question the adverb.
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They could be achieved, but equally well, I am not
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2 sure.
I think you wn11d need a longer horizon.
3 MR. SIESSs To state the goals and needs, and C) i 4
the priorities and the information needed to satisfy the 1
5 needs, to stimulate technical advice, I don't see how 6
you need to look any f arther ahead than two years.
In 7
fact, you ought to be able to do everyone of those l
8 things for one year ahead.
It has been one of the 9
problems that it has not been meant for one year.
10 HR. BERNERO:
Which two years are you talking 11 about?
12 Remember that the long range plan is 13 associated with two budget years.
If you are talking
()
14 about those two budget years, I will agree with you.
15 HR. SIESS:
I am saying, if you want to agree 16 on goals, priorities, and so forth, you need that kind 17 of an agreement on the FY-83 yea r, and certainly on the 18
'84 and
'85, which is the budget coming up now.
You are 19 talking on a plan for '85 through
'89, which is the one 20 you are starting on, and one of our hang-ups, a minor 21 one, is when it gets to looking at five years which will 22 be two years from now.
l 23 It seems to me that all of these purposes
[ ()
24 relate to a research program, and not necessarily to the l
25 long range aspects of it.
They relate to the very i
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1 insediate aspects of it.
2 HR. GILLESPIE:
That is true.
3 MR. SIESS:
You don't need the five-year plan O
4 to meet these purposes.
This information is needed for 5
the current program.
6 MR. GILLESPIE:
What we are looking for is, do 7
we have general agreement that four years from now or 8
five years from now, that this is possibly a need, 9
unrestricted to this year's PPG.
10 MR. SIESS:
I don't think that that is what 11 you are doing.
You get an agreement now, or a prior 12 agreement, because you are looking at a year or two 13 shead, and I don't see that it is very important to have 14 an agreement that it is going to take-five years to get 15 the answers.
16 MR. GILLESPIEa You change your mind each 17 year, so it ends up being start.
18 MR. SIESSa None of this, or practically 19 nothing in the long range plan deals with something that 20 is starting four or five years from now.
21 HR. GILLESPIE:
It has not in the past.
22 MR. SIESSa You have very few itams in there 23 that don't come up until 1988 or 1989.
()
24 As I said, it is a minor point, but I think 25 that five-year continues to be a hang up in some of our O
v ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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()
I thinking.
I can't buy that decreasing budget and a 2
realistic plan.
It is not a long range plan.
3 MR. BERNERO:
My argument has been for 4
sometime that the two years before us, now in the fall 5
of 1982 and we are talking about fiscal '83 and fiscal 6
'84 which is right behind it.
Those two years are of 7
necessity part of your agreement or revised agreement on 8
goals, needs, and priorities, because you are going to 9
reprogram.
All you need for a plan is two budget years, 10 which you are forced to by the OMB procedures, and throw 11 in that extra year.
12 MR. SIESS:
We don't have the document that 13 states those agreements.
14 MR. BERNERO:
And you need it.
15 MR. SIESS We need it for now.
16 MR. GILLESPIE:
I understand that you need it 17 for now, but we are still groping with how you do it for 18 the out years for programs that do not in and of
(
19 themselves continue out that far.
20 MR. SIESS:
I have a feeling that the out 21 years don't concern most of us very much.
We are much 22 more concerned with what is going to be done in 1984 and 23 1985.
()
24 MR. GILLESPIE:
Getting back to Dave's comment 25 of a little while ago --
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1 MR. SIESS.
It is a little difficult to worry 2 'about
'86,
'87,
'88, and
'89.
3 MR. GILLESPIE:
On the corporate goals of O
4 Commission, I stated them generally, they are dealing 5
with the licensing and regulation of the current 6
generation of reactors.
Then you are going to answer 7
certain big questions, you are not going to need large 8
facilities.
Most of our decision units had increased 9
budgets overall, but it went down because we were 10 decreasing on the singularly large facility.
11 As you answer the question, the Commission is 12 not like a company which is in the business of doing 13 future research to make more money on a new and better 14 product.
We have a fixed thing, and that is regulation 15 of the current generation of reactors, and that is how 16 last year'a plan was written.
17 MR. SIESS4 If you recall, we had a comment 18 frequently about LMF3R or advanced reactors, where the 19 Commission says, we are not going to do anything, 20 whereas another arm of the Government is spending 21 hund reds of millions of dollars to develop those.
22 Maybe the NRC is not the company in the 23 Government that is looking to the future, but somebody
(')
24 in the Government is looking to the future, and if we i
25 are going to have to regulate them, and if it is our job (sJ ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, l
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1 to see that they are saf e, then it seems to me that we 2
would be looking into the future, and the five year 3
research plan would have something in there about the O
4 con tingency items.
5 MR. GILLESPIE:
It will be in this next one.
6 NR. SIESS That is what we have been hearing 7
for the last two years.
8 MR. GILLESPIEs The plan has generally been 9
driven by the current year PPG.
This intent this year 10 is to have the part of it done needed to give to the 11 Commission before they write the PPG, so they can give 12 us direction based on taking choices and alternatives.
13 MR. SIESS:
So far the arguments are in favor
(
14 of a shorter term plan, at least your responses have 15 been.
16 HR. BEACH:
I guess I vind up being the memory 17 of RES, since we have been around for a long time.
The 18 original reason that we made it a five-year plan, and 19 that reason may have gone away now, vss tha t the 20 Congress kept asking us in their budget deliberations 21 what sort of a mortgage are we buying into with XYZ i
22 research program -- if we authorize you to go ahead with 23 this, how long is it going to take for you to finish it,
(])
24 and what is it going te cost us in the long run.
Ma ybe 25 we should not try to do that.
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1 Most of our programs, as you very well pointed 2
out, are short programs, and we really only need to look 3
at two years -- is this the place, or should we go to 4
some other place -- to outline those very few programs 5
which will result in a mortgage of some kind.
I don't-6 know.
7 MR. SIESS:
I think the plan.that indicated 8
something about the duration of a project, without 9
necessarily being complete for all of those out years, 10 that was not the major point.
But we do get hung up on 11 that five-years every once in a. while.
12 Do you want to go to the next slide?
13 MR. GILLESPIE:
Yes.
14 I am going to go to the chapter outlines.
15 MR. SIESS:
Let's go to the schedule because 16 that brings us back to the question of the ACRS role.
17 MR.'GILLESPIE For one thing, the plan is 18 intended to fill a different purpose this year than it 19 did in the past.
We are going to try to focus on one 20 level.
21 What we have gotten so far from everything but 22 one division, is statement of purpose, which is another 23 slide that is out of order, to define the areas or
()
24 chapters of the plan for this year.
It is not intended I
25 that the plan will follow either the organizational l
(
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1 structure or the decision unit.
It will follow 2
programmatic areas.
3 The way the schedule is set up, I would expect O
4 to meet now with George Knight at NRR next week, having 5
gotten from our Division a definition of the various 6
areas that we picked, and the areas were picked based on 7
things like Commission interests, Commission cross-cuts 8
that were asked for.
The selection of the chapters was 9
in and of itself a cross-cut.
10 We have those under each of those program 11 elements, program areas.
Various elements have been 12 iden tified.
I am going to meet with George, hopefully 13 next week.
NRR has a prioritized list, in their view, 14 of what their requests of us are.
I want to take that 15 list and see how it matches up with our area.
16 Then we are going to go back out to the 17 Division Directors and ask them, under each of the 18 elements they have identified, given that we have NRR's 19 input, to identify the particular needs under that area 20 they are going to look at.
21 One example would be, one of the programmatic 22 areas that we have selected was aging, and aging is 23 steam generator research.
Under steam generator
()
24 resea rch, we would expect to see multiple regulatory 25 goals that are to be achieved, a new MDE criteria, new I
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1 criteria possibly on chemistry.
These things are 2
antered and are contributors to the standard review 3
plan.
They'are intended to contribute to rule 4
development, and eventually end up in a new rule, and 5
change to a rule.
6 Then we are going to go.back-again to NMSS and 7
to NRR, which should be at the beginning of June.
At 8
that point, we have a statement of the broad areas --
9 MR. SIESS:
You lost me, was that June?
10 MR. GILLESPIE:
We are down to September 3rd, 11 a statement of what the elements a re, what needs are 12 going to be fulfilled under that are.
Then we are going 13 to cack to NRR and back to NHSS.
We are going to make 14 it so that we can get a copy -- not have a meeting, but 15 get the material here, when the committee meets in 16 September, so tha t they can have it if th ey want to 17 comment on it.
18 At that point, we have the option, whether we 19 take it or not, we are not sure yet, to go to the 20 Commission and say, "Now we feel that we have defined 21 the programma tic a reas.
We feel we have defined the 22 elements in those areas, and the needs we want ~ to 23 fulfill."
()
24 MR. SIESS:
Where are you on this schedule?
25 MR. GILLESPIE:
I am still on September 6.
We O
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are going to take this document, cnd definitely request
)
2 comments from NRR, NMSS, and ACRS.
3 MR. SIESS:
Let's stop right there and refer O
4 to the ACRS ' role again.
These are comments from the 5.
ACRS to the staff.
6 MR. GILLESPIE. Yes.
7 MR. SIESS:
Whether or not we do this, we 8
still have that question hsnging of when, how and 9
whether we make comments to the Commission.
10 MR. GILLESPIE:
Yes.
11 MR. SIESS:
That is different from the staff, 12 and I want to go over that wi th the committee because 13 the Commission has given us all sort of advice about how
()
14 to us'e these things.
Our last letter said that we 15 didn't wan t to review it forms 11y.
16 What do you expect to get from the ACRS on 17 September 6?
The ACRS is a collegial body.
Do you 18 expect a letter from the ACRS to the EDO, which is our 19 means of communication?
20 What kind of a document will you have, is it 21 something that can be reviewed?
22 MR. GILLESPIEs Let me tell you what we are 23 expecting to send you because that may be greatly form 24 what you would send us.
What we are sending you is a
()
25 fairly brief, we sre hoping something of 50 pages or ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRG1NIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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less, a statement of what the goals'we intend to 2
achie ve, sn3 what the program: areas are.
.f 3
What we would like to get bach through p
-i
()
4 whatever vehicle, from individual members, from-5 subcommittees, or from the full committee, is opinions 8
or suggestions on -- Are these-goals needed?
Are they 7
realistic?
Do we need a rule, or research to support a 8
rule on package integrity for high' level waste?
We 9
would try to.have maybe a date in there.
10 MR.,SIESS:
We have been thhough this.
First 1,. \\
of all, you don 't get commenks f rom 'indiv'idual members, 11 l'
12 except orally.
13 MR. GILLESPIE:
What I'am saying is that oral 14 comments..are fine.
15 HR. SIESS:
You don't get comments from
- 6 16 subcommittees as such.
Very of ten, anything you get-t 17 from the ACRS, other than meeting with them for two 18 hours2.083333e-4 days <br />0.005 hours <br />2.97619e-5 weeks <br />6.849e-6 months <br />, would be a formal letter, and you have worked for l
19 that.
l i
20 Do you think thetcoaments you could get 1
21 sitting scound with this group, around the table, which N
f (1
l 22 is not the entire ACRS but iCa big chunk of it, or do
- )
l 23 you this is scmething that the individual subcommittees
()
24 ought to meo ', and meet with the appropriate people from A
25 Rerearch end, user offices?
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MR. GILLESPIEs User offices are very
{)$
~.
2 important things.
3 HR. SIESS4 If it is a letter where you can O
4 get well'-informed comments, it certainly won't be a 5
consensus within the subcommittee.
6 You are talking about waste management, and 7
Dade can convene his subcommittee, with its consultants, 8
and I am sure you will get a lot of advice.
I don't 9
know how consistent it will be, but he has some good 10 people there.
But that takes time.
11 MR. BENDER:
Chet, the thrust of what you are 12 saying really is directed a t how much advice we can 13 provide to NRR, how much do they want, and then how much
(
14 can they reasonably expect to get from us.-
l 15 MR. BERNERO:
Let me try a chop at it.
16 The content of what would be before you at 17 this time is something that you will formally comment on 7.
18 later.
19 MR. SIESS:
No, not if we have our way.
20
~MR. BERNERO:
In order to comment on the 21 budget.
22 MR. SIESS:
That is a year apart.
You see, we 23 told the Commission in the June 7 letter, that we 3
(])
24 discontinue our review of the program plan, but we still 25 expect to receive the program plan, in draf t and in O-
~
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final form, and we expect to utilize it in our review 2
and report on the NRC Safety Research Program budget for 3
the Commission and the Congress.
O 4
The LRRP is a very important document for us 5
to have because it does put all of this in one place, 6
and it puts it in perspective.
It is something that we 7
have never had.
We have never had a decent overview of 8
the program, except if somebody wants to read through 9
all the budget items, which you have already pointed out 10 isn't the - best thing.
So I would expect to use the 11 document.
12 However, the document th a t we are going to be 13 seeing in September is FY-85 through FY-89.
()
14 MR. BERNER04-Not if I have my way.
It is 15 going to be FY-83 through FY-87.,
It will speak to the 16 same budget you are speaking to.
It will be directed 17 toward the same ends, objectives, and regulatory needs.
18 Then when you comment on the budget to the Commission l
19 formally, you are commenting in the framework of stated 20 needs and stated objectives that you agree with or you 21 don't.
22 MR. SIESS:
That might work.
The thing is 23 tha t we don 't comment to the Commission until July.
The 24 Commission indicated in one of our exchanges of
(])
25 correspondence that when they got the thing in December, ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W WASHINGTON, D.C 20024 (202) 554-2345
79 1
that is the final one they are talking about, "A
{)
2 thorough review by ACRS at this stage should provide all 3
of the background material needed to allow fulfillment
(:)
4 of your obligations to the Congress -- that would be 5
true if it covered the same budget years, -- and it 6
would be sufficient to provide-my fellow Commissioners 7
and me with the benefit of your advice for our review."
8 I am not sure that our congressional comments 9
would reference specifically the research plan.
I would 10 think of it as a resource to us, and not something that 11 gets specifically commented on.
12 MR. MARK:
If I understood what Frank said, 13 and I am not disagreeing with what you are saying, we
()
14 are going to be looking at what he hopes will be a 15 completely new layout document.
It will not be suitable 16 even for some subcommittee breakdown.
It certainly will 17 not be suitable for budget item discussion.
18 3R. GILLESPIE:
That is right.
19 MR. MARK:
What he is hoping is that on 20 September the 6th, we will be so delighted and wildly l
21 extatic that we will write a spontaneous letter to the l
22 Commission saying, that is the way to go.
23 MR. SIESS:
I see y our point.
It would be 24 possible to have a meeting of this committee in
()
25 September sometime, and get our comments both on the ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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content, the format, and the approach, and whatever.
V 2
That would be useful.
3 MR. GILLESPIEs Let me suggest that we will 4
have it to you in September, but the meeting would be 5
more like a t the beginning of October.
Tha t allowc a 6
month.
r 7
MR. MARKS But it would not necessarily word 8
by word be the basis for the kind of discussions we are 9
used to.
10 MR. BERNER0s That is righ t.
11 MR. GILLESPIE:
The content is going to-be 12 drastically different.
At that point, you will be 13 seeing about 30 percent of it.
)
14 MR. BERNER0s I think you ought to be very 15 careful throwing it to the subcommittees, because this 16 won 't track the subcommittee.
17 MR. SIESS:
When we review the budget for the 18 Congress, our intent now is to make the report to the 19 Congress a comprehensive report which will include a lot l
20 of advice to the staff along part 2.
It will be based 21 on subcommittee reviews.
22 Our report to the Committee in July, we are 23 going to continue to keep short and budget oriented.
i
(])
24 The_ Congress one is budget that we put down in Part I.
25 Part II is more detailed.
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I would expect that the subcommittees, when
(])
2 they start meeting in October, November, and December, 3
to prepare a detailed report to the Congress, to be 4
looking at the long range plan, to look at the program 5
in that area, using th e 'long range plan as background as 6
they review tt <.adgetary proposals in that particular 7
project.
Ihat is the way I would expect to see us use 8
it.
9 MR. BERNERO:
If need be, at that stage, a 10 report challenging the budget on the basis of its stated 4
11 flaws, if our directions are wrong, or our directions 12 are inadequate.
13 MR. SIESS.
I deal with structures, I look at-
}
projects right now, I can do that, it is a small area.
14 15 But the long range plan could be focused together with 16 dollar amounts, and so forth, and that is the way I 17 would like to see it.
It will not be subcommittee 18 oriented, I guess your point.
19 MR. WARDS Let me ask you.
Do you plan to 20 review this long range plan every year?
21 MR. BERNER0s Yes.
l 22 MR. WARDS.Why?
23 MR. SIESSs Updated is the word.
()
24 MR. GILLESPIEs We start with a basic list of 25 what we are trying to achieve.
Hopefully, we can cross O
l l
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some things off the list each year and say that we have qV 2
achieved that, and add some new ones.
3 MR. BERNERO:
Just like we do with our budget 4
activities, we plan and we program, but when you get to 5
that fiscal year when you are actually going to spend 6
the money, it frequently is quite different from what 7
you budgeted.
8 MR. WARD:
But you have the budget planning 9
for two years to take care of that type of thing.
It 10 seems to me that it is a different way of looking at the 11 long range plan.
If you consider whether it is 12 necessary to updato it every year, if it is, then I 13 guess you begin to wonder about whether it is really a 14 long range plan.
15 MR. BERNER04 Once properly done, it ought to 16 look very much the same from year to year, reflecting 17 subtle changes, not dramatic changes.
Otherwise, you 18 are right, it would just be the long range plan du 19 jour.
20 MR. GILLESPIEa It is reviewed with the policy 21 guidance received.
22 MR. SIESS You are going to update it wi th 23 the supplement.
i I
24 MR. WARDa Gettin g to that, with the high 25 priced effort that goes into developing it every year, I
llO I
l l
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. other year there ought to be an agency plan 1
maybe every 2
developed.
3 MR. BERNER04 It won't be that much' effort O
4 once you have it done right in the first place.
Once 5
you have it done right the first time, it will be a 6
relatively rapid turnaround for us, and it will be a far 7
easier job'for others to review it, because you will be 8
able to see the dif f erences, they are going to be 9
flagged.
10 MR. GILLESPIEs One of the questions that 11 becomes very dependent on it, our intention was to keep 12 the plan brief, that the entire thing would be more like 13 150 pages long.
It would deal with broad questions that
()
14 the Office Directors want to read.
That amount of 15 detail can be contracted or expanded, depending on how 16 much detail you want.
17 When we take the plan to the Office Director 18 and above, we are deliberately deleting a lot of. detail 19 that is currently there for the moment, because they 20- don 't want that detail for the most part.
Their staffs 21 do, and the budget would have that kind of detail in l
22 it.
We are going to have to greatly expand our budget 23 write-up, which is short term and does change from year
()
24 to year.
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1 ground zero on anything, of reformatting.
The policy V]
2 guidance of the Commission is pretty consistent from 3
year to yest, and we pick the regulatory needs fairly O
4 closely.
So there should not be drastic changes, other 5
than crossing off things -- we finished this, this, and 6
this -- and adding new things in.
7 MR. SIESS I expect that the ACRS, and that-8 seans the subcommittees, consultants as well as members, 0
will have views varying from that of the Office to Directors, down to any level that you want to go to.
11 NR. GILLESPIE Yes.
12 MR. SIESSs But the long range research plan 13 is sort of part of that, and the budget review that we
)
14 would do in the fall would serve the other part.
15 NR. GILLESPIE:
Yes.
But the plan, then, 16 should not change significantly from year to year.
17 Indeed, it may make sense, if it comes across with the 18 success that we are anticipating, for it to come on a 19 two-year cycle.
It would be something that corresponds l
20 to a two-year budget cycle.
21 MR. SIESS:
What would be more vsluable would 22 be an annual update, as a separate document, so somebody 23 could tell where the changes were without having 150
()
24 pages.
25 MR. GILLESPIEa Why don't we go on.
)
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1 MR. WARD:
Before-we go on, I would like to 2
restate my view as I see it.
You perceive that the the i
3 Research Office has been charged with developing an O
4 agency plan on the oblique, in essence, by drawing out 5
of the user-offices its long term needs by informal and 6
interative methods, I guess.
7 The user offices never really write down their 8
long term needs, which in fact should be in their long 9
term plan.
As a result, you draw these out and you 10 build a research plan, and buried in there, implied in 11 their research plan, is a long range agency plan.
12 I would just like to register the comment that 13 I don 't think that is a good way for the agency to do
(%
V' 14 its long range plan.
15 MR. BERNERO:
It is not nearly so oblique as 16 it seems because, among other things, the agency did 17 recognize that regulatory requirements, the long range 18 consideration of them is not fundamentally and solely in 19 the licensing process itself.
l 20 When they combined research.and standards in a 21 single office, I think that was one of the reasons that 22 drove that.
This office might be called the Office of 23 Regulatory Requirements, or something like that, but I
()
24 think it is a convenient vehicle to do just what it can 25 do.
~%
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.1 HR. SIESS4 I think we are due for a break,
- 2 then we will get back on-whatever schedule we were on.
l 3
Let's return in about ten minutes.
O 4
5 6
7 i
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9 1
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12 i.
13 O-14 f
?
15 16 17 I.
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MR. SIESS:
The meeting'will reconvene.
2 We will go on with the presentation, Frank, 3
from where we think you were when we interrupted you.
4 I think you were down to September 6.
5 MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes.
From September 6 on it 6
is an assembly project.
7 MR. SIESS:
When do you expect it to be out?
8 MR. GILLISPIE:
W e are shooting for the last 9
work day in October, October 29.
10 MR. SIESS:
When is NUREG-0784 going to be 11 out?
12 MR. GILLISPIE:
We may beat it.
We may beat 13 it with this year's.
O
(/
14 One thing you will notice on the schedule, we f
15 agreed in a letter to the Commission pretty much with l
16 your letter which said tha t the formalization of your 17 comments on the long range plan could be handled with 18 the letters to the EDO, the. recommendations, what is it, l
19 the points of interest recommendations kind of letter, l
we do want to get your 20 that that would be a fully 21 comments, that that would be an acceptable way, that it f
22 doesn't need the formality of going to the Commission 23 with it, that we are the people that need the 24 information.
25 Consistent with that is that we would not O
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intend -- hopefully we vill hear from them -- we would
{}
2 not intend to hold up publication of it for comments.
3 MR. SIESS:
I think what the Commission needs O
4 to realize is that even if we went to a formal review 5
process on'the long range plan, va would indicate areas 6
of agreement and disagreement, etc., but I don 't. think 7
we would ever write a letter saying we endorse it 8
completely and therefore now you have our endorsement 9
along with the user offices.
10 By the time you send it to the Commission, we 11 are supposed to have everything resolved with the user 12 offices, but there is nothing that says we have to have 13 everything resolved with the ACRS.
14 MR. GILLISPIE Yes, and realizing that, we 15 would, tf the Commission will answer your letter and our l
16 letter, our intention then would be to go ahead and 17 publish it because the comments we get are comments that 18 will then be used on the budget, so that they will 19 flavor, then, the budget input.
20 Getting back to the timeline, I am going to go 21 back to the general comment of each of the program areas i
22 that we selected and where we stand so far in the 23 schedule.
()
24 We feel we have defined the program areas, but 25 we are more than happy to accept suggestions, and l
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indeed, we've already changed the thicker packets, which
{}
2 is not with the slides.
What is not in here but would 3
be in here is either a separate chapter or as an O
4 appendix, and right now we have it listed as potential 5
areas for research where we could write up an LMFBR 6
program supporting fuel cycle program.
If-the decision 7
was made to go with it, here is the beginning-of what 8
would have to be done to support generic research on 9
LMFBR work or on fuel cycle work in support of that.
It 10 is kind of an add-on way to get the future in there.
11 We are really open to suggestions on how 12 better to in tegrate it in.
13 MR. SIESSs Appendix A on USIs, would that 14 cross-list those back to the other items somewhere?
15 MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes.
16 What we are intending to do --
17 MR. SIESS:
They are included in that 1 18 through 15?
19 MR. GILLISPIE:
Appendix A is a 20 semi-crosscut.
1 th ro ugh 15 ends up coming up to about 21 45 percent of our budget, and then there are other 22 things we do which do not fit into the context of one of 23 these flashier names, current day terms.
()
24 For USI we continue to ask questions on them.
25 We would intend to have anywhere from a half to one page O
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write-up on each USI that we are supporting, that we are U
2 doing resea rch in support of the research program in 3
We list the research sources, when we will O
4 complete it, and how it will contribute to the i
5 resolution of it.
6 For those already included under pressurized 7 ' thermal shock, for example, we would just reference the 8
pressurized thermal shock - write-up and not repeat the 9
words.
So that appendix is more for completeness than 10 anything else, and for easy identification of the USIs 11 and how mu:h resource is going into each one of tem and 12 how they fit.into the rest of the program.
13 So it is really a USI crosscut and catch-all.
()
14 MR. SIESSs I don't see an item that says 15 siting.
16 MR. GILLISPIEs You're right.
17 MR. SIESSa That would be under sGvere 18 accident, external events?
19 MR. GILLISPIE4 Right now we have got -- I'm 20 trying to think where we stuck that.
I 21 MR. PODOLAKs I think it's under exterp*1 i
22 events.
I'd have to turn back.
23 MR. GILLISPIE4 We just finished this last 24 night.
25 What we have to do now is go through the major l O m
l l
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program areas and the elements they put under it for
{}
2 completeness.
That is the step for it right now.
We 3
have gotten the first input.
We are going to meet with
'v)
(
4 NRR and see what their priorities are and check and make 5
sure that we have everything in here, that we have 6
covered everything.
We may not agree.with them on where 7
it should be or how high a priority, but that we have 8
covered the subject matter they want, and aske sure we 9
have a complete package.
10 We will.do that before we go into writing any 11 more.
12 MR. PODOLAK4 It is scattered around.
It is 13 under external events, a little bit under radiation
()
14 protection, and a little under rick analysis.
15 MR. GILLISPIE.
One of the suagettions we are 16 sdtill open for, and one of the reasons we are going to 17 meet with NBR, should citing be in and of it self a 18 separate area?
And should things like floods, external 19 events, include those things which support siting or the 20 sitino rulemaking?
(
21 MR. SIESS You can make your crosscut so many 22 different ways.
23 MR. GILLISPIE4 The crosscut we -- the index 24 we provided here is one crosscut.
The index itself is a
()
25 crosscut.
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The other thing in this whole thing was that 2
when we state we are going to do work in human factors, 3
and we state the elements and the needs, we fully expect 4
to give a projection when we are going to fulfill the-5 need, that when we put something down, that it has to be 6
done.and that we are going to start working on it, that 7
we also put down when we expect to finish working on it 8
in an attempt to not have everything open-ended.
9 HR. BENDER:
Is this plan still going to have 10 a certain amount of fragmentation in it, a piece here, a 11 piece there, a piece somewhere else?
12 HR. SIESS It's got to.
There are so many 13 pieces.
()
14 MR. GILLISPIEa There again, do you put siting 15 by itself, or do you put siting under the things --
16 MR. BENDERa I'm not trying to argue for or 17 against it, but I think if you are going to do that, 18 then it migh t be helpful to develop some kind of 19 matrix.
20 MR. GILLISPIE:
That's the other -- I've got a 21 slide of questions.
The matrices -- what we've 22 attempted here to do is go along with the need areas 23 that the Chairman and the Commission were most 24 interested in, the things it appears Congress is asking
()
, 25 most of the questions about.
So the crosscut is O
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()
1 provided by the index and is the most popular crosscut.
2 We definitely need other crosscuts for 3
specific needs.
NMSS vants a siting.
4 NR. SIESS:
It may be a three-dimensional 5
matrix.
6 MR. GILLISPIE It could come out to that.
7 MR. BENDER:
If you get too many of them, you 8
are obviously going to get in trouble, but it seems to 9
me some general set of categories which would fit the 10 pieces.
11 HR. SIESS:
That's the first list.
12 MR. GILLISPIE:
The first list is our first 13 shot at the categories that we got asked the most 14 about.
These are the things we were asked about.
15 If you look under plant aging, you will.see a 16 separate element is steam generator work, which is a 17 second order thing that we are always asked, what are 18 you doing on steam generators?
19 MR. SIESS:
This list, this crosscut, if you 20 vish, is influenced to some extent by your decision unit 21 set-up, which isn't bad.
22 MR. GILLISPIE:
Or you can go the other way in 23 that inadvertently, although not written down, the I) 24 decision unit was influenced by the work needing to be 25 done.
It depends on which came first.
Ac t ua lly, the
()
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work was there but it was not listed like this.
So I do
)
2 not think it is really' totally surprising that the major 3
portion of the work in any one of these areas is O
4 probably in one of our decision units.
It is not that 5
far off.
6 MR. SIESSs-I would think that given choices, i
7 other things-being equal, you would cross cut by 8
decision units.
9 MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes, that's a definite to crosscut.
11 MR. SIESS:
Since they are reasonably logica.
12 MR. GILLISPIE Yes, yes.
13 Okay.
)
14 We have got right now a statement of purpose 15 f or each of' these program areas and a list of elements 16 under that major area.
The order of these is no 17 particular order right now.
18 So under sging we've got reactor vessel work, 19 steam generator work, piping, electrical-mechanical l
20 components, and nondestructive examination.
l 21 MR. MARKS Will that discuss, for example, the l
22 age of s diesel generator af ter 1400 experimental 23 starts?
()
24 (General laughter.)
25 MR. GILLISPIE:
The increased risk due to O
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()
1 overtesting, the intent there is everything done in 2
steam generators, including Benero's work,.Arlotto's 3
work, would all be under that steam generators.
It is O
4 all going to be ca tegorized.
There will be one 5
timeline.
Here is a set of needs dealing with the 6
subject matter.
7 MR. SIESS:
Just this general category of 8
aging, it seems to me you have methods of examination 9
and testing, and on your first sentence it says time 10 related issues such as aging and degradation.
11 Doesn't maintenance come in there somewhere?
12 That's a time related issue.
By maintenance, 13 you can maintain the plant independent of age.
That is 14 one of the-objects of maintenance, maintenance 15 replacement schedule, etc.
16 MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes.
That will come in under
- al and mechanical components.
17 elet 18 MR. SIESSs Okay.
19 MR. GILLISPIE That's the approach we're 20 taking.
That's where we've gotten so far, the first 21 step in the schedule.
22 Hopefully we will get agreement with NRR on 23 these are the programs, this is how they would like to 24 see it laid out.
We are very receptive to adding or
()
25 deleting or combining these things right now.
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1 example is No.
6, LOCA and transient analysis.
We are 2
thinking very seriously -- I think we are going to go 3
this way -- of taking large break LOCA work and breaking O
4 that out as a separate chapter.
I hear arguments from 5
different people when I bring that up.
6 Does that make sense to do it?
It is a big 7
chunk of our budget.
Is it a drastically decreasing 8
program?
9 MR. SIESSa In effect, you did that with 10 decision units when you pulled out LOFT, didn't you?
11 MR. GILLISPIEa We did, and I think we're 12 going to go back.
This is going to attempt to be 13 consistent with tha t break.
()
14 MR. SIESS:
Do you have any goal as to the 15 number of ca tegories you wanted?
16 MR. GILLISPIE:
No.
We created -- it was 17 really the creation of a strawman based on the crosscuts 18 you mentioned before, the topics on those crosscuts the 19 Chairman has asked for, congressional questions.
It is we sent it out, we got some 20 indeed probably picked 21 comments back.
The LOCA' and transient one, depending on 22 which version of comments that you see together.
23 Someone had split apart -- this is not the original l( )
24 list.
The original list was somewhat longer. This has 25 been shortened up.
People wanted to see it contracted a
(
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little more.
So this has gone -- the list has gone
{}
2 though one mutation.
This mutation has gone through one 3
crosscut in-house.
Then we are going to go through NRR O
4 and through another tuning.
5 MR. WARDS When I go through this and I look 6
for.the important what must be a subtopic somewhere of 1
7 approved decay heat removal systems, I don't find it.
8 Where does that fit in?
9 MR. GILLISPIEa That is probably specific 10 enough, that would be under severe accident, it is 11 specific enough not to be there yet.
That is what we 12 are searching for now.
13 Is there something that is going to be -- if 14 it is not there now, it is a lower subset than what we 15 have got.
16 MR. SIESS:
I look at the subset under severe 17 accidents.
Which one of those would you consider decay 18 heat removal systems, or let's say containment heat 19 removal systems, to fall under?
20 MR. GILLISPIEs Under containment analysis.
21 MR. WARD:
I shouldn't think improved decay 22 heat removal systems would fall under severe accidents.
23 MR. KERRs You don't think.it would?
l
(])
24 MR. WARD:
I don 't think it would.
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1 heat removal system research plan.
That may be a
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2 comment that you would want to make.
3 MR. SIESS We ha ve made it.
O 4
MR. BEACH:
Yes.
Improved reacto r --
5 MR. GILLISPIE:
That's in improved reactor 6
safety.
7 MR. KERRs There is an unresolved safety issue 8
something or other.
It is not research, I guess.
9 MR. WARD:
It was a Task action plan, but I 10 guess there's not -- I thought there was some research 11 which was parallel with that, though.
12 MR. SIESS:
Decay heat removal systems is 13 under USI?
We don't use reactor safety as a category
(
14 anymore.
If we did, severe accidents would be under 15 it.
16 MR. KERR No, elimination of severe 17 accidents.
18 MR. GILLISPIE:
The first round, what we are l
19 looking for now is those types of comments, what are l
l 20 not -- what is not there?
Is it incomple te ?
Are we not 1
21 covering som e thing ?
Because if we are not, it probably 22 means we are not doing research there at this level.
23 This came out of the typewriter last night
()
24 about 5:00 o' clock, so it has not been reviewed for 25 completeness.
This is going to NRR, back to our O
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MR. PODOLAK:
On the first list, pressurized
{
2 thermal shock is under Bernero, not Arlotto, and that 3
quality ascurance is one of the topical programs that O
4 has been added under 15.
You will notice that in the 5
text, in the text in the back.
That shows you how this 8
was revised just last night, and forgive us, there are a 7
few pages that show editorial changes on it.
We 8
couldn't get those changes made.
9 MR. SIESS:
I am looking at human f actors.
10 Where is training and simulators?
11 MR. BEACH We are not doing research on 12 training.
13 MR. SIESS:
You are not doing any research on 14 training?
15 MR. BEACH:
I'm sorry.
Forgive me. I spoke 16 wrong.
17 MR. GILLISPIE:
We are.
18 MR. BEACH:
But on plant analyzer, you will 19 find that somewhere else.
20 MR. GILLISPIE:
What we have not got yet, the 21 questions you are asking me are, if you look at the 22 schedule, the next step-on the schedule is to go out and 23 define the elements that are right now only listed as 1 ()
24 human factors engineering, licensee qualification 25 management and plant procedure and human reliability.
O ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, l
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We have not yet defined those areas.
First we are
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2 looking topically to see if we have gotten all the 3
topics.
Carl Goeller may choose to put it under one of O
4 these topics at the top.
5 MR. SIESS:
Just looking~at that, I see plant 6
procedures.
I know that's an NRR activity.
Is there a 7
research activity in that now?
8 MR. GILLISPIEs Yes, yes.
In maintenance 9
procedures particularly.
10 MR. SIESS That is what it means by 11 maintenance.
12 MR. GILLISPIEs That is really pointed at 13 maintenance procedure work that is going on right now.
14 MR. SIESSs And not emergency operating 15 procedures?
16 MR. GILLISPIEs It may include that, but to 17 answer your question, are we doing it on maintenance 18 procedures, the answer is yes.
19 MR. SIESSs That's a user office need and a 20 research program, now?
21 MR. GILLISPIEs For a research program, yes.
22 This is a statement of what we are doing right now.
23 '
MR. KERRs Does the term "saf egua rds" under 15
()
24 include efforts to investigate designs that would i
25 decrease the probability of sabotage?
I'm not quite i
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sure what " safeguards" means in this context.
{}
2 MR. GILLISPIE Yes.
3 HR. KERR:
It does include it?
O 4
MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes.
5 ER. WARDa It doesn't really say that in the 6
text, I don 't think.
7 MR. GILLISPIE4 One of the problems --
8 HR. WARDS It's abbreviated, I realize.
9 MR. GILLISPIEs It's very abbreviated.
What 10 we need, the next step for going out is to answer the 11 particular questions that you are asking now.
It is to that would be 12 define under that chapter element 13 physical protection -- is to define what is meant by 14 physical protection.
What need is there?
So it might 15 be development of design, a statemept of a specific 16 thing they expect to accomplish, develop design criteria l
17 to inhibit sabotage.
That is the next step in the 18 iteration, is now to go back to the divisions and ask:
19 now, specifically what are you going to do under 20 physical protection?
In the case of safeguards, that is l
21 one thing they are going to do under physical protection.
22 MR. SIESS What does the heading for 15 23 really mean?
(])
24 MR. GILLISPIE:
It really means other.
It is 25 the programs whose funding has dropped to the point
' ()
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where it is not an integrated program as far as going V(~'T 2
across, for the most part, signficantly going across 3
divisional lines.
Emergency preparedness, for example, 4
is funded at about $600,000.
Safeguards, it is at 5
$1 million.
Quality assurance is -, Sue, help 6
me -- $3 million?
7 VOICE.
$300,000.
8 MR. GILLISPIEa
$300,000.
They a re very much 9
abbreviated because in the sense of resource 10 expenditure, they are not as significant.
That is not 11 to say that the subject matter isn't important.
12 MR. SIESS:
It seems to me plant instruments 13 and controls could fit in somewhere else other than
()
14 "other."
15 MR. GILLISPIEs Part of plant instrumentation 16 and control is under equipment qualification.
It is 17 also under the USIs.
18 MR. SIESS:
Part of it is under human factors?
19 MR. GILLISPIEa As I said, tha t i s wha t we a re 20 going through now, is to ensure completeness.
Part of 21 it is under equipment qualification, part of it is under
(
22 plant aging, part of it is under the USIs, and for lack l
23 of anywhere else to put the leftovers, the leftovers are
()
24 just under topical subjects.
25 MR. PODOLAK:
It also could graduate from a l
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topical progrtu.
It Is a less perjorative statement 2
than others.
It could graduate to a chapter in coming 3
years.
O 4
MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes, it could be upgraded to a 5
chapter in comi:1g years or it could be upgraded to a 6
chapter depending on what we talk to NRR about and how 7
much visibility do they wan t to give that area.
- Again, as an, individual item?
8 do we want to crosscut that out 9
MR. BENDER:
Wher,e do things like the 10 structural assessment of piping systems and pipe 11 supports and the SSMRP showing up.
(
12 MR. SIESSs SSMRP.vouldfbe external events,
/
13 phenomena.
14 MR. GILLISPIE Abe,wkece did you intend for 15 the structural work to be?
d 16 MR. EISSs Abe Eiss.
Division of Technology.
17 Structural work would be in the, containment area under 18 severe accident}pcograms.
i 19 MR. BENDER:
Well, of course you can put
}
20 things anywhere, bat it doesn't match very well.
l 21 MR.*GILLISPIE:
That is the type of l
22 information vd are very open to right now.
We can cut 23 the pie any way.
()
24 MR. SIESS4 I guess if you don't have a severe 25 accident or fou don't have an external event, you don't l
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1 worry too auch about containment structures.
We can put 2
tha t in two places.
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3 MR. BENDER:
Well, there are various ways to
, ()
4 look at this.
It is hard to develop a systems 1
- 6 orientation f rom this particular cut, but that is just 6
my own opinion.
7 MR. SIESS:
Maybe they should buy a set of 3 8
x 5 cards and let everybody else organize-them.
9 (Laughter) to MR. GILLISPIEa If I could continue on, that 11 is one of the questions we are still groping with. That 12 is, is there a need or is there not a need, and what 13 should be some kind of overstructure we try to fit these
()
14 things into?
1
. wa y I 15 MR. SIESS4 Well, you see, if I had my
' 16 would organize them according to the ACRS subcommittees 17 and that would f acilitate our review.
Another 18 possibility is to reorganize our subcommittees to fit 19 your categories, but you change them every year.
20 MR. BENDER:
Do I look under equipment 21 qualification to find out about qualification f or fira i
22 resistance?
23 MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes.
()
24 MR. SIESS.
And seismic resistance?
25 MR. BENDER:
Seismic is here and environmental t
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= _ _
106 1
and functional is here, but I didn't know whether that 2
was necessarily fires.
I'm just trying to get a fee 2ing 3
for it right now, though.
I'm not trying to --
()
4 MB. SIESS:
What does environmental and 5
functional mesn?
It is supposed to function under the 8
environment, isn't it?
7 MR. BENDERS At the same time, where you have 8
qualification,.the aging business will have some 9
q ualification aspects of it.
You probably ought to look 10 at that.
11 MR. SIESS Aging is a form of qualification, 12 but your qualification would be a part of aging, then.
13 MR. BENDER:
One way or the other.
()
14 MR. PODOLAK:
I would just like to interject 15 tha t where there is a particular program that belongs 16 more under a certain category, we are not going to 17 spread it to the winds.
We are going to put it under 18 the category where the most belong and identify it 19 through cross-cuts.
20 MR. GILLISPIE4 Yes.
What we have attempted 21 to do in the first go 'round is to put those things in 22 the areas where they seem to most relate to most of the 23 questions we get asked.
We are not going to satisfy
()
24 everybody all of the time.
We are trying to satisfy the 25 majority.
And we are totally open.
We are really O
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flexible on where Je put something right now.
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2 MR. SIESSs It seems to me you certainly don't 3
vant to split a project between two ca tegories, but an O
4 area that involves several projects, some of which may 5
relate to one thing and some to others, could easily be 6
split.
7 MR. BENDER:
That is correct.
8 MR. GILLISPIEs Yes.
9 MR. SIESSs And of course, as you start to 10 write your chapters you are going to find some of these 11 do not work anyway.
You will logically discuss what you 12 have here and you will have to move things around 13 because as you try to write it up, they won't fit.
()
14 MR. GILLISPIEs That is fully expected because 15 as we start to write we will start to see the is cross-connections between areas and we will have to 17 write in the relationships.
1e MR. SIESSs So I don't think that is as 19 important as making sure everything is somewhere.
20 MR. GILLISPIE:
Our first step now is to make 21 sure everything is somewhere.
Then how it gets shifted 22 around from there is really being more influenced by 23 general public opinion.
24 MR. SIESS:
This is still bottom up.
We are
()
25 going to try to test it top down as you write it up, n
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1 right?
V 2
MR. GILLISPIE:
What we have done is we have 3
generated a list just to start with a structure.
We had 4
to have something to put i t in.
The list that initially 5
got generated was based on topics of interest in.
8 present-day times, the things we were asked most abouts 7
what are you doing in this area, what are you doing in 8
that area.
It also does coincide, as it should, with 9
the things we are doing if you group them tha t way.
10 MR. SIESSs Yes.
11 HR. GILLISPIE4 Now what we are doing, we 12 wanted a statement of purpose, and hopefully in the 13 broad area, in any of these areas, aging, pressurized 14 thermal shock, that related to something better than 15 just a general motherhood s ta te men t, but something like 16 what are you doing in aging and why are you doing its 17 tha t there would be a short concise statement that would 18 be an introduction of generally what we are doing in 19 tha t area and why we are doing it. It is fulfilling a 20 regulatory need, that we list the elements and then 21 under each element we would list a specific need we p
l 22 intend to fulfill.
That need could be providing l
23 information to make a decision two years from now.
! ()
24 That's a valid need for us to fulfill.
25 MR. SIESS4 The point was that since th e u
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program didn 't develop starting with basic needs and
)
2 then going down step by step, it didn ' t --
3 MR. GILLISPIE:
We are in the middle.
O 4
NR. SIESS:
It was developed by some other 5
process.
6 MR. GILLISPIE Yes.
7 MR. SIESS:
Now you are trying to organize it 8
into a more logical framework and see what happens.
9 HR. GILLISPIE:
Yes.
We are starting in the 10 middle.
11 MR. SIESS:
There is an inherent assumption 12 that if you are doing something, there must be a reason, t
13 so you are going to find someplace to put it.
()
14 HR. GILLISPIE:
That is definitely going to 15 happen.
People are going to -- then we come to the next 16 step.
Now we have hopefully a complete list of 17 elements.
We have coordinated that with everyone who 18 needs to be coordinated with.
We have specific 19 regulatory needs under each element in each broad area, 20 and we are going to ask the people who supply us with 21 the specific regulatory needs that they think are needed 22 with a justification of why each one of those needs is 23 important.
24 Now we 7et into do we turn up any favorite
()
25 sons.
We are looking at the need, now how you do the O
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research, but is this need valid.
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2 MR. SIESS:
Everybody thinks there is a need.
3 Let's take one of our favorite subjects,
()
r 4
micrometeorology or macromesometeorology.
5
[ Laughter.1 6
MR. SIESS:
I think the meteorologist thinks 7
there is a tremendous need for that.
8 MR. GILLISPIEs-Which is why the intent of 9
this document is not for the need of the meteorologist 10 but it is f or the office director and above.
The first 11 fil te r --
12 MR. SIES$a He is going to have to ask the 13 right questions of the people under him.
()
14 MR. GILLISPIE Yes, but the people under him 15 have to make -- the first thing they need to do is make 16 the need sound like it's a valid need.
Then he has to 17 ask the right question, does this make sense.
Then we i
l 18 are going to go one step further.
We are going to ask 19 that the needs under each element be prioritized since 20 it is probably each element that will be written by each 21 author.
So we will ask the author to prioritize his own 22 needs based on three items, and I have got another slide l
23 for that, risk significance, regulatory significance,
(])
24 which is going to be user office, and cost effectiveness.
25 MR. KERR What sort of mechanism exists for
()
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
111 I guess the term I am looking for is integrated 1
2 meteorology research, which reminded me as an example of 3
the question I'm trying to ask.
The reason one wants
\\-
4 this inf orma tion, presumably, is because one wants to 5
estimate doses either in normal or emergency 6
situations.
Meteorological information is one 7
component.
The source or the leakage or whatever is 8
another component.
How does one make certain -- and I'm 9
just using this as an example -- that the accuracy being 10 looked for in the meteorology is maybe ridiculously poor 11 or ridiculously good compared to the accuracy with which 12 one can measure the source term?
I am not asking for an 13 answer to that specific question, but who is it that 14 looks to make sure that somebody has a total picture in 15 mind rather than focusing on meteorology as an end in 16 itself or source terms as an end in itself?
17 HR. SIESS:
Those will be in different 18 ch a pte rs.
19 3R. GILLI5 PIE:
The way this is organized nov 20 is the individual author of an element would prioritize 21 within his own work.
We have added on an Appendix D, 22 prioritization strategy, which will be the office view 23 of how all the elements fit together.
And that
(])
24 is -- Bernero ducked out on me just when we get to the 25 meat of what he really should be talking about, your ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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item on the agenda of how we are going to prioritize 2
from th e re.
3 We are going to attempt to come up with a O
4 quantitative means or a quantitative-qualitative means 5
of prioritizing the elements against each other.
- Now, 6
if we can't do it -- I don't believe we have the vehicle 7
to do it waste management against severe accident work, 8
or mill tailings against severe accident work.
Certain 9
research has to be done to answer certain regulatory 10 questions.
11 We are going to, though, in the context of k
12 that explain in this plan how we picked w ha t is 13 important.
We want to address the thing I mentioned:
14 risk significance.
If it is possible to do it 15 quantitatively than to have something quantitatively.
16 I went through with Bernero yesterday 17 afternoon, since he will take the lead on putting 18 together the prioritization, a matrix that they had used 19 in the severe accident plan where they went from 20 initiation of an accident all the way through core 21 melt.
Is that Charley?
They went through the whole 22 sequence.
23 He feels that he can put a significant portion 24 of our work into that sequence and a t least get some 25 relative feeling of risk reduction and reduction of GV ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
1 113 1
uncertainty in risk.
We are going to attempt to
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2 actually write that up this year so that people can 3
understand the question they keep asking us how do you O
4 use PRA?
PRA isn't all of it.
There will be a 5
subjective judgment in cost effectiveness: can you even 6
do it.
7 MR. SIESSs-Are you suggesting there is no 8
subjective judgment in PRA?
9 MR. GILLISPIE4 There is subjective judgment to in PRA.
But besides the subjective numbers, we may have 11 to go to putting some type of weighting factor on user 12 endorsements how important, how much does Denton really 13 want this when we look at its regulatory im plica tions,
14 given that he wants something else more?
Then, how much 15 is it going to cost us as a research program to do it?
16 It may be bettet to do f our cheape r things, risk-wise, 17 in the whole scope of things than one expensive thing 18 that costs the same, although you have to look at them j
19 individually and rumulatively to do comparisons.
20 We are going to attempt to have that 21 straigh tf orwa rd and written up so that people can 22 understand how the priorities are drawn and how the 23 choices were made.
()
24 ER. SIESS:
But I think we have something in l
i 25 one of our letters abcut how should resources be
()
I i
l ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE, S.W, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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allocated between research to convince the NBC Staff the 2
plant is safe, research to convince the Atomic Safety 3-and Licensing Board and the public that the plant is O
4 safe. Is that something you might consider?
5 MR. GILLISPIE4 That would be -- as best we 6
could, that is what we are intending to do.
7 MR. SIESSa There was a question about the 8
difference between research to reduce real risk and 9
research to reduce perceived risks if these should be 10 different.
11 MR. GILLISPIEa Again, yes.
12 MR. BENDER:
If you get this scheme worked 13 out, you will probably be a candidate for Mr. Stockman's 14 job.
15
[ Laughter.]
16 MR. GILLISPIEs Well, I am really hesitant on 17 committing to this scheme beca'use I am not sure how good 18 it is going to be, but we are going to have written down 19 in black and white our first attempt at it.
So we will 20 have written down something for people to criticize 21 versus receiving the criticism we don't have anything 22 w ritten down.
So now we will have something written l
23 down and we will probably get criticized worse.
l O 24
""- Sc"or">
r tat =x it 1= **e riont thiaa to l
25 do.
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MR. SIESS:
I think it is definitely a step in
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2 the right direction, whether it works the firs t time or i
3 not.
That is what I thought about the first long-range O
4 reenarch plan.
5 MR. GILLISPIEs So.ve are going to attempt tc 6
do that and we are going to do that at the individual 7
element level.
So it is going to be a grouping and it 8
is going to be somewhat -- it is going to be less than 9
exact, and I don't think Bernero has quite worked out to the details.
He knew I was getting to this.
11 MR. SIESS4 He had a better excuse than that.
12 NR. GILLISPIE:
He had a CRGR to go to, so he l
13 did have to duck out.
()
14 On the schedule, we are intending to have the 15 appendices worked out once we decide what the needs are, 16 once we get through that, towards the end of December.
f7 MR. SIESS:
Incidentally, there was a little 18 discussion about GRGR during the break where people have 19 to go to justif y the need f or a new regulation.
They go 20 before a senior group and have to present documentation 21 and argue for what they think is needed.
Would there be 1
22 any advantage in having a similar system on research 23 needs of a senior review board that people had to go
()
24 before and justify their needs?
25
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MR. GILLISPIE:
I think ef fectively we have
)
2 that.
They just don't sit all in the same room at the 3
same time.
Fo r on e thi ng, if you read last year's Os -
4 research plan, I'm not sure that that is straightforward 5
about what needs we're trying to fulfil.
So this year 6
we are attempting to filter it down so that an office 7
director can read it, the Commission can read it, and 8
say, okay, these are the needs we're trying to fulfil, 9
these are the ones I agree are needed, these are the 10 ones with which I disagree.
11 We will have to have a short justification 12 written in there, and I would not think it inappropriate 13 for Denton to write back and saya Your justification 14 isn 't detailed enough, I need more words on why this is 15 needed.
And then we would beef'up the justification.
16 Or, I disagree with the justification, or I agree with 17 the need and your justification is the wrong thing.
18 Now, whether all of those people sit in the 19 same room or do it individually -- first, I would like i
I 20 to see if we can successfully write the needs down.
21 MR. SIESS:
It's going to be interesting to l
22 see just how much involvement you can get a t the high 23 levels in the of fice s, because when we have looked at
()
24 programs and gotten into arguments about whether it's 25 floods or meteorology or so forth, we didn't have very i
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()
1 high-level people coming in trying to tell us that ther 2
needed it.
3 We had the meteorologists explaining why they 4
needed to improve their prediction by a factor of 5
three.
But we didn't have anybody in that was able to 6
look at that in relation to uncertainties in the source 7
term or uncertainties in the leak ra te s a nd say, yes, 8
from an agency point of view we do need to have that 9
knowledge.
10 So you're hoping to get that kind of level of 11 review.
12 MR. GILLISPIEa Yes, we are hoping to get tha t 13 level, that level of review.
And we're hoping to 14 facilitate it by-only giving that information needed to 15 do that level of review.
16 I think the 370 pages from last year scared 17 off that level of review.
So one of the things we are l
18 hoping to achieve by shortening it is to get that level 19
-- to only have that level of detail necessary to give 20 us the information back or to ask us the questions that 21 ve need to be asked.
22 ER. SIESS:
It seems to me one of the best 23 ways to get a really careful review of the user needs is
()
24 to tell somebody, we cannot meet all your needs, you 26 have got to tell us which three-fourths of them you O
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really want.
2 MR. GILLISPIE:
We are -- that's the purpose 3
of prioritization, to tell us which ones.
It's obvious 4
we're going to have a research program.
We are going to 5
have a budget of something.
I think it would be not 6
unrealistic to say that that budget will for the-7 foreseeable future be $180 million as a ninimum, and 8
therefore the importance of prioritization is really 9
that last 20 percent.
10 That last 25 to $30 million worth of 11 prioritization becomes very important, because those are 12 the projects that may indeed get cut and not get done.
l 13 We are going to ask that question this year, to have
()
14 that incorporated in from the beginning:
What is the 15 least important need we have written up in this plan?
16 MR. SIESS:
Obviously, there are some 17 priorities that are very difficult to establish 18 relatively, work on materials versus work on reactors, 19 waste management versus reactors, et cetera.
And those 20 will be decisions that will have to be made, certainly, 21 at a higher office level because they have multiple t
22 offices.
23 Will the Commission give you guidance on 24 that?
{'}
25 MR. GILLISPIE:
We are attempting through this O
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vehicle to make a first cut at it.
Bob Minogue has not 2
yet really decided how he will convey this in September 3
to the Commission.
We don't want a writeup of research O
4 need for programs we're going to be shut down on.
We 5
would like to get it in before the PPPG guidance comes 6
up.
7 So from our outline, we are hopin g to have 8
numbers one and two complete and to send that package 9
without a research program description, to send that 10 package, that definition of goals, to the Commission and 11 ask them, are these the right things that we should be 12 looking at from the overall agency point of view.
13 Now, we are tentatively wanting to do that in O
14 September, before we go any further.
We're envisioning 15 something like a 50-page document that will convey that 16 information.
Then if they say, yes, this realistically 17 appears to be the goals, this is where you should be 18 going, this is consistently the policy, those are the 19 needs we need to fulfil, then we would add on the 20 research program to that.
We.vould add on number 21 three.
22 MR. SIESSs You always have needs.
But 23 suppose somebody came back in and told you that you are 24 only going to have $100 million?
25 MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes, that's why we want to O
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prioritize.
We fully expect to write this plan.
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2 MR. SIESS:
How do you prioritize?
For 3
example, do you say cut everything in half, cut out O
materialssahety,and 4-everything on vaste management, 5
concentra te on 100 operating reactors, throw out 6
advanced reactors?
7 MR. GILLISPIEs No.
That is when it becomes 8
9 MR. SIESS:
It seems to me that that's almost 10 a Commission-level decision.
11 MR. GILLISPIE:
It is, it is.
We would go to 12 that and we would, by way of the prioritiza tion we would 13 have done, we would make a recommendation.
We-are going
()
14 to give them something to decide upon that they can 15 disagree or agree wi th.'
16 So we would expect that we would make a 17 recommendation of a priority list.
Again, what we are 18 looking for is, what is the bottom fraction that is in 19 tha t area of cut-ability.
You're going to have a 20 baseline program that you do not really need to put 21 things in front of another.
22 So the answer is, yes, we're going to go to 23 the Commission and ask their advice at that time.
We l
24 would anticipate that the plan would be written with
()
25 needs that a re f ar in excess of our resources to AV
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ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 sceomplish.
2 We expect only to have $200 million in a given 3
year, snd we would fully expect that this agency has 4
more research needs than that and we would have them all 5
here to provide alternatives.
The Commission can decide 6
whether we prior;; tized things right _ or wrong.
If they 7-disagree, we can switch them around.
8 MR. SIESS:
They can only decide that at 9
pretty broad levels.
10 MR. GILLISPIE:
That's what I'm saying.
We 11 vant to send them a broad level document, so that we can 12 get some direction out of it, versus immersing them in 13 the detail of whether we should use ACRR or PBF or 14 attempt to do it with LOFT or use NRU.
We're not 15 looking at that level of detail from the Commission at 16 this stage.
17 So we're going to try to do what you said.
We 18 are going to try to present the Commission with a longer l
19 list than we probably feel we could finance, a 20 recommendation on the priorities of it.
And they would 21 then either agree or disagree with us.
22 If we could keep it short and address the 23 needs in terms that they are used to, then we might be 24. successful at getting their early involvement in the 25 whole thing.
Once we got past that step, then we would ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 do paragraph 3, which is research program description by 2
element.
3 MR. SIESS:
What document are we looking at?
O 4
MR. GILLISPIE It's the one that says 5
" Chapter Outline" on it.
6 MR. DURAISWAMY:
They don' t have that.
7 MR. GILLISPIE I apologize.
8 MR. SIESS:
Do you have a vugraph?
If you do, 9
just throw it up there.
10 (Slide.)
11 MR. MOELLER:
While we are moving on that, on 12 aging, I didn't -- or I would like to know to what 13 degree the research will involve actual reviews of plant
()
14 experience.
It seems like what you had listed is mainly 15 research outside the operating plants.
16 MR. GILLISPIE Okay, yes.
I think under --
17 which one was it?
18 MR. SIESS:
19 MR. MOELLER:
Well, it could be.
You know, 20 they could take --
21 MR. SIESS:
I see whct you mean.
22 MR. MOELLER:
-- metals and check them.
23 MR. GILLISPIE:
We have not yet gotten to that
()
24 much detail.
l 25 MR. MOELLER:
I see.
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HR. GILLISPIEa Which is why we want to make
)
2 this whole process very iterative before we write a 3
whole lot.
Right now we are to the point of having done O
4 number one.
That is as far as we have gotten.
The 5
technical people have given us number one.
They have 6
given us a list of elements, but they haven 't done. A, B,
7 C, and D that we have under there.
8 Now we are going back to complete number two.
9 We are going to work with NRR at this point to see what 10 their needs are, NMSS.
We expect to complete number two 11 by the first week in September.
From that we hope to 12 generate something on the order of a 50-page document.
13 That is when we would want to go to the Commission.
()
14 We would also want to have an appendix that 15 would prioritize these things or give some scheme for 16 doing it.
We would fully expect that we would have more 17 specific regulatory needs than we could finance, and 18 that way we could provide the Commission with the 19 choice.
20 We are not restricted by PPPG guidance in the 21 long-range plan.
What we put in the budget, we are, but 22 not for the purposes of this plan.
Once we get 23 Commission guidance on have we picked the righ t needs, 24 are these the elements that we want to look at in the
()
25 next few years, then we will go back and we will do ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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number three, where we will very briefly -- and I mean
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2 very briefly, because we don't want to duplica te the 3
budget process -- describe the program, more importantly O
4 the major milestones, the major deliverables, how they 5
relate to the needs we have already mentioned in a time 6
line, when we expect to get the deliverable to fulfil 7
that need.
8 For prioritization purposes we have to address 9
cost at this point, although we don't put a lot of 10 details in the program.
The larger programs, like if 11 you know you are going to get information and you have 12 to use SEMISCALE to get that information, you can get a 13 good ballpark of the cost.
You're going to have $12
()
14 million program.
15 Cost becomes less significant as you go down.
16 Suddenly, if you are down $5 million, cost has a much 17 less significant bearing on whether you do the research 18 or not on risk reduction, uncertainty in risk, safety 19 importance.
NRR becomes the driving factor.
20 Ihose kind of weighting factors are what we 21 have to build into our prioritization.
22 MR. SIESS:
Frank, you've got the words 23
" program area" up there.
Vis a vis the 15 topi,cs?
(])
24 MR. GILLISPIE Yes.
25 MR. SIESS:
And program elements?
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MR. GILLISPIE Are a subset under those.
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2 MR. SIESS:
How f ar down does that go?
Is 3
that the kind of things we had listed?
O 4
MR. GILLISPIE:
That's just the kind of things 5
that are listed under'there, just the list of four or 6
five items under each chapter.
7 MR. SIESS:
Now, at what point do you'get to I
)
8 where you can express what you call the needs in terms 9
of researchs?
10 MR. GILLISPIE:
That's --
11 MR. SIESS:
I'm assuming deliverable is an 12 answer to a question?
13 MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes.
And whether we would
}
14 format that as a question or a statement of what 15 deliverable is expected, it will be the same 16 information.
17 MR. SIESS:
Now, at what point in.this will 18 there be discussion of -- let's see.
You start off, you 19 need to know something, there's a need to knov 20 something.
21 MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes.
22 MR. SIESS:
There is an assumption that you 23 can get an answer.
()
24 MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes.
25 MR. SIESS:
You need to know whether anybody O
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1 else is working on it.
That's the first question.
2 MR. GILLISPIEs Yes.
3 MR. SIESS:
What do we know, is it likely O
4 someone else will get an answer.
5 If nobody else is working on it, should they 6
be.
7 MR. GILLISPIEs Yes.
8 MR. SIESS4 If they are not and they shouldn't 9
be, then we should, right?
10 HR. GILLISPIE4 Well --
11 MR. SIESS:
Is that process involved here?
12 MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes.
13 HR. SIESS:
Who should do what, who is doing O
14 what2 15 MR. GILLISPIEs That would b,e at the last 16 level, at number three.
Our first question is, is this 17 an agency need?
Is this needed by the NRC?
We want to 18 state what the needs of the Commission are.
19 If it is something not needed by the 20 Commission, then it is not something research would be 21 doing.
So that is the first step.
22 MR. SIESS There are things the Commission 23 needs that it doesn't have to do itself.
24 MR. GILLISPIE Yes.
Now, when we look at the 25 research program, how we're going to achieve that end, O
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one of the things we have to state in there, would we U
2 look at DOE, would we look at EPRI?
In the program plan 3
description, that kind of information would be 4
detaileds wha t others are doing, wh a t the other related S
projects are.
8 MR. SIESSs To what extent have you or will 7
you look at this DOE effort now to define research needs 8
in light water reactors?
It will probably involve 9
something we just got the first report on, containment 10 hydrogen.
11 MR. GILLISPIEs Well, we will review it and if 12 we agree --
13 MR. SIESS:
They have gone through those steps
()
14 and they have indicated who is doing what, what needs to 15 be done, and some of the things you are doing are in 18 that list.
The NRC is doing them.
17 MR. BEACH 4 We have people on each one of 18 those DOE groups and those would be the same people who 19 would be preparing in step three, so they would be able 20 to integrate those two in step three.
21 MR. MARKS Probably I just don't understand l
22 the way the words are used in some cases.
I wish there i
l 23 were something in your paragraph 2 which read a little i
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24 like "need to know."
Is that covered in the regulatory 25 need somehow?
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I read " regulatory" to think of regulations
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2 we're working on, hearings and rulemakings.
There are 3
some things which you say, we have to kcow co know O.
4 whether there should be a rule.
1 5
MR. GILLISPIEs Yes.
The need to have 6
information to make a decision is a valid regulatory 7
need.
That has.been made clear to all the divisions.
8 So that is inherent in this.
9 MR. MARKS Fine.
I began to understand that 10 from reading it over.
It had to be there if it was 11 anywhere, and I was hoping it was somewhere.
12 MR. GILLISPIE4 In much of Bassett's work in 13 the experimental work, it is to provide information for
)
14 Bernero to put in his risk assessments, to make a 15 decision whether they should do anything more.
16 MR. MARK:
Whether an unsuspected regulation 17 might be called for.
18 MR. GILLISPIEa Yes, that is considered a 19 valid need in the office.
20 MR. WARD:
Frank, did I understand you said 21 this would be such a comprehensive listing that if a 22 need is being met by research somewhero else, DOE or in 23 the industry or somewhere else, that that will be
()
24 included here?
25 MR. GILLISPIE4 Yes.
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ER. WARD:
It is really going to be top-dovr.
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2 in that sense?
3 MR. GILLISPIEa Intended in our program O
4 description, the details we are wri ting up to give out 5
to the divisions to write this up, instead of having a 6
separate section on what others are doing, that if 7
others are doing something that satisfies us and we're 8
depending on EPRI for a piece of work, or IEEE or 9
something, that we would just say, EPRI is scheduled to 10 have this done, we're going to use this work to satisfy 11 this need.
12 So that would be written right in, with even a 13 diagram with it, hopefully, of some kind that shows a
()
14 time line, and then a description of the major 15 milestones and deliverables, whether we do it or not.
16 If we're going to use them, then we would say we're 17 going to get it from someone else.
18 Ed?
19 MR. PODOLAKs I would like to add that we're 20 going to take a first cut.of that under 2C, 1
21 justification of importance of identified need.
1 22 Included in that will be what piece of the. work we are 23 doing.
For example, on steam generators we may only be
()
24 doing 25 percent of the research work in' steam i
25 g en e ra t'o rs.
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You should have that information in September 2
when you see our regulatory need.
So the first little 3
part of. that will be in 2C.
4 NR. GILLISPIE:
The intent on the research f 5
program description is really to be a very brief 6
description, with the emphasis on the list of major 7
deliverables, no matter'where they are from, which we 8
are going to use to fulfil a need, to relate it all.back 9
to the needs.
10 That is where the volume of the rep rt gets 11 controlled, how much detail we put in there.
If we say 12 EPRI is doing this project and we are going to use' that 13 result to assist in answering question 2 above, that is
()
14 very brief.
If we go into a description of what EPRI is 15 doing and how we are doing and how we mesh, that is very 16 long.
17 Our intent now is to not have that description 18 in there, but that that is a budget description of 19 specifics, how you are spending this dollar.
The 20 com mi tm en t we're making now with a brieh long-range plan 21 like this is, we will have a much expan' led budget 4
22 document to cover the actual expenditures, to split P
23 hairs, if you would, in the spring.
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Basically, out of order, I covered the meat of
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2 i t.,
We still hava some questions that we are grappling 3
with.
'I will throw those up, since they are kind of out
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4 'of order.
5 (Slide.)
i 6
One of these is -- this is going to ne fairly 7
brief.
That is just what crosscuts are needed, what 8
structure is'needed.
We have gone round and round in 9
the office about this, as f ar as wha t -- we may have 10 hopefully a comprehensive list of needs and how you cut 11 that or what program you put it under is merely cutting 12 up the pie.
If you change all the chapter headings next 13 year, the need should not change.
That is the stability 14 that should be inherent if you define the goals of the
(
15 agpncy right.
We are still not sure if we need an overall 16 17 structure, something that has primary system and
./
18 secondary systems or says reactor fuel facility 19 transportation and try to get all this stuf f under it.
20 The time period covered.
Our intention right.
21 now is to write the time period for final publication no 22 later than December, that the research plan would be 23 written in the past tense before December, and the 24 f uture tense for af ter December, which means we will not
()
I 25 have two years which are just background.
If we have to O
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go out to '88'or
'89, they will just be added on the 2
end, bud the 1983, the'second half of 198'3 would still 3
be spoken of in the present tense.
It would be a part
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4 of the plan.
5' In effect,' what(we are just doing is 6
eliminating headings, and hopef ully. the approach then '
7 would flow all the way through.
Bob Bernero would like 8
to fsee it cut off at about 1986.
It sounds like you 9t would like to have it cut off in 1986 or
'85, something consIdtent with the budget.
to 11 MR. SIESSa At'least something consistent with i
12 the time f rame we can think in; terms of.
1 13 MR. BENDERS Let me make a. comment about t
O i4 the t.
- rt is net prectica1 to schedu1e the mener eut 15 beyond five years, but sometimes the programs have to be i
16 looked at as extending further, and while you might not 17 know. what the expenditure rate is, I think it is a good l
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19 program can 't be done in five years, That is all I am a f~
20 suggesting.
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y 21.
MR. GILLESPIE:
Yes.
.But in keeping with<
22 tradition, this plan should. go ' to 1989.
If ve a re *
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23 allowed to break with tradition, then this plan could;go 24 to '88 or to
'87.
25 MR. SIESS:
If you just called it a research f'
Q
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1 plan, and you address what you are doing, how long it is 2
going to take, you don't have to put eighty-X to
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4 MR. GILLESPIEa I agree.
The approach we are 5
taking now is very conducive to doing that.
8 MR. SIESSs Some of the things you are going 7
to talk about are-two-year programs, some are five, some 8
are ten, and I don't see why that can't be stated in a 9
research plan, since the dollars don 't mean anything 10 anyway going out five years, and it doesn't have to have 11 numbers on it, and you revise the thing ann ual.ly.
Don't 12 change dates.
13 I think you are hung up on something that 14 somebody started, long-range research plan,
'83,
'88, or 15-something.
16 MR. GILLESPIE Well, we can --
17 MR. SIESS:
I don 't know if the Commission 18 asked for it that way or not.
is MR. GILLESPIE:
We will actively look into the 20 way we dre doing it, whether it be tradition or -- Bill, 21 do'you remember back that far, three years ago?
Was it 22 just asked for that way?
23 HR. BEACH:
The five-year part was kind of a
()
24 tradition.
Actually, the first five-year plan was 25 actually done back in 1977.
Then there was another one O
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in
'78.
Then we went a number of years and didn't have 2
one.
But the five-year was tradition, yes.
3 MR. GILLESPIEs We vill go back with that 4
suggestion.
If the five years actually got moved back 5
to include
'83, it would become much more manageable, 6
because
'83,
'84, and '85, the first three years are 7
actually budget years that you are dealing with in the 8
here and the now.
9 (Slide.)
10 MR. GILLESPIEs We are starting early enough 11 tha t we will not have the excuse that we used last year 12 that we ran out of time.
The crosscuts, we will be more 13 than happy to provide crosscuts any which way people 14 vant them.
15 MR. SIESS.
Do you have it on the computer?
16 MR. GILLESPIEs No.
17 (General laughter.)
18 MR. BENDER:
That way, we can make our own 19 crosscuts.
20 MR. GILL ESPIE As a matter of fact, only to a 21 limited extent.
We have the individual projects on the 22 computer and we can crosscut down to decision units to t
23 get down to that detail, so partially the answer is yes, 24 we do have it on a computer, but that never seens to 25 come out as clean because it has three tasks under it t
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and it is split into different areas, although it is in 1
2 one branch.
Arsenault funds it.
Bernero does it.
We 3
definitely have to have a planned organization crosscut, O
4 because we need that so the division directors know what 5
they have.
We are going to have a plan to decision unit 6
crosscut.
Then we will have a crosscut to make Bernero 7
happy, from decision units to organization, any other 8
crosscuts we want.
At the draft stage, all we need is a 9
request that someone wants it and we will put it 10 together.
11 MR. MARK You mentioned the possibility, and 12 I am not urging it, if you had a crosscut from item to 13 system.
g s
14 MR. GILLESPIE:
That is the overview we are 15 still struggling with.
16 MR. MARK:
It would be a possible item here, 17 primary system to plant system.
18 MR. GILLESPIE:
That is one of the overview l
19 structures.
That is one of the crosscuts we have talked 20 about in-house.
l 21 MR. MARK It is a different quality of 22 crosscut.
23 MR. GILLESPIE:
We have kind of thrown out the
(])
24 idea of primary, secondary, transportation, fuel 25 facility.
It can be easily done, easily done, but I O
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think what we would really like to do is get it out in 1
2 draf t form, then get suggestions for crosscuts back.
3 For the most part, crosscuts should not be that time O
4 consuming.
They will take time, but we can manage 5
them.
6 MR. SIESS:
Have a computer with key words, 7
and you can make 16 of them.
8 MR. GILLESPIE:
We asked the NRC to provide us 9
with a computer capability for doing that.
10 MR. SIESS:
Incidentally, I was just looking 11 back --
12 MR. BENDER:
It doesn't sound all that 13 complicated.
Maybe it is.
(
14 MR. PODELACK:
We are doing that independently.
15 MR. GILLESPIE:
We are attempting to do that.
16 I don't like committing to that yet.
17 MR. SIESS:
In the communication from Chilk to 18 Dircks, it simply states that research for developing 19 long-range research plan, the plan would be updated 20 every year, and it does not say five years at all.
21 MR. GILLESPIE:
I have to bow to getting 22 Minogue's impression of what is desirable on tha t one.
23 MR. SIESS:
I am saying officially the
()
24 Commission didn't ask for five years.
It was your l
25 decision, which we will be glad to help you with, but --
l l
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1 MR. BENDER:
Let me repeat the point I made.
2 I don 't care how long it is in the budge t, but I really
[
3 think when you have the plan, it should recognize 4
whatever the research effort is, how long it is going to 5
last, and not~ arbitrarily turn it of f at some date, 6
because that is how far you are going to look at the 7
money.
8 MR. GILLESPIE: I agree.
It would end with 9
certain words that say, this is going to continue, 10 thermal hydraulic transients, for example.
The work in 11 this area will continue because we can always anticipate 12 that there will be operational problems that need 13 reanalysis.
14 MR. SIESS:
Even now, with five years, you 15 have got projects that you expect to go beyond five 16 years.
You have to say something about that.
17 MR. GILLESPIE:
We have similar generalities 18 at the end of the programs now.
Anyway, we are going to 19 be open to crosscut suggestions.
We do want to provide-20 them.
Two things we are doing here.
We ha ve an 21 abbreviated schedule to get it out.
The abbreviated 22 schedule, shooting for October, is to have enough time 23 through November to provide the necessary crosscuts so
()
24 we don't have to answer a lot of questions after the 25 fact.
That is one of the prime reasons for getting it O
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1 done early.
2 MR. SIESS:
I think if I were doing it, I 3
would put it on the computer, and anybody that-asked me f.V 4
for a crosscut, I would give it to them.
5 MR. GILLESPIEa We are going to try for that, 6
but we don't have a whole lot of. people ourselves, and-7 we really don't have a programmer in house as such, 8
someone dedicated that can sit down and write a WILBUR 9
program for us.
10 MR. SIESS4 Get a text edit program.
11 MR. BENDER:
Get a TRS 80.
It is much easier 12 to do on tha t.
13 3R. SIESS:
IBM 2C.
14 (General laughter.)
15 MR. GILLESPIE:
We are going to --
l 16 MR. SHEWMON Subcontract it to one of the i
17 members of the committee who thinks it is so easy.
18 (General laughter.)
19 MR. GILLESPIE:
We are actively attempting to 20 do that.
I am very hesitant to commit that we will have 21 it done soon.
The other thing, I am very hesitant to 22 put the effort into doing that before I know the plan 23 has at least met with 50 percent acceptance.
24 MR. KERR:
If you undertake it, it will only 25 cost you about 50 percent more and take you about twice (2)
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1 as long as if you didn't do it.with a computer.
2 MR. GILLESPIE:
So, that really is where my 3
presentation ends.
As I said, we are only to the point O
4 of having collected 12 pages worth of information.
Nov 5
we are looking to see if the topics are complete.
We 6
are going to get together with NRR and see if they think 7
the topics are complete,' and that all of their needs 8
will fit under all of those topics and make sense to 9
somebody.
10 At that point, we are going out for definition 11 of the elements.
Two things.
We want to limit what we 12-are looking at.
When you see steam generators:, we don't 13 vant to imply that we are doing everything under steam 14 generators.
We are doing a little bit under steam t
15 generators.
The industry is doing a lot under steam 16 generators, and in many cases we are depending on th eir 17 results coming through, so we will actually limit the 18 scope of what we are doing, and not make it sound like 19 we are solving the world's problems.
We are solvinc i
20 pieces of them, because we do have a fairly limited 21 mission overall.
22 MR. BENDER:
If you can get the discreet 23 elements in this one breakdown one time, then at any
()
24 time you can go through and develop your matrices under 25 it.
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MR. GIlLESPIEs That is our approach right 2
now.
That's why we don't have an overall structure.
If 3
the elements are close and next year someone doesn't O
4 like our titles, then we will f reely cut and paste them 5
and put them wherever-someone would like to see them, 6
but the program, and this is pretty traditional, the 7
program never changes.
You just change a dollar as you
~
8 change your words.
Realistically, the program goes on.
9 HR. WARD:
In spite of the plan.
10 (General laughter.)
11 HR. GILLESPIE:
In spite of the plan.
So what 12 ve would like to do is define what the program is going 13 to accomplish.
What you call that, as long as you 14 accomplish the end product, the goal is the same.
What 15 heading you put that under is really indifferent.
It 16 doesn't matter.
17 Now, if you disagree with the goal, now you 18 are to a point where you are really affecting the work 19 being done, and we have yet to generate a list of goals, 20 so our first objective is to generate a list of goals to 21 be achieved, and if someone disagrees with something 22 that is already 80 percent complete, I am not sure what 23 we do at that point.
24 MR. SIESS:
Gentlemen, what I would like to 25 propose --
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1 MR. MARKS In this list of chapter headings, I 2
an delighted to observe that you can't possibly fit in 3
one alleged need which I don't think should have been O
4 fit in anyway, that is, predicting the electric power 5
demand.
6 MR. GILLESPIEs That is not in there.
7 MR. MARK:
It could,be put in here, but I hope 8
it never is.
9 (General laughter.)
10 MR. SIESS:
Gentlemen, we have heard what the 11 staff is proposing to do about the next long-range 12 research plan.
I would like to have a little discussion
-13 about what the ACRS should do.
Let me review a little
(
14 of the history.
15 On October 20, 1981, we wrote a letter to the 16 chairman after a question I had raised at the meeting 17 about our devoting so much time to reviewing the 18 research program formally and make a report to the 19 Congress, report to the Commission, and reviewing the 20 long-range research plan.
We had those things before us.
21 We proposed at that time to continue the long, 22 relatively comprehensive report to the Congress with all 23 the detailed comments, mostly addressed to the staff.
()
24 We proposed to reduce the scope of the report to the 25 Commission and not repeat what was in the report to the O
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1 Congress, and we made a step in that direction with the ss 2
report we just did last m a n 't. lt, e.1though it ended up 3
coming out of the NUREG, but it was a lot shorter, and C!
4 took a lot less of our time, and probably was just as 5
effective.
6 Regarding the long-range research plan, we 7
said the first long-range research plan developed was 8
little more than five years of projections and reviews 9 -of ongoing programs for the next one or two years.
We 10 believe therefore that reviewing the long-range research 11 plan will not be an ef fective use of our time unless a 12 more meaningful plan is developed.
I 13 Now, in response to that, the Commission i
l l
14 thought we could cut back on their report in July, and l
15 said, we concur with the ACRS recommendations in the 16 letter I just read, with the exception that an ACRS 17 review of the long-range research plan be included in 18 - the comprehensive review of the research program which 19 forms the basis for your annual report to Congress.
20 This would give us the benefit of your advice at the 21 earliest but most productive stage, and, we believe, 22 would result in the most efficient use of yours and the 23 research sta ff 's time.
They in effect said we didn't
()
24 need a formal review of the long-range plan, but their l
l 25 review of it would be included in the Congressional 1
l (2)
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1 review.
The timing isn 't' unreasonable perhaps for that.
2 Now, we made a response to, that in a letter in 3
December and said it was too late to use the existing
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4 long-range research plan as the basis for our report to 5
Congress that we did in February of this year.
6 Nevertheless, we intend to review the plan, and to the l
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extent needed and practicable, provide you and the 8
Connissioners with our comments.
It is likely that our 9
comments this year will be based primarily on the review 10 we carried out in preparation of our report to 11 Congress.
Extensive interaction with the research staf f i
12 should not be necessary.
13 Then, in our review of the draft of the plan
(
14 that you got here, this thick thing, NUREG-0784, we said 15 we hope to continue discussions with research staff and 16 perhaps with the Commission regarding the purpose, 17 philosophy, scope, and effectiveness of the long-range 18 research plan and its usefulness to the Commission, to 19 Research, to the user offices, and to the ACRS.
20 Now, that is one of the reasons for this 21 meeting toiay, to continue the discussion.
In addition, 22 we would be happy to discuss further with you how the 23 timing and content of our review and reports on the
()
24 research program might be conducted in the future if the 25 long-range research plan were to be made available to
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1 the ACRS in final or near final form in December of the 2
forthcoming year.
3 Now, we had some discussion with them at the 4
June meeting with the Commissioners, and as a result of 5
that discussion, we wrote them a letter in which we 6
said, we propose tha t we discontinue our. formal report 7
to the Commission on the LLRP.
However, we expect to 8
continue to receive the plan both in the draf t and final 9
form, and we expect to utilize it in our review of and 10 report on the NRC safety program and report to the 11 Congress.
12 Now, gentlemen, that last proposal doesn't 13 seem to be different than what the Commission asked us 14 to do, to use it as part of our report to the Congress.
15 We put this in a letter to Palladino, because the 16 requirement of a review by the ACRS was a Commission 17 requirement in a letter it wrote to Dircks, Com JJE13, 18 saying it would be reviewed by the ACRS in February.
We 19 said we didn't want to.
Joe said, put this in a letter, 20 and we will see about rescinding our previous advice.
21 Now, we have had some indication from the 22 Chairman's office that they are not quite ready to 23 rescind tha t requirement that we review the plan in
()
24 February.
25 O
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We are hoping that they will and that we can
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2 go along on the basis in Palladino's letter that we use 3
it as part of our report to Congress and address it if O
4 we wish in there as appropriate, and that we utilize it 5
because it is a good document.
6 Now, I would propose that we stick to our guns 7
and tell the Commission that if the occasion arises, we 8
think it is useful but we don't want to have to comment 9
on it formslly to the Commission either before it is 10 approved or af ter it is approved by 'he Commission.
It 11 will be incorporated into our repc.c to the Congress 12 unless -- obviously if there is something we can't 13 stand, we will write a letter or it.
14 Now, all the Staff is asking is that we review 15 the document they are working on about October in a 16 meeting like this and get input from individuals, if you 17 wish, and no t necessarily a formal report by the 18 committee.
And of course, any of our subcommittees may 19 if they wish devote a meeting or a part of a meeting to i
20 a portion'of the long-range research plan when it comes 21 out in December that interests them, or it can be a part 22 of any meeting that is scheduled or you can simply try i
23 to relate things in your area to the plan.
()
24 The Staff will undoubtedly use the plan as 25 part of their presentation.
So I would propose that we D)
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
146 (f
1 go along with the Staff, that when they come out with 2
this early draf t, that we have a meeting.
We will 3
invite as many people as want to attend, and we will SJ 4
discuss it with them pretty much on a philosophical 5
basis like we did here where we talked about the 6
content, the scope, the purpose, how it.is arrived at 7
and what it is used for, and tha t we try to convince the 8
Chairman and the Commissioners that we don't need a 9
formal review, that it will be an input to what we do.
10 Is that generally agreeable?
Paul?
11 MR. SHEWMON:
If we do this in October, will 12 we have one that is written under this new format you l
13.
have been talking about?
Ol 14 MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes.
l 15 MR. SIESS:
Well, September --
16 MR. GILLISPIE.
We are going to try very hard 17 the first week in September to have it sent out for 18 distribution.
If we don't have it to Sam for 19 distribution a month ahead of time for review, we would 20 say let's go to the next month.
l 21 MR. SIESS:
We need a couple of weeks.
People 22 need to have it a couple of weeks.
This won't be a 23 final document, Paul.
This won't be some final
()
24 document; this will be input during the opera tion.
25 3R. SHEWMON:
I was just wondering.
That O
l ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
.~
147
()
1 sounded like at least an easier document to get th ro ugh 2
tha n this thing.
I was curious.
3 MR. GILLISPIE:
We are really shooting at 4
something much shorter at that point to get initial 5
input, yes.
6 MR. BENDERS There was a-point that..I don't 7
think was covered, that is, the relationship between the 8
NRC program and the DOE program, whatever it is, will 9
somewhere show up in that long-range plan.
10 MR. SIESS:
It was covered.
They said they 11 have representatives on each of the DOE task groups and 12 that those people are the same ones who are in charge of 13 writing these chapters.
14 MR. BENDER:
That just got past me.
15 ER. SIESS:
Whether - th e relationship will be 16 clear, I don 't know, but the input is there.
17 MR. GILLISPIE:
DOE is developing a lot of 18 needs but they are not getting money to do the things.
19 The need for coordination doesn't exist if they are not 20 doing any research, but the information is what will be 21 there.
22 MR. BENDER:
Well, in fact you have got the 1
23 DOE and the international programs as well that are 24 involved.
25 MR. GILLISPIEa The status of this year's plan?
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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148
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1 MR. SIESS:
Yes.
2 HR. GILLISPIE:
It has been voted on, and.
3 right now we are waiting for a -- the only vote sheets 4
we have gotten are' the Chairman 's and Ahearne 's.
The 5
Chairman on his wrote "I concur," and Ahearne's were 6
comments.
It has never been approved or disapproved; 7
it-has been noted.
8 MR. SIESS:
Neither one of them said they had 9
read it.
10 MR. GILLISPIE No.
11 MR. SIESS:
I think there ought to be a place 12 for them to check that they have read it.
13 MR. GILLISPIE:
So we are still waiting for a 14 third comissioner to vote.
It has served its purpose.
I 15 It served a useful purpose, it did what it was supposed i
16 to do.
Publishing it now
>_s very much af ter the f act.
17 MR. MARKS Is this 0784 you are speaking of?
18 MR. GILLISPIE:
Yes.
19 MR. SIESS:
Paul, I will write up a brief 20 statement like I just made for the Full Committee, and I
21 if it comes up during the meeting this week, you may 22 want to addrec~ it.
23 MR. SHEWMON:
In part of that you will talk
()
24 about the new format, what we have to review?
25 MR. SIESS:
No.
I figure anybody tha t wasn't
}
1 ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
149 l ()
1 here doesn 't need to know that.
I will just talk about 2
the decision.
3 MR. SHEWMON:
It might have some interest in 4
whether they are likely to see 374 pages or 37-1/2.
5 MR. SIESS:
I will answer that question.
But 6
I just want to put.something down that would relate to 7
our review as far as the Commission is conce'ned.-
8 MR. KERRs Would you be willing to advise 9
Committee members as to what they should do with this 10 document that they received at the beginning of the 11 meeting?
12 MR. DURAISWAMYa It is just for information.
13 You have to comment on that in April.
14 MR. SIESS I would suggest you could either 15 take it home or send it home and do with it at home 16 whatever you would with any other 374-page document.
17 MR. KERR:
Is it 90 percent obsolete, 30 18 percent obsolete?
19 MR. GILLISPIEs Well, the information is --
20 MR. SHEWMON:
The document is dea thless, but 21 you.will be getting the abbreviated version next month.
22 MR. SIESS:
I will tell you what I intend to 23 do.
I intend to take out the pages tha t relate to the
()
24 structural engineering programs and put them in my file 25 because there is some good stuff in there.
O ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
150 1
HR. GILLISPIEs It is not obsolete, but there 2
is no relationship -- we have not detailed anyplace 3
where the almost $30 million that we are not spending 4
that it talks about in there came out of.
So there is 5
no relationship to the actual. to tha t right now.
6 MR. SIESS:
Anything.else, gentlemen?
There 7
is another meeting starting in here when, Dave ?
8 MR. DURAISWAMY:
One o' clock.
9 MR. SIESS:
Okay.
This one is adjourned.
10
[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m.,
the meeting was 11 adjourned.]
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 l
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 O
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1 1
I h
i NUC:r2AR REGULATORY COMMISSION i
l l
This is to certify that the attached proceedings before. the t
in the matter of:
ACRS/ Subcommittee on Safety Research Program Date of'Freceeding:
Aucust 11, 1982 Docket llumber:
Place of Proceeding: washington, D.
C.
were held as herein appears,. and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the Cccmission t
l l
Patricia A. Minson i
Official Reporter (Typed)
C kW6kJ Official Reporter (Signature) l
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O ar
.mp l O..
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n TUCLEAR REGULATOEC~CD.P.ISSICN Ox e*
ThiS is to certif'f that the attached prcceedings before the 13 the.satter of:
ACRS/ Subcommittee on Safety Research Procram Cata cf Prcceeding
- Aucust 11, 1982 Oceket IIumber:
Place of Frcceeding:
Washington, D. C.
aere held as herein acpears and that this is the criginal t: anse:-1p-the. scf for the file of the Ccc=1ssics.
Jane N.
Beach Official Esporter (Typed)
W f
1 a
T o
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icial Reporte.- (signacure)
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I ROLE OF ACRS IN RESEARCH PROGRAM i
l i
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ADVICE ON NEEDS AND DIRECTIONS 1
-o TECHNICAL CRITIQUE OF RESULTS i
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ADVICE TO COMMISSION ON BUDGET a
-o ADVICE TO CONGRESS ON BUDGET l
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O PREVIOUS-LRRP'S STRENGTH i
o COMPREHENSIVE DISPLAY OF CURRENT AND FUTURE PROGRAMS i
o WIDE OPEN FOR COMMENT AND ADVICE o
GENERALLY COORDINATED WITH BUDGET CYCLE e
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~
O O
O PREVIOUS LRRP'S WEAKNESS
- 1 o
ABSENCE OF CLEAR PLANNING REGULATORY ISSUES PROBLEM DEFINITIONS BASIC AND SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES o
DIVIDED BY RES ORGANIZATION / BUDGET
~
STRUCTURE, NOT BY PROBLEM AREA o
INCOMPATIBLE WITH PPG INPUT, CAN ONLY FOLLOW PPG OUTPUT
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o VERY FAR HORIZON 2 YEARS STATUS 2 YEARS BUDGET 3 YEARS FUTURE i
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3
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. SCOPE-0F' PLAN FALL 1982 - LRRP 3
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1.
Introduction 2.
Plant Aging (Arlotto) 3.
Pressurized Thermal Shock (Arlotto) 4.
Equipment Qualification (Arlotto)
O 5.
Severe Accident (Bassett) 6.
LOCA and Transient Analysis (Bassett) 7.
Advanced Reactors (Bassett) 4 8.
Risk Analysis (Bernero) 9.
Human Factors (Goller) 10.
Decommissioning (Arlotto) 11.
External Events (Arsenault)
- 12. Radiation Protection and Health Effects (Arsenault)
- 13. Waste Management (Arsenault)
- 14. Materials Safety (Bernero)
- 15. Topical Programs (Goller)
Safeguards Emergency Response Plant Instruments and Controls Appendix A Unresolved Safety Issues
~
Appendix B Potential Areas of Research Not Covered by Plan Appendix C Listing of Standards Work Not Covered by Plan Appendix D Prioritization Strategy
2.
Aging Research is needed to study and understand time-related issues such as aging and degradation, methods of examination and testing to determine the condition of components, and interpretation of results of these tests for appropriate action. This work will provide the bases for licensing decisions on whether operating plants continue to meet health and safaty rgquirements in effect at the time of licensing and subsequently imposed health and safety requirements.
Chapter Elements:
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.1 Reactor Vessels J
' Piping s
Electrical and Mechanical Components
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This chapter ' describes activ.ities 'thdevelop and support Connission decisions and future actions on thi question'o,f reactor pressure vessel failure due to the injection of low temperature coolan'tj,under certain accident conditions.
Thisworkhasbeendividedintofourpabtscorrespondingtothemajorkinds of analyses required to support these decisions.
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Chapter Elements:
1.) Ajif ent Sequence Analysisy 1
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Materials Response
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\\ Consequence Analysis 4.,
Analysis of Alternatives f
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Equipnent Qualification This program will ' study' the methods used for qualifying equipment used in O
nuclear power plants taking into account such factors as effects of synergism, order or sequence' of tests, and' accelerated aging techniques. Methods will be validated and new methods developed as appropriate to ensure that qualification test results reported by. applicants and licensees provide a basis for licensing decisions that ensure protection of-the public health and safety.
Chapter Elements:
Qualification of Electrical Equipment (Environmental and Functional)
Qualification of Mechenical Equipment (Environmental and Functional)
Seismic Qualification of, Equipment O
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5.
Severe Accident
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This program supports the reassessment of the regulatory treatment of severe accidents. It compr yis the coordinated phenomenological research programs needed to developf a sound technical basis for NRC decisions
< concerning the ability of reactors to cope with these accidents.
Chapter Elements:
/. Severe Accident Sequence Analysis 2.. Accident Management
- 3. Behavior of Damaged Fuel
- s. Hydrogen Generation and Control T Fuel - Structure Interaction L.ContIInmentAnalysis
- 7. Fission Product Release and Transport 1
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This araar==;r.ravi.d,$ th thods ad dat far caai at =rst aa'rst= ta fulfill these nehds. quantification of Appendix Krmargins; determination of adequacy of ob'erator guidelines and procedures;7ana ysis of complex plant transients. The research related to Appendix K is nearly completeland will culminate in the support of revisions to Appendix K during the next G years.
The emphasis is now QLfting to continued code application to j
i the analysis of plant transients / with concurrent development of models i
for specific problems such as fluid-fluid mixing, and testing of systems response in facilities such as Semiscale PKL, LOBI, and ROSA.
Chapter Elements 5
- 1. DBA Thermel Hydraulics
- 2. Code Assessment
> Problems in Model Development
(,IntegralSystemsTests 1 0 i
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7.
Advanced Reactors
'/pcorporJtes safety research necessary to support NRC regulatory activities Inconjptionwithalladvancednuclearpowerreactorstypes.
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/ Fast Breeder Reactors
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8.
Risk Analysis This chapter describes the work being carried out using probabilistic risk O
assessment technisues.to support the reguiatory process. This work faiis into two broad classifications. The first relates to work being undertaken in direct support of specifically identified Commission actions, discussions, and rulemakings. Among such activities are Part 60 licensing support and support for decisions on severe accident rulemaking, pressurized thermal shock, and the Indian Point hearings. The second class of activities relates to the generic requirements to integrate PRA techniques into the broad body of regulatory practice. Examples of where such integration is mandated is in the ' application of the safety goal IREP/NREP, determination of value/ impact of regulatory actions (regulatory analysis) improved inspection protocols, and in the future analysis and evaluation of operating data.
The former class of activities, i.e., those that support specific regulatory activities, are described in those sections of the plan that deal with each topical area, e.g., waste management, pressurized thermal shock. This chapter describes only those projects being carried out to support PRA integration. The projects being conducted within this program area have been divided into six topical areas listed below. While sharing some common requirements for informa-tion and analysis, each of these has a sufficiently different set of needs to warrant separate discussion.
Chapter Elements:
O s fetx o 1 tmaiementation c
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Regulatory Analysis 3.
Improved Inspection Protocols 4.
IREP/NREP 5.
AE00 6.
Prioritization of Resources 7.
Periodic and Sys'tematic Review
9.
Human Factors This program will provide the technical basis to support current and anticipated regulatory needs in the application of human factors to
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The research includes work on control room design nuclear facilities.
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and evaluation criteria, personnel qualifications and staffing, manage-ment and organizational criteria, plant procedures and human reliability.
t Chapter Elements:
Human Factors Engineering Licensee Qualifications Management and Organization Plant Procedures Human Reliability
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- 10. Decommissioning The decommissioning program will develop information needed to establish
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regulations governing decommissioning of nuclear facilities and to establish criteria for design of new facilities in such a way that eventual decommis-sioning is facilitated, thereby ensuring that the public health and safety is protected at this phase of plant life.
Chapter Elements:
Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Plants Decommissioning of Fuel Cycle Facilities Decommissioning of Non-Fuel Cycle Facilities, e.g.,
Radiopharmaceutical Plants Facilitation of Dacommissioning O
4 l
- 11. External Events External events in the form of extreme natural and man-related phenomena pose a threat to the safe operation of nuclear facilities. The character of these events and the probabilistic distribution of their magnitudes affect facility design, operation, and siting, as well as the level of risk associated with an operating facility. Uncertainties in the characteriza-tion of these events and their probabilities lead to conservatism in regula-tion and uncertainty in risk assessment.
It is important that the resulting uncertainty in risk estimates be adequately and properly assessed and, if significant, reduced.
l Chapter Elements:
Natural Phenomena (Earthquakes, Floods, Tornadoes)
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- 12. Radiation Protection and Health Effects A major goal of the Commission is to ensure that the individual and societal risks of radiological damage to health resulting from Itcensed activities are accepted and as l'ow as reasonably achievable, taking into account the state of technology, the economics of improvements in relationship to benefits to the public health and safety, and other societal and socioeconomic considerations such as the use of atomic energy in the public interest.
Achieving that goal requires, in addition to safety regulation programs, a technical capability to identify the potential sources of radiological exposure, to assess the relationship between exposure and consequent health effects, to determine the acceptable limits for individual exposure, and to provide technical guidance concerning the measurement and control of occupational exposure.
]
Significant uncertainties remain in the areas of radionuclide metabolism and internal dosimetry, dose-effect relationships and risk estimation, environmental pathways for public exposure, and radiological and dosimetric measurements in the workplace.
Chapter Elements:
Metabolism and Internal Dosimetry Health Effects and Risk Estimation Environmental Pathways for Public Exposure Occupational Radiological Protection
- 13. Waste Management Regulation of radioactive waste management requires a technical capability to assess compliance of a waste management system with the regulatory require-ments for operational safety, occupational radiological protection, and long-term waste isolation and to assess the risks associated with its operation.
The sources of uncertainty in the assessment of compliance and risk differ between the three program elements of high-level waste, low-level waste, and uranium recovery.
Chapter Elements:
High-Level Waste Low-Level Waste Uranium Recovery O
O
- 14. Materials Safety This program deals with projects being carried out to support the regulation O
of activities involving the processing, transportation, interim storage, and end uses of radioactive materials in facilities other than nuclear power plants. Because of the broad scope and diverse needs of the particular elements of this program, work has been divided on the basis of the specific facility to which these tasks are directed.
Chapter Elements:
Fuel Cycle (including the interim and long-term storage of fuel)
Radioisotope Utilization (including the convercial uses of byproducts)
Transportation O
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- 15. Topical Programs Safeguards:
This program will study systems and procedures that can be used for safeguarding specific nuclear material and nuclear facilities. The research will provide the technical basis for developing or revising Federal regulations and guidance relating to physical protection and material control and accounting.
Chapter Element:
Physical Protection Material Control and Accounting Emergency Preparedness:
This program will provide the technical basis to support current and
' anticipated regulatory needs for emergency preparedness at licensed nuclear facilities. The research includes work on the development and evaluation of methods and techniques to better ensure the capability of Federal, State, and local governmentsand licensees to mitigate the consequences of a radiological emergency.
Chapter Element:
Licensee Functions Other Parties Functions O
ouaiity assurance:
This program will provide the technical basis to support current and anticipated regulatory needs in the quality assurance area. The research includes work On the development of methods and techniques to improve regulatory criteria for establishing and implementing
+ i quality assurance activities at licensed nuclear facilities.
O Chapter El'ements:
Criteria Development QA Implementation O
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Plant Instruments and Controls This program will involve research to improve and confirm the availability O
of methods of r.eactor aad associeted Process systems Protectioa. controi.
and instrumentation to minimize the probability of abnormal operation or accidents and to mitigate the consequences of an accident if one should occur.
Chapter Elements:
Safety Implications of Control Systems Component Assessments Diagnostics New I&C Technology O
Appendix A Unresolved Safety Issues Appendix B Potential Areas of Research Not Covered by Plan l
Appendix C Listing of Standards Work Not Covered by Plan Appendix D Prioritization Strategy i
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RESEARCH PLANNING ~ SYSTEM L
I LRRP PURPOSE 1.
AGREEMENT ON THE GOALS AND NEEDS 2.
AGREEMENT ON PRIORITIES 3.
AGREEMENT ON INFORMATION NEEDED TO SATISFY THE NEEDS 4.
STIMULATE TECHNICAL ADVICE ON HOW TO ACHIEVE INFORMATION RESULTS BUDGET-PURPOSE DETAIL THE PROGRAMS TO ACHIEVE THE AGREED UPON RESEARCH RESULTS L
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DEFINE ELEMENTS AND 1.IST REGULATORY NEEDS AUGUST 23 PRIORITIZE THE NEEDS WITHIN EACH ELEMENT AND COMPLETE WRITTEN JUSTIFICATION SEPTEMBER 3 REQUEST NRR/NMSS/ACRS COMMENTS WEEK 0F SEPTEMBER 6 COMPLETE APPENDICES SEPTEMBER 10 COMPLETE FIRST DRAFT OF PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS SEPTEMBER 24 COMPLETE ASSEMBLY AND REQUEST NRR/NMSS/ACRS COMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS SEPTEMBER 30 INCORPORATE APPROPRIATE COMMENTS; EDIT AND SUBMIT FOR COMMISSION APPROVAL OCTOBER 29 4
O O
O STRUCTURE 1.
IS AN OVERALL STRUCTURE NEEDED?
2.
HOW SHOULD FUTURE PROGRAMMATIC WORK BE ADDRESSED?
3.
TIME PERIOD COVERED?
II.
ADDITIONAL PROGRAMS OR ELEMENTS?
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PLAN TO DECISION UNITS l
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DECISION UNITS TO ORGANIZATION 4.
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PROGRAM AREA A.
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE 2.
PROGRAM ELEENTS (MULTIPLE)
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ELEMENT DEFINITION B.
SPECIFICREGULATORYNEEDS C.
JUSTIFICATION OF THE IMPORTANCE OF EACH IDENTIFIED NEED D.
PRIORITIZE REGULATORY ~NEEDS WITHIN EACH ELEMENT 3.
RESEARCH PROGRAM DESCRIPTION BY ELEMENT THIS WILL RELATE MAJOR RESEARCH DELIVERABLES TO REGULATORY NEEDS INCLUDING A SCHEDULE, COSTS, AND RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER PROGRAMS (INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL).
/