ML20236E422

Responds to Listed Issues Raised by J Dellacroce Re Need for & Safety of Nuclear Power Plants & Personal Health Risk in Visit to Europe During Chernobyl Accident.General Overview of Health Consequences from Chernobyl Also Encl

ML20236E422
Person / Time
Issue date:	07/23/1987
From:	Stello V NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS (EDO)
To:	Gilman B HOUSE OF REP.
Shared Package
ML20235D707	List: ML20235D705 ML20236E422 ML20236E462 ML20236F261
References
NUDOCS 8707310366
Download: ML20236E422 (3)

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The Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman United States House of Representatives Washington, D.C.

20515

Dear Congressman Gilman:

This letter is in response to your request of June 8, 1987, for information relating to concerns raised by your constituent, John Dellacroce, regarding the i

need for and safety of nuclear power plants, as well as his personal health risk I

in his visit to Europe during the Chernobyl accident.

Regarding the latter, we are not able to say anything very definitive about the i

specific magnitude of his personal health risk.

Even if the radiation dose he received were known precisely, science is unable to state with demonstrable authority what the risk of delayed cancer incidence might be at the quite low doses most Europeans received during that period.

Factors affecting the probable dose levels that Mr. Dellacroce may have received include the i

specific locations he visited in Europe, the timing and duration of such visits, the foods he may have eaten and their origin, the presence or absence of rain, and many others. A gereral overview of the health consequences from the Chernobyl accident (both in the USSR where the heaviest radiation doses were received, as well as in Europe) is provided in the enclosed article by j

Harold Denton.

In general, most persons residing in Europe received radiation doses that were small relative to the background level of natural radiation 1

all of us routinely receive from cosmic or terrestrial (earth and rock) sources.

The following information is provided in response to the five enumerated concerns Mr. Dellacroce expressed:

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1.

Need for electricity at the time nuclear power plants were ordered.

l Sound planning of additions to electric power plant generating capacity is based on long-term forecasts of the growth in the demand for electricity and the planned retirements of obsolete or high-cost units. Waiting for shortages to develop before planning new capacity would increase the cost of electricity, because peaking or other high-cost, standby units would j

have to be pressed into service.

In addition, systems would become less reliable because of the lag of a number of years required to design and i

build the more economical baseload units.

Following the mid-East oil embargo, when many new nuclear plants were ordered, prices of all fuels to generate electricity (coal, oil, gas, and uranium) rose sharply; this led to substantial measures to cut down on the use of electricity, which, in l

turn, meant that the electricity demands forecast by virtually every utility proved to be overstated. This, then, led to excessive reserv.e margins and

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led utilities to cancel plants they had ordered or stretch out construction pg of both nuclear and coal-fired generating plants.

Further information h

on national and regional forecasts of electrical energy demand as

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Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman,

prepared by the North American Electricity Reliability Council, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Edison Electrical Institute are found

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in Appendix A to NRC's enclosed report on " Reactivation of Nuclear Power i

Plant Construction Projects" (NUREG-1205).

2.

Safer alternatives for generating electricity. Although NRC plays no role j

in promoting the use of nuclear or other forms of energy, our licensing l

responsibilities under the National Environmental Policy Act have led us l

l to review the comparative safety, environmental, and economic parameters 1

of other viable alternatives to nuclear fuel in generating baseload l

electricity, notably ccal. A comparison of the public health risks from I

the use of coal and nuclear fuels to generate electricity is found in the enclosed article by Miller Spangler that is based, in part, on a similar 1

l analysis provided by the NRC in a supplement to the Final Environmental

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l Statement for the Limerick Nuclear Plant near Philadelphia. A typical NRC review of less conventional forms of energy such as solar, geothermal,-

windpower, etc.'is found in Appendix B of the enclosed NUREG-0701 on "U.S. Experience in Environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis."

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3&4. Present need to operate nuclear plants and construction of new units.

No nuclear power plant in the United States is permitted to continue in I

operation unless the Commission judges that it can do so safely, i

reasonably assuring the protection of public health and safety. Thus, a utility's decision on operating a nuclear plant in preference to other units l

in times of slack demand such as holidays, weekends or seasonal lows often hinges on comparative fuel costs or the scheduling of maintenance.

It is not within NRC's legal authority to regulate the choice of which units in a utility's system should remain on standby for emergency use unless significant safety issues emerge, as they sometimes do.

In this event, the nuclear plant is ordered shut down by the NRC until corrective measures are taken so that adequate safety can once again be assured.

No new nuclear power plants have been ordered since 1978. However, should a new plant be ordered, the licensing application would be subject to the safety and environmental review procedures and NRC's rules and regulations existing when the applicatit< is filed.

5.

Development of alternatives to nuclear fuel in generating electricity.

This is the responsToility of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in conjunction with the private sector.

DOE maintains an active program of research and other supportive measures for many alternative forms of energy for generating electricity, including solar energy, geothermal, windpower, biomass, and many other types of unconventional or experimental energy sources.

Mr. Dellacroce's concluding comment about the predictability of failures of complex technologies such as nuclear power plants, cars, and airplanes is certainly a valid observation. The assumption that some unavoidable failures of equipment and human error will happen underlies the defense-in-depth

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JOl. 2 31987 Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman 4 philosophy of nuclear plant design philosophy, which provides for many redundant engineered safety features. These measures include diversity of equipment to halt accident progression when certain postulated failures occur, as well as special operator training in accident management to diagnose and take corrective actions to limit the severity of an accident. While the possibility of severe nuclear accident cannot be reduced to absolute zero, the Commission feels that special plant design features, safety management practices, and NRC's regulatory regime (including regional and on-site plant inspectors) provide adequate assurance for the protection of public health and safety. Moreover, the NRC has a multi-million dollar program that is directed to severe accident research to strengthen our understanding of severe accident risk phenomena and systems reliability engineering with the objectives of improving the safety (and the confidence of sai'ety) of nuclear plant designs and their construction, operation, and maintenance.

I wish to thank Mr. Dellacroce for sharing his views on nuclear power plant needs and safety and for providing us with the opportunity to explain our efforts on behalf of protecting public health and safety, a responsibility we take quite seriously.

Sincerely,

($1gned) T. A, Rehm

/W Victor Stello, Jr.

Executive Director for Operations

Enclosures:

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