ML20210B981
| ML20210B981 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 04/30/1987 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8705060060 | |
| Download: ML20210B981 (90) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Briefing on Advanced Boiling Water Reactor Review (Public Meeting)
Location:
Washington, D. C.
Date:
Thursday, April 30, 1987 Pages:
1 - 61 Ann Riley & Associates Court Reporters 1625 i Street, N.W., Suite 921 j
Washington, D.C. 20006 l
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(202) 293-3950
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6 This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the 7
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on 4/30/87 In the Commission's office at 1717 H Street, S
9
'fi. tJ., (Ja sh i ng t on,
D.C.
The meeting was open to public 10 attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been 11 reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain
'(-
12 inaccuracies.
-g 13 The transcript is intended solely for general 14 informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is 15 not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the 16 matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript 17 do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
No 18 pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in 19 any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement 20 or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may 21 authorize.
23 24 25
3 1
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 1
3 4
Briefing on Advanced Boiling Water Reactor.
5 Review 6
1 7
PUBLIC MEETING 8
9 Thursday, April 30, 1987 10 1717 H Street, NW, Room 1130 11 Washington, D.C.
12 13 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 14 notice, at 2:03 o' clock p.m., the Honorable Lando W.
- Zech, Jr.',
15 Chairman of the Commission, presiding.
i l
16 17 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
i 18 Lando W.
Zech, Jr., Chairman 19 Frederick M. Bernthal, Commissioner 20 Thomas M. Roberts, Commissioner 21 Kenneth M. Carr, Commissioner 22 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT TABLE:
23 D. Wilkins, General Electric Company 24 R. Artigas, General Electric Company 25 B. Wolfe, General Electric Company
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2 1
J. Quirk, General Electric Company.
2 V. Stallo, EDO 3
T. Murley, NRR 4
R. Caruso, NRR 5
S. Chilk, SECY 6
W.
Parler, OGC 7
8 9
10 1
11 12
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13 14 15 16 i
17 18 19 20 i
i 21 i
22 23 24 25
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4 3
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PROCEEDINGS 2
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
3 Commissioner Asselstine will not be with us this 4
afternoon, and Commissioner Bernthal will be joining us 5
shortly.
6 This afternoon the Commission will be briefed by 1
7 representatives of the General Electric Company, led by J
8 Dr. Bertram Wolfe.
Welcome.
9 MR. WOLFE:
Thank you.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
The presentation by representatives 11 of General Electric Company will provide the statu's on their 12 progress to certify an advanced boiling water reactor, ABWR.
'N, 13 It is my un'derstanding that this ABWR is a follow-on-14 to the GESSAR-II program and could be considered GE's effort to 15 offer a standardized design.
To those of us who support 16 standardization for the future, this is very encouraging.
17 Additionally this afternoon we will hear from some of l
18 the NRC Staff, led by Dr. Thomas Murley.
They will talk to us l
19 and provide the status of the advanced boiling water reactor i
l 20 licensing activities.
21 It is my understanding that currently the Tokyo 22 Electric Power Company in Japan is planning to construct one of 23 these ABWR units for commercial operation in 1996.
The Staff 24 is coordinating a parallel licensing review program between the 25 United States and Japan.
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1 The briefing today is a follow-up to the briefing-2 held in September 1986.
Today's briefing is an information 3
briefing and no formal commission decisions are expected.
4 Do any of my fellow commissioners have any additional 5
opening remarks?
6 If not, Dr. Wolfe, please proceed.
~
7 MR. WOLFE:
Well, we are delighted to be here with 8
you again after six months, as we agreed last September, and we 9
think there has been significant. progress in the initial phases of wor [ between General Electric and the NRC Staff on the 10 11 certification program, and we would like to present our view of 12 where we are going.
.m 13 Dan Wilkins, who is manager of the ABWR program, will l
3 give the detailed briefing, and let me introduce Joe Quirk, who 14 15 doesn't have a name tag, who is in charge of our certification 16 program here.
1 i
17 As you indicated,-Mr. Chairman, since our last 18 meeting there has been progress in Japan in terms of firming up 19 the project, and Tokyo Electric has announced, as part of the 20 overall Japan Plan, that two ABWRs:will be built on the 21 Kashiwazaki site on the west coast of Japan; the first in 1996 22 and the second in 1998.
And based on'our experience in Japan, 23 somewhat different than the. experience here,'I might add, when 24 they say they are going to put it on the.line in 1996,'there is 25 probably a very good probability that it will be-operating in
5 1
1996.
So it gives us an opportunity to do more detailed work 2
on the plant, and I think that will help the certification 3-program here, because we will be talking about real plants with 4
quite a bit of detail, and our plan, the Tokyo Electric plan, 4
5 is to go formally to the licensing authority in Japan, MITI, 6
next year to start the formal licensing.
7 I think that our experience to date with your staff-8 has been constructive in developing a document which would 9
provide the basis for the certification of process for the 10 ABWR, and Mr. Wilkins -- Dr. Wilkins will talk about that.
I 11 think we have the challenge in front of us to make sure we 12 demonstrate in fact that we do have a superior design that 13 meets all of the requirements by the NRC, and that it is, we 14 believe, superior to what has happened in the past.
15 I think you and we have the challenge, and I think 16 it 3s a real challenge, to see that we can really on a 17 meaningful schedule basis actually go through the procedures 18 and come up with a certification process and an actual 19 certified design, assuming, as I indicate, that we fulfill our 20 requirements of having a design.
21 I really think that is going to take some guidance 22~
from you, from the Commission to the Staff, because I think we l
23 always have the problem in the licensing arena in the United 24 States that new things come, that there is always the tendency l
25 to make changes as we go along, and that has resulted in our I
6 1
106 nuclear plants in the United States having no two plants m
2
.that are really 4dentical, and I share your view, Mr. Chairman, 3
that if we are going to get nuclear power to move in the United d
4 States, we are going to need standardized plants in much the-5 same way that we have standardized airplanes, and so we look 6
forward to working with you.
It is going to take, I think, 7
significant guidance from you and, of course, a lot of work on 8
our part.
9 I would mention one last thing before turning the 10 meeting over to Dr. Wilkins, and that is in my position with 11 the American Nuclear Society, I have been visiting a number of 12 local sections recently, and discussing this program with some
's 13 enthusiasm and pride, and in discussing it and discussing it 14 with utility people, I think one of the things that perhaps we 15 should work on -- perhaps you should work on -- is how a 16 certified design would be used by the utility in going through 17 the overall licensing process.
That is, once the design is t
18 certified, what does the utility do if he wants to build this 4
19 plant, what are the reviews, and how does he go through it.
20 I have been candidly winging this myself on what I 21 thought was a logical basis, and I don't think there is an 22 emergency on this matter, but I think it is worth probably 23 spending a little time defining how a utility would use a 24 certified design.
1 25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
From the utility's standpoint, you l
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MR. WOLFE:
From the utility's standpoint.
3 (Commissioner Bernthal entered the room at 2:10.]
4 CHAIRMAN'ZECH:
Fine.
Well,.we are not prepared to 5
do that today, but'I think the NRC Staff certainly'can give-6 their view on their responsibiliti~es in this area, but I 7
certainly appreciate your thought.
.It is -- it's got to be a 8
combined effort.
We have different responsibilities, we must 9
all carry them out properly, but I am encouraged, it does look 10 like you have taken a responsible step towards standardization, 11 and that's certainly commendable.
4 12 MR. WOLFE:
Thank you.
I
^
13 We would like to describe our view of where we have 14 gone over the last six months, and Dan Wilkins will do that.
I 15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much.
- Proceed, 16 please.
l 17 MR. WILKINS:
Well, let me say that I am pleased to 18 be back here after six months, and I think we have made t
l 19 substantial progress.
I will go through first a quick overview 20 of the program and give you a little perspective on what is 21 happening, not only here, but also in Japan, and then quickly i
22 turn to our licensing progress.
I want to talk at some length l
23 about the licensing basis agreement, which is the key document i
24 and work that we are doing right now, and we will have some 25 time at the end for discussion.
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l 1.
For those who are in the back of the room, let me 4
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apologize.
The charts you have are in a little different order i
3 than I am going to go through them, but you do have them all, 4
and so if -- you may have to flip around in your package a j
5 little.
6 Let me just remind you of a few of the things we 7
highlighted when we were here in September.
The ABWR program 8
has the objective of improv'ing the operability, capacity I
l 9
factor, safety, occupational exposure, and reducing costs, all 10 at once, and this has been a very strong set of objectives from 11 the beginning of the program, and one that we have been working 1
12 very hard on.
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The development approach on this design has been one 13 i
14 of bringing all of the best worldwide technology together into 15 a single design.
It was begun in the late '70s, and actually 16 initiated by an international team of senior BWR designers from i
17 the United States, Europe and Japan, who worked for about a 18 year on the initial conceptual design.
19 Subsequent to that, and during the last five years, 20 the technical effort has been focused in Japan and has been a 21 cooperative effort by GE, Hitachi and Toshiba, but with very 22 heavy involvement from the construction and operating people 23 from TEPCO and a consortium of five Japanese utilities, and 24 that work brought the development work to a point of essential 4
25 completion.
There are a few pieces continuing, and brought the
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9 l
1 design to the point of project readiness.
And as Dr. Wolfe has 3
2 mentioned, just earlier this month TEPCO announced their plans 3
to proceed with the two lead units on the Kashiwazaki site with 4
4 licensing application next year, and mid '90s commercial 5
operation, and we are, of course, very pleased with that 6
decision, and it now gives us assurance of an even stronger
-7 design and technology base to use here in our certification 8
effort.
So this is something we have been looking forward to 9
for a long time, and it's now happened, and this is a real 10 plant that is going to be built and operated.
1 11 I just summarized here to refresh your memory on what 1
j 12 are the key new features of the ABWR relative to the BWRs you i
'3 13 have looked at in the past.
It has the internal recirculation 14 pumps mounted on the vessel.
It has the new electro-hydraulic J
j 15 control rod drive which has many maintainability advantages, 16 but particularly it has the diverse insertion capability, and 17 so that it can be inserted either hydraulically or J
18 electrically, plus it has eliminated the scram discharge volume 19 which has been at some times in the past a troublesome 20 component.
So we think it's from a safety point of view a 21 considerable improvement.
22 We have gone to the advanced electronics solid state j
23 digital control systems and multiplexing, which gives us very 24 substantial reliability improvements; with the solid state
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25 circuitry we have been able to go to triple redundant systems, t
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and we have been able to build self-testing into those q
2 systems.
So.that if a failure occurs, it's announced and 3
.there's enough redundancy there that the plant operators can go 4'
change the failed card.or board, and the plant keeps running in 5
.the meantime with enough redundancy.
So it's much superior 6
from that point of view.
7 We have gone to an improved containment and reactor i
j 8
building, with one of the major new features that we 9
structurally integrated the containment and the reactor i-10 building,.which makes a much superior seismic structure, and I
l 11 that is a great improvement over what we have had in the past.
i 12 The methods are a little different, but in Japan they would i
N 13 rate this as a.6g plant, and in the U.S. we would use a lower 14 number, primarily because our methods of analysis are 15 different, but it's a very high seismic plant which, of course, 16 in Japan is essential.
l 17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
What would you call the 18 number here, roughly?
19 MR. WILKINS:
We say it's greater than
.3, probably 20 at around
.4, by our methods.
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21 And we have gone to greater redundancy in the 22 emergency core cooling and decay heat removal systems, and 23 through that, and at the same time, have cleaned up a lot of l
24 the complication that we have had in the past, so they are more I
25 redundant and they are much simpler.
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That is really as much as I want to say about the n
2 design itself, because we did talk about it last time we were 3
here, and what I want to spend my time on today is talking 4
about where -- the progress we are making in the licensing 5
effort.
l 6
Since our meeting in September, we have been working 7
closely with the NRC Staff.
The primary effort has been on 8
what we identified at that time as a key document, what we call 9
the licensing basis agreement, and that's basically an up-front 10 document that defines the process and the ground rules for the 11 certification effort.
12 We have also provided the Staff with a technical 1
13 description of the ABWR to help them understand in a little 14 more detail than our previous publications what the design is 15 and what some of the thinking is behind it.
It is in nowhere 16 near the detail that we would be providing when we actually 17 get into the safety analysis report and the review, but it did 18 help this up-front dialogue.
t 19 We followed your advice of the last meeting, and met 20 with the ACRS this past January, and a subsequent meeting in 21 March, and the ACRS, I guess independently of those meetings, 22 published on February 9 their own list of recommendations for j
23 future light water reactors, and that was a four or five-page i
24 letter that contained 12 major ACRS recommendations for future 25 light water reactors.
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1 The ACRS letter was -- indicated that these were not m
2 necessarily an-integrated set of recommendations,-and that they 3
might not be appropriate to carry out-all of them.
And they 4
also indicated that there might be other ways to accomplish the 5
same objectives.
So it was -- but I thought it was very 6
helpful that the ACRS put on the table'early their thinking i
7 about what they'd like to see in future light water reactors.
8 We have responded through the Staff to those 12 9
recommendations, and I am pleased to say that the ABWR design 10 already incorporates substantially all of them and, in fact, in 11 many areas we think we have exceeded the recommendations of the j
12 ACRS.
w 13 Now as we get further into the design or further into i
14 the dialogue, I think we are going to find that a lot of the 15 details of how we have done things are a little different than i
16 maybe what the ACRS envisioned.
But I would say at this point i
]
17 in the discussion, we were really pleasantly surprised by the 1
18 degree to which the work we did earlier has in fact anticipated i
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19-and matched what the ACRS -- the direction of the ACRS thinking 20 for the future, and we, of course, during the review will have i
21 plenty of opportunity to discuss that whole area in much 22 greater detail with the ACRS, but I am encouraged.
I think we 23 are off to a very constructive and good start.
24 We are working right now on the standard safety 25 analysis report and the first portions of that will be-coming l
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in this coming September.
2 Now let me shift to the licensing basis agreement.
3 This is a new step that we have taken.
We have not in the past j
4 had a licensing basis agreement, and it's something we are-5 doing here for the first time.
The purpose of the licensing l
6 basis agreement is to establish'a management agreement between 7
General Electric and the Staff up front on two issues.
T 8
Basically the process that we are going to go i
9 through, we want to understand all the steps in the process, 10 and the details of how we will carry that out, and second, the 11 approach that will be taken to a few key technical issues, not i
12 a lot, but a few key ones that we wanted to have an up-front i
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13 meeting of the minds on the direction we are going.
14 We have tried in this licensing basis agreement not 15 to address everything.
It's a document of about -- I don't 16 know, quarter of an inch thick.
It -- we tried to address 17 areas where we have had problems in the past, for example, on l
18 our GESSAR review, and we felt it would be helpful to have an 19 up-front meeting of the minds or some uncharged areast a good
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20 example being this advanced technology control on 21 instrumentation.
It's different than the old analog submittals 22 and we've, I think, had a very successful dialogue with the 23 Staff on exactly in this new technology what it is we should 24 provide and what the Staff will do in terms of reviewing it and j
25 reacting to it.
I think we have saved an awful lot of spinning j
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4 1
1 wheels and lost time by defining up front exactly what they l
2 expect to see, and what we can provide in reaching agreement on i
i 3
that.
4 And a third is areas where there is significant l
5 uncertainty at the present time because things are in flux or 6
changing, and I would list the severe accident area in that
. So that's the basic philosophy of the licensing 7
category.
i 8
basis agreement, to clean up areas where we have had past 9
problems or things are uncharted, or where there is 10 uncertainty, and reach an up-front understanding of what we are 11 going to do.
i i
12 It is not the intent of the licensing basis agreement
't 13 to preempt the subsequent review of the ABWR which will take i
14 place after we submit the safety analysis report and the Staff 15, begins its in-depth review.
We are not in any way trying to 16 preempt that process.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
You have commented that there l
l 18 is an area of resolution here that we can look forward to in 19 the severe accident area.
That's a pretty important area.
Do 4
20 you want to elaborate just a touch on that?
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21 MR. WILKINS:
I'm going to.
l 22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
23 MR. WILKINS:
What I was just about to say is the l
24 rest of my presentation will pick up a number of topics that we 25 have struggled with in the licensing basis agreement, and I i
i 1
i 15 I
will try to give you a summary of our thinking.as it stands q
2 today, and recognizing that we have several more months of S
l 3
discussion before this' document is scheduled to be issued in l
4 June.
One of them is the area of the scope of the 5
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6 certification, and the -- our plan is to bring forward an 1
7 entire nuclear island, design, and by that I mean I want to 8
emphasize nuclear island as opposed to nuclear steam supply 9
system.
The nuclear island includes the nuclear steam supply, f
10 but it also includes the primary containment, the secondary l
11 containment, all of the emergency cooling systems, the heat i
12 removal systems, the emergency diesel generators, the fuel l
- 'N, 13 handling, and the whole set of equipment and functions that are 14 in the control building.
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15 In addition, it contains the interfaces with the rest 16 of the plant, and our intent here is to provide everything that 17 is needed to conduct a safety review of the plant, but it will i
18 not include detailed designs of the balance of plant.
And our 19 thinking is that this will permit us to resolve the safety i
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20 issues.
It will provide a convincing demonstration of the l
21 certification process.
It will certainly tackle and address I
22 and close out all of the issues we have had difficulties with 23 in the past, and at the same time it recognizes the utility i
24 practice over many years of proceeding somewhat independently l
25 on the nuclear side of the plant versus the turbine side of the I
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plant.
And so we have tried to accommodate that in our 3
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3 It is possible that a balance-of-plant portion could l
4
-- would be added later.
Whether that will make sense at some 5
point in the future or not, I think it's too early to judge, 6
but our approach here has been to put the whole nuclear portion l
l 7
of the plant together into this certification effort, with the 8
interface requirements for the rest, and so it would be 4
9 relatively easy if desired or necessary in the future to bring l
10 in the other pieces.
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11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I think it is very important to see 12 what you mean by interfaces, because, you know, my view is that
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13 we have -- many of our problems are caused by balance of (3
j 14 plant.
I would hope that you would be prepared to move as far i
j 15 as you can in the balance of plant beyond the interfaces.
1 16 COMMISSIONER CARR Why wouldn't you throw in the 4
17 balance of plant design, anyway?
It would only be one design.
18 MR. WILKINS:
Well, the reason I mentioned is the 19 main one.
The utilities historically have contracted 20 independently for the nuclear portion and the balance of 21 plant.
Frequently they have purchased General Electric i
l 22 reactors and Westinghouse turbines and vice versa, and --
l 23 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, but that may be part of our i
i 24 problem, frankly.
We've got custom-built plants out there, and i
25
-- in my view, anyway, and we are trying to standardize.
The
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closest we can come to standardizing the whole works is how I
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envision standardization.
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COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, I agree, Lando, and 4
that's a critical question that you raised, the interface, and l
5 in fact a couple of years ago, I guess, when Brookhaven was in 6
the process of reviewing -- I believe it was the GESSAR design 7
at that time, I'm a little fuzzy; it's been a while -- but that j
8 was one of the very issues that we discussed at some length up i
9 here.
I observe, though, that the balance of plant as you have 10 defined it here, is -- well, one could argue, perhaps, the 11 turbine building ought to be -- could be standardized, let's 4
12 put it that way.
But there isn't much left there, really, as I i
13 see it.
~3 14 For example, when I see up in the nuclear island such j
15 matters as plant supervisor's office and changing rooms, it i
16 looks to me like you've got pretty much in the standardized 17 nuclear island the way things stand, but the chairman's point 18 is a very good one.
Where do you begin to relax and make very 19 generic specs within the context of a standardized plant as j
20 you look ahead some day, one hopes, to the U.S. and a 21 standardized design?
Y 22 There comes a point where you have a relaxation of t
l 23 the specifications at that interface, it seems to me.
So 24 that's the other side of the. question.
But I don't see an 25 awful lot in the balance of plant, the way it.--
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MR. WOLFE:
In fact, I will show you the strength l
rS 2
that I have in the organization.
I tried to suggest to Dan ha 3
not call it balance of plant before, but --
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, only the turbine i
4 5
building looks to be in the balance.
6 MR. WOLFE:
One of the things, Fred, that I think I
7 when you look, some of these are si.te-specific, such as water 8
supply, these cooling towers, river, so you have some of that.
9 Whether the turbine building should be part of.it, I think is l
10 open to question.
j 11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I presume this is also what you i
j 12 referred to earlier as to why you want to get the utilities' j
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13 view.
Your reference now to their desire for some flexibility I
14 would lead me to believe that we probably ought to hear from i
j 15 utilities, get their view, but my view is that we certainly l
j 16 ought to standardize as much as we can, and obviously you have i
l 17 taken a step in that direction.
I'm not so sure you have gone i.
18 as far as I'd like to see you go.
l l
19 COMMISSIONER CARR:
From my point of view, if you had
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20 a standardized secondary system, then whoever wanted to buy j
21 from some other contractor would have to say you meet at least l
22 that requirement.
23
[ Laughter.)
i l
24 MR. WOLFE:
Well, we will have that.
The I
l 25 requirements will-be set just as indicate --
i i
i
19 1
COMMISSIONER CARR:
Yes, but I would also like your I / *:
2 set of plans, you know.
If the guy wants to go the easy way, i
3 then he --
l 4
MR. WOLFE:
He just takes the plans.
i 5
COMMISSIONER CARR:
If he wants to go to some other j
6 cheaper vendor, then he can defend himself.
7
-MR. WILKINS: ' It could prove,to be more expensive 8
then.
.i 9
(Laughter.)
i j
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
And also prove to us that it's the 11 right thing to do.
So the challenge is there, as far as I am 4
j 12 concerned, when you move away from the standardized design, as (O
13 I think we would all agree.
When you move towards the more
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14 generic and looser interpretation, there is where we are going 15 to have a fair amount of concern.
So the more standardized,-
l 16 the better.
17 MR. WILKINS:
I think we hear and understand your 18 comments, and certainly nothing we are doing here is preempting l
19 the ability to add on the rest at any time we feel that's the i
20 right thing to do.
1 21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
That's important.
All right, why
]
22 don't we go on.
i 23 MR..WILKINS:
We have also in the licensing basis I
l 24 agreement adopted a site envelope approach to the design of 4
l 25 this plant.
We have-picked a site envelope in terms of
_______._...-._.__.._.__..._._.~._.__._._._____.__-.__.._;
20 1
demographics, meteorology, seismic characteristics and so O'
i ;
2 forth, which encompasses a majority of U.S. sites, on the order j
3 1.
I 4
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Have we got that slide here?
I can't' 5
find it.
Have we got it?
Okay, I've got it.
Thank you.
The 6
second to the last one.
I got one of the older revisions 7
here.
All right.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
j 8
MR. WILKINS:
Okay.
This site envelope would i
9 encompass on the order of 80 to 90 percent of the sites in the 10 U.S.
11 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Current sites or proposed sites?
12 MR. WILKINS:
Well, I'm not sure we have an accurate
.s 13 definition of proposed sites, but current sites.
i l
^
14 COMMISSIONER CARR:.
But current sites should fit i
j 15 that?
i 1
l 16 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
And we will engineer the plant, i
)
17 and we will analyze the plant, and we will seek to certify the i
i 18 plant so that it could be built on any of these sites, without i
4 19 further engineering or analysis or review.
And that's a little 20 different than we've done in the past.
We tackled that issue 21 on GESSAR, and'we're continuing and actually extending that 22 philosophy in the effort here.
So it hopefully will be a major 2
23 step toward achieving what we want, which is a design that i
24 actually looks the same as you go from site to site.
And the 25 only thing that should be needed as utilities come forward with
21
[
1 actual sites is to confi.rm that that site is actually within-p
-2 the envelope that we have analyzed.
3 Okay.
Another issue that we have struggled with is 4
the content of the standard safety analysis report, and here, 5
of course, we will follow the Reg Guide 1.70.
We will provide 6
the information that is needed to perform the safety review, 7
but at the same time we have had to struggle with the issue 8
that the procurement will not have taken place at the point we 9
were seeking, we were conducting the review, we will not know 4
10 the detailed vendors.
We will know the purchase spec for the 11 equipment, but we won't know the equipment itself.
i 12 And similarly, we will know the purchase requirements i
1
] g x, 13 for the construction, but we won't have the detailed i
l 14 construction itself, because that of course depends on having l
15 actually forming the project and picked the vendors and the 16 constructors and so forth.
17 And so we intend to provide final design for the l
18 standard design, but recognizing that the vendor level and the f
19 detailed construction level Vill come later, and the task at 20 that point then would be to confirm that it met the standard 1
l 21 design requirements which will be conducted in the review.
And 22 I think we see our way through this process to the point where 23 we will have to do a little more feeling our way along as we i
24 go, but I think philosophically we have reached agreement with i
25 the Staff on how to do this.
And it's again something you have l
l i
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22 1
to do if you are going to have standardization.
-s 2
I just list here the major steps in the certification 3
process that we have laid out in the licensing' basis 4
agreement.
It begins with the licensing basis agreement 5
itself.
Then we go through the safety analysis report and its 6
review and the issuance of the SER.
Then an FDA, and at that 7
point the ABWR would be acceptable for referencing by potential i
8 users.
9 We go on from the FDA into rulemaking, and it will j
10 really be up to you people to decide the details of how that 11 rulemaking is conducted.
And at the and of the-rulemaking, an 12 issuance of a certification for a 10-year period with an option
^'
13 for renewal for an additional 10 years at that point.
14 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
How does all this interface 15 with the Japanese side of the program?
Does the fact that you I
16 are coming in here seeking a design certification have anything 17 at all to do with what's going on in Japan right now?
18 MR. WILKINS:
Well, maybe it -- the programs are 19 proceeding on essentially parallel schedules, but 20 independently, but with a lot of information exchange and 21 technology exchange between them.
f 22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
And so, in effect, what's 23 going on here is that GE is proceeding as though it might seek 24 to -- it wouldn't, but somebody might seek to build such a 25 plant in the 1990s, let's say, perhaps mid-1990s.
Japan is 1
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similarly proceeding ~in its own -- I don't know if they have a j
j
-m 2-regulatory path, I guess they do -- in its own system over i
3 there, except that they would be some few years at least ahead 4
of you in terms of being able to actually construct the plant.
5 Is that a fair statement of --
6 MR. WOLFE:
I think that's a fair statement, that 1
7 these will be independent reviews, but the NRC, the Staff has 8
talked to the Japanese and has made agreements for exchanging 9
information and keeping each other informed.
I think certainly i
10 to the extent that one party finds a major defect, if there is 11 one, that that will affect the other party, I think the -- the 12 thing that I think the Japanese don't want and can't afford, of 7
{
~;
13 course, is to have delays due to nontechnical matters that 14 would delay the project where they.have a firm schedule, so the l
15 plant is to go ahead.
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, that is precisely my 1
i j
17 point.
So I gather that the Japanese proceeding somewhat apace 18 and ahead of what's going on in this country would be by
]
19 design, in part at least, because they would prefer not to get 20 tangled up in our legendary licensing process in this country i;
21 and somehow have that impact their program?
22 You don't have to comment on that if you'd prefer not 23 to.
24 MR. WOLFE:
Let me say they have supported us in our-25 efforts here.
They are not reluctant.
They have been, I would j
i
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24 1-say, supportive of our efforts to go through the certification q}'
2 process here.
They think that is good for them, as well as us, 3
and I think the concern that all of us have, very candidly, is t
4 delays that are not technically generated, that they are i
1 5
concerned, and we would be, too.
6 COMMISSIONER CARR:
It's fair to say they wouldn't i
7 want to build a plant we couldn't license?
~
8 MR. WOLFE:
I think that's exactly right, l
9 Commissioner Carr.
That's exactly right.
They look at this as 10 a way of additional international verification of this new 1
11 design, which, to be candid, in the past in Japan we have i
i 12 introduced plants over there which have come after we have l
s 13 introduced them here in the United States.
This is the first 14 reverse kind of situation we've had.
l 15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
We shouldn't go saying, though, that i
16
-- you know, or implying -- I agree with you that, you know, on the nontechnical things that we hope won't delay anything.
But 17 j
18 once in a while in this new endeavor we are embarking on,.our 19 licensing process is important and we want to make sure that 20 our people have enough time to review the procedure, as well as 4
i 21 the techniques and technical side of it.
So I know you t
22 appreciate that, and we are going to" do it right, just like you 23 want to do it right.
l 24 MR. WOLFE:
Oh, absolutely.
i 25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
So we might need a little more time.
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1 We are certainly going to do our best, but it is important, and m^
2 we have got to make sure we do it right, too.
And our people 4
P 3
need the time to do that.
4 MR. WOLFE:
Absolutely.
And we agree with that.
5 There's no intent to push this beyond the reasonable time for 6
all of us.
7 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
4 MR. WILKINS:
The next chart lays out the actual 8
j 9
schedule for the certification program.
The key events are the f
10 issuance of the licensing basis agreement this summer in June.
I 11 In September we will begin submitting the safety analysis i
12 report, and that will come in over a 15-month period, with the j
13 last submittal at the end of 1988.
-~
14 The review will continue on until the FDA is issued 15 toward the and of 1990, and we envision the latter part of 1991 16 as the certification, and that's a schedule we are working 17 toward.
{
18 The thought is that once the design is certified, a I
19 utility wishing to use this design would include in his FSAR 20 evidence that he has complied with the site envelope, that his 21 procurement and procurement of construction complies with the i
22 commitments made in the certified design, as far as 23 requirements down at the component and construction level, and i
24 that the NRC would conduct a compliance review throughout the 25 construction process.
ll i
i
}.
J j
26 i
1 And then, of course, in addition the utility would
/3 2
have to provide the normal information related to how he plans i
3 to organize himself and operate the plant and so forth.
But i
4 the review, the further review of the certified design would be 5
restricted to a compliance type review as opposed to a system i.
6 or overall design review.
i 7
(Commissioner Roberts left the room at 2:41 p.m.]
]
j 8
MR. WILKINS:
I will now shift to two technical f
9 issues that we have wrestled with in the licensing basis i
i 10 agreement.
f 11 The first one is the probabilistic risk assessment.
I 12 This is an area that we had some false starts and returns to j (')
13 the starting block on GESSAR, and so we have tried to lay out i
14 our thinking here in some detail.
j 15 We plan to submit a level 3 probabilistic risk i
16 assessment per NRC requirements.
It will cover severe i
17 accidents, the consequences of those accidents, and the public 18 health effects.
So we will give you the complete PRA, I
19 including an assessment of the plant against the Commission's 20 safety goals.
21 We are again going to do that analysis in a way that 1
22 it would not have to be repeated by someone using this plant,
..y 23 and that's been an issue that's required a lot of thinking on i
24 our part, but we are going to have to build into the i
25 certification enough of the requirements out of the PRA so that i
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when those requirements are met, the PRA is valid, and would r]
2 not have to be repeated.
And that's so that the utility would 3
use the PRA by reference..
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I think that's a part of 5
standardization.
6 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
7
, CHAIRMAN ZECH:
A really big important step.
I 8
understand what you are saying, but it's --
9 MR. WILKINS:
It's important, and it's not easy.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
No, it is not easy at all.
I am sure 11 there are some pitfalls ahead, but it's the right approach, as 12 far as I am concerned.
13 MR. WILKINS:
The final one is the -- we are going to 14 talk about, and this is an area that we are continuing a 15 dialogue with the Staff, is the severe accident area.
Our 16 approach here is to address the severe accident issues that 17 have been raised in the last several years.
18 As far as the containment itself is concerned, we're 19 adopting a defense-in-depth approach, and are looking to 20 address.each of the threats to the containment that have been 21 raised.
22 In the area of pressurization capability, we intend 23 to design for 100 percent metal-water reaction, but using the 24 factor load basis.
In other words, using an acceptance basis 25 that recognizes this is an infrequent event.
l
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28 s
1 For hydrogen, our approach _is to inert the g
'I 2
atmosphere, as is being done in most of the operating BWRs in j
3 the U.S.
4 For the core debris issue, we have drywell sprays, 5
and with the configuration we have got in this plant, those 6
sprays are capable of good access under the vessel, and if 7
there were to be core debris under the vessel, it would be j
8 relatively easy to get water to it, and both suppress the 9
formation of noncondensibles and to provide a cooling path.
10 And so that is our approach in containment.
11 We have put into the LBA the same quantitative 12 requirement that has been proposed by Electric Power Research, 4
13 Institute in their progrant namely, that for events which have
{
14 a probability of one in a million per year or greater, we would 15 engineer the containment so that you would not have more than 16 25 rem offsite at roughly the site boundary,_I think we said a 17 half a mile from the plant, but -- so that even if there were a 18 severe accident of that kind of low probability, there would be i
19 an offsite release that would be quite small.
4 20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
One of the issues that has 21 dogged us throughout the years, I guess, continues to somewhat, 22 and again I'm vaguely recalling a discussion at Brookhaven two 23 or three years ago, with respect to GESST6R, is the question of 24 bypassing the suppression pool -- I can't remember the name of 25 that sequence, it's probably got a letter in front'of it, i
1 c
29 l
1 that's the sequence -- how do you deal with that here?
Are you
)
r'~5 t
2 satisfied and is our Staff satisfied?
Maybe they can answer f
3 when they get up here, that that's been satisfactorily i
i 4
addressed?
i 1
5' MR. WILKINS:
Well, I think that -- addressing i
j 6
whether or not we have satisfactorily addressed that issue, of 4
l 7
course, is something we will do during the review during the i
8 next couple of years.
i 9
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Exactly.
l 10 MR. WILKINS:
We haven't provided the Staff
}
11 information and they haven't had a chance to really address 4
i 1
12 whether they are comfortable in that area today.
I g
13 We have, in our GESSAR work, addressed that issue, 14 and to the satisfaction of the Staff, and we Usink this design 15 is even better than the GESSAR design in terms of preventing j
16 bypass paths.
So I'm reasonably confident that if we do get l
l 17 into that, it will not become an issue we come unglued on.
18 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Proceed.
j 19 MR. WILKINS:
I'm essentially finished.
1 20 Just to summarize, we are quite pleased with the 1
5 j
21 progress we are making and the support we are obtaining from 22 the Staff.
I think we -- our effort to date has been very 1
1 23 heavy on this licensing basis agreement, and making sure we l
J 24 have a good upfront understanding of where we're going and how l
25 we are going to get there.
J
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30 1
I think the effort we have put in, while it's been a
- s, 1
2 lot of effort on both our parts during the past six months, is i
3 going to pay off in terms of smoothing the review process 4
downstream, and the key milestone coming up, of course, is the I
5 licensing basis agreement by June.
We think it's possible.
We 6
very much need that document in June in order to factor it into l
7 any final fine-tuning we need to do on our safety analysis 8
report and get it in here by September, and as far as the y
{
9 safety analysis report itself, the work is underway, it's on j
10 schedule, and that will be the beginning of the Staff review 11 when that actually comes in.
j 12 COMMISSIONER CARR That's like 30 June?
Because 1
j 13 this is 30 April.
j 14 MR. WILKINS:
Joe?
15 MR. QUIRK:
End of June, yes.
16 MR. WILKINS:
End of June.
4
}'
17 COMMISSIONER CARR:
For the LBA?
18 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
i l
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right, does that complete your 20 briefing?
21 MR. WILKINS:
That completes it.
4
{
j 22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much.
l 23 Questions from my fellow Commissioners?
Commissioner l
1 24 Bernthal?
25 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I have one or two things that i
,,m.-.
i 31 4
1 I'd like to quiz you a bit further on.
2 The ACRS, when it wrote its letter to the Chairman on j
3 their recommendations for improved designs -- and I want to 1
i 4
focus on the minority here -- the minority was concerned that j
5 the ACRS comments were, and I'm quoting now, " represented a
~
6 camel of a letter," describing a camel of a reactor.
I'm not 7
quite sure what that meant, but I think there are lots of 8
requirements patched together and presumably the minority, at i
9 least in this case, was not happy that the majority had really 10 sat down and put forth a set of requirements for a real reactor i
11 as it would likely emerge from General Electric, for example.
l
]
12 And one of the comments they made here was that a new a
] { ~'
generation, and I'm quoting again, "can be either safer at 13 l
14 comparable cost and level of complication, or equally safe at j
15 lower cost and greater simplicity," and that that was a 16 fundamental choice.
And indeed it is.
17 Now I am hearing you today indicate to my great 18 satisfaction, I should say, that this is to be a simplified 19 plant and plant design.
20 Would you care to comment, though, on whether you 21 have achieved what they viewed as being impossible, perhaps?
l 22 Have you achieved equal or perhaps even lower cost with greater 23 simplicity and greater safety?
j 24 MR. WILKINS:
We have achieved a third alternative in i
25 our view which they didn't list, and that is greater safety at 1
32 1
lower cost.
And I --
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Greater simplicity?
4 3
MR. WILKINS:
I think the key to that is simplicity.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I agree.
5 MR. WILKINS:
We have worked very hard on this 6
design, on simplifying it and simplifying,it, both -- makes l
t 7
improvements in all areas.
It costs less and it tends to be 8
less complicated, and therefore safer.
I i
9 I think also -- you know, I read both the minority 1
10 and majority opinion of the ACRS, and I think there is truth in 11 both viewpoints.
The -- it is not clear when you just compile 12 a list of 12 recommendations whether or not they all make 13 sense.
i 14 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Sure.
15 MR. WILKINS:
And certainly the majority said that, 16 and the minority was worried about the camel.
But we have had 17 the opportunity over the last eight years we have been working 18 on this to do the system engineering and technical integration 19 that has enabled us to incorporate these 12 recommendations l
20 into a system-engineered plant, and we are quite comfortable at
^
21 this point that the basic thrust of each of the 12 i
22 recommendations is sound.
i 23 Now we have some details that we did not implement, 3
24 and we will explain why.as we get into the review.
t 25 MR. WOLFE:
I think the detail is where -- I think in i
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33 1
1 concept the 12 points that the ACRS brought up and recommended,
..s 2
we think we are addressing in concept.
Whether when we get 3
through with the details we will all agree on how the details 4
. interact, I'm not quite sure.
But fundamentally we don't think 5
we are too far away, and we think we have done it at low cost 6
and fairly reasonable design.
7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
I an inclined to think 8
that probably the Commission's own advanced reactor policy 9
statement, which it sounds like you are also complying with, I 10 hope, to a large extent, was something of a camel, too, that 11 probably had mutually exclusive criteria and provisions there, 12 but we recognized that, I think, when we wrote it.
gs I am curious about the institutional -- or maybe I 13 l
14 should say contractual set-up that you anticipate in this 15 country.
It perhaps is not so relevant to ask what it will be 16 in Japan, although you might want to comment on that.
You 17 mention that the utilities you would expect to reference the l
18 design.
As a practical matter, is it too early for you to 19 describe to us what sort of a relationship you would expect to 1
20 have with the potential buyer and the architect-engineer, 21 should the day ever come when a utility decided to order this 22 plant?
23 MR. WOLFE:
Let me try that.
Fred, I think you were 24 out when we had the discussion where I tried to put the burden 25 on you -
.... ~
.r 34 1
[ Laughter.]
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
You.might as well; everybody 2
3 else does.
4 MR. WOLFE:
-- in the sense of saying I think one of 1
5 the things that we'-- that reE11v y^u ought to be looking at 6
for the future, and there is no hurry on this, is how you would 7
envision an applicant with a certified design approaches the 8
Commission.
I mean what kind of hearings,_if any, are 9
required?
How many stages and so on is something that I think 10 would be -- we ought to attack, and I think it's properly in 11 your view -- purview.
12 I think the other question you raise is one that's a
-^'.
13 little broader.
What will the relationships of the various w.
14 parts of the industry be when we finally get to have a 15 certified design?
And I think we are in a state of flux in the 16 industry, and let me say my own personal view, let me say for 17 Bert Wolfe rather than General Electric, I think we clearly 18 made a mistake the way we proceeded in the past with four 19 vendors and 13 architect-engineers and 50 utilities, each of 20 whom designed the plant together with your Staff as the plant 21 went along.
22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
-I agree.
23 MR. WOLFE:
It's clearly not the right way, and-I 24 think we need a new approach, and there are new institutional 25 changes being made now by the utilities with generating
35 I
companies, and I would think in the next decade we would see a s
2 realignment of vendors, architect-engineers, and generating 3
companies or utilities.
I think it's a little too early for us
{
4 to guess exactly how that would come out, but certainly.I think 5
the previous approach was not a good one for anybody.
6 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I think we all pretty much 7
agree on that in retrospect.
8 I do have a concern about the schedule that you --
9 whichever one it was here, one of your slides here shows the 10 schedule with the NRC, needless to say, as a major player, in 1
11 view of the fact the Commission has not yet got out a 12 standardization policy statement, and I think -- I hope that
's 13 this event today and some others, perhaps, will induce us to 14 move ahead with that smartly.
15 I have to say I am a little concerned that we are 16 looking here at certification being issued in 1991, and I will 17 ask the Staff the same question.'
At this point do you foresee 18 any difficulty in meeting the suggested schedule that you have 19 here on your slide?
Do you have any reason for optimism that 20 the NRC is prepared to comply with that kind of schedule?
21 MR. WILKINS:
Let me answer that this way.
I think 22 in terms -- to the extent that the requirements are the ones 23 that are currently known, I think this is an achievable 24 schedule.
25 Now if there are to be major changes in-policies or o
36 1
regulations along the road,.and if this certification effort is 2
forced to change directions to line up with those, that could 3
make this schedule completely unachievable, but that really 4
gets right at the heart of the whole standardization issue.
5 There will always be new policies, new directions, new issues coming up, and the issue is do~we together have the discipline 6
7 to drive this kind of a program down the road on an aggressive 8
schedule and get it done?
9 Japan will certainly do it faster than this schedule, 10 and there's no fundamental reason why we can't here in the 11 U.S. do it as fast as they do it in Japan.
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I agree.
I would hope that 13 the process here doesn't turn out to be an embarrassment by '
14 comparison.
15 Maybe one other question here.
I am curious to know 16 what DOE's role will be, generally speaking, with respect to 17 this enterprise in our country.
Will they have a significant 18 financial involvement and stake in it?
Is General Electric 19 going to go it alone, pretty much, commercially in this 20 endeavor, or where do they fit in?
21 MR. WOLFE:
Well, on the licensing, as you know, this 22 is a DOE-GE-EPRI program --
23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: -Shared expenses?
24 MR. WOLFE:
Yes.
25 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
l l
37 3
1 MR. WOLFE:
-- that we are proceeding with now.
'/^N 2
After we have a certified license, I think how we proceed and 3
get the first plant actually on the line, I think is a question 4
that is still under discussion.
5 For example, my concern, if we meet the schedule 6
even, is how we convince a utility that having a certified 7
design, the system will still work as he goes ahead.
And it 8
seemed to me -- and we haven't -- this is just some thoughts 9
which DOE has not agreed to, that something ike the old second 10 round approach or third round approach where there was at least 11 some government guarantees that DOE might put out, that the --
12 on a demonstration plant that would provide some back-up on the fS 13 fact that the certification would stick, and would provide a
\\
14 design that could be built, might be of help.
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Why would it be necessary to 16 have government back-up except perhaps -- and I agree with you 17 on this point -- except perhaps some government guarantees for 18 i
what the government is responsible for?
19 MR WOLFE:
That's fundamentally what I'm saying.
20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Because you presumably will 21 have a Japanese flagship construction project considerably 22 before we would ever start one here.
23 MR. WOLFE:
I think what -- I think we are saying the 24 same thing.
What I am suggesting is just the legal questions j
25 as you go through it, who can delay it, does the system meet
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38 1
all the legal requirements, and so on.
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, I will just make a 3
closing comment, and that is that I'm encouraged and gratified 4
to see you here today.
You have come a long way with this 5
already.
In my judgment, although this clearly fits in with 6
the standardization question, and we have got to get our work 7
finished here so that you are prepared to fit into whatever 8
institutional licensing arrangement we finally place into 9
effect in the agency, somewhat more importantly, I view this as 10 the first of what I would refer to as advanced reactor 11 designs.
It's been clear for some time, and certainly has been 12 aven more clear in view of the event a year ago, that the next 13 reactor that's built in this country will be an advanced 14 design, and I -- it appears, at least on the surface, that you 15 have come forward here with a 757 or 767 which ought to be 16 better and I think is than a 747 and that's better than a 707, 17 and that's the direction we should be heading in this business.
{
18 That's enough said.
Thanks.
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Carr?
20 Well, let me thank you for an excellent briefing, and l
l 21 encourage you to continue on your course.
Certainly we want to r
22 he working with you.
23 MR. WOLFE:
Shall we plan on another six-month 24 review?
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I think that would-be very
I 39 1
appropriate.
I think it would.
I think we would appreciate m
2 that, and in the meantime it is encouraging to see the progress 3
you have made.
There is no reason that we can't, I think, move 4
to do -- carry out our responsibilities as you carry out yours, 5
to make sure that we can step into the future, which appears to 6
be a standardized design.
I hope we can get it maybe a little 7
more standardized, but I'd certainly feel that you are moving 8
in the right direction, and I command you for that, and thank 9
you for an excellent briefing.
10 Thank you very much.
I 11 Now, Mr. Stallo, do you want to come forward and 12 start this off with the Staff, please?
12 You may proceed.
14 MR. STELIO:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
15 In light of the discussion you have had, I think 16 there are a couple of points I want to start with, and I'll 17 i
turn to Dr. Murley very shortly.
18
)
We are proceeding on the basis of reviewing this with 19 the concept and philosophy embodied within the standardization 20 policy that you have before you.
In simple terms, for-a design 21 such as this one, which is a certification process which is not i
22 an entire plant -- it is a very substantial and significant 23 part, the most important part of it -- the policy indicates 24 that we will go forward all the way through certification for either a whole plant or a substantial part of it.-
That's the l
25
40' 1
basis we're-proceeding.
1 Nun elements and the things that have
/m 2
to be included and will be included in what we review are those 3
things that are already part of that policy statement, so I 4
need to make clear that the way we have been proceeding is in 5
light of the discussion of policy and philosophy that is yet 6
before the Commission.
So as we move forward, it should be 7
clear, with the understanding -- the understanding of the 8
Commission -- that we are proceeding on that basis.
9 COMMISSIONER CARR:
What policy statement are you 10 referring to?
4 11 MR. STELLO:
The one that you have before you.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
The standardization policy.
13 MR. STELLO:
There's only one more aspect that I 14 wanted to touch on briefly.
I have met with representatives 15 from Japan to assure that we have a very true spirited frame of 16 mind in cooperating.
We have that.
We have not worked out any 17 of the details, but it is clear they want to look very closely 18 at what we are doing, and we also want to look very closely at 19 what they're doing, and conceptually it's agreed we will do 20 that and make sure they are aware of anything we find an issue, 21 and they agree to do the same for us.
22 How we will achieve that in the future is obviously 23 to.be determined, but in theory it's agreed we would go forward 24 in that direction.
i l
25 With that, Tom, let me ask you to begin.
s
41 1
MR. MURLEY:
Ralph Caruso is the project manager on
N 2
this, and he has been with it for some time, and he is going to 3
talk about the details of how we have been going about it..
4 As I tried to gauge what's on my plate in my new 5
role, I find that this'is a bigger activity than I had thought, l
6 the review of advanced designs.
So there's a number of i
7 questions I have in my mind that I don't have answers for 8
today.
What I intend to do is have my staff put together a 9
project plan which will encompass the whole area of our review 10 of advanced reactor designs with schedules, manpower, and that 11 sort of thing.
I don't have that today.
It will include the 12 certification reviews of the designs-that we either have 13 in-house or know are coming, and it will address the issue that 14 Bert Wolfe talked about, of how a utility would use a certified 1
i 15 design in an application.
16 It is not a totally simple matter, I hope you 17 understand, because there still needs to be an environmental 18 review, an environmental hearing, and those sorts of things, 19 aven if they were to reference this design.
Nonetheless, I see 20 the need for my own purposes to have such a project plan, and 21 so I'm going to start doing that.
22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I want to congratulate you on 23 your attempt to do that, by the way.
I'm not a bit surprised c
24 that this is turning out to be something that is bigger than l
l 25 we're prepared for and --
42
.l 1
MR. MURLEY:
It's much bigger than I thought, coming 2
into the job.
3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
And if there is any problem 4
in either funding or meeting schedules in this regard, I 5
certainly would be interested in hearing of it, and I'm sure 6
all the Commission would.
7 MR. STELLO:
We made the commitment to the Commission 8
that we were going to do this job, and we will do it.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Good.
10 MR. MURLEY:
With that, then, Ralph Caruso will talk 11 about our review of the GE ABWR.
12 MR. CARUSO:
Good afternoon.
My name is Ralph
/~
13 Caruso.
(,;
I am the project manager for the ABWR project.
I have 14 been working with General Electric now for nearly a year on 15 this design.
Most of that time we have spent on the licensing 16 basis agreement, ironing out a number of problems,La number of 17 issues, and I am here to tell you where we stand right now, 18 where I think we are going, and give you some highlights on the-i 19 design and the licensing process for the design.
20 The slides I have got I am not going to project.
.I 21 have just got them on paper here.
22 The first slide discusses the licensing highlights of 23 the ABWR.
We see basically four new areas involved in l
l 24 licensing the ABWR that are not seen in other plants.
First of 25 all is the fact that it is a standardized design.
It is not a
- _ -~
43 1
custom design, but it'is intended to be a standard for new
(~ ~.
2 plants; several, possibly many.
- 3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Quick question.
Why does 4
that, in and of itself, raire new procedural issues? _Can you i
5 just -- I don't need a long explanation, and I think I may know 6
the answer, in part at least, but can you sketch that quickly?
7 MR. CARUSO:
Well, for one thing, one very quick 8
answer is_that if it's a standard design that does not exist, j
9 the reviews that have to be done of it have to be done entirely j
10 on paper, without any recourse to an actual physical plant.
11 During the review of a custom plant that is under construction, 12 if an' individual has a question about something, they can 4
13 actually go kick the tires, so to speak.
- (5
- s..
14 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
The word " standard" is I
15 immaterial.
It is a new design, and therefore standard or 16 otherwise, it's a paper design, and you h' ave to deal with that?
17 MR. CARUSO:
That's one part of it.
The other part 18 is that it has to be considered to be a standard for more than 19 one site, so there has to be much_more careful thought going i
20 into the review.
You can't just assume that you are going to l
21 have one particular utility with one particular level of 22 expertise operating it.
You've got to design it for many 23 different users.
24 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Good point.
Yes.
l 25-MR. CARUSO:
The parallel licensing review, reviews wv, w
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i 44 1
that will be done by the United States and Japan, this is
.s 2
another area that's unique for the ABWR.
And it will require 3
some coordination and discussions between ourselves and the 4
Japanese government.
It is the first use of a licensing basis 5
agreement.
This was a recommendation by General Electric and 6
the Staff thought it was a good idea, and that's what we have-7 been working on now for the past nine months.
And we also hope 8
that this will be the first design certification of a boiling 9
water reactor.
There are -- no design certifications have been 1
10 issued yet.
GESSAR received a final design approval, but it 11 did not go through the actual certification process.
So the 12 certification process itself will be unique.
i 13 (Commissioner Roberts entered the room at 3:10.]
(^
~
14 MR. CARUSO:
Of these issues, the two most 15 significant right now, at this time, are the licensing basis 16 agreement and the relationship with the Japanese.
The 17 licensing basis agreement, I don't want to go into a lot of i
18 details and just repeat what Mr. Wilkins said, Dr. Wilkins l
19 said, but the licensing basis agreement was intended to define issues before the technical review began, and it was intended 20 l
21 to provide a process for incorporating future changes.
j 22 In the past those changes have been done -- have been 23 dealt with in a catch-as-catch-can fashion, and we thought if l
24 we provided a procedure from the beginning that both sides l
l l
25 agreed to, in the same way that we have a backfitting
45 1
procedure, that we could reduce some of the uncertainty
~%
2 involved in licensing.
3 We also are trying to develop some procedures for 4
certain technical reviews, and I would give you an example
)
5 there, the PRA, for example.
The PRA review involves a lot of 6
assumptions, a. lot of codes, for example, that are -- whose 7
results and whose application is not universally agreed upon, t
8 and we are trying to define how those codes and how those 9
inputs would be used and how they would be provided.
10 In summary, it is intended to_ provide some licensing 1
11 stabilization to define the process.
l 12 COMMISSIONER CARR:
It looks like this licensing
)
13 basis agreement is going to be a key part of the whole 4
14 operation.
15 MR. CARUSO:
It could be.
We hope it will be.
We:
16 hope it will stabilize the licensing process.
17 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Are we going to open-that up to 18 the public for comment?
Are we going to get a chance to 19 approve it here at the Commission level?
How areJyou going to 20 get agreement that that agreement is okay?
1 21 MR. CARUSO:
Well, I will get into that in a little 22 bit more detail about that in a minute.
s 1
j 23 My second bullet on international technical e
24 cooperation here, we have had some discussions with the l
25 Japanese, and we have.n't formalized any agreements.. This 4
._c,
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u 46 summer, I would think, would be a good time to start those 1
2 negotiations and decide what kind of information we want to 3
provide back and forth, and what kind of formal framework we 4
are going to establish for a working relationship.
5 I think this summer would be a good time to do that.
I 6
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Is there any assurance or 7
reason to believe that that would be a more efficient process 8
because we are trying to carry out a sort of joint licensing 9
process?
Or would it be more efficient simply for us to go 10 along our track and the Japanese to go along their track and to 11 maintain communications on any technical issues that arise?
12 MR. CARUSO:
I don't think it is going to be more
,^g 13 efficient to do them in parallel.
They have their procedures,
\\;.
14 we have our procedures.
We would like to get to the same end 15 point of the same conclusion, and we think if we talk to one 16 another,- there's a better chance that that will occur.
There's 17 more overhead, certainly, and it'will be more difficult than if 18 we just went our own way.
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Maybe, in fact, I have 20 described what you are going to do.
Is the assumption that you 21 will have discussions when technical questions arise, that.they l
22 feel they want to ask how are you guys doing, and that sort of 23 thing?
24 MR. CARUSO:
We don't know yet.
25 MR. STELLO:
That was a discussion I said I already r,,
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47 1
had with them.
That commitment we clearly have, to do just
.m 2
what you described.
If we find something that we think needs 3
further discussion, we will alert them of that issue and talk 4
to them.
-5 I don't know that we have any formality of a parallel 6
licensing process.
I suspect with the dates I have heard, they 7
probably -- if they are actually physically submitting 8
something now and getting approval in June in 1988, that they 9
will probably wind up being probably significantly ahead of us.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I guess one of my concerns is 11 a very simple one, and that is the specter of people spending 12 lots of time in airplanes between here and Tokyo, and not much
! (^'t 13 work getting done.
I know none of us'wants that to happen.
14 MR. STELLO:
True.
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
16 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Proceed.
l 17 MR. CARUSO:
The next issue concerns standardization 18 policy, and as Mr. Stallo said, we are waiting for approval of 19 the standardization policy statement that you have before you.
j One of the chief problems we have in developing the 20 l
21 LBA is related to the severe accident policy statement and the l
l 22 issues that are involved in that.
I have discussed them here, l
l 23 and they are all the subject of ongoing research, and ongoing 24 work by the Staff to develop detailed criteria for them.
l 25 In that sort of atmosphere it has been difficult for
- ~
1 l
i
- = - -.
F 48 1
the Staff and GE to come to an agreement, because of the q
2 uncertainty caused by the ongoing work.
These issues here 3
right now are the major sticking points in development of the 4
LBA.
5 I would like to talk a little bit about the 6
philosophy of the LBA.
Mr. Wilkins, Dr. Wilkins touched on 7
that briefly.
We have had questions from the ACRS about the 8
'LBA, and one of the big questions they had was what does it 9
mean in terms of enforceability and in terms of the. legal 10 process?
And I guess I would summarize it by saying that the 11 LBA does not have any legal basis.
It is an agreement 12 concerning the ground rules and the procedural arrangements.
f--%.,
13 It is a gentleman's agreement, a reasoned expression of intent
(
14 by the Staff and GE of what they are going to do in this 15 certification process over the next few years.
It describes 16 the expected scenario for the review,.and attempts to resolve 17 some technical issues, or at least show the path to resolution 18 of those issues.
It's not required by the regulations.
19 I guess I would leave it open to questions at that~
20 point on the LBA philosophy.
21 MR. STELLO:
Well, to answer the question that 22 Commissioner Carr asked, it is our intent to provide you with 23 the docume
- nd it is difficult to decide how much reliance j
24 there is going to be on this document to do whatever.
It's 25 intended to identify the issues, at least, and set a stage for
49 1
how the Staff will address them.
As GE indicated, they hope to q
2 have something by the'end of June.
We intend to send that down 3
to the Commission.
We did not intend to issue it for public 4
comment or go out any further with it.
It's viewed at the 5
moment as just laying the framework to do the review when they 6
submit the application.
7 The Commission may want to reflect when they get that 8
to what degree they would like to be further involved in it.
9 It's an open yn 6 tion.
I don't have an answer.
I haven't seen 10 it myself, Lo I can't make' a judgment of whether it's the kind 11 of a document that the Commission physically ought to put a 12 stamp on.
And I'm not so sure that the Commission can in fact 13 do that.
p 14 COMMISSIONER CARR:
I don't want to lead them~down 15 some road and then drop them off the end.
16 MR. STELLO:
I agree.
That's the whole purpose of 17 preparing this document.
You know, this may very well be part 18 of the issue of the standardization policy itself that is 19 before the Commission.
So the two of those, I think, together 20 need to get some focus with the Commission, because they can 21 create an issue that is significant.
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Will you keep us informed on this to 23 make sure it's not going to be a real bottleneck in the whole 24 process?
25 MR. STELLO:
Yes, we will.
The very next slide i
s w-,,w e
---,7
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'50 1
contains the commitment we are going to give to you.
2 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Okay.
3 MR. CARUSO:
I was just about to make that 4
commitment, and.Mr. Stello upstaged me here.
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
The answer is yes, sir?
6 MR. CARUSO:
The answer is yes, sir, we are going to 7
provide it to you.
We are not sure when.
8 In addition to the parallel review of the ABWR in the 9
United States and in Japan, there is an ongoing review of the 10 EPRI advanced light water reactor program by the NRC Staff.
11 That will be proceeding in parallel with the ABWR.
The 12 relationship between the two programs is -- there is a
]
13 relationship between the two programs, and GE has agreed in 14 principle -- agreed to provide a design which complies to a 15 great extent to the EPRI requirements document.
I don't know 16 if you have been briefed on the EPRI requirements document in 17 the ALWR program yet.
I don't know, have you?
18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I don 8t think so.
19 MR. CARUSO:
Okay.
20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Let me ask a question about 21 that, though, because one of the points that GE makes, I guess, 22 is that in responding at least to the ACRS letter, they have 23 stated that they will meet the requirement for low probability l
24 of a large release in the event of an accident, and again 25 that Commission-generated 10 to the minus 6 per reactor year l
51 1
1 of operation creeps-in.
2 How is EPRI defining large release at this point, and 3
how is GE defining large release?
Does anybody know?
~
4 MR. STELLO:
My recollection is they are consistent.
5 MR. CARUSO:
They're the same standards.
6 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
The same as whose?
7 MR. CARUSO:
EPRI's.
8 MR. MURLEY:
25 ren.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
It's the 25 rem at one half 10 mile.
Very good.
I congratulate you.
That's better than we 11 have done.
12 MR. PARLER:
That's been the intent of 10 CFR Part 13 100, if my memory is correct, since 1959.
Isn't that right?
14 MR. STELLO:
That's correct, but that's not for 15 beyond design basis.
16 MR. PARLER:
I see.
Okay.
17 MR. STELLO:
25 rem whole body applies to the design i
18 basis accidents as specified and set forth in the regulations.
19 What we are talking about are the accidents that go beyond the i
20 design basis and applying the same standard as you had for the 21 design basis.
22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
In fact, that sounds very 23 close to the kind of criteria that we have talked about for the 24 threshold for an extraordinary nuclear occurrence.
I had to 25 throw that in.
i i
._.y.
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3-52 1
MR. STELLO:
You had several.
That was one of them.
^
,s 2
[ Laughter.)
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right, let's proceed.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
It's an in joke.
5 MR. CARUSO:
We have discussed the LBA with the ACRS, 6
and we are going to go back to them again to discuss it.
We 7
will provide you with a copy of it, and we have a schedule 8
which Mr. Wilkins provided which shows design certification j
9 schedule to be completed in 1991.
We have a little bit of a 10 disagreement on a few aspects of that schedule.
We think the s
11 disagreements will be easy to work out.
They involve whether j
12 we are going to use a 12-month or 18-month time to do a review 13 of certain of the chapters in the FSAR.
If I would look at
(-
14 that schedule, I would say that the first four items under Task 15 2,
item 2, A, B,
C, D, meeting those schedules is easy if-you 16 look at the GE schedule.
And the Staff believes that those are P
17 doable.
18 The next two items on turbine island, that really --
19 that's just as easy to do as the first one.
The issue 20 resolution and issuance of the final SER in the time period 21 proposed, that also is doable, although it might be a little 22 bit more difficult than the first four items.
23 The ACRS ruview, we intend.to involve the ACRS from 24 the very beginn.ing.
We intend to have their input all along
]
25 the way rather than just at the end.
ACRS reviews are never
53 1
easy.
2 The final item on rulemaking and public hearing.
The 3
rulemaking and public hearing on.the certification is really a 4
big question nr.rk right now, because we don't have the policy statement, because we don't k'ow how broad the rulemaking and 5
n 6
public hearings will be, so the 1991 estimate is really very 7
much speculation.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
This is about the sixth time 9
I have heard somebody say we don't have the policy statement.
10 I think we take that as a gentle hint, Mr. Chairman, that we 11 ought to get that thing out.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Yes, we take that as a gentle hint.
e 13 Let's go ahead.
3 14
[ Laughter.]
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
By the way,.that is precisely-16 the point at which I would say you have correctly suggested we 17 may run into trouble.
Task 3, rulemaking and the litigation 18 that might surround that, before we can finally issue a design 19 certification.
I don't want to say it's wildly optimistic, but 20 it's pretty optimistic.
We need to figure that a little 21 better, I think.
22 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Did you say Item 6 was no 23 problem?
4 24 MR. CARUSO:
The FDA issuance.
That depends on how i
25 the other items work out.
There could be a few items left over
d O
54 1
that could take a little bit of time to resolve, but that's not 2
unreasonable.-
3 MR. MURLEY:
For example, though, if the ACRS review 4
is not met, then --
5 MR. CARUSO:
That could be difficult.
6 nn. NURLEY:
-- that slips everything.
7 MR. CARUSO:. That's correct.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: 'Does ths issue of che 9
Commission's proposed legislation impact this at all?
I 10 haven't thought about it.
11 MR. CARUSO:
Legislation on --
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, the one-step licensing,
13 business.
I guess it doesn't directly.
14 MR. PARLER:
Maybe I should answer that.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Yes, please go ahead.
16 MR. PARLER:
The answer is no.
17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
There's the answer.
All l.
l 18 right.
A good legal answer.
All right, go. ahead.
19 MR. CARUSO:
My next slide concerns resource l-20 requirements, and I drew up a set of resource requirements in l
21 terms of professional staff years, and contract costs for the 22 ABWR, over the next four years.
These numbers were based on 23 the expenditures for GESSAR, looking at GESSAR, looking at the i
24 Limerick Plant, and looking at Clinch River Breeder Reactor, to i
25 give bounding estimates, and these numbers have been figured f
I
4 55 1
into the budgets over the next several years, although not.
.m 2
entirely in these particular years.
The numbers have been 3
shifted slightly, but this is a pretty reasonable approximation 4
of the amount of resources we will need to do this review.
)
5 CKAIRMAN ZECH:
Have we got those in our plans, 6
Mr. Stallo?
7 MR. CARUSO:
The numbers are in the budget, but they 8
have been shifted slightly so that they are not all in the 9
years which are indicated here.
These numbers came from the 10 Commission paper which was sent down to you.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Is it doable?
12 MR. CARUSO:
Yes.
13 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Okay.
14 MR. CARUSO:
The total numbers are still correct.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
But it's doable.
16 MR. STELLO:
Yes.
i 17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right, let's go.
18 MR. CARUSO:
And the last page, we included a list of 19 the recommendations from the ACRS in their January 15th, 1987 20 letter on future standardized plants.
The Staff responded to 21 the ACRS on April 13th, two weeks ago, and provided the 22 responses of EPRI and General Electric to those issues, and I 23 just included these in case you had a need to be reminded of 24 the specifics, or if you had any specific questions about 4
25 issues.
i 56 1
MR. STELLO:
Let me respond, Mr. Chairman.
The ACRS
.m 2
originally scheduled a meeting for earlier this month, which 3
they have put off now, and I think they want to come to grips 4
with dealing with these issues somewhat outside of any 5
particular case or any particular reactor, which is fine.
And 6
.I think if we can make some more progress in dealing with these 7
issues at the ACRS, some of the concerns Dr. Murley expressed 8
about creating uncertainty in the ACRS review, I think would go 9
a long way to resolving them, by getting these issues on the 10 table as early as we can.
2 11 I think this is an example of an area where we can 12 make a lot of progress and look at some innovative ways to do I
13 our job.
Perhaps we can make -- if you step'back and you-say n
(
i
' ~~
^14 in four years we can't do this job, you have to ask yourself, i
15 you know, that's a long time, and there ought to be some room 16 for finding some better ways to deal with the issues that wo 17 have to.
I think we need to do that and we are going to look 18 for ways to do it.
I don't have answers, but at least the I
19 question -- it's apparent when you just look at the bottom line 20 of four years from now or so, we can say we're not sure we can 21 get the job done.
We have to at least ask ourself are we doing 22 it as well as we know how.
23 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
You've got to be able to give a 24 better answer than that.
You've got to get the job done, I 25 think.
i
57 1
MR. STELLO:
Okay.
-w 2
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
And also, though, let me just say, I 3
presume you're telling us now that you are working closely with 4
the ACRS; is that right?
5 MR. STELLO:
Yes.
And I have committed --
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Because that's our job to do that.
7 MR. STELLO:
Dr. Murley and I and the Staff will try 8
to go down to find a way to deal with these issues.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Good.
Fine.
10 MR. STELLO:
And get more discussion going on it.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Very good.
12 MR. STELLO:
We are through, Mr. Chairman, and I 13 wanted to make one comment with respect to the future.
If we (w w*I 14 ever get to the point where we have this plant, that's when I 15 do think the licarsing reform issue becomes an issue.
If this 16 plant is certified, if we have plants or sites also that are 17 available, and if this plant were one for which -- at least 4
18 there's conjecture it might be including a particular turbine 19 island by design, the licensee could take that plant, that 20 site, and then the rest of the issues in a one-step licensing 21 process, I think we've made significant progress in changing 22 the licensing approach that we have been using in the past..
j l
23 That's what I think I've heard in meetings where I've 24 been at with the industry, that they are looking for in terms 25 of providing that kind of stability to a licensing process,
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58 1
that this hopefully -- this kind of an approach can provide.
3 2
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
We have got that legislative proposal J
3 before Congress now again.
4 MR. STELLO:
That's correct, yes.
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
And we will hope that we will be 6
successful this year.
7 MR. PARLER:
And we are also working on the problem 8
administratively, internally.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Right.
10 MR. STELLO:
We're through.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you very much.
12 Questions from my fellow Commissioners?
i ("},
13 Commissioner Roberts?
u.
i 14 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
No.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Bernthal?
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Just -- I don't have any 17 questions, we are running out of time here, as you know.
And I 18 just want to make two comments.
)
19 One is that it's clear that wa-need to finish the 20 work on the Commission, as the Staff gently reminds us today, 21 on the standardization policy statement.
And I would also 22 stress that this whole four-cornered policy statement exercise 4
23 of the Commission, a standardization policy, safety goal 24 policy, advanced reactor policy, and severe accident policy.
25 That all hangs together, and if any one-of those somehow i
i
59 l
1 remains in limbo or unfulfilled, the whole thing pretty well 2
comes crashing down.
3 I am interested here, and very encouraged, by the 4
fact that the industry now itself is stepping forward and 5
saying that they believe that they can meet in this new plant 6
design what we have talked about as the No threshold for a 7
large offsite release.
That would be a great achievement and a.
8 great step forward, it seems to me, if in fact we find that we 9
are able to meet that kind of stringent criterion for large 10 offsite releases of severe accidents here in our new plant 11 designs.
I believe we can, but now the industry itself has 12 told us that we can, and I would hope the commission would keep
g 13 that in mind when we consider the remnants of the safety goal l
s_/
14 policy that are still on our table.
15 The only other comment I would make is that back to 16 the point of Task 3 here on GE's timetable.
I would suggest, 17 Mr. Chairman, if the Commission agrees, that we ought to try 18 and get a realistic appraisal for GE and the others involved 19 here of how long it's going to take us in the litigation l
20 process, in the hearing process, to achieve design 21 certification.
j I'm not a lawyer, but when I watch the way things go 22
[
23 around here, as I have for the last four years, there's no way-l 24 that I can believe that that process is going to take -- it 25 looks like it's less than a year that's cross-hatched out
,e 60 1
here.
I don't believe that, and I think we need to get a m
2 realistic appraisal at some point.
It's not that far away, and 3
let the industry know what wa think it's going -- what amount-4 of time it's going to~take.
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, also,.you-know, I think that's 6
very sensible, but I also think we ought to try to make sure 1
7 that we have that time down to where it is reasonable and it 8.
doesn't just take forever.
So I think-we should discipline 9
that process, too, as best we can.
10 Anything else?
11 COMMI53IONER BERNTHAL:
That's all?
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Carr?
13 Well, let me just thank the General Electric 14 rspresentatives for a very fine presentation.
I thank the 15 Staff for their fine presentation.
I think that the -- I would 16 like to encourage General Electric and the entire industry to i
17 proceed along these lines-of' progress for.the future, for-t 18 standardization.- I would certainly like to encourage the Staff 19 also to continue their progress along t.%CR'a vary difficult
)
20 lines.
The Commission itself does hr.v0 t.sponsibilities to 21' give the Staff the necessary guidance.
We take that aboard and 22 we will do that.
23 It's a very important part of the nuclear industry in 24 our country for the future.
Safety is the name of the game, 25 and I think that it's.something that, working.together, we can
,4-,,,-.v.
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61 1
indeed make progress.
We need to discipline ourselves across
\\
2 the board, the industry, the utilities,-the NRC, working 3
closely together, using the expertise that we have in our 4
various organizations to continue to try to bring the best we 5
can the peaceful and safe uses of nuclear power to our country, 6
and to the other countries that are involved.
7 If there are any other comments from my fellow 8
Commissioners?
If not, we will stand adjourned.
Thank you 9
very much.
10
[Whereupon, at 3:37 o' clock p.m., the commission was 11 adjourned.]
12 13 14 15 16 17
~
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
1 2
REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 3
4 This is to certify that the attached events of a 5
meeting of th'e U.S.' Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:.
-6 7
TITLE OF MEETING:
Briefing on Advanced Boiling Water Reactor Revit 8'
PLACE OF MEETING:
Washington, D.C.
9 DATE OF MEETING:
Thursday, April 30, 1987 10 11 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 12 transcript thereof for the file of the Commission taken
('7..
13 stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to typewriting by 14 me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and 15 that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the 16 foregoing events.
17 18 w
Ann Ril y 19 20 21
)
22 Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
23
~
24 25 I
i l
, ~.
e t
l A
Presentation to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the ABWR Certification Program I
l Presented by j
General Electric Company
.1 i
i 1
1 j
Washington, D.C.
1 l
April 30, 1987 I
I i
1
General Electric Company t
Advanced Boiling Water Reactor i
l Program Overview l
t ABWR Licensing Progress-i l
Licensing Basis Agreement l
Discussion 4
1 i
I i
}
i
4 1
i i
ABWR Objectives Improved Operability Improved Capacity Factor
-Improved Safety Reliability Reduced Occupational Exposure i
Reduced Costs l~
l
i ABWR Development Approach i
1978-79 Conceptual Design by International Team 1980-85 Design Development Testing by GE,
- Hitachi, Toshiba i
1986+
Lead Project (s) in Japan
- Tokyo-Electric Power Company i
Two Units at Kashiwazaki Licensing Application 1988 First Unit Commercially Operational in 1996 I
t------------- ----
ABWR Incorporates Best Worldwide BWR Features Internal Recire Pumps Fine-Motion CRD Digital / Solid State Control j
Multiplexing Advanced Fuel Improved Containment and j
Reactor Building Three ECCS Divisions l
8
i l
i ABWR Licensing Progress
)
)
Work proceeding with NRC. Staff
- LBA to be issued in June
- ABWR Technical Description j
document issued i
i e
Meetings with ACRS in January,
- March, 1987.
1
- Responded to Feb.
9, 1987 ACRS letter I
on advanced reactor requirements Preparation of Standard SAR e
Underway i
i
Licensing Basis Agreement Establishes a
process for design c ertification of the ABWR Ground rules for technical issues l
established Maj or areas being resolved:
- Administrative I
- EPRI relationship
- Review schedule
- SSAR content Programmatic
- Scope
- Utility referencing ABWR
- Certification steps j
Technical
- PRA application.
- Containment severe accidents
- Envelope approach I
l
ABWR Certification Progra m 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 n n n n ni!n n nin n !n n n nin !n in n n nli n n ni n i!n n i n n n l76 AB%lR SAR Nov Task 1:
l l
- 1. DOE /NRC Lic Bcsis
%7[//j l
l Staf!f SER 15 sued 3
l Task 2:
i i
i i
i j
- 2. Nuclear Island i
j i
i j
4
- a. Reactor / Safety Systems l
@[//////d j l
- b. Bldg. Arrangements f
f(([g i
j
)
- c. Aux. Support Sys. C&I l
l
(((([/d l
l I
- d. PRA/FMEA. Tech. Specs.
l l
l((//////d
- 3. Turbine Island
,i l
jfl[/d j
i
- 4. NRC Issue Resol / Final SER l
l I'/////////d
- 5. ACRS Review 2
G. FDA Issued i
T 4
l Task 3:
.i i
j i.
i l
- 7. Rulemaking
@ /j 4
- 8. Certification issued l
l-i j
j y
E SSAR Content SSAR format per Reg.
Guide 1.70 SSAR detail sufficient to perform safety review for standard plant Design basis criteria Analysis and design methods Functional design and physical l
arrangement of systems and components Procurement level functional /
performance specifications
- Acceptance / test requirements l
Risk assessment methodology i
Construction and vendor detail during compliance phase
Scope ABWR nuclear island ' design detail Reactor building Control building
- Nuclear steam supply sys.
- Control room
- Plant access control
- Change rooms
- Em er. core cooling sys.
- Plant supervisors office
- Res. heat removal sys.
- Em e r.
diesel generators
- Fuel handling equipment Balance of plant safety related interfaces
- Turbine building
- Cooling water supply and return
- Condensate storage
- Diesel oil storage 4
- Transformers ABWR Submittal includes all information i
necessary for a safety review
+
l t
1 Utility Reference of I
l ABWR Design Certification i
Utility applicant includes in FSAR e
Compliance with site envelope
'l
{
Compliance with certified design i
e-NRC conducts compliance review 5
i i
i i
Certification Steps Issue LBA l
Submit SSAR i
l Staff and ACRS review and 1ssuance of SER Issuance of FDA ABWR acceptable for referencing Rulemaking e
i
- Notice published in Federal Register Commission determines whether or not l
to hold hearing l
l Design Certification issued
- Referenceable for 10 year period
]
- Renewal possible for 10 year period j
l
PRA Application Level 3
PRA per NUREG/CR-23OO I
Analysis of Severe Accidents Analysis of accident sequence for containment Assessment of potential public health consequences Assessment of plant risk against safety goals j
Utilization by utility applicant l
By reference i
1
1 i
ABWR Containment 1
Severe Accident Capability i
j Containment integrity
]
- Pressurization capability 100% metal-water reaction hydrogen j
Accomodation on factored load basis
- Hydrogen burn prevention j
Inert atmosphere l
j Core debris cooling Drywell sprays 1
- Source term reduction f
- Sunpression pool scrubbing J
1 Containment performance ass u red i
l I.
.l I
Envelope Approach I
i Site envelope encompasses majority of U.S.
sites i
Site envelope characteristics include Demography Meteorology i
Hydrology Geology Seismology i
l Plant specific application Compliance review performed by staff i
9 l
i Su m ma ry l
Good progress LBA needed by June 1987 j
e First standard SAR submittal in September 1987 On schedule Begins formal Staff review I
il
N3C Licensing Program Advancec. Boiling Wa;er 3eactor (A3fi3}
i l
Ralph Caruso Senior Project Manager ABTR Project
~
F A3h73.aicensing
..ig1.igrs New Standardized BWR Design Parallel Licensing Review by U.S. and Japan First Use of a Licensing Basis Agreement (IBA)
First BWR Design Certification 1
i e
J l
- -~ ;;,_
4
-rr_
~
,,r.,.,,
Significarr: New iicensing Conce ns
- Licensing Basis Agreement i
- Define Issues Before Technical Review Begins
- Provide a Process for Incorporating Future Changes
- Procedures for Certain Technical Reviews
- Licensing Stabilization t
- International Technical Co-operation 4
~ * ' * '
' ' ' -' - - - ~
'^
Standarcization ?oLicy Issues
~
- Severe Accident Policy Statement Compliance with Current Rules, Including CP/ML Rule Resolution of USIs and Medium and High Priority GSIs Completion of PRA Staff Review using Deterministic Engineering Analysis and Judgement Complemented by PRA 4'
-.t.
i j'
LBA Philosophy LBA is an Agreement Concerning Groundrules and Pn>cedural Arrangements e
Describes Expected Scenario for the Review e
Where Possible, and Then They are Available, Provides Technical e
Design Bases for Issues that have been Troublesome in Past 4
- There Technical Bases are not Available, Gives Procedure to Evaluate New Issues and Criteria i
- Not Required by Regulations 1
e Not legally Binding, but a Reasoned Expression of intent by Staff and GE 4
l l
l 1
l 1
ff ABW3 :icensing Review Sc..lec.ule U.S. ABWR Review will Proceed in Parallel with EPRI-ALWR Program LBA Under Development
- Bas been Discussed Tith ACRS
- Will be Provided to Commissioders Design Certification Scheduled to be Completed by 1991 l
4 I
e l
.,y,
s ABWR Review Resource Re a uire men ts
-.s-Fiscal Year 1988 1989 1990 1,9 9 1 Total Professional Staff Years 7.5 8.0 5.5 3.5 24.5 Contract Cost
$425K
$535K
$350K
$175K
$ 1,4 85 K
--w e-
.wa
- w N-6 e
w
o i
ACRS 3ecommendrions Dedicated and Protected Decay Heat Removal Capability Safety Train Redundancy Containment System Design Improvements Increased Sabotage Protection Improved Fire Protection ATWS Improvements Elimination of Adveise System Interactions Improve Electric Power Systems / Station Blackout
- Probabalistic Seismic Design Minimize Welds in Primary Pressure Boundary Minimize Sharing of Equipment Between Systems Improve Control Room Habitability for Severe Accidents e
'O.
4/30/87
- z.,
SCHEDULING NOTES TITLE:.
BRIEFING ON~ ADVANCED BOILING WATER REACTOR REVIEW SCHEDULED:
2:00 P.M., THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1987 (OPEN)'
DURATION:
APPROX l-1/2' HRS SPEAKERS::
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY 30 MINS
- DANIEL WILKINS, MANAGER ABWR PROGRAMS NUCLEAR ENGINEERING BUSINESS OFFICE i
- RICARDO ARTIGAS, MANAGER i
SAFETY AND LICENSING NUCLEAR ENGINEERING BUSINESS OFFICE GE i
- BERTRAM WOLFE, VICE PRESIDENT I
~
NRR 30 MINS
- THOMAS MURLEY
- RALPH CARUSO
- FRANK SCHROEDER 1
i
_.... _ _ _. ~
M/MWW4 nnn un Mkn a un nnit it n at stitMt stu;;t n(t sig gyg gg gggggggggg,g, i
i TRAMSMITTAL TO:
X Document Control Desk, 016 Phillips i
i ADVANCED COPY TO:
The Public Document Rocm b4!77 DATE:
0 FROM:
SECY Correspondence & Records Branch R
Attached are copies of a Commission meeting transcript and related meeting AM i
document (s). They are being forwarded for entry on the Daily Accession List and h
i placement in the Public Document Room. No other distribution is requested or R
required.
m
%d d..b (O a h #
l Meeting
Title:
3r t.d on Nwh b ha Meeting Date:
'-lho(v7 Open Closed E
I Item Description *:
Copies Advanced DCS j
- 8 to PDR Cm i
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- 1. TRANSCRIPT 1
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C&R Branch files the original transcript, with attachments, withcut SECY 3
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