ML20214K769

Memorandum & Order Denying Petition for Reconsideration of Portions of ALAB-841.Petition Renews Arguments Previously Advanced in Ocre Appellate Brief & Found W/O Merit.Served on 860819

ML20214K769
Person / Time
Site:	Perry
Issue date:	08/18/1986
From:	Tompkins B NRC ATOMIC SAFETY & LICENSING APPEAL PANEL (ASLAP)
To:	OHIO CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBLE ENERGY
References
CON-#386-394 ALAB-841, ALAB-844, OL, NUDOCS 8608220088
Download: ML20214K769 (6)

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^:s1,.s DOCKETED USNRC UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY SgNg ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING APPEAL BOARD ny Administrative Judges: OFFICE OF SECRiiA,c7 00CXET tg , cay Alan S. Rosenthal, Chairman August 18, 1986 Dr. W. Reed Johnson _(ALAB-844)

, Howard A. Wilber In the Matter of

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CLEVELAND ELECTRIC ILLUMINATING ) Docket Nos. 50-440 OL COMPANY, _E T _A L . ) 50-441 OL (Perry Nuclear Power Plant, )

Units 1 and 2) )

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Susan L. Hiatt, Mentor, Ohio, for the intervenor Ohio Citizens for Responsible Energy.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER Opinion of Messrs. Rosenthal and Wilber:

Intervenor Ohio Citizens for Responsible Energy (OCRE) has petitioned for reconsideration of portions of ALAB-841, 24 NRC (July 25, 1986). Our study of the petition discloses that in large measure it renews arguments previously advanced in OCRE's appellate brief and found to be without merit. In any event, the petition does not persuade us that the result reached in ALAB-041 warrants reexamination.

There is only one matter justifying any further discussion: intervenor's continued insistence that the preliminary analysis of the applicants' hydrogen control 8608220088 860818 .

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system should have addressed issues beyond the selected (and staff-approved) accident scenarios -- more particularly, the effect of station blackout and the availability of containment sprays. In rejecting that claim in ALAB-841, we stated:

Given the complexity of a nuclear power plant, there is virtually no end to the sequences of failures and errors that might conceivably result in hydrogen production. But the likelihood of the occurrence of most of the sequences is extraordinarily remote: in order for them to materialize, there would have to be such unlikely developments as the concurrent failure of redundant safety-related equipment or an equipment malfunction accompanied by improbable operator error. Manifestly, the Commission did not intend to require utilities to include in their analyses preliminary or final -- every one of these sequences, irrespective of how divorced from reality it might be. Moreover, it is plain from the terms of the rule itself that the commission was fully prepared to leave it to the staff to decide which of the vast number of possible scenarios should be analyzed. Assuming, again without deciding, that the exercise of the staff's broad discretion in that regard is reviewable at all, the intervenor seeking to challenge the choice of scenarios must do much more than simply allege that there are other scenarios that the staff might appropriately have insisted be factored into the analysis: it must also allege and establish that, without the inclusion of the additional scenarios, the analysis could not fulfill its intended purpose. We are satisfied that no such demonstration was made here. Stated otherwise, this record does not establish that the staff acted capriciously in approving the use of the two chosen scena assessment purposes.{ios for preliminary 1

24 NRC at (slip opinion at 14-15) (footnote omitted).

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3 Although in disagreement with this standard of review, OCRE asserts in its reconsideration petition that, contrary to our conclusion, it has met the standard. We are told that the hydrogen control system .inalysis could not fulfill its intended purpose without inclusion of the two additior4i1 scenarios to which OCRE alluded.

We adhere ,o our belief that the standard of review adopted in ALAB-841 is appropriate. Further, we Tamain satisfied that there is no compelling necessity to include in the preliminary analysis either station blackout or total containment spray unavailability.

A " station blackout" scenario postulates a situation in which the plant loses both its offsite and onsite alternating current (.A C) power. This would disable the hydrogen igniters, thereby allowing the accumulation of hydrogen to high concentrations.2 The scenario then assumes the restoration of power and the consequent ignition of these high concentrations of hydrogen by the igniters or some other ignition source in the containment. The ensuing pressure could exceed the maximum pressure-containing capacity of the Perry containment. OCRE 2

If it lasts sufficiently long, any station blackout will occasion a loss of cooling to the reactor core. The resultant overheating of the fuel cladding will lead to the generation of hydrogen.

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4 maintains that "[t]his scenario thus results in the failure to meet the containment integrity requirement of the rule; therefore the threshold for challenging the Staff's selection of accident scenarios has been surmounted."3 The short answer is that the Statement of Consideration accompanying the hydrogen control rule flatly states that

"[p]rovision of a backup power supply is not required by this rule."4 .In this connection, the Commission referred to the staff's acceptance, with regard to the scenarios analyzed at certain other facilities, of AC-powered igniters without requiring a backup power supply.5 This acceptance rested, the Commission noted, upon the " staff's perception that the incremental risk reduction associated with provision of the igniter system backup power supply did not warrant the additional cost at these particular facilities."6 Given this explicit Commission declaration, there is no possible foundation for OCRE's insistence that the intended purpose of the Perry hydrogen control analysis Petition for Reconsideration of ALAB-841 (August 8, 1986) at 8.

4 50 Fed. Reg. 3498, 3502 (1985).

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

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could be served only by the consideration of a station blackout scenario.

With respect to containme'it spray, we disagree with OCRE's assertion that the unavailability of.both containment spray trains must be assumed in the preliminary hydrogen control analysis. .As mentioned in ALAB-841, one of those two trains was assumed to operate in that analysis.7 Such

, an assumption is consistent with the Commission's design-requirement that emergency systems be able to perform their functions despite the occurrence of a single failure 8 and, therefore, is reasonable in terms of the preliminary analysis required by the hydrogen control rule.' Beyond our '

scrutiny here, more severe failures of the containment spray trains may be addressed as part of the final hylrogen control analysis.

Petition for reconsideration denied.

l 24 NRC at (slip opinion at 12).

8 See generally 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix A, " General Design Criteria for Nuclear Power Plants."

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It is so ORDERED.

FOR-THE APPEAL BOARD J.,,, af a - Y Bar.3 ara A. Tompkins' Secretary to the Appeal Board Concurring opinion of Dr. Johnson:

Although in agreement with the summary denial of the petition for reconsideration, I do not join in the foregoing opinion and played no role in its preparation. I adhere to the view set forth in my concurring opinion in ALAB-841 that the Commission intended to preclude from exploration in licensing hearings the details of those-scenarios that lead to the generation of large quantities of hydrogen.1 Accordingly, I see no reason for any discussion of the station blackout and containment spray unavailability scenarios.

I 24 NRC at (slip opinion at 69).