ML22230A111

Tran-M790731: Public Meeting Budget Presentations

ML22230A111
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Issue date:	07/31/1979
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.... - TO SECRETARIAT RECORDS NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF:

PUBLIC MEETING BUDGET PRESENTATIONS Piece - Washington, D. C.

Dote - Tuesday, 31 July 1979 Poges 1 - 102 Tel ephone:

\ 20 2 ) 347-3 700 ACE - FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.

Official Reporters 444 North Capirol Street Washington, D.C. 2000 l NATJONWIDE COVERAGE* DAILY

CR6246 1 DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States

-Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on Tuesday, 31 July 1979 in the Commissions 1 s offices at 1717 H Street, N. w., Washington, D. C. The meeting was open to public attendance and observation. This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain

,;i.naccurac1.e-s.

The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes. As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is 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 determinations 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.

R6246 2 UNITED STATES OF AM:ERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY CO.MMISSION 3

4 PUBLIC MEETING 5 BUDGET PRESENTATIONS 6

7 8 Room 1130 1717 H Street, N. W.

9 Washin~ton, D. C.

10 Tuesday, 31 July 1979 11 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, at 2:45 p.m.

12 BEFORE:

• - 13 14 DR. JOSEPH M. *HENDRIE, "Chairman VICTOR GILINSKY, CQmmissioner 15 RICHARDT. KENNEDY, Commissioner 16 PETER A. BRADFORD, Commissioner 17 JOHN F. AHEARNE, Commissioner 18 PRESENT:

19 Messrs. Barry, Budnitz, Cooper, Engelhardt, Gossick, Levine 20 Murley, and Smith.

21 * *

• 22

- 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25

62.01.1 3 gsh CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Why don~t we go ahead? fhe other

- 2 3

4 commissioners wLll join us at some point, I trust.

Okay, Lee, fire away.

MR. GOSSICK: I sent do',vn yesterday, and I don.1t 5 know whether you had a chance to look at it or not, the liitle 6 paper that summarizes the ACRS comments and the '/RG cornrnents.

7 I thought it might be helpful to you in seeing how well they 8 are put together, and the areas in which there are some 9 differences.

10 Ray Smith was the chairman of the panel in this II rather sizable effort, and he is back here with members of 12 his panel. And I will turn this over to Saul, with ~is 13 99 viewgraphs.

14 i',\R. LEVI:,!E: The first thing I have .to say is that 15 WeJre not going to use all 99 viewgraphs. We've whittled it 16 down to about 70. We have some back-ups, however. If you i7 ask questions, we will put up back-ups.

i3 Also, we have no wedges in our budget.

19 As you know, there are some understandings about 20 reactor safety as a result of the Three Mile Island accident, 21 and these new perceptions have a major impact on the level of 22 our fiscal ~so supplement and our fiscal '80 budget request.

23 Our fiscal .130 sup;:il:.12;1t is s29 rniilion for safety 24 and an additional $3 million f:rr waste. Anc! the Three Mile 25 Island part of our *'81 budget is about S76 million. I plan

4 to present here an overview of the new research directions 2 as perceived by ourselves, and to summarize the ACRS views on 3 the research directions to show a reasonable parallel.

,1

-,. And what r~ve done is summarize the first part of 5 the ACRS letter to you that reviewed our fiscal ~so 6 suoplemental and fiscal ~so budget.

7 I then will present a summary of our budget a indicating its trends over ti7e and tha areas in which we 9 will focus. The division directors are prepared to discuss JO each budget decision unit in detail and to indicate issues *

.l I We can cut the number of vie~graphs down a bit, if 12 we don't have to, to cover every decision unit, but then you l3 will miss ~ome of our program description. And if w~~re goi,g 14 too long, you just tsll us wh3t to cut out.

15 16 you cammen~ when and if appropriate as ta what prosr3ns you 17 have either reduced or deterred or dropped as a result cf 13 this ra-avaluation?

19 MR. LEVINE: I think we can try ta do that.

20 Now last we9k we sent down SECY-79-459 for your 21 inforraation. And this paoer ~rasents the basic logic of 22 our approach to the TMI-related research.

23 to this a~proach anj l~vel of fu~di,g.

25 detai.ls will chancp. Vie'. qraph l, pleese.

5 (Vie wgr2ph) 2 This viewgraph is intended to show the area between 3 design baSis accidents and core melt accidents, where 4 additional research and understanding of re2ctor safety 1s 5 needed. fhese are accidents thet lead to extensive core 6 damage but without core melt.

7 I guBss slide 2 --

8 (Viewgraph.)

9 - shows a view of how to think about that. And the 10 top part of the slide shows the definition of accident J1 sequences prior to TMI, starting from design bas is ace idents 12 and going through --

• 13 14 15 COMMISSiot,fER GILP.fSK{: Hhy d-o you separate the severe cote damage accidents from the core melt acciJents?

~~- LEVINE: Because -- well, I/m trying to ~resent 16 this from a risk perspective. And t~e risk perspective, the 17 cores that do not melt do not threats~ the containment -- th3t 13 is, there is not a coupled failure bet~aen the core and 19 containment integrity. Whereas, with the care melt, there is 20 a couple there.

21 So in doing WASH-1400 --

22 COMMISSIOt,IER GILINSKY: ,'/hat do you mean, a coupled rc1ilure?

24 MR. L~VINE: \A/ell, if you '"'.lelt the core, ;/:J'J vrill 25 surely rupture the containment integrity in one of a nu~~er 0f

62.01 .4 6 Qsh ways. If you don/t melt the core, you can fail the co~tainment

- 2 3

4 by leakage, but not as a result of melting the core.

There are physic3l ,Jroce.sses :Lssociated with the melted core that can rupture the containment in any one of 5 a number of ways.

6 So in doing the reactor safety study, we did not 7 pause at the severe core damage area because they didn/t a threaten risk; whereas, the licensing process has al**rays 9 stopped at design basis accident.

10 So the idea is that we did not define -- Mullen J1 really has.defined accident sequences involving severe 12 core dal:lage. The design basis accident does not and ,'iASH-14,)0

.e j3 14 did not. And by s e v e re co re :I a iTI age , . I me a n co r e s th~ t a r e mechanically disrupted but which fuel has not gotten ~olten.

15 CO~*IMISSID1\lER GILINSi(Y: You could have an e:q::;losion 16 in a containment.

17 MR. LEVIN~i Yes. That is the severe core damage l .g area. Ne would have said, I think,, virtually all the peo~le 19 I know that if you had a 30 or 40 percent ~etal-water reaction 20 involving cladding, that the core would have been a ~olten 21 core. And. th.is is new information, that they can get that 22 large a metal reaction without.melting the core, and that/s

- 23 24 the infor~ation we have.

And so what we're proposing aftar TMI, on the bott~~

- 25 half of. this s.lide is to draw the accident sequences, to

7 define the accident sequences involving severe core da~age, 2 but which stops short of melting core.

3 COMMISSICli'-fER GII..1;,1s:<Y: Let me understand. Is the 4 point that you have in some way or another covered the core 5 melt accident?

6 7 to say is that if you look at core melt, and worse, ~nd you 3 look at design ~asis accidents and less, those are all better 9 covered than this area of severe core damaQe.

We understand less about this middle area than we l I do about both ends of the spectrum. Not that we don/t have 12 to understand more about core melt accidents, but certainly 13 we understand m9re about them than we do about sevec:: core .

14 damage accidents.

IS CO MiHSS I O,fcR GIL I NSKY ~ Okay.

16 MR. LEVINE: And, of course, I/ve listed so~e of t~3 17 areas that have to be looked at to define that middle area.

13 We have to leak at event trees. We need better unje~standinJ 19 of small LOCAs and transient.  :*ie need better understanding of 20 enhanced. operator capability, better understanding of 21 coolant chemistry. And we nee--:f .so:n::'; i:1forrnati:::ir, fr:J'l T.H, 22 the post-mortem.

23 Now IJve jotted down on tha ~ext several sl!~as --

25 (Viewgraph.)

8 lessons that we in research feel that we've 2 learned from TMI. ~e need that improved understanding of 3 potential accidents involvinq small LOCAs, transients, and 4 enhanced operator capability.

5 All these need research attention to enhance our 6 understand~ng.

7 COMMISSIONER GILL'l3.('{; L8t me pursue this point 8 again. Is the point - it seems to ms that if you l0ok at the 9 sequences heading toward core ~elts, if you covered all of the 10 sequences, you will have covered the severe core damage.

l l Isn't the point that we have. si~ply not covered 12 certain kinds of sequences?

13 MR. LEVINE: That is just what I~m saying. In fact.

l4 put number 2 back u~, please.

15 CVie\-vg:raph.)

16 MR. LEVINE: You-" 11 in that ~iddle area that 17 event tree in th.e middle area shows some sequences t:-iat stop short of ccre ~<> l !llv ...1.. L,-, but so::12 ':ri 11 -:JO '::1rou9h to core melt.

19 And so far, we have considered only the ones that go through 20 to core vent, but not the ones that stop short of core melt.

21 COr:\i'.,\ISSio;,fER GILINSC{: Maybe this is quibbling, out 22 presumably, there are severe core damages pre~rMI.

23 24 well by anyone, and that is what we have to do now. Th8y ar9 25 still undefined.

62.01. 7 9

-:::;sh 0--lAIR~AAN HENDRIE: In v'i.'\SH-1400, typically, ._,rhen you 2 went along with an event tree and took a path that w~nt past 3 the design basis, you just then drew that without further 4 elaboration.

5  ;,,m. LEVP.fE: Our L.OCA and tr':!nsient event trees had 6 two outcomes -- either core melt or no core melt * .~,1d the 7 no core melts were all trivial accidents. The ones that 8 could have been stopped before c8re melt were not co~sidered.

9 CHAIRMAN ~ENDRIE: They sort of shot across the 10 area.

MR. BUDNifZ: If you started to have several percent 12 oxidation, f'/ASH-14-00 called it a core nelt. They just 13 okay, that/s a core melt.

14 We now have one very good example where that didn/t happen and we realize that there are a plethora.

16 MR. LEVINE: Well, that~s not exactly right. Ne had 17 a sequence like the B&W sequence, which we said we didn't 13 know whether it would melt or not, but we called it 19 melt because we were being conservative and that we didnJt 20 know enough to define that area, and we sim~ly did not get 21 involved in thst area.

22 But that sequence is in ~ASH-1400 as a core melt 23 sequence cal led P:'ALQ. And the f--:iotnote says that Ne 1 are not 24 sure whether t~is would melt or net. And we gave so~e 25 logical reasons why, and said, but we/re calling it core ~elt

52.01 .8 10

ish for the purpose of this exercise.

2 MR. BUONITZ: But the point is that here today in 3 the summer of i979, there has not been a thorough. dr::iwing 4 of event tr.ees in this area at all. It just hasn't been 5 explored.

6 MR. L~VIN~: And this is a very difficult area because 7 to get involved in this area, you have to know much ~ore aba~t 8 fuel behavior than we now know.

9 As I say, the perception ~e had that a core with 10 this much metal reaction that melted is clearly wronJ and we l I have to understand that bettBr.

12 ~e have ta know --

13. COMMISSIO;!ER GILINS:(Y: In order to do what,? ';'/hat 14 is the question?

15 MR. LEVINE: There are two questions -- one to define 16 the risk and to prevent these things from happening, to 17 design preventive mechanisms to help enable operators to 18 cope with them when they do have them.

19 By "prevent," I mean reduce the likelihood of them 20 because you can never prevent anything. But to make them 21 .less like.ly.

22 For instance,. the bulletins that IME has issued have 23 already made the li <:elihood of the se1uence that hap;)eried in 1

24 the B&W reactor much smaller than it used to ba, bec3use you 25 now don~t lift that relief valve every t.ime that makes the

.1 I situation much better than it was.

2 There may be -- the technical consensus is that 3 the TMI accident sequence was a rather unique one in the 4 sense that it was one sequence. There may be dozens of others 5 that we haven"t explored yet that_ could get you into similar 6 troubles.

7 CO MM LS S I UNE R GI L U*; Si< Y: So i t i s a ma t t er o f loo k: i ri c;i 8 at the sequences that we haven/t looked at.

9 MR. LEVINE: Yes, exactly.

10 COMMISSIONER GI LINSKY: Rather than have a 11iddle J-1 portion of sequences.

12 MR. BUDNIIZ: Some of each.

13 MR. LEVINE: Mostly :.,,hat you .said.

14 MR. BUDNITZ: Some of each because soi'leL-1me::; .,_. .

1n 15 WASH-1400, it wasn"t fleshed out. And as Saul said, to explore 16 them in terms of the real ~hysics and chemistry 1 requires an 17 understanding of a lot of che~istry that has not bee~

13 explored.

19 MR. LEVINE: There have to be experiments to define 20 the behavior of materials, to define the physical phenomena.

21 We have to be able to make models to jescribe them so we kno~

22 how to construct the event trees and we have to construct the 23 event trees so the modelers know*wh~t to model.

24 COMMISSIO:'*fER KEN:'fEDYi 8ut Y'.J'J.,,.:r<:? ;;oi11g to ,:,e 25 discussing some of that in programmatic terms later on.

i 52-01. 1O 12

i sh MR. LEVI.Ne~ Yes. Yes, of cJurse. Okay, qoing bac'..z

- 2 3

4 to slide 3, please.

(Viewgraph.)

MR. LEVINE: We have to enhance our understanding s of the small LOCAS and transients. /*le need a large '."lUmbe::-- of 6 studies to be made of these types of events. And there are 7 many variations and we have to be able to predict plant 8 behavior with greater precision.

9 ~e have to develop aids to assist plant operators 10 in coping with the situations.

I1 Next slide, 4.

12 C V.ie wgraph. )

13 MR. LEVINE: i/le have to* deveJ:op -- there are two 14 types of computer c;odes that have to :ie developed. ,ie have 15 so far been developin9 a research pro:;iram, very long ruru1ing, 16 complex codes as precise as we know ho .*t to make then.

1 i'*!e 17 are still going to do that and use them as benchmarks for 13 faster running codes.

19 We have to develop fast running codes which will 20 be less pre.cise to conduct multitudinous studies of plant 21 behavior. And of course we have to do experiments ir1 existin9 22 facilities to provide data for model.ing and testing codes.

23 Event trees and other techniques will have to be 24 develo~e~ and used to define acci~ent sequences that result in

- 25 seVerelY damaged cores. Number 5, please.

13

( \/ i e wg rap h * )

2 MR. LEVIN~: Capability will have to be enhanced.

3 Codes will be used to study requirements for accidents that 4 90 beyond DBAs on operating training simulators. I spoke 5 about this this ~orning.

6 Requirements needed to be studied for plant 7 instrumentation to follow the course of accidents for improved 8 control room displays of such information and for diagnostic 9 systems to aid operators in telling what is going on.

lo Requirements needed to be developed for improved automatic 11 .. monitoring of the operatability status of safety systems.

12 You have 3n anti1ue system now for decidinJ whether 13 systems are operable or not, and it requires mountains of 14 paperwork.

15 It seems to me very easy to implement data processors 16 to do the sort of thing.

17 COMi',\ISSICfriER AHEARN.c: Have you looked at the '.dnd 18 of monitoring people who run pipelines?

19 MR. LEVINE: No. But ;J2rt of our study \*rill be to --

20 we know the objective. ~e wil.l have to start the studies and 21 see what pea pl.e can do.

22 COMMIS.SIONER AHEARNE: You might l.ook at that.

23 They have developed a fairly eleoorate aut~m~tic monitoring 24 system for all of the relay stations that go down ths line.

25 In some cases, they have as many as 20D0 points and

52.01. 12 14 gsh digital monitoring and use a small processor right at e2ch

- 2 3

4

io int.

MR. LEVINE: That is just wh3t we have in ~ind.

you know where we can get information on that?

Do 5

6 MR. LEVL,ic: And +-l,nen,

' of course, v1e have to loo!< at 7 requirements that need to be dev3loped tor plant data

,3 transmission to meet external naeds.

9 As one of the people, one of the large num~er of 1J people who were trying to help the site by doing analyses, Jl we just didnJt have enough infor~ation about the plant, what 12 was going on. And when we finally got the plots of pl3nt 13 parameters on Monday or Tuesday 3fter the ac~ident, it was 14 clear that if we had had those in time, we would hav~ oeen 15 able to give advice to the people on the site 3bout ~hat 16 was going on.

17 And so, we don't ~lan to build the systs~s or 13 design them, but really. to define the require7e~ts tor jat~

19 that need to be delivered, and that c3n then become 3 20 regulatory requirement wh.ich the industry will have to make.

21 I think that this informat.Lm should go to vendors 22 and to the NRC. But that can all be decided later once we 23 define what is needed.

24

- 25 (Viewgraph.)

52.01

• 13 15 Jsh Plant resoonse under accident conditions. ~e need 2 improved understanding of coolant chemistry and better 3 sampling methods. We need to know more about hydrogen 4 behavior in coolant and in the containment, especially mixing.

J ~e need to know more about the effects of hydrogen burnin~

6 and explosions -- particularly e~olosions.

7 We need to ~now about the response of plant equip~ant 8 and structures to accident conditions.

9 COMMISSIONER GILINS'.(Y: i ihat do "you mean by "effects 1

10 or hydrogen burning and explosion 11 ?

l 1 MR. LEVINE: When hydrogen burns, you get a pressure 12 in the containment, depending upon the a priori stea7 pressur?.

- 13 14 15

.')

For instance, if yoJ had a i"arge LOCA* and a large st2ah1 pre_ssure is existin:;; in the c:::mtainment each* time you get a hYdrogen burn, you can ruoture the contain~ent.

16 T:t_is was predicted in ,'/ASH-1400.

17 Nhile we probably had a hydraJsn burn in Three Mile lQu 19 essentially an ambient pressure. And one h2s to think this 20 through very carefully and find out what can happen under a 21 variety of conditions.

22 ~fa did our work, L think, rather crudely in 23 ~-~ASH-1400. We ought to take a more preci.se look at it.

24 MR. BUDNITZ: There is also the effect upon equip~~nt,

- 25 as well as the conta.inment itself.

2-01. 14 16 gsh MR. LEVINE: And then we need to know about the

- 2 3

4 behavior of time components under long-terrn severe accident conditions of high temperature, pressure, radiation, et cetera, and what requirements should ~e set up for testing.

5 Slide 7 1 ~leasel.

6 CV ie wgraph.)

7 MR. LEVINE: And finally, the post-marten 8!1d plant 8 recovery. I guess He have had several meetings now with 1

9 DOE, EPRI, and GPU about how to 90 about getting the data 10 out of TMI.

J1 It.,.s clear that DOE is willing to spend a significant 12 amount of money to manage getting the stu+/-f out of the plant.

- 13 14 15 We will helo plan how to to this, along with the othar threi parties, and we will probably want to look at some ot this stuff experimentally ta deter~ine its condition.

16 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: i'lhen you say, DOE is 17 interested in ge.tting the stuff out of the plant 18 MR. LEVINE: Paying for getting it out, having the 19 lab get it out.

20 CO/,\MISSIOi'1ER AHEARNE: By nthe stuff, 11 what do you 21 mean?

22 MR. LEVINE~ The core components which are damaged 23 and should be examined, cabe.lling, all kinds of things. The 24 dispersion and amount of radioactivity.

- 25 COMMLSSIONER AHEARNE: Are you saying DOE is

I b..01.15 17 gsh interested in paying for the ~ovement of the core?

2 MR. LEVINE: Yes. Whether it is all of it or part 3 of it, all this remains to be worked out. But they have 4 indicatBd strong interest in participating in this.

5 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I would say that we have solicitad 6 their interest in the ~ost-morte8. T~et does ~ct ~eJn th3t 7 DOE would assume responsibility, the financial obligation of 8 the recovery operation in any sense.

9 But only that, as materials are removed both in 10 term~ of the way in which they are removed, and what is done II in terms of subsequent examination of them, I think there are 12 a number of things that ought to be looked at which, from the

- 13 14 15 l icense'?..,,s standpoint, in trying to get the* plant reco~ered,

~re going to be of considerably less interest than t~ey are to us from the sta~jpoint of nuclea~ safety and regulatory 16  :-natters.

17 MR. L'.:VE:E: It coul*-:i be those funds requiro,d to get 13 data as op9osed ta just getting the pl3nt back in operation.

19 CHAIR,\1\AN HENDRIE: And we ha 11e talked to DO::: about 20 it. They are willing to include that in their list of 21 programs associetad with their general ~e~date in li~htwater 22 reactor safety, and so on.

23 24 that details sa~e of the thin~s that ouqht to be looked at.

25 MR. BUDNITZ: ~e have here a proposal to have just a

18 little bit of funds to nake sure th3t we can monitor that for 2 our own important safety purposes.

3 MR. LEVIN~S: Slide 3, please.

4 (Viewgraph.)

5 0

7 3

9 10 11 12

- 13 14 16 17 13 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

52.02. l 19

sh In the letter that the ACHS wrote to you about our 2 budget, they have a long section, the beginning of wnicn is 3 sort of their philosophy about naw research directions needed 4 as a result of TMI. And I would like to summarize these for 5 you just to be sure that we understand them together and to 6 show that there is quite a parallelis7 between the slides 7 I just showed you were very si~ilar to those that I 0enerated 8 for testimony for JcCormick/s co~mittse.

9- So the thinking has ~one along in parallel.

lO The first thing they say is you have to consider 11 a broader range of safety issues in research. Gy this they 12 mean that we should be doing exploratory 9 as well as 13 confirmatory research, and we should have additfonal 14 flexibility in our research program over and above w~at we 15 now have. And they have written a separate letter on this 16 subject.

17 The research should cover the prevention and 18 mitigation of accijents that result in severely da aJed cores.

19 That..,s What I..,ve been talking about.

20 CO MM I SS I Otff R GI L I NSK Y: We 11 , l e t.., s s e e i f I ha v e 21 it right.

22 MR. LEVINE: We have to consider multiple failures 23 as opposed to only single failures. And we have already 24 presented to ACRS our reviews about how to studybthis matter 25 and we will make recommendations to N~R. fhe ACRS recognizes

20 that the rasearch is already underway in many new areas and 2 others can be considered and implemented without delaying 3 the budgetary procBss.

4 _Of course, priority should continue to be 5 re-exafllined and we have already done so'T1e re-examination '3s

.LI ,_ ...._ .,.., ,,-.

6 a result of the and L,il8 r.l,ri.::> comments.

7 we will continue to do this.

.J Specifically, Slide 9 9 (Viewgraph.)

10 - they want a greater emphasis on small LOCAs and

.11 anomalous transient. They want analytical studies of a broad 12 spectrum of accidents that ;;o beyond DBAs. They want to lJ study the practicality retainipg molt~n core within the 14 containment or reducing radioactivity in liquid path~ays 15 following meltdown.

16 Some of this work is already in our approved 17 research program to augment ongoing studies of steam 13 exolosions for better understanding, more extensive evaluati~n 19 of liquid pathway conse1uences for core melt accidents.

20 ~l ide 10?

21 C\/iewgraph.)

22 Identify research needs related to procedures for 23 operation, maintenance, testi~J ~~d sJrveillance. R~view 24 operating experience to determine projlems important to 25 .safety.

62,02.3 21

sh Of course, the oper

:tion's evaluation function ,.,rill 2 do this and our little select group will work them, develop 3 fast-running codes for postulated transient and accident 4 seauences to aid improved operator traininJ, diagnostic 5 instrumentation, and computer-~ijed operator guidance. Dev~lop 6 real time methods for analysis of system disturbances to 7 provide to operators improved diagnostic information about 3 abnormal sequences.

9 Slide.ll?

10 (Viewgraph.)

11 Research -on systems behavior and interaction to 12 increase insights on operating limits, abnormal transients, 13 and improved design of. safety systems.

14 This is much li\e the Lewis co~mitte~ reco7~endations 15 CO MM I .S S I () i'I ER GI L I NS:< Y: Ho ./f do e s a l.l th i s r 1 c; l c.1 t e t CJ 16 your program?

17 MR. LEVINE: Well, I gave you what I thought we had 13 to do and there is quite 2 parallel betwee~ all of these 19 viewgraphs and mine. They are not exactly the same.

20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY; Ylihen are you 9oin9 to shm'1 2l it?

22 MR. LEVINE: I am going to show it later. It's hard

• 23 24 25 into decision unit form3t. I 2~ tryi~g ta ~iv~ the 0vera!l 1og.ic f.or the program and to s.how that we and the AC;-IS *are

22 thinking very much alike.

2 Slide 12, please.

3 (Viewgraph.)

4 Budget co!'Tlments.

5 COMMIS~IOt'iER AHEA~~lE: 3ut there were, when you get 6 into s~ecifics, they did have sose places.

7 MR. LEVINE: There were some. specific differences and a these can be worked out.

9 COMMISSIOi~Eti AHEAaN:::: dill they be mentionad later 10 as you go through?

.11 MR. LEVINE: Yes. Each division director will cover 12 those as we go through.

13 I~ regard to our budget, the ACRS supports.an 14 additional $30 to $31 million for L*t\I-related resear.ch in 15 Fiscal '30, plus 53 million for ~aste manage~ent.

16 We hava now requested from you 529 million, plus 17 $3 .million for waste management. The ACRS generally supports the Fiscal /81 budget, not as stronJlY as the '80 su~ple~ent, 19 but generally very strongly.

20 And the ACRS support is based on the understanding 21 that some reori2ntation might be necessary as a result of 22 further study *

• 23

?4 25 i Iur,,ber 14?

1 (Viawgraph.)

This is an atte~pt to show you the budget trends and

23 to show, starting with '79 -- the top line are the budget 2 requests. The dark line is the budget request that ,*1e've 3 asked for in the "79 budg.et, our .,,80 budget. plus the 4 supplement. And then our '81 budget. And the dashed line 5 shows you that in .;79, we reorientsd 512 million of funds 6 to TMI. In *"80, we re reor ientin9 $34-1 /2, ~n addition to 7 $32 we-'re already asking for 1 '1.fe.,,re 3sking for additionally.

8 And in 1981, 576 million of our budget will be TMI-related 9 research.

10 And while the budget is very large, I should point JI out that we have in 79 and ao picked up the operating 12 cost of $25 or $30 million a year.

13 So. that is to be consicteied.

14 COMMISSIONEK AHcAf~Nt:: The $2-H.6 that is neither 15 the EOO, 0MB mark or the original request.

16 MR

• LE 'II N' E : That' s r i <;ht . Th a t i s in the :r: i -:!d l e.

17 Number 16 13 (Viewgraph.)

19 -- will show this better. It shows our Congressional 20 -~*ao budget, our EDO mark, end our Reclama, I guess the 21 Congressional has --

22 MR. BUDNITZ: The Congressional is the President's 23 budget.

24 COMMISSIONER AHEA~<N.=: But it has not been the result 25 of Congressional action.

24 BUDNITZ: That's riJht.

2 Mr. LEVINE: It is the PresidentJs budget. It is 3 not the Congress' action.

4 MR. BUDNI*rz: It was what was sent to Congress.

5 MR. LEVINE: We are qoing to be less by about 55 6 million, roughly.

7 MR. BARRY: I would say more like S7.

8 MR. BUDNifZ: There is $5 weJre going to have to eat 9 and then $2 in gas.

10 MR. LEVINE: We are Reclama-ing $4.8 million over and

.11 above what the EDO gave us. And that includes the set-aside.

12 The division directors will cover each of these as we go 13 through_.

14 COMMISSICJ;. fER AHEARNE: The EJCl :nark --- it is the 15 mark on the '80 suoplement. And so it is the sup~lement 16 added to $168.

17 MR. LEVINE: Yes, exactly.

18 CDM:AISSICL-fE2 AHEARNE: The,1 /our :ieclarn2 then is an 19 additional amount over and above that.

20 MR. LEVINE: Over and above that.

21 In Fiscal _/8 l, we sh::w the cDO ::-:ar:< with $25 mi.11 ion 22 -of set-asides, $25.9. And we are .Reclama-ing to a level of 23 S244.6, which is 552 million.

24 Now I would like to discuss just a t'8w of these 25 it.ems.

62.02. 7 9sh Th.e division directors 'llill cover the rest in detail.

- 2 3

4 In seismic safety --

chart.

COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: One question still on this You have a Reclama that the EiJO had put in as a 5 set-aside.

6 MR. LEVINE: We are asking that that be put in the 7 budget.

8 CClMMISSIOt1ER AriEARNE: Although the EDC}/s comment is, 9 it is the commi.ssion decision. It has to decide one way or the 10 other. And what youJre doing is reminding us.

.11 MR. LEVINE: My advice to you is that we would like 12 it in the budget.

• 13 14 15 CO*MtHSSICJNER -A.HEARNE: That is""a different character than What EDD has produced before.

MR. LEVINE: Yes. Aside fro~ the set-aside, there 16 is only a $1 .4 mi 11 ion difference bet.'feen us and EQC). i'fol'r 17 go~ng on to -"81, I would like to talk about seismic.

13 COMM I SSIOdER A.HEAP.Ne: Just a minute. Your Rec lsrl2, 19 if I add your Reclama to the EDO, to what the EDO mark was, 20 it looks like you are essent~ally Reclama-ing the mark.

21 Is that right?

22 MR. LEVINE~ ThatJs right.

23 MR. BUO'.'-fITZ: Ihat-"s ex:=:ctly rL;~t.

24 CO ;1\/:\ ISSI ONER AHEARN'.::; Okay.

- 25 MR. LEVINE: In .,.81, I would l.ik,e to talk about

26 seismic engineering safety, where we ask for S19.9 and the 2 EDO gave us $13.9.

J I would like to po int out that the ACRS rec ormn end 4 a level of about $17 million. And I would also like to point 5 out to You the importance of this area.

6 rle know that there is a lot of difficulty with 7 seismic safety design of nuclear power plant~ and we have 8 organized an extensive research program to try and help 9 resolve this area to make it more rational than it now is.

10 Many people think it is overconservative and, in

.I I fact, counter to safety in some areas.

12 ~e are trying to develop by the use of quantitative 13 risk assessment techniques a more rational basis for safety 14 design. Also, pipe cracks are in here and you know that th2re 15 are a lot of problems with pipe cracks, items that are 16 very important areas, that will be Jrowing and should ~e 17 growing, and in which research is needed.

18 In fast breeders, I *JUes.s that we have had sane 19 experience that says that we need a significant increase. The 20 $13.7 billion level is sort of below critical ~ass because the 21 people, the good people in the research program 1 are leaving 22 it.

23 Ano it seems to me th9t if we look forward to JJI, 24 the report wlll be on the street. And there is some reason 25 to think that the brEeder program might be extradited because

27 of that.

2 Certainly~ we ought to be doing the research n2eded 3 in advance of the safety issues and licensing reactors, rather 4 than afterwards, it seems to me.

5 So that your proble~ is very si~ple. If y0 u t h i n k 6 that there are going to be breeders, then we ought ta be doing 7 more work on that. It you think that there aren-'t going to 8 be breeders, maybe we shouldn/t be doing anything.

9 COMMISSIOdER AHEARi'1E: Inde~endent of when 'He think 10 there might be breeders?

II MR. LfVINi: Almost, because I think that we need a 12 large number of years to resolve some of the safety items .

• 13 14 15 If you-'re talking about qreeders by 1995 9r 20D0, not too early to be working on tho5e issues.

it is still 16 /ML LEVINE: I think th2 r::port is goinQ to sey that 17 most countries in t~e world are going to be building breeder 1 'J u reactors. I think that thev'r~ ~oing tc be preticting a 19 number which is outrageously high of 30 breeder re3ctors by 20 the ye2r 20J0.

21 I don_,..t s3e any way to get ther<3, but it is an 22 .indication that most of the countries are going to go ahead 23 with the breeder reactor.

24 25 Is there some draft report on it?

62.02. l 0 28 gsh MR. LEVIN~; There are a lot of draft reports which

- 2 3

4 I,,ve not read. But I have talked to the DOE rep and he has given me this information that this is what the report is going to say and.the bulk of the countries are going to go 5 ahead with the programs.

6 The bulk of the countries who are already in the 7 br.eeder area, wi 11 be going ahead with their programs. I 3 suspect this might not be true of Germany. Germany is a very

'-} case because of the political situation within that country.

10 rle are ~robably a special case, too. But I think the other 11 countries are going to go ahead.

12 COMMISSICUER Bi~ADFOi=?J; As far as breeders are

• .)

13 14 15

.concerned, .

there *are probabl;/ noth:ing but *special case_s.

MR. BARRY: _Sa0l, are we going to wait and ouild a chain of safety reseach fro~ foreign countries on their 16 breeders?

17 MR- LEVINE: We have safety research exchan~e 13 agreements ~ith those countries. Not all of them, but some 19 of them. In fact, we are trying to add a fast react~r 20 agreement exchange to our current agreement with Germany, 21 and they are refusing to accept the non-proliferation paragraph 22 They are going to send us a letter to that effect, 23 so I donJt know if we will get it or not. But I think it is 24 going to be difficult to get the raal information you need

- 25 be c a use o t t he h.i g h 1 y com p e t i t i v e s i. t :J a t i on that w i 11 e x is t

29 about breeders. The French want to sell breeders~ The 2 countries are going to hoard their store of inform2tion.

3 In any event, we have to do some work of our own.

4 MR. BARRY: I was just wondering, I was sug~estihg 5 that thereJs a great potential there.

6 MR. LEVINE: We/re going to try to get as much as 7 we can.

8 MR. BARRY: They certainly leaned on us. rhey must 9 be doing safety research on breeders.

10 COlv1MISSIONER GILINSKY: lfore you implying that after J l this report, that our own program will crank up?

12 MR. LEVINE: No, I didn't im~ly that at all. I

• 13 14 15

.should have spoken more carefully.

I think that our program probably will not change after the publication. But I think that the pressures will 16 be in the direction of causing it to change over time.

17 And as Commissioner Aheaine said, it is hardly too 18 early now on gas advanced converter reactors. I guess we 19 prepared this before we knew what the Senate did, and we 20 were saying, if they are going to make us eat the money, let's 2l no t ea t .it

• Le t ,, s g iv e us the money in th e bud g e t

• 22 And the Senate language has changed what the House 23 did to say, spend as much money as ap~ears to be useful, not 24 what the House told you to spend.

25 And I donJt know what t6 do about t~is except I would

l2,.02. 12 30 gsh like -- whatever it~s going to be, I would like it in my

- 2 3

4 budgeti as opposed to having to eat it.

COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: ;Nhat a terrible challenc;e only spend the money if it appears to be useful.

5 MR. LEVIN~: Going on to risk assessment, I think with 5 the publication of the Lewis ~apart, we've reached the tur~ing 7 point i~ risk assessment research and utility to the agency.

8 If you would show Slide 17, ~lease.

9 CV.iewgraph.)

10 Here are two slides of recommendations fro~ the l1 Lewis Report, which I won~t bather to read. They simply tell 12 us to use quantitative risk assessment techniques to I

13 basically reassess the 1ramework of the licensing process- on 14 17 and 18, and I won't spend any more time on those.

15 But we *,,rant to do that. And, in fact, Slide 19 --

16 ( V i e wg rap h * )

17 -- is a list of ite~s that we have got up 3bout 1:3 things that we ought to do to help th~m make their licensing 19 process more rational, if we can.

20 The first item, generic safety, we have already 21 completed, and that 1s the se~aration of the 133 ite~s and 22 whatever the remainder is.

23 This was done from a quantitat.iva risk assessme~t 24 viewpoint. We~re going to review the standard review plan to

- 25 see whether it needs diminishing or enhancement in various

62.02.13 31 qsh areas.

2 ~e are going to review the Category 2, RQC things.

3 We~re going to look at the systematic evaluation plan to 4 see if there are thinqs that aren.,,t there that should be, 5 and we~re going to look at the content of technical o specifications.

7 Slide 20, which I think is a very interesting a slide ---

9 (Viewgraph.)

10 -- shows you the most recent exercise we conducted 1l as a result of Three Mile Island. 1'/e 'Here asked by L'iRR to 1

12 review the 24 different, or 25 on this slide. 25 different 13 auxiliary feedwater designs in PWR re3ctors which woLlld 14 represent all of the operatin;i P'NP.s . .:\nd we did this job i:n 15 two weeks with two of our people, four from a contractor, 15 six from NRR, and a bunch of industry people to feed in input 17 information.

18 This work was done in two weeks and we looked at the 19 main feedwater probability of loss on demand, three different 20 co nd i t i o n s

• And >1 u ca n see t h.e wide var i ab il i t y i n the 21 reliability of those systems. And you know --

22 Sy the way, the upper bound, the high end of the 23 upper and is about 10 to the ~inus 5 3nd the lower end is about 24 10 to the ~inus 2.

25 And you knm*1 from your consideration of trend of

62.02. l 4 32

JSh accident sequences involving the system, they need a highly

- 2 3

4 reliable system.

Action can now be taken to improve the reliability of these systems. And we made the necessary recommendation 5 to NRR about what needs to be done from this exercise.

6 ~°le found out, for instance, that 111 son,3 plants, 7 the tech specs allow the operator to operate without any

-3 requirement on auxiliary feed~ater. You could dismantle the 9 system and remove it from the rea£t r, or leave it inoperable 10 for a ~onth at a time *.

11 So that is easily fixed by a change in tech specs, 12 but there are other things that have to be done, too. It

• 13 14 15 just shows tbe power of the~e techniques.

CCl/v\MISSICli'./ER GILPiS;~'{; Say that again.

,rn. LEVINE: There are some ;:ilants where th.2re are 16 no limiting conditions for operation of auxiliary fEedwater 17 as a prerequisite to operat_in; the r-eactor.

13 That ~eans that you can dismantle the system or have 19 it down for maintenance for six ~onths and sti.11 operate the 20 reactor. And that is not a tolerable situation.

2; CO !vfM I SSIONE R BRADFORD: That would actually say 22 having. the valves* shut off, as they ,,,ere at TMI.

23 MR. LEVINE: It would not be a violation. You coulj.

24 in fact, have pumps r~~oved pnd dismantled.

25 COMMLSSIONER GILINSKY: Are th,ese older plants'?

62._02. 15 33 gsh MR. LEVINE: I don~t know which they are. I can get

- 4 2

3 you that information. These have all been communi~ated to NRR and they ara writing a report of some kind.

was dona about a month ago.

This work 5 COMivlISSIOr-fER GILHiS;('{: And they are dealin*J with it 0

7

J MR. 3UDNITZ: These two trends, and the third one that 9 is very different is kind of a startling thing.

10 MR. LEVIN~: A lass of main feedwater is a highly JI probable event. Cln the other hand, on the right-hand column,,

12 the loss of all AC ~ower, is a fairly low probability event.

e* 13 14

. . 1 re l 1ab.Le, So for that condition, the system need not be as exce~t you jo want it to work. And some of them 15 don,.t '..*rork at all because they are all electrically driven 1,5 pumps.

17 1.'iell, these kinds of thin:;s just fall ri;;ht out of 13 of a look that can ':Je done -:;uic!dy a.r1d easily oy 19 experienced people.

20 MR. BUD{HfZ: There are two points to this. The 21 first is that the data show a scatter, which is even strik.inq

'))

c._,~

} 4

.}'

~j

62.02. 16 34

,;sh an expertise on this.

- 2 3

4 l,etter report?

COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Did you end up producing a MR. LEVINE: I believe that we have written a memo.

5 VOICE:: A memo was transmitted to NRh' with results 6 and r e c o rnm end a t i on s .

7 MR. LEVINE: This thing*- would you like copies?

9 M~. LEVINE: I would just like now to go on to one 10 more slide on.this ::1rea, improved safety research. slide, 21.

.11 (Viewgraph.)

12 MR. LEVINE: I just ~ant to remind you about the

- 13 14 l '-*-': : .

background of this exercise, where we were asked by.the Congress to prepare a plan.

. And this simply indicates how the plant was prepared and how we selectej the research topics 15 that had the maxirnu7 ootential a~d oene11-c value i~oact, that

\ ..,C

• I 17 we lookej at th.a de::;;ree of suo,:Jort in the technical co:-umunity, 1 *Cl I :, the risk reduction ~otantial, the ~~~licability to n~~bar 19 of plants, and the inplerrientation cost and ':lade some iud:-;;1:1ents 20 about which of 16 areas seemed ~ost reasonable to ex;lore.

21 And th i s i s a p rob l ::: m no w be t '-"' e e n o u rs e l v e s and DO c 22 in that O.v\8 gave us less mone*y' than 'lie asked for and gave more

• 23 24

- 25 MR. L~VIN2: Environmental Quality Labs wrote a

,') _ _ 11?

'?t.' u_. 17 35 qsh pretty gooj report on what kind of im~rovements need to be

- 2 3

4

~ade in reactor safety. It is a Cal fech organization.

CO Mt!\I SS Io:,fER AHEARNE: Since you raised that issue, one of the things that I thought the ACRS had raised OMS-DOE 5 in their letter to us is th3t since 0.-,\i:3 has said that there 6 ou~ht to be a coordination, thay were encouraging us ta 7 take some steps to provide that quidance to the DOE.

J Have ',*1e done that?

9 ~R. LEVINE; Not yet, but I/ve written you a memo 10 which you ~pproved in the last week, and we are going to do 11 that. However, you should also note the ACRS says that You 12 should fund more work in this area .

• 13 14 15 COMMISSIO:--lER AHEARNE: .L understand that.

• split on im~roved saf3ty research, we went dawn to 15 visit with our friends in the departm3nt the other day and 17 succeeded in pointing out that, while they may have 13 substantial reactor satety or lightwatar reactor su~port in 1 ':i the budget and still a good chunk of that for safety, what 20 we are interested in is that piece down in the corner of the 21 l:1tter category, which was, in eff1::ct, cut out of our carefully 22 considered program developed here and with consultation with

- 23

')

,::_ -,A the*n and the AC?.S and everybo,:i 1 else, cut out down in DO'.::.

1 av, o;*,13 and out

-- 25 And what 'rle/ve said is for that piece. Our

36 6210~.18 9sn understanding with 0MB 'Hhen it went over was that we would 2 control the program content. And we~ve made the point.

3 So from that standpoint, I think that there will 4 always be a few rough spots in the implementation down the 5 line. But I think in principla, at least, we have that 6 in reesone::Jle shape. ccinsi::!eri'."'lq that th9 C)!*rn cut co'.1tinues 7 to stand.

8 9

10

.11 12

• 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

"'""")

24 25

CR6 246 Heer t.3 37 j1 1

- 2 Now, I think for fiscal '81 that we ought to go back in with what we think is an appropriate level for the improved

- 3 4

5 safety research program. It is here, at $6.6 million: the ACRS thinks it ought to be higher. We can consider that as we come to it, but I think we ought to go in in our budget once 6 again with the full amount rather than sort of prerolling over 7 to a cut.

8 And I think if, once again, 0MB wants to export a 9 piece of that to DOE, why we will have to negotiate an argue 10 as best we can.

11 MR. LEVINE: Mr. Chairman, we're also asking for an 12 increase in our '80 supplemental, which would then -- if we 13 got that, I think that would free up whatever DOE wants to do 14 for themselves. It is $3.4 million.

15 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: As I noticed the '80 supplement, 16 I it had an astonishing resemblance to the piece that was exportecj l I

! I

• / li to DOE.

I 18 MR. LEVINE: Some of the emphasis has changed, but the amount of money is the same.

20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What kind of a program does 21 QOE have in reactor safety?

22 MR. LEVINE: There are $4 million in '79, $10 million I

23 or so in '80, and going much larger in '81, but I don't have the 24 '81 number yet.

I :\~-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: The question I would have,

j1 2 38 particularly with respect to '81, while I certainly agree that 2 we ought to decide what has to be done or what ought to be done, 3 then the question is where should it be located. And that is 4 why I come back to what exten~ have we coordinated the develop-s ment with DOE? Have we had any process of providing guidance 6 to them in what they put in in '81?

7 MR. LEVINE: We have two DOE members on the Research 8 Review Group that developed our plan. They were in on all the 9 meetings.

10 Now, beyond this, we have had informal meetings with 11 them. We are now planning to establish a formalized mechanism.

12 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I.remember that. What I'm 13 really s;till* trying to push on is that DOE, just like we, are 14 in those stages of pulling their budget together. And they've 1s I been spending the summer, just J,ike we, putting together pieces 161 that will come up through their process.

I

• 7

', I I Have we worked with them, given them any guidance in 18 that, in their '81 budget, they ought to have these pieces?

19 MR. LEVINE: I'm sure we've told them what our ideas 20 are; yes.

21 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But not some explicit 22 MR. LEVINE: I think we have been waiting.--

23 CHAIRMAN:HENDRIE: Certainly not to the extent of 24 looking at. year 2 of the three-year improved safety research

,*\ce-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 program and saying, "Now, DOE, why don't you put i terns 1 through

j1 3 39 1 in your budget, or we won't put it in ours."

2 I think, clearly -- not that I don't know what they 3 will do, by way of their budget --

4 MR. LEVINE: I would like to say that I don't share 5 in fact, I disagree with DOE's -- or OMB's view of the matter 6 of where the research should be done. I think they have a 7 different view than the reality will be. We do not intend to 8 get involved in conflict of interest situations where we 9 design systems. We are only looking at system concepts enough 10 to generate safety requirements where experiments are needed, 11 except perhaps for the PPCCS, where we will ask them to do it.

12 I think i t is_ a perfectly workable situation.

13 I think that 0MB overreacted.

14 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: What did Congress -- where did 15 Congress end up corning out on improved safety?

16 CHAIR.MAJ.~ HENDRIE: The Authorization Committee came 17 down the line for us, four square, both the House and Senate.

18 The Appropriations Committee, I believe, followed the 0MB.

10

.. I' MR, BARRY

The Appropiration Committee simply 20 supported what we asked for in the budget. We*asked for a 21 million, and they gave us a million.

22 And, as Saul says, they didn't address the issue as to 23 whether there should have been more or less.

24 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Nor then did they address the

.il>,ce-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 authorization.

j1 4 40 MR. BARRY: That's right. They did not address the 2 issue.

3 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I daresay we will have a good 4 discussion about that next February.

5 MR. BARRY: You ought to make clear to the Commission, 6 too, that at least in your report to us, in the supplemental 7 for improved safety, the small and direct support of TMI, It 8 relates to TMI.

9 MR. BUDNITZ: On the other hand, it was generally 10 what was in the report of a year and a half ago. And the Three l1 Mile Island incident just has some sort of different light on I

' h I e.. 12 13 that. That stuff was in there.

We had all of these things.

We had operator stuff in.

t ere-~

14 MR. LEVINE: All of these things we talked about to 15 improve operator capability, they were in there.

16 MR. BARRY: That is a little different cast than 17 you reflected to us.

18 MR. BUDNITZ: That is not a response to Three Mile 1*? :, Island, but it is in the areas that Three Mile Island told us II 11 20 il to work in.

Ii JI

?l 11 Ii MR. BARRY: You' re saying it is essentially the same 22 II program?

1' i

"JJ

.. II MR. BUDNITZ: It was there before. It is a little i

24 different.

.A.ce-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 MR. BARRY: That ought to be made clear though. I

j1 5 41 don I t think that was clear.

2 MR. BUDNITZ: Is that clear?

3 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I understood it.

4 MR. LEVINE: Slide 23, please.

5 (Viewgraph.)

6 This is the slide that just recaps the personnel 7 requirements which, again, will be covered in detail by the 8 division directors, except for one, the last one on program 9 direction and support, the last line.

10 We are asking for four more people, and I think the 11 situation that -- is that Bob and I are just totally overloaded 12 because of lack of people to supr:i_ort us. We need two people in 13 our Program Support Branch that works essentially directly for 14 me, and we need a person in Contracts and one in Budget. And I',I I

1 s I we need these people very badly to be responsive to all the 16 requests we get from the Controller and the EDO and to get our 17 contracts out and process our mail.

18 Slide 24 --

(Viewgraph. )

20 -- just summarizes the equipment. And again, here 21 this will all be covered by the division directors.

22 MR. BUDNITZ: Could I make one point? I think it is 23 worth pointing out that NRR has been specially designated to do 24 what they are up to. I&E has just established an office. We

.!l.c--1-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 did not establish a special task force, and hence we have not

j1 6 42 got a Lessons Learned report to give you, except that this is 2 our Lessons Learned report and the Staff report, which embodies 3 in some detail what this is.

4 What we did, in terms of learning lessons from Three 5 Mile Island, was to reorient, redirect, and where needed, seek 6 more support for areas that are embodied in this budget. It is 7 important that your realize that has been going on in the office 8 -- and, of course, it should be clear since the accident, 9 besides assisting in all the other activities, has been a 10 substantial redirection of the ongoing work. And what we seek 11 here is to do the things we think are still needed.

12 Now_, that's not the only thing that is in here. There 13 is seismic stuff in here, which*would have been in here, Three 14 Mile Island or not. There is risk assessment stuff, stuff that 15 would have been in here,_Three Mile Island or not. And the 16 Lewis Commission told the Commission and the Staff to do this, 17 but in a very real sense, this is our Lessons Learned, as well 18 as all the other things that are involved, 19 And the only other point that I need to make is that, ii 11 i

20 to me, .I think the other thing that has happened here is this 21 budget takes tq* heart the* Lewis Committee1 s recommendation that the 22 risk assessment effort be used to assist in the guidance of the 23 whole program in arranging priorities and understanding the 24 safety significance.

.~ce-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 Indeed, in the Three Mile Island-related area, that

jl 7 43 is, this intermediate area, what is going to be going on is the 2 drawing of these event trees in order to enable the research 3 program to explore those accidents which are found to be of 4 interest or importance and assign them the lower priorities to 5 those that aren't.

6 The guidance, using the methodology, is something 7 which would not have been possible, say, five years ago, and, 8 in fact, did not underlie the establishment of the large LOCA 9 pr0gram which still dominates the budget. It did not underlie 10 that, but it is going to underlie this area. I think that is a 11 major conceptual advance in the way a sizable part of this was 12 put together -- not all of it, because a lot of it isn't of

• J 13 this kind. I think th at is a major break through.

14 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Would it be appropriate at 15 some stage to see what would happen to the current budget if 16 you did attempt to underlie it with that kind of approach?

i7 I MR. BUDNITZ: Well, what you would find is the FY '79 18 budget, the budget that our contractors are working with, have 19 1 less working transients and small LOCAs than the risk assessment 20 techniques tell us the,y. should and had less *work in some of the 21 fuel chemistry, fuel behavior areas that, in fact, we are trying 22 to remedy with exactly the new approaches here.

23 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But the same amount of money 24 would have led you to conlude that at least in some areas you

.A.~-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 had more *.

j1 8 44 MR. BUDNITZ: Relatively. That is a fair statement.

2 Now, it is also fair to say that this isn't completely 3 balanced yet, even in '81, because you j'ust can I t develop things[

4 all at once. You have to begin by developing event trees and I 5

I a better understanding of these things and then learn whether I I

6 other research is required, some of which we won I t know until 7 we have done the scoping work.

8 MR. LEVINE: We are going to run out of time pretty 9 soon.

10 Should we go on to RSR, please?

11 MR. MURLEY: Could I have C zero, please?

12 (Slide.)

13 Just to r-emind you where we were last year, this is 14 a slide taken from last year's presentation. The LOCA program 15 was trending downward. The fuel program was downward. The 16 site and primary system were upwards, but they were small.

i7 I COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: You are including DOE on here, 18 Are the dollars really dominated by DOE?

1n i*

!I MR. MURLEY: In the 1 78 and '79 budgets, there were I

I 20 some LOFT dollars. It makes it smoother.

21 Now, I might point out that we took this seriously 22\ in the sense that I informed the lab and our contractors and 23 DOE that we were going to do this. And, in fact, the Chairman 24 has got some letters from some lab directors asking how come

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25 we were doing this.

j 1 9 45 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, how come you're doing 2 this? And besides, you've got all these great people trying 3 to do something else.

4 MR. MURLEY: But we were on that path, as a matter of 5 fact.

6. Now, could I have C-25?

7 (Slide,)

8 This shows the revised program for light water safety 9 on the top, and it reflects two things, but primarily the 10 Three Mile Island-related research that we believe is needed 11 because of safety questions that we weren't addressing in our 12 old prog~am. *'

13 What*we've done on the lower chart is we are really 14 ramping down the large LOCA program faster than we had planned 15 last year, the small LOCA and transients. We had intended to 16 increase it, but at nowhere near the rate and nowhere near the 17 1 level that we are doing it, in fact, so that in '79 you see an I

18 increase up to about $10 million. That comes about from 19 reorienting already some semi-scale and LOFT research and some 20 code development work.

21 And then in 1 81 and '82, these small LOCA and trans~

22 ient work really predominates over large LOCA, what has changed!

.j"'

23 since last year, not only Three Mi le Is land,. but we've got two 24 successful LOFT tests built *

.~ce-Federal Reponers, Inc.

25 MR. LEVINE: That: has changed our whole perception

j 1 10 46 about the number of large LOCA tests we can use.

2 MR. MURLEY: That is by way of background. Then, for 3 each program element -- now, we have eight program elements in 4 reactor safety.

5 I will describe, briefly, what is in each program, 6 and each one has a package: program description, the ACRS 7 comments are behind it. There is a breakdown for each one of 8 how much is ongoing work, how much is TMI-related, and how much 9 is new starts in fiscal '81.

10 And there is a further breakdown of the Three Mile 11 Island work, and then, finally, for each program element there 12 is a decline -- I won't have time to go into all of these.

13 I will concentrate on the five areas where we are appealing the ,

14 EDO cuts; and there are two or three major areas where we 15 disagree with the ACRS, and I will concentrate on those as well.

16 Number 25, please.

17 (Viewgraph.)

18 Okay, in the seismic area, as Saul mentioned, we are 1c ii projecting some large growths here. The EDO 20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Just so that I don't lose my-21 1 self in confusion, your breakdown does or does not track to the Ii 22 I way the PRG and EDO folks put it together?

23 MR. LEVINE: It is slightly out of order.

24 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: But is the seismic engineering Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 and safety program -- is that the same?

j 1 11 47 MR. MURLEY: Yes, 2 This, I guess, is our biggest appeal. We are asking 3 for $6 million more than the EDO mark, or $1~.9 million. This 4 is a new organization last year. It was formed if you will 5 recall, last summer it was headed up Larry Shiao, The structur-6 al engineering and mechanical engineeYing are relatively new 7 programs, and they are getting a firm foundation in '79 and '80.

8 And there is some big growth needed, we believe, in '81. That 9 is why you see the large increases.

10 We think they are able to absorb the growth, primarily 11 because it involves some new experiments and supportive analysis 12 that we' re doing in the seismic area, and the piping and 13 structural area.

14 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: The PRG has a question of 15 whether you could efficiently handle that size of a program 16 growth.

I

'7 I I' i MR. MURLEY: We think we can, and the reason is it is 18 a fairly broad challenge, broad challenged program. There are 19 \! a number of small tasks.

20 MR. ENGLEHARDT: The PRG looked at this particular 21 decision unit in terms of its current program support numbers 22 of $8.4 million and carried it through to their office request 23 of an increase to $19,9, and we felt that that degree of growth I

l 24 over that short period of time would be difficult for them to

.::i.~-e-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 absorb. So what we did was essentially scale it so that in

j 1 12 48 fiscal '83 they would be up the requested level. We just didn't 2 see that they could absorb that particular substantial growth 3 during that period of time.

4 MR. MURLEY: Okay. As I mentioned --

5 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But you think we can?

6 MR. MURLEY: We think we can, yes.

7 MR. BUDNITZ: It is for just the reason cited. There s are a lot of things going on that.have to gone into in much more 9 detail and specificity than we are doing.

10 MR. MURLEY: I would point two growths that are kind 11 of built into the program. One is in seismic safety -- research 12 program, called SSMRP. It is to assess the margins qr lack 9f 13 margins in seismic design of plants today._ We. really don't know

.)

14 what they are. And that's why, when we come with an error in 15 the computer codes, we find out we have to shut plants down.

16 Whereas, in the LOCA research area, we find errors 17 in codes all the time, in the vendor's codes. But we know we've

&7.d they don't have to shut the plants 181 got substantial margins.

19 i, I

down until they can find out where these errors are.

I I

I 20 In my judgment, we are about 10 years behind the LOCA 21 ACS codes in these size codes, and we at NRC have really 22 no independent capability at all in this area. And there is a 23 large part of the. growth in mechanical engineering budget, which 24 is aimed at improving our capability in this area.

nce,Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 Could I have 26, please?

j 1 13 49

- 2 (Slide.)

Briefly, the ACRS supported the program. They

- 3 4

5 suggested a level of about $17 million for fiscal '81. One area that I should mention that they didn .'t agree wi t.11 us on is the so-called atmosphere transport and diffusion. It may 6 be a bid of a misunderstanding here.

7 Let me tell you.what we would like to do, what we 8 think is needed. Partly as a result of Three Mile Island, I 9 think we see the plants are probably going to need more radia-10 tion monitors. And anticipating this, we believe that there 11 are some tests that are needed to figure out what is the 12 density of monitors and how far out should these monitors go 13 in terms of two miles, five miles, 10 miles. So there are some 14 tests needed, we believe, to look at different terrains, differ 15 ent weather conditions, and what kind of plumes might arise so 16 that we can place the monitors and would not miss the radiation I

17 I plumes?

18 Could I have 27, please?

10 I' (Slide.)

ii I

i 20 Here the point is that about $16.5 million is 21 continuation of endorsed programs, and it reflects the fact 22 that this is growth in ongoing programs. 2 million is new; it 23 is Three Mile Island~related. And of the new starts, there is 24 only about $1~4 million.

i\ce-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: If one were to go to the 19.9

j 1 14 50 that you've asked for, does that also then -- the 28.l and the 2 32 in the outyears are again what you would be asking?

3 MR. MURLEY: Yes.

4 Could I have 28, please?

5 (Viewgraph.)

6 This is our Recla.ma. We're asking for 6 million in 7 program support above the EDO mark. The point -- the key point 8 to make, I think, is that this decision unit, at the 13.9 level, 9 is well below our minimum level we believe, considering that we 10 are starting some work in fiscal '80 as part of the supplement-*

11 al. So, as a result, at 13.9 -- in fact, I probably would not 12 even start it if that's the only levei we could get.

13 If there are* no questions --

14  ! COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: You have 18 people now?

15 MR. MURLEY: We have 19 people, and we are asking for 16 four, primarily in the structural area and seismology. We have I

11

!7 i' a large number of seismology programs, small programs.

i 18 29, please.

1 9 (Viewgraph.)

20 The ACRS suggested $17 million. Again, we would ask 21 for the full 19.9, because there is some work that we couldn't 22 get started, even at the 17 million level. The 17 is close to 23 what we would call our current level. And it would not allow 24 starts of these new programs with the ACRS mark.

'~cs-Fsderal Reporters, Inc.

25 COMMISSI.ONER AHEARNE: What is your definition of end t3 "current"?

CR 6246 51 HEER t-4 mte 1 MR. MURLEY: It turns out in this program there *.are 2 some built-in growths. As I mentioned, the seismic margins I \

3 i program, some of the piping benchmark programs that we intended!

I d: to start in '80, need to grow to do them properly. It is I

I I

sl,, similar to our LOCA code development. It just takes money to

!I lj 6 I* do them right.

7 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I was just trying to get a 8 working definition of what "current" means.

9 MR. MURLEY: "Current" means no new starts, the 10 ongoing program with inherent growth, planned growth.

1 , -' i MR. BUDNITZ: Whatever was planned two years ago.

12 MR. MURLEY: Let's turn to systems en9ineering, 30.

iI .,

I l..l (Vie\ii.gr aph. )

14 Generally, here there is a 10 percent overa~l decrease 15 in fiscal '80. We are phasing out the ECC;.bypass, for example.

16 That is zero.

17 : You will notice there is almost a $6 million decrease:

I

s Ir II in the 3D flow distribution. The blowdown/reflood heat transfer ii 19 !I program is decreased.

ii I

201* There are two issues, one of which we have a disagree 1 I

I 21 !1 ment the ACRS on semiscale; and the other is a reclama on

• II "2

~ 1!

operational safety with the EDO.

Ii 23 1 1 And let's go:to the next viewgraph.

1!

- 24i! (Viewgraph.)

Ac:8-Federal Reoorters, Inc. : i

. 2s I The ACRS said that the systems, the semiscale

mte 2 52 program should not really be viewed as an integral systems 2 test, and that some reduction.from our request could be made 3 in this program. Now, we, I guess, disagree with this. We 4 have7-we think there is a strong need to understand PWR systems 5 and this is really the only program we can do this in outside 6 of LOFT.

7 We intend to add some hardware to study secondary system effects. Right now there is no secondary system, so we can't understand things like feedwater transients, the effect of steam generator cooling, and so forth.

11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Isn't the ACRS question 12 whether or not you can do a val.:j..d extrapolation?

13 I MR; LEVINE*: Let me tell you what I think it is.

I I i 14 That is part of it, but it is slightly different also, I think. l I

15 Plesset especially thinks we should not be advertising this as 16 an integral system test, because it is so atypical, just so 17 small that it has got to be atypical. And that's fine with 10 us. We I think have made an error in that regard.

19 In the past we have made a mistake in advertising it 1 20 as an integral test facility, and I think what we really should I i

21 say is that this facility has been extremely useful in allowing:

22 us to do all kind of experiments with great flexibility that 11 23 1 1 give us insights into phenomena that help us plan our larger-Ii 24 lI scale programs and our codes.

Ace-Federal Reoorters, Inc. ;

25 i! For instance, the codes that did very well. at

rote 3 53 predicting LOFT were developed and tested on semiscale and I

,\

2 11 did very well on LOFT. We could not have done that without I'

I 3 I semiscale. And so I don't care whether you call it an integral!

I i

I 4 facility or a special facility or whatever it is; it has been extremely useful for us. And in the same sense, it will be extremely useful to us in giving us an opportunity to run 7 multitudinous tests with small LOCAs and see the secondary 8 system impacts.

9 Plus, he said he was very disturbed that the upper 10 head injection test that we tried to do on semiscale did not 11 come out very well. The boards were notified and it created 12 a furor among the boards. And I thipk if we hao not been advertising t~ as an integral facility, it would not have required MR. MURLEY: It was a different test, really. But

,, that's the problem in the kind of goldfish bowl we live in.

I 17jj" We did a test where the insulation -- we put new insulation in 1s Ii'i

1 one of the vessels and it was not as good as we thought. As a ii 1? :: result, there was more heat transfer into the coolant than we

'.l 20 i thought. So we got some anomalous results. And normally in

i 21 1

11 the course of things we sit down and think about these and *1 I[

11 22 analyze them, and it takes a month or two.

23 Ii But in this atmosphere we 1 re in, we had to notify ii

i 24 ii the boards and that caused a lot of confusion, and I think Ace-Feceral Reoorters, Inc. :,,i 25i there was -- this caused some people to be upset, because what I

I 11

mte 4 54 are you supposed to do with this if you haven't had time to 2 figure it out? And we would prefer to sit down and think of I

3 I it ourselves.

I I

41 But we know its limitations, we think we do, and I

sI we think we can compensate for it.

6 I Also, I might add there are some high-risk tests 7 that are being proposed for LOFT that I would not at all be 8 comfortable doing unless we could run some tests on semiscale, 9 like what is called a reflux boiler mode, where we boil in the 10 ! core and condense in the steam generator. I'm not thrilled;1_at 11 doing that in LOFT.

12 i MR. LEVINE: We I re thinking about it, but w_e certai*nly 13 want to know more about it than we do now. We mighn do it, i4 *for instance, when a core is near the end of its life.

15 MR. BUDNITZ: It is not the kind of thing we're 16 that eager to try right away.

17 MR. MURLEY: Could we skip to 35. ,

COI--1MISSIONER AHEARNE: If you could go back to 30 just for a minute. I'm going to ask a question to see if I can understand it.

i I

The 1 80, including the supplemental, which is 42.3 --1 your change is minus 4 from 1 81. What significance are you l1 231]II asking us to get from that?

I!

d 24 ii MR. MURLEY: Okay. The fiscal 1 80 President's Ace-Feceral Reoorters, Inc.

25 budget was 34.8. Sb we're asking about -- I guess it is a

mte 5 55

$7.5. million supplement in '80, and then from that the '81 2 j, budget is decreased by $4 million.

3 I COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I wasn't sure whether you I

4 were trying to make a point that you were coming down in some 5 areas or what significance to draw from that.

6 MR. LEVINE: Just a factual report.

7 MR. MURLEY: You had asked where are some areas 8 where we are cutting work out.

9 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I would not interpret that 10 ! so much as corning down. If you get the supplement, you will 11 be* going substantially up, and then you will be corning back i t

12 down, more to where i t is still up above what it would have beenl 13 without ._~he supplement.

i4 MR. MURLEY: You 1 re right.

15 i Okay, 35, please.

16 (Viewgraph. )

i

)) ,,Ii The -- there is a reclama in fiscal 1980 of II I

18 $1 million for*operational safety, three items we would like to start.

One is valve testing. We think NRR is going to request the industry to do some tests on relief valves and safety valves, and we think and NRR thinks we should jointly participate in that program. So this, in fiscal '80, we would start test planning and specifying instruments and analysis measurements for such tests.

rnte6 56

- 2 3 I

$300,000 is for the post mortem. Here we intend to look at cable connectors and some of the equipment and instru-ments inside the containment that either failed or didn't fail, I

4 and we would like to find out why they did or didn't.

.5 '81 -- could I have 36, please .

6 I (Viewgraph.)

7 The reclama is more or less a continuation of those 8 same programs, valve testing and a new program of support for 9 I&E and looking at transmission links and emergency response 10 type of requi~ements.

1l COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Now, the ACRS had raised 12 questions about some of that, saying that they didn't think

.e 1~ ,,) it was going t~ be done soon enough.

14 MR. MURLEY: Yes, and we tend to agree that we I

1s I probably won't be in the containment building pulling stuff 16 out, at least not until late fiscal '80. What this money is 17 for in '80 is to start getting the shipping casks and shipping 18 containers ready to send them, the hot cells, and also getting 19 any hot cells built, because we know it is pretty highly 20 radioactive with cesium. So it is a fairly modest program on 21 post mortem .

22 MR .. BUDNITZ: I. guess we felt if we were stuck 23 waiting until '81 we would be a little behind.

24 MR. MURLEY: Yes.

Ace-Feoeral Reporters, Inc, 1 25 i COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Could I just take you back

mte 7

• 1 57 to the semiscale? You were talking about the usefulness of 2 it, and what you want to do is not just to continue it but upgrade the facility in some way.

i I

4' MR. LEVINE: We want to put a secondary system on it.

C0£1'1MISSIONER GILINSKY: Isn't that what is at issue?

MR. LEVINE: I guess it's not that we want to put a secondary system on it; it's the whole question of the utility of the facility per se.

COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Is the ACRS in effect saying that they don'~ think it is worth spending money to make this 12 into a more elaborate facility?

13 MR. BUDNITZ: That is more or less what they are**

I 14!, saying.

II

!i 15 [i MR. LEVINE: We don't agree with them. NRR doesn't 16 agree with them and EDO doesn't agree with them.

17 MR. BUDNITZ: It's even stronger than that. As part II 18 of an international effort to understand the kind of transients:

I 19 and small LOCAs that we are now beginning to pursue, there has 20 been an international meeting or two in which all of the

• 21 22 ;

231 I

i several facilities around the world have been looked at to see which each can do. There is a failed facility in Germany and there is a facility in Japan and so on. And it turns out.

- 241I that semiscale has some attributes that are unique that nobody ,

Ac:.-Feceral Reporters, Inc. [

25 i else has, that complement facilities elsewhere around the I

mte 8 58 world, which, used together, can provide a series of experi-2 \1 ments over the next two or three or four years, that would 3 I give us a lot of insight into these things. And if semiscale I

4 were part of it, the picture would be much more complete.

5 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Semiscale or upgraded 6 semiscale?

7 MR. BUDNITZ: Upgraded semiscale.

8 MR. MURLEY: I don't think we disagree with them on 9 the limitations*. We know the limitations, they know the 10 limitations. And it is a question of judgment. In spite of ii 11 those, can we get useful results? And we really think you can.j 12 There is a lot to be learned from it.

13 j MR. BUDNITZ: For example, when one goes from I

1d 'I semiscale to LOFT, there is a significant scaling effort, and 15 we can't scale up from LOFT in any experimental facility. We I

I. i i

16 II can scale down and we can understand some of fue volume effects:.

I Ii I 1,

,-;, 1:

'I  ;\ On the other hand, it's got some serious problems. It is one

'8 i:i I ,,

1, dimensional.

,9 !I MR. MURLEY: These are drawn to scale. LOFT and serniscale were both patterned after the Westinghouse PWR.

I've got similar components in red and pumps in yellow and so

,").,

.. . forth. Semiscale is off to the right. You see, it's just 231 one-dimensional. It's a tiny little thing.

- 24i I But it does have some features, like full height Ace-F!!!jeral Reoorters, Inc.  !

25 i steam genea::rators, full height core, that allow you to do I

mte 9 59

- 2 3

I Ii I

tests where gravity and size effects are important, like natur 21 circulation .and like small LOCAs. So we think there is -- again, 1 to reiterate -- a lot to be learned from this.

I 4! Okay, I will move on to LOFT, if that's okay. 43.

5 (Viewgraph.)

6 There are no real issues with the LOFT. I just make 7 the point that there is some exciting work going on. It is an 8 excellent group up there and LOFT is more than just a large 9 LOCA facility.

10 For example, it, as you know, was designed to survivei i

I I

1l many accidents. As a result, they have put some features into i 12 t~e plant which maybe we could learn from on full~size commer-13 i' cial plants*. They have vent valves in the high points of the.

14 system to vent condensible gases, for example.

15 I have started a task out there to look at these I

I 16 kinds of safety features in LOFT to see if there might be some i

17

,I I that are exportable to other commercial plants. We have 18 started some work to install a diagnostic computer, diagnostic 19 system in the control room of LOFT, that will be a model, an 20 improvement, and perhaps could be used, if it works out at 21 LOFT, could be used in commercial plants.

~,.

')'")

There are many more things like this: improved

- instrumentation we can look at in LOFT, in-service inspection 23 24 techniques and so forth.

,-"ce-Federal Reoorters,. Inc.

25 37, please.

mte 10 60 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: What about the budget?

2 MR. MURLEY: There is no disagreement with the EDO 3 I mark on the budget, a $3.l million increase from fiscal '80 I

I 4: to '81.

5 MR. LEVINE: This is an area where we accepted the 6 EDO cut, even though the ACRS asked us not to.

7 MR. MURLEY: Yes, the ACRS supported the $44.9 millioh.

I 8 The increase is primarily inflation, plus this diagnostic 9 equipment that I mentioned is about $2 million. And this year 10 and '81, we start up full operation of the hot cells and hot 11 shops, which is $1.5 million. So that accounts for most of the 12 increase.

13 Okay, I will switch to code development now. That 14 is number 44.

15 (Viewgraph.)

16 For system codes and component codes, it is generally 17 level funding, the first two items. But we are shifting away 78  ! from the LOCA codes to transient codes. Where the big I

l O, II I increase is found is in the TRP.C assessment and also applying I

20 I TRAC to operating reactors. We get into a mode of applications*

21 l1

-- and I might point out that we are projecting over 16,000

,2 IIi; hours of computer time in this budget. That works out to be

~ 1!

. II 23 I about over $11 million.

And of the 15.2 that is for 24 computation time, we.have a breakdown lab by lab.

Ac~-Federal Reoorters, Inc.

25 At INEL, for example, it is 4600 hours0.0532 days <br />1.278 hours <br />0.00761 weeks <br />0.00175 months <br /> at $800 an

mte 11 61 hour7.060185e-4 days <br />0.0169 hours <br />1.008598e-4 weeks <br />2.32105e-5 months <br /> average. At Los Alamos, it is 6450 hours0.0747 days <br />1.792 hours <br />0.0107 weeks <br />0.00245 months <br /> at about 2

$550 an hour, both of which come up to be about $3.5 million.

When you look at our other labs as well, it comes out to be

$11 million.

MR. BARRY: Can't you put it all in the cheaper*

computer, the 500 versus the 800?

7 MR. MURLEY: No. I wish we could get some more of 8 that $500 an hour time. That is equivalent to about two 9

full-time CDC 7600s.

10 !

MR. BUDNITZ: We are totally dependent on our j 11 i colleagues in the DOE labs for the efficiency of their systems .1 12 MR. MURLEY: 45, please .

13 (Viewgra_ph.)

14 The ACRS, we have kind of a disagreement here with 15 them. It is a minor one, but also with the EDO. And I will 16 talk about it here. And it has to do with the data bank.

17 The ACRS said this data bank could be deferred in favor of 18 some higher priority matters. We disagreed.

i 19 I

! Let me tell you.briefly what the data bank is. It I

20 i is a place where we can store and retrieve all of the informa-I I

21 I

! tion needed to make a safety analysis for each operating I

22 i reactor.

231 MR. LEVINE: Not a complete safety analysis, but to 24 I i run the codes.

Ace-Federal Reoorters, Inc.

• 25

~lR.. .MURLEY: That's right, a computer analysis.

mte 12 62 There are probably a half a dozen codes that we would want to 2 run -- RELAP- and TRAC and some of the other system codes.

3 There are two needs for this. One is to do a routine audit 4 calculation in support o*f NRR. But second is also to be able to respond in emergency situations, like at Three Mile Island.

There were some calculations made in the week after the 7 accident on whether we could get into natural circulation or 8 not. It turned out we were lucky. They had done a deck, an 9 input deck of. the coding plant which happened to be very, very 10 ! similar to Three Mile Island.

11 If they had not had such a deck, we would still be

• 12 13 14 preparing it today. It t~kes three to six months to prepare an input deck to run a systems code like RELAP, and it's just a massive amount of data, to find out what the steam generator 15: looks like and how the pipes are connected and so forth. We 16 think that should be stored in a data bank for all plants.

17 MR. BUDNITZ: I don't believe that, either, but I 18 have been told it is so. It just seems you ought to be able 19 : to do something.

20 !

I ii MR. LEVINE: It is thousands of pieces of data.

I 21 II COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: You're saying it takes three I,::

22 ii

!I to six months to prepare the RELAP data bank?

1*

.I 231' MR. LEVINE:. The input deck of cards.

- 241 MR. MURLEY: It is about a half a man-year per plant Ace-Federal Reoorters, Inc.

I 25 on the *average.

rote 13 63 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: When would you expect this 2 to be completed, then?

..,".1 MR. MURLEY: It wouldn't be completed for a year or I

two.

1 I I

MR. LEVINE: We're not going to collect the data.

61 We're going to get questionnaires and ask the industry to 7 provide the data, and we will simply store it in the computer, 8 which will be designed to punch out the decks we need.

9 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: When you say it takes half a 10 ! man-year to prepare that data for one plant, the deck for one 11 plant, you mean half a man-year in Idaho or half a man-year

- 12 13 14 by the company and a. tenth of a man-year in Idaho?

MR. MURLEY: It takes about a half a man-year in Idaho and depending upon what type of cooperation he can get 15 from the plant vendor, it takes three to six months to do that.

16 So once we have done our Westinghouse four-loop 17 plant, for example, the next one is easier. But the first one 18 probably would take six months.

19 i COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So for all of the p;lants that i

"20 I we have itt either operation or close to getting operating I

21 !1 licenses, what is the total amount of man-years required to get

• II 22 :j that'?

II 23 11 MR. BUDNITZ: We have $1.4 million between 1 80 and

- 24! 1 81.

Ace-Fer.ieral Reoorters, Inc. I 25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I know, but what I'm really

mte 14 64 trying to find out is, do you estimate that is going to end 2 i t or whether that would get, say, seven plants?

3 MR. BUDNITZ: Oh, no. The $1.4 million is supposed 4 to do all of them.

5 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: All of the *70 plants?

6 MR. MURLEY: Let me be careful. It won't have all 7 70, because some are twins and very, very close.

8 MR. BUDNITZ: Similar enough.

9 MR. MURLEY: Like coding at Three Mile Island, we 10 ! wouldn't necessarily have to do the same deck.

11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Are you confident the 12 simila~ities are sµfficient?

13 MR. MURLEY: I' can't tell you that now.

i4 MR. LEVINE: It is more than just collecting the 15 data. It is making a program to store i t and to print i t out.

I l /, I

• - I MR. BUDNITZ: This is not just simply every plant, jl e-4 17/ the same thing. There is some economy of scale.

,., Ii 1Q I

-19 20 21 25 j II I

I

65 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I_,,m sitting here with the 2 sense that to get all of those ~lants done, it may be four 3 or five years. So I_,,m thinking that perhaps there is beyond 5 MR. MURLEY: There may be. Hhat weJve scooed out, 6 Commissioner, in thB first two years, '3J and '81, 13 ~aJre 7 go.ing to look at 7 Jeneric-type of plants to make sure at least 8 We've got a Westinghouse 2-, 3-, and 4-loop plant, the BWRs 9 and the B&W plants and the GEs. That is close enough that 10 we think that e could cover anything in an emergency. But Jl when you get into the seco~dary syste~, I'm sure you know you 12 find out that no two plants are alike.

13 And if that becomes important,. then we 11111 have t::i 1

14 expand it to put every*sin~le ;:ilant into the data bank.

15 MR. BUDNITZ: I guess we thought that for most things 16 you could think of, th~t it was ~oing to cover it.

17 Is that a fair statement?

13 MR. LEVINE: I think it has to be reg3rded ~s phase l 19 with a high likelihood that it will cover the primary part of 20 all plants.

MR. :11\URLEY: Yes.

22 MR. LEVINE: What the secondary implications are I'm 23 not sure*

24 MR. MURLEY: Let_,,s move on ta 48, please.

25

62.05 .2 .66

sh MR. BUDi\fifZ

That was taken out of the EDO. Mark, 2 and we think that it is important to do it.

3 WL MURLEY: Yes. There is 3 $2 ,;iillion Reclaria 4 in Fiscal J3J and $400,000 in Fiscal '80.

5 (Viewgraph.)

6 It has to do with the jat2 jan~ and applicstion of 7 the cojes. And weJre also 2ecla~2-ing one person, mainly 8 to follow the TRAC assessment. 49, please.

CVi e wg rap h * )

Fuel behavior. There are really no major issues

.II here. The program :;ioes down a little oit in ,.81, again, 12 as a result of a large increase in '80, I should point out, 13 because of the suoplemental.

14 The President's budJet in JBO was S23. I millio~.

15 There is S5.6 in suppleme~t. It takes it up to $28.7 and 16 then weJre down to 527.9 in J3!.

17 Larg8ly here, the increase is for operational 13 transient fLlel tests of the kind that the AC~S reque~ted and 19 we agreed with.

20 COMMISSIONEH AHEARNE: The ACFIS hac' criticized what 21 M2. LEVINE; The RIA test. And we had a debate 22 with them and NRR. ~e and NRR think it is needed, although I 23 think the ACRS view is that since the RIA tests were conceiv~j 24 riany years ag,o, plant d8signs ha*1e -:h::nged such thet t:1e 25 likelihood of occurrence is much smaller than they used to be.

52.05.J 67

sh I think we simply h3V8 to throw this out. 3ut by 2 the same to !(en, the ACRS said, whatever you can divert from 3 ought to go into fuel-~eltinJ studies.

4 COMMISSIOi'fER AHEARN:::: The ACRS, though, did claim 5 that NRR feels that the infar~ation th8t you're goinJ to get 6 is inadequate, or am I ~isreading that?

7 MR. MUHLEY*: Put on 5*J. I guess 11re didn-'t :!iscuss 3 it much on the Viaw;raph.

9 C if ie wgraph. )

10 MR. MURLEY: Their point is that they don~t think Jl the reactivity-initiated accidents are very likely 9 so why 12 should we be spending all of this time on it?

1,3 Now the problem is that the reviewer down at NRR 14 said that it~s a design basis accident, as far es he is 15 concerned, and the probability is 1.

16 So if he's :::;ot to revL3',, it, he just feels that he 17 needs more information and more data.

13 It is that simple.

19 MR. BUrnHTZ: So ACRS wrote that NRR should not 20 re-evaluate whether it really needs the data.

21 Now we and NRR and ACRS are all going to have to 22 talk together in the next several months, I guess.

~~. MURLEY: Skip to 53, please.

24 ( V.i e wgr a p h * )

25 MR. MURLEY: The only Reclama we have is in peo~le in

62.05 .4 68 qsh this one, and I guess that I will use this opportunity to 531/

2 that we really are hurting for staff. This person that we 3 need here is a coolant chemist, and in Fiscal '80, we really 4 need to get that program started.

5 And the agency is short. Of the 60 professional 6 staff that I have at branch chief and below position~, 25 7 percent of those are e1tner on loan to so~ebody or another, a or vacant right now.

9 So we ere strugglin~ along right now tryin; to manage 10 this 5150 mLllion program, and we don~t have a lot of depth.

J 1 MR. LEVINE: We have a lot of people on loan to the 12 investigation. tie have se,1er::il people on loa:1 to f,L;~:-!. 'de 13 have a lot of NRR tas~s that we are doing for them. And we 14 are suffering.

15 16 CV i e *,., q r 2 ph * )

17 MR. MURLEY: Primary syste~ integrityo 19 sizable arowth and I will take _just a minute to tell you wh~t 20 that is.

21 Partly, it comes about as a result of Thre~ ~ile 22 Island. There is an item under fractional mechanics called

• 23 25 were all assuming a large LOCA, *.*rhere the system depr3ssurizes

62 . .05 .5 69 gsh and you dump cold water on it.

2 At Three Mile Island, the system was pressure-less 3 and We dumped cold 1'fater on it. Fortunately, it was a fresh 4 vessel. It was not irradiated. But we believe that there is 5 some work needed just to reassure that the 30-year old vessel 6 would have held together, as well as the Three ~ile !sland 7 accident.

8 There is a program on stress corrosion cr3:::king in 9 piping under operating effects, which is a large growth in 10 Fiscal /81. We are doing essentially no work in this area 11 right noi.¥. And we believe, and the ACRS strongly su:;:iµorts 12 us, that we should Jet started i~ this area.

13 CO Mtiil SSJ OHER KENNE DY: The re is a lot O f-

.J.

• -,0~1_,

,.,, !. 1\.

h;,1*n-*

vv '-:}

14 done on stress CQrrosion crackinJ. Isn't EPRr doing someth~nJ?

15 MR. MURLEY: EPRI is doing so~ething. The industry is 16 doin.g sornethinc;.  :. ,1y underst2n-ji1,g is that it,,.s in th2 17 multi-~illion dollars a year.

18 But what we're proposing here is not to duDlicate 19 that. It is to look* into areas that th~y are not, but also 20 to give the agency some independent capability becau3e what 21 happens as a result of the =PRI and the industry ~r~;ram is 22 that they propose a fix for pipe crac~ing and they come in 23 A.nd the staff., the .:JRR staff either 24 it or not, and they have to have some basis for it.

25 CO/*,I.MISSI01'fER KENNEDY: Aren"t yo,u in a position to

62.05.6 70 gsh review their research, A, the nature of the r9search itself, 2 and B, the results?

3 MR. MURLEY: Not without expertise. It is like 4 coolant chemistry, in a way.

5 MR. BUDNITZ: The answer is not yet.

6 MR. L~VIN~: And generally, not without being a 7 part of the program in some cases where you could influence 8 what ought t.o be done by contributing some money, 35 opposed 9 to letting them do what they want to do.

10 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: You c:1n evaluate what has been 11 done, whether you had a part in formulating it or not.

12 MR. MURLEY: Yes.

13. COMMISSIOt\f KENNEDY: You can do that much~ And you 14 can demand that of them if they/re going to co~e to you with 15 a proposed fix. As a basis for your conclusion as to whether 16 you accept it, you 3re going to ask for all the data on which 17 it is based and then evaluate it. But not if you don 1 t have 18 the people to do it.

19 MR. MURLEY: That_,,s ri;iht.

20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: On the system integrity, 21 somewhere here in these many pieces of paper, there ~es at 22 some point questioning the wisdom of going ahead with

• 23 24 25 destructive examination.

MR

• MU RL c'{ ~

(Viewgraph *. )

Y 8 s , 5 ,5

• p 1 ea s e

• 62.05.7 71 gsh MR. ~URLEY: The ACRS, at this point, said that 2 we ought to limit the steam generator program to the following; 3 namely. just examine the tubes and correlate bet*,,1een the 4 eddy current indications and the actual meas urem en t of tube 5 integrity.

6 For the time being, I Juess, we agree ~ith th~t no*1.

7 But in any case, it doesn/t affect ,, ns riscal /81 program.

.I..'

1' .I..

l, 8 is a mattsr of, do we follow ~n in '82 and '83?

And our position is, we will discuss this ~1th the iO ACRS over the next year in detail, and if it affects our 11 J82 program, then we will come to you then.

12 13 you had envisioned the des~ructive 14 MR. L~VIN~: In the out years.

15 C0!11:.1rssro;,JE'.~ AH:::Ar~NE: Is this one of the ,;pnerators 16 coming out of Surry?

17  :~ R

• LEV I NE : Ye s

• lJ 19 This program, by the way, c3me before the cor.imission 20 last year and was approved. There was a question as to the 21 size of it and whether we would make it a big multi-;e2r 22 thing. And we/ve got it scoped so we can stop it just after 23 the tuOe test and i. t ,,wul d j:i_ .3:JO.Sed 24 site.

25

.6* . 05.8 72 gsh to be held?

2 MR. MURLEY: Richland, at th.e Pacific Northwest lab.

3 The utility has a vault built right now and_ they are putting 4 three other steam generators into it. Plus, inste~d of 5 burying it, we/re going to take it and ship it via tne canal 6 and so forth, but them we are responsible for it.

7 CHAIRMAN HEND1nE: 1~1e 11ill talk again about whether-3 the program ought to be curtailed and so on. But I will point 9 out that every time we take the view that this is an industry 10 problem and that is an industry problem, they ought to look

.1 I into it and understand what"s going on and then tell us so~e 12 years :Jown the line .

• 13 i4 15 We stari research programs of our own yea~s behind the ~ower curve and struggle frantically to catch up.

the first time that we run into stretc~ corrosion If 16 v1as - I don"t .know, even as r-ecently as t'.,e lete "6Js, I 17 can remember .spending a lot of time in a ~otel outsi~e 13 Chicago at CVHare Air:'.)ort in J.\CRS 11eeti:-1;:s on stres5 :orrosi0.'1 19 cracking in plants.

20 And at that time, if we could have convinced the 2i AEC to settle do*.-m 3nd ::;et serious about it, about a researc::1 22 program, I think we might be rather better situated than we 23 24 The industrial companies do their ~ort e~j that 1 s 25 fine. They ought to do that. They have responsibilities to

73 do that.

2 I think the government commands a range of resources 3 and a point of view of coming at things that we don--'t get in 4 industrial laboratories.

5 I would hate to give up on the steam generator thing 6 Until I was auite sure that we were never going to have to 7 know more about the phenomenon at that Surry generat~r; a especially once you get the thing out there.

9 MR. BUD1'1ITZ: That is just what the ACRS- was worried 10 about, that once we got it out there, that we would pour 1I money that they didn--'t 1vant us to pour, at it.

12 MR. LEVINE: They were afraid we were going to do 13 too much on it, and it is a reasonable viewpoint. We ouqht to 14 reach agreement.

15 MR. MURL~Y! It is an old design usinQ cool~nt 16 chemistry that is no longer used and so forth. Harold 17 Etherington said, what are we going to learn fro~ it,* and 13 Larry Schiao replied that it may be an old design, but the 19 fact is there is about 20 or 30 plants that have still got 20 that des.ign. And everyone is going to dent and the staff is 21 going to have to decide whether to let the plant operate or 22 not.

23 And th i s i s t o g i v e t he m =1 oas i s fa r l e t t hi q th em 24 make a decision.

25 I think it is an important program.

52.05. l O 74

,;;sh CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Upward 3nd onward.

- 2 3

4 MR. MURLEY: I _.,,m just ::1bout done.

Sol talked about the need, of whether we need breeder research or not, and that is a policy decision. I 5 would only talk about the levgl if we do need a program. There 6 are two reasons 'Hhy I ti1ink we need this kind i:)f qro*-iU1 fro;,,

7 slJ.7 to s22 million.

3 First of all, 2s you know, we laid a progr3m out 9 about 4 or 5 years ago and we have cut it back successively.

10 And we are to the point now where we have really cut all the

.11 fat and all of the jelay out of the f3cilities that ~e can.

1.2 There are about three or four facilities tnat are

- 13 14 15 now ready.

delay?

COMMISSIO,}E~ GILUiSKY: Hhat do you TTJean, a~l of t'.-te 16 M~. MURL~Y: If I can ~ake an analogy. It's like 17 you set out to build a house th3t is large enou;h to meet 13 your needs and you run into a fa~ mo~t~s o! a cash flc~

19 problem like we've done in this ~r~;ram.

20 You can cut back deliveries and so forth. But th3re 21 comes a point when the ~uy calls up and S3/S 1 the air 22 conditioner is here. The furnace is here. Iha refri~erator

• 23 24

- 25 MR. MURLEY: ~e have put off large test pro;rams.

75 For example, there is 3 larJe fuel melt facility that 2 is ca pa b l e o f r u nn in g 2 00 k i l o gr 3 m or 5 OO k i l o CJ r 2 m f ,J e l 3 meltdowns. It has been built at Sandia. We slowed it down 4 and slowed it down and now it is ready.

5 But it takes money to operate it.

6 There is a large aerosol test f3cility 7 MR. LEVINE: That is an area that the ACRS 8 emphasized to get more and more into fuel meltdowns.

MR. BUDNITZ: We found in the days just after Three 10 Mile Island, that a very large amount of expertise relative 11 to Three Mile Island itself resided in our LMFBR staff and 12 their contractors, which is no surprise since LMFBRs have 13 been w6rking in that for a long oeriod of time.

I 14 COMMISSIOl~ER GILUiS<Y: I"::1 not s:Jre which .*tay t:nat 15 cuts.

16 MR. BUDNITZ: It cuts both ways.

17 MR. MURLEY: That is the reason for a large part of 18 what I call inherent grovrth. Tht::Se proc;rams, once y,-:iu get 19 them s ta rte d , 110 u e x p e ct th em t o c; row

• And i f t he y do n.,, t , i t 20 is best to stop them and let them live alone.

21 COMJv\ I SS LONER AHEARNE: Let ::1e ask a quest ion which 22 relates to what Vic just asked.

23 If you h3d to give up s22 million out of your 24 research budget, now the way that the Reclama sesrns to be put 25 together, there was about 15 percent of the research budget

62.05. 12 76 gsh which was taken out of the mark where the Reclamas 3re put

- 2 3

4 together, or each individual item are Reclamaed. ~ather than saying if you~re going to take out that much amount of money, here is a redoing of the whole thing.

5 Now would I interpret correctly that you would say 6 that if we, for some reason, had to find -- had to get more 7 do 11 a rs o u t o f t h.e re s e a r ch b u d;; e t , i t wo u l cf b e j us t as 8 appropriate as any other way to take this whole thin0?

-9 MR. LEVINE: I think that you ought to ask us.

10 COMMISSIOl'-JER GILINSrCY: Well, you s.eem to be saying

-1 l if you cut back to the S13.7 level, you might as well go all 12 the way. Isn't that what you're saying?

• 13 14 15 growth --

MR. LEVINE: Almost.

MR. i\lURLEY: The EDCJ mark was 15. The inherent 16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: \~hat do you mean it" s 17 marginal? Tner2 are some. thin:;:is that just don't get ::!one 18 between $15 and $22. I don"t understand the a:r,::;ument about 19 everything falling apart.

20 MR. BUDNITZ: It is worse than that. When you have 21 serious morale problems in the contractorsJ and most of our 22 own staff, and youJre having difficulty keeping the program 23 together, and DOE is going ahead with s500 million a yeer, 24 or whatever, and people ars sayi~g, golly, thef might not want

- 25 to continue with ours because each year it is being cut back,

62.05. 13 .77 qsh that is below a minimum number. It is a very serious problem.

2 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: 5ut you--'re saying that that 3 $l5 million, is that sort of a number that morale is bad?

4 M~. LEVINE: Yes.

5 COMMISSIONER GI!__Ii'--1S:<::Y: Do you need another $7 6 million to cheer them up?

7 ~hat about my morale?

8 MR. 3UDNITZ: I'm not sure t~at it is a fair 9 comparison. But I can relate to you an experience that 10 happened in Berkeley about 10 years ago in which one division 11 of the Lawrence Berkeley laboratory went to pieces in five 12 Years. It _just fe.11 about. It *.-,as the Donner Laboratory?

• 13 14 15 just fell apart.

It came below the ciitical mass and then it All the good oeople left.

Now that hasn't hap~ened here yet, jut we are seeing 16 various signs that the thing might just fall apart and then 17 weJre going to have a hell of a job building it up.

13 ~R. MURLEY: I'm not asking for th.is to cheer up 19 people in the labs.

20 MR. BUDNITZ: We--'re trying to do some quality work 21 for the agency*o 22 .MR. MURLEY! There is a coherent body of work that 23 is errti)odied in these five areas. Ai"1d t:-rny are at the 3ta9e 24 now wh3re $13.7 million won't d~ it.

25 So I'm going to hav8 to just cut something out. I

62* . 05.14 78

sh can run a program for sJJ.7.

2 CCHiMISSIO:-ffR AHEAi~NE: That is probably a similar 3 facet of the question I asked, that if you really believe that 4 you had to live with the $13.7 mark, the way it is approached 5 here is a little bit out of here, a little bit out of here,

.S a little bit is ReclaiT\a-ed hare, and a lLttla bit th3:re; as 7 o~posed to what would fit more !tfith the thrust of your re!Jar'.<.,

'3 that if you-'re goin:;i to tak9 that sub.stantial amount of 9 money out of the research budget, then perhaps there ought to 10 be just a reshifting of the resources.

II MR. LEVINE: The purose of this exercise was to 12 explain to you why we think we need what we-'ra askinJ for.

13 MR. MURLEi~ There were two reasons. The second 14 ~P.;:;s-on l ~--

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us 15 that we also, in the breed3r area, ouJht to learn so~e lessons 15 fro~ TMI and look at 8ccidents other than the worst case.

17 I n th i s c 3 s e , it i s a so r e d i s r up t i v e a cc id e n t. So 13 they ~~nt us ta broaden our research ~rogram.

19 Uow as a rule of thu11lJ, it is about, we think about 2J sl8 million is the planned growth in the ongoing progr2m, and 21 the rest 1 the other S4 million, is about to do what the ACRS 22 tells to do to broaden our program.

24 ~ra;:ra"1 on your recomrnendatio11s :is just continuin9 t0 gro'.* 1 out 25 through the out-years? Is that correct? Because you had .22,

52.05.15 79

,.., ..:.1--s

';} ::,,, 32 9 38.

- 2 3

4 MR. BUDNITZ: Yes.

!',\R. ii1URLEY: That makes some assumptions.

assumes that the country make some decisions in Fiscal '81 fhat to

~

J go ahead. If we ware going to de~ay another year, then I 6 think at this level. the S22 8illion level. that we could I sustain our meaningful program tor another year or two.

3 But there were some assumptions behind that, and 9 that is that the country moves ahead and we have an application lJ about J82 or '83.

11 ~R. LEVINE: I think the emphases of talkin; about 12 the decision on a prototype plant or something in March of

- . 13 14 15

.,, 81 I think that those are the u * .::,. plans.

1,5 a decision by '81.

17 CCH,fi\iISSI.Ot~ER GILINSKY~ Oh, a decision by -'31.

iJ 19 with the philosophy of the Congressional discussion.*

20 MR. MURL~Y~ That concludes my presentation. The 21 gas program is either a yes or a no. It is $3.9 million.

22 CHAIRMAN HE~1DRIE; On the gas program, let-'s see,

- .i£."

23

?.::!.

it is s3.7 in /79. 0o yau ~now ~hat level you would set in*

'80 1 2ssu~1ng fl2xijility, but 3 m3ndats in th~ statute to ~ot

- 2'5 do it until then?

62*

• 05.16 80

-JSh MR. MURLEY: Somewhere arounj a million and a half, 2 I would think, or 52 ~illion.

3 There is some work that we really ought to keep 4 going at Fort St. Vrain, some graphite oxidation in the lab

~ and so~e high temoerature materials.

7 $3.9.

3 MR.MURLEY: The question was what would be the 9 ~1n1mum to get by with in 1 80?

I 10 Ci---lAI:-:?iv\AN HENDRIE: Because in 1 80, there are l

l-, 11 no funds directly appropriated for gas work. The House l.

12 A_opro:oriations Co::1mittee, however, said, .:!o $3.9 or sJ.7 13 worth of research in gas. You:*re going:to have*to e':!t s3.7.

14 ,ie ,;;ot the Senate to qive us a little flexibility 15 and it just says, do so~ethin;. 8Jt you are not hun; at sJ.7.

16 17 13 19 20 21 22 23 24 23

CR 6246 #6 HEER/PV 81 :

Now, in considering what an '81 level ought to be, considering what kinds of pressures are likely to generate, to maintain some sort of minimum program, I want to know what the 4 '80 level is likely to be in response to the mandate that we 5 know is in the law, or essentially in the law, now. That is, 6 the '81 level of 3.9 might be the right place, but it also 7 might not be the right place.

8 MR. BUDNITZ; This was developed in the last few days, 9 and if we can get back to you in a few days we might be able 10 to give you some more information.

11 MR. MURLEY: I think i t might be lower.

12 [I CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: And once again it may very well 1')  !!

• ~,1 get struck by 0MB or the authorization committees for sometning ii

, I il

' 4 11 like that and stuck back in as an edict item, by the time all iIi!

1.::i :, the laws are finally passed for '81.

1 ii 1, 6 1.11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I notice the ACRS had some

~I I,

• - I!

1 /  :  ! study requests in. That tracks closely with what the DOE has

'i

1

-:, l!

"' l! been talking about.

ii 19 II CHAIRJ.'1AN HENDRLE: All right.

.,ii

,1 20 !\ MR. LEVINE: We will start ri5k assessment now, which I

21 i!I is slide 72.

I I

(Viewgraph.)

ri 23 .1 1I I don't know how many of you have met Frank Rowsome.

~ f :1 L 4 1 1 He is deputy director of our analysis staff, whom we've hired

.Aa:-Federal Reoorters, Inc.

• 25 in the last three weeks.

pv2 82 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Welcome to the table.

2 MR. ROWSOME: I am pleased to meet you all. This is the first time I have met any one of you.

MR. LEVINE: Frank was one of a number of people who testified before the Lewis Committee and gave perhaps one of the most cogent and thoughtful presentations.

7 MR. ROWSOME: I wish we had more time to discuss the 8 risk assessment and improved safety program in more detail.

9 But in light of the hour, I would go over i t very quickly.

10 Slide 72 shows an outline of the risk assessment 11 program. There are a number of program elements within this l

I 12I and the numbers refer to the requested levels. The. methodology*:

13 ! development entails the development of>the tools for reliability I I I

1Ii i I

data analysis, system reliability prediction, hu.~an reliability!

15 iI prediction, and risk assessment.

I 16 I The second item, reactor systems and licensing sup-ii1, i7 i port, entails the analysis and accident sequences, system

• - !11-10 j! reliability analysis, and risk assessment as needed for applica-i  !

19 i tions for line office work. This is the program element that iI 20 i includes our efforts to develop a picture of the accident I

21 sequences leading to core damage, and it is from this unit, the' 22 11 work on auxiliary feedwater systems work was done that Saul 1!

'I 23 li described at first.

24 i\

i It found some apparent safety weak spots. We want to '

Ace-Federal Reoorters, Inc. !i 25 I expand that effort, because. it is becoming increasingly clear

pv3 83 i

- 2 that the risk picture may vary significantly from plant to plant.

So, we want to develop models for the whole spectrum of operat-I

- 3 I 41 5

I I

I I

ing plants.

MR. LEVINE: It's also in this area that those five items that I showed you that Harold and I agreed ought to be 11

• 1 I,

, II 0 i! done.

I 7 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Just so I don't sit here try-8 ing to be more confused than usual, where are the rest of the 9 people? Are they already on board? The FY '80. You've got 10 i the supplemental up to 30.

11 MR. ROWSOME: We are requesting 30.

12 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: How many do you now have?

13 MR. ROWSOME: There are 23 iri the '80 congressi_onal I

i4 I budget. There are 26 at the EDO mark,and we are asking for 30.

I

]5 1 Nuclear fuel cycle risk is perhaps a poor name f~r the next I

i6 11 unit, because the great bulk of the work is involved in waste i'

,*:1 17

't  ! disposal.

J The principal elements there are to develop models 18 11 to determine the key ingredients in waste disposal risks, what Ii 19 \1 factors really govern how much the risk is, to develop a i

I 20 I methodology, to evaluate waste repository safety, and to assist:

I I 2l I in the fo::!'.'.1TI.ulation of regulatory requirements.

11 22 *:1 i

This work is being done in close coordination with Ii 23ij NMSS and Standards Development.

e 2,J l1 Ii A small item in this risk assessment decision unit Ace-Federal Reoorters, Inc. : j 2s I is trainin~. For some years we have been conducting a brief

pv4 84

- 3 !

\

introductory course for line office personnel in probabilistic 21ti system reliability analysis and risk assessment. The ACRS urges us to greatly expa*nd this, to develop a four- to six-week!

I 41 course. It would surprise me if Harold Denton wanted to part I

s! with his people for four to six weeks, but we do think this i

61,, course can be and should be improved, and that is why this 7 element is in here.

8 The next element is another big one. It is the I'

9 II reliability data analysis~ This entails the collection and 11 10 i analysis of data on human error rates, based on LERs, plant 11 logs, interviews, simulator experience, and the like.

12 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I have got a notion that I know 13 why this would go out for contractor management.

14 MR. ROWSOME: Also, of course, in the data is equip-15 ment failure data, and our --membership in the UK systems relia-16 bility service and data exchange service.

I, 1 1\\ I The next item within risk assessment is work upon an 13 acceptable risk criteria.

19 [ COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Can I just take you back to i

this other one. Where do we stand with this NPRS?

MR. LEVINE: We're not involved in that in the sense 1!

22 :, of deciding how it should be used. We are analyzing LE Rs and 23 NPRDS d~ta. We're taking d~ta from all sources to try to 2,~ analyze it.

Ace-F,:ceral Reoorters, Inc.

25 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: And does a decision on that

pv5 85 affect what type of requirements we might put on utilities?

MR. LEVINE: We are simply collecting data and ana-lyzing it to get the data base for risk assessment purposes.

4 Now, I have said in the past and still believe this to be true, 5 that we need one data collection system,and you decide how that 6 has to be designed by deciding what you want to use the output 7 of it for, and then you can decide what kind of data you want 8 to collect. And we have yet to do this.

9 MR. BUDNITZ: But the operational evaluation function:

10 that is going to be established is going to do that as part of 11 their main effort over the next year or so, to figure out 12 whethe,r the data 13 MR. LEVINE: . To keep tne satellite offices out of

. 1 th eir 1,-*1 1 ' way.

15 MR. BUDNITZ: In fact, the task force that looked into 16 that, of which I was on, in conversations with Lee, we decided  ;

17: that we would think about that function, then figure out what 1c3 to do with NPDS and LERs.

19; COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: When does their office get I

20 I going?

I 21 I.!I MR. GOSSICK: This month.

22 i:1 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: That will report to you?

11 23 I MR. GOSSICK.: Yes, sir. If memory serves me, we have 24 committed. to the NP RDS' s future and rulemaking as well.

Acs-Federal Reoorters, Inc. 1 2s I MR. BUDNITZ: *rf that group is going to look into data!

pv6 86 collection for their purposes, we're going to have our input 2 for our purposes.

,.,'".! COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It's amazing how long every-4 thing takes.

5 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, some things that aren't 6 necessarily such great ideas, you know, slowness to implement I

7 bad ideas might be a good policy.

8 MR. ROWSOME: As you know, the ACRS has recently 9 joined forces with EPA and the industry in requesting that we 10 adopt criteria for acceptable risk. This is a very sm~ll budge~

I 11 exercise, as you can see here, to develop the spectrum of 12 possibilities fqr the basis for such a criterion.

13 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: How are the criteria stated?

14 Is it a legal search, a numerical search?

15 MR. ROWSOME: That is the open issue. What we are 16 ii11 hoping to do with this research is to develop essentially an I!

• 7 I, iii' option paper for NRR, the line offices, and you all, that says i

• 3  ! we could do it this way but there would be advantages and dis-19 advantages or we could do it that way.

20 *There are a whle spectrum of possibilities of how to 21 \,,, tackle this

• 11 22 :,,1 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: When is this going to get ii 23 1 done?

24 MR. LEVINE.:

• In the next year or two. The work is

,A.cs-Federal Repcrters, Inc. 1 25 \ already ongoing.. What is going to take a while -- we have

pv7 87 joined with the National Science Foundation in trying to spon-(-

2 sor an acceptable risk criteria seminar, where we will have all 3 the people in the country who have been working in this field 4 come and present their ideas, and this will undoubtedly result 5 II in submissions for some proposals for research, which they will 6

i II fund most of it and we will fund some of.,

7 And then, in about a year or so, we will collect all 8 this and put it together.

9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You must have something very:

10 much more elaborate in mind than I would.

11 MR. LEVINE: There are two ways to go about this:

i2 i One way is to take a pragmatic approach and say what are the I

, ~-*lr-* '

i..J ,I risks in the world already -- and this is fairly easily done, ii i!

i4 ii by the way -- and say where should nuclear power fit into those

.,!I

,I 1S ,1 accident risks. That is a pragmatic approach.

i 16 II1* COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: How might you express a

,1 lj ii" standard? I wouldn't think this is something that takes a vear i :' ,I

!I ii

,,,,:1 or two.

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I 19 ii I MR. LEVINE: If you want to decide what the risk leve1 11 20 Ii!1 ought to be independently of almost everything, there is some ii r!

21 l1 I,

value, say, in weighing ben~fits versus risks. That is a very

,1

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!; difficult proposition, in fact .

i!

i 23 Ii' COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, if you're going to have i

2,.i i something to use, it's going to have to be a very simple sort of;

..\ce-t=edsral Reoorters, Inc.; I 25 I statement. I I

pv8 88 MR. LEVINE: I think you will find the problem is 2 j1 trying to develop a statement which you feel you can defend I

I 3I technically. That is one approach. Another approach is to 4 take a pragmatic approach and simply try to define something 5 quite simple and publish it for reaction. That would go much 6 faster.

7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: This just seems kind of odd 8 to be having symposia and requests for proposals just to get a 9 statement on risks.

10 ! MR. LEVINE: It will be better technically founded.

11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It's just another way of put-12 ting it off forever; that's the way I_look at*it.

MR. LEVINE: It's your pleasure. If you want ~t done 14 faster, we can take a pragmatic approach.

15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I certainly would.

16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I think if you've got the univer-1/ ,, sity community contributing and the National Science Foundation 18 lined up and people at EPA probably interested in this and 19 proferssors writing papers, one good way to .sort of d~velop a 20 peer attitude and a consensus is to give them the chance to I

I

,,..., ,. III have **their conferences and talk to each other and see how it 11 22 :1 all seems to shake down, and a good way to get them all mad as

'I

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23 I ticks so anything you suggest will be subject to scathing 24 criticisrn,is to go ahead and plunge on. I Acs-Federal Reoorters, Inc.

I  !

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1 25 I think you ought to go ahead, for $200,000 in '80 and\

pv 9 11 89

$300,000 in '81, and sort of go along with this group that seems determined to have their seminars.

COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, you know CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: If you would like a quick defini-tion of "acceptable risk," I will refer you to testimony I gave on, what was it, the 27th of February of this year.

COM.l.~ISSIONER BRADFORD: That's the problem.

8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, i t was fast.

9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: One could put out several 10 alternatives and see what stands up to scathing criticism.

1l Here i t is just a way of playing the risk-assessment community 12 and keeping people occupied without ever facing the issue.

131 I mean, if that's what we want to do --

I 14 Ii MR. LEVINE: Well, could I ask just one question?

I i

15 i Suppose we publish something pragmatic and simple and the ques-16 tion comes up, "Well, why didn't you try to do an assessment j

1[

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- ""f 1/

which would weigh the benefits involved in generating electri-

• 3 I

II city by nuclear power versus the risks," how would you answer 10 II that question?

!I 1*

20 i I would answer:"it right now on a judgmental basis that II

• 21 !1 I don't know how to evaluate the benefits quantitatively, and

.,2 I!

ii I would like to know whether the community that works in this

..f 23 area believes that or doesn't, before I say that. It's my.:

24 opinion~*,but I ha~en't done enough work to substantiate it.

Ace-Fsr.:eral Reoorters, Inc.

i 25 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: r would guess that a year from\

I I

pvl0 90 now you won't be any closer,even with all of these contracts, I

2 "III* to resolving any of these questions than you are today.

I 3 i MR. LEVINE: We could answer more questions about I

I 4! why we didn't take certain courses as opposed to others.

I 51 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It is just a way of putting 1

6 1 off awkward questions and they are awkward and they're not i

I I

7 to deal with; I am not suggesting that they arer

, I easy But, I

si you know, we deal with a lot of problems that way, and kind of 1 9[ have the labs do some work.

I 10 ! MR. BUDNITZ: If you have any guidance, we would be n 11 happy to receive it. *!

.I 121 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Let me ask it this way: Once '

, II 13 i one articulates acceptable risk criteria, in order to do any-1,1 II thing with them, I assume you have to be prepared to put them ii!I 15 Ii,1 into individual licensing.

!I II 10 11 it MR. LEVINE: Or in a rulemaking.

i!

pJi

. ' !!,i COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: That was what I was interested I I

'a I II in. What would be interesting to see is this done in a sort of lO I!I I a process that might lead to a rulemaking.

20 I MR. LEVINE: I would think it would be a rulemaking.

I

'21 I11 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: But preferably, it looks as II 22 :i though the way you have it set up,the rulemaking would not be I

11 23 ii,1 likely to come before the end of FY '81.

11 li 24 IJ MR. LEVINE: Probably a year or so. beyond that.

Acs-Fi=aeral Recorters, Inc. I'ii i , . I 25 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: It wou ld seem more 1.nterest1.n91

pvll 91 to someone who won't be here much beyond the end of that.

2 The big question would be developing these criteria 3 as part of a context that would also get them out, at least for I

I 4

• the public comment part of the rulemaking, with an eye toward 5 possibly looking toward wrapping the whole process up by the end

, 1.

0 1 1 of '81, instead of just studying it.

11 7 MR. ROWSOME: Personally, I think you're quite right.

8 If we want to be responsive to the ACRS, we should stop studying 9 the problem and start hypothesizing solutions to the problem and 10 ! looking at them. And if that is your consensus, we would be 1 ,

'I happy to do that.

12 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: That's not -- I am not prepared 13 to suggest that is my view. It seems to me we're talking about 14 ithe philosophic questions that have been with the human race for 15 the last three or four thousand years, and I don't think another 16 year will be all that much to resolve it. And I think it is i

!that kind of question that ought to be taken deliberately, and I

3 think it is a great idea that somebody is finally facing up to 19 try to do it. I am not at all confident it is going to get done.:

20 MR. BUDNITZ: I would suggest maybe we ought to have 21  ! another meeting just on this, at your pleasure.

i

~~ !

._.,_ I COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: I would like to have that meet- ,

i 231 ing after you have done about a year's work and see how you come 24 \. out.

,,ce-F:lderal Reoorters, Inc. 1 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: This reminds me of graduate

pvl2

J Ii 92 I school. The first time I came to Cal Tech, I went down to the I i 2 j1 basement and asked one of the guys working in the low-temperatur~

I I

lab how many years he'd been there. He looked at me and he says; he's found that the year is not a practical unit of time.

(Laughter.)

MR. LEVINE: Would you like us to prepare a paper on these proposals?

COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I would.

9! I MR. LEVINE: We will prepare a paper which we can I

I 10 .i discuss in another session. But in any event, we will need some 1

'1 l* I!I money, whichever course we take.

I 12 (Laughter.)

13 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Good. Onward.

I:

1d Ji COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Could I ask a question? Sol, 11 I

15 do I gather correctly that in the risk assessment area, unlike 16 much of your other programs, most or a large part of your work I:I, 17ilis done by your staff and a smaller amount done by contract?

18 i' MR. LEVINE: Oh, no. In fact, it was more that way I

I 19 !\earlier on where we were doing a lot of the work in-house, but II 20 ! it is getting to be more and more now that we are deliberately I

21 !1 trying to get more laboratories and companies and experts .

COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I am not saying with respect to 11 I

23 before. I am saying if you look. at this area of your office as 24 opposed to the other.

,,cs-Federal Reporters, Inc. 1 2s I MR. LEVINE:* We're not doing *any. We're like I

I I

pvl3 ii 93

$11 million worth of work in-house.

MR. BUDNITZ: But it is a fair statement. In this I

3 i area significant work is done in-house, and that's not true in I

4 the other areas.

5 I

MR. LEVINE: And in fact, mostly in response to NRR 61 urgent needs, we do as much of that -- most of that is done in-I 7 house.

8 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So you have more in-house 9 experts in this area.

10 MR. BUDNITZ: In fact, we have in-house more experts 11 than the r~st of the country may have. Not quite more, but we 12 have a sizeabie fraction of them.

13 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: That would then lead to the 14 question that is perhaps your planned growth rate exceeding 15 ! the availability of supply and experts outside.

I 16 MR. BUDNITZ: We don't think so.

I'

.~ 7 !l MR. LEVINE: That is just backwards. As a matter cif ll

-13 11 ii f act, we nee d more money to d eve 1 op more expertise

. outsi. d e an d 19!/rnore people inside to develop more internal experts. And we il 20 ii would like very much to educate other people in the agency as II 21 .much I

as we can, and as our nucleus of experts grows we will be I

22 ,i glad to interchange.

I!lj 23 jl MR. BUDNITZ: In fact, that issue was debated at great:

- /I II 24 I length with the ACRS who felt that, if anything, this growth Ac>:-Federal Reoorters, Inc.!

25 i rate was insufficient, considering what they thought were your

pvl4 94 concerns. And, of course, it's obvious, it almost goes without 2 saying that much of what we are pushing on here is the stuff 3 that the Lewis Committee said was of real urgency.

i 4l MR. ROWSOME: I am grabbing the floor back again. If I

5 iii I could look at 73 --

end#6 61! (Viewgraph.)

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25 /

CR 6246 95 HEER-7 mte 1 This slide concludes the summary overview. There is 2 one other element for PAS, the Probabilistic Analysis Staff, 3 in this budget. That is a very small effort to improve 4 WASH-1400. It is not our1i"desire or intent to do that reactor 5 safety study over again in the near future, but we are on 6 record as promising to incorporate improved data and methods 7 into that study from time to time, and this is the budget 8 item to do that.

9 That gives a subtotal for research of $8.5 million 10 I in program support in fiscal '80, 11.4 in '81.

11 There is another item in this budget that is not 12 intended for our*selves, 'and that. is an item* that. is earmarked 13 for the new Operations Evaluation Group that is to report 14 directly to EDO. We wanted to make sure that they got some 15 program support in the '80-'Sl budget and we put it in here, 16 but it is not intended that this go to research.

17 MR. LEVINE: We think the agency needs it, wherever ,

18 I

the group will be, and we have an agreement with the controller:

19 to put i t in our budget so that it wourldn' t get lost. When I 20 we made the budget for this year, we didn't know where it was 21 going to be.

22 MR. GOSSICK: Why did the BRG chop it out?

23 MR. LEVINE: You will have to ask the BRG that 24 question.

Ace-Federal A~rters, Inc, 25 MR. ROWSOME: Now let's turn to the reclamas, to

rnte 2 96 establish the issues here, and then we will come back to the

'80 slide, come back to the ACRS comments for additional

• 4 5

perspective.

(Viewgraph.)

In 1980 the EDO mark agrees with our requested level 6 on program support, so clearly we have no objec~ion there.

7 There is a difference in personnel and this could become 8 quite a significant problem for us. The EDO gave us an 9 increase of three over the President's budget for '80, all of 10 I which is earmarked for the satellite operations evaluation 11 group in research, the group that sustains liaison with the 12 principal .operations evaluation group that will report to EDO .

13 Thus the Probabilistic Analysis Staff gets no increase above 14 the initial FY '80 budget, and only one above the '79 number 15 of people, at the same time that TMI concerns have resulted 16 in virtually doubling the program support over 1971, adding 17 again about half as much as the initial '80 budget, at a time 18 when we are getting more requests from the line offices for I

19 reliability studies and risk assessment perspective reviews, I.

20 I and at a time when, as we have mentioned before, risk asse~s- i I

2l Ilj ment applications are constrained by the number of practi- i I

I 22 \! tioners.

11 231! So that I think we really quite urgently need more 24 I personnel in the Probabilistic Analysis Staff in this area, to ,

Ace-Federal Reoorters, Inc. I 25 properly address the program support and the many endeavors we

mte 3 97 have going.

2 Slide 81 is the reclama for 1981.  !

I 3 I (Viewgraph.) i I i 41 I i There is both a program support issue of $3.6 millionj I

5 and again the people issue. From my point of view, I think i I

I the people issue is the larger of the two. I think it is very!

I I

important to us that we get those slots to accommodate the 8 work we want to do to understand small LOCAs, transients, 9 develop the models, the reliability models and accident I

10 ! sequences for the operating plants, for the waste isolation i

11 studies which are tied -- whose schedule is tied to a coordina-1 12 tion with NMSS and their needs and so forth .

13 Of the $3.6 million, 1.2 is that part earmarked for 14 the Operations Evaluation Group, the parent group. And we are 15 i requesting 2.6 for ourselves -- excuse me, 2.4 for ourselves.

16 In the absence of that extra funding, there would be sorre 17 slippage in the development of the reliability models for the i8 operating plants, not so much because that is one of our lower 19 priorities, but because it is manpower intensive and it is kind\

20 of at the end of the line, end of model development and so 21 forth . It is an applications thing which would have to get 22 ti pushed down the pike if funding came up short.

):

23 11 We do a little trimming in equipment failure data 24 i analysis, in the waste isolation studies, some trimming on the '

Ace-Federal Reoorters, Inc. J 25 i acceptable risk criteria in research, and some improvements to I

L__

mte 4 98

- 2 3

WASH-1400 at the EDO level, if at the EDO level for support personnel we would have to make those cuts.

(Viewgraph.)

I I

Slide 82 summarizes the reclama.

1I MR. BUDNITZ: There is perhaps only one other point 61 to make here, and that is that a part of the cut that we would 7 sustain in the EDO mark is in the high-level waste area, where 8 in conjunction with NMSS, we are developing a model that's 9 going to be one of the important parts of their overall lO ! thing, and we're in there for about 2 million. We have their 11 full endorsement on that thing and we think it is important.

12 MR. ROWSOME: On a p~ior slide I won't call, our 13 '

li:st of issues -- they are in our ACRS letter to you 1 and in 14 I the slide. For the most part we are in complete agreement with[

I 15 ACRS, and the only exception is the one Bob just mentioned, 16 that they endorse the waste disposal work that is suggested 17 as something that could be slipped in a budget pinch, and we I

18 are concerned that doing so would interrupt the schedule of 10, !I I the coordinated efforts with Standards Development and NMSS.

I 20 I We have already discussed improved safety. That I

• 21 l1 22 I\

II came up in the beginning of this meeting. So let's jump directly to the reclama sheet, which is Slide 86.

23 I (Viewgraph.)

24 This is a set-aside issue based upon 0MB concerns A~*Federal Reoorters, Inc.

25 that the NRC is plunging into research and development that

mte 5 99 belongs more properly with the Department of Energy or with the industry. I think this has been an artifact of a failure

• 4 5

to communicate on our part, because the program as we envision it really is not developmental, it is not engineering.

entails very little experimentation.

It It is not designing new 6 hardware. It is really the kind of research we would do in any 7 situation in which we were contemplating new regulatory 8 requirements: value impact studies, feasibility studies, what 9 are the implications of the direction in which we think we 10 ! want to go.

ll That kind of study is what is involved here, as the J2 othe~ slides in your handout would indicate.

13 CO~.MISSIONER AHEARNE: I guess my question, when I 14 was looking through it, was why the $6.6 million. And I 15 recognize I haven't got the background and the battles that 16 have been fought~ but it appeared to me to be very small.

17 MR. ROWSOME: The ACRS commented on that, too. They i8 think it is too little as well. On the other hand, if you 19 I recognize that these are really the scoping studies, simply 20 I the ~heoretical --

I 21 I. COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: If I look on your list, are le 22 1i I

you saying that what you call scoping studies, as a broad II 23 I general title, and all the rest are really scoping studies?

24 MR. ROWSOME: Right. This is Slide 83. You are Ace-Federal Reparters, Inc. I 25 quite right. The scoping studies are in what is listed here

mte 6 100*

- 2 3

as scoping studies, is a search for avenues and the initial evaluation of other avenues to improve light water reactor safety. Where we have already identified alternative designs 4

sl!j J!

or alternative concepts that might improve safety, we are doing!

the conceptual studies that would say, Are there competing failures that might be made worse if you move in this direction(

l 7 what kind of value impact are you dealing with; what kind of i

8 risk reduction effectiveness does this initiative have? That's 9 the kind of study we're doing in the other program.

10 MR. LEVINE: I think we may be a little low here.

11 I must say I was the one who principally prepared the plan.

12 L kept the pian as frugal as we possibly could, aid we budgeted 13 '

as frugally as we possibly can. All the estimates have been 14 downside estimates.

I 1s II CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: The 6. 6 is in fact the number 161 which came out of a three-year approved reactor safety program ii:,

17 ii that got worked out last year in connection with the direction:

I 1~ I d I from the authorization committees, and our own belief that it I

19 :, was an appropriate way to go. The funding level for the

• i

!1 "O

L.

i

' three-year program, which totals out at about -- it runs I

- 21 22 11 I!

4.4, 6.6, and then about 6.7, something like that -- was a sort of a middle ground between doing really very little work 23 other than some brainstorming and then calling up DOE and 24 saying, think about this, on the one hand, and developing a Ace-Fec~ral Reoorters, Inc. 1 25 j fairly husky program with contractor commitments, ongoing

mte 7 101

• commitments, on the otherr at $4.4 million this first year, and 6 the second and 6 the third.

It is not what I would call trivial efforts. Those 4 are, after all, millions of dollars.

5 MR. BUDNITZ: There is not much experimental work 6 in it.

7 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It's obviously not a big program, 8 judged on the scale of a $48 million per year LOFT experiment in the research budget. One could argue whether it is high or low, John. I think that is fair. But the 6.6 proposed at 11 least has the merit of having been a previously considered 12 part of a consist~nt and I think'fairly well shaken down plan.

13 I think the way of deciding what ought to be attacked in uhis 14 program was good.

15 I think there was a pretty good method of shaking out 16 how far it ought to go, so it didn't go too far, but on the 17 other hand was not just hand-waving. So the 6.6 pr'obably is 18 good, all things considered. It is probably one of the most 19 I well considered .. numbers in our budget.

I 20 j MR. LEVINE: I would not want to double that number, 21 I for instance.

i 22 ii CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Let me say one more thing about i

23 the dollar level. I won't be surprised if 0MB once again 24 I feels i t appropriate to cut our budget number and to export a i

Ace-Federal Recorters, Inc. j 25 I chunk of this to DOE. *rn fact, I will be surprised if.they

me 8 102

\ don't. And I guess one of the reasons I perhaps h~ve less J

2 enthusiasm for looking at any very substantial increases in it I

-i I is that it seems to me it only encourages that tendency. On V I 4 the other hand, there may be some modest increases that ought 5 to be considered.

6 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Or if they are not increases 7 in our budget, perhaps there ought to be some specifics that 8 we ought to be asking DOE to incorporate into their budget.

9 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Okay. Where from here, Frank?

10 ! MR. ROWSOME: That covers Probab-ilistic Analysis.

11 MR. LEVINE: It is almost 5:30. Would you like to 12 go on?

13 CHAIR.t'1AN HENDRIE: In view of the hour, *I am inclined 14 to meet again. Let's see what would be handy for a return, to 15 pick up safeguards. Why don't you come in at 9:30?

e-7 16 (Whereupon, at 5:30 p.m., the meeting was adjourned.)

,~I I

18 19 I 20 21 22 ii 11 23 .

24 Ac:2-Federal Reoorters, Inc, 25