ML20154J969
| ML20154J969 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 09/16/1988 |
| From: | Zech L NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | Herrington J ENERGY, DEPT. OF |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8809230188 | |
| Download: ML20154J969 (7) | |
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[dk Io UNI 7ED STATES f
g NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION y'
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g L E WA$HINGTON. D. C. 20555 o
September 16, 1988 CHAIRMAN I
The Honorable John S. Herrington i
Secretary of Energy Washington, D.C.
20585
Dear Mr. Secretary:
In response to the June 20, 1988 request of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM), U.S.
Department of Energy (DOS), the comments of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on the Draft 1988 Mission Plan Amendment are encicsed.
As noted in NRC's comments on the 1985 Draft Project Decision Schedule, NRC must have a complete and high-quality license application in order to meet the three-year Nuclear Waste Policy 1
Act (NWPA) timetable for a construction authotination decision.
NRC's major concern with the Draft Amendment is that DOE's "aggressive and success oriented" schedule could leave DOE insufficient time to develop the information needed to submit j
this complete and high-quality application.
For example, the Draft Amendment indicates a 6-month delay from the schedule in i
the June 1987 Amendment in both the start of exploratory shaft construction and in-situ testing.
All subsequent program e
i milestones, however, are unchanged from the June 1987 Amendment.
i This indicates that the schedule for near-term program activities, including in-situ site characterization, is being compressed.
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In addition, NRC comments on DOE's Consultation Draft Site I
Characterization Plan identified many concerns that will need to be resolved prior to commencing site characterization, such as j
location of the exploratory shaft and development and implementation of an NRC-approved quality assurance program.
Resolution of those concerns may result in further delays in th) current schedule's near-term milestones.
NRC is concerned that DOE's priority on meeting schedule milestones may preclude DOE's ability to develop a complete and i
high-quality license application.
In view of this concern, NRC requests that the final Mission Plan Amendment specifically acknowledge DOE's commitment to develop a complete and high-quality license application, even if this would result in longer times to collect necessary information and subsequent
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delays in submitting the license application.
Without such a commitment, NRC will not be able to commit to a revised Project BW2ggs pc;"DC D Fo A j
CORRESPONDENCE P
- a
Decision Schedule (PDS) based on the Draft 1988 Mission Plan Amendment schedule.
The NRC staff is prepared to meet as early and as often as needed in order to ensure DOE understands and is resolving NRC's concerns that need to be addressed during the pre-license application phase so that a complete _and high-quality license
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application can be submitted.
This approach should assist DOE in avoiding any unnecessary delay that could result from a license application not sufficiently complete for NRC to conduct its l
review.
The Commission plans to continue monitoring DOE progress in resolving NRC concerns through periodic briefings and reports from the NRC staff.
Q If there are any questions regarding this letter or the i
enclosure, please contact Mr. Hugh L. Thompson, Jr., Director of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, or Mr.
Robert E.
Browning, Director of the Division of High-Level Waste Management.
Sincerely, I
i 4/,
A.
i Lando W.
Zech, Jr. [
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i Enclosure l
(1)
NRC Comments on DOE's Draft 1.988 Mission Plan Amendment I
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NRC COMMENTS ON ORAFT 1Q88 MISSION PLAN AMENDMENT Section 1.3:
(P.7) The Draf t Amendment states its purpose to be "...to apprise the Congress of the DOE's plans for implementing the Amendments Act and of significant
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program cevelopments that have occurred since the publication of the June 1985 Mission Plan and the June 1987 Amencment." The Draf t eenement further states that it does not attempt to update or repeat information in the above two documents. NRC is assuming that DOE is still planning to address the six action items identified in the June 1987 Mission Plan Amendment (pp.9-11) to help ensure the receipt of a decision on the application for construction authori:ation in 1998.
00E briefly mentior s several of these items (i.e.,
inte' action with NRC on geotechnical issues, quality assurance, and an electronic licensing support system) in Section 4.5 of the Dr.sft 1988 l
Amencment, "Interactions With Other Federal Agencies." The NRC staff provides quarterly status reports to the Commission on these items as well at on actly establishment of repository design parameters, early resolution of State and Indian tribal concerns (as appropriate), and implementation of a program of licensing topical reports.
In addition, the staff includes in its quarterly reports to the Commission the status of DOE's adoption of conservatism in treating uncertainties in its investigations and analyses.
It would be hcipful if DOE's commitment to continue this NRC-DOE crelicensing consultation program was emphasized in the Draf t Amendment, particularly with regard to early resolution of issues.
Section 2.2.1:
(P.13) In the June 1987 Amendment to the Mission Plan, DOE presented a range of spent fuel discharge forecasts as a basis for planning the types and quantities of waste to ce accepted by the waste management system.
The range e9 compassed four scenarios, i.e., "optimistic," "upper reference," "lower reference," and "no new orders." The 1987 Amendment also noted that
"... substantial uncertainties are involved in predicting the amount of spent fuel that will be discharged from nuclear power plants."
The Draft 1988 Amendmen+ states tha' the DOE policy "...has been changed to use the no-new-orders case as the primary basis for planning." This scenario gives the minimum projected quantity of spent fuel disci, ge.
The no-new-orders case is based on the assumption that nuclear power plants are retired 40 years after issuance of their operating licenses. The NRC recognizes that these projections are reevaluated periodically, and will be revised to reflect any changes in reactor operating lifetime and/or national energy policy which could result in increased projections of spent fuel discharge.
NRC believes there is a large potentisl for commercial nuclear power reactor life extension in the early 1990's, and is planning accorcingly. We therefore believe that, in aedition to using the no-new-orders planning basis for a conservative estimate of money paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund, it may be prucent to continue to develop and evaluate a rangs of projections of spent-fuel
. discharges so that 00E will be prepared to react to emerging contingencies in planning the integrated waste management system.
Section 2.2.4:
(P.16) In the discussion of transportation casks (second paragraph), it is noted that the casks to be developed for spent-fuel will have "... considerably greater capacities" than those currently used. NRC would suggest that the factors responsible for the greater capacity be addressed, at least generally.
For example, is the greater capacity attributable to a longer cooling time for spent fuel shipped to a repository?
Section 2.6:
(P.20): The Draft Amencment states that the recommendation of Yucca Mountain for site characterization was based on "extensive evaluations" and that
"...there is reason to expect, therefore, that the results of site characterization will show that the site meets all applicable regulatory requirements and is suitable for a repository." NRC recognizes that 00E intends for the Draf t Amendant to be success oriented. Given the number of outstanding unresolved issues concerning the Yucca Mountain site, as described in the NRC comments on the Final Environmental Assessment and the Consultation Draft Site Characterization Plan for Yucca Mountain, however, NRC is concerned that 00E may be overly optimistic and may not be prepared for difficulties that will arise during site characterization.
This may account for the relative lack of detail in the contingency plans presented in this section.
The Draft Amendment states that if the Yucca Mountain site is unsuitable. 00E will comply with the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act (NWPAA) in terminating all site characterization activities; notifying Congress and the Governor and the legislature of the State of Nevada; and, within 6 months, making a recommendation to Congress for further action. A finding that the site is unsuitable would be a significant decision based on the evolution of developments in the waste program.
Consistent with the need for a more clearly integrated and effective systems approacn emphasized in the Draft Mission Plan Amenc?ent, the NRC believes it would be useful for DOE to establish a planning mechanism for timely development and implementation of contingency plans to address developments as they arise.
The establishment of a mechanism for planning and action to address a range of foreseeable contingencies would go far toward assuring a systems engineering approach that fully and flexibly integrates the scientific research and engineering demonstration requirements with the institutional and regulatory requirements.
Both kinds of requirements will shape the functional relationships, needed capabilities, design, and location of the storage, transportation, handling, and disposal facilities and their supporting hardware.
Both should therefore
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-3 be incorporated into the total-system analyses that 00E has committed to perform in the introduction to its program strategy chapter.
This should further both NRC's and DOE's mutual interest in early identification of potential repository licen:ing issues and any additional regulatory guidance or requirements needed for other ccmponents of the system.
Section 3.3.1.2-
,3, (P.45): The Draft Amencment states that NRC regulations require that
"...before proceeding to sink exploratory shafts in the area approved for site l
characterization, the DOE is to submit to the NRC a site characterization plan (SCP) for the candidate site." The Oraf t Amendment should also indicate that t
10CFRS60.16 requi~es that DOE defer snaft sinking "...until there has been an opportunity for Commission comments [on the SCP] to have ceen solicited and r
considered by 00E." We would note that NRC transmitted this com. ment to DOE previously in the April 7. 1987 letter from Chairman Zecn to Ben Rusche regarcing the January 1987 Oraft Mission Plan Amencment.
(P.45): With regard to the location of the NRC Public Document Room (90R), we would note that the NRC Headquarters POR has moved to 2120 "L" Street N.W.,
4 Washington, D.C. (lower level).
i (P.46):
NRC would note with respect to the last sentence in the first complete l
paragraph that NRC will perform audits to verify that quality assurance (QA) l plans have been developed and adequately implemented before 00E begins construction of the exploratory shaft.
Section 3.3.2:
l (P.47): The Orrft Amendment suggests that as part of a regulatory ccepliance plan for the m tored retrievable storage (MRS) facility, the 000 will l
l interact with the NRC staf f on a number of topics, e.g., the validation of 1
design methods.
NRC agrees that such interaction will be beneficial, but we i
believe that the schedule discussed in Section 3.5.2 and shown in Table 3-2 i
should indicate the initiation of this effort to cemonstrate the relative importance of that activity.
Section 3.3.3:
(P.48):
The Draft Amendment states that in an agreement between COE and NRC,
". the DOE has agreed to have NRC certify all transportation casts used for shipping waste from NRC-licensed facilities and to comply with all applicable NRC regu'lations." The referenced agreement states that CCE plans to use packaging that has been approved by the NRC, but allows a reevaluation of the i
issue, based on the availability of NRC-certified packages (48 FR 51875, November 14, 1983). This agreement, however, is superseded b) the NWPAA, which provides that no spent fuel or high-level waste (HLW) may ce transported by or i
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for DOE except in packages that have been certified for such purpose by NRC, as l
indicated in Section 1.2.7 of the Draf t Amendment.
The discussion in Section 3.3.3 should reflect the NWPAA requirement and conform to Section 1.2.7 in this I
q respect.
In addition, the "applicable NRC regu)ations" which the DOE has agreed to comply with are not specified.
This statement,-should be clarified.
In addition to complying with the aavance notification requirements noted in Section 1.2.7 of the Oraft Amencment, is DOE committing to ecmply w*th the NRC physical security requirements in effect at the time for shipment of these materials?
i Section 3.4.2:
(P.50):
The staff believes that the Draft Amendment could more clearly and consistently show how all of the regulatory and institutional aspects of its systems engineering efforts have been integrated with the technical aspects in developing the interrelated components of the HLW management system.
In discussing its emphasis on "...the development of a technical policy to ensure that consistent and uniform interpretations of all applicable requirements are used in all major design efforts," for example. DOE could indicate where one eight find the Federal, State, and local laws and requirements it considers 1
applicable.
The discussion could also include how the recomencations of the
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Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, the MR$ Review Commission, and other newly-authorized governmental bodies with roles in the amended NWPA program will be addrassed in overall system design decisions.
If DOE has identified all appitcable regulatory requirements, and has developed plans for integrating all the results of its newly expanded institutional activities, it would be helpful to reference the documentation.
Section 3.5.1:
(P.50) The schedule for the repository in the Draf t Amendment indicates a six-month delay from the schedule in the June 1987 Amendment in each of the first two major repository program milestones. All subsequent milestones are unchanged from the June 1987 Amend ent.
It is not clear to NRC where DOE plans to absorb the loss of the six months between the start of in-situ testing and submittal of a construction authori:ation application, especially since there are no specific contingency plans for dealing with the difficulties that will arise during site characterization. Under this compressed schedule, the maximu'n time for in-situ testing now appears to be reduced to 18 months.
In order for NRC to review 00E's application for repository construction authoriza. ion. 00E must submit a complete, high-quality application.
This, in turn, will depend on an aceauate program of site characterization.
(P.51) The repository milestone schedules in the Draft Amendment do not explicitly acdress the requirement that DOE must obtain an NRC license to retalve and possess waste prior to phase 1 repository operations and a lic3nse a'..endment prior to Phase 2.
The June 1937 Amencment did address this
. requirement, and provides for up to 9 months and 12 months between Phase 1 and Phase 2 repository construction and operations, respectively. DOE should assess whether it has allowed sufficient time for receiving the required license approvals from NRC, including time for possible adjudicatory proceedings.
P Section 3.5.2-(See comment under Section 3.3.2.)
Section 4.2.1:
(P 56): The NRC would note that as stated in the Draft Amendment, the report of the MRS Review Commission is to include "a recommendation to the Congress as to whether an MRS facility should be included in the waste management system."
The discussion in the Draft Amencment of MRS-relatea technical plans and activities and systems engineering and integration efforts does not specifically acknowledge the possibility of a negative recommendation, and the discussion of contingencies in Section 2.6 only alludes to this possibility.
This underlines the importance of tne decision mechanism for contingency planning and impleacntation, such as described in the comment on Section 2.6.
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