ML20203J979
| ML20203J979 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/17/1997 |
| From: | NRC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NACNUCLE-T-0119, NACNUCLE-T-119, NUDOCS 9712220146 | |
| Download: ML20203J979 (69) | |
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3 3 NA _. A&M~d//9 OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE L
Title:
97T11 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) MEETING
\
Docket No.: TR08 (ACHW)
I RETURN ORIGINAL TO BJWHITE, ACRS T-2E26 415-7130 Work Order No.: ASB-300-82 THANKSI
' fNU NlE?a e
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LOCATION: Rockville. Maryland DATE: Wednesday,lucember 17,1997 PAGES: 133 - 198
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<; ) y dO ~ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
'# 12501 Street, NW, Suite 300
""$'i'Mf"AS:ci3j"5 ACNW OFFICE COPY- RETAIN FOR THE UfE OFTHE COMMITTEE
n . ,. . ._- . . ~ - . - .-. , .. . , . . . . ... , . .- .... ._ .
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DISCLAIMER-I UNITED. STATES _ NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION S ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE ,
DECEMBER 17, 1997-i The. contents of this transcript of the proceeding
- of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory ,
. Committee on Nuclear Waste, taken on December 17, 199', as g.
reported herein, is'a record of the discussions recorded at the meeting held on the above date.
4 This~ transcript had-not been reviewed, corrected ;
-and edited and'it may contain inaccuracies.
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_ __ . . . . _ . ~ . ._ _ . _ . _ __. -
1-1.33 1- UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION-x)l 12 ADVISORY: COMMITTEE ON NUCL3AR WASTE f
3- >
1 4 97TH ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON '
5 NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) MEETING-I6 7 U.S.cNuclear Regulatory. Commission ,
8 Two White Flint Northi Room 2B-3 1
9 11545 Rockville Pike 10 Rockville, Maryland 20852-2738' ,
1.1 12 Wednesday, December 17, 1997 .
13
-14 The Committee met pursuant to notice at 8:31 a.m.
-15 16 MEMBERS PRESENT:
17- B. JOHN GARRICK, Chairman, ACNW 18 GEORGE HORNBERGER, Vice Chairman, ACNW 19- F. FAIRHURST, Member, ACNW ,
-20 RAYMOND G. WYMER, Member, ACNW
-21 HAROLD LARSON, Member, ACNW L22 23-24:
25 n.
- ( . ANN-RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD, Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034-
i 134 ,
1 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE= COMMISSION TABLE: -
2 RICHARD K, MAJOR,= STAFF-3 CAROL HARRIS,--ACNW-STAFF ,-
i 4 -ANDREW C, CAMPBELL, ACNW STAFF
-5 LYNN DEERING, ACNW STAFF 6 KEN.STABLEIN, DWM-7 BRET LESLIE, NRC STAFF ,
8 TIM MCCARTIN,.NRC STAFF ,
9 NEIL COLEMAN 10' PHIL JUSTUS 11 MYSORE NATARAJA 13 14.
O 1e 16
-17 18
-19 20 21 22 23' -
24 25
- h'
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135 ,
- 1. 'P R O.C E R D-I N-G S
[\ /:'[ 24 (lB : 311 a .m. )
j 3: ; CHAIRMAN GARRICK:- _Our meeting will-now come to-- -
3
-4 -j order .-
, 5 L
. This is the second day'of the ninety-seventh 6 meeting of the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste. My name 7 .is John Gerrick, Cheirman of the ACNW. Other members of:the ;
8 committee include George Hornberger, Raymond Wymer and ,
9' -Charles-Fairhurst.
10 Today, the committee will discuss current site Ill characterization activities at the Yucca Mountain site, 12 discuss the high-level waste issue resolution status reports 13 and acceptance criteria,_ discuss committee activities and 14 future agenda items and continue preparation of ACNW h)- 15- reports.
16 Richard Major is the designated federal officer 17 'for the initial portion of today's meeting. This meeting is 18 being conducted-in accordance with the provisions of the 19 Federal Advisory Committee Act and should anyone address the 20 committee, please-make your wishes known to one of the 21 committee staff.
22 As usual,:it is requested that each speaker-use 23 -one of the microphones, identify themselves and speak with
.24 sufficient clarity and volume so that they_can be readily 25 heard..
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136 1 The first item on our agends is Yucca Mountain
[I LJ 2 site characterization. This discussion was to have been led 3 by Carol Hanlon of the Department of Energy. Unfortunately, 4 she is unable to be with us but she did provide us with a 5 written -- a brief written report which I suggest we have 6 put in the record and I further suggert that,. Richard, maybe 7 it would be a good idea if you just go through it and hit 8 some of the highlights.-
9 MR. MAJOR: Let me just go through it and hit some 10 of the highlights.
11- Carol is going to try and be with us. She is ill 12 this month, but she is going to try to come every month and 13 give us an update of what's happening at the Yucca Mountain 14 site. Since she couldn't be here this month, she faxed us
(
(3 m,/ 15 -
these four or five bullets and why don't I just go through 16 :them.
17 The viability assessment is on target. Right now, 18 they anticipate delivering it to NRC headquarters by 19 September 15. A decision has been made to consolidate the 20 products into one integrated deliverable in five volumes and 21 they include a summary, introduction, design, performance 22- assessment, license application plan and a cost estimate.
23 - Right now, there is no change in the scope of the viability 24 assessment.
25 Tim Sullivan who we met, I guess it was in
,y ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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137 1- October, has a responsibility for the preparation-and Carol
-() 2 :Hanlon isfthe person:that's working on the application,-the 3 license; application-plan.
4 'Let's see, is there anything else here?
5 'It appears that when we had this discussion 6: ; yesterday, that we're not going to-get drafts, draft copies
>7 -ofLthe viability assessment, although it looks like the 8 Department'of Energy.is going to be'giving the staff 9 supporting documents, these level three reports as they 10 , progress. When we get the final viability assessment, there 11- -should be background that the staff has prior to tnat time.
H12 Carol tells us that the waste isolation and 13 containment strategy name has changed to the must simpler 14 repository safety stracegy,-U.S. Department of Energy's
- - 15 strategy to protect public health and safety after closure 16 of the Yucca Mountain repository. But she tells us to stay 17- tuned,1that name may evolve yet.
18 ;ue revised highlights, a summary for the strategy 19 are in the final review process and are being printed. They 20 - reflect the best information currently available on 21 percolation flux, it also reflects the current view that 22 ' engineered barriers should be used to compensate for 23 uncertainties in natural barriers, as these uncertainties 24 may lead to enhanced-engineered barriers such as drip 25 shields.or ceramic coatings on the waste package.
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I E 138
- 21' The highlights document will be revised and iupdated'every_six months-.to reflect new site information,-
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-> 12 -
-3' .
idesign'and performance ase,essment and will be available'and i
- 14 l[-guess the substantive-details of_the--safety; strategy will ] :
5 tbe: included in the. safety case of the working draft license _
6 application and that is' scheduled for-December of 1999.
7 I asked Carol to see if'she could find out the
_8 ' dates.for the expert elicitationu we are interested in 9 attending. The coupled effects is scheduled for January 6 l 11 0 and 7. The waste form degradation still is not scheduled-11 but we will keep ceiling the folks doing these expert 12 elicitations to see if we can't pin that down as soon as
- 13 possible.
- 14 Regarding site activities, I guess we mentioned it l () 15 yesterday. -The drift scale heater test, whose purpose is to 16 acquire a more in-depth understanding of the coupled 17 thermal, mechanical, hydrological, chemical processes 18 occurring in the rock mass surrounding the proposed E 19 repository started Wednesday, December 3, and that was ahead 20 of schedule. The test is supposed to last 10 years with a
! 21 heating phase of four years,.a four-year cooling phase and a 22 final. report issued-in the summer of 2006.
- 2: 3 . The enhanced characterization of the repository 24' block, and I-guess that's^the east-west trans sect is to' 25 enhance the scientific understanding of the behavior of the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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139 a 1'
' ~
site as well as to enhance the understanding'of engineering-2? - constructionL health and-safety cost and regulatory _and 3- performance. aspects of the potential = repository. They've
.4- begun-this activity on 10 days'early:on December F,: when ;
5 blasting the starter tunnel off-the exploratory studies 6 facility, 7 The-cross drift itself will be constructed using a
-8 tunnel boring machine. I guess with a' five meter diameter..
9 And the length of the tunnel should be about 2,815 meters 10 including two' alcoves and two niches. Completion of the 11 cross drift excavation is scheduled for September 1998. An 12 excavation-of the alcoves is to begin in October 1998'and be 13' completed in January of ' 99. So that may be something we'll 14 want on our tour next year, if possible.
/*
15 And Busted Butte, the staff I guess is building an 16 access road and a construction pad to look at the -- I guess 17 it's the Calico Hill members. It's the rock layer that is le directly underneath the repository that contains the ,
19 transition from the unsaturated zone to-the saturated zone.
- 20 They're going to expose, not within the tunnel but at Busted 21 Butte, a section of that to study the rock.
--22 MR. FAIRHURST: When we were out there, we were 23- .. looking -- they said they would havejsome information. They 24 were drilling to look at the difference in hydraulic head 25 - between-two locations very close. Do'you have any update on J
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140 1 -that?;
L2' ,
MR. MAJOR The LM300% data? No , I. haven't heard anything lately._-~Has anybody_-_else= heard?. No?
~
-3
~4~ -MR.-FAIRHURST -They were supposed to have reached 5 the' horizon,within a coupleLof days of when we were there.
-6: MR. MAJOR:
Let me putithat down'for Carol next 7 ' month.
8- :MR. WALLACE: Ray Wallace, U.S. Geological Survey.-
9 SD6 on Monday-was at 400.4 feet. They were in r10J coringfoperations. That's the one on-the west side of-the 11 block being drilled by theLLM300. WT24 being drilled to l
12 look-at the large hydraulic gradient did hit what we think 13l is--fresh. water at 1663 feet and they were doing a bit of 34" coring there. They plan on going on-down to see if they can f) 15 hit the' regional water table now.
- 16 J MR. FAIRHURST
- I was asking if there was anything 4
17 written as yet. Apparently not.
-- 18 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I guess we are a little 19 -handicapped on being able to discuss this subject because !
20- Carol 11sn't here or anybody on her behalf, which I think is 1 21 -- one of the more-useful aspects of our deliberations is to be Lable to do that. So we will have to defer that until next
,4-23; stime around.
E .
24' - If the stair is here, maybe the smart thing to do
_25 would:beLto move directlyfinto the high-level waste issue ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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141 1 resolution status reports and acceptance criteria
() 2L 3
discussion. That discussion, as far as *h: committee is concerned, will be led by George Hornberger so, George?
4 MR. HORNBERGER: Pine.
% I notice we just got our overheads so I think what 6- we.will do is proceed. King Stablein is going-to 9 1 19 us a 7 status report on the issue resolution process and, of 8- course, we got an awful lot of material ahead of time to 9 page through.
10- MR S73BLEIN:- Let me check and see if the-KTI 11- leads are near the microphones. You all should be up over 2D here where we can call upon you for your expertise.
13- MR. HORNBERGER: You are already anticipating 14 tough questions.
() 15 MR. STABLEIN: I expect no less.
16 Dr. Garrick, are you ready for me to start?
17 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. Go ahead.
10 MR. STABLEIN: Good morning. My name is Ken 19- .Stablein. I'm.the Acting Branch Chief for the Engineering 20 and Georciences Branch, Division of Waste Management. And 21 I'm here to talk to you today about the status of the 22- high-level waste' issue resolution process, q 23 The objective of my talk is to show the progress 24 - that we've made.in high-level waste-issue resolution and the 25- progress expected in FY '98.-- All-the weaponry is now at i
f('
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142 1 hand.
() 2 3 seven years ago.
The last time I addrersed ACNW goes back about I was in the high-level waste program from i
4 1984 to 1991, and I was project manager for the Yucca 5 Mountain site, saw the review of DOE site characterization 6 plan, and the last time I addressed ACNW I was explaining 7 how we were going to be reviewing study pla..s. i 8 But we moved on study plans and the review of 9 those of coursa and we are now in a different phase of the 10 program, and airce I've come back to the program, which is '
11 about seven months ago, I have been struck by the progress 12 that I've seen, especially when I think back to those early 13 years when we were just beginning to understand the site and 14 the issues that are going to be important at the site. And
) 15 so I am especially privileged to be able to come to you 16 today to talk about the progress as I see it in the issue 11 resolution process.
18 Here's what I'm going to tell you about today.
19 We're going to talk ab)ut the issue resolution process and 20 the issue resolution status reports, which I will commonly 21 refer to as IRSRs, in context of the overall program, the 22 structure and content of IRSRs, briefly let you know about 23 the IRSRs that are alrt.Jy issued or that will be issued in 4 FY '98. As time allows and as your interest allows, we will 25 move to the five IRSRs that have been issued and that have ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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143 ;
1 been provided to you. We'll talk about the progress toward !
2 issue resolution that's documented in those IRSRs, and a !
3 brief conclusion summarizing my view of where we are in the !
4 program ano the progress as I see it.
l 5 The focus of the high-level waste program is !
i 6 clearly on issue resolution. About three years ago looking i 7 at the resources available to-the NRC and looking at what we 8 had learned over the past 10 or 15 years about the site, the 9 decision was made to try to focus the program on the 10 key !
10 issues important to repository performance. We met with DOE 11- on these. We have achieveu agreement, general agreement ;
12 that these are at this time the issues considered to be most 13 important to repository performance, and the efforts are 14 focused on those.
15 The NRC intends to provide early feedback to DOE 16 on these issues. Early feedback, no surprises is our mantra 17 in this program, and we are striving diligently to achieve 18 that. This~is the prelicensing consultation portion of the 19 high-level waste program. We think that that is our 20 obligation, is to be providing feedback early. And it's
'21 .important to be able to demonstrate measurable progress in t 22 this program, and measurable 1.rogress can be shown if we are 23 moving toward resolution of the important issues. So the 24- . program has focus, has purpose, and hopefully it has 25 achievements.
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I 144 i 1 The key technical issues I have up here with their
() 2 3
acronyms,.and I may lapse into these at times.
expect you necessarily to be familiar with them as we are I don't 4 when we use them every day, but I'll try to use the whole 5 title, but total system performance assessment, TSPA, the 6 integrating overall key technical issue.
7 The EPA standard. This particular item will not 8 have an issue resolution status report associated with it; 9 success comes when EPA puts out its rule and we implement 10 the rule. So a n'ightly different measure of success here.
11 Unsatur, ped and saturated flow under isothermal 12 conditions.
13 Evolution of the near-field environment, where 14 we're looking at the thermal hydrologic chemical coupled 15 processes.
16 Radionuclide transport.
17 Container life and source term, looking at the 18 waste package and the waste form.
19 Thermal effects on flow, the effects of emplacing 2C the heat in the-repository and what it does to the water and 21 the movement of water.
22 Igneous activity, vulcanism.
23 Repository design and thermal-mechanical effects.
24 This is our design issue.
25 And structural deformation and seismicity, fault ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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145 1 displacements, vibratory ground motion, and the effents on
, 2 the repository.
3 MR. WYMER: Is there any significance to the order 4 in which these are-listed?
5 MR. STABLEIN: No.
6 MR. WYMER: Those aren't priority listed?
7 MR. STABLEIN: No, these are not priority listed.
8 They're all considered to be very important. Last time we 9- presented to you a priority list in terms of how the 10 resources have been allocated for this year. This doesn't 11 necessarily mirror that. In fact, this is not in that 12 order. But in my particular talk I wen't be emphasizing 13' priorities among the ten. From my point of view as Branch 14 . Chief that's responsible for eight of these, all but the top
() 15 two, which are in Mike Bell's branch, Mike spoke to you last 16 month,.all of those eight in the IRSRs we're preparing are 17 all considered to be very important.
18 And so in this program we strive for issue 19- resolution. Now issue resolution doesn't mean that the
. 20 issue goes away forever, that we've driven a nail through 21 its heart. That would be lovely, but that can't happen.
22 What_we can do in.this program is work toward an 23 understanding of tho issue, the development of criteria by
-24 .which we can assess whether an issue is being properly
- 25- addressed at this time, whether in fact we have any further ANN RILEY-& ASSCCIATES, LTD.
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1 < questions of DOE at this time, whether there are any open l 2 _ items that we have identified in the past that have not been !
3 cleared up, and we can come to resolution at the staff level !
4 that at this time we have no more questions for DOE. j 5 At the time of licensing thece issues can and I r -
_ )
6 probably will be explored in front of the licensing board, 1 ;
7 and if new information comes to light that causes us to 8 . reevaluate the status of issue resolution, we will q 9' definitely look at that. We cannot be blind.to new '
- 10 developments.
11 The primary mechanism to document progress toward -
12 resolution and to provide feedback to DOE is the issue l 1? [6 y;eiolution status report, of which you have five-of those
-14 0 that we've put out. And I'm going to talk about what-the l i
15 structure and content of those are shortly.
16 Each IRSR is intended to have the look and feel of l 17 the next IRSR. We attempted to have a structural 18- consistency for purposes of being able to communicate ;
19 successfully with DOE, other interested parties, und the 20 public. And this is the structure that we've developed.
'21 There's a brief introduction explaining what the ,
22 process is about of issue resolution and the basis for it.
23: There's a statement and description of the issue 24- and the subissues that are contained within that issue.
25 There is a_ discussion that's very important about' j
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-1 the importance of-issues and subissues to repository i
() 2 3
performance. This is a key-feature.
that these are the ten issues important to repository Obviously we have said l
4 performance. In this chapter we discuss that in detail, t.nd 5_ we discuss it in terms of a couple of different approaches.
r 6 You know, DOE has a waste containment and isolation strategy j 7 where they have identified some components of their system 8 that are most important to repository performance, and -l 9- they've formulated hypotheses-which if they could i
10 demonotrate the truth of those.would enable them to make ,
11 their case for repository performance. We consider our !
J 12 subissues in terms of DOE's strategy. As well-we consider
~13 these subissues in terms of our own total system performance 14 r.ssessment approach that we are taking, and we show how the
() 15 particular subissue fits into that approach, and it may be 16 that we'll want to get into that in more detail later, and l
+
17 we can talk about the flowdown diagram that you've seen 18 before and so forth. ;
19 Having established why the issue is important to 20 repository performance -- and in fact I left out another
- 21 :section of this which in large measure does not appear in
- 22 .the IRSRs we've already put out -- but we will also be H23 having a sectionfon sensitivity analyses to show that at the 24- -process level that we have looked ~at the sensitivity of the
- 25 parameters 1to repository performance. Do they affect ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. 1
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148 !
1 repository performance?_ And there will be a discussion of 2 those in the'next revision of the~IRSRs that are already l 3 .out. l 4- MR WYMER: So you're-saying that you'll be using f i
5 TPA-3 as part of this analysis? f G MR. STABLEIN: TPA-3 will be used. It has to be 7 used in fact. We have run sensitivity analyses.for each of-8 the KTIs already. The results were not ready to be ;
'9 incorporated into this version of the IRSRs, but indeed yes. ,
1 10 In fact, if we get to that, several-of the KTI leads can 11 address that and some of the results perhaps. We're still i
12 at the early stage of documenting the results.
13- In the fourth chapter we lay out the acceptance 14 criteria and review methods that we will use in looking at 15 DOE's submittals, and that includes how we will look at the 16 VA itself and other documents that DOE will be putting out 17 and how we will be able to achieve issue resolution on the 18 basis of these acceptance criteria. As well there's a 19 discussion of the technical bases for these acceptance '
20 -criteria. The staff and our counterparts down at the Center 21 for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses working hand.in hand i 22 have put in an incredible amount of effort to try to make :
23 these_ acceptance criteria and the' bases for them as .
24 well-developed as possible, and Chapter 4 discusses that. .
25 Then Chapter 5 is where you cet to the bottom
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149 l 1 line. It's where we discuss the status of the progress ,
() 2- toward issue resolution.
3 - 1 actually reached resolution on one or more sutissues that's And in that section if we have i
4 documented. If we have gone back and looked at all the open !
5 items, the site characterization analysis open items, open 6 items that we generated after reviewing study plans for j 7 other DOE submittals, and if those relate to the subissue !
8 under discussion in the IRSR, we look at those mod see if 9 those.now can be considered resolved. All that is meant to l
10 ' be clearly documented in Chapter 5.
11 And finally, the references that we've used to put ;
-12 together the document. !
13 Here-is a listing of the IRSRs that we have put 14 out, and intend to put out in FY '98. The first IRSR that
() 15 came out was a pilot, the climate Change and Associated l 16 Effects at Yucca Mountain, in June, and then that was q 17 followed -- using that as a model, we generated these five f 18 in the Repository Design and Thermo-Mechanical Effects on 19 Saturated and Unsaturated Flow Under Isothermal Conditions. ,
20 -And this one incorporated, by reference, the Climate Change i 21' material. And so-this is, in fact, a further development in ,
22 the same KTI. It incorporawas the subissues addressed here -
23 in Climate Change, and, as well, it talks about the shallow 24 infiltration subissue, Evolution of the Near-Field ,
'25 Environment, Structural Deformation in Seismicity, and
+
i
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150 1 Thermal Effects on Flow.
() 2 3
We currently have three other IRSRs which are under development and in various stages of review, the 4 Igneous Activity one, that will be discussing the 5 probability of volcanism. Container Life and Source Term, 6 where we didn't have very many resources to devote to this 7 KTI last year, so it will be -- take a pretty narrow slice 8 of this overall issue, but we are still going to put out an 9 IRSR. And then the Total System Performance Assessment
- 10 . Methodology discussing how we do the abstractions, and this 11 is under direction of Dr. Bell and Dr. McConnell, is also 12 under development. This is very important in our overall 13 scheme of how we use the TPA code for issue resolution in 14 these key issues.
15 Future IRSRs, Radionuclide Transport. We didn't 16 have resources to devote to this KTI in FY '97 but, as you 17 may recall from last's month discussion, we now are devoting 18 resources to it, and so there will ce an IRSR coming out in 19 July of 1998. And Rev. 1 for the eight IRSRs -- it should 20 be the seven -- no, I am sorry, eight, including the TSPA, 21 for eight IRSRs will also come out in July 1998. These Revs 22 will pursue different subissues than the ones that were 23 already dealt with in Rev. O. .It doesn't necessarily mean 24 that all that work that we did in Rev. O is going to be 25 rehashed or reworked. ~Rev. 1, Rev. 2, et cetera, are ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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151 1 intended to allow us to continue working our way through the n
/ ') 2 subissues which are part of the overall KTI. ;
\m / ;
3 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: King, since climate was not an 4 explicit key technical issue, what was the rationale for 5 choosing it as a pilot application of the IRSR concept?
6 MR. STABLEIN: Well, that's -- that's an excellent 7 point. And it helps to illustrate how this process is 8 supposed to work. The key technical issues, unsaturated and 9 saturated flow under isothermal conditions, this currently 10- has eight subissues under it, and the first two listed are 11 related to past climates and the projection of future 12 climates. So, you are right, this was not a KTI, but it was 13 a subissue -- two subissues under the unsaturated and 14 saturated zone flow. .-
q _j 15 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: So just a higher level.
16 MR. STABLEIN: Correct.
17 MR. FAIRHURST: Could I just ask a general 18 question? Some of these involve very different specialties, 19 such as the one that you just mentioned, radionuclide 20 transport, and if you don't have resources in one year 21 in-house, there is a certain specialty needed, do you do 22 this by subcontracting outside, or is it all done in-house?
23 MR. STABLEIN: Our subcontracting is -- we don't 24 really have much in the way of subcontracting. We use the 25 Center.
h)
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i 1 MR. FAIRHURST: Right.
() 2 3
MR. STABLEIN: Right.
pool of expertise available to work on any of these, it is a And when we consider our 4 combination of our Center counterparts and our own staff. )
5 Now, the expertise to work on radionuclide 6 transport, since those individuals couldn't work on that 7 specific KTI, were used in other KTIs. I am sure that you 8 recognize that all -- all the KTIs are actually I
9 inter-related and linked, and it would be hard to -- and you
.10 wouldn't even want to -- put solid barriers between them.
11 But, for example, the people who would work on radionuclide 12 transport spent much of their effort either in the 13 near-field environment KTI or the unsaturated and saturated 14 flow KTI.
) 15 We kept the expertise but we utilized it in other 16 KTIs. And, in fact, you know, to the extent possible, we 17 kept in mind the important subissues under radionuclide 18 transport and, as we worked in the other areas, it wasn't as 19 if we just kind of forget the area or froze it out of our 20 thinking, but we couldn't explicitly work on issue 21 resolution of that.
22 If there aren't any other general questions, my 23 intent in the next part of the talk is to move on to a 24 consideration of the specific IRSRs that we put out. And 25 for this, I will be referring you to, and, in fact, I plan ,
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153 1 to introduce you to the KTI leads who are responsible for
() 2 3
each of theso as I talk about them, so that if there is a poiAt that you would like to really explore, we can have the 4 technical expert in that area discuss that.
5 In particular, what I have provided to you here is 6 a statement of issue and subissue. We will look at some 7 example acceptance criteria and the status of issue 8 resolution, and if there are aspects that we would like to 9 go into more, we can do that.
10 Is Neil here? He hasn't made it in. Okay.
11 Neil Coleman is the KTI lead who is responsible 12 for this KTI and he is the one that took the initiative to 13 generate that pilot IRSR, and, as well, was able to get out 14 his Rev. 1 dealing with shallow infiltration. And I am 15 sorry that he can't be with us toaay, but Latif Hamdan over 16 here works in the same area, is working with Neil, and, of 17 course, I want you to keep in mind that at the Center we 18 -have a corresponding program eit ment manager who works with 19 Neil and Latif and there are other staff members who work on 20 this as well. So there is a team effort for each one of 21 these KTIs.
22 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, maybe this is a general 23 question before we move into t specifics.
24 MR. STABLEIN: Surs..
25 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: And maybe we want to discuss it I'. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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154 !
1 later, but you had indicated that you were going to ,
2 benchmark the KTIs and the use of the issue resolution !
3 reports against performance assessment to sort of get us a 4 sense of their relative importance.
5 I guess I got two comments about that. One is in 6 the previous discussions on key technical issues, we have 7 dealt with the question of how they evolved in the first 8 place. And it is still a little fuzzy to some of us ns to 9 what the role of performance assessment was in their 10 evolution. So that, since -- one conclusions was that they 11 didn't explicitly derive from performance assessment. Part 12 of the reason because they evolved prior to the performance 13 assessment activity having advanced to a stage where it 14 could be effectively used in that kind of capacity.
() 15 So that raises the question of, if you are going 16 to use performance assessment now to benchmark their 17 importance, what happens if, in that process, you expose 18 other issues that, in fact, are more important? Or that you 19 expose the fact that the key technicas issue is not very 20 important? Is that going to play out.in any kind of 21 specific way? In other -- is this exercise likely to result 22 in other KTIs, a reshuffling of KTIs, et cetera, et cetera?
23 MR. STABLEIN: Well, I don't know how in a 24 specific way how this will play out. But the possibility 25 always exists that we will find some things are more L[ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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155 f 1 important than we had anticipated, or less important than San had anticipated. At this time, based on our knowledge of
'( )l 2 l
3 ~ the site that was acquired over all those years, our i t
4 consideration of the engineering items that would be i
5 important in designing a repository, and then'when [
6_ performance assessment came on the scene, its involvement in 7 the analysis of what might be important, we arrived at these 8 tenfissues.
9 We think that these are pretty comprehensive as ;
10- .the most important issues. Ne do have to allow for the . ;
11 possibility that someone else could pop up as more r
12 important.
13 Where I think you might truly find something 14 emerging as more or less important would be.at the subissue l
() .15 level, or looked at another way, some of-the parameters 16 involved in consideration of a subissue or an issue. And 17 the primary methods that we are using to look at that are 18 the sensitivity analyses that we are doing and have done 19 already at-the process level, and we are going to be doing 20 those-as well at the total system level. And from those, 21 and from looking at the impact of the parameters on che 22 total system performance assessment, we will be
.23 re-evaluating whether, in fact, what we thought was ,
24 important is as important, or whether it can be lessened in 25 ;importance.
U
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1 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, I think this process is .
~
() 2 3
very encouraging and very important of attempting to evaluate them against some sort of a process that deals with 4 the basic question of performance, And, so, the question j 5 simply has to do with, given that this is maybe the first f i
6 time that kind of a process has been implemented, it j 7 certainly could expose some surprises. And I am just !
8 anxious to learn a little bit about how you will deal with 9 those surprises. So -- and I understand what you -- what 10 you have just said.
11 MR. STABLEIN: We are currently, in fact, dealing 12 with a few surprises based on the sensitivity analyses that 13 we have already done. And we have to be ready to be 14 flexible in this regard. We have not decided we will fall
() 15 on our sword for what we have already defined as important.
i 16 I think we hope to learn a lot more by the time we get down 17 the road to licensing.
18 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yeah, I guess the other thing I 19 would be thinking about here is that if the KTIs evolve in 20 the absence of a global model, if you wish, called 21 performance assessment, I'would be extremely surprised if, 22- now that we do-have a. performance assessment model, or are
--- 2 3 approaching that stage, that we don't come up with some --
c24 something rather different. But - .but maybe not. It will
~
25: _ really be very interesting to see what happens. ,
_h -
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157 1 MR. STABLEIN: Absolutely. Sure.- And that [
2 possibility exists. And I think that our integrated group t
3 working od it, the individual KTI teams, and the performance j
?
4 assessment' folks, working together, are ready to deal with !
l 5 those eventualities. !
i 6 Cl! AIRMAN GARRICK: Thank you. I l
7 MR. STABLEIN: Neil Coleman just came in.- Neil is 8 over here. I mentioned he is the KTI lead for this 9L particular issue, ..esponsible for.the pilot and for Rev.
10 zero of the USFIC-IRSR. !
11 We will turn to Neil's KTI first.- We have a .
f 12 statement of the issue right here, talking about the ambient !
13 groundwater flow regime and the unsat and sat zones in the 14 present and future climates and assessing the reactions 15 between the repository and the groundwater and their 16 potential implications for repository performance.
17 That mouthful explains why it is possible that we 18 have so many sub-issues in this KTI.
19 The sub-issues can be briefly characterized as 20 range of future climates and likely hydrologic effects cf
- 21 climate. change,--the shallow infiltration issue that was 22 addressed-in Rev. zero, deep percolation-in the present day l 23 and during *he period of repository performance,: ambient 24; flow conditions in the_ sat zone, extent of radionuclide ;
'dif fusion f rom -fractures to tlie rock matrix, and extent of L25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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158 !
1 dilution to the transport and well bore mixing in the sat l 2 zone.
3 Heil and his Center counterparts and Latif will be 4 addressing all of these sub-issues over -- in fact, we 5 should have-acceptance criteria for all of these by Rev. 1. ;
6- MR. WYMER: How far into the future are you i
l
' 7- considering climate changes?
8 MR. STABLEIN: Well, for at least 10,000_ years but ,
9 let-me ask.Neil what th'e timeframe was that he considered, i
.10_ MR. COLEMAN: Just a moment of background.
11 When the Academy of Sciences report came out on ;
12 the review of the EPA standard they had a recommendation- ,
13 _They didn't really see a reason to have a specified upper ,
14 limit -- !
I( 15 MR. WYMER: That's right.
16 MR. COLEMAN: So one of the reasons that we came 17 out with the climate issue and its effects first is to give i
18 some sort of guidance to DOE and their contractors, and so '
19 it includes information that people would need if they had 20 to estimate climate ovcr 100,000 years or 200,000 or t
21 500,000, q
22 MR. STABL8IN: Thank you. That's a long time. j .
23 Briefly summarizing the progress toward issue i 24 resolution, resolution achieved on the methodology for '
25 projecting future climate and its effect on water level rise j t
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. 1 Court-Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W.,^ Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 i (202) 842-0034- ;
159 1 -at Yucca Mountain and, as well, resolution achieved ta the
() 2 3
methodology for bounding the range of shallott infiltration under current climate conditions.
4 This is what.was dealt with in the pilot IRSR that 5 is in Rev. zero.
6 MR. FAIRHURST: Excuse me, could I just ask you to 7 expand on what you mean by resolution achieved? Is this 8 agreement with DOE on the methodology and so on? Is it with 9 DOE?
10 MR. STAPLEIN: It is agreement at the staff level 11- on the methodology, that what D01 has been doing is 12 appropriate and methods that they are familiar with using.
13 MR. FAIRHURST: And that has been communicated to 14 DOE 7 There's been a dialogue with DOE on that?
() 15 MR. STABLEIN: Right. It's been communicated in 16 dialogue with DOE and then the documentation is in the IRSR 17 and the cover letter, which was also supplied to you with 18 the IRSR.
19 The intent of the IRSR is to make as clear as 20 possible where we have achieved resolution.
21 Here are some examples of acceptance criteria that 22 Neil developed for the USFIC sub-issues that he dealt with.
23 'For climate, projections of long-term climate 24 change must be. consistent.with evidence from paleoclimate 25 data and complex numerical modeling is not required to-O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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160 f
i estimate the range of future climates. i This has the benefit of sharing with DOE that they
( ) 2 3 can base their-climate work on paleoclimate' data. They do !
4- not have to devote extensive resources to numerical modeling 5- to resolve this at least in NRC Staff's mind ---so we view 6 . this as very helpful and I think that you all have seen the 7- : letter from DOE on the climate IRSR in'which they expressed i
-8 appreciation for what we had provided to them.
9 In the infiltration sub-issue, acceptance criteria -
10 include the use of spatial and tempor01 averaged values of 11 1- shallow infiltration in abstracted models is acceptable in ;
'12 performance assessment.
13 DO nay characterize shallow infiltration in the 14 form of either probability distributions or deterministic '
() _ 15 upper bound values for performance assessment and expert 16- elicitation may be used to choose appropriate models, 17 probability distributions or bounding values for shallow 18 infiltration, butEthe approach must conform to the Staff's 19 branch technical position.
20 These are not all of the acceptance criteria that 21 appear in Neil's IRSR but these are just some examples that 22 DOE found useful. We haven't received written responses to 23 . the infiltration IRSR yet, but we have'been promised that,
' 24 well, after the new year is the way DOE characterized it.
25 MR. HORNBERGER: King, this illustrates the kind
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- 161
'l of: acceptance criteria-that are envisioned for all' of them, j
-2 is that right?-
3 'That is, they are really criteria-on an acceptable
{
4 methodology?- =
I 5 MR. STABLEIN: Well, as.you look at the different 6 -IRSRs,- you will see that the approach to each one is l 7 somewhat unique. There should be a certain level of l 1
8- consistency.- The acceptance criteria should be aimed at i 1
9 methodologies for testing, modelinct, and conducting j 11 0 performance assessment,-that's right,-but the'way they are t
11 -cast can look somewhat different,-and we will be considering 12 working toward a certain level of consistency.
13 ' Are there any questions that you would like to 14 pursue with Neil on this IRSR at this time? .
15 (No response.)
16 14R. STABLEIN: The next KTI that we will look at ,
17- is thermal effects on flow and Jeff Pool is the KTI lead for 4 18- thermal effects on flow but Jeff doesn't look like any of 19- those guys over there because he is out, but Bret Leslie, 20 sitting over here, is working very~ closely 1 .th Jeff and .
21- Bret is also the KTI lead for the near-field environment, L22 and so-he works closely.with Jeff anyway on the thermal i 23 hydrologic 1 issues and is prepared to discuss this IRSR with 24 ,us.
i 25- So'the issue'for:-thermal effects is what'are the 1
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.1 thermal effects on flow in terms of temperature, relative !
() 2 humidity and liquid flow in the repository environment and 3 their potential effects on repository performance. l 4 The sub-issues that Jeff has defined go to the 5 DOE's thermal hydrologic testing program, the modeling 6 program, and the adequacy of how they treat TEF in their 7 performance assessment.
8 The status of issue resolution for TEF -- now you l
9 notice we have more things listed here. We could have just 10 pared this down to this third bullet, the sub-Issue on the 11 DOE's thermal testing program to assess refluxing is 12 considered close with the exception of continuing evaluation 13 of the performance confirmation program, 14 This is the bottom line. The sub-issue is
() 15 considered resolved, but what Jeff and Bret have indicated 16 here is kind of a suggestion of the path to resolution, some 17 of the things that are involved as we continue to work this 18 issue.
19 The developing of acceptance criteria for each 20 sub-issue -- for this KTI we already have all the acceptance 21 criteria defined, so this is intended to be a big help to 22 DOE, 23 We commented on DOE's thermal testing and modeling 24' program in time so that we could have an impact on how they 25 designed their major thern11 tests, and there were some
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_ ~ -
t 163 l 1 changes that DOE made in response to some of our concerns.
2 We.have conducted some lab experiments to j 3 ' constrain retluxing, dripping, and ventilation effects to ;
4- support and focus thermal hydrologic modeling efforts and ,
5 conducting some independent coupled thermal hydrologic 6 modeling of refluxing, dripping and ventilation effects.
7 Some of these things are helping to define the 8- future path to resolution, so.besides getting-to-that bottom f 9- line where we can say " resolved," there is-a lot more which 10 is documented in the IRSRs about what has been achieved 11 leading to the eventual resolution.
12 Here are some example acceptance criteria for TEF.-
13 The tests are designed and conducted to test conceptual !
14 models and are appropriate for conditions expected at the 15 repository. They are designed and conducted such that.
16 critical processes like refluxing, including scale effects, l 17 can be observed and measured.
18 The tests are designed and conducted to evaluate 19 the possibility for wetting / drying on waste package 20 surfaces. Sufficient data are available to adequately 21 define Mlevant parameters, parameter values, and conceptual 22 models and process level and abstracted models are ;
23 consistent with results from field tests.
- 24 MR. WYMER: That appears to go somewhat beyond 25 what.I would have considered thermal effects on flow. For O- -ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 i
164
- i 1 example, the scale effects and wetting and drying on waste j
() 2 3
packages.
MR.-STABLEIN: This one here?
4 MR.-WYMER: Yes. Maybe I don't know what scale !
5 effects are. !
This is Bret Leslie from the NRC .
6 MR. LESLIB: ,
7 Staff. !
t 8 One of the things we wanted to consider was to <
9 make1sure that the DOE thermal testing program conducted ;
10 tests at_an appropriate scale relative to the repository, 11 not that they just do single heater tests, which were a l 12 limited volume, but that they look at it in a variety of ;
13 different' scales, and that is what is meant in terms of 14 scale effects.
() 15 MR. WYMER: Okay, I understand that. [
16 MR. LESLIE: Concerning the bullet on the wetting 17 and drying of waste package surfaces, this is an example of 18 both TEF and the evolution of the near-field environment 19 have handoffs between others KTIs. You have to have water 20: on a waste package to get waste package corrosion and
[
21- _ release _and so this is trying the estimate. In their 22 thermal test for instance they have put.in the drift scale 23 test, DOE has put in same-size containers in their drift 24 that have the heater elements in it and.they will be 25 - evaluacing how much water comer back down and drips on those
)
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i 165 ;
i 1 packages based upon'-e j b
2 i' MR. WYMER: I guess that'r what I was thinking, !
3 that part of that might have as easily been t:t in the j I
4 evolution of the near-field environment.
1 5- MR. LESLIE: Well, that's why we ue t %* king very 6 close together. We deal with some of the same. issues. l 7- MR. WYMER: Okay. -
8 MR. HORNBERGER: Bret, I assume that -- well, let !
29 me see if-I can collect my thoughts to state this cogently. l It strikes me if we take,-for example, the scale 1
- 11. effects, as you just described them, the appropriate scale ,
1 12 of tests, it's one thing to tell DOE that, yes, this will be ,
i 13 okay as long as you tests at.an appropriate scale. It is i
14 quite another to give them feedback on your thinking on what >
15 the appropriate scales are. f 16 I assume that in your technical exchanges you -
17 really get down to the nitty-gritty and discuss tith them :
18 the actual details of their planned tests and your reactions 19- - to them. Is that --
20 MR. LESLIE: Yes. Yes, that's right. I can go a 21 - little -- back'to the appropriate conditions expected to the -
22 repository rather than scale effects-to give you a concrete i 23 example.
-24. For instance, when they first suggest'edldoing a 2 5 -.
- drift scale test, which was going to be a short-term test,- -
i 3
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166 1' and they were going to have to ramp up the temperatures up 2 to 400 degrees C.
3 We indicated that that was unlikely to be a good 4- thing to do because, one, this would be higher than the 5 expected repository conditions, and you might not see the 6 same sort of processes going on, so we did this in a formal 7 meeting. We documented in a Iceter to DOE. They 8 subsequently changed how they-are viewing that drift scale 9 test and have implemented a drift scale test which is more 10- comparable to what would be expected at the repository, so 11 that is an example.
12 MR. STABLEIN: Now, turning to Brett's own KTI 13 evolution in the near-field environment, the issue as Brett 14- states it, how we will couple thermal, hydrological and 15 chemical processes in the near-field environment of the 16 proposed repository affect repository performance. And his 17- subissues talk about the effects of coupling on the rate of 18 seepage in the drifts, on waste package lifetime, on the 19 rate of radionuclide release and radionuclide transport.
20 MR. WYMER: How do you carry out the sensitivity 21 analyses on these coupled effects. Is that a -- are you
.22 able te do that now?-
23 MR STABLEIN: I have to let Brett take a --
24- MR LESLIE: Brett Leslie, NRC staff.
25 Yes, to a certain degree we have developed 1
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167 1 independent modeling of a code called Multiflow which is
() 2 nonisothermal, multiphased, multicomponent thermal, 3 hydrological, chemical. And so we will do an evaluation, 4 giving repository conditions to estimate what the chemistry 5 would do.
6 For instance, what e7uld be the chemistry of the 7 water interacting with the waste package.
8 MR. WYMER: It's extraordinarily complicated.
9 MR. LESLIE: Yes, it is.
10 MR. HORNBERGER: Just as a quick followup, so 11 these are, shall we say, nonabstracted codes. I mean these ,
12 are --
13 MR. LESLIE: Those are process level.
14 MR. HORNBERGER: Those are real hard-core coupled 15 process codes, And so a follow-on question is you then have 16 to also do some analysis to make sure that in TPA 3 you are 17 at least somehow capturing the most important interactions?
18 MR. LESLIE: Correct. For instance, again, this 19 KTI is unlike any -- I would say a little bit different in 20 that this KTI is responsible for handing off information to 21 a lot (.,f other KTIs. For instance, in container life and 22 source term, there are only a couple chemical parameters 23 that control performance of the waste package. So while we 24 may do a detailed model that has a lot of chemistry in it, 25 it may only reflect that we hand off chloride or pH. And-so
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168 1
1 that's kind of how it interrelates'with it, that we will ;
( 2 abstract from our runs a chloride history or a pH history or !
oxygen fugacity history.
f 4 MR. HORNBERGER: And in your process code,'how 5 detailed is this? Are you considering all the interactions l 6'- with iron and cementitious materials and redox conditions. !
i 7 -and all of the totally messy stuff that may go on?
8 MR. LESLIE: I would-say in rev zero, no. It is i
- 9. anticipated that those are the types of things that we will F
- 10 look at in this coming fiscal year.
11' MR. FAIRHURST: Just to add to the complexity, I 12 noticed that mechanical coupling is not included'in the 13 suite of coupling effects that you've got there. Do you ;
i 14 wanc to talk about that now? l 15 MR. LESLIE: It's a separate issue that Raj will 16 be talking about.
17 MR. FAIRHURST: That he will be talking about, 18 about mechanical coupling and these?
19 -MR. NATARAJA: Mysore Nataraja.
20' That's a separate issue under the design, the 21 repository design and thermal mechanical effects, KTI.
22 MR. FAIRHURST: The thermal mechanical effects are 23 tot a separate entity. Mechanical effects do, in my view,
' 24 influence the hydrology:and the -- particularly the 25 hydrology.
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_ . _ . . - - _ . - --...-.- -- . - - - . . . . . . . , ~
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-1 'Anyway,-we can talk about it later.- It'e'part of :[
4
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3 that.
. . i r
4 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Isn't this the key-technical, i
5 issue that's most closely allied-with something you might l
l6 _ call the-. development of the source term?- 1 i
7 - MR. LESLIE:: I don't know'how actually to answer 8 -that.. We look at -- coupled process,-we feel, can affect SF each of these four-subissues. .-So we don't go into the >
110 details of what the source term is or know what the >
. '11 quantities-or the dissolution mechanisms. But we provide !
- 12 the information and work with that KTI and work with i
13 container life and source term to make surs.that information 14 is incorporated into how they_ conceptualize the source term. ,
( 15 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay. So you are saying that l 16 the KTI on container life and source term is really what you-17 are feeding your results into.
[
18 MR. LESLIE: That's correct.
19 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I guess what we were all ,
20 getting at is there is an increasing interest with respect 21 to the transition between -- well, with respect to the 22 mebilization of the waste and the role of -- and that 23 interface between' infiltration to the waste package and the 44 ~ actual mobilization of the waste. It seems that some of-25' these KTIs kind of are-tightly connected'in that -- in
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170 1 that -- from that perspective.-
(); 2- MR. LESLIE: That's correct.
3 MR. STABLEIN: Several of them are involved in 4 that issue and are interrelated and the KTI leads and teams 5 keep in constant contact to make:sure that we get that 6 integrated effect that you all are addressing here.
7 CHAIRMAN GARRICY: Yes, I guess that was part of 8 my question earlier, 11 9 tt when we go through this from 9 the point of view of measuring it against a framework and if 10 that framework is performance assessment, we may -- we may 11 even find a more -- a different structure of how-to 12 characterize the issues than the current set of key 13 technical issues. And I hcpe we're open minded in that 14 regard.
(D
( ,/ 15 MR. LESLIE: Yes.
16 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Rather than a vertical slide, a 17 diagonal slice or something.
18 [ Laughter.]
19 MR. CAMPBELL: I have a couple questions for you, 20 Brett.
21- Within the process level models, are you doing 22 sensitivity studies or are they done more at the performance assessment model level?
24 MR. LESLIE: In fiscal year '98, we will be doing 25 sensativity studies at both levels. We had limited work at ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, L*rD .
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171-1 the process:leve1~at fiscal year-'97. -We actually didn't2
) 2 --- - get the' code until,-I think, July.
So there was-only some 32 limited work"in terms ofLchat .
4 MR '. CAMPBELL: -Because at.the process level model, -
5- you:are going-to have an extraordinarily large number of 6- parameters and even conceptual model-issues that will-7E possibly contribute to -- you are' going-to hand off to the ,
8 - TPA code essentially a pH or a range of pH over time or 9 - something like that or a chloride value or an oxygen 10 fugacity. But what leads you to that number is a very 11 complex set of things and you want to know what is the 12 buffering effect of the metals inside, is the uranium going 13- - to buffer the system,-and how are you determining what's the 14 most important thing in doing that, how is that sensitivity
() 15- done.
16 Is it juct by changing one parameter at a time or 17 is it done through some sort of multi-parameter LHS type of 18 sampling?
19 MR. LESLIE: We haven't gotten to that point in 20 the multiflow exercise. So that is something that I would 21 welcome-conversation with you.on in terms of thinking about' 22 what is the best way to approach that.
23 MR. STABLEIN: Oh, Tim. Go ahead.
24 -Introduce.yourself, Tim.
25: MR. McCARTIN: Tim McCartin,-NRC staff.
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-172 I
-1 one quick thing that-I would like to say in terms
- Lof the relationship _.between the KTIs and PALand what we're 3 doing in the model, as you can see there is af l ot of detail ,
4 - in the-KTIs and it's a-team' approach. -We're all;in_this_
S: _together but there is a very tough balancing act of_what-6- aspects of_the system to include in'the PA code.- And 7 sometimes it's not so much what you include but what you 8- don't include.
9 We're in that process of trying to develop an 10_ approach for evaluating performance where we certainly take 4
~
-11 creditefor the thingc that we can defend but also we're not 12 throwing certain things out that you need to include. And 13 there is that balancing act and that's why it is iterative.
14: As King suggested, we did some early analyses. We 15 are taking the information from the early sensitivity IC analysis and right now we are improving the code. Part of 17 it is directly related to the couplings. There are some 18 couplings that some of the KTIs had very little impact on i 19 the result, - not because they aren' t important processes but-20' because the approach we had might have overlooked a
. 21 ' particular coupling or a particular model. And we are going
-22 back and forth trying..to get what we think is a reasonable 23 approach.
24 But there clearly -- I mean, you look at the near 25- field in thermal hydrologic. I mean, there is so much going
[I
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173 1 on, what do we need to include that we could defend to a es 2 licensing board? And that's the kind of-things we really lK -)
3 have to push on the KTIs to what really is going on that we 4 have to have, because we clearly aren't going to include a 5 coupled model in a PA. But we are going back and forth and 6 it is a -- it's a challenging part of the effort.
7 MR. STABLEIN: I wanted to mention in terms of 8- these questions and what we are doing with the code that I 9 think John Greeves, our division director, last month 10 indicated that we would like the opportunity to provide the 11 code to your staff so that they can work it and work it with 12 us and thereby gain a better understanding of everything 13 that we are trying to co. Because, as Tim says, there is a 14 lot going on and it sure would be kind of exciting for your n
k_) 15 staff to get to play with some of that.
16 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: We are probably much more 17 excited about that than the staff.
18 [ Laughter.)
19 MR. STABLEIN: Well, I think that there is the 20 opportunity for, you know, some mutual learning to go on 21 there in exchange of expertise and experience so Staff is 22 definitely not dismayed by that possibility.
23 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, I think it is a very good 24 idea and we are hopeful that we can respond.
25 MR. STABLEIN: Good. I think I also mentioned to ANN RILEY_& ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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174 1 at_least one or two of you after the last meeting that we welcome.as well the members of the committee if_they are in
( ) 2 3 town getting-together with staff and exploring some of these at things one on one or in small groups where you can really 5 delve into matters that you would be interested in that we 6- can't totally cover in a short period of time.
7 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay. We are looking at 8 Brett's near-field environment. The status of issue 9 resolutivn. DOE is not as far along in their work on the 10 near-field environment and here Brett's efforts have been 11 more in the way of defining the path to resolution rather 12 than being able to say, well, we've achieved, you know, 13 closure on this or another item. So Brett's got several 14 items here that indicate.
G
(_,/ 15 He has developed acceptance criteria for each 16 subissue, each of his four subissues. He has identified for 17 each of those subissues the potential effects of coupled 18 processes on performance, addressed how the natural system 19 will influence and be influenced by the coupled processes.
20 Major progress, part of which he's discussed, in development 21 of coupled modeling capability. Key chemical 22 characteristics of water-contacting the waste package 23 -determined for use in our performance assessment and, as he 24 said, conducted initial sensitivity studies.
25 Initial characterization of water chemistry I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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175 1 affected by cementitious materials 7and potential effects on
() 21 transport and some limited work conducted on radionuclide 3; : migration through engineered barriers. ,The point of this
.4 beinglthat although we-haven't reached resolution with DOE
-5: on some clearly defined subissues. A lotfof progress has-6 been made laying the groundwork to-where we can-achieve-that 7 and we hope that the IRSR that we have provided will give 8 DOE-a good indication of the kinds of things we will be 9 looking for when they do lay out their plans.
10 -MR. WYMER: When you talk -- when you talk about, 11 it said limited work conducted in radionuclide migration 12: through generic barriers, is that experimental work?
13 MR. STABLEIN: Pardon me?
14 MR. WYMER: Are you talking about experimental
) 15 work?
16 MR LESLIE: No, that was-some modeling work on 4
17 cement / water interaction, and looking at alteration 18 associated with changes in processing permeability and how
- 19 that might affect radionuclide transport.
_20 MR. WYMER: Okay. Thank you.
21 MR. STABLEIN: And here is just some of Brett's 22 acceptance criteria, the things that we would be-looking-for 23 as sua consider DOE's submittals to us:
24 That DOE included relevant near-field coupled-25 processes in their analyses.
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176
],.
s_)
1 2
I That the analyses were completcd to determine potential effects of coupled processes on the four subissue-3- areas that Brett mentioned.
4 The models, tests and analyses-were conducted that 5 are sensitive to coupled processes 6- Technically defensible ranges of parameter values 7 and functions, including temporal and spatial variations, 8 were used to evaluate the effects of coupled prccesses.
9 Effects of engineered materials and their 10 alteration products were evaluated.
Ell' Technical basis provided for simplifications in 12_ performance assessment where coupled ptocesses were 13 neglected.
14 Sensitivity and uncertainly analyses were used to
.(-) 15
'x_) determine additional data requirements.
16 And our two generic items acceptable, QA and 17 expert elicitation procedures were used.
18 As I said, Brett has defined the acceptance 19 criteria for all of his subissues already.
20 MR. HORNBB'.<GER : King, I have a document here. I 21' guess this was for -- prepared for OMB, and under subissue-22 2, Effective Cementitious Material, it says, " Estimated 23 schedule for resolution is 10/98," and then the comment over 24 Lhere, it says that "This is likely to have marginal impact 25 on compliance demonstration in the LA."
ry ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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177
- 1. - ;
HowLdidL you = come to these- deep concCusions?) . I-0
[9s 1_
L21.. didn'tithinksthat there~had been all that much'done on these ';
3- - effects. I L4 I : MR. STABLEIN: This - this' document that you-5 -refer:to,- that'wasfsent.to_OMB is- first of-all, a very
^6- !summaryytype document which was prepared quickly and.I think n7 it-bears some -- it was an attempt:to provide kind of a 18: _ snapshot for OMB of progress and projected progress. But I 9' 'thinkLthat if-you wanted to discuss in detail the background
- 10f ifor this -
, it would require, you know, a lot'further getting
' into.
. 12' MR. HORNBERGER:. I.mean 10/98 sounds, that is a ,
fairly short time: frame. So,.do.you expect to actually have 14: a-resolution _this coming year?:
( ; MR. .STABLEIN: Well, let's check with Brett and 16 see'what he thinks about that date for the resolution.
17 MR. LESLIE: Well, we are hoping to. One_of -- c 18 one of,the things'-- one of the reasons why I took the
- '1 approach _of laying out the groundwork is because I knew DOE 20 had or. going work,-laboratory work, modeling_ work, '
. 21- calculations-that they are -- we are-going-to be doing, and 22 we.have requested those-' documents. We are anticipating an 23' AppendixL7 sometime'in.the spring. I-:think it is a'pret'ty-24 -good-chance of. resolving that, l
-:-25 ,
MR. HORNBERGER: Okay.- So in other words --
e
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178 1 MR. LESLIE: I mean it is the only ---it is.the 2- - only -- only: thing in the near-field that they have done a (v) 3 sensitivity-analysis on, for instance.
4 MR. HORNBERGER: So they actually have done a lot 5 of work on --
6 MR. LESLIE: They have done some wor.1 and we are 7 hoping --
8 MR. HORNBERGER: It is enough.
- 9. MR. LESLIE: It is enough.
10 MR. HORNBERGER: But I guess what I still wonder 11 about is to what extent the coupled process aspects have 12 been folded into this. I-mean one can do work on 13 cementitious material, laboratory studies, and still not 14 have designed experiments to look at coupled effects.
/s
(_) 15 MR. LESLIE: I guess I can't really answer that 16 'because I haven't see what they have done.
17 MR. HORNBERGER: Okay.
18 MR. STABLEIN: Moving to the next IRSR that we 19 produced in Structural Deformation and Seismicity, Phil 20 Justus is over here. He has been working the geology issues 21 in our program off and on for many years, very experienced 22 in the Yucca Mountain site geology, and he is the lead for 23 this KTI.
24 Phil's issue is stated as structural deformation 25 and seismicity related features, events, processes are n
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179
~
J1: Lidentified and adequately; characterized,Esufficiently 2 understood andifully considered,1 and used' appropriately-by.
3 _ DOE-to_ evaluate l repository performance. And his subissues-J4 ' fall into four. He-is concerned with~ fault / slip, seismic =
5 motion,1 fractures and site-discontinuity models and tectonic 6- models.-
-7 .And this-has been one of-the most difficult areas f 8 :over the history of .the _ Yucca Mountain project because. the 1 9 tectonics are not simple out there. 1The geology _is'not just 110 a real. easy situation to unravel. And'there have been many. ,
31 1 .more? tectonic models that have-been attempted to_try to:
-12 oxplain the: evidence as it has been developed.
And so, based on all the work that has been done,
,- ~13 14 -we are able to report this year that.there has been some 15 -significant progress toward issue resolution. In the area 16 of_the faulting, type 1 faults, r^ solution achieved on 17 identification of faults that may significantly affect 18 repository. design.or performance. There are an awful lot of
-19 faults out at the site. And, early on, as we considered, 20 --with DOE, the massive faults and how to work those, it 1
21- appeared to be an almost impossible issue to get_our hands 22- around. 'But, due to Phil's efforts-and_.orking with DOE-23 over the years, we'have now settled on the faults that-are 24 really11mportant.to repository. design or performance, and 25 that is a major' achievement.
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180
- --And just as major is the. agreement that we have
I) 21 reached =on tectonic models.-:There have-been112'or more' A
3 ' tectonic models proposed for Yucca Mountain, and it has been-4- very-difficult to' work through-those and:look at all the 5' : data supporting each of them, and try-to: arrive at any sort:
6 of consensus ca viable tectonic models. But-this year we 57- -
achieved resolution agreement on five viable conceptual 8 tectonic models of Yucca Mountain. So consider that to-be a 9' _ major step.
10 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Is-it possible to briefly
-11 summarize the activities that went on to get to this point?
12 MR. STABLEIN: Absolutely, and that is--- Phil is t 13 the best able to do that.
14 MR. JUSTUS: Are you referring to both the
() 15 resolution on what:are the important faults as well'as the 16 viable tectonic-models?
17 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. Yes.
38- MR. JUSTUS: The -- this particular KTI deals with 19 site characterization activities, and DOE was -- and we were 20 concerned about thorough site characterization of this and 21 all the sites that at one time were themselves candidates.
And it became apparent quickly to DOE.and us that there were 23- many -- this was a tectonically active site. There were 24 -literally' thousands of= faults within a 100 kilometers of the ,
25 site. DOE and' interested parties thought.that the job'was' j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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181 4
l1f fv.ery: difficult if our requirements were-stringent on'- [
2' - characterizing _ virtually each. and- every f ault- that mighti' .' bes
.3- -important out=there.
7F In the early --tin the-1980s, culminating-in 5: :a-s incguidance4to DOE in '92, we participatediin' field-
=6 tripisite visits, to.excavatiens that-DOE'sLcontractor,,
- 7 particularly.U.S. Geological-Survey, were engaging in,'had-: -
8 .- -been engaging in, to identify what faultr might be more-9 'important than others and why, which faults and what areas z
110; ~may notaneed to be evaluated in detail and so forth.
Ell- We had a great need:to codify our thinking and we, i
12 Lin 1992, we did -- after several years and-Federal Register 13 Notices and interactions with-DOE and interested folks, 14 developed a Type l' Fault Guidance Report which, in
() 15 .particular, is NUREG-1451. Essentially suggests to DOE --
16 -actually, fairly precisely, what we think would be the 17 characteristica of faults important to performance or-
- 18 ; design..
19 This -- DOE has taken this guidance and suggested 201 -to us, in' turn, what their list of important faults-are'and
'21 : asked us to consider what they are, cur whether we agree.
- 22 ' And,--basically, we'have reached agreement on a significant 23- number of.them.
It doesn't mean that new ones won't be
-24' foundcand'need--to be reconsidered, or ones.that we thought
'25 :were sufficiently long or active-or young, new evidence may~
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182 1I show otherwise and so forth.
() =
2 3
But through field _ trips, _ interactions with DOE,
'the public, including affected parties', regulatory guidance, 4 -ACNW meetings, I might add, we have developed this -- this 5- .particular, we-have come to this particular point with 6 ~ regard to faults.
7 On tectonic models, that came a little later, only 8 last May, or-May '96, I guess. And where we -- USGS'had 9 promised for some years to develop a team to actually focus 10 on a -- shall we say, a preferred tectonic model, rather 11 than working with the dozen or so models-that were on the 12 table at the time. And that was not forthcoming until DOE's 13 tectonic synthesis report was published in '96. And so we 14 met with DOE and affected parties to discuss the models in
) 15 particular.
16 Now, keep in mind that in -- by '96, all of the 17 interested parties were aware of the findings made by DOE on 18 particularly important tectonic features like the Bear 19 Mountain fault, Solitary fault, and the Paintbrush Canyon 20 fault. Excavations underground had been conducted by '96 21 and we had some site-specific three-dimensional information, 22- and the U.S. Geological Survey was rolling into action 23 quickly to synthesize this material.
24 .And they have,-but they are continuing to develop 25 their preferred model, which.was presented to us all at a L() ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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183 l' TSPA VA meeting a month, approximately a month ago.
_(,,,) .- 2 Basically', the -- the' DOE, in'particular, the_U.S.
q,' -
3 Geological Survey, had several models that they were
'4 _ developing at the same time that fell into two categories.
- 5. . Extent -- basically, extentional type models, or basically 6 strike, slip or shear type models. And:they agreed that-7 both of these types were viable, they are not mutually 8 exclusive, and so did we. And that, essentially, gave us 9 the basis for developing the IRSR on tectonic models as you 10 see it before you.
11 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: The documentation that resulted 12 from these efforts -- did peer review play any kind of a 13 role in that documentation?
14 MR. JUSTUS: For Type I faults we actually tasked
/
( 15 the Center to -- namely our peers -- to utilize the Type I 16 fault guidance that we had given to DOE, compile the 17 existing fault data independently, actually to help us 18 prepare to meet with DOE on the subject, assess the faults, 19 what do we think are Type I faults or faults that are 20 significant for design and performance. And we did that and 21 published a report which was shared with DOE presumably 22 timely because it did get to the DOE's expert elicitation 23 PSHA teams, and so forth, 24 In a sense then peer review -- that constitutes 25 our peer review, internal'pcer review. DOE has its own. peer b-
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184 1 review process. DOE contractors,-in this case U.S.
.(,~} . 2 Geological Survey has a quality assurance program that it 3 follows that includes peer review of their work prior to 4 submitting it to DOE. DOE in turn has its M&O contractors 5 who are experts in various fields who review it before 6 turning the work over to us.
7 That's a broad treatment of what I think you may 8 have been getting at, but I might be able to elaborate 9 further if you'd like.
10 CRAIRMAN GARRICK: No , I think that's fine. Thank 11 you.
12 MR. FAIRHURST: Has anybody looked at what it 13 would take as far as a fault and at what distance to damage 14 or to compromise the integrity of the repository, looked at
(~)
is
,f 15 the interaction -- I mean, how far out do you have to go 16 with what size of event to significantly affect repository 17 or is that -- are we a little ways away from that yet?
18 CRAIRMAN GARRICK: Maybe asking the question 19 another way, if you have a seismic risk curve, a seismic 20 hazard curve for the site, has there been any attempt to 21 find the point on that seismic hazard curve that would 22 constitute a genuine threat to the integrity of the waste 23 package?
24 MR. JUSTUS: There are a myriad of seismir hazard 25 curves. But basically though the answer is yes, but I can't
,[ ~
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185 1 give_you the specifics of it yet, because we are awaiting
. DOE's probabilistic seismic hazard analysis, which they will (x_-) - 2 3 'then -- in our view the answer to your question is in the 4- PSHA elicitation report to be presented to us in the early 5 spring, February I think or thereabouts, March. And DOE 6 will then - has indicated will roll that guidance to them 7 up into a design input report known as Topical Report No. 3, 8 which we'll be getting an annotated outline on TR-3 in 9 January. A report apparently will be due out at the end of 10 this fiscal year.
11 However, I think to the intent of your question 12 we -- I don't want to make it entirely rhetorical, but you 13 know that par't of the answer to your question lies in what 14 you think are putentially adverse effects on the repository r
( 15 when you said do we know what seismic events or how far 16 faults may be, that would contribute to or have some 17 significant impact on the repository.
18 Well, that's an answer that has a variability 19 associated with it because seismicity affects things locally 20- like waste packages in the drifts. Seismicity may affect 21 things subregionally. For example, it may cause the water 22 table to fluctuate, and has, although albeit ephemerally, 23 and broadly it contributes to regional acoustic or vibratory 24 ground motion traveling through the region such as the 25 Landers motion did, energy did, starting in California and
-()
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186 1 moved through towards the site and caused.Little Skull
.[))
q 2 _ Mountain faults to move and generate secondary faulting 3- there. Regionally seismicity for example readjusts the 4 local string _ field.
5 We're interested-in the behavior of this site 6 currently or during operations as planned and in the future.
7 We need to know more about or shall we say understand 8 sufficiently how local, subregional, and regional tectonic 9 effects may impact the future behavior of the repository.
10 So there's no simple answer to, you know, to how far out we 11- have to go, but I should say we're not going much beyond the 12 large Death Valley, Furnace Creek fault system to the west 13 and southwest, not much further than the Bear Mountain fault 14 to the west, not much further than the Mine Fountain system A
() '15 on the test site to the east.
16 MR, STABLEIN: Is there an addition, Phil?
17 MR. JU3TUS: Well, I should emphasize that this --
18 we are seeking to cull from the possible tectonic causes of 19 adverse effects those that art- significant, that have some 20 incremental effect on dose or some design basis or something 21 of that sort, and we are working through the TPA code now to 22 translate a tectonic activity to measurable performance 23 criteria.
24 MR. FAIRHURST: That was the essence of -- l 25 MR. JUSTUS: And I may -- I suspect I'll get a
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187 14 chance'to perhapsLtalk a little bit more about shortly.
J- '2 MR.-FAIRHURST l It:was-a big. subject and-you'.ve1 3 given me the bottom-line answer. -Thanks.
4' MR. STABLEIN: Well, Phil may have touched-on,much -
5 _-of what---I've got up here now, but some of-his example 6 -. acceptance _ criteria-for Type I faults,-the faulting component of the geological setting adequately determined,
~
7 8 --maximum-trace length of each candidate Type I fault measured
- 9. from acceptable sources, peak ground motion acceleration for
- 10- each Type I' fault adequately determined, the geologic age of-11 last movement of each fault adequately determined, and the 12 potential-for future slip adequately determined.
13 These are the things that Phil will.be looking for 14 as he considers Type I faults.
15, And for tectonic models, as we consider the 16 alternative tectonic models, they're determined from 17 -published-applicable models. Viable models need to be
-18 consistent with existing data or if there are 4 19 inconsistencies, those definitely need to be addressed and 20 explained. Viable models clearly elucidate geological 21 elements and attendant uncertainties associated with their 22 intended-use.
23- Turning to the last IRSR that we're going to
, 24- discuss today, the'last of.the ones that we put out, the key 25 technical' issue of repository design and thermal-mechanical ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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[ -
- 188.'
sif effects,. and=the KTI-lead'for:this is4Mysore Nataraja:, over---
e 2' 'here.
RajLhas-beenLworking.the; engineering'and design; L3, Lissues-for the Yucca Mountainjsite'for many,cmanyfyears.:
~
- 4 He!s been working;with DOE, andione of the highlightsLoffhis' !
- 5: :IRSRi I=think4you will1 notice the extraordinarilyLhighJ
- 6. number of:openiitems'he;.was able to resolve.
Many of the
~7: items that we've-raised-over the'past many years heLhas 8- worked diligently-to see_if we can come-to resolution--on 9-- Lthose. 1
'10= His primary issue, design construction and '
111'- operation;of'the geological repository-operations area
=12 including seals for the shafts and boreholes to meet the J13 ipreclosure-and postclosure performance objectives, taking 14- into censideration those longaterm thermal-mechanical 15 processes.
16 And his four subissues, design control process, 17 seismic and' fault-displacement design, considerations of f
18 thermal-mechanical processes, and the design of seals.
!19 Now that-first sub-issue was the design control .
20 ' process,: and:it has two components to it. It has the design
-21 control process for the Exploratory Studies Facility and'for 22 the GROA, the Geological Repository Operations Area.
23 Rev. Zero, the one we put out, deals with the 24 design control process for'the ESF, so it deals with one 25; . component ^of the sub-issue.
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189 i 1 'Sub-issue 2 was~the. seismic and fault displacement '
2 Ldesign,:and it has three' components -
seismic and fault 3- displacement hazards, seismic andLfault displacement design 4- methodology,-and input to-design.- Rev. tero dealt 5_ ispecifically with the-seismic and' fault displacement design-6' . methodology, .
7 DSo -- what-progress was made toward issue 8 resolution?_ Raj was able'to ascertain and= work with DOE 9 that their design control process for the Exploratory.
10 Studies Facilities is acceptable and based on his review of-11- _ Topical-Report 2 that DOE's seismic design methodology is 12 acceptable.
13 As you heard mention of the Topical Report 3, both 11 4 Phil and Raj will be looking at that one.in FY-98.
() -15 Some example acceptance criteria for the design 16 control process -- a design control process will be 17 acceptable if the design bases are defined, appropriate 18 quality _ standards are specified, design interfaces are 19 identified, procedures are established for review, approval, 12 0 ~ and. release and verification is done by independent and 21 qualified professionals.
22 CHAIRMAN GARRICK:- When you talk about 23 verification there, are_you talking about verification of 24 the, process or are you talking'about something more?
'25 MR', NATARAJA: We are talking about two things ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 190 1- here.
,a 2 One is the verification of the design _ calculations (v) 3 and also if there are any models used or computational 4 schemes used, verification of those codes.
5 MR. STABLEIN: Example -- acceptance criteria for 6 the' design methodology,_the methodology is based on sound 7 technical principles, design steps are transparent, design 8 is based on site specific data, codes are verified and 9 models validated and assumptions and limitations are 10- identified.
11 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: That is loaded with mouthfuls 12 galore, particularly when you get into the issue of model 13 validation.
14 MR. STABLEIN: Yes, it is.
(%
h 15 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I don't know if we have time 16 for it, but would you care to comment on your strategy with 17 respect to model validation?
18 MR. NATARAJA: This is not just specific to my 19 particular KTI. This applies to almost all KTIs and more so 20 for the sciences than for the design, but we are 21 specifically talking about the models used for the seismic 22 design in this particular case.
23 That is supported by the tectonic models that Phil 24 described earlier, so if they accept the tectonic models as
.25 ' validated, we would not go into further questions on that.
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191 1- CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I see.
(J w
) 2 .MR..STABLEIN: I might mention that if at some
.3 future time the committee is interested in really.getting 4 into one of these areas and exploring some points like that, 5 that could be the subject for a wkole separate presentation.
6 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes.
7 MR. STABLEIN: Well, those are the five IRSRs that 8 we have put out and my conclusions, based on the IRSRs and 9 everything that I have seen in my time with the Division of 10 Waste Management and the way this process is going, are that 11 significant progress has clearly been made toward resolving 12 those issues most important to repository performance, and 13 that DOE viability assessment is expected to focus on these 14 same issues and the progress toward resolution L'uld ,
Q
( ,/ 15 facilitate Staff review of the VA and limit the likelihood 16 of the NRC's identifying unanticipated problems in the VA to 17 DOE.
18 You know, we're highlighting issues early. We are 19 working toward resolution and we think that this will make 20 the viability assessment review go much better.
21 I might say though that from the Staff's point of 22 view we are already in the VA review. This whole process 23 really is part of our VA review. We would not have time 24 when the VA comes in to start a review. We have to be ready 25 -and reviewing the issues beforehand, and that is what we are I\/ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court. Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
F 192 1 attempting to do here.
(x- ) 2 -Now-at the back of your package are two slides 3 that I had-meant to be backup slides. They weren't 4 necessarily to be part of your package but I included them 5 because of the importance to the overall program and I 6 didn't want to start off with this because you can stop 7 right here and spend an entire session right on this 8 diagram, but I think one point I would like to make, and we 9 have talked about it here, is that the performance 10 assessment people, Dr. Keith McConnell and Tim McCartin, 11 whom you have heard from, are working with all the KTI leads 12 und where are the KTIs, where are the issues?
13 The issues are actually even below this level, you 14 know? We start off, we work in these KTIs, the individual O)i
(_ 15 KTIs, but then as we work toward issue resolution and we 16 find out what things are more and more important, then comes 17 the integration process, which is what this chart is really 18 all about.
19 If you look at the key elements of subsystem 20- abstractions, these items, like waste package corrosion or 21 mechanical disruption of the was e package, these items all
'22 get inputs from more than one KTI.
23 The information that comes out of the process 24- modeling and the work that is done in the IRSRs, documented 25 in the IRSRs, feeds-into these and the' performance n
( ) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
~' Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
193 l' assessment people -- in-fact,.in the TSPA IRSR it will 2 discuss how the abstractions will be done based on the (v) 3 inputs from the different KTIs, so my purpose in showing ,
4 this diagram-is to indicate that what we are doing as the-5 KTIs is part of this 3rdegrated process, and I didn't want 6 to lose sight of thr.t very important element.
7 We'have talked some about the sensitivity analysis 8 and the feedback from those back to evaluating what is-9 important, and that is all part of an iterative process 10 which is schematically shown here -- so that is the intent 11 of including that slide.
12 Well, that completes what I had to offer to you 13 and I am still available for questions. _The KTI leads are 14 still available and, as well, the performance assessment O)s
\,
m 15 people, if you would like to talk about any other aspects.
16 MR. HORNBERGER: Thanks very much, King.
17 Do we have questions? John?
18 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: You identified the letter that 19 the NRC had received back on the climate IRSR. Do you have 20 a schedule for such feedback on the other IRSR repotis?
21 MR. STABLEIN: During the quarterly technical 22 meeting we-had with DOE, actually a video-con on Monday, 23 this was discussed and the best that they could offer us is 24 that we would be getting responses after the first of the 25 year.
-s
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\~' Court Reporters 1250 I Street,. N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
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-1 194
~
I 11 LGiven their preparations for the VA, _this is an-auf 2 : ' additional'itemt for-them'and I would'not anticipate.thatiwe 3 !-- 'wouldfgetiquick-responses tojthese;IRSRs. I 14 : We.may get-more response verbally in technical.
- 5_ -exchanges in Appendix 7 meetings than we will get documented 6 = responses. . ;
7- I-haven't personal)y gotten any feedback on the 10 'ones that we have sent out recently. Have any of the KTI -i 9 leads had any informal exchanges?. Phil?'
10 MR. JUSTUS: Yes.- I-got_some prelimincry feedback
~
. 11 -from DOE's Structural Information Seismicity lead, Tim Sullivan, who indicated that there is a general agreement,- q 13 however there are some details that they wich to. discuss, in 14 part to get clarified on. ~ That was the gist of the --
- 15 generally favorable but let's look at the details.
16 He did indicate,that in our particular KTI's case that the_U.S. Geological Survey folks would be the principal' 18 ' reviewers on= behalf of DOE for that one.
19- MR.-NATARAJA: In my particular KTI, the feedback 20- I got was that they were pleased to see-so many open items 21: closed.
22- [ Laughter.]
~
, 23 CHAIRMAN G7RRICK: -Yes, Part of my point is that
. 24' 'the letter that you received on climate was pretty much in
-25 . agreement with'the'NRC and in terms of this.as a process and i
[1N- .
ANN'RILEY & ASSOC 4ATES, LTD.
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- (202) 842-0034 l
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195 1 what we -- and how effective this process can work, we may
/'N 2 learn more in a response where there are some disagreements.
lJ)
L 3 I suspect we are going to see quite a bit of that 4 down the road.
5 MR. STABLEIN: We do anticipate meatier, more 6 challenging. responses to some of these IRSRs.
7 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. The only other question I 8 have is that in all the huge amount of backup material that 9 we were provided there is something called a guidance for 10 NRC's review of DOE's viability assessment. This is a draft 11 and in.the scope and approach, where you talk about the 12 scope of the KTI review and you talk about focusing that 13 process, you identify two options, an Option A where you 14 would use'the issue resolution status report for each of the
,a
( ,) 15 KTIs with emphasis on acceptance iteria in Section 4 and 16 unresolved differences in Section 5, and Option B where you 17 use the IRSR on TSPA and only unresolved differences from 18 other IRSRs.
19 Is there anything you can say about these options 20 and their role in the review process?
21 This sounds like an either/or kind of suggestion 22 when you talk about options for doing something.
23 Where does the process stand in relation to these 24 options for focusing the review?
25 I think that is a perfect question for you, King.
[D
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196 1 [ Laughter.]
r
{ f 2 MR. STABLEIN:- Well, first of all, I wanted to
_w!
3 mention the status of the VA review guidance. It hasn't 4 been finalized but it is close to-being finalized and so I 5' just wanted to let you know that.
1 6 My understanding of those two options were that 7 ther offer different levels of intensity of review depending 8 on the resources that we would have available to put into 9 the review process and that neither one of them steps away 10 from the process of issue resolution that we are involved 11 in, but that one works just at a little higher level -- the 12 second option -- than the first would, but I didn't see 13 either of them moving away from the --
14' CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. The thing that I was
./'~'%
i,_ ,/ 15 trying to do was read between the lines here, and wonder if 16 one option is heavy dependence on the TSPA and the other 17 option is not. I was curious about that interpretation and 18 where you were.
19 MR. STABLEIN: Well, I am going to get some help 20 on this question in a minute, but based on my understanding, 21 both approaches would involve heavy use of the TSPA, but the 22 one involves also more information on the individual KTIs 23 and the IRSRs than the other does.
24 However, one of the principal authors of this 25 draft review plan and also the head of the section for
/w
('A ]. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street,-N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 c
197 1 Performance Assessment is here and maybe Eeith would be
() 2 3
willing to give his observation- on thos6 two options --
this is Dr. Keith McConnall.
4 DR. McCONNELL: Yes. I would agree with what King 5 said. It's more a function of where we want to kind of 6 place the results of the revr. and communicate them to DOE.
7 If we are goiry to focus on abstraction in our 8 review of the TSPA VA, then perhaps in our view the most 9 appropriate place to corrospond with DOE with this on is in
-10 the abstraction IRSR that will be coming out soon or would 11 be coming out in June and then subsequently after that.
12- Or do we want to comment more on the details of 13 the process level models that were used to support the 14 abstraction? The option is kind of do you comment on the
() 15 process level models or do you comment on the abstraction or 16 do you do both? I think all those options are open rignt 17 now until Management approves the final review plan.
18 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: So at least for now it is not 19 an either/or situation?
20 DR. McCONNELL: No.
21 MR. HORNBERGER: Yes, thank you. Charles? Ray?
22 MR. FAIRHURST: I have questions but I don't want 23 to open them up right now.
24 MR. HORNBERGER: Lynn? -No? Anyone else? Stan?
25 Thanks very much, King.
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i 198 !
1 MR. STABLEIN: I really appreciate-the opportunity ;
- 2. _to' discuss this process with you and look forward to further 3 interactions. Thank you, i i
4 MR. HORNBERGER: As do we. Mr. Chairman, back.to j 5 you. !
i 6 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Thank you. [
.7 - I'think that brings us to a reasonable point for :
8 taking a 15-ninute break. Also, I believe that we are to a 9- point in today's proceedings where we will no longer need
-10 the Reporter, so the rest of our activities we can handle 11- without that servica -- so I-think you are excused for the ,
-r 12 rest-of the day, i 13 Rich will.be= talking to you about-our requirements f 14- for tomorrow. i 15 Okay. Let's take a 15-minute break.
16 [Whereupon, at 10:22 a.m., the hearing was 17 concluded.)
r' 18.
19 20 21- :
22- !
23- ,
- 24.
-- 2 5
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- Washington, D.C. 20005-(202) 842-0034
_ ,_ _ . _ . _ . - _ ._.~... .. _ . . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
t REPORTER (S CERTIFICATE !
This is to' certify that the attached proceedings
. betore the United States Nuclear Regulatory _ Commission in
. the matter of ;
NAME OF PROCEEDING: 97TH ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON [
-t NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) MBETING [
-i
- DOCKET NUMBER: I i
t PLACE OF PROCEEDING: ROCKVILLE, MD --
were held as-herein appears, and that this is the original- !
i transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear l
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typewriting by me or under the direction of the court !
. reporting' company,-and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings, NN\
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Official Reporter f Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd. 4
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