IA-87-694, Pages 165-179 of Transcript of D Ross to Natl State Liaison Officer 870909 Meeting Re Nuclear Power Plant Aging & Life Extension

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Pages 165-179 of Transcript of D Ross to Natl State Liaison Officer 870909 Meeting Re Nuclear Power Plant Aging & Life Extension
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u.s. d t , 0, . . ,, , j 165 qq, . (- 1 MR'. KAMMERER: While we're taking an extraordinary  ; 2 long time finding our. chairs, let me introduce a couple of 3- other_ people that are here with us from other offices. Joan 4 Aron is here. Joan, will you stand up and waive at your fellow 5 . Americans? Also from Congressional Affairs, there's ol' what's- _. 6 her name, Janet Gorn. You notice -- can you notice what's l 7 going on here in the last few introductions? We need to see .j l 8 more of them out here among you all. 9 Continuing on this afternoon, we're pleased to have 

                         'D enm3                                                                               i r 10       Ben Ross with us today.       We're going to discuss nuclear power                j
        -----       11      plantag/ingandlifeextension.             As we're gaining an f

12 experience with the operation of nuclear power plants, more and i 13 more interest in the extension of the original plant design (' i 14 life is being investigated. Utilities facing decisions of { 

         % 15               alternatives such as life extensions, decommissioning /

ak p 16 replacement parts, and reactiv/, or deferred, new fossil fueg-  ! ed 

   ~

3 17 plants. At the same time, incidents of crack 4:ng pipes and fi 18 steam generator degradation are being reported. Denwood Ross 19 will speak to us about the facts surrounding this topic, and as 20 whatever the discussion provokes. Dr. Ross? 21 DR. ROSS: I was listening to some of the earlier 

          --#       22      remarks on low-level waste and some of the problems,and that 23      reminded me that I took a trip last year to my home state in 24      Texas, out in West Texas near a little town of Pecos, and 25      talking to people out there, my Aunt was a county clerk and Heritage   Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 8710290412 871026                                                                         /

PDR FOIA CONNORB7-694 PDR fef pgs-

i 166 

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  . .h              1  knows a lot of people.   'I was. talking about my business, and 2  they don't know much about reactors out in Pecos, Reeves County 3  or Hudspeth County,-but they have read a little bit and heard a 4   little bit about waste disposal, and I sort of got the 5  impression that a.new term was going to be applied to hazardous             ;

6 waste, because the way some of the newspaper articles read, 7 they're less interested in Part 61 out there and they're more 8 interested in 30-30, which is what maybe some of the ranches 9 would be inclined'to use, hopefully on the state officials, 

         +       10    since nobody apparently has heard of the NRC, at least that far.

11 west. .o S I wish you good luck and hope you don't have too'many 12 problems along that line. 13 Well, as Carl said, I'm out to discuss the concept of 

    .( '

14 ageing and life extension, which is really the same problem. 15- Nominally, the NRC issues 40-year licenses, but there's nothing. 16 magic about a 40-year license, and as Carl mentioned, some 17 things wear out a whole lot faster than 40 years. In fact, 18 there's been wear-outs in reactors as early as four years. We 19 had problems with the piping and some boiling water reactor had 20 to replace the whole piping in less than ten years. Steam 21 generators had to be replaced. The reactor vessel, indeed, is 22 well-known to age wit time. And the moving components, pumps, 23 rotary components, electrical components -- of course, 24 naturally age. l 25 So this talk about life extension, the NRC is more 1 l Heritage Reporting Corporation ! (202) 628-4888 l L-___ __ _ _ __ _

m.- 1 1 t v;;, - + 167 l 4 h 1 . interested.inlageing and.we don't1impl3 .anything. magic to.the [( 2 Lterm,'"40 years." There.are'some' things th'at-have to be 3 replaced, renewed, well before 40_ years.. Our interest: Js 

                     -4. :safet'y. The utility'siend, of course, is economicLand safety.                                               !

5 That ageing affects generally everything~to do with i 6 the plant. We usually define things in1 structures-, systems and-7 compcnents, all'of which are known to age, and our interest, . ) 8 .then, would be to assure tuat there is a way to monitor for 9 . ageing effects, detect when we're monitoring, perhaps mitigate j 10 it through maintenance repair, replacement, or some renewal 11' ' project. As the plan gets older and older, new problems become 12 more numerous and becomes more'of a safety concern.  ; 13' Now, the nuclear industry has been active.over the 

                  ~14        last few years,-and how to develop a technical basis and a.                                                  1 15-      legal-licensing basis for plant life extension, which is more i           16      commonly, called, " license renewal."   Their interest in the                                                 ;

i 17 economic. area is quite large. There's been estimates that, if l i 

                 ' 18       you could extend the life of the 120 reactors by as much.as 20 19   . years, then the net benefit to the economy could be several 20       hundred billion dollars. And this would accrue because the 21      capital expense of the plant has been largely paid, and also

[ 22 the fuel charges are somewhat less at this time. And you could 23 defer replacement power to the future. 24 The industry programs have been joint programs 25 between the regulated industry, the electric research  ! { Reporting Corporation Heritage (202) 628-4888 3 

                                                                                                                                                             +

168- q 

  ,   h              IL     Ti nstitute",3and the Department of Energy.                                                                                  They[ formed-2       committees and'did pilot 1studies.on.the-Surry Plant and the.                                                                                         1
       .             3      .Montecello Plant -- one. pressurized water reactor.and-one a; i

4- boiling water reactor. They formed an industry. steering group. ' 1 ( 5; andLaet upispecialLcommittees to deal with the problems of l l 15 ' license renewal.' i 

                                                                                                                                                                                  'I 7                                                               Hand;in' hand,.some of the national code committees,                                           .

1

8. such~as the American' Society of Mechanical Engineers and the, i 9 .-IEEE,-have setfup special committees:to see to what extent; a

10 codes and standards need to be revised, to.take into account. 11- .the special effects'of ageing. q 12' There's a lot of' interest abroad on the problems of 13 ageing., Many of.the nuclear countries, such as Germany and 1 

               '14'         . France and others -- Japan.in particular, have-initiated.                                                                                             j l

15-~ programs for life extension and license renewal. 1 

         .      16                                                                   In the-last year"there has been some major 17'           conferences, in partic<ular, one sponsored by the International
                                                                  ~
               '18          . Atomic Energy Agency, in June.of this yeer, on the' safety                                                                                            j 19          _ aspects of power plant ageing.                                                                                   It was well-attended -- 34 20            countries and about 200 people discussing common problems.                                                                                     And 21             I expect that in the future there will be a much higher degree 22            of information-exchange and, indeed, policy, exchange, on the 23            question of license extension.

24; If you look at what the NRC is doing, we're trying to 25 do' both work in the technical area and in the policy area. On Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 l 

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                                   -__.______._-..-._____..-______..m..___________m.                -    . _ . _ _ . _ _ _ . _ _ . _ _ . _ . _

4, ~ q JL c' l 169 h :li theitechnic.11 side, we have a rather extensive, and indeed,- -( m , 

            ,                              2;                        . expensive,Lresearch program',.which we hope will develop 7the                     l
                                                                                                                   ~

l 3' technical basis for the action that the Commission must.take., , 

                                                                                                        ~

4- Then we:cancdivide.our research program, which' costs annually 5 '- lbetween $10-15 million, into three parts.. How do we' identify 6 " and characterize the ageing, efiscts; how can we identify. 

                                                                                                                                                      ~1
                                       ?7'                            methods for inepection and surveillance and monitoring for 8                         ageing; and how can we evaluate the' effectiveness of various                      l 1

purgation. practices, including ageing, that might occur during  ; 9 i 10 storage',. maintenance procedures,' repair procedures,.and 11 . eventually,. replacement practices. 

                                                                                                                                   ~

12 So our ageing research program, we first try to look' 

                                   .13~                               at, from a risk. basis, what are the key' structures, systems,                ,

j 

         'b                           14
                                                                                                                                 ~

and' components to' worry about; and, having identified these, i j 

                                    ~15                               what' engineering studies are needed to test-the natural or what i'

16 we call "in situ" equipment, or artificially aged equipment; i 17- -how can we. evaluate these inspection, surveillance and 18 monitoring programs, and eventually, when we go to execute , , 1 19 ' policy, what cost-benefit analyses-are required?' l 20 So we started a few years ago with a Phase One 21 process, which was to establish priorities -- which systems do 22 we need to worry about first, using risk as a measure? As we 23 went through this, we evaluated nuclear plant experience, which 24 systems, from the probabalistic risk assessments have shown to 25 be of risk importance; which systems tend to have higher I.. Heritage Reporting Corporation l (202) 628-4888 I (- l

y t' k: r V 170 ( 1 . failure rates;.and-how can we then, on that, select the'various 2l components or structures that we want to. monitor and study for i 

                                  '3  1 their ageing effects?'

4 Phase Two, then, is the main part of the program, 5 wnere we actually test either naturally or artificially aged 6 equipment, either in the laboratory or, in some cases, on-line , 7 in operating reactors. From these' tests, how can we develop 8 recommendations to inspect or monitor these techniques for 9 wear, or ageing and degradation? How can we verify.the concept 10 of residual lifetime, that is, so you can-replace or repair 11 something before it wears out? And what role does maintenance 12 have la all this? And when we complete our studies,then, we  ; 23 would issue technical reports on the various components or 14 systems, as to their expected lifetimes. 4 15 On the mechanical side, we've identified a' number of. , 16 components which would be obvious on a nuclear power plant, 17 such as pumps, operative relief valvas, some what we call-1 18 " passive' components, such as'ateam generators, compressors and 19 a snubbing device that's attached.to piping, and so on. 20 In the electrical field, the inverters, battery 21 chargers, relays, motors, transformers, connectors, and the 22 penetrations as it goes through a containment shell. 23 The systems include what we call the front line 

                              - 24            systems, the emergency core cooling system, the residual 25           removal system, auxiliary feedwater system, reactor protection

( i Waritage Reporting Corporation i (202) 628-4888 

   .______            ________1__._____ _ _ . _ _ _ _                                                                5

, . . I L 171' 

   ,b' IL   system.. And then-for these frent 11ne systems, you have L
(

2- support systems such as cooling. water and emergency' alternating 3 current power. l i 4 All'of'these'would be identified as having'.high )! 

                           .5  .importance to- risk, and would be interested in studies in. -           '}

6- . ageing and life extension for all'of these. 4 7 Now we have a Commission guidance that'was really in 8 two parts. The first guidance that the NRC Commissioners gave- l 9 us was that we should expect and anticipate requests for 10 license renewal, and therefore we should have advanced planning j 11 and analysis. And we should de.:velop all'the policy and h 12 criteria such that these could be processed in a reasonable 1 13 period of time. 14 The second point then, is we should develop the l 15 detailed guidance for licensing criteria, rules if we need 

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16 thma, meet with the industry and the public so that we could get whatever needs to be done accomplished on a timely basis. 

       ~

17 j 18 We have a schedule of events that will take place over the next 19- eight years and we hope it would build into it the opportunity i 20 for timely comment by the public along the way. 21 The schedule starts with the summer of this year 22 where we would send an information paper to the Commission 23 discussing the various options, the staff approach, and we'd 

                          -24    like to identify the options this fall in terms of relicensing           ,

25 or licensing renewal. There are some matters -- some questions 

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1 7 172 .; 1 of significant policy that we would have to pose. Next year we'  ; 

                              .2 'would propose a formal policy, hope that the Commission would          I 3 ' issue it for public comment,'would obtain comments and then in.       !

l 4 1989, assume'that we'd issue the policy in final form, and to 5 the extent regulations are needed, would start developing them. 6 These regulations would have as a technical basis the 7 research we just mentioned. It takes a few years,'two, three 8 years, for one to get final regulation that would show them a 9 1992 final regulations, followed by less prescriptive 10 regulatory guidelines, and perhaps a standard review plan such 11 that the NRC major effort will be through by 1995. 12 And this lines up with what we understand to be*the. 13 industry proposal. I know that.some utilities have a , 14 commercial decision that they must make in that time span, 15 because if the license is not renewed, and if you count 

                            -16   backward ten years to build some other kind of plant, and you 17   have to count backwards from there, you have to find a site            i 18   even for a fossil plant, and do all of the things one muet do 19   there, there's not much time left.      Some utilities will have to 20  be making these fundamental decisions between 1990 and 1995.

21 The major questions that we will be considering is, 22 if we do renew a license say, for 20 years, do we renew on a 23 criteria that the plant was built on, perhaps as early as 1965, 24 or do we modify it in some fashion according to rules more 25 current to 1995? do we need ruler.aking? And if so, on what (. Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 o

p , i l i '_ 173-h 1- topics? l 

                                                            '2       ,        And'if for pressurized water reactors, the~most 3   - notorious component with respect to ageing is'the re' actor
                                                             '4    vessel itself. Some  of the reactor vessels.made earlier.

5 metallurgically is not as good as some of the ones that'have 

                                                                                                                                               )

6 'been made later, and it may not.be feasible to run those 7 pressurized water reactor vessels 60 years. They can be .; 8- -renewed perhaps in. place, by what's known as annealing. But . 

                                                            -9     this has not ever been done in the power reactor industry and' 10      we have to answer.the technical question, "can'it be done;               j 11      should,it be.done; would we permit it; does it wc,rk;"     Now, 12      there is an extensive research program on part of that and we                i 1
                                                       .13         don't have the answers to that yet.                                         l 14                 The industry theme is, as we understand it from 15      interaction from the industry groups, is they believe that                  !

16- extending plant lifetime is just an on-going process of. renewal 17 of the' hardware of the plant and, if done on a. timely basis, 18 their position is, that 40 years is not a magic point either. ) 19 They maybe understandably and predictably are of the. point of 2 0 ~' view that there's no particular need for new rules to govern 21 plant license extension and we haven't yet shared their view. 22 It appears that most ageing phenomena you can manage 23 with the possible exception of the reactor vessel annealing, it 1 24 appears that there's no technical safety issue that's not 25 amenable to resolution. The work hasn't been done but it does 

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L I a l , 174 

                'I appear-feasible. And we have seen where steam generators had 1

!. '2 piping can be replaced; or some questions that are unsettled 3- yet, and in particular, we haven't gotten as optimistic yet on 4- the concrete structure. It probably can age; it probably can 5 be monitored',-but we haven't yet completed our work on, say, ) q 6 the major con -- building containment vessel, or how do we make l 7 a definitive position on ageing? We're still working on the 8 ageing of cast stainless steel, which ages not so much from 9 radiation but from thermal effects. There's some questions f 10 that need answering there. We're working on it; we don't have j 11 the answer today, but in general, there doesn't seem to be any  ; 

            .12    insurmountable obstacle to license renewal, but it'll take a 13    lot of work over the next years. Our research is contributing 14    some; industry has some similar efforts.

15 It appears that within five years we.should have 16 technical answers to the questions. .The NRC didn't accept the 17' burden as it's burden alone, although we do have a substantial 18 safety program. It will take a large commitment of any 19 industry resources for the rest of the research. They'll have 20 ta accumulate a lot of operating data and present a lot of 21 information on the effects of maintenance repair and 22 replacement. And it is the plant operator's responsibility for 23 continued safety of the plant, whether it's for 20, 30, 40, or 24 60 years. And in order to do this with or without license 25 extension, the utilities must understand ageing and degradation Heritage Reporting Corporation  ! (202) 628-4888 l 

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175 l (. . l' 'in all'the in all the'important systems, structures and ] 2 components, and then have to manage these offects in a j I 

               '3          responsible manner.                                                              !

4 - Okay, I'll cut it in half, Carl. 5 MR. KAMMERER: You're a great American! 6 Please, let's do some questions at this moment?- 7 MR. GODWIN: Godwin, Alabama. One of your licensees 8 in our state has been going through scrams rather. frequently  ; 9 and is approaching the magic design limit of 200 scrams over 10 the lifetime of his plant, although he has more tnan ten years 11 left on the license. Is that handled through this ageing 12 process? Is that one of them that you're going to be looking 13 at? Or is that -- 

       .i 14                      MR. ROSS:   Certainly, 1 expect that that utility is 15           not alone in this problem. They all have -- well, the average 16           trip rate are five or six per year times 40 years -- on the 17           average, they'll all hit 200.      Over the 40 year life. So I a

18 don't think that -- , 19 MR. GODWIN: These happened well before the 40 year 20 life. And you know, he's going to need relief perhaps as early l 21 as next year. And that's a little bit shorter than the five 22 years than you've been talking about and I'm just wondering how 1 23 you're going to deal with this, or what are we talking about? 24 MR. ROSS: I'm not an expert, but I understand that 25 when they hit the limit they would have to go back to the SME Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 _ __-______- ____-__ _ a

n'  ; 

                                                                                                                                           'I
           -,    l'. Code-and reanalyze it. .The utility, whenever a vessel exceeds
2. some limit traditionally we~ analyze- I don't-know'the answer 3 to that, but I-suspect ^thats certainly not limited to that 4' plant. .I'm'sorry, it's the best I can do.  ;

5 MR. TEDFORD: Chuck Tedford,. Arizona. I have to ask 6 you a couple of questions here.- But first I want to 7- congratulate you on your optimism on remaining aloof on the

8. low-level waste problem, but now I'd like to suck you back in
                                                                                                                                           .i 9     if I cculd?

i 10 Some of the questions that are being posed to us, and 11 I think that are going to be posed to you, is how much waste is  ; 12 expected to be an average' generation from a shut-down reactor - 13 - that is, specifically, there is concern for subsequent host 

       'l 14     states of how much volume we're really looking at,'and I guess 15     the basic question is,-what information do you have that you 16     can provide to us, typical volumes of low-level waste that
              '17      would be going into low-level waste sites fron shut-down 1

18 reactors? 19 MR. ROSS: Okay, we decommission. l l 20 MR. TEDFORD: We just sent our Commission within the 21 last few days a rather detailed -- and'I say " detailed," it's l 22 about a 200 page rulemaking package -- it's our final 23 decommissioning rule. It's more associated with how should we 24 regulate the utilities from the financial viewpoint to assure 25 that they got the funds for decommissioning? But part of that L ( Heritage Reporting Corporation l i (202) 628-4888 j L l

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                  .                                                                              1"/ 7

[ L1: , analysis'has in it the~ volumes thatlyou spoke'of.. I don't have _; 1 2- the numbers with me -- 3 R. ROSS Do we have any' feeling for~ order of. -{ magnitude? For react s.we say maybe:20,000 cu. ft. per year  ! S for a 1000 megawatt react r -- do you have any readings? 

            ;;          6                   .             don't have.the numbers here.       Let me
                      -7'   tell you what the problem is -- there's' three options that the 8'  utility would have according to the rule, and~one'of them is 9   they might'not do anything that aight generate a lot of low                   l 10    level' waste tor a long period of. time, say 50 years.         So.trying      l i

11 to annualize-it would be difficult if they choose the storage 12 option,-which is their option to choose, and they might not 13 . generate.very much at all, you know. They're certainly going L- , 

                    ' 14    to remove the fuel, but the major decommissioning could wait a.

15 long period of time. Now, we do have in our report -- I don't  ! 16 have it with me but I'd be glad to send it to you -- we do have 17' what we think are the interval volumes, that is, when the 18 decommission on a large facility is finished, what volumes do . 

                    - 19    we expect?     That I have. It's in our report. I just don't 20    have it with me.      But I can't annualize it because I don't know 21    what you depend on utility plants for.                                        !

22 -- _ p MR . ROS I'd like to give you hope that you're , 23 involved in a low lo -waste program, but you are -- and these 24 figures are going to e in vogue as we go along, so -- 25 R. TEDFORD In the research office we are involved i Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 , b c 

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178 J. [. 1- .in the" lower level. We-have a research program.in' low-level And'my 2- waste'of several'million dollars. We are involved. 3 office is' involved in various rulemaking efforts to assist'the 

                                                                                                                                     'l 4                  next: speaker, so I h. ope.he helps you out.-

l 5 But my office is involved in' low-level waste, and i 6 both in estimating decommissioning values end regulating f 7- decommission, as well as pro iding technica1' bases for low- l 8- level' waste. j 9 MR. St Let me assure you that the second' hole 10 sites, 30 years from now; 40 years from now; 60 years from now, 11 when you decide upon these decommissioning -- the criteria and 12 the. length of time, the volumes will be coming into these i 13 second hold sites,.and they're-very,very interested in a j , 1 

                                 .14                          political basis and viewpoint.

15 MR OR s, some of this material, we 

         '                                                    understand, is above Le el C.        Some of it's --

16 ( 17 MR. JKIS N n that goes to DOE and we won't 1 18 probably have to low-cyt -- 1 J l 19 MR. TEDp:WD 1ight, probably right. Right. j 20 MR. KAMMERER: 'One more question.  ; 21 MR. YOUNG: Carl, Frank Young from NRC. Chuck 22 Tedford asked for numbers. We have Pete Erickson from NRR 23 who's here who does have a pretty good memory for what those 24 numbers are.. I can also make a commitment to you to get to you ] 25 those specific numbers from that proposed rule just as soon as l l 

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l' theyfare'available. Denwood, I don't~think it's gone t to the 

                          '2       Commission just'yet;--                                                 j l

3- MR. TEDFORD: HNo, no. JBut the technical basis report j 4 from Pacific Northwest had the information and they're 5 publically available. i i 6 MR. YOUNG: Aha. We'111get that released to you both  ! l 7 directly and through the Waste Forum, but to specifically 8 . answer your question.right now very briefly, Pete Erickson can 9 give you those numbers.  ; 

                                                                                                          )
                       '10                   MR. ERICKSON:   Well, for immediate dismantlement,         j t

11 it's quite a large number. It's like 19,000 cubic meters. If ] 12' you. wait 50 years, that reduces by about a factor of ten, 13 according to the Battelle report, to 1,900 cubic yards -- cubic 

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14 meters. l 15 MR. KAMMERER . Okay, then we'll follow that up with , 16 the complete report. 17 MR. TEDFORD: Look, I have a better view for you, f 18 You've already condensed a lot of the information and this .q 4 19 Battelle report is three or four page public information that l i 20 we could give up to the public has these numbers in it and I 21 wouldn't take with a grain of salt some of these reductions to 1 22 30 years. But I'll send you a copy. 23 MR. ROSS: I'd like to have a copy. I think 24 lbritton ould too. f 25 MR. KAMMERER: Boy, this is fascinating. This is Heritage Reporting Corporation 1 (202) 628-4888 , l 

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