ML20150D136
| ML20150D136 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Perry  |
| Issue date: | 06/28/1988 |
| From: | Colburn T Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | Kaplan A CLEVELAND ELECTRIC ILLUMINATING CO. |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8807130328 | |
| Download: ML20150D136 (5) | |
Text
-
June'28, 1988 Docket No. 50-440 DISTRIBUTION:
- Docket F1 w PKreutzer NRC PDR TColburn Local PDR EShoemaker PDIII-3 r/f EJordan Mr. Alvin Kaplan, Vice President KPerkins JPartlow Nuclear Group GHolahan PDIII-3 Gray File The Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company 10 Center Road Perry, Ohio 44081
Dear Mr. Kaplan:
SUBJECT:
REQUEST FOR WITHHOLDING INFORMATION FROM PUBLIC DISCLOSURE By your letter dated May 11, 1988 and General Electric Company's affidavit dated May 6,1988, you submitted a document entitled "Perry 1 Reactor Internals Vibration Measurements," NEDE-31557-P," dated April 1988, and requested it be with-held from public disclosure pursuant to 10 CFR 2.790.
General Electric Company stated that the information should be considered exempt from mandatory public disclosure for the following reasons:
In designating material as proprietary, General Electric utilizes the definition of proprietary information and trade secrets set forth in the American Law Institute's Restatement of Torts, Sec-tion 757. This definition provides:
"A trade secret may consist of any fomula, pattern, device or compilation of information which is used in one's business and which gives him an opportunity to obtain an advantage over competitors who do not know or use it....
A substantial element of secrecy must exist, so that, except by the use of improper means, there would be difficulty in acquiring information....
Some factors to be considered in determining whether given infomation is one's trade secret are:
(1) the extent to which the information is known outside of his business; (2) the extent to which it is known b employees and others involved in his business; (3) ythe extent of measures taken by him to guard the secrecy of the infomation; (4) the value of the information to him and to his competitors; (5) the amount of effort or money expended by him in developing the information; (6) the ease or difficulty with whicn the infomation could be properly acquired or duplicated by others."
l 0 8807130328 880628 DR ADOCK 05000440
~
Mr. Alvin Kaplan.
Some examples of categories of information which fit into the definition of proprietary information are:
a.
Information that discloses a process, method or apparatus where prevention of its use by General Electric's competitors without license from General Electric constitutes a competitive economic advantage over other companies; b.
Infomation consisting of supporting data and analyses, including test data, relative to a process, method or apparatus, the application of which provide a competi-tive economic advantage, e.g., by optimization or improved marketability; c.
Information which if used by a competitor, would reduce his expenditure of resources or improve his competitive position in the design, manufacture, shipment, installa-tion, assurance of quality or licensing of a similar product; d.
Information which reveals cost or price information, production capacities, budget levels or connercial strategies of Generci Electric, its customers or suppliers; e.
Information which reveals aspects of past, present or future General Electric costomer-funded development plans and programs of potential commercial value to General Electric; f.
Information which discloses patentable subject matter for which it may be desirable to obtain patent protec-tion; g.
Infomation which General Electric must treat as proprietary according to agreements with other parties.
In addition to proprietary treatment given to material meeting the stand-ards enumerated above, General Electric customarily maintains in confidence preliminary and draft material which has not been subject to complete pro-prietary, technical and editorial review. This practice is based on the fact that draft documents often do not appropriately reflect all aspects of a problem, may contain tentative conclusions and may contain errors that can be corrected during normal review and approval procedures. Also, until the final document is completed it may not be possible to make any defini-tive determination as te its proprietary nature. General Electric is not generally willing to release such a document to the general public in such a preliminary form. Such documents are, however, on occasion furnished to
1 1
Mr. Alvin Kaplan,
l the NRC staff on a confidential basis because it is General Electric's belief that it is in the public interest for the staff to be promptly furnished with significant or potentially significant information.
Furnishing the document on a confidential basis pending completion of General Electric's internal review permits early acquaintance of the staff with the information while protecting General Electric's potential proprietary position and permitting General Electric to insure the public documents are technically accurate and correct.
Initial approval of proprietary treatment of a document is typically made by the Subsection manager of the originating component, the man most likely to be acquainted.with the value and sensitivity of the information in relation to industry knowledge. Access to such documents within the Company is limited on a "need to know" basis and such documents at all times are clearly identified as proprietary.
The procedure for approval of external release of such a document is reviewed by the Section Manager, Project manager, Principal Scientist or other equivalent authority, by the Section Manager of the cognizant Marketing function (or his delegate) and by the Legal Operation for technical content, competitive effect and determination of the accuracy of the pro-prietary designation in accordance with the standards enumerated above.
Disclosures outside General Electric are generally limited to regulatory bodies, customers and potential customers and their agents, suppliers and licensees only in accordance with appropriate regulatory provisions or pro-prietary agreements.
The document mentioned... above has been evaluated in accordance with the above criteria and procedures and has been found to contain infor-mation which is proprietary and which is customarily held in confidence by General Electric.
The document NEDE-31567-P is considered proprietary since it contains infonnation which reflects specific test data to be used in General Electric's product design improvement, and which was obtained and gen-erated at considerable expense to General Electric.
Fuel induced behavior which is considered a proprietary feature is also revealed.
The analysis of the test data and the use of the analyses in mathemat-ical models is also considered proprietary.
The information, to the best of my knowledge and belief, has consi'stently been held in confidence by the General Electric Company, no public disclosure has been made, and it is not available in public sources. All disclosures to third parties have been made pursuant to regulatory provisions of proprietary agreements which provide for main-tenance of the infonnation in confidence.
Public disclosure of the information sought to be withheld is likely to cause substantial harm to the competitive position of the General Electric Company and deprive or reduce the availability of profit makir.; opportuni-ties because:
Mr. Alvin Kaplan -
a.
The estimated cost of obtaining the test data and generating the report is over $1,960,000...
b.
The design information and product behavior features are a part of the Ganeral Electric Technological base which is sold in the form of licensee agreements. The precise value of this informtion is difficult to assess, but it clearly can be substan-tial.
The value to GE would be lost if the information were dis-closed to the public.
c.
Research, development, engineering, and analytical cost and expenses must be reflected in the price of General Electric's products, and making such information available to competitors without similar expenditure of resources provides competitors I
with an advantage.
We have reviewed your submittal and the material based on the requirenents and criteria of 10 CFR 2.790 and, on the basis of General Electric Company's state-ments, have determined that the submitted information sought to be withheld contains trade secrets or proprietary connercial information.
Therefore, we have determined that the document entitled "Perry 1 Reactor Inter-nals Vibration Measurements," NEDE-31567-P, dated April 1988, marked as propri-etary will be withheld from public disclosure pursuant to 10 CFR 2.790(b)(5) and Section 103(b) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended.
Withholding from public inspection shall not affect the right, if any, of persons properly and directly concerned to inspect the document.
If the need arises, we may send copies of this information to our consultants working in this area. Wc Mill, of course, insure that the consultants have signed the appropriate agreements for handling proprietary infonnation.
If the basis for withholding this information from public inspection should change in the future such that the information could then be made available for public inspection, you should promptly notify the NRC. You should also understand that the NRC may have cause to review this determination in the future, sucn as if the scope of a Freedom of Information Act request includes your information.
In all review situations, if the NRC needs additional information from you or makes a determination adverse to the above, you will be notified in advance of any public disclosure.
Sincerely.
Timothy G. Colburn, Project Manager Project Directorate III-3 Division of Reactor Projects - III, IV, V and Special Projects cc: See next page
%L Office:
LA/PDIII-3 PM/PDIII-3 PD/P 3 -3 1
Surnan:e: PXtedtzer TColburn/vh XPer' ins EShomaker Date:
}/g/88
(, /)c/88 b/1/88 h /1$88
~
Mr. Alvin Kaplan Perry Nuclear Power Plant The Cleveland Electric Unit I Illuminating Company cc:
Shaw, Pittsnan, Potts & Trowbridge Mr. James W. Harris, Director 2300 N Street, N.W.
Division of Power Generation Washington, D.C.
20037 Ohio Department of Industrial Relations David E. Burke P.O. Box 825 The Cleveland Electric Columbus, Ohio 43216 Illuminating Company P.O. Box 5000 The Honorable Lawrence Logan Cleveland, Ohio 44101 Mayor, Village of Perry 4203 Harper Street Resident Inspector's Office Perry, Ohio 44081 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Parmly at Center Road The Honorable Robert V. Orosz Perry, Ohio 44081 Mayor, Village of North Perry North Perry Village Hall Regional Administrator, Region Ill 4778 Lockwood Road U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Comission North Perry Village, Ohio 44081 799 Roosevelt Road Glen Ellyn, Illinois 60137 Attorney General Department of Attorney General Frank P. Weiss Esq.
30 East Broad Street Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Columbus, Ohio 43216 105 Main Street l
Lake County Administration Center Radiological Health Program l
Painesville, Ohio 44077 Ohio Department of Health 1224 Kinnear Road RE nt Representative 827S Munson Ch10 Environmentai Protection Mentor Ohio 44060 Agency 361 East Broad Street Terry J. Lodge, Esq.
Columbus, Ohio 43266-0558 618 N. Michigan Street Suite 105 Mr. Phiilip S. Haskell, Chairman i
Toledo, Ohio 43624 Perry Township Board of Trustees Box 65 John G. Cardinal, Esq.
4171 Main Street l
Prosecuting Attorney Perry, Ohio 44081 l
Ashtabula County Courthouse Jefferson, Ohio 44047 State of Ohio Public Utilities Commission Eileen M. Buzzelli 180 East Broad Street The Cleveland Electric Columbus, Ohio t.3266-0573 Illuminating Company P. O. Box 97 E-210 Mr. Murray R. Edelman Perry, Ohio 44081 Centerior Energy 6200 Oaktree Blvd.
Independence, Ohio 44131 l
-