ML24218A164
| ML24218A164 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Diablo Canyon  |
| Issue date: | 07/17/2024 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| Lee S, 301-415-3158 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML24074A328 | List: |
| References | |
| EPID L-2024-CRS-0000, OEDO-24-00083, NRC-2932, 2.206 | |
| Download: ML24218A164 (54) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
10 CFR 2.206 Petition Review Board RE Diablo Canyon Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
teleconference Date:
Wednesday, July 17, 2024 Work Order No.:
NRC-2932 Pages 1-52 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1716 14th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 234-4433
1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
+ + + + +
10 CFR 2.206 PETITION REVIEW BOARD (PRB)
CONFERENCE CALL RE DIABLO CANYON
+ + + + +
WEDNESDAY JULY 17, 2024
+ + + + +
The conference call was held at 3:00 p.m.
EDT, Lynn Ronewicz, Facilitator, presiding.
PRESENT:
LYNN RONEWICZ, NSIR, Facilitator PERRY BUCKBERG, NRR JAMES KIM, NRR DANIEL KING, NRR AIDA RIVERA-VARONA, NRR CLIFFORD MUNSON, NRR STEVEN ALFERINK, NRR SUNWOO PARK, NRR THOMAS WEAVER, RES NATREON JORDAN, NRR
2 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com ROBERT CARPENTER, OGC ANDREW MILLER, NRR BRIAN HARRIS, OGC EMILY RUDO, NRR JACK BRYANT, NRR LAUREL BAUER, NRR TONY SIERRA, NRR ALSO PRESENT:
PETER BIRD, Petitioner CAROLINE LEARY, Petitioner DIANE CURRAN, Petitioner HALLIE TEMPLETON, Petitioner MYLA REASON, Public Member BRUCE CAMPBELL, Public Member STEVE SONDHEIM, Public Member SHELLY ABAJIAN ACE HOFFMAN JEFFREY BACHHUBER JESSE SHAWN BARON HAPREET BHALLA, DWR LUCINDA CALVO, SLC CAROLE HISASUE DANIEL HIRSCH TIMOTHY DAWSON
3 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com DEB LUCHSINGER NEIL SHEEHAN NANCY WEISS NAJM MESHKATI TIMOTHY MATTHEWS DOLORES HOWARD JANE SWANSON GREG HAAS GREG SCHWARTZ JONAH HENRY VICKEN KHATCHADOURIAN ALBERT KOTTKE LAURIE WOLF JEFF LUSE PHILIP JOHNSON JILL ZAMEK RICK MCWHORTER ROBERT BUDNITZ ROBERT RATHIE GORDON SIETZ, DOCUMENT SHANNON DELLAQUILA JEARL STRICKLAND TYLER GIBSON
4 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 3:00 P.M.
MS. RONEWICZ: Good afternoon. Welcome to this virtual public meeting, and thank you for attending.
My name is Lynn Ronewicz. I am an NRC employee, and assisting on meeting facilitation.
The purpose of this meeting is to provide the petitioners Diane Curran, Hallie Templeton, Caroline Leary, and Peter Bird, an opportunity to discuss, to address the Petition Review Board on PRB.
And, clarify or supplement the March 4, 2024 Petition as supplemented, regarding seismic core damage frequency at Diablo Canyon Power Plant, Diablo Canyon, based on the results of the PRB's initial assessment of the petition.
The petitioners may present information to the PRB, but this meeting will not include a discussion regarding the PRB's evaluation of the subject petition. This would be outside the scope of this meeting.
I will provide a general reminder if we get outside the specific scope of this meeting.
After the presentation, members of the public and others may ask questions about the --
5 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com (Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. RONEWICZ: -- 2.206 process -- please mute, everybody -- which will be answered by the NRC staff.
As a general note, please keep yourself muted unless you have been called on to speak, or have a speaking role.
And please do not turn your camera on unless you are speaking, and then remember to turn your camera off.
This will save bandwidth, and allow the focus of the meeting to be on the specific individual who is presenting or speaking.
After introductions are
- made, a
presentation will
- follow, after which
- time, approximately 3:50 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., the opportunity for questions and comments will occur.
Please keep yourself muted in Teams, and if you dialed in on the bridge line, use the mute icon or dial *6.
Please only unmute if you are in a speaking role. For phone, unmute using *5.
Attendees will be called in order of hands raised, at the appropriate time. At that time, speaking clearly and loudly, please state your name
6 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com and if you are affiliated with an entity, please state that entity.
Although the Teams chat is enabled, please only use Teams chat if you are having technical difficulties.
A court reporter is transcribing this meeting. All questions, comments, are to be made verbally.
Comments posted in the chat are not able to be transcribed and thus, only post in the chat if you are experiencing technical difficulties.
I see the court reporter present, and we'll now turn it over to Perry Buckberg. And, Perry, yes?
MR. BUCKBERG: Good afternoon, everybody.
Can you hear me okay?
MS. RONEWICZ: We sure can.
MR. BUCKBERG: Thank you, thank you.
I'd like to thank everybody for attending today's meeting. My name is Perry Buckberg. I'm a Senior Project Manager at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, and a member of the NRC's Agency 2.206 Petition Core Team.
On March 4,
- 2024, the petitioner submitted a petition to the NRC seeking immediate
7 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com closure of Diablo Canyon, due to the asserted unacceptable risk of a seismically induced severe accident.
This petition was referred to the Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, 10 CFR, Section 2.206, the 2.206 petition process in short.
Hang on for just one second. Let me turn my camera on. That's better.
This petition was supplemented on June 7, 2024.
The purpose of today's meeting is to provide the petitioners an opportunity to address the PRB, to clarify or supplement the petition based on the results of the PRB's May 15 initial assessment of the petition.
The PRB will then consider information obtained today in its final assessment of the petition's acceptability for further review.
Welcome to the petitioners Diane Curran, Hallie Templeton, Caroline Leary, and Peter Bird.
A PRB, again, a Petition Review Board, is assembled for certain 2.206 petitions and typically consists of a petition manager, a chair who is usually a senior executive service member, and members of the NRC staff based on the content of the information in
8 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com the petition.
The PRB chair in this case is Aida Rivera-Varona, Deputy Director of the NRC Division of Operating Reactor Licensing, D-O-R-L, DORL, in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, NRR.
Other PRB members will introduce themselves shortly.
I'd like to open this meeting with introductions. To better facilitate introductions virtually, I'll read attendees' names.
Again, my name is Perry Buckberg. I'm a Senior Project Manager in NRR, DORL.
Aida, are you online?
MS. RIVERA-VARONA: I am online, thank you, Perry.
I am Aida Rivera, I am the, as Perry mentioned, I am the Deputy Director in the Division of Operating Reactor Licensing, DORL, in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, NRR.
MR. BUCKBERG: Thanks, Aida. Just one second.
(Pause.)
MR. BUCKBERG: Bear with me for one second while I do something specific to the conference room.
9 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com (Off microphone comments.)
MR. BUCKBERG: Thanks, Aida. Cliff?
PARTICIPANT: Excuse me, I have a technical question. I clicked on the webinar link and then, do you want to open this, and I don't know what app, what choice to put.
It says always use this app and that doesn't work. So, do I do random choice of other Microsoft icons?
MS. RONEWICZ: Does it give an option to open a browser, or?
PARTICIPANT: It just wants me to choose something. Teams?
MR. BUCKBERG: We can hear you, so if that's adequate.
PARTICIPANT: Is this something visual if I click on webinar link? I'm sorry.
MR. BUCKBERG: Not really sure.
PARTICIPANT: Is there anything visual or is this just?
MS. RONEWICZ: Well, there is --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. BUCKBERG: There's not now.
MS. RONEWICZ: Yes, the speakers. Yes, if you want to click on that and give it a try.
10 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com PARTICIPANT: Yes, do I choose Microsoft Teams, Microsoft?
MS.
RONEWICZ:
- Yes, I'd recommend Microsoft Teams.
(Simultaneous speaking.)
PARTICIPANT: Running into an issue --
MR. MUNSON: I'll continue and hopefully that goes well.
Cliff Munson?
MR. MUNSON: Hi, I'm Cliff Munson. I'm Senior Level Advisor for seismic in NRR, and I'm a member of the PRB.
Thank you.
MR. BUCKBERG: Tom Weaver?
MR. WEAVER: Yes, I'm Thomas Weaver. I'm a seismologist in the Office of Research, and a member of the PRB.
MR. BUCKBERG: Steve Alferink?
MR. ALFERINK: I'm Steven Alferink. I'm a Reliability and Risk Analyst in NRR, Division of Risk Assessment, and with the PRB.
MR. BUCKBERG: Thanks. Sunwoo Park?
MR. PARK: My name is Sunwoo Park, Im a risk analyst at the NRR, Division of Risk Assessment.
MR. BUCKBERG: Samson Lee?
11 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com No Sam Lee, perhaps?
MR. LEE: I'm a Project Manager in NRR.
Thank you.
MR. BUCKBERG: Thanks, Sam.
NRC participants first in the room, Nate?
MR. JORDAN: Nate Jordan, a Project Manager in the Division of Operating Reactor Licensing, supporting the PRB as a member of the 2.206 Core Team.
MR. BUCKBERG: Sarah?
MS. MADSEN: Hi, I'm Sarah Madsen. I'm a legal intern in the Office of General Counsel.
MR. BUCKBERG: Let me try some people on my list, hopefully. Anthony Shelton?
Jim Kim?
MR. KIM: My name is James Kim, and I'm a Project Manager with the NRC, and a member of the 2.206 Petition Core Team.
Thank you.
MR. BUCKBERG: Daniel King?
Dave Rono?
Rob Carpenter?
MR. CARPENTER: Hello, Robert Carpenter.
I'm with the Security and Enforcement Division, in the Office of the General Counsel at the NRC.
12 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MR. BUCKBERG: Thanks, Rob.
Let me go through some people online.
I'm going to have to -- it's this room. Bear with me for just a second.
All right, let me go through other NRC staff I see online. Hang on for just a second. Sorry for the delay.
Andrew Miller?
MR. MILLER: Hey, good afternoon, I'm a Project Manager in the Division of Advanced Reactors and Non-Power Production, and Utilization Facilities.
MR. BUCKBERG: Thank you.
Brian Harris?
Bear with me just a second.
MR. HARRIS: Good afternoon, Brian Harris, Senior Project Manager within the Division of New or Renewed Licenses. Project Manager for the Diablo Canyon license renewal review.
MR. BUCKBERG: Thank you.
Emily Rudo?
MS. RUDO: Hi, I'm Emily Rudo, I'm a legal intern in the Office of General Counsel this summer.
MR. BUCKBERG: Jack Bryant?
MR. BRYANT: Hi, Jack Bryant, Project Manager in DORL.
13 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MR. BUCKBERG: Thank you.
Laurel, Laurel Bauer?
MS. BAUER: Laurel Bauer, I'm the Branch Chief for the Seismic Structural Geotechnical Engineering Branch in the Office of Research.
MR. BUCKBERG: Thank you.
And, Tony Sierra?
MR. SIERRA: Hello, I'm Tony Sierra. I am Project Manager in the Operating Reactor Division, DORL.
MR. BUCKBERG: Thanks everybody. Let me continue my introductory remarks.
Would the petitioners like to introduce themselves at this time?
MS. CURRAN: Diane Curran, I am an attorney for San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace. I saw that Caroline Leary, through Environmental Working Group is also on the phone. I'm not sure that Hallie Templeton is on the phone.
I'm going to be speaking for the groups, and I wanted to say I appreciate all the people that are on the phone listening to Dr. Bird today.
I think this is really, really important information that he has to share.
And I appreciate, we all appreciate that
14 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com there will be a transcript of this conversation. And I also would like to request a video, because Dr.
Bird's going to be presenting slides while he talks.
Will that be possible?
MR. BUCKBERG: I'm sorry, but a video won't be possible, just the transcript. And the presentation is already publicly available in our ADAMS system. It's linked to the meeting notice.
MS. CURRAN: Okay.
And then finally, I think I had requested from Perry, that Dr. Bird have say 15-20 minutes to speak. There may be others who want to respond to what he says.
But we request an opportunity for Dr.
Bird to reply to those additional speakers.
MR. BUCKBERG: Yes, we should have enough time for that. Thanks for bringing that up again.
Once we're done with the introductions, it will be all your time basically for the remainder of the hour, so we should be good.
MS. CURRAN: Thank you.
MR. BUCKBERG: That was it for the licensee introductions, excuse me, for the petitioner introductions.
Are there any licensee staff in
15 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com attendance who wanted to introduce themselves?
I'll continue. It's not required for members of the public to introduce themselves for this call.
However, if there are any members of the public on the phone that wish to do so at this time, please state your name for the record.
Do any members of the public want to introduce themselves?
MS. REASON: Hi, name is Myla Reason. I live approximately five hours downwind from the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in Southern California.
And, I'm very grateful to have an opportunity to, I'm really hoping that the NRC takes serious consideration.
Thank you very much.
MR. BUCKBERG: Thank you. Anybody else?
At this time I'll turn it over to the PRB chair, Aida Rivera-Varona, for her opening remarks.
Aida?
MS. RIVERA-VARONA: All right, thank you, Perry, and thank you Diane and Dr. Bird, and all the other petitioners as well.
I'm trying to be short so that we have
16 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com enough time for Dr. Bird to go through his presentation.
But as I mentioned, my name is Aida Rivera, and I am the Deputy Director of DORL, the Division of Operating Reactor Licensing, in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
Welcome to this meeting regarding the 2.206 petition submitted by the petitioners.
I'd like to first share some background on our process. The Section 2.206 of the Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, describes the petition process as the primary mechanism for the public to request enforcement action by the NRC, in a public process.
This process permits anyone to petition NRC to take enforcement-type actions related to NRC licensees, or license activities.
Depending on the results of its evaluation, NRC could modify, suspend, or revoke an NRC issued license, or take any other appropriate enforcement action.
The NRC staff guidance for the disposition of 2.206 petitions requests is Management Directive 8.11, which is publicly available.
The purpose of today's meeting is to give
17 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com the petitioner an opportunity to provide any relevant additional explanation and support for the petition, after having received the PRB's initial assessment.
This meeting is not a hearing, nor, is it an opportunity for the petitioner or other members of the public to question or examine the PRB on the merits or the issues presented in the petition request.
During the question and answer phase, the PRB may ask clarifying questions of the petitioner and the licensee.
And the licensee may ask the PRB questions related to the issues raised in the petition.
And then, the petitioner and the licensee may ask the PRB questions related to the 2.206 petition process in general.
This is consistent with the Management Directive 8.11, Section 3.F.
As mentioned
- before, no decision regarding the merits of the petition will be made at this meeting.
Following this meeting, the PRB will conduct its internal deliberations. The outcome of these internal meetings will be provided to the
18 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com petitioner in a letter, at a later time.
I would like to summarize the scope of the petition under consideration, and the NRC's activities to date.
The petitioner submitted a petition to the NRC on March 4 of 2024, which was referred to the 2.206 petition process.
The petition was supplemented on June 7, 2024.
The petition requested that the NRC immediately close Diablo Units 1 and 2, for posing an unacceptable risk of a seismic induced severe accident.
To provide some process background, the PRB first evaluates the petition using the Management Directive 8.11,Section III.C.1, criteria for accepting petitions to assess whether or not further review is warranted.
A petition must basically provide facts not previously reviewed and/or resolved by the NRC to warrant further review.
On May 15, 2024, the petition manager contacted the petitioners via email to inform of the PRB's initial assessment that your petition did not meet Management Directive 8.11,Section III.C.1(b)(ii), criteria for accepting the petition.
19 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com The PRB's initial assessment was not to accept your petition for further review.
The petition manager explained in this email that these concerns from your petition:
That thrust faulting is neglected by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company's 2012 seismic source characterization model.
That the magnitude 7.5 January 2024 Noto, Japan earthquake is analogous to future potential thrust mechanism earthquakes beneath Diablo Canyon.
That the uplift rates for the adjacent Irish Hills should be several times higher than the rates used by PG&E in its 2012 seismic source characterization model.
That the seismic core damage frequency, SCDF, estimated by PG&E in 2018 to be 3 times 10 to the -5, should be a 1.4 times 10 to the -3 per year, about once every 715 years. 715 years based on this higher recurrence rate for thrust earthquakes.
your concerns have previously been the subject of facility specific, or generic NRC staff review.
And that the petition does not provide significant new information that the staff did not consider in the prior reviews.
20 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com Specifically, the May 15 response included:
That the licensee's seismic models developed in response to the NRC 10 CFR 50.54(f) request, do include the potential for thrust faulting.
That the petition did not provide sufficient factual information to conclude that the 2024 magnitude 7.5 Noto Peninsula earthquake, can be viewed as an analogous thrust earthquake beneath Diablo Canyon and that, using the length and width of the nearby Los Osos Fault, the licensee modeled a magnitude 7.0 thrust earthquake beneath Diablo Canyon.
That the petition does not provide sufficient factual information to justify the suitability of an uplift rate of 2.9 millimeters per year for the Irish Hills as the licensee used extensive geologic field studies to estimate an uplift rate of 0.15 to 0.35 millimeters per year in the region surrounding Diablo Canyon.
And, that it is inappropriate to estimate a new seismic core damage frequency using model slip rates that are several times higher than those inferred by geological field observations in the
21 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com region surrounding Diablo.
The petition manager offered you an opportunity to address the PRB to clarify or supplement your petition in response to this assessment, and you requested to address the PRB in this form. And that's why we are here today.
As a reminder for all participants, please identify yourself if you make any remarks, as this will help us in preparation of the meeting transcript that will be made publicly available.
Thank you and with that, Diane Curran, Hallie Templeton, Caroline Leary, and Dr. Peter Bird, I will now turn it over to you to provide any information you believe the PRB should consider as part of this petition.
You have the rest of this meeting to provide for your presentation, and we are going to be listening and looking forward to that.
MS. CURRAN: Thank you very much, and we are going to turn it over to Dr. Bird.
Thank you. Peter.
PARTICIPANT: Thanks.
DR. BIRD: Good afternoon, my name's Peter Bird. I'm a professor emeritus at UCLA and today I'm acting as a consultant to the petitioners.
22 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com Before I begin my presentation, I'd just like to comment and clarify that Dr. Rivera's summary of the previous history didn't mention my supplemental declaration of June 2024, which was intended to clarify some misconceptions contained in the initial assessment.
So, I hope you have that document in the file.
MS. RIVERA-VARONA: We do. So, I apologize for not bringing that up, but yes, you are correct and we do have that.
DR. BIRD: Okay, let's go straight to the slides.
My goal today is to unify and clarify the content of my March 2024 declaration, and my June 2024 supplemental declaration.
So, are people seeing a title slide?
MS. RONEWICZ: It doesn't appear yet.
MS. RIVERA-VARONA: No.
(Pause.)
MS. CURRAN: Perry, are you putting the slides up?
MS. RONEWICZ: We can see the slides now.
MS. CURRAN: Okay, thank you very much.
So then --
23 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com (Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. CURRAN: I can't see the slides. Can everyone else see the slides?
MS. RIVERA-VARONA: I can see them.
MR. BUCKBERG: Yes, we can see them.
(Chorus of yes.)
DR. BIRD: Perhaps I should start then.
So, my title is correcting four false assumptions that caused PG&E to seriously underestimate seismic hazard at Diablo Canyon Power Plant.
And, let's go right to the next slide which lists those four false assumptions in blue.
That will be a code.
First, the Irish Hills are uplifting as a rigid block with no internal deformation. Second that active thrust faults may dip at any angle from the horizontal.
Third, that geologic structures older than about one-third million years are irrelevant to seismic hazard estimation.
And fourth, that GPS geodetic velocities are not useful for site-specific seismic hazard estimation.
We'll consider each of these in order.
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com Next slide, please.
So, for most purposes, PG&E assumed that the Irish Hills are uplifting at about 0.2 millimeters per year, with which we agree, as a rigid block with no internal deformation.
Therefore, thrust faulting only occurs at the margin of the Los Osos thrust on the north, and the San Luis Bay thrust on the southeast, with vertical rates on those faults of about 0.2 millimeters per year.
Let's look at the next slide, please.
The rugged and uplifted area in the center is the Irish Hills. The Los Osos Thrust Fault dipping south is on the north side in green. The San Luis Bay thrust dipping north is also in green.
For logical consistency in their model, PG&E should also have included what I call the Inferred Coastline thrust shown in red, which passes directly past and under Diablo Canyon.
I used long dashes for this fault trace according to the Geologic convention that the fault is poorly exposed, but well located.
And in this case, it's located by topography. It's located by map of uplift rates, and it's located by the severe folding in late Miocene
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com sedimentary rocks right around Diablo Canyon.
Next slide, please.
Now, is this model of a rigid block uplift reasonable? It is not. The first reason is that the geologic map of the Irish Hills shows tight folding of late Miocene sedimentary rocks that has occurred since 5 million years.
Next slide, please.
This is PG&E's geologic map. If you're familiar with geologic maps you may see that in the southern half of the area, there's a very large syncline called the Pismo Syncline, which affects rocks of late Miocene age and the folding occurred since 5 million years ago.
And, this fold is a tight one. There's a 80 degree angle at the apex, and the beds are dipping 40 degrees on each side.
Next slide, please.
Therefore, the Irish Hills are not rigid.
They have been strongly deformed, and additional blind thrust faults are active in the interior.
The second criticism of this false assumption is that rigid body uplift would not produce crustal thickening.
Therefore, if the Irish Hills were a
26 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com rigid block, they would have a positive isostatic gravity anomaly indicating excess mass, or a deficient mass relative to the isostatic standard.
However, data shows a negative isostatic gravity anomaly.
Next slide, please.
This is another of PG&E's map, and you may find the Irish Hills in the center with the orange color indicating a isostatic gravity anomaly of about
-21 milligals.
This means that the Irish Hills are not just supported by crustal roots, they actually have crustal roots that are somewhat thicker than we would expect from the model of pure isostasy.
Next slide, please.
Therefore, we should estimate the total rate of thrust fault activity under the Irish Hills from an isostatic model.
And, the rate of crustal thickening in such a model would be the uplift rate of 0.2 millimeters a year times the Airy isostatic ratio between crustal thickening and uplift, of 6:1.
And, we would finally divide by the dip of the thrust faults 25 degrees to get an estimate of 2.8 millimeters per year.
27 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com This was previously misunderstood by the PRB to be a proposed uplift rate, but it is a proposed rate of slip on all shallow, gently dipping thrust faults under the Irish Hills.
Next slide, please.
Second false assumption is that active thrust faults can dip at any angle from the horizontal.
PG&E assigned alternative model dips of 30, 50, and 80 degrees for the Los Osos thrust, and 45 to 75 for the San Luis Bay thrust fault.
However, Mohr/Coulomb Friction Theory, which is more than a century old and appears in every geologic structural geology textbook and most engineering textbooks, holds that thrust faults never form at dips steeper than 45 degrees, regardless of the coefficient of friction.
And, that their dip angle can be anticipated from a knowledge of the coefficient of friction, and that is available to us in the next slide.
Perry Byerlee, a researcher at the U.S.
Geological
- Survey, Menlo
- Park, spent decades measuring friction of a very wide variety of rocks, and this is one of his summary diagrams from 1978.
28 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com The ratio of shear stress at failure, on the vertical axis, to normal stress at failure, on the horizontal axis, is the coefficient of friction.
And you can see the indicated line shows a coefficient of friction of 0.85. This line is known as Byerlee's Law because it has survived in the literature with very, very few exceptions to the present day.
Next slide, please.
So, using the coefficient of friction of
.85, the likely dip of new thrust faults would be 25 degrees. And, that is the angle which I will continue to use in my analysis.
Now why is this so important? If you calculate the seismic potency rate of a thrust fault, it's defined as the slip rate of the thrust fault times the down-dip width of the thrust fault in the seismogenic layer.
Both of these factors include a
coefficient of (1 over the sine of the dip), in the case like this one where we're determining the slip rate of the thrust fault from its vertical offset rate, or throw rate.
That means that the seismic potency estimate is extremely sensitive to dip. And when
29 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com compared to reasonable estimates of seismic potency, which I obtained with dips of 25 degrees, the assignment of 50 degree dip by PG&E reduces the seismic potency rate by a factor of 3.3.
And when they actually used an assignment of an 80 degree dip, they reduced the seismic potency rate by a factor of 5.4.
Therefore, PG&E underestimated seismic potency on these two thrusts, which are the only ones they considered or recognized, by large factors.
Next slide.
The third false assumption is that geologic structures older than about one-third million years, are irrelevant to seismic hazard estimation.
Because of this assumption, PG&E based the throw rates of the San Luis Bay Thrust Fault, and the Los Osos [audio interference] on vertical offsets of marine and fluvial terraces with upper Pleistocene ages.
PG&E never attempted to model the uplift of the Irish Hills or the folding of the Pismo Syncline and other sedimentary rock structures in the Irish Hills, which have occurred since 5 million years.
30 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
- However, in 2007 I
published, in Geosphere, a statistical study of all dated fault offsets in California, which showed that the risk of inapplicability to neotectonics, defined in the paper, is constant for offset features with ages up to 3, or even 5 million years.
Next slide, please.
This is from the 2007 paper. The left graph has a vertical axis which shows the frequency of disagreements between two rates on the same fault, that are determined from different offset features.
Notice that those frequencies of strong disagreements are between 11 and 17 percent.
The horizontal axis shows the difference in age of the offset features. And, some people expect that the probability of disagreement will increase with age.
But actually, I found that this is not the case unless the age is greater than 5 million years.
Another important finding of that paper, in the right graph, is that it takes more than one or two offset features to give a well constrained fault slip rate.
The vertical axis here is a measure of
31 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com how well constrained the slip rate is, and the horizontal axis is the number of offset features used in the determination.
You really need at least four, and preferably seven.
Next slide.
Therefore, all structures in the Irish Hills that formed since 5 million years, should have been studied and modeled to provide geologic constraints on the rate of thrust faulting.
Now, doing this comprehensively is beyond my resources, but I provided an example in Figure 1 of my March declaration.
Next slide, please.
This is a
geologic cross-section originally drafted by PG&E on which I have added, with red lines, my own interpretation of the dips and locations of the main active thrust faults.
And at the upper left of this figure, you can see the word throw, which indicates the point where we can measure the offset of map unit TMO, the Tertiary Miocene Obispo Formation, of 1.6 to 2.2 kilometers vertically at the coast. Which is the location of the San Luis Bay Thrust Fault, and also the Inferred Coastline thrust fault.
32 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com Next slide.
So, from this throw of 1.6 to 2.2 kilometers occurring since 5 million years, this implies a throw rate of.3 to.4 millimeters per year.
And again, using a thrust fault dip of 25 degrees, the fault slip rate becomes.8 to 1 millimeters per year.
And then if we make a further assumption that thrusting in the Irish Hills has been symmetrical, then a minimum thrust slip rate total by this method would be twice as much, or 1.5 to 2.08 millimeters per year.
However, this is a minimum because it neglects any internal blind thrust faults. And, we have good evidence to believe that they exist.
Next slide, please.
Fourth false assumption is that GPS geodetic velocities and strain rates are not useful for site specific seismic hazard estimation.
PG&E operated a GPS receiver at Diablo Canyon and in 2015, they reported the shortening
[audio interference] across the Irish Hills as N15E, consistent with pure thrust faulting. But they did not report the rate.
Then in their 2024 update of the seismic
33 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com hazard model, they gave no new geodetic information.
This was an incredibly important missed opportunity, or perhaps deliberate omission.
- However, seismicity has been successfully forecast using only GPS data both in Southern California and globally.
Next slide, please.
This is a global map from Bird and Kreemer 2015, and my co-author Corne Kreemer is an international GPS expert who collected all available data and took spatial derivatives to convert GPS velocities to strain rates.
And then, I applied some relatively simple equations to convert strain rates to earthquake rates.
And we plotted this using a logarithmic color scale, because there's a 5 orders of magnitude variation across the map from plate interiors to active regions.
Then on top of this, we plotted 58 years of magnitude 7 and 8 earthquakes. I think you can see there's a very good correspondence between these two even though the earthquake locations were not used in any way to produce the model.
Next slide.
34 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com So if GPS data are useful, it is essential that we get the GPS data from Diablo Canyon.
However, in the meantime, I can provide a weak substitute, which is results of Western U.S.
neotectonic models that I've computed for use by the U.S. Geological Survey, and their National Seismic Hazard Map of 2013 and 2022.
Next slide, please.
This is zooming in on the area of Diablo Canyon, shown by a triangle. Here shows relative velocities, long-term tectonic velocities relative to Diablo Canyon, and you can see this convergence from both the southwest side, and the northeast side.
Then the right hand figure from the same model, shows the rate of deformation between modeled faults, and not including slip on model faults.
And you can see that there is a yellow/orange feature right near Diablo Canyon that's one of the hottest colors on the map.
And, that typically indicates that a fault has been carelessly omitted from the dataset that went into the model.
In this case, the missing fault would be the Inferred Coastline thrust.
Next slide, please.
35 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com So, based on both these 2013 and 2022 models, which unfortunately did not have access to the GPS velocity right at Diablo Canyon, we estimated that the total thrust fault slip rate would be a shortening rate of 2 millimeters per year, divided by the cosine of fault dip, therefore, 2.2 millimeters per year.
And, this is the third independent analysis that I've presented in this talk so far.
Next slide, please.
So what we've seen is that there are four false assumptions that need to be removed, and each time you remove one of these, thrust faulting activity in the Irish Hills goes up by a large factor.
It's finally important to estimate how these factors combine, and how much seismic hazard and seismic core damage frequency has increased in a realistic view of the Irish Hills, and Diablo Canyon.
Of course, this could be done with a new seismic source characterization study, and a new seismic probabilistic risk assessment study, except that that would take years and millions of dollars.
So instead, we will use a much simpler method to show that the lower limit on seismic hazard, due to thrust faulting alone, is much higher than the
36 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com total hazards named by PG&E.
And, we will do this by adopting a characteristic intraplate thrust earthquake for this tectonic setting, and estimating its frequency in the Irish Hills.
Next slide, please.
So, the characteristic or model earthquake must be very well recorded. And for this purpose, we choose the January 1, 2024 thrust earthquake under the Noto Peninsula off the west coast of Japan.
As you see in the left part of the figure, the USGS finite fault solution has provided a detailed map on some parts of the fault's surface.
In the part of the fault that along the coast of the Noto Peninsula, and incidentally, this fault is slightly artificially straightened for graphical purposes, the mean slip is about 2 meters.
Another very important fact that we obtained from this earthquake, is that peak ground accelerations, or PGA, at five strong motion seismic models, were in the very high range of 1.0 to 2.3 times gravity.
Next slide, please.
So to summarize, the two SSC studies by
37 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com PG&E seriously underestimated the seismic hazard from thrust faulting under the Irish Hills, because they relied on four demonstrably false assumptions.
Removing these false assumptions and using three independent analytic methods, we get values for the total slip rate on all shallow dipping thrust faults under the Irish Hills, of either 2.8 millimeters per year, or 2.0, or 2.2.
If we then use the Noto Peninsula earthquake as a characteristic intraplate thrust earthquake whose mean slip of 2 meters is known, we can obtain the recurrence times for such great thrust earthquakes under the Irish Hills, simply dividing 2 meters by the rate of thrust fault strain accumulation in the previous bullet.
And we get the result of 715 years if we use 2.8 millimeters a year, or 1,000 years if we use 2 millimeters a year. Or 910 years if we use 2.2 millimeters a year.
These are three independent estimates with rather good agreement.
Now the other thing we know from the Noto Peninsula earthquake, is that the PGA was so high that it would cause seismic core damage at Diablo Canyon, which was not designed to withstand such
38 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com shaking.
And therefore, its seismic core damage frequency is at least as much as the inverse of the recurrence times, that is either 1.4 times 10 to -3 per year, or 1.0 times 10 to the -3, or 1.1 times 10 to the -3.
And all of these are before the hazard contributions from strike-slip faults, like the Hosgri Fault, have been added.
So, that's it except for References Cited. Thank you for your attention; I'll be happy to take questions.
MS. RIVERA-VARONA: Sorry, I was having trouble getting off mute.
So, I want to thank the petitioners for the presentation, and for taking the time to raise your concerns.
The Regulations in 10 CFR 2.206 provide an opportunity for the public to petition the NRC to take enforcement related actions, and the NRC understands that this process takes time, resources, and energy by the petitioners.
I'm going to turn this to the virtual facilitator for questions/comment portion of this meeting.
39 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MS. RONEWICZ: Okay, we will now go to questions. Please remember to speak loudly and clearly, stating your name first, and if you are affiliated with an entity, please state that entity.
If you dialed in by phone, please raise your hand by pressing *5 and then once called on, press *6 to unmute yourself.
So first of all at this time, does the PRB have any questions for the petitioner?
MR. MUNSON: Yes, this is Cliff Munson, a member of the PRB. I do have a couple of clarifying questions.
First, I wanted to thank Dr. Bird for sending his presentation in and giving us a bit of time to review it first. The figures were really good in helping us to understand your position on the issues at hand.
Can we put the presentation back up on the screen?
(Pause.)
MR. MUNSON: So if we go back to the very first figure on the inferred coastline thrust, it shows the very first figure.
DR. BIRD: I think that's slide 4. Yes.
MR. MUNSON: This figure, yes.
40 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com There's not a scale on this map. So, we were trying to determine the length of the inferred coastline thrust fault that you have shown here.
We know the San Luis Bay Fault length is about 15 kilometers. Do you have a length, a number?
DR. BIRD: Not a precise number, but I have two comments.
The first is that I don't make any real distinction between the San Luis Bay and the Inferred Coastline. I believe they're the same structure and it's continuous.
And second, on this map I only showed a minimum length of the Inferred Coast
[audio interference]. Tectonically, it's quite plausible that it goes further and connects to the Hosgri, or to the Los Osos.
So, we have only minimum lengths.
MR. MUNSON: Okay, thank you, that clears that up.
And then, if you go further down, there's a cross-section figure, keep going.
DR. BIRD: That's probably slide 16.
Yes.
MR. MUNSON: Yes, this figure, yes.
So, on the left is the coastline thrust
41 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com fault. And it looks like the width of this fault would be, I see the horizontal is about I believe 6 kilometers and it's dipping at 25 degrees?
DR. BIRD: Right.
MR. MUNSON: So maybe 7-8 kilometers in width? Is that a good number?
DR. BIRD: Well, I have not taken a position on what is the seismogenic depth range. But based on the micro-seismicity on the slide, it appears to be about 10 kilometers.
MR. MUNSON: Okay.
DR. BIRD: So, the width would be greater than the width of the Irish Hills. It would include the dashed parts in this figure.
MR. MUNSON: Okay, thank you, that clears that up.
DR. BIRD: The reason for the dashing is that, is the big question mark: that it's not clear which of these faults has offset the other most recently.
MR. MUNSON: Okay, thank you, that clears that up.
That's all the clarifying questions I have. Thank you.
MS. RONEWICZ: Okay.
42 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MR. MUNSON: Oh, one question I did have.
You didn't mention in your presentation the local area background zone that PG&E modeled for its seismic source characterization.
Do you have any clarification as to your views on that background zone, so to speak? I believe there's about a dozen or faults that are 50 kilometers in length that they postulated as potential unknown faults.
DR. BIRD: Yes, thank you. I'm happy to respond to that.
I actually provided some detail in my spring 2023 declaration to NRC. The critical problem with their local area source is the seismic moment rate that they assign to it.
They assign to it a moment rate which is the same as the average over several decades of past microseismicity.
Now, if there's one thing we know about earthquakes it's that they're clustered in both space and time.
And, that means that any small window average of the moment rate is almost certainly an underestimate unless you just by blind luck, happen to catch a big earthquake and its aftershock swarm in
43 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com your time window. In this case, that did not occur.
Therefore, their method for estimating the total seismic moment rate of the local area source is just incompetent.
If you applied that to the San Andreas Fault, you'd conclude that it's perfectly safe.
MR. MUNSON: Okay, thank you.
MS. RONEWICZ: Okay, does the PRB have any other questions for the petitioner?
Okay, it looks like not. Moving on, if present, does the licensee have any questions for the PRB related to the issues raised in the petition?
Okay, we will move on. Does the petitioner or licensee have any questions about the 2.206 petition process?
MS. LEARY: Not from the petitioners.
MS. RONEWICZ: Okay. Before we conclude the meeting, members of the public may provide feedback regarding the 2.206 petition process.
However, as stated at the opening, but purpose of this meeting is not to provide an opportunity for the petitioner or the public to question or examine the PRB regarding the merits of the petition request.
Please raise your hand and I will call on
44 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com you in order of hands raised.
(Pause.)
MS. RONEWICZ: And no hands yet, but we'll give it just a little bit more time to give anybody an opportunity.
(Pause.)
MS. RONEWICZ: Yes, go right ahead. I'm not sure of your name, but 3-1-0, go right ahead please and speak.
MR. CAMPBELL: Hi, this is Bruce Campbell, and I attended the Diablo seismic hearings back in October 1980, which were prompted by the unexpected ground, high ground acceleration readings, particularly vertical ground acceleration readings of the October 15, 1979 Imperial Valley earthquake.
And was in a group that camped out on the lawn and heard every minute of the, of that, of those hearings.
And then Chairman Solsman was appointed to a federal judgeship by Reagan shortly before the ASLB ruled that Diablo was seismically safe.
Anyway, it was ridiculous to claim it was seismically safe back in 1980 and it continues to be.
It seems like some of the new information, seismic information, while it's interesting to hear about
45 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com specific blind thrust faults in the vicinity of Diablo Canyon.
But it seems like a lot of the dangerous new seismic information is in regards to those quakes in the Ridgecrest area, which are activating the Garlock fault deeming it capable of a 8.0 quake.
And then, some seismologists seem to now think that the San Andreas Fault can have all three sections go at once, can be a statewide San Andreas Fault earthquake.
So, is there any evaluation of new seismic information regarding quakes to the east, and how that could impact Diablo Canyon reactor core and all?
Thank you.
DR. BIRD: Shall I answer that?
MR. CAMPBELL: Please.
MS. RONEWICZ: Yes, please.
DR. BIRD: Okay.
The at the end of my talk there's a citation to Field et al. 2013, which is the very comprehensive study of California's seismicity that was conducted first by the Southern California Earthquake Center, then supplemented by workers from the U.S. Geological Survey.
46 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com Ultimately, it was accepted as the basis for the update to the National Seismic Hazard Map.
In that study, Ned Field in particular, considered many compound ruptures that involved one fault and then the rupture leaks to another.
That's a definite possibility and it's now routine to include that in seismic hazard estimation.
However, as a seismologist I would caution that linking a lot of faults to get a high magnitude, is kind of missing the point.
Which is that the hazard to a critical site facility like Diablo Canyon, is mostly from the faults right next to it or even more, right underneath it.
And what is most important to determine PGA and the risk of core damage at a facility like Diablo Canyon is how much slip occurs right next to it, or right underneath it, and how fast that happens.
The total magnitude of the earthquake is very secondary.
MS. RONEWICZ: Okay, if we are all set, are we all set with that to move on to the next hand raised?
Okay, Steven Sondheim, please go right
47 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com ahead. Your hand is raised.
MR. SONDHEIM: Can you hear me?
MS. RONEWICZ: Yes, we can hear you.
MR. SONDHEIM: Okay, thank you, Dr. Bird, very interesting. I just have a generalized question and you might not be able to answer this.
But given all this data, which seems to indicate a greater probability of problems than estimated by PG&E, what would you say and I know this is hard to do, what is the probability of a earthquake that would affect Diablo Canyon?
And then secondly, how severe would it need to be to affect Diablo Canyon?
And, one thing I want to say before I stop is, would you think that a new study by the parties needs to be done given the, what you've pointed out?
Thank you.
DR. BIRD: Okay, the first part is very simple to answer. I ended my talk with rates of, well, annual risk of a serious core-damaging earthquake of 1.4 times 10 to the -3 per year. That is, once every 715 years.
So to put that in homey terms, if hypothetically the license was extended for another
48 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com 20 years, that adds about a 2.8 percent risk of such a serious accident during the 20 years.
So, that's fairly straightforward.
MS. RONEWICZ: Okay, are we all set with that that one?
MR. SONDHEIM: Well about that, if I may ask. Has there been any localized activity that would increase that in the coming years?
DR. BIRD: Well since we're discussing the importance of thrust faulting under the Irish Hills, let me note that there have been two moderate sized thrust earthquakes under the Irish Hills recently.
One was I think December 27th of last year, and the other was January 1 of this year, almost as if it was in sympathy to the Noto Peninsula earthquake.
But I'm not saying that the risk is especially high at this time. I'm saying it has always been unacceptably high, ever since they began to plan this facility.
MR. SONDHEIM: Okay.
And then, could you clarify if you think a new study needs to be done taking into account the factors you said were not taken into account?
49 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com DR. BIRD: Yes, thank you for reminding me.
That's a public policy question and I only claim to be expert in geology, geophysics, seismology. So I'll defer to the petitioners if they wish to comment. Otherwise, this would be a question for the NRC.
MR. SONDHEIM: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
MS. RONEWICZ: Okay, before we move on to the next hand raised, did anybody want to address that item?
MS. CURRAN: Well, this is Diane Curran for the Mothers for Peace. Our petition to the, we initially petitioned the NRC commissioners to close Diablo Canyon immediately because the risk of seismic core damage is high enough to meet the NRC standard for closing a reactor.
It shouldn't be operating. If PG&E wants to do more studies to justify continued operation that's one thing.
But currently, there is significant enough concern about the risk of a core damage accident, that we don't believe these reactors should be operating now.
50 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com MS. RIVERA-VARONA: And Steven, this is what the process is here for. We are going to be looking at the information that we have been presented by Dr. Bird, and the petitioners.
And then, we'll make a determination whether we need to have any further action based on the new information that has been presented.
MR. SONDHEIM: Thank you, thank you.
MS. RONEWICZ: Okay, thank you.
And then we will go on to Ace Hoffman.
You have your hand raised, please go ahead.
And, Ace Hoffman, please go right ahead.
If you're speaking, we cannot hear you.
(Pause.)
MS. RONEWICZ: Okay, well, all right, perhaps he may be calling in again.
Okay, were there any other questions before we do a final close out?
MS. CURRAN: This is Diane Curran. I just have a question, two questions about the transcript. First is, how soon do you think the transcript is going to be available publicly?
And the second question is, can we have a chance to review it before it's finalized? Because there are a lot of technical terms used here, and I
51 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com want to make sure that the transcript is correct.
MR. BUCKBERG: Hi Diane, this is Perry.
Usually if the petitioner, I've never shared a transcript with a petitioner before but I'll look into that.
Usually if it's not shared with a petitioner, it's made public within about two weeks.
I'll have an answer to you regarding your review of the transcript prior to it becoming final.
I don't disagree with your request, but it's not up to me necessarily. I'll let you know.
MS. CURRAN: Okay.
MR. BUCKBERG: Thanks.
MS. CURRAN: Thanks a lot.
MS. RONEWICZ: Okay, and were there any other questions? And if so, please go ahead and raise your hand.
And seeing none, okay, Ace Hoffman, okay, so Ace Hoffman has a question in the chat due to difficulties.
MR. Hoffman: Has the PG&E study methods been applied to any historic earthquake activity to prove its accuracy, either by PG&E or the NRC, or anyone?
DR. BIRD: I don't think that's a
52 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com reasonable request. When you're concerned to estimate the long-term seismicity of a very small patch of ground, the seismic record is just not long enough.
The first seismometers were invented around 1900. The first network of seismometers that could record large earthquakes reliably, was about 1918.
So, that's why we have to look into other sources of information, such as the geology, the geophysics, the gravity anomaly. And especially GPS velocities.
MS. RONEWICZ: Okay, thank you.
Just a final call, any final questions?
(Pause.)
MS. RONEWICZ: Okay, before we close does the court reporter need any additional information for the meeting transcript?
(Pause.)
MS. RONEWICZ: And we encourage the participants outside the NRC to provide public meeting feedback to the NRC staff, via the NRC public meeting website.
A link will be posted shortly after the conclusion of this meeting.
53 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com And with that, the meeting is concluded and we thank you all for attending.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 4:03 p.m.)