ML20198R794
| ML20198R794 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 11/05/1997 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T-3014, NUDOCS 9711130388 | |
| Download: ML20198R794 (167) | |
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- 13 N A'_ / dRST-30N OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISS70N ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS
Title:
SAFETY RESEARCII PROGRAM Tx:4 AcFs Docket No.:
- En n ca
- ,:sA; BJWHITE M. S ~ 2E 6 4'E
^' 1 3. 7F" s ' Work Order No.: ASB-300-32 LOCATION: Rockville, Maryland DATE: Wednesday, November 5,1997 PAGES: 313 - 442 9711130300 971105 \\\\ \\\\ \\\\ \\\\\\ \\\\\\ \\\\ \\\\ 7%n"" von _o ANN RlLEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. 12501 Street, NW, Suite 300 Wasidngton, D.C. 20005 AC18 TichEMI:Re':a'T 0~;?8 Cf6 05 he COE if:00
... ~ --h (A DISCLAIMER-4 UNITEDTSTATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION'S j ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS NOVEMBER 5, 1997 ~The contente of this transcript of the proceeding of the United States Nuclear-Regulatory Commission Advisory-( Committee on Reactor Safeguards,'taken on November 5,.1997, as= reported herein,-is a record of the discussions-' recorded-at the meeting held on the above date This transcript had not been reviewed, corrected and edited and it.may contain-inaccuracies. $r 9 a ) \\- }} 9 4 s w ..~s-> -r,-r m e v-r-
i 313-i 1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION- )( 2 -- tADVISORY COMMITTEE ON-REACTOR SAFEGUARDS J 3 4 SAFETY RESEARCH PROGRAM t 5-6 L 7 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 8 Two White Flint North 9 11545 Rockville Pike 10 Rockville, Maryland 20852-2738-11 2 l 12-Wednesday, November.5, 1997 l 13 '14 The Subcommittee met pursuant to notice at 8:30
- 15 a.m.
16 17 MEMBERS PRESENT: 18-GEORGE APOSTOLAKIS, Chairman, ACRS 19 DONALD W. MILLER,-Member, ACRS 20
- MARIO H. FONTANA,! Member, ACRS 21 THOMAS S.
KRESS,-Member,--ACRS 22 ROBERT L. SEALE, Member, ACRS 23
- JOHN-J. BARTON, Member, ACRS 24
' WILLIAM J. SHACK, Member, ACRS 25 RICHARD SHERRY,D Senior. Fellow, ACRS ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES,-LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite-300
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314 s 21~ PROCEEDINGS ) 2 -[8:30 a.m.) 3_ .DR._ POWERS:. Good morning. t 4 We are-on the second day of the Subcommittee 'S . Meeting on Research, the Safety and Research' program. We 6:
- have the pleasure of having the representatives of the 7
nuclear industry to talk with'us today, beginning with ( 8-representatives from NEI. John Beedle is going to begin the 9 discussions. 10 We are talking.to Alex Marion. I think we have 11 all met'these people before. 12 The floor is yours. 13 MR. BEEDLE: Thank you, sir. I appreciate the -14 opportunityJto talk to the ACRS this morning. 15 My-name is Ralph Beedle,- I'm the Senior Vice 16 President for Nuclear Generation. I'm the Chief Nuclear 17 Officer for the Nuclear Energy Institute. I have with me 18' Alex Marion, who is the Director of the Programs Group. He 19 is here to assist me and make sure that I don't get too far 20' off tract. 21 The first thing I would like to do this morning, 22' if.I could, is talk to you about NEI and give you a better 23 . understanding of what~the organization is about,.what our 24 function is and what representation we provide for the 25-nuclear industry. Hopefully, in doing that, it will set a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ~ i Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W.,. Suite-300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 1 ~.
315 l' ' framework for putting in context any comments that I make - () . ithIregard to the research programsfconducted by thefNRC or. -2' w >3 the; industry. 4- .The package that we provided to you has in'the 5 first-several-pages some comments on the research program ~ 6 So, if you'will turn to about the third one back, then it 7 starts with a discussion of_the Nuclear Industry Institute. 8 The Institute's focus is -- cur effort is to focus 9 the collective' strength of the industry. We_ represent a 10. large number of nuclear organizations, including all the 11 utilities and NEI's specific purpose is to focus that 12 strength in order to shape policy that assures beneficial 13 use of nuclear energy-related technologies in the United 1 44 States and around the world. I would emphasize that-it is ( 15 not only the U. S.-participation in NEI, but it is 16 international as well. 17 The Institute's membership consists of about 200 18 organizations and all of the nuclear utilities in the U. S. 19 International utilities, EDF is a member of the Institute, 20-for example. We have all of the architect, engineering 21= firms, plant-designers, pharmaceutical manufacturers are 22 members of the Institute, _all the fuel suppliers. A vast 23-number of-the universities in the country that have had or 24 are looking at developing nuclear educational programs =are 25 members of theLInstitute. Labor unions, law firms and, in ANN RILEY &.. ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters ~1250 I_-Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 l (202) 842-0034 I 1
1 2316 n- -1 fact,Jthe-French Embassy is a member of the Institute. () 2 [ Laughter] '3? MR. BEEDLE:- We found-that particularly beneficial -i -4 .when you consider the value of Nouveau Beaujolais. -{ 15~ MR. SEALE: Your judgment has already been 6 confirmed. 7 DR. POWERS: A good-sense of practical priorities 8 here he has demonstrated. i 9 MR. BEEDLE: Well, you know, they talk about i' 10 membership has its value. 11 The major initiative that NEI is involved with 12 today is nuclear waste. I'm sure you are familiar with Bill 1 if,0 and the Senate companion bill, S. 104. We have 13 H.R. 14 been very much involved with the construct of that 15 legislative language. We have been very active in dealing 16 with the various members of Congress in an effort to try and 17 convince them of the wisdom of providing a repository for 18 the high level waste. 19 As you talk about the nuclear program, high level 20 waste is frequently'one of the examples of why the nuclear 21 program won't work. We could take a look at the high level-22 waste issue. It is not-one of technical capability. It is' 23 not an issue that is being held up because of our inability. 24 to solve the engineering or the technical. It is purely
- 25 political.
So, we have been very actively engaged in ANN-RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington,=D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
317 1 working that front. ( 2 The second one is in regulatory reform. We are 3 very much convinced that the body of regulation that we have 4 is not in the best interests of_the long term survivability 5 of the industry. So, we continue to look for ways to 6 improve the regulatory process. One that is founded in 7 safety is, we clearly recognize that regulation is necessary 8 for. the industry to survive in the country that we live in. 9 We are not taking issue with regulation per se. We are 10 taking issue with the number, the volume and detail with 11 which we are regulated. We continue to push for regulatory 12 reform. 13 Then industry restructuring is one that any eye is 14 interested in, because that one will really determine the 15 future of our nuclear power plant operations. 16 Our primary focus in the area in the restructuring 17 area is, one of our primary objectives is to insure that the 18 nuclear plant is not put at a disadvantage when you go into 19 a restructured environment or a competitive environment. 20 What I mean by a competitive disadvantage is, I'm sure as 21 you read the paper, you run across the issue of strande 22 cost. Stranded cost is an issue for the industry. It is 23 not just a nuclear problem. Stranded cost, in the electric 24 area, is number somewhere near $200 billion worth. Only 25 about $70 billion is, in fact, nuclear stranded cost. ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES. LTD. '~' Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
318 1 So, as you read this, there is a tendency to think A(,) - 2 that it is only nuclear and, in fact, it is not. We are 3 - trying to make sure that as you deal with stranded costs, 4 you are dealing with the nuclear stranded costs in an even 5-manner, an even handed manner as you deal with the 6 industry's stranded costs as a whole. 7 That is just one of the examples of the areas we 8 are working on. 9 DR. POWERS: Ralph, could we come back to the 10 _ regulatory reform bullet on that slide? Now, you don't need 11 to put the slide up. 12 Your organization is supportive of the idea of a 13 risk-informed or a risk-based demonstration at a selected 14 utility or plant? 15 MR. BEEDLE: We are, indeed. In fact, we are 16 conducting a pilot program. We talked to the commissioner 17 several months ago and said we are embarking on a pilot 18 program to determine the relative merits of programs, the 19 cost of the programs and compare that with our safety 20 significance in order to draw some conclusions as to whether 21 or not we are spending money in the right areas. 22 We talked to the chairman as well as the other 23 commissioners and to the EDO. We got the chairman to agree 24 to assign one c2 the senior members. In fact, Ashok Thadani 25 is our point of conduct within the agency to deal with that. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters
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319 1 The chairman has given us full support and indicates that ) 2 she is very much interested in that also. 3 We have two plants that are actively engaged in 4 that pilot progrcm right now. That is being done under the 5 auspices of NEI. We are getting a lot of help from the 6 industry. 7 DR. POWERS: Which two plants? 8 MR. BEEDLE: San Onofre is one of them and South 9 Texas is the second one. 10 DR. POWERS: Okay, that's kind of what you would 11 expect. 12 MR. BEEDLE: Now, there are a number of other 13 performance-based programs that have been in the proce.s for 14 some time. Graded QA, for example, is one of them. The _,( \\ 15 message that I have given to the commissioners and to the 16 staff has been, we, as a nation, need to rLgulate with that 17 in mind, because if we don't, the industry is not going to 18 continue to put money in that. 19 PRAs, for example, we have spent an awful lot of 20 money in PRAs. If you go to utilities and say what benefit 21 have you derived from PRAs from a regulatory point of view, 22 the answer is relatively little. Now, they have gained a 23 great deal in the process of doing those PRAs for their own 24 benefit. It has helped to understand safety significance. 25 It has identified some vulnerabilities that they have been () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 -Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
320 1 able to take advantage of and correct. From a regulatory (s) 2 point of view, it has not derived a great deal of benefit to a 3 the industry. 4 DR. POWERS: We are on a path, the NRC is on a 5 path of making it possible to utilize tnose PRAs in a more 6 piecemeal laahion. What I am interested in f.s this pilot 7 program that you're talking about, which is more of a 8 comprehensive ese of -- being cautious about language, 9 risk-informed, performance-based regulation. We had the 10 implication-yesterday that the research support within the 11 PRA field may not be there to support that pilot project. I 12 found that disappointing. 13 I guess what I ask is, have you given thought to 14 what kind of activities the NRC's research program would i .O k.,.) 15 have to undertake principally, I presume, out of their 16 probalistic risk assessment in order to support this pilot 17 program of yours? 18 MR. BEEDLE: Well, I think at this juncture, we 19 need to have relative senior managers involved in the 20 program so that they understand what we're doing and are in 21 step with us as we go through the pilot process. So, th t 22 when you are all done, they don't have to go back and 23 revalidate, reverify and conclude that you did the right 24 thing. 25 So, it is not a matter of launching into a ,\\ ( I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 3250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
321 1 separate research program. It is a matter of being involved (O 2 with it and paying attention to where the industry is headed j v 3 _ with this pilot program. 4 DR.-POWERS: It sounds to me like maybe the ACRS 5 needs - to understand more about this project. It might be 6 worthwhile to ha a nur PRA Subcommittee hear about it. 7 MR. KRESS: Is this the project that we heard from 8 Performance Technology? 9 MR. BEEDLE: Right, that is the one we are 10 embarked on. If you would care to hear more about that, we 11 can certainly arrange to have Mr. Bob Christie from 12 Performance Technology and our director in that area come in 13 and -- 14 MR. BARTON: Wo heard from him. O (ms/ 15 DR. POWERS: We have heard from Bob. What I think 16 will be interesting is, as this process goes down the road a 17 little bit to get kind of a status of how it is working. 18 MR. BARTON: Yes. 19 DR. POWERS: It has been whispered in my ear that, 20 apparently, our PRA chairman is on the ball on this and has 21 the appropriate scheduling in place. 22 MR. BEEDLE: Well, I would say, at any time you 23 would-like for us to come back and give you a status report, 24 we would be more than glad to do that. We will put it on 25 our actAon item list to check with you and, as the program (% '(~,) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
322 1 develops, we will be glad to come back and talk on that 2 topic. 3 On think on this issue of performance-based, 4 risk-basad, the bottom line is. as we go into a restructured 5 environment, competitive, no lunger able to tell the PSC 6 that we would like to recover costs, we are going to have to 7 recover costs on the sale of a product. We are not going to 8 be in a1 position as an industry to spend money on things 9 that don't derive benefit for the facility. I'm not talking 10 benefit for the corporate. I'm not talking benefit for the 11 university. I'm not talking benefit for intellectual 12 development. I'm talking benefit, bottom line, can you make 13 money with it. Can you improve your product and make your 14 product more saleable. (3 (- 15 That is what has given rise to the concern that 16 the staff has already ced about the decrease of the 17 number of people involved in the PRA efforts at various 18 utilities. It has been, oh, it's bad and I say, yes, I 19 agree that probably is not good. It does not make economic 20 sense to continue to hire PRA analysts if you are not 21 deriving any economic benefit from it. 22 MR. FONTANA: It is not necessarily immediate. 23 Some of the benefit involves reducing the probabilities 24 although you take a big hit in the future. I wonder how 25 this has worked into the thinking and decicion making? l ) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. L Court Reporters L 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 L Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l
I 323 1 MR BEEDLE: Well, I think'that atithis stage of -( 2 theigame,.the PRAs that_have been done -- and every facility 3' has' a PIU4 that says _that we' are talking ten to the minus ~or - i 4-
- the kind of probabilities of core melt to try and define 5
whetherior not that is 1.2 times 10 to the minus 4 or 1.255 5 6 times ten to the-minus 4. To save money on that is not 7-beneficial. 8 MR. FONTANA: No, you're right. I did not mean= 9 _that. I meant using PRA to do more efficient maintenance 10 and better maintenance probably means that you won't get a ~11 breakdown in the future and that sort of things. I wasn't 12 talking about bottom lines, 13 MR. BEEDLE: Yes, I agree with that, but I'm not 14. sure I need a standing PRA group to help me figure out how e 15 to do better maintenance. I understand conceptually that 16 that may be a view that you could take, but from e practical 17 point of view, if I could save $100 on a pump repair and it 18 costs me $1,000 to do a PRA analysis, you say what is it 19 going to cost to do the breakdown. 20 MR. FONTANA: What you're really talking about is 21 probably primary regulatory burden relief. 22 MR. BEEDLE: That's right, that's right. 23 This whole pilot program hopefully will_show us 24 that we are devoting a lot!of attention and~ dollars to 25
- things that are'not safety significant and maybe we are not ANN RILEY &-ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l 'Q i
324 1 putting the money and effort into things that really are (3-t i 2 safety significant. So, we would like to understand that x._/ 3 better. + 4 So, that is where we are headed with our effort in 5 this pilot, is to categorize tnings and to look at the cost 6 and that's not necessarily easy. How many dollars do you 7 spend annually on the RHR pump system,-for example. We're 8 not really sure what tilat number is. If you ask a utility 9 today, many of them can't tell you. They can tell you what 10 they pay in maintsnance overall, but how you categorize that 11 is the challenge. 12 MR. FONTANA: We are looking at a couple of 13 utilities to see if we can figure out exactly where we are 14 headed with some of those cost figures. (_) 15 MR. BEEDLE: Other activities that NEI is involved 16 with, improved plant performance is certainly one of the 17 things that we continue to strive for. We have had a number 18 of benchmarking efforts in the industry to help us improve 19 performance. Low level waste disposal, we have been very 20 involved ir. trying to assist in the process of opening 21 various disposal sites. The transplant work the ALWR 22 program along with EPRI, vendors, manufacturers, we have 23 been involved with that ALWR program. 24 International commerce, you have probably seen all 25 the press coverage cx1 China. NEI has been very active in {3 q,/ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
.325 1 'trying-to push for_ opening _ China for trade in the commercial-()
- 2-nuclear area, in orderEto help maintain'a viable nuclear
-34 _ industry _in'this country. The ulterior motive in this is,- 4-we.are convinced that the1 advanced reactor _ design that the 5 -U. S. has put-together is.are'really:the very safest that 6 the world can use._ If we can open up the market in: China, 7-we think that there'is a chance that-they can go into the 8-ALWR busine.1s and give us some assurance that they are 9 pitting good designs into operatic" 10 International safety, we are involved with IAE 11 meetings. We just recently had Dave Modine, who I think has 12 talked to you before on a number of technical issues. He 13 came back from Russia where'he was involved with Argonne 14 National lab effort, to get information exchanged with the 15 'former Soviet Union. 16 We are very much involved in the field supply 17 issue and conduct seminars, meetings that deal with all the 18 manufacturers of fuel, disposition of fissile material and 19-nuclear insurance. It runs the. full range of activity of .20 the industry. 21 Lo, thit is to the members -- 22-MR. FONTANA: Let me ask a question here. 23 MR. BEEDLE: Sure. .24 MR. FONTANA: With regard to nuclear insurance, 25 the insurance people are good in determining what future ANN-RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
- ~.... 1 326 11 risks-are, atlleast,D they do whsn they.haveLa. lot ofLdata. () 2-
- Docyou envision a use of PRA there to' help-the insurance 3;
companies identify what the potential 1 future risks are and . hat they ought to.be charging ~for -- 4'- w 5 MR. BEEDLE: To the best of my knowledge, I don't 6 believe we have tried to $1se PRA to decermine the ratemaking I 7. process. 8 MR. FONTANA: It just struck me as a possibility. 9 MR. BEEDLE: If you look at PRA you say, okay, you 10 have so many accident kind of situations that might occur' f 11 per unit'of time. I don't think that our industry -- our 12 history has been such that the industry's insurance rates 13-have been predicated on that. They are looking at, you 14 know, if we have one, how much is it going to cost. We have O\\_) 15 money in the bank basically that would fund an effort. 16 Most of their rate issues, from an accident point 17 of view, are associated with what it costs to-clean up a 18_ major event at one of these facilities. A lot of that money 19 has been banked at this juncture. 20 The other insurance aspect or the insurance rates 21-associated with lost generation turbine failures, just the 22 general commercial. kind of activities that you insurance 23' coverage necessary for. 24 Members services, we provide quite a bit of 25 national news media. We are very-involved in'that, p-Q ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I :treet, N.Wl, Suite 300 i Washington, D.C. 20005 L (202) 842-0034 g
~. 1 ^ 327 1 LWhenever anything happens at one of our plants, we get calls q( ~ 'from CNN and the " Washington Post" and_all those highly 2 ~ j 3 credible news organizations. We put out a number.of_ 4 publications. 5-MR. SEALE: _ I think we are on your mailing list. MR. BEEDLE: I-beg your pardon? 7 MR. SEALE: I think.we are on:your_ mailing list. 8 MR. BEEDLE: Great, great. I hope you're finding 9 .it interesting. 10 We have a number of outreach programs and 11-coalitions.- We~have grassroots and grasstops, efforts that 12 are conducted by our members. We help collate and correlate -13 many of those activities. We run a numLar of conferences 14 and meetings to try to insure that information is well I 15 understood and members-are able to act on various bits of 16 information that are collected through our processes. 17 Opinion and social science research. We 18 periodically do surveys to determine what public opinion is. _19 We watch the public opinion go up and down. One of the 20 interesting public opinion items that came out last year is 21 that congressmen think that nuclear power is the right way_ 2? for the country to go. The congressman don't think that their constituents believe that nuclear power is the right 23 24 ~ -way to go. The constituents think that nuclear power is the 25 right way to go. f~ u;N RILEY & ASSOCIATES; LTD. ( s Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 a
. ~,.. -.... -328 1 MR. KRESS:' Don't think their congressmen think. () 2. ~ that'. 3-MR'.- BEEDLE: That's another one. If you ask 4 people, does it'make sense.for the nation to get into-5- ~ nuclear and generate electricity that is safe ~and relikole 6 and does not emit things into the atmosphere and they tell 7 you yes. I'm not_sure_the other guy. thinks that. So, I .8 won't vote for it. It's not a popular thing to stand up and 9 advocate for. 10 MR. KRESS: Have you gotten involved in food 11 irradiation any at all? 12 MR. BEEDLE: To some extent, we have. We have 13 been asking and we think that food irradiation is logical. 14 It maAes sense. The advocates or the antis of that program 15 think that if you irradiate something, it's sort of like 16 contaminating it with E-Coll or something and it stays with 17 it. 18 Public opinion is a very pouerful thing. The 19' members of Congress's perception of public opinion becomes a 20 very difficult thing to deal with. 21 DR. POWERS: We have to prepare a letter to 22 Congress on the research program,' which tends to be a "orum 1 23. for speaking to Congress about the nuclear industry as a 24 whole. If in the course of today's presentation you can 25 give us any= kind of thoughts on what you think we ought to 'l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 4 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
4 l 329 i 1 Lwrite to' Congress,-Lthey would be very welcome.. ,) 12-MR. SEALE: Our-chairman has-told us that we.need' 3' to worry about the nexus..of these..He admitted:that this is
- =
4. the first time we'd ever used that word' voluntarily _. So, fit ~ 'S-means whatever he thinks it means, the. connection, if-you 6 -will,.-of research-to some of these questions and all. 7-One~of.the things that.is, if you will, an 8 opinion-related issue is, in trying to come to grips with 9 risk-informed or risk-based regulation,'at some point, we. [10 need to' decide what an acceptable level of risk is.' That is
- 11
.particularly true if Congress indeed is going to paaa the 12 legislation that is pending,.I understand, where risk 13' ' benefit-analyses are scing to be required to support any a ? tegulatory decisions. 15 Have you in your public opinion, examinations or 16 assessments or whatever, tried to como to some type of 17 closure on this question of what an acceptable level of risk 18 is? R19 MR..BEEDLE:- Well, that is something we have been 20 wrestling.with for a number of years. 21 MR. SEALE: Well, yes. 22 MR.-BEEDLE: We ended up with this -- ~23 MR. SEALE: Well, you guys have actually gone:out 24 and.beerded the lion, at least, du some of these areas. -NRC 25 has-not been perhaps as aggressive in that area as you have. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. N -1 Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 i Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
330 1 MR. BEEDLE: Well, we have tried to draw some 73) 2 comparisons between the risk of nuclear versue the risk of e 3 driving cars, versus the risk of riding in an airplane. The 4 bottom line -- and I think it was summar. Led by one of the 5 TMI citizen monitors who are out there with their monitors, 6 monitoring TMI. I mean they are out there doing it today. 7 We say, what are you finding? Well, I'm no finding 8 anything, but i'm still worried about it. 9 Well, now, where you are monitoring TMI from afar, 10 are you doing anything about monitoring your home for radon. 11 We're pretty sure that your radon level is probably pretty 12 high. No, I don't want to monitor that. A, I don't want to 13 know what it is.- B, if it's natural as opposed -- 14 DR. POWERS: Natural radiation is good or you. p,, / 15 MR. BEEDLE: We are talking about, to some extent, s-16 education. The perceived risk from this nuclear plant is 17 very real. It is the result of a lot of things. Everyday 18 you pick up the paper and scmewhere the 109 plants in the 19 country have had some sort of an LER. They have had some 20 sort of an event that triggers some regulatory response and 21 we read it in the newspaper and that makes people fairly 22 convinced. 23 I was talking with the EDO the other day and I 24 said, you know, I don't understand a statement that says 25 this has no regulatory -- no safety significance, but high C\\ (~) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l l
331 1 regulatory interest. Here you are; here is your fine for (~N () 2 $110. That does not make sense in my mind. $110,000 is 3 more than most people make in a year. In fact, it is more 4 than a_ lot of people make in several years. In fact, it's 5 more than a lot of people make in several years. 6 That means that that event, whatever it was, had 7 to have been significant for the agency that levied that 8 sort of a penalty on it. I think people look at that and 9 they say, I don't know what it was but it had to have been 10
- bad, My wife reads it like that.
When she sees a fine for 11 $250,000 she says, boy, they must have really done something 12 bad. 13 MR. SEALE: Ninety-eight percert of the people who 14 read that paper feel the same way. ~s \\/ 15 MR. BEEDLE: Right. 16 So, we find that we continually reinforce this 17 notion that this plant out here is really a dangerous thing 18 to have around. Not only that, we have a guard force that 19 exceeds the operations force. Not only that, we arm them l 20 with shotguns and. rifles and pistols and we put them in 21 black uniforms and we make them look like a gestapo 22 organi=ation. 23 So, you tell me. What are we trying to do in 24 terms of pubAic perception? We are doing everything that we 25 can possibly do to convince them that those are really l ,r\\ ( 4 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20005 l (202) 842-0034 l
332
- 1 Ldangeroustthoughts..We continieftoLtry:to chip away at that
)_ 2 lprocessithat we managed to construct,-to convince our public 3-that these things are hazardous,fwe:are trying toLwork at 4 that. I 5 MR. KRESS: I'd like to notflet_you go on just. 6-yet. I've made a number of-talks in my lifetime about how 7 safe is nuclear power..You can talk about all the things we 8-do to make them safe, but in the final:end, when you come 9 down to_it, the only measure we have of safety is what comes 10 Jout of a PRA. It's-the measure of-the risk. We can also 11 talk about events that happened, but those don't really give 12 you a= full measure of safety, The only measure I have to. 13 say how safe this nuclear-power is, is the results of the 14 PRAs. 15 I find that that falls flat. People just will not 16 -- when I tell them that is the measure and that they are 17 safe because the PRA tells this, they just don't buy it. 18 That has always been frustrating with me. 1 just wondered 13 if you have had this experience? i 20 MR. BEEDLE: Oh, we do everyday. When you tell 21 somebody that the probability of an accident is one times-10 22 to the minus four, what does-that mean to them? "I'm not 23 -even sure I understand what that means. It's a number. Not 24 only that,-when I say it's 1.1 times 10 to the'minus 4, I .25 mean, that presumes that.I have really got some ability to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034-l _ - ~..
~.... 333 1: mcasure this when, in fact, we're kind of estimating and () l2 .guesstimating and based on past experience. 13s That's one of the problems we have with the staff 4 right'now..We:have a whole series of numbers embedded in 5 our PRA _ and we are now having to go back and qualify -every 6 one of those numbers, because we think that somehow that is- , going to validate this number of 1.1 times 7 times 4. I f 8 would argue that, it isn't going to mount to a hill of. 9 beans. We're going to apend thousands of dollars trying to -10 validate some number that~isn't going to change the outcome 11 one bit. If it goes from 1.1 timec 7 minus 4, to 2.2 times, 12 we have doubled the risk. That is bad to double the risk. 13 So, when you start using these numbers to convince 4 14 the public this is safe, it just absolutely falls flat. 15: They do not understand what those numbers mean. They don't 16 'have any appreciation for how they are developed. I would 17 argue'that the PRA did a lot for us in terms of confirming 18 what we already knew. 19 I knew that the RHR system was far more important 20 than-the auxiliary steam system, no question about it. I 21 knew that the RHR was more important than core spray. 22 Well, what have we done? 23 -We have managed to quantify to some extent that good engineering judgment has now and in the past told-us 24 251 were important things to pay attention to. I agree, the (O. y 1004 RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
334 1 public does not understand those numbers. .( ) 2 MR. KRESS: I found out that the best approach to 3 convincing them of how safe nuclear is, is to use the quote 4 fron. " Alice in Wonderland", believe seven impossible things 5 and then tell what has to happen before you actually get to 6 a core melt and what the lines of protection are.
- That, 7
now, they understand. 8 MR. BEEDLE: Well, things like the " China 9 Syndrome," remember that movie? Those things capture the 10 imagination of the public. 11 MR. KRESS: Besides, Jane Fonda is pretty 12 good-looking. 13 [ Laughter] -14 MR. BEEDLE: The public seizee on those things Ak,) 15 because they think that there is some measure of truth. I m 16 think the public generally would like to think that the 17 things that movies are made of, in fact, occur out here in 18 industry. These robber barons are sitting up there trying 19 to figure out how to collect all the money from the public. 20 There are probably a large number of people in the country 21 who think the stock market up and down a week ago was all 22 contrived by somebody. It's the thing that feeds the 23 Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory. You get all sorts 24 of novels and movies and everything and that just feeds the 25 public's notion of this. [l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. -Court Reporters -1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 -(202) 842-0034
-335 -1, I think"we on a day to day,7almostThour by_ hour ~( ) 2 basis' tend'to feed.the.public more-than enough infermation; j 3, to make'them anxious aboutLthis nuclear-power' environment'we .4 .have by the:way~we are regulated. The LERs don't make-any-5- sense at all that we have to submit. There are-_ fines on- ~ 6 trivia that tend to make'the public think that these things 7 -are.significant. 8 Now, I'm not saying that the regulator is totally 9 at fault in this. We are kind of our-own worst enemies in a 10 lot of' cases. We don't communicate very well with the" i '11 public. For years, we took the view that, the only way to 12 deal:with the public was to keep them in the dark; keep your 13: name out of the_ paper. Unfortunately, when your name is in 14 the paper, it's always.in a negative sense. So, your 15 failure to act and portray your company in a positive light 16 is a disadvantage when the chips are do~wn and you're trying 17 to deal with some issues. 18 MR. KRESS: When we write our report _to Congress, 19 we are searching for a theme for that report. For example, 20 do we need a healthy research program? We're dealing 21 strictly with research, NRC research. Do we need a healthy 22 _research program to insure safety? It sounds like that's 23 not a bad theme. It' sound like you think that's pretty well 24 taken care of. Do we need_a healthy research program to
- - 2 5 :
-improve the regulations'so that you guys and can more t- ~~ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
336 1 competitive in a deregulated environment? That might be one (ms,) 2
- theme, 3
If you have any thoughts about what might Ime an 4 overriding theme for this letter, we would really appreciate 5 that. 6 MR. BEEDLE: Well, I clearly ion't think it is a 7 safety issue. We have a lot of years of operation that say 8 that this is a pretty mature, safe technology. I really 9 doubt that anybody believes that we are on the verge of some 10 major event in this. country. -11 The thing that I do think that we are on the verge 12 .of is, creating an environment where nobody is going to 13-invest money in no new nuclear plants. Thia country is 14 going to end up so dependent on fossil fuel that, we will O (_/ 15 eventually pay the penalty for that. I think we are all 16' going to have to learn how to speak Japanese and French to 17 build our next generation of plants. That is what I think 18 is the risk. 19 So, if'I were to suggest a theme, I would say we 20 need to look at this nation's resource capability and do 21 what we Laed to do to support what makes sense from a 22 technological point of view, 23 Now, when the Congress, the President all neglect 24 to talk about nuclear in an era when we're talking about 25 clean air, somebody is not looking at the picture in the ,r). 4 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I' Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
337 a. 1 right fashion. I mean, if the President thinks that he tan I) 2 getcclean air legislation.through'and then make it effective 3 without depending'on'the' current plants, nuclear plants, .4 'he'U not adding and subtracting right. He just can't-get 5 them from here to there without.that. 6 -Okay, so back to NEI. 7-We have a board of directors and an executive 8 committee that governs our activities. The board of -9 directors are-the-CEOs of all of our nuclear utilities. 10 Every utility with a nuclear plant, the CEO is a member of' 11 our board of directors. We have 15 of those CEOs that form 12 our executive committee. They give us the day to day 13 guidance. They monitor our expenditures. They monitor the 14 activities that we are involved with, to insure that we are 15 doing what the board wants us to do. 16 MR. KRESS: Does that membership rotate? 17 MR. BEEDLE: It does indeed. We rotate about a 18 third of them every year or so. So,-they are on there-for a 19 three-year period. So, that gives everybedy an equal 20 representation. Certainly, the members of the executive 21 committee talk to other board members. We don't deal with 22 too much in isolation. -23 DR. POE.RS: When does the Ambassador from France 24 become 6 -- 25 MR. BEEDLE: The' Ambassador from France is not a ANN PYLEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court 1 Reporters j, 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 . Washington, D.C. 20005 (202). 842-0034
.~.. 338 l' member of our board of directors. An is the case in most () 2 . organizations, the-people that pay the most have the biggest 3 ' vote and the biggest clout. So, it turns out that the j 4 board of directors, all the CEOs of the power reactor j 5 facilities, are the ones that are paying about 95 percent of 6 our dues. So, if the Embassy of France. it turns out, I f' 7 think pays $50 a year or something like that, that covers 8 postage. They don't have a heavy sway in where we go with 9 .our program, 10 MR. SEALE: Not until we start building French 11 reactors. .12 DR. POWERS: Then big time. 13 MR. BEEDLE: Right. 14 Now, if we are interested in some cooperative 15 effort with EDF, we get the EDF folks in and they are 16 members. We get the Embassy of France, We work with them, 17 trying to get everybody to see the value of whatever it is 18 that we think, where we think we need to go with those '19 programs. 20 At the heart of NEI is our advisory committee 21 structure. Alex and I don't go off in a direction simply 22 because he and I got together and figured out.it was a good 23 way to do it. We get a committee of industry 24-representatives together to figure out where we're headed, 25 what we need to do and we march off and execute their ( ANN RILEY F ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 3250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 -.- -.n w - --,.,,r --r-e,--+n, .-~n-.v. .+,e
i l 339 1 desires. Now, some of the details, Alex and I make those' () 2 decisions, but by and latge, the general, philosophical 3 approach to be taken on an issue is determined by out f 4 committee structure. 1 5 We have advisory committees, task forces and then l 6 we get down into an issue task force, maybe a-half a dozen j 7 folks with a senior manager, with technical issues. They l l' 8 will just roll up these recommendations, up until you get to 9 the advisory committee,s. l 10 We have three principle advisory committees, the 11 Nuclear Strategic Issues Advisory Committee which membership t 12 on this is all of the chief nuclear officers in the 13 industry, plus representatives from NSSS vendors and some of 14 the -- EPRI is a member of that ddvisory committee. EPRI 15-and INPO sit on that. The Governmental Advisory Committee 16 and Government Affairs and the Communications Advisory 17 Committees are standing bodies, if you will, that give us 18 direction. 19 The NSIAC, Nuclear Strategic Issues Advisory 20-Committee, as I mentioned, reports to the executive 21 committee, the board. They identify and evaluate issues and 22 assistLus in implementation. All of the chief nuclear 23 officers -- in fact, we had a meeting yesterday of the 24 NSIAC. We talked about a number of issues. Steam '25 - generators is one that was on the list. We talked about the I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court-Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (2C2) 842-0034
i
- b s.
1 environment we find ourselves in, in terms of regulatory l 1 () 2 interface and what we need to do to make sure the data is -3 correctly connunicated to the senior executives at the NRC. l i 4 We have had a considerable effort recently on t 5 safety conscious work environment. I'm sure you may be 6 aware of-the " Federal Rogister" notice that was published in 7 March, that. talked about various options that the commission 8 was-considering in that area. We were very concerned that j 9 there would be some rulemaking that would try to dictate how 10 people think and how people act. We saw a great deal of Il risk in that and made a concerted effort to communicate that 12 concern to the Commissioner. In fact, we have made calls on 13 the Commissioner twice. The chief nuclear officers are-the 14 principle vehicle to carry that message. 15-MR. SEALE: By the way, yesterday there was some 16 interest in the one that identified the performance measure 17 having to do with accident rates as a predictor of potential 18 problems down the road. So, you guys affect us the other 19_ _ way sometimes. 20 MR. BEEDLE: Well, I think if we could go to the 21 predictor gauge _up on the full panel and say, okay, it's 22 going this way, let's go do something about it, we would 23 love to have that. I would like to know what is going to 24 hr.ppen in the future. I could take that information and 5 25 become very wealthy, along with the rest of us,'to the stock 4 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 a
- -_--..m_,,_
,_,,,-._.w_-,-
i 341 1 market if I could predict the future. That is what we are i () 2 trying to do with these indicators. l 3 The NRC for years has been working on these 4 -precursor indicators. I still don't think we have managed t 5 to get there. We have continued to search. It is almost a j 6 search for-the Holy Grail that we're dealing with here. As 7 many managers will tell you, give me that one indicator that 8 I need to pay attention to. Well, I don't think life is I 9 that simple. It is not that simple. There are just a i ~ 10 thousand things that a manager needs to look at to determine 11 whether his organization or his equipment is going one way 12 or the other. The ability to do that is highly dependent on 13 your ability to stay in touch with the people and monitor 14 the processes across the board. There's just no one thing 15 to do. 16 Now, your ability to sit here and say because of 17 the way you are sitting in your chair today means that 18 tomorrow you're going to have back problems, I'm not sure I 19 could tell you that. 20 MR. FONTANA: There is an aspect and I think it 21 relates to what he just said. 22 In a performance-based regulation, you really 23 can't allow the ultimate thing to happen. So, you have to 24 allow something -- it has to be no unacceptable. So, 25 identifying something that could have been important so that () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington,-D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
1' 343 1 I can regulate to that, I think, is valid. P Cw), be one f 2 of the thousands of things that you're talk W; woout (J;* :st 3 one indicator. I f W ' 44 u h: 4 MR. BEEDLE: I think that yt.s =o u 5 you probably have. Just ask a pl b tc
- ues M.0i show you
) G the tremendous amount of data atid not;1cp...g thac they carry 7 on on a day to day basis. It is phencmenal. They are 8 looking at the performance in an outage. They are looking l 9 at reliability factors of pieces of equipment, you know, p 10 -diesel--engines, for example. The-reliability factors on j -11 diesel engines, up in the 99 percenti)e, that is pretty 12 -phenomenal. 13 Does that mean that you are always satisfied when f 14 the diesel is out of service? No, you're trying to avoid 15 that, but the general performance is pretty good. Does that 16 mean that it is worth spending a lot of money to eat that 17 last tenth of a percent in there? We tend to tell ourselves 18 that that tenth of a percent of unreliability is going to i 19 occur at a point when you have to have the diesel. We 20 always tend to look for that absolutely worst kind of a I 21 situation. 22 I was thinking the other day when a news article 23 talked about Crystal River being given an exemption because 24 one of their fire penetrations was only good for 20 minutes. 25 'I said,-God, there's'probably not enough stuff even in the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250.I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 .(202) 842-0034 [ ~.
L 343 1 vicinity'of that penetration to burn for 20 minutes.
- Yes, f) 2 the penetration wouldn't survive more than 20, but you have 3
to ask yourself is there enough stuff that would burn for 20 4 minutes to create the problem that you're having to look at. 5 So, a lot of times we look at the -- you know, the 6 law says, the rule says that you have to have x, but does it 7 really make sense? Well, we get slapped with the violation 8 of-not having x without any consideration for whether it 9 makes sense or not. Compliance is compliance and that is 10 the environment we live in. We are trying to change that. 11 NSIAC membership, we talked about that one. 12 Principle here is NEI, EPRI and INPO and NSSS vendors. We 13 try to make sure that everybody who plays a role in this 14 nuclear life that we are in is given a voice in here and 15 understands where we are going and is able to participate in 16 that process. 17 EPRI, you will hear from Jim Lang here shortly. 18 EPRI is a key player in our life. When we develop technical 19 issues, we turn to EPRI to deal with those technical issues. 20 We are not trying to solve the technical problems. That is 21 EPRI's. He support EPRI doing those technical -- the 22 technical workforce. When I say us, I'm talking about the 23 industry, not NEI per se. 24 Industry initiatives, you may have heard comments '25 about an industry initiative. An industry initiative is one () ANN ~RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters. 1250 I Street, N.W.,-Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
344 1 that we have embarked on. It is an effort we have embarked () 2 on where we get all the chief nuclear officers to agree that 3 this is the right way to proceed and we have their agreement l 6 4 that, if we can get 80 percent of the chief nuclear officers 5 to agree to a course of action, it binds the other 20 l 6 percent. Those commitments then, I think, stand as a basis 7 for the industry taking' action across the board. It isn't 8 just one utility or two. It is the entire population of 9 plants. 10 The Executive Task Force an Enforcement, the j 11 regulatory process, this just represents four of the senior 12 chief executive officers and chief nuclear officers who are 13 involved in some of these activities. We have a number of 14 etanding committees that deal with ALWR, radionucleide, () 15 radiopharmaceuticals, facility operations and so forth, i 16 This is a listing of working groups. They run from crisis 17 communications to the technical issues in security, fire l 18 protection rad work practices and so forth. It is a pretty 19 broad spectrum of activities. 20 Then we have a whole host of task force issues. 21 50-59 is one we are still continuing to work with. 22 Hopefully, that will go away one of these days. Operational 23 QA rulemaking is one, pressure vessel integrity data, dry 24 cask storage and so forth. 25-MR. SEALE: I would go back to one of your earlier () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters _ i 1250-I Street, N.W., Suite 300. Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 i ~.,.. - - -,, - -, - - - -,,., -,, - - -,. -,, - =. -- ~--
I 1 345 ] 1 slides on there. We talk about whether or not there are () 2 research requirements laying out there in the future. I 3 think a very good example a lot of people would argue is, 4 for example, you have the Utility Fuel Committee. The 5 initiatives on high burn up fuels certainly raise a series 6 of technical questions which need to be addressed if one is 7 to expand the coverage of the safety envelope from where it 8 was originally draped to cover this expanded operation of l 9 the plants. 10 That is a safety issue which is largely motivated 11 by the expressed desires of the industry to go to high burn 12 up fuel. I think it is-an example of a research need which 13 has a very -- is both legitimate technically and has an 14 origin with supports the overall industry's image of where ) 15 it has to go in order to better achieve competitiveness and 16 so on. 17 MR. BEEDLE: I agree with that, Bob. Recently 18 under the auspices of EPRI, we created what we call the 19 Robust Puel Task Force. I don't know whether -- Jim may 20 talk about that a little. I think he is shaking his head 21 yes. 22 MR. SEALE: I understand there are other problems 23-with the dry cask storage -- 24_ MR. BEEDLE: Right. 25 MR. SEALE: QA problem and so on as well, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters -1250 I Street, N.W.,- Suite 300-Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 . ~
346 1 MR. BEEDLE: Well, I'll tell you, in the area of 2 fuel, it's kind of interesting. You look at that and every 3 utility is purchasing fuel on their own. There is no j 4 consortium that buys the fuel and buys the design. So, each ] 5 utility is negotiating with several vendors to produce fuel 6 for his next reload. 7 MR. SEALE: It's an international bazaar. 8 MR. BEEDLE: Well, it's called marketplace. 9 MR. SEALE: Yes. 10 MR. BEEDLE: It's called the marketplace. 11 MR. SEALE: Sure. 12 MR. BEEDLE: You're right, it is an international 13 bazaar in that respect, because a number of these 14 manufacturers are not just domestic manufacturers. 15 Now, what you have is a fuel engineer and a 16 marketing guy at the utility who are out here trying to get 17 the biggest return on their dollar. The GEs and the 18 Framatones and AMF and Westinghouses are all willing to sell 19 you something. One of the interesting things when you go in 20 for a fuel campaign is, it's your marketing guy is working 21 with their marketing guy to try to deal with a technical 22 product. Half the time, they don't even know what they're 23 talking about, but they will generate a new product for you. 24 We find a wide variety of proposals that run from longer 25 life to higher enrichment to-different configurations to t ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
347 1 give you more margin or eat up some of your margins. It is () 2 really a hodge-podge of parameters, 3 So, what we have today is a situation where we try 4 to build more energy into the same space and maybe we 5 haven't gone about it in the right way. So, this robust 6 fuel group is going to tako a look at that. 7 Now, the research on this thing, clearly there is 8 concern at this particular point in time about Boeing and 9 the expansion and contraction of some of the fuel assemblies 10 and it's effect on the control rod ability insert. That is 11 where their principle focus is and what exactly needs to be 12 done to resolve that. 13 MR. SEALE: The reason I'm chuckling is that, last 14 week, "Dilbert" had a strip where he talked about the 15 dangers of marketing people who had magazines with 16 information in them. 17 MR. BEEDLE: That's right. I remember that one. 18 That was a good one, wasn't it? 19 [ Laughter) 20 DR. POWERS: Let me ask a question about some of 21 hesu task forces. I know that it is all of them -- but 22 some of them. Some of them generate an approach that 23 eventually your members vote on and adopt as the way of 24 doing business. At the same time, we have a public law that 25 says, absent-some good reason, you a cept industry ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
348 1 standards. I think when the public law was written, they O(j 2 were thinking of things like ASME standards and IEEE 3 standards, but didn't say so. It says industry standards. I 4 When you say industry standards and 100 percent of 5 your members have adopted a way of doing business, that 6 smacks strongly of being an industry standard. It still haa 7 not gone through the consensus process, the things like ASME 8 standards and 13EE standards go through. I~am told by those 9 very familiar with those consensus process that, although 10 not transparently obvious, it is a very good process and it 11 usually results ir. something you can have some confidence 12 in. Certainly, history supports that point of view. 1 13 We have found a number of occasions where your 14 particular product seems to suit the regulatory bill as a 15 regulatory guide or some way of doing business to comply 16 with regulation rather closely and this committee has 17 written letters that say, gee, why don't you use this. On a 18 fair number of these -- the top and the bottom one in 19 particular, I can think of. 20 We do that with a certain amount of trepidation 21 because we know they have not gone through the consensus 22 process. We're a little unsure how they get generated. All 23 we really know is what is in them and that 100 percent of 24 your members have adopted them. 25 Have you considered trying to take advantage of ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
t f 349 1 this public law and this, to make this more like a consensus l 2_ industry standard, to develop some greater credibility to it f 3 than simply something all the members -- business as usual 4 among the members? f 5 MR. BEEDLE: Well, that has been a question that j 6 has come up recently. In fact, Alex has spent some time j 7 with the staff talking about how can the agency utilize the 8 industry's initiative. That is typically the term that we-9 refer to on our effort where all the utilities are bound, 10 morally if not legally, to comply with our guideline. ~- 11-I had this brief discussion with the chairman a 12 couple of weeks ago on this. I said, well, one of-the j 13 things that -- if I were in your nosition, I would look at 14 some of these initiatives that the industry has and really l 15 ask myself, do I need to regulate them. 16 Shut down, for example, we have an initiative that 17 was developed by NUMARC in 1991 that deals with the conduct 18 of operations in the shutdown. It tells you that you can 19 take equipment out of service. You should do it prudently 20 and you ought to understand what the risks are and pay 7.1 attention to what you're doing. You ought to also manage 22 -your outage so that it is done effectively. A shorter 23-outage is a safer outage. You know, it gets you out of that 24-condition that you find yourself in when equipments are -25 deranged. t ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. -Court ~ Reporters-1250 I Street, N.W.,' Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202)'842-0034 h
r i 350 [ 1 Is that something that the'NRC really needs to [ () 2 regulate? I would argue probably no. 3 They have rules and tech specs that govern the 4 important things. Why should they go beyond that to l 5 regulate how every mechanic does his job? There comes a + 6 point in time.when regulation really doesn't produce 7 anything in terms of safety benefits. 8 MR. BARTON: Do you know what happens across the l 9 number of events that are occurring during shutdown that 10-make people nervous that say that maybe the industry isn't 11' doing enough and we need to put something out there so we 12 can catch them when they screw up? I think that is what 13 drives it. 14 MR. BEEDLE: We have not had a major event in 15 shutdown in years. I gueso it was Riverbend that was the 16 recent one -- with the staff out and -- 17 MR. BARTON: Right, just set some steam in a 18 vessel -- right. 1 19 MR. BEEDLE: You tell me. I mean, we already have H20 rules that deal with temperature in the fuel pool. Is 21 adding more rules going to prevent that? No. 22 So, every time somebody steps across a line, does 23 that mean we have to build more lines that say don't step 24 across the line? It doesn't make sense. You can post 55 25 miles per hour speed limits every ten feet along the road. () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.. Court-Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 i
351 l 1 1 It is not going to change the drivers' habits. l () 2 MR. BARTON: Yer. but if you put policemen -- f 3 MR. BEEDLE: Now, one for every thousand miles is f 4 good, yes. [ 5 MR. BARTON: If you put policemen every ten feet f 6 down the road, it will change their habits. 7 (Laughter) 8 MR. BERDLE: That's true; that I agree. That is 9 true. 10 MR. BARTON: .I think that is what regulation is. 11 DR. POWERS: That's what regulations do for the 12 agency. 13 MR, BEEDLE: I disagree with you, sir, I 14 disagree. Regulation is one thing. Enforcement is another 15 issue and monitoring and policing is yet a-third. 16 MR. FONTANA: The point is, if the road is built 17 for 75 miles an hour, it is stupid to regulate uhem at 55, 18 but that's my own. 19 [ Laughter] 20 MR. BEEDLE: Well, that's a totally different 21 issue. 22 DR. POWERS: The question is, are the drivers 23 built for 75 miles an hour. 24 MR BEEDLE: Back to Dana's point that, if you 25 have a regulation and then you have somebody standing there () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters i 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l 352 l t . atching you, the chances are that you will pay more 1 w () 2 attention to the regulation that if he isn't watching. 3 That's one of those human kinds of things. I would argue 4 that, in a lot of cases, some of these things aren't human 5 issues. It is not somebody's deliberate intent to go above i 6 the speed limit. l 7 In the case of the fuel pool temperature -- I 8 think it was Riverbend. 9 MR. BARTON: Riverbend had an in-vesseled steam 10 _ phenomenon. l 11-DR. POWERS: Yes, it was a mode change. 12 MR. BEEDLE: Now, if you talk about did they 13 violate a rule, what was the rule they violated in that one? 14 Does anybody know what the text back violatic as on O 15 Riverbend. 16 DR. POWERS: Yes, it was an unanticipated mode 17 change. 18 MR. BEEDLE: It was the mode change issue. It was I 19 a mode change issue. Is that a safety issue? No. 20 DR. POWERS: Oh, absolutely it is. An unplanned 21 mode change is definitely a safety issue. You're in a mode 22 you didn't anticipate. You're not prepared for it. 4 23 MR. BEEDLE: It was an unintended movement which 24 meant somtoody wasn't thinking about what was going on. 25 DR. POWERS: They were unprepared for it. t O g ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 .--- - _ =,
- - _. -. = -.... 353 l 1 MR. BEEDLE:' I would argue that it was not a () 2 safety issue,_however. 3 DR. POWERS: We can argue about that one, but I i 4 will establish my position. Yes, it definitely is a safety 5 issue. MR. MILLER: I'll establish mine. There is i 7-minimal safety issue there. 8 MR. BEEDLE: 7es, but that is the kind of 9 situation we find ourselves in. I don't think that issuing 10 shutdown rules, adding more lines that you have to box 11 people in with is going to change the situation with regard 12 to that unintended mode change. 13 DR. POWERS: Go back to the original question 14 which is -- take your shutdown issue, because I think that O 15 is an area where, A, guidance has been established. It has 16 been adopted. It has been implemented. There are tools 17 available people can analyze very carefully. Staff concedes 18 that when you follow these shutdown guidances, plants are 19-safe. They did an analysis on it and came back and said, 20 when you follow these voluntary actions, the plants meet our 21 safety standards. We find them acceptable. 22 Then they come back and say, but we have a 23 problem. We can't inspect and enforce voluntary actions, j 24 -but it seema to me that they could if they follow this i 25 -public law--and say it is_an-industry standard. There are l t-( )' ANN RILEY.& ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 -..u.. -_m._._, .. m
354 i i points in there that you can enforce and inspect. () 2 My question to you is, have you thought in those 3 sorts of terms, that you can facilitate the staff adopting 4 your voluntary standards and not having to regulate, to 5 establish their own regulations because there are all kinds 6 of paperwork activities on the parts of the licensees that 7. probably don't add value? It's just paper. It creates a a 8 mechanism where they can inspect and enforce. That gives i 9 them the confidence that, in fact, all members have not only 10 vouchsafed that they will comply with this but, in fact, are 11 doing so. 12 MR. BEEDLE: Well, as you look at the initiatives 13 that we have established at this point, I think they fall 14 into two fundamental categories. We have the ones like the 15 91-06, NUMARC 91-06 that deals with shutdowns. That 16 document is, in fact in my mind enforceable through the 17 maintenance rule. If you go to the maintenance rule, it 18 clearly refers to the maintenance rule is applicable in 19 shutdown and normal operations. It invokes the 93-04, I 20 think it is, maintenance rule guideline or maintenance 21 guideline that NUMARC published. That in turn refers to the f - 22 91-06 on the shutdown configuration control. 23 So, I think that there is clear ability on the 24 . part of the agency to enforce the provisions of these 25 guidelines documents that NUMARC has published. d -() ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 1 Street, N. W.', Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202). 842-0034 wri+~D-T'1P*
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355 1 MR. BARTON: Sure and there is also the old () 2 catch-all. You screw up something. In Appendix B, you 3 probably violating something under the quality assurance 4 program also. So, there are ways that it can -- 5 MR. BEEDLE: Yes and I was reading through one of 6 our services that provides a summary of all the violations. 7 One of the plants was recently issuad a notice of violation 8 for Appendix B that refers to-invoking an ASME standard 9 which involved an IEEE standard which talked about cable 10 separation. We are dinging the utility, not that he 11 violated anything, but he didn't have a procedure which was 12 required by Appendix B that controls his use of extension 13 cords. i 14 Well, if you can do that, if you can issue a 15 violation on something like that 16 MR. BARTON: It's against anything. 17 MR. BEEDLE: -- you can deal with the shutdown and 18 the shutdown conditions and maintenance-rules. So, don't 19 tell me they don't have the power to do it. 20 MR. BARTON: But I don't think -- 21 MR. BEEDLE: That has been a continual issue. The 22' should/shall on A(3) of the maintenance rule has been a bone 23 of contention. Every time I meet with the commissioners and 24 some of the staffmembers, we get this should/shall argument. 25 Finally, I got fed up with it and, after a meeting, we went I ) '\\ / ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street,-N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 1 ~~-. ..,..... ~.. _.. _ _, _ _ _ _
L. 356 1 back to the office. I said, Alex, general.e e letter that 2 'says change should to shall. We sent that to the 3 commissioners and said, quit talking about its just do it.- 4 MR. BARTON: What you did is make the lawyere S happy. 6 MR. BEEDLE: That's right, okay. So, that's moro -7 paper on top.of paper that was meaningless. Well, we,ust 8 went to the chairman and said change should to shall and add 9 something in there t. hat says shutdown and operacAng modes to 10 . cover this maintenance rule. So, they will eventugliy get 11 around to it. 12 That is one initiative where there is some I 13 mechanical, technical issues, process control. Then there 14 ic another one like our guidance that was produced on how to 15 do a 50-59. I mean, I wouldn't expect the NRC, other than -16 to say we find that an acceptable way to deal with 50-59s. 17 That's all they need to do. Either you comply with 50-59 or 18 you don't. The guidance on how to do it is an entirely 19 different matter and we produce guidelines like that i 20 frequently. 21 MR. MILLER: They more or less did that way back 22 in 1989. 23-MR. BEEDLE: Oh, we did that within INSIAC 125 24 years ago, r.ight. 25 MR. MIhLER: The staff does credit those who have ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Ccurt Reporterp 1250 I Street, N.W., St:ite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 [ (202) 842-0034 s <-..n, L_.-,,,-,
-. ~ - - - -. - - -. - 357 l 1 used the INSIAC 125 or the derivative have definitely .i 2 improved their 50-59 process. 3 MR. BERDLE: I think those are in contrast though, j 4 Dana, to the ones I think you're kind of pointing to, where P f 5 there is a process and a mechanism that the regulator,can i 6 -point to and say, if you do that, you '.neet the law. That 7 what we have in our shutdown issues and our maintenance rule 8 and things of that sort. { 9 DR. POWERS: Well, it seems to me that -- well, I 10 know where this committee comes down, because I've written a 12-letter on this particular issue. They have a reluctance to 12_ iupport very convoluted pathways toward compliance with 13 rules, you know, reference this, reference this. They like 14 something very direct. They think you have something very 15 direct, but we are also sympathetic with the staff's problem 16 who nave to be able to inspect and enforce to it. 17 There's no question about it. I can think of no 18 shutdown ev mt where the staf f has not been able to find i 19 through a fairly not very complicated but still maybe 20 involuted process a basis for enforcement. I don't think 21 they should have to do that. I think they should be able to 22 enforce your voluntary standards. 23 MR. MILLER: 7.-don't really see why they can't, if 24 they endorse them. PR MR.-BARTON: It's not a staff issue. I think the i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034' j -_-_ _ _..- _. u,- _-.- --..~,._. _ -- ~,. ~ ,-.-,...,,-n.,_..._
358 1 issue is, the legal piece of the agency is telling the staff () 2 that they can't because the only thing you can enforce is a 3 regulation. I think that is the real hang up. 4 MR. BEEDLE: Right, a regulation or an ordLr or a 5 license -- 6 DR. POWERS: Or a commitment on the part of the 7 licensee. 8 MR. BEEDLE: Well, off the record -- .9 DR. POWERS: You're not off the record. 10 (Laughter) 11 MR. BEEDLE: Well, mcke sure you get this 12 recorded. 13 The fundamental problem with our regulatory 14 process is, they are writing regulations to force the k-15 industry into a position where if they cross the line, you 16 can hit them with a violation. We are not writing 17 regulations to make the process work well, be safe, be 18 economical, be of benefit to the nation. That is our 19 fundamental problem. It is founded on distrust and concern 20 for ability to give somebody a speeding ticket. 21 Until we get away from that, we are going to 22 continue to have this continual gyration over should/shall, 23 is there a regulatory ability to go hammer a guy. It is 24 epitomized b) the process that was described by the staff to 25 the commission several months ago when they said, we are ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 ~_
359 1 going to go out and review the plants and find out where /~N () 2 they have screwed up in the last six months, find out 3 whether or not we have a regulation to cover it and if we 4 don't, we will write a regulation. That way, we will i 5 prevent those things from every happening in the future, 6 which is absolutely foolish. 7 Now, we go back on the record. 8 [ Laughter) 9 DR. POWERS: You're always on the record here. 10 MR. BEEDLE: We have a number of information 11 forums, emergency planning, health, physics. We do these 12 every year. We try and bring everybody up to speed, a good 13 process for communication. NEI members -- we talked about 14 the shaping of policy and this is how it is all done, all /9 (s,/ 15 these. We have roughly 3,000 or so folks involved in this 16 advisory process. So, we are able to bring to bear a lot of 17 good thought, a lot of experience, many years of nuclear 18 experience involved in this process, 19 Okay, I apologize for taking so long on that. Let 20 me talk just briefly about some research issues. 21 NRC historically has done some excellent work in 22 research. An example of just a couple of them, source term, 23 radiation embrittlement, digital technology, aging effects, 24 just'to recognize that there have been some significant 25 things done. When you look at research, you have to look at ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
360 1 a technology, I think. that is pretty mature. (3 / j 2 We are looking at the 40th anniversary of this 3 current generation of nuclear facilities. Over 2500 years 4 of reactor *xperience. That's not trivial; that's a lot. 5 We have not had one fatality as a result of a nuclear 6 component in 2500 reactor years of operation. I think 7 that's pretty phenomenal. There isn't another industry in 8 this country and, indeed, the world that can talk about that 9 kind of a safety record. 10 We just had the 25th Reactor Safety Meeting here 11. in Washington. We are talking about things like ERA, how to 12 get into the minus, 4 down to -- 13 MR. FONTANA: Actually, t'.iat really 14 underestimates, because that's when NRC picked it up. That O (ms/ 15 started in Oak Ridge in 1960. 16 MR. BEEDLE: Right. 17 MR. FONTANA: So, you really have 37 years. So, 18 it is even more mature than what you're saying. 19 MR. MILLER: You could probably make the statement 20 that nuclear enterprise is the most successful technology in 21 the history of the United States in terms of safety, 22-reliability and service and challenge anybody to refute 23 that. 24 MR. BEEDLE: But if you ask my wife, she still-25 harbors this mushroom cloud, China Syndrome _and the Lemon I () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street,- N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
361 1 Report produced by the Union of Concerned Scientists and 2 Public Citizens. That is what is in her wind. She turns to f 3-me periodically and say, why don't you go educate the_ f 4 public. That's a mission impossible, f 5 MR. BARTON: It would be a bit easier to get her a f 6 job in a nuclear power plant so that she can be convinced 7 it's a Safe technology. 8 (Laughter) 9 MR. BEEDLE: I may try to do that. That has.any I 10 number of advantages. r 11 [ Laughter) 12 MR*. MILLER: Maybe disadvantages, too. 13' MR. BEEDLE: Challenges. 14 I think that the question of research for the 15 agency is right here on this slide. Reduction in budget, we 16 are looking at about $50 million ballpark. Ten years ago, 17 it was $100 million. It is hard to do more with less. We 18 are going to have to pick and choose those issues that 19 really have some-relevancy to the industry in order to seek 20 value added and whether or not-it is really something 21 necessary for protection of public health. 22 If we can't do these two, then I would say that -23 they are going to have a tough time trying to justify the '24~ expenditure of. money. 25. Obviously, there are various categories, the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters ..1250'I Street,.N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
362 1 confirmatory research where you think there is a problem and (,, 2 you have to go do some research to determine that. I think 3 the EPRI, I think, has been absolutely invaluable to the 4 industry in dealing with this confirmatory aspect of 5 research. When the industry has a problem, EPRI is out 6 there trying to figure out what you need to do to solve the 7 problem to give the plant the ability to perform better or 8 to mitigate the effects of whatever the issue is. 9 I think over the yeara, steam generator research 10 that they have done has been absolutely superb, as we have 11 gone through all the work to try and build better steam 12 generators and create a better environment within those 13 steam generators. The agency has been involved in that, 14 too. I'm not saying we haven't. \\_/ 15 Application of risk-based approaches, I think that 16 the use of the risk issues and risk-based applications will 17 help in determining whether or not we have really dealt with 18 the value added question in some of our research efforts. 19 Recommendations, I think these four bullets should 20 be familiar. These were, in fact, bullets that were 21 extracted or we extracted these from the Commissioner's 22 speech to the Water Reactor Safety Meeting a week ago. She 23 said research needs to be practical and if we are not 24 practical in our approach to research, it doesn't have 25 practical applications, it is not going to be of value to /~T (j ANN RILEY E ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 22 84 I b34
~ i 363 1 the industry. () 2 The digital _I&C, for example, has practical 3 applications for some of the industry, but not all of them. 4 There are a whole host of plants that will never go with { 5 digital I&C systems, because it doesn't make sense to spend 6 that kind of money to_ upgrade those systems. The real 7 problem will come as the agency puts a lot of money into 8 digital I&C and they all of a sudden conclude that that 9 research dictates a need for all of the plants to go in that 10 direction. That is where I think we have to be cautious 11 about-that. Just because you put money in research, it does 12 not mean that everybody has to use it. 13 Stable research, now the Commissioner is talking 14 about stable research. She is trying to suggest that there 15 needs to be a pattern in the research effort so that, 16 ultimately from year to year, you get some consistent 17 results and they are able to predict where various systems 18 are headed. That is going to be a tough one, because there 19 is a-sense in tbs research area to try and respond to 20 problems. Wherever a problem exists today, you have ta 21 respond to it and then expand the opportunities for cooperation. 23 The EPRI NRC MOU is a good example of where there 24 is.an effort to try and be cooperative in that. We had a .25_ meeting several weeks ago and talked about steam generator ( ANN RILTY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I--Street, N.W, Suite 300 Washington, _D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
i 364 l 1 research, where the EPRI program the various NSSS vendor 4 () 2 programs and the NRC__ programs were all vetted to try to 3 figure out where you can capitalize on the other programs-4 that are-in place to best marry your effort with theirs in f i 5 order to get a better result. I think that turned out to be j 6 an excellent opportunity-for the various research i 7 ' communities-to pool their efforts. 8 Then this M0U that EPRI -- you can-talk about~ i 9 that, Jim, a little bit later. I 10 MR. SEALE: There is a related issue that has to f 11 do with the international bazaar that is more than just a 12 fuel cycle but, in fact, the whole nuclear industry. 'You I 13 mentioned earlier about the marketing efforts in other 14 places and all. One of the things that the NRC has done in 15 .research in recent years has been to participate in some 16 international programs. They have had some remarkable 17 leveraging of their efforts. Because of the past reputation 18 of the NRC's research people and others, they have been able l 19 to exert extraordinary leadership on not only identifying 20 but, in fact, shaping.some of those programs 21 It strikes me that that is an effort that the 22 U. S. program needs to continue'to exploit. There are 2; certain aspects of that that are perhaps best reached i4
- through the regulatory process as opposed to industry groups 25-and.so'on.
In-the_long run, it is-part-of the strength of () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I. Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 . u.. = ~_... -,..-- -. - -
365 1 the U. S.-nuclear community. 2 I know you have in your activities and certainly' 3 EPRI in a.large international component of cooperation and -f 4 so on. So, I would say, when we talk about cooperation, it I 5 is more than just insular. It is international and we have I 6 to really push it. 7 'MR. BEEDLE: Absolutely, I agree with you, Bob. I 8 think EPRI will talk to you a little bit about their [ 9-involvement-in the internacional community. In fact, EDF is 10 a member of EPRI. I think EDF's research effort is probably 11 almost as big as the entire U. S. research effort. So, 12 there is certainly recognition of the value added by that 13 international cooperation. We rucognize that the agency has 14 been very much in the forefront of trying to garner support 15 from the international community and, yes, we are mindful of 16 that. 17 The steam generator meeting that I mentioned where 18 we got all the' interested parties together, I think we will 19 ultimately be instrumental in bringing-in some international 20: participants in that. I think that is kind of a forerunner 21 of the effort that EPRI has been very much interested in 22 fostering and pushing. I agree with that. 23-Conclusions -- 24-: MR. SEALE: I want to ask you one more question 25 before-you do that'. :I beg your pardon. t ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court. Reporters ~ 1250 I Street, r A.=, Suite 300 m - Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 -..;,~;.....--..z.~,-., .,,,-. -, - --~ . + -.. - - ~ -- ----.
366 -1 I am always struck by the fact that good ideas-() 2 often get subvertad and pervertedtby those whose_ motives I .3 -don't necessarily agree with and so on. The thing that I'm-4 concerned with is, we now have a. growing commitment or=it-5 may become a commitment, but a gruwing sense of the desire 6 to go to' risk-based cost benefit decisions on regulation. I 7 can see how that process could really get itself just tied 8 in knots by people who_ subvert or misrepresent risk or 9 misuse the methods of risk analysis and so on. 10 One of the things that impressed me-from the very. 11 ' time?that you began to present your pilot studies program-12 initiative to the commission is, the fact that the people in 13 the utilities, in fact, know more about practical PRAs, at 14 least, in many ways _than anybody in the commission does. 15 Your people have been using those to analyze in-service -16 inspection and graded QA and making proposals of that sort 17 and so on. 18 - Have you tried to think about how you can 19 influence the application of risk cost benefit methods in 20 the regulatory process so that it makes. sense? It just 21-seems to me that we have an awful potential for people to 22-leap at _ some wrong conclusions and make sons broad and 23 generalized statements about risk which will be completely 24-afield-and not_very helpful.in making any real progress. 12 5 - The_ precedent in this kind of thing is always important. y ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
367 1 Look at the law that says that any cancer produced by a drug /~(x) 2 is enough to ban it and all. So, the first shots are going 3 to be very important. 4 Have you folks thought about how you can make sure 5 that process is constructive? 6 MR. BEEDLE: I think that the industry has been 7 generally in agreement that we ought to be risk-based -- 8 MR. SEALE: Yes. 9 MR. BEEDLE: -- or risk-informed in our '10 application of the rules. I would suggest that, from the 11_ very outset of our riffort to put nuclear power in che 12 process to generate electricity was exactly that, to try and 13 do this in a prudent manner. Our pilot project that we just 14 recently initiated, I think, has practical value. It helps [/ x-15 you understand where you are spending money and, the 16 presumption that if you're going to spend money, it ought to 17 be spent on something that is important. 18 Our QA, our graded QA program that we have had 19 laying on the table for some months now and our efforts to 20 try and focus our effort on the things that are significant 21 to the safety of the plant as opposed co those that are not, 22 makes imminently good sense to me. I am not sure that we 23 have been able to use those two programs to help focus the 24 staff's attention on that. We will be the first to agree 25 that, graded QA is only an example of a risk-informed en I ~') ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
~. .. ~ 368 l 1 -program. It_does not mean that everything that the agency
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2_ does and every rule theyEmake has1to be a risk-based g 3 -program. -4 There:is no doubt the need for some deterministic-5 regulatory. process is in place. So, I don't think that you-5- will find that the industry says everything has to be -- or 7' it is not an'all or nothing kind of a situation. I thf.nk it 8 .is-put risk-based in a process that makes sense to you. I 9 think if you look at the QA programs in the industry, that 10 is just a prime example where we are spending thousands and
- 11 thovnands.of dollars every year _doing things that have 12 absolutely no bearing on safety. -In fact, they are not 13-telling us anything.
So, that.is why we-are trying to push 14' that. 15 MR. SEALE: Yes. 16 MR. BEEDLE: Now, I would say, in answer to your 17 question about trying to educate-the staff, I think our 18 effort-is to focus their attention on those things where 19 risk-based applications make some sense. I don't think we 20 have asked them to do anything in the risk-based area that 21-didn't make some sense in that regard. 22 MR. SEALE: Yes. -23 MR. BEEDLE: We're not saying that you have to 24 have everything. -There is certainly a balance in-that 25 process. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES,'LTD. Court Reporters '1250-I Street, N.W.,-Suite:300 Washington, D.C. 20005 -(202) 842-0034 .=u
1 369 1 Let me try and conclude this. ?~\\ \\ (u) 2 I don't want to leave you with the impression that 3 the NRC is not working with the industry-or the industry 4 isn't working with the NRC on this. I think the NRC is ) 5 struggling with some very difficult problems of shifting 6 from this very deterministic kind of a process into one that j 7 is willing to accept some risk-based application. I think 8 as Mario pointed out a while ago, there are some things 9 where if you talk about performance-based or risk-based, if 10 the outcome is absolutely unacceptable, you can't say that 11 is going to be your marker for whether or not you ought to 12 go back to deal with the process that led up to it. 13 So, you have to have some intermediate kinds of 14 things and that's where we had all the deterministic [( 15 processes that we had in place in the past. So, I think 16 there is a lot of work that needs to be done in this and the 17 NRC is a -- view our proposals and participate with us in 18 the pilot, I think we will eventually see some results. 19 Hopefully, we will see some results sooner than later in the 20 process. 21 That leads me to the next one, which is the 22 future. If we continue to seek opportunities to deal with 23 the research area, I think we will have to do it in an 24 cooperative effort simply because of the restrictions on 25 research dollars that are going to be available to us. I {A} ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street,-N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
370 l' ,see in the future this becoming an even more-difficult 7 () 2 process ti dea 11with, because the dollars that are goiryg to 3 be-available to:research are going to get tighter'and 4_ tighter because of the competitive-position that these-l 5 utilities _are: going _to be-in. 6 In the past, PSCs dictated certain percentages of 7 dollars that went into research programs. Those dollars, if 8 accepted by a PSC or PUC, were then' folded into the i .9 .ratebase. So, there is a recovery process there.. I don't 10 see that_ happening in the future. You are going to find 11 that a utility is reluctant to put money into it if it is 12 going.to make him not competitive. He is going to have r0 13-see some absolute, direct and near term return on that 14 investment before he is willing to put money into it. That 15 return on investment may be, you have to have the research 16 in order to s/' port the justification for safety 17 _ considerations that give you the ability to continue to 18 operate. That may be one of-them. 19 Here again, you will have to go through all'the 20 gyrations to prove that you they have to do that in order to 21 keep operating. Those are the kinds of driving forces that 22 I think are going to. influence our research, 23. So, I would say, thank you for the opportunity to '24 talk with you. I:know we probably kind of digressed a 25 .little bit. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. L Court Reporters 1250-I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 -(202) 842-0034
371 1 (Laughter]
- ,n
) 2 DR. POWERS: Not really. \\_/ 3 MR. FONTANA: One thing that came through very 4 loud and clear is the need for regulatory simplification. I 5 think it leads us to think a little bit out of the box. A 6 lot of the research that has been done to date has been 7 technical in nature, which is good. You need a technical 8 basis for the regulations. 9 I wonder if we ought to be thinking more also in 10 some respects on direct research, on what regulatory 11 simplification and burden reduction really is. We're not so 12 much technical as much as -- I don't know what you would 13 call it, a softer thing. It's more related to management 14 procedures and things like that. O \\_s/ 15 MR. BEEDLE: Let's go back to the shutdown. In 16 our technical specifications, it gives you some pretty clear 17 guidance on how to deal with the plan and the shutdown 18 condition. Now, there are a whole host of things that 19 surround that core environment. They invented Vogle where 20 they backed the truck into the power line. You lost power. 21 That was certainly an embarrassing situation for the utility 22 and it embarrassed the NRC in the process, because there's 23 some notion -- and here again, it goes to the way we 24 publicize all these things. 25 You put it out on the front page and then ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. 5 \\' Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
372 1 everybody says, well, NRC, why didn't you: prevent that from. () -2 happening.- Then-the NRC says, okay, I have to prevent'that 3 fr.am happening; let's go issue some more rules. As we go.
- 4-
_about this process, we need to look at what are the real 5 fundamental safety issues. Focus on those and then things 6 'like shutdown, I see absolutely no reason that the NRC can't 7 look at the record the industry has to date and shutdown 8 monitoring and shutdown performance and say,.that's been 9 pretty good. We have reduced those safety significant 10 events in the industry. 11 Now, I grant you that Riverbend was not a good 12 thing to happen, but I would argue that more rules isn't 13 . going to prevent that one. So, we have to resist this urge 14 to levy another rule to solve some problem that has already s-s/ 15-occurred. 16 DR. POWERS: You are the second speaker from your 17 organization who has showed me that this rate of shutdown 18 events has fallen and fallen dramatically. I look at the 19 ' statistics I have and, I'll admit that they extend back to 20 about 1990 the section I'm looking at. So, they can be out 21 of date a little bit. In that, I-don't see this dramatic 22 reduction. InLfact, what I see is an inorcinate amount of .23 NRC resources being devoted to events that have occurred 24 during shutdown. -25 So, I say, look, I am going to risk informed ( (h ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court' Reporters l 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 L (202) 842-0034 i l' m 4
373 1 regulation for a' lot'of reasons, number one of which, of 2 ' course,.is I think it makes the plan safer. Number two, in '3 my' inventory of things is,.that it allows me1to more 4 effectively utilize the staff resources that the agency.has ^ 5 and focus them_on the more safety significant items. I look 6 at this record and'I'say, well, shutdown is an important l 7 area to look at,_because I'm spending a lot of resources on 8 this and I don't see a dramatic reduction in the number.of 9 events. 10-MR. BEEDLE. Well, maybe you are looking at a 11 different database than I am. I don't see that we have had 12 a significant series of events in shutdown mode in these 13 plants;in the last several years. 'I think we have had 14 - dramatic improvement. We have had marked improvement in our 15, outage performance. -We have cut the number of days down 16: markedly that takes you out of that risk environment, you 17 know, the shutdown risk environment. The attention paid to 18 safety and mitigation systems that are taken out of service 19 so that you aren't-taking redundant systems out 20 simultaneously we have pretty well nipped that in the bud. ' 21~ There are good processes in control of that. 22 Maybe we ought to get together and compare some 23 notes on some of these events. If you take the view that you're never going to have an event of any sort in one:of 25-these plants, then we are in the wrong business. We are not-ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
374 1
- a zero event kind of environment.--
t ) 2 DR. POWERS: I don't think I'm asking you to be._ 3 ~I look at things like augmented inspection teams and I say, 4' 58 percent of them are dealing with shutdown' events. 5 MR. BARTON:. Ralph, I think you're right.- I1think 6 theLindustry has made vast' improvements in how they conduct 7 them. They have'done the work very safely. The thing that '8 still has not improved dramatically or_drasticallyfor 9 whatever you want to call it is, the human piece of the 10 shutdown. If you look at the events, it is not that.they. 11 didn't follow the NUMARC, NEI guidance. It's not that_they 12 didn't have a real detailed outage risk plan that was 13 reviewed by everybody who said, this is a terrific plan if 14 you follow it. 15' It is the errors that have been made by humans in 16 deviating from that plan is what has caused the recent 17 events that have gotten all this notariety, the NAITs and r 18 SITS and all that stuff that the NRC throws on the industry 19 when one of those happens. That is the piece that I think 20 still needs to be improved. 21 MR.-BEEDLE: That's a good observation. I agree 22 that what we have seen here is -- the total number of events 23 has decreased. As you decrease, as.you_ improve the-24 performance of the process, improve the performance of the 25 equipment,'this contribution from the-human element starts T,R) ANN RILEY-& ASSOCIATES,_LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite,300 Washington, D.C. 20005-(202) 842-0034
375 1 to increase in its percentage of contribution to the overall ,s (J) 2 numbers, even though they have decreased. I agree that that 3 is a major concern for us. 4 MR. SEALE: There is an element of management 5 judgement in establishing whether or not you're going-to use 6 an AIT. I think events-having to do with human performance 7 and shutdown events are kind of higher on the viewing screen 8 by some people. So, it may well be that those events are 9 getting a heightened level of attention because of those 10 factors. 11 MR. BEEDLE: Well, I would suggest that, if you 12 went back and compared it to the use of the AITs, why the 13 AITs are used today compared to what they were ten years 14 ago, you'd find a marked difference in the significance of U 15 the event. 16 MR. SEALE: Sure. 17 MR. BEEDLE: We are jumping on -- we are hitting 18 things with a hammer today that took a sledgehammer years 19 ago to deal with. It's an order of magnitude difference. I 20 think it is driven by the publicity that everything is 21 given. We hold the industry up in the public. As a result 22 of that, the NRC gets embarrassed and the question is, what 23 are you doing, Mr. NRC, to solve this problem. What are you 24 doing to prevent this one from every happening again? 25 It doesn't even ask the question about whether or f~N ( ) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
~ + ] 376 11 _not/itLis significant. It's just-what are you doing to-(~~) l. ~ 2 prevent it-from happening.-.There should-be a real urge to ] ! j 13-try to legislate against having-any event. 4 MR. SEALE: ~Right. t 5. MR..BEEDLE: I=would argue that, it is a mature l l 6 technology,:but it is a complex one. There are thousands 7, and-thousands of operations done everyday and.we have a 8-tendency to think there's only one reactor out there and all 9 100-reactor events are all boiled down to this one reactor. -10 So,_an event over in California is presumed to have occurred .11-in your plant yesterday and you have to respond to it and we 12 -- deal-with that continuously. l's So, it presents a challenge to us. I agree with 14 that. 1,O \\s / 15 MR.-MILLER: On Dana's data which says we are i 16 spending more resources during shutdown, maybe what we 17 should do is analyze the part of those resources devoted to 18 issues that really are safety significant. 19-DR. POWERS: Well, I have a fairly _ strong case, I 20 think,'to make here. When I look at things like the 21-precursor analysis and I look at the big spikes in the 22' things,.those big-epikes are corresponding to shutdown 23 events. That is a risk significant measure. I'm in fairly 24 good shape here on my statistics. 25 MR. BEEDLE: Well, I would appreciate an ANN-RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. _ Court Reporters 1250-I= Street, N.W., Suite 300 - Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 y r-
377 1 opportunity to talk with you more on that particular topic n( f 2 and maybe try to look at things through your eyes. I just 3 don't see i*., but that doesn't say that it doesn't exist. 4 I'm just looking at the thing differently than you are and 5 perhaps we can sit down and talk about that and tell me what 6 you're seeing and maybe help me understand it better.
- /
Clearly, if I think that there is a safety issue 8 in the industry, I'm going to do something about it. I will 9 get the chief nuclear officers together and we will try to 10 figure out what we need to do about it. We are not 11 ir..terested in having events at the plants. 12 (Laughter) 13 MR. BEEDLE: Believe me, gentlemen, that is not in 14 our bect interests. It costs us dearly when we have these i \\._) 15 events. There is nobody who wants them and we do everything 16 we can to eliminate them. So, I would appreciate that 17 opportunity, Dana. We will talk with you later on that. 18 DR. POWERS: Well, I'm sure this is going to come 19 up again, because the shutdown, of course, is an issue that 20 the commission is still debating among themselves. This 21 committee, the ACRS has taken a position on them that I hope 22 you find comfortable. I think it is a well thought out 23 position. We spent a lot of time on it, but it is an 24 interim position. So, I suspect that shutdown will come 25 back to us again and again. ( ) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
378 1. MR. BEEDLE: Well, I have proposed to the chairman () 2-that she change the A(3) element, change should to shall, 3 add in-there a phrase that.would eliminate.her concern for i l 4 the applicability _of the maintenance rule to the shutdown-5 mode and more clearly define the applicability of Section 4 6 of the NUMARC guidance document, 91-06 that gives them -- I 7 wouldn't say an additional -- but a tighter linkage from 8. rule to enforcement in that area, i 9 DR. POWERS: Well,_it clearly an area we want to 10 discuss some more before, because the committee did not like 11 the idea of trying to tie that down_in maintenance to rule 12 together. 13 MR. BEEDLE: We can talk about that. It's a 14 matter of one's point of view, I guess, and of different ..I 15 ways to skin the cat,-I think. 16 DR. POWERS: That's-right; I agree with that. 17 I really appreciate you taking time to come talk 18 to us. I think just based on the number of questions, you 19 can see that you have been thought-provoking and have given 20 us grist for our data-gathering efforts. So, it was very 21 useful to us. I appreciate it very much. 22 MR. BEEDLE: Well, thank you very much for the 23 opportunity. 24 I would leave one last thought and that is on this 25 topic of' initiatives.that the NEI-embarks on,-the industry ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. [ Court Peporters 1250_I_ Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
IM 379 I 1 embarks on. -ILam really: not ~ interested in becoming a 2' regulator. -3 [ Laughter] '4 MR. BEEDLE: I'm interested in setting some 5 standards to provide a guidance to the industry so that, 6 across the board,'we'can do things in a consistent and
- 7. :
effective manner. I am not-interested in being~a regulator 8 and would probably resist in-a very vigorous manner any 93 effort to put NEI into a position as-regulator over the 10 industry. That is one of the reasons-that I think we are 11: somewhat reluctant to take the guideline and make that the 12 law. 13 DR. POWERS: Well, I think there is no effort to 14 -ask you to write rules. I think we are more interested in ( - 15 how you utilize your carefully thought out documents as the 16 basis for guidance. 17 MR. BEEDLE: On that, I think the answer is, we 18 don't need to set rules for everything that people do. I 19 think we ought to set'the rules for the things that are 2 0 -- -really important and those that are not important to safety, 21 we should not necessarily have rules for. 22 Thank you very much. 23 DR. POWERS: Thank you.
- - 2 4 ~
I'm going to recess until 10:30, 25' 1[ Recess)~ -[ ANN RILEY-& ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 .n
380 1 DR. POWERS:--Let's'come back into session. For ) 2-this session, we are going'to have a presentation by EPRI on l3 EPRI research activities. Jim Lang, I' guess, is presenting -4' this. 5 -Welcome:to the-Subcommittee.and thank you very 6 much for being here. 7 MR. LANG: Thank you for having us, i 8 Robin Jones, who is the Vice President of Nuclear 9 at EPRI was scheduled to come here, but he has been 10 afflicted by a disease that is highly coveted by most fil nuclear executives. His eustachian tubes are pluggedfand 12 he's capable of staying home and doing all the work that is 13 necessary to get the job done, but he is precluded from 14 flying. 15 (Laughter) 16 MR. LANG: I am Jim Lang, as was said. I manage 17 ~ our activities in Charlotte. So, I'm convenient. Gary Vine 18 and I are going to do a tag team today. Gary is our 19 Washington representative who is our liaison to the NRC, to 20 NEI, to DOE, et cetera and who has worked with Robin on the 21 MOU with the NRC. So, I will cover the first two bullets on 22-this line.and then turn it over to Gary. 23 I guess the other thing that I would say to most 24 audiences is, please ask a question at any time you desire 25' to do so. I think that is unnecessary with you all, as I .t ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 .~.
4M su A
e.+
M- -J4.- .=R 4~4. S i, ms o.2,A. e4 4.e s E Jaan-- 'Ns-*-+-*44 4 J A F.-.abid4 u .381 J1' -observed from your-handling of Ralph. () 2; [ Laughter)- 3. MR. LANG: Here, I-think I'm preaching tc the ] 4 choir, but we-all know that nuclear R&D'is under-pressure, q 5 under. tremendous budget pressure and some political-6 pressure. Nuclear energy' supply R&D at DOE has been 7 eliminated in FY '98.. In spite of the budget pressure, the i 8 Lutilities are still continuing to support a collaborative .9 approach at EPRI.
- 00 We believe and I think the utilities believe that 11-R&D programs are really essentially, not only to them but to 12 the-government as well.
The first is to insure that we 13 maintain the required safety levels and address issues that 14 . crop up. Safety is always at the top of the list. Also,.we \\ 15 need to be able to exploit new technologies. We need to 16 maintain global leadership, not just for commercial 17 advantage, but for safety and non-proliferation reasons. We 18 need to maintain for commercial reasons a viable nuclear 19 -option and also for the climate reasons. 20 I heard a reference to environmentalists earlier 21 and this is one where the nuclear community and the 22 environmentalists seem to be merging.to the same positions, 23 the importance of nuclear power to the prevention of release 24 of greenhouse gases. 25 The industry and the NRC share a mutual goal for () ANN RILEY'& ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters-1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 . Washington, D.C. 20005 f (202) 842-0034 ~
382 1 adequate protection of the public, but the budget pressures I 2 - we both face really dictate collaboration, working together (,f 3 to find ways to do the work cheaper. 4 The discussion earlier on risk-informed-regulation 5 really highlights the need for cooperation there as well. 6 The thing that has interfered with our cooperation in the 7 past has been a perception that one organization or the 8 other or both would lose independence if we collaborated. 9 That has been a legal concern with the NRC. It has 10 certainly been a utility concern. 11 As we take a look at how research could progress, 12 it resily appears that we ought to be able to agree on the 13 questions that have to be answered, the data'needs and, 14 therefore, agree on the research to produce those data and O - ws/ 15 then independently do our interpretation. If we follow thac 16 kind of a model, we ought to be able to collocate without 17 jeopardizing the independence of either party. 18 DR. POWERS: When you say we agree on the 19 questions that ought to be addressed, I'm just guessing, but 20 I suspect what you mean are the technical questions. 21 MR. LANG: Yes, just the technical. 22 DR. POWERS: It is not the interpretation 23 questiona? 24 MR. LANG: Not the interpretation questions, it is 25 the technical questions, what data are required to address () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD, Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l
383' 12-
- the technical. issues.
M[:- 2-By way of background,_I think,.I trust _you-all (_f 3 know'EPRI is-a' collaborative research organization, We're 4 non-profit and we're funded voluntarily by the-utilities. 5
- Those utilities initially _.were domestic utilities.
That has 6 been expanded to the international community. In the 7 nuclear arena, we have EDF, Nuclear Electric in the U. K. 8 and Korea Electric Power as memberc of the. nuclear group. 9 In addition to that, we have broad activities with ~10 international utilities on individual projects, projects 11 -with the Spanish, the Belgians, heavy involvement in both 12 Taiwan and Japan. What has happened with those countries 13 that are now members is, the involvement became so great 14 that it appeared economically beneficial to just entertain 4 15-membership..We anticipate that will happen more broadly in 16 the future. 17 EPRI is principally a contract R&D organization in 18 that, we don't own brick and mortar or research facilities. 19 Rather we manage the research that is actually performed by 20 others. The principle there is, we are fairly light on our 21 feet and we are not tied to any particular facility. As a 22 consequence, as the needs change, we are able to change 23 focus and direction. As the facilities oversee what we are '24-doing,.we can-pull out of activities that no longer-bear 25. .f ruit or run their course and divert the resources to other ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 'l
384 L ) l l'
- activities.
- /~} i
'2. -Now,-having said_that,_I have to say, in- 't (j 3i Charlotte,.we break that paradigm allittle_ bit, because we
- 4
~actually:do the work at Charlotte. 5: MR. UHRIG: Isn't'that also true in the high ~ 6 . voltage facility? '7 MR. LANG: Yes, it is true in the high voltage 8 = facility and there are several facilities around the -9 ^ country. The characteristic though of the activities 110 carried out in locations remote from Palo Alto is, the work '111 is_really= focused on getting the products off the shelf and 12 Linto use, rather than developingithe products. I'll mention 13 that a little bit later, 14 I'm convinced that there is a vocabulary for 15 viuion statements, You just look up in a book the words 16 that are' acceptable and you use them.- I think our vision 17 statement is not exception to that. Our executives work 18 long.and hard on this. I try to get all the right words in, 19 but there is a message there. 20 We really are trying to provide the science and 21-technology-based solutions. We want them to be 22 indispensable-in-value and we want to-provide them to our 23-customers or members, not just domestically, but globally. 24 That defines then what EPRI is about. Our mission is to do =25 this through networking and partnership. So, that stresses l ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. _ Court Reporters 1250 I Street,- N W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
385 1-the: idea of the: alliances;that we form both domestically and 4 p 2 international. -Q 3 EPRI obtains funding.through two so.trecs, 4 - };tincipally. Membern join specific activities and pay dues- .5: and in -addition, they identify special work that they're i 5-interested in and fund thct supplementally. What is shown 7' here are the basic dues that were paid EPRI in 1997. So, '8 you can see our bud.get from the dues was about $284 million. o' 9 This shows how it was divided up_among the activities within 10 EPRI. You can ese that about 15 percent'of it went to 11 nuclear power. 12 We have an agreement with our advisors in nuclear 13 power that, the maximum based budget they are interested in 14 is about $50 milldon at this point. There is a formula to 15 divide it up among the utilities. Depending on how many 16 utilities join, we approach that $50 million target. You 17 can see, we hit 43.6 this year. 18 I add that, EPRI's budget in 1997 is approximately i 19 $457 million when you add the supplemental activities that 20 utilities and others fund separately. 21 MR. FONTANA: What is PDG? r 22 MR. LANG: Oh, okay. 23 PDG is Power Delivery Group. That is really-the '24 wires organization. Generation is fossil generation, GEN. 25-ENV is Environment Group. CSG is Cuctomer Systems Group and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ' Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
386 1 ithey work on things'like greater _ energy-efficient devices,_ 2 electric cars,..use of electricity. Kind of althrustLin that 3 -_ group is achieve greater econony but broader use. l s 4: EMR. MILLER: Another question-on that. I 5 MR. LANG: Yes. 6 MR. MILLER: Say, over the last-five -- just given 7-the last five years, how does that mix'of distribution
- change and how do the total dollars change?
84 -9 MR. LANG: -The total dollars will probably come 11 0 down a couple hundred million. Over the last five years, 11 the distribution has changed;in such a way that nuclear's 12 share has decreased and the increase has gone into Customer 13 Systems' Group, Environment Group and, more recently, into 14 power delivery. So, nuclear has seen over the last five (~% '\\-)' 15_ years a decrease over the last ten years, a tremendous 16 ~ decrease in base dues. That has been made up for to a large 17 extent by supplemental funding, which I have on a chart a 18 little bit later. 19 The industry, the nuclear industry is driven in 20 their R&D needs by these factora. I don't think there's any_. surprise here. Safety, margin, maintenance and improvement 22' is key. It is-part of our culture. ItHis part of 23 everything we do. When asked what makes me a nuclear 24 engineer-instead of just an engineer or an engineer in the 25 nuclear power industry instead of just an engineer, it's ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 -(202) 842-0034 4 .h- ,m m
~ 387 1 really this-kind of culture that distinguishes us from uany 2 of the others. 3 Capacity factor improvement, O&M cost reduction,- -4 very obvious' focus of the industry and those things that can .j 5 help affect that. Radioactive waste disposal is an 6 important activity there. 7 License renewal, trying to get another 20 years 8 out of selected plants. Not everybody, not every utility is -9 behind that, but a core is. They are very interested in 10 achieving that opportunity. In the longer term, there-'is a 11 small but dedicated group of utilities that has really 12 pushed for the option of new plant construction and they 13 have pushed to have EPRI involved in that. 14 The industry, when it -- 15 MR. UHRIG: With respect to support research to 16 improve the next generation? 17 MR. LANG:
- Yes, In fact, the advanced light water 18 reactor designs of both the combustion engineering in 19 Westinghouse sprung from the requirements document by the 20.
utilities and EPRI, that research, the advanced boiling 21 water reactor, et cetera. 22 When the industry puts its mind to achieving 23 something, it can do it, increasing the unit capability 24 -factor which is similar but not-the same as capacity factor. 25 They have been able to achieve pretty dramatic results over ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W.,-Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
-.=.- ~ 388 1 the last ten. years, 2J DR. POWERS: Do_you have a good definition of 3 these two things? You don't have to give them to me. If -4 you have them written down some place, I would just really 5 appreciate getting them, f 6 MR. LANG: Unit capability factor is an"INPO 7 definition and it is the same as capacity factor, except it 8 doesn't penalize you if you plan to be down. Okay, so we 9 will-get those. 10 DR. POWERS: I would appreciate getting your 11 1 written definitions. I get confused on these often. 12 MR..LANG: The thrust here is that, this has 13 improved dramatically. 14 The next slide takes a look at OEM costs and it is 15 a normalized O&M cost and cents per kilowatt hour. That 16 plot that you saw before is the one that has driven this 17 normalized cost down. The strategies that has evolved in 18 the utilities is get capacity factor up and then go -19 concentrate on getting the absolute costs down. That is 20 -where most utilities-are now. The capacity factor is up and 21 there is a concentration on economy in operation. 22 EPRI has played a role in this. I don't pretend 23 that it is a major role. I think the role that we have seen 24 in improving capacity factor and cutting costs is really a 25 management function in the utilities. We have provided ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES,_LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202)- 842-0034'
~ _.. _ 389 1 ~ tools that have helped along the process. e'
- f
\\a) - 2 DR. POWERS: In looking at your -- ? 3 RMR. LANG:: ' Pardon? 4 DR. POWERS: In looking at your annual report or ^ 5 brochurus that are put out I, in fact,=see a lot of tools 6 being developed in_a fairly consistent, mutually 7 complementary framework. It looks like.it is a well-plann?d 8 at developing tools. 9 MR. LANG: It is. -That is one of the hallmarks of 10 the EPRI process. It is a collaborative process of the -11 utilities that involves a strong advisory structure of 12 utility people who are paying the bills, who advise us of 13 their needs and then advise us of what sort of tools, in 14-fact, are usable by them who meet those needs and then, look (_) lL5 over our shoulder constantly during the development proceed 16 to insure that what we do produce in fact can be used by 4-17 them. So, it is a real strength of the co31aborative R&D 18 process, not just the leveraging of the money, but the 19 involvement in the process. 20 MR. MILLER: Do you have either, what, biannual or 21-triannual meetings of that -- 22 'MR. LANG: They're now biannual of the senior 23 advisors. All advisors meet at-least biannually, but on 24 individual projects, they meet as required. We find that, 25 for example in the NDE arena right now, I know that the j3 \\- ) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. 14 Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W.,.1uite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
390 'i
- 1E
' advisory committee >is. meeting--in Reno in December and then-2L meeting again_in January in Santa Clara.- So, when the needs - 3_ dictate, they get together and make_sure:that-we are _4 Jfulfilling their desires. LSo, ituis a very strong utility,: ~ -- 5 .needs-driven activity. 1 6 We have broken it out into these three groups 7 -based on that utility input.- Our focuses'are on costs, 8' safety and reliability and we have grouped our activities 9-into those boxes.' In carrying out_the work, we have 10 actually. established six technical targets with our members .:1 11 in nuclear power,' advanced nucles.. technology and I'll talk 12 a little bit as we go along about what is involved in these. 13 I will.just mention what they are right now, major comp _nent - 14 reliability, fuel reliability and storage, O&M cost control 15 technology, which?is a catch-all for all kinds of things, 16 low level waste chemistry and radiation control and the 17-safety and reliability assessment targets. 18 MR.-MILLER: Do those targets change on a rapid 19 basir? 20 MR. LANG: Well, they don't change on a rapid - 21 basis. 2 2.- MR MILLER: They have changed over'the last few 23 years? -24 -MR. LANG: They do change as-the needs of the f 125 industry: change. They were originally established to match 4 i ANN RILEY a ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court' Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
391 1 INPO's goals for th6 industry. -As those; goals have been l) 2 modified, the targets have been modified-commensurate with 3 those changes. Also, as we have closed'out issues, we have 4 abandoned targets and new ones have cropped up in their 5 ' place'. .6 I don't want to portray this as a fast moving, + 7 dynamic process. It is a heavily damped process in the 8 changing of the targets. 9 The next slide shows the internal organization 10 that-we use to attack that. I would submit that it is not 11 heavily damped at all. It's a pretty dynamic activity. In 12 fact, this isn't even accure e now, but I want to make some 13 of-the points in here. 14 Robin our Vice Preside.4t. Bindi Chexal is 15 responsible for our technology development. I am 16 responsible for our technology delivery, which means when 17 the product is completed, getting, helping, facilitating 18-facilities using that. It also involves the feedback 19 process, information on needs, feedback on usefulness, what 20 has to be changed, et cetera. So, it is a strong-utility 21 interface activity. We conduct that out of Charlotte. So, 22 the second point is, we really have two locations now in the 23-nuclear group at EPRI. 24 Almost all of our development is through contract 25 R&D and it is carried out in Palo Alto. The bulk of our ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1050 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 -(202) 842-0034
392 -l' delivery-activities or facilitating the use"iu carried out () 2 in' Charlotte byla staff.of EPRI employees.that is equal in 3 size to the staff at Palo Alto. 4 We have a budget that.is about ten percent of the-5 budget in Palo Alto, but it almost all goes for people.and-6 hardware. It doesn't go for contracts and research, people 7 and hardware. 8 MR. MILLER:.Does that mean you contract'with the 9 group in Palo Alto in a sense or you do it totally -- . 10 MR. IANG: Yes, we do that. In fact, when you get 11 in -- not in every area, but when we get into the welding 12 area where we have particular expertise, we actually do the 13 welding development under contract at.Palo Alto. In the NDE 14 area, we do research and we are responsible for it in O \\~s/ . 15 ' Charlotte. In some of the materials area, we do the work 16 under contract for Palo Alto. In the delivery, we don't 17 contract to the development people. It is a team effort. 18 So, there are really two co-equal groups. 19 MR. MILLER: So, in some areas, you could be like 20 the same as, say -- I know that EPRI does a lot of work with 21 SAIC. -You would be the same as SAIC in the way the top 22 level people look at you as -- well, you would have to 23 adhere to the same goals and standards.and everything else 24 -'25 MR. LANG: That's absolutely right. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 t r ,~
/' 393 like an outside contractor would? 1 MR. MILLER: . f-)v ( 2 MR. LANG: That's right. 3 When we are working for a project manager in Palo 4 Alto, owe have to behave just like an outside contractor, the 5 same OA requirements, et cetera. That isn't a huge 6 percentage of what we do. Most of what we do is delivery 7 with the teams. 8 MR. FONTANA: How many people are in safety and 9 reliability assessment there with Jack Huff? 10 MR. LANG: Gary, do you know the size of that? 31 It's approximately ten, I would say. It is in the 12 neighborhood of ten. 13 MR. FONTANA: That's still pretty significant, 24 because it used to be pretty significant. \\ss/ 15 MR. LANG: Yes, it's still pretty significant. I 16 think that when we get un to the next slide, you will see 17 that it doesn't represent the lion's share of the budget, 18 but it is still a significant part. 19 The third point I wanted to.make on this slide is 20 that, in addition to that structure I showed you before 21 where we have the technical target, we do have a fairly 22 dynamic organizational feature. That is we form special 23 teams when the needs arise. For example, Ralph mentioned 24 the robust fuel. Well, Rosa Yang is heading up a special 25 activity on the robust fuel to actually supplement our basic n ('~') ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
394 1 1 R&D program and take a leap forward, not just first wiping i 2 out some of the problems that we have today, but then second () 3 looking at a concerted effort in achieving reliably higher i 4 burn ups. l 5 We have done the same thing in the BWR vessels 6 internals project, which you're probably aware of. Human 7 performance has been cited by our members and you as an area 8 that really requires some increased attention. So, we have i 9-put together a special team of people to go figure out what 10 we're going to do in our area. In the past, our activities 11 in that area have been focused on tasks, on interventions on 12 individual tasks. That's really not going to address the 13 current issues that are facing the industry in human 14 performance. They are a lot trickier. They verge into the 15 management area which is very tricky. 16 So, we have to be clever in what we put together 17 in that area. So, we have established a team to work with t 18 the utilities and INPO to put together a plan for attacking 19 the current human performance issue. 20 MR MILLER: You also have an exploratory research s 21 operation that tends to try to anticipate new things. 22 MR. hANC: Yes, we have two types of that.
- EPRI, 23 as an overall organization, has an exploratory research arm 1
24 that looks at lcng range-research across the board, some of 25 -it of interest to nuclear and some of-it not. Then inside J f ADN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) -842-0034 ~
.=_- -. - 395 1 our own nuclear group, with the nuclear funding, we have () 2-said aside, I-think, about $800,000 this year over in our 31 advance nuclear group as a little incubator for ideas that 4 could then become development projects in the mainstream, 5 Our laser welding tube repair was an example of 6 that. No rem work was started there as a replacement for 7 cobalt. So, it's just an incubator. If it's a good idea, i 8 somebody gets a little funding for it. If they can get to 9 proof of principle, then we can take it on as a major 10 project. i 11 MR. MILLER: How do you choose those ideas, so to 12 speak? l 13 MR. LANG: We solicit input from the staff. Then 14 we hava a team of our out of the box thinkers who review 15 that and approve, prioritize it and then we cut it off where 16 the funding ands, i 17 MR. MILLER: Are they somehow based on what your 18 staff believes could be of value in tne next five or ten 19. years? 20 MR. LANG: They are based on that as well as staff 21 interest and capabilities. So, very clearly -- 22 MR. MILLER: Do they have to pass both screens, so 23 to speak? 24. 'MR. LANG: They.have to pass both screens. -25 -Now, we are into the nuclear power group funding, t () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.- Court Reportets 1250 I Street, N.W., Guite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 m ,.nn.~0-- .: - n e, +-~-.n-. 4 ,m~~~,-,- ,,.,.,,,-n.--- -,,,,,e ,,-v,, J ~ -. -,. - - .n--,,,~ --- - - - - ~ - - - --_--,-
396 i 1 I don't think you are principally interested in this. I () 2 don't want to belabor it, but I know you're a bunch of 3 engineers and you will go-back and look at that previous f 4 piechart and try to reconcile the numbers. So, I want to 5 co-opt questions in that area. 6 As you may recall, I said that the base dues 7 budget for nuclear was about $43 million. EPRI has this 8 system intended to give our members choice, more choice of 9 . where their dollars go. When they pay dues, exactly 25 i 10 percent of that is sequestered in a special fund. They can 11 access that fund of 25 percent of their dues to do projects 12 that are'of specific interest to them by putting in matching 13 funding. 14 So, what you see here is about $32 million that 15 goes into the pool for purely collaborative research. Then liS d7wn here, there is a little over $11 million of their dues 17 that goes into what is called TC or tailored collaboration 18 and they access that by matching it. So, it's double 11 or 19 it's 22, 23. So, I don't want to belabor that, but if you 20 had a question, I wanted to wipe that off the table so that 21 we wouldn't have to waste any time on it. 22 The rest of these things, I think are 23 straightforward. Co-funding is just additional funds from 24 . the utilities or other organizations. 25 -MR. UHRIGi-TC is? () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250-I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 m,w n,, - - ,n,-,,,--w.we... - ~ ~w~>.n .>N-,-,,-~..,
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-..-.~ - -. 5 397 1 MR. LANG: TC is cr.11ed tailored collaboration and I () 2 that is that special matching -- 3 MR. MILLER: That basically almost doubles your 4 budget totally? 5 MR. LANG: Yes. A few years _ago, the budget was I 6 about 150 million, but that was at the height of the 7 advanced light water reactor work, which included heavy I 8 infusion of money from international utilities as well as 9 our domestic utilities to develop an improved advanced light i 10 water reactor design. We are essentially finished with that 11 now. That input has dried up and we are bach down to a 12 level that I think we're going to see in the future, between 13 90 and $100 million will probably be the overall nuclear 14 group budget. 15 MR. MILLER: So, you see this as more stabilizing 16 now? 17 MR. LANG: Yes. I think the blip of the past, we 18 3re through that. I 19 MR. MILLER: There was an upward blip and then a 20 downward blip? 21 MR. LANG: Yes. 22 The nuclear utilities currently under the EPRI 23 system are in control of how much of their money goes into 24 R&D. They can increase it or decrease-it. It is not 25 controlled by.the EPRI-board of directors or anybody else. -ANN RILEY-& ASSOCT3.TES, LTD. Court Repo: rs 1250 I Street, N.W.,-Suite 300 t Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 4 ,..-,.inr a....n.,-, -.,..,-....w- .,-n--,,- .,i.-~~ .,_,..--n- --r-, w m-
i 398 i 1 They are in control. They seem to believe that a $100 2 million is about what they want. That is what I think we 3 will see in the next several years. 4-This shows how the funds are distributed among the 5 -various technical targets that I mentioned. The bottom of 6 this slide are the use-generated dollars and the top of the 7 slide are the supplemental funding, either through tailored 8 collaboration or through co-funding or some other means. 9 You can see the two very heavily funded activities 10 are major component reliability, which looks at things such I 11 as BWR vessel internals and steam generators and the O&M 12 area, which is a mixture of cats and dogs. It's all sorts 13 of things that address greater efficiency in operation and 14 management and maintenance. 15 We asked earlier about the safety target. You can 16 see here that the safety target has relatively modest 17 funding from the dues, but very heavy supplemental funding. l' 18 That is because very much of what we do.now is 19 plant-specific tweaking of the tools as opposed to basic 20 development of new ones. Basic development of new tools 21 would reside in the dues. Maintenance of existing tools and 22 improvements and specific modifications would be handled 23 through supplemental funding. 24 A few years ago, EPRI started doing customer 25 satisfaction surveys. We hired a company that does this-for f h i G ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court-Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 4 b3 ~
399 1 consumer products. It does it for Procter and Gamble and l 2 -other people like that. The focus has really been how 3 pleased are the utilities with what we do. I think there is 4 quite a bit of validity to this, because in the nuclear j I 5 arena we hear that they are very happy with the quality of 6 our work, but they don't think we pcssess the same sense of 7 urgency that they do. So, that rineja true. 8 We,- a couple of years ago, decided to ask some 9 other questions. One is, if our basic structure is as a f 10 ~ collaborative research organization, why don't we ask them 11 what they think about collaborative research? Is this 12 something that they think is good? The answer is what is 13 shown here. I 14 Tha vast majority of nuclear utilities queried 15 thought that they're support for collaborative research was 16 good to excellent. So, that bodes well for an organization f 17 like EPRI that is formed on the~ basis of collaborative 18 research. 19 MR. FONTANA: How long has the concept of setting 20 aside 25 percent and then matching it for collaborative ~21 research, how long has that been in place? 22 MR. LANG: Probably about six years or seven years 23 now. 24 Frankly, as the choices available to -- EPRI is i -25: changing, offering-utilities smaller packages, more choice ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite-300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
f 400 i 1 -c.nd we may see this program phase out. There is sume i ) 21 sentiment among the utilities now that they-have enough 3 choice otherwise, that they may not'want to indulga in this 4 anymore. 5 MR. FONTANA: I didn't think it-existed like 10, 1 6 is years ago. 7 MR. LANG: No, it didn't. It's within the last-8 seven years, I think. 9 MR. FONTANA: Yes. i 10 MR. LANG: We're looking forward as to what our 11-members think about collaborative research in the future. 12 -The majority believe that it will remain as attractive or 13 become more attractive. So again, this bodes well for 1 14 organization like us. I think it shows a solid belief of l 15 the nuclear utilities in the need for -- 16 MR. UHRIG: Is this the wishes or is this what i 17 they sort of anticipate? 18 MR. LANG: This is what they anticipate. 19 MR UHRIG:- But it is not necessarily what they 20 would like to see? 21 MR. LANG: Well, this is what they anticipate, not 22 necessarily -- yes, I think you're right. This is not I 23 necessarily what they would like to see. Thic particular 24 chart is their judgment about how attractive collaboration 25- -will be in the future. It is colored by their view of what i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD, Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 -(202) 842-0034
401 1 competition will exist in the *uture. You can see that it ~ / 'x 1 (,) 2 is -- 3 MR. UHRIG You can tell by the way they squeeze 4 in the budget. 5 MR. LANG: Yes. 6 You can see that the 17 percent thing, that 7 because of competitive pressures, collaborating isn't going 8 to be as attractive in the future. There is a real diverse 9 opinion within the industry of what is going to happen. 10 Right now, it is very clear that nuclear utilities don't 11 view each other as competitors. They view other forms of 12 generation as their principle competition, even within their 13 own company. I think it is naive to think that won't 14 change. I think it is going to change. 15 MR. VINE: Can I add a point here? 16 MR. LANG: Sure. 17 MR. VINE: The slide is reflective of the 18 attitudes of the nuclear advisors -- 19 DR. PONERS: You have to use the microphone. 20 MR. VINE: This is a chart that shows the 21 attitudes of the nuclear utilities -- Gary Vine, from EPRI 22 -- not the whole EPRI membership. If you ask the same 23 question outside of nuclear, you would not find as much 24 support today for collaboration, because the pressur ' of 25 competition are forcing utilities to look at each other (9 'j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
i 402 I 1 fundamentally different than they did in the past. f 2 What this shows is, that within nuclear utilities,- 3 because of the common needs, the common challenges and Jim's 4 point that they don't see each other as competitors, they l 5 are still willing to work together. That is the same glue 6 that holds them together working with any INPO, as they seek l 7 to hive common positions and solutions. j 8 MR. LANG: Now, I'll get into very briefly what l 9 we're doing. It will have to be brief, f -10 In the advance nuclear technology ared, wrapping i 11 up advanced light water reactors, some basic research into 12 corrosion, modeling stress corrosion cracking, modeling of 13 other forms of corrosion. Innovative nuclear technology is 14 our incubator that I mentioned before and the advanced 15 reactor concepts zeroed out. We're doing no work in that 16 right now. The utilities have said that is pretty low on 17 their priority list. 18 DR. POWERS: Corrosion research is strictly a 19 nuclear function? 20 MR. LANG: No, this really complements work that 21 is done in our EPRI-wide strategic R&D group. It looks at 22 the forms -- it really concentrates on two forms of .23 -corrosion that are an Achilles heel in the nuclear, the 24 stress _ corrosion cracking that is happening in Alloy 600, 25 _-for example and, irradiation-assisted-stress-corrosion-ANN RILEY A ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 i Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 i
i 403 - 1. cracking that, again, is unique to nuclear, j ( f 2 MR. KRESS: What is the difference between 1 and 3 ~47 f i 4 MR. LANG: One and 4. One, well, 1 is light water l 5 reactors. Four would be something like gas reactors or 6 something, f 7 MR. KRESS: Any kind? 8 MR. LANG:
- Yes, 9
MR. UHRIG: Molten salt. t 10 DR. POWERS:- No, that's a primitive concept as -11 opposed to an advanced concept. 12 MR. KRESS_ Now, you_know why I asked the 13
- question, j
14 MR. FONTANA: Is the ALWR scheduled to phase out 15 at some point? 16 MR. LANG: Yes, this is the last year, as I recall 17 that there is any significant funding in that. It is just 18 finishing the AP600 certification and lessons learned and 19 the requirements document, that sort of thing. 20 In the fuel reliability and disposal area, these 21-are the principle activities, failure rates, severity i 22 reduction, hot cell examinations, tracking, lead assemblies, 23 that sort of thing. Fuel performance and burn up extension 24 is an area where-we are looking at the transient-licensing 25. issues,-reactivity, insertion accident, LOCA effects, et ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 -(202) 842-0034 ~
l 404 1 cetera..This is really the work that will be extended in () 2 .our robust' fuel or spent fuel storage and transportation 3 cask to cask transfers, working together with the NRC, high 1 1 4 level waste repository issue resolution, making small 5 contributions, technical contributions to what shoul-i 6 standards be. What should be the tools for evaluation of a 7 repository. 8 DR. POWERS: I went through some of the details.of 9 your programs in some of the literature that I have i 10 available to me. I saw titles within this general category 11 that corresponded exactly to titles within the NRC budget. 12 In particular, there was mechanical properties of cladding 13 at higher radiations. So, I asked the staff, you know, it 141 seems like EPRI is doing this work. Isn't there something () 15 that you can leverage your dollars with all the cooperative 16 research here? They said, well, it happened to be one of 17 those areas where there was no accessibility to the 18 information being generated by EPRI. 19 MR. LANG: Yes and no. The work that is -- there r 20 is a problem here in that, much of the work that we're doing 21 in fuels and fuel improvement, cladding properties, et 22 cetera, is funded by an international group called NFIR, 23 Nuclear-Fuels something Research. That group has 24 established a principle that no regulators, U. S. or 25 otherwise, can participate in their group. So, the NRC has () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters i 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 i Washington, D.C. 20005-l (202) 842-0034 ~
405 1 requested on several occasions to be a part of NFIR. While 2: ~ we have asked NFIR advisory groups' permicsion, it has been 3 denied. [ i 4 So, there can be no NRC direct involvement in NFIR 5 under the current rules, j 6 On the other hand, there is work that EPRI does j 7 and that builds off some of the NFIR data. So, there are 8 opportunities for collaboration, but the problem is, has j 9 been that, we are not able to bundle up a set of reports and 10 send them to the NRC. We have offered to open them up, have 11 people come in and review them and that sort of thing, but 12.' we cannot, within the confines of the rules, give them out. 13 So, they're right. That's a problem in this area. 14 It is also an area where the group to group O 15 i collaboration at this point is probably highest. In fact, l 16 Gary was telling me that in the LOCA testing that the NRC t 17 research is doing, Rosa Yang, who heads our group, had some . 18 comments and they very quickly reached agreement technically 19 on what kind of data is needed, what the test conditions 20 really ought to be, et cetera. 21 Tnere is another area where some hot cell i 22 examinations -- NRC wants to do some hot cell examinations 23 and-asked if we could provide fuel. We were able to go get 24 the fuel from the utility. _So, this is an area where 25 -collaboration is probably-pretty good-right now. We have, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 _202) 842-0034 ( 'w+v-< ~-w - - ~ - ' c" " * - r-*- w
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-406 t l 1 if we're clever -- and we have to be fairly clever -- we may } f 2 have an opportunity to expand that if we can figure out how 3 to get-around this inaccessible NFIR data. ~ 4 Low level va9te -- this is low level waste, j 5 chemistry and radiation control. The low level waste-l 6 activity is focused both on ways to minimize low level waste 7 technologically, vitrification, et cetera and management 8 techniques for handling it in a more economical way. This 9 has been a big winner, if you will, in utility cost 10 production, an ability to cut costo in this area. j 11 Water chemistry control takes a look at advanced 12 Amines, that sort of thing, plus the codes that are i 13 available to analyze the impact of changes in water 14 chemistry and plant water chemistry control. Involved here 15 are also water chemistry guidelines for the primary and 16 secondary side of the BWRs and BWR water chemistry. 17 Everybody uses -- they are out. They are consensus document 18 involving not only the utilities, but the major vendors. 19 DR. POWERS: There can be no question then. When i 20 you look at the staffing of a nuclear power plant, that the 21 member of personnel devoted to water chemistry is out of l 22 proportion to anything you would expect going in. It just l 23-is a thorny, thorny issue and it is a manpower intensive 24 issue. It just always stuns me. 25 MR. LANG: It's the secret. My experience is with i q.Q ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. 1 l-Court-Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 o I --
407 1 the Navy and Navy steam generators. We didn't pay much () 2 av.tention at the onset. Secondary water chemistry took over 3 the boiler chemistry and found out very early that you can't 4 do that. 5' Radiation exposure, cost control, cobalt 6 replacement. Cobalt reduction has been a major activity 7 here. No rem, which is an iron-based alloy as a cobalt 8 replacement has come out of this. Also involved here are 9 activities like zinc injection, DECON, et cetera. So, 10 various techniques and the industry -- I don't have the i 11 plots here, but_this is another area where the industry has l 12 been very successful through concerted effort at driving 13 down exposure. 14 Major component reliability has some of the big 15 hitters in here. Steam generator reliability, focusing on 16 new guidelines, supporting rule changes, et cetera, BWR and 17 vessel and internal project, which I think you are probably 18 well of as really a strong utility-led focus on resolving 19 the internal issues. 20 Materials reliability and component integrity 21 covers the waterfront, but a lot of it is involved with 22 embrittlement of reactor vessels, analysis of that prccess. 23 Also involved in there is following the work on annealing, 24 et cetera. CHECWORKS is the code that was developed for 25 flow accelerated flow analysis that has been upgraded to () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
408 1 obtain models right now for service water system corrosion. - 2 DR. POWERS: It's come under something of a cloud f () 3 recently. 4 MR. LANG: Well, Dendy does a good job of 5 dispersing the cloud every time it forms. l l 6 CHECWORKS, CHEC as a code is tremendously [ 7 powerful, but if CHEC is to work properly, the plant has to 8 be.modeled in it. So, there is a lot of modeling 9_ expenditure. In addition, the utilities have to have in 10 place-a very rigorous followup program. So, it is was of 11 those areas whern it is really easy to fall off the wagon 12 and I think that happens periodically. It is not a real 1 i 13 easy plug-and-chug process. It requires informed, 14 knowledgeable people. 15 MR. KRESS: Is this code proprietary? ~ 16 MR. LANG: Yes, it is. It was a code that, as you 17 may recall, sprang out of industry's response to the Surrey 18 incident when there was a feed water pipe rupture. It was 19 based on international collaboration and collecting data on 20 flow-accelerated corrosion and then Dendy led the effort to 21 develop a proprietary, empirical correlation collecting all 22 this data. That is then embodied in the CHEC code. 23 CHEC code also has the feature though that if it 24 predicts incorrectly and you feed the right answer in, it is 25 self-correcting. So, if you keep feeding it, it will get F () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C.'20005 (202) 842-0034 ~ - m.. .m. ...,.-_.__..,__y ,,,. ~,
i 409 1 more and more accurate as time goes on. l '2_ MR. KRESS: It's like a neural network. 3 MR LANG: Not quitei.it's not that sophisticated. 4 It's a similar idea. It's the poor man's neural network. i 5 Safety and reliability has a lot of work on PSA. 6 Earlier in the discussion when Ralph was talking and the 7 questions came up about PSA and their use as a tool, one of 8 the things we find is, it is very valuable to embody the PSA 9 in some of the tools that are used to evaluate out its 10 safety and to evaluate out operational options. So, we have 11 two tools, ORAM which really looks at outage safety, 12 Sentinel, which looks at safety during operation. They are 13 now combined and they depend on the PSA or the PRA, l 14 plant-specific PRA as input. They use that model to 15 evaluate various operational possibilities to find the best 16 path. 17 So, while you may not have staffs of thousands or 18 even tens of PSA experts, thL PSA does end up getting 19' embodied in some of the tools and it really ends up becoming 20 a pretty important feature. P 21 DR. POWERS: I have to compliment you oa your ~22 ability to put accessible. Type in the phrase defense in 23 depth into the Yahoo searcher and the first thing that pops e 24 up is ORAM. -25 [ Laughter)- ANN RILEY E ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I-Street, N.W. Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 '(202)-_842-0034 i s. -. = ..j
t 410 1 MR. LANG: Well, we are not usually credited with O g j 2 being that good. I appreciate the compliment. 3 This is the area really where we provide heavy 4 support to NEI. If you look at the area where we work most 5 closely with NEI, it is in the safety area, looking for the 6 basis for regulatory improvements, et cetera. i 7 In addition, we do get involved in special 8 incidents in doing plant-specific evaluations to help the 9 industry understand what is going on and, in that regard, 10 end up supporting INPO. 11 We have two O&M cost controls, the Ivory Tower and 12 Palo Alto and we with grease under our fingernails in 13 Charlotte. In Palo Alto -- when I talk about equipment 14 assessment and maintenance technologies, it really runs the 15 gamut, varied pipe repair, MOV activit?.es, AOV testing. 16 There is a full range of activities there. If you're 17 interested, I can get you a list, but I don't think I can do 18 justice to it here. 19 Human performance technology, this is where I have 20 said in the past we have looked at tasked-based 21 inte rventions. Now, we are looking at if there is something 22 we can do more broadly, introducing some of the social 23 science aspects into this to help address the human 24 performance issues that confront the industry today, 25-I&C, preparing both upgrade, plans and strategies ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
. ~ -. _.. -. - -.. -.- -.~.- -. - -. - - - - - -. ) i 411 t i for the-industry, guidelines that they can follow in l () 2 upgrading so that you change one part of your system to 3 digital and you have the ability to leave the remainder I 4 analog and upgrade at a later time without screwing.it up. l 5 So, there is strategy and guidelines in doing that, plus 6 applicatien-specific integrated circuits or reactor 7 protection systems. That is something that came out of 8 .there. -So,-it is both guidelines and hardware. 9 Life cycle management concentrates on generic 10 activities, generic evaluations that can be done for license 11 renewal and helps the industry in coordination with NEI on a 12 license renewal guidelines that are currently being put r 13 together. i 14 In Charlotte, we have our nuclear maintenance O 15 application center, which is a clearing house of practical 16 maintenance information, clad support engineering as an i 17 engineering analog, the NDE center, the inspection and 18 training program. It is really getting out into the field 19 and helping utilities use the NDE products and we do NDE 20 development at Charlotte. This is looking at things like 21 phased array ultrasonics, so that we can really through 22 single placement of sensors, scan electronically rather than 23 physically and, one, cut costs in time and two, get to 24 places that it might be very difficult to get to if you had 25 to physically _ scan. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300. Washington, D.C.-20005 -(202) 842-0034 i ,..,-_.,,..,,,,--....,,.,-A, _..__u.__._,..._,- m.
412 i 1 This is not a technology that we have invented, . () 2 'but it is a technology that we can help get into the field 3 and help really improve for nuclear applicaticns. So, we l 4 are working with the vendors in that regard, i i 5 Well, in carrying out our missions, as you can 6 imagine, we have very strong external alliances. Ralph l 7 talked about the alliance with NEI and INPO. We really have 8 comt, to work together very closely over the last several l 9 yer,rs. Instead-of competing with each other for turf and 10' utility dollars, we have become a team, which is sort of j 11 trite, but in this case, it 's true. 12 We also have a strong interface with 13 vendors-owners groups, because the members of the 14 vendors-owners groups are members of EPRI. They are O 15 attacking design-specific most of the time, but when that 16 verges over into something that is more generic, it makes a 17 lot of sense for EPRI to work with the owners' groups. 18 You talked about DOE. We had a strong alliance 1 19 with DOE in the past in license renewal. The lack of 20 funding has essentially killed their activity in that area, 21 but we continue the dialogue and have tried to forge a more 21 formal relationship with the NRC that Gary will talk about. 23-As the utilities' change their structures, form alliances, 24_ try;to get together and try to.make small utilities look 25 like big utilities, we work with_them as well. That is a ? () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 ~
l i 413 1 very important-aspect of what we do. ( 2 Because the arrangement with NEI and INPO is so' 3 important, we really have a formal memorandum of agreement t 4 that layn out what our missions are and really provides the 5 principles of cooperation. It has helped. Any time a 6 question comes up, we can go point to'where it says how we i 7 handle-that. i 8 One of tha things that we have done.in the last 9 couple of years-at the direction of our members is look at r 10-trying to tighten the leak paths of EPRI information. The 11-people who pay are not very sympathetic to having that i 12' information flow out to those who either don't pay or don't 13 pay and say it's not worth it. So, we have established 14 these categories of products. The point that I want to make 15 here is the first category is safety information that is in [ 16 the public domain to help NEI do its job, help INPO do its 17 job or help all plants run more safely. 18 MR. FONTANA: There is a potential hazard here. 19 I'd like to call it the Sony_Betamax syndrome where, in 20 trying'to keep things close to their vest, you let something 21 else'take off and become an industry standard. I've seen 22 that happen in the nuclear business, too. Category 1-is 23 supposed to get around that. 24 MR IJ04G: It's supposed-to get around that. 25 -MR. FONTANA': Yes, but it doesn't always. i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250-I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
414 1 MR. LANG: In fact, part of what we do absolutely [ 2 has to be freely available to everybody if it's going to be s 3 of use to anybody. The standards issues are like that and 4 safety information really falls into that category and that j 5 is available to everybody. Now, the utilities have said, ] 6 gee, we would like to use peer pressure to get everybody to i 7 pay their fair share of that. It represents a small 8 percentage of what EPRI does. There is not a lot of money 9 involved here, but there is a principle. 16 So, they have established Category 1, asked us to 11 identify the price for that after NEI and INPO identify the 12 content. Then we invoice all utilities for that relatively 13 small amount. 14 Given that, there are other safety activities that () 15 we perform that are not essential, but make it easier to 16 operate safely. Those are available to everybody, but at a 17 price, at a rarket price, rather than a development price. 18 Then we have a third category, which are those things that 19 are economically-driven which are available only to members. 20 We are really driving toward a system where I 21 believe ultimately the utilities will have everything for 22 sale. Everything we produce will be available. 23-Now, I wanted to just present quickly a sampling 24 of what we're do:.ng in 1998. A few of those activities are 25 listed on this chart and I will mention a few of the few. () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
i 415 l 1 Steam generator management still remains a very heavy () 2 emphasis in EPRI. What we are seeing now is, as more and 3 more utilities replace their steam generators, what we will 4 do is make a transition from Alloy 600 or thermally-treated 5 Alloy 600 to taking a strong look at Alloy 690 and turn from 6 dealing with problems that already exist and preventing new t 7 ones from occurring. 8 The robust fuel program, this is an area that was 9 highlighted by Ralph. It is really looking at wiping out 10 the nagging problems that still exist and then looking at 11 reliable higher burn up fuel. This is-an area where I i 12 believe that the groundwork for cooperation exists with the i 13 NRC already and where I think this is very fertile ground. 14 DR. POWERS: Do you think that the NRC needs to do 15 research in this area? Isn't the onus of doing the 16 necessary safety research here exclusively on the industry? 17 MR. LANG: I think the work in establishing 18 designs for reliable robust fuel, in the best of all worlds, 19 would lie with the fuel vendors. In reality, it lies with 20 the utilities. That doesn't lie with the NRC. The NRC, on 21 the other hand, does have a need to be able to evaluate 1 22-independently performance of fuel, higher burn up fuel under 23 accident conditions. So, I believe that there will be some 12 4 .research that they are going to have a tremendous interest 25 in because of their regulatory requirement. That, I think, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. e Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 ,-,r_%,-. .-,-m. .~,.~,mm.-ww m., ..,-v,, .--,,U.,,,,,,,-n y -,-wr v-.
416 1 presents an opportunity for.a collaborative approach. 2 -DR. POWERS: In your examinations of these high l 3 burn up issues, are you considering mixed loads? 4 MR. LANG: Yes.. 5 MR. SEALE: I have a question to bring up. A' fair 6 portion of.the work that is being.done on advance fuel or-7- high burn up fuel response Po accident conditions is being 8 done in Japan and France. 9 MR. LANG:
- Yes, j
10 MR. SEALE: Do you have access to that 11 information? 12 MR. LANG: Yes. 13 MR. SEALE: Okay. I know the NRC has acciss to 14 some of-it as well, but I was wondering-if there was a 15 difficulty thare, perhaps. 16 MR. LANG: There is no difficulty. We have good 17 access through EDF to what is going on in France. We also 18 have access to the Japanese data. 19 MR. SEALE: Okay. 20 MR.'LANG: So, access isn't a problem. 21 Interpretation, that's another issue there. 22 MR. SEALE: Oh, that's another issue. 23 DR. POWERS: I guess there is a strong difference 24-of opinion. 25 MR. LANG: Yes. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters .1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 i (202) 842-0034 -,..L,,, _.1.
417 1 Primary chemistry, good computer codes, () 2 interesting here, selected relaxation. It looks like we can 3 relax the silica limits without damaging fuel and taking a 4 look at nickel intrusion next year. 5 Here is an interesting activity. Our incubator 6 developed laser welding for inside steam generator tubing. 7 This same technique can be adapted to penetration repair in 8 vessel heads. So, this is an area that we will be 9 concentrating on next year. 10 Okay, that really concludes my part of this tag 11 team. I'd like to pass this machinery over to Gary for 12 completion. 13 DP POWERS: Let me ask you one question and you 14 may tell me Gary is the right one to answer that, which is 15 fine. 16 It seems to me that your organization has a need 17 to do some prognostication in the future, what is coming 18 down the line that I need to get the wheels in motion to 19 anticipate and what not. I presume you have some mechanism 20 for doing that. Is it something that you would be willing 21 to share with the NRC when you do these prognostications? 22 MR. LANG: The answer is yes with one caveat. 23 When there is a free-wheeling discussion, utilities get very 24 concerned that if they flag up something that they are 25 concerned about and a regulator is present in the room, they () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
i 418 i 1. will get hammered on it when they turn around. So, there i ~ G is_,/ 2 are certain free-wheeling-discussions that I don't think it j 3 3s appropriate for -- 4 DR. POWERS: No, I'm thinking about -- i 5 MR. LANG: Conclusions are vety appropriate. 6 DR. POWERS: To conclusions, yes. 7 MR. LANG: We don't have a sophisticated system 8 and I don't think there is any problem at all in sharing the 9 results with the NRC. "or example, this last January, we 10 convened a -- I guess At was late last ', r. We convened a 11 group of utility people to take a look at our program and i 12-what they saw the needs, in the next five years, being and 13 where we had holes. We were looking at a gap analysis 14 basically. 15 It was out of that that grew a redirection of our 16 human performance work. Out of that grew a heavy 17 concentration on PWR, corrosion, taking a look at maybe PWR 18 internals, et cetera. We weren't doing enough there. 19 Robust fuel grew out of that. So, these were ideas that the 20 staff had, threw -hem on the table, the utilities took a 21 look, threw some of them off the table and out of that grew 22 -this. I see no problem with sharing those results with the 23 NRC. 24. DR. POWERS: What our chairman would like to do, 2 51 of course,:is to have a research program operating in a more ANN RILEY &' ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 a.
i \\ 419 1 proactive fashion rather than responding to issues. I think { () 2 it might 1xt of some value if you could persuade your-3' prognostication group to identify and say, here, NRC, these 4 are things that we think you should be prepared to handle so c 5 that there is no major delay in implementing solutions that 6-we anticipate coming up with. It's just a thought. 7~ MR. LANG: I think it is a good idea. I suspect 8: we could take the report of our last in the form that it's l 9 in which may be more than bullets and provide it to the NRC. 10 I don't see a problem. I'll go back and check.on that and 11-see if we can't do it forthwith. 12 DR. POWERS: Yes, I would like to see this 13 prognostication. I think it would be interesting. 14 MR. LANG: All right, gued. 15 MR. VINE: Let's ask this question first. I think 16-your agenda had you breaking at 11:45. 17 DR. POWERS: We are going into the afternoon into 18 committee discusrions. So, we have a certain flexibility 19 here that we might not ordinarily have. So, take the time =20 that you think you can afford to take. 21 MR. VINE: I'll try to do it in 15 or 20 minutes. 22 The remaining slides, I think there are cnly about eight or 23 ten. They really lead up to this issue of an MOU between- -24 EPRI and:NRC on joint research, ~1 believe you discussed 25 -that a little bit yesterday from what I heard. () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W.,--Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
4 420 1 DR. POWERS: Yes, we did. ) 2 MR. VINE: So, I'll try not to be repetitive. You f 3-will have to tell me if I'm getting into areas that you have 4 already explored. 5 What I would like to do is lead you up to what 6 brought about the MOU and what the thinking was on bv',h the 7 industry side and presumably similar thinking on the NRC 8 side. 9 Historically, if you go back more than a decade, 10 you will find that there was extensive collaboration among 11 NRC, DOE, the vendors, international players and nuclear 12 research. There were major test programs that we shared 13 funding and test facilities for. We did a lot of mutual 14 code development. There were a lot of things that were 15 going on together in those days. 16 Most of these activities, right up until roughly a 17 decade ago, maybe a little bit before then, were driven 18 primarily concerns associated with the independence of the 19 NRC's research program and the industry's research program, 20 a desire to make sure that there was no conflict of interest 21 or apparent conflict of interest associated with working 22 together on solving problems. It was probably well-intended 23 at the time, but it had some adverse consequences. 24 It-either fed to or -- I'm not sure which is the 25 chicken and which is the egg, but the adversarial ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
b 421 l 1 relationship that developed during that period of time kind () 2 of drove us in this direction and fostered the separation of 3 our research programs. The fact that research was 4 affordable in those days, it didn't have industry i 5 deregulation and the NRC's t4Siget was not a major issue, e the e was no driving force to deal with the independence 7 isuue the way we are looking at it today. l 8 So, what happened? This extreme independence of 9 -research became an obstacle to issue closure. In so many 10 areas where there were technical questions, we proceeded 11 immediately and.' dependently to try to resolve-them on the 12 industry side and the NRC side and we never really got to an 13 answer that we could agree on, primarily because we didn't 14 get agreement up front what the issue was or what the scope is of the issue was, what needed to be addressed, what 16 assumptions were appropriate for that issue, what data were 17 appropriate for the issue. So, it wasn't a surprise that we 18 came up witn very different answers and then began 19 critiquing each other's approach and results and said that 20 NRC research is not appropriate to move into regulation, 21 because we don't agree with the foundation and there will be 22 disagreements with our response to that. 23 It became a very fruitless effort in trying to get 24-issues resolved when we just weren't on the same piece of 25 = paper to begin with. There were a number of issues that / 1 ( j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 -(202) 842-0034 _ _ ~ -. _ _ -,,. _ _ - - - -, _ _
h 422 1: that operation occurred and-it'really delayed getting issues O-Q 2-1 resolved; 3: What has changed? 4 -I thing there is: clearly a greater appreciation 5:
- fcr. common R&D. goals.
We-look'at.the issues that we think ~ 6' need to be looked at. The NRC looks at the issues that they 7. think need to be looked at. 'The areas for research are. 8
- pretty common.
There is, I' t h i n k', greater recognition now 9 as we-look back historical that, this separate research 10: effort wca really causing us to spin our wheels. It was =11 taking'decadesffor an issue to= move from research into -12 actual resolution, whether that is through industry guidance 13 or through regulatory guidance. It was taking forever to 14 .get it moved to completion. 15 We now have a cost driver to force us to look hard 16 at how we can collaborate. I think two years before and 17. clearly before then, but what really kind of drove us to 18 look at how we can work together was a very clear 19 recognition on the part of the NRC-that they needen t.o 20 leverage the research program internationally. We Entt 21-looked at that:and said, well, if you can do that 22-internationally, why-can't you do that domestically. I 23 I think risk-informed regulation will encourage 124 convergence on a lot of our R&D activity, simply because 225 risk-informed regulation assumes-implicitly more of the real ANN RILEY &-ASSOCIATES,- LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W.,: Suite 300 . Washington, D.C. 20005 -(202) 842-0034
423 1 -data, the real experience.that' underlies that risk-informed i O (,j 2 -' approach which is something we can more easily agree on than 3 if we are in design basis'and differing over how we get 4 started on research to answer those kinds-of questions. 5 Clearly the' commission'was pushing _very hArd to 6 encrarage collaboration in their strategic baseldne 7 initi:Lti'e at the same time industry was encouraging EPRI to 8 reach out and collaborate more, not only with NRC, but with 9 DOE and international organizations, again, not just to 10 leverage resources, but to expedite the process from when an 11 issue is-identified until we have results that are of value 12 and can be put to use. 13 I think.also, as we began to look at all this, 14 there was a recognition that the independence that both 15 sides really felt was necessary could still be maintained if 16 we collaborate, if we do it smartly. 27 MR. FONTANA: It sounds like between the last two 18 sides there is a significance difference in attitude of the 19 people who call the. shots. Were a bunch of old utility guys 20 retired or something? 21- -MR. VINE: There is change on both sides. The 22-blame for us splitting apart too far and not communicating ~ 23 on research is on both sides of the fence. This isn't a 24 criticism. It is just a reality of how things happened. We 25 just~need to get back together and recognize that there are ANN RILEY &-ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington,'D.C. 20005- -(202) 842-0034
,f j% 424 1-certain thingsLwe can.do together that really will bring q 2.. some benefits. Lots of positive change-will come.of this if Q -3 we are careful. 71 MR. KRESS:. Are you going to expand on that if. 5 donc right? 6 MR. VINE: Yes, that is what the next. slide is. 7 DR. POWERS: My perception is that, the great 8 chasm that you mentioned where things split pretty 9 catastrophically came from a legal opinion which said here 10 are the bases by which you can cooperate and-here is where 11 you can't cooperate. It was so difficult to interpret that 12 the reaction was, okay, well, they are on the safe side and 13 keep an arm's length approach here everywhere. People-14 really didn't interrogate very closely how to implement that ('~)\\ \\_ 15 here is where it is permissible sort of thing. 16 I think now that they are looking at it more 17 closely, it is my perception that there has always been a 18 high degree of technical respect between the two bodies 19 here. When there-were criticisms that you mentioned, which 20 I think is accurate, that it was pretty clear that they were 21. born out of ignorance. You didn't know what you were doing i 22 and so people became critical, but it worked both ways. 12 3 That's just my perception. '24 MR. VINE: I think you're right. Communication is 25 key to this. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington,.D.C. 20005 '(202) 842-0034
425 1_ So, how do-we-move forward in what'I said here, a ( j 2 mutually beneticial manner? First we are going to focus _on ^ 3. -common R&D needs. If there is_something that the industry 4 wants us to work on that NRC does not have an interest in or 5 if.there is something that NRC is being asked to do by NRR 6-or NMSS that the industry does act feel is worth investment 7 of research funds on our side, they are simply off the 8-table. What we are looking at are those' areas where there 9 is a common interest or' common need to do research. 10 Taking that subset, a key point here -- and you 11 will see it again on a future slide and I think Jim made the 12 point earlier - -we are going to focus on the data 13 collection phase. We truly respect the need for NRC to 14 maintain independence in its regulatory process. There are 15~ things involving research that precede the regulatory 16 process and the regulatory decision-making phase that have 17 to do with the collection of data, perhaps some limited 18 amount of data reduction and analysis, maybe fitting the 19 curva through the raw data where it is a scientific process 20 as opposed to a legal process and there is no reason why we 21 can't work together and preserve that independence and have 22 that a scrutable process that will be above criticism from 23 the outside. That is what we are trying to achieve here. 24 If either side in this effort gets to a point 25 where they say, you know, we are really getting involved in ANN RILEY &' ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300. Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
426 1i an' interpretation that should not-be-done jointly because it L ( )[ 21 could raise a question about-the independence of the 3-process, then we just mutually _ agree to get to that fork in 4 the-road and split our efforts. -What we have achieved-5= -before we get to that fork in the road is not only cost 6; ' savings in gathering the data, but we have started in a 7i common place about assumptions and data, methods and so i ~ 8 forth and we have a clear understanding of what the problem-
- 9 is we set out to resolve'.
10 So, we are in a much better position to move more 11 .quickly to get resolution and agreement on-that resolution 12 than if we did it independently. 13 MR. SEALE: I recognize your slides here are 14 probably tailored to this audience, but I'm concerned about -7y k%-[ 15 what the impression of the legalistic mind is that got us 16 into this trouble in the first place, in the sense that the 17 definition of the research need and the design of the 18 experiment to provide the information to resolve those 19 questions is in many ways more like the data reduction and -20 analysis phase than the experimenc phase. I don't think you 21 want to preclude that. You're clearly not talking about the 22 gorilla in the. laboratory approach where you get data about 23 something and then later.on-you.try to figure out whether it 24-means anything. 25L So, I~think=somewhere in here you might need to () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250.I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
427 1 make the point that the definition of the problem and the l'% -(,) 2 design of the experiment is a cooperative thing. I didn't 3 see that. 4 MR. VINE: Yes, we agree. We are going to take 5 the time up' front together, industry and the NRC together, 6 to define the issue, define the scope, develop R&D 7 objectives and requirements together, design that program, -8 design the experiments, the text matrix and everything. 9 Now, it is possible that, in some areas, we can't come to 10 agreement on these. I think that was part of your point. 11 We're going to try. If we can get t'11s much closer together 12 at the beginning, it is going to save time and effort in the 13 long run. 14 MR. SEALE: Yes. [ ) (_/ 15 MR. VINE: We want to try to work toward an 16 objective of avoiding situations where we have to go back 17 and repeat the research time and time again until we are 18 satisfied that we have the right answers. That happened a 19 lot during that period of time when we were truly operating 20 independently. If we can plan ahead, I think we can 21 anticipate some of the things that might come up in the 22 research and do it a lot smarter, save the costs and delays 23 associated with going back and redoing things. 24 We both, I think, are committed to this idea of 25 leveraging internacional collaboration, which I will say a /^\\(') ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
. - = -. -. -= -428 ~ bit more about-later. 1 MR'-SHACK: I'll just sort'of say;-I sat-through 2 3 three ot these working group meetings on the high burn up 4-fuel-and it-has been an extended technical discussion _where? 5 the issues have been raised'and sometimes you agree and you 6 . change things and sometimes you agree to disagree. The NRC 7 will do what it wants to do and feel it needs to do. It has 8 been a very mutually beneficial arrangement. 9 MR. VINE: Very professional, arms length, but a 10 very professional operation, in that area, the steam 11 generator area _and so forth. 12 -I think it is important to repeat the point that, 13. from an industry perspective, we fully oppreciate the NRC's 14 responsibility to maintain sufficient independence in its 15 research program so that it supports its appropriate role as 16 a regulator. We don't want to be_in a position where the 17 technical confidence of the NRC's research program to reach 18 these conclusions independently is taken into question. So, 19 we do appreciate that. That is a driver issue here. 20 Just a poinc about DOE. This kind of comes up-21 from issues that came up during the congressional debates 22 over DOB's budget. 23 There is a little confusion in Congress I think k 24 -about why there is both a federal nuclacr research program 25 -at-DOE and a federal nuclear research program at NRC. I ANN RILEY &-ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
429 1 think. itLis important' for NRC and DOE to continue to make it 2 clear why there are very,_very different roles associated '3
- with-the role of NRC and its research program and the 4
developmental role by DOE. 5-On the industry side', we think we and other 6 l players here, DOE and the national labs and so forth,.can 7 contribute to the research program, but it is important that 8-NRC maintains independent review of the activities that go 9 on elsewhere if it_is going to be using those results in its =10 regulatory process. I think the new piece of this is, 11 instead of just reviewing outside work when it's all done 12 and then getting back into this critique of we didn't do-it 13 right, let's do it over.again business, that if we are 14 proceeding on R&D that is of interest to NRC, that NRC get O V 15 involved and review it during the course of that R&D. 16 They did that, for example, with DOE's program on 17 reactor vessel annealing, a very, very effective way of 18 getting NRC's concurrence to the process as it was moving 19 ahead. 20-A couple of key points here. If NRC maintains 21 strong core competencies on its staff and if there~is a 22 .means.by which the NRC can maintain some appreciation of the 23 contractor skill base that is out there, either in the 24 private sector, the national labs at the universities and 25 the key areas that they expect to have research needs for in 1 -ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters p 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20005 -) (202) 842-0034 j 1 V
430 1 the future,-then-I think you're at a point _where there are 2 some significant cost savings that can occur. There is 3_ research being done here at NRC where I think the-primary '4 driver is, we just need to_ continue:to keep people _ actively 5 ~ involved in that, in case we might need that expertise 6 somewhere in the future. 7 The key here is that, if the core competencies are 8 maintained on the staff and we are aware of and we know 9 where to get the expertise out there in the private sector, _10 the universities and the labs,-some of the research then can 11 be focused more on the things that are really important 12 issues as opposed to just trying to maintain an activity 13 level. 14 I'm going to react here a'little bit to the 15 wording in, I think, it was questions five and six or seven. 16 There were words like what can industry R&D do that 17 satisfies the NRC's decision-making needs and where can 18 industry work -- where can R&D be eliminated or rely on the 19 industry rather than on the NRC. It was kind of an - 2 0-either-or way that the questions were worded. I know these 4 21 were probably questions that were aimed more to the staff, 22 but we are reacting to that back to this business about 23 respecting the need for NRC to continue to be able to do its 24 job in an independent manner and still finds way where we 25-can collaborate and contribute to your programs and reduce l-ANN RILEY &-ASSOCIATES, LTD. l-Court Reporters l 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034'
431 i 1L.- resources.-. I ff" ~. A11ot of areas-where these-can be done -- these ~ 2_ '3-are,~again,.allist of'a lottof areas where-EPRI and NRC are 41
- both doing joint research.
I think-the' point is in all of-SJ .this1that, we' don't'ever want to be in a. situation where-the 6 NRC-has to answer a question by saying we are not doing 7
- research in that area anymore.
We are relying on whatever-8'
- the_ industry does.
We are relying =on it, but we have not 9 -taken an independent to look to make sure that it is right. -10 We can't afford that any more than you can. i ll-So, collaboration involves continued 12 responsibility on both side and just sharing more of the 13 information and the cost of doing the work. 14 This is just a quick point about the international-15 scene. I think for a lot of reasons, not only the 16 leveraging of funds but the point that Dr. Seale made 17 earlier about leadership,-the point about reaching = 18 international consensus to get some issues resolved. I 19 think we all are motivated to expand our international R&D 20 collaboration. There are a lot of-strategic reasons.to do 8 .;UL that. The only point of this slide is to say that, on the 22 industry side, there is a significant amount of industry to 23 [ industry collaboration. On the NRC side, there's already a i 24 -significant amount of. government to government 2 5._ (collaboration. ANN RILEY &-ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250:I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 .(202).842-0034
432 ~ 1 The most_ efficient, _ effective means to.expan ~ that () 2' internationalJcollaboration further_is kind of in 3 partnership where the NRC seeks to expand for a given llD country where we know that they have an interest in working 5; 'with us, where the NRC reaches out to the government 6 entities and the U. S, industry reaches out to the industry 7 entities and.we bring all the parties together. That is all 8 examples of where that has been done in a number of areas. 9 You asked a specific-question about areas for new L10 researc14. There are two areas that we think are - 11 ' . strategically important where-there is probably not enough 12 .research going on at NRC right now. What we would certainly 13 like is the -- the spent fuel issue is very high on the 14 industry's priority list right now. We would like to know O \\) 15 . when DOE finally gets moving and does their job, that there 16 is not a holdup at the NRC side. -17 DR. POWERS: I don't think we were looking that 18 far in the futute, 19 [ Laughter) 20 MR. VINE: We want to make sure that this isn't 21 done in series so there's another ten or 20-year delay when 22 it gets to NRC. 23 There is another one here that kind of is similar. 24 The MOX fuel issueHis a very important national issue. The
- 25 excess weapons plutonium is viewed as a clear and present ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
i{ 433-1 ~ danger.. You know'that the former Soviet = Union is not going .m. 2 to move to reduce its inventories unless itisees a I l )' .3 commitment on-our side to reduce those inventories. 4 A key solution that I think everyone has 5 identified and the administration has bought into is 6' consuming that excess material as MOX fuel. There are some-7 . technical questions and licensing questions.- 'If, in fact,. 8 .this is a clear and present danger and if,- in fact, we want 9 to show rapid progress on this to get reductions on the J 10 other side, this should not become a long and difficult- ^ '11 ordeal hereJat the NRC. It is something that the NRC should 12 anticipate. 13 DR. POWERS: Let me interrupt you. Just a 14-question-for a little bit of committee business here. D) (- 15 I think it's important that this particular slide 16 be put in the hands of the ACNW, since they have 17 responsibility for the first item. Looking at what they 18 have sent to us in a preliminary fashion is, they are going 19 -to report that they have significant weaknesses and they are 20 very likely to get-into this serial process which I don't 21 think is a desirable situation, but one that may be forced 22 on them by their funding levels for the first of your 23 . expanded.research items. 24 MR. VINE: Yes, the ACNW staff has a copy of 25 these. 5 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
434 1 DR. POWERS: I think it is important that they -- /~ (,Tj 2 this strikes me as an important point that the speaker has 3-made here and that the industry does not want to have 4 further delays due to the serial nature of this. It is a 5 point of view that the NRC has taken in the past, that they 6 too don't want anymore seriality to this than is aboolutely 7 necessary. Yet, with the limited amount of resources now 8 going into this area -- it is an area of specific cutback by 9 the Congress, they are going to be forced into it. 10 With that interruption, please go ahead. 11 MR. VINE: In fact, I think there is another bit 12 of added assurance that these will get the proper attention, 13 since they are both kind of NMSS issues and since the 14 current director of research came over from NMSS, I think (s/ 15 these are probably the areas that he is -- 16 DR. POWERS: Interest and funding don't track well 17 right now. 18 MR. VINE: I think from what Jim said earlier and 19 some of the things that Ralph Beedle said, I think it is 20 also important to stress in more of an anticipatory way 21 that, the activities that -- this gets back to the point 22 about serial research as well. The activities that EPRI is 23 going to be engaged in will in many areas be focused on how 24 can we approach the same regulatory processes that we have 25 to go through on a day by day basis, the same processes we' /~s ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
435 1 go through for operations and who will do different things, (O,) 2 whether it is fuel reloads or whatever and can do it quicker 3 and cheaper and with greater certuinty and less delay in the 4 process, because time is money. 5 A lot of the new technologies that we are going to 6 be developing are going to be thinga that help get answers 7 quicker, better, greater assurance, fewer questions about, 8 well, there's too much uncertainty to approve a certain 9 course of action. So, I think -- 10 DR. POWERS: Do you really think so? 11 MR. VINE: There's a strategic area here where it 12 is really going to be important for NRC to follow and 13 perhaps participate in some of the areas where we are 14 refining a technology to make the same process, the same /,_N (s,) 15 decision something to be done quicker and cheaper. 16 DR. POWERS: This area of assurance and an 17 applicant puts in an application for something and to have 18-confidence that having submitted that material and to have 19 confidence that, having submitted that material, that he has 20 submitted the material that will get it approved strikes me 21 as a very serious area rignt now as we move toward greater 22 flexibility and afforded by risk-informed type. of 23 regulation. I think it is a serious issue of what does it 24 take to have a successful application. That is an area that 25 I'm concerned about right now as I see greater and greater /^\\ ) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
436 1-flexibility being'writtenLinto the regulatory guides and 2L - things'like that. 3 As I read these. things, I become more and more L4 appreciative of deterministic analyses. ~ 5 MR. KRESS:' _You know what you'have to turn in with f 6 those. 7 DR. POWERS: 'Well, the truth is,Jat.look at how 8 things have gone with respect to radiation limits at-the 9 site boundary. Traditionally what happens is that'an 10 applicant willLsubmit an analysis and say, see, I'm below -11 the 25-rem limit at the site boundary. Staff will go 12 through and not review his analysis. They will do their-own 13' analysis and they will come back and say, yes, you are below 11 the 25 rem. You're much closer to the limit _than what you tN 15 said, but you're below and so I approved this. 16 If that is the approach that is taken, the 17 efficiencies that you're anticipating here aren't going to 18 exist ~ In fact, it's going to go the other way. The 19 assurance that enough information is-provided in a 20 submission is enough to get an approval, you're just-never 21 going to be very confident until the letter finally arrives 22 _that says okay. Until the signature goes on the paper, '23 you're just not going to know. -24 MR. VINE: I'll give you a couple of examples. ~ 25 'I'm sure we will be developing NDE techniques that are g ( ) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250:I Street, N.W., Suite 300-Washington, D.C. 20005 (202)- 842-0034
437 1 . quicker, cheaper, more reliable, safer, but they're going to I) 2 be new. They're different. We would like assurances that 3 once those things are developed, they will be rapidly 4 assimilated and used in the-regulatory process. Another 5 area might be I&C where we have I&C capabilities ready to 6 put in the plants that are safer, cheaper, more reliable, 7 but we don't want to have an extended review process that 8 makes them difficult to implement or costly to implement. 9 These are all moving in the right direction, but 10 if we work together on the technical foundations for 11 accepting these new technologies, it is a win-win for 12 everybody. 13 Now, directly'into the MOU. You have reviewed the 14 principles or something associated with -- I don't know if 15 you got a copy of the draft or not. This just kind of 16 summarizes what this MOU does. It establishes the purpose 17 for our cooperation, the principles for cooperation. The 18 specific mechanisms are established for selecting areas for 19 research, how we are going to review the status in progress 20 on a periodic basis, specifying that the work is always 21 going to be by mutual agreement and so forth. 22 It allows for other parties to participate, other 23 than EPRI and NRC. In fact, it is going to encourage it for 24 purposes of leveraging of funds. The principal, I think, 25 here gets back to the way I talked about international (~'\\j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. t Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
438 1 collaboration. If there is going to be participation by r(yj 2 other government entities, NRC is going-to bring those 3 entities to the table and facilitate their involvement on 4 the industry side. Broader industry participation is going 5 to be facilitated by EPRI. 6 Along with this comes a burden or responsibility 7 on us to make sure that we are doing our job to explain what 8 it is we are trying to accomplish together, providing 9 information to other industry entities, whether that is the 10 vendor-owners' group or whatever and to encourage their 11 participation if they want to participate. I think there's 12 an understanding between EPRI and NRC that, these kind of 13 broader involvements are going to be encouraged. 14 MR. FONTANA: Is there not a rule that EPRI does \\s / 15 not participate in specific licensing actions between a 16 utility and NRC? Has that ever been the case? 17 MR. VINE: I think that is a general principle 18 that is followed most of the time. Maybe Jim would want to 19 answer'that. I think that even in the case of NEI, both of 20 us are really trying to deal with these things at the 21 generic level as opposed to plant specific. 22 There are cases where a particular issue comes up 23 where we try to provide some technical assistance. 24 MR. FONTANA: They are not barred by the charter 25 or legally barred or anything like that? () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
439 l 1 .MR. VINES-No. _2 MR.-FONTANA: Okay. 3: MR.-VINE: I guess the last point here we have l L4 already_made a couple of times._ It has to do with stressing -5 avoidance of conflict of-: interest or the perception'of 6 conflict-of interest by focusing on the basic data-needs and 7 parting company before we get.nto' things that involve 8-regulatory application and interpretation. 9 MR. MILLER: Gary, when you say other 10 organizations participate, does that mean you would have - - l 11-well, I know one instance where EPRI and NRC jointly had a 12 fairly-aubstantial program jointly funded. Is that_the type 23 of thing you're talking about here, you would jointly fund-14 the program? 15 MR. VINE: Yes. There is a last slide here I'm 16 = going to use to try to_ explain the concept. Before I do 17 that,_the last page -- it's a very short MOU. It's only 18 three pages long. -It is an umbrella-agreement that 19 basically just lays out the principles of cooperation. The 20 last page after the MOU ltself is a list of potentia 3-areas 21 -for future cooperative research. The list that appeare in 22 the' draft MOU right now and I would say that the first two-23 are-already actively in development where a staff person on 24 both the NRC side and the EPRI side are working toward a 25 more specific agreement on what will.be done and how it will -Q ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l
440 1 be done under thio umbrella MOU. () -2 Again,-fuel and steam generators;were really ripe-3' for this kind-of cooperation because it is already ongoing 4 work'and common-interests. I 5 This is a chart that was developed at the steam 6-generator meeting that Alex referred to earlier. It 7 basically shows how.we envision today that we would operate-8 .together. I don't want to get too much into the statement 9 of work and the technical content. I just wanted to kind of 10 show the_ wiring _ diagram to_ explain the concept we are 11 thinking will apply to many of-these activities. 12 It would Se one where a steering committee is 13 established based on the organizations that are funding the 14 research. You basically don't have a seat at the table k-) 15 unlese you are contributing to the effort is the concept. s 16 There could be others here as well, international 17 participants and so forth. The Steering Committee is not 18 going to be into managing the technical details. -They are 19 going to make sure that there is a common agreement on what 20 we are trying to accomplish, what the work-scope should-be 21 perhaps involving the selection of contractors or assurance . 22-that the proper contractors have been selected;and that in 23 general'the work is being done to meet the needs of the 24 funders. 12 5 We expect that, in most cases, the primary funders O - t.j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 .(202) 842-0034
441 1-in this equation will probably be-EPRI and NRC and perhaps 1 2 in the future _when: DOE'getslsome funding back,-them as well. 3 DR. : POWERS: Again, we're not looking at them for -r 4 in the future. 5 MR._ VINE: We are not preclud'ng participation by L 6 anyone. So, we are showing the vendors,-the owners groups 7-and others as potential furders. 8 There would be a project managecent and' steering 9 committee:to carry:out the Steering Committee's direction. 10 This could be NRC exclusively. It could be EPRI Ell-exclusively. It could even in theory be a jointly chaired 12 project management responsibility. It would always be sotce 13 kind of.a technical advisory committee to bring in experts 14 in the particular area that we are talking about, steam 'O k.) 15 generators here, that may not necessarily be funders of the 16 work, may not even be contractors, but we need to have their 17 advice. 18 This might be people such as some of the utility 19 advisors in our own SGMP, members of the NEI working group, 20 owners group. people, national lab experts in the area. This 21 structure, I think, will repeat itself frequently in some of 22 the other areas that we are going to work on. 23 That is the last slide T had. I thic.k I answered 24' most of your questions along the way. If there are any 25 further ones, I_would be happy to deal with them. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 -(202) 842-0034 4 s. . ~ -
442 1 DR.1 POWERS ': Are there any'more questions for g - () _ _2" either of.-the speakern? 3- [No response) 4 DR. : POWERS : Thank you very much'for-a very useful 5. presentation. It has been a refreshing view here. I'm 6-especially enthusiastic about the memo of understanding and
- perhaps even'some joint prognostication about the future.
8-It looks like a useful-thing for NRC and EPRI to cooperate + 9 on. 10 I'm going to'recers until 2:15. The reason for 11-the protracted recess is that-there is a Planning and 12 Procedures Subcommittee Meeting that will start at 12:30, I 13 think. 14 So, we are recessed. s 15 [Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the public meeting was ~ 16 concluded.) 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24-25 ~ O gg-ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court-Reporters 1250-I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
~ . = _. ~. -. ~.._ -. V REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE i 6 t%J This_is to certify that-the attached proceedings. -l .4 G before the United-States Nuc3 ear. Regulatory Commission in the matter oft-l. i NAME OF PROCEEDING: . SAFETY RESEARCH PROGRAM r DOCKET NUMBER:- t' PLACE OF PROCEEDING: ROCKVILLE, MD were held as herein appear:i, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting O compau.y, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of.ttse-foregoing proceedings. I (dwel xn Jo Hundley Official Reporter Ann Riley.& Associates, Ltd. P ~ -..
I F ACRS Subcommittee on NRC Safety Research Ralph E. Beedle Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer Nuclear Energy Institute ne' i l Historical NRC Research > Severe Accident Phenomenon > Revised Source Term > Radiation Embrittlement l > Digital Technology l > Radiological Criteria for Decommissioning L > Aging Effects l l l T.E ' l l h i
t Mature Technology > 40th Anniversay of Nuclear Generatioa in the U. S. > 2500 Reactor-Years of Operating Experience > 25th Water Reactor Safety Meeting '1." ' ( l Challenges > Reduction in RES Budget > Relevance of Future Research > Value added > Protection 6f public health and safety > Confirmatory Research > Anticipatory Research > Application of Risk-Based Approaches > Identification > Prioritization '1F ' I 2
( Recommendations > Practical Research > Stable Recearch > Expaad Opportunities for Cooperation > Risk-Informed W NKI i Conclusions > Present > NRC and Industry are working together > Future > NRC and Industry will continue to seek opportunities for cooperative research NF' -I j
k 9 i Introducing ..............the................ Nuclear Energy institute The Washington, D.C., policy organization ofthe nuclear energyindustry M.El l I NEI's Mission l 1 NEIfocuses the collective l strength of the nuclear energy industry to shapepolicy that l ensures the beneficial uses of l i nuclear energy and related technologies in the UnitedStates and around the world. N.E I I l 1
NEI's Members > All U.S. nuclear utilities > International nuclear utilities > Plant designers > Architect and engineering firms > Radiopharmaceutical manufacturers > Fuel suppliers > Universities > Labor unions > Law firms ype > Embassies t I Major Action Initiatives > Nuclear Waste > Regulatory Reform > Industry Restructuring NF' I I 2
i Other Action Initiatives > Improved plant performance > Low-level waste disposal > Advanced plants > International commerce > International safety > Fuel supply > Disposition of fissile materials > Nuclear insurance '1F ' 4 Services To Members > Nationni news media > Publications > Outreach & coalitions > Conferences & meetings > Energy information & analysis > Opinion & social science research '1F ' I 3
( How NEI is Governed l Board of Directors l Executive Committee "c' I NEl Committee Utructure > Advisory Committees > Executive Task Forces > Standing Committees > Working Groups > Issue Task Forces >Information Forums i l NF' I t
Advisory Committees > Nucicar Strategie Issues > Governmental Affairs > Communications 4F' t I Nuclear Strategic issues Advisory Committee > Reports to NEI Executive Committee and NEl Board of Directors > Identifies, evaluatea and prh.citizes issues > Evaluates courses of action > Establishes formal industry positions > Assists in implementation i h' i s
I l NSIAC Membership > Chief nuclear officers of each operating utility > Executives for major nuclear plant equipment vendors > Executives from architect / engineering firms > ED, EPRI, INPO > NSSS Owners Groups NF' I Industry Initiatives > Requires approval of at least 80% of the NSIAC > NEI communicates to NSIAC members a concise statement of the issue and results of the NSIAC vote > NEI communicates consensus to member utilities, non-utility NSIAC members, NRC and other industry organizations CtF ' I l l t 6 l l
I l Executive Task Forces > NRC enforcement polley > Regulatory process > Regulatory environment > Nuclear aspects ofindustry restructuring u.e. I I Standing Committees > Ad Iloc Committee on ALWR Strategic Plan > Committee on Radionuclides and Radiopliarmaceuticals > Facility Operations Committee > Low-Level Waste Planning Committee > Part 52 Legal Advisory Committee > Standing Committee on Government Relations > Utility Fuel Committee T.E I l I 7
I Working Groups > ALWR Regulation > Radiation Protection > Appendit B Work Practices > Crisis Communication > Low. Level Waste > License Renewal > Nuclear Economics > Steam Generator Issues > Fire Protection > NuclearSupplier > Security > Finance Subgroup / > liigh LevelWaste Nuclear supplier > Energylnformation > Surplus Weapons Centers Plutonium Disposition ry.t ' I i Issue Task Forces > 50.59 Process > Economic Benchmarking > Initial Licensed Operator Exam > License Renewal Implementation Guidelinc > Operational QA Rulemaking > Reactor Pressure Vessel Integrity Data > Dry Cask Storage > Shutdown Issues '1F ' I 8
I 4 information Forums > Emergency Planning >IIcalth Physics > Nuclear Fuel Supply > Quality Assurance n.n=
- How NEl Members Shape NEI Policy I
m tioe Working Executive Task Forces Groupe NEl Management I and Governance issue Information Task Forces Forums g;; g i 9
O bW EPRI R&D ACTIVITIES l Presentation to NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Dr. Rol>ln Jones Vice Presicient, Nuclear, EPRI i 5 Nov.1997 O h/ - = Presentation Outline b Nuclear Energy R&D: Strategic Importance; Roles Overview of EPRPs Nuclear Power R&D Program Industry - NRC Cooperation in R&D - Perspective Responses to ACRS Questions
- O
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' O bl -+ -Importance of Nuclear R&D 7rt - Status: nuclear R&D budget down at NRC, DOE, El'RI - Nuclear Energ3 Supply R&D at DOE eliininated in FY98 - Utilities continue to support collaborative R&D approach - Adequate R&D prograins essential to industry, govt.: - to sustain required safety levels, address new issues - to exploit new technology that improves safety and economics deregulation snakes this a priority - To maintain global leadership in safety, regulations, advanced designs, operations, non proliferation, etc. - to maintain a viable nuclear option to address environmental problems with fossil fuels O bl-NRC - Industry Cooperation M - NRC and industry share inutual goals fc,r adequate protection of public health and safety; resoluti 1 of open technical issues, international leadersh c. - lludget pressures suggest we must find ways k together (and internationally) to conserve rest.. es - Commitment to risk-informed regulations requires more cooperation io prioritize issues and R&D needs - llut NRC, industry should preserve independent roles - These are not mutually exclusive,if cooperation is restricted to agreeing on R&D needs, data collection, limited data analysis (not including interpretation) O
i O EPRI is: - A collaborative research and development organir.ation - A nonprofit organbation - Funded by voluntary payments by member U.S. utilities & International partncrs/ members i - Responsible for management of work performed by contractors O W EPRI's Vision & Mission - Vision - Provide science and technology based solutions of indispensable value to our global energy customers - Mission - Discover, develop and deliver high value technological advances through networking and partnership with the electric industry O
l l O _hl[ 1997 Progressive Flexibility j fly $284.2M i ogg NPG ($56.4/20%) ($43.6/15%) .loint Targets (b ($60 1%) i 'Env ($44.5/16%) PDG l ($60.2/21 %) O b Nuclear Industry R&D Drivers l 7 1 - Safety margin maintenance / improvement - Capacity factor improvement l - O&M cost reduction j. - Incremental capital cost asoidance l - Radioactive waste disposal l - Liccuse renewal l - Longer term: option for new plant construction i O
i l O _ r._ Unit Capability Factor 7y .uedian vaines 1 l $4.5 su '." 'o; ei.9 7,,, lIllIll,,,l l 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 0 9 ! O i hd[ U.S. Nuclear Plant O&M Costs f/i\\" Constant 1994 Cents /kWh 8.%Wh 1.90 < 1.80 < 1 uo 1.60 < 1.40 < 1.30 120< 1.10 981 19t2 1983 1984 1945 1966 19'87 1968 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 ~ 10 0 E
I O l Primary Focus of Nuclear l Power Group R&D "W'MQ W* n fh7 eaagd?j $ N J A 3 W $y b"< N a g m L I 4 y
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_,., A .nv k. ..,. jk O @PG Target Structure -m l l Nuclear Power Group Advanced Major Suclear Component Technoingy Kellahittfy Fuel Hellahitity, O A M Cast Storage & Control D6spmal Technoingy H
- 'dI ^
LLW,Chendery & I 3,' Radiation Contr<d -- - z O 4 t m m
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) NPG Organization ) RobiaJones Ieetnokg) lievemene--Desh Oe sel .j techemkg,imiseert..s Lee a n.mineet=.eaes.ni.. w k nme ] j ladus+y'Gevt, ' Quahty Itela W Assurance i Gary Vene IUdard Oehltery I i 1 bIU E'A I""I"l*"I A E8'Iff go.g gg4,,,,g Adm6ntstrahan John Downm NDE Center rela Alle g,p Jim Larig Dirufi Chesal m m.m. eef Ah Wie - O..*" < =, u=,.- ,=_;, t u a_.- _ n. ? =: -
- =.
= [ ;;;p-l I l l O l I I l t l M NPG 1997 Funding (S84.87M) 71\\ / \\ Cofunding** hiember Revenuc* ($21.32h1/25%) ($32.9551/39%) t l l Royalties ($1.4051/2%) TC Carryforward ($23.00ht/27%) ($6.2051/7 %) .se oric.eos ide " Includes t!'r A nunmember revenue foreced la O .-..,.....,.....,...y.,, ,._,,_,.,-,,,~,,__m.,.~r,.m,.~..,.y.m.,,,_ ,,3,_.,_ .m.
l i I O (--1997 Target Funding Plan
- d
$\\l 2$ho, a TC/Other (145.72%f) e llase (532.95M) 20h0 - l$h0-10.00 - $DO. 0.00 i i i - i ANT 1 111:1, l.I,W MCit OAM salla Excludes Canyforward g O hl[ Current Member Support for /Ty Collaborative Research Concept 60% -l a 50% y_. 'kh5 40%- 30%, 20% 10% og.J* ....u. Excellent Good . lust OK Poor Very Poor 16 O d -w-.-- .. - ~, ~...-.<~.-._.,----...,-...-..e. __-._--..__,-.---.--,,--,y .,_...--..--w.m...,-w-w-
O l .hl[ Future Member Support for JK Collaborative Research Concept 40%./ ssu. nu so%.
- ss.
20% - 15%. . = 17% i 2 ~~.:'". """'"".i::L. L C :: n i P O h[ Advanced Nuclear Technology 1997 Product Group Funding--$M w. a i... 1 av . i ran n.. u < =i, i
- l. Advanced Light Water Reactor (ALWR) 3.34 1.35 4.69
- 2. Corrosion Research 0.81 1.68 2.49
- 3. Innovative b'uclear Technology 0.81 0.00 0.81
- 4. Advanced Reactor Concepts 0.00 0.00 0.00 Total
$4.96 $3.03 $7.99 linw BudgetIM1 18 O
l O I Fuel Reliability, Storage & Disposal ss '[l 1997 Produel Group Funding SM ..............i.. ...m n. o.=..
- i. e
- 1. l'ailure Rate & Severity Recluttion 0.62 0.40 1.02 1
- 2. Fuel l'erformance & Ilurnup lhtension 1.30 1.00 2.30 i
- 3. Spent Fuel Storage & Transportation 1.15 0.50 1.65
- 4. Ill,W Regnisitory issue Resolution 1.10 0.00 1.10 4
Total $4.17 $1.90 $6.07 Itate lludgel 1/97 i 19 O LLW, Chemistry & Radiation Cont. s._.,___ '1997 Product Group Funding SM 1 n.......... i i e wi n. n .o., i. a
- 1. Li,W Mgint, & Disposal 1.32 1.30 2.62
- 2. Water Chemistry Control 0.97 0.50 1.47
- 3. Rattiation thposure Cost Control 1.18 2.10 M8, 1
Total $3.47 $3.90 $7.37 Itate lludget 147 O n,---.-.--...--+~--..-----,--wme.--m, - - -,. - -. + - ....we- --.-.w-- ,. - -, - ~,-. + - - - - -,----- -. -r.---.--,----,------..---..-e- -~---,,,----+-.e. .w.
i O sI-Major Component Reliability l 1997 l'rodilet Group l?tinding- $M r......,......i.. . e w i n.. n.=..
- 1. Sicam Generator Reliability 3.95 3.29 7.24
- 2. IlWR Vessel & Internals l'rolect 1.50 7.65 9.15 i
- 3. Materials Reliability & Cornp. Integ.
2.24 1.43 3.67
- 4. CilECWORKS 0.42 2.00 2.42 Totat
$8.11 $14.37 $22.48 512iudget IM7 21 O s ), Safety & Reliability Assessment 1997 l'roditet Group I?unding $M w. .n.,.. i ni. e e u s n,.- n i =., i..
- 1. Risk & Heliah" ty liased Methods 1.82 4.80 6.62
- 2. I'lant Analysis & Safety 0.97 4.70 M I
Total $2.79 $9.50 $12.29 Date Dudgel 197 31 O
l l l l l r !O O&M Cost Control--Palo Alto s - [l 1997 Product Group Funding SM l T............ i s.w e eui n. i.. mi... i..i
- l. Equignnent Assessment & Maint Tech 1.59 0.98 2.57
- 2. Iluman Performance Technology 0.52 0.12 0.64
- 3. Instrumentation & Controls 2.12 1.85 3.97
- 4. I.ife Cycle Management Technology 1.34 0.65 1.99 Total
$5.57 $3.60 $9.17 I Ilsee lludget I/97 23 O J O&M Cost Control--Charlotte 1997 Produci Group Funding-SM e oi... .i w i exi n.. s i i ni... i.
- 1. Component integrity Technology 0.94 1.54 2.48
- 2. Nuclear Maint Applications Center 0.39 1.80 2.19 3 Plant Support Engineering 0.59 1.94 2.53
- 4. NDEC Inspection & Training Program 0.00 3.70 3.70
- 5. Advanced NDE Technology 1.96 0.44 2.40 Total
$3.88 $9,42 $13.30 Itaw Ilucket 1/97 24 O
O i AI NPG Key External Alliances ts e Mew inf
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c O ~ _d EPRI -INPO - NEI 79y Memorandum of Agreement - Purimse of EPRl/INPO/NEl MOA,(12/94, revised 6/97): - outline existing mutually supportive and cooperative relationship - address interrelated nature of existing activities - support increasing importance of c(nirdinating activities in order to achieve the benefits of collaboration and unified approaches - Missions: Specific missions vary; each organization shares broad mission of helping utilities optimite performance - Prinriples of Cooperation allow for: - optimum and timely support of members - efficient use of utility resources - active, camperative relationship, promoting teamwork - minimir.ing duplication or conflicting efforts 3 O
I IJ(5 / .sM Categorization of EPRI/NPG fi' R&D Results ~, - isnwaanwro lJaww6i,i ing; m NW$ $hWai?h k&$ v umsw w m m.aw
- _;c3 e m e css c t
%A 4 8% EmA. 21 t AI Sanm* linb1 of 1998 Products -s Sitatn Gegnerntors (ISI Guidehnes, Ree. 4, n ol 2; Tube Integrity Assessment flandhwk; Severe Accident;SG Alethalology) > Clsemkiry (ChemH'ORKS,5G Technology lbenlopment,l'nmary Chemistryl
- M aterial I'erformanf t (T-T Calcu& dor, deser mvld resmir of nsset Aemipenetrussentfuligue danaaga emanagament)
> $lnte IHntf (N4fAC,lieing man ans e prognam workstatka, f4f bases taports) Vahe ( Af 0l's, A0l's)
- lIuman l'etinrmitnce (Truredere reelnasion tool)
- Vutl% (Independent root cause realuatson support, Cred and stial apet ananaly mitigakon)
Rkk & Melletsifits (RAR worenation emlefsoftware support, new nrekns, terk svensfer A user support, n.:elear property insurance cmt reduction. design basis rooyigurataan) Q)EIReducing resset Nf)l: esam rolame, Niit: centena'elaptation of rish based inspection A ginn (Concrete structurt umangement) Corro% ion ti'lov accelerateJ corrosian, ntn t Losntrain tran qualdication, sereice neter corrosion, l'llMr) y Spent I'utl Storant (Iterapes management, dry storage) OV l
O 1998 Steam Generator A _- '/ly Management Products SG Examination Guidelines, Rev. 5, Volutne 2 - Provides supporting justification for requirements of Volume !
- Supports engineering assessment for plant specific approaches
- SG Severe Accident Methodology llandixxik
- Provides PRA & esent tree assessment for typleal CI:,il&W, E, plants
- Determine if applicable initlation frequency is achievable
- Required for plant, purst:ing ARC - Tube Integrity Aisessment linndixxik, Final - Prmides " cam *.htlon monitoring"," operational assessment" methodology
- Needed by r.d plants
- Generic le'.ter/ rule requirements - Flaw Assessment llandluxik (Appendix to TI Assessnient 11/11) - Provides flaw specific structurut limits - Required for integrity assessment actions 29 O M4-Robust Fuel Program b - Problem: Fuel related problems impact safety and plant operations
- Overly restrictive regulations are possible unless solid technical basis exists (RI A,1,0CA and high burnup issues)
- Solution: Collaborative industrywide effort to manage fuel R&D (Robust Fuel Progrand - Issues to Address:
- Crud and usialolThet anomaly mitigation
- Develop realistic RI A criteria and gain NRC acceptance at hlgh burnup
- Asold overly restrictive criteria from 1.OCA - Technical requirement for robust fuel - lloteell data oc the engineering properties and performance of current and next generation fuel w O
O _b_l[ 1998 Primary Chemistry fly Developments - ChennWORKS -Improved niodeling of PWR secondary systems for optimized chemistry control; IX database - Users Group provides enhanced technology transfer - Silica - relaxation of silica limit - Increinental increase, with fuel vendor buy in, plus - Shutdown hideout return studies, stepped up fuel surveillance - Nickel Intrusion -anti seize lubricants > nctivated Ni flakes in RCS - screen for radiologically passive alternatives si O Laser Weld Repair of s Vessel Head Penetrations Problem: Alloy 600 RPV Head Penetrations are susceptible to primary water SCC which can lead to increased inspection and repair costs Solution: Laser weld repair technology can he used to either repair existing cracks or prevent cracking by deposition of a corrosion resistant cladding Laboratory feasibility of laser weld repair will be demonstrated and documented in 1998 Laser weli repair will be made available to utilities through a cimun inc 'icensee n O L
O M NRC -Industry Cooperation in fly R&D -- a Perspective - Extensive collaboration arnong NRC, DOE, EPRI, NSSS Vendors on nuclear R&D in 1970s, early 80s - Major test programs on LOCA/ECCS -T li and neutronics code development - R&D collaboration rare during last decade - Legal concerns associated with " independence" - Redundant R&D on same issues was affordable - Adversarial relationship hampered R&D cooperation - Independent R&D became obstacle to issue closure - Lack of agreement up front on definition / scope ofissue - Lack of agreement on R&D needs, assumptions, data - Industry, NRC sometimes critical of each other's R&D y O M NRC -Industry Cooperation in npy R&D -- a Perspective - What has changed? -Greater appreciation of common R&D goals - Greater appreciation for problems with status quo - Diminished resources for R&D suggests leveraging - Risk informed regulation encourages convergence on R&D assumptions, data, models, etc. - Commission encouraged collaboration under DSI.22 (Strategic Assessment and Rebaselining initiative) -Industry encouraged EPRI to develop increased collaboration with NRC, DOE, international orgs. - Recognition that R&D collaboration does not diminish independence of sponsoring organizations, if donc right O I
O _h/ NRC -Industry Cooperation in 77R R&D -- a Perspective - How to proceed in a inutually beneficial manner: - Focus on common R&D needs - Focus on data collection phase (and potentially some data reduction and analysis)in cooperative mode; split efforts before data interpretation and regulatory application process begins - Take the time to reach consensus on: - definition and scope of the issue R&D in* ended to solve - R&D objectives and requirements - design of R&D program, experiments, test matrix, etc. - Work toward objective of avoiding need to repeat R&D - Leverage international collaboration opportunities O h/ -r --Observations on ACRS Questions b - NRC should retain an independent R&D capability - l' art of NRC's responsibility as a regulator - NRC R&D role is distinct from doe's role - R&D by Industry, DOE, national labs, international orgs, can contribute to NRC's Regulatory Research role,if NRC staff maintains independent review - OK for NRC to review durinnjoint R&D process - Requires strong core competencies on RES staff - NRC can conserve resources by leveraging other R&D funders, and by not retaining permanent contractors in stand by --if contractor skill-base is monitored, and if core competencies of staff remain high y O I I
O A ' Observations on ACRS Questions N - Where can existing industry R&D contribute to (as opposed to " satisfy") NRC's decisioninaking needs:
- Risk and reliability bawd methods
- l'sA applications and demonstrations
- hla,jor component reliability (sGs, RI'V, internals, etc.)
- hiatcrials reliability; piping corrosion management
- Structuralintegrity & reliabilityl NDE technokigles
- Outage management; on-line maintenance
- ruel reliability, storage, disposal
- LLW, radiatimi protection
- Instrumentation and controls
. I.ife cycle management technology
- Chemistry
- Many shove areas are appropriate for loint research; n R&D shouldn't he done by industry "rather than" NRC O d AW servations on ACRS Questions Ob - EPRI and U.S. nuclear industry companies have extensive intern _.'.ional R&D ties and agreements - primarily industry to industry -International utilities can nowjoin EPRI as members - U.S. NRC has extensive international R&D ties - primarily government to government - NRC & industry should coordinate country-specific efforts to expand international R&D collaboration - Most efficient and effective means of expanding collaboration is for NRC to seek international R&D agreements with other government entities; U.S. industry to seek parallel agreements with industry 3, O
O / Observations on ACRS Questions - Areas for new or expanded Research at NRC: - Spent fuel repository licensing cr'teria, standards, and processes -Technical bases for licensing fabrication and irradiation processes for dispositioning excess weapons Pn as MOX fuelin conunercial reactors - New approches discussed earlier should free up resources to expand R&D in these areas 39 O W --MOU Between NRC and EPRI N - Draft MOU establishes purpose of cooperr. tion - Principles of cooperation establish mechanisms for: - selecting areas for cooperative R&D - reviewing status and progres,on R&D periodically -directing work by mutual agreement - Draft MOU allows for other parties to participate in any cooperative program. Industry participation facilitated by EPRI (industry point-of-contact) - Draft MOU stresses avoiding conflict ofinterest by focusing on basic data needs, not solutions to specific regulatory issues or conclusions. e O
4 O A' MOU Between NRC and EPRI N Potential Areas for New NRC/EPRI Cooperative Research (as listed in Draft MOU): - Fuel Perfortnance
- Steam Generator Integrity
- Fire Protection - Iluman Performance - Digital Instrumentation and Control - Direct Measurement of Reactor Vessel Degraded Properties - Containment Protective Coatings Integrity - Spent Fuel Dry Storage - Environmental Qualification Power Cables di O Industry-NRC Cooperative Research Work " Industry SG Tubing Sample Set" lNRCl l EPHI l lOG's l l DOE l l Vendors l l l l l l l l Steering Committee l Project Mennement l TAG l Organizatico Contractor 2 , C_ ontractor.1........... _ l ..... _ _ _ _ _ _ te,m - - - _g.a l,ow I i j l s l Tube Putis l l e ousi. sempi. sei a l i l l l Proe e l i i i l l u.cxuP oesign l l l l l l l l l l 8 l Protocols for Testing l i l l l 4 l l Data Anatyeis l l I L...______........._,l L___________________i O -_- -}}