ML24132A002

OEDO-23-00350-NRR -10 CFR 2.206 Petition from Mothers for Peace and Friends of the Earth Regarding Diablo Canyon - Public Meeting (4-29-2024) Transcript

ML24132A002
Person / Time
Site:	Diablo Canyon
Issue date:	04/29/2024
From:	NRC/NRR/DORL/LPL2-2
To:
Jordan N
References
OEDO-23-00350-NRR, NRC-2805, 2.206
Download: ML24132A002 (1)

Text

Official Transcript of Proceedings

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Title:

2.206 Petition Review Board RE Diablo Canyon Power Plant Unit 1

Docket Number: (n/a)

Location: teleconference

Date: Monday, April 29, 2024

Work Order No.: NRC-2805 Pages 1-39

NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

Court Reporters and Transcribers 1716 14th Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 234-4433 1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

+ + + + +

MEETING BETWEEN THE U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY

COMMISSION PETITION REVIEW BOARD AND THE SAN LUIS

OBISPO MOTHERS FOR PEACE AND FRIENDS OF THE EARTH

REGARDING A 2.206 PETITION

SUBMITTED ON SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

+ + + + +

MONDAY, APRIL 29, 2024

+ + + + +

The meeting was convened via Video-

Teleconference, at 3:00 p.m. EST, Lynn Ronewicz,

Facilitator, presiding.

PRESENT:

LYNN RONEWICZ, NSIR/DSO/ISB, Facilitator

NATREON JORDAN, NRR/DORL/LPL2-2

JAMIE PELTON, NRR/DORL

ON YEE, NRR/DNRL/NVIB

JOHN TSAO, NRR/DNRL/NVIB

JOHN WISE, NRR/DNRL

JAMES KIM, NRR/DORL/LPL1

DANIEL KING, NRR/DORL/LLPB

PERRY BUCKBERG, NRR/DORL/LPL2-2

ROBERT CARPENTER, OGC/LHE/SE 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 2

ALSO PRESENT:

DIANE CURRAN, Counsel to San Luis Obispo Mothers

for Peace

HALLIE TEMPLETON, Counsel to Friends of the Earth

DIGBY MACDONALD, Professor in Residence,

Departments of Nuclear Engineering and

Materials Science and Engineering, University

of California at Berkeley

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 3

C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

Introduction

Lynn Ronewicz.....................................4

Nate Jordan.......................................6

Jamie Pelton......................................9

Petitioner Presentation

Diane Curran.....................................14

Digby Macdonald..................................16

Public Interaction

Robert Budnitz...................................36

Kevin Kamps......................................37

Adjourn...........................................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 4

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 I will be assisting with meeting

facilitation.

The purpose of this meeting is to provide

the Petitioners Diane Curran and Dr. Digby Macdonald

an opportunity to address the Petition Review Board,

or PRB, and clarify or supplement the September 14th,

2023 petition regarding reactor pressure vessel

embrittlement at Diablo Canyon Power Plant Unit 1

based on the results of the PRB's 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.

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 as this would be outside the scope of

this meeting. I will provide a gentle reminder if we

get outside the scope of the meeting. After the

presentation members of the public and others may ask

questions about the 2.206 process which will be 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 5

answered by the NRC staff.

As a general note please keep yourself

muted unless you have been called on to speak or have

the 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 the

opportunity for questions and comments within the

scope of this meeting will occur.

Please keep yourself muted in Teams and if

you dialed in on the bridge line, use the mute icon or

dial star-6. Please only un-mute if you are in a

speaking role. For phone --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

MS. RONEWICZ: -- unmute using star-5.

Yes, hello. Everyone please mute your phones if you

are not speaking.

Attendees will be called in order of hands

raised at the appropriate time. At that time,

speaking clearly and loudly, please state your name.

And if you are affiliated with an entity, please state

the entity.

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 6

A court reporter is transcribing this

meeting. All questions, comments are to be made

verbally for the court reporter to transcribe, and

thus the Teams chat has been disabled. The transcript

will become a supplement to the petition. The

transcript will also be made publicly available.

Is the court reporter present and able to

record the meeting?

COURT REPORTER: Yes, I am.

MS. RONEWICZ: Great. Thank you. I will

now turn the meeting over to Nate Jordan, but again I

just want to remind everybody please keep your cameras

off if you are not in a speaking role and your phones

muted. Thank you.

MR. JORDAN: Thank you, facilitator.

I'd like to thank everybody for attending

today's meeting. My name is Natreon "Nate" Jordan,

and I'm a project manager in the U.S. Nuclear

Regulatory Commission, and also a member of the NRC's

2.206 Petition Core Team.

On September 14th, the Petitioners

submitted a petition to the NRC seeking immediate

closure of the Diablo Canyon Unit 1 due to concerns

that the reactor pressure vessel could reach an

unacceptable level of embrittlement well before 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 7

expected. This petition was referred to the Title 10

of the Code of Federal Regulations, 10 CFR Section

2.206 petition process.

The purpose of today's meeting is to

provide the Petitioners an opportunity to address the

Petition Review Board, or PRB as it's called, and

clarify or supplement the petition based on the

results of the PRB's initial assessment of the

petition. The PRB will then consider any information

obtained today in its final assessment of the

petition's acceptability for further review.

Welcome, Ms. Diane Curran, Hallie

Templeton, and Dr. Digby Macdonald.

PRB is a symbol for certain 2.206

petitions and typically consists of a petition

manager, myself; a chair who is usually a senior

executive service manager; and members of the NRC

staff based on the content of the information given in

the petition. The PRB chair for this petition is

Jamie Pelton, Deputy Director of the NRC Division of

Operating Reactor Licensing in the Office of Nuclear

Reactor Regulation within the NRC. PRB members

will introduce themselves shortly.

In addition I'd like to open this meeting

with introductions. To better facilitate 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 8

introductions virtually I will read attendees' names.

Again, my name is Nate Jordan and I'm a

petition manager for DORL. The list of the PRB

members on the line: Jamie Pelton, On Yee, John Tsao,

John Wise. Next NRC participants who are also

involved may be James Kim, Daniel King, Dave Rudland,

who is not on -- who wasn't able to make the call.

Perry Buckberg as well, who is the primary 2.206

Petition Core Team member, as well as Robert

Carpenter.

And so at this point I want to ask first

of all are there any Licensee staff in attendance for

this meeting?

(No audible response.)

MR. JORDAN: Okay. Hearing none, I also

want to make known too that it is not required that

members of the public introduce themselves as part of

this meeting, however, if there are any members of the

public attending this meeting and they would like to

introduce themselves at this time, please feel free to

do so.

(No audible response.)

MR. JORDAN: All right. Hearing none, at

this time I will turn it over to the PRB chair, Jamie

Pelton.

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 9

MS. PELTON: Hi. Good afternoon. As Nate

said, my name is Jamie Pelton and I'm the Deputy

Director of the Division of Operating Reactor

Licensing in NRR.

Welcome to this meeting regarding the

2.206 petition submitted by Diane Curran and Hallie

Templeton.

I'd first like to share some background on

our process. Section 2.206 of Title 10 of the Code of

Federal Regulations describes the petition process,

the primary mechanism for the public to request an

enforcement action by the NRC in a public process.

This process permits anyone to petition the 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's guidance for the

disposition of 2.206 petition requests is Management

Directive 8.11, which is publicly available.

The purpose of today's meeting is to give

the Petitioners an opportunity to provide any relevant

additional explanation and support for the petition

after having received the Petition Review Board's 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 10

initial assessment.

This meeting is not a hearing, nor is it

an opportunity for the Petitioners 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

NRC staff may ask clarifying questions of the

Petitioners and the Licensee. The Licensee may ask

PRB questions related to the issues raised in the

petition. And then the Petitioners and the Licensee

may ask the PRB questions related to the 2.206

petition process in general. This is consistent

with Management Directive 8.11,Section III.F.

No decisions regarding the merits of this

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

Petitioner in a letter.

I would like to summarize the scope of the

petition under consideration and the NRC activities to

date.

Diane Curran and Hallie Templeton

submitted a petition to the NRC on September 14th, 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 11

2023, which was referred to the 2.206 petition

process. The petition requested that the NRC

immediately close Diablo Canyon Unit 1 and require the

completion of tests and inspections of the pressure

vessel, require the public disclosure of the results,

require a public hearing and a determination by the

Commission that Diablo Canyon Unit 1 can safely resume

operation.

To provide some process background the PRB

first evaluates petitions using MD 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 March 8th, 2024, Nate, the petition

manager, contacted Diane Curran and Hallie Templeton

via email to inform you of the PRB's initial

assessment that the petition did not meet the MD 8.11,

Section III.C.1(b)(2) criteria for accepting

petitions. The PRB's initial assessment was not to

accept your petition for further review.

The concerns that were stated, or that

were evaluated from your petition --there were four

primary. One, that the license amendment issued by 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 12

NRC staff to Pacific Gas and Electric, PG&E, by letter

dated July 20th, 2023, extending the schedule for

conducting surveillance of the Diablo Canyon 1

pressure vessel until 2025 poses an unreasonable risk

to public health and safety.

The second concern was that the Licensee

committed violations by not properly monitoring the

condition of the Diablo Canyon Unit 1 RPV, reactor

pressure vessel.

Three, that PG&E has repeatedly postponed

additional surveillance and testing of the pressure

vessel.

And four, that the Licensee should

implement Dr. Macdonald's independent analysis-based

recommendations regarding reactor pressure vessel

integrity.

In the email the petition manager informed

you that these 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 prior reviews.

The March 8th response also included that

Diablo Canyon Unit 1 reactor pressure vessel will not

reach the pressurized thermal shock screening criteria 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 13

in 10 CFR 50.61 until approximately the year 2032.

Also that the Licensee's current pressure

temperature limits documented in Revision 16(a) of its

pressure temperature limit report, or PTLR, are

applicable beyond the current 40-year operating

license period.

Three, that the final capsule required for

the current operating license period, Capsule V, was

withdrawn and tested which provided surveillance data

representative of the reactor vessel beyond the end of

its current 40-year operating license period.

And finally, while the PRB recognizes the

efforts by Dr. Macdonald highlighted in the petition,

the merits of the recommendations do not justify a

change to the NRC's already conservative approach to

assessing the integrity of the reactor pressure

vessel.

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 forum.

As a reminder for all participants, please

identify yourself if you make any remarks as this will

help us in the preparation of the meeting transcript 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 14

that will be made publicly available. Thank you.

Diane Curran and Hallie Templeton, 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 50 minutes for your presentation.

Thank you.

MS. CURRAN: Thank you, Ms. Pelton. I am

Diane Curran. I represent San Luis Obispo Mothers for

Peace. And on the phone with us today is Hallie

Templeton, but I will be the attorney speaking for the

Petitioners. With me today also is Dr. Digby

Macdonald, who is our expert.

As you know, we are very concerned that

the pressure vessel for Diablo Canyon Unit 1 does not

meet NRC requirements for integrity and therefore we

asked the Commissioners to order the shutdown of the

facility pending testing of Capsule B. And that

petition was referred to the staff for consideration.

We still hold that view and we primarily wanted to

give Dr. Macdonald a chance to address you on our

technical concerns because of his great level of

expertise on these issues.

At the bottom we have legal concerns here.

As you know, we're in the Ninth Circuit challenging

the NRC's failure to treat the 2006 license amendment 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 15

as having effect in the -- on PG&E, that we believe

that license amendment which allowed PG&E to operate

Diablo Canyon for an extra three years to recapture,

quote/unquote, the term of low-power testing included

in it a requirement to remove Capsule B within the

current license term and included a finding by the NRC

that the data that has been collected so far,

including Capsule V, was credible and showed that the

reactor would approach the reference temperature

limits at or before the end of its operating license.

We've got that issue in the Ninth Circuit.

I don't think -- I don't see a point in discussing

the legal issues here, but there are six points that

Dr. Macdonald is going to discuss with you today. I

know we have 50 minutes. We would also like to leave

time for you to ask questions of Dr. Macdonald, so

we're going to try to keep it to a half an hour.

In brief, his six points are -- they

relate to: (A) the creditability of the data that has

already been -- from the capsules that have already

been removed; (2) the inappropriateness of relying on

the so-called sister data from Palisades; (3) that the

extension of the ultrasound testing deadline was in

fact significant and has an adverse effect on the

NRC's ability to assess the condition of the pressure 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 16

vessel with respect to embrittlement; (4) that we

disagree with the PRB about the relevance of the

experience of the Belgian reactors; (5) the

possibility that hydrogen-caused embrittlement is a

factor affecting the integrity of the Diablo Canyon

pressure vessels; and then that Dr. Macdonald's own

calculations show that NRC and PG&E have not done an

adequate job of assessing embrittlement of the Unit 1

pressure vessel.

Therefore, we continue to advocate for the

immediate shutdown of the reactors and testing of the

samples from Capsule B.

With that, I will turn the discussion over

to Dr. Macdonald.

DR. MACDONALD: Good afternoon. My name

is Digby Macdonald. I was born and bred in New

Zealand, no nuclear reactors, and I came to the United

States after having worked at the Atomic Energy of

Canada Limited developing CANDU reactors. That was in

1977. I've held a variety of university positions at

Ohio State University, Penn State University, and

University of California at Berkeley from which I just

retired at the age of 80.

My involvement in nuclear energy has been

extensive for more than 50 years and it included the 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 17

development of the CANDU nuclear reactor and the

issues related to activity transport and mass

transport of those reactors. And then when I came to

the United States I concentrated a lot on describing

the electrochemistry of the coolant in the boiling

water reactor and in pressurized water reactors.

And I just want to make sure that

everybody understands that in a pressurized reactor

you have a pressure vessel of a ferritic steel that is

clad with a very thin layer, seven millimeters

approximately of stainless steel. And that's in

contact with an aqueous solution which contains a lot

of hydrogen, 35 CCs per kilogram added to the

pressurizer. And not only that, that hydrogen is

radialized by both the gamma radiation and the neutron

radiation, and in the case of PWR the alpha radiation

from the boron reaction with neutrons. And those

processes result in very high concentration of atomic

hydrogen.

Now hydrogen can enter the steel only in

the atomic form. And so under normal corrosion

conditions if you have a cathodic reaction that

produces what is called nascent hydrogen, that's

atomic hydrogen on the surface on the steel, part of

that hydrogen enters the surface of the steel and will 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 18

cause hydrogen-induced cracking and hydrogen

embrittlement. And this has been a major concern and

still is a major concern in the oil and gas industry,

for example. In that industry they call that sulfide

stress corrosion cracking, but it's all the same

phenomenon of hydrogen-induced cracking.

I've worked on the theory of hydrogen-

induced cracking and the data derived models that are

quite capable of accurately calculating crack growth

rate under subcritical conditions. That is when the

stress intensity is lower than the fracture toughness

of the steel.

In the normal nuclear energy field, which

is dominated by mechanical engineers that tend to

concentrate a lot on the fracture toughness of the

material, but cracks grow at sub-fracture subcritical

conditions with a stress intensity factor of about 11

K1c. And that should always be taken into account

because those cracks eventually become long cracks and

if they have sufficient loading, K1 will exceed K1c and

you'll get sudden failure.

But what I've done really is to introduce

electrochemistry into nuclear reactor materials

concerns, and for that I was nominated this year for

the Fermi Award. I haven't heard whether I won it or 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 19

not. I was nominated in 2011 for the Nobel Prize for

my development of the theory of passivity which

explains why we can use metals in contact with an

oxidizing environment. So I've taken a different tack

to describing phenomena that occur in nuclear reactors

and it seems to work very well.

I was retained by Mothers for Peace, San

Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace via Diane Curran to

provide some expert background on what was happening

in Diablo Canyon. And the literature is voluminous of

course and I must congratulate people such as Dr. Kirk

for the magnificent job that they've done in

describing fracture in these reactors.

I'd just like to add some additional

comments that I think should be considered. So let me

just pull up my -- so the first one relates to -- the

danger from Capsules S, Y and V were determined

credible by the NRC in 2006 license amendment

decisions and show that Unit 1 would approach or reach

an unsafe level of embrittlement at the end of the

current operating license term. And in fact that can

be found in Reg Guide 1.99, Revision 2. There's an

addendum to that revision written by Dr. Kirk which

lists the various reactors in the PWR fleet in the

United States and gives the values for the RTNDT, the 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

so-called reference temperature, in relationship to

the critical value of the RTPTS. And Diablo Canyon,

after the end of the 40-year operating period, is at

269 or so degrees, whereas the critical condition is

270 degrees.

Now let me say a word about these critical

conditions in the RTNDT. As shown by Easton,

Mitchell, and Odette in CF 6551, these quantities are

distributed quantities. In other words, if you had

somebody make measurement -- 100 measurements of each

at the same time, you'd get 100 different answers.

And if you were to plot those data, they would be

described by a normal distribution. Well, that is

what they claim. They don't actually demonstrate that

it's a normal distribution.

Anyhow, normal distribution is

characterized by a mean value, which is the average,

which is the value that's quoted in the literature and

in reports, and a standard deviation. And what is

missing from and puzzling me -- so what is missing

from all of this analysis is recognition that it's a

probability problem that is described by a standard

deviation in the mean. In fact two standard

deviations in two means, one for RTNDT and the other

for RTPTS. And so you can have RTNDT less than RTPTS, 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 21

but the wings of the normal distribution will overlap.

And where they overlap that determines the

probability of failure. Or the probability of an

unacceptable condition, let me put it that way. But

it will.

So I've just done the calculation. In

fact, finished this morning in the wee hours. And

what I find is that for a Diablo Canyon 1 look-alike,

where I took as much of the data as I could from

Diablo Canyon 1 -- but I had to guesstimate some data

because some data were not available. At least I

couldn't find it. If you use data up to 30 years, the

measurement of RTNDT every 10 years, then you would

project to come within -- you'd be less than RTPTS,

but the wings of the distributions would go to that

and you calculate that the so-called failure

probability is 0.22.

And how this would be interpreted is as

follows: If you have a weld that is 100 centimeters

long in about 22 centimeters of that weld the RTNDT

equals or exceeds the RTPTS. So even though the

average value of RTNDT is less than the average value

for RTPTS. So it's a question of probability. And

that's not unusual. That phenomenon occurs all the

time in natural systems and in corrosion and in 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 22

failure analysis and so forth. So I'm not introducing

any new concepts here. It's well-described

methodology in the literature. I just happened to

apply it to this particular problem.

So that's first, but there's some other

troubling things. When PG&E published the report on

the Capsule V, they declared all their data to be not

credible. And that allowed them to attempt to seek

further licensing via 10 CFR 50.61, I believe it is.

And so that's what they attempted to do. And what

they sought to do was to use data from a so-called

sister plant like Palisades.

But let me come back before I go onto the

Palisades issue and just point out that they declared

the data to be non-critical. Then in 2009, when they

wanted to get a 37-month extension, as Diane Curran

pointed out, the data became suddenly credible. Now

NRC had declared the data to be -- or deemed the data

to be credible in 2006, but I can find nothing that

PG&E did would have caused them to change their mind.

So this is somewhat troubling that an organization

would declare a set of data non-critical and then

later have it declared credible, want to use it argue

for a life extension. So that to me is somewhat

troubling personally.

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 23

But now let's go to the sister plant.

They chose Palisades. Now if you look in the document

by Dr. Kirk, the RG 1.99, Revision 2, table 4 -- or 3

-- table 3, I think it is -- where he lists all the

reactors that have -- and gives the RTNDT and RTPTSs,

the RTPTS of Diablo Canyon, as I said before, was 269

degrees, 1 degree less than the critical condition.

But Diablo Canyon -- I'm sorry, Palisades had a value

of 322 degrees Fahrenheit, well over 100 degrees over

the -- well almost 100 degrees over the limit, the

critical limit.

And so in terms of the existing

embrittlement, in my opinion Palisades is much more

embrittled than is Diablo Canyon. As you know,

Palisades was shut down. Then it was bought by Holtec

International and nobody seems to know what Holtec is

going to do with it, whether they want to restart it,

maybe get the pressure vessel a thermal anneal and

then restart it. Nobody seems to know at this point.

So it was --it's not a very good sister

plant. For example, the plants are of completely

different design. The Diablo Canyon plant is a

Westinghouse PWR on a four loop design, which has four

heat exchangers for the one reactor core, whereas

Palisades has only two. So they operate quite 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 24

differently. And if you look at the operating

histories, which we've done by digging up data from

the International Atomic Energy Agency and

International Energy Agency and various other sources,

Diablo Canyon has been run more as the baseload-type

plant, whereas Palisades' startup/shutdown history is

chaotic, to say the least. And they had many, many

shutdowns to zero power, whereas Diablo Canyon has --

tends to have shutdowns to zero power only during

refueling. So they're quite different in their

operating histories. In their energy availability

they're quite different. So I've put together a lot

of data to show that.

I had in fact intended to have some

slides, but I just didn't have the time from when I

stopped working on doing the calculations on the

probability of failure until this morning.

So we would argue that Palisades is in no

way a sister plant, but there's also something other

-- something else which is a bit troubling. The way I

read the regulations PG&E was supposed to first of all

deal with the outliers according to letter GL 9201.

And if there's a good excuse for excluding any of the

outliers, they would -- they were to quantify what

that excuse was. Well, this is a normal procedure in 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 25

science, by the way. And this was what the NRC was

insisting that they do. But we find no evidence that

they ever did that. Okay?

Now secondly, when they chose the sister

plant, they were supposed to make the case to NRC as

to why that plant was -- should be considered as a

sister plant, but we can't find an analysis of where

that was done. Now perhaps it was done and not

published publicly, which I would argue would be

improper, but it's certainly nothing that we can find.

I stand to be corrected if somebody knows where that

was published and done. I'd be more than happy to

have a look at it. But as things stand at the moment,

we're unable to find any case made by PG&E to NRC and

NRC's approval that Palisades should be considered a

sister plant of Diablo Canyon.

It's like the human race: I regard

Palisades perhaps at best as a (audio interference) or

a second cousin, but I don't consider it to be a twin.

And even if it was a twin, just as human twins have

the same genetic material, they grow up quite

differently and they lead quite different lives.

My wife for example is a twin and she

excelled and became a professor of nuclear physics in

France and then a professor of engineering science and 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 26

mechanics at Penn State University when we were there,

yet her sister did not excel in anything that she

tried. And so the operating experience, both in human

beings and in complex systems like nuclear reactors,

say that you have to be very careful in choosing what

you believe to be a sister plant, okay, because the

operating history essentially determines the

properties of the system. And the operating histories

of those two plants are quite different and therefore

they should not be regarded as being twins.

Now we believe that UT inspections, as

they were scheduled over 10 years and not carried

about by PG&E for 20 years, are very valuable

inspections to have because what they detect is the

formation of voids, fissures in the belt line region

due to embrittlement. So the embrittling process

itself involves knocking metal atoms out of their

normal atomic positions, and those metal atoms are

hot. That is, they have a lot of energy and they move

through the lattice like a bull in a china shop.

And they knock other atoms out of position

and so forth and you get a cascade of atoms produced

and you also --a cascade of vacancies. Now some of

these vacancies are annihilated by the atoms jumping

back into the vacancy to become an atom in a normal 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 27

atomic position from there being an institution. But

many of the vacancies will diffuse quite rapidly

through the lattice until they find a free surface.

And the free surface may be at some metallic

inclusion, for example, such as a manganese sulfide or

maybe an intermetallic compound, a nickel/copper or a

nickel/iron, or copper/iron, which by the way explains

a lot, the debilitating effect of copper and nickel in

welds.

Anyhow, they combine and they form voids.

And if these voids are platelet shaped, as they

usually are, they have a sharp edge at the periphery.

Like a flying saucer they have a sharp edge around

the periphery. And if they are then loaded with a

thermal stress or a load due to a thermal stress

resulting from a loss of coolant accident, for example

with cold water suddenly being pumped into the reactor

so that you get the pressurized thermal shock problem,

because once you've got pressure being applied, then

you can exceed 0K1sec, the stress intensity factor for

slow crack growth.

And these cracks will grow slowly and

their size, where the K1 equals K1c fracture toughness,

then the crack will grow unstable. In fact, it may

lead to failure and you get a characteristic bang, as 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 28

we all must have heard if you drop a glass on the

floor. And that is caused by the shockwave of a

fracture moving through the material. That is

significant fraction at the speed of sound. So

these events, these platelets form in a very

embrittled material, that is a material that is

approaching the RTPTS limit. And so it's very, very

important that we in fact are able to detect these.

Now I bring up the Belgian experience, what

Professor Walter Bogaerts at the University of Leuven

in Belgian -- he's an old friend of mine. He asked me

to team with him to look into the Doel 3 and Tihange 2

issue.

Now many of you may know that these

reactors were built -- the pressure vessels were

fabricated by a Dutch company, and I won't attempt to

pronounce the name, that has since gone out of

business. But the argument is that they forged the

ingots into the rings for the reactor pressure vessel

in a very humid environment. The moisture, HDO,

reacted with iron to give you hydrogen plus iron

oxide, and that hydrogen was retained by the steel.

And it diffused to where the manganese sulfide

inclusions had been smeared out by rolling the ingot

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along with smeared manganese sulfide inclusions.

And that is a characteristic form of

cracking, but it's also very characteristic of

hydrogen embrittlement. But nobody in Belgium, in

FANC, which is the equivalent of NRC -- they didn't

want to hear any of this. Okay? And neither did

Electrabel, the operator. They just didn't want to

hear. Not interested. Didn't want to hear.

But we did get the ultrasound examinations

and we found that not only the population of

indications increase with time, but also the maximum

size of the indications increase with time. To us

that meant growing cracks.

Now, they immediately responded to us by

saying, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Said the people are

using better UT examination. Now all of a sudden

they're finding more cracks. Well, maybe, but that --

they should be finding small cracks, not large or

larger cracks. Okay? Not large cracks that are

becoming even larger. They were characterized quite

well by previous examination.

So we wrote all this up and made our case.

They didn't even read it. Okay? They weren't

interested. They just wanted to produce electricity.

Well, they hired SCK CEN to carry out some 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 30

experiments for them and that's the Belgian National

Laboratory, if you like. And the Belgian National

Laboratory people contacted the reactor operator and

said, you know, there's something really funny about

this steel. And it seems that they found evidence

that what we had concluded was probably quite true.

But nobody published it. It was never put into a

report, certainly not the report that they ended up

with the NRC and was disseminated to reactor operators

in the United States.

So that was my experience. I don't see

anything that changed my experience with that, and

conclusions. In fact, I was in contact with Walter

Bogaerts just a few days ago just to make sure that

nothing had changed as far as he was concerned. He

said no, nothing has changed, but the experience that

you and I had with the Belgian reactors showed

different that there are active cracks growing.

And that's what you would expect when you

have hydrogen that is under radiolysis conditions and

separated from ferritic steel by a thin layer of

stainless steel. Hydrogen atoms go through stainless

steel. Okay? And so that needs to be done.

I've done a lot of work on modeling the

radiolysis of the coolants of PWRs and BWRs. In fact, 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 31

I finished about three years ago a DOE basic energy

sciences project where I calculated all the radiolitic

conditions in pressurized water reactors and boiling

water reactors. And so we know a lot about the

chemistry of these reactors, and also the

electrochemistry, which is the driver of cracks. And

we've been able to predict cracking in the stainless

steel -- in the sense of stainless steel components in

BWRs very accurately.

We've modeled something like seven or

eight operating nuclear reactors in great detail,

predicted where cracking occurred. And we were very

successful in predicting for example cracking in the

core barrel, in the welds, the upper welds in the core

barrel. (Audio interference.) And we also were very

successful in calculating crack growth rate and the

conditions for crack growth rate for alloy 600 and

cold work stainless steel bolts, alloy 182, and these

gave rise to --the cracking of 182 gave rise to the

Davis-Besse problem where there was leakage of coolant

into the annulus between the reactor head and the

control rod drive tube.

And as many of you know, that resulted in

corrosion of the pressure vessel. In fact there was

an 18-inch diameter hole where the coolant was being 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 32

held only by the stainless steel liner. Okay?

MS. RONEWICZ: Excuse me, Dr. Macdonald.

I don't want to interrupt at all. This is the

facilitator. I just want to give a gentle time

reminder that we're at 3:46 and I think you roughly

have about 10 minutes for questions. So I apologize

for interrupting.

DR. MACDONALD: Thank you. Okay. I'll

finish very quickly.

Okay. My calculations indicate that the

NRC and PG&E, in my opinion, have not done an adequate

job of addressing embrittlement. You can only monitor

embrittlement by making the appropriate measurements,

and that's the purpose of these surveillance programs.

And that reactor head started off with being

initially a five capsule program that got reduced to a

four capsule program. Then it became a three capsule

program and then it became a four capsule program with

the addition of Capsule B.

But they say they couldn't remove Capsule

B, which is held in by its own weight, or at least the

plug was held in by its own weight. There's no

corrosion occurring in this system that would result

in a thick oxide that would jam the plug in place. So

I'm at a loss as to why they couldn't take it out.

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And I've asked people has this problem ever occurred

elsewhere and nobody has been able to point it out

where it has. So we'll leave that one at that.

And so I believe that it's not so much

what has been done at Diablo Canyon that concerns me.

It's what hasn't been done. They did not follow the

regulations as they were written down. Now they would

appeal to get relief for a regulation and the NRC

would grant that appeal.

But people who run these reactors are

there to make money and things like surveillance

programs and regulations and so forth, they're often

viewed as getting in the way of the primary purpose,

which is to make money. But that is contrary to a

good safety strategy. And so, Lord forbid, we don't

need another accident in a nuclear reactor in the

United States because if it happens, you can kiss much

of the nuclear industry goodbye.

So I will end with that. And if you have

any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them.

MS. PELTON: Thank you, Dr. Macdonald.

So I'd like to thank you and Diane Curran

for your presentations and for taking the time to

raise your concerns.

Oh, go ahead, Diane.

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MS. CURRAN: Yes, hi. Thanks.

MS. PELTON: Sure.

MS. CURRAN: And thanks, Dr. Macdonald.

I just wanted to conclude with two things:

First of all, some --just a couple of really minor

clarifications of what Dr. Macdonald said.

I think he referred to PG&E asking in 2009

for a three-year extension. Just want to clarify it

was 2006.

And also Dr. Macdonald referred to a table

3 in Reg Guide 1.99. And it's the regulatory analysis

that accompanied that Reg Guide where you will find

that table. I just wanted to clarify that.

And then one more thing, which is that Dr.

Macdonald has been corresponding with the Diablo

Canyon Independent Safety Committee about his

concerns. That is an arm of the Public Utilities

Commission. And in the next few days we are going to

be sending them a report that will discuss some of the

things that he's discussed here and we will share it

with the PRB. Thank you.

MS. PELTON: Thank you very much.

So again, thank you, Diane, thank you, Dr.

Macdonald for your presentations and comments and for

taking the time to raise your concerns.

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The regulations in 10 CFR 2.206 provide an

opportunity for the public to petition the NRC to take

enforcement-related action, and the NRC understands

that this process takes time and a lot of energy and

resources by the Petitioners.

With that, I will turn it over to our

facilitator for the question and comment portion of

this meeting.

Lynn?

MS. RONEWICZ: Okay. We will now go to

the question portion. First, we will ask if the PRB

has any questions for the Petitioner, then the

Licensee, if they are present, and then we will go to

members of the public. I will call on you by name in

order of hands raised. Please remember to speak

loudly and clearly, stating your name first. And if

you are affiliated with any entity, please state the

entity.

I you dialed in by phone, please raise

your hand by pressing star-5. And then once called

on, press star-6 to un-mute yourself.

So at this time does the PRB have any

questions for the Petitioner?

And we have a hand raised. Okay. Yes,

Robert Budnitz, please go ahead.

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MR. BUDNITZ: Hold on. Hello. Can you

hear me?

MS. RONEWICZ: Yes, we can.

MR. BUDNITZ: My name is Robert Budnitz.

I'm one of the three members of the Diablo Canyon

Independent Safety Committee that was just mentioned

three minutes ago and I want to make sure just to tell

you that I'm one of the members. I have listened to

this presentation. We have -- four of our consultants

are also listening to this presentation, too, and

we're trying to take it in so as to be sure we have as

much technical information as we can get. As we

interact, we -- as Digby Macdonald said, we intend to

be interacting with them sometime fairly soon on the

technical issues. Thank you.

MS. RONEWICZ: Okay. Do the PRB members

have any questions for the Petitioner?

(No audible response.)

MS. RONEWICZ: Okay. If not, if the

Licensee is present, does the Licensee have any

questions for the PRB related to the issues raised in

the petition?

(No audible response.)

MS. RONEWICZ: Okay. Does the Petitioner

or Licensee have any questions about the 2.206 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 37

petition process?

(No audible response.)

MS. RONEWICZ: Okay. And lastly, before

we conclude the meeting members of the public may

provide feedback regarding the 2.206 petition process,

however, as stated in the opening the 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 if you have any

feedback or questions on the 2.206 process at this

time.

Okay. Yes, Kevin Kamps, please go ahead.

MR. KAMPS: Hello. Can you hear me?

MS. RONEWICZ: Yes.

MR. KAMPS: Okay. This is Kevin Kamps

with Beyond Nuclear and also Don't Waste Michigan, and

I just wanted to express our full support for the

efforts of Dr. Digby Macdonald and Diane Curran and

San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace.

We've been watchdogging the embrittlement

of the reactor pressure vessel issue at Palisades in

Michigan for many decades and we finally got the

Nuclear Regulatory Commission to admit in writing in

April of 2013 that Palisades was the worst embrittled 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 38

reactor in the country. Diablo Canyon Unit 1 was

among the top five and now the top four because one of

those, Indian Point Unit 3, has permanently closed

thankfully.

And this is a tremendous safety risk and

we fully support the efforts that went into this

emergency enforcement petition. And I'd like to

express my gratitude to all those who have worked so

hard to bring it forward. Thank you.

MS. RONEWICZ: Thank you, Kevin.

DR. MACDONALD: Thank you.

MS. RONEWICZ: Are there any other

questions?

(No audible response.)

MS. RONEWICZ: Okay. Well, we'll give it

about 30 seconds just to see. And in the meantime --

so feel free to raise your hand if you have question

on the 2.206 process.

I would like to ask though at this time

does the court reporter need any additional

information for the meeting transcript?

COURT REPORTER: No, thank you.

MS. RONEWICZ: Okay. And I'd also like to

point out while we're waiting to see if there are any

other questions or comments that we encourage the 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 39

participants outside the NRC to provide public meeting

feedback to the NRC staff via the NRC public meeting

web site. A link will be posted shortly after the

conclusion of this meeting.

So again, we're at five minutes to 4:00.

We do have a little time left. Are there any other

questions or comments?

(No audible response.)

MS. RONEWICZ: Well, it appears there are

not. So I believe we will go ahead and close out this

meeting and we appreciate everybody who joined.

DR. MACDONALD: Well, thank you very much

for giving me the opportunity.

MS. RONEWICZ: Thank you.

MS. PELTON: Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

MR. JORDAN: Thanks so much and great job,

facilitator.

MS. RONEWICZ: Thank you.

MS. PELTON: Thank you.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went

off the record at 3:56 p.m.)

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