ML22230A165
| ML22230A165 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 03/15/1978 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Tran-M780315 | |
| Download: ML22230A165 (1) | |
Text
~ roSECRETARIAT RECORDS NUCl.EAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF:
SECY-78-109 STATEMENT ON STANDARDIZATION OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS Place - Washington, D. C.
Date - Wednesday, 15 Marc 1978 Pages 1 _ 82 Telephone :
- FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
Offid.a.i Reporters
.4.J.1 North Capitol Street Washington , D.C. 20001 NATlONWIDE COVERAGc
- DAILY
(
I l
DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of i meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on March 15, 1978 in the Commission 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 revie\*1ed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal I
record of decision of the matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in I this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determinations or beliefs. No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in I
f any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement or argument i contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize. I
\
I
( l t
j i
w
1 CR6791 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WHITLOCK All 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 SECY-78-109.
- 4 5
STATEMENT ON STANDARDIZATION OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS 6 Room 1130 1717 H Street, N.W.
7 Washington, D.C.
8 Wednesday, 15 March 1978 9 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 10 p.m.,
11 BEFORE: *** *
- 12 VICTOR GILINSKY, Acting Chairman 13 PETER BRADFORD, Commissioner 14 ALSO PRESENT:
15 SAMUEL CHILK JOE SCINTO 16 JOE RUTBERG ED CASE 17 DICK DE YOUNG BILL 'KANE 18 LEE GOSSICK AL KENNEKE 19 JIM KELLEY 20 21
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25
2 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 (2:00 p.m.)
3 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Why don't you proceed?
- 4 5
MR. DE YOUNG: Ed Case will be here in a few mom-ments. I don't know where he is. We lost him.
But we have a set of slide to lead the talk. And 6
7 we will use these. We have provided you-with a copy of the slides. We also have the view chart.
8 (Slide.)
9 10 The first slide indicates the Commission state-11 ments on standardization. The first, initial, is the policy 12 statement put out in 1972.
- 13 14 15 About a year later, the Commission indicated the Staff was prepared to implement that policy with respect to three of the four concepts of standardization; reference 16 system concept. duplicate plant and manufacturing license.
17 About a year later, they said we are now prepared 18 with repli~ation and put out a statement on that
' 19 In June of last year, we put out the last policy statement that reaffirmed the support of the standardization 20 policy and requested comments on proposed changes to that 21 policy.
22 (Slide.)
23 24 The next slide just very briefly describes the Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 reference system concept, which involves the submittal of an
3 application for approval of the design for an entire plant 2 or:*:a major fraction of a plant outside of the context of a 3 license application.
The examples".::there -- these are the PDA applica-4 tions, the preliminary design approval applications; the 5
CESSAR NSSS application is one example, and the SWESSAR Balanc 6
of Plant application is another.
7 (Slide.)
8 The next slide is duplicate plant concept. It 9
10 involves the submittal of a number of applications for con-11 struction and operation of plants of essentially the same design, to be located at different sites by one or more utili-12
- 13 14 15 ty applicants.
And the example here that most of us refer to is the SNUPPS application-where a gr.oup of utilities have used 16 the same plant at different sites.
17 (Slide.)
The next slide is the manufacturing license con-18 19 cept. I think we all know what that is. We only have had one application of that, and that is the floating nuclear 20 plant application from Offshore Power Systems.
21
- 22 23 24 (Slide.)
The next slide is the replicate plant concepts.
It involves a submittal.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
CO.MMISSIONER G!LlNSKY: It is basical-ly tied to 25
4 the floating plant concept; isn't it?
2 MR. DE YOUNG: Yes, it is. We don't know of any 3 other way we can transport a completed plant, other than --
4 C01':1MISSIONER GILINSKY: So the only-:other example 5 you could have is if another manufacturer 6 MR. DE YOUNG: Utilizing essentially the same 7 concept of floating plants.
8 The next slide, replicate plant concept, involves 9 the submittal-of an application by a utility, where: a nuclear 10 power planthas essentially the same design as one previously 11 reviewed and accepted by the Staff.
12 The example is Marble Hills which replicated the
,e 13 Byron plant.
14 (Slide.)
15 The next slide is in colors. The blue is the nu-16 clear steam supply system. The red is the balance of plant.
17 The yellow .is what we call utility-related, and the white we 18 refer to as the site.
19 It gives you a.brief understanding of what parts 20 of the plants are involved.
21 (Slide.)
22 The next slide shows the nuclear island concept 23 and turbine island. The nuclear island is green and the
. 24 turnine island is blue. The yellow is the same; utility-IAce-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 related. It is never standardized. And the white is the site.
5 The complete plant is composed of the green plus 2 the blue; that is a complete standard plant.
3 And on the previous slide, it was the same outline
- 4 5
that you see here. This gives you an impression of what the PDA applications usually involve.
6 (Slide.)
7 The next slide t~lks about the experience with 8 standardizations: Has industry used the problem? Has]'.the 9 program resulted in less review manyears per CP? Overall, 10 have we lost or gained 'with standardization? And last, have 11 schedules been shortened, :,.and if not, why not?
12 (Slide.)
- 13 14 15 The next slide shows that standardization has been used by the utilities.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:~ When you say: Overall; 16 have we lost or gained anything_: __
17 MR. DE YOUNG: We will talk about that in* --- *-
18 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: what do you mean by that 19 MR. DE YOUNG: -- the next slide.
20 COMMISSI.ONER GILINSKY: Okay.
21 MR. DE YOUNG: But this slide shows that standard-
- 22 23 24 ization is being used. The last column at the very bottom shows 21 applications for 50 units have used one or more of the standardization concepts.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
'25 The first column on the left shows that the total
6 number of applications during that period had been 45 for 2 95 total units. So more than half of the units that we have 3 received applications for since March of '73, have utilized 4 the standardization concept. That percentage has been in-5 creasing with time.
6 And in my opinion, it is going to be a rare . event 7 if any application is received that does not refer to one or 8 more of the standardization concepts.
- 9 {Slide.)
10 The next*slide indicates the average number of 11 questions and the average manyears for the safety review for 12 each of the applications we receive.
- 13 14 15 The top line is the reference --.point. For a custom plant Construction Permit, the average number of questions is usually 700, and it takes the Staff 6.3 manyears to do that.
16 Duplication plant Construction Permit, has been 17 reduced to 300 and 3.2 manyears.
18 Replication, _350 at 4.5 manyears.
19 The nuclear island concept, 260, and 4.4.
20 Now, in the parentheses.there, is the number that 21 would occur if we added the questions and the manyears that 22 we used approving the standard design that'*the
- Construction 23 Permit referenced.
24 So you can see that in reality, for the CESSAR Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 Construction Permit, for example, we really asked 725 questions
7 on the average for the four applications that we~e used for 2 this analysis.
3 And we really used, as a Staff, eight manyears fof
- 4 each of those Construction Permits. But on the application 5 itself, for each of those applications, we only employed six 6 manyears.
7 The other manye~rs were used approving the stan-8 dard design, before we ever received the application for the 9 Construction Permit.
10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I didn't follow that.
11 Approving the standard design, you used how many 12 manyears?
13 MR. DE YOUNG: For example, to approve the CESSAR, 14 NSSS, we asked about 650 questions, and it took us about, as 15 I recall, six-plus manyears to do. We spent that time.
16 Now, there were four CP applications that came in 17 that referenced that design. If you just look at the ques~
18 tions we asked on those CP applications, we asked on those 19 four CP applications an average of 570 questions.
20 But we had spent Staff time to approve the stan.:.:
21 dard part that they merely reference.
- 22 23 24 CO1).1MISSIONER GILINSKY: .:-Right.
MR. DE YOUNG: If we include those questions, and divide that 600-plus by four and added that to the Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 .570, you get 725.
8 COMMISSIONER GILTNSKY: I see.
2
- MR~ ~.DE *YOUNG: The next slide shows whether we 3 have lossed or gained, overall.
4 (Slide. )
5 All the questions; we have added all of the ques-6 tions and all of the manyears.we spent on approving standard 7 designs and approving Construction Permits that referenced 8 , them ..
9 And the bottom to the right there, we have the 10 custom plant* CP, the 700 and the 6.3 manyears. And right 11 above it, you can see that we have slightly reduced the 12 number of questions and slightly increased the number of
- 13 14 15 manyears.
I ihihk.*th~*:result as far as we are concerned i_s that we about broke even on standardization, but the 16 payoff, if we only had some applications coming in, would be 17 about to be gain, because the more plants that reference 18 these approved designs, the more benefit we will get.
19 So think we haven't wasted our time, but we have 20 not made much time.
21 (Slide.)
- 22 23 24 The next slide talkscbout the review schedules.
Have we shortened the review schedule? And at the bottom, again, we see the custom plant and just above it is the Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 composite results for all the standards plants.
9 And you can see that we haven't shortened any of 2 the schedules to get these Construction Permits.
3 (Slide~)
4 The next slide tell us why.
5 COMM:r.SSIONER GILINSKY: Let me take a look at that 6 again.
7 They are all about the same~
8 MR. DE YOUNG: They are all about the same, md 9 there is a*it"eason, which the next slide will show.
10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Okay.
11 MR. DE YOUNG: Why haven't we shortened the sche-12 dules? When we do the Staff review, there are generally four 13 general areas of review; the NSSS, the BOP, the site, and 14 the utility.
15 The average number of questions we ask of the 16 700, in each of these, we have a good indication 6f. There 17 are 200 in the NSSS, 300 in the BOP, 120 on the site and 18 80 to the utility; on their training plans, emergency plans, 19 and so on. We know where the questions are~.
20 The time it takes to review the top three is about 21 the same, independent of one another.
22 MR. CASE: They are parallel.paths.
23 MR. DE YOUNG: They are parallel paths; it takes 24 the same amount. "TO have a standard NSSS does not reduce the Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 overall review schedule, as we still need the same amount of
10 time to review the balance of plant and the site.
2 The utility matters we can do much more quickly.
3 But even if we had a standard NSSS and a standard balance of 4 plant, and the site was not approved, it would still take 5 about the same amount of time to do the over.all review.
6 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Now, you have 14 months 7 down there for reviews.
8 MR. DE YOUNG: That is dreams.
9 MR. CASE: A target.
10 MR. DE YOUNG: What~ever number I put down there, 11 the fourth one would be much less.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But the top~three would 13 be about the same?
14 MR. DE YOUNG: They are about the same, and that 15 is why we haven't reduced the overall schedule to do the 16 reviews.
17 MR. CASE: And that obviously, if you had acer-18 tain mix; you got every standardized except the site, then 19 presumably you could put more manpower on the site and re-20 duce that time.if you had a large number that were coming 21 that way.
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
But~:with the mix that we have, I have to apportion the manpower so they often aren't the same.
MR. DE YOUNG: And the manpower is slightly dif-25 ferent. It is geologists and hydrologists in the site area
11 more than it is mechanical engineers.
2 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Now, are these sites mat-3 ters that could be handled earlier, if we .had --
5 MR. CASE: Oh, yes, if you had an early site re-6 view.
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Yes.
8 MR. DE YOUNG: With the early site approval and 9 a complete standardized plant, it is my opinion that we could 10 complete this job in about a half year.
11 COMMISSirnER GILINSKY: A half a year?
12 MR. CASE: Would it include the hearing on that?
13 MR.DE YOUNG: To get to the hearing.
14 COMMSSIONER GILINSKY: By the way, until we get 15 this 14 months, it seems to me we ought to have kind of 16 realistic numbers in the charts we present.
17 MR. DE YOUNG:- The intent of the chart was just to 18 show the parallel paths here.
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Or you could just put "X."
20 MR. DE YOUNG: Less than "X."
21 MR. KENNEKE: Do the site questions include more 22 than just Chapter two?
24 MR.KENNEKE: More than just seismology, geology?
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 It includes design questions.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Let me ask you something 2 else: Is this number of questions, is that a reasonable index 3 of what goes on?
- 4 5
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Because if we switch over to producing an early SER, as in fact we have committed our-6 selves to doing, at least on the next few, in effect, I guess 7
we are not really asking any questions, or very few.
8 MR. CASE: Well, you would cut them down, cut 9
10 down that part of the question and answer period where we 11 go to a Position and say: What do you think about it, and 12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:. Well, a lot of this would
- 13 14 15 take place after we have produced an SER, in effect?
MR. CASE:
hearing phase.
Yes; either the ACRS phase or the 16 COMMISSIONER GILNSKY: Yes.
17 (Slide.)
MR. DE YOUNG: The next slide, we did a little 18 19 study to see: Is standardization really needed and we started 20 to review what changes in the program should be made.
And very briefly, we took a.look at all the li-21 cense applications that have come in, on the next:~slide.
22 23 (Slide.)
24 And at the time in 1972 when the Commission came Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 out with its first policy statement, the Staff was*really
13 overloaded. The number of applications that were corning in 2 were staggering. We couldn't even start work on some of
~-
3 those applications at that time.
4 We need a method to enable the Staff to handle 5 a heavy workload with the same number of people. We couldn't*.
6 get many more people.
7 The standardization was one of the things we 8 looked at. And we thought with this number of Construction 9 Permit applications coming.in, continuing to come in at the 10 time, as we expected, and the OLs coming in from previous 11 yeans, we just couldn't it. We had to find some better way 12 and standardization was the way to reduce the average number
- 13 14 15 of rnanyears per application.
There was no thought about reducing the time bf;~
the Staff review. It was concentrated on enabling the Staff 16 to handle a heavy workload within the same time span that:* it 17 was accustomed to take.
18 lhis, slide that you see now, we took at lbok at~
19 what the future held.
20 (Slide.)
21 A new policy statement, conservation of energy, 22 utilization 6f coal --
23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Let me ask you: In fact, 24 though, it was a bit of a simple-minded approach to the Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 problem that it took awhile to get a-11 this going. And so
13-A it really couldn't help out in the immediate problems that 2 the Staff had.
3 MR. DE YOUNG: For a number of years.
4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: And you had to solve that 5 by bther*means.
6 MR. DE YOUNG: We were looking to the future to 7 get something underway, because we expected that '**.heavy con-8 tinuation of Construction Permit applications.
9 MR. CASE: But you see, at the time we had a 10 heavy CP workload, but we hadn't gotten the returns from 11 the OL workload. So we were envisioning heavy workloads in 12 both areas that something should be done on.
13 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Or at least it was over-14 optimistic about how rapidly this kind of an approach could 15 actually have an effect on activities.
16 MR. DE YOUNG: The same type of optimism as the 17 14 months; that's true.
18 MR. CASE: But on the other hand, if you hadn:' t 19 gotten started until you worked it all out, you never would 20 have gotten started. You always have that kind of a problem, 21 too. If you try to think of all the possible problems:--and
- 22 23 24 solve them first COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Oh, no; I am not suggest-ging*'_:that we shouldn't have gone forward with it~ .no. But I Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 as far as it deal with the problems --
14 MR. CASE: Well, .I react to people that would say 2 everybody was naive and optimistic back in those days: To 3 some degree, yes, but.':they were, I think, farsighted, to get 4 something going.
5 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, you can be naive and 6 farsighted.
7 (Laughter.)
8 (Slide.)
9 MR. DE YOUNG: The next slide shows the results of 10 that study we did for the number of plants we might expect, 11 the number of applications that we might expect.
12 And I think the third column *is key. We have
- 13 14 15 taken a look at the number of two-unit nuclear plants, two units, because the average application we receive is for two units.
16 And I think the critical number to look at; growth 17 percentage, is some place in: *between three and five.
18 *COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Now what is that growth 19 percentage; electrical power?
20 MR. DE YOUNG: Yes; eiectrical power.growth. It 21 is replacement based on these percentages. These numbers are 22 the total of replacement plus growth for these growth per-23 centages.
24 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Assuming what kind of a Ace-Federal Reponers, Inc.
25 mix?
15 MR. DE YOUNG: We took the mix as one-third of all 2 the applications would be nuclear; two-thirds would be fos 3 sil fuel or some other means. But one-third would be nuclear.
- 4 5 columns?
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: And what are the different 6 MR. DE YOUNG:: The very first column is the 1200 7 megawatt units to be applied for, installation in eight years 8 from the time they are applied for.
9 Replacement power; we assume that all the plants 10 that we have now would be replaced 32 years after they were 11 initially installed.
12 The growth power>.there was for those vario.us
- 13 14 15 percentages, for the existing power, if they grew at one percent, three percent, five, seven percent*;* That is the nurn-ber of units that would be required**-to replace that power, 16 j*ust for that. growth.
17 And the next column, we have added those together.
18 That is the total of two,-µnit plants, and we took one-third.
19 And the very last column is what percentage of 20 this might be standardized designs.
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Using what, a 50 percent
- 22 23 24 assumption?
MR. DE YOUNG:* Yes; the first pa:t;t"'df that is about half of those would be standard designs and then after Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 a number of years, we assume two-thirds would be standard
16 designs.
2 We just did that to get a view of what we might 3 get.
4 MR. CASE: And we don't claim to be in the fore-5 casting business, or anything. We just wanted to give at 6 least some picture of how it would look.
7 MR. DE YOUNG: But these forecasts do agree.**.'.' We 8 have~checked with the other forecasts from the Stanford, 9 Gulf, The Stollar Associates, and ERDA forecasts. And they 10 are in general agreement with the nu.rhber of plants we will 11 have installed by the year 2000.
12 But we did the study, and it shows that unlike the
- 13 14 15 time back in 1972, the number of plants we are going to have to review for construction, the applications, are not likely to be very great. And perhaps we didn't need standardization 16 for that reason, for the same reason we thought we needed it 17 back in 1972.
18 But standardization, in our view, is the only way, 19 in conjunction with the early site approval, that you are 20 likely to get a significant decrease in the time, the overall 21 time, to get a plant licensed and under construction.
22 And we think it is worthwhile, and for that rea~
23 son, plus the reasons that we think it does increase overall 24 safety, we think we should continue with the program~
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 (Slide.)
17 MR. C"'.OSSICK: Dick, I believe that had to be based 2 on a 50 percent nuclear out of the total. '
3 MR. DE YOUNG: For the first several years, and
- .4 5
then later on it is two-thirds, near the end of*'-that columan it is two-thirds.
6 MR. GOSSICK: I see.
7 MR. DE YOUNG: It was a rough '*.study, but it comes 8 out to be about the same as 9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It is one-tli.+/-rd.
10 MR. CASE: It is one-third nuclear, but the percent 11 of standardization~-
12 MR. DE YOUNG: But the percent standardization of
- 13 14 15 those nuclear.
MR. CASE::*
at 50 and then
-- on the total nuclear starts out 16 MR. DE YOUNG: It starts out at 50 percent arid 17 then goes to two-thirds.
18 The next slide., ,comments on the 1977 changes. We 19 got*the Commission to put out a policy statement last June.
20 (Slide.)
21 The next slide shows ve~y briefly what the changes
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
we proposed last June were; replication, duplication and manufacturing licenses.the~e:~ere essentially none ..
T.he recommendations for changes had to do with the 25 PDA and the FDA concept, and the concentration was on the
18 FDA. We had described two types of FDAs.
2 (Slide.)
3 The next slide, just briefly reviews what these 4 two FDA concepts were that we recommended be commented on 5 last June.
6 The FDA-1 is applicable to all those plants that 7 utilize the PDA. But it was not referenceable.-'.in new CP 8 or a combined CP and OL application. It could only be refer-9 enced at the OL stage for those plants that were based and 10 utilized the preliminary design approval.
11 The FDA~2 was referenceable in new CP applications 12 for a period of five years. And their Regulatory Requirement
-- 13
- 14 Cutoff Date was the docket date for the application.
The Regulatory Requirement Cutoff Date is the 15 date we usually use -- we have always *-used something, -- but i6 near the end of our review we say: All right; the Staff 17 is going to stop its changeds in requirements so you can 18 finalize your design and get it approved.
19 Near the end of our review, we have always done 20 this, except for that those changes that we have to make to 21 be consistent with any changes in the regulations.
22 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: How close to the end of 23 the re~iew is that?
24 MR. DE YOUNG: It is usu~lly what we call the Q-2 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 time. It is about two-thirds of the way through the review,
19 roughly.
2 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Which review?
3 MR. DE YOUNG: Through the Safety Evaluation
- 4 5
Review, from the time they docket.
MR. CASE: The Staff review.
6 MR. DE YOUNG: The Staff review.
7 MR. CASE: Now, he doesn't mean regulations; he 8 means Regulatory Guides.
9 COMMISSSIONER GILINSKY: I know, but we are talk-10 ing about an OL review, or CP review?
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: That is for getting the
- 13 14 15 CP?
MR. CASE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But then the applicant 16 in effect starts to run a new race.
17 MR. DE YOUNG: At the OL time?
18 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Yes.
19 MR. DE YOUNG: But that FDA-2 would be reference-20 able in CP applications. Even though it is a final design:;
21 it would be .the*.:one~stage type of review by the S~aff. So
- 22 23 24 it would be referenced in new CP applications, and the cutoff date we had made*--.-we said it will be the docket date of that application and not halfway through the Staff review, Ace-Federal Reponers, Inc.
25 to enable them to conclude the final design.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: When you spoke about a cut-2 off date,some where near the end of the CP review, does that 3 that is the cutoff date for the final design, all the way 4 up through the OL?
5 MR. CASE: It should be.
6 MR. DE YOUNG: Except for changes we think are 7 so important, and we will be getting to*.*.those near the end 8 of the presentation.
9 MR.CASE: Except for safety significant changes.
10 MR. DE YOUNG: Safety significant changes; we 11 will be addressing that in some detail.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Would those have to be in 13 regulations, or just those you deem to be of safety signifi-14 cance?
15 MR. CASE: The latter.and it is obviously an I
16 arguable tender point with the applicants and the industry.
17 COM..MISSIONER GILINSKY: But in the FDA-2, what 18 wo~ld the situation there be?
19 MR. DE YOUNG: The FDA-2, we will agree with the 20 utility -- with the vendor that -- we know it takes time to 21 get a to enable him to provide the final design, so in-22 stead of waiting for a year from the time he puts in that 23 application, we will agree on the docket date; all require-24 ments as of the docket date will be the regulatory require-Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 ments cutoff date for that design.
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Using the same sort of 2 standard?
3 MR. DE YOUNG: Same sort of standard.
4 (Slide. )
5 We put out that policy statement last June, and 6 we received comments. We requested comments and we received.
7 The next slide that is up now indicates where 8 those comments were received from and generally what they 9 were.
10 The four reactor system manufacturers commented, 11 architect engineers; we received five comments from them, two 12 utilities, and three others, including the AIF.
- 13 14 15 We did not receive any comments from the Depart-ment of Energy or anyone else. We jus.t didn't receive any-thing, from intervenors or objections; just from these three.
16 MR. KENNEKE: What does disciplined management mean?
17 MR. DE YOUNG: I am going to go through them.
18 I think everyone who commented, even though if you 19 look in the architect engineer groups, you don'* t find the 20 term disciplined management, they also feel it very strongly.
21 They said in order to make standardization work,
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
we need disciplined management, not only in their own organ-izations but within the Staff.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Are they referring to all 25 the participants, or --
22 MR. DE YOUNG: All the *participan:ts, from ~-the 2 individual reviewers to the individual design people on 3 their staff. We must understand that standardization is dif-4 ferent and it requires discipline to postpone making a change 5 until the time for the changes come about.
6 Standardization is merely a chaige from making a 7 change as each change comes up, or delaying the changes until 8 you can do it in a b~tch process. It requires discipline 9 to do this, *-:both in the Staff and in the designer'* s group.
10 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Discipline aside, what is 11 the relationship of this to the resolution of the various 12 genetic issues?
13 .Supposing that you deal with them, something comes 14 out that suggests that a change is necessary .. What do you do?
15 MR. DE YOUNG: Again, if it is very important and 16 signiftcant, I think we would make a determination that it 17 is important enough to consider backfitting that change into 18 all plants that are in operation, approved for design or 19 approved for construction.
20 That determination is made by the Staff at the 21 highest level.
22 MR. CASE: Generally, we categorize changes into 23 three.categories:
24 One, forward looking, and only do it on new ap-Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 plications;
23 The second is of more importance; do it on a case-2 by-case basis, looking at the particular application and 3 how close do they come to it and how much w6uld'*.i t cost to 4 come all the way; 5 And the third recommendation is; backfit it across-6 the-board.
7 So we generally divide them into those three cat-8 egories. When we approve a change in RRRC, the so-called 9 Regulatory Requirements Review Committee and the director 10 of the office, approve a change in any kind of regulatory 11 req.uirements, branch technical positions, Standard Review 12 Plan, or a Regulatory G~&de, each one of those is categorized 13 within those three ways.
14 CO.MMISSIONER BRADFORD: But under standardization 15 you have to -- don't you have sort of a fourth category; 16 that is, of a particular type of plant that has been approved 17 and has been licensed for some applications, and then you 18 will expect others in the future.
19 MR. CASE: So you have to kind of split those 20 categories. There are subs to that. Some, for instance, you 21 would say: On all future applications, but for one who came 22 in~to reference a standard plant.that had already been ap-23 proved, it wouldn't have to be done. We would do it in a 24 batch process.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 When the term is up for that approval, we would do
24 it at that time. That is a benefit of standardization, as 2 we see it, to the user.
3 MR. KENNEKE: Wouldn't you get multiple benefit 4 by applying it to more than plant, though?
6 MR. KENNEKE: Would it be more important to im-7 plement such a change for the standard design that for the 8 custom design.
9 MR. DE YOUNG: We don't think.*so, and we have a 10 talk on that later.as part of the discussion.
11 The other comments made by the reactor manufac-12 turers were they had strong recommendations to the extent
- 13 14 15 the PDA period and to make design change procedures easier; they had a request to make the FDA-1 that v;e had the Commissio describe in its June policy statement. And they wanted to I
16 make that referenceable in new CP applications. *'*.They said:
17 without this benefit, we will never receive an FDA-l*applica-18 tion.
19 There is no benefit to the holder of an FDA-1 20 of that application. If he submits an application for an 21 FDA-1, we will ask him 700 questions. We will charge him a 22 fee. We will take so many Staff manyears to review it. And 23 then when he gets it, he cannot use it except for those 24 plants that had referenced the PDA.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 He might just as well put the same information
25 in each of the OL applications for those CPs that refer to 2 his PDA, and let us ask the same questions. utilities, who 3 would ask them to respond and pay fhem for it.
- 4 5
They said'they would never submit, we would prob-ably never see an FDA-1 applicat+/-on unless they had some op-6 porttinity to reference that FDA-1 application in new CP 7 applications.
8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What was the thinking in 9 .indicating that FDA-ls would not be referenceable?
10 MR. DE YOUNG: At the time we just thought that 11 we:were providing the FDA-1 and the FDA-2 and they could de-12 velop both of those at the same time. But they have manpower 13 problems, as well as the Staff, and they can't do both.
14 If they sold the plant with the PDA, they have 15 develop that final design for that plant. They have to do 16 that work. That is an FDA-1 type of OL development.
17 They can't at the same time take the same people and 18 have .~them do an FDA-2 application. We thought they could.*
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Why would you want them to?
20 MR. CASE: The concern would be: when you go 21 from PDA to an FDA, you would only consider safety signifi-
- 22 23 24 cant changes rather than the safety improvement type of changes.
If there were forward-referenceable; i.e., fore a Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 Construction Permit, then you have to look at the length of
26 years, number of years, since your PDA approval, or really 2 the Reg Guide cutoff date before the PDa approval, in which 3 you had not applied on an accumulative basis, these number of
- 4 5
changes that were of and by themselves. *not significant, but the. accumulative effect could we be.~"
6 COMMISSIIONER GILINSKY: I am a little puzzled.
7 When you talk about referencing final designs in CP applica-8 tions, are you thinking of -- are you looking £orward to a 9 combined CP-OL?
10 MR. DE YOUNG: One~stage licensing, yes.
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: One-stage licensing.
12 So you are really saying that you looked upon
- 13 14 15 these as kind of stale final designs?
MR. CASE:
Yes.
That might be a way of encapsulating 16 the thought.
17 MR. DE YOUNG: And industry says they are not that 18 stale, and you will never see one.*,if you don't permit us to 19 use --
20 MR. CASE: It is just not commercially viable for 21 them if it doesn't have the forward referenceability. It 22 is not worth the amount of time and effort they have to put 23 into it. There wouldn't be enough applicat+/-ons that would 24 reference it for the OL stage to justify its cost.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Now, is this a real
27 problem? Are there significant changes that would -- bas-2 ically you saw significant differences between what the FDA-1 3 would be and what your concept of the FDA-2 was?
- 4 5
MR. DE YOUNG: At the time. But we have changed.
These are what we proposed back last year.
CO~USSIONER GILINSKY: I see.
6 7 MR. DE YOUNG: And these are the comments. We have 8 changed.
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What do you think now?
10 MR. DE YOUNG: Well, we will be getting to that.
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Okay.
12 MR. DE YOUNG: We are just talking about the com-13 ments on the old proposal that we put out that we had you 14 people agree to put~obt last year.
15 The architect engineers, now they had a different 16 problem that is a pretty signficiant problem. They said:
17 regardless of FDA-1 or FDA-2, we can't provide either one of 18 them because of. antitrust considerations that they had.
19 And even without the antitrust considerations, 20 their modes of doing business are different from those of 21 reactor vendors, and we cannot provide you with an FDA 22 application.
23 We recommend that you go to another concept.
24 They called it the standard design approval. And the standard Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 design approval very briefly, they are saying: we will give
28 as much final design information as we can but that that we 2 cannot give you, we will describe functional performance re-3 quirements rather than design details and get them approved.
- 4 5
And then you check that the final component we select meets those requirements.
6 They think we can develop that, and we will ha~e 7 something to say about that, also, later.i*:*_
8 But they just do not think that they can provide 9 any final design applications of the type that we had de-10 scribed in the June policy statement.
11 The other comments were generally about the same.
12 They were very strong, most of them, d:n encouraging duplica-13 tion and replication, a continuation of those policies.
14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Replication troubles* :me 15 a little btt, because it seems to go against the basic 16 concept of standardization, which is that when you review a 17 design that may be used over and over again, we know it at 18 the beginning, and you know enough then to put more effort on 19 it and look a little move carefully at it because you are 20 now committed to allowing its use for many plants.
21 And that isn't the case in the replication con~
- 22 23 24 cept.
MR. DE YOUNG: Well, I think we have changed from the time that it started. I think:-at the time that it Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 started, it was very true that the first standard application
29 that we received, we went into great depth, we spent -- .. we 2 used the best people we had and we did do a much better re-3 view, in my opinion. The number of questions were increased
- 4 5
and so on.
But as all the applications began to be more and 6 more standard, the general trend is that we are doing that 7 same review regardless of whether the application *is a* stan-8 da~d application or a custom application.
9 We don't differentiate. You can't tell somebody 10 to do a lesser or a greater review, because he is used to do-11 ing his review and they are doing it that.way.
12 So that is one of the reasons I think the same 13 concern, you know, really does not persist as it did before.
14 And the other thing is, that is if I am right 15 and a custom plant application will be a rarity in the future, 16 that concern goes away, that we really will be replicating 17 standard plants:;;
18 So I think that the fear -- the concern, not 19 the fear; just the concern about that, that1 s one of the 20 reason, a real reason, why replication got somewhat of a 21 bad name within the Staff and within other parts of the 22 organization.
23 (Slide.)
24 The next slide jus.t briefly reviews what our Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 current requirements are, what our current practice is.
30 And this is what we are now saying we recommend would be our 2 policy.
3 On the reference system concept -- and this is
- 4 5
one where we expect to have most of the changes; the PDA and the FDA type of concept -- the current practice is that.*the PDA term for NSSS and a nuclear islarid design is three years.
6 7 We have approved them for a period of thr.ee years.
8 The PDA term £or balance of plant and a turbine 9 isl.and that mates with those three-years designs, is less*
10 than three years. We ended it with the PDa for the initial 11 review.
12 And the FDA is applieable to the PDA plants.
13 (Slide.)
14 Our current recommendations would be -- after 15 we had done the study -- our current recommendations are that 16 the term of all future PDAs be five years, whether they be 17 a BOP, turbine island, nuclear island or NSSS; increase them 18 from three or slightly less than three:, to*,five years.
1 19 The second recommendation is to extend the cur-20 rent balance of plant and turbine island PDA terms, to three 21 years. We think it is unnecessary to terminate those with
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
the mating portion of the plant.
MR. CASE:
review or anything.
That is an ipse dixit, without any 25 MR. DE YOUNG: Without any revi*ew; just extend
31 those. *we should have done it in the beginning. We didn't 2 do it.
3 The next recommendation is: extend any three-year
- 4 5
PDA to five years upon completion of a defined extension re-view. So we will extend it by two years, but we will do a qualification review for that extension.
6 7 The next recommendation is the fDA-1, is refer-8 enceable in new CP and combined applications for a few years.
9 And,~the last is that the FDA-2 ,- the Regulatory 10 Requirements Cutoff Date be the same. We haven't changed that.
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What does- a II few years, 11 12 mean?
e, 13 MR. DE YOUNG: We will talk about that briefly.
(Slide.)
14 15 The PDA extension review matters; what are these?
16 And these are the matters to* w.h:ich*-.Mr. Case referred to pre-17 viously.
18 We have the RRRC Category 3 and. 2 matters. These 19 are matters that have been reviewed by this high level com-20 mittee . .And they had determined that they are significant 21 enough in a safety sense that we should,; fo~-categories 3s,
- 22 backfit in their entirety to all plants and all designs.
23 And Category 2, to look at each design in each 24 plant to determine the extent that they need to be bacfitted Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 on a case~by-case~basis.
32 The NRRR Category 4 matters are slightly differ-2 ent. You haven't heard about those, yet. They are matters 3 that are being --
- 4 5
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
order, 3, 2, 4, 1?
I was wondering about this 6 (Laughter.)
7 MR. DE YOUNG: The NRRR Category 4 matters are 8 matters that are in preparation for RRRC review. But even 9 during the time that they are in preparation and being re-10 viewed by RRRC, the division director responsible for that 11 area has deterimined that they are safety significant enough 12 that we would want to include them* in all ongoing reviews.
13 And that is what we call a Category A, because we would 14 include the RRRC review --
15 MR. CASE: The RRRC review does take some time; 16 paperwork.
17 MR. DE YOUNG*.: Preparation --
18 MR. CASE: discussion, and you have got to 19 have some outlet, safety valve for things that are important 20 that haven't got there, yet.
21 MR. DE YOUNG: These three matters, RRRC Category
- 22 23 24 3, Category 2 and NRR Category 4 matters, would be revi~wed for a PDA extension.
The RRRC Category 1 matters are those matters that Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 have to be met by future applications. They are not going to
33 be imposed on the PDA design. However, we think the PDa holder sho.uld address how his design conforms to these. We 2
are not going to require them to conform, but many of the 3
designers have followed these changes and have made changes, 4
so by the virtue --of 'previous designs, meet the requirements.
5 We just want to know where they differ from the 6
improvement type changes that we have made. It will not be 7
imposed on the designs.
8 MR. CASE: But there is a veiled hint there that 9
10 there may be some that are important enough on an individual 11 basis yotl-*:would require it. As a general rule, they are not required.
12
- 13 14 15 MR. DE YOUNG: Unless there be an unusual event, but there may be one or two that we will require.
One of the other problems that we have been told 16 about is the fees for these.
(Slide.)
17 According to the recent rule which becomes ef-18 19 fective March the 23rd--- that's next week -- the PDA ex-tension is defined as a special project. The fee will vary 20 with the number of manyears.
21
-- - - - - - - - ~ ------ - - - - - - - -
For some of the latest PDAs, this may be a man-22 year of Staff review effort, which is $75,000, on that order.
23 24 We have received letters from vendors that hold Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 PDAs. We have been told by some of the others that they
34 would like to request at this time a PDA extension. And by 2 getting that:request in before March 23rd, that they not be 3 required to pay that fee.
4 The total number of PDA extensions I have down --
5 MR. CASE: We haven't answered that question yet.
6 MR. DE YOUNG: We haven't answer that. We propose 7 to get your advice on that.
8 It seems reasonable. You know, we made a special 9 policy decision at the Commission level that charge for a PDA 10 itself, which req~ires about six to seven manyears, the 11 initial charge would be $50,000. If they never sold it, that 12 is all they would pay. As they sold it, for each unit, the
- 13 14 15 additional cost for doing the Staff review would be imposed on the holder 6f .the PDA.
It seems wrong to only charge them $50,000 for 16 the PDA, and for the extension review which is much less, 17 to charge them what it costs the Staff, which is probably in 18 excess of the $50,000.
19 It is my personal view that we should accept this.
20 They have gotten their requests in. They don't know what 21 is required of a PDA extension.
- 22 23 24 it in.
MR. CASE:
MR. KELLEY1 As long as it is free,.they will get Does that become a legal issue?
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 'MR. CASE: I think it may. Dick properly said
35 i
I that was his personal opini!,on.
2 MR. KELLEY: Bu~-you have got to read the rule, I
3 though. i 4 MR. DE YOUNG: ~es. Well, the rule is open to 5 interpretation.
6 (Laughter. )
7 MR. SCINTO: That is what lawyers: are for.
8 MR. CASE: That jis what lawyers are for.
9 MR. DE YOUNG: Now, we said we were going to permit 10 the FDA-1 to be used in CP :applications.
11 (Slide.)
12 The next slide ~hows the basic problem we have I
I 13 with one of the NSSS PDA holders r the only . one we know of i
14 at this time, who intends to submit an FDA.:.;.l; that is i
15 Combustion Engineering. .
16 This slide --- :*arid I apologize for the roughness I
17 of it -- but it just shows ;the ~umber of years there. We 18 have.a three-year PDA peri9d. On the top it says the PDA 19 goes out at zero time. Th:iree years later, *the PDA wou],d 20 terminate. But now we pro~ose to extend it for two years.
21 And the PDA expires at the;end of five years.
- 22 23 24 The FDA docket f'or the only FDA application we I
perceive receiving right now, we expect is after about two I
and a half years, after th~ CESSAR PDA is put out, we expect I
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 to get it in June or July 6f this year.
36 We expect to get that FDA-1 out in about two years, 2 four and a half years after the PDA was first put out.
3 And if that is only good for two years, or two 4 and a half years until the FDA-1 expires, Combustion believes 5 that-they cannot submit an FDA-2 application and get it re-6 viewed by the Staff in that .. tirne. They think they need an 7 extra year.
8 We have taken a look at it and we thihk it is 9 possible that because of the lirni ted nature of the FDA;..2 10 re~iew, that it is not going to require~a year to prepare it, 11 and it will not require two years to review it.
12 And we would like to hold to the two years at 13 this time. If we do get into difficulties with the FDA-2, 14 we will review it at that time and report back to the Corn-15 mission.
16 MR. KENNEKE: Where would your qualification review 17 for the extension begin, the PDA extension.
18 MR. DE YOUNG: When ever they submit an applica-19 tion nr a PDA extension.
20 MR.KENNEKE: Are you assuming a year for that, or 21 something like that?
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
something like We expect i t should be done in the longest one, which is the earlier PDAs which require most of the review.; we have been talking 25 about on the order of eight months; nothing less. So we will
37 still have. time.
2 For the ones that have been out for less time, 3 half a year, a year or so, we should take less time to do that
- 4 5
updating review.
(Slide.)
6 The next slide treats the duplicate plant con-7' cept, and there we are making a significant change. Current 8 practice is to approve the designs for just the initial 9 group of utilities that come in at the same time for the 10 approvals, as SNUPPS did.
11 Everybody that has commented on the duplicate 12 plant concept has very favorable comments to make. It is a
- 13 14 15 good concept. It is a complete plant. As you recall, from those slides that showed the standard plant, this is the complete plant, as complete as a standard plant can be.
16 The Staff recommendations now are to treat it 17 similarly to the referenced system design. Once we approve 18 that duplicate plant design; allow other utilities to come 19 in and utili-ze it, put out what we would call a PDDA instead 20 of a PDA; Preliminary Duplicate Design Approval, and treat 21 the duplicate plant design in the same fashion as ,~e do the
- 22 23 24 reference design.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
cannot use the present In other words, someone
-- you are shaking your head up Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 and down, .which means --
38 MR. CASE: You are right.
2 MR. DE YOUNG: You are right; they cannot use it.
3 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: They cannot use the
- 4 5
SNUPPS PDA, in effect?
MR. CASE: That is not ':the way it was set up. It 6 was just set for the original group that came in.
7 MR. DE YOUNG: Within a relatively short period 8 of time.
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But why .. not? What differ-10 ence does it make?
11 MR. DE YOUNG: That's why we are changing it.
12 MR. CASE: That's why we are changing it.
13 MR. DE YOUNG: We think that they should be able 14 to use it.
15 You know, when you start something new as we did 16 with standardization, you can't possibly think of all the 17 things, and we haven't done. it now, but we are correcting 18 some of the things. If we had had enough sense at the time, 19 we would have done it then.
20 COMMISSIONER: GILINSKY: So if someone came along 21 and wanted to use the SNUPPS system, it would be treated as 22 replication now?
23 MR. DE YOUNG: Yes; right now i t would be a re-24 plicated plant. In the future, for any duplic~te1pl~nt Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 design, we would permit them to duplicate that design .instead
39 of replicating it.
2 It is a major change, I think. Everyone we have 3 talked to has been in favor of something like this.
- 4 5
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What is the difference be-tween having them duplicated or replicated?
6 MR. DE YOUNG: The standard design?
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Yes.
8 MR. DE YOUNG: Duplication you will get this 9 Regulatory Requirement Cutoff Date. On replication, you 10 may not. There is a penalty in replication. We look at 11 certain things. The qualif~cation review for replication, 12 we have"that as one of the last slides. They must do much 13 more. They must -- we have to look at these Category ls 14 and take a look at them and see if we can accept them.
15 On the standard plants, the true standard plants, 16 we accept them. We have a Regulatory Requirement Cutoff 17 Date that we have really tried to stand by~-
18 On replication, it is a little different. It is 19 not as favorable toward the utility, and it permits the 20 Staff to impose requirements that it would not require on 21 the standard design.
- 22 23 24 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
category of duplicate plants.
same basis as referenced plants?
Why do we need a separate Wny can't we treat them on the Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. DE YOUNG: Because the initial duplicate plant
40 design is developed generally -- the first one; SNUPPS was.---
2 by*a group of utilities. There is no one vendor. They come 3 in and they have a submittal of a Construction Permit applica-4 tion. We are reviewing that design at the same time we are 5 reviewing their.*.construction Permit application.
6 The referenced system comes in before it has even 7 been referenced in the design.
8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Why couldn't you do before 9 or after, or during?
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Just to simplify the thing-12 MR. DE YOUNG: I think it would be --
13 MR. CASE: Well, of course, this is a larger share 14 of the plant, but I guess that doesn~t make any difference.
15 MR. DE YOUNG: We have the regulations in place;,
16 It doesn't make any difference; we have the regula-17 tions in place. All of these recommended changes require 18 no changes that occur in regulations.
19 MR. CASE: And there is no difference in our use 20 of or updating of or anything of, being a duplicate plant 21 as recommended, and a reference. Right?
- 22 23 24 MR. DE YOUNG: Right.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It seems to me that if we can reduce the number of categories it simplifies thing.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. DE YOUNG: I think sometimes when you change
41 things, change terms; once you have established 2 MR. CASE: Like changing the name of the ACRS.
- 4 5
MR. CASE: It is very difficult.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I am all for that.
6 (Laughter.)
7 MR. DE YOUNG: But I think that for the next years 8 adhering to the current four concepts will not create any 9 problem.
10 MR.KENNEKE: Is the boundary between site-related 11 aspects and what you consider referenceable clear?
- 13 14.
15 mined?
¥R. KENNEKE:
That would have already been deter-Yes.
16 MR. CASE: That is a little different than it 17 now. You have to have more interfaces if you go to this 18 PDDA.
19 MR. KENNEKE: That is the difference?
20 MR. CASE: But it not a significant difference.
21 (Slide.)
22 MR. DE YOUNG: The next slide dwells on replicate 23 plant concept. The current practice is the period for re-24 plication is two and a.half years, about two and a*half years, Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25
42 after they put out the base plant, the Safety Evaluation 2 Report.
3 The recommendations we now have is that period 4 be defined as a maximum of three years.
5 Whenever we say 11 about" something, we. get into 6 arguments with people. We think we should clarify it and 7 say three years.
8 But also, we have defined qualification review 9 for replication, which I think was one of the other problems 10 we had with replication.
11 (Slide.)
12 The manufacturing license, the current practice
- 13 14 15 is to put out the manufacturing license for a specific number of units.
Reg Guides.
It is a regulatory requirements. It is in the 16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Why is this one different, 17 too? Why can't this one be handled under a referenced plant 18 concept? And why is there a manufacturing license here 19 when there isn't a manufacturing license for another vendor?
20 MR. DE YOUNG~'. Well, they are not going to manu-21 facture anything until they get -- these people, once they
- 22 23 24 get the manufacturing license, they can go ahead and manu-facture and they intend to.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, you don't require a Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 license of other vendors~
MR. DE YOUNG: Combustion, for e:xample,-would not 43 l
2 move forward and design and construct a CESSAR NSSS.
3 MR. CASE: I will let the lawyer answer that to 4 you. You need a license to do certain things.
5 MR. SCINTO: To possess the facility, the nuclear 6 reactor. The concept of the manufacturing license is the 7 manufacturer was indeed going to construct ,and make something, 1
8 even though there was no customer.
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: When he gets close to the 10 end,* he has got a problem because he is possessing something 11 and he has got to have a license.;..
12 MR. SCINTO*: That's right.
- 13 14 15 MR. CASE:
MR. SCINTO:
That's right.
The referenced syst.ems are:-'":'- .the vendor produces a piece of paper before he has a customer 16 before there is an application under the Act, to construct 17 the facility. The only thing that exists, the only thing 18 that is thought to exist, is a piece of paper.
19 Under the :manufacturing license:,*' what is tho~ght 20 to exist could be a reactor.
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But is anybody going to
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
build one of these before they have a customer?
but --
MR. DE YOUNG: They will start., Not right away, 25 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, what do we do with
44 someone who builds a small reactor? Do they have some kind of 2 a manufacturing license.
3 MR. SCINTO: The licenses for the:*.bld*-_*research
- 4 5
reactors.
MR. CASE: AGNs.
6 MR. SCINTO: They are in the form of Construction 7 Permits and almost Operation Licenses. If the original no-8 tices go out talking about Construction Permits, then Oper-9 ating Licenses will be granted if they are built that way.
10 They are very much like -- they look like completed 11 final design applications at the CP stage.
12 MR. CASE: And they got a number of those at --
- 13 14 15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Do they have a license to manufacture?
MR. SCINTO: They have a Construction Permit.
16 MR. CASE: They have a number of Construction Per-17 mits.
18 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: And they then_ transfer 19 this to somebody else?
20 MR. SCINTO: Yes.
21 MR. CASE: Yes.
- 22 23 24 MR. SCINTO: Someone else applies for a license for the reactor.
MR. CASE: They have got six CPs rather than one Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 ML, is basically the difference, that will permit them to
45 six.
2 MR. SCINTO: Yes.
3 MR. DE YOUNG: Our recommendations with respect
- 4 5
to the manufacturing license i*s to set the number of uni ts on the basis -..::.: what we have is a five-year period of design 6 approval ...:.- but the number of .-.units will be set on the basis 7 of a 10-year period.
8 At the end of five years, OPS, for example, intends 9 to come in and get that design updated, so any design, any 10 standard design, will be approved for a maximum five years.
11 And then it will be updated for this batch of new 12 safety requirements and design changes that the designers have
- 13 14 15 every five years. They would do that --
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
number of units that you can build?
Why do you care about the 16 MR. CASE: Because the regulation, the way it is 17 set up now, specifies the number of units.
18 MR. DE YOUNG: We have to have the number of unit 19 in there.
20 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Why did somebody think 21 it mattered enough?
- 22 23 24 MR. CASE: We weren't that smart back in those days. What we think now is more important is the period of time for which it is effective.
1 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: We don't control the number
46 on any of the other schemes.
2 MR. CASE: That is right. This is an effort to 3 make this scheme more consistent with*the other schemes.
- 4 5
MR. DE YOUNG: We think it does it.
MR. SCINTO: :.This one as distinguishable from all 6 the others, .is::a :-.license.
7 MR. DE YOUNG: Yes; the others are Staff approvals.
8 This gets.a --
9 MR. SCINTO: It might be very difficult to issue 10 a license for an unidentified number of units.
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I* see.
12 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: But once you come from
- 13 14 15 unidentified down to some number, it is hard to argue very strongly for.five versus 10.
MR. C.l,,SE: That's right.
16 MR. SCINTO: That's right. That's whythe regula-17 tion doesn't have any number in it. It says, the licensee 18 will identify the number of units to be covered by the license 19 MR. DE YOUNG: The only one application *we have 20 in is for eight units. We are proposing a limit of 10 units.
21 By the time we have to look again to see if this
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
is worthwhile or whether changes should be made, it will be a number of years.
(Slide.)
25 The next slide, I think we can skip.
47 (Slide.)
2 The recommendations on the next slide, provides 3 a consistent five-year approval term for all standard designs.
- 4 5
It prohibits unintended extension of approval terms. If, for example, somebody wants *to replicate a standard plant 6 and if that approval for that standard plant is going to run 7 out before we can get that approval out for that CP, we 8 are not going to permit that.
9 And we have defined the qualifications to repli-10 cate the qualifications to duplicate and the PDA extension 11 requirements.
12 (Slide.)
13 The bases for the changes we have made, which has 14 extended the approval periods for these PDAs and standard 15 designs, are that we now have fewer plants coming in.
16 In 1973 and '74, there were 78 units applied for.
17 In 1976 and 1977, there were only eight units.
18 So even though we have extended the approval per-19 iod for a given design, the use of that design in the real 20 world will be probably less than it was when we began with 21 this concept in the three-year PDA period.
- 22 23 24 It is just not being used.
many plants.
We don't have that That was one of the reasons.
Also, we think we have greater stability in the Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 Staff requirements, this disciplined management. We have
48 gotten that through two things; the standard review plan that 2 was put out in November of 1975, and the RRRC, which began 3 in 1974.
4 A third thing is the industry needs. They have 5 found and we agree with them, that the *short periods of time 6 for PDAs and so on, were not very encouraging for standard-7 ization.
8 But the principal bases were t~e stability in 9 Staff requirements and the fewer units per year.
10 (Slide.)
11 The next slide; just briefly, I would like to say 12 a word about Staff involvement. We have told you about-*-the
- 13 14 15 comments from the outside and what.*we have done.
What about the Staff? Does the Staff agree with this? And we talked to them. We talked them individually.
16 We talked to small groups.of the* Staff, about 300 of the 17 people involved in the review process last year in the fall.
18 We told them what we were doing; we got comments 19 from them and so on. Since then, we have gone back and pro-20 vided a report and a paper that-we had provided to you, down 21 to the branch chief level of all of the groups that are in-
- 22 23 24 volved with our reviews.
All the division directors have indicated that they in their divisions concur with this policy.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 So as far as the Staff is concerned, I think, as
49 with all_ groups, there may be some people that may disagree, 2 that generally, the Staff is in accord-with.this policy 3 proposal.
4 The ACRS; we also provided,each ACRS member with 5 a copy of the report that you received. I made a special 6 request of the ACRS staff to*ask the ACRS if they had any 7 problems with this proposed policy, to please let me know so 8 we could discuss it with them before we came down here.
9 The Staff informs me: that they d.1.d do that at last 10 weekl:s ACRS meeting. And the indication waf:; that:.no* cme 11 on the ACRS had any qualms significant enou~h to delay the 12 imposition of this proposed policy.
13 (Slide.)
The next.slide, we talk about the antitrust mat~
15 ters that were raised by the balance of plant people.
16 And the antitrust -- and you mig~t refer to as 17 restraint of trade or anticompetitiveness*-~*it has always 18 been a concern of standardization for basically**two reasons:
19 One is that the information the Staff requires 20 may influence or even dictate the use of particular vendors' 21 components.
22 And the second concern was that policy should not 23 limit participation in the standardization program.
24 (Slide.)
Ace-Federal Repo"ers, Inc.
25 The next slide; the problems of~ antitrust nature
50 are not likely with preliminary designs.
2 The requirements of Staff are such that we permit 3 in preliminary designs criteria to be used, preliminary de-
- 4 5
signs. It does not specify, our requirements are not specific enough.that they dictate or influence the selection of any 6 given component.
7 In final designs, problems are likely if*"--these -
8 designs are not forward-referenceable. ~If final design 9 just describes the fruition of a preliminary design; that thin 10 has been done. There have been no anti trust problems and *.it 11 is a fact that the problems are more likely when we** have a 12 final design specified that is forward-referenceable.
- 13 14 15 Our 1current requirements for_!in~~-9:esJgns are so--specific that sometimes to -mefet our requirements the utili-ties provide us with information on specific components; they 16 describe nameplate information. Now;-- if<they are required 17 to do that to meet our requirements and then they say we 18 are going to use this in new CP applications, there is a 19 potential for an antitrust consideration.
20 The balance of plant people have all told us they 21 have this concern. In their minds, it is a real concern.
22 The NSSS vendors, as you recall, it is a much less 23 -- much less of the plant is involved with the NSSS. It is 24 a much smaller portion of it.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 Also, they manufacture some of the equipment they
51 utilized. The balance of plant architect engineers manufac-2 ture.nothing~ They go out on bid for everything.
3 The reactor vendors manufacture many of the compo-
- 4 5
nents they utilize in heir design. Therefore, because 6f the reduced part of the plant they are involved in, the anti-6 trust matters are less of a concern.
7 And, further, because they provide some of the 8 equipmen:t'*themselves, they manufacture it, it is still less 9 a concern.
10 They believe they can get an FDA application in 11 and approved by the Staff without having any-antitrust prob-12 lems.
- 13 14 15 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: I am not sure I unaer-stand why the fact that they are involved in less of the plant makes. it less of a probl~m.
16 That is, if. the.problem stems from identifying 17 a particular component by name, in effect committing* to*.*use 18 that in all future plants based on that design, I should think 19 that would apply just as much, if you are talking about a 20 particular piece of the operatio.n as it would if you were 21 talking about the whole thing.
22 MR. DE YOUNG: To some extent, but if you just 23 view it as there was one component 24 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Yes, but the problem arises Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 as to whether -- to one component or many, you have still got
52 an antitrust problem.
2 MR. DE YOUNG: Well, the chance that it will come 3 up with one component where you may have two other vendors
- 4 5
that provide it, they will probably be busy with some other work; : they don*' t need the work.
6 But if you have 100 such components, some of those 7 vendors are not going to be busy, and they want to participate 8 in that job.
9 So the chance is, if yoh have a bigger --
10 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: So you are defining the 11 antitrust is the likelihood of being sued rather than as a 12 question of whether it exists.
- 13 14 15 MR. DE YOUNG: In some ways. It exists of people say it exists, and are willing to come forward and say they have an antitrust problem. That is the ,proof of the pudding.
16 MR. KELLEY: Can I just ask a question for inform-17 ation.
18 Cb.rnrniss:ion.antitrust responsibilities, I am used 19 to thinking in terms of CPs and access to plants. And it is 20 really the end thrust considerations that obtain among 21 utilities.
22 And you are talking about antitrust between GE 23 and Westinghouse, the vendors, essentially, as I understand 24 it.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 What is this agency's responsibility to worry about
53 MR. DE YOUNG: That's what we were talking about.
2 MR.KELLEY: Do we hold proceedings, Joe, on stan~
3 dard designs?
- 4 5
MR. RUTBERG: We don't create a climate.*.:in which this sort of things can exist under our rules, of encouraging 6 antitrust violations, or potential antitrust violations.
7 MR. KELLEY: I am not saying we should ignore it.
8 I am just wondering if we have any proceedings that are ad-9 dressed to this kind of problem at all.
10 MR. RUTBERG: It would be a licensing matter, yes.
11 MR. KELLEY: It would be something we would talk 12 to:the,Justice Department about.
13 MR. RUTBERG: Yes, indeed.
14 MR. DE YOUNG: The next slide talks about what 15 the experience has been to date.
16 (Slide.)
17 We have had quite a few standard designs, as you 18 recall it, from ohe of those first slides. c 19 What has the experience been? It*has not been 20 bad. We know of very few antitrust matters that have come 21 forward.
- 22 23 24 I talked to one utility that replicated a plant.
They said they had three problems that they are aware of.
One had to do with tendon hardware, but as far as they are Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 concerned, they are using the same tendon hardware as on the
54 base plant, but not because it was part of the replicated 2 plant. They went out on the same bids. And they considered 3 the bids that they received. And they chose that because
- 4 5
in their minds, it was the best thing to do.
The other things was on freight elevators. And it 6 was a mild thing. Someone voiced a concern, and then dropped 7 it.
8 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: These have been complaints 9 that people have voiced.**
10 MR. DE YOUNG: To the utility.
11 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: It hasn't risen to'.the 12 level of a lawsuit or a complaint to the Just1ce Department.
13 MR. DE YOUNG: No; none of them have.
14 The third one on that same plant was insulation 15 for the reactor coolant piping. Again, they chose to use the 16 same base plant reflective type of insulation.. Another 17 concern with a fiberglass pipe said they could do the same 18 job for lower cost, and they thought the standardization 19 policy was preventing them from doing it.
20 They contacted the utility and they discussed it 21 with and they discussed it with the Staff slightly. We
- 22 23 24 said there was no requirement to use the same insulation.
The specifications would have to be met, but if they could meet those specifications, they were acceptable, too.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 The utility said they looked into it. On review,
55 it has never been used. Their type of insulation has never 2 been used before in power plant industry. It would be the 3 first of a kind, the first of a use, type of thing. And this 4 utility ~aid_they are not in favor of ever being the lead 5 utility on anything.
6 (Laughter.)
7 Another matter was the- vendor for the insulation 8 had never heard of inservice inspection requirements for 9 the primary coolant system, and the fact that this material 10 would have to be removable and certain locations. He had 11 never heard of it. So they weren't knowledgeable about the 12 requirements.
- 13 14 15 And third thing was there was some concern about embrittlement of the fiberglass under radiation, that they hadn' -f: really considered at all.
16 So on all of these: bases, the utility said: We 17 selected the vendor that had put the insulation on the base 18 plant.
19 They also said that 20 percent of the awards to 20 date £br~their replicated plant have been to non-replicate 21 vendors. They .have changed vendors. They have even received 22 only one -- when they went out for bids -- they received 23 only one 24 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: This is a particular Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 utility, or this is --
56 MR. DE YOUNG: This is a utility.
2 There have only been three utilities that have 3 replicated.
- 4 5
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Is there any reason to think the other two's experience would be much different?
6 MR. DE YOUNG: I don't think so.
7 This one utility said that 20 percent of the 8 awards have been to non-replicate vendors. And in fact when 9 they received only one bid for certain materials, when they 10 put out the bid.from the replicate, they called other 11 concerns and asked them to submit bids and on some occasions 12 they took the non-replicate vendor.
13 So I think they have done their job properly.
14 We also talked to the SNUPPS people abJut how they 15 had handled the antitrust matter. And they went to the Justic
'\
16 Department before they even submitted the application for the 17 SNUPPS plant. They spent quite some time with getting a 18 preliminary review from the Justice Department on their 19 procedures. And they got a satisfactory, favorable comment, 20 on them.
21 I think another step that was taken is to provide 22 the report that you received from us to the Department of 23 Justice with a request to get their informal views on it.
24 They have had it for some time and perhaps Joe Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 Rutberg might say a word or two about what do we expect to
57 get from them, and how they are doing, when we might expect 2 some decision from them.
3 MR. RUTBERG: We asked for their informal advice.
4 And the best information we have now is that it is in the 5 process, in the chain of command, in the Department of.Justice.
6 And we should be hearing from the shortly.
7 MR. DE YOUNG: I think that the antitrust matters, 8 basically, as far as we are concerned, is an applicant re-9 sponsibility.
10 From what we have delved into, we think they are 11 handling that responsibility well. We do intend to continue 12 to monitor the program, the types of things: *that we had
- 13 a
been doing, to make sure that we do not create a climate where antitrust matters may develop-;
- 15 (Slide.)
16 The next subject is disciplined management. Every-17 body agreed it was essential for effective ~tandardization.
18 Even when we talked to these 300, a common voice was that 19 we need effective discipline in this thing or1 it is not going 20 to work.
21 And again, standardization for the design changes
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
from the one-by-one imposition to the batch, process.
COMMISSION BRADFORD:
What does ,;that mean?
Without standardization, if some-25 body comes up with a change, they will impose it. We now do
58 it on a batch process with a five-year term of approval. We 2 can hold off*unless this thing is really safety significant; 3 and we will backfit.
- 4 5
The exceptions I showed you. The significant additional protection, that is, the Staff; the significant improved performance of the design by the utility. They 6 ,,
7 may come up with things that they think are;,c significant 8 improved performance. But unless they are really significant 9 in improving performance, we will hold them off to the batch 10 process.when we will implement these things in batches.
11 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Why do we care whether the 12 utility holds off or not, if they choose to*forego the bene-
- 13 14 15 fits.
MR. CASE: Then we have:wasted our review time.
MR. DE YOUNG: We would have to do the review on 16 that thing. And then the Staff member says: If you permit 17 the utility to change why not mine? Why are you making me 18 hold me off for the batch process and not them?
II 19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What you.are saying is they 20 are not paying their way for the review.
II 21 MR. DE YOUNG: I think we all haye to accept this
- 22 23 24 disciplined management, that it is on us all, not only the designer, not only the reviewer,.but both of them. We have to recognize it and we have to discipline ourselves to this Ace-Federal Reponers, Inc.
25 procedure.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, I think what Peter 2 is asking -- and in any case what I am aaking -- is it really 3 for us to try to put this over or are we facilitating some-4 thing that industry thinks is a pretty good idea?
5 In other words, is it for us to try to guide the 6 way industry does it work? If they want to standardize, then 7 fine; let's accommodate --
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: -- by adjusting the review 10 suitably as long as we can assure ourselves of the safety of 11 the design.
12 But if they don't want to and they want to do it 13 some other way, should we be impeding that in some way?
14 MR. DE YOUNG: Any time that we accept any applica-15 tion, we have to do a review, any standard application, to 16 determine that truly they have used that approved standard 17 design appropriately.
18 Now, we permit them to deviate somewhat. Those 19 changes that they feel -- we look at it and see what the 20 nature of these changes are. If there are few, we accept it.
21 If there are many, we say we cannot accept that as a standard 22 design.
23 We will accept the application; we will docket, 24 but we will review it as a custom application. That Regulator Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 Requirement Cutoff Date no- longer persists.
60 So we will accept some changes in the standard 2 design; not too many because then it gets too cumbersome for 3 the Staff to review this part of it without that part of it,
- .4 5
and so on.
So if they choose, they can choose to do this, to 6 change the plant significantly, to the point where we review 7 it as a custom plant.
8 MR. KENNEKE: Have you done this?
9 MR. DE YOUNG: We did it, for example, on one 10 case, one utility came in and they proposed to reference the 11 nuclear island design. And they had so many changes and so 12 many deviations in that .. standard design that we said we cannot
- 13 14 15 accept that. We will be able to accept, because most of the changes were not in the nuclear steam supply system; you can reference that nuclear steam supply system portion of that 16 plant as a referenced design. That's what they did.
17 MR. CASE: But the rest of it we consider as 18 custom.
19 MR.- DE YOUNG: Even though we considered it cust-20 om, we got some benefit from the standardization, because 21 the Staff in reviewing it, where it wasn't changed too much
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But it seems to me it is up to them to decide which way they want to go.
MR. DE YOUNG: That is their decision.
25 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It is not for us to tell
61 them how to design their reactors, except insofar as we have 2 regulations which cover the safety of them.
- 4 5
The only thing is if it begins to change that safety-related thing, we can not longer go on the basis 0£ 6 a prior approval of a design.
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Sure.
8 MR. DE YOUNG: We have'-to look at it again.
9 And we always welcome custom designs. We have not 10 gotten to the point where.we say you cannot submit a custom 11 design.
12 (Slide.)
- 13 14 15 We can talk about the experience to date, all the experience --
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: This is the standard for 16 exceptions as to actual changes.
17 What standard do you use for allowing questioning 18 by the Staff; that is --
19 MR. DE YOUNG: We will get to that.
20 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: You have that further 21 on. All right.
- 22 23 24 And who makes the decisions on whether or not something is in fact significant and additional protection is needed?
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. DE YOUNG: We will be talking about that, I
62 think.
2 If you look at the experience to date, at the CP 3 stage, and we look at the Staff and industry experience ---we
- 4 5
have no experience at the OL stage.
OL application for a standard plant.
We haven't received an 6 MR. * '.KENNEKE : What is your expectation, though?
8 MR. KENNEKE: Do you expect to see an advantage 9 when an OL references standard design?*
10 MR. DE YOUNG: We will have problems with disci-11 pline. We will have problems.
12 ~But at the CP stage, if we 1bok at this slide I
- 13 14 15 and the next slide.
(Slide.)
This is for the Hartsville application. It is 16 number of questions, where they were asked, and so on. On 17 Hartsville, it references the nuclear island design.
18 In that, if you look at the reactor, there are 19 zero Staff questions at the bottom. You will zero Staff 20 questions on the reactor.
21 For the first two listing there, the 55 and the
- 22 23 24 42, generally that is about 300 for a non-standard plant.
If you .look at the site, and the doses, it is 150 questions. That is the -- the average is 120. That was Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 a new site.
63 on the operation, the utility, we looked at his 2 plans-for emergencies and so on, the same 80 questions for 3 the utility.
4 But in the approved standard plan, it really, we 5 .had the discipline to say we are not going to ask questions on 6 that CP application, and it worked. That ip the nuclear 7 island.
8 (Slide.)
9 The next one was Palo Verde. Ag~in, for a PDA, 10 the NSSS. And now if you look at the reactpr, you will see 11 13 questions. Why isn't that zero? During the period during 12 this review -- this is a PWR, pressurized water reactor --
- 13 14 15 we had Mr. Fluegge left the Staff, and said,, there were major problems wi'th the pressurization, a problem with the pres-surized water reactor system.
16 We decided that in view of this,:we would ask 17 certain questions of everybody, ongoing with the reviews at 18 that time. That's why that~.m.rinber is 13 ana not zero.
19 But now the number of questions in the first two 20 columns is over 300. That is the balance of plant questions.
21 That wasn 1 t preapproved.
- 22 23 24 pline worked.
In the preapproved part of it, the Staff disci-The next one is Marble Hills, replication. And Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 again, the Staff discipline worked at *the Cl? stage
- 64 (Slide.)
2 We were able to cut off some questions that people 3 wanted to ask and explain to them why and they accepted it.
- 4 5
'(Slide.)
So I think these slides, including the next one, 6 on dupliation, SNUPPs. If you look at the last column, there 7 were 359 questions asked on that standard plant. The next, 8 182, is the non-SNUPPS part of it; that is the site and the 9 utility applicant, again, as I said, almost 200 questions.
10 Two columns., 205 for one of the other utilities, 11 another site, anbther utility; 200 questions.
12 Two numbers down, 137, not as many but still we
- 13 14 15 didn't reask the questions on the approved standard SNUPPS power package.
And the last one was 199.
16 So I think all of our evidence poipts out that the 17 Staff has been able to discipline itself, at least at the 18 Construction Permit stage.
19 There are some occasions when we have had some 20 problems, but they have been minor. They have been on one 21 or two *matters. But we hav.e had control of**eaeh review.
22 MR. KENNEKE: The number of questions there on 23 site-related matters seemed much lower there than all the 24 other cases. Is there a £eedback to the site-related Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 questions?
65 MR. DE YOUNG: Not 2 MR. KENNEKE: With respect to SNUPPS?.
3 MR. DE YOUNG: Not really. There is 200.
4 If you look at SNUPPS, it is almost the entire 5 plant. What is left is the site-related and utility-related.
6 As the other slides show you, the site-related and utility-7 related matters totals on the average 200 questions. Here 8 they averagey 182, 205, 137, 199.
9 I think that shows that the trend is there.
10 MR. SCINTO: I just wanted to comment, since 11 we have talked about how the Staff reviewed certain cases 12 with names on them.
13 The success of the Staff review is the process, 14 of being able to (inaudible) a process. We will come to the 15 Commission for its judgment of that proeess, some other way.
16 MR. GOSSICK: Dick, there is one point here. You 17 have got the tables crosscut in two different formats.
19 MR. KENNEKE: In one case, you include only Chap-20 ter two, it seemed to me, site-related. In another one, you 21 included Chapters 11 and 12.
22 MR. DE YOUNG: Well, they are combined. There is 23 not much difference. We could have**provided four slides for I
I 24 the four 1Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. KENNEKE: Strictly the Chapter Two seemed much
66 MR. DE YOUNG: The site has been the same.
2 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Do those appeals in fact 3 challenge the standardization policy itself.
- 4 5
MR. SCINTO: No, but there are some of these Construction Permit and the matter on appeal is a complete 6 sua sponte review (inaudible). I am not familiar with any 7 exception relating to the standardization aspect of it*~
8 (Slide.)
9 MR.DE YOUNG: The next slide, just briefly, what 10 are the regulatory requirements that we have a cutoff date 11 for**and we are concerned with?
12 The f+/-tst is regulation. There is no cutoff date 13 on regulation.
14 MR. CASE: It is what ever the Commission --
15 MR. DE YOUNG: Or what ever the regulation says it 16 is. But usu~lly a regulation would not require it.
17 The other four things are Regulatory Guides 18 that we come up with, branch technical positions, resolved 19 generic matters, or new regulatory requirements that will come 20 out of that., and standard review plan interpretations.
21 And these essentially are in the nature of the
- 22 23 24 changes in the regulatory requirements, these latter four.
(Slide.)
The next slide again shows Ca teg*ory 1, 2, 3 and Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 4 matters that we talked about. I think we talked enough.
67 Others are ratchets, the so-called ratchets that 2 are unapproved.
3 The next thing talks about'.the Staff changes since
- 4 5
March of 1974 which is the date that the first COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What do you mean by rat-6 chets aren't approved?
7 MR. DE YOUNG: Unapproved by upper Staff management 8 a ratchet to the requirements. They escape our controls.
9 COY.MISSIONER GILINSKY: A ratchet is a perjorative 10 term which has:been used to describe all of this.
11 (Laughter.)
12 I think we oughtn't to use it that way.
- 13 14 15 You meari basically Staff members themselves?
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Apply without anyone 16 noticing?
17 MR. DE YOUNG: That's right.
18 (Slide. )
19 I will go through the next slides to show you 20 what these are, how many of these there are.
21 From March of '74 to January of this *year, we took 22 a look.
23 March of '74 was the first Regulatory Requirement 24 Cutoff Date for this standard plant.~;~
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 So since that first cutoff date, we looked at the
68 total changes that were made to Staff requirements.
2 And this is preliminary. There may be some fine 3 structure we have to do to it, but I think it is generally
- 4 5
true.
The total changes, there were 192 total significant 6 changes. RRRC Category 1, these are forward-fitting, not for 7 backfitting.
8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Can you give me examples 9 of these changes?
10 MR. DE YOUNG: Yes; we have them.in the report 11 that we gave you, and we can cite the tables.
12 MR. CASE: Changes in Reg Guides.
- 13 14 15 MR. DE YOUNG: But we can get specific.
example, the fire COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
For Would you give me an 16 examp.le of each of these categories, one of each?
17 MR. DE YOUNG:: Let me give you an example of --
18 MR. CASE: IEEE G-23, 1974 was a Reg Guide, Cate-19 gory 1.
20 MR. DE YOUNG: Category 2, I know, for example, 21 is fire protection. It is really significant safety-wise.
22 We are going to look at each plant to determine how we should 23 backfit our new safety requirements on that plant.
24 I don't think anybody has any argument at all Ace,Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 that the backfitting requirement is going to -- for the
69 fire protection.
2 Category 1 matter, is, for example, we put out 3 a revision to a Reg Guide that dwelt- on Quality Assurance re-
- 4 5
quirements for the design of nuclear power plants.
forward-fit; don't backfit it.
We said That is the Category 1 type 6 of thing.
7 Another one, Category 1, we put out a Regulatory 8 Guide spelling out our requirements on instrumentation set-9 points. We said for new plants, meet these ~~visedreqaire-10 ments.
11 I gave -you the Category 2 matter.
12 A Category 3 matter, is we put out a revision 13 to a Reg Guide on emergency planning for nuclear power plants.
14 We said: Gee; th+/-~ is good and every operating plant should 15 do* this. Update y'our emergency planning.
16 COMM.ISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, where does the 17 _guide become mandatory. I mean, a guide is *just a guide.
18 MR. CASE: They are:*always a guide.
19 They are guides within this context.
20 MR. DE YOUNG: They can provide an alternative I
21 means of meeting Staff requirements. The guide spells out
- 22 23 24 one way they can do it.
There are other ways, but it is easier for most people; this is the Staff-approved way. We know it; let's Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 go that way.
70 But often people do come in with alternative ways 2 of providing equivalent protection, and we accept it.
3 So these are the Category 1, 2 and 3 matters
- 4 5
that wer-e*reviewed by the RRRC. Now, the RRRC is composed of a chairman that has alwasy been Mr. Case.
The members of the committee are the division dir-6 7 ectors within NRR that report to Mr. Case, and a very high 8 level representative from the Office of Research, the Office 9 of Standards Development and Office of Inspection and Enforce-10 ment.
11 It is a high level group and they review any 12 proposed change to our requirment and supposedly, no other 13 changes will be approved.
14 So they review the 67 changes. We looked back, 15 and there were 95 --
16 MR. CASE: We have value impact statements*to 17 go along with the discussion. It is a rather lively discus-18 sion.
19 MR. DE YOUNG: There are 95 other changes since 20 March in 1974, that the RRRC did not review. Many of these 21 were underway and imposed in the first version of the 22 Standard Review Plan that was put out.
23 I say about half of those tend to be Regulatory 24 Guides, for example, or of this type. They were in that, and Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 so they received management attention.
71 Some of the others received management attention 2 through the approval of the Reg Guide route. It goes through 3 the ACRS, for example, so we think that these 95 also received
- 4 5
management attention, but they were prior to the real RRRC implementation.
6 (Slide.)
7 The next slide shows NRR Category 4; things that 8 are being developed for RRRC. We think about 20 of those 9 remaining things are of that type. So management has reviewed 10 this and approved this, interim implementation of these re-ll quirements.
12 The others, the 10 , I think didn:'; t receive approval 13 They went up partly through the management chain, perhaps 14 at branch chief or assistant director and got into our re-15 quirements. Anq they really didn't receive the level of 16 review that the others did.
17 I think that 1 .s quite a good achievement, to have 18 10 out of 200 that got by for one reason or another. In the 19 future, I think it should be even better. But the mere fact 20 that we received high level management attention is not 21 stablizing the review process. Those managers, high level
- 22 23 24 managers may bave -said *backfi:-c:. everything, regardless of safety significance.
(Slide.)
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 But I think the next siide still shows that same
72 crucial decisions, measures that we meet; the significant 2 additional protection. How do we determine whether or not 3 the fact that -- or not the fact -- into a standard design
- 4 5
or into a n6n-standard design?
And it is something we need, and it is something 6 that most of our decisions now are collective judgment by 7 highly experienced and credentialed people. But it still is 8 collective judgment. And that judgment may vary from week-to 9 to-week.
10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Is that written down any-11 where, beyond the regulation, or a backfitting rule, or 12 MR. DE YOUNG: No.
- 13 14 15 MR. CASE:
some better definition.
That is what Diak:is* pleading for, is COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Has there been any de-16 finition from the Commission, as to what the Commission 17 thinks, or 18 MR. DE YOUNG: No.
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Do you think you ought to 20 be coming up with something.
21 MR. DE YOUNG: I am talking that the Staff should
- 22 23 24 be developing this. We are talking --
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
But who else but you?.
Who else but us?
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 We have been trying since I have been with the --
73 CO.MM.ISSIONER GILINSKY: And'if not now; when?
3 But we need manpower to do it. You can't just take 4 anybody to do these things.
5 (Slide.)
6 The next slide talks about the future tasks. What 7 do we have to do now with standardization. We request your 8 knowledge and approval of the Staff position on the changes 9 that we recommend, but we have other duties to do.
10 We have to extend the PDAs. We have to replace 11 the obsolete guidance that we have now in WASH-1340 and 1341, 12 that dwell on details of our standardization policy.
- 13 14 15 FDA.
We have to review and look at procedures for the One is coming in in July.
don't --
We have to make sure we 16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Can we go back to that 17 earlier point? Do you have anything underway, a paper or 18 preparing something, in the way of more explicit guidance 19 to the Staff?
20 I think you should, at least to make a stab at it.
21 It is something that ought to get a good detail of discussion, I
22 I think. It is not an easy thing to do, but I think at least 23 by, you know, you can be more explicit by indicating some 24 examples on how the matter was resolved.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. DE YOUNG: I think a primary example is the
74 fire protection. We had the research people-'do a comparative 2 evaluation for us of the contribution of a major fire of the 3 Browns Ferry type to the coremelt, overall probability.
- 4 5
They did it and they determined that the fire, a major fire of the Browns Ferry type, could contribute as much 6 as one-fifth of the overall probability to coremelt for an 7 operating plant.
8 Anybody and everybody agreed that this is signi-9 ficant additional protection. Do it; nobody is explaining 10 about accepting the new requirements for fire protection.
11 MR. CASE: Well, I think that'is a little over-12 *stating it. They all agreed something should be done but 13 they argue about the details.
14 MR. KENNEKE: There are dozens of individual steps 15 to that, and you could argue whether that is 16 MR. DE YOUNG: But the need for the fire protection, 17 I don't thihk anybody has really argued about. They argue 18 about the details for a specific plant, but when we come up 19 with something that says this matter on the basis of a 20 reasonable calculation shows that it contributes a significant 21 part of the overall probability for coremelting, I think 22 that is significant additional protection, if we ~ix it.
23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, that's right, but 24 MR. DE YOUNG: But not everything Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You know, how far do you go
75 back and what do you do with existing plants.
2 It seems to me that many of the sharpest differ-3 ences that we have had on the Staff has tended to revolve
- 4 5
around this question of what do we do about existing plants when we have decided that we really ought to improve protec-6 tion in some areas. I mean, it is a particularly difficult are 7 MR. DE YOUNG: It is difficult. It takes good 8 people to come up with some acceptable position, other than 9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: And I think it is one where 10 we have to define better what it is we are trying to do, both 11 for ourselves and for outsiders.
12 And I think really the Staff deserves better gui-13 dance, too.
14 MR. DE YOUNG: I agree, personally.
15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: At some level, I think the 16 Commission has go to take a look at that. But I think it woul 17 be useful 18 MR. CASE: I guess I am going to have to say that 19 I think it is an impossible task except bv examples.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, maybe that is the way 21 you will approach it.
- 22 23 24 a pessimist.
MR. CASE: Maybe.I am a pessimist. I_ guess I am COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Maybe it is a matter of Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 indicating, you know, giving a number of key examples of how
76 issues were handled, and you know, what you think falls in one 2 category, what you think falls in another category, and so on.
3 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: The Staff was going to look
- 4 5
at that in connection with the systematic evaluation program.
Has that shown any --
7 It is a critical point.
8 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Well, not.in what the 9 answer ought to be.
10 MR. CASE: If somebody will tell me what No undue 11 risk"-is, I can you how to match it. You can start right 12 back there with the Atomic Energy Act; how do you define that?
13 COMMISSIONER'GILINSKY: Well, but you can certainly 14 go back to your practice, and in a sense, make a little more 15 explicit what your practice is, at least by giving examples.
16 Now, I don't know how much further you can go, but 17 I think it would useful to try.
18 MR. KENNEKE: You are giving some tacit approval 19 to this idea of a relative comparison by mentioning the 20 20 percent figure, using the RSS figures.
21 MR. DE YOUNG: That's not -- you can't fit that to
- 22 23 24 all things. We don't have the data on some things. The reason that the Rasmussen study did not consider large fires in the beginning was they didn't have any data. They didn't Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 know what to do on it. Any many things with reactor plants,
77 the changes we would make, we would be faced with the same sit-2 uation. We don't .have data. We can't even make a relative 3 comparison.
4 But many things we can, and I think we should do 5 more of it.
6 MR. CASE: Here and there you do have numbers.
7 MR. SCINTO: Don't knock*the fact that you don't 8 have data.
9 MR. KENNEKE: Here and there you do have numbers, 10 though, Dick, in the standard review plan, summary review 11 guides. Has anybody looked at all of those different numbers 12 to see if they are consistent with one another in terms of 13 common approach to this problem?
14 MR. DE YOUNG: I think we have -- we have a group 15 in the context most lately of the review being done on the 16 anticipated transient without scram matter. They are looking 17 at that, at numbers of that type.
18 I think to continue on this slide, if we might, 19 the other things we have to do, I think, is to study the 20 standard design approval type of approach.
21 We are going to have this one-step licensing review
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
procedure.
way to go.
It doesn't appear as if the FDA route is it, be-cause the balance of plant people can't do it. It is not the 25 The significant additional protection measurements
78 what we were talking about just now, the balance of plant 2 design prior to an NSSS, that is something that we have to loo 3 at.
- 4 5
The architect engineers have said: Why can't we get a balance of plant PDA without mating up to an NSSS. We 6 don't think it is --
7 MR. CASE: The kind of problem we see is working 8 the problem backwards; you usually start at*the core of the 9 problem and work up.
10 MR. DE YOUNG: We might take a look at it. The 11 other things;* continue the program to monitor, review other 12 concepts of the type that you recently heard from one of the 13 other architect engineers, look at design procedures versus 14 parameters, which is tied into the SDA concept.
15 (Slide.)
16 On the next slide, we took at look at what we 17 would probably need in the way of manpower resources. We 18 can't do these things without the resources, and we do not 19 have an additional measure of safety, for significant addi-20 tional protection number on there.
21 That, I think, would be a separate thing. I think
- 22 23 24 it would require some senior people, some well-educated and well-experienced people.
But these are what we are talking about in the Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 way of additional resources that we would need to do the
79 standardization program that we describe.
2 The only one we think we can do without any cost 3 is the FDA procedures. We will do that in'the context of the 4 one-FDA application that we know we are receiving.
5 MR. KENNE~E: If you do the SAP, would it be 6 double, triple?
8 MR. CASE: How ever long you think it will take.
9 MR. KENNEKE: To do your impossible dream.
10 MR. CASE: Right.
11 MR. DE YOUNG: The next slide 3is* standardization 12 benefits; enhanced safety. I think I am convinced after
- 13 14 15 talking to a lot of people outside and inside that there is enhance safety in standardization.
The mere fact that we don't impose all these change 16 as they come along doesn't mean that it is unsafe. Many of 17 the changes that we have proposed, we have looked back upon
)
\.>
18 and said:. That wasn't really an improvement. We thought it 19 was.
20 I am sure your car, when they make a change to I
21 your car; you purchase one of these~ The change that they
- 22 23 24 made is not always good. They they thought"it was good.
convinced themselves it was good.
really that good.
They But in the end, it wasn't Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 So the mere fact that we don't impose changes as
80 they come about does not mean that we have a less safe plant.
2 Perhaps it might be safer to consider them in batches.
3 The reduced licensing time for standardization; 4 I think the potential is there for the one-stage licensing 5 review~**, .
6 The early site approval reviews, the reduced 7 licensing manyears; we have done it, and it would show that 8 there are reduced licensing manyears. There is a potential 9 for it.
10 There is reduced cons~ruction time. The people 11 that have standard designs have told us that they expect 12 to reduce it, or if not reduce, at least meet their production
- 13 14 15 schedules.
And they have all told us that there is reduced cost to the public, to the taxpayer, ratepayer from the use 16 of standardization.
17 We have a few additional slides in there that I 18 wasn't going to talk about. They are the qualification re-19 view matters for the replication concept and duplication con~
20 cept.
21 And the last slide is a complete confusing slide
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
for most peopLe, that talks about the time between .
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
(Laughter.)
Don't tell us about it.
81 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: That is a very good brief~*-
2 ing. Thank you very much.
3 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: In the last form that you 4 saw the licensing bill, what difference is it going to make 5 to all this.
6 MR. DE YOUNG: It is my personal view that the 7 licensing bill will provide one thing we do not have now, and 8 that is administrative backing, of the need for these things 9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You mean administrative 10 or administration?
11 MR. DE YOUNG: Administration backing, for the 12 need for these things. I think a policy statement by the
- 13 14 15 Commission on standardization, for example, does something for standardization, even though it doesn't change any of the
~equirements or how the Staff does it.
16 The mere fact that you have expressed your support 17 of that and your interest in it does help us. And I think 18 the administration, if they come out with new licensing things 19 it will help, I think. I haven't looked at the revised 20 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: But it is that general 21 sort of cheerleader, symbolic help?
22 MR. DE YOUNG: Yes, in my view.
23 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: It doesn't change anything 24 that you have told us as far as the interworkings of the Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 program?
82 MR. DE YOUNG: In my view, it does not.
2 MR. CASE: I think they are completely consistent.
3 In fact, we had five years here, and I think that in at least
- 4 5
the latest version bill that I saw.
MR. DE YOUNG: I might close by saying that*since 6 we have provided this paper to you, there are certain changes 7 of a minor nature that we would make in the proposed statement; 8 editorial, some other minor changes.
9 If we could receive comments from individual Com-10 missioners for changes that they might recommend, we could do 11 it and be back toyo.u with a revised policy statement that has 12 the final wording in it.
- 13 14 15 But the changes we are COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
statement have to be good for?
How long does the policy 16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, thank you very much.
17 I am sure Joe is going to be very much interested, and 18 Commissioner Kennedy.
19 That was a very good briefing. Thank you.
20 (Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the hearing in the 21 above-entitled matter was adjourned.)
22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25