ML20247R439
| ML20247R439 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Rancho Seco |
| Issue date: | 04/07/1989 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8906070230 | |
| Download: ML20247R439 (17) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMER ~ICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMIS SIO{
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PRESS CONFERENCE 9
LOCatiODl ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND Dd(&l APRIL 7, 1989
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14 PAGES l
l NEALR.GROSSANDC0.,INC.
COURT REPORTEES AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, Northwest Washington, D.C.
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O DISCLAIMER J
This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on A7ril 7,
- 1989, in the Commission's office at One White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland.
The meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is i
not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
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UNITED. STATES OF AMERICA
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2 NUCLEAR ~ REGULATORY COMMISSION i
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9 10 PRESS CONFERENCE 4
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15 16 17 1
18 19 20 CONFERENCE ROOM
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21 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 22 ONE WHITE FLINT NORTH 23 ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND 24 i
25 FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 1989 j
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. 3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much.
I think" p.
4 the Commission had a. responsibility this morning to~ hear 5
from the.SMUD Board, that they had a firm commitment to g ^
6 safety.
We heard that. firm commitment to safety'from the t-7 SMUD Board, and also I. rom SMUD management-.
We also-heard 8
the NRC staff affirm their confidence that the plant'could 9
be operated safely.
10 So the' Commission essentially indicated that we 11 had no objections to the staff authorizing the plant to 12 move ahead with operations when they are ready, and when 13 the plant is ready.
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14 I think we all have a recognition that there 15 have been problems at Rancho Seco.
The NRC is following 16 those problems very closely and has been for sometime. So, 17 I would say there are no surprises in what we heard from 18 INPO but, again, that's a very responsible organization, 19 and I think the Commission was obligated to hear from the 20 SMUD Board and we did that, and I think we are satisfied.
21 QUESTION:
- Sir, wasn't the INPO report an
'22 implicit criticism of the staff coming -- a harsh report 23 coming from INPO, shortly after your SALP report had 24 actually given them a much better bill of health?
'Y 25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
No, I don't see it that way at (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.,
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1 all.
I think,. frankly, the INPO evaluations, if you will 2
look-at them, are very much in synchronization with - our j
3 staff evaluations.
As I understand it, the last INPO i
4 evaluation was late last year, and I believe they gave 5
them a mark that was what we would term an average mark.
6 That was the same mark that we gave the Rancho Seco, too.
7 So, I would think that there is not a great 8
difference in NRC and INPO's evaluation, as far as the 9
plant being ready for operation is concerned.
10 I think INPO did indicate that although there is 11 not a short-range concern, that perhaps the concern is.a 12 longer-range concern, and I think that was something that 13 the SMUD Board addressed by their commitment to safe 14 operations here this morning.
15 QUESTION:
Mr. Zech, with the letter that the 16 company -- the INPO letter saying these are long-term 17 concerns that should not be addressed now as a crisis type 18 situation, why did the NRC handle it as it did, requesting 19 SMUD to hold the plant off-line until you could look at it 20 further, if this is, indeed, not a crisis?
21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, we have an obligation, 22 when we have any concern on safety of operations, to look 23 into it immediately.
When we first heard about the INPO 24
- concerns, we were not necessarily aware of the
'M 25 completeness of their concerns, nor were we aware of the (202)234-4433 NEAL R.
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Board's feeling.
We thought it would be best to have a
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public meeting and sort it out, and have every one be able L._
3 to say what they felt,. and to give us their personal 4
views.
5 Public health and safety is our primary mission.
6 When there is any doubt about it, we have responsibility 7
to look into it carefully.
I think the NRC took very 8
responsible action here this morning.
9 QUESTION:
Mr. Zech, should the Board revoke the 10 ordinance of March 9, 1988?
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
As I understand that ordinance, 12 it does put a restriction on the plant, if they don't
~13 achieve a certain level of plant operations.
I would I
14 person' ally oppose such a limit because it does one thing, 15 it does provide an incentive to operate the plant and 16 could, I emphasize could, impact on safety of operations 17 and proper judgments.
And safety is paramount and should 18 not be put down below the economic operation of the plant.
19 Safety must be paramount.
20 QUESTION:
Why should your Commission make a 21 recommendation to the board to revoke it?
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
We have made, I think, our 23 position very clear to the board here this morning, that 24 safety should be paramount. And we would certainly hope
'25 that they would take that very seriously.
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1 QUESTION:
Mr. Chairman,.this morning you sa a, 2
and it has been widely reported in the media, a somewhat 3
divided board -- is it your concern in anyway that perhaps 4
this divided board may not be able to mobilize and oversee 5
the operation of the plant properly?
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
That is not my judgment.
We 7
have a five-member Commi.ssion, too.
We, too, have three-8 two votes from time to time. We recognize the value of a 9
board, as the value of a Commissio.n, is to have diverse 10 opinions.
That I think is healthy.
I agree with 11 President Buonaiuto, who I believe expressed a similar 12
- view, we do believe that sometimes you make better 13 decisions with that kind of a board.
14 It does, of course, add to your timeliness of 15 actions sometimes, but we do not -- at least I do not, 16 personally, have a concere about a board action of three 17 to two votes occasionally.
And the board, I think, 18 indicated this morning that their three-two votes are 19 really rather infrequent in any case.
20 QUESTION:
INPO says they are frequent.
Is 21 there some way to resolve that?
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, we heard the board this 23 morning say that, at least fairly recently, in the past 24 year or so, they have not been frequent.
We will
,25 certainly look into that and see whether we think it is a (202)234-4433 NEAL R.
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1 concern but, in any case, three to two, three wins.
So I g.
2 am well aware.of that on my Commission.
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(Laughter) 4
'STION:
Mr. Chairman, you may have been asked 5
this before; excuse me, if I missed it.
Would the 6
Commission look favorably upon a partnership agreement 7
between Bechtel and Babcock and Wilcox and Rancho Seco in 8
the operation of that plant?
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, I would rather not get 10 into
- that, that's not our particular area of 11 responsibility.
We license the plants, we ensure that the 12 licensee, whoever it may be, has the competence to operate 13 that plant.
I 14 QUESTION:
Do you think there was any connection 15 between the time of the INPO report and the June 6th 16 initiative?
17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I have no idea.
In any case, I 18 thought the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had no choice 19 but to take responsible action, which I believe we have 20 taken.
21 Yes, sir?
22 QUESTION:
If I could shift to -- perhaps you 23 would talk about what you think this rule will do for the 24 nuclear power industry.
l.
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Certainly.
First of all, the (202)234-4433 NEAL R.
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rule that - we affirmed here this morning was one of the 2
most significant rulemakings, as far as_I am concerned,
.3 that this Commission has undertaken, in perhaps over 30 4
years.
5 What it did is three things:
it addressed the 6
issue of early selection of sites for future nuclear power 7
plants; it addressed the issue of standardization of 8
- design, and it addressed the issue of a combined 9
construction permit and operating license.
10
- Now, those three issues are i m p o r t a'..t 11 individua11v, but they are also important very 12 collectively, in my judgment because what that does, by 13 putting them together in a rulemaking, that essentially 14 changes our licensing process, to the extent that it will
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15 make the process more predictable and more stable, and 16 removes uncertainty.
17 What it does is to allow a utility executive 18 some degree of predictability and stability in making his 19 decision for a nuclear power plant by doing and making 20 decisions up front.
It make the important decisions on 21 site selection, design and the licer-ing process up front.
22 That is important, in my judgment, a public participation 23 because it makes public participation much more 24 meaningful.
.25 I believe that is a very important part of the (202)234-4433 NEAL R.
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'l rulemaking because,- when you ' completed ' design up front, 4
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when you have the site.' up front, 'and you marry-the site'
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3 a'nd the - design in the comoined ' construction : -permit and
=4 operating license hearing, what you do is to lay out the i..
5 blueprintLfor what-the plant will1.look.like.and what.you 6
expect the plant-to be.
.That's unlike we do now, in a 7
two-step process; unlike. we do now, 'where we do not 8
' resolve all of these decisions up front.
9 The'two-step process that we have been operating
.10 under for so many years does, indeed, permit a number of 11 decisions to be put'off later in the construction of-the 12 plant.
And, therefore, you do have.the situation where 13
. you - have plants that are essentially complete, and there i.
14 are unresolved issues.
15 So, what this rulemaking does is to attempt.to s
16 bring up front the key decisions about whether'or not'to 17 build that particular designed power plant at.that 18 particular site, In my judgment, when this happens, and 19 if ~ this happens, if a utility should decide to go ahead 20 with this type of process, we should be able to build a 21
. plant, in my view, in six years or less, in our country 22 and, as you ~know, many of our plants now are taking much 23 longer than that.
24 Time is money.
And it is very important, I
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25 think, if we are going to have a nuclear energy future for (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 l-1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE,.N.W., WAFHINGTON,.D.C. 20005 i
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our country, that we address ~this licensing process, and 2
we improve the process, which I think we have made a 3
significant step towards doing here today.
4 QUESTION:
Does your new rule advance public 5
health and safety?
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I believe it does, I believe it 7
does by laying out up front, ahead of time, all the design 8
matters, as well as the site selection matters.
It 9
brings the public into the process, up front.
In other 10 words, if the public doesn't want to build a nuclear power 11 plant at a certain site for some reason or another, and 12 has an input into the process, as does the utility, of 13 Jourse, that can be aired out up front.
14 And emergency planning, in my judgment, also, 15 can be handled up front in the licensing process, so that 16 you can come to these many decisions early on, before you 17 even dig any dirt, before you even start the plant.
And 18 if the decision is made that the plant should not be 19 built, that design at that site, you don't build it but, 20 if the decision is made that design at that site, then you 21 go chead and construct it, and do so in an orderly manner, f
22 mindful of the inspections, analyses and tests that would, 23 of course, go on, to make sure the plant is built in 24 conformance with the design.
25 QUESTION:
Have you any indication that anybody (202)234-4433 NEAL R.
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will use the new process?
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CHAIRMAN ZECH:
No, not right now.
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3 QUESTION:
Can you tell us how much time you've 4
got' in terms of processing a license, in terms of a 5
utility.getting a license -- how long will it take?
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
You mean the licensing process 7
itself?
8 QUESTION:
Yes.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
No, I can't give you a real good 10 estimate of that, except what I am really saying is 11 instead of a two-stage process, we have a one-stage 12 process.
I believe it would very likely cut down the 13 time.
If I would give you an estimate at this time -- and
.n 14 I will. tell you why, because the design certification 15 process, which is the first, or one of the three issues, 16 would have many decisions on the design made ahead of 17 time. When those are made ahead of time, and if the site 18 selection is perhaps made ahead of time, then all. you 19 would have to do in a hearing is to bring together and 20 discuss those issues that had not been resolved.
21 So it's potential that you would have a much 22 more focused hearing at that time because you have a 23 design that's certified, and you would have a site that 24 has been agreed upon.
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25 The design is so imoortant.
And, again, I have (202)234-4433 NEAL R.
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to mention standardization because.what we are hoping for 2
the future is that we would move towards standardization, 3
have some plants that would be built, of course, just like 4
_is being done so emphatically in France right now, where l
5 they have a very standardized program of building one 6
plant that is exactly like another one.
l 7
In our country one of our problems which is 8
behind a good deal of the regulatory challenges we have 9
is, we have custom built plants in our country. They are 10 all different almost -- there are a few that are alike, 11 but most of our plants are different.
We have different 12 suppliers, different architect-engineers, different 13 con tra c tres, and many of our plants are different.
14 This provides a challenge, not only ior the 15 licensee to operate that plant safely, it provides a 16 challenge for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to 17 regulate.
We regulate essentially to custom-built plants.
18 And there are many benefits of standardization -- you 19 know, the training, you can understand how you train on 20 one plant, you can go from one plant to another plant.
21 Here we can't do that, we have to train all over again, 22 when you go from one plant to another in our country.
23 Lessons learned, when you have plants that are 24 alike, you learn the lessons from one plant to another.
25 Even management, you can focus your management talent and (202)234-4433 NEAL R.
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management ' judgments on a specific design, and benefit l
2 from the similarities that you are judging.
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3 So there are many benefito to -- maintenance, of 4
- course, is an obvious one, too.
You can develop 5
maintenance techniques, when you have many plants that are 6
alike.
And, of course, building one plant -- the first 7
plant is always more expensive than the second one, the 8
second, third and fourth and fifth, along the same' design, 9
one could expect could be built much less expensively than i
l 10 the first one.
11 QUESTION:
Mr. Zech, is there a' current design 12 which you believe is suitable for certification?
13 CHATRMAN ZECH:
No, we have several designs, E
14
- though, that the staff is reviewing now one from 15 General Electric Company, one from combustion Engineering, 16 one from Westinghouse, another design from the EPRI 17 organization, the Electric Power Research Institute, which 18 is an industry group.
And those are the most immediate 19 ones that I see that we have been approached with.
20 QUESTION:
Are these all lightwater design?
21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All lightwater designs, yes.
I 22 am talking in the lightwater.
If you move ahead into the 23 future lightwater reactors, then you get into what is 24 generally termed the 600 megawatt t pe plants, it is a
'M 25 lesser power level. But the ones I am mentioning to you i
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are the it is an evolutionary design of a lightwater L_
2 plant in the thousand megawatt' area.
The next stage'would 3
be the-600 megawatt type plants, that many of those same 4
organizations are interested in.
5 And the third advanced design would be the gas-6 cooled reactor, the sodium reactor, and various other 7
reactor types that are really somewhat in the future, as 8
far as the commercial nuclear industry is concerned.
9 QUESTION:
Do facilities now have a choice of 10 doing licensing this way, or the previous way?
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
No, no, no.
We've changed our 12 rules so that in the future the licensing will be under t...__
13 our new process.
14 QUESTION:
But you don't know if any utility is 15 planning to make a change?
16 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
No, I haven't heard since we 17 passed the rule.
Maybe they will be calling us.
18 QUESTION:
Will additional legislation be 19 necessary?
20 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
There are those who feel it 21 will but, in my judgment, it will not necessarily be 22 necessary, not necessary.
I don't think so, but the thing 23 about it is, those who think it will be, point to the fact
- 5 24 that there is still the opportunity under our current 25 ru3emaking that we passed this morning, for a second (202)234-4433 1EAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600
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hearing.
There is still that' opportunity.
2 We have provided that because under the law we 3
believe that is required. There are those who want to 4
foreclose that second hearing completely.
If that-were 5
- done, then legislation, in my judgment, would be l
6 necessary.
I don't think that legislation is necessary 7
because I do think we have focused on that second hearing, 8
even though it is available now, to the point where it 9
would be narrowly defined and issues could be very 10 narrowly defined. And in my judgment, it would not be 11 necessary to go for legislation.
12 Thank you very much.
13 (Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m.,
the press briefing 14 was adjourned) 15 i
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,24 25 (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 4
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1 CER[IFICATEOFTRANSCRIBER This is to certify that the attached events of.a meeting of the United States' Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
i TITLE.0F MEETING: PRESS CONFERENCE l
l PLACE OF MEETING: ROCK'iiLLE, MARYLAND DATE OF MEETING:
APRIL 7, 1989 were transcribed by me. I further certify that said transcription is accurate'and complete, to the best of my ability, and that'the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing events.
i t+
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l Reporter's name:
Phyllis Young I
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- fs NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTER $ AND TRANSCRIBER 5 1323 RHODE IStAND AYENUE, N.W.
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