ML20154K030
| ML20154K030 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Braidwood  |
| Issue date: | 05/20/1988 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8805270231 | |
| Download: ML20154K030 (103) | |
Text
- . .-- - - - -- .- .- -- . - -- - . -_- _
S-s UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE VOTE Off FULL-POWER OPERATING LICENSE FOR BRAIDWOOD-2 Location: ONE WHITE FLINT NORTH, ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND OstO: FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1988 Pagen: 1 70 Ann Riley & Associates Court Roporters 1625 i S'aeet, N.\V . Suite 921 Washington, D.C 20006 (2CH 293-3950 i
i 8005270231 880520 PDH AD00K 05000457 Y PDR
..,,,e-,-,,y-, - - - - - . - - , . - , - - , , - - . , , ,--+---,___,-w. ,nn_--- . - - - - - , - - - . , - -,.,--m-,_- .---n-
o s
DISCLAIMER This is an unof ficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on ___5-20-88 in the Commission's office at One White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland. The meeting was open to public attendance and observation. This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes. As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs. )
i No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
i i
0 4
s 1
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
! _ 3 ***
4 DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE VOTE ON 5 FULL POWER OPERATING LICINSE FOR BRA 70 WOOD-2
- 6 ***
a 7 (PUBLIC MEETING) 8 ***
- 9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 Commissioners' Conference Room
- 11 One White Flint North 12 Rockville, Maryland 1
13
- 14 Friday, May 20, 1988 15 I
16 The, Commission met in open session, pursuant to 17 n'otice, at 10:00 a.m., thq Hon'orable LANDO W. ZECH, Chairman of 18 the Commission, presiding.
19 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
}
- 20 LANDO W. ZECH, ChTirman of the Commission 21 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, '4 ember of the Commission
) 22 FREDERICK M. LERNTHAL, Member of the Commission 23 KENNETH CARR, Member of the Commission J
24 KENNETH ROGERS, Member of the Commission
$ 25 l
2 ,
i 1 STAFF PRESENT:
2 W. PARLER, GENERAL COUNSEL 3 S. CHILK, SECRETARY 4 V. STELLO, JR., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS 5 J. SNIEZEK, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NRR 6 S. SANDS, PROJECT MANAGER, DIRECTORATE III-2 7 E. G. GREENMAN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, REGION III
, 8 B. DAVIS, REGIONAL ADMINISTRATOR, REGION III 9 T. TONGUE, SENIOR RESIDENT INSPECTOR, BRAIDWOOD
- q 10 11 PARTICIPANTS: COMMONWEALTH EDISON COMPANY (LICENSEE) 12 JAMES J. O' CONNER, CHAIRMAN 13 CORDELL REED, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT a
14 ROBERT QUERIO, STATION MANAGER 15 16 i
17 18 19 l
20 i
21
.i
~
22 4 23 24 25 I
l
3 .
1 PROCEEDINGS 2 (10:00 a.m.)
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
4 The purpose of today's meeting with staff and Commonwealth 5 Edison Company is to brief the Commission concerning the 6 readiness of Braidwood Unit 2 to receive a full power license. i 7 At the conclusion'of this meeting, the commission is 8 scheduled to vote to authorize the Director of NRR, after 9 making the appropriate findings, issue a full power operating i
10 license for Braidwood Unit 2 if we are satisfied that all 1
11 conditions are met to accommodate public health and safety.
+
12 The Commission will first be briefed by Commonwealth Edison and 13 then the NRC staff. I understand that copies of slides are 14 still being made up, but they will be available shortly.
15 Do any of my fellow Commissioner's have any opening l 16 comments to make?
{ 17 (No response.]
18 Mr. O'Connor, we welcome you back to the Commission.
4 19 You may proceed, sir.
20 MR. OCONNOR: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
{
21 Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission, we are very 22 grateful for this opportunity to appear before you this 23 morning. I would like to introduce a couple of memberr of my '
24 team who are not at the table that you have met before: Mr.
25 Thomas, the President of our Company, who is over here; and Tom r
c O
4
~
1 Maiman, who is our Vice President in charge of PWR operations.
2 2 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Welcome.
2
- 3 MR. O'CONNOR: Of course, with me on my right is 4 Cordell Reed, our Senior Vice President in Charge of Nuclear ;
5 operations who is familiar to all of you and, Bob Querio, who
) 6 is our new Station Manager at Braidwood. Most of you know Bob, 7' who had been the Station Manager at our Byron station. Two l
]
8 months ago when our Station Manager at Braidwood left to take a l
} 9 position of great significance with another utility, Bob, j i 10 because of his experience at Byron, was moved over to i 11 Braidwood. We can't think of a better person to assume that 12 responsibility and continue the excellent performance that we !
i I
i 13 have been experiencing at Braidwood to date.
14 The licensing at Braidwood 2 represents a significant I t 4
l 15 milestone for Commonwealth Edison. This is our sixth license ,
16 request in the last six years for an operating reactor. It ,
17 signals.the'end of a very ambitious construction program on our 18 part, a program that was begun over 15 years ago. I believe l 19 that we have accomplished this task with several notable 1
20 distinctions.
i 21 The four units at both Byron and Braidwood have been 1 -
i .
l 23 completed at cost, among the lowest in the country. over the :
' l 23 last three years, we have met virtually every single !
j 24 construction milestone for these units. We did have some l 25 problems on Byron Unit 1 on our start up. We had some scrams I
4
. . , - - - - - . - . . - , ,,, . - , . ..L..-. , , . , , , , , , , , . . . . , _ _ , , . , , . . , ..,,-ge,e-,- .--~ar--- , ,..
f 5 t 1 and personnel errors, more than we had hoped. Yet, we learned 2 from that experience, and the start up on both Byron Unit 2 and
- 3 Braidwood 1 have been excellent.
4 Byron station, in its relatively short life, has r 1
5 compiled an enviable operating record. I might point out 6 parenthetically that in 1986, Byron Unit 1 was the number one 7 operating station in the country in terms of output. We 4
8 believe Braidwood is developing in the same fine manner.
9 Although we have had some good success with the cost 10 and the schedule for our four Byron and Braidwood units, I 11 certainly don't want to convey the impression that it hasn't 12 been without some bumps in the road along the way. I have been 13 very close to the construction of the Byron and Braidwood units 14 since, really almost 15 years ago. Since 1977, the manager of ;
15 projects, the individual responsible for coordinating and 16 accountable for the construction of these units has reported 17 l directly to me. So, I have had the opportunity to be involved i i
18 on the day-to-day basis in monitoring the progress on these j
19 sites.
20 Back in 1983 when questions were raised about the 21 quality of construction at Braidwood, we developed what we 22 called the Braidwood Construction Assessment Program or what i 4
1 23 has been called BCAP. This involved a multitude of inspections I 1
3 24 and examinations and reviews that were carried out throughout j 25 1984 and 1985 to review all of our safety related activities l
l
1
. 6 .
1 and functions at the plant. It was designed to provide !
4 2 additional confidence to the NRC staff that past, present and
_ 3 future safety related work at Braidwood would result in 4 completed systems that were capable of perfortming their l 5 appropriate functions, and that Braidwood, on its final 6 completion, would meet all the regulatory requirements.
7 This part'.ular program was subject to intense 8 oversight by our owrc Quality Assurance Program and by an 9 independent overview group. Extensive sample reinspections of 10 completed QC accepted construction work identified no 11 signif,1 cant design discrepancies at Braidwood. It also 12 concluded that the procedures that were in existence for 13 ongoing and future safety related work were in place to 14 adequately address design and regulatory requirements.
15 Finally, BCAP concluded that the corrective action ;
l 16 programs that it reviewed were being effectively implemented.
17 I guess the proof of that is back in 1985 in the SALP review 18 conducted by the region, the region gave the implementation of 19 our BCAP programs a Category 1 ranking.
20 We recognize that our challonge now is to operate all 21 12 of our reactors, not just in an average manner, but in an l 1
22 excellent manner. That is clearly the commitment of this l 23 company. We know that there is no magic formula for achieving 24 excellence. It requires setting the goals high, developing a 25 plan with accountability for reaching those goals, and then 1
J j
. 7 1 paying very close attention to detail and to following up on 2 every action that requires following up.
- 3 We be'lieve tnat we have that plan in place. Cordell 4 Reed, very shortly, will give you more details on the plan.
5 One of our top goals is to increase the professionalism in our
) 6 controls rooms. Management and our bargaining group have been 7 meeting in a cooperative effort to develop a code of ethics and 8 principles of professionalism that will set a new standard for 9 operations in our control rooms.
10 Also, our management and our labor unions agreed at
\ ,
11 our last general contract negotiations, which were approved j 12 this last Monday, that uniforms will be mandatory for all [
13 control room personnel. During the same negotiations, it was 14 agreed that we would split the radiation protection and 15 chemistry functions into separate areas. That previous 1'
16 combination of bringing the two together had been a source of 17 concern to the NRC in terms of maintaining the skill levels in ,
18 both disciplines.
19 Additionally, we feel especially fortunate at this 20 time to be able to bring over so many of the people who had 21 been involved in our construction program over the years into 22 the operating area. We started this rocess about 18 months a 23 ago, and since that time we have had 51 people ~ representing 410 i
24 man years of experience, nuclear related, brought over to our a
25 operating side of the house.
i w -
8 i 1 When we were P,ere last June, I noted that we had made 2 a major change in the organization of our nuclear area. We
- 3 elovated Cordell Reed to Senior Vice President and we 4 established two new corporate vice presidents reporting to 5 Cordell; one for BWR operations and one for PWR. We also split J
6 our engineering department and created an engineering section ;
7 for PRR and one for BWR. We simply felt that this would be t 8 more responsive to our individual station needs. This new 9 organization is working very well, and I believe that it is 10 well equipped to manage our 12 units.
11 We have taken another significant step in reducing 12 the load on our operating stations by establishing a central 13 contract management department. It used to be that we would 14 have all of our stations individually responsible 'for the ;
i 15 maintenance contract work that was out there.
Previously, we t
16 had some problems with this. We have changed that and i
17 appointed Mike W'allace as the manager of this new central f 18 contract management department. He is heading it and doing a l
] 19 superb job, and has been able to take advantage of the skills
- 20 of all of the individual stations in a centralized way and we 21 have great hopes for the way that department will operate,
~
- 22 We also recognize our obligation to have an effective 23 mechanism in place to monitor the operations of each of our 24 stations. I can assure each of you that steps have been taken 25 to make certain that that's as foolproof as it can be.
J
4 i 9
1 We have taken the initiative in the crea of a 2 structured performance appraisal system, a function that is i
3 unique in nuclear operations. The thrust of this program is to 1
1 4 develop our own internal capability to better identify any 4
[
5 weaknesses or deficiencies and to institute corrective actions 3
6 in a timely manner. At the same time,,we are developing a 7 better capability to identify and communicate good practices 8 within the com rany. And having six plants, we think that is 9 especially important.
i 10 The Edison Nuclear staff met with Mr. Burt Davis and 11 his staff at Region III last January and discussed their plans
}
12 in this area. They have been extremely supportive.
l 13 We have established a Corporate Nuclear Review 14 Committee which consists of myself as Chairman, Bide Thomas, l 15 Cordell Reed, the Manager of our Nuclear Safety, Jack Bitell 16 and our Quality Assurance Manager, Walt Shewski, who 17 collectively will meet at leaut once quarterly to specifically 18 review the results of the performance assessments that I 19 mentioned just a few moments ago.
t 20 Also, we have a very active Nuclear Operations Review l 3
21 Committee of our Board of Directors, which is headed by Admiral 22 Dennis Wilkinson. That Committee meets on at least a quarterly 4
23 basis. They meet generally at the stations themselves, and do 24 an assessment and repcrt back to our full Board.
25 We want this Commission to know that we are committed l I
l 1 \
l a !
l
10 ,
1 to excellence in the operations of our nuclear plants. We have 2 made substantial commitments of resources to these operations.
r
- 3 Our nuclear operations and maintenance budgets are up 4 significantly at a time when the budgets in virtually every 5 other area of the company have been frozen or are declining. I 6 We have also approved a $303 million facility 7 improvement program for our nuclear stations and this will be 8 done over the next six years. Also, we hava approved the
- 9 hiring of an additional 300 people for our nuclear stations.
10 Again, this is at a time when the hiring levels have been 11 frozen in virtually every other area of the company.
12 We have committed these resources to demonstrate to ;
13 all of our nuclear operations personnel, in fact to everybody ;
14 in the company, that the company is dedicated to excellence in !
i 15 . nuclear operations. We sincerely hope that you have the 16 confidence that Commonwealth Edison will meet its '
i
- 17 responsibility to operate our plants in an excellent manner.
18 I firmly believe that we are now ready to receive our.
l 19 full power license for Braidwood Unit 2, and that Braidwood 20 Station will be among the best operating plants in the world.
l 1
i 21 It is now my pleasure to ask Bob Querio, our new Station 22 Manager, to make his comments.
23 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much. You may i
) 24 proceed.
25 MR. QUERIO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is
4 i
l 11 1 Robert Querio and I am Station Manager at Braidwood. At 4 ,
j 2 Braidwood Station, our goal is to become one of the best
_ 3 nuclear power plants in the world. We have the organization ,
, 4 and we have experienced personnel at Braidwood, our people are S committed to achieving excellence. We believe that we know how 6 to operate and handle situations in today's nuclear business.
7 We also know that we are faced with a tough challenge ;
I 8 of two unit activities at Braidwood, plus taking the plant 9 through the transition period from a construction environment F
10 to a full operating plant. However, we believe that we are l l 11 ready to face that challenge. i 4
l 12 At Braidwood Station, our organization is similar to 13 that of the other five operating stations in our company. We 14 have a total of 695 Commonwealth Edison personnel at Braidwood 2
15 Station. Additionally, we have 244 security force people that i
16 are contracted to Commonwealth Edison Company. We have 17 contract support consultants working with our station
) 18 organizations, that number of 213 people. These are supporting 19 the instrument department, Radchem technicians and our i
1 20 operating maintenance and tech support areas, l 21 The experience level of the people at Braidwood 22 Station ranges from an average of 16 years for the assistant 23 superintendent and above level people to greater than eight
- 2 24 years for our SCRE or shift technical advisor people. In the
- 25 way of operational performance, error-free planning is the !
, 12 I
! 1 theme for all of our activities at Braidwood.
i 2 Unit 1 had an error-free fuel load that began on j 3 October of 1986, and we had error-free modo changes to initial f 4 criticality on unit 1, which was on May 29 of 1987. There have 1 5 been 48 licensee event report items on unit 1; 16 of these have i
6 been perconnel error events since initial criticality. Unit 1 7 underwent a surveillance outage early in this year of 1988, and I 8 the recent SALP report identified concerns relative to a high i
9 rate of personnel errors at Braidwood. We also are concerned l
l 10 about our people's performance and continually review the error 11 events to assess the cause and provide a solution.
12 A high number of LER events that could have occurred
- 13 at Braidwood we believe were precluded by various design i
14 changes, hardware fixes and procedure revisions that were made ,
1 t
l 15 am a result of lessons learned from Byron and from other i i
l 16 stations. The absolute number of LERs at Braidwood is less
- 17 than some recent plants for the first year of operation. ;
1
! 18 However, even with the best programs in place, people require a 19 calibration period to properly implement the best of those
- 20 programs and some personnel error will occur during this 21 period.
22 In 1987, our personnel error events averaged about j 23 4.5 per month. Thus far in 1988, these events are averaging a l
24 little over two per month, so I think there is some improvement
) 25 being shown. We take a conservative approach to problems that l
l
i 13 1 arise at Braidwood and we thoroughly investigate and resolve ,
2 these problems before we proceed.
- 3 In 1987, the total LER events averaged approximately l 4 five per month. Thus far in 1988, the LER events are averaging l 5 a little bit less than three per month. We believe we try to 6 find thorough comprehensive solutions to the problems that are -
7 identified. Current status of Unit 1 at Braidwood is that it I
)'
8 is operating steady state at 75 percent power. We are working
?
9 on completion of some of our start up tests at that power l 10 level, i 1
-1 11 Regarding Unit 2 at Braidwood, we believe we learned 12 from Braidwood Unit 1 and from the Byron Unit 2 start up. We 13 had an error-free fuel load period at Braidwood Unit 2 that i l
i 14 began on December of 1987, and we had error free mode changes 15 to initial criticality on Unit 2. Initial critical was on !
] l 16 March 8 of 1988. The current status of Unit 2 is that it is 17 operating at approximately 3 percent power. We are working on 1
I 18 some lower power start up tests and we are ready to proceed .
l
}
19 -
with the power escalation program on Unit 2.
4 i
! 20 overall, we believe that we have had excellent i
! 21 performance at Braidwood, and that has been achieved from the a
j 22 various programs that have been successfully implemented at the 3
23 . plant.
- 24 During the start up period at Unit 1, we had a r
1 25 concurrent activities program. This program was to assure !
l l
4 !
1 i
___________________.t____
14 1 appropriate attention, direction, supervision and control for 2 taking Unit 1 through its* power ascension program while Unit 2
_ 3 was undergoing the pre-op and start up testing at the same 4 time. The key features of this program included error-free 5 planning. This included executive level reviews on a bi-weekly 6 basis at the plant; it included shift augmentation during 7 periods of increased activity.
8 This meant that we would have a senior manager person 9 on shift as necessary; we would have added SRO's and RO's as 10 needed for particular tests; and that we would have control 11 room shift test directors to coordinate and direct the test 12 activitiest and we provided around the clock maintenance 13 support. We also implemented a shift release process that ;
14 meant that the shift personnel came to the job approximately j 15 one hour early and did an extensive review and relief program.
16 Another part of this concurrent activities plan were !
l 17 organizational' changes to support the Unit 2 initial start up {
18 activities. We provided a start up assistant for the station l 19 lead start up coordinator, we provided an assistant for the l
20 Unit 2 operating engineer, and we provided an assistant SCRE to 21 help with the activities in the control room. Additionally, we limited control room access.
22 We restricted general access to 23 the control room and provided or specified a control room 24 access pattern in order to minimize control room distractions 25 and congestion.
l
' ~
i l
15 :
- 1 Recently, we.added a start up and test completion [
l 2 plan for the Unit 2 start up activities. This plan is intended >
j! '
- , 3 to focus our resources in order to complete the Unit 2 start up l l
2 4 testing and to complete the Unit 1 testing and power ascension 5 program.
- i j 6 We created a start up and testing group. This is an ;
i !
l 7 independent group that reports to the services superintendent' '
i l 8 at the station, and the testing supervisor for this group is an 9 assistant superintendent level person, a management person who i
1 i 10 is SRO certified for Braidwood station.
11 All of our testing activities are now controlled by l
l 12 one group, which thereby minimizes the number of people that l i !
j 13 must interface with the shift operating personnel. This start ;
i 14 up and testing group determines the sequencing and the priority I
13 of testing activities. A benefit of this consolidated start up
{ l 3
16 test group is that it leaves the operating maintenance tech !
]
j 17 support areas so that they can focus on their normal
- kinds of i l j 18 operating duties. !
I 19 The start up and testing group personnel that we have !
1 20 include two experienced test directors on each of our shifts 4
] 21 that provides us 24 hour2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day, seven day a week coordination .
j 22 of our testing activities. We have a total of 41 people in 1
i 23 this group, plus an additional 15 indirect contact people that 24 provides us with access to the remainder of the total stati'on 1
4 25 organization and additionally to our engineering department, a
i
~
16 1 our construction department and our nuclear steam supply 2 vendors and all the other vendors that are available for 3 support.
4 The recent SALP report for Braidwood cited adequate 5 handling of these concurrent activities.
6 In the training area at Braidwood Station, we have J
7 had an excellent NRC exam pass rate over the several years.
! 8 The total people success rate is 95 percent for Braidwood, and 9 the first attempt success rate is 86 percent for Braidwood 10 Station. We currently have 47 SRO licenses and 25 RO licenses 11 at Braidwood. Each of our licensed people receive 60 hours6.944444e-4 days <br />0.0167 hours <br />9.920635e-5 weeks <br />2.283e-5 months <br /> of 12 simulator training each year. Additionally, they partake in a 13 two, four week block training requalification programs within a 14 classroom environment. ;
15 The recent SALP report rated the training program at !
i 16 Braidwood as a number one level.
- 17 We think that we have had excellent lessons learned 18 implemented at Braidwood overall. We believe strongly in ,
I l
19 learning from the experience of others. Braidwood deals with !
1 20 lessons learned from Byron, from other plants and from the 21 industry in general. As an example, a task force evaluated l l
22 Byron Unit 1 start up, identifying problem areas and proposed 23 solutions.
24 Braidwood resolved each area in advance of Unit 1 25 start up. Similarly, the Braidwood Unit 1 start up was i
a
17 1 reviewed and lessons learned were incorporated into the Unit 2 ,
2 start up activities.
- 3 Key Byron contractor and consultant personnel were
- 4 moved to Braidwood to participate in the Unit 2 start up 5 activities. A monthly plant status report is generated that 6 covers NRC, INPO and other performance indicators, and this 7 report is used for adverse trend identification. These lessons 8 learned efforts will continue into the future.
9 A current example of a lessons learned is that we are
- 10 going to bring three Byron Station present supervisors who were 11 former RO operators at Byron and bring them over to Braidwood a
12 during the initial power operations. They are going to work 13 with the Braidwood operators and particularly focus on the D-5 14 Steam Generator level situations. You may recall that Byron 15 did pretty well with the D-5 Steam Generators because they i 16 picked up a good lesson from Catawba Station on some of their i 17 problems. ,
18 The Regulatory Assurance Department at Braidwood is 19 one of the strongest support groups that we have. This was as 20 noted in the recent SALP report. The function of this group is l 21 to monitor, investigate, and report to senior station i
22 management compliance with NRC regul?tions, INPO benchmarks of i
l 23 excellence and other regulatory requirements.
i 24 This department coordinates our lessons learned 25 program. Also, they track commitments through to completion, 1
1 4
18 1 they provide a daily interface with the NRC, and the SALP 2 report cited the group as well staffed with energetic and
- _ 3 professional personnel who were effective in resolving 4 regulatory issues.
i
- 5 Model spaces program at Braidwood is something that
! 6 we are extremely proud of. Each of you that has visited a
7 Braidwood has commented favorably on the program. The program 8 facilitates cleanliness at the plant, equipment preservation, 9 decontamination of the plant. In fact, this was identified as 10 an INPO strength in our recent INPO plant evaluation.
. 11 The program also lowers the threshold of problem i
j 12 visibility and identification; it has positive effects on the l
- 13 morale, thu attitude and the pride nf the people at Braidwood.
14 The status of this program is that all except for the Unit 2 1
! 15 turbine building areas are greater than 90 percent completed at i
, 16 the present time. Unit 2 turbine building is approximately 20 a
17 percent complete. In effect, what be are really doing is 18 evolving to a model plant concept rather than just a local 19 area. We are going to maintain the plant in its model l 20 condition for its lifetime.
l i
{ 21 The maintenance program at Commonwealth Edison 3
22 Company and Braidwood Station, in regard to maintenance, we 23 recognize the importance of a structured maintenance program.
l 24 A corporate conduct of maintenance policy'and directive was 25 significantly revised and issued in the first quart 6r of 1988.
t 19 2
1 This structured program included. for the j 2 Commonwealth Edison Company, a goal of having 50 percent 3 preventative maintenance at all of our plants. At the present- f 4 time, Braidwood currently has approximately 35 of its .
5 activities are considered preventative' maintenance.
- 6 Preventative maintenance includes more than just maintenance ,
7 department work hours; it also includes surveillance, work 8 activities, vibration analysis and a number of other 9 activities. We are continuing to expand the emphasis on i
1 10 preventative maintenance at Braidwood. !
1 j 11 Braidwood Station has implemented a Commonwealth
! 12 Edison program called Total Job Management, and a feature of l I
l
- 13 that is an equipment maintenance system. This program at j
)
e
. 14 Braidwood was recently cited by INPo as a good practice in our l
!. 15 evaluation. i 1
16 Some of you have seen the microelectronics I
- i j 17 surveillance and calibration. unit at Braidwood, the MESAC Unit. i I
i 18 This unit has significantly reduced the monthly instrument 19 department surveillance time. We have had no personnel errors j
- 20 or plant trip events in about 1,800 surveillances that have
! 21 been conducted at Braidwood. Additional units are being built !
I j 22 to be used for Byron Station. We have had a patent and 3
l I
j 23 trademark received for this unit at Braidwood. :
24 Regarding equipment qualification status at Braidwood 25 Station, this was reviewed by the NRC in February of 1988.
k a
l
. . l
f 20 .
, \
1 Concerns were raised regarding 0-ring and seal changeouts, ;
i I
- 2 regarding pump and motor lubrication frequencies, regarding l 1 ,
3 grease mixtures for motor operated valves. All of these 4 concerns have been corrected and Braidwood is considered to be f l 5 in full compliance with the EQ rule in this particular area.
6 Another portion of the EQ program raised concerns (
l 7 about Bunker Ramo instrument penetration assemblies at !
8 Braidwood Station. These are used in four areas to penetrate 9 the containment wall. The Commonwealth Edison Company made a !
l 10 substantial effort to provide supporting documentation to l 11 establish qualification to the NRC staff satisfaction. We have i
j 12 not been successful at the present time in resolving these .
13 concerns, and we therefore seek exemption to the EQ rule for !
14 this particular item.
f i
! 15 In the overall maintenance area at Braidwood, we !
I !
j 16 continuously monitor the backlog of our work request status, i .
17 We presently have pending, work requests and it ranges over l 18 about 2,000 units per month, 2,000 work request items por '
19 month. This covers all areas including corrective maintenance,
[
.1 20 preventative maintenance, modifications, facility items and 1 21 equipment repairs that would put an item back into our i 22 storeroom. !
I i
- l 1
23 The present corrective maintenance backlog at l
l 24 Braidwood is 950 items. Of those 950 items, less than 40 l 25 percent of those are greater than three months old. That puts 3
a 21 1 Braidwood in the upper quartile in the INPO performance )
2 category there. Maintenance at Braidwood is going to continue ;
i
_ 3 aim at achieving excellence.
4 An information management program is another item i 5 that has been well implemented at Braidwood Station. The ,
4 1
6 Station has initiated a computer progra,s to word search the .
? .
7 FSAR, our tech specs and station procedures. The tech specs f
8 are presently on this system. The FSAR will be on this system 9 by September of this year. At the present time, 100 percent of 10 our procedures are loaded, 40 percent of these are validated.
, 11 The benefits of this program will include enhanced l
- 12 50/59 reviews, safety reviews, identification of procedures 13 affected by changing various plant changes and plant 14 modifications, it will reduce the chance of error in changing 15 paper in our different paper programs at the plant, and it will f
) 16 provide immediate procedure availability upon approval by the :
4
] 17 on-site review committee. i I
18 Also, an effective computerized nuclear tracking i
l' I 19 system has been established to track NRC issues and commitments 20 and other industry and operating experience information and '
1 i l
21 commitments. The nuclear tracking system is a living file. !
22 Items can be reopened based on in-house or industry experience. !
i i
23 The status of issues is periodically reviewed for continuing !
i 24 acceptability. Again, one organization tracks all of our open !
t j 25 items through completion. -
l !
1 l l l
d
O 22 -
r j 1 Information management, as a whole, and the nuclear i 2 tracking system specifically, again were recently identified by ,
- [
l - 3 INPO as good practices at Braidwood Station.
I
- 4 The main control room annunciators has been an area l 3 i 5 focus at Braidwood. A program to reduce nuisance alarms began !
j i
! 6 by monitoring annunciator status at fuel load, and we presently l
7 track control room work request status on a daily basis. We l
);
8 are continuing a positive trend towards blackboard annunciator !
t i
9 implementation at Braidwood.
10 The main control room instrumentation is another area 11 of emphasis. We desire high availability of our
] i 12 instrumentation. It's part of the full deck concept of our j
- I 13 error-free plan. Again, we track control room work request 14 status daily. Presently, we have 15 work requests outstanding ;
4 15 per unit at Braidwood Station and the top quartile for INPO 16 performance indicator there is 18 units for each unit.
f I
17 Regarding the INPO evaluation that I have mentioned a i
I la couple of times, Braidwood Station just completed its first 19 operating plant full plant evaluation. In fact, the exit i 20 meeting was just this past Tuesday. This evaluation identified I 21 Braidwood as receiving a number two plant performance level ,
4 e
i 1
22 rating. There were several strengths and good practices -
23 mentioned and there was also areas mentioned that needed l J
1 24 emphasis for continued improvement.
1 j 25 Overall, the INPO team was impressed by the plant, by 1
).
4
_ . . - . - _ .. -- . .=_ - - - - . - . -_-
i l 23 l i
j 1 the people, by the professionalism, by the responsiveness and i
! l
} 2 pride, and by the overall positive attitude towards excellence. ;
! l 3 I think the INPO evaluation serves as a good calibration for !
l d
4 our people at this time of helping go through the transition f 1 5 from the construction phase to a full operating type of plant. l n ,
6 We are pleased with INPCs recognition of good performance at i
- 7 Braidwood Station.
8 In conclusion, in all areas at Braidwood Station, we 9 are committed to achieving professional excellence. As with i 10 Unit 1, we are prepared to meet with the Region III staff to 11 discuss readiness to operate above 50 percent power. We have i i
l 12 the right attitude, we have the dedication, the ability and the I
r
? 13 commitment to operate Braidwood Station safely and reliably. !
14 Our approach is timely, thorough and comprehensive.
1 . i 15 We have set our str.ndards and goals high. Simply stated, we
] 16 intend to be the best. Commissioner Bernthal, on his recent 17 visit to the plant, said that Braidwo'od Station approaches I
i l 18 looking like a world class plant. We are not going to be i l !
i 19 satisfied until we have a world class operation at Braidwood f i f 20 Station. Thank you. I j 21 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very'much.
~
I 22 M R .' REED: Mr. Chairman, my less than five minute ;
J 1
23 remarks. As Mr. O'Connor stated earlier, we are committed to l
24 excellence in all aspects of our nuclear operations, and we I'
25 think we have a good plan to get us there. My senior managers
}
4
. . i 24 I and I have spent considerable time in developing a plan for l
- 2 excellence and have set goals and action plans for achieving 1
_ 3 excellence in all phases of our operations. ;
l 4 our three major steps that we have taken to make this ;
4 5 plan a reality, first, is accountability. Each nuclear !
1 l 6 manager, from myself down to the first line supervisors in our ,
4 i
~
4 7 plants and in our general offices have personal secountability l j 8 goals tied to the plan of excellence. These goals are set in 1 :
{ 9 formal meetings.
10 Second, we have made substantial effort to 11 communica.te our plan to all of our employees and to get them
] 12 involved in developing of the plan. Third, as Mr. O'Connor has 1
] 13 stated, we have committed the financial and personnel resources 1
14 to make it a reality. For that reason, I think we are going to 1 i i 15 have a good success. :
1 16 We experienced improved performance in our operations 1
1 17 of our nuclear units last year. I would like to take a few i 18 minutes to review our 1987 performance. Quad Cities achieved
- 19 an equivalent availability of 70.3 percent last year, and that i 20 was excellent performance. Their SALP ra
- ing had an average of 21 1.6; their INPO evaluation was a three in the broad middle.
1
! 22 Quad cities station had the lowest MANREM exposure of any 23 multi-unit BWR station in the country last year.
l 24 At Zion, our equivalent availability was 63.4 percent 25 last year. Again, we had a 1.6 average SALP rating, and they l
J I
i 1 25 l 1 were rated a three by INPo. One thing that we are proud of at l
]
j 2 Zion is that there were no reactor scrams on either units at ,
J.
- 3 Zion in 1987.
j 4 our Byron Station had an equivalent availability of ;
i i 5 58.4 percent last year. They had a SALP rating of 1.7, and we :
l i
j 6 are most proud of an INPO number one rating in 1987. That is ;
i l '
i 7 terrific, when you consider that we had our first refueling l
j 8 outage on Unit 1 and we brought Unit 2 into commercial 9 operation. ,
4 10 our LaSalle counties equivalent availability was only 1
i 11 46.8 percent. This certainly was below average, our biggest i
12 problem resulted from a generic problem with one of the reactor l 13 coolant pumps that cost us some 12.9 percent in availability.
- j 14 The thing that made our year at LaSalle last year, however, was ,
i j 15 a November 1987, that INPO rated LaSalle a two. We are i i ;
I 16 confident that LaSalle is on its way to being an outstanding f 17 station.
I 18 Dresden Station has an equivalent availability of ;
J} i
{ 19 only 59.3 percent last year. Their SALP rating was 2.1, with l
] 20 one three. But Dresden has been on a very significant
] 21 improving trend for over a year. We have changed 20 of the top 22 26 management people at Dresden to get some fresh approaches.
23 We have made a major effort at improving the housekeeping and 24 material condition of the plant. As a result, in August 1987, 25 INPO rated Dresden a four with a strong improving trend.
' l l
a
2
. I
-u 1 It has been1 eight months sihre that evaluation, and.I-2 can assure you that we have had strong improving trer ds since i
- 3 that time. ~f 4 Dresden 2 had a 204 day continuous operating run 5 recently. Dresden 3'had 170 day run. We have had five units 6 with over 200 days of continuou's operation over'the,last-7 several months. Zion Unit 1, with 284 days; Zion ,rinj.b 2, 2227 8 days; Byron Unit 1, 228 days; LaSalle Unit 2, 237 dtfa. ' Oar 9 1988 goals are on track, and it will demonstrate a substar3ial 10 improvement over our 1987 performance, 11 Finally, I just want'to say that we are comuitted to 12 excellence, and it's not just . slogan. As I.tell our people, 13 we have experience and we have the talent tg be excellen) and 14 we must realize our full potential by not only being 'the [ I
/
15 biggest but also being the best. Thank you.,
i 16 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank yud vety much. Dodskthat 17 complete your prese'ntation, Mr. O'Connor? ' ' '
\
18 MR. O'CONNOT Yes, Lt,does, M[. #Cndirman.
l 19 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Questions of my fellow 20 Commissioner's? Commissioner Roberts? '
/
21, COMMISSIONER' ROBERTS: Brief]i, briefly. What is tEs
~
22 nature of the problem with the environmental qualifications for 23 the full penetrations and are those same penetradions qualified 24 in Byron 1 and 2 and Braidwood 1? ( -l l '
f 25 MR. REED: Briefly, we felt that the penetrations J
).
i
--...,,,n -. . . , . ., -
~
27 1 were qualified. The staYf has in March, determined that they 2 didn't have enough information to demonstrate that they are
._ 3 qw111fied.
4 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Be more specific. What do you 5 nean?
6 l'R . REED: The test that was run on the Bunker Ramo 7 penetration, the tbur penetrations at Braidwood Station, have 8 been reviewed by the staff in the past. But as they looked at 9 them again on Braidwood 2, they are concerned that it does not 10 meet the high triple-E 1974 standards.
11 There is an issue of taking of resistance values and 12 they felt that these values were not taken frequently enough to 13 meet the standards. We have technical disagreement with the 14 r.taff of that, but in an effort to resolve it we have committed 15 to change out those penetrations if we can't demonstrate that 16 they are good --
17 c.'OMMISSIONER RODERTS: You mean, physically cut them 18 cut and 1:aplace them?
19 MR. REED: Yes.
20 CHAIRMAN ZECH: When are you going to do that?
2 '. MR. REED: Our best opportunity is January of 1989, when we come down for a surveillance outage.
~
22 We would like to j 23 get the unit throagh its start up phase. It would be a great i 24 imposition, it would take a 16 week cutage now if we would try
.5 to replace them now. If we have time to plan this out -- it is
/
i y f
,L_ l-
- 1 28 t 1 important that we plan it well.
2 We'think that we can get it done within a 10 week
- 3 period. The trick is, after you disconnect -- if you change 4 them out and disconnect all of the instrument cables to put 5 them back together correctly and to have an adequate test 6 program to ensure that they are all right.
7 We think we have a very strong justification for 8 continued operation. Our people and our simulators have 9 demonstrated that they can shut the unit down safely with the 10 alternative instrumentation that we have if these penetrations 11 do fail.
12 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Does any entity in the U. S.
13 operate more reactora than Commonwealth Edison?
14 MR. O'CONNOR: No, sir.
15 -
COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: You have got an equal mix of 16 PWR and BWR?
17 MR. O'CONNOR: Yes, six of each.
18 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: For my part, we certainly look 19 to you for leadership in the industry and excellence.
20 MR. O'CONNOR: We recognize that responsibility and 21 that obligation. I think we, as Cordell pointed out, we have 22 not only the resources but the willingness to commit those 23 resources to be the best.
24 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: That's all I have.
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Bernthal?
29 l 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I want to pick up just a 2 little bit more on the issue that Tom raised. I understand
_ 3 that you relied somewhat at least, on the Midland testing. I 4 don't want to get into too much gory technical detail here. I 5 also understand that apparently this could even be a generic 6 issue, which staff I assume, will tell us more about when they 7 get up here. Other plants and others have the same problem.
8 From what my staff has told me about the Midland 9 testing, it was a matter of the testing times now quite 10 overlapping or something for a similar type penetration. Could 11 you elaborate just a little bit on why the Midland testing 12 doesn't really satisfy our testing requirements? I assume the 13 staff will comment on that as well, but perhaps you can.
14 MR. REED: I would like for my staff to briefly 15 explain that. Mike or Brent.
16 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Would you come up to the microphone 17 over here please, and identify yourself for the reporter, or to 18 the table, either one. Right here is fine.
19 MR. SHELTON: My name is Brent Shelton, and I am PWR 20 Engineering Manager for Commonwealth Edison. The response to 21 the question is that the data that was taken in the Midland 22 test was not taken frequently enough through,the period of the 23 LOCA to have actual resistance values at the peak of the LOCA.
24 The resistance values that were taken in the initial 25 phases and af ter the LOCA all showed that the resistance values-
30 I were adequate and the penetrations worked. So the missing l l
2 piece of information is an insulation resistant measurement or
~. 3 measurements at the peak of the LOCA essentially.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: The information that I had 5 was that the Midland tests -- I may have these reversed -- the 6 Midland tests were run from 16 to 20-odd hours and your -- I 7 think it was the other way around, actually. Yours or theirs 8 were run from up to 16 hours1.851852e-4 days <br />0.00444 hours <br />2.645503e-5 weeks <br />6.088e-6 months <br /> for a simulated LOCA or something 9 like that.
10 Is it the fact that they weren't run in overlapping 11 timeframes then, that --
12 MR. SHELTON: No. We have insulation resistance 13 measurements just prior to the peak of the LOCA and af ter it, e
14 but not through the whole period of the LOCA transient.
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I see. So, yours actually 16 would have been measurements in the later timeframe then?
17 MR. SHELTON: Well, one of them a little bit ahead I 18 believe and one after.
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I understand. '
20 MR. SHELTON: The point is that the penetrations from 21 our view though, did come through the LOCA and functioned 22 afterwards. So the question is right at the very peak time we 23 don't have data available. None of the data that we have 24 frankly, points to failure or problem. It is just an adequate 25 amount is the debate to prove fully that they are qualified.
31 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Thank you very much. I would 2 just make a comment or two here and then have one or two more 3 questions. I don't know whether it is four now, or how many' 4 plants of yours that have been licensed during my tenure on the 5 Commission.. Is it just four or is it beyond that?
6 MR. REED: I believe it's four.
7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: It is at least four. I have a seen you several times across the table here, and you are 9 probably tired of hearing me say and therefore you said it 10 first today, that you are not only the biggest but you should 11 be the best and you intend to be the best.
12 I will be quite candid and say that in the earlier 13 years at aome of those earlier plants, I always felt like 14 Commonwealth was big and came in and got a respectable 15 gentleman's "C". I guess "B" is respectable these days. A "C" 16 used to be respectable. I want to congratulate you and give 17 you measured credit, because I think measured credit is due.
18 I I have the feeling now, after four and one-half 1 19 years, that the VECTOR is definitely on the way up. I think !
20 you are above average, and clearly the appearance of this plant 21 -- I think the operations that you have displayed, and I 22 believe that our regional staff people agree, are beginning to i l
l 23 display the kind of leadership that the country has a right to 24 expect from a utility that has th<ilargest nuclear operation in 25 the country.
- l l
l
4 32 1 I certainly hope, and I agree with Commissioner 2 Robert's comment, that that continues. You have had a massive
_ 3 construction program out there that taxes the resources of any 4 organization, even Commonwealth Edison. I find it remarkable 5 that you, Mr. O'Connor, mainta.in a stability and an equanimity 6 through this whole process that I think is commendable. It is 7 certainly something that I suspect many other company chief 8 executives would wish they had been able to accomplish 9 throughout such a major program.
10 I look forward, after I am gone from this Commission, 11 to reading about continued improvement and leadership in your 12 utility.
13 I have one or two questions which as a matter of 14 getting them on the public record, I was already briefed
- 15 considerably on most of the problems and progress at your plant 16 when I visited. To get on the public record onu or two 17 difficulties that'you have had, let me just ask you to run 18 through these briefly and, in particular, the grease problem to 19 get to one point.
20 I assume that the difficulty that you had with the l
21 residual grease that was not qualified, replacing that, i I
22 cleaning valves that contain that material, that that problem 23 has not been completely cleared away or you wouldn't be here 24 today.
25 Could you just elaborate a little bit on that for the
1 l
l 1
33 l
1 public record here, and explain what you did to take care of 2 it?
3 MR. QUERIO: Let me talk about it. In the original 4 timeframe of 1985, we sampled all the grease at Braidwood 5 Station and believed at that time that all the grease met the 6 requirements. Subsequently, it has been determined that the 7 sampling methods, the sampling technique, just wasn't precise 8 enough at that time.
9 During the recent EQ inspection at the plant, we were 10 asked if we thought that there was any dirt accumulation in the 11 grease over the construction period of time. We decided to do 12 some additional sampling and turned up signs of streaks in a 13 couple of the places, black streaks that indicated potentially 14 mixed grease. We embarked on a much more extensive sampling 15 program and sampled from all the various ports on the limit 16 torque operators, and came to the conclusions that there were 17 problem situations there and set about on a program to dhange 18 all of the grease out on those chat indicated mixed grease.
19 We have completed that for Braidwood Unit 2.
20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Could you describe just a 21 little bit, how much -- was it hardening that you find when 22 these two materials get mixed? I'm not sure that I remember 23 what --
24 MR. QUERIO: It's my understanding that you could 25 find either hardening or softening or liquefying.
c . l 34 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Is that right, okay.
2 MR. REED. Over a period of time, with temperature
- 3 and radiation it could harden.
4 MR. QUERIO: In our case, we just had the 5 indications, the dark streaks but not the hardening or 6 liquefying.
7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: That has all been taken care 8 of, I assume?
9 MR. REED: Right.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I think I will not make 11 further comment at this time, and turn to my colleagues here.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Carr?
13 COMMISSIONER CARR: I would just comment that it is 14 encouraging to me that over the, as you mentioned, the 15 construction period, you were able to make your schedules when 16 I was out there. It's been almost two years ago when you gave 17 me the schedule for this unit, and you said you would be '
18 critical in one month and you were, and a little earlier than 19 you predicted I think.
20 It looks to me like you are now heading for full 21 power sooner than you had predicted. ;
22 MR. O'CONNOR: It's a little bit sooner. ;
23 COMMISSIONER CARR: I would say it's encouraging to j i
24 m'e that somebody can meet a schedule -- I will put that on the '
i 25 record. -
e
35 1 MR. O'CONNOR: Thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Rogers?
_ 3 COMMIS.!IONER ROGERS: Yes. I wonder if you could 4 just say a few words about your view, from a long term basis, 5 of this flaw that was detected in an elbow-to-valve weld in the 6 reactor coolant system on Unit 2; that small ultrasonic flaw 7 was detected ultrasonically. I wonder if you can say something 8 about your view on that on a long term basis.
9 Do you expect to have to make a change there 10 sometime, or do you expect that to be serviceable for the 11 indefinite future?
12 MR. REED: Can you a' d dress that, Brent?
13 MR. SHELTON: I believe I can. The flaw was small.
14 We had it evaluated by Westinghouse. To the best of our 15 knowledge, we don't believe that that will have to be changed 16 in the future.
17 I think the reason that it came apparent in the late 18 stages is that some of the technology, UT techniques and what 19 have you, have improved and the threshold has actually been
~
20 lowered on our ability to find things. 1 21 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Do you expect to follow that i
22 one on a periodic basis? I mean, that will be on a checklist, 1 23 an inspection checklist to follow it?
24 MR. SHELTON: Yes. It is in the ISI program.
25 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: You mentioned that there were i
. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - _ _ _ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -~---- -
36 1 no plant trip of 1,800 surveillances so far at Braidwood. Do 2 you have some kind of a goal there of what your expectation
_ 3 wvuld be in terms of plant trips as a result of surveillances?
4 It shouldn't happen at all, but --
5 MR. QUERIO: That's kind of like asking how many loss 6 time accidents do you want to have. I mean, you want to have 7 none, and you obviously want to have --
8 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Of course.
9 MR. QUERIO: --no plant trip events from anything.
10 We target a low number as an outside kind of a goal, and it is 11 two or three trips per unit per year, is something that maybe 12 would happen like that.
13 MR. REED: Specifically, our 1990 goal and I'm 14 looking at Chairman Zech -- he's help sensitize us on the 15 subject -- is no more than one a unit. I mean, we are trying 16 to get zero but we are really trying to make very conscientious 17 efforts not to get over one. If we do'that, we think that will 18 put us in the upper quartile of industry performance.
19 We have just set our 1993 goals, and we had quite a 20 discussion that zero could be it. We have not come to zero ;
1 21 yet. I think there are things underway in terms of 22 surveillance testing, at least we have heard from the 23 Commission and from the staff, that some of this testing that 24 we do during operations, if we don't have to do those and 25 expose the unit, I think this country can have as good a record i
37 1 as any other country.
2 MR. QUERIO: The point with' the 1,800 surveillances
_ 3 was that the MESAC device, the electronic devise, gives us very 4 improved performance with instrument surveillances.
5 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: That's all'I have right now.
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Bernthal, you had 7 additional questionc?
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes, or you go ahead.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Go ahead. I will wait for a minute.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I want to get to the capacity 11 factor business for a moment. I would hope that we can do 12 better than 70 percent in this country. I know that based on 13 history and the track record in our country, we would be 14 delighted, the industry would be delighted, and I think the 15 Commission would be delighted, because I would hope that would 16 ind'.: ate higher quality of operations and greater safety as 17 well if'the entire country could. ave' rage 70 percent.
18 I note thuc you mentioned that Byron was the high 19 50's last year, I believe that's what you said.
20 MR. QUERIO: In 1987, yes.
21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: That is about the national 22 average. It doesn't even come close to the Japanese average.
23 I don't believe it even comes close to the French av'erage now 24 and a number of other countries.
25 Why was Byron, for example, the only high 50's?
t
38 1 MR. REED: We went through our first refueling outage 2 on Byron station last year. Clearly, our goal, our goal for
- 3 1990 is 80 percent. We have not set any goals that we cannot 4 reasonably deliver. Eighty percent is substantially batter 5 than anything we have ever done in the past.
6 We really think that we are over the hump with a 7 number of problems that we have had with BWRs, hydrogenetic 8 loads, the turbines on Zion, and we firmly believe that we can 9 reach 80 percent. Our last six or seven months of operation 10 have demonstrated that we can actually meet these.
11 So 70 percent is just the best we did on any of our 12 units, but that is not the goal that we are reaching for.
13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I entirely agree. I would 14 attach the term excellence to 80 percent. In fact, 70, I 15 think, is good and 60 tells me as a commissioner that maybe 16 some things aren't going as well as they should be. I am sure 17 that although it happens to be close to average in the country 18 right now, it isn't good enough for this business and I think 19 you all understand that.
20 MR. O'CONNOR: I think those are fair assignments of i 21 categories too, 60, 70, 80 with which we would concur. I think 22 a very aggressive goal in the near term is the 80 percent 23 number. I think if we are successful in limiting the number of 24 scrams and confining our outages to better levels than we have 25 been able to achieve both in our company and nationally, and
39 1 resolving the question of how long between fuel loads, I think 2 we are going to have some very impressive improvement in those
- 3 numbers over the next few years.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I agree.
5 MR. QUERIO: I was going to add that a big part of 6 meeting the goal is to do outages in a good timeframe. Zion 7 station just completed an outage in 74 days, scheduled 10 week 8 outage. That's an important factor in getting to the 80 9 percent.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I am reminded of the plant on 11 the West Coast of Finland that,'s a BWR -- it's not a PWR, which 12 this was two or three years ago. I think they have done better 13 since. When I was there I was very pleased. The plant 14 personnel were very pleased because they had achieved a 19 day 15 -- 19 day outage.
16 MR. REED: Commissioner, he was at the conference you 17 attended in Chicago, at least the maintenance manager there.
18 They are up to 25 days, but he assured me it wasn't magic and 19 he could teach me how to do it, was his statement.
20 ( Laughter. )
21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: One point about your training ,
l 22 and the fact, as I understand it, you use the Braidwood l 23 simulator for both the Byron and Braidwood simulator training, i 24 Do you find that you have any difficulty in scheduling time?
25 That's a pretty heavy usage, I would guess, with four units on i i
l l
l l
40 1 that' simulator. I know you mentioned that number six and 60 2 hours --
- 3 MR. REED: We are now in that position ~. We committed 4 this year to increase our simulator training time to 60 hours6.944444e-4 days <br />0.0167 hours <br />9.920635e-5 weeks <br />2.283e-5 months <br />.
5 We were down to about 40'or 50 before. Because of that, we 6 have committed, we have gotten approval to build a separate 7 Byron simulator at the Byron site, building a separate Quad 8 Cities simulator at the Quad Cities site.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: You may have mentioned that 10 in your presentation. One last comment. I also understand 11 that you have a degreed, erlineering degreed advisor on all of 12 your shifts now with an SRU credential. I applaud that effort.
13 I think that's a step toward the kind of professionalism and 14 excellence that all of our operations, all of our plants should 15 try and maintain in their control rooms. So, I commend you all 16 for that.
17 That/s all I have, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
18 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Concerning the electrical penetration 19 problem, my question is, are there alternative instruments in 20 case the instruments involved in this penetration problem would 21 not function?
~
22 MR. QUERIO: Yes. There are alternative instruments 23 available. We have demonstrated on the simulator, being able 24 to shut down the plant with the failure of the instrumentation 25 through these devices and the operators were able to deal with
41 1 it. We did kind of a study event of the simulator activities 2 and determined a couple of procedure changes that would help
- 3 the operators be able to deal with that.
4 We have added those procedures and have provided some 5 operator aid so that the control room people are able to better 6 use some of the other instrumentation that is available.
7 CHAIRMAN ZECil: All right. I would like the staff to 8 comment on that when they come to the table too, please.
9 Do you have a degree program in place at the 10 Commonwealth Edison plant?
11 MR. REED: Yes, sir. In 1981, we started a program 12 with Northern Illinois University. It is a four year degree 13 program receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in reactor 14 technology engineering. We have had four people to graduate 15 from this program. We have five other students in the advance 16 stages, and other people in the two.
17 Generally, the profile of the people that we have in 18 this program are people who are 35, with two years of college 19 experience. It is very difficult, however, for people who are 20 working on shift to complete this program. We are encouraging 21 this and we are trying to enhance the number' of people that we 22 can get through it.
23 CliAIRMAN ZECll: Is it in placd at all of your sites?
24 MR. REED: It is isvallable at all sites except Zion 25 and Quad Cities. We have had live classes taught at our
42 1 production training center. We have had people to participate 2 at all stations through electronic blackboard. We found for
- 3 these difficult subjects, that the electronic blackboard is 4 just not effective. The instructors have to speak into the 5 microphone.
6 So we cut them out at Zion and Quad Cities for the 7 current time. Dresden, LaSalle and Braidwood people can attend 8 live classes at PTC. Byron people can go to NIU. We are 9 trying to perfect our program and see how we cati make is 10 available to Zion and Quad Cities.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Is it available to other than control 12 room operators?
13 MR. REED: Yes. Right now, it is available to all 14 management people. We have put our priority on SROs, but other 15 tech staff, assistants and the like, engineering assistant --
16 et the current time, it is not available to the bargaining 17 group.
I 18 What we are trying to do is to iron out, to make it 19 more effective and get more people more successful at this 20 program before we expand it to the bargaining group, but that's
. 21 our intent.
)
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH: I would encourage you to continue the 23 program and to give it emphasis. I think frankly, you should 24 consider it part of your upgrade of professionalism that you 1
25 mentioned early in the presentation. I think it is part of
} .
l 1
m _-
43 1 that. My view is that there's a lot of talent in the utilities 2 that if we look to the future, can contribute to improved
-. 3 operation, improved safety if they are given the opportunity to 4 move up into management.
5 Most utilities, it is my understanding, either 6 require or certainly would expect people in management to have 7 a college degree. To those talented people that you have in 8 your control room and other places and maintenance areas too, I
9 it seems to me that it is in your best interest and in our best 10 interest as far as safety is concerned to use that talent.
11 That's why I encourage you to continue that program in a strong 12 sort of way.
13 I think your emphasis on professionalism in the 14 control especially, and your going to uniforms, is a good thing 15 to do. That doesn't make a better operator any more than a 16 college degree would in some cases I suppose, but on the other l
17 hand, it adds up. Those are the things, in my view, that add L 18 up to more discipline, to a more professional atmosphere. I 19 think those are the right things to do and I commend you for 20 that.
21 I think your model space program, which we have 22 mentioned several times in which I think all of the 23 Commissioner's that have visited your plant have been impressed 24 with, is all part of your upgrading professionalism. I think i
! 25 you should continue that model space program and, again, make 1
l 4
- - - = . . - _ _ . . _ . ~ . _ .,._m.. _.-m - - , _ . ..
44 1 it utility-wide and not just in certain areas. I understand 2 that you are doing that.
. 3 Those are the things that all come together under 4 your effort to increase professionalism. I consider the degree 5 program part of that, as well as your emphasis on the control 6 room area. I think you should not exclude your maintenance 7 people and others who also play a very important role in safety 8 of operations.
9 Your commitment to excellence, I think is something 10 that will require leadership involvement on a continuing basis.
11 It has got to be action and not just worlds. You have got the 12 plan and you've got the thing going, but it does require in my 13 view, a continued leadership involvement all the way down the 14 line. From what I have observed at Commonwealth Edison sites -
15 - and I have visited all of them -- that you have that. You 16 have a very good program of leadership involvement going, but I 17 think it is, again, a continuing challenge.
18 If there any one secret to success in this nuclear 19 power commercial industry of ours, in my judgment it is 20 leadership involvement and not just at the top but all the way 21 down the lino, and the challenge is to get it all the way down 22 ' the line.
That's the real challenge. I think that's a 23 continuing challenge tb not only your utility but all 24 ' utilities.
25 I would commend you for continuing your efforts
45 1 towards leadership involvement which I have observed at 2 Commonwealth Edison, which I think is so important for safe,
_ 3 reliable and efficient operation.
4 You do have six sites and 12 units, really the 5 largest of our utility, certainly in the private sector in the 6 country. I think it does give you the added obligation, the 7 added responsibility, to show leadership. You are a leader. I 8 think this Commission looks to Commonwealth Edison and expects 9 Commonwealth Edison to be a leader. Your emphasis on 10 excellence, your commitment to excellence, your commitment to 11 upgrade professionalism across the board is very important.
12 other utilities will look to Commonwealth Edison and 13 will be watching Commonwealth Edison, as will this Commission.
14 It is important, and I think you do have that added burden of 15 responsibility to show other utilities how it should be done.
16 You do have the resources that some perhaps don't.
17 I think that your improvement that I have noted -- I 18 agree with Commissioner Bernthal's comment and his observations 19 over the past four and one-half years or more that he stated 20 and mine, over three and one-half years plus -- I think the 21 visits that I have made more recently to your utilities have 22 shown me that you are improving and, therefore, your commitment 23 to excellence is real.
24 So, I commend you for that, but I also say there's 25 always room for improvement. Even at Commonwealth Edison t .
+
46 1 there's room for improvement. I think you should continue that 2 solid effort to improve and recognize that the other utilities
- 3 and the Commission are particularly mindful of Commonwealth 4 Edison and expect ycu to continue to improve.
5 Those are the comments that I have. I think that 6 your leadership role is extremely important, and I would 7 encourage you to be mindful of that and all of your senior 8 organization'to be mindful of that too, as you continue to 9 apply yourself through operating these plants in a safe manner 10 so the public health and safety will be protected.
11 With that, unless there are any other comments?
12 Commissioner Bernthal?
13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Just one quick question. How 14 many -- do you happen to know, Mr. O'Connor, how many INPO 15 category one ratings have been given to plants in this country?
16 MR. O'CONNOR: There are nine as of this week.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, I am glad they are i
18 parsimonious with that kind of ranking. I noted that a two 19 made you feel pretty good about a plant, but a one ought to be 20 something that really is an achievement. I am pleased that 21 they keep it that way.
22 One other item that I --
23 MR. O'CONNOR: We are not certain, Commissioner -- we 24 don't think anybody has over done better than a two on a first 25 time operational evaluation of a plant. In fact, we are not
o 4
47 1 certain that anybody has done a two, but there probably has 2 from somebody. But two is a road to one, in our judgment at
_ 3 Braidwood.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I understand. And apparently 5 one is tough to get, and it ought to be. I was just going to 6 make the comment in relation to some of the things the Chairman 7 mentioned about control room decorum and control room 8 educational credentials, that we had an excellent briefing 9 yesterday from the gentleman who chaired the National Academy 10 study on human factors.
11 You have mentioned and I saw when I was at your 12 plant, that you had the resources and the talent to take the 13 lead on diagnostic testing, electronic testing devices. It may 14 well be that you would also want to take a very careful look at 15 some of the findings of the National Academy, the research area 16 recommendations.
~
17 You obviously are an influential member of the ,
18 Electric Power Research Institute, and I believe that some of 19 these human factor areas recommended for additional research to 20 the NRC are areas that could at least as well, perhaps better, 21 be handled by EPRE. I would refer you to the report which is 22 complete now, and I think really gives an exciti.ng perspective 23 and direction and I hope some impetus once again to human 24 factors research, not only in our own Agency but I think the 25 industry ought to take careful look at that study. It's a good
._________________-_-_-____--______---_-__-___--_________-__-______-___-________-________-__x-___-__-_
48 1 one.
2 MR. O'CONNOR: We will do that.
- 3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much, Mr. O'Connor and 4 your colleagues.
5 I will ask the staff to come forward.
6 Mr. Stello, you may proceed.
7 MR. STELLO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will turn 8 very quickly here to Mr. Sniezek. We will try to abbreviate 9 our presentation this morning, to not repeat the things we have !
10 already heard from Commonwealth.
11 There are two points that I think are important. One 12 is that we are satisfied with the progress that has been made, 13 and are prepared this morning and are recommending to the 14 Commission, that you agree that the plant is, in fact, ready 15 for full power licensing and authorize the staff to go forward i
16 and issue that license when it is prepared to do so.
17 There is, and has been already, considerable 18 discussion on one issue that I think has come out of the 19 briefing. You have asked us to pay attention to it and we'will 20 at the end of the briefing, turn directly to the Bunker Ramo j 21 penetration question. We would like to very quickly go through 22 it and then we will get directly to answer that question. We 23 have Mr. Craig here this morning to apprise you of it. -
24 It is a generic problem. Our estimate is that it is 1
25 affecting on the order of 12 plants, and we will be prepared to 9
4
49 l 1 describe to you what that problem is.
2 I will ask Mr. Sniezek to introduce the others at the
- 3 table and principally get through the presentation.
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:- Thank you very much. Mr. Sniezek.
5 MR. SNIEZEK: Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Good morning. You may proceed. :
i 7 MR. SNIEZEK: On the left at the end of the table is i 8 John Craig. He is the Chief of the Plant System Branch NR, who 9 will discuss the Bunker Ramo penetration situation. L believe i 10 you all k"- Burt Davis, the Regional Administrator, Region c 9 ;
11 III. Ed Greenman, who is the Region III Projects Division j 12 Director; Stephen Sands, who is the NRR Project Manager for t
13 Braidwood; and Tom Tongue, who is the Senior Resident Inspector 14 at Braidwood.
15 Mr. Sands and Mr. Greenman will be conducting the (
16 presentation this morning. I will turn it over to Mr. Sands at i !
- 17 this time. ;
1 l 18 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much. You may 19 proceed.
. 20 MR. SANDS: Mr. Chairman and Commissioner's, I would 21 like to direct your attention to slide number one. It's a 1
I 22 presentation cutline.
1 23- (Slides.)
24 If there are no objections, in order to expedito the 4
25 briefing, I would like to move"to sl,ide seven. Most the i
k )
..-.-,----..._--..L.-.-_._.. . - - - - . - . . , - - - . . , .
50 1 material in between is backgrcund information which you have 2 already seen.
_ 3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Fine, go right ahead.
4 MR. SANDS: This slide is a chronology of the hearing 5 and licensing milestones. The OL. evidentiary hearings, which 6 were conducted for two contentions; one involving emergency 7 planning and the other was on a QA contention involving 8 harassment and other discrimination.
9 The hearings were commenced in 1985 and completed in 10 1986. The record was then closed in December of 1986. The 11 initial decision on EP was in May of 1987. The decision on 12 harassment and other discrimination was also concluded in May 13 of 1986.
14 Out of those initial decisions, the licensing board 15 authorized issuance of the full power license pending 16 Commission approval. The result of that, if we look at slide 17 eight, was an appeal by the intervenors of the licensing board i 18 decision.
l 19 (Slides.) l 20 The appeal panel held a hearing on October of 1987, 21 and the decision was granted in March of 1988, affirming the 22 board's decisions. On slide nine, are the l'eensing i
23 milestones. The Construction permit wa's issued in December of l
24 1975. There was a halt in construction from September of 1979 l 25 through March of 1980. It was initiated by Commonwealth and it 2
51 1 was financial consideration.
2 The low power license was just issued this past
. 3 December and fuel loading had commenced in December of 1987, 4 and was finished by the end of the year. Initial criticality 5 was in March of 1988.
6 On slide 10 is a status of issues. There are three 7 exemptions attached to this license. The first two are 8 standard exemptions which we have all seen before for all other 9 OL plants. One is the critic 311ty alarm system which is for 10 the storage of dry fuel; and the other is the containment i
11 airlock testing which was previously granted in the low power 12 license and are carried forward with the full power license.
13 The third exemption is t.he schedule exemption on EQ for Bunker 14 Ramo, which is going to be discussed in greater detail by Mr.
i 15 Craig.
- 16 On slide 12 is a chronology of the exemption request.
17 It was first discovered at an EQ audit, insp^Jtion audit 18 conducted in February. There were meetings held on both March I l
19 9th and 16th to evaluate the qualification documentation and i 20 there were further meetings in May, May 2nd and May 9th to go
- 21 over the exemption request material.
l 22 In early April, the staff had concluded that although 23 the existing test information was not sufficient to demonstrate 24 qualification under 5049 paragraph (f), the penetrations would 25 likely be operable. On this basis, decided to support the
52 1 exemption request. On April 7, commonwealth requested the '
2 exemption to 5049 and presented a justification for operation.
3 (Slides.)
4 On slide 14, is an abbreviated basis for recommending 5 the exemption. There are individual tests for specific 6 components of the penetration, mainly the pigtail, the splice 4
7 and the wire. All of those have passed the environt.. ental 8 qualification. The penetration itself is the one that is under 9 question.
10 other factors for recommending this are the low 11 probability event and the short timeframe of the exemption from 12 their start up now until January, and their scheduled I 13 surveillance outage when they plan to replace these 1
14 penetrations. Added to that, there are functions in the 15 reactor protection system which would be activated by 16 alternative signals.
- 17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL
- I must cay that it is perhaps 18 of somewhat greater concern that if this is a generic problem 19 in this particular plant, you have set down licensing 20 conditions and they have demonstrated that they can meet any 21 emergency that might arise because of this particular question.
22 Are we sure of the other operating plants that that is the 23 case, since other plants have a similar penetration as I 24 understand.
25 MR.*SHIEZEX: I would mention at this time that it is t
j -
. 1
4 E3 1 one of the things that Mr. Craig will be discussing at the end.
t 2 We do have a kind of attack and approach for the other plants
- 3 that may be affected.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Okay, good.
5 MR. SANDS: Some of the other key factors where the 6 Commonwealth had put in special operating procedures to address 7 these penetrations to cover -- in the event of an accident.
f 8 And then you add in the fact that they had simulated this on 9 their simulator without letting the operators know. On the ;
10 basis of all of this, we concluded that there was a reason to 11 support the exemption.
12 The organization staffing you heard in detail from 13 Commonwealth, and I don't think there's a need to go into it in ,
14 any great detail. However, on slide 17, I would like to point I i
15 out the shift composition.
i 16 (Slides.) .
17 There is a tech spec required which they meet or !
18 exceed, if you notice there are actuals both day and night '
19 shift, exceed the tech spec requirements for all categories.
20 Their station control room engineer, which you have already ,
21 heard, is SO qualified and degreed.
22 This concludes my portion of the presentation. I 23 turn it over to Mr. Greenman.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much. You may 25 proceed.
a
l,,
\
(
54
./,.
t f-1 MR. GREENMAN. Mr. Chairm i, . commissioners, I wou,1d
/
\ (
2 like to defer discussion on the construction history With the \
. ,\
. 3 Commission's agreement, in that it has been discussed at length ,
i .
4 during the licensing process for Braidwood Unit 1 and fer low 5 power licensing for Braidwood 2. -
'j, E 6 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Fine, you may proceed. ,, .
7 MR. GREENMAN: I would like to add to that 8
discussion, however, our re-review of outstanding allegations.', /.
- i 9 We reviewed the seven outstanding allegations at this l paint for
,' s ,
10 the utility, and have concluded that af ter examination jif the 11 technical issues, thattherearenoissuesoutstanbingthat it '
12 would impeded full power licensing of Braidwood Unit 2.
13 ' '
If I may have slide 19, please.
14 , (Slides.)
15 With respect to preoperational and start up testing, 16 it was mentioned earlier that lessons learned from Byron and 17 Braidwood have been incorporated into Braidwood 2 testing. The 18 staff is of the view that this is a major factor in the !
19 generally smooth progress of overall test 2nqiat Braidwood.
20 The utilities use an experienced staff wherever 21 possible, and the performance has been general,1y good for the 22 last of SECO's nuclear units. As the./ Commission has pointed
)
23 out, we have high expectations for Commoawealth Edison and this j i
24 is the fourth of their unit. While their pprformance IMl p been I -
25 good overall, it was not quite as good as Byron Unit 2.
l 1
l 1
\
i
- e
V t
,, i 55
[ 3 g, 1 Slide 20, platse.
3 . / I
< 2 (Slides j 3 , operational experience for the utility, strengths,
- l 4 overall Byron 1 and 2 and Braidwood 1 plan experience using the 5 task force from the Byron start up. There is'an ongoing review
- \ \ / .
?69 of all 'of the Byron DVRs and LERs, NRC inspection reports, j 7 notices of violations, alterations and caution cards. On i
,8 balance, this has been effective overall.
, The performance has
'9 not been quite as good as we would have expected for the fourth 1 4
- 10 ', unit of this type. jf ~
l )
11 Management control of Braiducod 1 and 2 activities
,- t l
, 22 ', has been a strength for the utiliti$c. In part, staffing is
, .s-i .3
? , c'ty/ mon to both units 1 and 2 and to the common portions of the ;
, , i i 14 plant. Unit 1 start up testing, power ascension was conducted t
15 well; the utilities have done well with managing concurrent 16 activities.
, 17 We recently conducted a SALP assessment for the 18 utility and ! will discuss that Srlefly momentarily. The
- 19 , ptilities discussed the movement of Mr. Querio from the Byron
- 20 Stltion to Braidwood. That transition has gone smooth and in j
i <
., i 21 orderlf f.bhion, i 22 Enforcement issues that are outstanding, --
I h
l 23 CHAIRMAN ZECH: I think you are on slide 22 r.ow; are l 9 24 you not?
'/ .
y' 25 MR. GREENMAN: I'm sorry. We can move to slide 22. !
h, t
56 1 (Slides.)
2 Enforcement issues that are outstanding, we recently
. 3 proposed a civil penalty related to the control room heating 4 and ventilation system issue on design and testing. There is a 5 current issue involving vital area barriers that is under 6 evaluation by the staff.
i 7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: What is that last one there?
J 8 MR. GREENMAN: That's the security issue, 9 Commissioner Bernthal, on the vital area.
I 10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Obviously. What happened?
11 MR. GREENMAN: This has to do with access through 12 what is known as the lake screen house, and where vital area 13 control could have been compromised. e 14 May I have slide 24, please?
15 (Slides.)
i 16 The last SALP assessment was conducted and presented 17 to the licensee on April 5th of this year. It covers the 18 interval from December 1, 1986 through December 31, 1987.
19 Basically, there were two declines in performance in both
- 2. 0 quality assurance programs and administrative controls and 21 assured quality, and in preoperational start up testing.
22 Our view is that with respect to quality programs --
23 and if I can move to the next portion of that slide -- this ,
24 decline was due predominantly to overall management of 25 operational activities when compared to very, very aggressive
57 ;
1 handling of construction activities that existed in the 2 previous SALP.
_ 3 The decline in preoperational testing area number "K" l 4 is, in large part, was related to an increase in the number of 5 violations that were identified in that particular trea. On
- 6 balance, it was a pretty good SALP. Number one category is 7 given in emergency preparedness and in training and 8 qualification effectiveness.
9 May I have slide 26, please?
10 (Slides.)
11 overall operational readiness assessment, fuel i
j 12 loading and initial criticality -- proceeded with initial 13 criticality on Unit 2 March 8th of this year. It was very
] 14 smooth and professional with no problems. We conducted an l 15 operational readiness team inspection beginning in the middle 16 of February of this year, went back for a second look for 17 outstanding issues, and exited on March 7. The . findings we 18 have discussed earlier, and Mr. Craig will be discussing those 2 19 later.
20 With respect to events, and if I could have the next 21 portion of the slido.
22 (Slides.)
1 23 The utility has referenced their dissatisfaction with l 24 a number of events at Braidwood. We have held meetings with j
25 the licensee last December and have found that there are too
9 58 1 many personnel errors. These are concentrated in the first 2 quarter of this year, actually up through May 1 of this year.
3 There have been, overall, 12 personnel errors concentrated in 4 the area of surveillance and in maintenance.
5 We have also had three events in the first quarter of 6 the year related to noise problems with radiation monitors and 7 sensitivity to noise systems. The utility is planning on 8 putting in acoustical dampers and filters to resolve this 9 issue.
10 Finally, with respect to this slide, as we have done 11 on Braidwood Unit 1, after a decision is made with respect to 12 full power licensing and the test program continues, the staff 13 will meet with the utility after the complete testing up to the 14 50 percent level to ascertain that there are no additional i
15 outstanding issucs which would require resolution before 16 proceeding further. That commitment is documented and was 17 documented by the.licdnsee on the 8th of March of this year.
18 If I could have back up to slide number one.
! 19 (Slides.]
20 Overall performance, and looking at NUREG 1275, and l 21 comparing Braidwood i data, they look pretty good. With )
22 respect to all PWRs and first unit PWRs on trips, they run 23 about one-third of the average, better than all first units on n l 24 ESF actuations. The one area that is a little bit high ;
25 relates to identified tech spec violations.
l l
59 1 While we can't definitively determine why that's a 2 little bit high, in part it is related to personnel errors,
_ 3 procedural problems and as you can equate that to technical 4 specifications.
5 May I have slide 27.
6 (Slides.)
7 In conclusion, in reviewing the program, the staff 2
8 has concluded that the utility satisfies the requirement for i 9 issuance of a full power license and, therefore, recommends 10 that the Commission authorize issuance of such a license after 11 the remainder of the staff deliberations. The Region, during 12 the remainder of the start up test program and in particularly i
t 13 the power escalation beyond 5 percent early phases, will
, 14 provide augmented inspection coverage to ensure that 15 operational performance continues and that it is in the right 16 direction.
17 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
18 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much. '
19 MR. SNIEZEK: At this time, I would like to turn it 20 over to Mr. John Craig, who will discuss briefly the technical ,
- i 21 issues that the staff has wrestled with in dete'rmining the j 22 BunkerRamopenetrakionqualifications.
23 CHAIRMAN ZECll: Thank you very mu'ch. You may I
\
1 24 proceed. l 1
- 25 MR. CRAIG
- Mr. Chairman and Commissioners. As noted I
s
60 .
1 by Mr. Reed, Commonwealth has spent a substantial effort 2 reviewing this issue as has the staff, our effort has included
- 3 not only NRC personnel but experts from Sandia and EG&G labs 4 who have conducted equipment qualification tests and are 5 experienced in looking at installations and data to determine 6 whether or not components are qualified.
]
l 7 The 5049 discusses and establishes high standards for 11 8 equipment qualification. I am about to explain why we don't i
j 9 think it is qualified. I would caution at the beginning that 10 we have concluded though, that the information presented by the 11 licensee support,s a conclusion that the penetration assemblies 12 will be operable during the interim until they can be replaced 13 or tested.
14 The test that is the subject of the controversy has 15 to do with the testing of a complete assembly. Ideally, you i
j 16 would test a module for an epoxy containment penetration that 17 would contain a number of wires, five, six, seven, 37. There 18 are connections inside the module and then there's a wire that i
, 19 goes to a splice such as a Raychem splice, or a terminal board.
a 20 This string of electrical components would be then in j 21 the LOCA chamber and subjected to the tests at temperatures, 22 pressures and spray conditions which are representative of the 23 EQ profile that you would expect to see in a particular 24 facility. So, there are a number of variables that are plant 25 specific.
_ _ . - . _ . . _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . _ , _ . _ . _ _ , . _ , , , _- _e _ . . . ._ _ . _ , - , , , _ . , , - .- -
h i
61 1 The tests that were reviewed during the inspection 2 for Braidwood 2 focused on a Bunker Ramo generic test. The 3 modules included in that test had the penetration assembly, but 4 also included a terminal board. Terminal boards have_ typically 5 not been accepted by the staff for harsh environment conditions 6 because they short the ground. They have been very difficult 7 to qualify, if not impossible. In general, they are !
8 unacceptable for that application. Instrument circuits are 9 very sensitive to leakage currents in the order of a few 10 milliamps can cause a significant inaccuracies in the readings.
11 The Bunker Ramo test that the staff reviewed had no 1
4 12 satisfactory or qualified modules for the test. The licensee t
13 reviewed the test data, since it had a configuration that was 14 not representative of the configuration at Braidwood 2.
15 Braidwood 2 has splices. They concluded that the cause of the i
16 bad readings in the Bunker Ramo generic test were the terminal '
17 boards. L 18 Therefore, the conclusion briefly, that their 19 installation is qualified. There was not, and has yet to be, a 20 strong conclusion that the cause of the failure was indeed the 21 terminal boards and not the Bunker Ramo modules.
, 22 The Midland tests that we have discussed, we have l
4 23 reviewed the Midland test data. There were two, I believe, 1 24 penetration assemblies tested in the Midland test. One module j 25 had a twisted pair-which is representative of the Braidwood 2 l
62 1 instrument circuit and a triax, so that the module had five 2 wires in it.
3 The test record shows that a reading was taken 52 4 hours4.62963e-5 days <br />0.00111 hours <br />6.613757e-6 weeks <br />1.522e-6 months <br /> into the test when an insulation resistance measurement 5 was taken. It's actually a leakage current that gets converted 6 into an insulation resistance. That reading was approximately 7 10 to the six ohms, which is a minimum value for qualification 8 for this application. It is well after a peak.
9 The standards in this area for testing equipment 10 specify that a series of measurements be taken to demonstrate 11 the electrical performance for characteristics of the assembly 12 during a LOCA profile. There have been a number of questions 13 as to how many readings are enough and those kind of things. A i
14 sufficient number of readings are necessary to demonstrate the i l
15 performance of an assembly as the temperatures increase, 16 preferably during a peak, and following a peak.
17 There were none taken in this instance until, 18 according to the test log, 52 hours6.018519e-4 days <br />0.0144 hours <br />8.597884e-5 weeks <br />1.9786e-5 months <br /> which is well after the 19 peak. Upon discussion of that aspect of it, there were 20 discussions with the engineers who performed the test 21 approximately eight or nine years earlier, test results were i
22 re[ viewed,andadeterminationwasmadebytheutilitythata 23 reading was taken approximately 16 hours1.851852e-4 days <br />0.00444 hours <br />2.645503e-5 weeks <br />6.088e-6 months <br /> into the test which 24 is, again, after the LOCA profile would be seen inside 25 containment.
l 63 1 Basically, there's this one reading. Whether it be 2 52 or 60 hours6.944444e-4 days <br />0.0167 hours <br />9.920635e-5 weeks <br />2.283e-5 months <br />, it's after the profile and it's minimally
- 3 acceptable.
I would point out that the one reading that showed 4 10 to the six was for the twisted pair and that the triax wires i
5 through the same module failed in that same reading. So that, :
6 to the staff's knowledge, there are no tests which have been i I
7 conducted which demonstrate that the Bunker Ramo containment 8 penetration assemblies, the Bunker Ramo modules the portion 9 are, in fact, properly qualified.
10 Based upon that and a number of sub-issues that the 11 staff has reviewed and discussed with the licensee such as 12 thermal lag analyses and how hot will the module get, what kind 13 of a temperature change will it see, will it be subjected to 14 '
1 moisture, direct sprays, et cetera, we concluded as have the 1
15 experts in the field that have looked at it, that it has not 16 been demonstrated to be qualified.
17 We have however concluded, as I noted earlier and as i 18 discussed by Mr.. Sands a few minutes ago, determined that it is i
19 likely to be operable. And in part the arguments as to '
20 specific components, the splice and the cable which will see j 21 more of the harsh environment in this particular application, 22 have been qualified by separate tests. There, qualification is 23 not at issue.
2; Are there any questions about this? ,
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Could you talk about alternatives for l
i i'
- 64 ,
l
- 1 just a moment? Say it failst say it does not work. I 2 understand that there are alternative instrumentation that can l _ 3 be used; is that correct? ,
4 MR. CRAIG: Yes, sir, it is. Are there any 5 questions? I will get to the JCO in just a second. Are there 6 any other questions about either the Bunker Ramo test or the 7 Midland test data?
8 CHAIRMAN ZECH: I really don't want to prolong the 9 detail. I thought that Midland test was 16 to 20 odd hours and 10 nothing nefore that. You have talked about 50 hours5.787037e-4 days <br />0.0139 hours <br />8.267196e-5 weeks <br />1.9025e-5 months <br />.
11 MR. CRAIG: The test record that is part of the file 12 says at 52 hours6.018519e-4 days <br />0.0144 hours <br />8.597884e-5 weeks <br />1.9786e-5 months <br /> the circuit that is representative of the l
- 13 Braidwood 2, was tested for leakage current. The staff 14 questioned that. The utility had discussa.ons with the people 15 that conducted the test, reviewed temperature logs and made a i
16 determination that a reading was taken at approximately 15 to 17 20 hours2.314815e-4 days <br />0.00556 hours <br />3.306878e-5 weeks <br />7.61e-6 months <br />.
4 18 There has been discussion as to additional data that f 19 may be there. The utility is attempting to get that data. If 20 they do, we will look at it. ,
j 21 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Let's go on.
22 COHMISSIONER ROBERTS: Let me ask a question. As I l
23 understand it, they have twisted pairs only in these 1
24 penetrations?
?
25 MR. CRAIG: In the penetrations at Braidwood 2. -
f
- - . - - - - + , y-~re - - - - . - , , -- - ,.--. -- -- - - * * - - . ---
S----
o 4
65 1 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Yes.
l MR. CRAIG:
] 2 That's my understanding.
- 3 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: The twisted pairs did meet 4 what you called a minimally acceptable resistance reading to 5 make the sure the LOCA had passed in the tent and that is 1
6 documented?
J 7 MR. CRAIG: Yes, sir.
8 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: So, we are at the point where 9 we don't know that that's a failure. We just don't have 10 documentation that proves it?
11 MR. CRAIG: Yes, sir.
12 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: So, it's a documentation 13 rather than failed penetration that we are talking about? !
i 14 MR. CRAIG: Yes, sir.
- 15 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS
- Okay.
1 i 16 CHAIRMAN ZECH: You may proceed. )
17 MR. CRAIG: Because the staff made the determination 18 that the penetrations are not qualified in accordance with the 19 generic letter, the licensee prepared a justification for 20 continued operation. Generic letter 87 which contains the l 21 revised EQ enforcement policy also discussed justification for 22 continued operation.
! 23 One of the aspects of the JCO is alternative j 24 information circuits that might be.available. We have had 25 extensive discussions and some meetings with the licensee to I
l
e 66 1 identify other instrumentation that would be available to bring 2 the plant to safe shutdown conditions.
3 We are satisfied that there is sufficient 4 instrumentation available and indeed, as indicated by Mr. Reed, 5 they perform tests on their simulator to demonstrate that only 6 using the alternative instrumentation that their operators 7 could cope with a number of different scenarios and bring the 8 plant to a safe shutdown.
9 MR. STELLO: Mr. Chairman, unless there are more 10 questions, that concludes our --
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Let me see if my fellow 12 Commissioner's have any further questions.
13 (No response.)
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH: That completes your briefing, is that 15 what you are saying?
16 MR. STELLO: Yes. l 17 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Roberts?
18 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: No.
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Bernthal? -
20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAI I think we have covered i 21 everything that I have, Hr. Chairman.
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Carr?
l 23 COMMISSIONER CARR: Did I miss the generic part of i
24 the problem that either qualify this penetration for those 25 other plants or is somebody going to retest the penetration? l i
l i
67 1 That looks like the quickest and easiest thing to do.
2 MR. SNIEZEK: John, why don't you address that.
3 MR. CRAIG: It is our understanding that as Mr. Reed 4 indicated earlier, that tests will be performed absent the 5 ability to qualify penetration assemblies. I agree clearly, 6 testing would be the most conclusive method to achieve 7 resolution of the issue.
8 We have issued letters to each of the licensee's that 9 we believe have Bunker Ramo penetrations in their plants, and 10 discuss the fact that the Braidwood 2 qualification 11 documentation was determined not to demonstrate qualification.
12 Those utilities are in the process of, or have already, 13 compiled justifications for continued operation.
14 So, they are aware of the problem and they are aware 15 of the potential for their facilities.
16 COMMISSIONER CARR: All of these facilities hang on 17 the same test from the manufacturer?
18 MR. CRAIG: Some of the facilities rely on either l
19 this test or similar tests. At least one utility had an 20 assembly without a terminal board and they took lots of 21 readings during the test with numerous failures. They 22 determined that the cause of their failure was non-qualified 23 tape for the connection. They replaced the tape but they 24 haven't retested the assembly.
l 25 We are not convinced that those assemblies are
t 6 68 i i 1 qualified, absent an additional test or other tests to 2 demonstrate that that configuration'is, in fact, qualified.
. 3 COMMISSIONER CARR: Are the other 12 twisted pairs or 4 do they have all kinds of cables in them? l i
5 MR. CRAIG: It's a combination of instrumentation, 6 control, and there could be power but I am not certain.
t 7 COMMISSIONER CARR: It's a site-specific problem 8 theu?
9 MR. CRAIG: It is very plant specific. One facility 10 of which we are aware, we have had discussions with the plant 11 and they have determined that there may be a couple of l 12 exceptions in any instrument circuits involved. So they are 13 not going to as sensitive to leakage currents or low IR values 14 as a function.
4 15 MR. SNIEZEK: Commissioner Carr, we are in the 16 process of gathering that type of information now. We have i i,
17 done a phone survey of all of the plants and there's up to i 18 approximately 12 units that could be affected. We have to work i 19 out the details with all of them.
I 20 COMMISSIONER CARR: Okay.
I 21 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Rogers?
22 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No additional questions.
23 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Let me first of all, thank the 24 Commonwealth Edison Company for their fine presentation this 25 morning and for their continued leadership in this field, and
__ _ _ . _ _ _ _ ~ . _ - - _ _ _ _ _ . , , _ _ _ _ _ -
[
69 .
1 their commitment to excellence. Let me thank the staff for a l 2 fine presentation and your commitment to follow through on this i
3 electrical penetration problem, not only at Braidwood but at ;
4 other plants that may have the same problem. ,
i 5 To summarize this morning's meeting, it is my l i
6 urderstanding that the staff has concluded that Commonwealth 1
7 Edison and Braidwood Unit 2 satisfy the requirements for 8 issuance of a full power license from what we have been told i 9 this morning; is that correct, Mr. Stello?
I
- 10 MR. STELLO
- That is correct, Mr. Chairman, and J
11 except for some administrative details if the Commission allows 12 the staff to have that authority, we may be ready as soon as
~
13 this afternoon to move forward and authorize full power.
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All,right, fine. Unless there are
(
15 any additional questions or comments from my fellow -
16 Commissioner's I would ask them if they are prepared to vote?
1 17 (A chorus of ayes.)
- 18 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Those in favor of authorizing the 19 staff, after making the appropriate findings and the 1
20 administrative matters looked into that Mr. Stello has just 21 alluded to, those in favor to grant Commonwealth .dison Conpany 22 a full power operating license for Braidwood Unit 2, please i
23 signify by saying aye.
24 (A chorus of ayes.)
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Those opposed?
n_______-
r
. i b
2 70 1 (No response.)
- 2 CHAIRMAN ZECH
- I hear none. The vote is five to -
i
- 3 zero to authorize the staff, when ready, to proceed with full i l 4 power for Braidwood Unit 2.
I 5 I congratulate again, Commonwealth Edison on the last i
6 of their 12 units that have been authorized for full power. We i,
7 expect you to continue the leadership you have shown and j i
8 continue to show the country, Mr. O'Connor, how to do it, and ;
9 to continue your improvement and commitment to excellence.
10 With that, we stand adjourned.
I 11 (Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the meeting adjourned.)
i
- 12
\ l 1
] 13 9
14 15
! 16 4
17 !
1 !
18 ,
19 r t
I 20 4
i
),
21 r
?
a
. 22
. 23 !
r j 24 i t
25 - !
i i i l i t r
I
- . .- . .~ . -. . _- - -- .. . .-
f l o ;
l i i L
4 j CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIBER -
t This is to certify that the attached events l' 4
- of a meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ;
i entitled i l
! DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE VOTE ON FULL-POWER TITLE OF MEETING: OPERATING LICENSE FOR BRAIDWOOD-2 [
l PLACE OF MEETING: Washington, D.C. i DATE OF MEETING: FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1988 1 i . I
! were transcribed by me. I further certify that said I
l j ,
transcription is accurate and complete, to the best ,
. of my ability, and that the transcript is a true and I i '
i j accurate record of the foregoing events.
]
1 I
i i
i i J
5 l
l {
t A
1
)
l l Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd. I
]
i I . !
l 4
i I
4 l
t' -- - . .
.--------,.=-,-,w . e oe-n w.- - - . ,a -r--m- .w.-,s,g,...ne,- +g,eg. ,,n,_,-,- g..__,___n ,.,y.gg.m,,,,_7,n.,n.,-,y- __ ..,,- , ,
^~ -
r '
1
[
[
i SCHEDULING NOTES i
i TITLE: DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE VOTE ON FULL POWER OPERATING LICEllSE FOR BRAIDWOOD-2 l
l SCHEDULED: 10:00 A.M., FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1988 (OPEN) 1 !
! DURATION: APPROX l-1/2 HRS ,
1 !
PARTICIPANTS: COMMONWEALTH EDISON COMPANY (l!CENSEE) f40 M!liS l
j - JAMES J. O' CONNER, CHAIRMAN i
- CORDELL REED, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT l
- ROBERT OVER10, STATION MANAGER ;
f i
NRC , 20 Mitic i
- JAMES H. SNIEZEK, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NRR
- DANIEL R. MULLER, PROJECT DIRECTOR, . I PROJECT DIRECTORATE 111-2 ;
l j - STEPHEN P. SANDS, PROJECT MANAGER, I
! PROJECT DIRECTORATE 111-2 !
- EDWARD G. GREENMAfi, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, !
l Divis1CN OF REACTOR PROJECTS, REG 10li Ill l
t I
f a J
n
COMMISSION BRIEFif1G ON THE FULL POWER LICENSING OF BRAIDWOOD STAT 10fi, UNIT 2 MAY 20, 1988 e
- t I
i ,
i !
i .
i i
1 i PRESENTATION OUTLINE BACKGROUND PLANT DESIGN ORGANIZATION AND STAFFING i HEARING / LICENSING MILESTONES i
! ISSUES / STATUS J
CONSTRUCTION HISTORY ;
PREOPERATIONAL/STARTUP HISTORY :
i
- OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE OPERATIONAL READINESS ASSESSMENT i CONCLUSION !
i !
I .
4 i b '
i i l 1 I i
i '
l l
1 l,
l 1
i SLIOE 1 f
BACKGROUND OWNER AND OPERATOR COMMONWEALTH EDISON COMPANY EXPERIENCE OWN AND OPERATE -
FIVE OTHER NUCLEAR STAT 10NS DUPLICATE PLANT CONCEPT WITH BYRON 1/2 1
l i
SLIDE 2 l
[ BACKGROUND CONTINUED)
SITING
' LOCATION:
NORTHEASTERN ILLINDIS 60 MILES S.W. OF CHICAGO POPULATION [1980):
NEAREST TOWN:
BRAIDWOOD, IL (1 MI.) - 3,429 NEAREST POPULATION CENTER:
J0LIET, IL (20 M1.) - 77,956 r
SLIDE 3
i i !
i
- i i
4 ,
i I 4 ;
- t i l l
l 4
(BACKGROUND CONTINUED) -
4
! EMERGENCY PLANNING ONSITE AND OF: SITE .
- LICENSING REQJIREMENTS COMPLETED '
j
?ULL PARTICIPATION EMERGENCY EXERCISE -
- COMPLETED - NOVEMBER 6, 1985 4
' ANNUAL EMERGENCY EXERCISE - (PARTIAL) !
COMPLETED - MARCH 18, 1987 l
l
! l 3
i i
i :
}
)
]
l t
i SLIDE 4 1
1
. - . _ . .=. .- - - - _ . . - . . .
ll [
i !
- i. ;
- i v
-. \
4 l
- t l PLANT DESIGN i
) ' GENERAL
-WEST NGHOUSE PWR (4 LOOP RCS) l'
-ARCH TECT/ ENGINEER: SARGENT AND LUNDY 3 -GEN. CONTRACTOR: COMMONWEALTH EDISON :
'NSSS CHARACTERISTICS i
-RATED POWER: 3411 MWT, 1120 MWE l t
' CONTAINMENT CHARACTERIS ICS ,
-STEEL-LINED REINFORCE CONCRETE
~
-FREE VOLUME: 2,700,0 0 CU. FT.
i r I
a :
I i l
?)'
l b ;
I 1 !
- i I
suot5 j
. l i
- . = . ..- .. . - -. - .. - - - .- --
i
- I l .
1 ;
! i 1 I i
l 1
t I <
j IPLANT DESIGN CONTINUED 1
)-
DUPLICATE PLANT DESIGN (BYRON /BRAIDWOOD)
! r DUPLICATE DESIGN FEATURES:
-NUCLEAR STEAM SUPPLY SYSTEMS t
-BALANCE OF PLANT SYSTEMS ,
-ASSOCIATED AUXILIARY SYSTEMS .
4 SITE-SPECIFIC FEATURES:
]
-SITE-RELATED CHARACTERISTICS ,
-CHANGES FROM BYRON STATION DESIGN :
-UTILITY ORIENTED SAFETY-RELATED MATTERS ;
a l
i a
I i
l SLIDE 6 l
O HEARING / LICENSING MrLESTONES OL EVIDENTIARY HEARING COMMENCED 10/29/85 COMPLETED 10/26/86 RECORD CLOSED 12/17/86 INITIAL DECISION ON EP 5/13/87 INITIAL DECISION ON HARASSMENT AND GiHER DISCRIMINATION 5/19/87 i
l l
I
\
SLIDE 7
. . - _ - . _ . _ -. . = _ . . .- _ _ _ _ _ _ . - -
4 i
I l I i t i
i 1
i I
JHEARING/ LICENSING MILESTONES CONTINUED) i i
i
- NOT"C 0F APP:AL BY INTERVENORS i
- OF "H ASLB DICISION CONC RNING HARASMENTANDDISCRIMINA{il0N 6/01/87 ;
1 i
1
- ASLAP HEARING OF 'NTERVENOR
- 1 d
APPEAL OF THE DEC SiON CONC RNING i HARASSMENT AND DISCRIMINATI N; ;
i APPEAL BOARD AFFIRMED THE i l LICENS!NG BOARD'S DECISION. 3/25/88 :
- I l
j <
i t l [
i !
i i i !
1 1
I 1
g i SUDE B !
l, I
o l
i i
- J r
s
\ ;. \ t
[ HEARING / LICENSING MILESTONES CONTINUED) ,\ i S I
)
9 LICENSING s
CONSTRUCTION PERMIT 12/31/75 CONSTRUCTION DELAY 9/79 - 3/80 -
LOW POWER LICENSE L' 12/
FUEL LOADING T i 12/218/87 1/87 INITIAL CRITICALITY 3/38/88
<-.3 h
l, > ;
l '\.i
)5 i
[p
\. '
, SL10E 9 I
(
t _c _ _ . . - .
o '
}
0t I
ISSUES / STATUS -
LICENSE EXEMPTIONS CRITICALITY ALARM SYSTEM (10 CFR 70.24)
THIS EXEMPTION CONTINUES THE EXEMPTION PREVIOUSLY GRANTED PURSUANT TO 10 CFR 70.24, '
CONTAINMENT AIR LOCK TESTING 10 CFR 50
/ , APPENDIX J l 1
/
4 t 4
=
\
\
i '
'l/ l io .,s
' l
( 1 SLIDE 10
e
[ ISSUES / STATUS CONTINUED)
EQUIPMENT QUALIFICATION (EQ) i
[10 CFR 50.49(F) AND 50,49(J)
SCHEDULAR EXEMPTION FOR FOUR BUNKER RAMO CONTAINMENT '
PENETRATION ASSEMBLIES i
f a
8 9 4
1 SLIDE 11 j
SCHEDULAR EXEMPTION REQUEST CHRUNULUGY DURING AN EO INSPECTION AND AUDIT CONDUCTED IN FEBRUARY - MARCH 1988 FOUR BUNKER RAM 0 CONTAINMENT PENETRATION ASSEMBLIES HAD NOT ADEQUATELY DEMONSTRATED ENVIRONMENTAL QUALIFICATION.
MEETINGS WERE CONDUCTED ON MARCH 9 AND MARCH 16, 1988, TO EVALUATE THE QUALIFICATION DOCUMENTATION.
4 e
4 SLIOE 12
.- , - - - - - ,e , --- - . , -- _ , - ,y, , - - , , - - - , w - - - , - , .- -.-
S (CHRONOLOGY CONTINUED)
IN EARLY APRIL, THE STAFF CONCLUDED THAT ALTHOUGH THE EXISTING TEST INFORMATION WAS NOT SUFFICIENT TO DEMONSTRATE QUALIFICATION UNDER 10 CFR 50,49(F), THE PENETRATIONS WOULD LIKELY BE OPERABLE.
ON APRIL 7, 1988, Ceco REQUESTED A SCHEDULAR EXEMPTION TO 10 CFR 50,49 AND PRESENTED A JUSTIFICATION FOR CONTINUED OPERATION.
l SLIDE 13
4 4'
4 m
STAFF BASES FOR RECOMMENDING EXEMPTION
_ TESTS OF PENETRATION ASSEMBLY COMPONENTS
- INDEPENDENT INTEGRATED TEST OF A BUNKER RAMO PENETRATION
_ LOW PROBABILITY EVENT
- AUTOMATIC FUNCTIONS IN THE REACTOR PROTECTION AND ESF SYSTEMS WOULD BE ACTIVATED BY ALTERNATIVE SIGNALS 4
e SLIDE 14 l
l I
[ STAFF BASES CONTINUED 1 IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT OF AN ACCIDENT, ALTERNATE INSTRUMENTATION AND UNAMBIGUOUS EMERGENCY OPERATING PROCEDURES WOULD BE AVAILABLE
_ THIS ACTIVITY HAS BEEN VERIFIED THROUGH EXERCISES WITH PLANT OPERATORS USING THE PLANT SIMULATOR 4
l 9
SLIDE 15
, .. . - , - . . , - , , . -, 4 ..--~ .... .... -. . -- -, . ~ ~ .. . . , ,- , . y %- -
-n. - , . , --
t ORGANIZATION / STAFFING ORGANIZATION TOTAL STATION MANPOWER: 1244 o EDISON MANAGEMENT - 308 o BARGAINING UNIT EMPLOYEES - 382 o CONTRACTED SECURITY - 313 o CONTRACTED CONSULTANTS - 241 STAFFING
- SHIFT ROTATION: 8 HR. SHIFTS, 6 CREWS
't d
e SLIDE 16
., _- - - , , - -.,-, - ,. - , - - ..,,--.--7e,
. - .-- ,, _ - , - - - - - , - - , - - - - . . . ....1. __,,.m ,_.,-v-err, =e----v,-----,e-e--
ISTAFFING CONTINUED)
- SHIFT COMPOSITION:
T/S RE0'D ACTUAL (BOTH UNITS) DAY NIGHT SHIFT ENGINEER (SRD) 1 2 1 SHIFT FOREMAN (SRO) 1 4 2
- EQUIVALENT TO A SHIFT TECHNICAL ADVISOR (STA) AT OTHER FACILITIES, -
SRO QUALIFIED AND HAS AN ENGINEERING DEGREE o
SLIDE 17
CONSTRUCTION HISTORY SIGNIFICANT CONSTRUCTION DEFICIENCIES 1982 - INSTALLATION AND INSPECTION OF MECHANICAL EQUIPMENT
. 1983 - MATERIAL TRACEABILITY, HVAC WELDING, SMALL BORE PIPING MAJOR INSPECTIONS CONSTRUCTION APPRAISAL TEAM (CAT)
NONDESTRUCTIVE EXAM. (NDE) VAN INDEPENDENT DESIGN REVIEW BRAIDWOOD CONSTRUCTION ASSESSMENT PROGRAM (BCAP)
ALLEGATIONS i
l l
SLIDE 18
. _ _. _ _ . _=-. . ._ . _ . __. - . . _ . . . -. _ _ . . _ . _ _ _ __ _.
)
I i
t i
a i
s d
PREOPERATIONAL/STARTUP TESTING ,
EXPERIENCE 0 STARTUP ORGANIZATION TESTING CONDUCTED ON SCHEDULE l) PREOPERATIONAL TESTING RESULTS i
0 1
f I
.i .
1 a
4 i
4 1
- 2
- SLIDE 19 1
4 T,e-ry-,,,,.-,-y.----wwt,-y,y ------w..-, .we.m. w w ,, en ,c, we wn m, .e ,w-w.,,.eeww_ _ wwwery = s-
1 1
BRAIDWOOD OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE LESSONS LEARNED
- BYRON 1 & 2, BRAIDWOOD 1 PLANT EXPERIENCE
- TASK FORCE FROM BYRON START'o
- ONGOING REVIEW OF BYRON'S DVRs, LERs, INSPEC'iiON REPORTS, NOVs, TEMPORARY ALTERATIONS, CAUTION CARDS l
)
SLIDE 20 l
l
J i BRAIDWOOD OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE (cont)
MANAGEMENT CONTROL OF BRAIDWOOD 1 & 2
- STAFFING COMMON TO BOTH UNITS
- UNIT 1 STARTUP TESTING AND POWER ASCENSION CONCURRENT WITH UNIT 2 PREOP. TESTING AND FUEL LOAD ACTIVITIES MANAGED WELL, PROBLEMS AVOIDED SLIDE 21 1
)
i e
s
- - - - _ _ - - - - - - , . u -- - --- -,--- - --, - - - - -- ------------S -- -- -- - - --,
BRAIDWOOD OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE (cont)
SYSTEMATIC ASSESSMENT OF LICENSEE PERFORMANCE NEW STATION MANAGER ON SITE 3/7/88 ENFORCEMENT ISSUES CONTROL ROOM VENTILATION DESIGN AND TESTING LAKE SCREEN HOUSE VITAL AREA BARRIER BREACH L
8 SL'IDE 22 1
,,,,,r--- 4,e-, ,m ,,,, ,, ,_ ,, .,.n -,n,,,, _.an,=,y, - , . , . , ., , m.,,, ,r- - - - , . , , , , , - , , - , - -,r w a e. ,nn-.,e f.-,~,.e , ,w.,-e.,me-,-
o r
i BRAIDWOOD SALP 7 RATINGS FUNCTIONAL AREA RATING.
A. OPERATIONS 2 B. RADIOLOGICAL CONTROLS 2 C. MAINTENANCE l
2 :
D. SURVEILLANCE 2 E. FIRE PROTECTION 2 F. EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS 1 1 G. SECURITY 2 l
9 4
SLIDE 23 1
l
O BRAIDWOOD SALP 7 RATINGS (continued)
FUNCTIONAL AREA RATING H. QUALITY PROGRAMS AND 2 ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROLS AFFECTING QUALITY I. LICENSING ACTIVITIES 2 J. TRAINING AND QUALIFICATION 1 EFFECTIVENESS K. PREOPERATIONAL TESTING 2 L. CONSTRUC'. ION 2 M. ENGINEERING / TECHNICAL , 2 SUPPORT i l
1 r
SLIDE 24 4
0
. _ _ '_ _____ .-. ,--. - v"--- --~~-- -~* ' " ' ' ' ' ' ' ~ ' ' ' ' ~
.o OPERATIONAL READINESS ASSESSMENT FUEL LOADING AND INITIAL CRITICALITY OPERATIONAL READINESS TEAM INSPECTION ENVIRONMENTAL QUALIFICATION FINDINGS l
l ;
- SLIDE 25 a
.o OPERATIONAL READINESS ASSESSMENT (cont)
EVENTS MANY PERSONNEL ERRORS DURING ,
MAINTENANCE, SURVEILLANCE SPURIOUS RADIATION MONITOR ACTUATIONS r NRC REVIEW PLANNED AFTER 50% TEST PLATEAU l
l i
l SLIDE 26 e
4
. . . . _ - _ - . . - . - - - .. - _,. - -. ..-. -_...- _._,._ - _- , --.....- .-_-. ,_. - .a
,, 1 i
l i
(
l l
CONCLUSION THE STAFF CONCLUDES THAT THE LICENSEE SATISFIES ALL REQUIREMENTS FOR ISSUANCE OF A FULL POWER LICENSE FOR BRAIDWOOD STATION, UNIT 2, & THEREFORE RECOMMENDS ;
THAT THE COMMISSION AUTHORIZE ISSUANCE l OF A FULL POWER LICENSE.
I
- i SLIOE 27 j
TfM WWNWNWWWd%%Wd%%%%dW64%WrygtWW6dffggyggg g ggggt g ig i TPAHSMITTAL TO: Document Control Desk, 016 Phillips l 9
j ADVANCE 0 COPY TO: The Public Document R cm
! DATE: M/8e FROM: SECY Correspondence & Records Branch
[
h 5!
3, Attached are copies of a Comission meeting transcript and related meeting document (s). They are being forwarded for entry on the Daily Accession List and d ll #
j' placement in the Public Document Room. No other distribution is requested or gi M
! required.
Meeting
Title:
G L /[ W T ofL e,v M/u'U [u w e hA m L c Y 1-~w >b1 &AiJmL 2 ,
t Meeting Date: S/J o /f Open >C Closed Item Description *: Copies '
Advanced DCS ', 8 3 ~
)
to POR Copy
- 1. TRANSCRIPT 1 1 b_Iv / b b L cb tbLl w A u d l w
. u Y ALA Ll Mit LpGt l
./
2.
3.
- s::' g '
- 4. $
k il s.
1 6.
- POR is advanced one copy of each document, two of each SECY paper. 5 i C&R Branch files the original transcript, with attachments, without SECY g papers, g 2
h f/0WIMFiMMMMEByMMByMymymyMMMyMwymyMymymiswyd#yhymymww$
. . .