ML20196A954

Notification of 981217 Meeting with Util in Rockville,Md to Discuss Util Plans & Activities Related to long-term Spent Fuel Storage at Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station

ML20196A954
Person / Time
Site:	Vermont Yankee
Issue date:	11/19/1998
From:	Croteau R NRC (Affiliation Not Assigned)
To:	Thomas C NRC (Affiliation Not Assigned)
References
NUDOCS 9811300203
Download: ML20196A954 (5)

Text

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MEMORANDUM TO: Cecil O.Thom:s, Direct :r Project Director:.t3 l-3

- Division cf Rector Projects - 1/11 '

' Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation' FROM: Richard P. Croteau, Project Manager .

Project Directorate 1-3 Division of Reactor Projects - 1/11 Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation

SUBJECT:

MEETING WiTH VERMONT YANKEE NUCLEAR POWER CORPORATION (VYNPC)

DATE & TIME: December 17,1998 10:00 a.m. .1:00 p.m.

LOCATION: 1).S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission One White Flint North

' 11555 Rockville Pike Rockville, Maryland Room 0-486 PURPOSE: To discuss VYNPC's plans and activities related to long-term spent fuel .

storage at Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station. The licensee has also been requested to addiess the attached questions.

PARTICIPANTS:* NBQ VYNPC G. Bagchl, NRR D. Leach, et al.

^j > G. Hubbard, NRR Y. Kim, NRR .

D. Jackson, NRR B. Thomas, NRR .

l R. Tadesse, NRR R. Croteau, NRR, et al.

Docket No. 50-271 .

Attachment:

Staff Questions

- cc w/ attach: See next page CONTACT: Richard P. Croteau, NRR (301) 415-1475 \ I l

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• Meetings between NRC technical staff and applicants or licensees are open for ir.terested i members of the public, petitioners, intervenors, or other parties to attend as observers pursuant to " Commission Policy Statement on Staff Meetings Open to the Public," 59 Federal Egj;t[1Let 48340, 9/20/94. '

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[ DOCUMENT NAME: G:\CROTEAU\meetNot.sfp '

! To' receive a copy of this document, indicate in the box: "C" = Copy without attachment / enclosure "E" = Copy with -

E attachment / enclosure "N" = No copy OFFICE PDi-3/PM - l PDI-3/LA 2, l(L PDb3/PD __ lM l NAME RCroteau #h TClarkth Cthent6 DATE ////1/98 // / /f/98. #/Ml/98 _ ==.:.::=,,.

l OFFICIAL RECORD COPY .

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9 Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station cc:

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Regional Administrator, Region 1 Jonathan M. Block, Esq.

l U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ,

Main Street J

, 475 Allendale Road P. O. Box 566 l King of Prussia, PA 19406 Putney, VT 05346-0566 Mr. David R. Lewis Mr. Raymond N. McCandless l Shaw, Pitte,s.7, Potts & Trowbridge Vermont Division of Occupational <

l 2300 N Street, N.W. and Radiological Health '

Washington, DC 20037-1128 Administration Building l Montpelier, VT 05602 l Mr. Richard P. Sedano, Commissioner Vermont Department of Public Servi;e Mr. Gautam Sen 120 State Street,3rd Fioor Licensing Manager l Montpelier, VT 05602 Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation Public Service doard 185 Old Ferry Road l State of Vermont Brattleboro, VT 05301 120 State Street Montpelier, VT 05602 Resideni;.epector , l l Vermont 'i ankee Nuclear Power Station Chairman, Board of Selectmen U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission l Town of Vemon P.O. Box 176 P.O. Box 116 Vemon, VT 05354 Vemon, VT 05354-0116 Mr. Peter LaPorte, Director l

Mr. Richard E. McCullough ATTN: James Muckerheide t Operating Experience Coordinator Massachusetts Emergency Management Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station Agency P.O. Box 157 400 Worcester Rd.

Govemor Hunt Road P.O. Box 1496 Vemon, VT 05354 Framingham, MA 01701-0317 G. Dana Bisbee, Esq. Mr. Gregory A. Maret Deputy Attomey General Director of Operations 33 Capitol Street Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp.

Concord, NH 03301-6937 185 Old Feny Road

_ Chief, Safety Unit

! Office of the Attomey General Mr. Michael J. Daley One Ashburton Place,19th Floor Trustee and Legislative Representative Boston, MA 02108 New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, Inc.

Ms. Deborah B. Katz Box 545

Box 83 Brattleboro, VT 05301 Shelbume Falls, MA 01370 4

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t DISTRIBUTION for Meetina Notice dr ted November 23, 1998 DISTRIBUTION:

, Si.;Docist Filej 3-PUBLIC PDI-3 r/f ,

OGC ACRS RCroteau Receptionist, OWFN & TWFN l E-Mail l

S. Collins /F. Miraglia (SJC1) (FJM)

J. Zwolinski(JAZ)

B. Boger (BAB2)

T. Martin (e-mail to SLM3)

G. Bagchi (GXB1)

G. Hubbard (GTH) -

R. Croteau (RXC2 T. Citrk (TLC 1)' )

OPA (e-mail to OPA)

C. Cowgill (CJC1)

B. McCabe (BCM) ,

i D. Screnci (DPS)

Y. Kim (YSK)

D. Jackson (DTJ)'

B. Thomas (RET) l R. Tadesse (RXT) l PMNS (Meeting Anntsuncement Coordinator) i a

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2 Staff Questions 1

4 A. Emergency Preparedness and Radiation Protection Branch 1.

Discuss how the increased numb'er of fuel assemblies stored in the Vermont Yankee Spent Fuel Pool (SFP) will affect the dose rates in adjacent accessible areas to the SFP including any areas below the SFP. State whether the increase in storage .

capacity in the Vermont Yankee SFP will necessitate any radiation zoning changes '

to any of the surrounding areas.

l 2. Provide a description of any sources of high radiation that may be in the Vermont J Yankee SFP during diving operations to install the new racks. Discuss what precautions (such as use of TV monitoring, tethers, etc.) will be used to ersure that the divers will maintain a safe distance from any high radiation sources in the SFP.

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3. Verify that all of the assumptions and design information used in the current Design Basis Accident (DBA) dose analyses for the fuel handling accident are unchanged by the' proposed increase in storage capacity.

B. Reactor Systems Branch

1. You state in Section 4.4.1 that CASMO-4 cannot be directly compared to critical experiments.

a) Please explain why not.

b) If CASMO-4 was not benchmarked, how was a calculational bias for CASMC-4 accounted for?

2. What neutron cross section sets were used with CASMO-4 and with MCNP-4A7 Are these the same ones used in the benchmarking of these codes?

3. You state that the spent fuel storage racks were analyzed for a maximum planar average enrichment assuming no credit for gadolinia. This implies that the fuel assembly is most reactive at beginining of life (fresh). As shown in Table 4.5.1, fresh fuel does not meet the 0.95 k-eff criterion for spent fuel rack storage. Since ywr calculations indicate that a k-inf of 1.33 in the cold core geometry is required for sie storage and a bumup of approximately 11,000 MWD /MTV is required to attain a k inf of 1.33, please discuss the following:

r a) Where would an emergency core offload of fuel that has not achieved 11,000 l MWD /MTU be stored?

b) Where is fresh fuel stored before being placed in the core?

4. The criticality analysis summary states that for unrestricted storage, the maximum j planar average enrichment must be less than or equal to 4.6 w/o U-235 and the k-inf 4

'in standard cold core geometry must be less than or equal to 1.33. Therefore, why isn't the enrichment limit of 4.6 w/o also included in the technical specifications?

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5. You conclude that the reactivity effect of the axially distributed bumup as compared to an average bumup obtained for PWRs is also applicable to BWRs. In view of the fact that PWRs operate unrodded whereas BWRs have some control rod insertion during operation, what is the basis for this conclusion?

6. Please explain why the enrichment uncertainty described in Section 4.5.2.5 is l

significantly less than the usual DOE enrichment uncertainty of +/ - 0.05 wt. %

U-235.

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