ML20195C077
| ML20195C077 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 10/19/1988 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8811020337 | |
| Download: ML20195C077 (51) | |
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'U.NITED STATES OF AMERICA
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i
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Title:
COMMISSION sRIEFING ON CASK DESIGNS FOR SHIPPING AND STORING 0F NUCLEAR MATERIALS i
Location:
ONE WHITE FLINT NORTH, ROCKVILLE MARYLAND 1
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Date:
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1988 1
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Pages:
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Ann Riley & Associates a
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Court Reporters j
1625 I btreet, N.W., Suite 921 Washington, D.C. 20000 t
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DISCLAIMER This',is 'an unof ficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held 10-19-88 in the Commission's office at One on White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland.
The meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
T!.s transcript has not been rev'tewed, 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
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not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript
' do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or addressed to, any i
l statement or argument contained herein, except as the h
Con; mission may authorize.
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULANRY COMMISSION 3
4 COMMISSION BRIEFING ON CASK DESIGNS FOR SHIPPING 5
AND STORING OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS 6
7 (PUBLIC MEETING) 8 9
Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 One White Flint North 11 Rockville, Maryland 12 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1988 13 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 14 p.m.,
the Honorable LANDO W. ZECH, Chairman of the Commission, 15 presiding.
16 17 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
18 LANDO W.
- ZECH, Chairman of the Commission 19 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Member of the Commission 20 KENNETH ROGERS, Member of the Commission 21 22 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
23 S. Chilk W.
Parler j
24 V. Stallo B.
Bernero 25 C. MacDonald L. Rouse e
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PROCEEDINGS 2
CHAIRMAN ZlCH:
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
3 Commissioner Carr wft1 not be present with us this afternoon, 4
he is on o,fficini travel.
The purpose of the briefing this 5
afternoon is to discuss issues related to cask designs for 6
shipping and storing nuclear materials.
This is an information 7
briefing which was requested by the Commissioners during the I
8 August 10, 1988 Commission meeting on the status of nuclear r
9 materials transportation.
10 As many of you know, under the Nuclear Wasi:e Policy 11 Act, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is responsib.16 for 12 reviewing and certifying DOE cask designs for shipping and 13 storing nuclear materials.
Today's briefing will cover an 14 overview ct the Nh0's program for the review of caska, i
i 15 specifically the status of applications received and those 16 expected.
i 17 At the August meeting, Commissioner Carr suggested i
18 that we seize the opportunity to standardize storage cask 19 designs and certification.
The staff was requested to discuss i
20 these issues related to standardization.
21 The Commission also asked to hear about any potential 22 problems which can be foreaeen in this arec, specifically 23 regarding resources to review the different cask designs.
Tho 24 Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safoquards will brief i
25 the Commission today on this subject.
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Do any of my fellow Commissione,rs have any opening
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2 comments to make before/we begin?
3
. (No response.]
4 If not, Mr. Stello, you may proceed.
MR. STELLO:
Mr. Chairman, we'll turn very quickly to 6
Mr. Bernero to get on with the briefing.
Your summary of why 7
we are here is very accurate, including the comment of trying 8
to seize on the opportunity to deal with standardization to the 9
extent we n.
F; ' ave taken that charge very seriously and 10 are going to L,.'.ude in our briefing the problems that one has 11 in trying to decide today, because of various constraints on
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12 the system, a standardi'4ed approach to'using cask designs.
And 13 unfortunately, it does not appear that that is a very 14 seaningful way to go.
We will end our briefing with,.what 15 proposed future actions we would suggest we take with respect j
16 to this issue.
17 We will identify through the briefing some natural B
18 forces that are in place within the utility industry which I 19 think will produce the end results the Commission is looking 20 fort that is, coming down on several designs.
But there really 21 is a need for a number of thom, for different reasons, and Mr.
22 Bernero will be explaining that during the briefing.
23 Wit.: that, Bob, let me ask you to begin.
24 MR. BERNERO:
Thank you, Vic.
Good afternoon, 25 gentlemen.
Here for the briefing today -- I will give the I
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1 presentation, but on my right is Leland Rouse, Chief of our
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2 Licensing Branch for the dry storage or field storage at the 3
casks; and on Vic Stallo's left is Charles MacDonald who is
-4 Chief o? the Transportation Branch which nandles the 5
certification of packages for the shippihg of the spent fuel.
6 So that we have the expertise here at the table to respond to 7
any questions you might have of a specific nature.
8 May I have the System slide, pleese.
9 (Slide.]
10 What we're talking about here is a System, and we're 11 going to be talking a little bit about system engineering in 12 the broad sense, in the sense without the "s" on the end where 13 we're not talking about electrical systems or fluid systems.
14 We basically have here a system for the handling, the storage, 15 the shippirq and ultimately the disposal of spent reactor fuel.
16 Now, as you will see a little later on, most of the 17 fuel will follow this path:
from the reactor into the spent L
18 fuel pool for some rather lengthy period of storage, and I
19 ultimately to the repository or the MRS.
I do not separate the 20 repository or MRS.
As you recall, the 1987 Amendment to the 21 Nuclear Waste Policy Act made the MRS so constrained to the 23 schedule of the repository that it might be one and the same.
23 The FRS might merely be the head end of the repository.
So at j
24 this time I will repeatedly refer to the repository or MRS as 25 if it were a single entity.
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Later I will show you'that most of the spent fuel 2
goes to that path.
Some of it separates out and goes into 3
temporary storage for those reactors of earlier vintage which 4
don't have as much temporary storage in their pools, as much 5
space even with the re-racking and other means of compaction, 6
and the result is that they need additional storage capacity --
7 and later on I'll show roughly how much that is.
'8 This syitem has no system manager.
The Department of 9
Ener?y has the jurisdiction by law now for the repository and r
10 MRS and the transportation of the spent fuel to the repository 11 or MRS.
Each utility, where it might be the owner of a single P
12 plant or nomeone like Duke Power that has three nuclear 13 stations, seven reactors,*each utility is the manager of its 14 own system.
And this is a crucial point to understapd because 15 their focus is different as to the system, the base of 16 optimization that they look at and the time scale.
The 17 utilities are looking at their intsrnal system, as they must; i
18 they are looking at the short-range time scale to a very great 19 degree because Duke Power at Oconee in their application points 20 out to us that in just over a year if they don't have 21 additional storage at that site, they will not have full core 22 off-load capability; they will begin to encroach on their 23 operational margin.
24 In a similar way, DOE, with its responsibilities, is 25 looking at a different system.
They have the repository, they
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have decades of responsibility, and they have the 2
responsibility to take possession of the thousands of spent
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3 fuel assemblies that are being generated by these reactors for 4
disposal.
5 So the result is if you look, we don't.have a single 6
system manager but oddly enough, NRC has a regulatory 7
jurisdiction over this whole system.
8 For today's briefing what I'm going to do is talk 9
about the fuel so that you can have a more specific 10 understanding of the variations in fuel, and I will throw in a 11 few words here and there ab pp rarlations in plant parameters 12 that affect handling the fuel.
I will then talk about the 13 transport of fuel.
This is where we are simply trying l$ move 14 the fuel from one site to another in a Type B cask, 4 transport 15 certified cask.
I will then talk about the separate dry 16 storage of fuel and the applications associated with it.
Then 17 I hope to give you some ideas on final disposal considerations h
18 that affect our thinking when we look at the temporary storage 19 or the transportation of the fuel, and the possibilities of 20 perhaps getting it into a final form earlier in the game.
21 May I have the next slide, please.
22 (Slide.)
23 In the projections of spent fuel it is now customary 24 and appropriate that everyone uses the DOE numbers.
The 25 central responsibility for analyzing the spent fuel generation n
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1 and accumulation condition' rests with DOE, and we base all of 2
our estimates on their figures and here on this slide, I am 3
giving you the estimated storage requirements in the year 2003.
4 That's the nominal schedule for the first repository to go into 5
operation; this would be the Yucca Mountain year of opening.
6 Geared to that schedule -- if you look, the total 7
fuel in storage is 54,000 metric tons of heavy. metal.
But of 8
that 54,000, fully 80 percent of it, 43,000, is expected to be 9
stored in the pools, only 20 percent, 11,000 metric tons, is lo expected to be in temporary storage or dry storage as we are 11 calling it now.
These casks or bunkers or modules that are 12 going to be in the yard.
13
,It's a very important,noint.
Not only is it lN1y 14 about 20 percent, the rate of generation of spent fuel in that 15 year, 2,300 metric tons per year, means that if the repository 16 schedule slips somewhat the picture won't ahange overnight.
17 There won't be an abrupt shift to a 20/80.
I? would take years t
18 before the amount in temporary storage would approach or later 19 exceed the amount in cool storage.
So keep this in mind, that 20 in the system we are dealing predominantly in spent fuel with 21 fuel in the pool, and only a fifth or no in the temporary 22 storage.
23 May I have the next slide, please.
24 (Slide.)
25 Let's look at some typical spent fuel, or new fuel c
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1 for that matter.
This is what it looks like when it ooes in 2
the reactor.
The fi,rst assembly, you have a photocopy of it in 3
your handout, this is a Westinghouse 17 by 17 fuel assembly, 4
and this unit here, if you look at it, it's 17 fuel rods or 5
fuel pins wide and the same square, giving you over 200 fuel 6
pins.
Now, this device up at the top here is actually a 7
cluster of control rods, and that cluster of control rods is 8
moved an a gang, as a group, and they occupy fuel' pin spaces.
9 And this is PWR fuel, Westinghouse reactor fuel.
10 If you look at the similar or competitive fuel by 11 other PWR vendors, by Combustion Engineering or by Babcock and 12 Wilcox or other vendors, the hardware differs somewhat but the 13 characteristics are basically the same.
You have the control 14 rods entering it as a group from the top, and this i,s what 15 comes out of the reactor at the end of, let's say, three 16 cycles.
Typically in a PWR there are three fuel cycles before 17 the fuel is taken out as removed.
t 18 If I could have the next slide, pleasc.
i 19 (Slide.)
l 20 This is a representative boiling water reactor fuel 21 assembly.
This one here is a BWR 6, that's the latest model 22 BWR, and it's an 8 by 8.
Boiling water reactor fuel assemblies 23 are generally smaller in size, n; aller in number of pins than This is 8 pins by 8 pins, 24 pressurized water reactor fuel.
c 25 notably different from PWR fuel because over here the control
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1 blade -- it's a' cruciform -- it enters the core from the' 2~
bottom.
Boiling water reactors are built upside down, and the 3
control blade comes in from the botton --
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I'm not sure everyone would agree 5
with that.
6 (Laughter.)
7 MR. BERNERO:
The control blade comes from the bottom 8
and therefore there are no control rods in the fuel assembly 9
itself, and the top of the fuel assembly has a lateral tie or a 10 bale, -- some people call it a bale, it looks like a handla, 11 just a simple handle on the top for picking it up.
12 (Slide.)
13 To give you an idea of the variation, ImadeSh$this 14 table where I'm using the characteristics of the fue1 you have 15 just seen in the photographs as a typical dimension.
Those are 16 the fuel elements that are typical of a large, late model PWR 17 or BWR.
And in parentheses after each dimension, whether it be h
18 the inches of width or the feet of length or the weight in 19 pounds, I have put the range of that dimension that you will 20 find as you go from one reactor station to the other.
21 Now that range may look awfully broads it's not as 22 bad as it looks.
It's skewed somewhat by a few strange 23
. examples or exceptional cases.
Big Rock Point is a very small 24 boiling water reactor, a very early model, and it constitutes 2F this short fuel here, 6.8 feet long.
Similarl'y, if you go to
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this very high end, the 16.6 foot length in a PWR, that's South 2
South Texas has exceptionally long fue,1 for U.S.
PWRs.
3 So for the most part, vhat you have here is the spent 4
fuel is not quite standard.
We wish it were a little more 5
standard, but basically they are clustered near this typical 6
range for the most part.
But whoever handles the spent fuel, 7'
whoever manages either a narrow, local system or a broad system 8
'for handling spent fuel has to take into account those 9
variations in dimension.
l 10 There's one other dimension I'd like to single out 11 and that is this MTHM, metric tons of heavy metal.
You will 12 generally see spent fuel projections always rendered to that 13 common denominator, and it's useful to you to see I think that l
14 you have less than a half of a metric ton of heavy metal in a l
15 PWR assembly and only about a sixth of a ton in a BWR fuel f
16 assembly.
i 17 For perspective, just recall that a large PWR, oconee i
18 size or a little bit biggcr than oconee, something on the order 19 of 1000 megawatts, a pressurized water reactor in its 40-year l
20 life will irradiate or generate about 2000 spent fuel l
21 assemblies. 'Just to give you a sense of scale.
And we're 22 talking about 100 or more reactors so we're talking about an L
l 23 awful lot of fuel assemblies when you recognize that a boiling e
24 water reactor generates a higher number of fuel assemblies per f
25 megawatt or per thousand megawatts.
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1 (Slide.)
2 Now we have some existing spent fuel shipping casks 3
in this country.
We've made a little table here of these casks 4
and we caught a typographical error at the last minute, you see 5
it marked on the slide up here.
That TN-8L cask weighs 80,000 6
pounds, not 50,000.
These casks are ones that are now 7
certified, and you sie there are a modest number of them in 8
existence, but to my knowledge no more are being built.
9 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Who owns these?
10 MR. BERNERO:
Different companies.
For instance, a 11 utility owns one of these IF-300's.
Carolina Power & Light,
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12 they use it for trans-shipment.
Different shipping companies 13 and in at least one case a utility owned them.
These casks are 14 what you might call first generation casks.
Notice,that 15 they're very heavy for the number of fuel assemblies they 16 carry.
Later on when we see the next table of the DOE l
17 expectations you'll see e much better weight to payload ratio.
L 18 The reason these casks are so heavy is they were 19 optimized for a reprocessing cycle.
This was in the days when 20 people expected to hustle right out to a reprocessing plant and 4
- 1 therefore they were going to carry in these casks fuel that was f
22 only four to six months out of pile.
They were, thermally i
23 constrained, activity constrained; and therefore, this i
24 optimization is no longer useful to us, because now we're 25 dealing with fuel that is much, much older.
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This is an obsolete set that is around for some use, 2
and here's a picture of one, if we can turn to the ne'xt
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picture.
4 (Slide.)
5 This is an IF-300, the one I mentioned that one 6
utility owns.
It's a large cask, it holds seven pressurized l
7 water reactor assemblies or eight boiling water reactor i
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assemblies, and here you see it on a crane hook about to be set
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down onto its railcar.
Before shipment, that cask will be l
10 covered with an overpack and it looks basically like sort of a
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11 boxcar when it goes down the road because it has like a di'ct l
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12 shield and things like that, cooling box over it.
And'its 13 shipping weight is 70 tons.
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14 Now, I mentioned at the outset that we ought to note
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15 some differences from plant to plant.
Not all plants have l
16 railroad sidings, not all plants could bring that cask in and 17 load it at their pool.
Some plants don't have a railroad 1
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siding, they have only truck cask access, or some way to move a
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19 rail cask down a road a little piece and get it on a barge.
20 But they don't have an up-to-date railroad siding.
21 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
But would it be fair to say 22 that all plants either have rail or barge?
23 MR. BERNERO:
No, I don't think so.
I think you have i
24 some cases where they have --
25 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Truck is the only?
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1 MR..BERNERO:
Truck, rail or barge.
Truck may be the 2.
only -- there's one in particular I'm thinking of like 3
Palisades.
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,The thing is also that they don't all have 100-ton 5
cranes.
To life up one of these 70-ton casks or 80-ton casks -
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- and you know,'they're really getting up in round numbers very 7
close to 100 tons -- it involves a very heavy crane and not all 8
plants have that.
So there is part of the system problem.
9 (Slide.)
10 So DOE, as I said, has this long-range i
11 responsibility.
They're trying to develop a transport fleet.
12 Their focus is on the majority of the fuel.
They're working 80
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13 percent of the problem first, 20 percent of the problem 1ater.
14 They have a competitive process going on with compan,ies like GA i
15 Technologies, Westinghouse, Nuclear Assurance and so on, and 16 they are developing a spectrun of casks, truck end rail / barge 17 casks, but notice -- auch higher payload to weight ratio.
The 18 weight constraints you can infer from the previous slide which 19 gave you the scale of 50 to 100 thousand pounds.
And here, 20 what you're talking about is because it's five and ten-year old 21 spent fuel that you're dealing with, you can get more spent 22 fuel assemblies in because you don't have quite the shielding 23 requirements and you certainly don't have the thermal load' 24 requirement.
25 So the optimizing for DOE is of a transport fleet O
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that can take by standardized shipping wherever'possible, 2
standa'rd rail shipments, standard barge shipments, nothing 3
exotic, vinter or summer, optimized to be a' highly efficient 4
transport fleet so that each one of these casks can be used 5
over and over again.
It's a transport device, it's a 6
completely different thing than when we talk about the dry 7
storage casks that may be shipped.
'8
'(Slide.)
9 Now if a reactor needs additional-storage capacity, 10 there are basically only three alternatives that they can face 11 at this-time.
One is trans-shipment.
Now, trans-shipment has 12 been used.
At one time or another the NRC has authorized Duke 13 Power Company to ship from the oconee station to the McGuire 14 station.
We authorized Carolina Power & Light to sh.ip from the 15 H.B. Robinson station over to the Brunswick station.
So if you 16 went out to Brunswick today you would find in the boiling water 17 reactor pool, you would find pressurized water reactor fuel i
18 from the Robinson station.
19 Now that really is a temporary solution, of course.
20 You can just get yourself a little flexibility, but it isn't a 21 long-range solution.
A few reactors were able to ship their 22 fuel to the G.E. Morris facility.
You know, the General 23 Electric plant in Morris, Illinois, right across the road from 24 the Dresden station is a large spent fuel pool now virtually 25 full.
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So that given that trans-shipment has taken care of 2
essentially all it can, than the reactor owner looks at 3
consolidation.
Now consolidation means to reconfigure to a 4
more compact design.
Reconstitution of fuel is going on right 5
now at Browns Ferry.
You may have been briefed on that.
There 1
6 have been some problems with it and they're basically re-7 assembling fuel assemblies at the pool.
But they're not l
8 squeezing them into smaller holes; they're still trying to get 9
the fuel to go right back in the reactor and operate.
10 Consolidation is to take it apart so that you have i
11 the fuel rods or pins in one bundle and the hardware pieces in
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12 another, in a can of some sort.
A few reactors have 13 experimented with this, PWRs, and one is. authorized to bhthis 14 with their spent fuel but it's a rather slow operation, it's 15 rather tedious, and in the long range I doubt very much that 16 you'll see this as a standard solution because of the inherent 17 difficulty, and I'll talk about that a little later, f
18 And the last solution is dry storage, and here we see 19 the basic solution for that 20 percent of the spent fuel 20 between now and the beginning of the next millennium.
21 (Slide.)
22 So let's go into the dry storage.
We are reviewing 23 dry storage by means of topical reports so that licensees can 24 apply referring to these topical reports, and we would have 25 then a basis for our safety evaluation and findings.
It's a 9
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auch more efficient way to do our licensing' work and a more 2
efficient way for them to do their applications.
Now I'm going 3
to talk about three samples and give you a perspective on the 4
Castor V, which is a potentially dual-purpose cask, not only 5
storage but later shipment; a NUTECH NUHOMS-7 which is a small, 6
concrete bunker with a small canister in it, relatively small 7
canister; and the Foster-Wheeler modular vault.
Now all of 8
these are approved safety evaluation reports with an SER.
9 (Slide.)
10 The first one we'll look at is at the Surry Nuclear 11 Station, it's called the Castor V and it is a large cask.
Here 12 you see one on a transporter.
It's basically a cast iron cask, sealedupsothatthespentfuelisdry,blanketedwithInert 13 14 gas and held for storage over a 20-year period and you could 15 renew that another 20 years.
We've got confidence that this is 16 very stable storage.
17 You see that it is packaged at the reactor, moved 18 with this transporter and merely standing on a concrete pad.
19 This is a security-covered area, there are security fences 20 around it, and the reactor guard force is easily able to cover 21 this.
It's about a half a mile away from the plant.
And with 22 these robust casks, the spent fuel is amply protected from any 23 mishap whether it be natural or a small plane crashing vr 24 something like that.
The stuff is really solidly held in this 25 cask.
This is a cask that holds 21'PWR fuel assemblies, and 4
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it's filled, sealed, stored all at the site, at the Surry site.
2 (Slide.)
3 This next one.is a variation where the cask is not a 4
single piece, it's not a single device; it is basically a 5
concrete bunker or module and you build that somewhere in a a
6 flat spot in your yard and you put into it s' canister holding 7
spent fuel.
Now this one here actually exists at the H.B.
8 Robinson site, e PWR, and each one of those holes ac'cepts a 9
metal canister in which would be sealed seven PWR fuel 10 assemblies.
Jnd the design that goes in it is called the 11 NUHOMS-7 for ;he 7 PWR assemblies.
12 Now, that canister is just about the size of the 13 filler that goes into a rail cask, and in fact, this company 14 owns a rail cask, the GE IF-300 that you saw hanging,.on the 15 crane, and'they use it as a handling device here.
16 (Slide.)
17 In your slides you have a depiction, a cartoon series 1
18 that shows you how these devices are filled arid transferred, 19 and I'll just very quickly walk through that.
Basically, a 20 shielding cask starts out at the pool and you put the spent 21 fuel in its in this case, seven fuel assemblies.
The next
, 22 thing that's done is to take that shielding cask, which is 23 strictly temporary, and evacuate the water and all residual 24 moisture and fill and seal that cask so now the spent fuel is 25 dry and under inert gas cover; it's a sealed case.
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Now that you've sealed it, you put it on some sort of 2
local transporter -- in this cas,e you can use a truck or if you 3
have a railroad siding and access to the module you could'use 4
that.
But for a local movement you can handle this with a big 5
earth-moving truck.
And then you take it out to the module.
6 You take it out to the module, on the bottom side of 7
that cartoon you can see it, where you park next to the 8
concrete module and there is a hydraulic ran actually that 9
reaches through the module and pulls the canister into the 10 concrete bunker.
And you can re-use the transfer vehicle then; 11 you just close the bunker up and you've got the canister in 12 there.
.a 13 At the end f the storage period when you take it 14 out, you use the same ram assembly snd push it out into a 15 shipping vehicle or a transfer vehicle and you're prepared to 16 go off either back to the reactor for rehandling into a 17 conventional shipping cask or to have this be a shipping cask, j
i 18 and later on we'll talk about that for this particular model, I
19 For your perspective I have also included an 20 isometric drawing of the modular vault.
This is the Foster-21 Wheeler design.
There's no need to put that up on the screen.
22 It's basically a spent fuel pool without the water in it.
It's 23 dry storage and one would transfer spent fuel from the wet pool 24 at the reactor over to the dry pool, store it for the needed 25 length of time and then at the end of that period transfer it
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out into a cask and ship it to the repository or MRS.
2
' May I have the next slide, please, on topical 3
reports.
4 (Slide.)
5 Now we will still have some under review and I want 6
to single out one 'of them because it's very important to a 7
couple of applications we have.
This is another NUHOMS design, 8
only look at the numb'er on this one, it's 24.
This is what is 9
called the NUHOMS-24P.
10 (Slide.)
11 And that 24-P you see is a canister that holds 24 12 pressurized water reactor fuel assemblies, and it's large.
In
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13 fact, it's close to being a little too large to ship 14 Certainly one can debate that.
There's no existing cask that 15 accepts this envelope as there is for the NUHOMS-7.
The 16 NUHOMS-7, as I said, physically fits into an IT-300 cask.
17 This one here has a shielded plug on the end, and a
L 18 that might make it a little too long when you look at the total l
19 weight of shielding and the total shipment weight, so later on j
t 20 we'll talk about this one.
But for the time being let's 21 consider this one as not shippable.
That's not a guarantee but i
l 22 right now there's no known solution.
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23 (Slide.)
24 And if you look at this slide, you will see the L
25 module into which it goes is a variation on the same theme.
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'l is an air-cooled, concrete bunker, typically built in an 2
assembly of four.
So four canisters per bunker or per modulb, 3
but everything works from one end.
There's a blind end and an 4
active end, and the whole hydraulic ran business works from one 5
end only.
And this is the Duke Power Company Oconee 6
application; this is basically what they have applied for.
7 (Slide.)
8 We have talked about these license applications and I 9
think it important -- in fact, the status even changed today 10 for us.
We have an application from oconee and we received 11 that in April of
'88.
We're on the verge of completing our 12 environmental assessment.
Oconee has formally asked us in writingiftheycanproceedwithearth-movingstartinglbbct 13 14 Monday without prejudice to their application.
This,.is not 15 construction.
oconee is not a prairie site, and they have to 16 do some landscaping in order to prepare the flat areas for 17 this.
So oconee has an application before us and I would t
18 expect our final licensing action will probably be just after 19 the first of the year, although the environmental assessment 20 should be done even this week.
l 21 Calvert Cliffs has told us they're coming in very l
j 22 shortly and we just received a press release today which l
23 indicates that they have selected a virtually identical design; 24 the NUHOMS-24 modified only to fit their fuel, which is a 25 Combustion Engineering reactor rather than a Babcock & Wilcox
r 21 1
reactor. So there would be five reactors would are dealing with 2
basically one desi,gn.
3 We also have,,for these two indicated here, Robinson 4
2 and Brunswick, Carolina Power & Light, the same company owns 5
them, and they are proposing to resume licensing or use of the 6
NUHOMS-7, that smaller one you saw earlier.
That's the one 7
they've used already.
And at first, they will go to the4r 8
Brunswick site and pick up the PWR fuel that's 'there and make '
9 more room in the BWR pool, and then later on they intend, we 10 believe, to use the same design for the BWR assemblies, 11 although you'll get more of them per canister because they're 12 smaller fuel assemblies.
~
13 So all of these cases are very active, and we expect 14 to be dealing with these licensing cases in the coming year as 15 we proceed.
16 (Slide.)
17 Let me go away from the dry storage for a minute and 1
18 talk about permanent disposal conside'estions.
Remember 19 ultimately, this stuff is going to go to a repository or MRS, 20 and this is the end of the systen path.
Now there are some 21 basic considerations here that are very important to any l
22 attempt to standardize or regularize what you do in the storage 23 and transport end.
24 First of all, the final weste form has not been 25 selected.
It's not clear whether it will be fuel assemblies in
~
r,'
s i
22 1
some sort of matrix-that are buried, or it will be consolidated 2
fuel rods which are buried.
Most people think it will be i
3 consolidated fuel rods but it hasn't been selected yet, and 4
there is concern about effective use of the repository space.
5 In some of the briefings on' Yucca Mountain you may 6
have heard that there are potential geometric limitations to 7
the use of space because of different geological ' carriers and i
8 things like that.
9 In the use of that repository space it's a major j
l 10 consideration to look at the thermal loading.
Basically, j
I 11 you're going into a long time scale process, you're going to i
i
^
12 let this fuel sit there in the ground with potentially alien l
13 chemicals around it, and there is a great need to control
(
14 corrosion or reaction rates with other materials by careful 15 design of the waste package to be as compatible as possible
{
16 with the geologic materials.
I 17 Now there's a phrase that comes right out of our L
18 regulations, 10 crR 60.113.
It is that there shall be 19 "substantially cosplete containment."
One of the key elements 20 of disposal safety -- and you go into our regulations and i
i 1
21 you'll find it, that whatever you put in that can should be 22 trusted; we should have the confidence that it's going to be in i
23 that can, substantially contained, for 300 to 1000 years.
So j
the confidence of safe disposal is what is at stake here.
Now, theywillprobablyconsolidatethisfue[into l
s 1
some bundles.
The next slide, please.
2 (Slide.)
3 I just want to give you a little comparison of at-4 reactor consolidation versus at-repository or MRS 5
consolidation.
They are quite different.
These operations are 6
not alike.
e
'7 If you go to a reactor, they've got a pool, they 8
don't have a hot cell.
You have sn open pool underwater, and 9
the people are working with some sort of grapples or 10 manipulators in that environment, and what they've done so far 11 is they've taken -- remember they're dealing with a rack'that 12 has squa'te holes in it -- they've taken two holes and put cans 13 in them.
Sotheyhaveemptycansintwooftherackhobs,and 14 then they go to two fuel assemblies somewhere adjacent to it 15 and start breaking the latches, breaking the hardware apart so 16 that they can pull out the fuel rods one or two at a time, and 17 then you can fit all the fuel rods into one can and all the is bits and pieces will about 10 percent fill the other can.
This 19 is at-reactor consolidation.
It gets you roughly a factor of 20 two in space utilization.
It's unsealed for cooling in the wet 21 pool, it's a canister necessarily shaped to fit the fuel rack.
22 At the repository or MRS, DOE is talking about a 23 wholly different operation.
They're talking a hot cell 24 operation, and they're talking about something where you might 25 take -- in fact sose of their studies have drawn pictures of e
m s
24
~
1 thi,s -- as many as 12 fuel assemblies into 1.1 cans, only the 2
cans don't look alike.
They're big, probably cylindrical, very
)
i 3
large containers for spent fuel.
They would be sealed for 4
being the ultimate disposal package, and of course their 5
design, their materials would be optimized for final disposal 6
for that substantially complete containment.
7 So consolidation at a reactor pool is a temporary I
8 seasural it doesn't stand as a solution for the repository.
9 I'll skip the next slide, it's merely a list of the i
10 zix alloys that are being considered right now for us in the 11 final can by DOE.
May I have the next slide on the staff j
i 12 analysis, please.
l 13 (Slide.)
I l
14 In doing the environmental assessment for the oconee 15 application, we were trying to explore the environmentel impact 16 of requiring shipping certification of some sort.
So what we l
17 did is we took the facts from the oconee application and 18 available information from other sourews and we said, Let's 19 take this application and look at two alternativest a shippable 20 dry storage container and an unshippable dry storage container.
21 So we used the three oconee plants, and it so happens their 22 temporary storage requirement is just over 2000 fuel assemblies 23 in their application, and we assumed ten-year old fuel before 24 you pull it out, which is reasonable, and storage for 20 years, 25 which is also reasonable.
O r.
25 1-We selected the IF-300 shipping cask because,it 2
exists, it's a known quantity, and it/is of a fair size, and we 3
did our risk analysis -- and this is risk of handling heavy 4
loads in the reactor pool.
There was a generic issue, A-36, 5
that looked at this heavy load handling and we relied entirely 6
on the analytical method and techniques of that so that we 7
could have a common basis to understand how much extra risk is 8
there suffered if you have an unshippable container and have to 9
go back in the pool to reconfigure.
10 We took the Carolina Power & Light design, NUHOMS-7, 11 and since it fit in the IF-300 cask we asserted that this thing 12 is shippable.
Now, Charles MacDonald here hasn't certified it 13 and he'd be the first to tell you that, but for purposes of 14 analysis we assumed it.
We also assumed that the 24.-P, that's 15 the one that Oconeo asked for, that Duke Power asked for, we 16 said we assume it's unshippable, even though that's not yet 17 established either.
18 So then we said, what is the impact difference 19 between the two.
And if you go to the next slide --
20 (Slide.)
21
-- you see the results again asserting that one is shippable 22 and the other is not shippable, and what you find is that the 23 unshippable one actually results in less personnel exposure, 24 and if you go through the detailed analysis, and believe me 25 this is down to the step-by-step analysis of what fraction of a t
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26 1
person rem do you get for putting the fuel in it, for seal 2
welding it and so on, there is an economy of scale that you 3
actually save dose -- although these are.small numbers for over 4
2000 fuel assemblies -- from 532 person rem down to 204.
And 5
the risk figure -- and this is a rather artificial figure, it's 6
very low -- if you look at this little symbol here, it should 7
be P greater than 6.25 ren.
That NUREG-0612 which did the 8
heavy load analysis calculated the probability of exceeding a 9
fraction of the Part 100 dose at the site boundary.
Just a 10 technique of analysis.
And to have a 2 in a million or a 3 in 11 a million chance of doing that is a very, very small risk.
And 12 so a 50 percent increase is not really particularly significant
~
13 because the level of risk is so small, and this 50 percent 14 increase comes from the additional handling.
15 The key variable is the cost.
The NUHOMS-24P just 16 about cuts the cost in two, and here again it's economy of 17 scale.
These dry-scaled canisters are stainless steel and a
18 they're rather ornate; you save a lot of money by going to a 19 24P.
So in the Oconee case, the result indicates to us that it 20 is not worth our pursuing the case with Duke Power saying hey, 21 you'd better ship this thing, or, revert to the NUHOMS-7 or 22 something like that.
23 The real message is that the process is already 24 fairly ALARA, fairly close to as low as reasonably achievable.
25 There is not a large health and safety risk at stake here 9
~~
27 1
there is a big cost risk, a big cost factor. 'So with that in 2
mind', we looked on and we tried to draw some conclusions.
3 (Slide.)
4 If we look at what we see about the whole spectrum of 5
activities in this system, the first conclusion we would draw 6
is, as I said at the beginning, most of the spent fuel is going 7
to go from the reactor pools to the repository, so it won't 8
even get' into the dry storage question.
The majority of it is 9
strictly going to be transported in a straight cask.
10 The fuel variety and site variety is going to dictate 11 cask variety.
Now, DOE is keenly aware of that and so are the 12 utilities and they're working that and of the problem.
That's 13 why you see more than one truck cask and more than one 14 rail / barge cask, and the fact that there is a truck,and a rail 15 barge.
16 In dry storage options, there are only modest safety 17 ALARA benefits availab'.e.
Not a whole lot from our 18 jurisdiction, you know, health and safety, not a whole lot to 19 be gained.
20 In the final disposal, there's a lot at stake from 21 our health and safety point of view.
Confidence in best 22 disposal.
The 300 to 1000 year substantially complete 23 containment.
It's probably going to be repository-specific.
24 Now, we don't know that we're godng to license Yucca Mountain, 25 but the decision on what kind of a can and what alloy of the
28 1
can and so forth for 'that repository shouldn't be rushed.
2 There is a health and safety stake there.
3 So we conclude that NRC ought to review a variety of 4
cask designs, that just in the interest of the taxpayers and 5
ratepayers, we ought to seek some modicum of standardization to
^
6 have compatibility to a reasonable degree between storage and 7
shipment wherever possible.
But there isn't the stake there 8
for us to force it.
9 (Slide.)
10 So if we look at the range of future actions, we've 11 got three rulemakings that are involved here -- these are 12 existing regulations -- only one of which is active with
- enem 13 respect to these issuts.
Part 71 is the transport 14 certif3 cation.
This is for the transport casks and,all the 15 requirements thereto.
l l
16 Part 72 is the separate storage licensing, the dry l
l 17 storage options, and that covers the NRS as well you know.
We s
i 18 have a revision in process, in staff development, for a general 19 license.
By that I mean that the Congress told us that we 20 should go out to get a better regulatory process for this 21 additional storage, that we shouldn't end up with these 22 cumbersome petitions for amendment to an operator, a Part 50 23 license, and that very cumbersome procedure.
And what we are 24 preparing and have esseatially complete nov is a technique 25 whereby the staff would have reviewed a topical report in the
29 1
light of a Part 50 licensee using that divice, that dry storage 2
cask, and.provided that you're a present Part 50 licensee with 3
the necessary health physics staff, security staff, et cetera, 4
et cetera and provided that you meet the constraintt specified 5
in the general license, you've got a license.
You register and 6
use that certified design, if you will.
We have an amendment 7
that we haven't yet brought forward to you that goes in that 8
direction.
9 Now Part 60, we have a whole bunch of rulemaking in 10 process on that and you know we just sent up a paper on that 11 subject, the rulemaking strategy for sharpening and clarifying 12 that, Pat none of those rulemakings speak to this compatibility 13 or standardization issue.
14 And then of course we have these licensing. cases that 15 we've spoken of.
Now what I would suggest that will stand as 16 our range of future actions is we will bring forward to you 17 this Part 72 license where acceptable designs for temporary or 18 dry storage can be regulated in an effective way, and we will 19 proceed with these licensing cases with t 3 appropriate 20 dispatch.
But put simply, we won't force standardization.
21 That completes my presentation.
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right, thank you very much.
23 Questions from my fellow Commissioners.
Commissioner Roberts?
l l
24 Commissioner Rogers?
25 (No response.)
i 30 1
l
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1 CHAIRMAN EECH:
Well let me ask you a little bit more
{
2 about standardisation.
First of a 11, why couldn't we have in
-l 3
those -- on the last slide I thinx it was you showed us the l
i 4
range of future actions.
Why cc.uldn't we have thoso j
.5 rulemakings discuss standardisation?
6 MR. BERNERO:
Yes, we can.
The Part 72 as presently i
,7 drafted actually makes -- we use the term compatibility, as I i
a recall, in the draft -- that the applicant for the design must I
i 9
make a showing that the issue of compatibility has been f
10 addressed to the extent achievable.
Sort of as compatible as f
f 11 reasonably achievable.
j 12 Romer.ber, DOE casks are not fixed designs yet and theywon'tbeforabouttwoorthreeyearsatamin.aum[and d
13 i
14 the situation is still very fluid.
We now have ocon,ee 1, 2 and
[
l 15 3 and Calvert Cliffs 1 and 2 coalescing into what I would call 16 a single design.
The natural economic forces ar sort of 17 bringing standardination, and so I would expect to see some f
18 sort of substantial progress toward developing a shippable
(
19 container for this NUHOMS-24P or P prime, whichever, you know,
(
20 this thing.
21 And we would intend in the Part 72 licensing to 22 pursue it in that spirit, as compatible as we can make it in 23 the taxpayers' and ratepayers' interests.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, it seems to me thatc-- have you 25 looked at the advantages and disadvantages of standardization?
o e
31 1
It would seem to me that you've presented in your presentation 2
a number df the problems.
We.all recognize the different sizes 3
of fuel elements and so forth, but have you looked very 4
carefully to see if there are others, at the advantages and 5
disadvantages of standardization?
6 Frankly, it looks to me like we're suffering from the 7
custom-built plants that we've been living with for a number of 8
years, and a lack of standardization.
Here we have at least an 9
opportunity, even though it may be very difficult, to gain the 10 advantages of scale and other advantages of standardization, 11 and I just think that it's something that should be seriously 12 considered.
13 ButI'dliketohearalittlebitmoreaboutSU$at 14 you've considered as far as the advantages and disadyantages of 15 standardization.
16 MR. BERNERO:
Let me ask for the third slide from the 17 end, the one with results on a shippable and unshippable 18 canister.
We're pursuing a line in this regard that may 19 illuminate the subject for you.
20 This one here, if we go back to these results, it's 21 the one that gives the person rem and the risk and cost 22 results.
Number 24 I believe.
If you look at those results and you say I recognize that the dose goes down with th$e larger 23 24 cask or canister.
If I look at that and then I say, what if 25 someone developed a shipping capability for this canister.
Now w
l
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~
f l
i thirk about it for a moment.
The transport fleet that DOE is t
l 2
working on is a transport fleet that has to go summer, winte,r, 3
spring and fa,11; it ought to go in regular trains not special l
4 trains, it ought to have all the bells and whistles that make i
5
- it standard transport.
l 6
But these things if they are ever shipped are only 7
shipped once.
That big cask in the yard at Surry, the so-l 8
called dual-p'urpose cask.
It's not intended to be shuttling l
9 back and forth between the repository and the reactor.
No.
It l
10 would be filled for storage and shipped once, if ever.
11 In that vein, we have been talking to people in 12 industry who are working on this toward the possibility of i
j 13 standardizing at least a dual purpose cask, and maybe one of l
14 these large shipping devices or two of them, toward a possible 15 certification for limited shipment.
Could be special train, 16 could be special season or something like that.
And that's 17 part of the "as compatible as reasonably achievable" initiative 18 we would like to pursue.
19 But we can see in this particular case if you just 20 take the numbers up there and certify a shipping container for 21 the NUHOMS-24P, you would cut this person rem by another factor 2
of two.
You would cut this risk by a factor of two by 23 eliminating certain handling.
You won't change that cost 24 necessarily because now you're in a different cost regime --
25 what does it cost to develop that shipping container and how 9
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33 1
many times will it be used, there are other factors we don't 2
hava a handle on, -- but it wil.1 probably be a benefit.
So 3
that if there are some ways to ship this one as well as this
[ indicating), we will,have achieved a good deal of 4
one 5
standardization for the power industry and we would have saved 6
a fair amount of money.
7 But again, the health and safety, we're down in the 8
tail of the curve, we're essentially ALARA.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
It would seem to me, though, that 10 with a little imagination and innovation that we could perhaps 11 come up with a better rationale that would show that for 12 standardization there.are significant advantages.
13 For example, if you design a cask for your longest 14 and your widest fuel assembly, naturally that can fi,t them all.
15 How that's not necessarily practical because you'd have too 16 much empty space, but you cou'd maybe put fillers in it.
So in 17 other words, if we really force standardization, and from a 18 safety standpoint in particular I think, we could say it's 19 going to be safe.
But maybe that's not the right thing to do 20 because we're going to take it from the spent fuel pool perhaps 21 to an MRS and then eventually to the repository; and of course 22 the ideal situation would be something that would fit right 23 into the repository.
24 So if you start backwards, if we knew what the 25 repository was like -- and we dcn't.
Is that correct?
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MR. BERNERO:
Yes.
And that's where the most safety 2
is at stake.
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I understand.
But that I think is 4
t,he problem we have.
So if we could put a logic sequence that 5
way and start from the repository, building backwards to the 6
power plant, and if we could design a cask that would be 7
transportable, I presume you'd have to have an outer cask, the 8
transportable cask --
9 MR. BERNERO:
A sleeve or something.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
-- which would enclose the inner 11 cask.
But in any case, what I'm trying to say is it seems to 12 me that with that kind of a logic train we should do what we 13 can to make, first of all, the cask safe -- that's the ultimate 14 and prime consideration -- but in addition to that, pake sure 15 that it could be fit in the transportation cask and also fit, 16 of course, the different reactor sizes.
Now that doesn't mean 17 we need one and only one cask, I don't have that in mind at L
18 all.
And we might need several kinds.
That means, though, 19 that we'd have to have a repository that could accept the 20 various sizes that we might accept.
21 So I just feel that if we allow all kindL of 22 different cask sizes and shapes and forms at this stage, 23 we're still making decisions on this -- if we allow that to 24 happen, then down the road a piece several years from now we're 25 going to have a real problem at the repository and have to f-m_
.p
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35
- 1 design the whole repository.for custom-built plants.
I!m 2
trying to see if we can't avoid that.
I think we'd end up with 3
a better repository, a safer repository really, if we have a 4
lesser number of different~cor.binations and permutations.
5 MR. BERNERO:
'Mr. Chairm5n, let me respond to you.
6 You recall we discussed this issue on August loth at this very 7
table, and judging from the telephone conversations, meetings, 8
letters and everything else we've seen since, I think that 80 9
percent of the U.S.
industry has read the transcript of that 10 meeting -- the DOE, the various appropriate industry groups and 11 the individual utilities involved, they have not only read the 12 transcript, they have heard us, they understand the issue, they
~
13 understand the question, and some of them are even here in this 14 room listening to this meeting because of that inten.se 15 interest.
16 We met with the Electric Power Research Institute and 17 two utilities just last Friday on this subject.
We have a very i
18 active dialogue not only with the license applicants but with 19 the other agents that can and I believe will bring around this 20 standardization, this minimization of designs.
We don't want c 21 proliferation of solutions.
And I was quite pleased.
I just 22 received that press release today as I came into this room on 23 the Calvert Cliffs selection, which basically says, we want to 24 standardize to the same thing Duke Power has.
25 And I think the forces are there.
The interest of
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36
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1 this Commission and the willingness to pursue the subject has 2
them listening and has them acting.
And'there has even been 3
specific dialogue between the Department of Energy on their 4
transport fleet and this NUHOMS-24P.
Remember I mentioned the 5
big shield plug at the end?
If there's a way to noodle with 6
that design a little bit and still serve a good, solid, 7
reliable dry storage function and yet fit the transport cask 8
and minimize one further' step, minimize one further 9
proliferation of design.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, I appreciate the interest of 11 the utilities and other parts of the industry in this regard 12 and what I would like to do is to challenge them to assist us 13 in trying to come up with standardized casks.
It seems to me 14 that they have talent to bear on this that could perhaps assist 15 us in making a better decision perhaps than we made 30-some 16 years ago when we just didn't think of standardization at all 17 apparently, or if we did it didn't turn out that way.
18 So I think it is good, and I would encourage the 19 utilities and the industry to give any thoughts that they could 20 to this very important problem because we're really involved in 21 storage for very long periods of time, as you've mentionod.
22 The public health and safety is involved.
23 I think if we come up with a cask or casks that have 24 the confidenca that we want, that we demand and that the public 25 wants, we're going to be an awful lot better off.
And I would
--m-O O
m
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37.
,rather not see 'a proliferation of design applications for 1
2 casks.
3 First of all, it's not only going to task your 4
ability to review all those applications, and our resources are 5
involved to a degree and that's important of course, but more 6
importantly I think if we can come up with a cask or casks that 7
show some discipline and trying to come up with casks that can 8
be used by different types of reactors hopefully, I think we'll 9
be simplifying the whole process.
And again, I think that if 10 we can simplify it, standardize it, we will be contributing to 11 safety factors because it will at least preclude us from making 12 a completely different design at the far end -- by that I mean 15 at the repository.
14 I think there are advantages to it, and I yould hope 15 that we can continue to pursue those.
16 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
May I ask a question that 17 relates to that?
Slide No. 7, existing spent fuel cask, you L
18 said one of them was owned by CP&L.
These different model 19 numbers, I'd like to know who designed and manufactured these, 20 or if two different entities, one designs and somebody else 21 manufactures -- what entity would you identify Model NL-1/2 22 with, and IF-300 and so forth?
23 MR. BERNERO:
Chuck, could you answer those?
24 MR. MacDONALD:
The NL-1/2 and the NL-10/24 were 25 designed by NL Industries, and they were designed to service 8
S
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t a.
s
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38 1
the Ag'nes, the Barnwell facility.
They are now operated *on 2
lease, to Nuc' lear Assurance. Corporation.
3 The TN-8L and the TN-9 were designed by Transnuclear 4
in New York.
They also have companies in Europe and outside 5
the United States.
Those casks were fabricated in France by 6
Robotelle.
During the fabrication the NRC did inspect in 7
France the fabrication of those casks.
The NLI casks were 8
fabricated in Wilmington, Delaware.
9 The IF-300 was designed by the General Electric 10 Company, and its design was primarily to serve the C.E.
Morris 11 facility which was an early reprocessing facility which is now 12 used for storage.
Three of those casks were sold -- well, all 13 four have been sold.
Or.e a utility owns, the other three are 14 owned by Pacific Nuclear Systems.
These casks were fabricated 15 by I believe Stearn Rogere in Denver, Colorado.
16 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
That answered my question, 17 thank you.
18 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Rogers?
19 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, just ene point.
It seems 20 to me that one could separate the question of standardization 21 cf those casks which are to be shipped and which might be the 22 actual cask that is stored in a repository -- standardization 23 of that type of device from standardization efforts for on-site 24 storage to meet the temporary needs of a particular situation 25 such as apparently is developing, where the utility is willing O
~
a.
o.
e 39 1
to take the risk that that particular design may not be 2
certifiable for transport or useful beyond on-site storage.
3 And it seems to me that perhaps we could separate the priority 4
of standardization, the degree of priority we assign to 5
standardization, in those two different applications.
6 I agree with the chairman very much that it seems to 7
me that those casks which we look forward to being used to 8
transport and ultimately store the spent fuel, it would seem to 9
be very desirable to try to push for standardization as much as 10 possible there.
Obviously, you're hampered by all the factors 11 that you've mentioned of the particular site and fuel designs; 12 also, that nothing is known really about the other end, the 13 final resting place in the repository.
14 But I am a little concerned that we hold up any 15 consideration of on-site storage to meet acute needs for 16 standardization of those if the utility is 1,-t111ng to say 17 they're prepared to accept the fact that they may have to uso a 1
18 totally different cask for transport and ultimate storage and 19 would bear the cost of that.
20 MR. BERNERO:
The utility in question, for instance, 21 Duke Power, their application actually is based on the 22 inabil,ity to ship the NUHOMS-24P.
All of their analysis, and 23 that was part of our Environmental Impact Assessment, -- their 24 analysis all assumes it goes in the yard for the 20 years and 25 then comes back into the spent fuel pool, is cut open and the G
~...
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.,1 40 1
stuff is transferred to a transport fleet cask.
2 Nonetheless, the'y are interested and they have 3
already had some dialogue with DOE on it.
Now, DOE is 4
interested; they have an economic incentive (a) to.have a 5
standa.rdized shipping fleet or transport fleet, and (b) 6 wherever possible, to pick up, now that there are five reactors 7
using this 24P, it just accelerates that incentive.
8 You may be aware, we have a letter coming forward to 9
you for the Chairman's signature.
It's our comments on the DOE 10 dry cask study, and that letter -- I've lost track, it's either 11 up to you or will be up to you in a day or so -- in that letter 12 we single out'this issue and we say, you know, the system 13 engineering, you really ought to accelerate or increase your 14 system engineering here because that is the case.
T. heir dry 15 study didn't go into this quite as much as it should have.
But 16 we think they're listening.
17 Now as far as holding up the utility, we are not 18 doing that.
We're conscious of the operational safety 19 considerations with the oconee plant and with the others as 20 they come up, and the utility is keenly aware of that, and 21 there is every priority being given to avoid any such 22 constraint.
We don't want to impact on operational safety at 23 all.
24 But I think, as I said before, 80 percent of them are 25 going to read this transcript, too, and they're listening.
t
+
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...t s
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41 1
It's abundantly clear that they're listening.
2 The waste ma'nagement group that the industry uses to.
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3 follow this, we've had a' letter from them asking for a 4
conference on this; they're prepared to meet to pursue this, 5
and again, it's toward the common interest of -- you can cal 1
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6 it standardization or compatibility or optimizing of system 7
management.
That's really what it is.
There is no single 8
system manager, but everyone recognizes now the benefit of 9
optimizing system management.
So I think we all have the same 10 objective now.
11 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Are there any mechanisms in
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12 place to help to assist that approach?
13 MR. BERNERO:
Well, -the utility nuclear wa ste 14 management group, which is the one that handles al),of this, 15 they have an annual capacity report process and you'd never 16 guess that that is a subcommittee that looks at things like 17 this; you know, where are we going and how are we getting 18 there.
And they have the mechanism by which to do tnis.
Now 19 they've got some sort of an affiliation through the NUMARC 20 activity, but basically, on waste handling or waste mariagement 21 activities, these are the people we talk to.
22 And then they have activity going on through the 23 Electric Power Research Institute and, the Electric power 24 Research Institute in turn has a link to the Japanese research 25 program on dual purpose casks and things like that.
And so the 9
a
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mechanisms do exist and we're tied into those mechanisms.
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We're following this closely.
And as I say, I think the 2
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3 general interest and the general objective is the same; 4
optimize the system.
5 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Is there any possibility that 6
settling on a cask design would -- if any particular fuel 7
designs just didn't quite fit that, -- is there any possibility 8
that future fuel fabrication could tailor in any way, trim a 9
little bit here or there?
Is that totally frozen, fuel design, 10 for each reactor, or is there no accommodation -- ?
11 MR. BERNERO:
I would say as a practical matter it 12 is.
Actually, the South Texas plant didn't expect to be a 13 maverick; it expected to be the first of a new set of standard 14 plants.
I think if you cut two and a half feet off the length 15 of that fuel you'd pay in megawatts some way or another.
16 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
I wasn't thinking of anything 17 quite that extreme, but you know --
't 18 (Laughter.)
19 MR. BERNERO:
Well, in that case it's two and a half 20 feet too long to fit in the can.
No.
I think the cases 1).ke 21 South Texas or Big Rock Point at the other extreme --
22 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
We're talking about a couple of 23 inches.
24 MR. BERNERO:
Well, I honestly don't ki.sw whether --
25 they all differ in length by a couple of inches one way or
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43, 1
another, and I suspect you can exercise a certain amount of 2
flexibility.
I would be very reluctant to go into that.
3 We and DOE would both like to see an envelope that 4
could take all of that variation or go to the outside, but
' 5 whether you can take South Texas romains to be seen.
But there 6
will be some off-optimum shipments.
You know, Big Rock Point 7
is going to rattle in a big can, no question about it.
~
8 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Maybe I'll ask the General Counsel if 9
he had a comment.
10-MR. PARLER:
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
This dry cask 11 storage report by DOE that br. Bernero referred to is a 12 requirement of the National Wa.ste Policy Act as amended a 13
. couple years ago.
The report wa's due October 1st, 1988 but if 14 the Commission has any thoughts or suggestions, et c,etera, that 15 would be one of the places where the views could be expressed.
16 The other thing that perhaps I commented on at the 17 August meeting, at least from my perspective, I've heard i
18 several times now that there's not one system manager, et 19 cetera.
I always thought that in the area of nuclear power and 20 nuclear materials, if there was guidance, direction, strong l
21 suggestions, those things were supposed to come from this 1
22 agency.
That's one of its main reasons for being.
23 And it seems ta me that if there is something like 24 that to be given; that is, guidance, suggestions or direction, l
l 25 that we can do a little better than forcing people to read 1
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44 1
tr'anscripts of Commission meetings to make up their own minds.
j 2
Those are my thoughts.
I thank you for letting me 3
express them.
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Appreciate tha,t.
I, too, would just 5
like to make a brief comment on that, it seems like'nobody is 6
in charge.
I would like to think that at least we are taking 7
the lead, and cartainly in our area of public health and safety 8
responsibilities.
And one of your first slides shows the 9
system and describes that.
I recognize that utilities are 10 involved, DOE is involved, other folks are involved, but I'm 11 inclined to agree with the General Counsel that if it involves 12 nuclear materials and involves public health and safety, that 13 at least we'll take charge until somebody else does.
do I'd 14 like the staff to feel like you have the charge to t,ake charge 15 and to make sure, unless we're told that someone has the 16 authority and has the cohesive intent to bring it all together, 17 that we take the lead.
And I think that's certainly something 1
i 18 that should not prohibit us or inhibit us from making the 19 decisions we think are necessary in accordance with the 20 National Waste Policy Act.
21 It also just occurred to me that you know, you 22 mentioned the waste management group in the industry.
Is that 23 a part of NUMARC or not?
24 MR. BERNERO:
As I understand it, not exactly.
25 NUMARC is closely coupled with them out they're not exact a
.. 5 1
part of NUMARC.
2 CHAIRMAN 2ECH:
Well, i.t seems to me this is kind of 3
a natural for NUVARC unless there's another waste group that 4
they have deferred to in this area.
But I would hope that we 5
would get some utility group, some industry group perhaps that 6
would be a focal point to assist us in this area.
And I think 7
they, t'oo, could contribute to our responsibilities as far as 8
public health and safety is concerned.
9 MR. BERNERO:
Mr. Chairman, the staff has been 10 assertive in this metter in the recent past and will continue 11 to be assertive.
Hugh Thompson and I have personally talked to 10 NUMARC about this, to make sure that we have the full attention 13 of the industry authorities on this.
14 We have talked repeatedly to DOE and as we,_said, we 15 are now responding to DOE's comments.
I might add that on that 16 dry cask storage study, DOE got an extension of some sort, and 17 our comments are due on October 28th, and not long thereafter, 18 about two or three weeks later I believe you are going to have 19 a briefing from Charles Edward Kay, Ed Kay of the Office of 20 civilian and Radioactive Wasta Management, and it might be an 21 appropriating thing to discuss with him at that time.
22 But rest assured the stat
- will press and will 23 continue to be assertive in this to provide the leadership 24 necessary to make sure that the system is optimized.
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right, fine, that's exactly what 9
9
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46 1
we should do until we've decided otherwise,' as far as I'm
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2 concerned.
Take the leadership role and pull the threads
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3 together, ask the utilities, the industry for their 4.
recommendations and others who say.be involved and interested 5
in it.
I think we're trying to make an important decision 6
regarding casks.
7 I do think if Commissioner Carr were here today --
8 and I know he regretted missing this meeting -- because of his 9
keen interest in standardization, I think he would have echoed 10 some of the comments and perhaps have made some other thoughts 11 that he may have on standardization.
He has a keen interest in 12 it, too.
And my interest is really, I guess, kind of i$ia 13 14 generic cense because we seem to do so many custom-built 15 decisions and custom-built certifications that when we have a 16 chance to get the benefits of standardization, to discipline 17 our own system as well as perhaps contribute in a more 18 significant way to a better product, better public health and 19 safety, then we should do so.
20 So I think it would be useful also to have the staff 21 provide the Commission a paper about the resources that you're 22 intending to use for this subject of handling the licenso 23 applications.
I think that would be useful for us to see.
The 24 concern I have is that frankly, if we don't discipline our own 25 system we'll find ourselves trying to certify a great number of
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47 1
designs and get away -- not only get away from standardization 2
but be a.very great tax on our own rasources.
3
'So I hope that our review m.aterial that we have out 4
that shows the criteria that we're expecting to have is 5
explicit enough to give the guidance necessary for those 6
interested in applying for the certified design, to show that 7
we're looking for rather specific type criteria and perhaps 8
that will help in standardization.
If that's not the case I 9
would ask the staff to take another look at that to be sure 10 you're satisfied.
11 Any other comment =7 12 (No response.)
13 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much, appreciate it.
14 We'll stand adjourned.
15 (Whereupon, at 3:20 p.m., the Commiusion meeting was 16 adjourned.)
17 1
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 e
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CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIBER y
This is to certify that the attached events-of a meeting of the-U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
TITLE OF MEETING:
COMMISSION BRIEFING ON CASK DESIGNS FOR SHIPPING AND STORING OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS o
PLACE OF MEETING:
Washington, D.C.
DATE OF MEETING:
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1988 i
were transcribed by me.
I further certify that said transcription is accurate and complete, to the best of my ability, and that the transcript is a true and I
accurate record of the foregoing events.
i
& Am/]
/P4' s n
I l-Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
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