ML20214Q629
| ML20214Q629 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 09/19/1986 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8609260211 | |
| Download: ML20214Q629 (101) | |
Text
I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION In the matter of:
COMMISSION MEETING Briefing by General Electric Company on Advanced Boiling Water Reactor l
(Public Meeting)
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Docket No.
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Location: Washington, D.
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f Date: Friday, September 19, 1986 Pages:
1 - 61 4
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0 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES Court Reporters 1625 I St., N.W.
Suite 921 Washington, D.C.
20006 (202) 293-3950 8609260211 060719 PDR 10CFR PT9.7 PDR
S S
1 D I S CLA I M ER 2
3 4
5 6
This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the 7
United States Nuclear Regulatory Ccenission held on 8
9/19/86 in the Commission's office at 1717 H Street, 9
N. 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.
13 The transcript is intended solely for general 14 informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.108, 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 authorire.
02 2S 24 25
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1 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA i
2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 BRIEFING BY GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY I
5 ON ADVANCED BOILING WATER REACTOR 6
7 PUBLIC MEETING 8
9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 Room 1130 I
i 11 1717 "H" Street, N.W.
12 Washington, D.C.
13 14 Friday, September 19, 1986 j
- l 15 16 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 17 notice, at 10
- 34 o' clock a.m.,
LANDO W.
ZECH, Chairman of 18 the Commission, presiding.
19 20 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
l 21 LANDO W.
ZECH, Chairman of the Commission 22 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Member of the Commission 23 JAMES K. ASSELSTINE, Member of the Commission 24 FREDERICK M. BERNTHAL, Member of the Commission 25 KENNETH M. CARR, Member of the Commission I
s s
2 1-STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION TABLE:
2 3
A.
Bates 4
W.
Parler 5
B. Wolfe r
6 D. Wilkins 7
G. Sherwood 8
D.
Bunch 9
10 AUDIENCE SPEAKERS:
11 R.
Bernero 12 H.
Denton 13 l
14 4
15 j
l 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 i
23 24 25
.2
3 1
PROCEEDINGS 2
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
3
[ SLIDE.]
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Today we are going to hear from the 5
Department of Energy and also General Electric Company an 6
information briefing.
This will not be a decision-making 7
voting briefing but an information briefing concerning the 8
General Electric initiative in the advanced boiling water 9
reactor design.
10
[ SLIDE.]
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I understand the Department of 12 Energy and the General Electric organization have been working 13 to develop this evolutionary design for an advanced boiling 14 water reactor and that the Japanese government is interested 15 in this design.
16 I also understand that General Electric company has 17 at least tentative plans to docket the advanced boiling water 18 reactor design as their standard plant and to seek NRC design 19 certification.
At least, this has been considered.
20 So I look forward with interest this morning and I 21 know my colleagues do, also, to this presentation.
It would i
22 appear to me anyway that perhaps this could be considered a 23 first step towards what I have referred to as the first 24 generation of standardization plants.
25 So I think this is a particularly timely and 1
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a 4
1 important presentation and I look forward to hearing both from 2
the Department of Energy and General Electric.
3 Do any of my fellow Commissioners have any opening 4
remarks?
5
[No response.]
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Then I am going to ask Dr. Bunch to 7
please lead off and introduce our speakers from General 8
Electric Company, also.
Dr. Bunch, welcome.
9 MR. BUNCH:
Thank you.
I just have a few moments of 10 introduction and a couple of remarks about our programs and 11 then I would turn it over to Dr. Bert Wolfe for the balance of 12 the technical presentation and discussion of what General 13 Electric's programs are.
14 By way of starting this thing, I will give you a 15 comment that I think the effectiveness, a major element of the 16 effectiveness, of a regulatory organization is the extent to 17 which it can create a climate in which industry takes actions 18 to bring improvements and innovations, improvements in safety, 19 innovations in the technology, in their product line.
20 That needs to be an important ingredient in any sort 21 of regulatory process.
22 One of the things that we have seen in the last 23 three or four years that I think has been a very, very healthy sign in the industry is the development of new designs, 24 new 25 concepts, whether they are evolutionary systems or whether
G 5
1 they are very radical departures from existing technology.
2 What we need to do is find a way to take those 3
things from paper to product, to get them out of the concept 4
process and into the actual production lines.
5 Now we need to have a mechanism that will allow the 6
industry and the utilities to do that.
One of the more 7
important mechanisms for that, I think, is to take one of the 8
products that is more developed than some of the others and 9
find a way to give it a good hard test, give it a hard test 10 in the sense of having the utilities take a good look at it ar.d see if it matches their requirements, have the NRC take a 11 12 good look at it and see if it matches your requirements.
I 13 One of the things we have tried to do is for those 14 organizations who have taken it upon themselves to work with 15 utilities or otherwise, to look at what their designers are 16 able to develop is to encourage them in that process and 17 encourage them to work with you folks to get a very early test 18 of those products, to make sure that if you see some design 19 flaws, whether significant or major, we bring those out on the 20 table right away and before we proceed to the first step of 21 standardization for new products, we make sure that there is 22 not a major defect in them that is going to cause trouble way 23 down thc line.
24 We have seen too much of that in the past and I 25 think it is just something that we need to avoid.
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We have had the opportunity of working with General 2
Electric over the years.
They have a number of concepts they t
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3 have been generating.
The one that is going to be talked 4
about this morning is the product that they have developed 5
primarily with Japanese industry.
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My. personal impression is that this is an exciting 7
development.
It represents in my estimation a major change 8
and a rather sizeable improvement over the technology that was 9
being offered in the 1970's and I hope that you will find that 10 to be the case, too.
a 11 With that, I would turn to Bert.
1 12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Del, let me just comment i
13 that I certainly appreciate your statement of support and I i
14 think as you know, I entirely agree with it that the NRC 15 should be responding in a timely manner to these new design 16 concepts, that we should be devoting the resources to carry 17 forth on that effort.
18 As you know, the resource question has incredibly j
19 enough found that program in and out of our budget.
It is l
20 back in now, at least that is my latest understanding and I 21 would hope that we would see not only adequate but ample l
22 resources devoted to what, I think, is just a key element in i
23 ever hoping to move towards standardized plant design and that j
24 is getting the NRC to speak early and up front and on the l
25 record if it has problems in safety with some design that I
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might be presented to us.
2 So I hope and I think we are back on track on this 3
now.
4 MR. BUNCH:
Thank you.
I would only add to that, 5
not only to speak out about problems but if you see that they 6
do represent major advances, it is.important to speak out on 7
that, too.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I agree.
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Del, I had one question 10 for you as well.
Chairman Zech in his opening comments talked 11 about this perhaps being the first of a new generation of 12 standardized plants in this country.
13 Does DOE have a position on how many standardized 14 designs would represent a workable or indeed an optimal 15 approach?
For example, would you be comfortable with one, 16 with two, with five, with ten, with 15?
Any ideas on how your 17 program is structured to come up with a workable number of 18 standardized designs that would, in fact, bring about real 19 standardization in this country?
20 MR. BUNCH:
Fair question.
It seems to me that you 21 have to start with one.
Right now, we don't have any.
I l
think we need to get on with getting at least one that 22 23 everybody says, "That is a good design to work with."
The j
24 moment we have one, I think the environment will be created so 25 that others might want to get their own products approved.
8 1
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I thought you were working 2
on several.
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MR. BUNCH:
In fact, another horse is in the race 4
and I don't know who is going to be the winner in that.
I l
5 think they all need to have a fair shot.
We have a situation 6
in which all the major vendors are developing concepts and 7
some of them are further along than others.
8 We have, in fact, Dr. Wolfe can speak perhaps to 9
a second product line of mid-size light water reactors which 10 are a little more innovative than the ones that we are going 11 to be talked about today that might turn out to be the 12 standardized designs for the late 1990's and beyond.
4 i
13 There are, as you know, some alternative coolant 14 technologies that may also be in there.
I think it is too i
15 soon to see how many there will be.
It may be a very few 16 number but I think the important thing is to get them examined 17 and have the market shake them out by virtue of the fact of 1
18 whether or not you are satisfied with them and whether or not 19 the utilities are satisfied with them and whether or not the i
20 vendors think that they can make a profit with them.
21 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
All right.
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22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Dr. Wolfe, please, j
23 MR. WOLFE:
Thank you.
Just to add something to i
24 tha t*, Jim, the' hope is that we won't end up on the next 100 l
25 plants with having 100 standardized designs as we had with the i
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2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Good.
3 MR. WOLFE:
So I think we will be limited by the 4
cost of these as to the number if we really rake them 5
standardized.
~
6 Chairman Zech and fellow Commissioners, let me 7
express our pleasure at having the opportunity to talk to you 8
today.
9 I might start out with a quotation, as a matter of i
10 fact, if I could.
Let me quote, "When I first became a 11 Commissioner I became convinced that performance would be 12 improved and safety enhanced with standardization for reactor 13 design.
I think that each vendor or supplier should select 14 the best design they have to offer, perhaps from those that 15 they have already built.
This design with possibly some 16 enhancements should be submitted to the NRC for review and 17 approval.
I envision that the design would be the subject of 18 a Commission rulemaking so that it may be certified for use by 19 reference in an application for an operating license."
20 That is a quote from your remarks made in July to 21 the Industrial Energy Users Forum.
We would like to be 22 welcomed aboard because we are here to follow almost exactly i
23 that procedure.
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24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Welcome aboard.
25 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I was afraid you were going q
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to tell us that was said 30 years ago.
2
[ Laughter.)
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
It sounded pretty familiar to me.
4
[ Laughter.]
5 MR. WOLFE:
Back in 1978 when some of our current 6
plants, current plant designs, were not functioning very well 7
we gathered in at our headquarters in San Jose and then had 8
meetings around the world all of the reactor designers that 9
were working on boiling water reactors, the reactor designers 10 from Sweden, from Germany, from Italy, from Japan and 11 ourselves and sat down and said, "What should the next BWR 12 design look and what have we learned from all of our 13 experiences and can we come up with a next generation that 14 incorporates all of the good points we have found and 15 eliminates the bad points."
16 That effort led to what we called our advanced 17 engineering design in the 1970's and ultimately was adopted in 18 Japan as the advanced boiling water reactor design and it has 19 been an eight year effort, the last six of which have involved 20 primarily Hitachi and Toshiba and General Electric with 21 participation from ASEA ATOM and also participation from 22 KRAFTWERK in some of the areas to develop the design which we 23 are going to describe to you today.
24 It has been adopted in Japan as their third 25 standardization program.
We have worked.with our Japanese l
11 1
colleagues to detail the design and to test the features of 2
the design and there has been about a quarter of a billion 3
dollars already invested between us and Toshiba and Hitachi 4
and the Japanese utilities.
)
5 The design is being reviewed as part of the l
6 standardization program by MITI in Japan and it is our hope I
7 and I think the hope of TEPCO, the key Japanese utility, and i
l 8
the other Japanese utilities that this plant will go on the I
9 line in Japan in the mid-1990's.
10 We are working with them.
We are now going into 11 detailed design in Japan with the hope that we will be able to 12 request an establishment permit towards the end of this decade 13 and be constructing it in 1990 and on.
14 What we would like to do now in cooperation with the 15 Electric Power Research Institute and the Department of Energy 1
16 is bring this next generation BWR international design to the 17 United States and that is what we are here today as the 18 first phase on a program to develop a standardized plant for 19 the United States in the 1990's and to go through the
,l 20 certification process which you described in that quote which I
21 I just gave to you.
I 22 I think this is a test of both us, in the sense of 23 having the information in the detail which you are going to 24 need to go through the licensing process.
I must also say i
f 25 that I think it is a test of the U.S.
licensing situation.
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we have a process here in the United States that will allow us i
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2 in any reasonable way to license a plant in the way that we know it will get licensed in Japan when they decide to go 3
1 4
ahead.
5 So I think it is a test of both of us and I can tell j
6 you that General Electric intends to provide the information i
i 7
that you need to license it here.
8 I would say that we don't have a customer in mind 9
today.
In a sense, I think that is good.
We have an 10 opportunity to really develop the design, to do the licensing 11 without the press of concrete being poured in the field.
We 12 have put a lot of effort into the design.
We think it is a 13 good design.
14 We are not anxious to change it but if the staff or 15 we in the process of this review finds that there are 1
j 16 fundamental deficiencies or major things that can be done to I
j 17 improve the design, we can do it without tearing up concrete t
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18 and going through the field problems that have plagued us in
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19 the past during the licensing process.
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20 I would say that we think that we are going to need 21 your help and when I say, "your help" I mean you as i
22 Commissioners individually.
We have worked with the staff in
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23 the past.
We have gone through the GESSAR experience.
It has l
l' 24 taken us 13 years.
We have learned from it.
The staff has l
25 learned from it.
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But I think we have concluded that if this is going
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2 to be successful, it is going to take you to define for us and 7
3 the staff what it is that is needed and to set those l
4 requirements rather specifically so that we will all know i
5 including the ACRS what is required to get a license in the
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6 United States an'd we can all go down the path in a reasonable 7
and sensible and orderly way.
8 So I think it is going to take all of our personal
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9 dedication to do it and in particular, we look at this as a l
10 test of not only us as I said, but the licensing process, the 11 ability to license sensibly in the United. States and we hope i
l 12 working together that we can do a service, perform a service, 1
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13 for the Nation in getting better plants on the line for the
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14 United States and finding a way to license them so that it j
15 really does right for the nation in providing the best and
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16 safest plants that we can build.
17 With that, I would like to turn to Dr. Daniel
't 18 Wilkins.
I will be happy, we are all ready to answer I
I 19 questions at any time, but I would like to turn the meeting 1,
j 20 over to Dan Wilkins who is our man in charge of the entire I
21 ABWR program, the advanced light water program.
I 22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Fine.
Thank you very much.
i 23 Please. go ahead.
24 MR. WILKINS:
Let me say as general manager of this 25 program that I am very pleased to be here today.
I have been f
14 1
waiting eight years for this meeting and I am particularly i
2 appreciative of the efforts of EPRI and the Department of I
3 Energy which have brought us to this point.
j 4
What I would like to do is give you an overview of 5
the ABWR design and in the process give you some of our 6
thinking and. philosophy that went into that design, then talk j
7 about the certification program as we have worked it out so 8
far with the NRC staff and finally, say a few words about what 9
we would like to see in the way of NRC support.
10 (SLIDE.]
]
11 MR. WILKINS:
The objectives that we established for 12 the ABWR back at the beginning of the advanced engineering i
13 team that Bert mentioned in 1978 were to improve operability, i
14 capacity factor, safety and to reduce occupational exposure, 15 rad waste and all elements of plant cost.
t 16 Let me say as an engineer you can pick any few of I
i 17 those things and do them relatively easily but to do them all j
18 at once is a tall challenge but it is one that, in fact, I 19 think we have, in fact, been successful in meeting and we are quite pleased with this design today and we think it does, 20 21 in fact, represent a significant improvement in all of those 22 areas.
23 (SLIDE.]
l i
24 MR. WILKINS:
The d.evelopment approach began as Bert i
25 mentioned with the advanced engineering team of worldwide BWR l
I
15 1
manufacturers in the 1978-1979 time frame, European, Japanese 2
and, of course, our own engineers assembled in San Jose for 3
about a year and pooled the experience and the best features 4
from BWR's around the world to come up with the basic concept 5
of the ABWR.
6 In the last five years, we have been working with 7
Hitachi and Toshiba in Japan in a joint technical effort to 8
further develop and detail the design and to test all new 9
features of the design.
That program has been under the 10 guidance and very close direction and involvement of Tokyo 11 Electric Power Company and a consortium of six Japanese 12 utilities.
13 The future, as we have mentioned, we look forward to 14 lead projects moving forward in Japan.
15 (SLIDE.]
16 MR. WILKINS:
I have summarized on the next sheet 17 the key features of the ABWR which distinguish it from our 18 present generation BWR's.
19 The internal recirculation pumps, I will talk a 20 little bit more about each of these features and why we picked 21 them, but the internal recirculation pumps we basically picked 22 up from the Swedish designs.
23 The fine-motion control rod drive is a design
'24 initially developed by General Electric which was then 25 advanced and applied in Germany.
i 16 1
The digital control, solid state multiplexing and 2
advanced electronics are really new technologies which we are 3
applying to this plant for the first time to the degree that 4
we are talking about here.
1
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5 The advanced fuel will pretty much follow the GE 4
l 6
standard fuel product line.
We are not doing anything i
i 7
particularly unique to the ABWR in that area.
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8 We have done a great deal of improvement and l
9 optimization of the containment and reactor building which I 10 will talk a little more about and we have gone to a full three 11 divisions for core cooling and decay heat removal.
l 12 So those are the key new features.
i l
13 (SLIDE.]
t 14 MR. WILKINS:
A major thrust of this program has 15 been to simplify the design and eliminate systems, eliminate i
16 components, eliminate instrumentation, eliminate required I
17 surveillance testing and complexities in all areas.
18 I have just summarized on this chart the evolution i
i 1
19 of the BWR over actually now about a 30-year time period and 4
20 you can see that we started with a machine back in Dresden in 21 the mid 1950's which had steam generators, steam drums, i
l 22 operated as a dual cycle plant and over the years, we have i(
23 eliminated the steam drum with the steam separation and drying I
1 24 inside the vessel.
l 25 At Oyster Creek, we eliminated the steam generators 1
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and went to fewer direct cycles for the first time.
In 2
Dresden 2, we eliminated three of the five recirculation loops 3
by introducing the jet pumps and with the ABWR, we eliminate 4
the remaining two recirculation loops and have gone to the 5
internal pumps at the bottom of the vessel.
6 (SLIDE.]
7 MR. WILKINS:
The internal recirculation pumps are 8
probably the most significant new feature and they have many 9
ramifications throughout the plant.
We, of course, eliminate 10 the external recirc piping and along with that, we eliminate 11 any large nozzles below the core.
12 This has enabled us to design the plant so that the 13 core does not uncover for any pipe break.
You can cut any 14 line in the plant and we have sized the emergency cooling 15 system so that there will be no uncovery of the fuel.
16 We have also by getting rid of that piping --
17 MR. WOLFE:
This is different than any of the other 18 "B" or PWR's that now we build, so we think it is a 19 significant feature.
20 MR. WILKINS By eliminating that piping, the 21 largest radiation source inside containment and along with it 22 made a much more benign maintenance environment and greatly 23 reduce occupational exposure.
24 By getting rid of piping, we eliminate a great deal 25 of inspection and maintenance on the piping and I should
1 l
18 1
mention that we also eliminated the intergranular stress 2
corrosion of recirc piping by eliminating the piping itself 3
and that is an improvement we look favorably upon.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
What about the 5
serviceability requirement?
Is the integrity of these 6
internal motors, are the requirements for the integrity of the 7
motors and the housing and what-not more stringent or are you 8
able to have less stringent requirements because of the fact 9
it is internal and if something goes wrong, is serviceability lo a big problem?
11 How difficult is it to pull these things out and 12 work on them?
13 MR. WILKINS:
It is relatively er.sy.
We have 14 engineered it so the radiation field under the vessel where 15 you would have to work on these pumps during an outage is in 16 the few MR per hour range.
17 We have planned servicing of two pumps per year.
18 They will be routinely taken out and serviced and put back in.
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I see.
20 MR. WILKINS:
Over a five outage cycle, we will go 21 through all the pumps and we have engineered a complete set of 22 handling equipment for removing the pumps and motors and 23 removing then and we have engineered into the plant service 24 areas where they will be serviced.
I 25 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
What about the question of l
19 4
1 the specifications that you require for these pumps?
The s
l reason I am asking is that I can imagine it being either way 2
3 but certainly can imagine that since ycu basically got the 4
thing immersed that a small leak doesn't matter very much or i
5 maybe it does, I don't know.
6 Are these very tightly spec'd things or are you able 7
to relax specs somewhat on seals and what-not?
8 MR. WILKINS:
We picked a design that has no seal.
)
9 It is a wet motor pump so there is no seal or seal leakage to 10 content with, 11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Right.
12 MR. WILKINS:
The pumps by the way that we are j
13 talking about here have many years of experience in Europe on 14 the ASEA boiling water reactor so we are not talking about a 15 new technology or something that has not been done.
16 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Dan, you mentioned that 17 you eliminated the IGSCC problem on the recirc piping by 18 getting rid of the recirc piping.
At some point are you going i
19 to talk about IGSCC and other places of potential i
20 vulnerability in the design and what you have done to deal J
21 with it?
22 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Great.
24 MR. WILKINS:
Let me just say on the whole materials j
i 25 IGSCC issue, we have applied throughout the plant the remedies
20 i
1 of the advanced IGSCC resistant materials.
We have applied i
2 the water chemistry controls that have come out of the EPRI 3
programs that govern the chemistry aspect of that problem and 4
we intend to use hydrogen water chemistry on this plant.
S COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Good.
6 MR. WILKINS:
So we have attacked the IGSCC issue 7
with belt suspenders and I guess you could even say two sets 8
of suspenders.
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Does that basically cover 10 the kinds of things that the Japanese have been doing in the 11 past few years in their existing plants with I ' gather fairly i
12 good success rates?
13 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
4 14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
All right.
Thank you.
15 (SLIDE.]
16 MR. WILKINS':
The second new feature is the fine 17 motion control rod drive.
They key new element of this is 18 that it is a diverse drive.
It is inserted electrically and 19 it is scrammed hydraulically so it has a diversity of function 4
20 that contributes to a safety improvement.
21 Along with this drive, one of the nica features is i
22 the scram discharge volume has been eliminated which has been l
23 one of our difficult areas over the years and we have 24 completely eliminated that system.
l 25 The drive also, because it is electrically l
II 21 4
1 maneuverable, enables better maneuverability of the plant and 2
we have engineered it so that the parts of the drive requiring 3
periodic maintenance are in a module at the bottom of the 4
drive that is quickly removable and replaceable so there is 5
much easier maintenance and associated with that a much lower 6
occupational exposure.
7 This again is a proven design that is in operation j
8 in plants in Europe.
9 MR. WOLFE:
This time in Germany instead of Sweden.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
All right.
I 11 (SLIDE.)
12 MR. WILKINS:
The fuel will follow our standard 13 current fuel product line.
It takes advantage of the barrier 14 fuel which is resistant to the pellet clad interaction failure j
i 15 mechanism.
The core design uses the relatively small number I
16 of control cells for actually controlling the reactor during j
17 operation, 13 rods.
The rest of them are full out.
18 Along with that, no shallow rods in the core and no 19 rod pattern exchanges.
So from an operator's point of view, 20 it is a much simpler concept to operate.
4 21 (SLIDE.)
1 22 MR. WILKINS:
I have shown a picture here of the i
23 reactor vessel which give you a perspective of the location of 4
24 the control rod drives and pumps at the bottom, the core in 25 the middle and the steam separators and dryers in the upper J
i J
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t 22 1
regions of the vessel.
That vessel at the 1350 megawatt size i
2 is a 278-inch vessel to give you a feel for the physical size 3
of it.
)
4 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
That is the inside diameter?
1 5
MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
1 6
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
How does that relate to 7
say BWR-67 f
8 MR. WILKINS:
Our largest BWR-6 is 251 inches so it 9
is a little bit bigger.
10 MR. WOLFE:
Bigger to fit the pumps.
11 MR. WILKINS:
I might say that one of the benefits 12 that we got by going to the bigger diameter and having that 13 pump annulus, the pumping pellets are removed from the top so 14 we have to have an annulus around the core.
l 15 One of the benefits of that is we have even further 3
16 reduced the fluence in the vessel wall and any embrittlement t
i 17 that would go along with that, so that problem has really i
18 always been a small issue in BWR's and it is even smaller in 19 this one.
20 (SLIDE.]
21 MR. WILKINS:
The emergency core cooling system 4
22 as shown here is a three division configuration.
Each 23 division has full pressure range both high and low pressure 24 capability and one of the three divisions has a steam driven
/
j 25 pump so within there we have both electric pumps backed up by a
l i
23 1
diesels and we have steam driven pumps for diversity.
2 With the elimination of the recirculation lines, we 3
have, of course, eliminated the recirc line break and this has 4
enabled us to reduce the needed capacity of the core cooling 5
systems by about 50-percent relative to the present designs 6
and yet even with this smaller capacity, we achieve no core 7
uncovery during any pipe break.
8 So it is really a dramatic improvement from that 9
point of view.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
What kind of separation do 11 you have for the three trains?
12 MR. WILKINS:
There are three physically separate 13 and difficult portions of the building, three different 14 physical locations.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Separate emergency power 16 supplies?
17 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
18 (SLIDE.]
19 MR. WILKINS:
We have gone as shown in the next 20 chart to digital,and solid state control systems for all of 21 the control systems in the plant, both the safety and 22 non-safety systems.
They are triple redundant, fault tolerant 23 and self diagnostic which means that failures in the plant 24 are announced in the control room and there is enough" 25 redundancy so that you can go down and change out the failed
24 1
card without taking the plant off line or having any hiccup in 2
operations.
3 We see this as a major improvement in safety of the 4
plant.
We just have much, much greater on-line testing and 5
diagnostics and at the same time, the advanced electronic is 6
going to provide a cost improvement in the plant relative to 7
the present designs.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Does the diagnostic 9
capability extent beyond the control room?
Have you given j
lo attention to acoustic monitors and vibration monitors and 11 various other diagnostic devices that extend into the plant 12 itself?
13 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
We have some vibration 14 monitoring in the plant and there are intelligent terminals 15 located throughout the plant that do local diagnostics in 16 different areas.
17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
How does this compare to the 18 ultimate plant protection system that you have described in 1
19 GESSAR-II?
I 20 MR. WILKINS:
The ultimate protection system in i
21 GESSAR is really not focused on electronics.
It is more 22 focused on the overall ability to provide decay heat removal 23 from the plant and to de-pressurize the plant.
24 We have achieved essentially the same level of t
25 safety in the ABWR, in fa tc, a greater level of safety in the i
l
- - -., - _. ~
--,__..-__-.__,_7
,_..m,__,______..__y,_,,y--...m.
25 j
1 ABWR but through a different set of designs.
2 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
You don't use that ultimate plant j
3 protection system?
i 4
MR. WILKINS:
We don't call it that but many of the I
5 same features are there.
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
But it is somewhat modified, is that 1
7 correct?
8 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
{
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
So that is basically the 10 expanded three train approach, right?
3 11 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
1 12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
On the solid state j
13 circuitry, Bert mentioned that this is really new stuff.
Are 1
l 14 there other industrial applications where this kind of 1
15 equipment is.now in use and to what extent is this an advance 16 over say, as I recall, Hope Creek had some solid state control 17 circuitry as well.
18 MR. WILKINS:
The type of stuff we are doing here is 19 being routinely done in many industries.
We are not talking 20 about anything that is beyond state-of-the-art and it is being
^
21 done in nuclear plants including many of our retrofits of 22 control of instrumentation products are using the same 23 technology.
I 24 What is done here though for the first time is a 25 full scale integrated application of that technology to an i
l
2@
1 entire plant.
2 MR. WOLFE:
We have instruments to try to do this 3
with our present plants by replacing old analog instruments 4
with digital instruments and hard wire equipment with solid 5
state integrated circuits and so on.
So we are trying to put 6
this into the old plants as well but we don't have a plant 7
like this which is integrated and designed from the start.
8 To answer, I think it was your point, Fred, it looks 9
at the instruments and since it is triply redundant if there 10 is a pressure sensor that is out, we will know about it 11 because we will have two other pressure sensors which are 12 independent so the person in the control room will be able to 13 identify right away a bad instrument.
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Proceed, please 15 (SLIDE.]
16 MR. WILKINS:
Along with the advanced technology, 17 advanced C&I, we have gone to fiber optic cabling networks 18 throughout the plant and multiplexing and this, of course, is 19 a very closely integrated with the advanced electronics but it 20 also provides some advantages in the area of electrical 21 separation and it provides enormous advantages in simplifying 22 construction and shortening construction schedules.
23 COMMISSIONER DERNTHAL:
That was a question I am 24 glad you mentioned that I forgot to ask earlier whether you 25 not only buy, I suppose, you save in cost but presumably you l
i n
27 4
1 buy great efficiency in cabling with fiber optics at least l
2 based on what little I know about it.
Do you also buy a 3
safety factor that might rela'te to fire protection or is that I
j 4
an unimportant element?
5 MR. WILKINS:
No.
That is an important element.
We j
6 get a much better electrical separation capability with the 1
{
7 fiber optics than with hard wired systems.
8 (SLIDE.]
9 MR. WILKINS:
The containment and reactor building 10 I would characterize as a optimization of everything we have 11 learned about containment in reactor buildings around the 12 world over the years.
t j
l 13 The containment is cylindrical.
It is a lined 1
14 reinforced concrete integrated with the reactor building.
.I 15 They are structurally integrated so we obtain the strength of 16 both the containment and the reactor building supporting it in i
17 a seismic sense and in Japan, of course, the sites are very 18 high seismic sites and this is a high seismic site.
I would j
19 say by U.S. standards, it will probably exceed 0.3g that is 20 currently in the EPRI requirements document, maybe have around i
(
21 a 0.4 capability.
l 22 COMMISSIONER BERNT!!AL I don't recall whether the 1
23 Japanese adopt our seismic design philosophy or whether they
]
24 adopt the French seismic design philosophy.
Could you j
25 refresh my memory?
That is rigidity as opposed to 1
28 1
flexibility.
Is this plant built to be seismically or to be 2
rigid against seismic shock?
3 MR. WILKINS:
I would say yes.
The Japanese have a 4
Japanese seismic philosophy.
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I probably put that the l
6 wrong way around, I guess.
7 MR. WILKINS:
The plant is engineered to a quite set 8
of seismic methods that are unique to Japan.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I see.
10 MR. WILKINS:
That is why we have to apply our i
11 methods to them here to make comparisons with U.S. plants.
12 But it is basically a structurally rigid design.
13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Rigid design.
14 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
What about the volume of 16 containment?
I see you have reduced the volume of the reactor 17 building.
What is the volume of containment?
Has that been 18 reduced as well?
19 MR. WILKINS:
The containment, let me say by our 20 standards, I would characterize it as a large containment.
It i
21 is has more than ample space for maintenance of all of the 22 equipment within the containment.
23 In fact, every piece of equipment has space handling
)
equipment and a planned service and maintenance plan that goes 24 25 along with it and there is ample room in there to do all of
29 i
1 those things.
j 2
We have also taken the pressure up.
This is a i
l 3
45-psi containment relative to our MARK-III which is a 15-psi.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
And the volume compared to l
I i
5 the MARK-III?
I l
6 MR. WILKINS:
The volume is more in the line with a
)
j 7
MARK-II.
It is smaller than the MARK-III but I don't have 8
those numbers with me but it is more of the MARK-II type.
f 9
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
The reason I asked the i
10 question was not so much about equipment volume, volume to I
11 accommodate equipment, but for coping with non-volatiles in an 12 accident scenario.
Have you had to compromise on that or what t
l 13 leads you then to reduce the containment volume?
i 14 MR. WILKINSt We have engineered it to take care of I
15 all the design basis events and we have looked at the severe 1
j 16 accident type of events and the combination of pressure and i
{
17 volume is such that we can handle that full spectrum of 18 events.
}
19 MR. WOLFE:
As you may recall, the MARK-III was a 20 very large containment and a very low pressure and it was not, 1
21 for example, feasible to inert that containment because we had i
22 a lot of equipment other than the primary equipment in it.
In i
I 23 this one, we have gone back towards the --
]
24 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
It is inert.
i
)
25 MR. WOLFE:
Inerted to pressurized containment so it i
1 i
l g
4';--,,.,___-..
.-,--wm
--m--.,__--.-.m
.y7m. m _--.._ - - -,_ - -,__
v_..,#.,_,,- -.
-m..-.-
i j
30 1
is big relative to the pressurized containments we used in the 2
past, small relative to the MARK-III but it is a pressurized l
3 containment inerted so that the problem of hydrogen is much i
4 more easily taken care of than in the present designs.
i 5
[ SLIDE.]
6 MR. WILKINS:
The next picture shows the overall
)
7 layout of the reactor building just to give you a physical l
8 feel for how things fit together of the plant.
I won't go 9
into any of that in particular.
I 10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Could you show the 11 blowdown pathway on that diagram into the suppression pool?
12 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
If you look in the reactor 13 pedestal, there are a series of downcomer pipes that turn in I
)
14 at the bottom to three horizontal vents in each pipe.
J l
l 15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
All right.
i 16 MR. WILKINS:
We have been able because of the much i
17 milder loss-of-coolant accident and the relatively mild 18 blowdown have been able to integrate that structure into the 19 reactor pedestal which will make it a factory built component 20 which will be shipped to the site and installed and then l
21 filled with concrete.
22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Let's see.
I am missing, 23 where are these blowdown pipes?
1 i
24 MR. WOLFE:
Number 13 but it does*n't show the path.
25 COMMISSIONER BERNTMAL:
Yes, I see the bottom i
f i
I i
l
^
l i
31 1
pathway.
2 COMMISSIONER hSSELSTINE:
Is that into the side over 3
there under eight?
4 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
If you look at number eight, 5
that is right on one of the paths.
6 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
That's right.
7 MR. WILKINS:
It goes straight up from there into 8
the upper drywell.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
All right.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
In terms of severa 11 accident analysis, if one were to have a molten core, where 12 would that go?
13 MR. WILKINS:
It would go down into that pedestal 14 region at the bottom, number eleven, and surrounded by water 15 on all sides.
16 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
All right.
Thank you.
17 MR. WILKINS:
We do by the way have both drywell and 18 wetwell sprays in this plant.
So if you had that event, you 19 would the ability to spray water on that mess.
20 (SLIDE.]
21 MR. WILKINS:
The key performance characteristics 22 are summarized here.
All of these are based on the Japanese 23 environment.
It is a big plant engineered for a very rapid 24 construction.
The construction schedule will be 48 months 25 from first concrete to turn over which is a very rapid
32 1
construction.
2 We estimate a capacity factor in the mid 80's.
It 3
has the capability to follow load in the 50 to 100-percent 4
range.
We have made about a decade improvement by our 5
estimates in the probability of core damage over the present 6
generation of plants and the occupational exposure and solid 7
radwaste are both down in the very low range compared to 8
present plants with improvement factors of on the order of a 9
factor of five or so.
10 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Maybe you don't want to 11 answer this, but do you have a sense for what the installed 12 cost per kilowatt of this plant is?
13 MR. WILKINS:
Well, I can tell you this.
In Japan, 14 plants currently are going on line, current generation plants, 15 for in the vicinity of $1,100.00 to $1.200.00 per kilowatt.
16 This plant has been designed to provide 1,350 megawatts at the 17 same capital cost as an 1,100 megawatt plant.
18 So there is on the order of a 15 to 20-percent 19 improvement there.
20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Is that in today's yen or 21 last year's yen?
22 MR. WILKINS:
That is last year's yen converted to 23 last year's dollars.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
It looks like your performance 25 characteristics just at first glance do meet the safety goal
33 l
1 or better that we have put out.
Could you comment on that?
2 MR. WILKINS:
I think that is correct.
We think we 3
can exceed that goal.
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you.
5
[ SLIDE.]
6 MR.'WILKINS:
Now one of the things that we have 7
been able to do in this design effort is to really take a 8
whole fresh look at the safety optimization and I won't go 9
through these in detail but on the left are a number of 10 features that we feel contribute to greater safety and we 11 would expect in the NRC review to be looked upon favorably and 12 at the same time that we have done these things, se have made 13 some other optimizations which are things that we feel either 14 we no longer need at all or that we need less of than we have 15 had in the past.
16 Those are listed on the right.
For example, we have 17 put in a very low leakage main steam isolation valve, so low, 18 in fact, and we have tested it and confirmed it, that we no 19 longer feel we need a leakage control system which is there only for th'e purpose of capturing the leakage.
20 21 Our fuel performance today in our plants are such 22 that we don't need the offgas capacity we have had in the past 23 and so forth.
24 My point is and this will be something we will be 25 talking to staff about for years but we have re-looked at the i
l
34 1
whole safety issue and we think we have a design that provides 2
both more safety and better economics and I should say, also, 3
greater " simplicity.
4 COMMISSIONER CARR:
What kind of a valve is that?
5 MR. WILKINS:
It is a European valve that was --
6 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Ball gauge?
7 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
It is a ball.
8 COMMISSIONER CARR:
What kind of seats has it got?
9 MR. WILKINS:
You are beyond me.
We will have to 10 bring our valve expert to answer that.
d 11 COMMISSIONER CARR:
No.
It is just no leakage.
12 MR. WILKINS:
I didn't say no.
13 COMMISSIONER CARR:
You can't have the steam stop 14 after you cycle it a few times, worries me a little.
15 MR..WILKINS:
It is running in European plants and 16 its leakage characteristics has been demonstrated.
It is a 17 very reliable valve.
18 COMMISSIONER CARR:
All right.
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
When you look at something 20
. like that, what kind of assumptions do you make on the way it 21 is maintained?
22 MR. WILKINS:
We count on it, I guess, being maintained the way it is being maintained in Europe.
23 24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
In Europe?
25 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
I l
i I
l
--w--
o 35
)
i 1
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That is an interesting
)
2 assumption.
3 MR. WOLFE:
As I think we mentioned when we were 4
talking about to you, the plan here is to have a maintenance 5
schedule on the whole plant much as I understand the airlines 6
do.
7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Yes.
8 MR. WOLFE:
And as the Japanese do on their plants.
9 So as a standardized plant, we would have a standardized 10 maintenance procedure to go with the whole plant.
11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
All right.
That is an 12 excellent idea, I think.
13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
It is very important.
14 COMMISSIONER CARR:
If it is working, there is no 15 reason to mess around with it.
16 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That's right.
17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Proceed, please.
18
[ SLIDE.]
19 MR. WILKINS:
The test and development program, I am 20 not going to go into any detail on but let me just say that 21 all of the features of this plant that are new or different 22 than what has been in the past have been thoroughly tested and 23 we did this by defining the whole program and basically 24 dividing it up between ourselves and Hitachi and Toshiba and 25 each doing roughly a third of it and then exchanging results.
36 1
So we were able to do an extensive amount of 2
testing.
3
[ SLIDE.]
4 MR. WILKINS:
Let me just comment on a few of them.
5 The internal pumps have gone through very thorough performance 6
seismic testing in Japan.
That program 1s done.
7 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Now are they testing the 8
Swedish pumps or are they testing pumps they have made?
9 MR. WILKINS:
They are testing the European pumps.
10 COMMISSIONER CARR:
The vendor-supplied pumps?
11 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
These are the recirc pumps you are 13 talking about here?
14 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Internal recirc pumps.
16 MR. WILKINS:
That's right.
17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
1 18
[ SLIDE.]
19 MR. WILKINS:
We fired up our emergency core cooling 20 facility in San Jose and did a full set of tests of the ECCS 21 configuration in this plant well beyond the design basis and 22 confirmed that our models amble this new configuration well.
l 23
[ SLIDE.]
24 MR. WILKINS:
We have used our ATWS test facility to 25 check out the thermal margins in the fuel design during the i
o 37 1
different coastdown characteristics that these smaller plants 2
have and verified our transient analysis methods and our 3
thermal margins and that testing is completed.
4 (SLIDE.]
5 MR. WILKINS:
We have developed a new fuel spacer 6
which I won't go into in any detail but we have qualified this 7
spacer as part of our new fuel design.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
What provision is there for 9
accommodating advanced fuels, higher burn-out fuels, assuming l
10 those become available at some point?
11 MR. WOLFE:
We would plan to put those fuels in here 12 and the way we do the GE fuel design, our fuels are basically 13 all retrofitable to the advanced or advanced fitable to the 14 advanced design.
15 So,.for example, all of the fuel in GE reactors that 16 are going on line, all the new fuel, is our GE AT and as we 17 develop new fuel and we have them already on the concept, they 18 will be suitable not only for ABWR but also for the other 19 plants.
20
[ SLIDE.]
21 MR. WILKINS:
The fine motion drive has gone through 22 an extensive set of functional and life testing in Japan and 23 is, in fact, we have a drive of this design that is going to 24 be tested in the LaSalle plant here in the U.S.
at the coming 25 outage.
~
38 1
[ SLIDE.]
2 MR. WILKINS:
We built a boron mixing test facility 3
to make sure we understood the internals of how to inject 4
boron into this plant and we eventually concluded to inject it 5
in through the high pressure core spray system and that test 6
is shown there.
We have demonstrated that we understand how 7
it mixes in through the core.
8
[ SLIDE.]
9 MR. WILKINS:
We have gone in he core spray area to 10 an overhead sparger, We have had much dialogue with the staff 11 over the years on core spray distribution and whether we get 12 enough spray into each bundle.
13 We have gone to a grid sparger that sprays straight 14 down into each bundle from the top and it greatly simplifies 15 that issue.
16
[ SLIDE.]
17 MR. WILKINS:
We are right now in San Jose wrapping 18 up the set of containment testing of the new vent 19 configuration and confirming our pressure suppression loads 20 and that will be completed early next year.
21 (SLIDE.]
22 MR. WILKINS:
We have had a program in Japan to test 23 the reinforced concrete containment and to develop a Japanese 24 concrete containment code and that program will carry on into 25 1988.
i
39 1
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
As a matter of curiosity, 2
one reads these day about advanced concrete materials being 3
developed, advanced concretes being developed, I guess is the 4
right way to put it, that exceed the strength of current 5
concretes by large factors, a factor of five or something like 6
that.
7 Is there any thought or working going on in that 8
direction?
9 MR. WILKINS:
We are not counting on that kind of 10 capability.
We are taking basically standard current 11 concrete.
12 (SLIDE.]
13 MR. WILKINS:
I have shown on the next chart this 14 main steam isolation valve.
This has been running in Europe 15 but there is,a Japanese version of it that is being thoroughly 16 tested in Japan to demonstrate that the technology transfer 17 has been made effectively.
18 (SLIDE.]
19 MR. WILKINS:
We have done flow induced vibration 20 tests.
We just wanted do check and make sure that we didn't 21 introduce any new vibration problems into the internals of the 22 reactor.
We built a fifth scale model and checked that out.
23
[ SLIDE.]
24 MR. WILKINS:
We have engineered the handling 25 equipment for the internal pumps and built mock-ups of the
40 1
under vessel region and put this handling equipment through 2
its paces to make sure that that works properly.
3 (SLIDE.]
4 MR. WILKINS:
With the addition of the pumps to the 5
bottom head of the vessel, we wanted to have automated 6
in-service inspection of the welds down in that region and so 7
we have actually built automated equipment that goes in and 8
inspects those welds and we have demonstrated and qualified.
9 That was done.
10 (SLIDE.]
11 MR. WILKINS:
That is a very quick overview of the 12 program.
We think we have incorporated the best of the 13 worldwide technology into the design.
It is moving ahead in 14 Japan and we look forward to lead plant applications in the 15 coming years,and we think it is ready for the 16 U.S. certification.
17 (SLIDE.]
18 MR. WILKINS:
Now I would like to say just a few 19 words about our plans here in the U.S. as we have worked them 20 out so far.
21 We have basically a three-part approach.
We are 22 working with EPRI on the advanced LWR requirements program 23 and are completely integrated with that program and look 24 to that to set the requirements for the next generation of 25 U.S. plants.
l
41 1
We, of course, bring the ABWR design as our 2
contribution and we are looking through the DOE and NRC 3
efforts at the certification activity and the three steps we 4
feel together can get us to where we want to go.
5 (SLIDE.]
6 MR. WILKINS:
I think you are familiar with the EPRI 7
requirements program and I won't say any more about that here 8
but it is an opportunity from our point of view, we are 9
providing the ABWR to that program for its review in looking 10 at what we have done as a basis for at least starting in their 11 requirements effort.
l l
12 (SLIDE.]
13 MR. WILKINS:
The certification schedule that we 14 envision is shown on the next slide and I have also shown here 15 our integration with the EPRI program.
The dark bars or the 16 green bars on the screen are the EPRI requirements submittals 17 and schedule that are currently planned.
The red bars are the d
18 ABWR submittals and schedule.
19 You can see there that they are properly phased in 20 time.
21 We have envisioned a task one of this program and we 22 have had one meeting with the NRC staff already that would 23 establish a licensing basis agreement up front that would deal 24 with the basic process issues associated with certification 25 and would lay out an agreed upon approach to each of the major l
1
.e
-2
~-----c
-.w-
.-+-y y-
42 1
technical issues.
2 What we would like to do is have that licensing 3
basis agreement in place by roughly the middle of 1987 as a 4
means of avoiding any downstream surprises or 5
misunderstandings and we are working right now with the staff 6
to try to put that agreement together and get it in place.
^
7 We picture an FDA in 1990 and the certification 8
hearing activities may be going on for on the order of a year 9
beyond that.
10
[ SLIDE.]
11 MR. WILKINS:
So that is our story.
We are right on 12 time.
What we would like from the NRC is really your support r
13 in two areas.
One is the organization and resources within 14 the staff to support this program and second, whatever policy 15 and guidance.in the area of standardization that the 16 Commissioners feel is appropriate, we would like to see l
17 articulated early so that we can make use of it in carrying 18 out this program.
19 I thank you.
j 20 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much.
I appreciate l
21 it.
Comments from my fellow Commissioners?
Commissioner l
22 Roberts.
23 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
No, Mr. Chairman.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Carr.
i i
25 COMMISSIONER CARR:
I have a question.
It looked 4
- -._=
43 1
like one of your major advances is in the fiber optics and 2
solid state control systems.
What kind of test program do you 3
have on that?
4 MR. WILKINS:
We have a very extensive set of 5
testing programs in that area including mock-ups of the 6
contr$1 room.
You are right, I didn't have them in the chart 7
and I probably should have but we do have very thorough I
8 testing in that regard.
9 COMMISSIONER CARR:
The fiber optics, are you 10 locking up penetrations?
11 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
1 12 COMMISSIONER CARR:
We tried those in pressure 13 submarines and had a hard time figuring out how to pressurize 14 that glass without bothering it.
J 15 MR.,WOLFE:
We are doing that.
16 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Thank you.
i 17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Asselstine.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Maybe just one question, 19 picking up on your last point, Dan.
You mentioned that what 20 you are looking from us was first the organization and the 21 support and resources within the NRC to keep pace with what i
22 you wanted to do and second, any direction from the Commission 23 that might be necessary.
24 Do you all have a feel for how much of an effort this is going to take particularly say over the next year or 25 l
l
44 l
1 so and how that equates with what at least has sort of been a 2
moving target in terms of what the staff has allocated for J
3 this kind of effort?
Are we close or do we need more?
4 MR. WILKINS:
I guess I would look to harold to say I
5 what kind of resources are needed within the Commission but so 6
far we are getting the support we think we need.
7 COMMISSIONER CARR:
The implication is not that you 8
are not being supported in that regard.
9 MR. WILKINS:
No.
That's right.
Discussion and 10 planning is proceeding and we are not being inhibited.
11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
All right.
The second 12 point, I guess, has to go to the direction kind of issue or 13 how this process unfolds.
Bert, you mentioned the GESSAR
, 14 experience.
15 I guess from my standpoint it seems to me that it 16 would be very useful to sort of lay out on the table whether 17 it is as a part of this licensing basis agreement or somewhere 18 early in the process what the fundamental assumptions are that 19 you have made in designing this plant and get those out on the 20 table, have them reviewed by the staff and get some 21 understanding within the Agency, I guess, from all of the key 1
i.
22 elements as to whether or not those assumptions are 3
23 acceptable, what issues they raise, so that we avoid the kind 24 of experience we had with the GESSAR review where the staff 25 was telling you all the way along, "Yes, it meets all our i
45 i
1 requirements" and then you got the ACRS and all of a sudden 2
the ACRS said, "But this raises some very interesting 3
questions and here they are" and it was sort of at the tail 4
end of the process as you said after years and years of 5
effort.
6 It strikes me the lesson to learn from that is to 7
identify the key assumptions, get them out on the table, have 8
them reviewed by the staff, run them by the ACRS, get our 9
reactions to them so that everybody understands what the 10 ground rules are and we are all marching in the right 11 direction so that you don't get stuck with surprises later on.
12 Is that something that can be built into this
]
(
13 process?
Should it be part of the licensing basis agreement i
j 14 so that we avoid some of the mistakes we have seen in the 15 past?
16 MR. WILKINS:
That is really the role we see for the 17 licensing basis agreement.
It is exactly that.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Good.
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
If I may just pick up a 20 minute, I agree with you Jim.
I looked at the schedule here 21 and I see ACRS review is a little block out about 1990.
All I 22 can say is, " Don't do it."
I think you had better get 23 down there.
24 The ACRS, of course, is not a second staff but I 25 think that we do need to make sure that they are involved
}
~
46 1
early on in this process so that as Jim said they don't come 2
in at some point and say, "Well, why did you do it this way?"
3 when you are well along with the process.
I would hope the 4
staff would make sure that that coordination is carried out.
l-5 MR. WOLFE:
I couldn't agree more.
We agree with 6
you.
7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Good.
Maybe just if, 8
Lando, at some point if you could get a comment from the staff 9
on what they think it is going to take to do this and whether 10 they have what they need to do it.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Why don't we ask right now.
How 12 does the staff feel about this?
Are you prepared to support 13 this program and do you have any significant problems?
14 MR. BERNERO:
Bob Bernero, director of boiling water 15 reactor licensing.
We have a staff paper that is essentially 16 ready to come down to the Commission.
We have looked at this 17 closely, looked at organizational alternatives and the 18 schedule with the EPRI work.
19 Over a three year period, we project between 20 and 20 25 staff years of effort and one to two million dollars of 21 contractor support and that does include early attention with 22 the ACRS and that licensing basis agreement's work at the 23 front end which, I think, is very important.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Would that satisfy as far as you are.
25 concerned the requirements that you have just heard?
47 1
MR. BERNERO:
We have worked with General Electric 2
to some extent already and I think we would have a compatible 3
match there.
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
You can support the program?
5 MR. BERNERO:
Yes.
I think so, with those
~
6 resources.
l 7
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
One other question for 9
Bob.
Would you envision that as part of this licensing basis 10 agreement review process that what you would do is really 11 identify some of the basic issues that might be involved with 12 this particular design.
13 For example, are we comfortable with pressure 14 suppression containment approaches for this next generation of 15 standardized. design?
Are we comfortable with equipment, 16 interfacing equipment, outside of the reactor containment?
17 How are those issues being addressed?
18 MR. BERNERO:
You are taking the words right out of 19 my mouth.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Good.
All right.
21 MR. BERNERO:
Yes, indeed.
22 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
You are looking at those 23 issues.
24 MR. BERNERO:
There were some questions a little 25 earlier on with the containment, the general approach to
48 1
containment of what pressure volume capability and what beyond 2
design basis capability should be present and what is the 3
consensus.
4 Now implementation still remains to be evaluated but 5
the general principle, is this a containment that would be 6
vented in extremis, you know, that really belongs up front.
7 Get that straight.
Get it down and get abundant review of it 8
including ACRS.
)
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I think, Bert, your 10 point earlier was well taken.
If a change needs to be made, 11 now is the time to make it.
12 MR. WOLFE:
Absolutely.
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Before things get too far 14 along.
Good.
All right.
That is all the questions I have, i
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you.
Fred.
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Let me pick up for a minute 17 on the containment question.
You have presented a number up a
18 front here of core melt probability that is very encouraging, 19 ten to the minus six.
I hope you can meet it.
4 20 The next question then is, what sort of mitigation 21 capability do you calculate for the containment and/or venting 22 system should that be attached to containment?
What do you j
23 buy then in terms of mitigation should you have a core melt 24 accident that stands between you and a large release to the 25 environment?
Is it a factor of 10 or a factor of 100 or what i
a
49 1
do you calculate there?
2 MR. WILKINS:
That, of course, is a very event 3
dependent number.
4-COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Right.
5 MR. WILKINS:
Let me answer it this way.
Our 6
analyses in that area are continuing and, in fact, we have not 7
made all the decisions in that area as of this time.
But we 8
have done some things that I feel confident put this design a 9
step beyond anything we have done in the past.
10 We have, of course, put in both wetwell and drywell 11 sprays.
I think the under vessel configuration is much more 12 able to handle a core melt situation than some of the earlier 13 designs.
14 We have gone to the higher pressure containment 15 capability and we will engineer in the venting capability as 16 an indicator and part of the design as opposed to something 17 that you do afterwards.
18 So all of those features, I am confident, are going 19 to give it a significantly better performance.
I am reluctant 20 to quantify it right now until we have completed our work.
21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Broadly speaking, I am 22 curious to know and maybe the staff has to answer this as 23 well, but I am curious to know whether the design as it sits now is adaptable to regulatory changes that might be 24 anticipated or maybe put it another way, how easily it does 25 i
l 50 1
adapt to current regulatory requirements.
2 I assume that the staff has looked at that.
I 3
think, for example, the control room and the complaint we have 4
heard over the years that the reason you couldn't modern 5
control room technology is because the NRC could never somehow 6
accommodate that within its regulatory framework and similar 7
statements might justly or unjustly be applied to other plant 8
systems.
9 Has this been gone over at all or what is your view 10 on that?
Does staff want to take a stab or would you like to?
11 MR. WOLFE:
As I say, I think we believe that the 12 design that we have now meets all current requirements and as 13 Dan said is amenable to modern technology requirements and 14 modern knowledge requirements which we think will be added in 15 the future.
16 I would make the obvious point though that clearly 17 it is as I said an awful lot of effort, a lot of time and a 18 lot of money so we are not coming here with a blank sheet of 19 paper.
20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Right.
21 MR. WOLFE:
You have this balance if you come with a b' lank sheet of paper, you have all sorts of flexibility and 22 23 zero design.
We are coming with a fairly complete design but 24 without a plant under construction.
So we have the 25 flexibility to modify it when we find together that there is l
4 51 1
advantages to do it.
)
I 2
I would urge both Harold and his colleagues there i
and you to recognize, however, that it is a fairly complete 3
4 design and our experience is if you change a nut here, it goes 5
throughout the design.
So I would urge all of us to look at 6
this for major advances but not to get into arguments about 7
the taste based on our color perception or something like l
8 that.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Maybe we should hear what 10 staff has to say about that.
11 MR. BERNERO:
I would just suggest that there are 12 two areas that might be signals of whether or not this design
]
13 is compatible with possible evolution of regulatory 14 requirements.
15 One. area is in the physical regime of construction 16 location in separation.
This design on the surface at least 17 looks like it has much clearer, more distinct, separation 18 j
something akin to what you see in European designs, the 19 totally different, literally different buildings going from 1
20 one building to the other.
i j
21 I think it lands itself to the possible evolution in i
22 that direction quite well.
1 23 In another direction, the application of new 24 technology that can change fundamental geometry and I think 1
25 you mentioned control rooms.
It is a very good example.
We i
l
o 52 1
have a sample of that right now with Clinton.
If you have 2
been down there, that is essentially a solid state system, 3
very compact control room with instrument diagnostics and so 4
forth and there could be some growing pains there because the 5
staff still thinks in terms of staffing and the geometry of 6
old control rooms and not cockpits.
7 We haven't looked at a control room layout for this 8
design here but I think we will probably be able to deal with 9
that.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Thank you.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Any other questions?
Do you have 12 anything else, Fred, that you want to ask?
13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I guess again a broad 14 question, since this has been an international effort and 15 maybe it has.been answered, but does our staff anticipate at 16 this point that there is anything special because of the international nature of the collaboration that would bring on 17 18 license ability problems in this country?
19 MR. DENTON:
We have been talking to MITI about 20 cooperating and sharing in the course of the review.
I don't know that it has developed any problems but obviously if they 21 22 are doing the review at the same time we are, we need to be in 23 close touch and MITI is coming over later this fall and on the 24 agenda is how do we cooperate in the review of this and 25 maximize the benefits of two regulatory agencies looking at 1
53 l
1 it.
i 2
I don't see that it is a problem but it is unique 3
and it will probably be under review here while it is under 4
construction in Japan.
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Fair enough.
6 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Lando, I had one.
7 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Yes, go ahead, Jim.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Bert, you mentioned that 9
you felt that this design met all current requirements.
I 10 assume what you are also doing is anticipating that this 11 design would satisfy the resolution of any of the currently identified outstanding issues, the unresolved generic issues, 12 13 so that in essence what you are coming in with is something 14 that you think would meet everything that is now on the table, 15 all of the issues that ws are aware of?
16 MR. WOLFE:
Yes, that is correct.
17 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
The last point is maybe i
18 just a comment.
I find the notion of matching a design with t
19 the maintenance requirements for that design to insure that it 20 performs the way you intended it to be a particularly exciting 21 aspect of what you are doing.
I think that is something that 22 has been overdue and has some real potential value.
j 23 MR. WOLFE:
I think this is one of the advantages of i
24 the standardized approach.
25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Yes.
J
54 1
MR. WOLFE:
You can allow for maintenance at the 2
same time you do design.
3 COMMISSIONOR ASSELSTINE:
That's right.
So you get 4
a plant and a maintenance manual with it.
5 MR. WOLFE:
Right.
It is hard to do when you custom 6
design each one.
7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Let me ask one more 8
question, a specific that relates, I guess, to the question of l
9 outstanding issues.
How long is the plant designed to cope 10 with station black-out?
Is there a time scale attached to l
)
11 that?
1 3
12 MR. WILKINS:
We would have at least an eight hour 13 capability and I think in a practical sense it would be 14 substantially greater than that.
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
That is very good.
In other 16 words, lights out and for eight hours you can cope.
17 MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Sounds good.
That is the 19 end of my questions.
I just want to compliment you on your 20 presentation and express some degree of enthusiasm over the 21 directions that you seem to be heading here.
I think that 22 General Electric has always been innovative and imaginative in 23 this area and I look forward to seeing the schedule met.
l 24 Thank you.
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Let me just thank you for an l
l t
55 1
excellent presentation and certainly as far as I am concerned 2
personally, is very encouraging to see how far you have gone 3
so far.
You are not presenting us with a blank sheet of 4
paper.
You have done a lot of work.
You put a lot of 5
resources and obviously a lot of money into it.
l 6
You have done a lot of important engineering, i
7 scientific things that I think should give you and should give c
8 us a certain degree of confidence that you are fairly well 9
down the road.
)
10 I think really this is the direction that we should 11 be going.
Others have heard me say it before, too, my view of 12 the first generation of standardized plants which this falls
[
13 into the category as I see it would be one that uses the best 14 features of our most reliable plants that have been operating 7
15 for some time and adds to that an evolutionary improvements, i
16 modifications that also we have great confidence in.
17 So it seems to me that this is the kind of approach 18 that I have envisioned for the first generation of 19 standardized plants.
l 20 I think that your point about asking our support for l
21 organization and resources is well taken.
You heard the staff 22 respond that they feel, as I understand it, they have the 23 resources and they have the organization to respond.
Is that 24 right, staff?
25 MR. BERNERO:
We feel that the commission can i
4 l
56 1
approve the resources.
2
[ Laughter.]
3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I! there is any question i
4 about that, we ought to understand what it is you think you j
{
5 need to make sure you have it.
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
That's right and we need to know 7
right away.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That's right.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
You are going to let us know if you j
10 think you need more.
11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:. They owe us a paper.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
As far as I am concerned, right off i
13 hand if you want to know my personal opinion, you have what i
J 14 you need but you have to convince me if you need more.
l 15 (Laughter.]
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
You had better write that j
17 down quick!
4
{
18 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Let me just say this.
I would like 19 to say two things to the staff.
First of all, we had a 1
20 meeting with the ACRS recently on the standardization t
i 21 program.
At that meeting I requested that the staff comment 22 on the ACRS presentation and get back to the Commission with 23 any views they may have so that we can get on with our 24 standardization policy at the Commission.
l l
25 We are waiting for your comments regarding that ACRS 1
1 l
l
57 1
review.
When we get that, I think we should be able to go 2
forward with our policy.
f 3
The second comment really involves your development 4
of the implementation document, the NUREG, that goes along 1
5 with the standardization program.
My only comment here is i
6 that I hope that the staff will bring to the Commission as i
7 soon as possible that document so that we can review it and be 8
working with you rather than get it when it is all done and 9
then have to perhaps have some comments that might change the 10 NUREG.
11 So the sooner we get involved at the Commission 12 level, I think the better off we are going to be.
I had hoped 13 that you could get that to us in a timely manner so that we 14 can work with you on that if there are any changes that the 15 Commission wants to make.
16 I would just say that I think that GE and DOE 17 working together on this standardization project should be 18 commended and I think that we at the NRC do have an obligation 19 to do everything we can to make sure that we are carrying out 20 our responsibilities as far as public health and safety are concerned, of course, but that we work with you closely so 21 22 that we can move ahead if this is something that looks like 23 the right way to go.
24 I think we should be working very closely with you 25 to let you know any concerns we may have, any suggestions we
58 1
may have, so that together we can move ahead and possibly have l
2 a reactor that would indeed be considered by all an 3
improvement and would be one that would be recognized as 4
something that would bring reliability and safety in the 5
peaceful uses of nuclear power in our country.
6 So unless my fellow Commissioners have any other 7
remarks --
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
One quick comment.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Jim.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I think this is a 11 sufficiently important enough exercise that maybe we ought to 12 consider another meeting around the January or February time 13 frame which would be about six months or so before you would 14 like to see this licensing basis agreement worked out to see 15 how things are going and how the process is working.
16 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I think that is an excellent 17 suggestion and I certainly would hope my fellow Commissioners 18 would agree.
We will discuss it amongst ourselves but i
19 certainly it seems to me right now that that is an excellent i
j 20 suggestion.
I would hope that you would at least consider it 21 as a possibility that we will be asking you to do that.
22 Any other comments?
23 COMMISSIONER CARR:
May I have one P.S.?
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Yes.
25 COMMISSIONER CARR:
With all of this international
59 1
cooperation, is there any likelihood we will get into a 2
position where we have to buy a component from an individual 3
supplier in a foreign country?
4 MR. WILKINS:
We have in many of our plants today, 5
we procure individual items from overseas suppliers.
6 COMMISSIONER CARR:
I mean a sole supplier problem?
7 MR. WOLFE:
No.
We have developed purchase specs 8
which we will be using and for this plant, we will be buying major parts of them in Japan but presumably when we brought 9
10 them over here as a market developed, American manufacturers 11 would make the parts to those spacs, also.
12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
It might be an advantage in some instances, buying components from some foreign l
13 l
14 suppliers like the Japanese.
15 MR.,WOLFE:
My hope is that we will get back on the 16 track here and that ultimately we will be buying components 17 here as well but we do not now have that flexibility.
18 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Any other final comments?
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Just one point.
You didn't 20 make a lot of it but I do see that you are looking to task 21 three, I take it, and to a design certification.
In other 22 words, pushing this thing all the way through the process, it 23 may be a bit optimistic by 1991 but I gather that DOE is going 24 to fully supportive of that effort.
I don't knoV whether that 25 means in resources or not, but that as you know is not an
60 1
inexpensive process.
~
2 MR. BUNCH:
I think it is in all of our interest to 3
make sure that the first blush look of this thing is just as 4
good as the last blush look.
That means that we have to be 5
prepared to go from the beginning to the end and I think 6
absent having formal certification, none of us will have the 7
degree of insurance we really need.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I agree and'I commend you 9
for that.
I wasn't aware that there was that commitment to 10 push it all the way through to the final stage but that is 11 great and I think you ought to stick with it.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I think design certification is the 13 goal.
I presume that is what you have said.
The staff 14 understands that too, I presume.
Certainly, I think that is 15 the right approach.
16 Let me just say again thank you for an excellent and 17 a very significant meeting, an excellent briefing and I hope 18 that we will be able to hear from you in the future.
In the 19 meantime, I just encourage you very strongly to continue 20 working closely with our staff.
We want to work closely with 21 you on this.
I think we can and I think it is the right thing 22 to do.
23 Again, thank you very much for an excellent 24 presentation.
The meeting is adjourned.
25 (Whereupon, the Commission meeting was adjourned at
61 1
11:56 o' clock p.m., to reconvene at the Call of the Chair.]
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 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 the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
6 7
TITLE OF MEETING: Briefing by General Electric Company on Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (Public Meeting) 8 PLACE OF MEETING:
Washington, D.C.
9 DATE OF MEETING: Friday, September 19, 1986 10 1
l 11 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 12 transcript thereof for the file of the commission taken
{
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 0'
h' " '
J Marilynn M.
Nations 19 20 21 22 Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
23 24 25 l
.c,--,,r
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i A PRESENTATION TO THE I
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ON l
ABWR CERTIFICATION PROGRAM i
Presented by I
I General Electric Company i
Washington D.C i
September 19,1986 1
salin6.07 I
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AGENDA
(- Opening Remarks Chairman Zech e Department of Energy Perspectives D. Bunch i
e General Electric Company Objectives B. Wolfe l
e 'ABWR Certification Program D. Wilkins
- ABWR Overview
- Certification Program
- NRC Support' I
e Discussion All I
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1978-79 Conceptual Design e GE - Led Advanced Engineering Team o Participation by Worldwide BWR l
Manufacturers and AEs 1980-85 Design Development e GE - Hitachi - Toshiba Joint Technical Effort i
i e Supported by TEPCO and Consortium Confirmatory Testing i
of Japanese Utilit_ies 4
i 1986+
Lead Project (s)in Japan i
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o 3 DIVISIONAL ECCS l
ABWR l
ECCS Configuration l
I e Core Cooling Capacity Requirement HPCS HPCS Reduced 50%
i LPCI LPC!
e Core Remains Covered for Design Basis Accidents e Triple Redundant Water Delivery /
RCIC Decay Heat Removal LPCI D514W.11
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iI DIGITAL / SOLID STATE CONTROL o Fault-Tolerant, Triple Redundant
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e Fiber-Optic isolation Capability e improved Operability l
- Improved Availability
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i 1
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l IMPROVED CONTAINMENT i
i AND REACTOR BUILDING I
Containment j
l g......
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e Horizontal Vents l
p i
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32 HWCU-IKM OtNG PUMP AND OPtHAIf0N ftOOM
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33 f4WCU-PUMPS 34 HWCUSPCO 13ACKWASH PUMP AND OPEHAf TON HOOM l 35 HEFUEttNG PL Alf 0HM s
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1 ABWR PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS j
Electrical Output (MWe')
1350 l
Construction Schedule (Mos) 48 4
f-Capacity Factor (%)
86 Refueling / Maintenance Outage (Days) 55 Daily Load Following Range 50-100
(% of Rated Power)
Core Damage Probability (/Yr)
< 10 - 6 Occupational Exposure (mrem /Yr)
<100 l
Solid Radwaste (Drums /Yr) 100 l
SA1186.10 60377B
-- +
.m.
l ABWR SAFETY OPTIMlZATION i
New Features / Capability e Recirculation Piping Eliminated Design Optimization e No Core Uncovery During LOCA e Diverse Control Rod Drive e Relaxed Pipe Break Criteria e SCRAM Discharge Volume Eliminated e MSIV Leakage Control System j
e 3 Division Core Cooling and Eliminated Decay Heat Removal e Reduced Offgas Capacity e Fault Tolerant, Self-Diagnostic e Reduced Standby Gas l
Digital Control Treatment e IGSCC Resistant Materials 2
e Low Leakage Main Steam Isolation Valve (MSIV) j e PCI Resistant Fuel I
i i
I More Safety - Better Economics D 514 W.14
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ABWR TEST AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM l
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p' e Rapid Coastdown Data
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e in-Plant Test II e Completion 1988 l
D514MW.04 l
1 1
- ____________________.-.m--,._.-__-_
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e BORON MIXING i
si l
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Location Established k
l e Boron Mixing Efficiency i
Confirmed
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wemi%wte DEVELOPMENT
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HORIZONTAL VENT TEST i
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.r e Scheduled Completion 1987 f
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I.
LINED REINFORCED CONCRETE i
CONTAINMENT DEVELOPMENT
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e Hitachi/Toshiba Lead e Design / Test Work by Kajima, Shimizu and Takenaka e Basis for Japan Concrete Containment
.jff Development Code
~
f o Confirmatory Tests z,m.
- Liner Anchor nu-
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-.....n....'
t i
SULZER MAINSTEAM ISOLATION VALVE TEST i
e Hitachi/Toshiba Lead e Seismic Test e Leak Rate Test e Design Confirmed e Environmental Test
- Program Completed h
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f FLOW INDUCED VIBRATION TEST 7mair"mi;!{
d e Toshiba Lead i
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D S 14 MW.0 7
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l INTERNAL PUMP HANDLING EQUIPMENT DEVELOPMENT th i-e Hitachi/Toshiba Lead
[
e Pump Removal / Replacement
- Equipment Design Confirmed
?
- Program Completed r, '
D514 MW.03 s.
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- Program Completed m s ' t;
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- - W -- -
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SUMMARY
e incorporates Best of Worldwide BWR Technology e Moving Ahead Toward initial Units in Japan i
e Ready for US Licensing Certification sa1186.01 603778 am e-d T a h r-3. w.f. t
U.S. ABWR PROGRAMS l
Objectives l
e Obtain NRC Certification of Advanced BWR
- Multiple Utilities
- Multiple Sites Approach e EPRI Provides Advanced LWR Requirements i
e Industry Provides Advanced LWR Designs e DOE /NRC Provide Regulatory Certification Completion e
1991
T i
I EPRI ALWR REQUIREMENTS PROGRAM e Requirements for Next Generation LWRs in U.S.
.ALWR REQUIREMENTS
- Industry / Utility / NRC Participation
/
l Opportunity to Adapt ABWR to U.S. Needs l
1 l
sa 1186.02 603778 l
.-...s....
I l
ABWR CERTIFICATION PROGRAM SCHEDULE 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 Task 1:
innnini ninnnn inininn nnninn ninnini innnnn
- 1. DOE /NRC Lic Basis Agreement Obl 1 1
lE EPRI Req. Doc. Prep.
Task 2:
O Staff SER issued '
- 2. Nuclear Island
- a. Reactor / Safety Systems li EI Il
- b. Bldg. Arrangements 1
1 11
- c. Aux. Support Sys and I&C I
11
- d. PRA/FMEA and Technical l
Specifications
- 3. Turbine Island
.O 11
- 4. NRC issue Resol./ Final SER l
11
- 5. ACRS Review I
I Y
- 6. FDA Issued Task 3:
I I
Rulemaking/Public Hearing i
V Certification S A1186.04 60377B i
i
s 4
f I
NRC SUPPORT e Organization and Resources e Standardization Policy and Guidance sa1186.09 603778 l
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