ML20198R809
| ML20198R809 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 11/04/1997 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T-3014, NUDOCS 9711130392 | |
| Download: ML20198R809 (344) | |
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.A 31 k4 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS O
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SAFETY RESEARCII PROGRAM 4 3
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LOCATION: Rocksille hfaryland DATE: Tuesday, Noirmber 4,1997 PAGES: 1 312 A .1S W i:sfy: Reta? '
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DISCLAIMER UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATO.VY COMMISSION'S ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS NOVEMBER 4, 1997 The contents of this transcript of the proceeding of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory V Committee on Reactor Safeguards, taken on November 4, 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.
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i l
1 l 1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l
_2 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 3 * **
f 4 SAFETY RESEARCH PROGR n
.i 6 !
7- U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission !
8 Two White Flint North 9 11545 Rockville Pike 10- Rockville, Maryland 20852-2738 j
, t 11 e
12 Tuesday, November 4, 1997 i 13 !
. 14 The Subcommittee met pursuant to notice at 8:30 ;
15 a.m.
t 16 17 MEMBERS PRESENT:
18 GEORGE APOSTOLAKIS, Chairman, ACRS 4
19 DONALD W. MILLER, Member, ACRS 20 MARIO H. FONTANA, Member, ACRS 21 THOMAS S. KRESS, Member, ACRS 9
22 ROBERT L. SEALE, Member, ACRS 23 JOHN J. BARTON, Member, ACRS 24 WILLIAM J. SHACK, Member, ACRS 25 RICHARD SHERRY, Senior Fellow, ACRS
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2 l 1 ' PROCEEDINGS
() 2 (8:30 a.m.]
3 DR. POWERS: This is a meeting of the ACRS 4 Subcommittee on the datety research program. I am Dana 5 Powers, Chairman of the Subcommittee.
6 The ACRS membars in attendance are John Barton; 7 Mario Fontana; Tom Kress; Don Miller; Robert Seale; William 8 Shack. George Apostolakis had every intention of being here -
l 9 but he has been called into jury duty, as I understand, and ,
10 they went into long deliberations, I think.
11- (Laughter.)
12 DR. POWERS: Bob Uhrig is here, but apparently ill
'3 . this morning, and will try to join us if and when he can, 14 The purpose of the meeting is to hold discussions 15 with the NRC staff, EPRI and NEI, regarding the NRC safety 16 research program.
17 Let me say that there has been some nervousness 18 about these discussions, but I want to make clear that's 19 exactly what they are, that we have some collegial 20 undertakings to do as a subcommittee. That is that we are 21 gathering information here to help the full ACRS prepare its 22 report to Congress on the research program, which in my [
23 opinion, is more an agency report than just an ACRS report.
24 The purpose of this subcommittee and any other 25 subcommittee is to gather information for preparing a draft
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3 1 annual report to Congress. The subcommittee will gather
() 2 information, analyze relevant issues and facts, and :
3 formulate proposed positions and actions as appropriate for s
4 deliberation of the full committee.
5 Medhat El-Zeftawy is the cognizant ACRS staff 6 engineer for this meeting.
7 The rules for participation in today's meeting 8 have been announced as part of the notice of this meeting, 9 previously published in the Federal Register on October 15, 10 1997, 11 A transcript of the meeting is being kept and will 12 be made available as stated in the Federal Register notice.
13 It is requested the speakers first identify 14 themselves and speak with sufficient clarity and volume so 15 that they can be readily heard, 16 We have received no written comments or requests 17 for time to make oral statements from members of the public.
18 We have, however, been told that the freeways are 19 somewhat jammed up and there will be difficulty for some 20 people getting here at precisely 8:30, so our first 21 presentation is kind of a throw away for the committee.
22 It's to be given by a speaker that may be known to you, a 23 fellow named Powers. Somebody will have to tell me how to 24 wire myself up for this.
25 MR. KRESS: Do we have to take notes on this?
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l 4 i 1 DR.. POWERS: I can almost assure you not. ;
2 MR. KRESS: Would you please give your phone 3 number and.so forth? !
4 [ Laughter.) ;
5 DR. POWERS: I have as much trouble as anyone else l 6 knowing how the vu-graph machine works.
7 Some of the visual aids I think you've had in a 8 package that was sent to you. Our intention was to cover 9 some of this material at our last meeting.
10 The Research Subcommittee has really two tasks 11 before it. The first is a report to Congress, and our 4
12 intention is to-have that report out on the street by the 13 beginning of February 1998, and Sam whales at me that it's 14 got to be done by the end of December, but I think the 15 realistic schedule is thht it will go out the door of the 16 agency in February, 17 We want this time out on our report to Congress to 18 get a chance for some more internal review, both by the 19 staff and the Commission itself. That realistically means 20 that we've got to have a pretty good draft by December so i 21 that we give some people time to give us feedback and we can 22 make' corrections on it.
23 : The second task is a little more difficult, and 24 'that is that the Commission has asked us to report to them 25 on-the research program for the agency. They have asked for >
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1 a report by June. j
() 2' Our Executive Director in his enthusiasm for this,
-3 they originally asked for the end of June. He said, gee, we I i
4 can make it by the beginning of June. They said, well, !
5 maybe that would be good enough. He said, well, in that I 6 case, how about the beginning of May.
- 7 So, if we don't happen to make the beginning of 8 May, we will offer our Executive Director as a'sacifificial 9 lamb. ;
10 , [ Laughter.)
l
- 11. DR. POWERS: The reason we are reporting-to the i 12 Commission, of course, is they'have issued an SRM, take an l 13 active role in reviewing ongoing research program l 14 initiatives such as those discussed in these two SECY 15 papers. Review the research program in terms of need, scope ;
16 and balance. True to the usual form, there is no definition ,
17 of need, scope or balance. So, we get to understand the 18 meaning of those.
19 Examine how RES anticipates research needs.
20 Examine how RES is positioned for a changing environment.
21 Recommend whether the NSRRC function is still needed. Now.
22 I'll' talk a little more about the NSRRC function, because 23 that was a recommendation of an Academy report some time
'I 24 back.
25 Lot-me just-say that in subsequent documents, the j
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6 1 Commission has articulated some of 3ta concerns about'the
() 2 research program. These are some quotations..
3 The staff should strive for a clear nexus between 4 program outputs and the goals-they. support. The staff 5 should also consider whether existing goals need to be 6 revised, eliminated or new goals established. The staff 7 should consider the use of intermediate goals that are 8 closer to NRC's operating regime. !
9 There has been some additional advice from the 10 Chairman. Research goals for the future should anticipate ,
, 11 and explore problems proactively rather than reactively.
12 Identify and focus on the most risk significant issues. I 13 suspect that this one is the issue that will cause us the 14 most difficulty.
15 In certain cases, you are conducting research
- 16 because you don't know whether the things are risk 17 significant or not. I don't know exactly how this one gets 18 handled.
19 And then maintain sufficient expertise and' 20' capability to respond to future needs. I presume that means 21 that RES is to have a level of clairvoyance that is 22 unparalleled.
23 Let me digress just a bit and go back to-the 24- Academy study of RES' research program that was conducted 25 sometime in the 1980's, I think, to let the NSRRU function.
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1 I do that for two reasons. The first, because we do have to
() 2 comment on whether that function should be maintained or 3 not, and second, because it struck me as interesting. The 4 questions were always the same.
5 These are the questions that NRC posed to the 6 Academy when they undertook to study the research program.
7 First, what are the needs. They asked what are 8 the alternatives for meeting those needs. They asked some 9 philosophical questions about what advantages accrue from 10 Federal support of undirected research in nuclear safety. ,
11 This has to do with a discretionary component of the 12 research program that may have gone the way of the budget.
13 What should be the scope, the structure and the coverage of 14 a Federal research program, given the current statutory 15 requirements.
16 Those statutory requirements probably deserve to 17 be articulhtid. The Energy Reorganization Acc actually 18 specifies what research is supposed to do.
19 Develop recommendations fos research deemed 20 necessary for performance by the Commission of its licensing 21 and related regulatory functions. Engage in a contract for 22 research which the Commission deems necessary for the 23 performance of its licensing and regulatory functions.
24 The Commission shall develop a long term plan for 25 projects for the development of new or improved safety l
l
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8 1 systems for nuclear power plants.
() 2 MR. KRESS: Do you think that last bullet has ever 3 been really addressed or done?
4 DR. POWERS: I know that Dr. Kouts thought about 5 that particular topic. Now, whether he developed a long term 6 plan or not, maybe.some of the more histcrically inclined 7 can comment on that, but I know that he definitely thought 8 about it.
9 What I thought was interesting is my thinking on
.10 it when I read this was immediately of the digita) 11 electronic and software issues that come up because the 12 "stification of that kind of research is a little more 13 difficult in a risk based regime. Suddenly, it comes up.
14 Gee, it looks like it may be a mandatory function. It was
, 15 just interesting to me to go back and do that.
16 Turning back to the Academy's study, the NRC posed 17 some questions to the Academy. Didn't trust them, I guess.
18 They went directly to the Chairman of the Commission at the 19 time and asked him what he wanted out of this study. Again, 20 the questions are the same. They are alwaya the same.
21 Is more research needed. Haven't we done enough.
22 Industry was well established even in those days, don't we 23 understand everything. If so, what program of re,earch will 24 anticipate future regulacory problems. This future, this 25- clairvoyance, is being requested.
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9 l 1 If you don't need future research, how fast can f 2 the current research offorts be phased out. Pretty fast when 3 you don't have any money. '
l 4 Who.should do the research. This was a big 5 question that was posed at the timo I think it's still f
, 6 there. Should licensees be responsible for the research. -
7 Should NRC be responsible for the research, or should they ;
I 8 both do that. j 9 To what extent should research be ' focused on l 10- explicit near term objectives. I recall again the ,
This has 11 undirected research-first is the focused research.
4 12 been in the' economics literature a very big debate on-how
- 13 organizations sponsor research. There are lots of classic 14 examples of various approaches.
15 The one that is frequently cited is the 16 differences between the Bell Laboratories' type of approach -
17 and the U.S. Steel type of approach. U.S. Steel uses its 18 research to optimize its processes, and as a result, tends f F
19 not to make major breakthroughs. Bell Laboratories at least 20 in the past tended to use research not to optimize its 21 processes but rather to explore new technologies and did
-22 make breakthroughs. Nobel laureates and things like that. ;
23 They are very proud of their research programs.
24 -There are two different approaches and the 25 question is'of course, which one should the NRC adopt. They ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD, ;
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10 1 have advantages and they have disadvantages.
() 2 What is the value of having core capabilities.
3 So, the questions posed in the past seem to be the 4 same questions we have now. There is really very little 5 difference. I don't think the Academy really answered any 6 of the questions. Sometimes we think that's a trend, but I 7 think it's a historical approach, when you can't answer the 8 question that's asked, answer the question you can.
9 The Academy really came back worrying about NRC's 10 research management. I don't knov why the Academy felt that 11 it had the personnel and the qualifications to comment on 12 management. They obviously saw bomething that distressed 13 them and they commented heavily about management.
14 I think in this committee, that's not our goal,
(_/ 15 that we have no expertise to comment on the NRC's 16 management. I think it's excellent, as a matter of fact.
17 You guys can say thank you. It's not our mission to comment 18 on the management.
19 The Academy said the program lacks direction, the 20 management lacks a coherent and effective set of principles 21 for organizing an integrated program of research. This 22 probably was not a popular comment by the Academy within the 23 halls of the NRC.
24 They did say there were general principles for 25 helping to answer the question, who should pay for research,
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i 11 ~f I who should carry-out research, who should establish research j
() 2 agenda. !
3 MR. KRESS: Did they articulate those principles?- ]
4-- DR. POWERS: They did not. They said they 5 existed. They'said there was a way of going abouc and l l
6 _getting them.- They did talk about some things that they l f
7 felt gave answers to these questions. I think they just ,
8 rendered the questions a little more microscopic. They. !
t
- 9 said, you know,.he who benefits should pay, you know. j 10 Things like that. It didn't help very much. ;
11 What they did do is say that-the NRC-should .
12- continue-to sponsor-research. An increased-proportion of.the -l i
13- needed research should be funded and conducted by industry, 14 and we have invited some of.the industry representatives to
! 15 di e research program here today.
16 One of-the debates that we are going to have to 17 carry out as a committee,.and we invite the staff to comment f
18 on this by the way, is whether our research program --
i 19 research letter to Congress, should speak of research needs l 20 of the industry as a whole or should focus in on the NRC 21 research needs. That's a question we are going to have to
- 22 -debate.
23 Our mandate is very unclear on that. It seems to 24_ -- liberally: interpreted, it says we should comment on the 1
research needs,Eperiod.' Who does'them is another question.
~
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i i I think it's my opinion that what's expected of us j 2 is a comment about the'NRC research program, but we need to L
3 discuss'that. . ,
4 The Academy said, gee, ure the best facilities and
{
- 5 the best people. Elsewhere in the report, it actually says
- 3 6 .to use good people. I spent a lot of time trying to j l
7 understand what they,were driving at here. -Why wouldn't it. i
_be enough to use adequate people and adequate facilities.
8 i
9 There was-some point-they were driving at here and I have no i
- 10 idea what that was, except I think what they were commenting 11 on was again, they were commenting.on the management of the l
12 program. They felt that maybe the-NRC was too tied to the $
13 national laboratories in conducting and contracting their ,
- 14 research and they were not looking broad enough in scope.
15 MR. KRESS: That's the way I interpreted that, l 16 Dana.
17 MR. SEALE: Dana, you will remember in another 18 f orum, one of the former members of this committee, Hal
- 19 Lewis, made the comment in response to protestations by 20 national laboratories that they had world class people, and j
. 21 that he would be very pleased if they just for come of the r I
22 problems, if they just had good people.
]
! 23 DR. POWERS: Good people, yes.
i r 24 MR, SEALE: I think what that says is that in many 25 cases, the nature of the problem will dictate the level ~of
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13
, _1 response that you have to have for the problem.
)
() 2- DR. POWERS: My point on that is this is thL NRC 3 management function. They are perfectly good at that.- I've 4 got no expertise. I can't tell you whether somebody is a- j i
5 good person or a best person or-a world class person even G That's their business. I don't want to get involved. ,
l 1 7 MR. SEALE: I'think the best thing is we rea6 that B in that epiric and not waste our time arguing about those
- 9. kinds of questions, i- 10 DR . - ' POWESS : Yes. We'll leave that to Hal Lewis. ;
11 The Academy felt that there should be more 12- - cooperative research with the-UE industry and -
13 internationally, and of course, in the subjects of DSI's and i
14 areas, we will no doubt discuss.
() 15 NRC funded research should be placed by i
16 competition, taintain an university program. Jul university ;
17 is another contractor with relevant knowledge a.A skills and i '
^
18 should be more actively involved in setting the research 19 agenda.
l 20 MR. KRESS: it sounds like the Academy was heavily- !
21 populated-by academic types. .
22 DR. POWERS: It wac heavily populated by academic i
23 types. ,
24 These two items, aghin, they are covered by DSI's.
{
25- _ They are outside of our scope of expertise.
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14 1 This last item I suppose is something that we can
()
v 2 get into and discuss if we find'it necessary.
3 The Academy did come up with a set of 4 recommendations on how everybody should do -their job. They 5 said that-the NRC research directors should use the best 6 researchers, you know. Not just good, I want the very best.
7 This is really a poor point on their part. Develop a 8 ' coherent planning practice. Make more use of peer review. I 9 think the subject of peer review is one that I find 10 fascinating. I would love to discuss the peer review 11 philosophy with the NRC management who understand it better, but the fact in, that is outside of our scope, 13 Establish an advisory group. That was the 14 generation of the NSRRC. Strengthen links to the users and 15 diversity the research providers. This is clearly outside 16 of our scope. Strengthening the links to users is, I think, 17 going to be a subject of discussion. Again, it ties back to la this directed versus undirected research and how you want to 19 conduct your research program.
20 I think we really do need to understand where the 21 staff is coming down on this. I can het you there's no 22 answer to this question.
23 MR. KRESS: Is that related to user need letters i 24 and --
- -2 5 -DR. POWERS: That's right. That's going to be how ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATEC. L'm .
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15 1 -- it's articulated,-I'm sure. ;
2 The Academy report --
3 -MR SE?,LE: You didn't do the last one.
4 DR. POWERS: Yes, I should do this. The EDO has a ;
5 responsibility for assuring that there is' communication- {
6 within the agency. I think again this 1u a management 7 function and I tak'e it from some'of the committees. I think f
-8' it's the Research Effectiveness Committee that has been set :
9 up. It seems like this job is being done. f 1
. 10 Here's the one that I think is really interesting.
11 It says the NRC Chairman should defend.the research budget i 12' to Congress. I thought about this one a lot-and I said,
~ 13 .- well, there have certainly been chairmen I bet they didn't
, 14 want to defend it in front of-Congress, 15 At this time, I think I understand why the current 16 Commission is so anxious to get advice on this research 17 program, that they do feel a responsibility to defend this -
18 budget before Congress. We need in formulating our response 19 to.the Commission to make sure we do as much as we can do to <
20 help arm them to'do that defense. I think they feel like 21 - they need to have the technical component of the defense 22 pretty well substantiated, both by the staff and by this 23 committee.
24' Clearly, it's not our responsibility to help them 25 with the policy aspects-of it, but the technical component L
i l -
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I 16 1 of it, we have to give them some confidence that that's well (O) 2 founded. i 3 I'm sure the staff'will formulate a well founded 4 technical defense and we can look upon our function as 5 giving them a peer review of that technical defense.
6 MR. SEALE: To borrow a term from the financial 7 pages of last week, the research budget has been in free 8 fall for many years now.
9 [ Laughter.)
10 MR. SEALE: I wonder what the response would be if 11 the market had fallen as much as the research budget has 12 fallen in the last few years.
13 DR. POWERS: 1933 comes to mind.
14 MR. SEALE: If you think of it in those terms, you 15 can understand why there's this incredible wave of 16 confidence that's going through the staff witn regard to the 17 research program now. I think that's a real challenge that 18 we all have to really try to come to grips with. It's a 19 real serious problem.
20 DR. POWERS: I think the members of the committee 21 have strong willpower and opinions on how research ought to 22 be funded and it will be an interesting topic of discussion 23 within the subcommittee and the full committee on whether we 24 articulate those positions in our letter to Congress or not.
25 That could well be a theme-for our letter. I do invite the
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l _ _ _ .. ,_ --
. __--____ __._.-__ ___.-.._ _ _ _--____._ ____y 17 1L' staff-in their discussions to feel free to recommend to us
() 2 themes for our letter to Congress, f
'3- I will tell you right now, we are still-struggling 4 with a theme. If there's a message that yourthink that 5 letter ought to contain, sny1of the people speaking for the f
6 subcommittee, we certainly would welcome any suggestions. !
7 The Academy did have recommendations on research, i
8 They recommended research to intensify and research.to i
, 9 redirect. I presume there were other topics of research ;
i 10 that they just simply had.no comment about.
11 The research they wanted to intensify, material j 12- behavior and plant environments, human factors. I mean, 13 this:Was around-forever. Non-destructive testing; around 14' forever. Plant aging.- It's an aging topic.
15 They had two other items that I thought were 16 fascinating. They are things I never thought of as
- 1 17 research. Policy research and re-evaluation of regulations.
18 They saw those as research topics. I never really think I
19 about them.
20- To have a research program that searches out on 21 when and where you need policy decisions and having
- 22 established regulations to go back and re-examine those-23 regulations to see if they are effective or not. I think 24 Mr. Jordan came-before us-with a program with which to do -
25 exactly that and I guess it's in Ashok's hands now to do S
4
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18 1 exactly that. l
() 2 I had not thought of this-in our bailiwick, but I 3 think it is. I think we ought to explore this more.
4 Research to continue but re-focus,'non-5 destructive examination, QA and QC. QA and QC research.
6 That's one that has bedeviled us in recent weeks because of 7 the move to risk informed regulation.
8 Safety analysis methodology and application, 9 severe accidents.
10 The Academy went on at great lengths about who Ell should do research, industry versus NRC, and it's an 12 interesting question. It is one that has been dealt with a 13- lot by political economists and in an outstanding piece of 14 theoretical economic wo7;k by a well known economist was a 15 definitive mathematical proof based on the possibility 16 theoreta, that in fact, profit motivated institutions will ,
17 never make socially optimal investments in research. They 18 don't do this because --
19 MR. KRESS: That's the first conjecture of Powers, 20 is it?
21 DR. POWERS: I'd like to claim that Powers was 22 terribly original on this and insightful, but in fact, he 23 drew upon a huge body of microeconomic analyses, that 24 essentially shows the same thing.
25 The problem is the value of knowledge in the
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19 1 marketplace quickly goes to zero. You don't use up knowledge 2 once you have it, so you can't asil it for very much, and at 3 the same time, profit motivated-institutions in an imperfect 4 marketplace with imperfect knowledge, a risk, they have 5 uncertainties about the outcome of research. If you do this 6 research, things may come out worse. I think we've all 7 heard those kinds of things.
8 Another problem is, it's the classic problem.'You 9 may well be better off in your life buying a Mercedes Benz, 10 but you don't have the capital to buy anything but a Ugo.
11 It's true, you'd be better-off with a Mercedes Benz, you 12 just can't get there from where you stand.
13 What t his all says is to cearch a society, a 14 societal optimum, society must be willing to invest in 15 research for its own benefit to-some extent.
16 MR. FONTANA: You remember the comment that I 17 wrote saying that's not entirely correct. In fact, in some 18 respects, it's wrong, in that there are a let of areas of 19 research that industry does that does decrease the cost to 20- society, the cost of programs and services.
21 DR. POWERS: Yes.
22 MR. FONTANA: I kind of jumped on that saying that 23 just shows the mindset of the academic's.
24 DR. POWERS: It doesn't say that-industry doesn't 25 conduct industrial research, they won't go to an optimum, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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P 20 ,
1 that there is some incremental amount of research that
() 2 society has to be willing to pay for.-
3 MR. FONTANA: Absolutely. What tended to come 4- across is that industry wouldn't do any, and they really do- .
f 5 DR. POWERS: They do a lot. We are going to hear -
6 about quite a lot. In fact, I think one of the things that f 7 we will hear about is in feet some things where they are 8 carrying the load and should.
9 MR. KRESS: What that slide tells me is that the ,
10 NRC ought to be doing some research and it ought to be 11 separately funded by Congress and not by the fee system.
12 DR. POWERS: That is, of course, one of the points 13 of view held by_the members of the subcommittee and one of ;
14 the things we ought to discuss on whether we bring it up in 15 our letter to Congress. That certainly is a point of view.
16 MR. MILLER: It could be part of the t'neme of our 17 letter.
18 DR. POWERS: That's r'.ght, it could be. It would ,
19 be an interesting articulation.
20 MR. MILLER: Going back to your previous slide, 21 the optimize situation, society has to look at what industry -
22 is doing and fill in the gaps.
23 DR. PCWERS: NRC historic 111y has formulated its ,
24 .research as both filling in the ga; s and doing confirmation 25 of peer review, if you will, or replication of stated
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21 l
'1- findings. There is-a question on exactly how you do --
() 2 3
where the society has to come in._Despite the brilliance and
-the economic thesis, the well kncwn international economist 4 did not come up with an answer te how to do the research. He [
5 only said it had to be done. ,
6 MR. MILLER: I think in the case of nuclear, also
- 7. - DOE has to be filling in -- well, doing things that the NRC 8 should not be doing.
9 DR. POWERS: And if you think the NRC's research
- 10. budget has been in a free fall, you ought to see what DOE's 11 research budget is. I:believe that the market has truly 12' bottomed out in the classic sense, going to zero. l 13' MR. SEALE: -Yes, but there's not much left in that 14 fire sale to get. I wonder if part of the problem though is 15 'in trying to make the case for things that are appropriated 16 for let's say in effect, industry's support through the 17 vehicle of fee recover / on the one hand and things that are 18 of societal or public value that warrants separate public 19 funding on the other.
20' It seems to me the first thing you have to do is 21 to make a very crisp delineation between the various 22 research topics as to what items qualify-in one category and 23 what items qualify in the other.
24 I think the worse mistake wc could make would be ,
l 25 to decide that we want to try to sell independently i 1
l
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l 22 1 appropriated dollars to fund research and then be very (A) 2 sloppy in defining what goes in what category. I would be 3 really worried if we didn't first very crisply try to define 4 what the research topics are that are appropriate for public 5 funding, if you wil'i, and then go from there, becaus.3 6 otherwise, I think you are just going to get thrown out on 7 your ear. It's not going to sell.
8 That thesis needs to be, if anything, sharpened a 9 little bit, Dana.
10 DR. POWERS: Yes. I hear exactly what you are 11 saying, Bob, that you can't come in and say throw money at 12 this problem because I want you to. It seems like a good 13 idea. I'll talk a little bit about good idea research.
14 What you posed for us is a challenge of defining O
(/ 15 what it means to be appropriate funding. I think that our 16 first obligation is to make sure we understand how to decide 17 if things are technically needed, and then we need to 18 wrestle with the appropriate question, if we are going to 19 carry that thesis forward, especially in our letter to 20 Congress, I will make the case that we need not do 21 everything all at once, that we can take this piecemeal, a 22 step at a time.
23 MR. SEALE: I think it would be very ill advised 24 to over state a conclusion before you have made the case for 25 it, because you may impeach yourself before you get a chance p
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23 1 to make the case.
(y v/
) 2 DR. POWERS: You may well be excused without 3 hearing.
4 Let me turn to just bring up the direction setting 5 issue on research. It just says that the research program 6 at NRC should respond to information needs of the line 7 organizations, maintain core capabilities in identified 8 areas, conduct longer term research to anticipate future 9 agency needs.
10 MR. MILLER: The latter bullet, Dana, anticipation 11 is of course one of the more challenging ones, but we still 12 have to realize -- I don't think the NRC in most cases 13 should be involved in pushing back the frontier of 14 knowledge, unless it's absolutely necessary, even in l')
(_) 15 anticipation.
16 DR. POWERS: I think --
17 MR. MILLER: I think that's more a role of DOE, I 18 mean, in the ideal situation.
19 DR. POWERS: In the ideal situation. It might 20 well be -- I think there is room for legitimate debate on 21 how much effort the NRC should devote to what I would call 22 exploratory research that does indeed push back the frontier 23 of engineering, versus directed research that responds 24 specific to line organizations.
25 It is somewhat of a management function. I think tx
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h 24
-l-
- it's up_ to the NRC- to tell us ;how they ' split that and why m ;
~
l2 they: split:it the.way they.do. They may-split it 9.0/10-or ,
3 0/100 or 50/50.. I think'it's up to'them, and the technical ,
4 rationale:for doing that.
5 - Whether its something we comment on to Congress-6- -or'not.is a subject-I think we will discuss. We clearly 7 -have-to comment on it when we-go to the Commission.
8 MR. MILLER:- I-would hope that ultimately with- -
9 'this-committee and our ability to work-with che-staff, it-
'10 would be a collective judgment on how you break down the 211 various - it's going to depend on the time -- the various 12- dollar amounts or fractions. I would hope we can at least
-13 provide advice to the-staff. -
, 14 DR. POWERS: I know we can provide advice, whether 15 -they take-it or not -- I get very, very nervous about i
16 advising them'how to manage their work.
. 17- MR.-MILLER: I'm not saying necessarily-telling
<=
18 -- them how to manage it. -I'm just saying here's what we 19 believe the future agency needs and then they have to 12 0 balance what that would be off what the line. organizations.
21 are telling them. As a collection of individuals here,-we 22 have-certainly some expertise in looking at the future. -
t 231 DR. POWERS: I think our responses begin and end 24 on the technical issues. If we have technical reasons we 25 think they~need to-do something, we clearly can say that. As 4
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.1) soon asnit gets down to whatES20Linto this. pot and $80 in:
. 2' this pot,lit's just L---
~ ~
3- MR- KRESS:-
. Prioritization really tends to be a 4 technical-issue.
5- DR. PCWERS: Technical prioritization, I think we=
6 can'do. Understand that the staff may come-back and say.in 7 the end, we prioritized differently because we have to 8 consider dollars. This committee has'the job of technical-
. 9 prioritization.
- -- 10 ~ MR. MILLER
- We have, I suppose, the fortunate 11 _ position of not having to worry too much about the dollar 12- amounts. In the end, that's thez staff's --
13 DR. POWERS: We will hear about them. I really i
l 14 want to spend as little time on that as possible, because I 15 just have no expertise in that area. If you asked me what 16 an NRC staff-person cost, I couldn't even begin to guess, 17 If you asked me about NRC staff productivity, I couldn't 18 guess.- The management knows those. things. That's why they 19 get the big bucks.
20 MR. FONTANA: One concern that I would have with 21 regard to that last bullet is that if you don't do on the 4
- 22. edge _ technology work and you don't anticipate-future things, n 23 not only are you not going to_get the best people, you won't 24 even_get good people. To keep the right people challenged, 25 you kind of have to be on the edge of things, at least in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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. __ _ ... __ _ . _ _ ___ ._ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ ._m 26 l' -someEareas. I think a lot of the areas of NRC research are ,
2 onLthe: edge.
3 DR '.. POWERS: I agree with'you. I just returned:
4 from an aerosol conference and I can assure you that NRC-5 '- research in the past-had been on the leading edge of that
! 6 particular field. The question is where do they want to go 7 in the future.
8 MR. MILLER: On that issue, there a'e r many areas 9 where if the NRC.isn't on the edge, no one is on the edge.
10 DR. POWERS: Yes, that's right.
11 MR. MILLER: Certainly, NRC has to be on the edge, 12 but my point is if other. areas of industry, whether it is
- 3. 13 nuclear or non-nuclear, are on the edge, the NRC should not 14 he competing with them. We should take the best and se it.
15 DR. POWERS: Let me turn to NRC's strategic plan
- _ 16 for research. They indicate in this strategic plan, the 17 research program includes both confirmatory and anticipatory i 18 elements. I think this speaks to that issue of exploratory 19 versus wanting responses.
20 They are_ going to focus research on the areas of
- 21 highest risk and regulatory significance, maintain core 22 research capabilities, identify research capabilities to be 23- maintained by in house staff, consolidate research
-24 activities with smaller number of contractors, enter into 25 cooperative research agre'ements, use innovative procurement
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27 1 v ehicles. These-last three I've put emphasis on as clearly
/3
() 2 management functions. I think our intentions are up here.
3 MR. FONTANA: Another comment I had on cooperative al research, probably part of that is in our area of interest, 5 I think. You had an asterisk that said not in our area. It 6 probably is because the knowledge of what work is going on 7 in foreign countries and so forth.
8 DR. POWERS: You are absolutely correct, Mario.
9 Maybe I was hasty in putting my -- got carried away in 10 putting on my astericks.
11 I think again we are going to have to debate 12 within ourselves as a committee on what it is we want to 13 focus our report to Congress on NRC research or nuclear 14 industry research. I think that's a debate that we are
( 15. going to have to carry out.
16 MR. KRESS: Well, they are not exactly 17 indistinguishable.
18 MR. SEALE: There's a subset.
19 DR. POWERS: They are becoming less 20 distinguishable just because of this.
21 MR. SEALE: Well, there's also a subset of that 22 activity which sort of stands to the side, and that is the 23 U.S. participation in some of the international research 24 activities that involve U.S. dollars, which by law, I guess, 25 are routed through the State Department.
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28 1 About a year and a half ago, r(member, we had a
() 2 problem with an attempt of the budget cutters to raid that, 3 and as I recall, we wrote a letter, which I understand was 4 helpful. I'm sure it wasn't a major player but it was a 5 part of the process of getting that proposed budget cut set 6 aside, and to the extent that we can comment on the 7 importance of U.S. participation in those international 8 agreements, I think we ought to be willing and consistent 9 with --
10 MR. KRESS: Previous positions.
11 MR. SEALE: Yes, consistent with the requirements 12 on looking at quality and so on. Willing to stand up for 13 those kinds of activities.
14 DR. POWERS: I'm sure that we are going to have to 15 do that. It's clear this cooperative research is a bigger 16 and bigger component. It's interesting. It's the tendency 17 to say, oh, gosh, we have to enter into cooperative 18 agreements because we are poor, don't have a lot of money, 19 but the fact is that is where nuclear safety research is 20 going, even countries that are relatively plush, relatively 21 supportive of the nuclear industry, are going into 22 cooperative agreements simply because people recognize that 23 safety standards in one country tend to have implications on 24 the political processes with respect to safety standards in 25 another country, and it is better to have an uniform set of
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29 1- standards than to piecemeal through this.
() - -3_
.MR. KRESS: Dana,:before_you remove that slide, how do-you interpret regulatory significance-in,the second- -
4 bullet?
5- .DR. POWERS: Can I go-to my-second slide?
6 MR. KRESS: Okay.
7 DR. POWERS: I-just posed the question, does the 8= ACRS want to_ comment on the strategic plan for research or
- 9. -just accept it. The plan has some significant implications.
10- Onelof those implications is there is some way to quantify 11 risk and regulatory significance. They said they are going ,
12- to focus on the issues that are the most important of these.
13- At least one can make a qualitative judgment on these 14 things. The other implication is there will be dilution of 15- research support to support core research capabilities in in 16 house research staff.
17 There are some real implications on that. The 18 question is do we want to comment on it or just accept it.
19- MR. KRESS: I wouldn't want to comment on it to 20 Congress but to the Commission, we might want to.
21 DR. POWERS: Yes. Clearly, we have to make that-22 distinction, lt think that will come out naturally. I think 23 we will understand that.
24- Well, let's talk about our strategy. Two phases.
25 Phase one, develop information for letter to Congress. Phase
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y 30 a 1 tw'o,_information for report.to the Commission. -In a -)
2 subcommittee meeting, clearly < it's. impossible to-3 ~ distinguish among these' things. We are going to hear over '
4 the_courseLof the-_next two days about-things that are 5 pertinent here_and pertinent here.
6- We are going to have to discipline ourselves a
,7 little bit to get this thing out.
- I suggest that we. focus, 8 ' for these two phases, in on needs, priorities and i 9 requirements. I've listed down our milestones that we have
, f10 to set for ourselves. These are fairly tight. There is not
! a: lot of slop in this schedule.
12- I'll be quite up front. We have a limited budget 13 for this kind of activity. Originally, we saw this activity
- - 14 -asttaking two subcommittee meetings and two full committee h'( 15- meetings.- They are doing it at exactly half of that. ,
i
- 16 The subcommittee meetings are very expensive 17 because they are essentially involving all of the members.
18 We have to be relatively efficient with our time and effort J- 19 here.
20 We have engaged the Fellows in helping us. You
- 21 have all received write up's from the Fellows. I thought 22 they were really good. Each Fellow took a different_ approach
- l. 23 to his examination of the-fraction of_the research program, 24 a very different approach to it, and.they were all good.
25 They all offered insights that I hadn't had. They were
=
- ()
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31 1 useful information to me on that and from a different
?
l 2 perspective. They are very useful vehicles. They gave us a v
3 nice collection of-factual information to Luild upon as we 4 go through this discussion.
5 I encourage you to examine those, retain those, 6 and refer back to them. They may form templates for 7 approaches. It is clear Mr. Sherry very much had a template 8 that he was trying ta foist upon us, suggesting to us, of a 9 top'down examination that is very revealing.
10 Let me propose a little more explicit proposed 11 plan of action. This is a proposal. I would like comments, 12 both from the subcommittee and from the staff itself on 13 this.
14 I suggest that we accept the Chairman's goals for
\ 15 the future research, that we accept NRC's strategic plan.
16 Now, the Chairman in formulfating her position did articulate 17 what I call a world view. I think if Dr. Apostolakis were 18 he , he would call it a model of the world or some term to 19 that effect. What do you think the world is doing around 20 you. Staffs having to be clairvoyant. This is part of their 21 clairvoyance here.
22 These are the things that the Chairman of the 23 Commission saw as the imperative's driving the research 24 program.
25 Plants are aging. New issues are emerging as a l
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-result.1Licenseesicontinue to pushifor improvedreconomic' i Oj i 2= performance. That was a subjectLthat we raised-in:our 3- previous' letter.to-Congress, that this is. going to be a, ,
-41 driving. vehicle.1
-5 Some licensees will want!to extend the plant; life. I 6 .Some plants willibe de~ commissioned.
7 And then an interesting'one, spent _ fuel.storageHis 8 becoming an issue for some licensees. This one struck me:as 9 really different and had. implications'on where-you put 10- research dollars.
11- 'I don't know if the Chairman's world view'was 12' . complete. I suggested that although we accept her goals, 13 that we may want to amplify and enlarge upon the Chairman's 3 14 world-view.
15- I have suggested that~we focus on needs, 16 requiremants and priorities. I suggest that in our letter
- 17. to Congress, we focus on needs, relegate requirements to 18 individual subcommittees, defer priorities in the letter to l
19- the Commission.
20 In focusing on needs, we need to establish a clear 21 nexus. I put " nexus" in quotation marks simply because I 22 think it's the first time in my life I used that word 2 31 voluntarily.-
24' [ Laughter.]
25 HMR . MILLERt. Could you define the meaning of the.
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33 ;
l 1 use of that word?
()
x-2 DR. POWERS: No. I put it in quotes so 1 didn't 3 have to do anything on chat. I'm told by the Commission 4 that we have to establish this nexue, whatever it is. We 5 have to establish the nexus for missions, mission needs to 6 programs to research needs, so that we can articulate the 7 consequences of failure to meet the research needs.
8 This leads me to digress into what I feel 9 comfortable discussing, how to plan things, and I emphasize 10 it's a personal view, and it may not be the view that makes 11 other people comfortable. I see a hierarchy of thinking 12 that begins with a mission. This usually causes people to 13 groan and say, ruission statements, oh, my Gcd.
14 We see a lot of mission statements that are good.
\_/ 15 They are factual. You get a mission statement, I want to 16 protect the public. That's good. It's not detailed enough 17 to make decisions on.
18 If you go from this provide adequate protection to 19 the public, which is not very helpful, you can go down in 20 the strategic plan, they provide mission statements as well.
21 These are a little more helpful in that they are a little 22 closer to where the agency operates and they get a little 23 more detailed, prevent radiation related deaths or illness 24 due to civilian nuclear power plants; ensure the treatment 25 of disposal waste produced by civilian nuclear reactor O
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. . . ~ . . .- .. . . .. - - . . .
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34i J
=:n 1 1L~ ; material;and-waste-that do notiadversely affect this or_ l
=2- future generations.;
fl There'are a list and'it's a pretty good-list.
~
4 .They pretty muchttouched.on all the bases. The trouble is 5 these are still a little top level. It's a little-difficult 6 for me -- I'm use to mission statements like deliver 2.3 1
7- ' megatons within a circular-air probability of_350-feet.
8 _That's a design to mission statement. I_can start acting ~on .
9 -that. A little-more microscopic and'a little-less high
.10 level.
11; MR. MILLER: Could you maybe speak to the last t
12 one? .That one intrigues me probably more-than the other 13- bullets.
14 DR. POWERS: Good point, Don. I loved this one.
I 15 MR. MILLER: I would love to hear-the nexus to 16 this one, i
l 17 DR. POWERS: The NRC regulatory program will l
18 be more efficient-and allow the nation to safely use nuclear
-19 materials. I was.willing to bet that they did not know what 20 the word " efficient" meant. There'was no definition 21 associated with " efficient."-
- 22. I wonder how this one turns out. We have a 23 comment? Please. Identify yourself_and speak clearly, use
~24: a microphone. It means do your job without spending too-
-25 much-money.
l-1,.
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35 1 MR. TIIADANI : These are in fact the high level r
2 goals. For your information, we dio levelop intermediate (v) 3 level goals, and I think once again, they won't answer all 4 the questions you have, but they come closer to trying to 5 tie our activities, those intermediate level goals. They 6 are sort of precursor type goals. There are the high level 7 goals, something you can measure is in the intermediate 8 level goals, and that might help.
9 DR. POWERS: The right word to say, something you 10 can measure. I was trying to telegraph with this viewpoint 11 that the committee was going to be relatively intolerant of 12 -- these are fine. They are comprehensive. They cover all 13 the bases. You just can't use them to make design to .
14 decisions. That's the problem with them.
O)
(m, 15 We would like to see something down below. We 16 really do have to make -- what we have to do is come forward 17 to the Commission supporting your nexus between goals and 18 programs. We really do have to do that. That's what is 19 being asked of us.
20 It's not us to do. It's us to come forward 21 supporting what you have done.
22 MR. MILLER: One point on that last bullet, Dana.
23 The program could be inefficient and still allow the nation 24 to safely use --
25 DR. POWERS: Sure, it could.
~s -
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.~n_ -. ~ u- a ..,a ar, .-, .a , u a , .. u- . . . - x 36 1 MR. MILLER:. I thought those two should have_been 1
) 2 ~ separated or didn't_really hang together.
3 _
MR. KRESS: You have to do it in a way that 4 doesn't cost exorbitant amounts of money.
MR. MILLER: I understand that, but you could do 6 'it inefficiently and spend lots of money and still all'ow --
7 those two just didn't seem -- that sentence didn't seem to 8 be --
9- DR. POWERS: Do we have a comment from the floor?
10 MR. KNAPP: Mel Knapp from the Office of Research.
11 I was invo]ved in the development of a few of these, and as 12 I recall, the concept of " efficient" meant two things. It 13 meant in NRC carrying out its mission, we would try to be as 14 cost effective ar we could. It was also our intent that we
) 15 would not force the licensees to spend money unduly. We saw 16 that as two concepts. In other words, the regulations or 17: guidance which we would put out would take into account the 18 licensees being efficient.
19 DR. POWERS: When you spoke of efficiency here, 20 you were speaking strictly in dollar and cents _ efficiency 21 and not social welfare efficiency?
22 MR. KNAPP: That is my recollection.
23 DR. POWERS: That's a more narrow definition of 24 " efficient" then promptly_came to mind.
.25 Let_me go on and_tell you what I'm comfortable 4
- f.
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37 !
'l- with and then -- think this is not an outline that I think I
() 2 would force-on other people, but it is certainly when I ask-3 'questiona, this is what I'm'trying to fit things'into.
4 Having decided what my mission-is, what_do:I need
- 5. to-do. Identify-mission needs. What has to be done to-6 carry out the mission. Vision .
Most people groan, vision 7 ' statements, God, I hate them. Most of them are'just awful.
8 _The_ vision statement that I see'is really how often, et-9 cetera, do I,have to do this. l MR. FONTANA: I think -- a minor quibble -- I
- 11 think your use of " vision" differs from what most-people
- 12 think'a definition is or mine differs. The vision usually 13 is that kind of useless top statement that you are gripping 14 about. What you are talking about here I think is more like 15 a strategy, kind of like, how ara I going to go about doing 16 something.
17 DR. POWERS: Sometimes this is called mission 18 requirements, things like that. I put up the word " vision" 19 because right now I think at the first line of management, 20 there is a tendency to see only the constraints that are on 21 you. It's very difficult to say I want to be here
-22 eventually, and focus my activities so that I get there, 23 that vision.
24 I don't think the labels _are all that important- ,
25 Once you have decided that, then you say, okay,
~
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38 '
I here's my program. There are going to be elements of that
/%
( ) 2 program that I can do, and there are going to be elements of 3 that program that I can't do because I don't know enough, 4 and that-leads me to define a research need.
5 Now, I argued patiently and persuasively before 6 the Department of Energy that this whole thing was a fractal 7 structure, that in detail, it looked exactly the same as it 8 did in microscopic view, that is once you define a research 9 need, you have vision on that, you establish a program, you 10 identify program needs, those have visions and projects. I Il failed miserably in persuading the Department of Energy on 12 that. I'm still convinced I was right, that this thing is a 13 fractal structure. It allows me to put things into some 14 sort of a framework to think about things.
(sl 15 MR, SEALE: It's called a butterfly in the rain 16 forest.
17 DR. POWERS: Yes, and I have an opinion on that, 18 too, I have an opinion on a lot of things, I guess, 19 I think one of the things we are going to have to 20 get out of the way fairly quickly as a subcommittee is this 21 issue on whether the letter speaks to NRC research or 22 includes research that needs te be done by industry as well.
23 Let me must remind people that our calendar 1996 24 letter to Congress really spoke to NRC's research programs 25 alone, and in my opinion, made these points. It's argued
()
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- 39 I that the nuclear industry is stable, important, b.1t not II V
2 static, it is undergoing changes. NRC needs a research 3 program to respond to changes in the industry, to meet the 4 mandates of Congress for regulatory efficiency. Without 5 research, NRC would become a bottleneck to the evolution of 6 the industry.
7 Those are the points we tried to make. Our debate 8 now is do we want to build on those points. Do we want to 9 make a separate set of points. Do we want to speak to 10 research broadly or just NRC research.
11 I think we have to get that out of the way fairly 12 promptly in our subcommittee discussions.
13 I guess a little more on the strategy. In the 14 subcommittee meeting in November, we will concentrate on the (D
(ms/ 15 aspects of research planning by NRC. We posed a variety of 16 questions to the staff, kind of anticipating what the 17 committee might ask. We have even set up an agenda that has 18 various things listed on it.
19 In truth, we kind of allotted the time and they 20 are going to present to us what they think is important for 21 us to hear about and in a much more collegial fashion than 22 maybe the agenda reflects. In fact, I think a major portion 23 at the beginning of the subcommittee will be a collegial 24 discussion. I guess that's your plan as well.
25 Our questions that we posed were to be helpful.
/~~
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-40 l .
1 Don't-look upon them as tanstraints. You tell us what you ;
() 2 3-think we ought to'know. Feel free to tell us what_you_think
. we.ought to do. We are pretty good at deciding what 4 question we can't answer and what question we can answer.
5- That really_ concludes the comments tlutt I had to 6 make in the opening. .I will now throw it open for any 7 _ discussion.that the subcommittee wants to have now, 8 -recognizing in a few minutes, the staff is going to come up 9 and we will have an opportunity to discuss it with them.
- 10 MR. LARKINS: Dana, there was one other issue. 1 11 don't know if you want to bring it up now. How are you going 12 to treat the AC&W contribution to the letter to Congress?
-13 DR. POWERS: I guess I don't know the answer to it 14 right now. We have -- rese7rch that we are responsible for 15 to report to Congress does include that component that now 16 is within the bailiwick of the AC&W. We have said, gee, you 17 guys, the AC&W, take care of this and give us some input, we le .will~put it into our letter. They are doing so. We have
, 19 gotten some of their staff work, which I thought was just 20 really good. That research is actually carried under the 21 auspices of NMSS, as I understand, right now.
't 22 My feeling is that we let them handle it. It 23 looks.to me like that is a pretty well organized piece of 24 research that is suffering grievously from the absence of 25- funding,'and that it'will be fairly easy to comment on this ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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41 to Congress 1because they osem to have-their ducks'in a1 row.
~
1
/
G) 2 Here's=what we need to-do our. job, here's what'happens if-
+
- 3 you don'tLlet us. dolour job. This is a national. waste 4 disposal effort that Congress is' anxious to-see get going. ;
5- .This is what we need to get going..
6 It looks like they can_ delis :r to us the product 7- we can use-and we don't need to spend a lot of time on that, 8 except_as itLarises in the overall strategy. It is in an 9 office separate from'research right now.
10 MR. LARKINS: It is a small element that is going 11
~
on in research?
12 DR. POWERS: Yes.
13 MR. SEALE: fit's kind of werd games in a way, but 14 at the-same time,'if ultimately we want -- and not even in 15 this letter necessarily but down-the road, we want to draw 16 the distinction between let's say industry funded research 17 that NRC does that is fee recovery funded research, as 18 opposed to public funded separate appropriations research.
19 I wonder, whether or not we get into this subject in a great 20 -deal of detail, we should make the point that really all of 21 the research right now is fee recovery funded research.
22 To that extent, it's all industry research, in 23 that sense,-not in necessarily in defining it fully, but I 24 .think-that's a detail that shouldn't escape our notice in 25 drawing it to their attention.
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42 1 DR. POWERS: I think it's an excellent point, Bob.
(; 2 I get the sense of some interest in the subcommittee on ,
3 ,
formulating a letter that speaks to this issue of where the 4 funding of the research comes from. That is-a challenge to 5 be persuasive in that argument in the current environment.
6 I c.eas I'm very sympathetic toward a view of 7 public involvement in especially the research program, 8 because I guess I do agree with the Academy that he who 9 benefits should pay and some fraction of society benefits.
10 I am a little nervous in trying to make that case 11 simply becauce I think it's difficult to make persuasive.
12 MR. SEALE: Well, in that regard, I would say I 13 have a problem occasionally I run into, mainly that when I 14 come up with something I think is a good idea, I find out (3
(-) 15 down the road that there's a land mine or two out there that 16 you will step on if you are not careful. If the staff has 17 any land mine locations already staked out here that they 18 can make me aware of, I sure would like to know about them.
19 DR. POWERS: On that note, to stay reasonably 20 close to the schedule, although I don't feel very 21 constrained by this schedule, I guess I would invite the 22 staff to make their presentations. My understanding is that 23 the categories that we have laid down here are at best 24 guidance, and take the time which amounts to an hour before 25 the break and an hour and a half or so after the break, to O
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43 1 use.as youesee Cit.- !
2 MR . _ THADANI:: I don't have any_vu-graphs.
3 DR. POWERS: It's not required.. It's useful if 4 you sit 'at the front. We can get that vu-graph machine out 5 of the way. My lawyer friends are convinced that there-is 6 some genetic defect among scientific types that=they can't 7 talk without vu-graphs. They make the point that it~is 8 indeed possible to communicate without vu-9 graphs. ,
10 MR. THADANI: I brought a document with me that
- 11 maybe of some interest as we go on. I think because there 12 are some aspects in here, perhaps not very major, but the ,
13 concept of budget is moving so fast, that I think we have-to 14 make some changes in the strategic plan, certain elements of 15 it. I'll come back and touch on that in a little bit. ,
16 Dana, your discussion I thought was outstanding 17 and actually very helpful. Some of the things you said, I 18 had intended to say, so'I will just try and forego --
19 DR. POWERS: Go right ahead and repeat. I think 20 it is important that we be sure where you are coming from.
21 MR. THADANI: I'm going to make a few personal 22 thoughts on come of these issues, but you will hear 23 presentations the rest of the day from the staff, and they 24 will cover all the questions that you have identified. I 25 think they are the right questions. We need to try and come l ANN'RILEY-& ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l , . . . . .
4 44 1 te grips with those issues as we go on.
f~%
2 We need to find a better system than the one we V)-
3 are operating under because the stressed level of yearly 4 budget discussions, I don't think we can take.
5 DR. POWERS: One of the persistent challenges 6 throughout the Government is -- when you think in terms of 7 research, is this same old budget cycle and the inability to 8 have confidence year to year. Research just doesn't happen 9 on a fiscal year basis. I notice there is a direct 10 correlation between the NSF budget cycle and discovery of 11 fundamental particles. There also seems to be a direct 12 correlation in the NSF budget and the level of approach to 13 break even on non-plasma fusion.
14 MR. SEALE: Yes.
O
( ,/ 15 DR. POWERS: But in general, research does not 16 coincide therein. To the extent that we can get out of 17 that, what you call r, tress level, it sure would be nice, 18 wouldn't it?
19 MR. THADANI: It would be. I know some of us 20 will certainly live longer that way.
21 To go back, I recall chatting with you on the 22 letter that you had sent to Congress last year. At the time, 23 I was a member of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
24 From that perspective, I felt the letter was extremely 25 thoughtful and I mentioned that to you, Bob.
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45 l
1 In that letter, the issues you raised, I think, p
V)
! 2 are still around and maybe even more acute now than they 3 were a year ago. That is the issue of the impact of a 4 budget on what we do and what we don't do. The impor ance 5 of risk informed decision making that ycu discussed in that 6 letter, that continues and needs to be continued, and then 7 the big factor of potential significance, Jndustry 8 de-regulation.
9 It can be very challenging for the agency but on 10 the other hand, we have interesting experience from the 11 industry. Industry has cut costs over the last few years.
12 Their overall performance has actually improved. If one 13 were to look at averages, one would say that this is clearly 14 manageable. Industry has done it, why can't the agency do
/^N
(_) 15 it.
16 Within the agency, it seems to me we are going to 17 have to take probably a fresh look, and I know your focus is 18 on research, but I think on the agency activities, not on 19 research only. I'll come back and touch on this again later 20 on.
21 As you know, the budget pressures are continuing.
22 At this stage, there are some very tough choices for us to 23 make and particularly for the Office of Research to make 24 because they are going to have to handle additional cuts 25 even for this fiscal year, 1998, and that's driven by the s
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l 46 1 fact that our budget ultimately was reduced, the fee bearing in
() 2 portion, which may be of some interest to you, I know, was 3 cut by $7.5 million, and the bulk of the $7.5 million cut is 4 very likely going to come from research funding.
5 It's a problem that's getting more difficult.
6 Unless we do things differently, unless we come up with a 7 much better justification for some of the work that the 8 Office of Research does, I'm not sure that the trend is 9 going to change. If I've learned from history, it tolls me 10 that the trend is going to probably continue.
11 Where would we end up? It's an issue of obvious concern.
12 You talked, I think, in your chart, about what 13 hind of vision you have. It seems to me one has to look 14 five to ten years ahead to have conceptual views of where we A
(_,) 15 want to make sure we are going to be and the instability of 16 the budget process, I think, is going to make that extremely 17 diffi' ult as we go forward. I will share with you some 18 information you have, but nevertheless, for emphasis, I do 19 want to point out the reductions that the Office of Research 20 has had to bear in recent years.
21 Dana, you talked about the strategic plan and I do 22 want to say that these are very high level goals. What we 23 did, for example, zero civilian nuclear reactor accidents 24 is a goal. It's obviously a goal that I think -- I believe 25 is easy to achieve. Every year, we should be able to show
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47
.1 that. ,
2 On the other hand,;one needs to. demonstrate much 3 more than there.wasn't a bad accident that.took place, so
- 4. 'the intermediate level goal lwe developed was that we should-5 be looking at events and trying to understand the 6- significance of those. events, and the conditional 7' probability;of an event should not be higher than ten to 8 minus.three per year.
9- -I think if'you look at the data, that's a 10 reasonable goal that we ought to be able to meet, we ought 11 -to be able to measure and even though you are quite right in 12 the chart, you said the methodology needs to be further 13 'mproved, but nevertheless, I think these are some of the 14 things you can demonstrate by making sure you are lookir at
( 15 operational things and so on.
16 What I wanted to bring up in this strategic plan 17 are somo issues that I think have a bearing on research. If 18 you go into this strategic plan, it talks about major 19 factors which impact nuclear reactor safety.
i 20 Safety questions will continue to rise as the 21 currently licensed reactors age and as operational events 22 continue to occur. Right there are two important elements 23 that one has to make sure and pay attention to.
24 Restructuring and reorganization within the 25- electric utility industry,- and then-it goes on and talks ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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~
48 1 about the economic pressures will continue to increase. Yet, p)
( 2 another important element to consider on how this might 3 impact reactor safety over the long haul.
4 A number of the operating reactors are expected to 5 shut.down. Again, you had this in your chart, de-6 commissioning issuec and so on.
7 You touched upon the availability of nuclear 8 energy related research skills and experimental facilities.
9 Here, the expectation is that it is going to decline, and I 10 think we are seeing that already and that will continue to 11 happen. I think you will probably hear some time later on 12 today that we are working with the international community 13 in terms of these facilities, to see what capability could 14 be maintained worldwide and under what kind of an agreement
(_) 15 arrangement.
16 Clearly, we can't afford to keep a number of 17 facilities in this country, so we need to come to a rational 18 plan.
19 DR. POWERS: Dr. Seale usually makes the point 20 that in some respects, many respects in the past, the NRC 21 has benefited from being subsidized by the DOD and the DOE i 22 on its facilities and that subsidy is disappearing now for a l
23 variety of reasons.
24 We are being driven to this more cooperative l 25 environment. I think that it would be useful if at some (q
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49 1 time, maybe not just today, for this committee to understand
/%
i ) 2 what you understand about what it takes to be able to
\_j'
-3 participate in these international agreements.
4 What do you have to bring to the table. Let me say 5 that I have certainly heard some relatively n'bh level 6 people within the Japanese nuclear safety community say, and 7 I quote "The NRC doesn't have anything to bring to the table 8 any more."
9 MR. TRADANI: I think in certain areas, that's 10 clearly -- if we are not there now, we won't be there.
11 There is a very strong debate going on currently. If 12 research is going to be cut in a significant way, for 13 example, for fiscal year 1998, as I said, Congress decided 14 ultimately to cut us by $7.5 million, say more than half of O 15 it, if it were to come from the Office of Research, which is
\s /
16 very likely the way it is going to end up, decisions will be 17 made within the next couple of weeks, I think, and 18 information will be provided to the Commission in maybe the 19 next few days, and they would make the final decision.
20 In any case, it could -- one option would be to 21 have absolutely no funding support for severe accident 22 research, to zero out the experimental support. If that is 23- how it ends up -- in fact, even in tha other options, there 24 will be very significant cuts in the experimental program, 25 regardless.
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i 50 1 I was at a recent CSNI Bureau meeting, which CSNI
() 2 is part of the Nuclear Energy Agency, a comment was made to me that if you kecp cutting your contribution in the area of 3
4 severe accidents, then we are probably going to re-think our 5 support of severe accident research programs, CSARP, whict 6 is the international cooperative program, which means there 7 is sort of a double whammy, so to speak.
8 DR. POWERS: Yes.
9 MR. THADANI: You cut your funds, then other 10 countries will not want to contribute.
11 DR. POWERS: Is this a panic button? Is this a 12 transcendent theme that we ought to telegraph to Congress, 23 that if I lose the ability to participate in these 14 international agreements fully, as a dominating member,
() 15 because in many cases, we come into these agreements with 16 not just a vote, but technical expertise as well, and 17 consequently, we can tailor the internationa) agreement in a 18 direction that is most useful to us egulatorily, and that 19 is something you cannot do as a passive minor league player.
20 Is that so crucial that it should be a 21 transcendent point to make in our letter to Congress?
22 It seems to me that I would cause to panic because 23 if I see all countries going to thtse international 24 agreements, whether they can afford -- whether it's driven 25 by monetary needs or not, it's driven by political neud, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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r 51 1 especially in Europe it's driven that way, because they want (n) 2 their standards to be uniform across national boundaries for 3 political reasons. They like these international 4 agreemente, and in truth, these things -- the nuclear 5 industry as a whole has tied itself to this.
6 It has said an accident anywhere is an accident 7 everywhere. They have preached this thing. Ic is a 8 political decision in this country, that wo are going to try 9 to influence safety abroad because of our concerns of 10 accidents affecting our industry, our national capabality.
11 If we cannot participate in these international 12 agreements, is this a panic button, a thirg to really 13 highlight? I pose that to the committee.
14 MR, SEALE: Well, to the industry also, I mean, it O
\s / 15 may not mean much to us but in fact, there are people out 16 there who are talking about building morc plants.
17 DR. POWERS: Yes.
18 MR. SEALE: And in fact, there was a famous or 19 notorious, however you want to look at it, potential 20 customer in town last week.
21 DR. POWERS: Yes. He was also at the national 22 laboratories, too. He's a serious customer.
23 MR. SEALE: Anyway, I think the point here is that 24 a ceamlessness with regard to international boundaries is an 25 important attribute of marketing those plants. There is an gx )
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i 52 1 _ industry incentive as well as,_if you will, a national-() 2_ ir.centive or a safety incentive to be concerned with this.
4 3- I have a question more basic for-you, Ashok. You l 4
-4 said Congress is going to come get $7 million out of your l 5 budget.-Did they say they wanted-it out of the research 6 budget or did they just say out of the NRC budget? :
7 MR. THADANI: They said we will_take it out of ,
8 - the NRC budget,.but in this caso, we tried-to discourage --
9 if you recall, the Senate came !.n with no cuts in the ,
10' - proposed budget for 1998. The House of Representatives came 11 in with a'$10.8 million cut. The committee met and ;
y 12 concluded it to be a $7.5 million cut.
13 MR. SEALE: But was it specifically out of
. 14 research? <
15 MR. .THADANI: I'm coming to that. During this 16 process, we as an agency tried to discourage them from l 17 cutting the budget. The Commission identified areas which 18 would be impacted, if the cuts were made. The four areas l'
19 were ADAM, which you probably know about in terms of the 20- information management system, which I think was on the 21 order of $3.9 million, if I remember numbers correctly. :
[ 22 Environmental monitoring, which was about $1.1 million.
23 License renewals, which was on the order of $300 to $400 K, ,
24 and the civilian accident program, which is $4.8 million, I I 25 - believe.
l l-()
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1 53 l
1 That's wh'at roughly I think added up to what the l
() 2 - proposed cuts were.
3 MR. SEALEs--But we identified the sacrificial 4 _ lambs?
5 MR. THADANI: We did, the agency did. j 6 -MR. SEALE: I remember what POGO said.
7 MR. THADANI: _ At yesterday's session, the !
8- Chairman made it very clear that the staff is fighting for 5 l'
9 the program now and the staff should have fought earlier, a
--10 very legitimate point,-I-think.
-11 MR. SEALE: POGO said we met the enemy and he is 12 us. To get more specific, Dana, in one of this slides here -
P 13 said that one of the objectives was to provide the basis for 14 the Chairman to defend the research budget to Congress, 15 Clearly, we haven't done that. That's an !
l 16 indictment, I guesa, of the efforts of all of us. We have 17 to ask ourselves what is it going to take.
18 MR. THADANI: I would say it indicts us, number e i
19 one, as to the staff.
20 MR, SEALE: Now, we are in it, too. We stuck our 21 nose under this tent and now --
22 DR. POWERS: I think we are going -- let's not ;
. 23- -- fall over ourselves taking blame, but the' fact-is the ACRS 24= is responsible.for_ advising the Commission on technical _ -
25 issues. I think had the ACRS taken the initiative to advise ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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54 1 them on the wisdom of cutting the severe accident program, 2 that the ACRS might have taken a dissenting view on that, s.
3 I'm guessing. I simply don't know. I would certainly have 4 been one vote that would have taken a dissenting view on 5 that.
6 Maybe just a plea that feel free to bounce things 7 off us, even when you don't want to necessarily get a letter 8 from it, on where we can make a technical input or where our 9 technical input might be useful to you.
10 We clearly can't tell you where to take your cuts 11 and wouldn't presume to, but we can articulate for the 12 Commission what the technical costs of those cuts are.
13 MR. KRESS: I would like to ask just a procedural 14 question of Ashok. When budget time comes around, how does
() 15 the process work in defending the NRC budget to Congress?
16 You don't go directly to Congress. Somebody goes to somebody 17 and they go to somebody. How does the process actually work?
18 MR. THADANI: It basically works through the OMB 19 budget. Our budget-people get together with their budget 20 people.
21 MR. KRESS: The EDO and his budget people go to 22 the OMB?
23 MR. THADANI: No, It's by and large the chief
- 24. financial officer's responsibility to discuss with OMB.
25 Often. times, almost standard practice is we get a set of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i 55 4 1 questions on the budget that we prepare responses to. Those l
()
2 2 line organizations obviously get together the responses.
3 The Commicsion was quite active in the fiscal year 1999 4- budget, which we went through earlier this Spring and early 5 Summer time period. -
t 6 Someone said we used to have three months or so of :
7 the budget process. Now, it's a year long process.
8 DR. POWERS: You are not alone.
i 9 MR. THADANI: I know-that. The year 2000 budget, :
10 we are pulling together our thoughts in the next two months 11 or so. In a way, this should help. The Commission will i 12 give us early feedback once we get this information to the L
13 Commission early next year, and hopefully, that will enhance 14 the process.
()
15 For fiscal year 1999, it was pretty hectic. The 16 months -- I think it was almost the whole month of May, we <
17 spent with the Commission in a number of individual 18 Commissioner briefings and discussions back and forth. The -
, 19 Commission worked very hard on it, too. I don't mean to say .
20 it was just the staff, in providing comments and feedback l
21 before the fiscal year 1999 budget was sent to Congress, as 22 part of the budget process.
3 23 Incidentally, the severe accident program survived -
24 the proposed 1999 budget. However, as part of the budget I 25 process, we looked at scenario's, what if we get cuts, how 4
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56 1 _w ould we prioritize cuts and what would go first, second,
() 2 third and fourth and so on. The severe accident program was 3 certainly on that list under the scenario's.
4 Given what's happe. ting in the 1998 budget, we are 5 not going to recover any of that in 1999, I don't think.
6 That's just practical thinking on our part.
7 What we are trying to do as part of this -- as I 8 said, the process goes on year round. The program review 9 committee looks at the individual programs. We have -- oh, 10 gosh, I forget the number -- somewhere around 40 or so 11 programs. Our efforts are divided into programs. The 12 inspection program, for example.
13 Wayne Hodges' division work will sort of count 14 like a program.
O
\_s' 15 What we are trying to do as part of that is to see 16 how the activities and efforts of the program contributes to 17 the goals that the agency has put forward, and it's very 18 difficult.
19 A lot of what you see are outputs and not 20 outcomes. It's tough to try to make sure that the linkages 21 are there to what the agency's goals are.
22 I think that's good that we are going through it 23 because it forces each one of us to really think hard, how 24 does this relate to the agency's goals.
25 I think we are going to go through a learning
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57 1 process. My guess is it will take a year or two years before I
() 2 we can get closer ties between goals and our outputs.
Ashok, one of the features of
)
3 DR. POWERS:
4 planning on some other Federal agencies that may well be 5 more paper than it is reality, but the fact is it is written 6 on paper, that they have codified structures for planning.
7 The Department of Defense has a codified systems engineering 8 approach for planning weapon system acquisitions, for 9 instance. l 10 At least they honor it in the paper, if not in 11 reality. They try very hard, in fact. At the lower levels 12 that I get to deal with, it's an exact and stringent.
13 The Department of Energy in facility acquisitions 14 has a codified systems engineering approach.
( 15 It is my impression that in the procurement of 16 research activities by the agency, that they do not have a 17 codified planning system. Is that correct?
18 MR. THADANI: I think that's correct. I believe 19 that is correct.
20 MR. KNAPP: I'm able to interpret your question a 21 couple of ways and Lloyd may want to speak to this briefly 22 after I finish.
23 If you are asking is there an overall systematic
-24 approach that's been codified for how we would say 25 prioritize and establish various programs, I'm not aware of
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58 1 one._As we get into the procurement process itself, then we 2 have a heavily codified system. l
-3 . DR. POWERS: I mean that's codifled for you by f 4 some accounting organization, like OMB or something like 5 that.
6 MR. KNAPP Actually, we have one developed sort 7- of internally as well. ;
f 8
DR. POWERS: Lloyd, would you-like to add anything
.9 to'that? !
10 MR. DONNELLY: I really can't. I think that !
- - 11' accurately covers-it. !
12 DR. POWERS: I think it's the top level planning- !
13 that I was speaking of. This mission need and things, 14 that's not original to me, that it is in fact the systems i 15- engineering approach. I just toss it out. We have to find 16 a better way. I toss it out and say these other' agencies ;
have.found a way. I don't know that it's better, and there 18- are a lot of people who are willing to argue with me on that intensely, because there are some defects to this systems I i
19 20 engineering approach. You know, things that people don't 21 like about it, but it has the advantage that when they go to 22 the OMB and they ask the question of why-do you need this,
-23 there is a very, very clear paper trail, 24 MR. THADANI: No, I quite agree with you. I 25 think -- I'd like to think that the office is actually .
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59 l 1 moving in that direction.
2- DR. POWERS: It is my suspicion that these 3 structured engineering approaches like that are what good I 4 engineers do naturally and probably good managers do 5 naturally. j 6 The advantage of having it codified is then you :
7 assure uniformity lthat may or may not always exist.
8 MR. THADANI: Yes, we speak, I think, in-general 9 terms and we are clearly not -- if you were to go back and 10 say show me systematically, I don't think it's there.
t 11 DR. POWERS: I think one of the difficulties you 12 always run into is it's the out of the way phenomena. You 13 have excellence in 39 out of 40 programs. The 40th program 14 is weak. They say cut. The 39 pay the sins of the 40th. [
15 MR, KNAPP: One thing I might add, I think if Jim .
16 Blaha were her a right now, he would identify the planning .
17 framework that. he's been working on for some months, and an 18 adjunct of that for the PRC, Program Review Committee, ,
19 review process. He would say that we are in fact moving in 20 the direction of a planning scheme which would involve 21 reviews of programs, lessons learned and changes to plans l 22 due to that. >
23 We just started that a couple of months ago. My 24' guess is the way we.do that will change over the next year j i
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60 f i
1 and I add at agency-wide level.-
2 DR. POWERS: We might want to flag that and ask 3 him-if he could come down and talk to us, if nothing else, 4 give us the basis on what his thinking is.
5 MR. SEALE: I have a point here though. Part of 6 the problem with research is it's organically vulnerable r
7 because you have identified individual projects which some 8 people may not be sympathetic with, other people may. Each 9 project has its advocate and so forth within-the research 4 10 organization but also outside the research organization, and 11 when you start talking about decreasing something by two or 12 five or 7.5 percent or whatever the number may be, you can 13 always find those individual elements, so you may gore an 14 ox, but it's a limited ox to do that, and that takes care of 15 it. l 16 On the other hand, you get into NRR, and let's 17 face it, that's the big game in town.
18 Clearly, the inspection program involves a lot of 19 things.
20 MR. THADANI: You are touching on an issue I 21 think of some significance, at least in my mind, and let me 22 put on this hat of regulatory effectiveness for a moment.
23- I'm trying to make sure I'm being objective and not too 24 pro-research here.
25 I have obviously'a lot of pain in terms of what is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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__ _ _.s 61 1 happening to the Office of Research. ;
() 2 DR. POWERS: Sure.
3 MR. THADANI: Some of it, I think, is probably- :
4 not appropi ; but that's reality.
i
-5 In terms of effectiveness, I really firmly believe 6 that we as an agency have to step outside the box and wa 7 keep saying that but we really need to do that. We really 8 need to ask ourselves, I think, more basic questions. >
9 For example, we spend something like, and don't l 10 hold me to numbers, something like 2,500 hours0.00579 days <br />0.139 hours <br />8.267196e-4 weeks <br />1.9025e-4 months <br /> per unit in i
11 terms of inspection hours. Why is 2,500 hours0.00579 days <br />0.139 hours <br />8.267196e-4 weeks <br />1.9025e-4 months <br /> the right 12 level of inspection effort? How well is that effort 13 prioritized in terms of importance of component systems and 14 structures and human endeavors? l
, t i 15 I talk about NRR only because'I'm more familiar 16 with what goes on there. We get something like 1,200 17 licensing actions a year. Some of these licensing actions 18 really have very minimal impact on safety. We need.to ask 19 why do we need to review those.
20 If we are moving forward in this risk informed way 21 of making decisions, then there clearly should be some' level 22 at which the licensees should be making those decisions.
I 23 They should keep track. Information should be made 24 available but does it mean we have to review each one of 1 25 those changes?
e
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In terms of. amendments, it would require changes
() 2 to our rules.
3 This then goes back to what Dana said early on. I 4, We really'do need to step-back and see if our rules -- rhich ;
5 rules truly risk inform, so.to speak, and which ones aren't.
6 .Is-50.59 ---
DR. POWERS: That's on my list, too. l
& MR. THADANI As you know, the NRR is working on !
9 that issue. I i
10- DR. POWERS: If it is going to be broke, do we A
,21 have to fix'it. 'I 12 MR. THADANI: Well, I think it's different than 13 if it's-broke, you don't have to fix it. I think it's time l
14 for us as en agency to say there are things that may no", be r O 15 broken but may be so restrictive that the distribution of
[
16 resources is unreasonable and we are focusing on some things 17 that are not important.
18 I sit here and I said this, these are the kinds of '
19 things we should be thinking about from the effectiveness 20 point of view. It is not going to be easy. It is going to 21 be very difficult to be able to do what I'm talking about.
22- Again, part of the reason for that is we are busy 23 doing what we are doing. What we are trying to do as part
^
24 of -- I'm going to talk to you day after tomorrow about 25 regulatory excellence.
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I G3 1 Briefly, not to take up time drom othee speakers O
'( j ; 2 here, we are making attempts at trying to look at some of 3 .these programs and to see how they could be done better.
4 'It's going to take a long while, I think. In the short 5 term, I see research will continue to be the place that 6 people'1ook to whenever budget cuts come and with that,- let-7-- me ---I've already taken up too much~ time.
8 I was going to go into some of the trends and some
- of my examples, but maybe you will hear-some of these later 10 'on, of what research has contributed.
11 In my view, research has contributed in a very 12 significant way over the last few years, all the way from !
13 what I think are very-important new rules, like pressurized
-14 thermal shocks, station black out, transients without SCRAM. f 15 The work they have done in support of advanced light water 16 reactor efforts, and on a very timely basis, I might note. !
17 DR. POWERS: Let me interrupt at this point to ,
18' pose a question to the committee. In our previous letter to I 19 Congress, there was an introductory page or two that tries ;
20 to make the point that the research program has had an 21 impact. Do we want to try to do that again, and if we do, do 22 we want to get Ashok's list to help us draft that portion of 23 the letter?
24 MR. KRESS: Yes,
- 25. MR. THADANI: I would be happy to get you a list.
L
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64 1 DR. POWERS: If we could get that list from you,
() 3 2 solicit your assistance. I think it is useful.
last year to say that research had been very ef*ective in We tried 4 the past and had accomplished a lot. To continue to hammer 5 that point, that this is not money for people playing in a 1 6 sand box, that it is money that has been effective and t 7 resulting in things that made the public safer.
8 MR. THADANI: And I would use examples both in 9 terms of enhancing safety as well as in some cases, burden 10 reduction aspects.
11 As the last-point, the research budget in 1993 was 12 $100 million. In 1994, $93 million. In 1995, $90 million.
13 I'm rounding these off, probably in the wrong direction.
14 1996 took a big cut, $68 million. That was, I believe, the 15 time when the agency took a ten percent cut and most of it 16 came out of the research budget. In 1997, $58 million. In 17 1998, the research budget that the agency went in with was 18 $51 million, but I think it's going to end up being $3 to $4 19 million lecs than that.
20 At some point, I think the Office of Research has 21 to be able to say what is really the minimum level, and with 22 some strong rationale behind it, not an assertion, and I 23 think th'at's a challenge for the office to be able to do 24 that.
25 DR. POWERS: Ashok, can we formulate an argument
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65 l 1- that goes.something to the effect like this, that in the !
() 2 -past,_you have had a well funded research program, say ten 3 years ago you had a well funded research program, did a lot.
4 The agency has been extremely effective relative to industry l 1
5 standards, in translating the research results into field ;
I 6 activities, and typically research appears in industrial -
.7 processes after 12 years, after the completion of the f
8 research, and you've done it in letu time than that, so you-9 are-more effective, and that you have reaped.the-harvest of i i
10 those rich years, that now you are in poor years and there 11 may not be a harrest to reap. i 12 Can an argument be formulated that goes along 13 those lines?
14 MR. THADANI: I think the first part certainly 15 one could make the case. It seems to me that there are 16 still a number of challenges in front of us. I think you 17 have talked about what those challenges are.
18 The case in my mind at le.ast would be yes, we have 19 cut research programs. Research has accomplished a number of 20 things and some of these cuts I think were probably 21 justified. What remains to be done and what is that minimum 22 level of effort'that-one s to expend to do that.
23 I think that has to be a part of our next few 24 months' effort. Anything short of that, I'm afraid come this 25 early Spring, we will be going through the same process and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 66 1 same discussions.
2 I think research has a tremendous challenge. I'm 3 very pleased that you have invited others like NRR, like 4 - AEOD and the industry to come talk to you, because if you i
5 look at-it, and you raised this question earlier, Dana, I'm ;
1 6 not sure research can give you the answer, but I think the f 7- split is probably something like 80/20, where 80 percent -- l 8 people, I suspect, will argue about what is anticipatory 9 ' research and'what is confirmatory research, but if you buy ,
10 off on some definitions, you will probably see something 11 like a 80/20 split. ;
12 Most of the work that the Office of Research is 13 doing is really in support of NRR and a little bit of it is 14 in support of NMSS. That's why I'm glad Brian Sheron is 15 . going to be talking representing NRR and will be talking to 16 you about his perspective, looking at it from NRR's side.
17 DR. POWERS: We very much look forward to Brian's i 18 being here. He's been in all camps here.
19 MR. THADANI: Exactly. Sometimes, in fact , at-the 20 Commissioners' TA meetings on this issue of severe accident 21 cuts that may be coming in the next week or so, I'd say 22 Brian was probably more eloquent than some others.
, 23 DR. POWERS: Brian is always eloquent.
24 MR. THADANI: I think I better stop at this 25 point. ,
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67 1 DR. POWERS: I'll ask the cor.imittee if there are 2 any questions of Mr. Thadani. We have interrogated him 3 closely. Let me say, Ashok that I think this was excellent. ;
4 I think we ought to have more of these heart to heart's when 5 we can and have something to say, both on the research 6 program and even some of the other activities you are taking 7 on. I think it is useful for our perspective and useful for 8 you to hear what we think we have heard fiom you.
9 Mr. Knapp, I wonder if it would be all right if we 10 took a break now? I'm really leaving it up to you guys to 11 apportion your time as you see fit. Maybe I'll declare a 12 break until quarter of.
13 (Recess.)
14 DR. POWERS: Let's come back to order. Mr. Knapp, 15 if you would be good enough to begin by telling us something 16 about yourself and then feel free to take the time.
17 MR. KNAPP:
All right. That's a goof. question.
18 What brings me here today.
19 MR, SEALE: And now that you are here --
20 [ Laughter.)
21 MR. KNAPP: I'm reminded of the question in the 22 Movie MASH when somebody said how did that person ever get 23 here and somebody else said, well, I believe he was drafted.
24 (Laughter.)
l 25 MR. KNAPF: If the truth be told, I was drafted, l
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68 1 but had I the opportunity, I would have volunteered.
(D) 2 I am having a very good time and I'll tell you 3 more about that in just_a second. ;
4 I come to you from chemical engineering, 5 undergraduate and graduate more years ago than I'd like to 6 think. When I finished my doctorate, I worked at G.E.
7 Corporate Research. My work involved a variety of things, 8 including high temperature reactions and computing.
9 In 1979, I joined the NRC in the High Level Vaste 10 Program, and the idea was I might be able to say sometaing ,
11 about the metals and ceramics associated with high level 12 waste and the fluid dynamics and computations associated 13 with ground water transport.
14 I stayed in Waste Management for about a decade
() 15 and then in 1989, I was given the opportunity to work in 16 NRC's Region I for three years. That brought me a little ,
17 closer to reactors, in that about half of my staff there 18 were involved in reactor situations, such as health physics, 19 but security and emergency planning, so I never really got 20 into the engineering of it. The other half of my staff --
21 in those days, that division was called DRSS, Division of 22 Radiaticn Safety and Safeguards -- were involved in 23 materials work.
24 In 1992, I returned to headquarters, and I've done 25 a variety of things, principally within NMSS since then, O
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r 69 1 although I spent about a year in the Chairman's strategic ;
() 2 3
assessment and re-baselining program in 1995 and a part of 1996. l 4 Today marks my three month anniversary of being l 5 Acting Director of Research. On that cccasion, I am reminded 6- of what happened when I was in graduate school at 7 ' Carnegie-Mellon and we celebrated the 75th anniversary of- [
8 theLChemical Engineering Department.
9 One-of the faculty wrote a-history of ct2mical f 10 engineering and in the first report that the department ;
i 11 chairman sent to the dean, the chairman said words to the j
-12 effect that up until now, things have been kind of confused,
~
13 we weren't real sure where we were headed, but now the path 14 ahead of-us is clear and we know what we are doing. His- l
) 15 subsequent 1974 annual report to the dean said more or less 16 the same thing.
17 (Laughter.)
18 MR. KNAPP: With that in mind, until now, I have 19 been somewhat confused about exactly where I was headed in 20 research, but now I believe that the path lies more clear.
+
21 The other question is how long do I-expect to be- ,
22 here. I don't know. This assignment may become permanent 23- and if it is, I'd be delighted. I'm expecting at this point
-24 at least it will be-months and as you are well aware, there a'
25 have been a number of management changes within the agency ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 and these things need to sort themselves out.
'l
() 2 I would like to say though that'although I'm not
, 3 going to'arsert that I'm an expert on reactors,-I am j 4 learning a great deal from the staff.- I'm enjoying it .
5 thoroughly and I'm getting a lot-out of them.
6 One question you might ask might be why me'and the f 7 answer is 1 do have a certain familiarity with the NRC's 8- culture and knowing who and where I might discuss problems -
9 in order to try to solve them to the benefit of research.
10T Anywry, that's how I got here.
11 1here are several things I'd like to talk about 12~ this morning briefly, and then attempt to answer one or two t
13 of your questions in part and then turn to some of my staff 14 who will give you answers to the others. :
() 15 I'd like to very quickly over view where we are in 16 research. I e.m going to talk a little bit about some of the 17 direction I've received from the Chairman and the 18 Commissioners. DSI-22 on research was mentioned this 19 morning. I'd like to talk a little more about that, a 20 little bit about core capability as well. .
21 very quickly, I think it's worth thinking about 22 our organization for just a minute. I'm not sure if you 23 folks know who all the players are. As you look 3round, if 24 you; foJ ks would just put up hands, Lloyd Donnelly is in 25 charge of financial management. I think most of you know ;
()
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71 1 1 Larry Shao, Division Director of Engineering Technology, f 2_ Wayne Hodges who is in charge of Systems Technology, f 3 Jill Murphy is not here, but again, talking about f 4 acting, the Acting Deputy, Bill Morris, who I think most of [
3 i you probably know is back there, and I would also add that !
6 although he was here earlier and can't be here right now, I' 7 am frankly delighted to have as a special assistant, Denny 8 Ross, who is proving extremely helpful to me and I'm sure 9- most of you know Denny.
10 While this is up, there were a couple of things I 11 think you might be interested in. If you are aware of it or ,
12 if you paid much attention to it, DSI-22 has involved ;
-1 13 direction from the Commission to transfer our regulatory 14 function to the program offices and the division that will .
15 be principally, almost entirely impacted from that, is the 16 Division of Regulatory Applications under Jill Murphy. ;
17 Right now, that division has about 60 people in ,
18 it, of whom around 45 or more are worker bees and the others
, 19 are supervisors, managers, administrative and secretarial 20 support staff.
21 The transfers presently envisioned would move in 22 this particular year, 29 people out of the office and 23 consistent with the budget for next year, about 26 people.
24 Let me be clear. I don't mean 29 plus 26. I mean 25 29 are budgeted this year, next year, 26 tire budgeted. You
}
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72 1 would have approximately that number of FTE's leaving the
() 2 office and presuming the Commission endorses this action, we !
3 would be detailing and transferring those people 4 administratively during this year.
5 I think that's of interest to you because 6 obviously, that moves over half of the working staff in that 7 division, and that will certainly call for some sort of 8 re-thinking or realignment once that action is complete.
9 In terms of other organizational impact, you will 10 notice that under Wayne, we have the Accident Evaluation 11 Branch, with Charlie Ader, and that will be the area which 12 will be most affected if there is a substantive cut f.n the 13 severe accident program.
14 I just wanted to give you sort of a sense of where
\ 15 we are there.
16 Tnen we move on a bit. In the document that you 17 have, it's simply intended to be sort of a simplified sketch 18 of what goes on in the Office of Research. We have a total 19 of 27 sub-activities. For each one of these, there is an 20 operating plan, and some of the highlights of the operating 21 plan are mentioned in your handout.
22 What you probably would want to focus on in this 23 activity would be the areas which are red lined in the 24 vu-graph, reactor and plant performance research and reactor 25 materials and component behavior research.
I)
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t 73 i The materials research, de-commissioning,
() 2 organizational support, those are in the handout,.but I 3 suspect you would not be real interested in focusing on 4 those at this time.
j 5 Let me just quickly sketch in a little more detail l
6 what are in those treas. Reactor and plant research, plant-i' 7 performance research, where as you can see from the initials
-8 DST, this work'is going on in the Division of Systems ,
9 Technology. We have six sub-10 activities and accompanying operating plans associated with 11 each of those. ,
12- I won't take up your time going through those, but 4
13 if you have had a chance to look at them, you wisl see that 14 we have a couple of sentences sort of summarizing what the 15 work is and then generally a couple of sentences talking 16 about what the most substantive products are that we 17 perceive coming due sometime in fiscal 1996. That pattern 18 is repeated for each of these.
19 Then if you were to turn in your handout's to, I
. 20 believe, page 11, you would fino a similar summary of the 21 work that's going on, and the DET's show this is work going 22 on in the Division of Engineering Technology, and this is
. +
23 the reactor materials and component behavior research and 24 this is under Larry Shao. ,
25 I don't really plan on going into much more detail :
d
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74 1 on these. I just sort of wanted you to get a' sense of what 2 the handout looks like.
3- Of the eight-items here and the1 preceding six, 4 :that's 14 of our sub-activities or 14 of our operating 5- plans, to give you a senselof what's really going on.that 6 applies to reactors. I think it would be of most interest
- 7. to the ACRS.
8 If you have questions on that material, I'd be
-9 happy to answer them, but I think you might just consider 10 that as kind of a-handy brief reference, and then I'd 11 probably talk about it.
12 DR. POWERS: It looks like a good inventory'of 13 what's going on.
14 MR. KNAPP: That's its intent. My staff and I 15 occasionally refer to this colloquially as the road show.
16 One of the thingc that I will be doing before the end of 17 this calendar year is taking this document and going over it 18 with some of the offices and all of the regions to help 19 improve the communication as to what research is about and 20 what we can do.
21 DR. POWERS: Our strategy for developing a 12 2 response tn the Commission concerning the research program I
23- is to allow our other subcommittees that are more focused on 24 individual -- at'this level, to look at the research 25 programs and report back-to us.
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75 1 This overall research program is-not intending to l
() 2 go into -- it may touch on this level of detail, but it won't go to the next level of detail beyond that. We are !
=3
-4 depending on the individual subcommittees to do that and 5 most of the chairmen are here. .
6- MR. KNAPP: Obviously, our intent is to support.
7 you in whatever we-can do to help you get your letters out.
8 Let us know what you would like.
9 Two- or three other t hings I'd like to just chat 10 about. When I became Acting,.I had a meeting with the 11 Chairman. I have subsequently met with the other 12 Commissioners. One of the themes that we havs all agreed on 13- is the importance of mainstreaming the research program.
14 That involves a number of things.
15 It is essentially a sense that we should work
- 16. more. By "we," I mean not only those of us in research but ,
17 in other areas of the Commission, to bring the Office of 18 Research more-into tha main stream.
19 There have been Commission meetings, for exaraple, 20 when you might debate whether we should be at the table and 21 in the future, we will endeavor to be at the table and make 22 *he research contribution and show where we fit 1 14 .
23 My intent is to be more entrepreneurial. As I :
24 mentioned-a moment ago, I am going to be going to the 25 regions. I am going to be asking, what can the Office of
('N
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76 ,
1 Research do for you. By the way, here's what we are doing
( ) 2- now, anything in here that we.might modify a bit to make 3 more useful to you. ,
4 At the same time, I think that we have an 5 obligation to enuure that the things that we turn out are 6 products that are timely and of good quality, but also to 7 stress their relevance.
8 One of the questions that I have asked about the 9 i products that we turn out is who will do what with this 10 product. Will it be used by a staffer to maka a decision.
11 Is it a code we can use in the licensing review.
12 I want to be real clear that it is not my intent 13 to force us away from the anticipatory research that we are 14 doing, but I still want to ask the questions, what can we O
\_/ 15 expect from anticipatory research, where are we headed.
16 By the way, that term, " anticipatory research," is 17 the current --
18 DR. POWERS: Right.
19 MR. KNAPP: So, we have confirmatory and 20 anticipatory.
21 I'd like to talk a little bit about DSI-22 22 activities, where we are, where we are headed. This is the 23 research paper that went to the Commission. Well, we've had 24 actually several papers that have gone to and from the 25 Commission. One of the more recent was97-220. This is a l
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77 j t
1 . paper that we sent up the end of September. We have l
() 2 proposed certain responses to Commission direccion and we do I
3 not yet have an answer from the Commission on what they 4 would like un to do.
5 The gist of the issues-in that paper are that we l 6' . would transfer regulatory staff and regulatory activity to 3 7 the program offices, as previously dirc:t a by the .
8 Commission. We would transfer responsibility for k 9' accompanying reg guides, but other reg guides, which are -
10 largely technical, which are not associated with ;
11 rulemaking's, we would retain in the Office of Research.
12 That's a_relatively small number of reg guides. I don't-13 know how the Commissica will react to that. In my ,
14 . discussions with their assistants, they are open to either, 15 and I'd be interested in hearing what their final decision 16 is.
17 We have also been directed to consider three areas 18 that could result in the transfer of resources, projects, as 19 well, to research. One of these is the concept of '
20 confirmatory research. Is there work which we can call 21 confirmatory research, which is going on in the program 22 offices, which should oe transferred to the Office of 23 Research.
24 That's one we have been wrastling with in 25- conjunction with the program offices.
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78 1 DR. POWERS: If we keep cutting the budget, we may
()
2 kill that off.
3 MR. KNAPP: Well, I have a very good answer for 4 that, if you would just give me two or three minutes.
5 DR. POWERS: It wasn't a serious question 6 MR. KNAPP: Obviously, Ashok has already told you 7 how troubled he i.". I am troubled as well. I am very 8 concerned about exactly what that would menn.
9 I think another question that this leads us into 10 is what really is confirmatory research and you can spend a 4
11 lot of time debating that definition.
12 In separating confirmatory research from technical 13 assistance, I've looked at it a bit, and I do not find a 14 bright line that I'm comfortable with. You can sort of i 15 decide at what point you really want to call it reseerch.
16 DR. POWERS: I think you have hit upon something 17 that it is true and it's true within this community that 18 there is a different definition in the minds of a lot of 19 people on what research actually is, where it should be.
20 I'n tura that Don and I have very different 21 definitions of wl.at's research and vaat's not research.
22 I'm sure we disagree on what's front line, on the 23 edge of ocience research, and what is more mundane sort of 24 things.
25 I thire as difficult as it may be, we are going to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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79 1 have to have that definition. I don't know that it's a 7
( j= 2 definition so much as it is a position.
3 MR. KNAPP: I suspeir that the Comm.fssion may 4 share your view and we may receive that ki W of direction 5 from the Commission in response to this papu. unat I 6 mentioned a moment ago.
7 It will not be an easy definition to reach, nor is 8 it one that I think we want to apply without recognizing 9 that there are certain exceptions we may wish to take, for 10 example, at this point. It appeared best some years ago, I 11 understand, to move the IPE and IPEEE reviews into the 12 Office ' Research, but that was simply the best way to 13 solve some problems that NRR and Research had in terms of 14 resources. What I call IPE reviews, research by a
(_,,/ 15 def'11 tion, are probably not.
16 I think we will need to recognize there may be 1" p g od and sufficient reason, and once the definition is laid 18 aown, we still may need to make some exceptions.
19 DR. POWERS: I'm sure we had different views 20 because I thought that was, oh, IPE review and IPEEE review, 21 definitely a research program, should be there.
22 MR. KNAPP: I agree wholeheartedly. I think that 23 would be my only concern, that when we come up with that 24 definition, that we make sure it doesn't have consequences 25 that may go beyond what we'd expect at first blush.
A f
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80 i LI would not be-'at all surprised to be involved in .
- 2 developing afdefinition of that_within_the fairly near
~
a future.
4~ In addicion to the possibility of transferring 5 confirmatory research to the Office, one of the questions
~
6- that we are going to be looking at will be what we will__ call 7 - critical nass or ' consolidation. This is the issue of have 8- we a few people scattered throughout the agency with 9- consideratle expertise in very specii'ic areas, where-it LO really doesn't seem to make as much sense-for them to be 11 working.alone, as it woulc be if.we were to consolidate them 12 into a group, possibly within the Office of Research, 13- possibly in a different office. Is there a certain amount 14 of consolidation which should take place. We will be 15 addressing that question.
16 There are a variety of areas that are identified 17 as potential places to consider.
18 MR. SEALE: I might mention that issue, let's say
.19 if you followed through on that issue, if nothing else, 20 there's the justification for mainstreaming that you 21 mentioned earlier, because you can't bring these people 22 together and then isolate them.
23 MR. KNAPP: That's very true. That's one of a 24: number of things that will lead to mainstreaming. I might 25- -mention one of the things:I would like to do in addition to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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81 ,
.s'mply. increasing communications, is getting research staff 1 i
() .2' ,more involved.-
3 .My goal for this' fiscal year is that every member 4 of the research staff will visit a licensee at least once.
5- That may not. sound like a particularly ambitious goal, but. ;
6 -nonetheless, based on the number of research staff who have 7 not been to:a nuclear plant or-a materials licensee in 8 several years, that requires some attention.
9 In order to do that, we have the support of NRR
- 10 but recognizing.that these visits are ones in which we want l11 to make sure we. convey the right message to' licensees. Some 12 of the research staff may very well need a certain amount of 13 training, like the kind you give inspectors or inspector 14 refresher training, before these visits take place. -
-15 It's my intent that-the training itself will also L
16 be a little bit of a help in mainstreaming-the staff.
17- I didn't mean to digress too much. There are a 18 number of-things like that that I think-will help us get 19 into the mainstream and obviously, these kinds of activities I.
20 and visits are intended to give the research staff a better 21 understanding of exactly what it-is our customer is looking 22 for,oso as we develop stuff, we can focus on their needs.
23 DR. POWERS: That's one.of the really interesting 24 debates _that's going on industrially in the country right 4
25 now, who the right' people are doing research. I worked for ANN RILEY & ASSOC.1ATES, LTD.
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- -years for an organization that looked'upon research as an
} ()~ 2 entry level-position andithat people lwhen they came into 3 research,- then-migrated out to the lines as they~ developed-4- knowledge and-expertise in'their various areas.. That is
, 5- being reversed. People are saying,.no, we want the guys most 6 ~ experienced on the line who have encountered-all these 7 problems and know they have.to be solved to go do the 8 research, so the research organizations become a repository 9- for the more experienced people, insteadaof an entry level 10 position and'the line is becoming an entry level position.
11 That's not unusual in my organization. It's"a 12 trend in-a lot of places where there is an established 13 technology. It's proving to be what you'say, that you need 14 to know where the problems are before you.can define what a l 15 specific program is to do.
16- MR. :KNAPP: I find that true not only for the 17 Office of Research but when I was in NMSS, I found it true 18 there also.
. 19 I would not like to recount some of the things I l
20 put in the NRC's high level waste regulation nearly 20 years 21 ago, that once I had a little more experience and time in 22 the field, I might have' wanted to re-think.
l' L 23 .DR . POWERS: You weren't responsible'for the i
! 24= . cardboard' box, were you?
25 MR. KNAPP: No. I'm not responsible for the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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a 83 l' cardboard box._-I have to tell-you that-I am responsible for !
t(G : -2 .a couple"of concepts _that people have debated.at length ,
3- since then- ,
4- MR.-MILLER: To comment _,on Dana's remarks,1[
]
- 5. agree.- 1[:think an ideal research; organization _would be a-6- combination, entry level, where you have bright, new people 7 coming in with~a-lot of experience. I think'that is what 8 you were-saying.
9 DR.. POWERS: It's a different mindset. Who is the '
11 0 experienced?- In the past,'I think people were looking for 1 11 innovation out of the research-organizations and now they-12 are looking more for optimization in an established 13 industry.
14 If I were in a Silicon Valley company, I think
, 15 that --
16 MR. MILLER: Things move so fast.
17 DR. POWERS: There are interesting statistics on 18 electronics, where the design capacities change with 19 educational levels. In established industries, I think 20 where-you are looking at optimization, you really need to
. 21-- .know what the. problems are. My thinking comes back to the 22' issue of containment coatings. Here was an issue that the 23 inspection force appa:ently was aware that there were 24 problems in this area and I've never heard the'research 25 organization come back and say, well, you-know, we need to r
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84 i
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It'si.a substan".ive and-in a
~
il- look atfcontainment' coatings. -
3
-( 3 Ilot of-cases significant issue.- -
31 iMR.-KNAPP: I know that-I11 earned a tremendousi
{
4 . amount aboutJreactors when I:was would just follow a;
~
-5 resident'around all day. I 6 DR. POWERS: .That's amazing. [
s71 MR..KNAPP: ~I learned a great deal about'how'some ,
8 aof the_ things thatJ I didn't-think were important were and-
-9 the things that.I~ thought.were vital,-.really never got_on._
"10 DR. POWERS: Just. reading-the inspection manual is 11 1 an education,.isn't it?
12 MR. KNAPP:- Yes.
i 13 MR. MILLER: I think there should be kind of a 14 mindset'_that everybody who works for the agency should go to (O
,,/ -15 a nuclear plant every year or two. That would be everybody.
--16 DR. POWERS: I'll remind members --
17- MR. MILLER: Of course, some people already do it.
18 DR. POWERS: I'll remind members that we do have
, 19" to discuss our forthcoming -- I think it's March -- site 20 visit. This committee, too, feels an obligation to visit L
21 the sites:and the regions, to get their perspective. We did I
i 22 a visitation in July for Region IV, and I think we all found 23- ;that of-exceptional value to us.
24- Never under estimate-the capabilities the-agency I 25 has:out in its regions.
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85 l' MR. KNAPP - One ).ast thing with respect to-DSI--
l( ) 12 22,; and that is again, as.wa look at;these various things,-
3- and-trancfer of responsibilitier. the resources, generic-
- 4. safety issues, research has the lead for-that but we are :
5- -going-to just-take another 1ook at exactly where that is to ,
6 be comfortable with where some of the resources are-7 distributed.
8- DR. POWERS: 'In your -- maybe lit's the annual- ,
9 report,.maybe it's a different document. -I'm not sure, ,
10 There is a statement describing what the generic issues are, 11 that'the generic issues had its origin in the Energy 12 Reorganization Act, and then there is this line that says 13- resolution of these generic issues has been slowed by the '
14 unavailability of resources.
() 15 I thought -- my reaction to that is that's a real 16 problem. Here you have a congressional mandate that's being 17 slowed by the unavailability of resources.
18 Since I'm interested in writing to Congress here, 19 this is obviously somethir they should be informed of, if 20 that's the case, but then I have Bob Seale's question. Who 21 is dictating where these resources go? Is it we just do not 22 have-the money to_ resolve these generic issues or is it a 23 case that we are ciphering everything off from this and this I 24 is the last low man on the totem pole.
25 It strikes me as that's one sentence I would be ;
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86 IL very-reluctant-to-write now,.as'I have taken a congressional
() 2 mandate and am.not able to fund it.
~
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3 MR. SEALE: Put it on the back burner. ,
4- MR. KNAPP: I'm not sure I'd.say it's entirely on 5 the back burner,-but I'm going to give John Craig a chance 6 to -- I saw the smile. I knew he would be pleased to have 7 an opportunity to make a comment.-He.may or may not want to 8 add anything to it.
9 We are working on the generic safety issues and we 10 have a couple we have identified for resolution this fiscal 11 year. This is noc-fully back burner. That does not take 12 anything away from what you have just said.
13 Yes, we are not resolving it as fast as we might.
14 That does involve a prioritization question, and as we talk
-15 a little later this morning, I am going to.give you a couple 16 of thoughts I have on that subject.
17 John may wish to correct me or add something or 18 simply say that he can't add to what I've said.
19 MR. CRAIG: I think I can add a little bit to 20 amplify one thought. Indeed, as a result of the budget 21 cuts, the resources available to resolution are less, so it 22 takes longer. As part of that, the generic safety issues
-23 that have higher safety significance, and there's a 24 gradation, those'are worked more aggressively than lower.
25 You shouldn't think of all generic safety issues ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 87 1 as having the same safety impact. If there's a compliance
() 2 aspect associated with one of these issues, it deals with 3 that in the very near term, but indeed, the statement is 4 troubling but it is nonetheless true, that as the resources 5 have decreased, the ability to resolve the issues is 6 restricted.
7 MR. SHAO: M&y I add something?
8 DR. POWERS: Please.
9 MR. SRAO: I want to make an example, which I am 10 going to talk about later, the coating issue, the protective 11 coating on the containers and structures. There was a 12 question of whether the coating would come off. It's a 13 major issue.
14 We asked the question, what other areas -- we know 15 it is a very important issue. We just don't have the 16 funding to work on it.
17 DR. POWERS: The question we are coming to is why 18 don't we have the funding? Is it because of the 19 prioritization scheme that the agency uses or is it some 20 other reason?
21 MR. SHAO: Let me give you an example. The 22 proposed budget is about $650,000. That is just 23 insufficient. That is probably sufficient to work on one 24 area. We will be spending most of the money working on 25 projects of the last two or three years. On strainer ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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88
!1 blockage:alone,:we_spendiabout $2 or $3 mil' lion,-just;on:one
~
4 2 ~ subject. .We'have_:to cover a variety of generic. issues. -We 13 1 'just_ don't;have enough' funding tos work-on them.
4- DR. POWERS: What_.youLare sayinglis it doesn't S 'really matter, there is some large number lof safety issues.
6 If-I spend'$1,000 on each of them, I've_ eaten up my budget.
7 MR. SHAO: The coating issue is very closelyL 8' related to the sumpaissue. We suspect the PWR nump issue is ,
9 also-important because of insulation and everything, also 10 the sump screen.
11 DR. POWERS:' It just strikes me that beccuse the 12 -generic. safety issues come-right out of the Energy 11 3 Reorganization:Act,-it is a request from Congress, it is L 14. something we cannot duck in our letter to Congress.
O(_/ 15 MR. SEALE: Yes, but there is a more fundamental 16 question. You said your budget was $650,000?
17 MR. SHAO: For the whole branch.
18 MR. SEALE: Why'isn't it $1.3 million?
19 MR. SHAO: We asked for $2 million last year, but 20 the budget was decreasing.
21 MR. SEALE: Yes, but who made that decision?
22 MR. SHAO: The executive officer.
23 MR. SEALE: That is Dr. Powers' point.
24 MR. THADANI: Larry, let me touch on this. I 25 think this is an issue that is bothering me as well. I
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89 1.. think the Commission has told us in a number of places that
() 2 3-if they are important issues, you can support the level of effort 1that is needed, then I think the Commission would 4 indicate yes,-let's provide funding for that program.
5 Generic safety issues I think is a very important 6 program for the agency. The Office of Research has not come 7 forward to.say what level of funding they really need to do 8 certain functions in the area of generic safety issues.
- 9. It appears that the' Commission had not even an 11 0 ; opportunity to provide input. I would go back and say'it's 11 really the respcnsibility of the Office to say what is 12 'i mportant, what's the basis for the-level of. resources that 13 are needed, and even if it means that they want additional 14 funds, they have to come forward and say that.
) 15 MR. SEALE: I think if you go back and look at the 16 record, you will find that the ACRS in the past has 17 commented that there has in some cases been a rather narrow 18 definition.of what constitutes resolution of the issue being 19 used to write the issue off, when in fact the issue is much l
[ 20 broader.
21 MR. THADANI: There are several examples of that.
L 22 Systems interaction coming to mind right c-ff.
23 MR. SHAO: The one thing I want to mention, every ,
l 24 time'there is a budget review, carry over money and l
25 everything, we ask for additional money. We were rejected.
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90 We go for carry over funding or whatever the funding.
DR. POWERS:- I will just. reiterate that-I think i) -2 3 .the; committee needs to -- we vill need in our letter to i
14 comment on'the' generic-issues, _ simply because itLis a 5 legislative program and it's_not one that the agency has 6 thought of out of old cloth.
7- MR. KNAPP: You bring up a couple of things. One 8- that sobered me.up a lot over the last two or-three. months 9 wasLa decision that was made to my memory and'to Sam ,
10 _Collius' memory for the first time in the agency, in-fiscal 11 19.98, we reduced the number of inspection hours applied to 12 reactors.
13 That simply means that is how tight things are. _
14 Wnen we. talk.about the research budget, we are in
() '5
- _ competition with significant programs in all areas outside 16 the office, which are under scrutiny and which are taking 17 cuts that they are not comfortable with.
18 What that tells me is that we need to do a very 19- --good-job-of -- I_ mentioned earlier -- being entrepreneurial, 20 and demonstrating to the other offices, because the 21 decisions that are made at the staff level within the
-22 Commission reflect the views and needs of all offices, at 23 least to a oegree.
One of the things that I see in front of is this 25 Lis not just simply making a-strong case to the Commission, l
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91 f 1: but' making a otrong' case to people-like NRR so they-will
(); 2 stand-next to us and say, yes, this is needed. We have to I 3 .have these generic safety issues resolved, which is one of ;
4 the reasons I'm looking for more, again, inainstreaming and' 5 communication.
I 6' I'm not going to tell you it's an easy job nor am 7 I going to tell you I really know yet all-the things I think ;
8 we need to do to make it happen, but I think we have to 9 focus on that within the office.
4 10 DR. POWERS: I think you are right. You have to be
,11 able to sell to your own internal customers. One of the ways 1
12 .it might make it easier to sell is revealed in some of these 13 headings, that you have listed as sub-14 activities.
15 If I take one called reactor probabilistic risk 16 analysis, and when I look at the breakdown, I see methods 17 development for aasessment,. regulatory analysis, guidance 18 and standards development, decision making. They sound very 19 good but it's a little hard to tell what they are doing.
! 20 If I'm a potential customer over at NRR, it's a 21 little hard to know what I'm going-to get out of it.
22- When you look in a great deal of detail, you find 23 things like accident sequence precursor model development.
24 Suddenly,1AEOD is in your pocket. I mean they are ready to 25 defend that one.
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- L Fireirisk.-Suddenly, NRR i~s 'in your pocket and'
- 2. -ready to defend:that one.
J3
" Aging effects on PRA -- I assume that's in PRA.
~
-4 -Suddenly,__I've got other people in there.
5 One of-the problems.that you have in your sales'is 6 it's a little difficult to.tell what the activities are,
.7 because of the way -- because of.the programmatic structure-8' ~t hat'you have inherited. '
9 MR. KNAPPi Your point is very well taken. That's
^10 one of the reasons that I have been-emphasizing who'will do
~
11 what with this product,- what will we get_out of it. You are 12 _right. Spoken one way, it's-ho-hum. Spoken the other way, my
- 13. God, I want that. We need to make sure that message gets 14 communicated. I agree entirely.-
15 DR. POWERS: I think you have that problem not 16 only internally, I think you have it when you go up. If you
- 17 talked to Commissioner Diaz about methods development, he is 18_ having a hard. time staying awake. You tell him, hey, this l
19- has digital electronics in the control room, he's going to 20- .be real serious about that. He knows what that means.
- 21 MR. KNAPP: Well, we are working in that area.
22 Frankly,-for some of the staff, there has been a-little bit 23' of a departure because they are more accustomed to doing
- 24 research, having the results speak for themselves. At least
- 25 some of them feel that way. I know back 25 years ago, l=
l l
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~93 1 .that's sort of the way I-looked at it. I-think we need the
() 2 - office and the people within the office at all leveln who 3 need-to~look at,-okay, how is this going-to help somebody.
4 Again, I want to emphasiza-I don't want this to 5 have the effect of essentially turning off the anticipatory 6 work. 'That, we need to continue. We need to make a ctrong 7 case-why this anticipatory project is necessary. I feel a 8 commitment to that. I know the Chairman has a commitment-to 9 the anticipatory work. Don't take my remarks as moving away 10 from that.
11 DR. POWERS: It has been my experience that one of 12 the most effective things that I've seen within the agency, 13 without naming names, you have a bunch in your organization 14 that are fairly skilled at identifying what I would call 15 exploratory research, anticipatory research, then turn 16 around and going to line organizations and saying don't you 17 think that this is a need that you have.
18 I've seen that in the weapons development area, 19 too. The people that are most successful at doing what I 20 would call exploratory research are those that can go to a 21 line organization and convince them that anticipatory 22 research is in their interest as well. I think you have 23 that in your organization.
24 I don't think-that precludes doing exploratory i
25 research. I think it's a bit different, but probably very ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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194 1 -good;because~if.you are;in'the position of' optimizing your~ l l( ) 2; product, which I think you~are, having:line back up"on your 3 exploratory research is part and parcel with doing it.
41 MR. KNAPP:. I_ agree. I might quibble a tab in, 5 again, I'm going to quote the Chairman. She said 6 anticipatory research'is - 'at'least in one of-her- ,;
7 dic:ussions -- is work which is derived from but-not driven-8 by the. user office needs, and to the extent that I can get 9 by, and you have just described it, I think that would be 10 wonderful.
11 I suspect there may be one or two areas where we 12 might have to agree to disagree on research, but still 13 pursue it on the idea that -- I know when I was in an line i 14 office, my window was somewhere between six months and two
() 15 years.
16 DR. POWERS: Sure, and th6c's a real problem.
17 MR. SHAO: May I say, we hav6 done that a few 18 times, what you said.
19 DR. POWERS: You are the one I had in mind.
20 MR. SHAO: We had quite a few meetings before 21 Brian Sheron would give us a yes. It started as exploratory 22 research and then we had a meeting with the user office and 23 finally-they-agreed, agreed that this is something that 24~ should be done.
~
25 MR. SEALE: I wonder how many people in Congress f- . ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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95 1 or on their staff anticipated that generic safety issues
,r'}
('w j 2 could have a window of 20 years?
3 [ Laughter.)
4 M
.R. KNAPP: I'd like to talk about core 5 capabilities and then I'd like to respond to some of the 6 questions you posed to us.
7 I noticed this morning in your vu-graph, you had ,
8 SECY 97-075, and that is the core capabilities which we-9 brought forward in early April. I'm sure the subcommittee 10 is aware that the Commission by and large endorsed moving in 11 that direction. We have been working on it.
12 I will have to tell you that it has been displaced 13 in part, slowed down, because of the press of a great many 14 other things, and our original target, which was to have
\s_s/ 15 that wrapped up by -- as a matter of fact, yesterday, 16 November 3, was slipped a month or so ago to the end of 17 January, 18 How successful we will be in meeting that is going 19' to depend on what additional activities we might find 20 ourselves involved in over the next couple of months.
21 Just to briefly recap, we identified some 39 22 technical areas for consideration. We are going to look at 23 them from a variety of perspectives, and it was cur intent 24 and is our intent before that goes forward to the Commission 25 to have internal buy in from the various program offices
[)
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l 96 1 ---- that would be affected.; ' That's provingLto be_ a lot to ' do.-
2 It's myrintent to-finish it early.next? calendar; year, but' 3' whether-we willimake itiby January 30 or not,-.weLare. going:
4f for-:it, butLit~willibe'a~ challenge.
~5' -DR. POWERS: -This' speaks'to1the area of having core _ capacities or-not.
' ~
. 6_ The committee does-have a-copy-of-7: -that SECY and in. addition some comments-from me, to the-8 -- LeffAct that we thought-the ranking:of categories-were well 9 . thought out. They looked'very useful to:me.
10- The questions came down on are-they really 11 -- discriminating or not. If-everything ends up high, you
_.12 can't prioritize, 13 MR. KNAPP: - Well, I'm not sure how well this will 14- -work in this case,~but it's worth considering at least.
15 We have done a number.of these where we said rank 16 them high, mecium and low. There are-39 of these. You have 17 13 high's in your quiver, 13 medium's and 13 low's. What we 18 -can do in fact is -- there is a variety of ways you can do 19 it, but you can get a number of people to do that and then 20 add.up the numberc. That tends to work.
21 It also has the attractive advantage of when you 22 do that, seme' people are going ~to say high and come-people 23 are going to say low, and yeau can cet=a lively debate as to 24 the reasons. That can be sluminating.
25 Those are some of the things we have yet-to talk ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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97 1 more about.
(q) w 2 DR. POWERS: What you.have said there is forcing-a 3- curve on the ranking system, and then you do get 4 discrimination with your qualitative things and probably 5 adequate for making discriminations.
6 MR. KNAPP: I think it's a good place, it's 7 something to do and see what it looks like when we are done.
8 So far, it's proving to be a bit more resource intensive 9 just to walk through a couple of categories than we though.
10 [ Laughter.)
11 MR. KNAPP: I want to see if there are ways we can 12 make it less resource intensive.
13 DR. POWERS: There's 15 questions in each area.
14 MR. KNAPP: That's right, if you do the math, p
(_/ 15 Perhaps we can make that a little less intensive.
16 DR. POWERS: I think it's a good thing to do.
17 MR. KNAPP: I would like to move on a little bit.
18 I have a couple of other thoughts I have but they fall under 19 answers to one or two of the questions, and then I'll turn 20 it over to Larry and Wayne and some of the others.
21 Very quickly, if you want to keep ucore, I'm going 22 to speak to -- by the way, as my staff and Brian know and of 23 course, Ashok, I stand ready to have people amplify or 24 contradict any of the answers I provide, but I'm going to 25 try to speak a bit to question one and question nine, r~N ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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96 1 Questions two and four, after discussion with NRR r%
2 and A20D, we felt that we woulo be prepared to listen to
(%)'
3 their answers. We felt those tended to be more answers 5 which they could give better than we. The other questions, 5 three and five through eight, we will have answers for as 6 time wears on 7 That does not mean you won't get answers to some 8 or all of these questions from NRR and AEOD as well, 9 hopefully you will get the viewpoints from a couple of 10 offices.
11 Do, POWERS: I understand the questions were 12 inteided just to help you, rather than say show up and talk, 13 give things focus.
14 MR, KNAPP: As a matter of fact, they have helped (1s/ 15 us focus and you will be interested to learn there are one 16 or two I really didn't want to answer, so that means they 17 were successful in that way.
18 Talking a little bit about the first question, and
- 19 I'm going to go through these not quite in order, and I I
20 think you may have a handout which speaks to those and 21 begins with something like question 1(a) . I won't do too 22 much reading here, but just to quickly scan it.
l 23 You will see that we find that about 75 percent of 24 the work -- Ashok mentioned 80 and I could just as easily l
25 argue 80 percent, that we call confirmatory, and about 25
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99 1- percent anticipatory.
(
V) 2 If you really wanted a simplistic way to define 3 the difference, you'd say, well, we have user need letters 4 on the stuff that's confirmatory, but the fact iP, that is 5 overly simplistic. We have tser need letters on things that 6 I think we would call anticipatory in terms of taking a 7 longer view, and there are things where I'm not sure we have 8 usar need letters but we would probably consider it 9 confirmatory research.
10 It's not a bad place to start, but that at least 11 gives you a feel for it.
12 If you were to take a look at operating plans, and 13 thece have been made available to ACRS staff You may or may 14 not want to look at them. Again, each operating plan b,/
x_ 15 probably runs three or four pages. The first page answers a 16 number of questions about the significance of the work, 17 questions about sunsetting, questions about other people 18 that are doing the work, and then the following pages in 19 each operating plan talk about planned accomplishments.
20 If you want to look at some of these in a little 21 more detail, you can do that. One of the things you will 22 find in those operating plans is identification -- there's a 23 box that has an A or C in it. "A" is for anticipatory and 24 "C" is for confirmatory.
- 25 If somebody really wanted to go through and do the l
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100 1 math, you could block it out that way. That's about where 2 you come out in the vicinity of 75 percent. Again, those are (9v) 3 subjective decisions in some cases. If you wanted to get 4 more of a feel for some of the differences and you wanted to 5 look in that level of detail, that information is available.
6 MR. KRESS: This particular slide to me is more of 7 the nature to where such areas get identified and not how.
8 I'd be a little more interested in how issues arise, how 9 they come up. You talk about triggering mechanisms.
10 MR. KNAPP: Right.
11 DR. POWERS: Maybe if I could amplify just a 12 little bit, Tom. Suppose tomorrow morning, you had 1,000 11 user need requests show up on your d7sk.
14 MR. KNAPP: Right. I got two this morning.
(^%
(_-) 15 DR. POWERS: It's 1,000. You can't possibly do 16 them all.
17 MR. KNAPP: Right.
18 DR. POWERS: Larry has already scraped two. He 19 can't help you with all and what not. I guess what we are 20 asking is how do you now go through and say, sorry, Brian, 21 your requart isn't going to get filled, because I'm going to 22 do this otaer thing.
23 MR. KNAPP: To a degree, the answer to that 24 question is a little bit of a work in progress. Let me talk 25 about it for a moment or two. I don't think you will find ry
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._ y _ r L101 i lu ithir.necessarily satisfying, it's simply'where we-areiright; ~ _
E4 !
, l 12l at the~ moment.
7 3- DR. POWERS: -That's' fair.
f4: MR. KNAPP:~ I'm concerned.about pricritization.
S- Frankly, one of my -- I'm going to'do1this>a_little' bit 6 ' ahead of where I_might have spoken about it otherwise.
7 Ashok mentioned earlier-the possibility - .the 8' probability that some time.in March or April of next year, 9 we are going to be' called upon to give at the office. :In1 ,
10 fact, I expect that no matter what happens to the budget,
- il - they will do the usual technique of asking each office, if-12 fyou were to take a five or ten or 15 percent cut, where ,
13 would you take it, and likewise, if you were able to get 14- more, what would you do with it.
A k/s '15 The-way that I'm working on that right now, and 16 this is sort of in the nature of you walk before you run, is 17 'that we are attempting to priorit.ize, and at this moment, 18 the first place that we sre looking is this list of 15 19' sub-activities that I mentioned earlier today.
20 We are-going to try to do a relative ranking of
- 21. all 14. We are going to do a number of things with this, 22 but one-of the things we would be able to do is answer this, 23 Brian,.in our view, but if you really want this done, here 124 is-the one-on the list that in our view is probably the 25 thing _that we-should. set aside to make this happen. How
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102 1 would we prioritize that?
(~h
() 2 Right now, we are investigating what amounts to 3 again, a sort of expert elicitation. It's a simple way of 4 getting a number of the senior managers in research 5 together. I won't bore you with the details of the 6 technology. Again, I can, if you like.
7 Essentially, ft winds up ranking the 14 programs 8 and it will not only tell us what the rank order is but it 9 will tend to show what the differences are, so that two or 10_ three are substantially higher-and the rest are 11 substantially lower. It will show that.
12 MR. KRESS: Is there a conflict of interest type 13 of problem there internally?
14 MR. KNAPP: 1 would certainly expect there is, and 15 one of the things that we may very well do is to have 16 managers rank all programs except those in their particular 17 bailiwick. That's a possible way of dealing with that.
18 There are ways you can address it.
19 I'm not going to tell you the first time out of 20 the box it will necessarily be the best way, httt we are 21 going to take a crack at that.
22 DR. PCWERS: When you say it sort of an expert 23 elicitation, the agency has set the standard for doing that.
24 MR. KNAPP: Yes, it has.
25 DR. POWERS: And it has come up with a fairly A'
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103
.1: codified procedure'for doing-that. Do you follow your own
/~T1 1
J. 12' standard?- '
3 MR. KNAPP: My difficulty is I would love to ,
4 ; follow my own_ standard. With the things we have on our 5 plate, if we-do that, I do not believe that we will have a 6 response in time.to be able to deal with a March question.
7 As I said, this answer is not entirely satisfying.
8 This-first step is not the best. It's simply 9 where we will be. Let~me back up. Where.we were within the 10 last week was wrestling pretty much on the fly with where we 11 might have.to take hundreds of thousands of dollars in cuts.
12 I don't want to do that again if I can help it.
13 This will help us to address this at least with 14 the sense that over a somewhat longer period than a few days -
4
.O( /: 15- or a week, we have a basis to say okay, this is how we feel 16 about it.
17 Is it the best way? No. Would we like to do it 18 to be consistent with agency expert-elicitation? To the 19 extent that we can, yes, I would like to do that. I agree.
. 20- I've seen some good stuff in a variety of areas, and perhaps 21 we can do that.
22 The question at the moment is what can we do that 23 is within the resources we have.
24 I did want to add-to that, let's not forget our 25 customer. Once we have done this_prioritization, then we ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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4 104 1 have NRR, who is going to take a look and hopefully use the
~s
( ) 2 same or very similar technology, and we are going to talk to V
3 each other. If we don't come out with approximately the 4 same answers, we are going to try to figure out why.
5 Down the road, depending on the interests of the 6 ARCS and the success of this, I would not be at all unhappy 7 to have ACRS conduct a similar exercise and hear your views 8 on the relative ranking of these and get involved in the 9 discussion of why. That would be very helpful to us.
10 DR. POWERS: It's an interesting exercise for 11 members to participate in. I think the committee itself I 12 would hope would quickly says it looks like a management 13 function to me.
14 (Laughter.)
O
( ,/ 15 MR. KRESS: Double star.
16 DR. POWERS: Yes, a double star.
17 MR. KNAPP: Well, in any case, as I say, it's not 18 a fully satisfying answer, but there's another part to the 19 question. I think it's broader than just prioritizing 20 what's on our plate. It addresses what is not on our plate.
21 It asks the question -- what I have just described is a 22 relative prioritization. Somewhere along the line, I think 23 we need to have something more of an absolute 24 prioritization, because what I've just described responds to 25 the question, take a ten percent cut. It does not respond
,a i
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N 105 1; to the question, should you takeLaEten percent-cut. Can you
() 2 live withLa ten percent-cut?-
3 That's going to grow in part'out of our core 4- capability work, which I mentioned earlier, in terms of this .
5 is where we draw the line. We must-have this.
~
6- I:also-would like to take a look in terms of what 7 research we should be doing, including-what we_are doing.and 8 what we have not done, and I'd likeito look,-among.other
-9 things, like within'the office,'certainly within theLagency,
- 10 with_the other offices, but I'd like to go beyond the 11 agency.
- 12. I'd be very interested in finding out what a 13- - number of our universities who have outstanding nuclear 14 engineering departments think is going to come at us over l
) 15: the next five or ten years, 16 I'd like to find out what our international 17 friends think is going to come at us over the next five or 18 ten years.
- 15 I'd like to know what some of our licensees and g 20 vendors think. I know they tend to focus on economics and 21 other things, but I'd still like to hear what they think.
22- I'd111ke to hear what some of the consultants in the field
.23 think.
24 - If time permits, I would-like again, ch:e-we have 25 gotten past this first step of where are we-in prioritizing I
l n
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--y ,
1 106 I what we have, I'd like to look at what others think about -
() 2 3
what we might be doing.
The only thing I would ask for your indulgence in, ,
4 and this is sort of a walk before we can run, I weuld like 5 to move into a more complete and more systematic way of i 6- doing things, but at the moment, I feel I have very few 7 answers, and I'd like to have at least some rough answers 8 that I can then refine with better methods and taking more 9 resources.
10 DR. POWERS: 1.et me encourage you to develop your 11 thcughts. We are obligated to respond to the Commission on 12 how the agency positions itself to respond to future needs, 13 which is what you are talking about here. I think we are 14 going to get together in March. I'd like to discuss that in 15 detail. Understand, I think it's acceptable to the 10 Cona volon and acceptablo to us to walk before you run. I 17 think they just want to know where are we running to.
18 Understand, it may take a while to get what you'd like to 19 I have, 20 I think wa are going to have to delve into that 21 topic explicitly.
.!2 MR. KNAPP: My goal for this internal review 23 wi'.*hin Research and the NRR ia to have this done and agreed 24 to absolutely no later than the first of March, so this will 25' be available to you at the March meeting. In fact, that's ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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107 1
1 my drop dead date, partly because of the potential for a ;
() 2 budget-question for March dirst. I think we might be able f
3 to have that earlier. ;If we do, to tho extent we can, we- I i
4- will make it available when we have it. ;
.I 5 We'd be interested in your views not only on what j t
6 our answers are but on what you think of the methodology. ;
7- MR. SEALE: Dana, could I make a couple of 8 comments? j 9' I've asked myself as we have gone into this 10 process, where do I want to be. Where I trant to be is where ,
l 11 I-Gon'tEha're this kind of horrible decision making j 12 continuously affecting the process of judging what the 13 appropriate research program is, the budgetary problem and 14 all.
15 The only way I can see out of that - -
the only way 1
16 out of that I can see in the ?ong run is to get to the point 17 where the people in industry start saying, hey, you need to 18 do this additional research with the money that we're
- 19 providing in this budgetary or this fee recovery thing. You ;
20 know, that's as good as it could get. All right. Now, how do 21 you get there?
22 I would urge you, as you walx before you run and +
23 so on, to try to-establish some way to get industry feedback ,
24 on your research program.
25 I-had'an opportunity when I was on the INPO i
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108 1- Accrediting Board to watch people from industry work very x
2 dispassionately with other-people in a very fair way, with 3 other utilities and so forth, in rendering decisions about 4- . performance and so on.
5 I'think you could find people in the industry who 6 would be able to stand back from their immediate problem and 7 give.you some very useful insight on their perceptions of 8 where the important-research topics are. That's not the 9 only perception you need, but it strikes me as being one
-10 that wculd be-extraordinarily valuable, not only in judging Il what you do, but also reaching the climate you'd like to 12 have in the long run, mainly where they are supporting your 13 research programs.
14 DR. POWERS: It's simply self interest. Certainly, 15 the nuclear steam suppliers understand that when they come 16 forward with an advanced design, if the NRC already has the 17 tools in place for the evaluations, their life becomes a lot 18 easier.
19 MR. SEALE: Not only that, if the regulation is 20 already compatible.
21 MR. THADANI: If I may, Bob, I think that's an 22 excellent idea. Dave Morrison, when he was Director of the 23 Office of Research and I was at NRR, did pull together a 24 research program, its budget information, priorities, at 25 least'a rough cut, and provided that information to the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i 109 j 1 industry. The industry group, the group was chaired by Andy 2 Kadek. In fact, NEI participated in one full day 3 discussion. Vendors were present. Utilities were !
4 represented. ,
t 5 The general outcome of that discussion,.which is ,
6 reflected in a letter from Andy Kadek and Dave Morrison, was ;
7 prioritizing research activities. I can tell you, they put ;
8 severe accidents at the bottom, because the onlyL--'in their
-9 judgment, the outcome of severe accidents would potentially
.10 be to do more. .j 11 One has to recognize.that aspect. ;
12 MR.-SEALE: It's not the only input, it's an ;
13 important input. !
14 MR. THADANI: That's right. I think to his 15 credit, Dave worked very hard to try and get that input. My ,
16 sense is that the agency -- I think Research has to do more f
17 of that, much more interaction with the Electric Power 18 Research Institute as well. I think Mal will probably tell 19 you that's what the office is trying to do, moving in that ,
- 20 direction. Their budget is going down, too.
1 21 I think all the more, there are common interests, 22 and at least let's identify those and see how one can go ;
23 about it in a more efficient manner. ,
24 MR. KNAPP: I agree. Looking at the clock, I'd 25 . just as soon move onto questions 1(b) and (d) and deal with ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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I 110 1 them, not at a great deal in length. l 2 How does NRC define / quantify requirements and 3 establish a planning horizon for research? Right now, our
-4 -horizon tends to be about five years, and that's simply >
5 consistent-with the strategic plan.
6 Am I going to tell you that I think five years is 7 long enough for some of the needs we are going to have down i 8 the road? No , I don't think so. It's where we are at the 9 moment, but if we pursue what I mentioned a moment or two 10 ago about talking to others, I'd like to look ahead in the 11 neighborhood of ten years or 20 years and ask what might 12 happen.: i 13 DR. POWERS: I just have to tell a story, sitting 14 at a bar in Japan talking to an attache that had worked for 15 me for a coup..a of years and had gone back to Japan and was i
16 in their advanced planning group. So, I asked him, you know, 17 what was Japan thinking five years, ten years, and even 20, 18 He said, no, we think 200.
19 (Laughter.) ,
20 DR. POWERS: He was working on 200 years in the I
21~ future.
22 MR. KRESS: That's ridiculous.
23 DR. POWERS: Well, when I listened to his ideas, I 24 Lsaid, no, it's not ridiculous. I really enjoyed the 25 discussion at that point because they really do work-on 200 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 111 1 - years. !
() 2 MR. SHACK: It was science fiction.
It really was science fiction in the 3 - DK. POWERS:
4 sense of what they were doing.- I don't think the agency f 5 _ needs to worry about 200 years in advance. _
To give you an 6 idea that some people have a different perspective. l 7 [ Laughter.)
8 MR. KNAPP It's an interesting view. My personal' 9 perspective is somewhere 20 to 30 years and after that, I 10 _ look to others to carry on.
11 In any case, (ga'A- you folks can see what's ,
12 written here. Obviously, 30 190k at user need requests. We 13 have-a lot of the quantification and definition, if you .
14 - like, in what are now called the operating plans for each of ;
15 these sub-activities. As you look at those, again, you will 16 find a fair amount of definition. You can find the budgeted ;
17 resources with the specific products. The plans should have 18 an individual who is responsible for a product, if a product 19 is identified and anticipated delivery date.
20 I'm pretty comfortable but to the extent that 21 somehow-being that specific about reuearch, it just troubles )
22 me a little bit, just the concept of research means you really can't always plan'that well when all these things are 24 going to take place, at least I think ue have it pretty-well l 25 lined up and we will be obviously -- I will be disappointed
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t 112 f 1 if we don't make a series of_ changes,-because if we don't I
() 2 make changes, that means we aren't learning anything. At 3 least, we have a start.
4 The budget development and review cycle, I ;
5 mentioned'that a little earlier this morning, during Ashok's f i
6 talk. . This is Jim Blaha's process. -We have made a note.
7 We will talk to Jim, depending on the interest of the :
8 subcommittee or the committee. He can walk you through. ,
i 9 DR. POWERS: My understanding is that he's a ,
10 little bit swamped for right now, but that he might be j 11 available to chat with us a little bit in December maybe or :
12 at our March meeting. Either one of those, I think ---we are 13- - not looking for a great deal of detail. He could probably do 14 it off the top of his head. On the other hand, I understand 15 he has his marching orders from a higher authority.
16 MR. KNAPP: If at this point Jim is swamped, I i
17 - think that is a compliment. I would be overwhelmed were I 18 in his position.
19 DR. POWERS: I think we'd like to hear from him, i
20 but clearly, when he has a chance to compose himself a 21 little bit.
22 MR. KNAPP: Moving onto talking about how we set-23- priorities for funding. You have already heard some of the 24 schemes that-I talked about, and at the moment, I am looking E25 at a relatively simplistic way of doing this, at least in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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113 1 the near term. Again, walk before we run.
() 2 I'm really sort of looking at about two things.
3 One, if the work we are doing here -- let me back up. The 4 area in general, the issue that we are considering, how 5 important is it? Does it have a great deal of significance, 6 limited significance? Where is that?
7 And then second, if our work comes to f.*uition, 8 how much of an impact will we have? How likely is it that 9 we will be successful in the work we are doing and if it is 10 successful, will we resolve the issue in its entirety, will 11 we resolve a portion of it?
12 We will also look at it from sort of a different 13 angle, if you like. What is it that we have to do simply to 14 stay in place? We have a whole host of codes on things like 15 thermal hydraulics and severe accidents. We are going to 16 have to pay dues just to continue the codes in the future.
17 DR. POWERS: If one of our members weren't on jury 18 duty, he would be interrogating you closely and we'd be 19 terribly behind schedule, I'm sure, and the question in 20 essence that he would pose is we have worked as an agency, 21 have worked for 30 years, on thermal hydraulics. We have 22 codes, as you said. They do pretty good. They seem to 23 answer most of the questions and what not. Then we are
-24 continuing to pull resources into that area where the 25 questions are pretty much resolved, but when we look at
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'114 j
1 where the incidents occur, they are occurring in the human
() 2 factors area, where we don't even know what the questions 3 'are right now.
4 How do you make a priority decision to continue to 5 fund thermal hydraulics research at the expense of being 6 able to do anything real in the human factors area where 7 your problems really are?
8 That's the question'he would pose, whether it's 9- fair or not.
10 MR. KRESS: It has to do with that third bullet.
11 DR. POWERS: I think it does. I think it really 12 does, Tom. I think I would like Mal to give me that answer.
13 [ Laughter.)
14 MR. KNAPP: I guess my frank answer is the reason 15 I'm doing this prioritization is I can't answer your 16 question in a way that satisfies me at this moment, and I 17 intend to be able to do that if we talk in March.
.18 DR. POWERS: Yes, because you are going to get 19 that question.
20 MR. KNAPP: _ Exactly. That is a good question. In 21 fact, it's one that.I'm asking because I'm concerned about 22 -- you will hear later on about some of the things --
23 research that we could be doing but we are not doing. I
- 24. don't know if my schedule is going to permit me to be here I 25 for that, but I'm pretty concerned about human factors..
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1_ I don't personally understand. . I believe we have i
() 2 some utilities which are very successful, and we look at 3 what makes these utilities successful. Human factors from a !
4 somewhat different viewpoint perhaps than some of the 5 alternative views.
6 Is one successful. I don't know, what the seven
-7 . factors of very effective utilities. We put all those f 8 together and we say this is it_and we identify them.-
9 DR. POWERS: He is becoming entrepreneurial. He 10 said so.
11 [ Laughter.)
i 12 MR. KNAPP: I'm given to understand that in some :
- 13 cases, that's-been done. They have been identified. We 14 have then taken a look at other utilities and found that.
15 they have those habits. Everything is fine except they don't 16 - seem to'show that success.
17 If that is in fact -- again, I'm speaking from a 18 limited understanding of this subject, but if that's where i 19 we are, then I think we should be putting the money into 20- human factors. I want to get into an enthusiastic debate 21 with my staff and be able to come back and talk to you.
22 I suspect the third bullet is probably going to be 23 -
the factor, but I still want to wrestle with it. I'm not 24 satisfied that I am well enough educated on the r2bject to 25 answer the question and hopefully, in this prioritization, I
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116 1 will challenge the staff and they will' educate me. It's a l
2 - very good. question.
L3 DR. POWERS: Needless to say, this comittee, I_ !
4 think,.has written to you on human factors or certainly l i
5 _ written to your predecessor a couple of times on human j 6 factors, interested in what's going on and find a lot of i 7 things. g 8 One of the things that we found was that you 9- didn't have-somebody'that was in charge, that was j 10 responsible for that program. I guess that's correct.
11 The other thing that we were relatively critical 12' of was the whole program planning process, that we found an ;
13 inventory of programs rather'than -- it was impossible to' i 14 tell why this program and not some other program, what was I ,
15 - going to get.out of this.
9 16- That apparently has not been corrected yet, at 17 least based on our last briefing, and we still couldn't-tell 18 why this program and not some other program.
- 19. Where are we going? That's one of the research l 20 programs that we looked at in detail recently, is that 21 representative of if I go-into each one of these sub- 4 22 activities, will I find a similkr inventory and not a close 23 nexus to the program activities?
This'is Wayne Hodges.
~
24' MR. HODGES: There are-25 several assumptions-that have been put on the table that I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. .
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1 might want to challenge.
() 2 DR. POWERS: Sure, 3 MR. HODGES: First off, back up a little bit to 4 your assertions on the thermal hydraulics. Although many of 5 .the problems have been solved and we can address many 6 problems, I will not accept your assertion that we can 7 essentially solve all of them, so I think it's a bit of a 8 simplification.
9 DR. POWERS: Let me be very clear. I was only 10 representing the views of an absent member. I, too, can 11 take him to task on a couple.
12 MR. HODGES: I would characterize that as a 13 simplification and there still are some solutions to 14 problems to solve.
O)
'\_- 15 Since I also have the responsibility for the human 16 factors as well --
17 DR. POWERS: You had no conflict of interest here.
18 MR. HODGES: There's lots of conflicts. There are 19 many areas to try to be satisfied. Part of the problem I'm 20 trying to characterize is we are trying to satisfy not just 21 the research part of the function, but you know, the 22 inspections and other parts of the function, too, and be 23 able to properly characterize and properly prioritize for 24 resources for all of those types of things, and there is a 25 lot of vested interest.
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1 Although we don't have a good answer for you yet, 2 and I will readily admit that, that it-is clearly being done 3 with the program offices actively involved and we are doing .
4 the best_ job we can to try to tie to what the needs are of 5 those users.
6 It's not disconnected from that, we don't have a !
7- . good answer for you yet mainly because we have been having 8 fairly active discussions among ourselves.
9 You are right. We are not done with the job. I t
10 readily admit that. I do disagree a little bit with your 11 characterization.
12 DR. POWERS: Maybe I'm overly harsh. Clearly, this i 13 committee has to understand the nexus. I mean, that's in e
14 our marching orders. We just have no choice in that.
15 MR. FONTANA: 'Along those lines, it's kind of 16 obvious, but I think it is very important that if you ask 17 different people what their input is, they ought to clearly __
18 know what the attributes of the decision criteria are, like ,
19 the answer you got from industry obviously is based on a i 20 different viewpoint and the relative importance to them, 21 The other thing, there are some areas _that are not 22 technical, and do seem to be under represented, like 23 something like the effects of under spending on maintenance, 24- things like that, you know. The long term effects of 25 restructuring and excessive cost control and that sort of
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i i thing. They-are hard to define, which doesn't mean they l
0 2 3
shouldn't be looked at..
along in-those directions,- too?
The question is are you thinking l l
l 4 MR.-KNAPP: It may very well be that Wayne'or i t
t 5 Larry will want-to say something. - I know'that when we look l 6 at some-of those things and we are-talking about leading-
{
7 indicators, as one way to look at it, and that, of course, 8 is a_ concept that we are looking on, "we" as an agency, are
'l 9 _looking at_under the umbrella of senior management meetings, i
10 and that's something that comes to mind. i i r 11 It's getting a certain amount of attention. I 12 don't know whether Wayne or Larry want to add to that. I 13 want to give them a chance to, if they'd like.
14 MR. SHAO: To answer your question, maintenance is 15 very important. Wayne mentioned this, lack of maintenance.
16 This is an area we should look at. '
17 We have inspection on reactor vessel piping and i
. 18- everything every ten years, but in the structure area, there ;
- 19 -is no maintenance requirements. People are very concerned, -
20 they think the structure is very good but is it good for 60 !
- i 21 years. For that reason, we are starting a program, like 22 tanks in a maintenance program, in an inspection program.
23 We are looking_to that..
24'- We take that into consideration. If there is good ,
25; maintenance, he has less worry. If he has no maintenance, r ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i l 120 1 he should look at it. If you don't look at anything for 40
() 2 years or 60 years -- we talk about planning.
3 In my area, it would be easier. Safety of the i
4 reactors, good for advanced reactors and also good for 5 license renewal. Our program hopefully is applicable for all 6 these three areas.
7 We are responsible for the integrity of structure 8 systems and components. We want to work on big ticket 9 items, the reactor vessel, containment, cables, valves, 10 pumps and reactor internal's, pipings, so we call them big 11 ticket items, normally for 40 years, also for 60 years. ;
12 Our planning is to work on the most important 13 structure system components, and then we look at 14 deficiencies, like you just mentioned, maintenance is a weak 15 link, so we should look at certain areas. Cable has no 16 maintenance program either.
17 There are two areas that don't have a good 18 inspection program. One is cables and one is structures.
19 MR. UHRIG: Those are management decisions, aren't 20 they, as opposed to human factors?
21 MR. FONTANA: No , I changed the subject.
22 MR. HODGES: To the extent Mal was discussing what 23 we have done at the senior management meetings and how we 24 want to try to tailor how we look at it, Research is working 25 with AEOD to look at those types of issues.
i rh
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1 MR. KNAPP: Let me ask, although we may have 2 spoken to your specific example, frankly, I'm not sure that I 3 -- I need to listen a little more to be able to generalize 4 further on your concern, maybe not in an answer today but at 5 least to follow up on it.
6 MR. FONTANA: Yes. The concern is what I heard 7 here is very good, but there are still things you can do 8 technically, The next step is how does this relate to 9 leading indicators to quick and adequate f.unding and how 10 much is good enough maintenance and how much isn't, that 11 sort of thing.
12 What I'm driving at is the softer issues, other 13 chan hard technology. I think they have the hard technology 14 pretty well in hand. The softer issues seem kind of softer.
15 (Laughter.]
16 MR. UHRIO: It's really a fundamertal issue here 17 because if you get into human factors, it would appear to me 18 that the state-of-the-art or state of the science, whatever 19 you want to call it, is a generation behind what it is in 20 most of the other areas that you deal with.
21 Wayne wants to challenge that, but just the 22 fundamentals of the field of human performance, human 23 behavior, is not in the same league with thermal hydraulics.
24 That makes it a more difficult field to deal with.
25 MR. SEALE: That brings up an interesting point,
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1 as a matter of fact,--and that is human factors being a !
2 mature discipline, it's much more subject to the idea that f
(
3 the real stars in tne field are individual entrepreneurs, j 4 people that have an idea and they are proving it or they are ;
5 working with it.
f 6 A lot of these people are individuals in ;
7 individual plants. They are doing things there'. In some f I
8 cases, the other plants in that same utility ar, adapting ;
r 9 those practices ard moving them over, but I don't think the l 10_ industry -- the agency has really made as good an effort as :
-11 they might to go out and really learn what those things are. ,
12 That is just a suggestion to you. I can give you )
13 a couple of names.
14 MR. KRESS: The problem is that human factors 15 don't follow the laws of physics f 16 MR. SEALE: I know, that's right, e 17 MR. MILLER: It kind of reminds me when I was a 18 freshman, I took a course in psychology, and there was a l 19 debate as to whether psychology was a science or not. I 20 think that debate still lives on. I don't want to say how ,
21 long ago I took that psychology course. Human factors are in 22 psychology.
23 DR. POWERS: Well, it seems to me that the human 24 factors-versus the thermal hydraulics is an illustrative 25 example.- Its one that-gets drawn by_our members often. I ANN'RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 ~c ould have equally well drawn thermal hydraulics versus 2 digital electronics. It's transparent to everyone that 3 thermal hydraulics is far more important.
4 There is another issue that comes up on this :
5 prioritization. I don't know that I want an answer from you 6 right now, but'we will need an answer for ourselves some j
7 time, and that is that in many of these areas, why should we 8 be doing research at all? We are directed to adopt industry 9 -- conssnsus industry standards. They have done the 10_ research, why not just take them?
1.1 I'm not sure that'the agency absolutely has to 12 . follow public law in these regards. In fact, I think they '!
i 13 don't have to follow this particular public law, but they 14 choose to as a matter of policy.
15 MR. KNAPP: That's interesting. That provides a !
16 handy segue into the answer to question.nine. You know, the .
17 first comment I would make, which I think is obvious to all 18 of us, that is that the agency has to maintain an 19 independent capability to be able to say, weu , yes, this is 20 an industry standard, industry developed this, but we were-21 smart enough to-look at the standard and decide whether we 22 are comfortable with it or not and whether or not we are 23 prepared to adopt it.
24 -
That being said, I-think the extent-of which we 25 -can find industry-wide standards, obviously -- well, any .
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124 1 place where we can leverage what we have, we are going to be
() 2 3
better off. If we can find industry-wide standards, if we can cooperate with industry in research programs, if we can 4 leverage ourselves with international programs, we need to 1
5 do that.
6 Again, I'm str. ting the obvious here, I think.
7 DR. POWERS: Well, no, I'm not sure it's 8 altogether obvious to me. The one question I had, there are 9 consensus standards and there are consensus standards. Like #
10 IEEE or ASME comes out with a consensus standard. I know 11 that's a consensus standard and I think most people do and -
12 they understand it. It seems like NRC has an excellent i 13 track record, if you ask me, about participating in both the 14 development and subsequent review and evaluation taking
()
3 15 exceptions when necessary on those kinds of consensus >
16 standards, 17 There is another kind of standard that comes out.
18 It's not so obvious to me that it's a consensus standard 19 that the public law speaks to, and when NEI comes up with 20 something their members have voted on and having approved, 21 they are all obligated to undertake it, so it's e 22 industry-wide in the sense of the nuclear industry is all 23 supposed to comply with it.
24 Now, is that a consensus-standard as referred to 25 in the public law and one that the NRC necessarily has to be ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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125 l 1 more circumspect about:doing its own thing? :
(II 2 MR. KNAPP ~ Good question, and for all I know --
3 well, I saw Brian-put his hand up.
4- DR. POWERS: Here we go, a man who is currently l i
5 involved. f 6 MR. SHERON: Actually, I was looking around for l
- . 7 John Craig. It's interesting, because I was just reviewing ,
1 8' Commission Paper DSI-13, which speaks to this very issue. l 9 My understanding, reading the paper, is that if we 10 choose to use an industry document like an NEI guide in lieu 11 of an' industry standard,- then we have to go back tu OMB and >
i.
12 explain why we are doing that.
13 If there.is no industry standard and we want to
-14 endorse an NEI document, then I don't believe we have to, i 15 So, it's only if we choose to use something like 16 that in lieu of a consensus standard. .
17 DR. POWERS: But a consensus standard of ASME or !
18 IEEE exists and you choose not to follow that but to do 19 something else, you have to explain why? !
20 MR. SHERON: Correct.
21 DR. POWERS: I think that's not a problem. I 1 22 think that's a rare problem compared to the other one where 23 NEI has one-of their things that their members vote on, euch 12 4 as like'the. shutdown performance or something like that, -
25 whether that in and of itself constitutes an industry l () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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I standard, not necessarily a consensus standard, that the l 2 public law speaks to. i 3 MR.'SHERON: Yes. We have no objection to using i 4 an industry standard if-it's acceptable to the staff. l 5 DR. Pr**ERS : _Yes, as long as you are allowed to 6 take exceptions.-
7 MR. SHERON: 'Yes, we could certainly take ,
8 exceptions when we go through the endorsement process. ,
i 9 MR. MILLER: But the public law would not be an ;
- 10 agreement that industrial guideline, such as for NEI ar.d ,
111 EPRI,'is an industrial standard. -!
12 DR. POWERS: As I read the public law, in its 13 concept, I think it was speaking to handbook standards and 14 consensus standards.
15 MR. MILLER: The consensus standard process is a 16 process that is well accepted in ASME and IEEE and all of 17 them use the same process. l 18 DR. POWERS: I think the writers of the public law 19 also looked to certain handbook things, for instance, the 20 International Committee on Radiation Protection would be to :
21 the public law a standard, an industry standard, even though 22 it has not been through the consensus process.
-23 MR. SHAO: - We try not to re-invent the wheel, 24 _ They have a regulation called 50.55(a). It does endcrse the 25 so-called _ consensus standards, both from ASME and IEEE.
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l 127 1 There are cases where the staff do not agree with the
() 2 so-called consensus standard. Then we start doing research.
3 I'll give you an example. About two years ago, 4 they published a new edition to revise the stressful design 5 on piping, the loading. It was about 50 percent higher than 6 we have endorsed in the past. The staff didn't agree with 7 the ASME conuensus standard, so we did some research and we 8 worked very closely with Brian's people and finally they 9 researched it for up and NRC was right.
10 We had a meeting with them recently and ASME 11 agreed with our research, so they are going to revise their 12 standard again.
13 So, we try not to re-invent the wheel. In 14 general, we endorse their standards, but if we don't agree, 15 then we do some research.
16 DR. POWERS: Let me jump into your vu-graph here 17 on question nine, just to mediate.
18 MR. KNAPP: Please.
19 DR. POWERS: It's the first bullet where you say 20 NRC must maintain an independent capability.
21 I think the question that comes up is you cannot 22 maintain an independent capability in every area of physics, 23 chemistry, human factors, et cetera, that arise in the power 24 plants. They are far too complicated.
25 How are we going to decide where we have t^
i
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128 [
1 maintain independent capability in anticipation of future I
() 2- needs versus being secure that if one of those future things 3 come up, we can always go find the expertise?
4 -MR. DONNELLY Mal, could I take a shot at that? I j 5 think I'm the one --
{
6 MR. KNAPP: I'd be delighted to have you take a 7 shot. j i
8 MR. DONNELLY: -- who prepared that bullet, and I j 9 think in retrospect, I would change the word " maintain," '
10 which I think you keyed upon, to "have access to." One of
-11 the considerations as part of the core capability assessment 12 is how much you have to literally maintain on staff versus ,
13 if a problem should arise, could we in a reasonable amount i 14 of time, gain access to an independent capability.
15 MR. MILLER: How do you define " independent?"
16 MR. DONNELLY: Independent? Well, there's the 17 whole legal consideration of conflict of interest that I'm 18' not well versed in, but it would be free of conflict of j
19- interest. We have rules and so forth, criteria, that we 20 apply in the contracting process to make sure that whenever 21 we do contract with someone, they_are reasonably free of 22 that conflict of interest.
, t 23 MR MILLER: As defined by the lawyers.
24- MR. DONNELLY: Even within the DOE labs, we have ,
25 to be careful. .
1
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l 129 J 1 MR. MILLER: Is EPRI independent?
() 2 3
MR. SHAO:
DR. POWERS:
No. They work for the industry.
Let me make a request. This is j 4 another area where we have no choice. We have to respond to I 5 the Commission on this issue of maintaining versus having 6 access to.
7 In our March meeting, if we could have some sort 8 of an articulation of that, maybe no more than the words i 9 that you have just said, but somehow, we are going to have 10 to comment on the differences between having access and ,
11 actually maintajning personnel, i
12 If you could give us what your thinking is for our 13 March meeting on that criteria, that would help us.
14 MR. SEALE: Could I add a complication to that?
15 DR. POWERS: Sure.
16 MR SEALE: It seems to me that one of the 17 questions you have to judge in making that decision is not 18 only access but the timeliness of the access.
19 DR. POWERS: Absolutely.
20 MR. SEALE: And those things that are necessary to 21 emergency response capability, I think you have to maintain.
12 2 I don't think you can stand around waiting for the lawyers 23 to tell you whether or not you can talk to somebody, if it 24 has something ---hopefully, it's a better informed analog of 25 _the hydrogen bubble.
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130 1 [ Laughter.)
2 MR. SHAO: You have to know enough to know when to 3 ask for inelp.
4 MR. SEALE: Yes, but you may need the answer in a ,
5 timely way and those things you can identify, those 6 disciplinary areas where you need ';imely answers, you can't 7 afford to build a wall between yourself and --
8 MR. SHAO: If that's so weak, when the issue comes 9 up, you don't know whether to ask for help or not.
10 MR. UHRIG: There's an additional complication 11 coming down the lino and that has to do with the intended 12 DOE -- NRC role in regulating DOE. That could have some 13 influence on the independence issue.
14 MR. KNAPP: That could have a very significant 15 impact because there are, as you know, facilities and skills 16 at some of the DOE labs that are not duplicated anywhere 17 else in the country.
18 I was discussing, as a matter of fact, yesterday 19 at lunch, the possibility of our loss of access to some of i
20 those as a result of our potentially regulating DOE. That .
21 going to require a lot of thought. In fact, we may ask 22 whether or not exceptions can be made or whether it would 23 need to be addressed if there's legislation at some point to 24 direct us to do that, whether the legislation should address 25 that issue.
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131 1 I lie awake wondering about that one. !
() 2 3
MR. SEALE: Those questions may in fact in the long term affect availability of certain people for this 4 committee.
5 MR. KNAPP: You've asked -- I think it's a good 6 _ question and one of the things I'd like to really solicit 7 the answer to. Somewhere in there, I sort of get the level 8 of detail, and it's sort of okay, can we get chemical engineering independently? Yes. Can we get chemical 9
10 engineering that knows all the subtleties of such and such?
11 That might be another question.
12 We will think about that a little as well, and 13 yes, we will have an answer for you for your meeting.
14 DR. POWERS: It's a question we have to address.
O ks ,/ 15 I would feel far more comfortable addressing it knowing your i 16 thinking than trying to do it independently.
17 MR. KNAPP: Sure. We will wrestle with that and 18 provide you with 6n tuswer.
19 DR. POWERS: You have done what you proposed to 20 do, I think.
21 MR. KNAPP: I think I have.
22 DR. POWERS: Okay. I think I'm going to declare a 23 lunch break, but before I do that, we are running near 25 24 minutes over the schedule. Is that impacting your people?
25 MR. KNAPP: My folks, I think, were planning to be
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132 '
i i back for the 1:00 portion. I would like to think -- they ;
() 2 are addressing a number of the questions. Probably, although I've eaten into their time, a number of the issues have 3
4 already been addressed. I suspect it will go faster.
5 Right now, I think if the question is are they 6 prepared to come back this afternoon to speak about these, 7 yes. I think that's where we were.
8 MR. HODGES: I'm available until about 3:00 and 9 then I have to leave to catch a plane.
10 DR. POWERS: Okay. We may have to shift things 11 around a little bit, but if I go over 25 minutes in the 12 afternoon, I'm not going to kill anybody.
13 Why don't I suggest then that we come back at 14 1:15?
15 [Whereupon, at 12:25 o.m., the meeting was 16 recessed, to reconvene at 3.25 p.m., this same day.]
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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Y 133 1 AFTERNOON SESSION
() 2 (1:20 p.m.)
3 DR. POWERSt. Let's come back to session. ;
4 There is a man with an airplane.to catch, so he's ;
5 -ready to go.
6 -Before we get started,.I would appreciate it if 7 members would prepare during the meeting and tonight lists .
8- of issues you think that the subcommittee-needs to wrestle i 9 with or otherwise confront in its writings. >
10- If you will give those to us tomorrow morning,
-11 then I'll work to get-them summarized and available to us 12 for our discussion period at the end of the day tomorrow, so 13 they can be relatively terse -- literally lists, i 14 Wayne? Larry? It's up to you guys. Go ahead.
15 MR. HODGES: I am Wayne Hodges. I am D.irector of 16 Systems Technology in the Office of Research and I will 17 start out on Question 3 and then Larry will join in on the 18 latter part of it.
19 The question was what major areas of NRC sponsored 20 research have been identified for continuation, completion -
21 and initiation and what is the expected impact on the NRC 22 regulatory process.
23_ That is a fairly large question.
24 I think it's easy to say that work will continue e
25 in all of our major areas. We don't see that we will be
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1- ; stopping anyLof them-altogether. There will be~ projects ;
() 2 3
-.that'will be stopped or. started during that time but-in the l major areas work will continue, i
~
4 You can'get a lot of the details of what that will 5q be in our operating-plan, which is he2pful if you suffer-6 from-insomnia,it will be good to use.
7 We have in the table and the next couple tables, j 8 and I will cover the firrt six and then Larry will cover the 9 rest of them'-- just some examples, so not the complete ;
10 answer to vour question, which is found in the Operating ;
11 Plan, but just some examples that we have pulled together to 12 try to highlight in each of the areas, 13- In thermal hydraulics and reactor physics a major 14 effort there is what we are doing on the computer codes-for
) 15 modernizing them and combining them-and tbon we have got _
16 milestones in place to try to have deliverables along-the 1
17 way that are usable products, 18 There are subtasks associated with it that involve 4
19 thinDs like graphical user interfaces to make things easier 20 to use, but the idea is the codes we currently have, in a.
21 few years-we probably wouldn't even be able to run them and 22 even today they are ve ry dif ficult to use so we want to 23 modernize them so they are faster-and easier to use, more-24 -robust -- they don't keep breaking down on you in the
'25 process of trying to solve a proolem.
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135 11 Ju I have highlighted a couple.of milestones for-d) ~2 Lthose particular codes.
~
~
3 ;MR. UhRIG:-' Will they be platform independent?
i
-4: MR. HODGES: That,is'the goal, yes -- both
.5 -platform independent and modular, so that you cantadjust the ,
6 -level of difficulty or complexity of computer codra s o the _
7 problem solving.
8' lDR. POWERS: I'm going to have to operate a little 9 bit from memory so_maybe-I will defer to the Chairman:of the 10 Thermal Hydraulics Subcommittee.
111 My recollection is-there was going to be an
-12 ~enamination in this program about the need for the 13 feasibility of that supercode, a newer version of either 14 RELAP or SCDAP that might have more extensive changes than 15 simply modernization.
'16- MR. HODGES: The first step is'actually the 17 modernization of TRAC to change this database so it will be
- . 18 the vehicle for continued development, so it won't be the 19 -same TRAC that you recognize and love so dearly now, but 20 this is joint effort with Bettis, actually, and so'when the
, 221 first milestone is' complete, that and then once we have that 4
22 as a basis then we will use that to combine the various TRAC 23 codes _into a single code and the,from there go forward to' l24 have in about five or six years a final single code that 25 represents hopefullyLall of the good points of the codes we ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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136 1 1 have had plus the traits of being more robust and easier to (7 \) 2 use.
\.s 3 DR. POWERS: At the time we discussed this, the 4 issue of maesively parallel processing for thermal hydraulic 5 codes came up. .Is that being pursued or investigated?
6 MR. HODGES: Well, massive parallel processing, 7 no, but parallel processing, yes. It's when you start to go 8 into more than a few parallel processors -- and I am not an 9 expert here but some of my people are -- after you get above 10 four or five I think you start losing some of the advantages 11 of some of the parallel processing, at least for our type of 12 work and so I think we would envision parallel processing 13 but not the massive one that comes from Sandia and other 14 places.
O
's,_) 15 DR. POWERS: I see in the Department of Energy's 16 forecasting of the future thac having this capability for I 17 believe they want to get up to the 100 Terraflop level by 18 the year 1020 or something like that. I mean it is a major 19 effort on their part to create these capabilities, I assume 20 for thermal hydraulic purposes, although it's thermal 21 hydraulics on a timescale substantially shorter than the 22 blink of an eye.
23 MR. HODGES: Some things would lend themselves 24- very readily to breaking it out and solving it in that 25 fashion. Others you could get some benefit from some
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137 1 parallelization but I'd say you start losing some of the
(~
( ,)f 2 efficiencies after awhile.
3 We have looked at that and we have decided if you 4 use parallel processors you offset -- I'll say it right in a 5 minute -- then you have done probably about as much as is 6 reasonable.
7 That is a]so consistent with having it somewhat 8 platform-independent because at least in the foreseeable
.9 future the machines out there will do parallel processing 10 but not the massive stuff.
11 DR. POWERS: Clearly that is a topic that our 12 intention when just reiterated is that many of these topics 13 we are going to do in more detail on individual 14 subcommittees and I presume the Thermal Hydraulics will C\
(ms/ 15 explore that in whatever detail we need, 16 MR. KRESS: It is certainly our intention, yes, 17 MR. SEALE: Just one quick question.
18 Recently we have had some discussions about 19 stratification inside containment. Would these modified 20 codes be able to handle that kind of problem?
21 MR. HODGES: No.
22 MR. KRESS: They're still parameter codes.
23 MR. SEALE: That is what I would have thought.
24 MR. HODGES: We do have codes that we are working 25 on with both DOE and the Germans that would address that O
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138 1 type of a-problem, working on it in'the severe accident
() 2- arena,_'but:these would not explicitly address that.
-3 In the fuel-behavior area, there's a lot been. 4 4 going on'there._ What I have highlighted'here is.that by'the 4
5 end of December we are supposed to'have an agency plan-put 6 together for what we_are going to be doing in theLhigh 7 burnup fuel area, and.this is just to kind of highlight that 8' we are coordinating this very_ closely with-NRR.
9 We.are asking the kind-of questions that need to 10 be asked there on risk significance of some of the work and 11 what really needs to be done.
12 DR. POWERS: When I look at EPRI's sales 13 literature en the research they do for the industry, I see 14 things that seem to parallel closely things that appear in
()
15 the NRC program plan under fuel behavior.
16 Is this one of those areas where the memo of 17 understanding is going:to address?
18 MR. HODGES: This is one of the areas that the MOU 19 is addressing.
20 They have had some work going on for several years 21 with other organizations which we are not allowed access to, 22 but it's work.that is being done not-from so much a safety 23 perspective as it is from a product development perspective 24 and the group that is sponsoring that work has said we want 25 no regulatora involved in that process.
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139l
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1 DR.-POWERS: 'Okay. ,
.fs -
2 MR. HODGES: It's an' international organization,
}]
3' =and so we have not generally had access to that. We have
-4 had -- we have gotten some access to some of the output, but 5 ;we=have no input to the program, but separate from that we 6 have been having_ discussions _with EPRI about doing some work 7- -here and assuming this MOU does go through, there will'be a 8 program. '
9 Work will be done at Argonne. We_have already
- 10. started. We expect their participation in it.
11 DR. POWERS: I mean that-is the one that struck me 12- as I see within the EPRI planning extensive-work on high 13 burnup clad mechanical properties and I see within-your i
14 plans one of the biggest componenr.s of your plans at least
() 15 dollar-wise is in fact that exact same title.
16 It is just because you don't have access to what 17 EPRI is doing in that area.
18 MR HODGES: When I say EPRI, it's an 19 international group that EPRI is a member of, t 20 DR. POWERS: That's right.
21 Ma, HODGES: So that we don't really have access 22 to but there are other things we can do with them.
23 In the advanced I&C area, the one that I pulled 24 'out with just the Reg Guide that we are working on for the 2S EMI/RFI, and we are supposed to have something final on that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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140 1- -by next June,
) 2, I think some of that information has been -;
3- presented to the Committee as we have gone-along and-shared .
-4 some of the results with you.
5 DR. POWERS:. Yes, that one you-are going to idsue-
-6 for public comment.
7- MR. HODGES: Yes. In fact, it is going out I 8 think fairly soon for.public comment. It got held up in my 9 review because I had some questions I had to go back and-do 10 some digging on that had to do with things like looking at 11 it-from a risk informed aspect and some. areas that I-thought 12 might have been omitted from the research and so we went and 13 took a look at, but it should be going out fairly soon now.
14 DR. POWERS: It seems to me I have just gotten l
15 some fairly-extensive topical reports on this EMI/RFI.
16 'i have to apologize for not having read them, 17 but it was a fairly thick stack.
18 DR. POWERS: Yes, it's a healthy amount of 19 information.
20 MR. MILLER: That's the technical basis for the 21 Reg Guide.
4 I- 22 MR. HODGES: In the Human Factors performance area 23 what I'have highlighted here is some work we are doing in 24' 'our HPIP program that's basically -- what we have now is a i 25 tool that was: developed for inspectors when they are going.
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141 out to the plants toi ook into events that have a-human 1' . l r"N- ,
} ) 2- .
performance aspect to-it-.- -
3' When I was.in1the region-trying-to use.that, I 4 found that it worked pretty well up to-a point, but I had
?
5 some frustrations in using'it and so when I came back to 6; this job I thought --
7 DR. POWERS:- Yes -- we're going to fix this. thing.-
8- (Laughter.)
g
$ 9 MR. HODGES: .1 thought there wereLsome: things we-Emight'do a little better to extend it a bit, so we are doing some work there to. dig in a little bit deeper in a few 12 . areas.
13 . MR. SEALE: It's-the Old Frustrated Inspector 14 Program.
15' DR. POWERS: Malcolm Knapp outlined that for us-We know where it came from.
~
16 perfectly today.
17 [ Laughter.)
18 DR. POWERS: I understand there is a test of 19 ATHENA going on at Seabrook that has yielded.some fairly 20- disappointing results.
21 MR. HODGES: That is not the feedback I have 22 gotten.
23 DR. POWERS: Okay. The test is going on. It's 24 the= disappointing results that you haven't gotten.
25 MR. HODGES: That is correct.
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--c> y wa- g w e -* * - , ,.,-i --.-i.-, y_-+- ,
142 1 In fact, what I had been told was that there were Q
Aj 2- some-useful results that had come out of that, both for the 3 utility had identified some things from it'that they had not 4 been aware of and-they were interested in doing some further 5 applications.
6 DR. POWERS: I think the Committee is very, very 7 interested in that kind of information. You might want to 8 alert those fellove if they could, if the opportunity 9 presents itself, to update us even in a very casual 10 fashion -- not this committee but the full ACRS -- even in a 11 preliminary and casual fashion.
12 I am sure they would find a lot of interes in ,
13 that because some of us are still struggling with just 14 exact.ly what ATHENA is and what it can do for you.
( 15 MR. HODGES: That is because you haven't been 16 given a very complete description of it.
17 DR. POWERS: Well, we have been given the topical 18 report on it but that is not a very complete description.
19 MR. HODGES: Not a very transparent description.
20 In the Severe Accident area I highlighted the 21 revisions coming up for the RELAP/SCDAP program.
22 We are making I think some fairly significant 23 model improvements in there which we hope to get out this 24 March.
25 One of the things we will be doing in the Severe O
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J 143 1 AccidentLProgram if at all possible, even with significant. ,
() 2L _ cuts, is trying to maintainLour capability'with the codes.
3 MR. SEALE: Wayne, I think it would be; helpful for 4 us if we are going to be able to have any opportunity to ,
5 make any comments about that if you could identify any of 6 .the more general concerns -- you know, things like iodine 7 spiking _and things-like that, that_may-be buried within the 8 Severe Accident Program now, that probably would require 9' some attention some place else if you get rid of the Severe 10 Accident. Program.
11 DR. POWERS: Right.
12 MR. HODGES: The programs most in jeopardy right 13 now, and this is speculation because the-decisions haven't r 14 been made, but are essentially things primarily in the 15 experimental program and that would involve things such as 16 additional work that was being done looking at the PARS, the 17 passive autocatalytic recombiners and some additional work 18 that we were doing in the DCH area for the ice condenser 19 plants.
20 ~MR. SEALE: Whac about the CADRE stuff?
31 MR. HODGES: Basically, the --
-22 MR. SEALE: FEBIS, I guess.
23 MR. HODGES: The FEBIS would not be touched 24 because we've already paid for it.
25 MR. SEALE: Okay. They can't recover that.
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144 1- MR. HODGES: We paid up front for that work and,
() 2 in fact, what is_ happening now is they are giving us some 3 money for e.nalysis and this type of thing.
4 MR. KRESS: That was good strategy. Whose idea 5 was that?
6 M't . HODGES: We lucked out on that one. And there 7 are things like the FARO program may be in jeopardy but-8 there are also some questions on what contractual 9 commitments are that SS might not be able to get out of, 10 generally we would have to give six months' notice and wa've 11 got our last payment coming up in January or February, so 12 there's not time to give them six months' notice so it's not
-13 completely clear.
14 We have had some preliminary discussions with the O
\,,/ 15 lawyers on just what the contractual obligations are there 16 but that's something else that's up for discussion. So it's 17 those kinds of programs.
18 DR. POWERS: The difficulty or the issue, I think, 19 with these international programs is that you pay some money 20 to get into the organization. But if you are going to get 21 any value out of it, you continue to pay money to stay day 22 to day on top of it. When you don't, the programs usually 23 wander off into hyperspace or something like that and you 24 don't get what you're after if you're not there to defend 25 your interests.
/~%
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-145 1 MR. HODGES: -I think in-FARC, we pay.1/12 of the
) 2 . cost so:we buy into a. pretty good program, a very complex 3 program, at_a small' cost.. And if-it were chopped, we would 4 lose that.
5 The work on, say some of the DCH, it means we will 6 have to reach our conclusions cn1 a little bit less firm 7 foundation than we would have otherwise. So those are the 8 -kind of issues that are being faced but it's all at this 9 point preliminary and we don't know what the answer is going 10 to be.
11 1 ' MR. KRESS: What's the status of-the CSARP?
12 MR. HODGES: Clearly, it is -- if we take the kind 13 of cut that's been talked about, some countries will drop
-14 out. I will speculate a little bit, and take it strictly as 15 speculation an a guess, is that we will offer for them to 16 stay at reduced cost and most of them will probably accept 17 that because they still have an interest in the computer 18 codes and the support for the computer codes that goes l
19 there. And as long as we have a program and we can show 20 that we.are interested in severe accidents, they can say 21 l that the U.S. NRC is still interested in severe accidents I
22 and therefore it is worth pursuing in their country.
23 : So for those kinds of reasons together, I expect 24 that most of the countries will still be involved but at a 25 l reduced funding level. But that's just a wild guess on my
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I 146 1 part,
( ). 2 DR. POWERS: Certainly, CSARP has become a forum 3 for people to present their own results.
4 MR. HODGES: Absolutely. And there is a lot of 5 good work going on and we've got a lot of benefit from ie 6 both in terms of dollars coming in to help support our 7 program and from in-kind work from the other countries. So 8 as was said earlier, as we cut back it is not just what we 9 lose in that budget direct but from this other program as 10 well can be very significant.
11 In the PRA area, I highlighted a couple here. One 12 was our final generic reg guide for the PRA for use in 13 risk-informed regulation due at the end of the year. That 14 has been out for public comment, it has had discussions ad
\_s 15 nauseam with this committee. I think it has been a very 16 beneficial process to do that. I think it's a good step 17 forward and I think it will be something that the industry 18 can use.
19 We are working on draft PRA standards with the 20 ASME for what we need for PRA model standards and they have 21 committed to a very aggressive schedule.
22 DP. POWERS: You're kidding? 12/98?
23 MR. HODGES: For them, that's a very aggressive 24 schedule.
25 DR. POWERS: I think for anybody, that is a very
,a
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I 147-1- aggressive' schedule. .
() 2 MR. HODGES: But they are going,.they.are working
'3 hard to meet that-schedule so that is not a typo. But I 4 think-that will be, again, a good step forward if we can do 5 that.
6 Now, we gave them a starting point for that 7 already. We had our draft NUREG and, recognizing that it 8 didn't need any work but said, here's the starting point and
- 9. they -- I think they accepted that as a reasonable starting ,
10 point, that along with some of the EPRI' guide.: It did not 31 start at zero.
12 And I will let Larry talk about the --
13 DR. POWERS: - Having gone through the wars over the 14 PRA procedures guide which was a predecessor of this and a-i '
15 much cruder thing, that's still-an aggressive schedule.
16 MR. FONTANA: I'm glad to see that is not totally 17 lost. I was one of the first guys, I think, to critici7.e it 18 for being gold plated but at the last meeting we had it 19 looked like it wasn't going to be issued or anything and 20 there's a lot of good stuff in it and I'm glad to see that
--21 -it's being salvaged here somehow.
22 DR. POWERS: Well,uit has been put together and it
-23 has been criticized for being gold plated and it was never 24 meant when we issued it, never meant that this was exactly 25 what we vanted to do, had to go out and do. It was more of 4
( ,
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~ - e- q r- +
148 ;
1- . a compilation ofLwhat can be done using today's state of the
/y
- Q -
-2' art and thatLis'really what it represents'at thic point, not 3 'necessary to wha'c.you have to_do in all= cases but a !
4- compilation of what the state of the~ art would allow.
-S' What'you-are trying to do'is establish what is
'6 meant by " consistent with the current state of PRA."
7 MR. HODGES: So we chose because of both calendar
-8 time and just staff resources available to'not try-to go 9 back and rework that document to make it more of a standard 10- ~but-to just kind of let it lie there and put our focus on 11 1 the reg guides, recognizing that we were going to be going 12 to the ASME and'to develop-this generic standard and we 13 wanted to offer that up as a starting point and so we 14 deliberately did not try.to polish that document early on.
-15 DR. POWERS: Does that mean that the ASME standard 16 is now going -- you know, once it's available, will be your 17 definition of what's -- it's in the PRA policy, " consistent 18 with the current state of the art of PRA"? That will define 19 that?
20 MR. HODGES: That's the intent. I can't tell'you 21 what's going to come-out but that's the intent.
22- DR. POWERS: You don't know whether it will do it 23' or not but that's the intention?
24 i MR. HODGES: That's it, yeah.
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l 149 i
1: closely -- that'gives us the nexusiof-whyldoes this work-- !
-2 exist?- Well~, .it exists because you-told-us to do things to-
-3 the standard. We-have to define what.that standard'is and 4- :here it is. That gives us a nice, tight nexus. In_ fact,-
5 that's an example of a nexus.
I 6 MR. HODGES: That's really the kind of nexus we-7 need to look for.
8 MR. SHAO: That's exactly the kind of nexus we 9 need.
10 MR. HODGES: At this point, I will turn it over to 11 Larry, 12 MR. SHAO: My name is Larry Shao. I am director 13 of Division Engineering Technology.
14 My-division is responsible for Area 7 through 14 15 and this whole area is called Reactor Mr,terial ano Component 16 Behavior Research. This table provides some major examples 17 of the research that will be completed.
18 The detailed accomplishment will be in the 19 operating plant. When it's finished, I can provide ACRS a 20 copy.
21 Item 7, in the reactor vessel area, we will 22 complete the signature research which provides the technical 23 basis for writing the dosimetry reg guide and this reg guide 24 will provide guidance to licensee on acceptable methods for 25 estimating neutron flows in the reactor vessel wall.
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i :150 1 DR.LPOWERS:: When_you look at theLannualireporti I
() 2.
3' .
believe, : the' NRC, IJsee a relatively large program in heavy Lsection steel-irradiation-influence. Is this -- this is the
'4 culmination of that work? *
.5 MR. SHAO:. This is only a part of it. In the 1 6 reactor _ vessel we have three-different major area, look at-7 _the r?.&terial, estimate the embrittlement and fracture 8 . mechanics, But there are three major area, including 9 annealing. -But we are pretty excited about the program,
, 10 about six million.
11- Dosimetry is -- you -- you need a dosimetry to
- 12 estimate the degree of embrittlement.
13 DR. POWERS: I guess what I noted was within this 4
14 general category one of the biggest expenditures was --
( 15 MR. SHAO: About six million a year, yeah.
16 DR. POWERS: -- heavy section irradiation. And I 17 guess what I'm asking, is that an ongoing activity that 18 continues on once this reg guide is out or that's completed.
19 activity or --
20 MR. SHAO: No, after the reg guide is out we are 21 maybe getting out of dosimetry business but we'll-work on ,
a
'42 something else. I think, around the six million, long-term 23 maintenance, maybe even to three or four million a year, 24 something-like that.
.25 MR, SHACK: But the 2-1/2 million they spend on ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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151 1 -the irradiation isn't what's going into dosimetry.
() 2 3
Irradiation is;really the -- you-know, is to study the -
embrittlement of the vessel _not the dosimetry itself.
4 MR. SHAO: Dosimetry, as T say,-is only give you 5 the_ loading, okay?. What's the degrees, how much flow do you -
6 have and embrittlement is a different subject. Now after 7 you get the influence, just like an earthquake, ho..
8 much -- dosimetry is like an earthquake --
9 DR. POWERS: I think I understand-these things.
What I am eventually going to drive at -- is that in 11 connection with BWRs, we've just recently gone through an 12 analysis _using these fracture mechanics as codes on the 13 vessels, welds. And I understand that's only a subset of
! 14 facts.
l 15 MR. SHAO: Right.
16 DR. POWERS: But the outcome of that was that we 17 had extremely _ low probabilities of failure.
19 DR. POWERS: For BWR vessels. But we've done 100 H2 O -percent inspection of PWR vessels. I'm looking for how does 21 this square with the Chairman's direction in the DSI that 22 says we're going to focus on the most risk-significant 23 Libsues?
b 24 MR. SHAO: Yeah,-but for BWR you have lower e 25 failure probability. But for PWR, you have much higher p
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n_ 6 .a++,24 as 152 1 ifailure probabilities. ;
() 2 DR. POWERS: But it is still low enough that'it 3- doesn't even show up in the PRAs. Event.R's are just --
MR. SHAO: I think they don't show up because they 4
5 are low, they don't show up because they cannot afford to r
6 have reactor --
7 [ Laughter.)
8 DR. POWERS: It's so risk-significant we don't'put 9 .it in the PR. That's an interesting one.
.10 MR. HODGES: A lot of passive components in the 11 PRA that didn't show up in --
12 DR. POWERS: Well, I may be being too oblique. I 13 just chose.this as-an example, because we've got a marching 14 order coming from the Strategic Plan coming from the 15 Commission that says focus our efforts on the most 16 risk-significant and most regulatory significant issues, and 17 _I picked this area because it seems the one that is most 18 vulnerable to that kind of focus. How does this square with 19 that kind --
20 MR. HODGES: I personally feel it's a very high 21 risk. You see, everything else has a backup system. If you 22 did not postulate a pipe break. You postulated some
+
23 so-called failure. But the reactor vessel you don't 24 postulate a failure. -You cannot afford to have-a failure.
25 Any pipe break, you have pipe break and some kind of a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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153 l' support can take the loading. But you don't postulate a fm
( ) 2 reactor vessel failure. You just cannot afford to have it 3 fail.
4 MR. KRESS: I think this is a case that 5 illustrates that risk significance does not always determine 6 how t shows up in the PRA. 'This is --
7 DR. POWERS: You're getting to the heart of my 8 question.
9 MR. KRESS: Yes.
10 DR. POWERS: I mean, the strategic plan says that 11 they're going to pick things that focus on the things that 12 are most risk-significant and regulatory significant.
13 MR. KRESS: Um-hum.
14 DR. POWERS: That implies that there must be some
(_/ 15 way to quantify those things.
16 MR. KRESS: Quantify these things.
17 DR. POWERS: Okay. Now, I say ah, 18 risk-significance, it must be the PRA, and now I picked one
- 19. that by that standard would not even show up.
20 MR. KRESS: Wouldn't show up.
21 DR. POWERS: But it does.
22 MR. KRESS: Yeah.
23 DR. POWERS: And so now I'm asking the question 24 again, how do we -- if we're not going to use the PRA, what 25 exactly is it that we are going to use?
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154 1 MR. FONTANA: Well, I think that's a case where
.(
r 'N 2 the consequences that you just have to know something about, j
3 have to do something about, and you can't extrapolate 4 entirely from old industrial experience.
5 MR. KRESS: I don't think that's a good answer.
6 MR. FONTANA: The reason -- the consequences 7 are -- the reason you haven't --
that it's not -- the reason 8 that the program existed, going back to the heavy section 9 steel -- the steel problem is because.
10 MR. KRESS: That was before risk-informed 11 regulation.
12 MR. FONTANA: It doesn't matter. You go -- even 13 if you had PRAs back then, you would look at pressure vecsel 14 failure.
) 15 MR. KRESS: I think the real nature turns -- is on 16 that phrase of regulatory significance, and what we have 17 done in this case is define a level of risk due to this 18 sequence, if you want to call it that, that is low enough 11 9 not to show up on the PRA, and develop a set of regulations 20 that are intending to assure that that level of risk is 21 achieved.
22 DR. POWERS: And then we promptly endorsed 23 giving -- this committee, the ACRS, advocated giving an 24 exemption to the BWRs on this based on the risk. It's an 25 exemption to the regulation, the requirement of 100-percent
()
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i 155 1 vesselTinspection based on_the fracture mechanics:--
j ) 2 - MR. KRESS: _'That's because we can rest assured-3 .that the present body lofiregulationsLinspection- [
4~ determinations are-good enough to give us that: assurance 5 that'BWRs fall out of the picture really.
2 6_ DR. POWERS: If they fall out for this purpose, 7 then surely they must fall out for the research purposes !
8 too. That is,_anything associated with BWR irradiation-need ,
9- not be researched because it falls out on a risk basis.
- MR. KRESS: Probably on this,. yeah.
11 MR. SHAO: But not on PWR though. BWR --
12 DR. POWERS: PWR --
13 MR. SHAO: PWR have-much higher flows and also 14 higher pressure, so that PTS issue is much, much --
U() 15 DR. POWERS: Yes, PTS is a real issue.
16 MR, SHAO: Orders of magnitude higher than the 17 BWRs. And also where a vessel - .also you have operating 18- issue because of PT codes. You have the so-called 19 low-temperature overpressure, the windcw's getting smaller 20 and smaller, so t.here's also ar coerating issue too.
21 We could give you a-detailed presentation when it 22 gets --
23 DR. POWERS: Well, I think what_we're going _to 24' have to do is in discussing things with the Commission --
4 25 MR. SHAO: Yes, p
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156 1 DR. POWERS: I mean, they've said here's how-we
()
'2 want business done, and we've got to assure them that indeed 3 business is being done this way. I mean, they're dead 4' serious about this sort of thing.
5 MR, SHAO: Yeah, I know.
6 DR. POWERS: And if they say do things on the most 7 risk-significant, regulatory-significant, we have to say 8 yes, and here's how we've defined risk-significant and 9 here's how we've defined regulatory-significant, and here's 10 how we've prioritized things in those, and the things that 11 are below our financial threshold get cut off.
12 MR. SHAO: But mainly is I think Dr. Fontana said 13 is high-consequence, okay? You just cannot afford to have 14 any failure of vessel high-consequence. So actually a
) 15 Commission gradings is in this program. As a matter of 16 fact, the Chairman asked us to develop so-called 17 embrittlement meter, and have come out with some kind of a 18 development, it's hard to measure embrittlement of the 19 vessel. So it's just like a thermometer, embrittlement 20 meter.
21 DR. POWERS: I mean it is -- it is just an issue 22 that -- and this has been the area where --
23 MR. SHAO: Yes.
24 DR. POWERS: I think this is the one that is most 25 orthogonal to the conventional interpretation of those worst
()
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157 1- risk-significant-and regulatory-significant, and the one
( 2 that's going'to have to be articulated carefully or you run
-3 afoul of:that,_whether the_ Commission's-_ interested in it--or-4 not,fandlI don't-think I would relish coming in and-telling 5 them that their favorite program didn't meet the cut,-but I 6 -think I probably would if that --
7 MR. SHAO _ The PTS rule -- the_ PTS rule is based 8 cn1 the failure probability of.about 5 times 10.to-the minus 9 6.
10 Go ahead, Brian.
11 MR. SHERON: Are you do?
P 12 MR. SHAO: Go ahead.
i 13 MR, SHERON: Brian Sheron from NRR.
14 One point here I guess that we -- I haven't heard 15 brought up which I think may factor into this is that_most 16 PRAs kind of assume that the as-built plant was somehow 17 perfect in several ways.
4 18 DR. POWERS: In a lot of ways.
19 MR. SHERON: For example, if you go back and you 20 look at NUREG 1150,-we'll find that when they evaluated the 21 steam generators, they did not assume there were any flaws.
22 in the tubes.
23 DR. POWERS: As received perfect tubes.
24 MR, SHERON: Right. And the same holds true, I 2r 'think, for-reactor vessels, and I think you're all aware
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158
-1 thatithe flaw'distributionfor the initial flaw distribution
() 2 3.
~
that.might exist is'a very critical factor.. One of the things we just found is with this new Appendix 8 of the ASME 4 Code for example I think it was Braidwood just went in and 5 did u vessel inspection using the Appendix 8 methodology, 6 which'is the PDI --
7 DR. POWERS: And Braidwood is a PWR; right?
8 MR. SHERON: It's a PWR; right. And they came up 9 though'with a flaw that was 6' inches long and about. 6
-10 inches decp. And so now the question is is you know well, 11 was this flaw there when it was originally constructed? Was 12 this a construction flaw that was just missed, or is this 13 something that occurred during the operation? But there's, 14 I think I would say, you know, there's still a lot of things 15 that we don't know, and a PRA is not telling us everything.
16 And I think we have to temper what the PRA tells us with our 17 own intuitive knowledge and recognize that the PRA is not a 18 perfect document that's going to identify everything.
19 DR. POWERS: But, Brian, the question still 20 remains, you guys have written a strategic plan where you 21 apparently have acceded that you will focus the research on 22 the most risk-significant or in regulatory-significant 23 topics.
24 MR. SHERON: Um-hum.
I 25 DR. POWERS: Now, you didn't tell me what. In the 1.
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159 l' strategic plan you don't tell me how you're going to n
j } 2 determine what is the most risk-significant and 3 regulatory-significant things. If you're not going to use 4 the PRA, then there's got to be another-thing, something 5 else that allows you to make that discrimination. And 6- somebody's going to have to articulate that at some point.
7 MR. SHERON: I would agree, okay, that, you know, 8 if it's not the PRA, then there has to be another argument
-9 made.
10 DR. POWERS: If it's going to be just business as
-11 usual, a bunch of guys thinking about things, then there was 12 no point in writing the --
13 MR. SHERON: I would argue that if, you know, 14 we're not quite finished with the BWR vessel inspection V 15 issue yet either.
16 DR. POWERS: Um-hum.
17 MR. SHERON: But I think that ultimately when the 18 dust settles on that, if it turns out that yeah, the 19 probability is 10 to the minus 9th or so aething like that, 20 you know, we'll probably say yeah, you know, enough's done, 21 okay, we shouldn't pursue it anymore.
22 MR. SRACK: I'm still not sure of your concern, 23 Dana. I mean, the research program really is fortsed on PWR 24 problems by and large, you know.
25 MR. KRESS: He's using this just as an example.
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160 1 -DR.: POWERS: This is my stalking horse. I just- ,
{j ~2 --had to:have a place to-inject the question.
~
3 MR.-SHACK: But I mean it would meet the-4 risk-significant test when applied to the PWR, 5 DR. POWERS: If I use the PRA and-I use any of the 6 advocated- t'aings in 1061 for measuring significance, it 7 comes up zero. And it comes up zero because it's an action-8 sequence that doesn't exist. . Okay?: So -- and everybody has 1
9 said here well, you just really ought not use the PRA 10 because they exclude it on the basis of we will regulate and 11 we will d=spect and we will do a variety of things'to assure 12 that this thing never shows up, because it's an unmitigable 13- accident. Okay? So you can't.use the PRA. It's'an unfair 14 thing to do. Okay. They must then when they're setting up 15 their research program to have a risk-significant
, 16 prioritization use something besides the PRA. And all I'm 17 asking is what is that something else.
18 MR. SHACK: But I mean if you've got a cutoff for 19 where it falls out of the PRA, then you better make sure 20 that it meets the cutoff.
, 21 DR. POWERS: And that's why --
-22 MR. KRESS: 3did that may be the argument.
23 DR. POWERS: That may be the way that it's done.
24 We use the PRA on those things that are not done. Those 25- things that are cut out deliberately are super PRA,-they're ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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t 161 1 above evervtning that the PRA finds.
,n
-( J- 2 MR. SHAO: But I think this morning you mentioned v
3 -PRA doest.'t have aging effect. With aging effects the 4 number can change dramatically.
5 DR. POWERS: Sure. Sure. I mean -- but the 6 number won't change at all if you don't have an accident 7 sequence in there.
8 MR. SHAO: Usually a good vessel, a virgin 9 vessel -- go up 20 years, 30 years, it's a complete 10 different story.
11 MR. FONTANA: I think it just shows you shouldn't 12 rest on any particular single thing slavishly. The -- I 13 think PRA does, as Brian said, does things that you know 14 about. And one of the reasons that vessel probabilities are
-) 15 so low is because, as Tom said, all the factors that have 16 been put into place --
17 DR. POWERS: I'm almost sorry I took this stalking 18 horse.
19 MR. FONTANA: I think it's important, because what 20 it says, there are some things that you're going to use 21 engineering judgment.
22 DR. POWERS: No, there's no engineering judgment 23 built into this plan.
24 MR. FONTANA: There's got to be.
25 DR. POWERS: This plan says I'm going to -- it
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t 162 1 does not say I'm going to sit down and think about things
() 2 and use my engineering judgment.
3 NR. KRESS: It doest.'t expressly say that, but ;
4 that might go into regulatory significance.
5 DR. POWERS: That may be how it's done, but !
6 there'u got to be -- because it's writteu down and says I'm ,
7 going to use these standards, now you can no longer say I'm 8 going to do it any old which way I want to. It's got to say ,
9 I'm going to use engineering judgment and it's going to 10 do -- b) done this way. Okay? You cannot come in and say 11 I'm going to prioritize things based on how I feel this 12 morning after you've said that I'm going to use a good way 13 to do it.
14 MR. FONTANA: Well, now, wait a minute. If you're 15 going to do a PRA, every step of that PRA has got ;
16 engin" ing judgment in it.
27 DR. POWERE: And that's fine, Mario. If I had i 18 said I'm going to use risk-significance and everybody said 19 I'm going to use a PRA, then we'd all know what it is, and 20 we'd all know that there's a certain amount of engineering 21 judgment in it. Now they've said I can't use the PRA. What 22 is it they're going to use?
23 MR. FONTANA: That's it.
24 DR. POWERS: Then why did they write the sentence 25 down? Why not Just say I'm going to prioritize this then i
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163 1 based on engineering judgment?
() 2 MR. FONTANA- You use the tools that got for the 3 for the tools that they are good for. I mean there are just 4 some things that just, you know, just got to do something.
5 I can't imagine --
6 MR. SRARK: Is the answer you are looking for that 7 the only -- that the PRA isn't the only mehsure of risk 8 significance?
9 MR. FONTANA: Yeah.
10 DR. POWERS: What I am asking is -- I &ccept that 11 point, that the PRA isn't the only thing thac is risk 12 significant. Now, I am asking what is it your are going to 13 prioritize and how are you going to tell me that this vessel 14 research is more important or less important or of 15 equivalent importance, whatever it is, to the human factors 16 research? Which is another thing that doesn't show up very 17 fully in the PRA. Okay. Which is going to be equally 18 difficult to prioritize.
19 But in some way, they are going to have to 20 prioritize, because they said they were in their strategic 21 plan, and they probably say so in their operating plan, 22 though I haven't seen to it, and they have gor. s commission 23 that is going to hold them to it. And from all evidence, 24 this commission does not look upon kindly being told one 25 thing and then have you come back and say something else.
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i 164 i
'i 1 And they won't look kindly upon this committee coming back ;
2 and endorsing one thing and then saying something else.
3 MR. KRESS: Well, I think -- !
4 DR. POWERS: Treat the commission fairly. l 5 MR. KRESS: Yeah, I think you heard from a !
6 previous speaker that they will probably use.a form of ai 7 expert judgment process using criteria that deal with risk j 8_ ' significance and consequences, likelihood and other !
9 criteria. And I suspect that is what ee were hearing as- t 10'- going to be the way they will do this, this ranking they are ;
11 talking about. And that's what they really mean I think
{
12 when they say they will do it on a risk significant or 13 regulatory significant basis. It means they will follow 14 that process is what it means. And they won't use a PRA, i 15 they will use PRA thinking in this --
I 16 DR. POWERS: Right.
17 MR. KRESS: In this !udgement.
18 MR. SHERRY: Can I make one comment? ,
19 MR. KRESS: Yeah.
20 MR, SHERRY: I think you also need to consider the 21 fact that there are several risk measures that come out of a 22 PRA, not just the contribution to the, for example, poor i 23 damage frequency of the cut sets involving the failure of a :
24 particular componenu system.
25 You also have various importance meaMres which ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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165 1 give you different percpectives of how a component or system ;
() 2 contributes to risk. And, for example, the risk achievement j
3 work will have very high values for systems or components I
4 like the reactor vessel or the reacto protection system 5 which have very lov nominal failure rates, but if their --
I 6 since they .tave very low rodundancy, if their failure 7 occurs, you will have --
8 DR. POWERS: Put in a 100 percent failure on the 9 vessel, you have got a problem all right.
10 MR. SHERRY: -- the very high consequences. >
11 DR. POWERS: But it may not show up actually 12 because there is no way to calculate it.
v 13 MR. SHERRY: Assuming the reactor vesso4 f aili.re ,
14 is actually included in the PRA and not truncated out, its 15 risk achievement worth will be very high. Very, very high.
16 It would be probably the highest value in the component.
17 DR. POWERS: Easily the highest one, I think.
.18 MR. SHERRY: And, no, this is one way that we can 19 -- this is one measure of contribution to risk,-one 20 perspective at least.
21 DR. POWERS: Well, my -- I think I agree with you 22 100 percent, Tom, that it is going to be an expert 23- elicitation among managers. -I think my point is that that 24 has got-to be articulated. -That process-has to-be set down 25 with some specificity, sufficient for confidence that we can
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166 4
1 establish that these research programs are both necessary, 7' i and that they are sufficient.
(v)' 2 3- Okay. I think you can not --
4 MR. KRESS: I don't think you will get 5 aufficiency.
6 DR. POWERS: I think I agree with you that right [
7 now sufficiency is a hard thing. Necessary in that there is 8 a relative necessity to them. It is going to be an 9 essential thing to have in hand if you are going to expect
.10 the chairman to go before Congress and defend the research 11 budget. Okay. She is going to have to have a nexus and she 12 is going to have confidence that they are working on the 13 highest priority things, or she is going to be really 14 unhappy.
15 I'm sorry, that's --
16 MR. FONTANA: You are devil's advocate.
17 DR. POWERS: Well, like I said, this just happened 18 to be the one I had selected to inject that particular 19 question. Understand, I think I understand the utility of 20 this resecrch, 21 MR SHAO: Okay. Item 8, we will publish the 22 revised critiques for both faradic and stainless steel,.and 23- these critiques will be used to resolve various fatigue 24 issues.
25 In the NDE area, we will report research results A) t, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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167 1 on flow density and distribution which are essential for
() 2 calculation of reactor vessel failure probability. We want 3 to make sure the reactor vessel failure ptobab.'lity is low, 4 less than 5 times 10 to the minus 6.
5 DR. POWERS: Why that value?
6 MR. SHAO: It is a value that was, you know, 7 regular 1.154.
8 DR. POWERS: I know Spence Bush came up with it 9 and I have seen how he came up with it, and I even went back 10 through his logic in connection with a DOB reactor, and I'll 11 be damned if I understand where that number came from.
12 MR. SHAO: I think this -- this is a value you 13 don't have to worry about in the PRA, low enough you don't 14 have to worry about vessel failure.
O k/
s 15 DR. POWERS: I have initiators with values lower 16 than that.
17 MR. SHAO: Actually, the PTS, the screening 18 criteria is based on this number too, 5 times 10 minus 6.
19 DR. POWERS: Yeah, but that is not independent to 20 choose that number, because that was the vessel failure 21 number, 22 MR. SHAO: But the thing is --
23 (Laughter.)
24 DR. POWERS: I mean chat's how they came up with 25 that number. ,
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i 168 l 1 -
MR. SHAO: I think that the thinking was they ;
() 2' don't want to any have. The minute you have_ vessel 3 cracking, the minute.you have flow crack, it can become i J
4 failure very fast. ?!
5 MR. FONTANA: Is all the commission work that is {
6 being done on NDE in this category here? !
- 7. MR. HODGES: Yes.- +
8 MR. FONTANA: Like, for example, motor er
- rent, t 9- signature analysis.
- 10 MR SHAO: There-is only flow vessel and piping-11 NDR.
12 MR. FONTANA: Only vessel and piping.
13- MR. SHAO: And piping, yeah, 14 MR. FONTANA: Okay.
O 15 MR. SHAO: And internals.
- 16 MR. FONTANA: Huh?
17 MR. SHAO: And reactor internals.
18 MR. FONTANA: Yes. f 19 MR, SHACK: NDE not NDT. /
20 MR. KRESS: Right.
- 21 MR. SHAO: In the steam generator area we have 22- finalized report on the CE02 behavior and the severe
- 23 . accident condition. And this data can be used by, in
- 24 evaluating generator to integrity and th,e severe accident 25 condition,-which is the work mainly done by Argonne. Where ANN RILFY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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169 1 this, the tube, where you have cracked tubes where they 1
()
1 2 would fail, and the so-called lemon loading or on the creep 3 loadings.
4 Item 11, we will publish a record on performing I l
5 leak before break evaluation, which can be used by a 1 l
6 licensee if-they want to implement leak before break?
-i
.7 By the way, this is one of the accomplishments-
^
.8 that we reached and share, we are very proud of. Without-9 leak before break, they have to -- they have the partial ,
10- combination of local plus SSB in certain area.. As a matter 11 of fact some of the old vessels can not take this so-called 12 ' combination of local plus SSE. l 13 DR. POWERS: I will have to admit, 1: think this is 14 an engineering triumph. When you started off on this work,
( 15 I didn't think there was a snowball's chance that we would >
16 get a leak before break strategy set up, and so you should 17 be proud of this one.
18 MR. SHAO: Thank you.
19 DR. POWERS: I didn't think there was a chance, 20' you know. I mean I was I only peripherally involved when 21 they started some of this stuff, and, you now, but I would 22 listen the debates, and -- pfft -- I said there is no way is 23 anybody is going to buy this stuff. So it just proves that 24 my-judgment isn't-worth squat.
25 MR. SHAO: In.the continuing area, we will publish ,.
i
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170 1 on the steel containment testa S&D. The report provides
() 2 3
tethods for evaluating BWR containment margin.
test was performed last December and then they work on I think the 4 analysis and there are many countries that are doing the 5 analysis. More than 16 organizations, maybe 13 countries.
6 DR. POWERS: This is another one of those highly 7 leveraged.
8 MR. SHAO: It is very highly leveraged, I think
)
9 more than 10. l 10 DR. POWERS: I hope they get paid very much at l
11 all.
12 MR. SHAO: We pay maybe $1 or $2 million, they 1 13 spend about $20-$30 million, the Japanese.
14 In the Construction and Civil Engineer, we will :
15 publish a report on the independent review of the revised 16 ASME rule for seismic design piping. That's the one I 17 mentioned this morning. They revised the so-called seismic 18 criteria for piping, that's in 1995, and staff didn't agree 19 with it and we have all kinds of argument and we decided to 20 do some research to show who is right. And finally we, I 21 think are on the right side, 22 And for the last, I think we will provide the 23 tentative basis for resolving the 60 year life fatigue 24 issues.
25 DR. POWERS: When is that?
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171 i r
-1. MR. SHAO: Hopefully, sometime next year.
]
() 2 DR. FOWERSt- Next year. You_want to be sure to 3 keep us -- !
4 MR. SHAO: Oh, yeah.
5 DR.-POWERS: Fully abreast on this, i
6- MR. SHAO:' I think we going to have to give you 7 . status briefings, hopefully, in a couple of months.
8- DR. POWERS: Yeah. -The reason I say that is'that I 9 when we presented _the resc'ution for the 40 year life --
10 MR. SHAO: Forty year life.
i 11 DR. POWERS: -- that we promptly got interrogated 12 - on the 60 year life. And I will guarantee you that they, ,
13 the speaker in front of the commission on the occasion of 14 that review was standing around gaping like a fish out of .
15 water. So I think we owe her an answer on that one. So we .
16 need to stay abreast.
17 MR. SHAO: All these -- all these seven area, t 18 eight area, I think we like to give the ACRS some detail 19 briefly. Why vns are doing it, what we are doing, and how we 20 are doing it.
- 21 DR. POWERS: So if I read 7 through 14, you are 22 out of business at end of ninety -- fiscal year '997 j 23 MR. SHAO: - These are -- ,
' 24 DR. POWERS: No , I'm sorry. I may go through l 25 September of 2000.
l l
l
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r 172 1 MR. BARTON: A small.
O.
( ,/. 2 DR POWERS: A small amount.
3 MR. BARTON: This is only a sampling, f 4 MR. SHAO: A sampling. l 5 DR. POWERS: Just a sampling.
6 MR. BARTON: The first-bullet -- l 7 MR. SHAO: I can give you the operating - .t.
8 This is the operating plan. ;
9 MR. BARTON: They didn't put, like in the INC, 10 they didn't put anything on software or reliability of_
11 digital systems. That just started.
12 MR. HODGES: We left off a lot of things.
13 DR. POWERS: But the reliability of digital 14 systems is solved because we got this high triple E standard 15 that is transparent, scrutable,- easy to fol-ow. Explicit in 16 all details.
17 MR KRESS:. You are supposed to react to this.
18 MR. MILLER: I don't know what standard he is 19 talking about.
20 DR. POWERS: I mean we do, we have an industrial 21 standard, there is no more research to be done.
22 MR. SHAO: So I think we finished question 3. I 23 think question 4 will be addressed by Brian later on, and 24 question 5 will be --
25 MR. HODGES:- I have combined questions 5 and 6 in
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173 1 my response and it is fairly brief. Basically, you want to
() 2 know NRC regulatory decision making information needs will 3 be satisfied oy industry research programs, and is there any 4 resear:ch that could and should be conducted by the industry l 5 rather than the NRC. And I have chosen to not address those 6 directly, but more to talk about this MOU we have been 7 preparing with EPRI.
8 And, basically, EPRI represents the industry in 9 the research, other than, you know, what is done with DOE 10 and the little bit that is done with some of the owners 11 groups. Basically, EPRI is the vehicle for doing 12 cooperation with industry.
13 DR. POWERS: Let me just interrupt you a little 14 bit, Wayne, here. Not to interrogate you, but to 15 interrogate the committee, or alert them on this. The 16 academy spent a lot of time in their study of the research 17 program worrying about who should do the research, the 18 programs, the industry programs to the NRC, things like 19 that. And I am not sure that I want to take that tack. I 20 think the NRC's research budget is restricted enough we can 21 assure -
be sure that they are doing things that are 22 essential from an independence point of view, and just let 23 it go at that.
24 Is that what the rest of the committee wants to 25 do, or do you want to try to understand better why NRC takes 4
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t 174 1 on things and doesn't just say, here, industry, you go do
() 2 it?
I must confess I am lean'ng towards 3 . MR KRESS:
4 your approach. Otherwise, we would buy off on a pretty 5 big -- pretty big task if we don't.
6 DR. POWERS: Yeah, I think that's part of my 4
7 . reason then. I'm like Wayne. I want-to-duck the issue and !
8- go on and discuss what_I am doing as opposed to .
9 what -- taking on a huge philosophical issue that I really ,
10 don't have to confront because I haven't got enough money to 11 be duplicating things. And what I'm doing is just barely g 12 enough to keep me happy with my independence and 13 confirmatory role here; There really isn't --_there's no 14 practical conflict here, because there's not enough' money- ;
15 to --
16 MR. SEALE: Are there any other areas besides the l 17 high burn -- I guess it was high burn fuel where you have i
18 denied -- been denied access to some information? ;
19 MR. HODGES: I'm not aware of any. Generally 20 we've had fairly easy access. There has been some 21 r.egotiation involved but generally we've had access to that .
22 information. This was one that was explicitly, I think,
-23 part of the agreements on this were international. It was 24 not an EPRI condition.
25; MR. SEALE: I'm a little bit curious though,
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175 1- Wayne. The line between the-regulator and the researcher 2 and the -- and in fact the developer is a little bit fuzzier 3 'in some other parts of the world, you know.
4 MR. HODGES: Right.
5 MR. SEALE: And do you know of any regulatory 6 agencies that in fact have access to that information and 7 does that make you feel uncomfortable?
8 -MR. HODGES Well, I will say a couple things, 9 probably more than I should. Would we like to see the data?
10 Yes. However, we 1 Ave had discussions with EPRI about the 11 work, we have some general familiarity with it. If there's 12 a real safety issue, we will get access to it. So it is not i 13 like we are being denied access to seiety information. It 24 would be nice to have information but not from a safety 15 standpoint that is vital.
16 So I think where safety is the question, we have 17 -accecs to that.
18 DR. POWERS: Okay.
19 MR. HODGES: So, basically, you've read my slide.
20 I think we're probably done with 5 and 6.
21 MR. KRESS: What is it that makes an area become a 22 potential area for cooperative research? Is it because
-23 other countries have already or other organizations have 24 expressed an interest already? It seems like any area is 25 potential'--
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l 176 1 MR. HODGES: Yeah, it depends when you say
() 2 cooperative -- if you are talking about with our industry, I 3 with EPRI, basically their primary interests are in doing ;
4 things to improve the efficiency of operations, you know, so 5 they tend to look at it from that standpoint. We're trying 6 to see is there a safety problem that needs to be addressed 7 and where you con answer both questions with the same type 8 of experiments, then we can --
9 MR, KRESS: Then that makes it a prime area?
10 MR. HODGES: Then from their standpoint, it is an 11 area where we can get together. And --
12 MR. SRAO: These are the area EPRI has program, 13 NRC has program.
14 MR. HODGES: There is often a lot of overlap.
15 Sometimes you are taking the same data set and just putting 16 a different spin on the interpretation. So I think we've 17 agreed as we are discussing this MOU that we will each do 18 our own interpretation but use the common data.
19 MR. MILLER: If I understand, you are going to 20 kind of coordinate this through a management board?
21 MR. HODGES: Yeah. The concept is there would be 22 a management board that consists of the Office Diz?ctor for 23 the Office of Research and basically the head of EPRI and 24 then there will be a working group that sees to the 25 day-to-day stuff. But this management board would be the
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I 177 1 oversight. ;
() 2 MR. MILLER: So that means some research programs 3 might be jointly funded or is it just a matter o2 sharing i
4 data?
5 MR. HODGES: No, we are talking about for these 6 cooperative programs where they are jointly funded, yes. >
7 That's the way that would occur.
8 MR. PRESS: Wayne, I would like to raise a 9 peripheral issue. You know, NRC in a lot of areas goes way 10 out of its way to avoid even the appearance of conflict of 11 interest.
12 MR. HODGES: Yes.
13 MR. KRESS: And some outsider organization that 14 may be an antinuclear organization might look at some of 15 this and say, hey, NRC is in bed with the industry that they 16 are regulating in these cooperative research programs. How 17 do you address that kind of complaint?
18 MR. HODGES: And that is one of the reasons we are 19 doing our own interpretation of the data. Basically, I 20 think the view is Mother Nature doesn't care whether you're 21 pro or con nuclear power. If you're talking about the raw 22 data, that should be pretty much bias free like that. But 23 once you start saying how you are going to use that data and 24 interpret that data, we look at it for our purposes, they 25 look at it for their purposes.
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i 178 7 1 MR. KRESS: So you have to have a component of
()
2 your participation that says you take this data, you 3 interpret it, you make sense out of it and you say what its 4 implications are? !
5 MR. SHAO: In the final stage.
. 6 MR. HODGES: We have to get together and make -- I 7 have to make sute that the data we are taking covers my 8 needs and they have to make sure that the data that is being ,
I 9 taken covers their needs.
10 MR. KRESS: At the outset.
11 MR. HODGES: At the outset. But the data 12 themselves should be independent of bias and now you're just 13 looking at how you --
14 MR. SHAO: For instance, in a single area, we pull
\ 15 out tubos, they pull tubes. So we exchange data and there 16 is no conflict of interest there. We all look at there.
17 But when it coming to so-called p]ugging criteria 18 and everything, we cannot work together. It is a conflict 19 of interest.
20 DR. POWERS: You may have answered the question 21 but I will articulate the question again is that you don't 22 have to be a very clever experimentalist to realize that if 23 I do an experiment to confirm and hypothesize, I can design 24 experiments that confirm and I can design experiments that 25 are guaranteed to refute. Without too much imagination, I l
l
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r
t 179- 7 1 can2do'that. So when you go into these things, I guess --
() 2-3-
and your answer,.I think, is you have to spend a lot of up front time to make sure the:.e.ght experiments are being 4 .done. !
f 5 MR HODGES: That is correct.
L 6 DR. POWERS: And I-think you have to approach-that (
7 with a great deal of caution.
8 MR. KRESS: We used to have a lot of problems with ,
9 that.
10- -DR. PONERS: I mean, on the one that comes to'
. j 11 mind, ed-core was just -- we won't say. I'm on the record 12 so I won't speak. ,
13 MR HODGES:- There was a period of time when we ;
14 backed off on doing any. cooperation with them because of the
() 15 appearance of conflict but it makes sense if we are taking 16 similar data, we're looking at a similar problem.
17 MR. KRESS: With the appropriate control.
J 18 MR. HODGES: With the appropriate control to do 19 that.
20 DR. POWERS: And especially when you have, in many 21 of these cases, especially on EPRI programs, there are 22 -mu,tiple international partners that have the same Fpectrum 23 of-interest that you do. There is some assurance that the 24 right experiments will be done.
25 MR. SEALE: .Especially when.the steam-generator
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180 1 tubes really do belong to the utility.
() 2 DR. POWERS: Well, preFumably if you just Can't 3 get the right experiment done and it's a crucial issue, you 4 can always add an experiment into the mix of things.
5 MR. HODGES: And part of the deal would be, again, 6 this is a draft MOU but the idea is that we could each run 7 our own separate experiments in this facility and be 8 sponsored together. So --
9 DR. POWERS: Okay. I 10 MR. FONTANA: Did something fall in the cracks 11 here with respect to everything going through EPRI? For 12 example, what the NSSS vendors like Westinghouse does 13 something relative to the AP600 and it's not done through 14 EPRI.
15 MR. HODGES: That's correct. >
16 MR. FONTANA: Then what?
17 If you have to qualify your results coming out of 18 Westinghouse, I guess you have to do your own work 19 independently. ,
20 MR. HODGES: Right.
21 MR. SHAO: For using generator, only EPRI was the 22 owner group, with the owner group.
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181 l 1 oftentir.as regulatory issues that have been raised by Brian [
() 2 and his minions over in NRR. And then you've got the work 3 that is done by EPRI. But the bulk of the research that [
i 4 goes on for the industry generally would be-coordinated with !
5 EPRI.
6 DR. POWERS: I know you are acutely aware of the 7 issue of public availability of research results from these i 8 experiment facilities. You do have the requirement 9 of -- the legal requirement that the technical bases for 10 your regulatory decisions be publicly available?
11 MR. HODGES: Absolutely.
12 DR. POWERS: That's not just the interpretation of 13 data; that would be the data itself.
14 MR. HODGES: Yeah.
15 DR. POWERS: And that will not come up and bite us 16 again in these joint programs with EPRI?
17 MR. HODGES: It would be their intent that that 18 not happen.
19 DR. POWERS: I'm sure it's your intent.
20 MR. HODGES: We will be working with lawyers and 21 others to make sure that doesn't happen.
22 DR. POWERS: You've probably sworn never again, 23 -right?-
24 [ Laughter.)
25 MR. SRAO: Question number seven, t ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 182 1 Question 7 is on international cooperations. RES
) 2 has numerous international cooperation. The area listed 3 here has some kind of international cooperation. 1 4 There are four types of international cooperation.
5 Proper research through bilateral agreement, through 6 multilateral agreement, through some kind of formal !
7 organization such as CSNI or IAEA and the last one is 8 through information exchange. So there are four types of 9 cooperation.
10 Most of our corporate programs have tremendous 4 11 leverage. We figure with a total program cost about $50 12 million, it only costs NRC about 7 million. I think if 13 anything, this leverage is on the low side.
14 As f ar as 1: know, to answer your question, there
, 15 is no specific regulatory decision would be made solely on 16 the basis of international research. The international 17 program provides supplementary information.
18 For those area, this again answer your question.
19 For those area where NRC has no formal cooperation, 20 additional sources of information can come from 21 international conference, live visits or informal research 22 groups.
23 DR. POWERS: One of the reasons for this question 24 was a concern that NRC might quick.ly find itself in a 25 position where it had nothing to bring to the table aside
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183 1 from money and in particular many of the international
() 2 agreements require reciprocity of research product. So I 3 think your leveraging numbers might overestimate the 4 leverage. I think that this is the cost that you have to 5 pay out of pocket.
6 There are still costs to participate in these 7 programs that are borne by the agency other than just having 8 people go to the meetings and things like that. I don't ,
9 think we ought to underestimate that cost in trying to 10 assess we have viability. Nor do I think we need to 11 underestimate interests on some of these cooperative 12 partnerships in having research coming to the table as part 13 of the contribution.
14 And the question is, when you look in your crystal s/ 15 ball, and since you research guys are being required to be 16 clairvoyant you must all have crystal balls, do you see 17 things that we ought to be aware of that we ought to make 18 other people aware of and say, hey, we're getting to crisis 19 area? There's going to be some research going on in 20 Pottsylvania on this area and they are going to acquire 21 in-kind participation and we just don't have anything to 22 come to, they're just not going to welcome us at being a 23 partner. And it doesn't matter if we come with bucks or 24 not.
25 I know, for instance, cooperative programs fer the ANN RIIEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 184 l 1 Japanese, they're.much more interested in data than they are 2 in money. They want data d *, hey look for participation in 3 a data sense more so than a monetary sense.
4 When you look in your crystal ball, how good or 1 5 bad does it look in the future? Or don't you know?
6 MR. HODGES: My crystal ball is probably about as 7 murky rs yours is. But today I have identified a specific 8 . program like that. It is clearly..a concern that as we cut ,
9 back in'these programs, we are not going to have anything to
- 10 bring to the table. ;
I
=11 .I think-to some extent we are living on reputation 12 right now, also. In that whether the researchers would care i
13 or not, the political forces in some of these other !
14 countries at least want to have the U.S. buy into some of I
,. 7 these programs. So we are still, I think, moving on that to l li some extent but I think that is going to fade also.
17 DR. POWERS: I think you are absolutely correct 18 that I can think of joint programs where buy-in by other +
19 countries would not occur until there was buy-in by the U.S.
1 20 just because they couldn't tell whether it was a good idea ;
21 or not and if the U.S. bought into it, they did. I think 22 you're still living on -- you've got expertise both in house 23 and among your contractors that are known and whatnot and ,
24 them coming to the table adds to the program. ,
25 I would think that your problem arises, will arise l
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r le?
1 if, in fact, those areas of core capabilities that you -- if
() 2 there ic any significant cutback in those areas where you don't have, for instance, your staff of hydrogen experts has 3
4 been pretty badly depleted by DOE, this Committee has robbed 5 you through its executive director has robbed one of your 6 experts in that area, a few things like that, in hydrogen 7 combustion th9t --
8 MR. HODGPS: I think Ralph Myer, who is doing a 9 tremendous job in the fuels area right now.
10 DR. POWERS: When he gets hit by the truck, you're 11 in problems.
12 MR. HODGES: When he decides to retire, and that's 13 probably goir.g to be a few years, but you know if you're I
i 14 looking long ahead, we could be in trouble.
15 DR. POWERS: That's right. I think those are what 16 are going to cause you problems and when we think about 17 those core capabilities and we come up with a list that we 18 are going to keep and lose, we need to think about these 19 guys that are going away may not affect this today but they 20 may affect our participation 'n this research program, even 21 to know whether the research program is any good or not may 22 be a problem.
23 MR. HODGES: Yes, yes. We worry about that.
24 Yes, sir?
25 MR. UHRIG: Wayne, you had spent 60 million, $70 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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186 1 million of international cooperative research with the $7 l) 2 .nillion investment, something of this sort? I don't know 3 what the-numbers are. )
)
4 Do you see this growing in the years ahead or do j 5 you see this international research activity falling off? I 6 Some of:the big experiments presently going on are going to 7 .be finished. Do you see other things coming-along to j 8 replace them that would be of value to the NRC? Or is it t 9 just too murky to say?-
i 10 MR. HODGES: A lot of our big experimental ;
11 -facilities have been-in the severe accident arena.
~ 12 MR. UHRIG: Yeah. That's what I'm really thinking
- 13. of.
14 MR. HODGES: Depending-on what the Commission 15' does, we may not even have anything to get by in there. I 16 don't know what our program is going to look like and so it 17 is going to be --
18 MR. UHRIG: What actually is this, a half of it, a 19 third of it? International, the international cooperation?
20 MR HODGES: Larry's got a pretty good compass on 21 the containment work.
22 MR. SHAO: We have a lot of Japanese. They're 23 -spending big bucks on that.
24 MR. HODGES: And we've got a little bit in thermal
. 25 hydraulic. But severe accident is a major percentage of
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187 1 that and if we take very severe cuts in very severe l (D
( ,j 2 accidents, it's going to go by the wayside.
3 DR. POWERS: Right now I think it is true that 4 most of our cooperative programs are in the severe accident 5 area. If I think in the 10-year time horizon, even the 6 five-year time horizon, is that true? Or do you think we 7 are going to see a move toward a more operational type?
8 MR. HODGES: We were talking about experimental 9 facilities, probably, I thought?
10 DR. POWERS: And I am talking that way, too.
11 MR. HODGES: I think we will be continuing, for 12 example, our cooperation with the holding project for some 13 time and they are going to be focusing on fuels materials 14 and they have a very strong capability with their lab to do (m) 15 human factors type work. In fact, the reason I have to 16 leave this afternoon is I've got to go to a meeting where 17 we're doing '.he long-range planning for Halden. So I think 18 we are going to be actively involved in that for some time 19 and dealing with a lot of operational, instrumentation, a 20 lot of those kinds of issues. But the big costly 21 experimental facilities, I think a lot of that is going to 22 be going by the wayside.
23 MR. SEALE: The high burn up fuels area may have 24 some work down the road in it, I would guess. But that is 25 not generally large facilities?
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188 1 MR. HODGES: Well, we are going to be continuing
() 2 that. It is expensive because you're trying to deal with 3 the fuel so it's a very expensive proposition to do. But ,
4 even there the focus is going to be changing from the 5 reactivity insertion accidents to looking at other types of 6 events.
7 MR. SEALE: Sure, yeah.
8 MR. SHAO: Okay, question number eight. In what 9 area is research believed to be needed that is not being 10 done? What is the impact on regulatory decisions?
11 Well, our recent budget has been decreasing 12 rapidly. A lot area we need to be work on but we don't have 13 sufficient funding. This is a list of research area that 14 the current budget does not cover and that list will be even O
(m / 15 longer if there is additional cut in FY '98 budget.
16 The first subject is PWR sump debris blockage.
17 Based on what the staff learned from the BWR strainer 18 blockage issue, it is felt that PWR sump screen may be 19 susceptible to debris accumulation which may result in loss 20 of IHR pumps following a LOCA.
21 If this research is not performed, it prevents an 22 independent evaluation of the PWR sump debris blockage 23 issue.
24 DR. POWERS: The consequence is we stay with our 25 100 percent, everything goes into the pool and 50 percent ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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189 1 collects on the screen or whatever the current rule is?
,/
! 2 MR. SHAO: Tnat was the BWR strainer blockage
(
3 where we use that.
4 DR. POWERS: So, I mean, what you're saying is the 5 impact is that we have to stay with very conservative values 6 here?
7 MR. SHAO: If don't have any research.
8 DR. POWERS: If that's conservative. We stay with 9 the things we think are conservative. I hopu it's 10 conservative.
11 MR. FONTAMA: I don't remember th.' as being -- I 12 can remember it being identified back around 1979 or so.
13 MR. SHAO: Yes, that was done about 10 years ago 14 but they never did resolve the issue, they decided to drop
( 15 the issue.
16 MR. FONTANA: Oh, they never did?
17 MR. SHAO: No. The issue was dropped.
18 DR. POWERS: We have talked about this issue since 19 the day I arrived on this committee.
20 MR. SHAO: At the time 843 was resolved without 21 doing anything.
22 Okay, the next one is protective coating failure.
23 There is evidence of failure of containment structure 24 protective coating. The degree of coating may come up 25 during a LOCA that is blocking sump screen or strainer.
n
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-190 11 This._may again result in-loss of.RER pumps.
() 2 The thing bother me is_this coatteg is supposed to 3- : be qualify for -40 years.- But they have failure now. -So if l 4 _this research is not performed, it prevent independent 5 evaluation of impact of fair coating on ECCS operation. ,
6 EPRI has done a lot of. work in this area and we-7 have had several meetings with EPRI on this subject now. In 8_ the meantime, we try to get somebody to work on' thia issue 9 now, i
10 DR. POWERS: And the consequence is that EPRI 111 comes in and says, well, the coating _doesn't fail, whatever-12- it is that they say, and you just can't give them credit for 13 that or --
14 MR. SHAO: Yeah, but-they really do fail. ,
15 DR.-POWERS: What'I am trying to understand is 16 what's the down side for the NRC?
17 MR. SHAO: Not doing anything, then you have to 18 take their word for it.
19 DR. POWERS: You guys never take their word for 20 it. You always have fall back a position.
. \
- UL MR. SHAO: Brian wants to say-something.
22 MR. SHERON: I was_the one that probably initiated 23 '
this request and-the research. This originated from an 24- allegation that we received from an individual who is -- has 25: experience in this area and in looking at it, it turns out 1( )
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l 191 71- that-there are supposedly qualified coatings on-containment
() ~2 that-are starting to,--you know, lose their adherence. And-3' the' concern is that in a LOCA with the steam environment and
- 4. so~furth, these coatings would-come off and be transported-5 down and clog the sump, 6- It appears to be a very legitirate concern in the 7- sense-that the uti: 4. ties, that supposedly these are-e 8 safety-related coatings and are not staying on, And the 2 9 question is, why?
10 We've been pushing the industry on this a bit but
-11 we're trying to-understand it-better ourselves, Some of the 12 things the industry is doing right now is trying to remove 13 the coatings in the vicinity of where they may be impinged 14 by a jet and the like and they have to go in and they have-15 to do adherence tests where they actually see if they can 16 pull the coating off, make sure it's-stuck on and the like, 17 But I think this does have a potential safety 18 significance in the canse that, you know, unless we 19 understand what it means the way these coatings are 20' transported and whether or not-they can really clog up.an 21 ECCS system, you know, the consequences might be that we go 22 out to'the industry and force them to deal with the issue, 23! even though we have not really done our homework completely.
24 And that is one of-the reasons that we asked for 25 ' confirmatory research saying in advance that if we don't ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD, Court Reporters 1250 I-Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C.,20005 (202) 842-0034
192 1
1 really have our_act together to go out and require the
() 2 industry to do something because we haven't been able to 3 really articulate what the real safety issue is or concern, 4 a lot of times we have to do this exploratory work to try 5 and firm up in our own mind exactly what the nature of the 6 problem is, what the significance is and the like.
- 7. DR. POWERS: What you're stying I think is, in the
, 8 absence of information, you're going to be forced to take a 9 letter-of-the-rule compliance stance on this?
10 MR. SHERON: We will probably be forced to push 11 the ine".stry to do work even though we can't, I guess, 12 articulate the degree of concern to, you know, to the level 13 we would like to support it.
- 14 Very similar like when Lan / was talking to you
?
(~)
L (_/ 15 about the seismic issue, the seismic piping design rules, i
16 one of the things we wanted to do was rather than jrst go to 17 the ASME and say we don't like what you ve proposed, okay, 18 we went out and actually did the work so we could prove to 19 them that what they were proposing, it was not a matter of 20 your word against ours.
21 DR. POWERS: You like to be on a firm technical 22 foundation is what you're saying.
23 MR. SEALE: In the seismic area if you got a 24 nickel you might be able to get a dollar's worth of leverage
- 25 if you could work with the Japanese. Because I would think l
l
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193 1 they'd be very interested and I know they've got some very h 2 interesting test facilities.
3 MR. SHERON: Yeah, I think Larry, you could 4 probably talk more about what cooperative research you have.
5 MR. SHAO: Yes, we have a lot of corporate 6 programs with the Japanese.
7 MR. SEALE: In the seismic area.
8 MR. SHAO: In the seismic area. I can show you a 9 movie, very interesting movie, they shake the containment to bi5 10
'f failure.
MR. SEALE:
11 Is this an exhaustive list?
12 MR. SHAO: It's a more important list, not 13 exhaustive list.
14 MR. SEALE: Well, can I make a couple of comments?
15 MR. SHAO: Sure.
16 MR. SEALE: I can't imagine that the Commissioners 17 are happy witn the fire situation, and I mean 38 experimentally, particularly things like penetrations and 19 things of that sort. And also I think there's a great big 20 floating target out there. We don't know how far it is away 21 but somebody's going to zero in on it one of these days, and 22 that's the rate of generic safety issue resolution. And so 23 there are two areas right there that I'd add to this list, 24 and I'm sure every member of the committee could add another 25 <
one or two, and so, Mr. Chairman, I'd suggest that there are ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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-194 i 1- more. areas ---items that.could go on this list.
() 2 'MR. SHAO: Sure.
I'll just tell youfthe notes that=IT '
~3 DR. POWERS:
4 wrote down. I.think there's a longer list. I agree with 5 Bob. -But I think you need for'your own talking purposes to 6 work to make.sure people understand what the downside is.
.7 You know, the: fact that you can't get an independent 8- evaluation of something that's interesting and_that's nice.
9= You need to tell them and therefore I have to-live with 10 something that I don't know is conservative or not, force --
fil -not allow the industry to take advantage of their research.
-12 You_know, something that's tangible and real to people..
13 MR. SEALE: Or force them to do extraordinary 14 analyses because we can't really tell them what our problem >
, ( 15- is.
-16 MR. SHAO: Easier to force them to really do 17 -conservative assumptions.
-18 DR. POWERS: I think you need to be sure that, you 19- know, your leaders -- Mel was talking about he's going to 20 become a little more sales-oriented. Well, I think this has 21 to be in your sales packet, that here's the cost, the real 22 cost, the tangible cost. It's not just we're uncomfortable, 23 it's we're uncomfortable, you're getting uncomfortable.
24 Because we won't. violate the law by not assuring adequate 25 protection just because we don't know for sure.
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195 1 That seems to be the problem that I would
( ) 2 articulate, that I see here, is that you need to say there 3 are real costs associated with not giving us a research 4 budget, you know, and this is -- I spoke this morning about 5 the societal optimum. You know, we have enough examples, 6 and we're trying to get more, and if you have some, it would 7 help, of saying a dollar invested in research can often pay 8 off hundreds of dollars in operating costs. And I think as 9 we move more into risk-informed regulation that leverage is 10 very likely to get bigger.
11 With that said and with an eye toward our schedule 12 and your airplane flight, maybe we can just go ahead and 13 move on to Brian's talk.
14 MR. HODGES: Okay. Fine.
15 DR. POWERS: Brian, I would like to break your 16 presentation in half at 3:15, if I could.
17 MR. SHERON: Sure.
18 MR. SCALE: That means he only gets 26 minutes now 19 and only 26 minutes after 3:30; is that what you're caying?
20 DR. POWERS: Yeah, we gave him a 10-percent cut, 21 and we're not allowing him to take it out of research, it 22 has to come all out of NRR this time.
23 [ Laughter.]
24 MR. SEALE: Hell, he'd probably volunteer for a 25 100-percent cut.
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196 l
1- :DR. POWERS: .Well, Brian, while z you're at that,( !
2: Ill-just say'for an agency taking cuts in their-fundingi_I
, 3 don't understand why we can spend monay_on these' expensive-4 _viewgraphs.
5- MR. SHERON: It beats me.
6 DR. POWERS: IIonce worked with'on an Air Force 7 program in which the_ program manager was a major, and he saw -
l 8 somebody put up a viewgraph that was just typed, nothing 9 more, just typed, and he blew a fuse because he said he 10 didn't want any of his program money going'to pay
-11 secretaries to type viewgraphs, you could hand-write them 12 the same way as he did.
13 MR .- SEALE: I.have a theory about what this is.
14 This is virtual research, and it's --
15 DR. POWERS: Enough. Let's let Brian go on.
16 MR. SHERON: Before I start, attached to your 17 package -- there are three attachments to the viewgraph 18 -package which I thought would be some good background. One 19 of them is office letter No. 400, which is Procedures for 20 _NRR and RES Interactions. This is going to be updated. It 21 obviously needs to be. If you read it you'll see that some 22 of the_ organizations mentioned in here don't even exist 23 anymore within the offices. But I think the general thrust 24- of this is still valid in terms of how we interact between 25 the offices.
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197 1 The plan was as after we_ sort out the SI-22 we t.4 f 2 would update this package, but I think it's good background 3 -reading to understand the way we interact with research.
4 There's a --
5 DR. POWERS: This is background you hope we'll 6 read tonight, not --
7 MR. SHERON: This is good evening reading, right, 8 instead of watching television.
9 DR, POWERS: This committee never has time to 10 watch television.
11 MR. SHERON: There's a note here from Ashok when 12 he was the acting associate director for tech review on user 13 need memoranda, and it highlights a recent audit report by 14 the Office of the Inspector General noting a need to O
'\_-} 15 ~ strengthen the leakage between -- linkage between --
16 [ Laughter.]
17 MR. SHERON: Program offices and the Office of 18 Research, and in particular the user need memoranda. So 19 that gives you some further guidance on how we prepare 20 memoranda, what kind of information.
21 And then there's an MOU on research and NRR 22 interactions which kind of talks about at what level the 23 user need letters go over, at what levels do the staffs 24 interact.
25 I also just - .I apologize, but I took some notes (G
'~'
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i 198 )
i here when I was -- everyone was talking, and I'm going to
( ,; 2 offer my opinion on a couple things here.
3 MR. KRESS: That's all we're looking for.
4 MR. SHERON: One is the one you didn't want to 5 touch, which has to do with when does the industry do 6 research and when does the NRC do research, and 7 unfortunately back when I had my research hat on for seven 8 years this question was asked probably about once a year, 9 and we had to answer to somebody, whether it was the 10 Commissioner or a Congressman or something.
11 And the answer that I usually gave was that 12 typically if there's information needed to support a 13 regulatory action proposed by a licensee, then the industry 14 goes and gets the data. There's no quescion, okay? They 5 15 have to support what they want to propose. When we look at 16 that research that they're proposing, we may ask questions.
17 We can ask several kind of questions. One is the 18 appropriateness of it, in other words, if it's scaled 19 correctly or the like. The other might be the question 20 about whether we want to look at margins beyond design 21 basis, okay? We typically in our pre-risk-informed world 22 we're only really allowed to ask licensees to deal with the 23 design basis, within design basis events, and so once you 24 move beyond that into severe accident arena to look at 25 margins, for example, whether you're on the edge of a cliff
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199 1 or not, that would be the NRC's responsibility.
/ } Brian, if I come in in a
( ) 2 DR. POWERS:
3 risk-informed world with a deterministic old-style request 4 for change, can you ask me about beyond design basis things 5 or are'we stuck with the DBA kinds of questions?
6 MR. SHERON: I think if you go back and look at 7 Draft Guide 106.1, the way we are approaching that is that 8 in this risk-informed approach the etaff actually has a 9 right to ask any question it wants, okay? Including, you 10 know, how does the system or whatever it is you're proposing 11 perform in a risk-informed or beyond-design basis mode. We 12 can't force them to say design to a beyond-design-basis 13 event, okay? But in the same sense, we don't have to 14 approve what they proposed.
[,
(_ /
h 15 DR. POWERS: That's interesting, but they --
16 MR. SHERON: If we don't -- that's -- in other 17 words -- and -- but let me qualify that, okay? I mean, I'm 18 not saying that we're using it as a hammer. The e's certain 19 cases where we would, okay? I used the examples, I say if 20 somebody comes in and wants to change a heat transfer 21 correlation to their ECCS model, okay, we're not going to 22 get into a big fight over what's the risk, okay? It's still 23 going to be proba:ly 22 hundredths, the governing, you know, 24 fr.ctor.
25 The one I use is a licensee comes in and says I
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-J 11 Twant.tol change myfdiesel generator allowed outage. time,nyou 2- -know, from 72-hours to l'4' days, okay?
.. What's your basis, i 1
3: Lokay?. Well, they'really can't point to any design basik or 4 anything, so we would have to say, you know, 'do a risk 5 assessment. What_is the risk of doing this, okay?
J Now that 6 doesn't involve any testing or anything, but you can see 7 whatLI'm driving at is we can ask that= question now. If 8 they-come back and they say beats us,1we might say well, we 9 don't really have any basis to approve your request then, 10 okay?.
11 I like the AP600 as really a real classic in this.
Westinghouse came in after we pushed them, because they 13 .didn't even want to do. testing. We said no, you're-going to 14 -have to do thermohydraulic testing. So they came in with
( 15 the spes facility, okay? Here's a tall, skinny facility, 16 okay? Skinnier than semiscale was, okay? With all the 1- 17 attendant concerns of heat losses and so forth and 18 one-dimensionality. To address that then they also came up
!' 19 with the University of Oregon or the Oregon State facility, 20 which I called the kind of short and fac, and that was --
21 had the almost the opposite type of concerns, okay? Where 22 you had the three-dimensional effects to some extent but you 23 didn't have all the. elevation alike, all right?
24 When you look and you say okay, is this a 25- reasonable thing that Westinghouse is proposing, okay,-the
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201 1 argument was is yes, okay, I mean, we can't really say, you r
know, this is just no good, okay, I mean they've'made --
-( 3w)' -2 3 they came in, they made an argument that they would be able 4 to support their design with these facilities.
5 Nonethelees there were still always residual 6 concerns, both from the scaling question, okay, you know, do
)
7 we really understand what the one-dimensionality effects are 8 and the like, as well as what about beyond design base, 9 oaay? You know, what if we pushed this plant a little bit-10 further than the design basis envelope?
11 And, you know, with that logic we decided that it 12 would probably be best if we went out and got our own 13 independent data, okay? Also looking at the significance of l 14 the regulatory actions we were going to be taking, which is C\
(_s/ 15 to approve a passive design, okef?
16 So given all those factors, okay, that was the 17 decision that the Commission made to go forward with its own 18 independent confirmatory research. So those are the kind of 19 factors I think that go into deciding when does the NRC, 20 okay, now with the coatings issue, for example, okay, same 21 thing, okay? We're trying to figure out what is the real 22 significance of this, okay? Now we n cmally don't have a 23 hammer to go out and just, you know, go to the industry and 24 say we got this itch we can't scratch, go deal with it, 25 okay? Because we usually wind up with nasty letters from
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1 NEI and the like.
2- .MR . SHERON:' We need a basis when we ask them:to 3 'go out and do things, especially in_this deregulated 4 eavironment where they are very cost conscious and so forth.
5 So that is another factor, is when we need to articulate 6 better what the safety concern is before we go out and take.
.7 a regulatory action, sometimes it requireo rome. confirmatory 8 research on our own part 9 So, anyway, I.just want-to pass those kind of 10 thoughts on, because we had thought about it, I think, 11 several times in the past..
12 DR. POWERS: I guess -- I guess I'm glad that you 13 brought that up because I am thinking of trying once again 14 to explain why the NRC needs a research program to Congress, 15 and this seems like a non-trivial issue. It is a 16 non-trivial reason, that NRC is charged with protecting the 17 public. In some cases they don't know, they suspect. Do we 18 really want them foisting this suspicion off on the 19 shoulders of a competitive industry when they forget that 20 confirmation if there is an issue or not here?
21 MR. SHERON: Yeah.
22- DR. POWERS: Or is that something done better as 23~ -- by,- as a public agency? It may be more cost effective 24 for you~to do-it than to have 86 licensees out trying to do 25 it.
- ~
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203 1~ MR. SHERON: Yeah. And I=can-tell you another, 2_ another example'.
-3 I'm'sarry,1-Dr. Seale.
4 MR. SEALE: I was just: going to say plus.the fact-5 -that-you get an evaluation thatfis not necessarily weighted- -
6: by;the prejudices of the utility whenever_they do_their.
7- version of the research.
8' DR. POWERS: Well, I am sure that it'would get_a.
9' close scrutiny.
~ 10 : HMR. SEALE: Yeah, sure. ,
t ilt DR. POWERS: And whatnot, but it may require -- it
~
12 -may_be very burdensome,-just because of the way --
13 MR. SEALE: Sure.
14 DR. POWERS: Because of the arms-length business.
b 15- And, consequently, there have to be formal requests for
.16 . additional information. Those have to get-responded. They 17 produce another set, whereas the agency will go out and find 18 out about these things on~its own. It does that much more 19- quickly.
20' MR. SEALE: It articulates the problem.
21 MR. SHERON: Another example, I mean I cutting
, 22 into my. slides up ahead, so I brought this up. One that is 23 .very recent in my mind'is-the steam generator issue. When 24- we started looking at, you'know, the extent to which we 25' .could write a. regulation or a generic letter that would l
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204 1 allow relaxation of repair criteria, and we started to look n
at the risk aspects of it, and what are the risks associated (v) 2 3 with relaxed criteria, and what we started to question 4 ourselves was, is do we even understand what the risk with 5 the current allowed degradation, the 40 percent i
6 through-wall? Okay.
7 The answer was no. We went back to 1150, it 8 wabn't done. Okay. It assumed that the tubes were in, you 9 l know, Virgin condition.
10 So one of the things we had to do, not only 11 looking at beyond, okay, what we are allowing now, but why 12 is what we are doing now still acceptable? Okay. That 13 became a very important question. You know. What if this 14 things turns out that because of the degradation we are O)
(s_ 15 allowing now, every time we had a severe accident, we would 16 lose the generators and have a large release?
17 We turned to research and they did that. Okay.
18 They did the tests at Argonne. They helped in terms of the 19 models and so forth. We were able to do the risk 20 assessment, which you all heard and everything, and reach a 21 conclusion. Okay. Which basically said that the current 22 degradation that we allow still appears to be acceptable 1
23 from a risk standpoint, and we don't to take any 24 back-fitting actions.
25 But I would submit that if we did not have a
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205 1 research program that was able to do that, and the question A-( 2 was asked, okay, we would be at a loss. I mean what would 3 we say? Okay. We don't know. Is that an acceptable 4 answer. You know.
5 [ Laughter.)
6 MR. SHERON: And what is even worse is I don't 7 even have a mechanism to go out and force the industry to 8 do, because it is beyond des 39n base. There is no 9 underpinning, there is no underlying regulation that allows 10 me to go out and ask them to do severe accident work like 11 that.
12 DR. POWERS: What you are saying, I think you are 13 telling me is maybe not so much in this particular case, 14 because you have particular licensing, but in the general
/~%
(_) 15 case, the research program also fits into that other 16 commission imperative to enhance public confidence and 17 information quality.
18 I mean they have -- they are saying their goal is 19 to have very reliable information for the public, the 20 licensees, et cetera, and research does that. It answers 21 the questions that are non-questions. Is this an issue or 22 not? You know. We have done the research, it is not an 23 issue, that's why we don't regulate to this.
24 MR. SHERON: Exactly. And, unfortunately, you 25 know, now, granted, they don't come up as often, but we (3 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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206 1 still occasionally, you know, we think of a new issue.
/^\
2 Something new comes up that we hadn't though of, a new twist (x_)'
3 on something. You know. And those are the ones where we
~
4 got to scramble and try and get an answer.
5 MP. . SEALE: Sometimes you get a doozy.
6 MR. SHERON: Yeah. With regard to industry, doing 7 research I think -- I think they have a different 8 perspective on research than we do. It's a legitimate one 9 but it is different. I think they would like to see NRC's 10 research budget cut. As Ashok told you earlier, they don't 11 really see any benefit in severe accident research other 12 than it is going to create more questions and problems for 13 them.
14 They also are concerned about, you know, in this
('h
(-) 15 cost-cutting age, they are concerned about the fees, the 16 fact that they are being charged to fund this, so they feel 17 that if they can cut some of NRC's expenses, for example, 18 research, then that just is a reduction in the fees.
19 And, plus, I think they would like to see us, if 20 we have to do research, it would be in areas that they think 21 would be beneficial to them. For examples, places where we 22 can relax regulations and so forth.
23 I think there is a different perspective in terms 24 of what we look for out of research versus what the industry 25 would want from research.
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207 1 MR. SEALE: From what yo'; just told me, they
)- 2 dodged a bullet on the steam generator issue because you 3 were able to show that what.you are doing now was, in fact, 4 . acceptable.
5 MR. SHERON: Correct. But, in a sense, I am not 6 sure I had a bullet for them to dodge, that's the' problem.
7 Okay. I was asking them to go -- if I did anything, I would 8 have to ask them to look at risk, okay, from beyond design 9 hase standpoint. And I have no regulation that 1 can go out
. 10 and make that request.
11 Normally, I would make such a request through a 12 generic letter.
13 MR. SEALE: Well, that's -- that's a regulatory 14 bullet, perhaps, but they also dodged a very real bullet in O
\_/ 15 terms of you sort of confirmed that the basis for the 16 expected steam generator life, absent these problems, was 17 probably pretty -- was not grossly incorrect.
18 DR. POWERS: Had the outcome of the work been 19 different, it would have been extraordinarily expense.
20 MR. SEALE: That's right. And, you know, I 21 haven't said it very well, but it seems to me there is a 22 message there that perhaps ought to be articulated a little 23 bit more for the industry people, so that they will 24 appreciate that sometimes this activity is not skylarking.
25 MR. SHAO: But they want to relax the criteria.
i
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208
-1 - The? industry want to relsx' the current criteria.
f- . -
2 MR._SEALE . Yea %- but they don' t_.want steam-
- 4-generators'that' suddenly fall ~ apart on them either.
T 1DR.. POWERS: -Nor did"they'want'it cranke_d up
-S either.
6 MR. SHAO: 'Thr$y want-to relax criteria so that 4-
.7 MR.-SEALE: I understand that.- Yeah. But I am 8 saying, if euddenly;their steam generators turn to putty, 9 they would have a-real problem.
110 MR. SHAO: But they don't want to press so many 11 tubes in, you know,-they have to shut down the plant.
12 MR. SHACK: -But I think Brian's question, if the 13 research wasn't done, you would still have no lever to do ;
14 ~ anything. You know, if it turned -- if the research was 15 done and the answer turned out to be bad, they would have 16 been very unhappy about the research.
17 MR. SHERON- Right. I mean this case it was, it I
18 is beneficial to them. Okay. But it was a complex issue,
't
- 19 '- as I am sure you are -- well, you are well aware. You know, 20 I think that research did an outstanding job in terms of 21 wrestling this one to the ground and providing the technical 22 basis for us to make a defensible argument in this area. -
23 I was laughing when you remarked about who owned 24 the tubes pulled from steam generators. And I would just
'25- say that I have had about three or four utilities offer to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 l
209 1 give us their replaced-generators and leave them right out
,m.
(x/ I 2 front on the green here.
3 (Laughter.)
4 DR. POWERS: Put them in the elevator.
5 MR. SHERON: New sculpture for the green area 6 there.
7 MR, SEALE: That might not be bad. Your NRC at 8- work.
9 DR. POWERS: More meeces (sic) would get tested 10 real quickly.
11 [ Laughter.)
12 MR. SHERON: Anyway, let me, if I could, I'll get 13 on my, start the presentation.
14 What is the role of research in the regulatory
.A
( ,)
_. 15 process? Well, I think it was, we just discussed, it really 16 provides us with an independent capability to technically 17 evaluate safety and licensing issues, at least for NRR 18 associated with the operation of commercial nuclear plants.
19 And it is not only confirmatory research to 20 support the mare immediate needs that we have, in other 21 words, the crises, but there is longer rar.ge exploratory 22 research designed to uncover and identify safety issues.
/
23 When I was in research, I always used to call it looking 24 under rocks. Okay. You are not sure what you are going to 25 find.
(A)
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-210 11 -This is,'I guess thel question, Danny,-you brought (f 2 _up about_how do you assign risk significance _if-you don't; _
3: know what'the risk is? And I think there is -- that.has
-4 always been a1 tough question. Ever since I was in research,
- 5. and even before, there was always a big debate on what l 6 percentage of the research oudget should be assigned to 7- that It has fluctuated between 5 to 25 percent, depending
.8 -upon who you talk with that day. And you will never pin it 9 down because everybody has their own opinion. Okay. So my 10 feeling is, is that I think it is a decision office research 11 has to make.
12 DR. POWERS: And it_may well fluctuate. In 13 periods of intense regulatory activity, it goes to zero. In 14 periods of a more general level, it may go up.
15 MR. SHERON: Now, one of the real ways a research 16 program can be effective is to provide timely input of its 17' results into the regulatory process. And what we found, 18 which is of no surprise, I don't think, and that is the 19 closer the working relationship-.is between the offices, at
, 20 all staff levels, okay -- I am talking about right down from 21 the reviewers to the people who are managing the research 22 programs, right on up through the division directors and 23 even officer directors -- the closer that we work together t
24- and communicate, and the like, the better the research 25 products they are and the more usable they are immediately ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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~211
- l14 L i n t o t h e ' p r o c e s s .: .
l 12 -DR.EPOWERS: -I.like sentence:because I think it's ,
3: really true. It strikes me that NRC is_very. good about ;
l4- assuring thatL people at:your' level interact with the 5; corresponding person in the Research? organization. >
L6: It seems to me where things start breaking down is
.7 at-the Staff level,-that there is a tendency.--'you don't 8 have-that frequent-cross-talk between. Staff members and' 9~ Research and their counterparts over in-the NRR- ,
10 organization.
111 IsLthat perception in error or is that -- ,
12 MR. SHERON: No , I think that perception is true, 13' but not across the board. I think that-is also true.
14 My reading is that from what I have seen, and this 15 is something I am trying to work on actually, some areas 16 there is very good and-close working relationships. Staffs 17 get along well. They work well-together. They interact 18 -frequently. Fortunately some of them even were in NRR so 19 they know'the people more as friends, as opposed to-just:
, 20 someone.in a different office.
'21 There are some isolated areas where I don't think 22 we are working as well together as we should be. I have 23 been trying to focus on those areas. I-have been talking to
- 24 the immediate managers of people trying-to get them involved 25 to makeisure that things are-going smooth, that we are not ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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-212 z1- butting heads, ~ you: might say, Eas opposed .to _ working; o jrs[
~
y)..
2- . cooperatively,Eso yes, there is room for-improvement and:-I-
-3 L think there also are: some areas where we fare workingf very
'4 lwell1at.all StaffR1evels~. I
-5 DR. POWERS: I have no--- I am without -- there is 1 6 no question in my mind but the reason the steam generator ;
7 thing went.as well as it did-was because~the< people in 8 Research and NRR have that kind of very close and 9 tprofessional relationship with each other.
10 MR. KRESS: How do you accomplish that? You send 11--- out a memo and say " Interact more" or --
12 DR. POWERS: "Or else."
13' MR. KRESS: Or else'-- or what do you do?
14 MR. SHERON: To some extent we try to force 15 interaction.
16 First off, we have an annual interface meeting, or i 17 semiannual -- I can't remember -- where really you get 18 together at the Office Director, Associate Director level, ls 19 okay, and you don't sit there and talk about, you know, give p
20 status reviews of projects, but you are talking more about 21 some of the management. issues, you might.say, how we are 22 . working together, how's this doing -- okay?
23 One of the things we decided was to try and have 24- periodic meetings at the Division level, where the Divisions 125 would sit down together and address certain issues, and I
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213 1 ;didn't want 'it just to be like a program review where, say,
() '2 Research gets up hnd says here is my Research program --
3 MR. KRESS: So you have formalized-an. interaction
- 4. process?
5 MR. SHERON- Yes, but I want them to get more.into 6 the "how are we interacting together' --
"is this program 7 .still meeting our needs" - "have our needs changed" --
8 okay? -- "should there'be midcourse corrections?"
9 Let's face it. Things change. Our perceptions
-:00 change and the like as time goes on, and unless we 11- communication that for example back to Research, they are 12 liable to wind up doing research that is going this way and 13 we'are looking for something that we think started out in
-14 the same direction but it went this way, vice versa.
O
\m / 15 MR. KRESS: And Research never got the word.
16 DR. POWERS: Yes. Larry, you wanted to --
17 MR. SHAO: For instance, in some Research meeting, 18 important Research meeting I asked my people, invited our 19 -people to attend the meeting, even in the foreign trips if 20 they can afford to travel with us to Japan or something, 21 look at the tests on something, so every important my people 22 try to inform NRR people and say there is such a meeting and 23- sometimes they are in the review groups also.
24 They sit on so-called research review groups and 25 our people automatically are in the research review group, T
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[214 -)
l' -so in general I would say:the cooperation is pretty good, j 2- but there'are isolated cases.
f if MR. SHERON: _Did you want-.to -- right now,-Dana, 3-4 or -- I 5 DR.- POWERS: If this .is an appropriate point to 6 break.
7- MR. SHERON: People want to get coffee and'they 8 want to get it before the ctore is --
9 DR. POWERS: Okay. We will break until 3:30.
10 [ Recess.)
11 DR. POWERS: Let's come back into session and ask 12 Dr. Sheron to continue on.
13 I have taken a chance to examine your viewgraphs
-14 ahead. I noticed that many of them are written in coherent 15 English language.
16 I personally am enjoying this conversational type 17 of approach, so if there are things that you think that we 18 can understand just by reading and you want to skip on, feel 19 free to do so.
20 I am only concerned about Mr. Martin and his 21- schedule. You are good until 4:30 according to this 22 schedule.
23 We are not impacting your schedule?
24- Brian, the floor is yours.
25 MR. SHERON: Okay. Can you hear me now?
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215 1 In terms of-how do we use thefresearch results in
() 2-3 the regulatory decision-making process, well,LI think principally they provide . insights cxi- the risk significance q
- 4. and/or uncertainties associated'with new issues.
5 -Again,'like I discussed before, if we have an 6 issue and we can't really articulate it very well in terms ,
7- of what the significance is and the like, research usually 8 helps us shed light on the significance of it, uncertainties 9 associated with it and the like.
10 We get issues from all areas. Industry.makes 1 11 1 ~ proposals from which issues can arise as part of the 12 proposal. As I mentioned with the coatings, we can get 13 issues from allegations and NRR certainly gets its fair 14 share of allegations. That 's a very maj or part.
O(_/ 15 It is a fairly major part. I can't remember what 16 the FTE usage was but it is something on the order of 17_ somewhere like 40 to 60 FTE a year just on dealing with 18 allegations.
19 Dk. POWERS: And your annual report includes that 20 as a specific line item in the annual report to Congress.
21 It obviously is significant.
22 MR. SHERON: And so you can see with that number i
23- -coming in and the like, this is also a source of issues 24- which we have to chase down.
25 Ongoing research -- a lot of times you do l
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216 1 research,llike I*said, looking under1 rocks, and you_ find-
- 1) 2- something and then you have got to chase that down, so)not
'3 .onlylcan issues arise just through our licenseesLand-so 11 forth in the regulatory-process but also.from conducting 5 research and you get answers that you didn't expect.
6 DR. POWERS: Does NRR try to be clairvoyant? That 7 is, do they have a crystal ball that says I have been around
- 8. these plants, I kind of know what people are-thinking of~and 9 I am willing to bet that in five or years or something we 11 0 are going to have "x" coming down at us?
11 1 MR._SHERON: I'm sorry, are you talking about 12 Research?
13 -DR. POWERS: No, NRR.
14 MR. SHERON: Not -- I'll be quite honest with you.
15 I don't think.there has been any formal --
16 DR. POWERS: Yes, I am talking about something 17 formalized.
18 MR. SHERON: Or even informal, to that extent. I L 19 mean if something comes to mind, but for the most part we l
20 are so busy putting out fire drills and the like that we 21 really don't have time to think that far out.
22 DR. POWERS: I am just thinking you have more 23 day-to-day access to the licensees.
24 MR. SHERON: If we see something, if something 25- comes to our attention, okay, that we think would warrant
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217
-1 Staff starting to do some studies.
(A) _ 2 License renewal was an area that was actually like 3 that. We started that back in 1985 and I know because I was 4 assigned to do it back when I was a deputy in the old DSRO, 5 and the idea was to start thinking at that time -- now that 6 was not research, okay, but again here was an area that we 7 were going to have to start looking and I think Larry 8 started the aging program probably back around that time to 9 support it.
10 That was an area where we kind of did see 11 something coming down the road in five or ten years.
12 I think decommissioning might be another area.
13 There's a lot of issues coming up now about decommissioning 14 that may have to be addressed.
.Q(_/ 15 DR. POWERS: The Commission is really very 16 insistent on trying to get its research programs to 17 anticipate the future and they have a couple of items that 18 they have listed down in SRMs that speak to divining the 19 future, 20 Do you think the agency should have a formalized 21 effort to forecast?
22 MR. SHERON: That is a tough question because 23 whenever you do -- at least in this day and age when you say 24 within a certain amount of dollars that Research had I can 25 do exploratory research which may or may not prove a benefit (O
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218 j l
1 down the road, but at what cost?
() 2 i
Like you heard Larry say, I am not doing any-work 3 on coatings.- Now the question is -- you know, that is an
,c 4 immediate problem I have got'on my plate -- and so, gee, ic .
5 it okay not to ' fork on that where'I have got an immediate 1
i 6 licensing. problem I have got to deal with versus something l 7 that is more exploratory with no -- that is one of these 8 questions. ;
9 I don't know. It's how many angels dance on the ,
10 head of a pin, f 11 DR. POWERS: What you are saying, I think, is that .
12 as long as we can formulate a list of research that seems to 13 be good that we can't do, this idea of being proactive as 14 opposed to reactive is one that is just going to have to 1
, ( 15 stand aside.
16 MR. SHERON: I don't want to go on record saying 17 that.
18 [ Laughter.)
19 DR. POWERS: I am willing to go on record saying i
20 that.
23 MR. SHERON: I think the more there is research 22 that goes undone, because, say, of lack of funds, I.think 23 the more we have to really scrutinize what exploratory work 34 ana do and really convince ourselves that the exploratory 25 work we are doing-in lieu of, say,~something of a more j 4
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i 219 1 'immediate need really justifies it,_and'there may be cases,.
() 2 3
but I think we just need to think it through and be careful.
~
That' all.
4 DR. POWERS: What if we aid let's organize 5 differently.
6 Let's-say Research does explc.atory work. NRR 7 handles the--- does_the work on the day-to-day or the 8 existing issues. It is a redirection of the way we organize 9 things. .
10 MR. SHERON: My ' 1 personal feeling would be I 11 would not recommend that. I think it would -- it could i
.12 possibly detract. I mean when NER is involved in fire 13- drills and stuff and the like, there may be a tendency to 14 take shortcuts.
15 DR. POWERS: You are saying that the time scales 16 are still incompatible with each other?
17 MR. SHERON: Yes. We have historically -- we have 18 gone back recently as part of this DSI-22 and looked, and j 19 for the most part, any time we had seen there was a 20 longer-term study that was needed on a technical area, ask-21' Research to do that -- because they, I mean you know, I mean 22 Larry, basically we come in every day end it is fire drill
-23 city.
24 The first thing you do is you sit down, you go 25- through the morning report and find out how many plants J
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220 1 tripped the night before and figare'out what-are you going- j
() 2 to do about it, why, and are there any generic implication 3 and so forth. !
4 In Research you have time to-step back a little I
-5 bit and think about what the issue is and what is the best l, 6 way to approach it and the line. l 7 I.think it is a different atmosphere there and I l 8- - think it.is conducive-to coming up sometimes with better ;
i 9 solutions, i 10 MR. SHERON: Plus, I think that if you move that f
- 11 type of work to NRR, okay, at some point you'd probably say '
12 do I really need an Office of Resehrch? Because, you know, ,
i 13 what percentage of the people in research right now are :
14 doing exploratory research versus say confirmatory, okay?
! 15 Now you just can't pick it up and move it to NRR without the 16 resources, okay,- even if you moved the money and need the 17 FTE, okay?
18 DR. POWERS: Yeah, it woulti be clearly a 19 downsizing the research, t i
20 MR. SHERON: Well, it'd be very much a downsizing, 21 It wouldn't even warrant an office, quite honestly. So, I 22 mean, let's put it_this way, it certainly is something 23 that's not impossible to do, okay?
24 DR ' POWERS: The' suggestion is not original to.me.
25 MR. SHERON: Right.
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221
-1 DR. POWERS: The suggestion's been made by the 1
( 2- Commission.
3 MR. SHERON: Yeah. The Commission's also made 4 some suggestions about moving ---I've heard some about move I 5 all the technical work over to research and just have NRR.be ;
6 project, managers. It's another end of the spectrum, but 7 anyvey. !
8_ I don't'know. I guess I would say'what Frank-9 . Muraglia-once told me, he says euy of those options could i 10- work if you wanted to make them work, you know. I don't
-11 know what's best.
12 DR. POWERS: It's just not obviously an advantage, 13 is what you're saying, i
14 MR. SHERON: To me it's-not, and like I said, 15 having worked in research and then - -or having.in NRR, then 16 research, and NRR, you can see that there in a different 17 pace, okay, a different atmosphere in terms of dealing with ;
18 issues and how you do it. And I think there's a benefit to :
19 having a research office that can, as I ::id, take a little i 20 bit more time and step back and think things through in a
. 21 more independent atmosphere, as opposed to, you know, how am 22 I going to get through this crisis today.
, 23 MR. SHACK: I-mean, you know, it would be so 24 downsized,-I mean, you'd have three guys left to do this s
25 anticipatory study while you --
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i 222 :
1 (laughter.)
'~~N !
f y ) 2 MR SHACK: You're completely divorced from 3 everything else that's going on in the Agency. I mean, I i
4 just.-
5 MR. SHERON: Yeah.
i 6 MR.-SRACK: It's inconceivable to me how it could i
7 work.
6 DR. POWERS: Well, I think, I mean, I take Brian's 9 comments very seriously because he's worked both sides of 10 the house, and was effective in'both, so that when he says 11 there's a cultural difference and a cultural gap, I think 12 you have to take that very seriously, because those things 13 do tend to be very important.
14 MR. SHERON: Am I out of order here with my (s
15 graphs. I think I am. ;
16 MR. UHRIG: Yeah.
17 DR. POWERS: One or the other is stuck.
18 MR. SHERON: Let's try that. There we go.
19 I'm not going to swell on this. This ic -- you 20 probably can read this and understand it. You know, we 21 normally conduct short-of-term technical studies not of any 22 kind of a research nature. Typically it might be just to 23 gather up some information necessary to put together a 24 generic letter or a temporary instruction to the regions for 25 an inspection or the like.
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223 1 MR'. FONTANA:
I mean, talking about short-term,
() 0- how short, I-mean, roughly what time span are you talking 3 about here, you know?-
4 MR. SHERON: I would say within a month or two.
-5 MR. FONTANA: Oh, okay.
6 MR. SHERON: It'd be three at the most.
- 7. Basically anytime we see something that requires 8 more than that we usually ask research to do it.
9 KR. MILLER: What number of FTE would you put in 10- on-that kind of an effort versus your total, what fraction?
11 MR. SHERON: We have what's called a white book in 12 NRR which lists all of our -- it comes out bimonthly, and it 13 lists -- I think it's going to come out quarterly now. And 14 it lists all of our generic activities in it, okay? I think
) 15 there's probably about a dozen generic activities. I don't 16 know what the FTE level is. I could probably find it for 17 you.
18 MR. MILLER: Are we talking about five percent?
19 MR. SHERON: No, total maybe about 40. But when I 20_ say generic activities, okay, most of it has to do with, for 21 ' example, developing, for example, the fire-protection 22 rulemaking, shutdown rulemaking, steam generator, generic 23- -letter,aother generic letters that we have in place, okay?
24 The core: performance program, which is inspections, okay?
25 So it's not -- when we call them a generic activity, okay, t
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l 224 l 1 it is noc a-generic study, okay,_it is generic in the sense
() 2 that it just deals with many licensees, okay?
But, like I said, usually if we're trying to 3 f l
4 develop a longer-term study, okay, for example we have an !
5_ electrical EEQ program plan, okay, which ultimately'may I 6 result in the staff' issuing either some sort of regulatory 7 requirement or generic letter, okay? One-of the big pieces _
8 of_that action plan is developing the technical base. ;
9- MR. MILLER: Which research is doing? ,
.-10 MR. SHERON: That's research, okay, that's.the 11 program at Brookhaven.
12 MR. MILLER: Yeah, I've got that.
13 MR. SHERON: Okay. ,
14 MR. MILLERi In my file of things to look at.
) 15 MR. SHERON: Yeah. So in other words here's where 16 we would list we have a generic activity, but there's a bis 17 chunk of it that is research, and we're waiting for research 18 to give us their results before we move forward, okay?
19 This just talks about,-you know, the activities ;
20 the RES takes care of, which is develop new bases for 21 knowledge, application of knowledge bases to produce 22 analytical tools like our codes and so forth. They evaluate 23 and assess the analytical tools that they develop and, you
'24- know, if we need to, for' example, they'll do confirmatory 25 analyses if a licensee makes a submittal. We've got some l
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225 I 1 questions. We want some sensitivity studies run to see what
() 2 the effect of something is. We may ask research to go off 3 and do some independent chleulations with our tools.
4 The MOU was established in September of '91, 5 updated September of '95. I believe you all have a copy.
6 But that just provides guidance on how we interact with the 7 Office of Research. As Dr. Knapp told you earlier about 8 DSI-22, research, its redefining some of the NRR and 9 research roles and responsibilities. The major one right 10 now is the transfer of the rulemaking activities to NRR and 11 to NMS".
12 Then there's two other areas that have to be --
13 I'm sorry, another area that has to be looked at is the 14 consolidation question, and then I helieve research also has
) 15 to address the cooperation issue.
16 We, as I said before, we encourage frequent and 17 informal communications at all staff levels, and I've 18 discussed, you know, some of the interactions that we have.
19 MR. MILLER: A question on the MOU. MOUs are on 20 paper. Do they -- does it effectively work at all levels or 21 across the Agency or is it real well in some areas and ,
22 not -- you've worked both sides of the house.
23 MR.-SHERON:- It works real well in some areas, and 24 it doesn't work too well in other areas.
25 MR. MILLER: The answer I expected, of course.
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226 ;
i
-1 MR. SHERON: Yeah. And like I said, I'm trying to l
() 2 in my acting positAon right now one of the things I've been 3 trying to do is-focus on getting-the areas that don't work !
i 4_ too well to work.better, okay? And that's not a matter of i
5 just issuing memos. I'm sitting down talking'with the j 6 managers,.okay, sensitizing them. You know, if there's, you _
7 know,-I mean, let's face it, in some cases I think there's 8= some personality clashes.
9 MR. MILLER: I was going to say, probably I would ,
?
10 expect more let's put it-this way, styles of management.
11 MR. SHERON: Right.
12 MR. MILLER: Versus.
13 MR. SHERON: There's some issues where, you know, 14 there are some people at NRR that want to have much more say [
15 in, you know, how the research is formulated and how it's 16 carried out and to review the results and so forth, than, i
17 you know, perhaps the research people would like, okay? I 18 mean, there is a ownership-issue here, okay.
i 19 MR. MILLER: I mean, there are some who probably 20 just want to ignore what research says.
-21 MR. SHERON: No, I don't think they want to ignore !
_ 22 'it, okay, but I think that some of the issues are questions 23L about, you'know, what level do-we get in their pants, that's 1
24- basically the way I can describe it, okay? You know, how i 25 much do we interact? Do we sit down and meet with their i
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227 1 contractors at every program meeting, okay? My personal
() 2 feeling is no, okay? Having been in research I would argue that, you know, once the user defines what they want, it's 3
4 the Office of Research's job to go out and figure out the 5 best way to get that information, you know, and where the 6 best people are and do it in the most cost-efficient manner.
7 That's what they're paid for.
8 MR. MILLER: But shouldn't NRR be like the 9 cor. tractor and review it on a periodic basis?
10 MR. SHERON: Yes, yes, we should certainly look '
11 at -- I mean, one of the things we're supposed to do with I 12 think in the MOU is look, you know, for example, review the 13 statement of work that goes out for the purpose of saying 14 does this really respond to our user need, okay? You know, 15 now, in theory, okay, you know, the NRR people would provide 16 some feedback, okay? You know, gee, I think you ought to 17 change this task :o this or that or the other, or mayba you 18 could move this schedule up, and presumably there'c a 19 working relationship, okay, and everything gets done and 20 everybody walks away happy, okay?
21 MR. MILLER: But during the course of the research 22 I think it'd be valuable for NRR to --
23 MR SHERON: Yes, there should be periodic 24 meetings.
25 MR. MILLER: Right.
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228 I 1 MR. SHERON: Okay,- progress reports, if you_want f
() 2. to' call it --
3 MR. MILLER: At least quarterly, I would think.
4 MR. SHERON: Right. To make sure you know.
5 Because I think, like I said before, sometimes the issue :
6- that-we first defined has changed, okay, and so we need eo (
7 interact. We either regulate-or need to interact with the ,
8 researcher and vice versa, so we know what's coming out of 9- -the research program and they know whether or not-the issue -
1 10 is changing. And that's-just that constant interaction.
~11 MR. KRESS: Who supplies the money? Does NRR when 12 they send the: user need ask for an estimate for how much 13 this is going to cost and then transfer money between 14 offices?
15 MR. SHERON: No.
16 MR. KRESS: That's not done that way.
17 MR SHERON: No. And that was always a problem we l
18 had in research was that when you're trying to budget 19 certainly it's very difficult to anticipate, okay, if you 20 get a huge user need letter, okay? So.one of the things we ;
21 always tried to do, and I try and do it now, is if we see a 22- - big ef fort coming down the road, okay, ice've got to give-23 research years --
24- -MR. KRESS: Some' advance notice.
25 MR. SHERON: Years' notice. They have to get it
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229 1 in out-year budgets, okay? i
() 2 3
MR. SEALE:
DR. POWERS:
So there's really a quota, in effect.
Yeah,-if a thousand user-need 4 requests show up on Mel's desk, he's got a real problem.
5 MR. SHERON: Right. Exactly.
6 MR. SEALE: Oh, I don't know.
7 MR. SHERON: And that's always been a problem.
8 MR. SEALE: You've got a problem too.
9 MR. SHERON: And then you have to juggle, and 10 that's where you have to start moving money around and you 11 say okay, this is more important than that program, so I'm 12 going to scale back this program and I'm going to, you know, 13 deobligate money from this program and move it over here and 14 start this one up, and it really gets to be a real shuffle.
( 15 DR. POWERS: On the other hand I think that any 16 strategy you would not want NRR to feel constrained about 17 sending over user needs.
18 MR. SHERON: Right.
19 DR. POWERS: You want them to feel free to ask for 20 those things. I think if the research director can't handle 21 it, then it's the obligation of the EDO to make decisions.
22 You know, I don't think you want the NRR guys to say oh, I'm 23 going to figure out a way_around this because we just can't 24 afford it out of our budget 25 MR. SHERON: Yeah.
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230 ,
t I'
1 I should have brought some examples, but if you
() -2 -looked at any user need letter'in the recent past, that went 3 out of NLR, the last sentence should say, "This request has ,
4- been discussed and coordinated with the Division of" --
5 whatever, okay.- ;
6 The idea is this is not a surprise. Okay. You 7 know. In other words, if research said we don't have the 8- money, we can't do this, okay, then we would probably not 9 send that letter and that form.
t 10 DR. POWERS: Yeah, I think --
-11 MR. SHERON: We might get into negotiationn about 12 how important was it and should something else give, or,-you i
13 know, give way to do this work. Okay.
14 But we make sure that research has the resources O 15 available to do the work before we sent the letter.
16 DR. POWERS: I think that's wrong. I think we 17 need to get these needs on their table, even if they don't 18 have the resources.
- 19 Now, you may negotiate, because you have to get it 20 done, but I think you have got to -- I think one of the
- - 21 problems that research faces right now is that they don't 22 know the magnitude of work that they have to do. They are ,
i 23 not going to know unless.you tell them.
24 MR. SHERON: Right. But a lot of times we don't ,
25 even know what -- we don't even know whct we are going to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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' 231 1 tell them until the issue tells, okay. And I would argue
() 2 that just sending over a user need letter without having any 3 coordination on resources is only going to wind up in a 4 letter writing contest, okay, which is going to waste time.
5 Like I said, what we do is we think that we have 6 an important research project that needs to be done, and we 7 go over and we talk with research, and they say, well, they 8 pull their pockets inside out and say I don't have any 9 money. Okay. Then we go back and we say, okay, let's think 10 about this. How important is this compared with other stuff ,
11 that we have asked research to do? Can we tell them, you 12 know, you can back off on this program because this one is 13 more important?
14 And if that is the case, then we will si down 15 with them again and we will, again, go through tha 16 negotiating process to come to a resolution on h>w we can 17 get this work done, if it is, indeed, high prio- (ty. Okay.
18 You know, and that's, hopefully, you know, I think 19 that is the best way we can work.
20 MR. SEALE: So it is really all your fault?
21 MR. SHERON: Yes.
22 MR. SEALE: I mean it really is because they cut 23 the budget. No, no --
24 MR. SHERON: Everything is my fault at home. I 25 just thought.
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232 1 [ Laughter.]
() 2 MR. SEALE: Yeah. I nican they cut the budget in 3 research. Research turns their pockets inside out, sooner 4 than they did last year, and you accept it.
5 MR. SHERON: As opposed to?
6 MR. SEALE: Saying, hey, those guys are not
- / meeting our needs. We need more -- they need more resources 8 in order to respond to the legitimate requests that we have 9 filed with them.
10 MR. SHERON: I don't think we do that right now.
11 Because that is not really our -- you know, that has never 12 been our --
13 MR. SEALE: Well, you don't say anything when they 14 turn their pockets inside out. When they said we are out of 15 money, we are fully committed for Leerything we can do thia ,
16 year and you just go away.
17 MR. UHRIG: Or renegotiate the priority.
18 MR. SHERON: No , I mean I guess the question la it 19 is not our job, okay. I am not trying to pass the buck 20 here. But I mean NLR does not take the responsibility of 21 trying to decide where in the agency they should take the 22 money.
23 I mean the agency has a fixed budget. Okay.
24 MR. SEALE: You are not following what I am trying 25 to say, f3 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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233 l J
, 1 MR. SHERON:- Okay. I
( 2 MR. SEALE: What I am saying is, that, presumably, 3 you write user needs, not to tie up the money that has been f 4 allocated to research, but to respond to real regulatory 5 concerns that you have. [
i 6 MR. SHERON: Right. !
7 MR. SEALE: If they can't respond to those 8 concerns, then those concerns need to be articulated ,
9 directly to the commissioners of identifying the j 10 inadequacies that exist in meeting the needs that you have 11 to do your job.
12 Now, you are not pointing a finger at -- -
13 MR. SHERON: Research.
14 MR. SEALE: --
research. You are just saying the 15 well is dry, we don't have it. We, collectively, the 16 agency, doesn't have it.
17 So I guess what I am saying is, a big part of the 18 defense of the NR -- pardon me, of the research budget, 19 really should be a reconciliation between, by NRR, between 20 the NRC needs on the one hand, and the research's ability to 21 respond to those needs on the other, 22 MR. SHERON: Right. Now, we have not reached that 23 stage yet,.that's the problem.
24 MR. SEALE: But they are past it. They are in 25 free-fall on their budget. They-are past it.
\--
l
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234 1 MR. SHERON: In some areas. Yes, I agree, okay.
() 2 3
MR. SEALE:
MR. SHERON:
Okay.
But I would argue that when we look I 4 at what our needs are, okay, I can tell you right now, okay, 5 when the severe accident research cut was put on a table, 6 okay. Okay, which was $2.5 million, or whatever, what NLR 7 said was that not, you know, we are going to fall on sword 8 to save the whole program, because we recognize that, you 9 know, when Congress says you have got to take a budget cut, 10 you take a budget cut, okay. And if it doesn't come out of 11 research, it is going to come out of somewhere else. Okay.
12 Now, am I going to sit there and say it is 13 acceptable to lay off staff in NLR or in some other office 14 to save that money to do that work? No. But what we are l
(_) 15 saying is that we looked a* that and we said we need severe 16 accident codes. As a mirimum, we need the codes maintained.
17- Okay.
18 Now, the rest of the research, okay, said we are l
19 going to have to defer to RES to detennine, okay, I can't 20 sit there and tell you that if they don't do the FARO 21 facility, okay, for example. All right. Okay. And they 22 don't approve the severe accident code, that I am not-going 23 to be able to make some regulatory decision, because I just 24 _ don't know that right now. Okay.
25 You know, nobody is sitting here, you know, saying 1
l
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i 235 1 that steam explosions are the most critical issue.
() 2 MR. SEALE: Sure.
3 MR. SHERON: But I can't regulate nuclear power 4 . plants. Okay. !
5 So what'I am saying is that we recognize that, 6 'yes, okay, if they start cutting research, the codes are not >
7 going to be developed much further. Okay. We are going to ;
8 be stuck in 1997 for a long time, in terms of the technology 9 that we have. -All.right. But that's where we did stand up 10 and we said we need codes. This is the baseline that NLR 11 needs in this area. Okay.
12 My guess is we would say the same thing in thermal 13 hydraulics. Okay. :Do I need a new and advan'-1 and 14 improved code? .It would be nice to have. Okay. Must I 15 have it to do my work? No, I can probably get by with what 11 6 I have today. Okay.
__ 17 So from the standpoint, you-know, am I going to 18 stand up and say I can't do my work-if I don't get a new 19 improved code? No, I can't say that. It's very difficult.
20 That's part of tue problem that we are in now. Okay. Plus 21 the factithat nobody wants to go and say, you know, we can't E22 do -- we are not going to say we can't do our work because 23- research doesn't have this money here.
24' I know that is not a good answer that you want to
-25 hear, but --
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236 1
1 MR. FONTANA: Well, basically, you have to make ;
n G decisions on the basis of what information exists, i 2
3 basically.
i 1 4 MR.-SHERON: Exactly. l 5 MR. FONTANA: Like everybody has to make decisions l
6- on what ultimately is inadequate information. So I would 7 say it would be pretty hard for him to say, well, I can't 8 make this decision because research has not given -- given 9 me something. And I can see where he could say I might have 10 a problem a year or two down the road because I don't have 11 such and such. But in terms of just today's decision, you 12 just got to go with what you got. -
13 DR. POWERS: Well, I think it's a question --
14 MR. FONTANA: Am I misreading?
15 DR. POWERS: I think it is a question, Mario, of 16 local versus global planning.
17 MR. FONTANA: Yeah.
18 DR. POWERS: If I know that NRR absolutely has to 19 have the codes as they exist now, and they would like to 20- have them a little bit better next year, and they would like 21 tohavebhisotherthingdone,andIcanonlyaffordtodo 22 onG out of the three of the things, then at least I get to 23 make a choice. If, in fact, I-say I can only do one thing, 24 what one thing is that? I don't know what things ,are not 25 .being done. I think that is the concern here, is I can --
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237 -;
1 MR. SHERON: We are trying to put down what the ;
() 2 impact is. In other words, we put down what won't get don 9.
3 .Okay. One of the things I was saying is that if the severe .
i 4- accident program is cut, okay, we might have a very j 5 difficult time implementing the backfit rule. -r 6 MR. SEALE: But, see, my concern is this -- 'l 7 DR. POWERS: Well, just in response to your 8 question, I think I was distressed when I saw the list of. t 9 things that were not being done from research, in that it 10 - was on two sheets of paper. !
11 MR. SHERON: -Yeah.
12 DR. POtJERS : It wasn't very closely spaced on two 13 sheets of paper. I expected that to be a much more felsome 14 sort of thing. Now, I suspect maybe I was just getting some 15 examples and things like that. But it seems to me -- I am 16 not sure:that it is bad. I think that any time that you 17 come into an agency like this, thero ought to be a big 18 inventory of things that are not being done. But we don't I
19- seem to have that -- we don't know what that inventory is.
20 MR. SEALE: That's my problem. The NRC, the 21 research people have the very fundamental difficulty of -
22 trying to justify their resources on the basis of an 23- incomplete list. A complete list would have the tiale, full !
E24 list ofauser'needs that research, I mean that NRR sees, and 25 AEOD,f or that matter.
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l 238 l
1 MR. FONTANA: Yeah, and not only the user needs 2 right now, but with their experience in regulation --
3- MR. SEALE: The full list, the list that -- !
4 MR. FONTANA: -- they can extrapolate against, 5 again into the future about what is likely to --
-6 MR. BARTON: You need a long ange plan for ;
7 research. But I'think the_ problem h' e is what do you do 8 with emerging issues. If you gc,t sist that takes you out 9- for several years, and you are worki, t on that research, you 10 are working on it, and NLR comes up with emerging iss.les, [
11 how do you handle that when you have got a fixed budget in 12 research? That's the problem.
13 DR. POWERS: Well, I mean it seems to me --
14 MR. UHRIG: You re-orient your priorities.
15 MR. SEALE: You can make, if we had a good c 16 prioritization scheme, then you can tell where within the 17 hierarchy of things that are being done, and need to be 18 done, this comes in.
19 But right now it seems to me that you are putting 20 in at the bottom or in the middle or someplace, and you are 21 displacing things that you don't know anything about. ,
22_ MR. SHAC" You guys must live in a different 23 world than I do, you.know. My experience is more like I 24 have got a limited amount of resources and how do I make the 25 best use of it. You know, I don't spend a whole lot of time ,
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239 1 ' planning on what I would do if I won the lottery.
() 2 3 are doing.
DR. POWERS: Well, I don't think that's what they I think what we are concerned about is are we ;
4 . making the best selection of things that we do, given rSe l i
5 resources we had. If there is a.large component of things l 6 that we could do with those resource that we don't know 7 anything about. ;
8 MR. BARTON: And how do you handle emerging 9- issuss? ,
10 DR. POWERS: And how do you handle emerging >
11 issues? I think that is the question that is posed. i 12 MR. SHACK: Even the-issues where, you know, you 13 are ack;. , for what research isn't being done, you know, 14 surely, every research plan that is being done would be done
() 15 differently 4f they had more money. You know, I don't think 16 anybody decides that their high burn-up fuel program is the .
17 optimal program. You know, they are doing what they can do 18 with the resources that are available.
19 And, you know, how much effort do you spend 20 saying, well, you know, if I had more resources, this is -
21 what I would be doing.
22 DR. POWERS: I think particularly with our 23' response to the commission, that-we are going to have to say 24; here is what is not being done. And I think that is what we 25' are being asked. Explicitly. I mean I can point to a i
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1 240 {
r 1 transcript on that. And we don't have a good list on that.
(j 2 MR. MILLER: The list is pretty short there.
3 MR. SHERON: Well, when you look at the impacts, 4 okay, I said this back in 1987, the day I walked into 5 research, okay, and that is that if the research budget went 6 to zero, this agency would not shut down reactors. We would 7 still license reactors. We would still let reactors run.
8 Okay.
9 However, okay, when those issues came up, all 10 right, the industry, okay, would probably pay and pay 11 dearly. All right. Because, you know, for example, on the 12 steam generator issue, if I didn't have research, and this 13 issue was important, either we go out with some sort of an 14 expedient order to tell them to get this answer, okay, or if O
\_ ,/ 15 we felt we had some time, we would probably promulgate a 16 rule that let us go into the severe accident area and ask 17 this question. Okay.
18 Ultimately, we would get an answer if an answer 19 was needed. Okay. But at what price? Okay. That's really 20 what you are arguing about.
21 DR. POWERS: I mean research, in every 22 organization I have ever known, I worked for a while for 23 Eastman Kodak, who puts 14 percent of its earning into 24 research, a huge fraction of money goes into research. No 25 question about it. If research went to zero at Eastman ANN RILEY & ASSOC 1ATES, LTD.
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241 1 Kodak tomorrow, they would still make film. They would
() 2 still develop film. They would still sell cameras. .
3 For a while. The -- you can live a long time f
4 without research and you can always cut its budget in the i 5 hopes that things get better next year. ;
6 MR. SEALE: You can always cut a string into more 7 pieces, and that's basically what you are doing.
8 MR. MILLER: I mean eventually you don't have any 9 string left.
10 DR. POWERS: What we have got, what we are talking 11 about here is trying to articulate -- it is what we have to 12' do for both Congress and the commission, articulate what is ,
13 not being dono and get some sense of what the impact of that 14 is.
15 If we conclude the impact is 20 years down the 16 line, there's 20 years to solve the problem. If it is five 17 years down the line, then we got five years to solve the 18 problem.
19 DR. POWERS: In any case, the problem is not going 20 to be resolved in the reactors being shut down; it is just 21 going to be resolved in -- if they don't pay the money now, 22 you pay me later I mean that's --
23- MR. SHERON: I'm just saying the industry right 24 ' now doesn't care.- They probably say, you know,.get rid of-
- 25 research,.okay? Build the wall of research that you need,
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I 242 1 because they know how difficult it is for us to force them 1
() 2 to do the research. And on top of that, even when they are 3 doing it, they're the ones in control, okay, and we're on 4 the outside watching. All right?
5 DR. POWERS: That's a grad point. Control is very 6 valuable in that role.
7 MR. SHERON: Yeah. And that's part of the 8 problem. It is very difficult for us to gu to the 9 Commission and say, if we don't do this research, you know, 10 we're going to shut down plants. If you look at all the 11 impact statements, it just says we're not going to have 12 complete knowledge, we may make the industry do more and the 13 like, like that, okay? But, see, so that's where we have a 14 hard time of trying to come up with this, you know, I'm 15 going to fall on my sword on this because you just don't get 16 there. Okay? I think there is a more fundamental question, 17 which has always bothered me, and that is that the Office of 18 Research is a statutory office.
19 DR. POWERS: Right.
20 MR. SHERON: Okay? And for those of you who 21 remember how it evolved, it was way back in the '70s and 22 there was a reason for it, okay? To make sure that money 23 was not diverted to other things but to water reactor safety 24 research.
25 I've got my own concern has been that I think that
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243 1 you really have to ask yourself, you know, in this
() 2 environment of just hack, hack, hack away at the budget, you 3 know, where it went from 100 million down to 68 down to, you 4 know, 40 and is probably going to be less, okay? Is the 5 office even viable? Okay?
6 I mean, what's going on with that office right 7 now, I think, is the fact that people that are spending more 8 time, okay, 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day doing nothing but budget 9 exercise. They're not doing research, okay? They're not 10 even doing what the name of the office says it is, okay?
11 It's not a research office, it's a budget exercise office, 12 okay?
13 When people have to spend all their time doing 14 nothing but saying, how am I going to cut my program and 15 what the impact is, when they realize that nothing is going 16 to come of it, it's going to get cut, okay? Nobody is 17 listening, nobody is going oh my goodness, you know? That's 18 a real problem. It's a morale problem.
19 You heard Wayne say, gee, what am I going to do 20 when Ralph Myer leaves? Okay? How are you going to get new 21 people to go into the Office of research when they look and 22 they say, why should I come to this Office of Research, 23 there is no future here. If I extrapolate the budgec, I'll 24 be out of work in three years.
25 So it's difficult in terms of succession planning.
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244 A How dc you -- how do you replace the Ralph Myers and get
()
2 good people? You can't, okay? Because they see the-3- declining program and if you ask -- if they came around and l 4 said, now, what do you do for a living, they say, I go l l
5 through budget exercises, I don't manage research, j 1
6 DR. POWERS: And the guy has a degree in chemical l 7 engineering and not a degree in accounting so he doesn't 8 want to do-accounting; he wants to do chemical engineering.
9 MR. SHERON:- What's the old adage there? Don't +
10 chop off the king's head and let him bleed to death on the 11 throne. You know, if they're going to do away with the 12 Office of Research, they ought to just say, yeah, we'll do 13 away with it and save the $40 million rather than just sit 14 there and hack, hack, hack, hack.
() 15 MR. SEALE: That's exactly -- l t
- 16 MR. SHERON: And still try and have this outward t-17 appearance of, yes, we have a research program.
18 MR. SEALE: That's exactly my point. To put it 19- another way, if they don' t know what the longer term user 20 needs are that you see out there in the future, how do they 21 knew who to replace Ralph Myer with when he does leave? ,
22 MR. SHERON: Because most of the time wf don't 23 really know what the longer term user needs are going to be.
24 We can speculate, okay? All right? But for the most part, 25 they're probably more knowledgeable than_we are, okay? We-ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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245 1 don't have any divine insights in terms of what's going on
(s) 2 out there. We react. Mostly, we are a reactionary 3 organization.
4 And, you know, to some extent --
5 MR. SEALE: Maybe that's another reason to have 6 that industry advisory counsel for research too because they 7 probably would have told you three or four or five years ago a that high burn up fuels were going to be the next hot issue 9 on plant performance t -Sancement.
10 DR. POWERS: Well, we told them that.
11 I think we better move on.
12 MR. SHERON: Okay, I'm not going to go 13 through -- let me skip on a couple of these here. These are 14 not -- I'm going to skip the one on research capabilities.
(, 15 You understand that. That's not -- I've talked about the 16 value of current research. This just has some examples of 17 how we used current research results so I won't dwell on 18 that. The same, the second viewgraph there also talks about 19 some of the things we've used the research program for in 20 the regulatory process. There was another one on the value 21 of current research.
22 One area I think might be interesting, you may 23 want -- at least to my perception, okay, and that is that as 24 licensees become more competitivo in this deregulated ,
25 environment, they're becoming more innovative. They are i
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246 1 looking for ways to save money more and more, okay? And I
<S
( ) 2 think we are going to start seeing a lot more proposals 3 coming in.
4 NEI came in last summer, I think it was, for a 5 program that they called a full plant assessment of the 6 regulations. And one of the things they proposed was a 7 pilot with three areas they wanted to begin on. And they 8 want to see if they can get us to relax nur current 9 requirements in that area, which is going to take some 20 thinking and the like, and it will. As well as PRA.
11 how, I point this out because I think we are going 12 to see more of this and our ability to respond to these 13 kinds of initiatives to the industry is going to require us 5 14 to be smarter or we are going to say no to the industry.
On (m/ 15 The industry is going to p'It a lot of pressure on us because 16 they're under a lot of pressure to be competitive, c 17 I think this, if you want to think about long-term 18 research, I can't articulate wnat this is but I think 19 deregulation is going to spawn a lot of innovative thinking 20 on the part of the industry which is going to produce issues ,
21 that we don't even know about now, okay, and what they are I 22 can't tell you, all right? But I'm starting to see the 23 camel's nose in the tent here. I think.
24 DR. POWERS: I think this is just beautiful 25 prognostication, Brian. _And this is the kind of thing, when
, ~)
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247 1- Ilask you for clairvoyance, this is the kind of thing I 2 think you ought to be providing in spades and in this level
-3 of--detail and everything here.
I mean, it says it all right 4- -there.
- 5. MR. SEALE: You've already got the example, the 6 alternate' repair criteria on the steam generator tube.just 7 opened up Pandora's box in terms of research things. And 8 you need-to be able to tell tne industry people that. And-9 when they come in with taese things,_you need to tell them,-
10- hey, that's part of the bill.
11 DR. POWERS: If we look at this slide, this is an-12 amazing slide. It says what we all know is the licensee 13 should be driven t.o be more competitive and we certainly 14 heard that. . But then he says this: We anticipate the 15 industry will aggressively use PRA to justify, We've been 16 worrying that, gee, we may be making this rule too 17 complicated that they won't make it.
18- And here we have the guy.out on the front line 19 telling us, we're anticipating big uses of this thing and 20 you better be prepared for it. Then he_comes in and hits us 21 with a beautiful example of where they need lots of research 22 support is this pilot program which sounds very attractive 23 to Congress, sounds very attractive to a lot of people, 24 they've spoken in front of this committee and he says, you 25 know, I'd-want to think about this.
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l-248 1 :I bet he would want to.think, all'right. He would
() 2 want that one supported up the ying-yang and tremendous 3 amount of research that I guarantee you these research-
'4 people are unprepared to deliver right now because it is-
'S liable to ta'ma their entire staff to do it. I mean, can you 6 imagine taking three major areas of a plant or relaxing on a 7 whole plant? I mean, I think this is beautiful clairvoyance 8 that's coming in from NRR that doesn't -- that-ought to 9 appear in this list of here are the things that we can't do 10 right now, commissioners, because-we haven't got the staff 11 to do.it. I just love this.
12 ' 4R . SHERON: Another area I didn't put down here, l
13 because 1 just occurred to us in the last couple of days 14 and I didn't have a chance to get it in the viewgraphs but 15 it is an NMSS issue also but the dry casks storage, okay?
16 DR. POWERS: Yes.
17 MR. SHERON: These things got certified, the new 18 Holmes cask, I think it was. Now they're seeing cracks in 19 the top weld. Okay? There is no way to NDE cracks.
20 DR. POWERS: Beautiful.
21 MR. SHERON: I mean, that's another issue. But 22 NMSS has come over'to us because the engineering folk have 23 expertise and they've asked research to get involved. So 24 that's another issue that's cropped up that I -- you k" w, 25' and I would speculate there may be more with dry cask ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 l
249 1- storage and the whole bit. And decommissioning which we j I 2 haven't even thought about.
~-)
3 And then you have a chairman telling you that she 4 sees this -- her world view says this is going to become an 5 area of bigger issues. And you can say amen. I've just got 6 one.
7 So anyway, you know, as I said, the industry has 8 programs that cover certain aspects of research methods 9 development. They' re doing work in the steani generators.
10 The reactor vessel internals cracking, the VIP program, 11 they've spent about $3 mil 3 ion a year. We've asked research 12 to do some confirmatory work in that area but the majority I 13 think ia being done by the industry there.
14 DR. POWERS: I thought the VIP issue was an f
(_,/ 15 excellent example of confirmatory research where industry 16 had done a fairly elaborate set of calculations, the NRC 17 came in and said we've got a set of check calculations here 18 and we seem to get about the same answer, you know, 19 disagreeing about this and that. But the conclusion is the 20 same. That seemed to work just exactly the way it's 21 supposed to work, it seemed to me. And they both made 22 persuasive cases for what they've done.
23 MR. SHERON: You're talking about the vessel, 24 right?
25 DR. POWERS: That's the vessel inspection thing.
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l 250 1 MR. SHERON: See, I was talking about the
,m
((] 2 internal --
3 DR. POWERS: You're talking about internals. I'm 4 sorry. Yeah.
5 MR. SHERON: Where they took the lead on that.
6 But, as I said before, the industry usually only focuses on 7 research that addresses issues of economic or regulatory 8 concern in the sense that if, you know, they've got 9 something that's potentially going to shut them down because 10 of a compliance issue, they're going to work on it.
11 MR. MILLER: Wouldn't many of those issues overlap 12 issues of safety concerns?
13 MR. SHERON: Some of them do. One was the CRDM 14 no::le cracking which really haven't asked research to do n
, 15 anything right now because it was merely just looking to the 16 industry to do more inspection. But that wcs one where we 17 saw a potential long-term safety problem and they saw 18 nothing as an economic problem. You know, don't worry, when 19 we see boron crystals on the head, we know it's time to shut 20 down. That one didn't sit too well with us.
21 [ Laughter.]
22 DR. POWERS: On top of that, they wrote it down 23 which was stunning.
24 MR. SEALE: That's quite a detector, isn't it?
25 MR. SHERON: As an indicator.
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251 1 (Laughter.]
( .
2 DR. POWERS: It's an indicator'of more than just a 3 - vessel head cracking.
4 MR..SHERON: So, anyway, you know,.-I think if our 5 resources continue,to decline, we.are going to be putting 6 more and more' burden on the' industry and they are liable to 7 see'the exact opposite, okay. Instead of getting all-the 8 stuff approved that they think they are going to get,. it's 9- not going to get approved or it's going to get approved with 10 a lot of restrictions that they don't like.
11 You know, it's hard to anticipate, but Ilthink as 12 a general --
13 DR. POWERS: I guess what you are saying here is j 14 it's pay me now or pay me piecemeal.
15 MR. SHERON: Yes, and they may think they are 16 saving money, but, you know, it's going to cost-them whether 17 or not they do it themselves or whether --
18 DR. POWERS: You can make a rational decision 19 between those two. Money paid now is more valuable than 20 money paid in the future.
21- MR. SHERON: Exactly.
22- DR. POWERS: It's just -- and you can make a 23 decision on that, but again, I think we come back to the 24 societally ultimate decision.
25 MR. SEALE: There is a disconnect here in the
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252 1 sense that the money that's the fee money this year is the
/\
( )' 2 money required to cover the agency's operation last year.
3 If Congress arbitrarily and summarily reduces the budget by 4 a certain amount from one year to the next, these arguments 5 somehow don't get necessarily into that, unless we do our 6 job very, very well with our letter, and that's our marching 7 order.
8 DR. POWERS: That's our marching order.
9 MR. SHERON: You know, this last vu-graph really 10 doesn't have anything profound on there, other than where we 11 think the program ought to go, but I would submit that in 12 terms of a possible theme for your letter, I thought about 13 it and I think maybe, you know, if there was a baseline 14 research program of some minimum funding. I don't know what
(_ / 15 the number is, whether it's $40 million or $25 million or 16 $70 million, but at some point, you know --
17 DR. POWERS: Viability is --
18 MR. SHERON: Stopped. We can't go Delow that, you 19 know, for a number of reasons, for stability in the program, 20 if anything.
21 MR. MILLER: If you took the money you spend on 22 allegations plus requests by industry, when they come in 23 with a new idea, like fuel burn up and so forth, if you 24 added those two numbers together and maybe a couple of other 25 ones, that to me defines a baseline pretty quickly; wouldn't O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 253 l
1 it?
7 2 MR. SHERON: All allegations don't have -- you
}m}
3 know, a lot of it is wrongdoing. A lot of it is --
4 MR. MILLER: Well, what I'm saying is you spend 5 money on allegations. You indicated you spent 50 FTE a year 6 or something like that.
7 MR. SHERON: Forty or so, I think.
8 MR. MILLER: Well, that's still money.
9 MR. SHERON: Oh, yes, 10 MR. MILLER: Even Everett Dirkin would say it's 11 real money. Then you add up the proposals that come 12 through, like fuel burn up and new I&C and so forth. You 13 have to respond to those raquests. You are talking about $?5 14 to $20 million I assume every year.
7m k_) 15 MR. SHERON: In terms of salaries.
16 MR. MILLER: Right. In terms of FTE, you are 17 spending at NRC.
18 MR. SHERON: Like I said, allegacions --
19 MR. MILLER: I'm talking about just those 20 absolutely mandatory things you have to do.
21 MR. SHERON: Right.
22 MR. MILLER: It's not looking at future research 23 or not even thermal hydraulic research or human factors' 24 research, just to respond as a research organization to 25 things that come in the front door.
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254 1 MR. SHERON: I'm sorry, as a research or 2 regulatory organization?
3 MR. MILLER: Research. Didn't you say you spent 4 time on --
5 MR. SHERON: No, Research doesn't, NRR spends it.
6 I'm sorry.
7 MR. MILLER: Research spends time on responding to 8 industry requests for SER's and so forth?
9 MR. SHERON: No. That work is all done in NRR, 10 submittals that come in requesting approval, license 11 amendments and so forth, as well as 99 percent of 12 allegations are handled by NRR.
13 MR. MILLER: None of that is handled by Research?
14 MR. SHERON: No. Now, we occasionally ask (O
x ,/ 15 Research, like I said, to assist us on some of these
- 16. reviews. For example, on this allegation on coatings, we've 17- asked them to do some work for us. On the AP-600, obviously, 18 we asked them to do a lot of confirmatory research, and 19 there's other submittals that come in. High burn up fuel.
20 Research has a large program on that.
21 So, thera's areas when technical issues come into 22 the Regulatory Office that again require some longer term 23 research and longer term technical studies. We ask Research 1
24 to assist us.
25 MR. MILLER: What dollar amount is that?
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l 255 1 MR. SHERON: I really don't know if I could put a (m) 2 dollar amount on that, because I've never really tried to 3 add it up.
4 I guess the best way to describe it is maybe about 5 20 percent or 80 percent of the research budget, I 6 understand, is supposedly responding to user need requests, 7 which means that's areas where we have specifically asked 8 them to help us. Now, that's not all at NRR. There's NMSS 9 involved in there, too, and AEOD as well, and I don't know 10 what that split is. That may give you some idea. I think 11 Research may be in a better position to answer exactly how 12 much money is supporting NRR work versus the others.
13 I think tomorrow you have an opportunity to talk 14 with the industry. You certainly might want to pursue some
/^\
(msl 15 of your lines of question with them. I think they may have 16 a misperception of where their benefits lie in terms of 17 cutting the NRC budget now and paying later, in terms of not 18 getting stuff approved that they wanted to.
19 MR. MILLER: Do they realize when the NRC budget 20 gets cut, that the maj ority of that is coming out of 21 Research?
22 MR. SHERON: No.
23 MR. MILLER: Or do they just see a big pot of 24 money?
25 MR. SHERON: Well, once the cut comes in, it's up g
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l 256 1 to the Commission on how to allocate it. That may
-n
- i
) 2 eventually show up in some public documents, you know, where 3 the cuts were actually taken.
4 DR. POWERS: I'm sure it shows up. I'm equally 5 certain that the industry probably doesn't care enough to 6 look.
7 MR SHERON: They would like to see it taken out 8 of the inspection program.
9 DR. POWERS: And the enforcement program.
10 MR. SHERON: We'd like it to go to NRR so we can 11 approve all their licenses.
12 MR. MILLER: I think earlier today, there was at 13 least an implied statement that said maybe we are spending 14 money on an inspection program that doesn't need to be Q
k/
s 15 spent, as far as the impact on safety, that it might be more 16 effectively spent in other places like research.
17 MR. SHERON: I think what Ashok vas alluding to, 18 not so much that we are mis-spending money, but it's a 19 matter that in this day and age where we are really seeing 20 some pretty nasty budget cuts and everything, we really need 21 to re-think the ground up, you know, how we are spending our 22 resources in some areas and do we really need to spend that 23 amount of resources. That's really what it boils down to.
24 We need to make sure we have a basis for what we 25 are doing. When he says, you know, we are spending 2,500 O
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257 IL hours per plant on_ inspection. hours, he's not saying'that's
- t 'the wrong amount. He's saying we need to understand why_is 3 itL2,500 and why do'we-believe that's the correct amount.
4 If it's not, maybe it should be something different.
5- MR. MILLER: I've heard one Commissioner speak-to 6 the issue, we need to have less -- we need to be less 7 involved in trying to manage the plants.
8 MR. SHERON: We also have a GAO report that says 9 we should be more involved. I'm sorry. Not involved in 10 managing the plants but --
11 MR. BARTON: Spend more inspection time, find out 12 what's going on.
13 MR. SHERON: Looking at the management of plants.
14 MR. MILLER: Less trying to manage them.
15 MR. SHERON: We don't manage plants.
16 MR. MILLER: I understand that.
17 DR. POWERS: I think you'd have a hard time 18- finding explicit examples of where they were trying to 19 manage plants.
20 MR. SHERON: I would take issue. We don't -- the 21 complaint that we have had for the most part has been that 22 we shouldn't be in evaluating the management of plants.
23 This is the whole senior management process, which I'm sure 24 -you've-been involved with, so I don't want to -- I think 25 that's been the controversial area- .
() ;
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258 :
1f MR. SEALE: I think you can find vents in'the s ceilings of rooms where it's been suggested'that people from
~
-2s .
3- ~the NRC have-'tried to-manage the plant actions underJcertain 4- : circumstances, where the industry people have hit the' roof. !
-5: They are very defensive of their responsibility.
6 DR.. POWERS: It's my impression that the NRC-tends
_7- to be v::q circumspect.
-8 MR. SEALE: They have been very careful in that 9 -regard;<yes.
10 DR. POWERS: I think-itsbecomes a glib accusation. 4 11- MR, SEALE - Sure, it's exactly that kind of thing.
12 DR.. POWERS: Brian, that was very helpful. I.
- 13 liked your insights.
14 MR, SHERON: Well, thank you, i
15 MR. UHRIG: I just have a philosophical question,
. 16 I guess. Back in the days Lien you were:in Research, one of 17 the problems, as I recall, was the complexity of the 18 research contracting process. Is this a continuing problem?
19- Does it affect --
20 MR. SHFRON: Well, it's not for me.
21 [ Laughter.)
4 22 MR. UHRIG: But it would be in the sense that as I
[ 23- : recall,. some of the work was being actually contracted out 24 of-NRR because they could perhaps with the urgent need,-get 25 it-in place-before you could-do.it through Research. Am I. -
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259 1 misunderstanding that?
2 MR. SHERON: That may have been true I think back
[V) 3 then. There was also -- th9re were a lot of generic issues.
4 If you remember, originally the generic issue program when 5 it started up back in the 1980's and so forth, all generic 6 issues were supposed to be worked in the Office of Research.
7 I'm sorry, starting in 1987 when the program moved to 8 Research.
9 But there were a lot of, let me call them shorter 10 fuse issues, that showed up in NRR and I think there was a 11 management decision made at the time that NRR would retain 12 those that were shorter fuse. It was not -- I don't think 13 it was related to the contracting at all.
14 MR. SEALE: It was a fact that all of the
(~)
'N ,/ 15 resources in NRR had already been committed, so the only 16 place they could find them was some place else.
17 MR. SHERON: No, I think it was just a matter that 18 we felt the work could be done faster for the short term 19 stuff in NRR, if we just went out and did it ourselves as 20 opposed to writing a letter and then having Research go out 21 and do it.
22 MR. UHRIG: You no longer contract directly for 23 resaarch from NRR?
24 MR. SHERON: No. I know that's an area of what 25 constitutes confirmatory research, but for the most part, (m) '
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260 1 we've gone back, as part of this DSI-22 issue, and looked
(~h
() 2 .through all of the work that we have ongoing now, as well as 3 what we had say about the past two or three years, and for 4 the most part, what we've seen is that any time there was 5 longer term research or longer term technical studies 6 needed, i.e., six months or more, that work went to the.
7 Office of Research and is either there now or was done by 8 the Office of Research.
9 We did identify a couple of areas that we felt 10 were candidates to send to Research. One was grid 11 reliability. We have a study at Oak Ridge going on right 12 now. We felt that was considered to be a longer term 13 technical study and we proposed to transfer that to Research 14 along with the FTE. Now, granted, it's only a tenth of an 15 FTE because it's contract monitoring.
16 I think there were one or two other areas that we 17 identified could be considered longer term technical studies 18 and therefore we would transfer.
19 For the most part, we really don't do confirmatory 20 research in NRR. At least, I haven't been able to find any.
21 MR. UHRIG: Is the contract in precess been 22 simplified or does there still continue to be a problem? Or, 23 is that really a question for research?
24 DR. POWERS: Well, in fairness --
25 .
SHERON: I think it's a question for Research.
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261 1 I'm not aware of any problems. I haven't heard Research
() 2 come to us and complain.
3 MR. UHRIG: One of the issues that came up in that 4 era was that it war. so much easier to go to the national 5 labs.
G MR. SHERON: Right.
7 MR. UHRIG: Then to try to put a contract 8 somewhere else, because you had these MOU's or whatever you 9 had with the national labs, which simply expanded, whereas 10 to go outside was a difficult issue.
11 MR. SHERON: Well, with the national labs, you 12 didn't have to do any competitive contracting. When you 13 went to a private organization, you had to go out with bids, 14 panels. It took a very long time to do the ratings. You 15 were always subject to a challenge, which could hold it up.
16 You know, it could be a year or more before you got a 17 contract in place. It was as simple as that.
18 DR. POWERS: It is also true that many people 19 coming in from the outside are just stunned about how 20 complicated Government contracting is. It's just a very 21 difficult thing to do. Quite frankly, it's because of abuses 22 that have occurred in the past that have created rule upon 23 rule upon rule. It's just difficult.
24 The national laboratories have enjoyed a special 25 relationship with the NRC because the legislation
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- 1. specifically culls them out and what Congress did not want p)
( 2 NRC to do was to set up its own national laboratories, so 3 they made it easy for them to make use of DOE's 4 laboratories. Actually, made use of ERDA's laboratories that 5 became DOE laboratories, out of intent.
6 I think what you are seeing now is my perception 7 from the various DSI's and what not, is the research budget 8 has contracted as a number of large scale multidisciplinary 9 programs has gone down. The utility of going to smaller 10 institutions, academic institutions and what not, and the 11 product that they get from those smaller institutions are 12 becoming more viable and so there's more interest in going 13 to other suppliers.
14 In the hay day of doing the large integral tests, 15 there really wasn't much choice. Now, there's a real good 16 choice and I think they are making adjustments there.
17 That's my perception.
18 Again, thank you very much, Brian. That was very 19 informative.
20 MR. SEALE: Yes, thanks a lot. Gave us lots of 21 questions.
22 DR. POWERS: We are ready for Mr. Martin, who many 23 of us know from a different context, so he'll have to tell 24 us all about his experiences being in AEOD for what, four 25 months, three months? How long has it been?
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263 1 MR. MARTIN: Actually, it's a little over two.
/m (v) 2 DR. POWERS: Two months. You can tell us about 3 your introduction by fire here, and are you still glad to be 4 here. Welcome. I'm dead serious, how are you liking this ,
5 job?
3 6 MR. MARTIN: I am enjoying this job. I've got a 7 very interesting staff. We've got really three very diverse 8 functions with the training and operational experience 9 review and with the incident response. Of course, I have 10 CRGR, too, which is a challenge.
11 DR. POWERS: Well, you will find that your 12 organization enjoys a sterling reputation in front of this 13 committee.
14 MR. MARTIN: Actually, I know that I have some A)
(m- 15 staff members who have been staff members for the ACRS in 16 the past. They have done a good job in making presentations 17 to this committee. I hope I won't embarrass them too much 18 here.
19 When I got this assignment and in preparing for 20 this meeting, I was concerned that we weren't going to look 21 supportive of Research because our interfaces with Research 22 are somewhat behind the scenes.
23 I asked the staff to cast a very broad net and 24 identify all major things that could be researched or at 25 least better characterize our interface with Research.
,G
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264 1 What I came away with is I guess our principal
[)
LL 2 issue is that AEOD applies existing methods to the analysis 3 of operational data and identifies needs for new tools.
4 When we do identify those, we then go to Research and we 5 seek their support in identifying those.
6 One of the principal areas is in the ASP program.
7 They were the original developers of the methods. They 8 maintained that program. They continue to evolve that 9 _ program and they have a number of areas where they see the 10 future growing.
11 I think the other characteristics of the AEOD 12 interface, I would say largely it's a continuing ongoing ,
13 interface. We have a lot of places where we are in 14 committees together. They may bring to it insights that O
(_) 1.5 they have gained through research or applying their 16 technical skills and they write into our programs.
17 An example would be the PRA Focus Group, where 18 they help us define what the training needs are. Certainly, 19 in the ASP Technical Coordination Group is another area.
20 Then there are some ad hoc groups that are pulled together 21 to follow up some specific operational experiences, and we 22 will talk about that.
23 I asked the staff, when was the last time you 24 wrote an user needs memo, and I can't find a lot of people 25 who did that. Maybe that's just because we have such a good es l 3' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 265 1 interface, we never have to do that.
n (Jl 2 DR. POWERS: Let me interrupt just to telegraph, 3 this particular slide brings up an area, the committee has 4 been concerned about your interface with Research, kind of 5 in two ways.
6 One, we didn't understand exactly where SAPHIRE 7 suite of PRA coded was and where it was going and how it 8 interfaced with the more front line codes and things like 9 that, and we have been promised a review on that particular 10 area.
11 The other area is when you do these studies, both 12 the ASP studies and your individual studies and things like 13 that, we weren't sure that you were getting good advice on 14 where the risk codes needed information and data.
O
(_,/ 15 In other words, were you getting user need 16 requests from Research. You have done studies on things like 17 common mode failures and things like that. Were there other 18 areas that these PRA codes needed that were not getting 19 identified to you, where the flow of information is going 20 the other way, I guess, or the flow of requests is going the 21 other way.
22 Similarly, it wasn't clear to us that when you did 23 these studies, that you cast the information in a format 24 that made it easy to then put it into the PRA codes. In 25 fact, in that general direction, my recollection is one of (Q
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266 1 our:recent letters suggested in the area of human
() 2~ performance, that the knowledge base that existed in AEOD ought to be incorporated-into'their planning proccases for
^
.3
.4 human performance and things like that.
5 Just a little bit of background that maybe you are ,
6 -not privy to because it pre-dated you. Maybe you are.
7 MR. ROSSI: I'm Ernie Rossi. I'm the Director of 8 the Division of Safety Programs We have ongoing 9 interactions with Research through the ASP Technical
'10 . Coordination Group. That's a group that's made up of people 11 from NRR, Research,.and it's also open to participation by 12 the senior reactor analysts in the regions to look 13 specifically at what we are doing on the ASP analyses of 14 events and to make sure that Research understands what we i
15 are doing, and we work together to improve that. Research 16 supports us by developing the models. That's one area that 17 we coordinate in an ongoing way with them.
18 We are also involved with them in the PRA -- I 19 guess it's called a coordinating committee, which is part of 20 the agency's PRA implementatfon plan. We have ongoing 21' interactions with them there, where we exchange information 22 on all tlue activities that we are doing in AEOD and the PRA 23 area.
~
24 And then we have a similar thing in the human 25 -factors area. .There's a Human Factors Coordinating
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267 ;
~
11' Committee, which-you have heard a lot about. We have been-j-m
(_j -2 .very involved with Research in developing'what you sometimes don't think is a plan in human factors, but a plan.
4 We are involved and worked very closely with them 5 in all~threetof_those areas.
~
- 6 Of course,_we are doing systems studies, where we 7 are.using PRA techniques to systematically sift through the 8 ' operating experience, and I think you have seen those 9 studies where we' compare them with the IPE's and we feed 10 back that information'to Research.
' 11 - We also routinely send our studies out to Research 12 .as-well.as the other offices to get their input.
13 When Tim Martin noted that we do a lot of this i 14 stuff sort of without user needs, it's through these sorts 15 of committees that we do that kind of thing.
16 I don't know whether that addresses your
- 17 questions. I don't want to get into the details of SAPHIRE.
18 DR. POWERS: No, this is not the forum for doing 19 that.
20 MR. ROSSI: Yes, but you know Research is helping 21' us improve the use Of those codes through these various 22 committees that I described.
l
- 23 MR. MARTIN: -As I talked to the staff, what I
- 24 learned was that in a number of areas, particularly in the l 25 -ASP program, they are enhancing the PRA tools that we have
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l 268 1 thers. Through our reliability studies, we are enhancing g
() 2 the plant specific models so they are more representative of 3 the real systems out there. I think there is this exchange 4 going in both directions, and I think we are kind of 5 ratcheting each other up the learning scale.
6 We certainly seek from them a number of their 7 databases, for instance, we are going to be using their IPE 8 and IPEEE databases in a regulatory effectiveness program 9 that we are just launching into.
10 We feel that the human factors database that we 11 have put together, some of these system reliability studies, 12 will enhance their PRA models, the ones they are using on 13 their side.
14 One of the areas that comes into existence and 15 goes out of existence fairly quickly is some of the task 16 focnes that we have put together after we have done a system 17 reliabilit/ study, have identified something like the MOV 18 problem and the presrire locking. The are we are working 19 right now is the AOV studies. There, we pulled together a 20 group, NRR, Research, AEOD, having done the study, seeing a 21 need, recognizing that we need some research support, really 22 to understand do we have a resolution to this, is there a 23 path, and then they helped us develop the basis for some of 24 the generic letters.
25 I think the last generic letter we sent out on f,rm) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTT Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 3_d Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
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269 1 MOV's is a good example. Right now, we are in the field with (3
U; 2 Research and NRR on the AOV study.
3- DR. POWERS: In the?
4 MR. MARTIN: The air operated valve. That's a 5 little further down.
6 DR. POWERS: I'm spotting a trend here.
7 MR. MARTIN: The MOV study was a good example.
8 Why don't we go down to the MOV study real quick.
9 i Here was a case where we did the original study 10 and then having completed the study, recognizing there was a 11 problem identified through the operational experience 12 review, and recognizing and selling, to be quite frank, to 13 NRR and Research, this is an area that we should take on as 14 a task. The three organizations came together, formed a
(
(_) 15 task force.
16 Research brought in their unique skills to 17 actually do studies in the field to find out what would be 18 the best solution and helped us write the generic letter 19 that would ultimately start the industry moving to correct 20 the situation.
21 DR. POWERS: This is the way it is supposed to 22 work, right?
23 MR. MARTIN: That's right.
24 DR. POWERS: That you do studies of operational 25 data. You find issues. You bring it to the attention of the
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270
-1 _line organization and the research_ organization, and l2- something-_happens to-it.
3 MR. MARTIN: To be quite frank, having done the 4 study, we developed quite a bit of knowledge of what needs-5 to be_ addressed and find it very important to be a part of 6 the solution.
7 In fact, we are taking this process to the next 8 level of looking.at across the board, regulatory 9 effectiveness, and we are developing a process that will 10 help us-put into place a-prioritized list of areas where as 11 NRC regulators, we have not been effective, not only in NRR li and NMSS, but looking across the board and seeing where 13 there is problems in the industry, where there is maybe 14 confusion about our regulations, or they are having too many O
\ms/ 15 events. They have regulations in place but they are not 16 effectively dealing with the problem.
17 Having learned-that, then we will probably Jplit 18 off some of those individuals that were involved in that 11 9 study to work with the Program Office and Research to then 20 develop the solution. That's really what we are doing in 21 the air operated valve area, which has just started, in 22 terms of getting the people in the field visiting sites to 23 see what-they are doing with their air operated valves, and 24 vna are seeing a lot of the same problems we saw in the motor 25 operated valve area.
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271 1 .There is a.whole series of plants that when they
() 2' 3:
. were built, there were not that many motor operated.. valves
-around, so they-had to go to the-air operated valve route,
-4 and they have some unique problems that need to be dealt
-5 with.
6 DR. POWERSt. Let'me ask you a couple of questions.
7- You say you do these studies. You identify issues and you 8- bring them to-the attention of Research or the. appropriate 9 organization.
10 Are you like Dr. Sheron, getting cognizant of 11 financial limitations? That there are some of these studies 12 that are going into the desk drawer and you are not bringing 13- issues to them because you know=that Research has not the 14 capacity to address them or is-everything going over there?- 1
() 15 MR. MARTIN: In fact, if there is a fault, and 16 I've shared this with Ernie, being the new guy on the block, 17 we don't advertise and market -- we produce some good 18 products.
19 DR. POWERS: You produce some excellent products, 20 and I'll agree with you.
21 MR. MARTIN: But people don't seem to recognize 22 it. They have too much on their plate.
23 DR. POWERS: 'This committee recognizes it.
24 MR. MARTIN: Thank you. What we are finding is 25 that we have launched some very good reports and when I ask-O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 272 1 people that I would have thought.'would-_have known we have-2- done it and whati the conclusions are, I find it is not well 3 understood-and'we haven't done the job to communicate those 4 'significant results. l 5 We are starting to open up on that. In' fact, we 1
-6 just had the meeting with the plant managers, the INPO:
7 program ~that comes around and they make a tour here.
8 Historically, we have just taken them through our answer
-9 - response center, to see who is at the other end of the
-10 phone.
11- We have half a morning for that, and we thought 12 that was a little too much, so we decided to expose them to 13 some of the results-that we have gotten out of those 14 1 studies, and they were extremely interested.
15 Yet, these reports are out there. They are new 16 regs. They are probably in their library some place.
17 In the same way, I've talked to both Carl 18 .Papperoll and Sam Collins, and I've asked, what use is your 19 staff making of these things, and they can't immediately 20 tell me, which means I haven't effectively communicated, our 21 organization hasn't effectively communicated what is
-22 important in some of these issues, i23 MR. ROSSI: Well, a number of things actually find 24 _their_way into the-NRR information notices and the generic 25- letters. Recognize that AEO9 does not have a process like ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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R 273 1 generic letters, information notices or_ bulletins for
) 2 directly communicating with the regulated community out 3 there.
4 We communicate with NRR and then they incorporate 5 the things from our studies into information notices, 6 generic letters, et cetera.
7 A couple of examples. We did a spent fuel pool 8 cooling study a while back, and that information went over 9 to NRR and I think that was a part of an information notice 10 on that subject.
11 A number of years ago, there was a lot of work 12 -done on service water system problems in AEOD. Eventually, 13 that led to a generic letter on that subject, which combined 14 all of the concerns of all of the offices in the agency, and O)
\_ 15 it was AEOD, NRR had concerns, and I think the regions did.
16 We don't communicate directly with the licensees.
17 If we were to send each and every one of our studies out 18 like an information notice, it would imply that the licensee 19 would have to treat it like a notice and go through and 20 evaluate everything in the study to see how it would affect 21 him. That may or may not be a good idea, but it would place 22 an additional burden on the licensee.
23 The way it works now is we communicate with the 24 Program Office and then try to help them filter it down into 25 notices and generic letters, which the licensees do have to
./
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1 274 2
1 look at in some way. .
() 2 DR. POWERS: I have to be honest with you. It i
- 3. seems to me that if I were residing in this building, I'd 4 have a bookshelf reserved for you guys. These studies are '
i 5 just wealth's of information. They are libraries.
6 MR. ROSSI: We are developing the bookshelf. We ;
7 are currently,trying to get onto the Web the abstracts of 8 AEOD studies and a searchable list by topics of AEOD 9 studies. Once we get that onto the Web, then we will send 10 out some sort of a generic letter making the industry aware 11 o'J - that . That will be essa.ntially better than a bookshelf, 12 because it will be a computer bookshelf. It doesn't stay in 13 the building but goes out to the world, and they will be ;
14 able to search by subject matter and get down to the 15 studies, i i
16 MR. MARTIN: To get back to your original 17 question, we do not delay sending out these because the 18 receiving organization might not be able to deal with the 19 issue. Once we think we have completed the study and it's 20 been adequately QC'ed and in some cases, peer reviewed, and 21 we get it out to the organizations, that's probably where we
- 22 drop the ball in some cases. We don't take the next step in 23 making them deal-with it.
24- We pat ourselves, we've done a good job and we 25 move onto the next study. We are going to have to do more
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275 j 1 of that selling. We recognize that.. >
() 2 DR. POWERS: You need a generic letter within the 3 agency, something like that.
4 MR. MARTIN: Exactly.
5 DR. POWER 9: The point is that we are not getting 6 caught in a situation of being unable to make decisions 7 about your programs because we don't know about them. If 8 .I'm looking at the research budget --
9 MR. MARTIN: The information is out there. How 10 well it's understood is the issue.
11 DR. POWERS: Implications of it. You may suffer 12 from the fact that sometimes your reports are very complete.
13 A very complete report is sometimes difficult to get around 14 to reading and sometimes a long way from the front cover to
) 15 the conclusions. It may be a difficulty, but that's a l 16 selling feature.
17 MR. MARTIN: We've also got one other initiative.
18 I've talked to NRR about it. We are going to get a place on 19 the Regulatory Information Conference next April and 20 highlight some of our products, to make sure that --
21 DR. POWERS: Good. That would be really 22 tremendous. Make sure yc1 invite us. I think that's an 23 excellent forum.
24 MR. MARTIN: It is.
25 'DR. POWERS: You might also want to make sute you
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276
- )
1 show-up at like the Water Reactor Safety meeting and do a j
() 2- pitch there as well. I think the researchers could really 3 benefit from knowing that these databases exist. They are :
4 fantastic, some of them. L 5 MR. MARTIN: We have .to nake sure we . don' t get-6 scheduled opposite of. 50.59 discussions.
7 DR. POWERS:' No, no.
8 (Laughter.] [
9 MR. SEALE: Could I ask you quickly, since it !
10 looks like you are about to leave some of this stuff and go 11 onto something else, in looking at generic issues,'have you 12 done any work where you have looked at the disposition of 13 generic issues and tried to assess whether or not the 14 purported disposition was responsive to the full scope of 15 the issue? i I
- 16. MR. MARTIN: I will ask Ernie to speak about the 1
17 psst. As part of DSI-23, AEOD has committed to establish a 18 process that will do that very thing. It will look at how 19 we have dealt with regulatory issues in the past and have we 20 been effective in resolving them. Where we are not, we 21 intend to surface those, to articulate what the issue is, 22- why we believe it has not been acequately dealt with. Again, 23 we won't be the office that will solely be the resolution, 24 - but ours is to be the irritant that raises the issue and 25 offers to work with-the program offices to get it resolved. I
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- 277 1 In fact, we are right now making our tour of the
() 2 program offices and the EDO's office to share with them how f
3 we' intend to do this. The process, I think, our first 4 products are due late Spring, early Summer. ;
5 MR. SEALE: Let me just say, I think you would [
6 find that we would be more than happy -- I'm not sure we 7 could be a co-worker, but we are very interested in that j 8 issue. l 9 MR. MARTIN: We intend to use a number of tools 10 there. We happen to be the librarian for a number of very l 11 important databases that can be mined in that way.
i 12 We know that the allegation coordinator has a 13 significant database. We know Research and the IPE and the l 14 IPEEE has a good database. Our human factors database, the !
15 sequence coding database, by the way, which is on the NRC 16 internal net. If you haven't tried it, you can get some 17 very interesting research there.
18 We have the enfort tment database. We have the OE 19 or the OI database. We have a lot of databases and a lot of a 20_ information. We have to figure out how to better mine 21 those, but then we intend to use survey tools, where that's 22 appropriate, and we intend to bring those all into focus to ,
4 23 understand what are the high priority issues that are not 24 being dealt with effectively and for those things which we 25 supposedly-have put to bed, going back and re-examining
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278 1 .those, if it
- tarts to be a high hit rate.in terms of
() 2 operational experience showing it has not been dealt with L3 adequately, !
4- DR.-POWERS: Great.
-5 MR. ROSSI: We put out a report that was done ;
6 under contract for us on feed water noz tie cracking and I !
7 .think water hammer a while back, which went through -
8 experience in that-area. It was a quite detailed report. ;
9 It looked to see whether licensees were handling that i
-10 par icular-problem.
r 11 We have:also done work in the past on the service l 12 water system, which I believe at one point in time was a i 13 generic issue. ,
- 14. We are currently-looking at losses of off site 5 15 : power. That's one of the things we are looking at, and we i
16 are going to tie that back to-the station black out rule to 17 see how experience compares with that.
18 We also have plans to do a study on the 19 anticipated trip without scram rule implementation.
20 These are all areas where we are looking at things l 21 tlutt have at one time or another been generic issues.
22 At one point in time, I think we put together a 23 listing for one of the presentations on~our involvement in-24 -generic issues and also in their resolution. I tLink even 25 some of these items here like motor operated valves and i
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I
' 279 i
1 maybe even air operated valves at one' point in time or '
() 2 3
another have been I-think generic issues.
The answer to your question.is that there_is a lot l 4 of back and forth in that area on these things. !
5 MR. MARTIN: One of the things I should have said 6 up front, we recognize that you have been having a series of ;
7 answers to'a list of questions that you posed to us, and in >
8- developing the response, we talked with NRR and Research and { .
9- 'others and agreed that we would only pick up three of the 10 issues.
11 Basically, we needed support and utilized support 1 12 from Research where we had technical assistance contracts 13 that are somewhat_research in nature, and where we rely upon 11 4 either industry or international research. This is where I
() 15 have broadened it, or where we contribute to that 16 international research and feed into it, like some of the 17 studies we do in feeding into the PW-1 and things of that 18 nature, which Ernie has been our representative to the group 19 for the last year, I guess.
20 MR. ROSSI: Yes.
21' DR. POWERS: Let me ask you somewhat of a 22 philosophical question, that you may choose not to answer.
23_ Why shouldn't I consider AEOD part of Research?
24 It's data collection research, data analysis research. Why 25 isn't it just'part of Research? It has a separate office.
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280 ,
1 MR. MARTIN: It's a good question. It is one that !
() 2 3
when we went through the strategic planning process, it came up in spades. There is some real question of why in a 4 shrinking organization that you would sustain a separate 5 office that does a lot of the things the other offices do.
6 The Incident Response Center is largely responsive 7 to NRR's program. There is an interface that we support 8 today that could be enhanced by moving that into the NRP.
9 organization. There are some materials events, too, but it 10 could be put there.
11 The study that is done in Ernie's area, a majority 12 of that is research like in nature, and could be done by 13 moving the organization intact over to Research. There are 14 some economies there. You could meld the human factors group l 15 together. You could meld a pretty large PRA group over 16 there, but with some breaking up of the organization. You 17 still could do that, and some of the reliability studies 18 could clearly be done there, j 19 PTD, the training organization, some have talked l
20 about putting it in Personnel. Others say, well, the core 21 capability study is being done in Research and we really 22 would like to have a technical organizat'r with Research 23 -losing rulemaking, this is not a good ca.
24 So, what do you lose in the process of moving 25 those things over? Well, in part, you lose some of that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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~l, 281 l 1 independence in looking back at how we have closed things in :
() 2 the past and it isn't the right thing.
I think AEOD has to show that we have value added 3
4 by being an independent organization. I suspect if the i 15 agency continues to be subject to down sizing, that; issue 6 will egain be' addressed and there's no guarantee that it 7 will stay a separate organization. Even CRGR is probably r
8 more logically an EDO office function. The IIT function,-
9 which we alco maintain, largely an EDO function. ,
10 It's not that we haven't thought about that. It 11 is a possibility. We have to show value added. We have to
-12 show that we really truly are the irritant that gets them to 13 do tPings and functions with t.he one thing that we truly r
14 are,_ independent. We have the time; the two licensing and 15 inspection organizations really don't have time to focus 16 longer term.
17 Research could do many of those things, too, and I 18 agree. There is a rationale for melding or disassembling 19 AEOD.
- 20. DR. POWERS: Suppose that you are like me and you 21 have to write a letter on Research, should I 22 writa a letter on AEOD as well as research?
~3 4 . R. MARTIN:
M Probably, because-it does some of the 24 same things.
25 DR. POWERS: At least in your data analysis and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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I 282 l 1 interpretation function, clearly, your incident response,
() 2 CRGR, I don't write about, but in the analysis and 3 interpretation of data, it seems to me that whether it's in
)
4 the Research organization or not, it's research, at least in j 5 the definition that the Academy used when they looked at the 6 research program and the way Congress looks at the research 7 program.
8 MR. MARTIN: We look at it the same way you do. I 9 don't disagree.
10 MR. ROSSI: I would say one thing, there's another 11 advantage of having it in a separate organization, and that 12 is that with it in AEOD, it stays dedicated to the primary 13 mission of reviewing operational experience and the people 14 don't get drained off into other things that may be O
\m / 15 important in other offices.
16 We are totally dedicated, at least my divirion is 17 totally dedicated to the review of operating experience, and 18 then we take all of the other methodologies and so forth 19 from the other offices to use for that, so it keeps it 20 focused continually on that and it doesn't get drained off 21 for other short term panics or even long term panics.
22 DR. POWERS: I can certainly appreciate that.
23 When you look at the kind of reflection that goes into the 24 conclusions in your reports and the care to go chase down 25 things, it's clear that dedic- ion is necessary to generate
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() 2 MR. FONTANA: The bottom line looks strange. The 3 sequence precursor program is extremely important, but it ;
4 goes from 835 to 35?
f 5 MR. ROSSI: Oh, yes. During the budget process, we 6 made ---do you want me to explain it? We made a deal and the j 7 deal was that we would get additional FTE for some of our 8 programs and not use contractors. The idea between '98 and ;
9 '99 is we will bring this into the Office of AEOD and use' '
4 10 our-own-staff, and you can see the FTE goes-up here and 11 reduces the contract dollars.
t 12 DR. POWERS: The members should recognize that the 13 - agency uses unique funding practices. FTE's are one 14 category People are free in this agency, right? Didn't cost 15 anything.
, 16 [ Laughter. )
17 MR. ROSSI: They are not free. As a matter of 18 fact, we are at times not so sure we made such a good 19 bargain off into the future, but that's the reason it looks
- 20 - strange, because you can see the FTE's, 21 MR. SEALE: It depends on who those 2.5 guys turn 22 out to be.
23 MR. ROSSI: What we are worried about is we will 24 get this reduction here and nobody will have --
25 . DR. POWERS: Yes, are you really going to get the -i
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MR. UHRIG:
decrease in the number of personnel.
What happens when they put another 4 MR. MARTIN:' That is exactly the problem.
5 DR. POWERS: If our experience is any help to you, I l
6 they will give you half of what you ask for.
7 MR. ROSSI: But take back twice of what we offer,
- 8 right? !
9 MR. MARTIN: Again, just to point out, we are
- 10 - actually'trying to get ahead of this curve and we are right-11 now in the final stages of making selection for two of the :
12 individuals. We want to get them on board this year, get
' 13 them up to speed on what we are doing and tracking with the 14 ASP program, so that bright and-early October 1, when we
() 15 take over this program, we have people ready to move.
16 We had an excellent response to our solicitaticns, i 17 We.got rome excellent people that have indicated a desire to 18 come work for'us. .
19 If we can make that happen, it's going to be a 20 success.-
' 21 MR. ROSSI: I'm sure you are aware we have a very 22 integrated program for analyses of operating experience in !
23 AEOD using rigorous probabilistic risk assessment 24 techniques, so we take all of the operating experience, you 25 know, the initiating events, system reliability studies in
- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. !
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() 2 3
techniques to analyze it.
the operating experience.
That is half of our program in 4 The other half is where we do studies like the ,
5 spent fuel pool study. We did one on turbine over speed. ,
6 We are in the proceLa of doing a study on effectiveness and 7 surveillance and post-maintenance testing. There, rather i
8 than apply purely the PRA techniques, although we do apply 9 them to decide what we ought to do studies on, those studies 10 are mainly to look at root causes for problems that occur 11 and appropriate corrective action.
12 It's the two facets of the review of operating 13 experience that we have.
14 DR. POWERS: I can see you have some work to do on 15 year sales capacity here. Long term studies is not a helpful 16 designator. First of all, you ought to change it into 17 focused studies and second of all., you have to tell us what 18 they are.
39 MR. ROSSI: I can tell you what some of them are.
20 We have one underway on reactor coolant system leaks. We 21 plan one on post-trip reviews. I mentioned the one on the 22 anticipated transients without scram. One of the ones that 23 we did recently was_the spent fuel poc1 cooling study, feed 24 water no: le cracking study that I mentioned was one of 25 those. We did a grid reliability factors study. Those were l
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1 all under this long term studies. We did the study on
() 2 engineered, the safeguard feature of bypasses, if you f
3: remember that. Those are til examples of these. l 4 The ones up here are the ASP program, system l 5 reliability studies, initiating events and common cause !
6 failures, those are the ones that go into the other area of l
. 7 --
8- MR. MARTIN: I-think what I heard is you would 9 like to see where we are headed.
10 DR. POWERS: Exactly, and what I would like not to 11' have happen is someone say long term studies, we can only 12 afford short term studies nowadays, and suffer from 13 nomenclature rather than from product. You have to sell j 14 yourself nowadays. 1
() 15 MR. MARTIN: That's a good point.
16 DR. POWERS: If you could, I'd like to come back 17 to your discussion of -- we kind of skipped over it, but 18 come back to the ASP program and your new mode' development.
19 I note down here on your second dash, develop 20- capability to analyze low power shutdown. This is very 21 striking because this committee or the full ACRS has
- 22. certainly sent a letter to the Commission saying do you guys L23 need the_ ability to have Level I capability to analyze 24 shutdown events. We have been told that Research does not 25- have the money to do that, they will move in that direction, il ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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287*
1 but they just can't afford to do that.
() 2 You guys seem to be doing it here.
3 MR. ROSSI: We are working with Research to get
-4 the models to do this. It's not something that's going to 5 be done in the real near term. This is over the next two or 6 three years and it's new model development in these areas.
7 It's like the Level 2 and 3 analyses, and this is all 8 directed at being able to do accident sequence precursor 9 analyses of these kinds of events.
10 of course, when you get those models, then you 11 will be able to use them for general PRA.
12 MR. MARTIN: I guess I would go back to the 13 original discussion of what AEO does. In the ASP program, 14 we are basically using the tools they developed for us. We 15 are trying to articulate the need for new tools and we are .
16 working hand in hand with the coordinating group to identify 17 what those tools are. They have been a tremendous support 18 for us in this area.
19 AEOD can only take partial credit for the ASP 20 program.
21 DR. POWERS: I think we all know where it came 22 from. Here, I think Research really does itself no service 23 by hiding this kind of stuff. Once you get these marketing 24 skills developed, sell them to Research. I think they can 25 use some help here.
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288 1 MR. MARTIN: I think with Mal Knapp over there,
()
' 2 3
they will get them.
MR. ROSSI: You asked some questions about how the 4 agency, I guess, or Research in particulae, took advantage 5 of industry and international community research, and we may 6 be stretching it a little here with the vu-graphs that we 7 have, but we did want to point out that we do get certain 8 things from industry whicn we use in our programs.
9 One of the things we get from industry is making 10 use of the INPO equipment performance and information 11 exchange system, and that's the follow on to the old NPRDS 12 system, so we get that informativa . rom INPO and then we use 13 it in our studies, and it's available to everybody in the 14 agency, including Research. I know Research uses it for 15 some of their aging things. It has in it failure data on 16 components that are in the maintenance rule and it will also 17 be the source of our data for estimating reliability 18 parameters for the high safety eignificant systems, which we 19 will use for doing the system reliability studies that we 20 are doing.
21 MR. SEALE: Graded QA, maybe?
22 MR. ROSSI: Yes, it can be used for the graded QA 23 also, but that's something that will probably be used not by 24 us but by NRR.
25 MR. MARTIN: Before we leave the industry aspect, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 it has been brought to our attention that the industry has ]
no indicators for performance. We are going down and we are l( ) 2 3 going *.o be meeting with INPO November 24th to learn as much 4 as we can about this.
5 They have done the research in the past to figure 6 out how to develop a good indicator. We are going to go 7 down and learn as much as we can about that.
8 They have provided us the attributes, the '
9 parameters which go into their model, and we actually have 10 access to seven of the parameters that we actually are able 11 to use in our own model, but there are about seven more that 12 we do not have access to, but some of them look promising in 13 terms of leading indicators.
14 For instance, one of the things that we have seen 15 in the past is occupational safety events. Frequently, it 16 shows evidence of inattention to detail, you know, before we 17 see it in some of the LER's and stuff like that.
18 DR. POWERS: I'll ask Dr. Kress if he can't 19 confirm that with respect to Hanford, a close correlation.
20 MR. KRESS: I think there is a close correlation.
21 MR. MARTIN: There are some data that thev have 22 that they have not yet shared with us that we may ask very 23 strongly that we would like to have that information to help 24 us.
25 There is others that don't seem, at least at first t ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 blush, to be that important to our model. I suspect we will l
() 2 3
always run with a different set of performance indicators and compare notes. I know that even from the senior 4 management meeting process, usually one of us, either NRC or 5 INPO, are the first to identify a problem.
6 DR. POWERS: This is just extremely interesting ;
7 information here. Are you going to be able to share that l 8 with the committee in the near term?
9 MR. MARTIN: As soon as we -- again, we meet on 10 the 24th. They certainly have given us the list of the ,
11 things, and for the various reactor types, the percentages 12 that they use to make up their overall --
13 DR. POWERS: Their weighting factors.
14 MR. MARTIN: But what they were based on, why 15 those chose those, why this is the right set, we don't know ,
16 yet. We have a lot of learning to do.
17 DR. POWERS: I hope that you will volunteer to 18 share it with us nuickly becaune I think we would be very 19 interested in getting smart just like you.
t 20 MR. SEALE: Those guys don't throw darts in the 21 -dark room. They know where they are going 22 MR. MARTIN: Yes, and that's what we really need 23 to understand 24 MR. ROSSI: You asked I guess a question about how
'25 Research and I assume anybody that does related kind of work l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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291 -j 1 interfaces with the industry and the. international ;
2 community. This is an indication of how AEOD exchanges 3 information internationally ;
4 AEOD, right-now, I am the individual, I'am the l 5 -representative for the agency to the principal working group {
6' one on operating experience in human factors of the. Nuclear l 7- Energy Agency. That's PWG-1. By being the agency 8: representative, it allows me to stay cognizant and l 9 participate in things that are done by that committee.-in ,
t
~
10 looking at_ operating experience including international
~
l1- research studies and exchange of important events that are 12 related t.o operating experience 13 As I'm sure you are probably aware, we participate '
14 in the international -- in the incident report system, and 15 we both review all of-the IRS-reports that are submitted by !
16 other countries for their applicability to U.S. plants and -
17 then we also submit reports on significant events that occur.
18 or series of events that occur in this country into that 19 system ,
20 That's a very good system that we use to exchange 21 information 22 DR. POWERS: I'm shaking my head yes because we _
r 23 have had a briefing in this committee during my tenure here 24 but it dawned-on me, a large number of new members have not :
'35 .been briefed on that. Sometime, maybe following one of the t, i l b ANN RIL3Y & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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292 1 PWG meetings, maybe you could schedule to come brief us
() 2 again on your participation in the incident response and 3 things like that, databases, just because there are a lot of 4 members here that weren't present when we had our last ;
5 briefing 6 MR. ROSSI: Here are some specialist meetings that 7 we have participated in recently or plan to participate in 8 in the near future that are international meetings 9 There was a specialist meeting in November of 1996 10 en fuel and control rods on the operating experience and 11 that was in Madrid, Spain. Maybe somebody from the committee 12 or one of your staff members attended that meeting.
13 Jack Rosenthal, I believe, was the representative 14 at that particular meeting.
15 There was just very recantly in Chattanooga, the 16 NRC sponsored an IAEA/NEA specialist meeting on human ,
17 performance and operational events, and that was essentially 18 a three day meeting and there were 40 papors concerning the 19 role of human performance and operating events prenented at 20 that meeting 21 DR. POWERS: I think we did have a member 22 MR. SEALE: Yes, George Apostolakis 23 MR. ROSSI: That's right 24 MR. MARTIN: We also took them to TTD and actually 25 ran the simulators for them
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293 1 MR. ROSSI: I know George was at that because I
() 2 stood next to'him during the simulations There is an IAEA consultants' meeting in November 3
4 of this year, where they will identify incident reporting 5 system highlights for 1996/1997 and identify the most 6 important events that have been reported by the 7 international community over the past year 8 Those are just examples of interchanges we have 9 through the IAEA and the NEA primarily resulting from our 10 participation in PWG-1 11 MR. MARTIN: I have a comment about what we 12 learned at the last PWG-1 meeting.
13 MR. ROSSI: There was one fairly recently. When l 14 we get all of our notes put together, I think we can come 15 and talk about that 16 DR. POWERS: At your convenience. I think your 17 schedule to come visit with the committee --
18 MR. ROSSI: We can come after this IAEA/NEA 19 consultants' meeting in November and talk about things that 20 we have interchanged in several areas, so we can cover all 21 that. That would be very interesting 22 DR. POWERS: I think just updating the members on 23 what all is going on is just very worthwhile to us anyway.
24 It's kind of a pain for yo't guys, I know, to put together 25 presentations
.r)
(
'~!
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294 1 MR. ROSSI: We can quite easily do it. ;
2 DR. POWCRS: If we get that 3.5 FTE 3 MR. ROSSI: Going the other way, we also provide a 4 considerable amount of input to the international community 5 on operating experience, und here are some examples where we f 6 have provided information to studies that have been done. !
7 internationally l 3 There was a review of undetected failures of l 9 safety systems and we provided' input into that international
-10 study and that consisted a look at undetected failures of 11 s&tety systems to analyze them with--respect to their 12 discovery methods, failuro rate, failure cause, corrective i 13- and preventive actions taken by licensees and the resulting 14 regulatory actions 15- On that one, the information that we provided +
16 there, we wrote up into a report that was just issued in the 17 last month or two on that. What we did is basically we went 18 through the accident sequence precursors to :.ook at the ones 19 that were related to undetected failures of safety systems.
20 I'm sure your staff get a copy of that particular report 1
21 DR. POWERS: It doesn't ring a bell to me.
22 MR. ROSSI: We can get it to you if they don't 23 have it.
24 MR. MARTIN: Itis about a month old 25 MR. ROSSI: Yes.
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295 1 DR. POWERS: Let me interrupt, in this context. Do 2 other countries have an equivalent of an AEOD?
3 MR. MARTIN: I don't know of one 4 MR. ROSSIt I don't know that they have the kind 5 of independence that we have, where they have a specific 6 organization that stands aside from the day to day fire l l
7 drills and looks at long term -- I don't know 8 MR. MARTIN: When I was talking to the Brits and 9 some other people, might take the NRR events assessment 10 group and mix it with our operational experience group,
~11 They have somebody that does things like that. Having
- 12 -independent groups that does it, I'm not aware of another I 13 agency that does 14 DR. POWERS: I'm thinking that when we have these 15 bilateral meetings with our counterparts in other countries, ,
16 it might be worthwhile discussing this function with them 17- and seeing if they have an interest or if they have avoided 18- it for sound reasons, you know, just what it is. We tend to 19 talk about research issues Here's what I think is basically 20- research that maybe unique to this regulatory agency i
21 MR. SEALE: There's no question but that they do l 22 something like this 23 -DR. POWERS: They must do something 24 -MR. SEALE: It would be interesting to find out l
25 exactly how they arrange it ANN _RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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I 296 i 1 MR. ROSSI: We also provided information on
() 2 foreign material intrusion into reactors for a study that 3 was done internationally. I think we discussed with you the 4 international common cause failure data exchange project, 5 and that's on6 where we both provide information for the 6 international community and then it's combined with the 7 information we are getting from other countries to come up 8 with a very good database for estimating the various 9 parameters associated with common cause failures 10 These are examples of the kind of interchanges 11 that we do have internationally, both to provide information 12 for use by other countrias and to get information that is or 13 may be applicable to U.S. plants back in return 14 MR. KRESS: What do you mean by foreign material 15 intrusion here?
16 MR. BARTON: Junk in piping that ends up in 17 reactors 18 MR. ROSSI: Yes. The sump blockage problem, that 19 would be an example 20 DR. POWERS: The saran wrapper 21 MR. ROSSI: What we basically did here was we did 22 an LER search and provided that information into the study 23 That's the vu-graphs that we have 24 MR' MARTIN:
. We have one more. This is the one on 25 the Halden --
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1- DR. POWERS: Let me ask a question. Some of our i a
() 2 questions were formul'ated for a variety of reasons that may
. t
.3 not have been communicated with the question, purposely,-in !
4 some cases f 5 One of the reasons for asking about the foreign 6 involvement was to say are we taking advantage of the !
7 foreign information, and apparently you are as well as you 8 can .
9 The other one is if we cut back on things, is l 10 there a point where we can't take advantage of the foreign 11 information Decause we don't have anybody that knows what to l 12 do with it. It comes in and he doesn't know what to do. I ,
13 wonder if you had any thoughts about that and if you have 14 thoughts about where you think major programs may be arising
( 15 in foreign countries that would be useful for the NRC to 16 become part and parcel with, but they may not be able to 17 because of manpower or financial restrictions 18 MR. MARTIN: My experience is limited in this area
- t j 19 but having participated in some hall talk, what I hear is 1
20 that as NRC backs off its research -- we are losing 21 leverage. There is a lot of internacional research that we 22 used to be involved in. We could get a 20 to 1 return on 1
23 our dollars because if we put up seed money, others would L24' - add theirs in and we would get some very sophisticated l
25 research done. We'have backed off on that. Some of the very
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1 298 1 valuable research that we had been counting on has had to be
/-
( )) 2 canceled or go away 3 Which programs they are, I'm not that familiar, 4 but that's the hall talk that I hear when I go to the 5 international meetings.
6 MR. SEALE: Do we know of examples where we have 7 put up seed money and then it fell on barren ground, that 8 is, there was no matching that came to it?
9 MR. MARTIN: I can't give you any speci"ics 10 MR SEALE: Maybe we ought to try to find that 11 out. It seems to me that this leveraging thing has been 12 rather neglected in a way.
13 DR. POWERS: I think the agency is still feeling
,-s 14 its way in here. I think this is relatively new. They have ks 15 had a few examples. I think in particular, the Marvekin 16 project, it failed. They got an awful lot of tests that 17 were uninterpretable and undealable and unhandleable. They 18 learned how you have to participate in these things 19 I think some are proving to be far more 20 successful. It's apparent that the Halden project is a 21 ringing success. It appears that the PHEBUS program may be 22 a success. The FARO program may be a success 23 MR. SEALE: Once you learn how to make them 24 successful, it's not the kind of thing you want to have to 25 learn over and over again (x
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299 1 DR. POWERS: I think the problem that I think I'm
() 2 3
concerned about are two things, one is that you don't have the expertise so that when you come into a program, you 4 don't have this leveraging capability, that is if the U.S.
5 comes in and you get a lot of other countries buying in, 6 because you have 1 cat the technical component, the 7 non-monetary input to the thing. I think that is the 8 concern.
9 There is no expertise. We want your money but we 10 don't care about your opinion on the prcgram.
11 A lot of these programs that I have been involved 12 in, the initial research effort was evolved substantially by 13 the NRC because of its technical expertise, to be in a 14 direction that would directly impact the agency's programs.
O)
(, 15 You lose that capability if you can't direct things 16 technically 17 MR. MARTIN. What I hear, again, it's hall talk 18 and I can't say I'm an expert in it, is that where we can, 19 we have taken analytical tools, raised questions about the 20 accuracy of our scaling, and only through some of the larger 21 research programs can you get some data points to confirm 22 whether you are doing an adequate job 23 Some of the research that we would have liked to 24 have done and taay have been able to do in the past where we 25 were able to leverage doesn't seen to be possible right now 7~
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300 1 I would strongly suggest that you talk to people
() 2 who really know about this.
Thadani, even Brian.
That would be Joe Murphy, Ashok 3 I think they can give you a lot of 4 insights on this. I can only relate what I've heard 5 DR. POWERS: We appreciate your input 6 MR. ROSSI: We have one more slide 7 MR. MARTIN: I think for those of you who have 8 seen TTD, not only do they do a lot of hardware interface, 9 but in the training classroom, they are actually bringing 10 into the classroom, where we used to have to talk our way 11 through diagrams, the first one went up two percent and that 12 went down two percent, well, they actually now say, okay, 13 you guys predict what you think is going to happen and now 14 let's run it. They can actually see the level going up in O)
(_ 15 the pressurizer and the levels going down in the reactor 16 vessel.
17 DR. POWERS: Let's face it, a graphic system 18 called Picasso is not confidence inspiring 19 MR. FONTANA: Early in his career, he could paint 20 MR. KRESS: No, he only had a blue crayon 21 MR. MARTIN: For those of you who haven't been to 22 TTD, it is an interesting place to go to. They really are 23 -- I think in terms of cutting edge training, they are doing 24 a lot of good things down there 25 MR. ROSSI: Just going down to see the simulators ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 and be walked through some events I think would be very f
() 2 useful for any cf you that are interested. You can talk with 3 George Apostolakis because I'm pretty sure that was the.
4 first time he'd ever been down there and I think he was quits fascinated by the capability that they had in terms of 5 ,
6 the simulators for training,-where they can stop in the i r
7 middle of the event and so forth <
8 MR, KRESSI: It's worth it just to have a visit to
- t 9 that beautiful state 7
10 MR. MARTIN: Do they make you stay at Shoney's?
11 DR. POWERS: Tim may not be aware of it, but we do 12 have a subcommittee devoted to the topic of training. We 13 have retained that 14 MR. FONTANA: That survived 15' DR. POWERS: We have a persistent and enduring 16 interest. We actually get fairly regular updates on the 17 training program 18 MR. MARTIN: I know Ken had indicated he had 19 talked to the committee 20 MR. SEALE: They also have pretty good barbecue 21 down there 22 DR. POWERS: As that's said by a Texan, the world 23 has-turned upside down 24 MR. KRESS: When it comes to barbecue --
25 [ Laughter.] ,
() ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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302 ,
1 MR. MARTIN: Gentlemen, that's all we planned to
() 2 talk aboat. I know the other offices talked much more 3 completely than we did. Those were the areas that were 4 unique to us 1
e 5 MR. KRESS: If the NRC Office of Research were to 6 disappear altogether, would you be greatly impacted?
7 MR. MARTIN: "les, we would. When we do studies b-8 and ue need technical expertise, that's the go to 5
9 organization. They are invariably waiting -- not waiting, 3
10 but they will offer up their help. They lo thermal
- 21 hydraulic analysis when it's beyc41d our capability or stress 12 analysis when it's beyond our capability, and in a lot of ,
3; '
J 13 ways, they are very much integrated into what we do
~
14 Many of our projects are really joint products.
15 In fact, we have had some lon5 tenn ongoing relationships 16 with them al.3 work very well together on an informal basis 17 MR. SEALE: I understand they have also had a fair 18 l amount of influence on materir1 that has been incorporated 19 into the training program 20 MR. MARTIN: Yes 21 MR. SEALE:
Including the simulator programs dnd 22 so on 23 MR. MARTIN: The reactor safety course down there, 44 the PRA training that we do. If you haven't gone through 25 that PRA technical manager's course, it is an excellent ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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3031 4
It's a three day course. I haven't talked to a 1 course. h t hasn't thought 2
technical manager that's been through it t a h it was one of the best cources they have been throug 3
It clearly is intended to
-4 It's an overview. taking
} calibrate them on where th; agency thinks theythat are all
] 5 6
risk informed and risk based regulativn and what and f languages 7
means, so we start talking consistent sort o what's behind some of this stuff i to
) 8 I even had some managers come up and compla n 9
they had a great course, I haven't been 10 me about, you know, 11 able to use it wy I did go see that and I have been
[- MR. MILLER: C 12 1.5 trying to sell my colleagues MR. KRESS: Is there a schedule for when this is 14 i 15 offered? We are Seven more times this year.
MR. MARTIN: h i al managers 16 going to try to get two-thirdr; of all the tec n c 17 just the reactor 18 I through this year, and that's not only too.
They have a risk model 19 s .le. NMSS is participating, We can certainly get the 20 they are using over there.
J 21 l schedule up to you DR. POWERS: You can take that as an action item 22 Maybe you will have a few 23 to give us the schedule on that.
24 participants y
Have you integrated the SAPHIRE into MR. MILLER:
2 p LTD.
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304
.1 it?
A MR, MARTIN: 'No,_it's not to that level of 1(] . -
_2 sophistication. - It really takes them through_what are the-3j
- 4~ new policies, what are the new reg guides and-the standard-5 review plans, what is uncertainty and how we treat
- 6. uncertainty 7' MR. MILLER: I went through-it before you had done 8- 1some of those things 9- MR. MARTIN: It has been modif2c4 significantly 10 MR. MILLER: I would recommend you put the
'11 ' standard review plan stuff-in there,-but I also recommend i 12 you:put.SAPHIRE-in there, because I think that would really-13 make a. big difference. It wouldn't take more than a couple 14 of hours 15 DR. POWERS: Then you would have to take it again, 16 Don 17- MR. MILLER: I'm going to take the next one
'8. DR. POWERS: .I forewarn you that ACRS members tend 19_ to ask lots and lots of questions in these courses and it 20 may be a disruptive influence ,
3 21 MR. MARTIN: That's oneaof the benefits, to get.
12 2. people to talk about it and both Dana and Tim were the.
23 instructors an,1 did a super job 24 MR. MILLER: I thought one of che highlights was 251 having several from industry there, practitioners. I ANN RILEY_& ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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305 1 recommend that several members attend that course when we G'
) 2 have a high num'.:ar of practitioners 3 MR. MARTIN: We already have a backlog of industry 4 people who want to attend. We will get you a copy 5 MR. UHRIG: A backlog of ACRS members?
6 MR. MARTIN: Didn't hear there was 7 MR. ROSSI: I had one other thought on the need 8 for research within the agency, and I'm sure you have 9 probably heard this sometime during the day. I think if you 1( don't have a dedicated organization actually doing research, 11 that the agency would lose its cutting edge on technology in 12 many, many areas 13 I think having a group that does actual research 14 themselves, that you keep the skills honed to a high level,
) 15 and then what they learn from their research can spill over 16 into other areas of the agency. I think if we did not have ,
17 that, that over a period of a few years, we would become 18 stale technologically with our skills 19 MR. MILLER: I should mention that we had a 20 seminar at Ohio State given by Steve Urn a couple of months 21 ago, which I think demonstrated pretty well how the 22 integration of research into your program was a good job 23 DR. POWERS: I appreciate your taking the time to 24 come here and talk to us. Just based on the number of 25 questions, you cee that we have a great deal of interest in A]
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I 306 1 your programs, so we have a great deal of interest in how (n j) 2 you interface with Research. Again, I will remind you that
-3 your organization enjoys a superb reputation in front of 4 this committee. We appreciate the candor with which you 5 present your studies, the attention you give to technical 6 excellence and peer review in them has just been 7 overwhelming to the committee 8 We have enjoyed the presentations on the training 9 program a lot. I have a great deal of respect for that 10 training program 11 MR. FONTANA: Could I add, I have known Dr. Powers 12 for quite a few years on both sides of the table, and I have 13 never heard him be this complimentary 14 [ Laughter.)
{
(,/ 15 MR. FONTANA: Ever 16 MR. ROSSI: We will cut the pages out of the 17 transcript here and attach them --
18 DR. POWERS: I think it's true, and we t . k it's 19 an essential function and don't interpret my questions about 20 research -- the research nature of it is some drive to move 21 it into Research. I think the independent coraponent of it 22 has been essential in the past. I see no reason why it 23 shouldn't be essential in the future 24 MR. MARTIN: Again, your questions were not --
25 DR. POWERS: Not unique to me, I'm afraid. Thank 7q b e ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
S'# Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 i (202) 842-0034 l l- .
307 1 you very much
. ,a (y
) 2 To the committee members, I think I passed out a 3 homework assignment. I think we do have time scheduled N
4 tomorrow afternoon for internal discussions. What I'd like 5 to do is to collect people's thoughts and comments, 6 literally, handwritten notes are enough, so that we cover as 7 many of the bases as we possibly can 8 I think there are issues that we need to discuss 9 on where we want to take things and where we want to go with 10 the discussions 11 To the extent that you can get those to Med or 12 myself tomorrow morning, then we will huddle and try to get 13 a coherent list to go through in the discussions that will 14 be useful O)
'\s- 15 My own feeling is we have gotten an awful lot c' 16 thought provoking comments hera 17 MR. SHACK: Wednesday morning 18 MR. MILLER: That is tomorrow morning 19 DR. POWERS: They don't really start work at 20 Argonne until Wednesday 21 MR. MILLER: Shall we play the violin for you 22 guys?
23 DR. POWERS: It seems to me that everything that 24 we have heard here has made our letter to the Chairman --
25 report to the Chairman more difficult and more time V) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 I (202) 842-0034 '
308 1 consuming to write. I think we have gotten some thoughts on .
.p)
( 2 what might be the theme for our letter to Congress, and I 3 think that's where we will have to concentrate the 4 discussions tomorrow :<
5 MR. MILLER: I think the challenge is making 6 certain we don't get too dispersed with all the thoughts.
7 There are a lot of ideas that came out today 8 DR. POWERS: Yes, I think you are right 9 MR. MILLER: You don't want to write a letter to 10 Congress with ten ideas 11 MR. UHRIG: Could you differentiatc, and maybe you 12 have done this and I haven't picked it up, the difference in 13 the thrust between the letter to Congress and the other 14 letter?
A) _s 15 DR. POWERS: That's right, Bob. We went over that 16 this morning while you were out. Let me capsulize it for 17 you. Our letter to Congress, I view, as much more than an 18- agency type letter, reporting to them on what the research 19 needs are 20 When we write to the Commission, we are being 21 asked to comment on the research program itself, which 22 includes needs, priorities and requirements 23 Maybe if we make sure you have a package of the 24 vu-graphs, you can catch up to speed with us on some of 25 these things. We spent about an hour this morning going ps
( ,
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\
309 1 over the distinctions, and I think the vu-graphs are self C's
- 2 explanatory enough that you probably can get up to speed on (d
3 them pretty quickly. If not, we will have time tomorrow 4 MR. UHRIG: All right, then that's all I need 5 MR. FONTANA: Dana, did you say the comments 6 should be aimed at the letter to Congress or both letters?
7 DR. POWERS: I think our discussions are going to 8 be aimed at the letter to Congress. I wanted to capture all 9 of your thoughts and I listed down the various categories, 30 as we can tomorrow 11 I think we have about an hour or so in front of 12 the full committee to discuss this as well. I want to 13 summarize, since we are nearly all here, we will probably 14 utilize that for discussions as well. I want to capture 15 thoughts on all the things. We are going to have a break 16 between this letter to Congress and our March full committee 17 meeting 18 There is going to be a substantial break, I don't 19 want to lose the information that we have gained. We need 2u to prepare tor that meeting with the staff in March, because 21 that is going to be the basis for which we are going to 22 write a report to the Chairman 23 I get the impression that their work on the 24 research program is not going to be completed at that time, 25 because there are going to be research funding cuts that
()
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310 1 they are not 100 percent sure of even at that time or
,n 2 response to cuts that they are not sure of
()
3 It's going to be a difficult chore to do and still 4 be fair 5 Are there any other comments members would like to 6 make?-
7 [No response.]
8 DR. POWERS: One of the areas that you might think 9 about also is we have a list of the various research 10 functions presented to us today. I am looking to the 11 various subcommittees to delve into those as they see fit 12 MR. KRESS: Dana, you don't envision us holding 13 subcommittee meetings on each of those, do you?
14 DR. POWERS: No, I really don't
- (D
( ,/ 15 MR. KRESS: We are just going to extract this 16' information by whatever means we can?
17 DR. POWERS: By whatever means you think you can 18 MF, KRESS: But you still think it ought to be a 19 collegial representation of NRC as a whole, so somehow, we 20 need to interact with the appropriate staff members on this 21 DR. POWERS: I think we can, for the letter to 22 Congress, that we can use what we already know. I think it 23 is understanding the programs in a little more detail that 24 will come in in the letter to the Commission, because I 25 think we will have to go down to at least sub-( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
311L 11 activity and-in some cases,Leven a little more-detailed than j ) 2~ that~
3: MR. KRESSii Do you envision sub-activity-needs-for
-4 (the letter to Congress?
5 DR. POWERS: Not really, no 6 MR. - SEALE: Probably what;we need to be thinking- -
7 about as we do the letter to Congress is also identifying in 8 those particular subcommittee areas where it would be 9 appropriate to get tagether with whoever, you know, the 10 therm;.1 hydraulics people may feel like they want to get 11 together 12 DR. POWERS: Yes, I think that's what I would.like 13- to know, if you looked at those things-for the. letter to the
- i. 14 Commissioners, do you anticipate holding subcommittee 15 meetings to gather information on the programs in detail 16 I know that Professor Apostolakis anticipates 17 meetings in connection with PRA and human performance, where 18 ha will be gathering information. It would be-useful to 19- know which other ones would be directed, either as a direct 20 or ancillary part of it. You are having a thermal 21 hydraulics' meeting in connection with the AP-600. Aro you 22 going to add anything onto it? I guess I'd like to know 23 about:that
-24' MR. KRESS: I probably won't
- Hi FUt. MILLER: One thought I had on the subcommittee-
~
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Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005
-(202) 842-0034
l 312 1 I chair, to gather maybe one or two members of the r~
(h) 2 subcommittee and just meet with the staff 3 MR. KRESS: That's what I had in mind, not as a 4 real subcommittee meeting, but just go up and sit in their 5
office with them. Send them a bunch of questions or issues 6 DR. POWERS: I would just like to know if that 7 sort of interaction is planned at a subcommittee meeting or 8 less formal 9 MR. MILLER: If you have one 71 ready planned, you 10 might just tag it on 11 MR. KRESS: The trouble is we don't have enough 12 time to cover what we want already. To add more to it is
{
13 not going to be easy 14 DR. POWERS: Based on past experiences, adding
(, l 15 onto thermal hydraulics, it comes in blocks of days, not 16 blocks of an hour or somathing like that 17 Unless there are other comments, I propose that we 18 adjourn for the day and resume again tomorrow at 8:30 19 MR. SEALE: It sounds like a winner 20 DE. POWERS: We stand adjourned 21 [Whereupon, at 5:55 p.m., the meeting was 22 recessed, to reconvene at 8:30 a.m., Wednesday, November 5, 23 1997.]
24 25
~
r N ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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STRATEGY CONTINUED o,
O on ohcommittee meeting in novemser wiii concentrate on th, higher level aspects of research planning by the NRC
-planning horizon
- needs identification relative to program activities
- prioritization o March meeting will delve into the individual functional area research needs
- subcommittee chairmen will be asked to discuss research needs in individual functional areas at this meeting.
- bases for prioritization of research will have to be discussed.
O O
i e
L O RESEARCH FUNCTIONS FROM THE ENERGY REORGANIZATION ACT o Develop recommendations for research deemed necessary for the performance by the Commission ofits licensing and related Regulatory functions o Engage in or contract for research which the Commission deems necessary for the performance ofits licensing and related Regulatory functions o The Commission shall develop a long term plan for projects for Q the development of new or improved safety systems for nuclear power plants O
____ _ - - - - - - - ~ - '-'-- -" ---- ' - ' ' - - - - - - ' - - - - - - - - ' - - -
O sous Commission conctans
... the staff should strive for a cleacer nexus between program outputs and the goals they support . . ."
"The staff should also consider whether existing goals need to be revised, eliminated, or new goals established".
"The staff should consider the use ofintermediate goals that closer to NRC's operating regime" O
O
O -
o ". . . take an active role in reviewing ongoing research program initiatives such as those discussed in SECY-97-075 and SECY-97-165 . . ."
o review the research programs in terms of:
- need
- scope ,
- balance o examine how RES anticipates research needs o examine how RES is positioned for the changing environment o recommend whether the NSRRC function is still needed 4
0
1' l
o .
SOME ADDITIONAL ADVICE FROM THE CHAIRMAN O
Research goals for the future:
o Anticipate and explore problems proactively rather than reactively, o Identify and focus on the most risk-significant issues, and o Maintain sufficient expertise and capability to respond to O rrt re. as O
O CONGRESS EE' ITER DRAFT STRATEGY Listing of:
o NRC Programs requiring research support o Why the program is needed o What the research needs of each program are o What research needs are not being met O
O
____.___.m__-_ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ . _ - . _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ . - _ ____________._____.____.__.m_--____ __._. _ _____ _ _ _ . . ..
ADVISORY CCanNTTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS SAFETY RESEARCH PROGRAM SUBCOMMITTEE NOVEMBER 4-5,1997 ROC *MLLE, MArtYLAND PROPOSED AGENDA NOVEMBER 4,1997 Tm
- 1. Introductory Remarks, Dr. Dans Powers . . , , 8:30-8:40 A.M.
II. Acting Deputy F=a*== Drector for Regulatory Effectivenees , W. Ashok Thadani . . . . . 840- 1015 AM.
"'"9REAx" . . . . . . 10151030 AM. ,
Ill. Aceng Drector tar Omco Of Nuclear Research i:
Dr. u% Knapp . . . . . . . 103012C3 tan
- 't.UNCH" . . . . . . 1200190 P.M.
IV. Desctor 1or Omee for Analysis and Evaluation .
of Opershonal Data, Mr. Thomas Martin . . . . 1:00 3:00P.M.
O -.aEAx . . . . . . 3= - 3:15 P.M.
V. Drector of erg::ist Omco of Nuclear Reactor Regulshon, Or. 8nen Sheron . . . . . 3:15- 5:00 P.M.
VI. Adpoum . . . . . . . . 5:00 P.M.
O l
~ ~. w u + a . a m a . m .t u . a .. a r e : , . m - w
i
. QUESTIONS FOR THENOVEMBER MEETING 4
O o How does the NRC:
-identify research needs
- set priorities for research
- define and quantify requirements for research activities o What is the NRC planning horizon for research (Note : hat the core capabilities were identified with a zero month ,
planning horizon!)
o What ate the major NRC programs that do require research support?
e What are the major NRC programs that do not require research support?
g o What are the research programs identified for
- continuation .
- completion
-initiation o What agency research needs will be satisfied by research done by:
-industry .
- international cooperative agwzeents o What research is needed but is not being done? What is the impact?
O
PROBLEM O Probabilistic Risk / Safety Analyses - Program Breakdown (SECY-97-075)
- 30. Methods Development for Assessment
- 31. Regulatory Analysis
- 32. Guidance and Standards Development
- 33. Decision-making Under Uncertainty ,
4 However, when you look into it further: !
I
- 1. Accident Sequence Precursor Model Development i
- 2. PRA Methods and Code Development O 3. Regulatory and Technical Support
- 4. DigitalI&C -
- 5. Fire Risk
- 6. Aging Effects in PRA
- 7. HRA Methodology It looks like there is very little functional coordination of research activities.
O
i u.
PROBLEM O
Lots of" sounds like a good idea to me" research definition.
Lh'e tie to programs.
Impossible to identify benefits in a way that can be compared to costs.
We may have to learn the prioritization scheme being used for the identification of core capabilities to understand the organization of the
- csearch program.
o Six nonorthogonal regulatory functions o 14 Criteria that don't apply to all functions o High, medium and low ranking O
t . . . *
~
REGULATORY FUNCTIONS O o Technical bases for regulatory or safety issues and decisions
- operations
-material use
-license amendments ,
o Technical bases for regulatory or safety issues and decisions
-new technologies
- evolving technologies
-research results o Develop maintain and apply
- analytic tools
- data bases O -institutionai unowieds.
l l
o Impresements to the regulatory framework o Cooperation with others (DOE, industry, other countries) o Respond to oversight groups i
i O
..- .-. ...-_-..~ .- -_.. - --- - . . _ . - - -
. CANDIDATE AREAS OF CORE CAPABILITIES O n<ta=^t avan ^u'ics arca^*>c^r'Ecraic^'
COMPONENTS AND PIPING
- 1. plant transient analysis 20. Mechanical
- 2. code development, maintainence 21. Electrical ;
- 22. Piping REACTOR PHYSICS
- 3. core transient analysis SEVERE ACCIDENT RISK
- 4. code validation 23. Fuel coolant interactions
- 24. Core degradation
- 5. FUEL DESIGN-BEHAVIOR 25. Debris coolability
- 26. Hydrogen ADVANCEI&C 27. Lower head integrity
- 6. DigitalI&C 28. fission product chemistry
- 7. Software & hardware reliability 29. code development, validation HUMAN FACTORS PRA
- 8. Human reliability 30. Methods development
- 9. Training, staffing, qualifications 31. Regulatory analysis
- 10. Human / System interface 32. Ouidance & stds. developmnt
- 11. Organization performance 33. Decisions under uncertainty
- 12. FIRE PROTECTION RADIATION PROTECTION
- 34. Radiation dosimetry ,
REACTOR VESSELINTEGRITY 35. Radiation effects ;
- 13. Radiation damage /an= ling l
- 14. NDE 36. FUEL FABRICATION l
- 15. Fracture mechanics 37. RADIONUCLIDE TRANSPORT & BEHAVIOR
- 16. Corrosico -
[
'~
- 17. Structuralintegrity SPENT FUEL
- 18. Seismic response 38. Storage
- 19. Steam GeneratorIntegrity 39. Decorrmissioning & decont.
O I
CRITERIA OL 1 Frequency ofoccurrence 2 Safety orRegulatory signiScance
-3 LikeHM ofchange 4 Safety or Regulatory sienih=*
- 5 Breadth and frequency of application of tools and data bases 6 Degree ofimprovenwnt
- 7 Value of tools and data bases to regulatory process 8 Need to improve requirements or guidance '
9 Need to support newinitiative orwe 10 NRC commitment 11 Value of contribution to regulatory programs 12 Leverage ofNRC resources 13 Likelihood ofoccurrence 14 Complexity ofsubject matter l
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1 i
i i e MISSION i
o MISSION NEED - What has to be done to carry out the mission r
1
- VISION- How well, often, etc. this ought to be done i
- PROGRAM ;
I, l
- RESEARCH NEED u
- Vision
- Program
+ Programa Need I' .
Vision i
Project O O O
_____ __-m. _m--__ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ __m -_m* _ -m. _____i____
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P O ,
THE CY'96 LETTER TO CONGRESS i o Argued that the NuclearIndustry is stable,important, but not static T
o NRC needed a research program to
- respond to changes in the industry
- meet mandates from Congress for regulatory efficiency i
o Without research NRC would be a bottleneck forindustry evolution l
I O
l l
L l
l t
I P
1
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O 1
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., , _ _ . . , , , ~,--e- - , , , - ,,, ,.m , , - , _ , , _ , _ _ , , , , , _ ,__ , , _,__ _ _
'O PROPOSED PLAN OF ACTION o Accept the Chairman's goals for future research o Accept NRC's strategic plan o Amplify and enlarge Chairman's "World View" o Focus on 'NEEDS' for the letter to Congress o Relegate ' REQUIREMENTS' to the Subcommittees O i l
l o Defer ' PRIORITIES' to March and the Letter to the Commission l l
o Establish a clear " nexus" from Missions to Mission Needs to l Programs to Research Needs so that we can articulate the !
corsequences of failure to meet the Research Needs j 1 l o Debate whether the letter speaks only to NRC research or ;
. includes research that needs to be done'by the industry as well l O
l l
TOP LEVEL MISSIONS FROM THE STRATEGIC PLAN o Prevent radiation-related deaths orillnesses due to civilian nuclear reactors o Prevent radiation-related deaths orillnesses due to civilian use of source, byproduct, and special nuclear materials o Ensure treatment, storage and disposal of wastes produced by civilian use on nuclear reactor materialin ways that do not adversely affect this or future generations o Prevent the loss or theft of special nuclear materials regulated by the NRC, and support U.S. national interests in the safe use of O nuclear materiais and in non-prolireration o Protect the environment in connection with the civilian use of source, byproduct and special nuclear materials through implementation of the Atomic Energy Act and the National Environmental Policy Act o The public, those we regulate and other stakeholders in the national and international community will have clear and accurate information about, a meaningful role in and will have i respect for and confidence in, NRC's regulatory program o The NRC regulatory program will be efficient and will allow the Nation to safely use nuclear materials for civilian purposes O
'O WORLD VIEW o Plants are aging and new issues are emerging as a result o Licensees continue to push for improved economic performance o Some licensees will want to extend plant life o Some plants will be decommissioned o Spent fuel storage is be: coming an issue for some licensees O
O
l' STRATEGY' O
o two phases
-PHASEI information forletter to Congress
- PHASEII information for the repon to the Commission o focus is on:
- needs
-priorities -
- requirements o Milestones
- November 1 Fellows report on research activities
-November 4-5 Subcommittee meeting
- December 3 Dran letter to Congress
- Febntary 2 Final report to Congress
- March full committee meeting on research
- April draft report to the Commission
- May meeting final report to Commission 11 O
Y h-T f' . p t , ,5,. .
- s e.
NRC STRATEGIC PLAN O
o Does ACRS want to comment on this strategic plan for research or just accept it?
o The plan has some significant implications:
- there is some way to quantify risk and regulatory significance I
- there will be dilution ofresearch to support " core research capabilities" and in-house research staff O
3 .
O
- x. , . . - ~ ~ . .
.. . . ~
NRC STRATEGIC PLAN
~O ON RESEARCH o Research Program includes both confinnatory & anticipatory elements o focus on areas ofhighest risk and regulatory significance o maintain " core research capabilities" o identify research capabilities to be maintained by in-house staff o consolidate research activities at a smaller number of contractors
- Q o enter into cooperative research agreements
- with:
-DOE
-industry
- other countries l o use innovative procurement vehicles to facilitate university participation in NRC research*
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- outside ACRS scope. .
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O DIRECTION SETTING ISSUE
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F The research program at NRC should:
C o respond to information need of the line organizations o maintain core capabilities in identified areas o conduct longer term research to anticipate future agency needs.
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ONINDUSTRIAL RESEARCH O ,
o profit motivated institutions will never make socially optimal investments in research:
- value of knowledge in the marketplace is zero,
- risk aversion and the uncertainties of research outcome,
- cost exceed capacities Society must be willing to invest in research for its own benefit.
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QUESTIONS POSED TO THE ACADEMY BY NRC !
10 l 0 What are the research needs for the next 10 years? 20 years? l o What are the alternative mechanisms for meeting these needs? !
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o What advantages accrue from Federal support of undirected research in nuclear safety?
. o What should be the:
- scope
- structure
- coverage of the Federal research program given current statutory requirements?
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I ACADEMY REPORT o Research to intensify:
- material behavior in plant environments j i
-human factors 1
- nondestructive testing
-plant aging
-policy research
- re-evaluation ofregulations
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- component and system reliability
- QA/QC
- safety analysis methodology and applications
- severe accidents I -
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ACADEMY RECOMMENDATIONS the NRC Research Director should:
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- use the best researchers
- develop a coherent planning process
-make more use ofpeer review
- establish an advisory group
- stren6then links to users
- diversify research providers o the EDO should:
- take responsibility for communication among offices with regard to research o the NRC Chairman should
- defend the research budget to Congress O
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ACADEMY RESPONSES o program lacks direction O o management lacks a coherent & effective set ofprinciples for organizing an integrated program of research o there are general principles for helping to answer the questions:
-who should pay for research 7
- who should carry out research 7
- who should establish the research agenda ?
o NRC should continue to sponsor research o an increased proportion of the needed research should be funded and conducted by industry o use the best facilities and the best people Q (elsewhere in the report it says to use good people) o there should be more cooperative research
-DOE
-industry intemational o NRC-funded research should be placed by competition o maintain a university program o universities and other contractors with relevant knowledge and skill should be more actively involved in setting the research agenda 7 l
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PALLADINO (NRC CHAIRMAN) TO ACADEMY
'O o Is more research needed?
o If so, what program ofresearch will anticipate future regulatory problems ?
If not, how fast should current research efforts be phased out ?
o Who should do the research
-licensees ?
-NRC7
- both ?
o To what extent should research be focused on explicit, near-term j objectives ? ,
o What is the value of having core capabilities ?
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l REVIEW OF TIIE NRC o
SAFETY RESEARCH PROGRAM o REPORT TO CONGRESS BY FEBRUARY 1998 o REPORT TO THE COMMISSION BY MAY 1998 l
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- ! REPORTER'S' CERTIFICATE j
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This-isito certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear' Regulatory: Commission in the l matter of:..
NAME-OF-PROCEEDING: SAFETY RESEARCH PROGRAM-1 DOCYJi:T NUMBER:
5 PLACE OF PROCEEDING: ROCKVILLE, MD were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States. Nuclear i
-- Regulatory Commission taken'by me and thereafter reduced to
. - typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting i 4 -
company, and that the transcript is - a true ar.d accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
, ( //T\ N h
- < n Hundley 1
Official Reporter r
Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd, j '
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