472nd Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards - May 11, 2000

                       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
                     NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
               ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS
                                  ***
                 MEETING:  472ND ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON
                          REACTOR SAFEGUARDS
     
                             U.S. NRC
                             Two White Flint North, Room T2-B3
                             11545 Rockville Pike
                             Rockville, MD
                             Thursday, May 11, 2000
               The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:30
     a.m.
     MEMBERS PRESENT:
          DANA A. POWERS, Chairman
          GEORGE APOSTOLAKIS, Vice-Chairman
          JOHN J. BARTON, Member
          MARIO V. BONACA, Member
          THOMAS S. KRESS, Member
          ROBERT L. SEALE, Member
          WILLIAM J. SHACK, Member
          JOHN D. SIEBER, Member
          ROBERT E. UHRIG, Member
          GRAHAM B. WALLIS, Member.                            C O N T E N T S
     ATTACHMENT                                              PAGE
     SCHEDULE AND OUTLINE FOR DISCUSSION                       3 
     OPENING STATEMENT                                         3 
     RISK-INFORMED TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS                    6 
     TSTF 358 - MISSED SURVEILLANCES                          13 
     INITIATIVE 2 - MISSED SURVEILLANCES                      13 
     POTENTIAL REVISIONS TO PTS SCREENING
     CRITERION                                                46 
     GUIDELINES FOR USING RISK INFORMATON REGULATORY
     DECISIONMAKING                                           132
     SRP DEVELOPMENT FOR T/H CODE REVIEWS                     203
     DRAFT REGULATORY GUIDE DG-1096                           204
     
     .                         P R O C E E D I N G S
                                                      [8:30 a.m.]
               DR. POWERS:  The meeting will come to order.  This
     is the first day of the 472nd meeting of the Advisory
     Committee on Reactor Safeguards.  At today's meeting, the
     committee will consider the following initiatives related to
     risk-informed technical specifications:  potential revisions
     to the pressurized thermal shock acceptance criteria;
     proposed revision to Regulatory Guide 1.174, an approach for
     using probabilistic risk assessment in risk-informed
     decisions on plant-specific changes to the licensing basis;
     proposed Regulatory Guide and Standard Review Plan sections
     associated with NRC code reviews; proposed ACRS reports -- I
     am anxious in our work on the reports to get through the
     three letters listed on the board today.
               This meeting is being conducted in accordance with
     provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.  Dr. John
     T. Larkins is the designated Federal official for the
     initial portion of the meeting.  We have received no written
     statements or requests for time to make oral statements for
     members of the public regarding today's session.  A
     transcript of portions of the meeting is being kept, and it
     is requested that speakers use one of the microphones;
     identify themselves and speak with sufficient clarity and
     volume so they can be readily heard.
               We begin with some items of current interest. 
     First, I will note that Dr. Kress and Professor Seale have
     been attending the CSUP meeting, and some members may want
     to interrogate them closely on any revelations concerning
     severe accidents that came from that meeting.
               Next, I wanted to acquaint members with some
     additions to our staff.  Joining our staff engineers is Meg
     Weston.  Meg has a B.S. degree in physics and 20 years of
     experience in the NRC.  She has recently been working with
     Sam Cullins.  We've looked at her impressive resume and
     maybe during one of the breaks, she'd even talk to me about
     the impressive recommendations she has.  In particular, she
     has experience in the area of electronics, and so, Bob, you
     may find her a very useful addition to your team working on
     digital electronics.
               Another addition is Jenny Gallo, in the operations
     support branch.  Jenny?  Jenny has a bachelor of science
     degree in sociology from Northeastern University.  She has
     promised me she is not using this time to develop research
     for a master's degree.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. POWERS:  She'll be working on budgetary
     activities, trying to keep us square with the law, right,
     Jenny?
               DR. SEALE:  Is she writing a tell-all book?
               [Laughter.]
               DR. POWERS:  Each of the members should have
     detailed resumes on these individuals.  I encourage you to
     introduce yourself to them, because they are part of our
     permanent team.  So welcome aboard to both of you.
               Do members have any comments they would care to
     make before we open the session today?
               [No response.]
               DR. POWERS:  Seeing none, then, we'll turn to our
     first item, which are initiatives related to risk-informed
     technical specifications, and Jack, I think you're going to
     start us on this subject.
               DR. SIEBER:  Yes, sir; thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
     Two weeks ago today, actually, there was a joint meeting of
     the subcommittees on reliability and probabilistic risk
     assessment and plant operations to discuss two of seven
     initiatives in risk-informing the topic of specifications. 
     Those two items or two initiatives were initiatives two and
     three, one of which involved missed technical surveillances
     and how those would be treated and also the mode preference
     for action statements when plant maneuvering is required
     because of LCOs.
               At the conclusion of the subcommittee meeting,
     individual members, of which seven of the 10 members of the
     full committee were there to provide their views and
     comments related to the reservations, and the staff is
     prepared to address the more important of those today that I
     think will help us all understand basically how these items
     will be resolved.
               So without further discussion, I'd like to
     introduce Mr. Robert Denning technical specifications branch
     of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulatory who will
     introduce the speakers and conduct this session.
               MR. DENNIG:  Thank you, Mr. Sieber.
               We're pleased to be back here again before the
     ACRS to discuss this important subject.  Today's
     presentation, the way we structured it, we're going to have
     Mr. Biff Bradley from NEI present the industry's
     presentation and discussion on initiatives two and three and
     any feedback they have on our last meeting, and the staff
     will follow.  And with me today from the staff is Scott
     Newberry, deputy director of my division; Rich Barrett,
     branch chief from probabilistic safety assessment branch;
     Mark Reinhart, who is a section chief in the probabilistic
     safety assessment branch and Nanette Gilles, who will also
     help make some presentations.
               Before I turn things over to Mr. Bradley, Scott or
     Rich, do you have anything that you'd like to say?
               [No response.]
               MR. DENNIG:  Okay; it looks like we can just go
     ahead and get into the presentation, Biff?
               DR. BRADLEY:  Thank you; I'm Biff Bradley of NEI. 
     I actually just found out I was going first, so I didn't
     have an opportunity to give you copies of my material, but I
     will pass it out as quickly as I can.   
               The industry views these initiatives on tech specs
     as a first step in an important evolution -- actually, the
     next step in an important evolution in plant configuration
     control, and this is a slide I used at the subcommittee
     meetings, but this is just a brief background of the history
     of how we've dealt with plant configuration, starting out
     with custom tech specs; moving on to standard tech specs;
     NUMARC 91-06, which provides control of shutdown outage
     maneuvering and improves standard tech specs which will come
     about and are widely adopted by the industry now over the
     last several years.
               And, of course, in the last couple of years, we've
     had some success finally with risk-informed applications on
     AOTs, and a fair number of those have actually made their
     way through the system in the last year or so.
               The next and important step is coming up in the
     fall of this year.  The Commission just approved issuance of
     the maintenance rule (a)(4) implementation guidance with
     180-day implementation period, so in around November of this
     year, the industry will have a new regulatory requirement
     for a risk-informed plant configuration control approach
     through 50.65(a)(4).  And one of the conditions that the
     staff has put on the reg guide that endorses the industry's
     guidance on (a)(4) is that you still have to meet your
     technical specifications.  So we're left now with both a
     tech spec and a maintenance rule (a)(4) provision
     controlling plant configuration.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Biff?
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  You have custom tech specs and
     standard tech specs?  Could you explain a little bit?
               DR. BRADLEY:  Sure; well, I think this really
     predates my involvement in the industry, but back in the
     early licensing days, plants pretty much -- every plant had
     their own unique tech specs, starting off with some very
     small tech specs for the early units, and there was an
     evolution -- and there really was no standardization.  Every
     plant -- I used to work at Plant Hatch back in the early
     eighties.  We had custom tech specs on unit one and standard
     tech specs on unit two; two identical units and, you know,
     one set of operators, so that made life interesting.
               But the standard tech specs evolved -- I think
     there was a recognition as more units got licensed that the
     tech specs ought to be standardized, so it started, I guess,
     in the early to mideighties, standard tech specs came about. 
     And then, the ITS improved standard tech specs came about as
     a result of a 50.36 revision that put the four criteria in
     and then allowed tech specs to be scoped accordingly to
     those four criteria, which actually resulted in some
     reduction in scoping.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But we still have custom tech
     specs.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes; there are some -- a fair number
     of plants -- a small number, I should say -- that still have
     custom tech specs.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But isn't this contrary to the
     risk-informed regulatory approach?  I mean, you have allowed
     outer -- and all of that, and these are specified for all
     plants without regard to how many diesels you have or, you
     know, other things?
               DR. BRADLEY:  I wouldn't say so much -- it is now
     contrary to the risk-informed approach.  I think at the time
     it was evolved, it was, you know, deterministic --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Sure.
               DR. BRADLEY:  -- and it was all we had at the
     time.  At the time the custom tech specs first came out,
     PRAs were just starting to be developed.  That is correct; I
     think maybe my second slide -- the scope and the process of
     (a)(4) is a risk-informed process.  I'm just getting at what
     you're talking about, looking at all of the equipment in the
     plant that may be out of service and looking at the risk
     impact.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So we are going back, then, to
     customized tech specs but through the risk route.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes; well, I'm not suggesting we go
     back to custom tech specs.  What we want to suggest is that
     these initiatives are the first step in a process that will
     bring the current tech specs into -- so that they are --
     comport with (a)(4), and there's no longer a potential to
     have a dichotomy between what (a)(4) tells you to do and
     what the tech specs might tell you to do.
               With (a)(4) becoming a requirement later this year
     and, of course, obviously, you still have to meet your tech
     specs, there is potential for a conflict and, you know,
     (a)(4), because of its risk-informed scope, it's looking at
     the conditions of much equipment that's not even covered by
     tech specs.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Another question that puzzles me
     a little bit:  a lot of these things depend on risk
     assessments, don't they, and risk information?
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes, yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And they will be mandatory,
     correct?
               DR. BRADLEY:  That is correct.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So why are we allowed to do this
     here, but when the staff wants to ask for risk information,
     immediately, we have legal problems?  What's the difference?
               DR. BRADLEY:  I don't think that when we get to
     that issue later this morning or this afternoon that we
     would necessarily suggest that there are significant legal
     problems with what the staff is proposing on the request for
     risk information.  That's my later presentation.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I understand.
               DR. BRADLEY:  I don't want to go into that now. 
     But I think, you know, that one of our first bullets, which
     you'll see later, is we agree that there are instances where
     the staff should look at risk issues even though you're
     meeting the deterministic licensing basis so --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes, but the thing that strikes
     me is that -- I mean, we are talking about another subject
     now, but the staff had to invoke issues of adequate
     protection to be allowed to ask for risk information there,
     and yet here, both the industry and the staff seem to be
     working together to develop regulations that are
     risk-informed.  So I'm trying to understand what the
     difference is.  Maybe we can discuss it later.
               DR. BRADLEY:  I guess my simplistic view of it is
     there is no conflict or difference in the approach we're
     suggesting.  There -- maybe we can talk about that in more
     detail when we get to --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Fine.
               DR. BRADLEY:  -- that consideration.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But I'm just interested in my --
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  -- questions.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes; we're not suggesting that the
     staff should not be raising those risk issues.  As we'll
     talk, we think there does need to be a clear definition of
     the threshold, and it may not be the same as some of the
     other thresholds we've been using in, say, Reg Guide 1.174,
     but I don't see a conflict there.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Okay.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Okay?
               You got me off track; I've got to refocus here.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. POWERS:  It's a plot.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. BRADLEY:  Very clever.  We are --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Nothing less is expected from
     us.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Of course.
               We are -- these two initiatives that we're going
     to discuss today really represent the first efforts, I
     think, to use risk insights and adjust principles and
     technical specifications that go beyond just AOTs, which is
     typically what we've looked at before, but when you look at
     tech specs, you have action requirements, mode change
     restrictions, issues like missed surveillances, 303, 304. 
     All of those are really amenable to risk-information, and
     really, all of those types of situations will have to be
     addressed through (a)(4), so what we're proposing to do
     today is to make the first step toward bringing the tech
     specs in (a)(4) such that they'll give you the same result. 
     And this is the first step in a lengthy process. 
     Ultimately, you know, we'd like to see the tech specs in
     (a)(4) be -- I don't know if they'll ever be equivalent but
     at least remove any conflicts.
               For instance, today, you may have a seven-day AOT
     in tech specs; (a)(4), because of other things you have out
     of service that may not even be covered in tech specs will
     tell you a four-day AOT is probably all you should do before
     you hit the risk thresholds.  That's the example of a
     conflict, and that's a regulatory requirement where you're
     pretty much going to have to meet (a)(4).  And then, of
     course, you're going to have the inverse, where the tech
     specs will allow you seven days, but in-force says you can
     keep the equipment out of service for much longer.
               And so, those are the kinds of conflicts that
     we're going to be working, and this is the first step to get
     there.
               We'll talk specifically about the first initiative
     on missed surveillances.  The requirement is that enter the
     LCO, which is typically a shut-down requirement.  If you've
     missed a surveillance, and it can't be performed within 24
     hours plus the existing AOT; what we're proposing is that
     the missed surveillance, when you discover that you've
     missed a surveillance, could be performed at the next
     reasonable opportunity up to the total surveillance
     interval, and to do that would require a risk evaluation.
               There was considerable discussion at the
     subcommittee meeting about the potential for mischief or
     misuse of this provision, and I wanted to reemphasize today
     that there is no intent whatsoever to establish a provision
     in tech specs that would allow surveillances to be willfully
     missed.  This is intended to address situations where you
     discover after the fact or the surveillance has been missed,
     and whereas tech specs right now would tell you to shut down
     and go through a plant transient, with the vast majority of
     the equipment in the plant, the risk impact of delaying a
     surveillance is dwarfed by the risk impact of a plant
     transient to shut it down and take it back up to power to
     perform a surveillance.
               Another thing I would mention is that the vast
     majority of surveillances in tech specs can be performed
     online, and really, this provision wouldn't even come into
     play, but there are some tech spec surveillances where you
     would have to change the plant condition in a containment,
     what have you, to make a surveillance, and those are the
     scope of things that would be impacted here.
               DR. POWERS:  Could you explain to me how I do a
     risk evaluation on a missed surveillance?
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes; I'll get to that in just a
     moment.  I guess I'll do that now and come back.  We've made
     some changes to the -- we're in the process of making some
     changes to this tech spec on the TSTF 3.58, which is
     initiative two as a result of some of the discussions we had
     with the subcommittee as well as the meeting we had with the
     staff and industry several weeks ago, and the way that you
     would do what you're asking, Dr. Powers, is that basically,
     the missed surveillance is like any other emergent condition
     that can be treated under 50.65(a)(4).
               50.65(a)(4) provides most of the foundation that
     you need to address this issue, and it contains provisions
     on temporary and aggregate risk guidelines; that is, as well
     as the risk management actions that you could consider based
     on the result of that risk evaluation and the temporary and
     aggregate impacts and also contains a discussion of how you
     control additional emergent work that's going -- that may
     emerge once you've performed the assessment.  Now, how do
     you actually do the risk evaluation?
               It's fairly simple for a missed surveillance.  You
     can screen using RAW basically on the assumption that the
     equipment is available, and for a large amount of the
     equipment in the plant with this type of screen, you would
     still be able to demonstrate a relatively small risk impact,
     generally within the guidelines of Reg Guide 1.182, which is
     the (a)(4) guidance on a temporary CDP and LERF.
               DR. POWERS:  So I go in, and I say I want to do
     this and this for surveillance, and I go to the RAW value. 
     And I make my decision based on that.
               DR. BRADLEY:  You could make the decision based on
     the RAW value.  It's a screen; I mean, clearly, in most
     cases, missing a surveillance isn't equivalent to having the
     equipment unavailable, but there's a simplified approach for
     it, and for the plants that are implementing this in, like
     Southern Cal Edison which would look at this and run the PRA
     models, for most of their components and tech specs, they
     can just use a RAW approach.
               And the way this would work is if you would have
     to make the assumption that that equipment is unavailable
     and roll that into your (a)(4) program, okay?  So, from now
     on, all the plant configuration evolutions you're
     undertaking would be with the assumption that that equipment
     is unavailable, and then, you'd have to factor in the impact
     of everything else you may be taking out of service.  So if
     you're going to take out the other train of that safety
     function, it probably would change that plan.
               Now, if you want to go beyond the screening
     approach and do something that uses the model -- maybe
     you've failed the screen, but you still believe that the
     condition is not significant, then, you can adjust the
     failure rate in the PRA based on the fact that you've missed
     the surveillance and run the modeling and get a --
               DR. POWERS:  I guess what I'm interested in is if
     you screen something out, and there have been any
     precipitous surveillances that have been missed are going to
     be ones that are really going to have really little impact.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Right; that is correct.
               DR. POWERS:  And you're going to say, okay, I
     missed this thing, and based on my PRA, what confidence
     level do you have to have on this?
               DR. BRADLEY:  You mean quantitatively, what
     confidence level?
               DR. POWERS:  No, I'm looking, you know, am I 99
     percent certain that it's below this screening criteria?  Or
     am I 50 percent certain?  With that kind of quantitative
     accuracy.
               DR. BRADLEY:  I guess -- and I can't really answer
     that question.  We generally view this for the vast majority
     of surveillances you can miss as a fairly simple risk
     assessment.
               DR. POWERS:  What you're saying is that -- I think
     what you're saying --
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes.
               DR. POWERS:  -- is that most of these
     surveillances are going to have such a low -- that it's
     going to be able to say it doesn't matter squat.
               DR. KRESS:  It raises another question, which is
     why are they in a surveillance program in the first place.
               DR. POWERS:  Of course.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes, and that's why initiative five
     of this effort, which we will I am sure be discussing at
     some point later this year looks at optimizing the
     surveillances that are in there now.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Is it possible that if this is
     allowed, at some point, there will be a de facto extension
     of the interval between surveillances?  In other words, you
     know, for components whose RAW is very low, or the failure
     rate changes do not affect anything?
               DR. BRADLEY:  That is not the intent.  Whether
     it's possible or not, I guess, is a theoretical question,
     but I don't believe that would be the case because of the --
     and that is that de facto, making this a de facto mechanism
     for surveillances would result in routinely missing
     surveillances, and as I mentioned earlier, that's not the
     intent.
               I think when we move to initiative five and look
     at optimizing intervals as well as the actual tests
     themselves, that is the mechanism for a, you know, de facto
     permanent kind of change to the approach, and that's not
     what we're trying to do here.  This is just an initial step
     in that direction.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Is the number of missed
     surveillances part of the new oversight program?
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes; the corrective action program
     will track that, and the corrective action program is one of
     the major elements of the new oversight process, and if you
     miss a surveillance, you would be under the CAP program.  I
     think that is an important element of what we're proposing
     to do here.
               Personally, I don't think that this change would
     cause any increase in the number of missed surveillances. 
     It's just to allow us to have a smarter approach when we do
     discover that we've missed one.
               DR. KRESS:  When you miss a surveillance and go
     ahead with operation to the next surveillance, you've
     essentially handed what I would call a temporary spike to
     the baseline risk, and this committee has advocated in the
     past that there should be some sort of criteria on the spike
     that's allowed and with how to deal with some interval over
     time.
               Are you advocating some sort of criteria on this?
               DR. BRADLEY:  Essentially, the answer to that is
     yes.  As I mentioned, the way this would work, it would be
     rolled into your (a)(4) program, and as you remember from
     reviewing the (a)(4) guidance, we have guidelines in (a)(4)
     on the spike, and that's a 10-3 CDF.  We have guidance on
     the CDP, which is a 10-6.  And then, we have guidance -- we
     don't have quantitative guidance, but there's a discussion
     in there of the need to track and control the aggregate risk
     impact and look at this in light of where you've been
     previously.
               So I think the answer to your question is yes. 
     That's one of the reasons we advocate directly referencing
     1.182 in this change.
               DR. KRESS:  So there is a -- existing now in the
     rules, there is a spike criterion, in essence.  Do you know
     what the technical basis for that is, or would you explain
     it to us?
               DR. BRADLEY:  Well, as you know, that's a subject
     that's been discussed at great length for a number of years,
     and what we used was out of the EPRI PSA applications
     guideline, and that's the best -- we picked the best number
     that we knew based on all of the information that we had,
     and the applications guideline, I think, is what we chose,
     because that's the best information we have.  Beyond that,
     it's pragmatic in that it allows you to -- it's typically
     equivalent to taking something like a diesel generator out
     for several days.  I mean, that's typically what's going to
     give you that kind of CDP.  So it's sort of a bounding thing
     for the single most significant component in the plant. 
     That's, you know, a loose technical basis for it.
               Yes?
               DR. SIEBER:  A quick question that's two slides
     back, the second bullet, where it says change failure rates
     to address missed surveillance.  Assuming that the item that
     was to have been surveilled is actually in your PSA, which I
     think a lot are not --
               DR. BRADLEY:  Right.
               DR. SIEBER:  -- how are you going to change the
     failure rates?
               DR. BRADLEY:  If it's not in the PSA?
               DR. SIEBER:  If it is in the PSA.  If it's not --
               DR. BRADLEY:  Right.
               DR. SIEBER:  -- there's probably no raw value.
               DR. BRADLEY:  We are not prescriptive in the tech
     spec itself about how you would do that.  I think that would
     be a function of the specific component and the surveillance
     and what you know about its history.  Some components -- for
     instance, you have a raw water system or something where,
     you know, there is a degradation over time, you have to take
     those things into account.  But we're not -- there is no
     single number that we're proposing.  I think typically, you
     might double the failure rate, you know.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Actually, I'm not sure that you
     should do that.  I mean, you would take the unavailability
     that's calculated using the standard interval between
     surveillances, and if you missed one, then, you'd double
     that.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Right.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But the failure rate really
     shouldn't change.
               DR. SIEBER:  Well, it's not clear to me that
     that's the correct solution either, but having it as sort of
     an ad hoc thing where, well, you have to consider this, and
     you have to consider that, and to me, that seems a really
     vague technical basis for doing that.  On the other hand,
     the decision as to how long you can go or whether you should
     shut down or take some other action because of the missed
     surveillance depends on the robustness of how you treat this
     issue, and it just seems to me that, you know, it's not
     there right now.
               DR. KRESS:  I think George is right, though.  To
     try to develop some sort of correlation for the missed
     surveillance versus the change in reliability just is not
     going to be able to do that.  So you just work on the
     surveillance time, and whatever the change in the
     surveillance time, you put that into your thing.  I think
     that's the only practical way you could approach it.  But
     that would tend to make it -- that would tend to make it a
     very small impact, though.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  All of these impacts, I think,
     are very small.
               DR. SIEBER:  Yes, well, there are some pieces of
     equipment that at least in my experience that have sort of a
     lifetime to them, you know, a piece of rotating equipment is
     going to perform its function for a certain period of time,
     and during that time, it's wearing out; things are happening
     to it, and the longer you run it, the higher the likelihood
     probably on an exponential basis is that it's going to
     ill-perform properly or fail altogether.
               DR. KRESS:  Well, that concept is not built into
     PRAs.  It would be nice to have that.  George is working on
     that.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Well, although this is not
     aging, because you talk about shorter time scales, but in
     general, the failure rate in the PRA -- in fact, not in
     general; 100 percent of the time is assumed to be constant.
               DR. SIEBER:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So this particular phenomenon is
     not modeled.  So these components would have to be treated
     separately if indeed you have this increase in the failure
     rate.
               DR. BRADLEY:  And that's the same comment I was
     making about a raw water system where you may be getting,
     you know, like a heat exchanger, where you may, over time,
     have clogging or whatever.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. BRADLEY:  And the same thing is true of
     rotating equipment, where if you know there's a degradation
     that's going to increase with time, you have to -- you know,
     you have to take that into account.
               DR. SIEBER:  Well, it seems to me that this is
     sort of a weakness, in my view.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Maybe those equipment, Jack,
     should be identified in advance.
               DR. SEALE:  You know, it's one thing to use a
     constant failure rate when you have fairly well documented
     defense-in-depth in a wide number of areas to protect you. 
     On the other hand, when you start taking things out of
     service, you don't have all of those defense-in-depth things
     and so on, and, you know, we all know that light rub curves
     exist, and those aren't constant failure rates either.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  No, but, you know, very often,
     in fact, if the failure rate exhibits an increasing
     behavior, the constant value we use is sort of an upper
     bound.
               DR. KRESS:  It's an average.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  It could be an average; it could
     be a slight --
               DR. SEALE:  It could be an upper bound.
               DR. KRESS:  So it's accounting for it, basically
     from the database.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes so --
               DR. SEALE:  If it were an upper bound, that might
     be appropriate in the case of equipment out of service,
     whereas, the average may be more appropriate if you're
     talking about, you know --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I think we're getting into a
     detail now that -- other questions that --
               DR. SEALE:  What kind of details that this kind of
     question may bring up.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  You really have to understand
     how the particular failure rate of that component was
     calculated, and I think that in the vast majority of cases,
     it's a conservative bound, because you go with the
     statistics of failures and so on.
               DR. KRESS:  Well, of course, if he uses the RAW,
     why, that's conservative enough.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  The RAW is overly conservative. 
     Maybe for those distinct components, they should not be
     allowed to do the second bullet; maybe they could do just
     the first for some of these components if indeed there is
     evidence that if you miss one surveillance, things get much
     worse.
               DR. BRADLEY:  And don't forget that you're still
     under the other provisions of the maintenance rule to
     balance availability and reliability and take corrective
     action if the performance of the equipment is outside your
     goals that you set through the maintenance rule, the other
     elements of the maintenance rule.
               Are there any other questions on the missed
     surveillance?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Just a note that I really think
     what is happening now is something that PRA guides, you
     know, have been expecting for a long time.  The actual
     applications now are forcing us to go back and look at the
     assumptions behind the individual calculations in the PRA,
     so this is the most useful feedback.  Because up until now,
     if you told anyone that you would do something to the
     failure rates, it's good enough; what we're doing is good
     enough.  But now that we have this kind of feedback, you may
     go back and really examine those.
               DR. BONACA:  I have a question to do with -- until
     now, when you missed the surveillance in the tech spec, you
     declared equipment inoperable, and so, this proposal has an
     effect also on the definition of repairability at large; I
     mean, how does it apply to other definitions of
     repairability within the licensing domain?  And maybe that's
     a question I should ask of the staff as it relates to other
     equipment or other actions, not to do necessarily with
     surveillances.
               Here, we have a risk basis to say that the
     equipment is not any more inoperable.  It will be operable
     until the next surveillance.
               DR. KRESS:  Same principle applies to appendix J
     on the leak rate testing and containment.  When you --
               DR. BONACA:  I just would like to hear from the
     staff maybe during the presentation that they're having, you
     know, this has implications that go beyond the tech specs as
     a principle.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes, and that's a good point, and as
     we move more and more toward a risk-informed configuration
     control approach, the conflict between the definition of
     operability versus, say, functionality or availability
     becomes complicated, and that's another of our initiatives
     that -- I think that's number seven, and the current
     definition of operability basically states that you've met
     your surveillances.  I guess the way I would interpret that
     is that through this provision, you can continue to assume
     that you've met that as long as you've done the risk
     evaluation and, you know, will take the appropriate actions.
               DR. BONACA:  But we're still talking about within
     the confines of the tech specs.  I can think of -- you
     discover that a pump doesn't meet some code requirements,
     but it is fully functional.  I mean, you know, until now,
     you called it inoperable, because it did not meet the code
     requirements.  Now, this is a true precedent for saying that
     the system should be called operable if, in fact, it's
     possible.  It would be important, maybe, that the staff will
     tell us a little bit if they are viewing this as a
     redirection for the whole concept of operability.
               DR. REINHART:  This is Mark Reinhart in the
     probabilistic safety assessment branch.  We will address
     that point, and really, I think you've hit it:  it's a
     matter of degree and how that degree is evaluated and
     addressed, but we'll talk about that.
               DR. BONACA:  Again, I'm not against it.  I'm just
     looking at this as a precedent that will affect the whole
     definition of operability.
               DR. REINHART:  We agree, and that -- like this, at
     issue number seven, which is a separate issue from what
     we're really focusing on today really, ultimately gets to
     the heart of that issue, and I think that's important.
               DR. BONACA:  But that's only tech specs. 
     Operability goes much beyond --
               DR. REINHART:  Agree, agree.
               DR. BONACA:  -- tech specs, and it seems to me
     that a lot of events that we've had in the past where we had
     LERs ended up with equipment inoperable and were
     characterized by there wasn't a piece of equipment
     functioning at a plant are going to change.
               DR. REINHART:  When you get into tech specs, that
     definition becomes more legal.
               DR. BONACA:  Oh, yes, I understand.
               DR. REINHART:  Where a piece of equipment that's
     not in tech specs, you can, in an outside the tech spec
     definition say does this work good enough to satisfy its
     intended safety function?
               DR. BRADLEY:  And there are other instances where
     their (a)(4), for instance, will allow you to make a
     temporary plant alteration to support a maintenance
     activity.  That might involve something like removal of a
     barrier or opening a door.  And (a)(4) will allow you, for
     up to 90 days, to control that under (a)(4) versus 50.59. 
     However, you're still presented with a conflict with tech
     specs, because with that barrier off, the equipment is not
     technically operable, so if that's a tech spec piece of
     equipment, those kinds of conflicts arise.
               Any other questions on the missed surveillance
     issue?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  How many can they miss in a row
     for a particular component?  I mean, is it just a random
     thing, we missed one, or can they miss three of them?
               DR. BRADLEY:  I would certainly -- some of the
     tech spec branch here may have more of a history of this,
     but, you know, my view is that missing more than one in a
     row would be -- I mean, giving that missing any surveillance
     is a fairly unusual event, missing two in a row or more than
     one in a row would be very, very unusual.  There's no
     specific limit, but again, you know, the intent here is not
     to -- remember, you're going to have your corrective action
     program.  I assume if you miss the same surveillance twice,
     you would get hammered pretty hard in the CAP for that,
     because you've failed to correct it the first time around.
               So I view that as a very unlikely situation.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Do we what the causes for
     missing surveillances are?
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes; I think the staff has spoken to
     some of those before.  You may have procedure changes that
     may change a surveillance, or you may have missed some
     portion of a surveillance, not completed it.  I don't know
     if there are others that you guys are familiar with.
               DR. REINHART:  This is Mark Reinhart again.  I
     think I would address -- our expectation is the proposal is
     going to be for just one.  If you miss the surveillance,
     then, we get into this process, and there's not a provision
     to miss it again.
               DR. BONACA:  But what about to miss another
     surveillance?
               DR. REINHART:  Okay; another surveillance is, you
     know, a separate situation.  But say we miss surveillance SR
     whatever it is on pump X.  That same SR, there's not a
     provision to the next time say, oops, I missed it.  No way;
     the focus on that has to be so great that we achieve it.
               Now, if you have valve Q over here, that's a
     separate issue, but I think what the industry has presented
     to us, their survey of data is that missed surveillances
     are, is it fair to say, extremely rare?
               DR. BRADLEY:  I think there were 10 NOEDs in the
     last 5 years.  I think that's some data like that.
               DR. BONACA:  Yes, but that's because in the past
     you got hammered if you missed it.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes.
               DR. BONACA:  In the future, you won't.  So, you
     know, I'm only pointing out that if you go in an outage,
     oftentimes, surveillances are in critical path.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Right.
               DR. BONACA:  And if you get pressure to restart,
     you say oops, you know, so, we have one.  And I'm only
     saying that technically, there should be a monitoring of the
     part of how this rate is going to increase, because the past
     is not going to reflect --
               DR. BRADLEY:  If you're talking about a willful
     violation, you know, that's something that --
               DR. BONACA:  No, no, I'm not talking about
     willful; I'm only talking about conditions that at times are
     plenty legitimate, and they are conditions under which you
     may discover that you have the surveillance done may delay a
     restart, for example, by a significant time, and there are
     -- and it may not be the best decision, in fact, and now,
     you have an opportunity for saying it doesn't make sense,
     and the staff may agree with you.  In fact, it may make
     sense in that particular case to put it off.
               DR. BRADLEY:  I think what would happen in today's
     world is you would go in for an NOED enforcement discretion.
               DR. BONACA:  Yes.
               DR. BRADLEY:  And with a good case, a good risk
     case, it would probably be granted.  So the net effect is no
     different; it's just that the process is built in.
               DR. BONACA:  I agree with you.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes.
               DR. BONACA:  I'm only saying that -- I was talking
     more in terms of oversight and --
               DR. BRADLEY:  Right.
               DR. BONACA:  -- you know, I mean, there could be
     almost a certain post-PI on the part of any plant to see how
     you perform on this.
               DR. BRADLEY:  And the correct -- I know the
     corrective action program is a key element of the new
     oversight process, and I believe that the disincentive to do
     this remains strong.  It's just a different disincentive. 
     It's not you're going to shut the plant down.  It's you're
     going to get hit on the corrective action program element.
               DR. REINHART:  This is Mark Reinhart again.  We're
     well aware that the oversight program has to mesh with this
     program and be aware of the kind of potentials you're
     talking about and pick up on them, but clearly, the intent
     is not that a licensee would use this as a convenience to
     extend or shorten an outage or extend some frequency just
     because they need to start up.
               DR. SIEBER:  I would doubt that that condition
     would exist in any plant where people would intentionally
     miss surveillances to pressure start-up.
               MR. MARKLEY:  But, Jack, I don't think they'd miss
     surveillances, but I don't think they'd hesitate to use this
     at all every startup, every outage if they needed to.
               DR. SIEBER:  If they missed a surveillance, and it
     would mean going back, changing a plant condition to go back
     to pick it up, I imagine that if it was a legitimate miss
     that they would use this mechanism.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes.
               DR. SIEBER:  And that's what it's intended to do.
               DR. BRADLEY:  That is correct; that is correct.
               DR. SEALE:  And you tell me that these events are
     so rare that there's really no reason to make any provision
     for what you would do if you had two of these independent,
     now, in the bank at one time.
               DR. BRADLEY:  I don't believe there is a need to
     do that; that is correct.
               DR. SIEBER:  It would be a rare situation to have
     two at one time in any given year in one plant.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes.
               DR. SIEBER:  Okay.
               DR. BONACA:  I can see outages in the middle of
     the summer where, you know, you have the great strain where
     it doesn't make any sense to stay down for a day and a half
     because you have to complete the surveillance, and you would
     go back for --
               DR. SIEBER:  NOED.
               DR. BONACA:  -- for discretion --
               DR. SIEBER:  Right.
               DR. BONACA:  -- today.  But for a utility to do
     that, it's actually one event; that they don't do it again
     for two years maybe.  You know, if you have this, it's going
     to be more.  I mean, I think monitoring is an important
     thing; just monitoring that this is not the grading fact,
     the past good performance that is supporting, you know,
     going in this direction so --
               DR. REINHART:  This is Mark Reinhart again.  A
     thought on the missing two surveillances, again, that that
     would be picked up in the risk assessment.  I mean, it
     wouldn't be missed.  Another point is when we were
     developing the improved standard tech specs, we tried to
     think of a lot of what if scenarios early on but did
     conclude that the bookkeeping associated with trying to
     track such rare situations would be more burdensome than
     keeping our eye on the risk-significant aspects of operating
     the plant.
               DR. POWERS:  Okay.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Okay; well, last call on the missed
     surveillances?
               [Laughter.]
               DR. BRADLEY:  All right; I want to talk a little
     bit about the initiative three, and that's on mode change
     restraints.  I don't have as many slides on this one.  Let
     me just talk about it a little bit.  The existing tech spec
     3.0.4 in the standard tech specs precludes making plant mode
     changes up in mode when you are in an LCO that would be
     applicable or when you have a piece of equipment whose LCO
     would be applicable in the mode that you are preparing to
     enter.
               Currently, a large number of those 3.0.4 -- there
     are 3.0.4 exceptions provided in the standard tech specs for
     a fair number of the systems and components in tech specs
     right now.  Those 3.0.4 exceptions have evolved over time
     and are not what I would call risk-informed exceptions. 
     They may be qualitative or obvious types of issues where
     it's clear that the -- going up in mode that this particular
     component would not have an impact.  And what we're
     proposing to do with initiative three is to essentially make
     the 3.0.4 exception a risk-informed process rather than what
     we have now, which is just a mixed bag of exceptions in the
     tech specs.
               This one involves -- what it basically would allow
     you to do is to -- is require each -- the way this would
     work is that each owners' group will have to develop a
     model, a transition risk study that will look at the impact
     of various components as a function of plant mode and
     various initiators that you could have in those modes and
     what are the accident sequences that are important and what
     areas of those components contribute to.
               And this has been done for one of the four owners'
     groups already, CE.  What that showed for their line of
     plants was that there were about four systems in the plant
     that would generally require a more rigorous risk evaluation
     before you could remove the mode change, existing mode
     change constraints.  However, for the remainder of the
     systems in the plant, they were basically able to show
     generically through this CE model that the impact was very
     small.
               And what this means is that when you move up in
     mode, you would still have to return the equipment to
     service within its AOT time, so the difference from where
     you are today is that you couldn't move up in mode at all
     now with this change, unless you have the 3.0.4 exception,
     which many systems do.  This would allow you to go on out,
     but you still have to get the component back in service by
     the end of the AOT time.
               This, again, is -- the types of things you have to
     consider here are very similar, again, to what we're doing
     in (a)(4).  (A)(4), as a matter of fact, talks about mode
     changes and the impact -- you have to evaluate the impact of
     mode changes on your plant configuration control program, so
     again, here, we're trying to develop some symmetry with what
     (a)(4) would require.
               DR. KRESS:  Would you make the allowed outage time
     then consistent with the criteria that's in (a)(4), the
     spike criteria?
               DR. BRADLEY:  Under (a)(4), you would have to do
     that.  Now, ultimately, as we go to initiative four, we will
     try to globally make the AOTs and tech specs compatible with
     what (a)(4) would do.  I mean, this particular initiative
     won't do that on its own, so we'll still be in the
     existing --
               DR. KRESS:  What do the tech specs say on this?
               DR. BRADLEY:  The existing AOT; but ultimately,
     when initiative four goes through, that AOT would be a
     risk-informed AOT.  But (a)(4) would still control you to
     the risk-right element of this.
               This one requires a little more analysis in
     initiative two.  It does require that each of the -- and the
     other three owners' groups need, in order to get this change
     into the ITS, do have to go develop a similar work to what
     CE has done.  But once the plants -- the owners' groups have
     done that, it will be a list of systems that basically, you
     couldn't do this -- make this exception unless you do a
     plant -- if you have a plant-specific model that would allow
     you to make a finer resolution on that risk impact and show
     it was okay.
               DR. KRESS:  But we haven't seen this transition
     risk model.
               DR. BRADLEY:  It was discussed at the subcommittee
     meeting.  I forget; was it supposed to be performed?
               MR. MARKLEY:  The CEO's group was supposed to be
     providing it.
               DR. BRADLEY:  And they have not provided it?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes; and also, the point about
     the supplementary meeting for a full transition.
               DR. KRESS:  Yes; it's an outshot of --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Right.
               DR. BRADLEY:  It's a simplified --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. BRADLEY:  I will make sure that you guys get
     that.
               DR. UHRIG:  When does the clock start on the AOT? 
     Is it the time the mode changes or when the equipment went
     out of service initially?
               DR. BRADLEY:  Typically, the equipment is not --
     since you're going up in mode, it's generally going to be a
     case where the equipment may not have been in service
     previously, so that the clock would start when you enter the
     modal applicability for the LCO.
               DR. SIEBER:  For the other reactor vendors, when
     they do this analysis, some vendors have differences in --
     within a category, for example; General Electric, just to
     pick -- different types of plants, they are going to have to
     perform a transformation model for each type?
               DR. BRADLEY:  What the owners' groups would do --
     and the BWR owners' group, I presume, will have to look at
     the different BWR types, containment types, and if there are
     differences in how this would be impacted for the BWR Four
     Mark One or whatever, Mark Two, what have you, then, yes;
     the answer to your question is yes.  It may not be purely
     generic, you know, how here's all BWRs do it.  There may be
     deltas based on specifics of the plant.
               DR. SIEBER:  So for some types of reactors, there
     would be more involved than for other types.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Right; what these studies are trying
     to do is basically show which components can't be
     dispositioned generically that, you know, here are the four
     things that you can't remove the exception from unless you
     can do a plant-specific study and show that you're meeting
     the 1.182 type threshold.
               DR. SIEBER:  Than you.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Sure.
               Any questions, further questions?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  A more general question; it will
     probably be addressed more later.  Are we really
     extraordinizing our -- if it doesn't look any different,
     you're missing one surveillance; as long as they remain
     rare.  From the risk perspective, it seems to me --
               DR. KRESS:  I think you're right, George.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  We're doing this because we are
     used to the existing regulatory approach as being, you know,
     very prescriptive and very deterministic.  In the larger
     scheme of things, does it really matter?  Maybe there's one
     of the components that, as Jack mentioned, that you really
     don't want to do that.
               DR. KRESS:  Somebody brought up the issue of
     slower motion -- but that's the only place I can see where
     -- but you're right; this has an essentially insignificant
     impact on risk.
               DR. BRADLEY:  To use our overused term, this is
     the low-hanging fruit of the tech spec risk-informing, and
     these are the -- the reason we did these first was to get
     our toe in the water and understand how to make this work
     for a simple application.
               DR. KRESS:  What I'm interested in, George, is
     this is sort of a precedent for things to come, maybe, and
     we're scrutinizing it, I think, because we want to be sure
     it's spelled right even though it has no real risk impact. 
     And the things you want to ask are the things we're asking,
     like what is your criteria for a spiking risk, and how do
     you apply it?  What's the role of the PRA?  How does it fit
     in there?  How do you do it?  And so, I think those are the
     things that we're trying to establish, even though this
     particular issue, I think, we can almost set off and say
     never mind.
               DR. SEALE:  You know, the comment is made there on
     the side that most plant systems have insignificant risk
     effects.  That's most; it's not all.  I would be curious to
     have some idea of what the exceptions are.  I have a sort of
     an intuition that tells me what I think they are, but I'd be
     interested to know what the exceptions are, if nothing else
     than to reinforce my wrongheadedness, maybe.
               DR. KRESS:  Prejudices?
               DR. SEALE:  My prejudices, yes.
               DR. BRADLEY:  I believe there were four systems. 
     Can the staff help me here?  I don't recall the exact
     systems in the CE.
               DR. REINHART:  Well, this is Mark Reinhart again. 
     It was HPCI, aux feed water and diesels.
               DR. SEALE:  I feel smarter already.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Would you tell me about the
     risk-significance of the systems, the four systems?
               DR. BRADLEY:  Those are the ones that you -- that
     absent some plant-specific evaluation, you couldn't
     generically make a 3.0.4 exception; you couldn't come up in
     mode with those systems out of service.
               DR. REINHART:  A train; we're looking at a train.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes, where the tech specs were for
     some of the -- right.
               DR. SEALE:  It's nice to see that you think that
     -- discrimination, really.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Is the staff going to review
     these transition list models and see if they are acceptable
     for risk orientation?
               DR. REINHART:  Review in the sense that we'll look
     at them; we'll make an evaluation.  We don't -- we're not
     going to go into a minutely-detailed review.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Well, you will make a decision
     as to whether they are good enough for this application.
               DR. REINHART:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Not whether they are -- yes, you
     will do that, and we will get a chance to see your
     evaluation, the ACRS?
               DR. REINHART:  We can make that available, sure.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes; I would like to see it,
     because I see this as a great way to improve the PRAs, the
     applications.
               DR. KRESS:  Yes, I agree.
               DR. SIEBER:  Well, individual licensing actions
     will be made licensee by licensee.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes.
               DR. SIEBER:  So no generic program.
               MR. MARKLEY:  Will we be issuing SERs based on
     that?
               DR. REINHART:  Bob Denning -- he's going to cover
     how we're looking at the application, how the TSTF will be
     reviewed and how a plant-specific application will be
     reviewed.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  It's interesting that if you
     look at the workshop proceedings for the staff that there
     was almost universal agreement that transition risk was not
     more than -- and people were very -- what is it here that
     makes us comfortable with the transition modeling?  You
     informed me in a statement from industry, for example, that
     -- the staff -- and you would not have that concern?
               DR. REINHART:  We could add the thought that
     between then and now, industry has done on a lot of work on
     your transition models.  We've had staff look at San
     Onofre's AFLPs, so I guess my overall answer is that over
     time, it has improved, and we're looking to improving.  I
     know that the CE owners' group -- San Onofre is a CE plant
     -- is generously sharing their information or offering to
     share their information with the others so they can get not
     only the information out there but obviously some peer
     feedback.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  It seems to me that this is an
     important enough issue that perhaps we should get a
     supplement on this, not on this issue of mode change but the
     transition risk models.  And I haven't even seen anything
     like that so --
               DR. KRESS:  Good issue.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And, you know, in the broader
     context, what do these models give you, and how do they use
     it?
               DR. KRESS:  Yes; I think that would be a good
     issue.
               DR. SIEBER:  It looks like at the beginning, if
     you get enough discrimination in their application that it's
     worthwhile to look at what they're doing now.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. SIEBER:  Before they had that, it wasn't --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. SIEBER:  The kind of models that you're
     looking at, for example, with combustion are not true
     transition models.  They're snapshots after a mode change. 
     So you aren't modeling in the issues.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  That's why we need a supplement.
               DR. SIEBER:  This is not, to me, transition risk.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  It's better than nothing but --
               DR. SIEBER:  Well, I think that it's adequate to
     do this kind of work.
               DR. SEALE:  It's a first step.
               DR. SIEBER:  Well, it supports what they're doing.
               DR. SEALE:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Who on the staff would be the
     person to comment if we wanted to establish a supplement? 
     Is it Cunningham or --
               MR. BARRETT:  Yes; I would think that this is
     something the Office of Research would take the lead for,
     you know, if you're talking about the accuracy of methods,
     state-of-the-art as far as PRA methodology is concerned.
               DR. SIEBER:  In order to avoid shortchanging the
     staff on their presentation time, I might ask if anybody has
     any more questions for Mr. Bradley or if he has anything
     more to present?  You do not?
               DR. BRADLEY:  I do not.  Just in closing, I would
     just say that we appreciate the efforts of the staff and
     this committee in helping us move forward with these
     prototypical changes to tech specs, and as someone said
     here, I thought it was the best comment:  these are the
     kinds of things we need to incentivize the industry and get
     that movement toward a more risk-informed approach across
     the board, and that's why we think this is important.
               DR. SIEBER:  Thank you very much.
               DR. SEALE:  I think we ought to let Biff lead off
     all the time.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Now, speaking of that, by the
     way, this was a highly unusual order of presentations.  Why
     did the staff feel that NEI should go first?
               MR. DENNIG:  Well, I that part of our reasoning
     was that in our last discussions, there was a lot of
     interest in some details of the industry proposals, and
     those details are -- as far as the staff is concerned,
     they're now being worked into things that we haven't got
     yet.  We haven't seen the revision of the things that we
     have under review that address a lot of the things that were
     brought up, and I thought Biff did a good job of bridging
     the gap between what the staff has seen and what we're about
     to see as far as those kinds of details.
               So we figured that would be the most productive
     way to go and then come behind and then anything that was a
     concern from the last meeting that hadn't been adequately
     addressed or was something that was peculiar to us, then, we
     would just take that on.  So that was the extent of the
     reasoning.
               I'm Bob Denning again, and I have Mark Reinhart to
     my left and Ann Gilles.  We're going to coordinate our
     presentation.  Again, let me say at the beginning, I think
     our major message:  we hear you.  The focus of our
     presentation is to tell you what we heard at the last
     meeting by way of your concerns and to give you a response
     to those concerns as to how they've already been addressed
     or they will be addressed.
               What we have up initially is basically a punch
     list of what we thought were the major categories of how we
     might bin your comments to us, and we will -- we'll go
     through these in some detail.  Let me go to the next one. 
     The first item is the details of plant risk decision
     process, and again, Biff has done, I think, a very good job
     of filling in the blanks about how the specifics of the
     process that would be used in initiatives two and three is
     being fleshed out in view of the approval of the (a)(4) reg
     guide and some thinking that the industry has done.  We
     reiterate that we will be getting more detailed proposals in
     response to comments that we've provided, comments that
     you've provided and some thought that the industry has
     given; that we will be focusing on the kinds of issues that
     Mr. Sieber brings up:  how do you do this calculation where
     the options for doing this calculation, where the
     quantitative and qualitative aspects of that.
               We're aware of the concern about risk-informing by
     committee, if you will.  That lets us all get together and
     see what we think and then decide that that's risk-informed. 
     We will, in our safety evaluation, outline what we believe
     -- what we will require those decision processes for
     initiatives two and three to contain, and individual plant
     amendment requests will include more detail if necessary. 
     And I'm going to come back to that a little bit later when
     we described a process for -- that's recently been put into
     place for adopting generic changes to the standard.  And I
     think now, I turn this over to Mark Reinhart.
               DR. REINHART:  I just wanted to cover a couple of
     aspects on the slide Bob just talked about, and one relates
     to the question that was raised earlier on missed
     surveillance.  And I guess my thought is what do we really
     mean by a missed surveillance?  If you just say that phrase,
     oh, they missed a surveillance, that brings up one picture. 
     What often really happens is a licensee has a program that
     tracks their surveillances, so it's very rare that they just
     miss their schedule.
               What most often happens is there will be a
     procedure change, a change in the way the surveillance is
     performed, and in review, they find out they missed some
     technical detail that officially says they missed a
     surveillance, but the large majority of it was actually
     performed.
               So in the missed surveillance arena, one, the
     licensee definitely needs a program or a process to go in
     and look at whether they used the RAW; look at their failure
     rate; whether they have some qualitative evaluation, but
     they can say what parts of the surveillance have we
     performed?  What does that tell us?  What is the history of
     this surveillance?  What are the pieces we missed?  What can
     we do with the physical plant to go in and give us some
     level of confidence that the piece we can't get in whatever
     condition we're in -- what is our feeling of that status? 
     So, by and large, they're going to be able to go a long way
     to say whether that surveillance was actually completely
     missed or just some portion of it.  And then, they decide
     whether they look at RAW, the failure rate, and come up with
     a quantitative but also qualitative risk-informed decision
     as to what to do with that plant and that surveillance.
               So all of that is, in our thinking, hoping we see
     this in whatever the licensee proposes in these TSTFs, some
     sort of process that gives us that flavor.
               DR. SIEBER:  There will be some kind of
     description someplace as to how to do this, though.
               DR. REINHART:  My view is the licensee is going to
     have a program that would describe that, yes.
               DR. SIEBER:  And you will look at that program and
     say yes, this is adequate or not, somebody will.
               DR. REINHART:  The program is going to be
     available at the plant site.  I'm sure that the regional and
     the resident, in their inspection process, will have a look
     at that.
               DR. SIEBER:  Okay; thank you.
               DR. REINHART:  We likely, in our -- maybe our
     safety evaluation of looking at their submittal are going to
     see what aspects they propose to have in the program.
               DR. SIEBER:  Right.
               DR. REINHART:  Then, if we go to the next one, one
     of the things we're looking at is right now, we're saying
     what is the quality of the PSA that licensee has, the
     quality that backs the submittal for the TSTF or the tech
     spec task force change document that makes the change but
     also the individual licensee's program that tells the
     quality of their program.  Now, today, we look at what
     they're doing.  A licensee performs a PSA.  Then, they come
     back, and they say okay, I had a certain independent review
     internally; maybe a contractor; maybe a peer review; maybe
     some certification process.  The staff goes and does some
     looking at that PSA, whether it's the exact application or a
     little bit broader for what we think is coming down the
     road.
               And so, we're looking at a de facto, if you will,
     compilation of how good is that standard today?  We're
     looking eventually to have some agreement, some standard,
     that we all agree with that, yes, we meet this structure.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I'm a bit confused now.  My
     understanding is that the agency has been very cautious not
     to demand the PSA from the licensees.  Now, what's happening
     here now?  Do they have to -- if a licensee says I was
     licensed 25 years ago; I didn't have to do a PRA; I don't
     want to do it now; I'm going with the old system --
               DR. REINHART:  They may do that.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  How do they do this?
               DR. REINHART:  They can't.  This is a
     risk-informed application.  They're saying I'm requesting,
     staff, this program.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  They may choose not to implement
     this?
               DR. REINHART:  They don't have to apply if they
     don't want -- they can stay with the tech specs they have.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Okay.
               DR. REINHART:  It's voluntary.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  All these are voluntary.
               DR. REINHART:  Yes.
               What the industry --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So if they miss a surveillance,
     then, the staff cannot ask for the risk-significance of that
     missed surveillance, because it's not an issue of public
     protection.
               DR. SIEBER:  Well, you answer the question.
               DR. REINHART:  We've gone through a process to get
     in place staff authority to ask for risk information, and
     we're kind of into what if space, but if the situation
     arose, and we felt that it was necessary to have risk
     information, we would have the authority to ask for it.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But you would have to say
     something about adequate protection, the way I understand
     it.
               MR. BARRETT:  Could I add a word?  I think we'll
     be talking about this this afternoon.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               MR. BARRETT:  The question of when we can ask for
     risk information, but in a case like this, you know, I think
     the main distinction is asking for information that's
     relevant to compliance with the regulation, which is what we
     might be talking about here, for instance; if someone wanted
     to miss a legally-binding surveillance requirement, they
     might be asking for us to give them relief.  The situation
     we're having this afternoon is a situation where we want to
     bring risk into a licensing application in a situation where
     risk is not required under the legally-binding requirements
     and where a licensee is perfectly within their rights to
     meet the regulations without reference to risk.  So that's
     the distinction between what we're talking about here and
     what we're talking about this afternoon.
               MR. MARKLEY:  George, there are really kind of
     three options, you know.  If they have a problem there, we
     would expect them to comply with the technical specification
     requirements.  Their first alternative would be enforcement
     discretion, which is what they currently do now, and then,
     the new option is the risk-informed approach.  So that's
     kind of where they fall together.
               DR. SIEBER:  But they would be in one category or
     the other.  They would be in a deterministic set of tech
     specs or a risk-informed set of tech specs.
               DR. REINHART:  Yes.
               DR. SIEBER:  And you follow the tech specs that
     you have.
               DR. SEALE:  Could a licensee go to a set -- to the
     standard set of risk-informed tech specs but not play this
     game with regard to missed surveillances and so on?
               DR. REINHART:  For a licensee to get the piece
     they're asking for, if it's risk-informed, they need a PSA
     and a program --
               DR. SEALE:  Yes.
               DR. REINHART:  -- in place sufficient to that
     application.
               DR. SEALE:  To invoke these processes.
               DR. REINHART:  Yes.
               DR. SEALE:  But what I'm saying is you could have
     a -- you could adopt the risk-informed tech spec format and
     still play the old game.
               DR. REINHART:  There's an improved standard
     format --
               DR. SEALE:  Yes.
               DR. REINHART:  -- that all licensees have the
     option to go to.  The risk-informed improvements would
     maintain that format.
               DR. SEALE:  Yes.
               DR. REINHART:  There might be some slight nuances
     programmatically on how they would invoke their particular
     regulations, their particular pieces, but they couldn't pick
     up what's proposed in these TSTFs without that information. 
     The only exception might be if industry successfully makes a
     case, proposal X, whatever that might be, we have enough
     generic information to show that really, the risk puts it
     over here rather than over there, and that's applicable to
     everybody, and we accept that.  Then, they could go that
     way.
               For these two issues, two and three, the industry
     is proposing that the maintenance rule (a)(4) guidance gives
     them an adequate place to start with the requirements
     they're looking for.  Now, with that in mind, if we back up
     a little bit, first, there was the old maintenance rule, if
     you will, the (a)(3).  Then, the staff had the configuration
     risk management program that it worked out with the industry
     for risk-informed tech spec applications.  The thought all
     along was that (a)(4) was going to pick that up, and the
     thought was rather than have a different program for this
     application versus that application, we come up with one
     program that we can apply without thinking in mind the
     program the licensee has to support this application ought
     to support also a four and vice versa.
               So for these areas, particularly two, this may be
     the right level.  For area three, I'm not sure.  I think we
     need to see exactly what they propose there.  But in any
     case, when we're done, we want to make sure that the safety
     evaluation -- and again, Bob is going to explain a little
     more about this in a minute -- but the safety evaluation
     outlines the requirements we're looking for to support the
     particular application under discussion.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  We have 11 minutes left.
               DR. REINHART:  With that in mind, I'm going to
     turn over to Nanette Gilles.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Good.
               MS. GILLES:  I'm Nanette Gilles from the technical
     specifications branch, and I'm going to very quickly talk a
     little bit about the oversight process rule.  This was a
     concern that was brought up at the subcommittee meeting. 
     And to make just a few points, one, we have some ongoing
     discussions with the NRR staff involved in the oversight and
     inspection process.  We have met with Mr. Dean and explained
     the initiatives to him, and we are working with them to try
     to both give them some understanding of the changes we're
     making in tech specs and how that might affect the oversight
     process and gain some understanding ourselves of how the
     oversight process might help us in monitoring such changes.
               And we have identified some specific inspection
     procedures which would be useful in inspecting the areas in
     which the changes are being made.  Those are inspection
     procedures in the areas of surveillance testing, maintenance
     risk assessments and emergent work control which would help
     you in initiative three, and then, the identification and
     resolution of problems which is the inspection procedure
     that covers licensees' corrective action programs, and since
     all missed surveillances will be entered into the corrective
     action program, that would be an important procedure from
     our point of view.
               We also have accepted an invitation to become
     involved in the research risk space performance indicator
     program, which will help us feed back to them the usefulness
     of the current indicators and perhaps the need for future
     indicators as we proceed with risk-informed changes to tech
     specs.  I'll also point out that in the reporting area, any
     missed surveillance that is subsequently failed once it is
     finally performed will still be a reportable issue.
               In the area of public involvement and support, we
     did have some early dialogue with concerned groups on this
     issue.  You may recall at the first subcommittee meeting in
     December, Public Citizen, Jim Riccio, presented a letter to
     the ACRS subcommittee, and we did follow up with Mr. Riccio
     and respond to that letter and have some discussions with
     him, and we have been inviting him to our meetings and
     keeping him informed of our activities.
               In addition, we do plan to implement a process
     called the consolidated line item improvement process for
     these changes to the technical specifications.  That is a
     new process that will involve publishing the draft safety
     evaluation for public comment, and this is the safety
     evaluation on the generic request for the change to the
     standards.  So we will give the public some time to comment
     on that, and then, we will take their comments into
     consideration before we put that change up for use by
     individual licensees.
               But again, the public has a second opportunity to
     get involved on the individual license amendment request
     because, of course, those will be noticed as all license
     amendment requests are.
               Finally, we have identified a need for a
     communications plan on these tech spec initiatives that
     would help us to reach out to more external stakeholders as
     far as communicating what the staff is contemplating, what
     the industry is proposing.
               DR. SEALE:  You mentioned that Mr. Riccio, I
     believe, you followed up with him and so on.  Has he taken
     advantage, or has he exercised your invitation and
     participated further in discussions on this issue?
               MS. GILLES:  He has not come to any of our
     subsequent meetings, but he has indicated to us that he has
     become rather overwhelmed with work in the risk-informed
     regulation area, and I think that is not from a lack of
     interest.  It's just that there is so much going on in this
     area that he's trying to cover that he hasn't been able to
     make it to subsequent meetings, but we are providing us with
     our meeting notices and our meeting summaries.
               DR. SEALE:  That's all he came to?
               MS. GILLES:  And now, I'm going to turn it back
     over to Mark Reinhart, who is going to discuss effects on
     safety culture.
               DR. REINHART:  Just briefly, well -- very
     delicately --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  This is not the term the agency
     is using, is it?
               DR. REINHART:  This was an issue that the
     subcommittee brought up, right, and we were assured that
     this isn't a technical issue but an issue that you all are
     aware that it could have an impact, so what we were going to
     try and do in the way of addressing it is say that our
     premise, and we understand the licensee's premise, is that
     they will operate their plant safely and that -- I'll jump
     in under here -- really, by taking a look at risk
     information, looking more at the risk, the safety of the
     configuration, where it is and where they want it to go
     moreso in the past because of what the PSA is doing for them
     is going to actually increase that safety culture by
     focusing the licensee on the safety significant aspects of
     the plant.
               At the same time, we're going to have our
     inspection process looking at the programmatic situation;
     making sure there's no breakdowns there and not only an
     issue by issue look but an annual, overall problem
     identification, and as Nanette mentioned, also working for
     some performance indicators that would give us some trending
     on the situation, so however we want to define it, we
     believe that this is making licensees more aware of the risk
     of their plant configurations, which is an improvement.
               So with that in mind, I'll turn it back to Nan.
               MS. GILLES:  The last concern that we had to
     discuss was a concern about some NRC staff programmatic
     aspects and perhaps how some of these changes might be
     communicated to the rest of the staff, and we had mentioned
     previously that we are going to become involved with
     research and their performance, risk-based performance
     indicator program and have been working with the oversight
     process staff, and we also, again, have identified the need
     for a communications plan to help us reach the remaining
     parts of the agency staff.
               I believe that concludes our presentation.  I'll
     take any questions.
               DR. BONACA:  Well, I had a question for general
     identification of this change, where by now, this definition
     of repairability in tech specs has changed, and it has
     applications for all of Part 50, and clearly, you know, it
     has that kind of implication that Dr. Kress put before, I
     mean, that implication is large from limited changes we make
     here, and do you have any --
               DR. REINHART:  I'll add for a long time, industry
     and the staff has been aware that particularly in tech
     specs, the legal definition of what is operable is not
     always coincident with the equipment works well enough right
     now to perform its safety function, and how to solve that
     problem is still a piece we're working with.  Issue number
     seven of the seven issues is to address that more head on. 
     This obviously is a precursor.  It's not the final answer.
               MR. BECKER:  This is Bill Beckner.  I'm chief of
     tech specs.  I'm sure we'll address that a little bit more. 
     Throughout regulations, we have the ability to, in fact,
     address the degraded but operable.  It isn't quite up to
     pedigree, but we know it's going to work.  In tech specs, we
     also have that ability to take a look, and tech spec
     definition is basically can it perform its function? 
     However, there's one thing that trumps that, and that's if
     it doesn't meet the surveillance, regardless of what the
     equipment is, it's inoperable, even if we know it's fully
     functional, and I think that's the issue here is if we know
     it can perform its function or if we know there's no safety
     concern to basically get rid of what I call that failed
     surveillance trump, and that's, I think, what we're trying
     to address here.
               DR. BONACA:  The only point I was making is that
     there is Part 50, and then, there are the tech specs.
               MR. BECKNER:  Correct.
               DR. BONACA:  The importance of tech specs is such
     that it is -- the issue of the operability of a component to
     tech specs, okay, is almost in my mind of higher importance
     than either a definition for components which are not in
     tech specs.
               MR. BECKNER:  Correct.
               DR. BONACA:  For which now we are going to relax
     the definition of operability for components in tech specs,
     okay?  I think it begs a revising of the definition of
     operability within Part 50, I mean, because -- do you see
     what I'm trying to say?  Here, we are taking the most
     important components, which are in tech specs, and changing
     the operability definition.
               MR. BECKNER:  No, let me say I'm not sure I'm
     totally following you.  If a piece of equipment cannot
     perform its function --
               DR. BONACA:  No, let me give you an example now. 
     Here, you have a component which is because it was not --
     did not have the surveillance done on time, we recognize
     it's still operable.
               MR. BECKNER:  Correct.
               DR. BONACA:  Okay; so one part of its attributes
     that define operability wasn't met.  But the functionality
     is there; therefore, we call it other.  Now, there is a
     component there you find in the plant that doesn't really --
     we discover it doesn't meet the requirements of, I don't
     know, code requirements on the temperature or pressure, but
     you know that in the regulation that it would perform its
     function.  So one attribute is found not to meet the
     requirements of operability for a lesser component, because
     it's not in tech specs.
               And I think that then, the same should continue to
     be applied to the component for recognizing functionality. 
     I'm not pushing the issue here but showing how I'm making
     minor changes here in a very important group of documents,
     which is the tech specs, begs the question for similar
     initiatives, you know, for lesser components of the same
     principle.
               MR. BECKNER:  I think I understand your concern,
     and we'll have to do some thinking about it.  I think the
     fundamental can the equipment do its function is still the
     operability definition, and I think it's just a matter of,
     like I said, of making sure that a surveillance -- not a
     surveillance failure but just not performance bounds doesn't
     trump that in my terminology, but we'll think about it and
     see if we can -- see if there's any obvious need for other
     changes.
               MS. GILLES:  I will point out that initiative
     number seven is number seven on the list of seven just for
     this issue that you've raised, that we all recognize that it
     is tied intimately to so many other parts of the regulation
     that it's one that we have to pursue cautiously, and I think
     that we've even, you know, seen some of these concerns rise
     up in the risk-informing Part 50 Option II area, where they
     are trying to separate, you know, the definition of
     safety-related from some of these special treatment
     requirements, which is very similar to the operability
     concern where you're also talking about seismic concerns and
     equipment qualifications, which all come into play, and how
     do you separate those from functionality?
               DR. REINHART:  Any further questions?
               DR. SEALE:  Well, at the bottom of the comment was
     the question whether or not we think we need to write a
     letter on this.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I think that's to be discussed
     later.
               DR. SEALE:  All right.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes; yes, we'll discuss it
     later.
               DR. SEALE:  Okay.
               DR. SIEBER:  Well, I'd like to thank Mr. Bradley
     and the staff for their presentations, and I think it
     increased our knowledge, and so, Mr. Chairman, I'll turn it
     back to you.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Thank you.
               We'll recess until 10:18.
               [Recess.]
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  We're back in session; okay, the
     next item on the agenda is potential revisions to the
     pressurized thermal shock acceptance criteria, and the
     cognizant manager is not here, so we'll go ahead anyway.
               Mr. Cunningham, you're in charge.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Thank you, sir.
               My name is Mark Cunningham.  I'm the chief of the
     PRA branch in the Office of Research.  I'll be making part
     of the presentation this morning.  The other part will be
     made by Ed Hackett, who's the acting chief of the materials
     engineering branch in the Office of Research.
               As Professor Apostolakis said, we are here to talk
     about the revisions to one aspect of the screening criterion
     that's used in the pressurized thermal shock pool.  A few
     weeks back, we provided the committee and the subcommittee a
     draft Commission paper on the subject of potential revisions
     to the PTS screening criteria.  Today, we're going to
     summarize some background on the purpose of that paper and
     some information on the screening criteria itself and PTS
     accidents.  I want to provide some more information that's
     relevant to potential revisions; Ed will talk about work
     that's been going on over the last few years or number of
     years in materials research with respect to better
     understanding of reactor vessel flaws, and I'll talk some
     more about Commission guidance in the context of PRA, and
     we'll talk about some approaches, some potential approaches
     for revisiting the screening criteria and where the staff
     intends to go with this.
               I should note that when we talked to the
     subcommittee, we talked in the context of a notation vote to
     the Commission with options and a recommendation for an
     option.  Based on our conversations with the subcommittee,
     we've revised our approach so it's more of an information
     paper at this point, informing the Commission of where we
     intend to go with this and laying out a couple of issues
     that the staff is going to have to work on.  We'd like to
     get some input from the full committee today on where we
     think we're going.
               At this point, based on the fact that we're
     changing this to an information paper, we're not formally
     asking for a letter from the committee at this time.  Again,
     that's somewhat different than what we talked about at the
     subcommittee meeting, but we don't think the nature of the
     paper as you'll hear it today is such that we don't think
     it's necessary to have -- and it may be a bit premature to
     have the committee write a letter at this point.
               By the way of background, the last 9 months or so,
     the staff has had work underway to revise the technical
     basis for the pressurized thermal shock rule.  We're doing
     that because there are some indications that the work that's
     been done in the previous years in materials research and
     our experiences with implementation of the rule say that we
     may want to revise the rule and provide a more realistic
     basis, technical basis, for the rule.
               The purpose of the Commission paper that we
     provided the subcommittee was to provide -- basically to get
     some early decisions on a couple of elements or one
     particular element of the rule revision or the technical
     basis revision.  That deals with one part of the screening
     criteria that's used in the PTS rule, and I'll discuss that
     in more detail later.  Basically, the paper would be, then,
     to inform the Commission of what we're up to and where we're
     going with this and then telling them about some issues that
     we're going to have to work on.
               Again, by way of background, the impetus for the
     rule in the early 1980s was some experience with overcooling
     transients in some reactor vessel operating experience. 
     Basically, PTS accidents are initiated by small locas or
     transients in the plant which lead to a situation where you
     have an overcooling of the reactor vessel with either -- at
     pressure or with a subsequent repressurization of the
     reactor coolant system.  This has the potential to impact
     some of the preexisting flaws that are a result of the
     fabrication of the reactor vessel.  They have the potential,
     these flaws, with a pressure transient and overcooling
     transient have the potential to lengthen and deepen to the
     extent that some, if they're at an initial critical length,
     if you will, have the potential to go all the way through to
     the reactor vessel wall.
               If such a flaw proceeds through the vessel wall,
     it has a good likelihood, if you will, of opening into a
     very large opening in a reactor vessel and basically
     seriously compromises the ability to core the cool -- cool
     the core.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Is it the other cooling that
     really is supervisor for the flaws going?
               DR. HACKETT:  If I could address that, it's
     actually both, because we have looked at the situations for
     BWRs where we just looked at the thermal shock portion.  The
     thermal shock without the repressurization is a much less
     critical situation.  The repressurization is where you're
     going to drive the flaw through the wall and end up with
     this big opening that Mark was describing, so you really
     have to have both, but the initiator is the thermal shock. 
     And then, the subsequent significant driver is the
     repressurization if that occurs.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And what time scale are we
     talking about on there?
               DR. HACKETT:  This would be many seconds,
     generally, that type of time scale.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Pretty fast.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  The repressurization.
               DR. HACKETT:  I probably would defer to someone
     else on the --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  If it's another cooling event
     and repressurization; it's a matter of seconds.
               DR. HACKETT:  For the materials response.  What I
     was referring to was the materials response, and actually,
     if you're going to get one of these large flaws that's
     growing like Mark talked about, that's going to be even
     milliseconds.  If you get something initiated and the
     repressurization occurs, it's going to pop through very
     rapidly.  It will be a catastrophic fracture from a
     materials perspective.  From the operational assessment, you
     know, what drives that, I'm sure, is, again, much slower. 
     It may be more in the range of minutes or many minutes.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Okay; if you were to have one of
     these through-wall cracks propagate to a large opening in
     the reactor vessel, one of the key issues then becomes the
     containment response.  You have a dynamic loadings, just the
     fact that you're putting a severe load on the vessel, and
     that could cause the motion of the vessel, which could
     impact what's happening inside on the core itself and could
     have an impact on penetrations and that sort of thing on the
     lines that are attached to the reactor coolant system. 
     You're also obviously going to blow down the reactor vessel,
     so you'll have pressure loadings.  You have some potential
     for dispersal of the core in this -- during the blowdown of
     the reactor vessel.
               On the other hand, this is an accident that's
     driven by large amounts of water, so you have core -- you
     have cooling capability from the water, and you also have
     the potential availability of containment ESS.  So the
     containment situation is complex, to say the least, and it's
     not very well understood at this point.  And we'll come back
     to that later in terms of what approach we want to take in
     terms of reassessing the technical basis for the rule.
               The question came up in the subcommittee of what
     do PRAs tell us about these events?  Typically, most PRAs
     you see today will not have a PTS set of scenarios in there
     with a frequency.  There's a couple of reasons for that. 
     One is for most reactor vessels, PTS is a very low frequency
     event, because the number of flaws that they would have are
     not such that you would expect any substantial challenge to
     the vessel from flaw growth.  There are some special
     characteristics of a few reactor vessels that make them more
     susceptible to PTS accidents.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But is it just the number of
     flaws or also the fact that you don't have this reactor --
               DR. HACKETT:  I think it's a number of factors.  I
     think Mark was correct that the principal materials driver
     is the number of flaws that have been assumed in these
     analyses before when we last talked to the joint
     subcommittee was based on a distribution attributed to
     Marshall from quite a ways back now.  What we've found since
     is that we don't tend to see things as severe from what
     we're actually examining with vessels.
               Another factor is the materials themselves are
     generally significantly tougher than we give them credit for
     in these analyses or have given in the past, because we
     basically use lower bound approaches on materials toughness. 
     Another element would be -- and when we discuss these, I
     guess we're probably getting a little bit ahead here, the
     embrittlement predictive methodologies have been refined,
     too, such that that piece is changing, and at least it's
     still iterating, so I can't say for sure exactly where this
     is going to end up, but at least preliminary versions of
     that were predicting less embrittlement than what we had
     seen before with -- and here, we're talking Regulatory Guide
     199 revision two is what was used before.  We're working on
     a database that will go into revision three that at least
     previously has indicated we might be seeing less
     embrittlement.  So there are a number of materials factors
     that add up to this being a better situation.
               George, from a PRA standpoint, I think basically
     what we have is a conservative screening criteria on the
     transition temperature so that if the screening criteria is
     met, then, the contribution of PTS to risk for that given
     plant would meet your screening criteria for not including
     it in your cut sets, not including it in your PRA.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I don't know if there's a
     presumption, but that's if you can meet the criteria, then,
     your weight is 5x7-6.
               DR. KRESS:  It's lower than that actually?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Lower?
               DR. KRESS:  You would screen it out in your PRA
     because of that.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Is it 1160 grams here?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Not really; not really.  We
     discussed it but not in any serious way, if you will.
               There are some plants that are more vulnerable, if
     you will, to PTS accidents where you've seen PRAs done for
     those -- that set of initiators, and the program that we're
     running here in the office is taking advantage of that. 
     There's at least a couple of PRAs that licensees have done
     to assess their PTS risk.
               DR. KRESS:  Those are the ones that are projecting
     to exceed the screening criteria; is that right?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Not necessarily exceeding it but
     approach it at the end of life.  And we'll come back to the
     screening criteria, but it's a projection out to the end of
     life, so many different PRAs, a snapshot of today, are going
     to begin to reach their margin of what it will be at the end
     of life.
               DR. UHRIG:  Presumably, this could be extended
     further if a plant came in for licensing?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes; that is correct.  It's
     whether it's a 40-year end of life or 60-year end of life;
     that's right.  In fact, there are a number of plants that
     would not experience -- have an issue with PTS in a 40-year
     life but could in a 60, so that's one impetus for doing this
     work.
               I'm going to turn back and talk about the
     acceptance criteria a little bit now.  PTS rule was
     established in 1983, so it's been awhile since this was put
     together.  It was put together as an adequate protection
     rule.  We've been kind of dancing around the issue of
     talking about the issue of the acceptance criteria. 
     Basically, there's an embrittlement screening criterion
     that's built into the rule in the form of what they call an
     RTPTS, and that specifies an acceptable temperature for
     reactor vessels and for the inside wall of the reactor
     vessels in these PTS events.  There's a -- if the plant is
     projected to exceed that temperature at the end of its life,
     then, they have to do additional analyses to demonstrate
     that the vessel can operate safely.  Reg Guide 1.154
     provides one method of performing that safety analysis.
               Associated with that screening criteria, the
     RTPTS, is a frequency of what was perceived at the time to
     be an acceptable through-wall crack frequency.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I understand how that was
     established.
               DR. KRESS:  With great difficulty.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  It was very complex.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But there is a calculation?
               DR. KRESS:  You have to go through the Monte Carlo
     calculation to get the --
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Maybe I can come back to that in
     a minute.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Okay.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  So it shows up in two places,
     that the frequency of 5x7-6 shows up in a couple of places. 
     One is that it was one factor in determining what the
     acceptable RTPTS was that's used -- that's specified in the
     rule.  I'll come back to that in a minute.  It's also noted
     in Reg Guide 1.154, if you do this additional safety
     analysis, in effect, you're doing a PRA for PTS accidents,
     and you calculate a frequency equal to or less than 5x10-6,
     then, Reg Guide 1.154 says that that's an acceptable
     frequency, and so, it's acceptable for the two-year
     operation of the plant.
               DR. KRESS:  A question:  is that a CDF, or is it a
     LERF, or is it safety goals, or is it adequate protection? 
     Because those are the -- and how do you deal with it instead
     of this is one sequence versus the whole set of sequences,
     and how do you deal with defense-in-depth in this context?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So 5x10-6 is the frequency of
     what?  Of the pressure vessel failing?
               DR. KRESS:  This is a through-wall crack.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Through-wall crack.
               DR. KRESS:  I mean, you could say that when you
     fail the vessel in this way, you also fail containment, so
     it could be a LERF.
               DR. HACKETT:  We are equating a through-wall to
     core damage, basically, is the assumption.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  The current rule does that.  If
     you have a through-wall crack, it's equivalent basically to
     a large opening in the reactor vessel and equivalent to core
     damage.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Is it equivalent to LERF?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Not in the rules.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But is there a possibility of
     that?
               DR. KRESS:  That's one of the issues.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  It's an issue that's before us
     today.  It's not an issue in the terms of the rule.
               I wanted to use this figure, to get back to
     Professor Apostolakis' issue of how does the 5x10-6 fit in? 
     What's right here is -- all this is from an analysis -- this
     figure is drawn from a Commission paper in 1982 where they
     were trying to develop a technical basis for the original
     rule, and what they did, in effect, was come up with a --
     did a PRA to looking at all types of initiators, all kinds
     of initiators, from an operating experience and from more
     PRA type of projected initiators.
               We looked at the frequencies of the initiators; we
     looked at the thermohydraulic response to those initiators
     and looked at the vessel response to the thermohydraulic
     transfer.  So this is built upon basically different
     frequencies of different challenges combined with the
     fracture mechanics information.  The fracture mechanics
     information was in the form of what we call probabilistic
     fracture mechanics, so that the key fracture mechanics
     parameters had uncertainties associated with them or
     distributions with them.
               So using all that information and creating a PRA,
     they created this figure of basically frequency versus the
     mean surface temperature RTNDT.  The 5x10-6 is down here in
     the corner.  But you see it there, and that -- this is an
     idea that that was an acceptable value of frequency; that
     leads you to say that an acceptable RTNDT would be 210
     degrees.  However, they recognize that there is variability
     in this curve, and the estimate of that variability was that
     one standard deviation was 30 degrees in this direction. 
     They said that because we want to make sure that we want to
     have high confidence that we don't have trouble with these
     vessels, we're going to add two sigma to the 210 degrees, so
     that makes that 270 degrees.  So that's what's specified in
     the rule is 270 degrees.
               So it's -- there's a lot of pieces of information
     that went into the specification of 270:  5x7-6 was one
     piece of the information base, if you will, so that came
     into play there.
               It also came into play in the Reg Guide 1.154
     space, where they basically said if you have 5x7-6, it's
     acceptable.
               DR. KRESS:  In a normal distribution, two sigma
     correlates to what?  Ninety-seven and a half pockets, right?
               DR. HACKETT:  Yes.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  The bulk of the work that's going
     on in the Office of Research today to revisit the technical
     basis for the rule is to reformulate that curve.  We're
     reconsidering the types of initiators that could cause PTS
     accidents; looking at operating experience since the
     eighties and modern PRA information; reassessing the
     frequencies of those challenges; redoing the
     thermohydraulics using what we have today, our state of
     technology thermohydraulics capability, and we're redoing
     the fracture mechanics, the probabilistic fracture mechanics
     reflecting a lot of different things, including the
     materials research that Ed will talk about in a couple of
     minutes.
               So most of that work is the reformulation of that
     curve, and this is going to be going on for the next year,
     year and a half basically.  One of the factors that we
     wanted to get an early decision on was, okay, when you
     reformulate that, is the use of 5x10-6 still the thing that
     you ought to be using, or should you be using a different
     value?  A lot has gone on in PRAs since 1982 or 1983, and
     would that lead you to decide that that value is the right
     one or not the right one or what?  And that's the purpose of
     the paper today, the paper that we're sending up to the
     Commission this month.
               So anyway, basically, if you go back to the rule
     and the underlying technical basis, there's a few key
     assumptions that in the context of revisiting the screening
     criteria.  One is that basically, there's a through-wall
     crack frequency of 5x10-6 was, in effect, acceptable in Reg
     Guide 1.154.  The through-wall crack was presumed to be
     equivalent to a large opening and was presumed to be core
     damage.
               DR. KRESS:  Along with that key assumption should
     be a statement, because your actual criteria is the
     transition temperature.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. KRESS:  There should be a statement of added
     two sigma confidence level.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. KRESS:  I mean, in order to complete that
     statement.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. KRESS:  It meets that.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  That's a good point.
               DR. KRESS:  Okay, because if you don't say that,
     it could be interpreted as a mean.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  You're absolutely right.
               DR. KRESS:  Okay.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Another key underlying assumption
     if you go back to the 1980s was that containment performance
     wasn't really impacted by the pressurized thermal shock
     event, even with a large opening in the vessel, and as we
     were discussing a little earlier, given today's thinking
     about how we do this PRA, this comes to the issue of LERF
     and how we consider LERF here.
               A key factor in the early 1980s, as I mentioned
     earlier, was that this is an accident that occurs with a
     great deal of water.  There's water in the reactor coolant
     system when you start; the core is intact; when you start,
     it's not melted, and you've got -- probably, you have the
     containment engineering safety features available, and that
     has -- could have considerable impact on your potential for
     a large early release.
               I'm going to talk now about a couple of things
     where basically what's changed since 1982, 1983 in terms of
     the technology.  Ed Hackett is going to talk for a few
     minutes about what they've been doing in terms of materials
     research over the last few years to give us a much better
     understanding of the flaws that are in the reactor vessel
     and the potential for vessel failure given a challenge.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  This is Farouk Eltawila from
     research.  I'd like to make a comment on the last remark by
     Mark Cunningham that the scenario has adequate supply of
     water.  That's the assumption.  I think we cannot make that
     as an assertion right now; that if you have all the water,
     but you have no guarantee that this water is going to go to
     the core.  You know, if you open the vessel on the side, the
     water is going to go outside of the break and is not going
     to cool the core.  So we don't know how the core is going to
     stay during that thermal shock.  You can get the fuel and
     the movement of the fuel itself can use the coolable
     geometry of the core.
               So I think the correct -- it is a question right
     now; not a statement.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Just to be clear, I was talking
     about what was the -- in 1982, what was basically how they
     established the basis of the rule.  Farouk is right that
     that's a question.
               DR. KRESS:  It may be reevaluated.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes; I think we're planning to do
     some re-evaluation, and we think some re-evaluation will be
     needed in that area.
               DR. KRESS:  It seems like it's also a good
     sequence that would be considered in our regression.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  That's exactly another point.  I'm
     concerned about it from the other discussion we had with
     you.
               DR. HACKETT:  From the material perspective, I
     guess we touched on a few of them briefly in response to
     Professor Apostolakis' questions.  One of the key drivers in
     these analyses from a materials perspective has been the
     core size density and location.  We've made a lot of
     progress on that over the last -- I guess it's 15 years now,
     and a lot of that is summarized here.  I guess I don't need
     to go through this in detail, but we've done detailed
     nondestructive and destructive examinations of actual
     reactor vessel welds over that time frame, and by and large,
     what that has indicated is in many cases, a lot of flaws at
     places where you'd expect them like the clad based metal
     interface over the welds.  But these flaws are very small. 
     By and large, you're talking about things that are two
     millimeters in critical dimensions or two millimeters to
     four millimeters.
               What the probabilistic fracture mechanics would
     tell you from that is these are flaws that don't participate
     significantly in contributing to the failure frequency
     overall, so this has largely been -- to summarize, largely
     been a good news story.
               What we're focusing on is development of a
     generalized statistical distribution, if we can do it, for
     all US LWRs; if not that, at least hopefully something
     that's separable by fabricator, like combustion engineering
     or Chicago Bridge and Iron, B&W, that type of thing.  And we
     hope to be able to come back to the committee -- I think we
     are scheduling a September type time frame.  We have an
     expert elicitation process underway right now to try to
     finalize some of that, and I believe we'll have that largely
     sorted out within the next month, so we'll be able to
     present you with a lot more information on that in the near
     future, but that one is a key driver.
               On the next slide, the next one is irradiation
     embrittlement correlations, and again, I mentioned that one
     previously.  We have a much larger and more robust database
     to draw from now on predicting irradiation embrittlement
     trends, which at least previously seems to be indicating
     that we would be expecting by and large less embrittlement
     than is predicted by the current Regulatory Guide 199 Rev 2
     for PWRs in general.  This, as I mentioned earlier, there is
     still some iteration going on on the exact form of what this
     predictive equation is going to be, but there's no question
     it will be a better prediction in terms of, you know,
     accuracy and robustness.
               We have a database now that's expanded on the
     order of four times over what we had available to draw from
     when Reg Guide 199 Rev 2 was done.  So that that was more
     cause for optimism.  For the first time, this project is
     considering statistical distributions on the material
     fracture toughness.  What's been done before is largely to
     draw from the ASME fracture databases that were developed
     for K-1-C and K-1-A, which were lower bounding curves.  That
     was dealt with computationally in the probabilistic fracture
     mechanics code but was never addressed statistically before. 
     By and large, there's an expectation that this will be an
     improvement.  I think we have felt all along that the
     material fracture toughness is greater than, you know, we
     were giving credit for in the analysis, so we anticipate
     there is some improvement, some gains to be made there.
               Statistical distributions; the next one down on
     material chemistry and initial RTNDT; these are some things
     we've done on plant-specific bases.  I was involved with an
     evaluation we did for Palisades when I worked in NRR, and
     this type of thing was done for Palisades when we did that
     review but has not generally been applied on a generic
     basis, so we're addressing that, again, really rigorously or
     as rigorously as we can for the first time in this project
     on a more generic basis, and there are improvements to be
     gained or strides to be made there, too, in terms of the
     understanding.
               We have a lot better understanding of variability
     of plate and weld material.  It isn't always good news in a
     lot of cases, but we think we understand it better.
               DR. POWERS:  Let me come back to the K-1-C K-1-A
     curve.  Additional engineering uses these lower bound curves
     to come out of the ASME code, and they're used for a variety
     of our purposes, not just for pressure vessel codes, which
     is everything else that's designed with steel --
               DR. HACKETT:  Right.
               DR. POWERS:  -- is based on these kinds of curves. 
     How are you portraying the use of a curve different from
     those and its technical justification here?
               DR. HACKETT:  Yes; first off, that's a really good
     point, because it is true in a lot of things we do; if we
     can afford to deal with the problem deterministically and
     bound it, and we get an acceptable answer out of that, we
     try to go that route, sometimes even just from the
     standpoint of resources alone.  And increasingly, though,
     obviously, these days, we're trying to extend the lives of
     the plants and so on.  We're trying to get more accurate. 
     Where we're actually going with that in this case -- maybe I
     should back up and say what we've done.  In the
     probabilistic fracture mechanics code which I'll come to on
     the next slide, it's called favor.  What's been done
     previously, since this is supposed to be a best estimate
     analysis, we would take the ASME K-1-C and K-1-A curves and
     then do a -- basically, a two-sigma variation on those
     statistically and then derive a mean curve out of that is
     what has been done previously in favor.
               What we're doing now is actually taking advantage
     of the availability of some -- I don't know the exact number
     -- but many hundreds more data points that have been
     generated for K-1-C K-1-A on these materials since then and
     actually doing a statistical and mechanistic evaluation of
     that for, you know, the curve we would use.  But I think to
     get exactly to the point of your question, what we would do
     is use a mean curve, a best estimate curve of all of that
     data which, before this, has not been done for these types
     of applications.
               There's also another technology that you may have
     heard about that we're not using specifically on this task
     right now called the master curve, which is a different way
     of coming at this thing, but, you know, we're using I guess
     what I'd say is a similar approach to try to get there. 
     We're trying to give the proper credit this time around for
     the material fracture toughness as opposed to any kind of
     bounds.  I don't know if that quite gets at your question or
     not.
               DR. POWERS:  I think I understand exactly what
     you're doing, and I'm trying to think of what the skeptic is
     going to say.  The skeptic is going to come in and say, yes,
     you've got all these data points.  These were laboratory
     specimens that people took a great deal of care in preparing
     and what not; put them into their Instron machines and did
     their whatever it is that they did to test these things.
               Now, what about the material that you actually
     have making up the vessel?  Okay?  That's an engineering
     material.  I mean, it got treated in ways that are somewhat
     mysterious to us, and it was produced at a plant, a steel
     mill that was different from where these specimens are.
               DR. HACKETT:  Right.
               DR. POWERS:  How do I know that this mean of all
     these data points here is the mean for this material here?
               DR. HACKETT:  I think the short answer is you
     don't, and it also is one of those things that -- we're
     really wrestling with this hard with regard to this master
     curve issue, which is another iteration beyond this.  But
     you're getting exactly to the point of, you know, you're
     trying to -- we're trying to eliminate margin here to the
     extent that it's justifiable, because we've believed that
     there are many conservative elements to this.  One of the
     nonconservative elements is what you've just pointed out: 
     how well do you know this material?  You've tested these
     hundreds, and I'm going to argue here to tell me that this
     fairly represents every vessel out there.
               I think my answer would be it probably captures
     that to a great degree, but I don't think you can sit up
     here and say that you've got everything covered.  There's
     variability; there are issues that get to be plant-specific
     with regard to exactly how the fabrication was done;
     copper-coated weld wire, things we've talked to the
     committee about before that I guess were addressed on the
     previous slide, too, in terms of the variability.
               I think the short answer is it's always going to
     need -- there will always be a need to add some sort of
     margin for covering that type of situation.
               DR. KRESS:  Since we have Dr. Powers and Dr.
     Apostolakis back, this might be a good time for you to
     return to your curve on the acceptance criteria.  I think
     that would lend something to this, because I think what
     you're saying is you will -- in the new process, you will
     take this variability into account and develop not just the
     one curve but a distribution and apply some of your
     conservatism in your acceptance criteria; we're using the
     two-sigma.  So, if you could repeat that part of it, it
     might be useful to these two.
               DR. POWERS:  Well, let me just interject that I
     think I understand that argument, and I was surprised that
     didn't come up immediately.  I'm equally surprised that you
     didn't appeal to the testing that you've done on some vessel
     materials extracted from other plants and say that, yes, you
     get a validation on at least this point.  I mean, I can't
     validate it for any specific plant, but I can take a vessel
     that's been through this engineering sort of thing, abuse
     and what not, and I can see that indeed, it's not obviously
     flawed using this mean data.
               DR. HACKETT:  Okay.
               DR. POWERS:  I mean, I quickly get you trapped and
     trained to produce -- prove a null hypothesis, and you can't
     do that, but you can show the preponderance of the evidence
     in support of your approach, and then, you can come to this
     kind of an argument and say look:  rather than putting the
     conservatism on each of the elements that build up to this,
     I'm going to put a conservatism on the final product.
               DR. HACKETT:  Right.
               DR. POWERS:  And I think that's where I certainly
     become much more comfortable, because when you do it on the
     individual elements of the thing, I don't know how
     conservative you are at the end.
               DR. HACKETT:  Right.
               DR. POWERS:  Especially when you tell me that in
     some cases, there are some nonconservatisms built into this
     thing that creep into the process.  They're sometimes
     unquantifiable, and so now, have you built in enough margin
     on it?  Here, I can see did you build in enough margin.
               DR. HACKETT:  Right; that gets right to the heart
     of it.  I guess what I can say in a more global sense going
     directly to the question that we've been able to show over
     time is that what we're talking about in this process from
     the materials perspective is this indexing to get to a
     fracture toughness curve with sharpy specimens and RTNDT to
     get to fracture toughness, your question being that if you
     went there directly, and you're testing these specimens, you
     know, maybe even large fracture toughness specimens from
     actual vessel materials, the answers that we see over and
     over again is by and large, those are better numbers than
     what you'd get with the index, and the indexing process
     generally is going to yield a conservative estimate of what
     you'd get for the real toughness.
               DR. POWERS:  Sure.
               DR. HACKETT:  And that the real toughness of the
     materials is generally greater.
               DR. POWERS:  I had occasion just recently to see
     -- to witness a discussion of the materials issues
     associated with the steel that was used to fabricate the
     Titanic and the issue of fracture toughness there.  There
     had been some studies done some time ago, I think, arguing
     that the fracture toughness of the steel in the Titanic was
     low in salt brine temperatures, and these investigators said
     that those tests probably weren't fair because they utilized
     fairly high strain rates in looking at the toughness.  I
     think they used traditional sharpy tests with a hammer and
     things like that.
               And they went through and did studies at lower
     strain rates under the argument that those particular carbon
     steels were very strain rate sensitive.  Are these steels
     strain rate sensitive?
               DR. HACKETT:  They are; they absolutely are, and
     that's why you've got consideration for both K-1-C and K-1-A
     where, you know, the A is the arrests where the dynamic
     value that you're getting at so that when you do the
     probabilistic fracture mechanics, it is run in two loops
     where you're going to look at the initiation event, which
     would typically result from the thermal shock.  Then, you're
     going to see if that -- then, you run another loop to see if
     that crack arrests.  As you could imagine, that's a less
     precise technology than just dealing with initiation, but
     that is a factor, a major factor.
               Should we revisit the --
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Do you think we should revisit
     this or --
               DR. KRESS:  Yes, I think you might want to say a
     few words about that still.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  The figure that's up here is a
     figure from a 1982 Commission paper showing the information
     they had at the time on frequency of challenges -- the pink
     curve is a composite of the frequency of challenges; the PTS
     challenges, the thermohydraulic response of the reactor
     coolant system to that; and the probabilistic fracture
     mechanics understanding at the time.  It leads you to
     generate a curve of frequency versus RDNDT for the surface,
     reactor vessel surface.  
               What we're doing today in the program that's kind
     of behind all of what we're talking about is a reformulation
     or a revisitation of that curve; new PRA information; new
     information on the initiators that could cause PTS events;
     the frequency of those initiators; the state of technology
     understanding of the thermohydraulic responses and the
     information that Ed has been talking about on material
     responses is all being lumped together, if you will, in a
     model that will give us a new one of those curves.
               I didn't mention it the first time through, but
     part of this also is a more explicit analysis and
     consideration of the uncertainties in that curve.
               DR. KRESS:  So you get a distribution rather than
     just one value.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  The distribution will be
     vertical, right?
               DR. KRESS:  No, it will be both.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  On the frequency.
               DR. KRESS:  It'll be on both.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  No, the RTNDT is the independent
     variable.  It will be just a frequency.  You know, what is
     the frequency of exceeding a certain value of RTNDT or being
     -- it can't be on both.
               DR. WALLIS:  Are the thermohydraulic
     investigations are such that they lend themselves to
     probabilistic output?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  What does that mean, Graham?
               DR. WALLIS:  Well, I mean, are they just going to
     give you a heat transfer coefficient, or are they going to
     give you a distribution of heat transfer coefficients with
     probabilities?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  My understanding is that it will
     be in the form of some sort of a distribution, if you will,
     of not just a point estimate.
               DR. WALLIS:  So they're going to give you
     information in the right form to go into --
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  -- a probabilistic type analysis.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  Thank you.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  That is correct.  We talked about
     -- Nathan Siu talked about that at one of the subcommittee
     meetings.  He'll probably come back and talk about it at the
     next subcommittee meeting as well, the mechanism by which
     we're doing the uncertainty analysis for this.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But make sure that you're
     presenting it correctly.  The horizontal axis is the
     independent variable, and then, you have the uncertainty.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  It's very similar to what we do
     with the consequences, the risk curves.
               DR. KRESS:  But you might also mention the
     acceptance criteria and the two-sigma part.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Okay.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And then, you have the family of
     curves, and you select two-sigma up and down?
               DR. POWERS:  Of course, I'm going to say, well,
     Tom, why two?  Why not one and a half?
               DR. KRESS:  That's a really good question.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Why not a percentile?  I mean,
     we do that all the time.
               DR. KRESS:  Both those are really good questions,
     and I think part of this whole meeting is how do you arrive
     at the right acceptance criteria for this?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  When you deal with frequencies
     of events, I mean, we rarely work with standard deviation
     and take in two sigmas and so forth.  We usually go with a
     95th percentile or some appropriate percentile.  I mean, the
     standard deviation makes much more sense when you deal with
     normal distributions and so on.  When you're dealing with
     highly skewed distributions, it's not --
               DR. KRESS:  This is likely to be normal, this
     particular one.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Normal?  It will be normal?  The
     frequency?  I would be surprised.  I would expect it to
     be --
               DR. POWERS:  I bet it looks an awful lot like a
     normal by the time it's done.
               DR. KRESS:  Yes; this particular one will.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  It will have a long tail.
               DR. POWERS:  But it will be interesting to see,
     and I agree with you that the standard deviation is a useful
     term when it looks almost normal.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. POWERS:  Or log normal, and if it's at all
     distorted from that, then, the standard deviation is pretty
     difficult to interpret.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. KRESS:  A more general term would be a
     confidence level, so you could always use that.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Sure; well, the percentile is a
     confidence level.
               DR. KRESS:  Yes, yes.
               DR. POWERS:  But it still begs the question:  you
     take 95 percent --
               DR. KRESS:  Yes; it's exactly the same question.
               DR. POWERS:  Why not 80?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Well, let us face that when the
     time comes.  Let us make sure we have a solid uncertainty
     analysis first.
               DR. POWERS:  Sure.
               DR. KRESS:  Then, we'll figure out --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  They have a lot of work to do
     until that time, but they seem to be on the right track. 
     This is the way to do it.
               DR. KRESS:  Oh, yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  This is the way to do it.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  The point we were discussing
     earlier is not so much what should be done today but what
     was done in 1982 --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  -- or in the early 1980s, and the
     5x10-6 value that underlies the rule is associated with a
     mean RDNDT of 210 degrees, mean value.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So this is the frequency, now? 
     The curve gives me the frequency, which is 5x10-6 --
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  -- of the RTNDT being that value
     or less?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes, that's probably right, yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  That value or less.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  That's right; now, so, the RDNDT
     value that they choose -- they came up with was 210 degrees.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  They, at the time, associated --
     did some fairly simple analysis of the uncertainty in the
     materials properties, okay?  And they estimated that one
     standard deviation in RDNDT was about 30 degrees, so they
     said, well, to be highly confident that this screening
     criterion will be conservative and that sort of thing, let's
     add two sigma to the 210 degrees.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Right.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  And that's how they arrived at
     270 degrees.
               The story of how they arrived at 270 is actually
     much more complex than that, but from the context of the
     probabilistic element, that's how it seemed to come into
     play at least from what I can understand.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Sure.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Seventeen or 18 years later.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Okay; although, of course, the
     uncertainties here are primarily model-driven, I would
     venture to say.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  I agree.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So my idea at the time really
     dealt with the parameter.
               DR. HACKETT:  Yes, yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  You guys are going to deal with
     model uncertainty.
               DR. HACKETT:  Absolutely, and I think we did
     mention that explicitly the last time we met with the joint
     subcommittee, but we are considering -- in every case where
     we're looking at uncertainties, we're looking at both the
     epistemic, the state of knowledge and uncertainty, and the
     aleatory uncertainty that the randomness uncertainty on the
     materials perspective is pretty obvious.  Dr. Powers is
     talking about transition fracture.  It's endemic to that. 
     For these materials, they are strain rate sensitive.  You
     see a huge variability in material response that's just a
     randomness type situation when they're in transition.
               But then, there's also -- we're using RTNDT to
     model how you get the fracture toughness, so we have to
     address the model uncertainty associated with that
     parameter, and that's just one example.
               Another example is the top of the slide; fluence
     calculations previously had been done on taking the end of
     life maximum fluence, applying that everywhere throughout
     the belt line and then assuming there's basically an
     uncertainty on the order of plus or minus 20 percent is what
     has historically been done or what Mark referred to back to
     the 82-465 paper.
               So we're trying to get a lot better than that this
     time.  We are looking at, for the plants that are going into
     the basis for the generic re-evaluation here, we're looking
     at plant-specific fluence maps and considering the variation
     of the fluence as a neuphaly around the vessel.  There's
     also a new draft regulatory guide, which will be something
     else we'll be coming and talking to the committee about
     later this year, which has got a more defined methodology
     for getting there, let's say, for fluence, so we are dealing
     with fluence uncertainty in a more rigorous way this time,
     too, and are accounting for the fact that, you know, the
     belt line doesn't see the maximum fluence everywhere.
               The last piece that we cover here is the
     improvements in the fracture mechanics methodologies.  The
     code is called favor.  It's largely an evolutionary
     treatment from a previous code that was called visa, which
     was developed basically here.  Ron Gamble is here
     representing the industry.  Ron, I think, deserves a lot of
     the credit for initiation of that and Jack Strosnider, who
     is currently in NRR.  That code has evolved into what is now
     favor.  And then, you see these elements here that are now
     addressed that weren't addressed previously in a lot of
     these analyses.
               Just to touch on a few residual stress
     distributions, the basis for what went into 82-465, that
     type of thing wasn't considered; doesn't tend to be a big
     factor, but it is now factored in.  The mathematical
     solutions for semi-elliptical surface flaws have been
     refined over time.  Those are now included in there as are
     solutions for subsurface flaws, to the effect -- to the
     extent that they might participate, you know, in
     contributing to the failure frequency.  So there has been a
     significant amount of fracture mechanics technology
     improvements built into the code that will make things more
     accurate than they have been before, too.
               DR. POWERS:  Do you have to assume orientation
     from the flaws?
               DR. HACKETT:  You do assume orientation, and
     typically, you assume the worst orientation; in this case,
     as an axial-oriented flaw in the weld, whether the weld is
     -- this has been a debate also, but if you have an axial
     weld, you assume there is an axial flaw in that weld, and
     that's typically the worst case.
               DR. POWERS:  And are you going to do worst case
     assumptions here in this new analysis?
               DR. HACKETT:  There will be both addressed from
     the standpoint that, you know, the circumferential situation
     is usually much less limiting, but the idea would be that if
     you have a circumferential limited situation, you would
     postulate a circumferential flaw, so that not being worst
     case, because you could also say, well, I'll take a
     circumferential flaw, and I'll still -- I'll take a
     circumferential weld, and I'll still put an axial flaw in
     it.
               So we're not doing that.  I mean, these are the
     kinds of things that have been done before that we won't be
     doing now.  This analysis specifically will still be driven,
     I believe, by an axial flaw in an axial weld situation, you
     know, which could exist.  And then, when you look at the
     question back to this idea of the large opening in the
     vessel, what's typically going to happen is you're going to
     assume that that crack could open up until it hits the
     boundaries.  If you're talking about a vessel that was
     fabricated from plates, you would basically open that entire
     weld seam until it hits the free surfaces where it's joined
     to the, you know, the upper and lower circumferential
     plates, so that we're not -- we're trying deliberately not
     to make the worst case assumptions in this particular
     analysis.
               DR. POWERS:  You're going to think I spend an
     inordinate amount of time looking at sunken ships.  I did
     have a chance to look at a pressure vessel from the
     Skipjack, which was a submarine that sunk under high
     pressure, in high pressure water, and the pressure vessel
     failed not at the welds but at the bulk plate.  So you're
     also looking at the bulk plate.
               DR. HACKETT:  We are also doing that.  I guess
     that's a point I didn't emphasize on the flaw distribution
     piece.  The advanced NDE examinations in addition to
     capturing the weld, and for obvious reasons, they were
     focused on the welds, but we also scanned at least a plate
     thickness or two to either side of the weld to pick up flaw
     distributions that would be in the heat-affected zone
     immediately adjacent to the weld or in the base plate
     itself.
               The base plates themselves, assuming, you know,
     especially nuclear grade or Navy grade QA, are generally
     much less defected than you would ever expect of the weld. 
     The welds are -- the welds or the heat-affected zone are the
     areas you would focus on as a metallurgist, but you raise a
     good point.  That's not to say you couldn't end up with a
     flaw in the plate, and that could be a problem, so that will
     be addressed also.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Ed was talking about one key
     piece of the information base that's changed since the
     1980s.  Another key piece we wanted to talk about today was
     in terms of Commission guidance in the area of user risk
     analysis.  Basically, I'm going to touch on four that are
     particularly relevant:  the safety goal policy statement,
     the rules that were established for station blackout and
     ATWS; the backfit rule and Reg Guide 1.174.
               We discussed the safety goal policy statement any
     number of times before this committee and with this
     committee.  I think in the context of revisitation of the
     PTS rule, I think the key piece is the middle bullet right
     there, that basically, in 1990, the Commission established a
     subsidiary core damage frequency goal of 10-4, and that
     starts us down a path, if you will, along with other things
     towards thinking about allocation of reliability goals or
     acceptable core damage frequencies.
               Station blackout and ATWS rules actually were done
     in the mideighties.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  This is an interesting point,
     Mark, which really brings up the dangers of allocating risk
     goals.  I believe that this 10-4 is indeed a goal for core
     damage frequency under the assumption that the containment
     will have a condition of failure probability of about 0.1. 
     Is that correct?  In other words, it's not an absolute goal. 
     If a core damage event could lead simultaneously to the
     failure of containment with probability 1, I don't think
     that was the intent of this, intent of this.
               DR. BONACA:  That is correct, because the
     relationship on individual risk which was 10-6 is tied to
     that performance of containment.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes; in other words, this one is
     to be taken together with the LERF criteria.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  You know, historically, the
     original safety goal had goals for individual fatality risk
     and latent fatality risk and proposed in effect a large
     release goal of 10-6.  That was in the mid 1980s.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Right.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  In 1990, they approved this one
     in addition, and I guess at that point, they still had in
     mind, I think, that there would be margin between core
     damage and containment.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Exactly.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Main containment failure.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Exactly.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  I think that's right.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Exactly.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  That's fair.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So in our case here, where that
     margin may not exist, that goal probably is not applicable. 
     See, this is the problem with surrogate criteria, that you
     are deriving them under certain assumptions.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And if those assumptions are not
     valid in a particular situation, then, you have to go back
     to the original QHOs or whatever the case may be.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Just to be clear, this 10-4 was
     for the complete set of initiators.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Given the margin of the
     containment.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes, given all these other
     things.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  That is correct; the blackout and
     the ATWS rules took another tack and said for these
     particular initiators of core damage, we're going to have
     goals, if you will, in rough terms, of having those be on
     the order of 10-5 per year per reactor.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes; so, they reduced it there.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  That did it, too, and built into
     that was their own analysis of containment performance and
     that sort of thing associated with those.
               DR. KRESS:  The other point, George, is this was a
     safety goal which was never intended to be a replacement for
     adequate protection.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Correct.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  True.
               DR. KRESS:  Now we're talking about an adequate
     protection rule in the PTS.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Well, that's another issue here
     that was confusing me a little bit, because we have
     numerical guidance when it comes to goals.
               DR. KRESS:  Yes; so, how do you mix with adequate
     protection with the safety goals?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Well, of course, if you had --
     if the Commission follows our latest recommendation on these
     things, then, it would be a piece of cake.
               DR. KRESS:  Yes; it would be duck soup.
               DR. POWERS:  And hell freezing over.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. KRESS:  Yes.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Dr. Kress' comments were a good
     lead-in to my next slide, which talked about the fact that
     the backfit rule and the reg analysis guidelines were
     established in the eighties as well, and at some point,
     there became a clear differentiation between -- on the
     subject of when you can use cost-benefit analyses.  PTS rule
     was an adequate protection rule.  For those rules today,
     cost is not a consideration in the establishment of the
     rule, costs and benefits.  Blackout rule and the ATWS rules
     were cost-beneficial safety enhancements where they were --
     where costs and benefits were considered.  So it
     differentiates those.
               The backfit rule today also now has an analysis
     method for cost-beneficial safety enhancements that uses the
     safety goals and looks at the potential benefit in terms of
     a first screen of saying how much core damage frequency
     would be reduced, and it builds into some consideration of
     containment performance as well, so there is a -- a piece of
     the logic is put into place with the safety goals and the
     backfit rule and the reg analysis guidelines for certain
     types of backfits.
               Reg Guide 1.174 came along obviously a few years
     ago and from a somewhat different direction.  We're looking
     at potential changes to license amendments to perhaps allow
     a reduction in burden and that sort of thing.  So we --
     obviously, as the committee well knows, we have -- in 1.174,
     there was a set of principles established on how you would
     make those changes, allow those changes.  It brings into the
     issues that we've -- one issue we've talked about,
     defense-in-depth, kind of explicitly into the consideration;
     safety margins and then how much acceptable -- what the
     changes in risk would be, what changes in risk would be
     allowed.
               All of those have come into play since the rule
     was established that helped guide us in terms of how we
     would think about revisiting the probabilistic aspects of
     the rule.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So the rule is still viewed as
     an adequate protection rule?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So 1.174 doesn't help you very
     much.  It's used for background but --
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Well, let's talk about the
     approaches.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Okay.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Because given all of that, given
     the rule as it is, given all this difference in guidance,
     we've talked about, well, what are different ways that you
     could think about revisiting the rule, and what are some of
     the characteristics of those?  So we came up with, on this
     slide, anyway, four possible approaches for revisiting the
     screening criteria.  One is leave it the same and just
     acknowledge that it was based on what it was based on and
     kind of move forward.  The second one was, you know, let's
     -- you know, ATWS and blackout and PTS are all, in one
     sense, similar types of challenges.  Maybe we should let the
     core damage frequency for those be similar, so you would, in
     a sense, allow the acceptable frequency for PTS to float up
     a little bit to be in line with the others.  That's a
     possibility.
               DR. UHRIG:  A factor of two?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Something like that, yes.
               Another possibility is that we would use the basic
     innocence.  The principles and the approach that are in
     1.174 -- that are documented in 1.174 are how you would
     address changes to rules.  They're focused on license
     amendments, and then, you would -- your potential for
     applying those same rules to a rule change, so that would
     be, then, that you would look at the change in this would be
     driven by consideration of the defense-in-depth safety
     margins and small changes in CDF and LERF.
               The third and the fourth approaches here are
     variance of the same general approach.  The third approach
     would say that you're going to explicitly keep apart the CDF
     and LERF.  The fourth would say we don't have enough
     information, in effect, to make that differentiation, and
     therefore, we're going to treat them as the same.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  The fundamental question -- I
     understand, you know, looking at the principles of 1.174. 
     You're right that, you know, we spend a lot of time thinking
     about those and so on, but the fourth -- it's not really a
     principle -- well, it is.  The principle that says that the
     changes should be small.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  The question is whether that
     applies here, because now, you're not talking about goals. 
     You're talking about adequate protection.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Okay?  And the fundamental
     premise of the principle perhaps should be revisited,
     whether -- when it's an issue of adequate protection, you're
     allowed to increase the CDF for your convenience.  So, I
     mean, yes, sure, as long as you think about it, then, there
     may be something -- I don't know what defense-in-depth you
     have here, by the way.  You don't seem to have much.  You
     have margins but not defense-in-depth.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Well, that's one of the key
     issues when you revisit this of how do you bring
     defense-in-depth into this.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Well, you can't.  When you talk
     about the vessel, I mean, it's -- although you might have
     safety margins for formal defense-in-depth.
               DR. POWERS:  I think -- yes; I think the vessel in
     itself constitutes an element of the defense-in-depth
     strategy.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Right; but if that element
     fails, you see that a lot of your other defense-in-depth
     measures follow suit.
               DR. POWERS:  The flaw is in order to be an element
     of defense-in-depth, you've got to have -- you can't have
     failure of the vessel ipso facto lead to failure of the
     containment, the next element of defense-in-depth.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Well, that's what I was saying
     here.
               DR. POWERS:  And that's what the fourth one says. 
     It's not obvious to me that's the case, but that's what the
     fourth one says.  And I don't know why they would say that.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Because the uncertainties are
     very large in it.
               DR. KRESS:  And the way you invoke
     defense-in-depth principles there is you look at the
     uncertainty in developing the vessel failure, and you
     recognize that in -- there is also a potential for it to
     lead to containment failure, so it's a thing that impacts
     both CDF and LERF.  Therefore, you -- in my principles that
     I outlined at one time, you make your acceptance criteria at
     a very high confidence level on that particular one.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And lower.
               DR. KRESS:  And lower.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes, sure.
               DR. KRESS:  So you start with an overall
     acceptance criteria; in my mind, that would have to be an
     acceptance criteria that would be equivalent to something
     called adequate protection, not to safety goals.  And you're
     going to allocate a portion of that to this particular set
     of sequences, but since this particular set of sequences
     impacts both containment and CDF --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Right.
               DR. KRESS:  -- you make the allocation of that
     part of it much lower and yet a higher confidence level.
               Now, those are qualitative principles.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. KRESS:  How you convert those into quantities,
     I don't know -- I'm not quite sure yet.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Right.
               DR. KRESS:  But that would be the way I would
     approach this sort of thing.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And I think that's a reasonable
     way to approach it, and I think a lot of that is in the new
     -- not policy; the new work that is coming out of Sandia
     under your sponsorship.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  This is the framework for --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  -- how we change Part 50?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And if you remember, they had
     the core damage frequency and containment, but then, there
     was an allowance for situations like earthquakes, for
     example, where there is such strong coupling there that you
     really have to look at the sequence separately, because, you
     know, defense-in-depth measures have been compromised.
               DR. KRESS:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And I think this is a mostly
     similar --
               DR. KRESS:  This is the case.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  -- sequence like that.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But there are fundamental
     differences here, which I'm sure Mark now appreciates or
     even when you walked into the room probably appreciated that
     we are not talking about goals anymore; we're talking about
     adequate protection, so, you know, whatever principles you
     invoke, I mean, 1.174, we will really use the goals, right?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes, yes, that's right, exactly.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And the second one is that the
     surrogate goals may not be applicable anymore, and the third
     point, Tom, I think, again, when we use the words
     defense-in-depth, we're using them too loosely sometimes.
               DR. KRESS:  Sometimes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  We're talking about
     defense-in-depth in the context of the big picture,
     preventing radioactivity from being released, or
     defense-in-depth regarding the failure of the vessel, right? 
     And I think when it comes to the failure of the vessel, you
     really don't have many options for defense-in-depth.  Now,
     for the bigger picture, you might still have something that
     you may be able to do, right?  So defense-in-depth really
     can be interpreted only in a certain context which would
     make the ATHENA people very happy, right, because context is
     everything, right, Mark?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes, sir.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  No, you were not paying
     attention so you --
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  You're getting into a lot of the
     issues that we're facing, and I'm just -- we recognize that
     a lot of things, this is kind of uncharted waters for us,
     and we're taking 1.174, which is for license amendments,
     safety goal information, and we're trying to -- see, that's
     probably our best set of guidance in terms of general
     thinking on how to use risk information and then extending
     that, if you will, into a different environment.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Are we going to have a chance to
     look at the paper you're going to present to the Commission,
     the final version?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Before we send it to the
     Commission?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  When do you send it?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  It's due to the EDO in about two
     weeks.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I guess we will not have a
     chance, but can I make a suggestion?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Okay.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  That you actually elaborate on
     these points we just discussed, and it seems to me that as
     you know, certain stakeholders like the Center for Strategic
     and International Studies have recommended to the Commission
     that adequate protection be quantified, okay?  And there has
     been extreme reluctance on the part of just about everyone
     to do that.
               I think that reluctance and that recommendation
     were really made at a high philosophical level, and as is
     usual, you know, with philosophies and philosophical
     approaches, engineers tend to be very impatient with those. 
     I think it's time that we start pointing out that there are
     practical issues that we would have an easier time handling
     if we had such guidance, such goals, such numbers.
               DR. KRESS:  And this looks like an ideal case.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And this is really an ideal one,
     that if you guys had a quantified statement of adequate
     protection, then, your life would be much easier, but you
     don't, and that quantified statement, again, I don't want to
     upset Gary Holahan -- it can't be one number.  It's a whole
     process and blah, blah, blah, but still, there will be a
     number here just as a goal that's going to be in the context
     of 1.174, and unless we can see these practical means, you
     will never get anything, anywhere with a safety goal and
     adequate protection letters and so on.
               DR. KRESS:  I'll tell you what will happen is that
     the numbers in 1.174 will become surrogates for adequate
     protection.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Exactly, exactly, and the same
     risk Sandia has when they developed the other work on --
     what do we call that?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Framework for --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  The framework, yes; see, they
     have nothing else to go by, so they have to use some
     numbers, and what is it they use?  The goal numbers.  And
     before you know it, those will become adequate protection,
     which is really not checking out the regulations, right?  So
     that's a second example.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  We have two examples.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  We see what we're doing here as a
     test bed for at least a couple of things.  One is that we're
     going to test out the framework that you've been talking
     about and see how that works in the context of this rule.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Right.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Because if it works, we've got to
     find our evidence on this rule, and then, there could be a
     bunch of other rules that have to go through that same
     process.  So this is a test of that system.  But you're
     right; it's also a test of how do you deal with an adequate
     protection rule in the context of a lot of other things, a
     lot of other policies that have been focused somewhat
     differently.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So there will be a discussion in
     the Commission paper on this subject.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  I think the intent of the way we
     see the Commission paper today is to lay out the issues.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  This is a big issue.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes, oh, yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  And you're, of course, skipping
     ahead, but this is one of the key issues, and we have to
     tell the Commission that we're not intending to give them
     the answer today but tell them this is an issue that we're
     going to have to work out in the -- you know, X amount of
     time.  I'm not sure how soon; and discuss it with the
     committee and go back and just tell them this is an issue in
     this PTS --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  -- revision.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I think they should be fully
     aware of this fact, adequate protection and goals are two
     different things.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  And as you say, this is a place
     where all of that -- the theory comes together in a
     practical application to a rule change where those of us on
     the staff have to decide where do we want to go with this
     rule change.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Now, if you look at these for --
     I know you have discussed each one, but maybe we can do that
     as a group.  Is it fair to say that there are really two
     sets here:  the top two and the bottom two, the top two
     really dealing with the absolute value of the core damage
     frequency due to PTS and the bottom two, where you look at
     it as a change.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And the question is which one is
     philosophically right?  Which one do you think -- do you
     have any preference at this point?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  My personal preference, I think
     of this in terms of the change.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So one of the bottom two.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  One of the bottom two is --
               DR. KRESS:  My personal preference is the top two.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Okay; Dr. Bonaca?
               DR. BONACA:  I pointed out really before that
     there is a fundamental confidence in some of these; I mean,
     they're offering us options, but if I look at option two and
     option four, they lead you in different directions.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. BONACA:  One of these is a direction of the
     basic uncertainty that you have on the containment
     performance.  You have to restrict your CDF criteria to
     10-6, and that, to me, seems to reflect the whole
     uncertainty we have on the phenomenon associated with PTS
     issues.  The option two you're proposing out of the blue
     just for consistency with other rules, which makes no sense
     -- it's 10-5, which is not a different reaction.  And so, I
     don't understand why you make differences in the
     understanding of the PTS in theory essentially -- are the
     basis of this initiative will lead you towards option two. 
     I just don't understand it.
               And I'm only saying this for the purpose of saying
     do you really want to present number four as an option to
     the Commission?  I don't think --
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Again, to back up, one of the
     things we've changed in the context of the paper or will be
     changing in the context of the paper is not to lay ideas out
     as options for the Commission to consider.  These, based on
     what's happened over the last 10 or 15 years, here are
     possible ways that you can -- or pieces of guidance that you
     could use to adapt it and to consider this rule change.  So,
     I'm not going to argue that the second one is a very strong
     argument; it's just historically, in other circumstances,
     the Commission has said that sequences -- core damage
     frequencies on the order of 10-5 are acceptable.
               There are a lot of down sides to this, and
     containment performance is one of them.  And the
     uncertainties and our understanding of the uncertainties on
     these accidents is different.  And all of that is arguments
     not to take that approach.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  In other words, if you don't
     present these as distinct options, you may say, well, here
     are some ideas, and one can pick, you know, something from
     four and combine it with two.  In other words, I can't have
     in my thinking the fact that, you know, there were
     frequencies discussed for ATWS and station blackout, but I
     also worry about the fact that CDF and LERF here are really
     the same thing, right?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I mean, I can -- so if you
     present it that way, then I think Dr. Bonaca's concern is
     mitigated.
               DR. BONACA:  Yes, it is; you know, again, and
     Professor Seale made a comment that I thought was
     interesting.  They're different animals, too.  In ATWS and
     station blackout, you really probably have differences
     between the CDF and LERF.  For this, the PTS, I really need
     to be more and more convinced that it is very high.  Even if
     you went to option C, it would be very hard to demonstrate,
     to demonstrate, you know, within a certainty a difference
     between CDF and LERF.  So that makes a big distinction
     between ATWS and station blackouts.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And the staff says, you know, we
     recognize it and we'll look at it.  We don't have to be
     making a choice now.
               DR. KRESS:  The point of bullet two to me is that
     you are allocating an overall criteria to a set of
     sequences.  It's an allocation process.  And I'm saying --
     when I say that's an appropriate thing to think about, how
     do you allocate, and you need to consider that, things like
     what you're talking about:  what's the uncertainty in these? 
     What's the uncertainty in the other?  Does it impact both
     CDF and LERF and how much?  Those are things you ought to
     think about.
               I think this is one of the big issues here is how
     do you allocate your risk acceptance among the sets of
     sequences?  That's one of the big issues.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes, and that's, in the context
     of the blackout rules and things, it's just a straight
     allocation on core damage frequency is overly simplistic --
               DR. KRESS:  Yes.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  -- because of the differences in
     the uncertainties, including the differences in our
     understanding of what containment performance would be. 
     It's in differences in the initiator frequencies.  The
     blackout starts with an event, a series of failures.  You
     can think of a PTS thing as it happens, and you've failed
     the vessel, and you've melted the core.  So the frequency of
     the challenge is different.  For all those reasons, it's an
     overly simplistic approach to take, I think, and again,
     we're not arguing to go there, but historically, we have
     done things like that in the eighties.  We have done some
     sort of an allocation of core damage frequency, in effect. 
     It's happened piecemeal and things like that, but it's
     happened.  So it's something to think about.
               DR. KRESS:  What you need is an overarching
     principle on how to deal with it.
               DR. WALLIS:  Another idea -- say you're looking at
     the screening criteria.  Rather than just looking at
     options, I think you ought to explain why the changes to the
     core, for what reason or on what basis.  Because if
     something is wrong with what we have now --
               DR. KRESS:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  -- then, we would have a solution to
     that.  That should be clear before you launch into picking
     one of these options.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So it seems to me you can jump
     to 20 or 21.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes, sure.
               DR. BONACA:  But certainly, if you could
     understand what will be released, CDF and LERF can be
     equated --
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes.
               DR. BONACA:  -- for this.  It will provide -- shed
     light on which approach to take.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes; we're taking you to slide
     20, where we think we have today where we want to go with
     this paper.  We can basically tell the Commission that we
     think we need to take the principles -- several ways to
     think about it.  One is to take the principles that are laid
     out in 1.174 and try to use them as a basis to develop the
     process we would use and make the decision on the PTS rule
     change.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Or, if possible, a new set of
     principles.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Or a new set of principles;
     that's right.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Because this is an adequate
     protection.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  That's right.  So, one way to
     think about it is an extension of 1.174.  Another way to
     think about it is this is using the framework that's in
     option three and applying and testing that framework to see
     how it works.  It has the common element of its background
     is safety goal oriented, and this is an adequate protection
     rule, and we're not quite sure how that all falls out.  We
     think we want to go in that general direction, but I think
     we need to -- we're going to plan to tell the Commission
     about the two issues that we'll lay out.
               One is this issue of containment, and I think we
     need to provide a better description of the issues there and
     try to address them at least to some degree in the staff. 
     They're very complex issues.  At this point, I guess I'm not
     convinced that handing it over and saying just equate the
     two is okay.  I think we need to do some more analysis
     ourselves and think about this some more.
               DR. POWERS:  Can I get a better idea of why you
     think there is a potential for early release of PTS
     accident?  I think when you say that, you're saying that
     rupture of the vessel leading to a factor of corruption of
     the containment.
               DR. HACKETT:  We'll be looking for the slide.  One
     of the things we talked about with the combined subcommittee
     is the fact that if you assume -- we're making the
     assumption that it's a large flaw on the side of the vessel
     and then, you know, the huge dynamic impact that goes along
     with that.  At least this is the way I would construct it
     just in an engineering sense that that will physically move
     the vessel some amount and again, a very plant-specific, I
     guess, response depending on how the vessel is supported and
     so on, but then, obviously, everything associated with the
     vessel is moving also.
               I would be just thinking from an engineering or
     materials perspective that a very high probability of
     ripping loose some containment penetration as a result of
     that sequence.
               DR. POWERS:  It seems to me I'm getting out of my
     league here a little bit.  It seems to me that we have other
     accidents that result in vessel failures at high pressure in
     severe accident space, and there has not been an assumption
     that vessel failure in those ipso facto leads to a
     containment failure; quite the opposite.  My recollection is
     some analyses done for Surrey and a few of those things,
     quite the opposite conclusion was reached.  They both felt
     containment, just because you fail a pressurized vessel in a
     good deal more hazardous configuration than this would be.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  To go back to an earlier slide
     where we were talking about the general characteristics of a
     PTS accident, we laid out a number of issues that are in the
     context of containment performance.  Ed was just talking
     about some of the dynamic aspects of it.  If you start it,
     you're going to somehow move this vessel to some degree if
     and when this large opening were to occur.  That's going to
     have some impact on penetrations and that sort of thing.  So
     you offer the potential for penetration failures.  You have
     the fact that something is going to happen to the fuel when
     this blowdown, and the people are talking about the idea
     that it's going to -- does it stay intact or not?  What
     happens to it?
               You also have the issues of what's the blowdown
     loads themselves.  Running counter to that, then, is the
     fact that, again, this is a water-generated accident, if you
     will; if you've got a lot of water coming out of the reactor
     coolant system; you've got a lot of water around the
     containment; you have containment ESS.
               DR. WALLIS:  You're listing all these things.  Are
     these not candidates for analysis or --
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  No, I think they're candidates
     for analysis is where we want to --
               DR. WALLIS:  Because I get the feeling from all of
     this, the feeling that some people feel that containment is
     terribly at risk; therefore, we should assume that it fails. 
     That's a very superficial way to make a decision.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  That's why we have to do some
     more analysis before we get to that decision.
               DR. WALLIS:  I don't think you should jump to one
     decision before you know what the analysis shows you.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes, and that's where we sit.
               DR. HACKETT:  I think that's a really good point,
     and I think where we were coming from -- and Mark mentioned
     it earlier -- is that if a large uncertainty would accrue to
     address each one of these or potentially large at any rate,
     it's not something -- certainly, it's not something that's
     been addressed beforehand for PTS, and we'd be, as Mark
     mentioned earlier, kind of carving out some new ground to be
     delving into this.
               DR. KRESS:  Dana, this looked like a planned
     sequence for a regression to me.  So our regression -- it's
     a lot of bloating in the containment.
               DR. WALLIS:  And now, we're talking about -- this
     seems to be talking about CDF and LERF and risk-informing
     it.  We should be certain that when we talk about
     risk-informing, you don't use it as a way of avoiding
     tackling difficult clinical questions.  I hope that's not
     happening to this one.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  The third approach and the fourth
     approach, the difference between them, in a sense, is, on
     the third approach, you go in and do some more technical
     analysis and see what it tells you.  The fourth one says
     right now, I'm going to deal with it as a policy matter and
     say unacceptable, and I'm going to go right to the next one. 
     That's the differentiation we've got on the two options.
               To come back to Dr. Powers' point, I think at the
     subcommittee, we talked about -- my sense is we kind of
     alluded to the direct containment heating accidents.  I read
     into what you said direct containment heating accidents. 
     It's hard for me to imagine that this is a more severe
     challenge to a containment than a direct containment heating
     accident.
               DR. POWERS:  I certainly don't come to that
     conclusion, but I will accede that I'm unfamiliar with the
     water rejection portion of this.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  So there are differences, and
     there are things like that, but the DCH is a tremendous
     challenge to these containments, and I'm not sure this is in
     that league, if you will.  But at any rate --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So we're going to see you again
     in September, August, something like that?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes; whenever the next
     subcommittee meeting -- I think we need to go forward with
     the paper telling them in general where we're going with
     this.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  I think we tell them that we have
     to talk about the issues that have just been discussed here
     and say in my mind, we have to provide more analysis,
     technical analysis, technical work before we're at the point
     where we're going to say that we're just going to make a
     policy decision.
               DR. POWERS:  Dr. Kress raised a point that I think
     deserves consideration as long as you're considering these
     good technical issues.  He said gee, if you had a rupture
     and blew the vessel down, wouldn't you get air on the fuel? 
     Your LERF criteria right now are based on a source term that
     doesn't consider air on the fuel.  In another context, Dr.
     Kress has suggested that it would be important to go back
     and re-evaluate that LERF limit that you have in 1.174 when
     your source term changes dramatically.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Absolutely.
               DR. POWERS:  And you may have to consider that.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  I should have had that on the
     slide as well.  That's another technical issue embedded here
     is the source term behavior in an air environment.  If we
     want to go forward with the paper and that issue and tell
     them that we need to work that issue some more, and then,
     the second issue is this -- the other one we're talking
     about is we've got an adequate protection rule, and we're
     trying, to some degree, to apply safety goal type guidance
     to it, and how does that all work itself out?  So we have to
     work that issue as well.
               At this point, this will be an information paper
     to the Commission to say we've got to deal with these
     issues, and this is what we're doing with them, and we're
     going to go on with it.
               DR. KRESS:  Mark, you've got some really fun
     things to think about.
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  Yes; that's right.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Okay; anything else?
               DR. CUNNINGHAM:  I think we've covered everything,
     and we'll come back at the next subcommittee and try to give
     you an update on where we are on these issues.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Very good; thank you very much.
               DR. POWERS:  Are there any other presentations?
               [No response.]
               DR. POWERS:  Then, I'm going to recess us until
     12:45.
               DR. SEALE:  Mr. Chairman?
               DR. POWERS:  Yes.
               DR. SEALE:  Dr. Kress and I suffered -- and I do
     mean suffered -- through three days of the CSUP meeting down
     at the hotel on chairs of questionable orthopedic design --
               [Laughter.]
               DR. SEALE:  And I think we should just all revel
     in the comfort --
               [Laughter.]
               DR. SEALE:  -- of our present ambience.
               Would you agree, Kyle?
               DR. KRESS:  No, you're revealing your age.  I'm
     not that old.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. POWERS:  If you're looking for some sympathy
     on the committee, I assure you you have none.
               [Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the meeting was
     recessed, to reconvene at 12:45 p.m., this same day.].                   A F T E R N O O N  S E S S I O N
                                                     [12:45 p.m.]
               DR. POWERS:  Let's come back into session. 
     Members will note the fact that some thought that Dr. Shack
     may have been kidnapped by rebels in Sierra Leone -- he is,
     in fact, back and alive and well.
               We'll turn now to proposed revision to the
     Regulatory Guide 1.174, to see if a single word can be
     adjusted in that sacrosanct document:  an approach for using
     probabilistic risk assessment and risk-informed decisions on
     plant-specific changes in the licensing basis.
               Professor Apostolakis, I think you're going to
     take the committee through this.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  We did discuss this issue at the
     subcommittee meeting some time ago.
               DR. POWERS:  Would you explain to people when they
     give us back the notes with draft stamped across them?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So who is doing the review
     today?  Gary?
               MR. BARRETT:  Bob Palla of the staff will make a
     presentation.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  No more accident management?
               We know how to manage it.
               DR. PALLA:  Let's hope it's not in the
     implementation stage.
               [Pause.]
               DR. PALLA:  Shall we start?
               DR. POWERS:  Please.
               DR. PALLA:  I'll move right ahead.
               My name is Bob Palla.  I'm with the probabilistic
     safety assessment branch, Office of Nuclear Reactor
     Regulation.  The purpose of my presentation today is to
     discuss the proposed guidance on the use of the staff's --
     guidance on staff's use of risk information in the review of
     non risk-informed license amendment requests.  This guidance
     is intended to clarify responsibilities to consider risk in
     regulatory decision making; the staff authority to question
     risk implications of proposed changes and the staff's
     authority to potentially reject the proposed changes based
     on risk considerations.
               The need for this guidance was identified as
     policy issue four in SECY 98-300.  The issue came to light
     again in the review of electrosleeving for the Calloway
     plant.  It pointed out that this guidance would in fact be
     needed and helpful; lay it on the table and make the
     industry clear on how the staff would intend to use risk
     information.
               We did discuss this with the ACRS subcommittee in
     September of last year, and at the time, we were working
     from a draft version of SECY 99-246, essentially the same
     document as what we forwarded up to the Commission about a
     week or so after the committee and we had met.  So we --
     okay; let me just proceed here with the first slide.
               This is in the way of background, and I'll walk
     through this background quickly, and we can get to the heart
     of things.  The PRA policy statement encourages the use of
     PRA in regulatory activities.  However, licensees are not
     required to consider or submit risk information.  As a
     result, the existing regulatory guidance that we've
     developed is geared toward situations in which the licensee
     voluntarily submits this risk information as part of a
     risk-informed license amendment request.
               Commission policy implies it's the staff's
     responsibility to consider the change in risk as well as
     compliance with the regulations when we review license
     amendment requests.  And these responsibilities are pretty
     clear when the submittal is risk-informed, but when you have
     a submittal that is not, then, how one takes risk into
     account is not clear, and accordingly, in SECY 98-300, we
     identified as a policy issue the need to develop such
     guidance.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Now, I see here a statement that
     is very interesting.  The proposed license action satisfies
     the existing design and licensing basis but introduces
     significantly unanticipated risks.  What happened to the
     presumption of no undue risk to public health and safety if
     the regulations are met?
               DR. PALLA:  Well, there still is the presumption
     that -- I mean, it is a presumption that meeting the
     regulations is -- provides adequate protection, no undue
     risk.  What we're talking about here is a situation that
     defies that, really, calls into question this presumption.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Is it possible to meet the
     regulations and still have undue risk?
               DR. PALLA:  Yes.
               DR. POWERS:  It seems to me that the language says
     it's a presumption, okay?  Here, he's talking about a
     situation in which staff, in looking at it, says that
     presumption may not be accurate in this case, because
     there's something very unusual about this.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But it would also tell me that
     the use of risk information should be mandatory if that's
     the case.
               DR. PALLA:  Well, our thinking is that by and
     large, this presumption is valid, and that the situations --
     well, if one complies with the regulations, the situations
     in which you actually do have undue risk are very rare, and
     that's been our experience, that we did a search of various
     license amendment requests, and it looks like very few of
     those would come close to calling this presumption into
     question.  So our thinking is that again, it's better to not
     ask for risk information in every submittal, but we think we
     need to have some kind of ground rules for when we should
     cross over and do ask for it.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But perhaps among technical
     people, this is not a big issue, but I wonder if a member of
     the public sees this, and I was expecting Dr. Wallis to
     actually raise that issue.  What kind of message does this
     send, that if you can satisfy existing design and licensing
     basis and yet introduce significant and unanticipated risks;
     that doesn't sound too good.
               DR. PALLA:  We're not saying that's okay.  We're
     saying that's what we're worried about here.  So we're
     looking for those situations.  We think they're rare, but
     that's what we're specifically targeting here.  And we're
     stopping short of risking for risk information.
               DR. POWERS:  George, I know several instances in
     which they have found that the regulations that existed at
     the time did not cover the mark.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I know.
               DR. POWERS:  And then, they went to say -- where
     they were reminded that prior applications had produced very
     significant challenge to the plant and the evidence of the
     regulations.  Okay?  So, I mean the fact that one might find
     a situation out there for a particular plant in particular
     circumstances where the rules simply weren't enough is not
     within the bounds of credibility here.
               On the other hand, equally true is that in 99
     percent of the cases, existing regulations are enough.  I
     mean, I think that's what Bob said.
               DR. PALLA:  That's the concept.
               DR. SEALE:  Well, and the way in which it is
     stated puts the onus on staff to come up with specifics as
     to why it doesn't meet the adequate protection requirements
     rather than requiring that kind of proof up front from the
     licensee.  That would be a considerable burden which they've
     managed to avoid.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I think the whole thing comes
     from the fact that they're constrained, I guess, by legal
     considerations.  It seems to me we have this new technology
     that gives us new knowledge and all of that, and now, we are
     questioning whether we should request this kind of
     information, and this sentence there tells me that we
     should.  If there is a remote possibility, we should.
               DR. WALLIS:  As we get wiser, it's foolish to deny
     that we know something more than we knew before.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Exactly; thank you very much,
     Graham.
               Let's go on.
               DR. PALLA:  Well, I just wanted to point a few
     things out here.  As I mentioned, we start the second paper
     up.  After meeting with the committee -- we did receive a
     favorable staff requirements memorandum from the Commission. 
     The Commission basically said that the staff should develop
     final guidance that clearly articulates what constitutes a
     special circumstance in a clear and objective manner.  It
     indicated that we should engage the stakeholders and while
     we -- you know, in that process and indicated support for
     the use of the guidance that we had in SECY 99-246 on an
     interim basis while we finalized the documents.
               So we, as a result, issued a regulatory issues
     summary 2000-07, which in essence summarizes the content of
     SECY 99-246.  It was transmitted to all utilities.  It does
     have one change from the guidance that I'll discuss with you
     today, and basically, the flow chart has been changed to
     reflect this; the Commission requested that in the interim,
     if we run across a situation that we would consider meets
     the special circumstance criteria that we would inform of
     that.  So the basic process that we included in the
     regulatory issue summary is essentially the same one that
     I'll be talking to you about today except it has that
     additional step of notifying the Commission should we run
     across any, and we have not so far since that.
               Finally, we've issued the modified guidance
     documents, and we forwarded them to ACRS and CRGR for
     information.  At the same time, we've put them in the
     Federal Register.  We plan to have a workshop next week to
     discuss that with stakeholders.
               I just want to briefly summarize the process that
     was in SECY 99-246, and the reason I'm just going to repeat
     what's in 246 is because that's essentially what is in the
     modified documents, and in essence, we have created this
     concept that there could be exceptions to the -- our
     standard presumption of adequate protection, compliance
     equals adequate protection.  There could be some special
     circumstances under which that presumption is not valid.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  This raises a question that
     bothers me a little bit.  Also, I read the selected changes
     in the text of Regulatory Guide 1.174.  And I must say I'm a
     little bit confused as to why an issue that seems to be
     related to adequate protection appears in 1.174, which does
     not deal with adequate protection.  For example, in the
     introduction, you are saying that the basis on which new
     information reveals an unforeseen hazard for a substantially
     greater potential for a known hazard to occur, in such
     circumstances, the NRC has the statutory authority to
     require licensee action beyond existing regulations to
     demonstrate that the level of protection necessary to avoid
     undue risk to public health and safety; that is adequate
     protection.
               Why is this in a document like 1.174?
               DR. PALLA:  Well, I would say it's in 1.174
     because 1.174 gives guidance to the staff on how to use
     risk.  Now, we do, in this case, cross the risk information
     with the concept of adequate protection.  We don't equate
     it, but we, in essence, in the appendix to the SRP that I'll
     be focusing on, we use the Reg Guide 1.174 criterion
     guidance in our review, and we then go further if that
     criterion is not met to ultimately make a decision about the
     acceptability of the amendment.
               It seems like a logical place to put it.  If there
     was a better place, I guess we could put it there.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  No, I mean, the five principles
     of 1.174 include a very important one, which is principle
     number four, that the changes in CDF and LERF should be
     small.
               DR. PALLA:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And I don't see how that
     principle has anything to do with what we're talking about
     here.  If it's an issue of adequate protection, what does
     small change mean, and would you allow any change?
               DR. PALLA:  One way to think of this is that this
     is kind of a one-way test.  The reg guide provides a basis
     for saying that something would provide adequate protection,
     but when that guidance is not met -- it's not the same, and
     you can't categorically conclude that you have inadequate
     protection, but it opens the door.  We refer to it as a
     trigger, that if you don't meet the 1.174 criteria, then, it
     raises questions, and these questions have to be carefully
     considered, and ultimately, one has to make a decision on
     the acceptability of that.
               Now, we refer in that, in the case that it's
     unacceptable, we're saying that the underlying decision
     would be that the protection is inadequate.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Now, again, that's not about
     that particular principle that the changes should be small. 
     A licensee may submit a request that if it was submitted
     under 1.174 would result in CDF saying that that's greater
     than -- it would say -- that the licensee's core damage
     frequency is down to 10-6.  So it violates the principle
     that the changes should be small, but it really doesn't
     raise an issue about adequate protection.
               So it's this blending of adequate protection
     arguments with 1.174 that confuses me and I suspect is going
     to confuse the licensees too.  Is this a way of catching
     those?  In other words, a plant is not going the
     risk-informed way, and he's asking me for something that's
     too much?  That may be fine; you don't want them to do that. 
     But don't invoke adequate protection to do that.
               DR. PALLA:  Well, the thinking here is that -- I
     think you're concerned about just marginally not meeting the
     criteria, the numerical guidance in the reg guide, and I
     guess that it could appear to be a concern, but we were
     trying to focus not only on numerics but on the other safety
     principles collectively to make a decision that when one
     looks at that integrated decision making process, those
     safety principles are essentially the same kinds of
     considerations that go into the judgment about adequate
     protection.
               So the numbers are a piece of it, but the other
     considerations are other factors.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes; that brings me to my next
     question, which is very much related.  Let's say that we are
     estimating the change, and you find that it's 4x10-5 for
     CDF, which is about what the 1.174 allows, at which point,
     you would say five or six or seven; when do you decide,
     since you don't have any numerical guidance regarding
     adequate protection, that now, you have a problem with
     adequate protection?
               MR. HOLAHAN:  This is Gary Holahan.
               George, I think we're going back a couple of years
     to -- the questions you're raising are basic questions about
     how Reg Guide 1.174 works in the regulatory process.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  No, the question I'm raising is
     whether 1.174 is relevant to what we're addressing here. 
     There's a clear statement.
               DR. POWERS:  I guess I'm confused on where we're
     going.  I'm still hung up on how you get into this process
     before how you're going to react to what you find in the
     process.  Right now, I'm still hung -- hanging onto the you
     come on, and you've declared this special circumstance, and
     that's the part I don't understand.  Now, once they've done
     that, presumably, we'll go and find out what they really --
     that's how they get into that.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I'm questioning handling the
     special circumstances using principles from 1.174.  I don't
     think they apply, because the special circumstances,
     according to the document, deal with undue risk.  That is
     adequate protection.  So I don't see how you can use 1.174
     to conclude that you have a special circumstance.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  George, remember, 1.174 is guidance
     on how to do license amendments.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  And the test to license amendments
     is no undue risk.  It is -- in fact, every license amendment
     decision we make is effectively an adequate protection
     decision.
               DR. BONACA:  It's interesting how you could go to
     the same exercise thinking about with Calloway; they've
     proposed this amendment, and they want 1.174.  Think of it
     that way.  1.174 never denied the amendment if they find
     themselves in the region that they cannot justify this
     change.  And I believe that this allows the NRC to have the
     symmetrical approach where they can implement the same
     process and perform what Calloway should have done.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  With respect to Calloway, I think
     the point is not necessarily that it would have been denied. 
     The point is that the rules of the game of how the amendment
     was treated would have been much clearer.  It would have
     been much clearer if we had this guidance two years ago as
     to what the expectations on the part of the licensee and on
     the part of the staff were.  It was still a difficult issue
     with technical matters that will be argued over as to
     whether they would have passed or failed the criteria.  But
     at least we would have had a clearer understanding of what
     the expectations were.
               MR. BARRETT:  This is Rich Barrett with the staff. 
     I'd like to take a shot at that question.  I think that the
     concept of special circumstances is important here, because
     I don't think that we want to say that a -- that you have --
     that there are criteria in Reg Guide 1.174, and if you're
     below those criteria, you get something approved, and iv
     you're slightly above them, you cannot.  What we're trying
     to say here is that we only want to look at situations that
     have -- I'll go so far as to say deterministic circumstances
     which make the situation worth looking at from a
     probabilistic or a risk perspective.
               In the case of electrosleeves, it was the
     introduction of an entirely new type of material into the
     steam generator, the material having certain characteristics
     which the staff, if we were doing this today, might call
     that a special circumstance which would raise the question
     of whether we should be looking at the criteria and the
     guidelines of 1.174; and as Bob pointed out not only the
     numerical guidelines but questions related to
     defense-in-depth margins and the ability to monitor
     performance and all of the other criteria in Reg Guide
     1.174.
               So what we're trying to say here is that there's
     more than just a risk test, a numerical risk test.  We're
     basically saying that there is going to have to be a
     threshold here that the staff is going to have to cross in
     terms of something qualitative that raises this to the level
     of a possible special circumstance.
               DR. WALLIS:  While we're on this general slide
     here, wouldn't it be true that if there were an adequate
     protection meter, then most of the problems would go away,
     and for some reason, in the entire history of the agency,
     having inadequate protection is somehow taboo?
               DR. PALLA:  Well, if you had an adequate
     protection meter that sufficiently addressed all of the
     facets of what goes into them through an adequate protection
     procedure, that would be true.  I think the challenge would
     be to come up with such a meter, because it isn't just -- if
     we had ideal PRAs, I don't think it would be numerical
     still.
               DR. WALLIS:  Only the priesthood can decide.  You
     don't have the measure which the layman can understand which
     says whether it's adequate protection or not.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Bob, nobody is arguing that it
     should be a numerical criterion alone, but one could
     envision the five principles of 1.174 with the fourth
     principle replaced by other numbers as being applicable to
     adequate protection questions.  That would be a cleaner way
     of doing it.  Which brings me to my last point:  you also
     say here in the change that the staff -- if a licensee does
     not choose to address this, the reviewers should not issue
     the requested amendment until they have assessed the risk
     implications sufficiently to determine that there is
     reasonable assurance that the public health and safety will
     be adequately protected.
               Now how on earth are they going to do this without
     numerical guidance?  How does a reviewer decide that the
     risk change is not great enough so that there is reasonable
     assurance?
               DR. PALLA:  Okay; at that point, you're part way
     through a process.  You would have already had an amendment
     request come in.  It would be forwarded to the risk branch
     for a look.  The risk person would look at it; says, well,
     even though it meets the requirements, there is some element
     of what's being requested here that causes me concern for
     some sequences that are significant to the risk profile for
     this plant.  So this is all, perhaps, qualitative judgments;
     it would be.
               If it wasn't a risk-informed amendment, it would
     be coming in without that risk information, so the reviewer
     would have to be making these judgments based on qualitative
     considerations.  And upon being convinced that there is a
     concern here, one of the steps -- and there's a flow chart
     in -- I think it's the next page in your package there --
     that basically says management informed of potential risk
     concerns.  We've put in this process a step by which the
     individual reviewer would not unilaterally make some
     decision about an issue being a special circumstance.  There
     would be some iteration, some, you know, convincing done at
     the staff -- you know, with their management to basically
     reach some agreement that, yes, this does look like it's a
     risk-significant consideration.
               That could rise to the level that we might argue
     that it's inadequate protection.  And then, you'd go and
     you'd ask for the risk information.  Now, the point that I
     think you were postulating was what if, after you asked for
     it, you don't get it?  And what we say in our guidance is if
     the licensee chooses to not submit this, then, we basically
     would need to convince ourselves that this issue that we got
     ourselves all spun up about is, in fact, not an issue.  So
     we do put a burden on ourselves, number one, to convince
     ourselves that it is a special circumstance, and then, once
     we've done that, if we don't get enough information, I don't
     think it's appropriate to turn around and say we got no
     licensee response; the thing that we thought was a special
     circumstance is okay.
               You know, you can't do that.  I don't think it
     would be legitimate to do that.  I think you then have to
     establish a basis for concluding that it's acceptable, and
     if you can't do that, then, I think you have a problem
     approving the amendment request.  And so that is kind of a
     dilemma that's created if a licensee does not submit the
     information that's necessary.
               DR. POWERS:  Let me ask a question, because I'm
     not sure there's -- this is all this unusual.  Suppose a
     licensee proposes something; it comes to the appropriate
     person on the staff.  The appropriate person on the staff
     says oh, gosh, these guys haven't looked at intermetallic
     reactions.  I'm pulling that out of the air.
               DR. PALLA:  Okay.
               DR. POWERS:  And so, he writes a request for
     additional information; sends it off to the licensee and
     says what about intermetallic reactions?  The licensee comes
     back and says never heard of such thing; don't have any
     answers; don't know what you're talking about.  I mean, the
     guy has the same problem, right?
               DR. PALLA:  Yes.
               DR. POWERS:  And he has handled that as he's
     handled it for years and years and years now.  He either
     convinces himself that his concern over intermetallic
     reactions was misplaced, and there isn't a problem here, in
     which case, he approves the amendment request, or he
     persuades himself that, indeed, he was justified in worrying
     about and he denies it, right?
               DR. PALLA:  Well, I don't think he denies it right
     up -- I think he elevates it --
               DR. POWERS:  Oh.
               DR. PALLA:  -- and basically goes to the next step
     to try to articulate what is it about this issue that --
               DR. POWERS:  Well, yes, he has to persuade
     somebody, himself or maybe his boss or somebody else.
               DR. PALLA:  Right.
               DR. POWERS:  Yes.
               DR. PALLA:  And then, ultimately, if you can get
     the information from the licensee, it makes the job easier
     to make the judgment.
               DR. POWERS:  But if he doesn't --
               DR. PALLA:  If you don't, well, then, the staff
     has to be -- I mean, our -- the purpose of our review is to
     conclude that there is adequate protection.  If you can't
     get that information that's needed to do that, then, I don't
     think you could reach the appropriate finding.
               DR. POWERS:  And I think that's been going on for
     a long time, hasn't it?
               MR. HOLAHAN:  It goes on all the time, but in
     making that judgment, the staff needs to articulate what is
     it about this issue that makes it unacceptable, and in most
     cases, and, in fact, the easiest path to saying no, this is
     not acceptable is to say that this phenomenon, this issue,
     this lack of information, this, you know, negative
     information shows me that there's a piece of the regulation
     that isn't being met, okay?
               So the regulation may say something about the
     extremely low likelihood of the vessel failing or something
     like that.
               DR. POWERS:  And here, we've already posed that it
     meets all regulations.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  Yes; that's right.
               DR. POWERS:  But there's still something there.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  That's right; that's right.  And so,
     this sort of issue, in which you're struggling with, you
     know, how much do I know and is it good enough, say, some of
     those are issues about am I meeting the regulation, and some
     of those are, well, I think I meet the regulation, but I
     still have residual concerns usually because the regulation
     wasn't constructed originally to deal with these particular
     types of cases or materials or issues or whatever.
               DR. POWERS:  I mean, you must be very
     hypothetical, because I think I can take -- find something
     in the general design criteria that's applicable to
     everything in an absolutely sense.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  But in some cases, you may find that
     the general design criteria or the regulation is specific on
     a point, but under the particular circumstances, it gives
     you the wrong answer.
               DR. POWERS:  I see; okay.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Speaking of hypothetical
     situations, let's say that you are doing your risk
     assessment, okay, either with the help of the licensee or
     not, and you find that the change in CDF is 3x10-5, but
     their CDF is already 10-6.  Now, you have a problem.  I
     don't think you can really make a case of adequate
     protection.  On the other hand, the guy has violated the
     fourth principle of 1.174.  So does he get away with it just
     because he did not submit risk information, or what do you
     do?
               DR. PALLA:  Well, that's one of five, and you've
     got to say, well, what about the other four?  Does he have
     any, you know, margins, defense-in-depth?  Is this -- what
     exactly is the situation in these other areas?  And if he
     fell down in numerous other areas, then, you might think of
     elevating that.
               DR. KRESS:  I think George has a really good point
     here, and the point is that in this process of dealing with
     requested changes and whether they should be approved or
     not, we're mixing in the concept of adequate protection when
     we really don't know what adequate protection is, and we're
     trying to equate it somehow with a change in CDF or a change
     in something, and the two are just not related to each
     other, and that confuses everybody.
               What you ought to have is a rule that says we will
     not allow a change in CDF or LERF more than this amount and
     not try to confuse it with adequate protection.  That is the
     rule.  That's the criterion, and whether they have a CDF of
     this much or this much, we're not going to allow any change
     any bigger than this, and it's an absolute, and you don't
     confuse it with adequate protection; you don't even try to
     throw it in that way.  And I think that's the problem.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  To tell you my personal view is
     that the staff really -- and, of course, they're here; they
     can correct me -- the staff really does not want to approve
     changes that violate 1.174.
               DR. KRESS:  And that ought to be the rule.  That
     ought to be the criteria.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And if it was up to them, they
     would do that.
               DR. KRESS:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  The problem is that legally,
     they cannot publish it that way.  They have to invoke
     adequate protection.
               DR. PALLA:  Are you talking about just the
     numerical criteria?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  All of it; five, all five
     principles.
               DR. PALLA:  It's very hard to judge those other
     principles, though, but the numerical one is probably the
     easiest one.  These other factors are kind of diffuse so --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Right.
               DR. PALLA:  So I think that judgment is just very
     clouded so --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  It is very clouded, but at least
     the only principle there that's not as much clouded is the
     fourth principle, and there is a possibility that a proposed
     change violates that principle without really disturbing the
     others too much, and I -- if it's an issue of adequate
     protection, I don't see how you can deny it.  And yet,
     Regulatory Guide 1.174 is violated.
               So, in other words, by choosing not to submit risk
     information, I have avoided one of the constraints there.
               DR. PALLA:  In fact, what the process we're
     suggesting --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  It's not your fault, by the way. 
     I'm not blaming you guys.  I know your predicament.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  It seems to me that what we're
     suggesting is that when there are circumstances that make a
     particular license amendment look like it deserves
     additional attention, it is, in fact, pulled in and given
     the same treatment as though it were submitted under a
     risk-informed application.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So it's going now down to 1.174.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  Yes, yes, and --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And I would agree with Dr.
     Kress, then.  Drop the words adequate protection.  I mean,
     that is a very noble thing to do, to apply 1.174.
               DR. KRESS:  I think it's a perfectly reasonable
     process.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  I find that I can get through the
     entire day without mentioning adequate protection by just
     thinking about whether decisions are the right safety
     decisions or not.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But would the Office of General
     Counsel concur?  That's really the question.
               DR. PALLA:  Well, I don't think they would,
     because I think the basis for rejection has to be adequate
     protection, and I think that --
               MR. HOLAHAN:  And the truth is the basis on which
     all license amendments are approved, 1,500 every single
     year, is adequate protection.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But, then, you don't invoke
     1.174 in those decisions, Gary.
               DR. PALLA:  Well, you could.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  In fact, we do.
               DR. PALLA:  If you meet it, you do.
               DR. POWERS:  George, how do we get out of your
     dilemma?
               DR. PALLA:  Go to the next slide.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  No, there are two ways.  One is
     to drop references to adequate protection, and the other is
     to drop the opposition to the three-region approach that
     this committee has recommended.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  Well, okay, I think that's an
     important point, which is the subject we're talking about
     today and the relationship between risk-informed insights
     and adequate protection is no different now, and it's not
     being changed with respect to what 1.174 established with
     this committee's enthusiastic endorsement just a few years
     ago.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I agree with the latter part.
               See, my point, Gary, is this:  that you have the
     CSIS; you have this committee coming to the Commission and
     saying we need some numerical guidance regarding adequate
     protection.  The Commission looks at this and says why on
     earth are they telling us this?  This is philosophy.  Why do
     we need this?  We don't need this.
               Until the Commission sees practical problems that
     arise because of the lack of that numerical guidance, they
     will never change their mind.  And if you show this to them,
     they're not going to see it right away, and it seems to me
     that this is your problem here, that you don't have any
     numerical guidance regarding what is adequate protection.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  Clearly, what we are doing here is
     we are defining a process that works in the context of the
     existing regulations, existing case law, you know, the
     existing guidance that we're using, okay?  So, you know, by
     definition, it is dealing with difficult cases within the
     current regulatory context, okay?
               And we need to do that because it's the only
     regulatory process we have right now.  And I think I'd like
     to separate these two thoughts.  One is I think the
     committee has expressed a number of times that it would like
     to see a different regulatory process with a different way
     of addressing adequate protection and using risk information
     and, you know, that seems to me that's an ongoing thought;
     it's very interesting.
               But in the meantime, we have to make the existing
     regulatory process work.  We need it to be as, you know,
     clear and efficient for all the stakeholders as possible. 
     And so, you know, we're not trying to avoid those other
     issues, but we need to deal, you know, with the existing
     process at that point in time.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  One last point, and then, that's
     it.  I don't see how the existing regulatory process guides
     you to decide that the risk implications have been
     sufficiently assessed to determine whether there is
     reasonable assurance that the public health and safety will
     be adequately protected.  I just don't see the current
     regulations doing that.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  Okay.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Okay; let's go on.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  I think I need to say that not only
     do I see it, but I see it happening 1,500 times a year.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  With numerical risk estimates.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  Well, maybe a few dozen times a year
     with risk estimates.
               DR. POWERS:  I'm anxious to go through this slide.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  Well this, I think, is basically
     what we've already talked about.  Let me just explain
     something up front about this, though, because license
     amendments, when they come in, are processed in division of
     projects, and the project manager would generally be looking
     at these submittals and trying to determine what branches
     need to have a role in this review.
               We did put out some guidance.  It's in office
     letter 803.  It was revised last December to include I'll
     say the beginnings of some further guidance on how risk, you
     know, considerations should be brought into that screening
     process.  But in special circumstances is one of the pieces
     that's flagged in the office letter as being a reason to go
     and consult with the PRA branch.  We need to come back to
     that office letter once we've fleshed this animal out some
     more and updated and, you know, fill it out, but at this
     point, there is a mechanism in place that an incoming
     amendment would be screened; would be forwarded to the PRA
     branch at least for consultation.
               This isn't to say that it's automatically, you
     know, assumed that it's going to be an in-depth PRA review,
     but it will be forwarded to the branch to look at these
     exact kinds of considerations, because this could be a
     non-risk-informed amendment that comes to us, and we would
     look at it to say is there something unique about this
     request that we need to look at it for some reason and
     possibly go into risk implications.
               DR. POWERS:  It's this unique situation criteria
     on the very first box that causes me pause, because I can
     argue that every single one of 1,500 licensing amendments a
     year is unique.  I'd have no trouble in defending that.
               DR. KRESS:  I think you what?  Go in and make a
     qualitative judgment that that change is likely to have some
     influence on risk.
               DR. PALLA:  Well, it would generally be something
     that's extreme.
               DR. KRESS:  Yes.
               DR. PALLA:  I mean, if you're looking at, let's
     say, power up rates, and you come in with a couple percent,
     5 percent, no big deal.  If someone comes in for 20 percent,
     you'd say hey, that maybe something that, you know, it's
     unique in the sense that no one else has done anything close
     to that before so --
               DR. POWERS:  I know that if you were doing it that
     it would have that reasonable approach, but I also know that
     as time goes on, different people do it, and they may have a
     different threshold than you have in mind as you set this
     chart up.  And they will say ah, this one is unique.
               DR. PALLA:  Well, unique should really be thought
     of as you believe it's potentially special circumstances. 
     That's what really is intended there.  There's something
     about the request that undermines or does not -- it includes
     considerations that may not have been part of the
     regulations.  There's a hint that perhaps if this came in as
     a risk-informed request that this would be a problem for
     some reason or another.  So you've got to carry a lot of
     knowledge into that first box there.  You have to have some
     educated, you know, understanding about what the concern is,
     why the existing regulations don't seem to cover it
     adequately.  It's not just unique, because there are a lot
     of things that are unique.
               DR. POWERS:  I mean, everything is going to be
     unique.  I'll find something; this bolt on the lower
     left-hand corner of this fixture is different than any other
     bolt I've ever seen.
               DR. SHACK:  Unique is definitely the wrong word. 
     Either everything is unique, or nothing is unique.
               DR. POWERS:  That's right.
               DR. PALLA:  It's got to fit in the box, too.
               DR. POWERS:  What I'm trying to do or what I'm
     concerned about is it seems to me that going through this
     process ought to be a very rare circumstance, and it ought
     not be used as an excuse for demanding that things be
     risk-informed, all submittals being risk-informed or
     threaten that all submittals need to be risk-informed. 
     That's where I'm concerned.
               DR. PALLA:  Well that's -- when you're in that
     first box, you should be looking at what is it about the
     regulations that -- for whatever reason I meet them, they
     don't give me the intended level of safety that I would have
     expected.  That all goes on in the first box, you know; it's
     more than unique; it's unique, plus you look at, you know,
     you're looking at this situation and determining essentially
     that you believe it's a special circumstance, that if you
     approve this, there would be some significant increase in
     risk and possibly rising to the level that you would say
     it's inadequate and unacceptable.
               So that's all that that box is intended to do, and
     unique is not the best word, obviously.
               DR. WALLIS:  It's a pretty important box, because
     if the answer is no, then, off it goes to the right and
     disappears.
               DR. PALLA:  Yes; and this is where the burden
     falls squarely on the staff's shoulders, because they're
     making this judgment in the absence of the risk information. 
     They're trying to read into -- I've got a slide a couple
     slides back here.  There's really only a couple sentences in
     the proposed modification to the guidance that we have that
     tries to articulate a little bit more about what that is,
     but it's an important part of the step.
               And then, you go to the next -- you have to
     structure all your arguments as to why this thing is a
     safety concern up here.  And then, once you've convinced
     yourself, you take it, and you get the management buy-in on
     this.
               DR. WALLIS:  I guess what I'm concerned about is
     the reluctance to do this, because it's supposed to be a
     special case.  And then, here go these 1,500 applications
     by.  Suddenly, someone discovers at the end of the year,
     gee, whiz, the net effect of all these things we've approved
     is that we've violated 1.174.  We've compromised the
     principles without knowing it.  We've let everything go to
     another side, and then, gee, whiz, look.
               DR. PALLA:  Well, it's unclear you'd ever know
     that, because these would be non-risk-informed.  You
     wouldn't have that risk information.  You wouldn't know that
     you would have exceeded it unless you know to ask.  You're
     kind of -- this is just a screening process.  You try to
     determine -- we're setting a threshold here for when we're
     going to ask the risk questions.
               DR. WALLIS:  Well, there's no penalty for letting
     it go to the box.
               DR. PALLA:  To the no, unacceptable box?
               DR. WALLIS:  At the end, the one there --
               DR. PALLA:  Oh.
               DR. WALLIS:  The one there on the right.
               DR. POWERS:  You have a really peculiar -- when
     the answer is no, the application is yes.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. POWERS:  It's a peculiar fault tree.
               DR. PALLA:  Well, yes, it is.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  In my mind, what's important to
     recognize in this -- I really hate coming to the committee
     and being such a pragmatist; it's much easier when I'm back
     in my office.  But the point is we're not inventing, you
     know, these circumstances.  I mean, license amendments come
     in.  They've been coming in for years.  And the question is,
     you know, as a pragmatic approach, should we try harder to
     catch these unusual cases?  If we don't do this, then they
     automatically go --
               DR. WALLIS:  That's not the only question.  The
     question is when you've done this for a year, you look back
     at it, and have you done it right?  And you may need to
     review the whole process of your 1,500 in a year and say
     when we did all that, did we in some way violate the RG
     1.174 safety principles and allowed them to be compromised.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  Well, let me say something about
     that because we had a contract, and the contractor looked
     through about six months worth of license amendment
     requests.  We had 700.  And they looked at, you know, these
     were risk-savvy people.  They screened them carefully and
     tried to determine, you know, what types of amendments
     really warranted a quick look, a detailed look and basically
     found that, you know, something kind of on the order of
     maybe a tenth of them needed to have some -- a high level
     look at risk and then a small fraction of -- they really
     didn't find anything that they would have -- we consulted
     and asked them about special circumstances; did it look like
     any of these 700 would have risen to the level that they
     would have, you know, invoked this special circumstances
     thinking, and basically, the answer was no.
               There is a lot of them that you would want to look
     at the risk implications, but there weren't any in that
     sample that would rise to the level that you'd reject this
     thing because of risk considerations, and there were things
     like that we didn't have any Calloways in this group but --
               DR. WALLIS:  That's reassuring; the whole purpose
     of this is to make sure that you don't, in processing all of
     these applications, some way allow you to violate the safety
     principles.
               DR. PALLA:  But that was a sample.  Now, that's
     not to say we're going to always do that, but based on that
     sample, we concluded that the instances that you'd have to
     go drilling deeply for risk information are rare.
               DR. WALLIS:  You'd have to make sure that you're
     doing whatever process like this you set up to make sure
     you're doing it right.  You have to keep on reviewing over
     the year or in some way the feedback to see if you're
     catching things right at box one, because that's the lead
     box.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  It's a good suggestion.  We need to
     find an effective and efficient way of testing that, kind of
     a reality check on the whole process, look at it
     periodically after the fact, see how it's working.
               DR. PALLA:  Well, let me just move through this
     thing a little bit more.  There's a management buy-in step
     here that's a checks and balances kind of thing to make sure
     that the decision is not unilateral on the part of the
     reviewer.  Once the decision of a special circumstance, some
     kind of a consensus is formed, decisions may -- let's try to
     get the risk information we need to make a determination on
     what does this amendment mean to us in terms of risk.
               DR. KRESS:  When you say management, is there some
     sort of a -- going to be some sort of an upper-level review
     group established that you take these things to or is it --
     I don't know exactly what you mean by management.
               DR. PALLA:  The truthful answer at this point is
     that I don't know exactly what that could involve, but I was
     thinking at a minimum, it would be a branch level
     involvement, branch chief, but it could possibly be --
               DR. KRESS:  Could possibly be a review from higher
     management.
               DR. PALLA:  It could be; I don't know if Farouk
     would be an appropriate thing.  If they're rare enough, I
     don't think it should be an impediment.  I mean, it may be
     high visibility.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  My guess is that there will be no
     lack of management attention.  My recollection, for example,
     of a case that got enough attention, like the Calloway
     circumstances; I believe it had every level of management
     including the Commissioners.
               DR. PALLA:  That was an exceptional exception.
               If we move forward; we ask for the information --
               MR. HOLAHAN:  And, in fact, if you recall, just --
     let me interrupt -- remember:  the Commission has asked to
     be informed about these cases, okay, and that pretty much
     assures that about five levels of management are going to
     have to understand what it is in order to get it up there.
               DR. PALLA:  That's in the interim, the Commission
     has asked to be informed.  We've removed that step in this. 
     The expectation is we'd have a reasonable level of
     management, and these things would be pretty rare, and you'd
     get enough attention on it.
               If we ask for the risk information, we get the
     risk information, and it indicates that the reg guide safety
     principles, numerical criteria, whatever, in whatever
     combination is not met, it's not an automatic rejection. 
     It's basically a trigger has been met; you go to the next
     step; look more carefully at exactly what made this thing --
     why do we think this is special circumstances?  How is it
     that the existing requirements are not providing us what we
     need?  Are there other extenuating circumstances?  Are there
     some compensatory measures?  Is it temporary?
               We've reached the threshold at this point, and
     then, we basically have to -- I'd say this thing gets
     elevated up through the organization when it's clear that
     there's a lot of fuzzy judgments need to be made about
     whether this thing is adequate or not, and that's basically
     the last box, to say do we or don't we think that the --
     when one looks at all these considerations, is it adequate
     protection or not?
               DR. WALLIS:  These fuzzy judgments is not a
     reassuring expression.
               DR. KRESS:  I would be perfectly happy with this
     process if the words adequate protection didn't appear in it
     anywhere.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Drop adequate protection and --
               DR. KRESS:  They would be very nice for the
     process.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  As we said earlier, you've come
     to this box -- you don't need to put it in this box, but if
     you come to this box, and you see that 1.174 criteria are
     violated, you say sorry; you have to go back and redo this.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  You understand whether it says so on
     the chart or not, the basis for accepting and rejecting
     license amendments is called adequate protection.  That's in
     the rules.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Everything is adequate
     protection?  We call everything license protection; you're
     at the mercy of the reviewer.  I thought we were trying to
     get away from that.
               DR. PALLA:  Well, in this case, it's more than the
     reviewer.  You've ruled this thing all the way up the chain
     so --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  You don't have to call it
     adequate protection; go through cost-benefit calculations.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  Not for licensing matters.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But, I mean, the argument is if
     I say so, it's adequate protection.  I mean, there's
     something wrong with it.
               MR. BARRETT:  Well, these judgments are made in
     the context of a lot of regulatory guidance.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Because you have nothing else to
     go by, Rich.
               MR. BARRETT:  No, as we said, in 99 percent of the
     cases, we have regulatory guidance; we have existing design
     basis; we have, in some cases, prescriptive rules.  This is
     the exception.  But the hurdle you have to cross is still
     the same.  It's a finding of reasonable assurance of
     adequate protection.  And that's one of the ground rules
     that we have to work with in developing this guidance.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So what you are saying is that
     in that box, question raised, what you're saying is that if
     you violate 1.174, you don't approve.
               DR. PALLA:  No, I did not say that.  I said that
     you could potentially disapprove it at that point, but you'd
     have to go to the next step, to relook at everything that --
     every extenuating circumstance that applies.  But this was a
     case like in Calloway steam generators.  We've deliberated
     this at the office director level whether this is acceptable
     or not.  So you've got a lot of considerations go into that;
     the uncertainties in these estimates; it's not just the
     numerics.  It's whether you've got margins, you know, what
     the levels of risk are.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  My question is this:  if a
     licensee voluntarily has submitted risk information, you
     would be using 1.174, and granted, there are uncertainties
     in everything, everything, everything.  You would have
     rejected it on the basis of 1.174, including the
     uncertainties.  Is it possible that the same request would
     be approved if it goes this way?  It should be, because
     you're talking about the different --
               DR. PALLA:  I think the process is the same.  I
     think if it was risk-informed, I think you would jump into
     this process without going through the first few steps.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  Right.
               DR. PALLA:  You just jump in there and --
               DR. BONACA:  It seems to me ultimately, if you
     have an application, you make a judgment.  And here, you're
     trying to break the barriers with risk information as one
     more thing to make a judgment.  And I don't see -- I
     understand about the issue -- what I don't see is how it's
     divergent with what the staff is doing on every application. 
     It's simply some additional information.  But this itself is
     not -- it has the ability to render a judgment on an
     application.
               MR. BARRETT:  You know, a lot of times, when we
     get a risk-informed licensing action, it's submitted that
     way because a licensee has made a judgment that it will not
     be approved any other way.  So Reg Guide 1.174 gives you an
     opportunity, it gives you a mechanism for making a finding
     of reasonable assurance of adequate protection and therefore
     approving a license amendment.  So we're already in adequate
     protection space with 1.174.  What we're saying here is that
     this is a double-edged sword.
               DR. PALLA:  Can I proceed?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  If you approve that, you would
     approve it under this criteria; but you would have rejected
     it under 1.174.
               DR. PALLA:  It's conceivable, but you should be
     using the same guidance, though.  It's possible if you send
     it to two different reviewers that you'd come up with
     different answers.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But aren't we depending on the
     intelligence of the licensee to avoid risk information in
     most cases, in other words, avoid 1.174?
               MR. HOLAHAN:  No, I think not; in fact, what this
     does is it puts the licensee on notice that if this is an
     unusual or controversial case, if you don't provide the risk
     information, we're going to deal with it anyway, and if you
     want this reviewed in an efficient manner, you ought to do
     your homework up front to bring it to us with the complete
     story.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I have no problem with that.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  I'd like to go back to another
     point, which this issue of adequate protection and all that;
     very often, what we find out is the issue is not whether you
     have adequate protection or not.  The issue is what is the
     role of a regulatory guide?  All regulatory guides are
     definitions of at least one way of meeting the regulations. 
     They tell you what's safe enough.  None of them tell you
     what is unsafe.  None of them draw that line to say this
     would be unacceptable, okay?  And we keep coming back to
     that among all the regulatory guides, this is the only one
     for which we set that expectation.  Not only should it tell
     you that something is acceptable, but this should have such
     a clear regulatory role that it can also define what is
     unacceptable.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  This particular guide.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  This particular guide; we keep
     coming back to having that expectation on this guide.  And I
     would say this guide is, in a legal sense, no different from
     the other guides.  It simply says if you do things this way,
     the staff will accept them, okay?  When you don't do things
     this way, they're not automatically unacceptable, but it
     becomes very difficult and in this sort of undefined
     territory.  Now, on what basis am I going to accept this? 
     And I think that's the nature of the regulatory process we
     have.  We don't have a clear line between acceptable and not
     acceptable in the guidance documents.
               DR. PALLA:  That's right.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  And that's not a funny
     characteristic of 1.174.  That's a characteristic of all the
     regulatory guides.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But there is a unique aspect of
     1.174 that the defined numbers for core damage frequency
     have global metrics, and I think we should be very sensitive
     not to interpret those numbers as representing adequate
     protection.  And because they are the only numbers that are
     out there, people are stuck in whatever they are doing to
     recognize this is not adequate protection, but I'll use the
     numbers anyway.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  And just like all the other guidance
     documents, if there's one on an engineering matter, and it
     says we should expect a factor of two in some engineering
     margin; if the licensee says, well, I don't have a factor of
     two in this case; I have a factor of 1.8, then, on what
     basis do you say, well, I can't automatically say it's
     acceptable; it's not the way we normally do things?  Is it
     automatically unacceptable?  Or does it go to a more
     judgmental situation where there is management attention and
     other considerations, and we argue about is this a good
     safety decision?
               And the name we put on that safety decision after
     it's done is called adequate protection.  But putting the
     name on it doesn't make the decision any harder or any
     easier.  It's just a tag we put on it after we decide.
               DR. POWERS:  And speaking of tags, I understand
     from this flow chart special circumstance is a label that
     you put on things and not a checklist of things; that that
     checklist really exists on the first box, and it's an
     amendment checklist; it's not a rule checklist.  You come
     out, and you say there's something special about this that
     raises risk considerations.
               DR. PALLA:  Right.
               DR. POWERS:  Proceed.
               DR. PALLA:  Actually, all of what we have
     discussed is essentially what we've embodied in the
     regulatory guidance, and let me just explain how we decided
     to structure this guidance.  We had deliberated on whether
     this belonged in the reg guide; whether this belonged in the
     standard review plan.  Initially, we were thinking there
     should be information, appendices, new appendices to both. 
     We decided, well, let's put this in a self-standing
     appendix, but it really belongs in the standard review plan. 
     It's not really -- it's really guidance to the staff more
     than it is guidance to the industry, and so, we've put this
     as a self-standing appendix to SRP Chapter 19.
               We've made some minor modifications to the text of
     the SRP and also to the text of Reg Guide 1.174, and those
     minor modifications essentially indicate that there's a
     potential for such special circumstances to exist, and it
     makes reference to the new appendix in the SRP.
               I indicated on the office letter 803, it made some
     revisions in December of last year; that was the first step
     towards incorporating some risk information in this document
     to help managers screen amendment requests to determine
     which ones should be looked at by the PRA branch.  We want
     to come back to that, and after we've gone through these
     deliberations on special circumstances and this process, and
     we will be updating that in the same time frame as we'll be
     finalizing the other guidance documents.
               Within the new appendix to the SRP, we took the
     path of least resistance.  We basically -- because we laid
     these principles out in SECY 99-246; we had quite a bit of
     deliberation; a lot of input from OGC on the process and the
     league of principles involved.  What we've done in the SRP
     is tried to consolidate the basic process and rationale into
     a concise summary description of how the staff should use
     risk; you know, wanting to ask questions about risk; what to
     do with the responses; what to do if you don't have
     responses; how do you ultimately make a decision; trying to
     embody all of that.
               So we didn't try to get creative and do anything
     new above and beyond the original SECY, except that we did
     try to further articulate what are the special
     circumstances, and we threw some examples in there that we
     intended to clarify, and I expect to have some comments
     about those.
               DR. POWERS:  Let me say that the first dash or the
     second bullet really helps me a lot.  These situations not
     identified or addressed in the development regulations are
     important enough to warrant a new regulation encountered on
     a widespread --
               DR. PALLA:  These are -- in the attempt to try to
     be more clear and objective, really, these are the two key
     statements that we've added to what was in the SECY, so,
     yes, if we didn't see it before, and if we saw enough of
     them, we would think about moving towards a new regulation. 
     So that kind of establishes a threshold, if you will, of how
     severe does this have to be.
               DR. POWERS:  Yes; that's a very useful thing.
               DR. PALLA:  And in the other one, the reviewer has
     knowledge that the risk impact is not reflected by the
     licensing basis accident, but you have reason to believe
     that risk would be an impact and that you would have an
     issue if it came in as a risk-informed application; this
     kind of speaks to the Calloway issue and, you know, an
     electrosleeving type of thing that if you'll look just
     simply within design basis accident space, you know,
     everything looks great.  But then, you know, once you've got
     steam generator tube ruptures or, you know, anything induced
     by a high pressure core melt, this is a whole different
     matter.
               It's outside of the design basis and sends a flag
     up, and if it, in fact, had come in as a risk-informed
     request, we would have an issue there.  So that's the second
     piece to try to be more clear and objective.
               We threw some bullets -- examples of situations in
     the form of bullets.  The bullets are on the middle of page
     three, not of slide three but on page three of the guidance
     document that you all have, and I don't know that I need to
     go through them unless you have particular questions about
     them.
               DR. POWERS:  I think it would be good if you would
     spend some time thinking about your flow chart and see if
     you can't get some of these ideas from this slide showing up
     in that flow chart as questions that you ask.
               DR. PALLA:  You're saying in the future --
               DR. POWERS:  Yes.
               DR. PALLA:  -- try to embody those concepts within
     the process chart?
               DR. POWERS:  Right now, you have this unique
     circumstance or unique situation there which is really just
     too nebulous --
               DR. PALLA:  Yes.
               DR. POWERS:  -- to really grasp, whereas, you have
     some very specific criteria.
               DR. PALLA:  But those two concepts really are what
     can be put in that box space there.
               DR. POWERS:  You need to get that kind of flavor
     across in your flow chart, because that helped me a
     tremendous amount.
               DR. PALLA:  Okay.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  Although perhaps references in those
     boxes to the sections that talk more specifically about the
     examples and --
               DR. POWERS:  That might be better than using words
     that are too mushy to grab a hold of in some way because
     those --
               MR. HOLAHAN:  Okay.
               DR. POWERS:  -- the first one clearly identifies
     the kind of threshold you're looking for, and the second one
     gives me something quantitative to grab a hold of, some
     knowledge that I need to bring to bear on this subject that
     allows me to say yes, this is something to worry about.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  Okay.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I notice that we have copies of
     something from NEI.  How much time will you need, Biff?  Is
     Biff here?
               DR. BRADLEY:  Fifteen minutes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Fifteen minutes?  So you should
     wrap it up soon.
               DR. PALLA:  I'm almost at the end here.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Okay.
               DR. PALLA:  So why don't I just kind of throw a
     couple up here?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Okay.
               DR. PALLA:  As I mentioned before, the
     modifications to the case of the SRP and the reg guide are
     kind of superficial.  They just refer back to the appendix. 
     They make reference to the idea that even though amendment
     requests meet the regulations, there could be a special
     situation in which risk is increased, and the staff might be
     requesting information, risk information in making the
     decision.  It makes reference to the appendix, which we
     decided to place only in the SRP.
               And finally, on the issue of the office letter, as
     I mentioned, we've put some additional guidance in December
     in the update, and it has some screening questions for
     things other than special circumstances, but it does include
     special circumstances as one of several.  It does not
     describe it because at the time, we had basically excerpted
     information from SECY 99-246.  It wasn't approved by the
     Commission yet, and we didn't really have any further
     guidance.  So we do need to come back to that when we're
     done here and bring the office letter up to snuff.
               And this, the only other thing I want to say is
     give a schedule for where we're going from here.  We issued
     the regulatory issue summary; it basically informed the
     industry that this is the interim guidance that will be
     used, and it will stay interim until we finalize this
     process.  We forwarded the draft mods to CRGR.  We'll be
     having a public meeting on this next week.  We do intend to
     take the feedback from the committee from the stakeholder
     meeting; NEI, if they have any constructive criticism, roll
     that into a revision of this document.
               We'll be back here to discuss it, unless you don't
     want us to come back.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  You'll be back here in August?
               DR. PALLA:  Yes; is that too soon?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Are the members going to be here
     in August?
               DR. PALLA:  Yes.
               MR. MARKLEY:  We do not have an early August
     meeting.  We have a late August, first of September meeting.
               DR. PALLA:  It's the end of the month, very end.
               DR. POWERS:  I think we need the conclusion of
     NEI's presentation, and I hope you'll stay here so we can
     discuss a little bit.
               DR. PALLA:  Okay.
               DR. POWERS:  This quite frankly smacks of a
     management and a process issue with marginal technical
     content that I'd like to discuss whether there really is any
     input you can get from ACRS rather than grammatically and
     lexicography.
               DR. PALLA:  And the end bullet there, September is
     our date to try to wrap this thing up and have final
     guidance to the Commission.  That's it.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Okay.
               [Pause.]
               DR. BRADLEY:  I'm Biff Bradley of the NEI staff. 
     We have with us today Alan Passwater from Union Electric who
     is the licensing manager for Calloway.  He's also on our
     risk-informed regulation working group and has probably had
     more direct involvement and participation in how this issue
     plays out in application than most of us, if not all, and
     some of you on the staff were probably involved as well. 
     And Al was going to make a few introductory remarks, and
     then, I'll briefly go over the industry's positions on the
     proposal.
               MR. PASSWATER:  Good afternoon.  I want to thank
     you for allowing us some time to talk about this issue.  I'm
     not here to relive the Calloway experience; once was enough,
     and I think Gary and others would agree with that.  But what
     we did want to comment on today was what's being proposed in
     the Federal Register notice that was issued recently, and a
     lot of the things I know that we're going to talk about,
     you've already hit on, so I don't think we'll dwell on those
     issues.
               But -- and I appreciate having the opportunity to
     give the industry input.  I'm on the NEI risk-informed
     regulation working group, and we've formed a small subgroup
     of that to address this issue, and since I do represent
     Amron, UE and Calloway, I won the honor of taking the lead
     on this issue as far as the non-risk-informed submittals to
     the staff that the staff feels ought to address risk issues.
               I think the industry in general, as you know,
     acknowledges that the progress made by the staff is great in
     utilizing risk insights where they're necessary and where
     they provide additional information, and certainly, those
     things are now available to the NRC, to the staff, to the
     public, and it's not possible to stand up and say we just
     need to ignore those where they exist.
               I think that most of the concerns or the comments
     that we have are more related to the process, and that's a
     lot of what you've already discussed today.  I think the
     major one I want to hit on just briefly here is the fact --
     it was in the first box that's in the flow diagram, and it's
     a little vague as to exactly who is going to make this
     judgment about whether or not unique circumstances exist and
     then, from my viewpoint, just reviewing what was published,
     it's a little hard to tell exactly what unique circumstances
     are.
               It kind of leaves the feeling that -- send it in,
     and we'll know it when we see it, and from a practical
     viewpoint, as a licensing manager, that whole thing comes at
     the end of the process, the licensing process, and so, if I
     have submitted an amendment that I have no idea needs to be
     risk-informed --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Now, you're confusing me even
     more.  I thought I heard Gary Holahan say that 1,500
     decisions are made that way, and now, you want more specific
     guidance?  I thought you were a veteran of these judgments.
               MR. PASSWATER:  No, I'm saying based on what was
     published in the Federal Register --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes, but you know we don't
     always go with the letter on these.
               MR. PASSWATER:  Okay; I recognize it's early in
     the process.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Gary invoked the existing
     process as working very well.  We are doing 1,500 of these a
     year; we know what it is; we recognize it when we see it. 
     And now, you complain that you don't like that.
               MR. PASSWATER:  I don't disagree with the way the
     process has worked to this point, so what I'm commenting on
     is what the suggested changes are to the process.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  You're afraid of the
     extrapolation.
               MR. PASSWATER:  Yes; okay.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  On the one hand, it works; on
     the other hand, it doesn't work.  That's my personal
     problem, not yours.
               MR. PASSWATER:  Okay.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I'm sorry.
               MR. PASSWATER:  Well, I think the way it's left
     right now -- and I certainly agree that these ought to be
     the unique situation, quote, ought to be a very rare
     occurrence, and I think that's the intent.  I'm not sure
     that it's captured --
               DR. POWERS:  Well, you saw the second two -- I
     mean, the two dashed bullets --
               MR. PASSWATER:  Yes.
               DR. POWERS:  -- under Bob's previous graph.  Those
     struck me as clarifying things so that it looked like it
     would be rare.  I mean, it would have to be something big
     enough that if it were pervasive, it could be a new rule.  I
     mean, that's a nontrivial thing.  It's a Brown's Ferry fire
     or something like that.
               And the second one is that they had to have
     something that thought that this really got into a
     risk-dominant accident sequence like rupture of a steam
     generator tube, induced rupture of steam generator tubes;
     you know, you had to have some risk information of some
     sort, intuition or what not, that made you think that you
     excited a risk-dominant sequence.  That's helped me a lot
     more than unique, because everything is unique.
               MR. PASSWATER:  Right; that is helpful, to give
     specifics.  And in the notice there were some examples
     listed, too, which are somewhat helpful, but one of the
     comments we've had earlier is that maybe they didn't go
     quite far enough, and I'm kind of getting into what Biff is
     going to talk about here in a minute, but that really kind
     of wraps up what I see as, in general, our comments are and
     the fact that they're more process-related than
     substance-related as far as what's intended, but again,
     having lived with, for many years now, how the SRPs are used
     in evaluating license amendment applications, this one is
     very unique to what I've seen in SRPs in the past, and it's
     very broad.  There's nothing it doesn't apply to.  It
     applies to any possibility I send in, with this judgment up
     front that there either is or is not some kind of unique
     circumstance.
               So that's the front end of the process that I
     wanted to comment on, and I will now turn it over to Biff to
     talk about some of the specific comments.
               DR. POWERS:  I guess the take-home lesson is that
     this unique situation clause at the first of the box
     introduces some uncertainty in your mind on whether you've
     done an adequate job in preparing your submission.  That's
     really the bottom line that you're coming out with.
               MR. PASSWATER:  That's on the front end of the
     process.  It's for something that to me is very clearly --
     should not have to address risk issues; meets the design
     basis, and that is adequate.  But then, there's another
     judgment added on to the end of that process at the start of
     the NRC staff process that may change that.
               DR. SHACK:  But you agree that -- you know, I
     mean, it's hard to enumerate special circumstances, since
     they are expected to be unusual.  I mean, it would seem to
     me that the two general criteria that they've outlined that
     are basically those bullets go a long way towards at least
     telling you that, you know, I'm not sure I could look for an
     enumeration of special circumstances.  That's unreasonable.
               MR. PASSWATER:  No, and again, I'm stealing Biff's
     thunder a little bit here, but I think it's more -- it's
     definitional more than trying to enumerate all of them.  I
     agree; we couldn't.  That's impossible to do.
               DR. SEALE:  It does give you room to hunt, though.
               MR. PASSWATER:  Yes.
               DR. SIEBER:  I presume the penalty to a licensee,
     whether the declaration of a special circumstance is
     legitimate or not, is additional time to process the license
     amendment and the cost of it; is that correct?
               MR. PASSWATER:  Yes, and from a practical
     viewpoint, to address the specific issues, the probabilistic
     questions and the risk issues for someone which I think is
     -- and I think this is pretty well representative of the
     industry, has not had a complete review done of their PRA,
     you know, basically, would require going back and submitting
     the PRA, because it's very hard for anyone, including the
     staff, to isolate on a specific issue requesting the
     amendment, the risk associated with that without knowing
     what's the foundation for that in the entire PRA.
               DR. SIEBER:  So that means a lot of --
               MR. PASSWATER:  Additional time.
               DR. SIEBER:  -- transmittals --
               MR. PASSWATER:  Right.
               DR. SIEBER:  -- RAIs --
               MR. PASSWATER:  Time cost and, you know, really
     may affect the judgment as to whether or not the original
     license amendment is cost-beneficial.
               DR. SIEBER:  Or the PSA is of good enough quality.
               MR. PASSWATER:  That would come into play, too.
               DR. SIEBER:  Thank you.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Thanks, Al.
               I will be brief, because practically every point
     I'm going to make has been brought up by the committee
     already.
               DR. POWERS:  And I thought our reviews were
     flawed.
               DR. BRADLEY:  As a matter of fact, you guys are
     tougher than we are on the staff.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  You are such a nice guy, Biff.
               [Laughter.]
               MR. PASSWATER:  It's the new haircut he's got, the
     personality.
               DR. BRADLEY:  As has been stated repeatedly --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Very diplomatic.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Keep going.
               DR. BRADLEY:  We concur; I wanted to start off
     with a positive word, concur is one of them in my bullet
     there that in rare instances, as discussed by the staff,
     there are situations where you are going to need to address
     risk issues.  If we look at the history of this, they've
     certainly been rare previous to this proposal for this
     policy, so I think if we can capture what we've been doing
     informally without the benefit of this and move forward on a
     consistent basis, then, we will have succeeded in --
               DR. WALLIS:  We've seen this rare several times. 
     It bothers me.  It's not a criterion.  It's the way it ought
     to be, and this shouldn't happen very often.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Right.
               DR. WALLIS:  But it's not a criterion that it must
     not happen very often.  If you guys start submitting things
     which are on the borderline of what's acceptable, it's going
     to happen more often.  It's not something which must always
     be rare.  It ought to be expected.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Well, one assumes that the body of
     regulations today is close to providing adequate protection. 
     I would presume this would continue to be rare.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  This brings it back to a
     question I've had for a long time:  why is the industry so
     sensitive to doing risk assessments and using risk guidance? 
     Is because the infrastructure is not there for a lot of the
     licensees?  They don't have the -- I mean, they've done now
     the IPEs, and you see this sensitivity any time -- there
     must be a reason why we should submit this.  Oh, but then,
     you're actually picking up the regulations if you ask us to
     do this.  Why?  I'm trying to understand that.
               MR. PASSWATER:  I'll give you my opinion.  I think
     it's the unknown quantity.  I think it's because it's new
     and because, you know, I don't know how many times in the
     last two years I've heard the metaphor about the two-edged
     sword.  And we know what one edge is; we don't know what the
     other edge is, and I think there is a lot of uncertainty. 
     There have been some very good submittals made to the staff
     and some very good reviews done by the staff on
     risk-informed information, and some of those have been very
     isolated on specific cases, and those are easy to get a
     grasp on and easy to understand what goes along with what
     the side effects are of those kind of submittals.
               On the ones that are fuzzy, vague, as far as what
     the requirements are, I think it's just the unknown quantity
     of what's in the next round of questions associated with it,
     and in some cases, I think it is also what each licensee has
     done as far as the completeness of the PRA and how that
     relates to the standards that are being developed as far as
     PRA quality, et cetera, that go along with this.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So what you're saying is that
     the industry is not convinced that its interactions with the
     staff will be facilitated by the submission of risk
     information.
               DR. BRADLEY:  I think we're in an evolution.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes, I understand that.
               DR. BRADLEY:  We're evolving, and there's a long
     history of meeting the deterministic licensing basis and the
     huge infrastructure, and it goes back into how that's done
     and down to a very small level of detail, and I think the
     general concern on the part of the industry is that you end
     up having to do both, and as we grow more comfortable with
     the use of risk arguments, and we work both sides of the
     sword, I think those things will -- those -- that anxiety
     will diminish.  I know you raise that question a lot,
     George.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I'm still trying to understand
     it.  I got a reasonable answer, I think.
               DR. WALLIS:  I don't think you should call it a
     sword.  I think you might think of it as a wrench, one end
     of which is open-ended and one which is a loop, and they
     both have their function in turning the nut.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. BRADLEY:  New metaphor.
               We had some, I think, some practical suggestions. 
     As Alan indicated, we basically view that it is a process
     issue and making sure that the process that's laid out is
     very clear; it's scrutable, repeatable, all those verbs we
     always use and is stable.  One of the issues -- and this is
     another one of these words you guys always ask a lot of
     questions about, but we want the understanding that evolves
     here to hold the test of time, and we have had some
     instances where regulations and policies do evolve
     interpretations over time, and that's -- we don't want that
     to happen here.
               One element we think would be useful would be to
     continue the interim policy of Commission notification. 
     Given that these are rare instances, given that in my view,
     the Commission would want to be aware of situations where
     the existing body of regulations is not providing adequate
     protection, we don't see that there would be any harm or
     burden to continue that policy going forward.  So that's our
     first firm recommendation.
               DR. BONACA:  At what stage?  I mean, at the moment
     of requesting information?
               DR. BRADLEY:  No; that's a very good process,
     where in the process.  I think it wouldn't be there, and I
     don't think it would necessarily be at the absolute tail end
     either, where you reject the request, but somewhere, you
     know, at an appropriate stage in the process.
               I acknowledge the efforts of the staff to try to
     flesh out the definition and the examples and provide more
     information on what is a significant and unanticipated risk. 
     However, we believe there is further work to be done to make
     that definition clear.  Some of the examples, I guess,
     actually in my mind raised new issues to me.  I think the
     harder ones are not the things that are quantifiable.  It's
     the things that aren't quantifiable.  I mean, you know, in
     the extreme, one could suggest that changing your
     organization chart in the tech specs is doing this, and
     those are the things that are harder to deal with.
               DR. POWERS:  Yes; I think you raise a good point
     there.  I can look at something; a hypothetical submission
     in which there is no risk information associated, but I
     happen to know that at this particular utility, they've
     changed their management structure and what not, and it
     interfered with safety culture.  And that's something that's
     not in the PRA, but in most American PRAs, we don't really
     deal with safety culture.  However, I happen to know that in
     Great Britain, for example, well, they did deal with safety
     culture on that.
               And so, I have some knowledge, then, that safety
     culture might be important for risk.  That seems like a
     really tough issue to deal with, yet it seems like a -- I
     hadn't triggered the first one, but I had triggered the
     second one.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  I have to say I think that would be
     unlikely.  However, I can imagine, say, removing 90 percent
     of the boxes on the chart might get your attention.  It
     would have to be something rather extreme.
               DR. POWERS:  Yes; you know, the organizational
     structure is on the --
               MR. HOLAHAN:  I don't think that would trigger our
     attention.
               DR. BRADLEY:  I'm not suggesting that that would
     normally trigger it.  It's just an example that we need for
     a clearer definition, as clear as we can get.
               Another point:  I know NRC notes that the burden
     is on them to identify situations.  Just -- there is also a
     burden, though; it's clear that there's a burden involved in
     responding to these types of issues when they come up and
     that the only way that burden is clearly going to be on the
     licensee, particularly if it involves having to expand or
     modify or enhance their PRA in order to provide enough
     resolution of the risk impact to counter the arguments the
     staff may make that may, in fact, be based on, say, a SPAR
     model or a model of, you know, a similar facility where they
     are having to infer maybe a similar impact.
               And there's really no simple answer to this.  I
     recognize that the staff can't be expected to meet some, you
     know, PRA quality standard or something before they can do
     this, but there is a practical issue there that there is a
     potential burden that would go back to the industry as well
     as -- even though the staff maintains the burden of raising
     this.
               Finally, this is something I think -- per your
     discussion this morning is exactly the same point that in
     reading 1.174, there is a considerable text in there
     discussing the fact that it was designed with a margin
     beyond adequate protection and that the very small, the
     small change guidelines could have been made more generous
     and still preserved adequate protection, and I guess -- and
     I don't know if this is one of the sections of the reg guide
     that will be modified as a part of this, but I think this
     received an adequate discussion this morning.
               One, it's not clear in the SRP whether it's the
     very small change or the small change guideline that comes
     into play here, and the way the reg guide works is if you
     get up between this very small and the small change, then,
     you're generally requested to demonstrate complete baseline
     CDF including, you know, shutdown and other things that most
     plants don't have to quantify.  So it's really not clear to
     me exactly how 1.174 will be invoked here, and even if it
     were that the guidelines of 1.174 are the right guidelines. 
     They may be the right guidelines for the trigger, and I
     think the SRP discusses, you know, here's how we're going to
     do the trigger.  There's less definition in the SRP of once
     we've triggered this, here's how we make the decision on
     whether you're meeting adequate protection.
               And I'd be the first to acknowledge that that's
     not a trivial or simple thing to --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  The staff says that someone will
     determine that.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Right.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  On page three, they say that
     somebody will determine that.  It seems that I'm the only
     one puzzled by that.
               DR. BONACA:  We also heard that it's going to be
     one of the inputs to the decision which is typical of the
     decisions on amendments.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  With risk information.  That's
     not typical at all.
               DR. BONACA:  No, no.  There is information coming;
     and that will be an issue, and it can be of any type of
     engineering insight that will lead you to grant or not grant
     an amendment.
               Now, here, there is no information.  A new type is
     coming out from an application of risk information.  It's
     available to us as a community.  And certainly, we want to
     have, you know, have it right -- the situation at Calloway,
     where you -- it's a legitimate question that's being
     addressed, and risk information is helpful to make a
     judgment.  And I think in the context where you are not
     using PRA information in and of itself to get the call, I
     just consider that --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Either way, the first subbullet
     there, I mean, where it says small change versus significant
     risk information; that leads you to a problem.  Either you
     accept changes that violate 1.174, in which case, that's not
     really desirable, or you are leaving it up to people to
     decide, you know, what's a significant risk impact.  It's a
     fuzzy notion.
               MR. MARKLEY:  Almost all SERs have concluded that
     -- almost all SERs that you'll pick up will have a statement
     at the end and a conclusion that there was no undue risk to
     public health and safety.  That's the bottom line of all of
     them whether they're deterministic or risk-informed.
               DR. BONACA:  They must do them in the most
     expedient way to bring about information to bear on the
     decision process using the guidelines in 1.174.  It may not
     be the most perfect, but I want to say that the fact that
     you just -- make a good decision on a particular amendment,
     then --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  If I submitted the request using
     risk information, would they grant me this in 1.174?  Yes;
     you violate the small change, but what the hell?
               DR. POWERS:  George, that's always been my
     understanding.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  That they would do that?
               DR. POWERS:  That if I sent in a risk-informed
     application that had something larger than a small change in
     CDF or LERF that that didn't automatically get kicked out of
     the system.  It simply elicited what was graciously
     called increased management attention.  But there was
     nothing in that that said I absolutely could not have any
     delta-CDF over some --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  The increased management
     attention is where you have sheds of -- shades of gray --
               [Laughter.]
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Grades of shave, too.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Approaching it really from below
     and maybe a little bit above, but when I look at the figure,
     and I see black, don't tell me that is increased management
     attention.  That's a clear message:  don't even come.  So I
     think we have a little bit of a conflict here, but at least
     Biff recommends it.
               DR. BRADLEY:  I think those were the major points
     we wanted to make.  I was interested in seeing the staff's
     material today, and we were talking about those two
     supplements and the one that said situations that would
     warrant a new regulation if encountered on a widespread
     basis; I thought that was interesting, because that would
     imply that you would have to meet a backfit test, even
     though for a CLB change request, you wouldn't.  But it seems
     to me that there's an implicit message in that bullet that
     there is a backfit type of issue here.
               DR. POWERS:  I don't think so; if it's an adequate
     protection issue, they don't have to meet a backfit
     requirement.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Well, if it was going to warrant a
     new regulation then -- okay, you're saying you would have to
     exercise that provision of the backfit rule that says you
     weight it as an adequate protection.
               DR. POWERS:  Weigh it as an adequate protection
     issue.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Okay.
               DR. POWERS:  But, I mean, your point is still
     valid.  That gives you an idea of the magnitude of the thing
     that you're talking about.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Yes; and in the second sub-bullet
     that would warrant denial if it were evaluated as a
     risk-informed application, I guess I think at the point, we
     were just talking about where the guidelines of 1.174 don't
     necessarily tell you what's a denial.  They do talk about
     enhanced management review, but I think that is -- this
     issue of adequate protection versus 1.174 is basically the
     heart of what we're having to deal with here.
               Thank you.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I must say I'm very happy
     hearing Biff speak that way, and thank you very much.
               DR. BRADLEY:  Thank you.
               DR. POWERS:  I still have this question:  it's a
     very process or management oriented issue.  And I'm
     struggling to say what is the technical content of that?  I
     think it's very interesting.  I'm glad that you brought it
     to us.  It's always nice to see a modification of 1.174, but
     I'm questioning whether there's anything we can contribute,
     anything, to this modification.
               MR. HOLAHAN:  I think there is.  I think the
     committee made a valuable contribution to the way 1.174
     looks, you know, in its original form, and that goes well
     beyond just the numerical values or the charts on core
     damage frequency and large early release, and if you think
     about it, that's only a small part of 1.174.  You can call
     the rest of it all, you know, process if you like, but it
     seems to me that process is the regulatory decision making
     process, and I think that is a, you know, valuable and
     legitimate role that this committee can address.
               Now, I don't call it a policy matter that in the
     current regulatory framework, regulatory decisions are made
     by process.  A policy decision is we're going to have
     risk-informed regulation, and it looks more or less like
     this.  I think the committee views are valuable.  I don't
     agree with everything I hear at these meetings, but the fact
     that they're argued out, I think, is valuable.  You know, I
     think that we want to follow up with it, and I think that
     we'll be delighted to come back to the committee and report
     on what we got in public comment and workshops and that sort
     of thing.
               DR. POWERS:  Well, I think we would be intrigued
     to hear it.
               At that point, I will recess until 20 of the hour.
               [Recess.]
               DR. POWERS:  Let's go back into session, and we're
     going to examine a topic that would surprise me if it
     elicited a strong comment:  the proposed regulatory guide
     and standard review plan section associated with NRC code
     reviews.
               Professor Wallis, is this an area that you think
     you can lead us through with clarity and precision?
               DR. WALLIS:  If you're asking me to do so, I will
     be pleased to do so.  I wouldn't comment on my own.
               DR. POWERS:  All right.
               DR. WALLIS:  The staff has been working on a
     review of analytical computer codes used in safety analysis,
     and I don't need to tell this committee, but I'd like to
     tell the record that this is a very important area; that we
     don't have full-scale experiments on nuclear reactors, and
     so, all of the predictions on what happens in accidents that
     go into making the decisions are really based on computer
     models, so they are, for obvious reasons, important.
               To start, the industry and the public have faith
     in what comes out of these codes.  The letter that sent us
     these documents did not make a distinction between the old
     codes, those of the appendix K type, which are more
     conservative than the newer codes, which are best estimate
     or realistic, and maybe the staff will tell us a bit about
     that.  I think that the new documents are more directed
     towards assessment activities.  And that makes a difference,
     because how you estimate these depends on what you want to
     do with it, and as you get closer and closer, you may find
     -- the staff will find the requirements on these codes make
     it tougher, and there needs to be less uncertainty involved
     in the process.  This needs to come true somehow.
               I don't want to make a speech, but I do need to
     point out that over 10 years ago, the NRC spent 13 man-years
     on the CSAU, the code-scale applicability and uncertainty
     applicability and methodology process.  This work has been
     around for some time, but it's very rarely applied in its
     full detail to codes, so I think we need to hear from the
     staff about how what they propose is related to that study.
               We have codes in the process of review, and others
     are coming, so this is very topical for us, and it seems
     very appropriate that the staff should be producing a
     standard review plan which spells out clearly what
     requirements these codes must meet and also a reg guide
     which provides guidance about how applicants can go about
     meeting those requirements.  This isn't just the process for
     -- these documents are well-prepared.  The whole process is
     going far more efficiently with far fewer doubts in the
     minds of everybody about what's required; we don't need the
     long process of RAIs and replies and re-replies and
     requestioning and around and around about what is it you
     really want, and you didn't say and so on, because this is
     all going to be clear.
               The staff has made three presentations to the
     subcommittee, and even the last time, we still had questions
     about parts of these documents, so we have suggestions for
     improvements.  And the question was should they -- was it
     timely for them to come before the full committee; we went
     around that a few times and eventually decided that it would
     be worthwhile for the whole committee to be informed about
     what's going on to decide what to do, and so, the staff are
     here, and I would ask George Staudenmeier to get us going.
               DR. POWERS:  Just an item of clarification.  The
     titles sometimes have the word thermohydraulics in the code
     reviews and they sometimes didn't.  Is it understood that
     this is referring to thermohydraulics codes, or is there
     some generic applicability of this review plan?
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  I think there is generic
     applicability, and even within our branch, we deal with fuel
     modeling codes.  I think we obviously think it's applicable
     to that, meaning the essence it's more and more directed at
     our branch and most of all, our branch deals with these
     thermohydraulics codes, so I guess I didn't intentionally
     mean to limit it to thermohydraulics codes, although that's
     mostly what we review.
               DR. POWERS:  Okay.
               DR. WALLIS:  It used to be clear, but there's a
     letter that came from Gary Holahan talking about codes.
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  We'll have to, I guess,
     redefine the scope on that.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Excuse me; Norm Lauben.  I think in
     the standard review plan section and in the regulatory
     guide, we talk about the concept of evaluation models being
     all the computational engines and things that are required
     to analyze those transients and accidents required by 50.34
     and standard review plan chapter 15.  So it isn't -- most of
     the time, it's a thermohydraulic code engine that is the
     basic part of this, but there are indeed other things that
     are necessary to do an entire analysis to show compliance
     with those things.
               DR. POWERS:  I guess my thinking on this is it's
     going to be sufficiently challenging to come up with a good
     standard review plan for the thermohydraulics codes, but
     trying to add a generic character to it might pose even
     additional challenges.
               DR. WALLIS:  I think, though, Mr. Chairman, if you
     read the SRP that a great deal of it would apply to almost
     any kind of code.
               DR. POWERS:  I'm sure some of it will.  Maybe we
     should be clear about what will be applicable.
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  Okay; this is going to be
     pretty much an abbreviated version of a presentation I gave
     to the thermohydraulics subcommittee recently, and I think
     it must have been well-received by everyone based on all of
     the I love you email I got afterwards.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. SEALE:  It's nice to know they're thinking of
     you.
               DR. WALLIS:  Too bad we didn't get any in return.
               [Laughter.]
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  So, this whole effort was
     started as a result of Maine Yankee ISAT and an NRR review
     of the Maine Yankee problems and some points that were
     brought up by the ACRS in other reviews that pointed to
     generic problems in our code review process and also in the
     documentation that's submitted by the industry for having
     codes reviewed, so we are trying to put corrective actions
     into place to try to correct these perceived generic
     deficiencies in the process, and we want to deal with
     adequacy of code documentation; of code assessment and
     inconsistencies in the staff review process.
               And the next slide is, I think, what a lot of
     people perceive the development process to be for a lot of
     the codes we get in here to review, and I'm sure we could
     point to examples of many of these in a lot of the things we
     review.
               DR. POWERS:  I particular appreciate the
     management direct response.
               [Laughter.]
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  I'm sure you can construct a
     diagram of the staff review process.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  This can help with the flow
     chart.
               [Laughter.]
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  I said you don't think it's
     consistent with the findings?
               [Laughter.]
               DR. WALLIS:  Let's move on, shall we, before
     George asks a question?
               [Laughter.]
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  Okay; to address these
     perceived problems, we're developing a standard review plan
     to document the code review process and give guidance to the
     staff for code reviews and model reviews and develop a reg
     guide and a standard format and content guide to provide
     guidance from the industry on what we think they need to
     submit when they submit an evaluation model.
               These are the topics we've tried to cover in the
     standard review plan, leading off with the documentation,
     which really is a definition and description of the whole
     evaluation model, and as part of this documentation, we
     think there needs to be something that defines the accident
     scenario, defines what physical processes and physical
     components need to be modeled to evaluate the accident. 
     There needs to be a section on the equations that you're
     using for your mathematical model in order to evaluate the
     accident; assessment of your mathematical model to show that
     it's actually good at making predictions for what you're
     trying to model.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Why isn't there a statement here
     that your primary review is also an assessment of the
     uncertainties in the predictions?  Why should their
     assessments be good?
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  I think that's actually
     discussed in the standard review plan.  There is --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  It's not important?
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  No, I believe it is important
     in assessment, as part of the assessment process and
     determining what the uncertainties are and also in
     quantifying your overall uncertainty of the calculation, and
     I think that has to be less than what your safety margin is
     in the calculation.
               DR. WALLIS:  Code uncertainty is one of your
     headings along with these headings in the SRP, and you have
     here some headings which are not headings in the SRP, so how
     do you propose to bring that into line?  The code
     uncertainty isn't just the same as code assessment and code
     theory in the actual process.  But I think some other things
     like analysis doesn't come out as a heading.  So it's there
     somewhere, but it's not organized the same way.  It would
     help if -- I think you need to be clear on what should be
     headings, because eventually, they're going to check this.
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  Okay; quality assurance is just
     a process that needs to be in place to -- as a check process
     to confirm that the development of the code and maintaining
     of the code is done under a process where the quality is
     actually controlled and that there is review of what is
     being done in order to ensure a better product.  Sometimes,
     we do confirmatory analysis in order to do an independent
     check on the code.  There's a section covering that, since
     that's -- it is often part of our review process.
               We think we need to make some statements about
     revisions to previously approved models, because a lot of
     what we get in isn't a fresh code from scratch; it's a base
     code with maybe some new model added to it, some new
     modeling capability or some error corrections that have been
     made in the code, and in the future, we're planning on
     adding appendices for specific accident classes and types
     that deal with modeling requirements and specific code
     assessment for developing a code for certain type 10 and
     certain classes of accidents.
               Organization is a standard SRP organization; if
     you want to look through the SRP, SRP sections generally
     follow this type of organization.  It covers areas of review
     which describes the scope of review for whatever the section
     is on.  Acceptance criteria for the whatever you're doing;
     the review procedures; the evaluation findings and
     references that go along with the chapter.
               We've gotten some informal comments from the
     subcommittee that we're going to address before we release
     it for public comment.  We also have to go to the CRGR for
     review before we put it out for public comment.  Then, we
     plan on putting both the SRP and the reg guide that Norm
     Lauben is going to talk about that's a companion to this out
     for public comment.  The proposed public comment period is
     going to be 75 days.  It could be made longer.  That's the
     minimum you can have; if there's any desire to have it out
     for longer than that, that could be changed.
               And hopefully, our original schedule is to try to
     release final versions of the standard review plan and reg
     guide by the end of the calendar year.  That will determine
     how difficult the comments we get are to resolve.  And then,
     in the future, develop these appendices for specific
     transient or accident classes that would cover specific
     modeling requirements or assessment requirements for
     specific accidents.
               DR. WALLIS:  I have to ask a question on the best
     estimate versus conservative and so on.  Are you addressing
     best estimate codes here or --
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  I think any code in general,
     because, see, appendix K even has parts of it that are
     really best estimate types of models, and if you read the
     requirements for blowdown and heat transfer, I think it
     specifically says -- it describes what you would probably
     consider a best estimate model except for the grandfathered
     case of allowing a Dougal-Rosenauer correlation, but I think
     everybody -- I don't think there's a vendor left that has
     the Dougal-Rosenauer correlation.
               DR. WALLIS:  It seems to me the real message is
     it's got to be an adequate estimate, and for appendix K,
     certain types of estimates are adequate, and best is really
     the wrong thing; adequate for whatever purpose the submittal
     is made.  If it's made for some preparation of something
     that gets you awfully close to a margin, then you're going
     to examine it much more carefully.  It's got to be a better
     estimate.  I wonder if that comes through or not.  It's not
     -- you're using some requirements for all codes.  It depends
     on the use and how carefully you scrutinize a particular
     application.
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  I guess in the case of appendix
     K, there's no requirement for an uncertainty analysis; it's
     perceived that some of the prescribed requirements in there
     are good enough to keep conservatism in the overall model. 
     Many models are best estimate that are in appendix K,
     though.  Blowdown and -- models are pretty close to best
     estimate.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  The draft regulatory guide says,
     in section 2.2, that there are three elements to this CSA
     methodology, the third one being sensitivity and uncertainty
     analysis that have been recast here that address sensitivity
     and uncertainty which is under evaluation more than adequacy
     assessment.
               But then, when I go there, I try finding what
     sensitivity and uncertainty analyses are expected.
               DR. WALLIS:  Are you asking a question about the
     reg guide?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  We're going to hear about that later. 
     Maybe it's best to raise the question that I think Norm --
     the SRP is a separate document.  I think the view of the
     subcommittee was that the SRP and I guess our interpretation
     is -- the purpose is to lay out very clearly what the staff
     is going to look for in terms of documentation and code and
     what they're looking for in performance, et cetera.  The
     guide is then going to make it more explicit about how one
     might go about meeting those criteria.  SRPs are quite
     sparse; it's a high-level document.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  Can I make a -- this is Farouk
     Eltawila.  The SRP is guidance to the staff on the conduct
     of the review.  It does not institute requirements on
     applicant or licensee performance and thus is a distinction
     between requirement and guidance.
               DR. WALLIS:  But what are the requirements, then?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  That's the problem.
               DR. WALLIS:  Are the requirements so vague that
     it's all up to someone's guess or requirement?
               MR. LAUBEN:  Excuse me; Norm Lauben again. 
     Requirements -- are they going to address it?
               MR. ELTAWILA:  Yes.
               MR. VERMEIL:  The requirements, Dr. Wallis, are
     specifically in 10 CFR 50.46 and appendix K and the
     associated 50.44 and the associated parts of 10 CFR Part 50. 
     The guidance for how to implement those requirements is what
     is provided in a regulatory guide such is the one that
     research is developing and Norm will be talking about.
               It is just that:  it's guidance.  It's not "a
     requirement."  The requirement is only in the rule.
               DR. WALLIS:  I understand the guidance part, but
     the SRP essentially lays out a plan for the staff.  The
     staff is going to look for certain things.
               MR. VERMEIL:  That is correct; you are --
               DR. WALLIS:  So maybe I'm in error not to go back
     to some earlier source, but I'm assuming that the SRP is
     taken seriously, and if it says that --
               MR. VERMEIL:  Very.
               DR. WALLIS:  -- for the field equations should be
     based on the natural laws of physics and not violate some --
     that's actually a meaningful statement.  That's not just
     something that can be -- but it isn't in 10 CFR.
               MR. VERMEIL:  I'm not trying to say that that's
     not a meaningful statement.  It very much is.  What I'm
     trying to say, though, is there may be other ways than a
     particular prescriptive manner of satisfying what the SRP
     says the reviewer ought to be looking for.
               DR. WALLIS:  I understand that, but the fact that
     the SRP asks for, say, a scaling analysis doesn't mean to
     say that you can then not do it.
               MR. VERMEIL:  No, no, that's absolutely correct. 
     What it says is if there is to be one, then, that is what
     the reviewer looks for.  That's absolutely correct.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Actually, the SRP is just -- is
     more specific regarding acceptance.  So the reg is -- by
     that specific advising.
               DR. WALLIS:  I see the SRP as something that a
     professor might give to the students and say look, when you
     submit your thesis, we're going to look for these kinds of
     things.
               MR. VERMEIL:  That's exactly right.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I think you should also issue
     another statement to the students as to what is acceptable.
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  Okay; if you have any other
     questions --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  It just occurred to me:  I don't
     recall an instance where there weren't ACRS comments were
     not used immediately with CRGR review.  Are we sister
     organizations?  The staff comes here; immediately, CRGR
     review follows ACRS comments.
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  We're required to go through
     both.
               MR. VERMEIL:  Yes; the process, Dr. Apostolakis,
     requires -- I'll use that word -- that the staff go through
     ACRS and CRGR before issuing documents of this kind for
     public comment.
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  And they often come with
     conflicting requirements.
               MR. VERMEIL:  Yes, they do.
               MR. STAUDENMEIER:  Conflicting comments that you
     can't satisfy both.
               VOICE:  That's to help you.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. WALLIS:  Let me ask you about the CSAU.  CSAU
     was a major effort, 13 man-years of study, which was then
     going to sort of answer the question how is the agency going
     to handle this best estimate code type of thing coming
     along.  I can see how that might not play such a prominent
     role in your stuff, because you're sort of saying these are
     the requirements, and CSAU more addresses how to actually
     satisfy them, but it's a great edifice in the past.  There's
     nothing since then, so you can't ignore it.  And it may be
     well of us to say what is it that you do that incorporates
     it or replaces it or something, because it was the big
     effort that even got people like me to sign off on it.
               So, it's an authoritative document put out at that
     time; how does it relate to this?
               MR. LAUBEN:  Let me just say that every activity
     that we engage in usually has a specific purpose for which
     it was done, and the CSAU was done in order to demonstrate a
     method of how you evaluate code uncertainties in order to do
     best estimate calculations.  In order to get to that spot,
     there are certain principles that you had to adhere to.  But
     most of those principles were not necessarily things that --
     for which a lot of time and effort was spent on in CSAU.
               However, when it comes to code development and
     assessment, there are more things up front that you need to
     spend time on, and we needed to do a little bit more
     original work such as were reflected in a number of your
     comments that would allow you to do this.  Therefore, even
     though those things are mentioned in principle, a very small
     amount of the CSAU effort was spent on a lot of the up front
     principles.  So what we need to do in this document and what
     we had to do, for instance, in the code development and
     assessment work that we've done for AP600 was to spend a
     little bit more time on the process up front.
               Now, what -- specifically let me say that CSAU
     assumed certain things to be true before the process was
     even begun.  It assumed that the code was complete, which
     means that it wasn't necessarily going to be an extensive
     review of the structure of the code.  It assumed that all of
     the assessment was complete.  It assumed that the code was
     frozen, and it assumed that all of the documentation was
     complete and correct which -- now, many of these assumptions
     may not be true; however, CSAU assumed that before they did
     this, it had to be true.
               So that's one thing that had to be emphasized a
     little bit more in this kind of work.  When we got to the
     AP600 assessment, it assumed once again that much of the up
     front work was done, and nobody was going to question the
     code particularly, but rather, they were going to now
     evaluate the code's ability to do AP600 analysis.  So once
     again, there was a lack of being able -- a lack of stating,
     I think, as clearly as needed to be the principles that were
     required up front.
               So I'm just saying every time is a slightly
     different purpose.  SASM is the same way.  SASM was trying
     to look at experimental work.  It didn't have much to do
     with code -- with code development.  So even though the
     structure of these things may look similar in all three
     instances, in all three instances, they had a slightly
     different purpose for which they were done, and it's
     important, I think, that we need to look at this is this is
     something about a code development and assessment practices
     that are required for a variety -- a variety of chapter 15
     events, not just loca, for instance.
               So, to a large degree, we have to make sure that
     we get the basic principles, if you will, the high level
     principles stated correctly and applicably for all of the
     things we're trying to do.
               DR. WALLIS:  You've helped me a great deal,
     because I think you have clarified for me one of my problems
     with your document is that you say that CSAU, a lot comes
     before CSAU.  There's a lot of stuff before CSAU.  CSAU
     addresses how do you do scaling and uncertainty and
     applicability.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Right.
               DR. WALLIS:  Yet, the reg guide does it the other
     way around.  It brings in CSAU at the beginning.  I mean, we
     should be talking about generalities like getting the
     equations right and the principles.  But later on, it
     abandons it just when it's talking about uncertainty and
     scaling.
               MR. LAUBEN:  I think sometimes, when fresh eyes
     look at something, and you're used to being in the middle of
     something, it helps to restructure your own thoughts as to
     how you really want to order these things.  I don't think it
     necessarily means that there's an enormous amount of work
     that needs to be done, but rather, you need to find all of
     the principles and structure them in the right way that it's
     a scrutable way to go about doing it.
               DR. WALLIS:  Are there questions for Joe?  He's
     really on the spot first?
               [No response.]
               DR. WALLIS:  All right; shall we move on to Ron
     Lauben, please?  We move to the subject of the reg guide
     that goes with this SRP.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay; I guess I won't put the first
     slide up.  It just says who I am and what I'm going to talk
     about, and the purpose has already been discussed:  to
     present the background and content of draft guide 10-96, a
     reg guide for transient and accident analysis methods used
     to analyze events required in 10 CFR 34 and defined in SRP
     chapter 15.  When I talk about SRP chapter 15, I mean those
     parts of chapter 15 that already exist to discuss about --
     that describe specific transients in accidents.
               Joe's subchapter of chapter 15 is going to discuss
     the code requirements that would go to all those transients
     and accidents that are specifically spelled out in chapter
     15, the rest of chapter 15, chapter 15, once again, being
     subservient to 10 CFR 34, 50.34, which says -- and appendix
     A, which states that you need to do these transient and
     accident analyses.
               DR. WALLIS:  Now, one approach here would be to
     say here's the SRP; here are the listed things that it asks
     for --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  -- and then, here is some guidance
     about how you meet them.  So your structure would follow his
     structure.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Well, I think that's a good point.  I
     think that is kind of the way it is usually done, although I
     must say that in some cases, there may be -- in fact, this
     has generally been the case over the years -- there are SRP
     chapters for which there are no reg guides at all, and
     that's usually the case, but, in fact, loca and rod ejection
     are the only two exceptions to the 31 events in chapter 15.
               DR. WALLIS:  But the reg guides exist probably
     because there have been difficulties --
               MR. LAUBEN:  That is correct.
               DR. WALLIS:  -- in interpreting, and therefore,
     guidance is necessary.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Reg guides in the past, those two
     events, the rod ejection and the loca, have been two of the
     more difficult ones, so that it required some more guidance
     on those two.
               DR. WALLIS:  Then it should be based a bit on
     history.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay.
               DR. WALLIS:  If it turns out that there's a
     requirement, that, say, the code should have equations based
     on fundamental principles and approximation should be
     explained and so on, then, maybe the guide should address --
     should say something helpful to avoid mistakes being made in
     the future of the same type.
               MR. LAUBEN:  I think the more I'm listening, the
     more I realize that this has to be a fairly high level
     document, and it has to be scrutable, and I think that to
     worry about a great number of details might make it less
     understandable to the people that need to understand it.
               Okay; basically, what I planned to talk about
     briefly was background and need for the reg guide; why do we
     need it; the contents of the draft guide; your comments that
     we got before the last meeting and status and summary.  And
     the thing that really started this was the Maine Yankee
     independent assessment team that looked at -- actually
     looked at non-loca transient and accident analysis methods
     at Maine Yankee.  It started with loca, but that was a
     separate team; I think Joe was on that team that looked at
     the Maine Yankee loca methods, but our charter with the ISAT
     was to look at non-loca, and what we found out was hey,
     there were some things about -- no surprise -- how they were
     using the RETRAN code that caused us to have certain
     questions.
               And we decided then that what was really needed
     was something to ensure sufficiency and consistency in the
     level of documentation and validation.  Now, this is not a
     whole process by any means, but it says these were two
     things that we identified at Maine Yankee; have a documented
     process in place to identify and rank key phenomena for
     relevant events, which is then used in code development and
     assessment process.  Once again, this is not necessarily
     starting at the top, but these are simply the things that
     were identified there.
               And then, to implement this, the NRR Maine Yankee
     task group recommended that a standard review plan section
     be developed and a regulatory guide.  Now, I put this last
     bullet in because it's just what I said, is that the items
     identified by ISAT by themselves do not constitute all the
     parts needed for a description of transient and accident
     analysis methods.  Additional items, such as determination
     of basic code capabilities, are being added to the draft
     guide.  So the draft guide, once again, wasn't -- excuse me;
     the lessons learned from Maine Yankee were the lessons
     learned from Maine Yankee.  They weren't necessarily a
     comprehensive set that would be needed to write a draft
     guide.
               DR. WALLIS:  When you work on a problem, and
     you're devising a solution, the reg guide is a solution to a
     problem here, you need to set up the needs, and I wonder how
     you determined what kinds of needs the reader of this guide
     has.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay; the -- okay; that's -- I think
     someone -- I think it was Dana --
               DR. WALLIS:  I can see with the SRP; I read it
     through, and I can see obviously, the staff is addressing
     its needs in reviewing.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  But I have more trouble with the reg
     guide.  I mean, I'm trying to think:  now, I'm an applicant
     trying to write some stuff that I'm going to submit to the
     staff looking for guidance, and I need -- it's not so clear
     that the way it's structured helps me, so I wondered how you
     found out what's the need out there that you're meeting.
               MR. LAUBEN:  I suppose the need that -- the one
     that I identified most closely was the fact that when we
     went up and looked at their message at Maine Yankee, we said
     ah, this immediately stands out.  You don't have assessment
     that applies to the cases that you're doing, so you need
     some guidance on assessment.  And like I say, this sort of
     ends up -- you're injecting yourself into the middle of the
     process.  Nowhere did we say -- well, in fact, I shouldn't
     say nowhere did we -- we did not say in the report; however,
     part of the review team did look at some of the fundamental
     equations and had questions that, in some of the very, you
     know, very simple codes that they used that their
     fundamental equations and models probably did not model the
     things that they needed to model to.
               We didn't take that away as a serious enough
     lesson from that review, but I think what I'm saying is the
     way I came to it was what were the lessons learned from
     Maine Yankee?  And that isn't necessarily comprehensive
     enough.
               DR. WALLIS:  See, if I can just speak for myself,
     when I look at these codes, I think the first thing I'm
     looking for is do the people running this stuff understand
     what they're doing?  Do they have a sort of professional
     competence which shows that they understand the equations
     they're using and the problems they're using them for that
     they're appropriate and so on?  That's the first sort of
     impression I look for, and that message has got to get
     across to whoever writes the documentation, besides QA and
     all that, has to establish that you really believe this
     person is doing a good job.  That message has got to get
     across first.
               MR. LAUBEN:  What I hope is that when I get to my
     new road map, it will help a little.
               DR. WALLIS:  Okay; thank you.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay?
               I think most of the things on this slide were
     talked about by Joe a little bit that, you know, in fact,
     you mentioned them, Dr. Wallis, that we came to the ACRS
     three times and had three drafts; tried to factor in the
     committee comments from the 11/17/99 meeting, and we're now
     going to try to address some of your comments from this last
     meeting as well.
               And just so that people have an idea of what the
     draft guide 10-96 has in it, we proposed, and once again,
     these are proposals based on the Maine Yankee and I think
     also the Siemens reviews, that we address analysis methods
     for all chapter 15 events on a generic basis, stressing
     verification, validation, documentation and quality
     assurance; that we describe application of the evaluation
     model concept, which includes all computer codes and
     analysis methods and everything else not included in the
     computer programs to show compliance with the analysis
     required by 10 CFR 50-34; in other words, it may not just be
     a single computer code that you need to show compliance with
     those things.  It may be a series of computer codes, other
     analytical features, a lot of input and so forth.
               Now, I thought that -- we thought that it would
     probably be a good idea to stress some of the key principles
     here of evaluation model development and assessment, and the
     reason to do this is to show that this -- well, that these
     are the things that are going to be featured in the guide
     first of all.  And one of the first things is determining
     requirements of the evaluation model and the importance of
     the key systems, components, processes and phenomena and to
     note that a process like the hierarchical system
     decomposition should be to assure -- should be used to
     assure that all levels of the evaluation model development,
     including are the equations the right equations, are
     properly considered, and I think that's --
               DR. WALLIS:  What do you mean by hierarchical --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Well, this was the thing that if you
     look in the SASM report decomposes all of the things that
     are needed in the code including what phases, what, you
     know, what is it that you really need to do with the code
     that you're going to use, including appropriate phasing
     equations and so forth.
               DR. WALLIS:  Does this say something about what
     comes first?  And I, again, in reading your reg guide, I
     read this whole thing --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  -- and I find that top down is sort
     of long away, deep down at the end of it.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Right; it is.
               DR. WALLIS:  You don't put it first; if you don't
     have --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Right.
               DR. WALLIS:  -- good equations; if you don't show
     that you understand them, then forget the rest of it.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes; I think --
               DR. WALLIS:  That's the first thing you do.  Then,
     you go on to something else.
               MR. LAUBEN:  I almost made a copy of what it was.
               DR. WALLIS:  Yes.
               MR. LAUBEN:  But it's in there very early in the
     SASM document, and it says --
               DR. WALLIS:  See, I didn't get from your reg
     guide --
               MR. LAUBEN:  No.
               DR. WALLIS:  -- this -- it goes right into other
     stuff.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Right.
               DR. WALLIS:  Before saying --
               MR. LAUBEN:  It does.
               DR. WALLIS:  -- you've got to establish --
               MR. LAUBEN:  It does.
               DR. WALLIS:  -- a base for this thing first.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Exactly; I hope when I get to the
     road map, we'll say a little bit more about that.
               DR. WALLIS:  Hierarchical implies that there's
     some sort of priority about --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  -- going about this.
               MR. LAUBEN:  And when you decompose things
     hierarchically, you have to make sure you've got the right
     equations and the right way to do them and the right
     numerics and so forth at first.  So that's in there.
               Second is once you know what you need, then, you
     develop an evaluation model that meets those requirements. 
     Secondly, you develop an assessment base appropriate to the
     requirements; and now, you're down to part of the CSAU part,
     but you need to do those first things first and then assess
     the adequacy once you've done your experiments and your
     assessment base, and that's the new part.  So here, we're
     introducing the concept of uncertainties here.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So this is not in the draft
     guide?  I'm having difficulty finding it.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Not very clearly, and we are --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  It's not at all.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Excuse me?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I can't find it at all.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay; I think that if you -- here's
     the part that bothered me about uncertainties when I was
     writing the draft guide, and that is how you consider them
     for each transient or accident may be a little bit
     different, and that is one of the main reasons why we were
     going to write appendices, and I think we address
     uncertainties in that appendix on loca, but what -- I think
     there may be some more general ways that uncertainties
     should be addressed, and I hope -- I'll show those to you in
     the next slide, but I agree with you:  until you read the
     appendix, you probably don't see very much if anything about
     uncertainties in the draft guide.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Now, what's the distinction
     between -- SA stands for sensitivity analysis?
               MR. LAUBEN:  No, no, SA is scaling and
     applicability, scaling and applicability.  In other words,
     when you're developing the experiments that you need to use,
     you need to consider scaling, and you need to consider the
     applicability of those experiments.  So that's the SA part.
               DR. WALLIS:  This is in answer to the question
     that I had, that you said at the beginning of your document
     there are some principles, but I couldn't find the
     principles.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Right.
               DR. WALLIS:  You're saying you're now going to say
     what they are.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Here they are, right.
               DR. WALLIS:  And the rest of the document is going
     to reflect those principles.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Well, in fact, I hope that the stress
     and the revised document is going to be on the principles
     and, you know, structurally how you --
               DR. WALLIS:  Well, it's a teaching tool, isn't it?
               MR. LAUBEN:  Well, yes, in a way.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But let me come back to this
     uncertainty issue.  On section 2.2 to 2.3.4, adequacy
     decision, there is a statement that the process continues
     until the assessments indicate that all important phenomena
     are acceptably predicted.  I don't know what that means when
     you do an uncertainty analysis.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  The uncertainties are small
     enough, you mean?
               MR. LAUBEN:  I'll tell you what:  I think the
     trouble with this is that people a lot wiser than me have
     been struggling with this for years, and I don't -- other
     than the discussion that we have in here on words like
     excellent, adequate and so forth, which were indeed in
     themselves a struggle for people to come up with, I don't
     know -- and if somebody else wants to raise their hand and
     talk about this difficult subject, I'll let them do it.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  To make my point clear --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes, okay.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  -- I don't think that this
     statement makes sense if you have already asked them to
     quantify the uncertainty.  You have to be a little bit more
     specific.
               MR. DEMARTS:  Can I interject?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes, go ahead.
               MR. DEMARTS:  This is Mario Demarts of research. 
     Basically, you have a set of tests, experimental tests,
     which have some uncertainty.  You can't repeat the test
     twice and see if you get the same thing.  So you have an
     uncertainty on the database that you're going to use to
     check your code against.  On the other hand, you have your
     code, and the code is essentially a mandatory condition
     which can be ranged a little bit.
               And so, at the end of that, depending on what
     you're doing there, in the code, you have a certain range of
     answers.  In other words, in the CSAU methodology,
     basically, you are looking at the key parameters that
     controls your answer.  You range them over the range that
     you think this parameter has, and you see how they influence
     the surface of responses.  Therefore, you get an error back,
     if you wish, on the answer of the code.  You have also an
     error back of the experiments.
               Now, within that set, if you can say that you are
     consistent, then, you say this is okay.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes; and my comment to that is
     that this is the view of uncertainty that a deterministic
     guide would have.  If I were to quantify the uncertainty in
     a particular code, I would develop a distribution using the
     results of experiments, and the key element there, because
     I've tried to do it, and you will have a hell of a problem
     deciding or distinguishing between the sources of
     uncertainty; in other words, is this deviating from a code
     prediction because of some systematic issue?  I have not
     modeled it very well?  Or they used another boundary
     condition of which I'm not aware?  Or is it just the
     standard, you know, random variability that you expect when
     you do measurements like that?
               But in any case, I would develop a distribution,
     and then, I would make a judgment as to the adequacy of the
     prediction based on the distribution, because it may be very
     broad but still acceptable depending on what I'm trying to
     do.  So I would not try to do sensitivity studies and change
     key parameters and look at the range of answers from the
     code and say, well, gee, if this is what I get here, and
     this is what I have from the results, they look reasonably
     similar.  That's my view.
               MR. DEMARTS:  I can address that; in transients,
     there are basically -- you have to look at transients in
     that basis.  In other words, a transient is very
     deterministic in one phase, when it reaches a situation
     where there is a bifurcation possibility.  At that point, it
     bifurcates one way or another, so if you wish to consider
     that as a standard of uncertainty, basically, it will be all
     over the place, okay?
               So, in a portion of the transient, where, say,
     nothing really extraordinary happens, what I just talked
     about is suitable.  In a portion of the transient where,
     say, something happens if you reach that level; let's say a
     level drop to a certain level of activation in an ADS system
     stats, something of that kind, you've got to be very careful
     in the definition that I just provided if you trigger that
     or not.  That is the kind of things that you have to look at
     very, very carefully on this.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I suspect that I will have to
     understand the issue much better.  I can express a view
     anyway.  It seems to me that this is clearly an uncertainty,
     but Dr. Wallis talked to us some time ago about various
     assumptions, some of which are completely wrong in some of
     the codes, but it seems to me that you have to do some
     assumptions in approximate models, and these introduce
     systematic deviations.  And I'm talking about the modeling
     uncertainty, in other words, not the physical thing when is
     ATWS -- I mean, ATWS, auxiliary feeding water system is
     going to come in and all that.
               This is of a different kind, and in fact, this
     raises a question:  why isn't there a clear discussion of
     these various kinds of uncertainties in this?
               DR. WALLIS:  I think the point that needs to be
     raised here is the difference between the words acceptable
     and adequate.  An acceptable code, I think you have to spell
     out, has to do enough so that the uncertainties can in some
     way be estimated, in both modeling and other kinds of
     uncertainties.  A requirement in the code is that the
     uncertainties should be assessable, measurable and expressed
     in some form.
               Whether this is adequate or not for some transient
     is a different decision altogether.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes, yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  You cannot say, as you seem to say in
     the reg guide, that it's adequate if it's acceptable. 
     They're different ideas altogether.  It's -- a code is not
     acceptable unless it can assess and tell you how uncertain
     the predictions are.
               Now, given that it makes predictions with a
     certain uncertainty, it still may not be adequate, or it may
     be adequate depending on what you want to do with this. 
     You've got to make that distinction.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But I also think, coming back to
     my earlier comment, that a good discussion of the various
     kinds of uncertainties that you are encountering with this
     would be very helpful, and it shouldn't be hard to do.  I
     mean, there is a group working on pressurized thermal shock
     that did that in their context, and they did a very good
     job.  Maybe you can talk to those guys.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  That's the same group that's
     working on the thermohydraulic uncertainty.  That's
     Professor Magares.
               DR. WALLIS:  George, if you look at CSAU, there's
     a whole box in the CSAU diagram that tells the different
     kinds of uncertainties, right up front.  The U in CSAU is
     uncertainty.  There's a lot in there already about
     uncertainty.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I don't see it here.
               DR. WALLIS:  No, okay.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  I'm sure there are documents
     somewhere there.
               DR. WALLIS:  Ten years ago, but here, investigated
     very thoroughly, and then, in light of great developments
     and understanding of uncertainty since then, I'm sure it can
     be improved.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  And I would like to see a better
     blend of the CSAU which really comes from the
     thermohydraulics community and what the PRA types have done
     in that form, and I think the PTS is a good example of that
     blending, identifying the parameters; which ones are
     epistemic, blah, blah, blah, that will help a lot.  But
     right now, I just don't see anything.
               Anyway.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Like I said; to the degree that
     differences in how it's going to be handled in different
     accidents, we thought that this might be transient-specific.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Yes, it is.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay; and let me just continue on. 
     These first four principles that we've discussed have to do
     with the process.  The last two have to do with just good
     engineering practices; in other words, when you do this,
     establish an appropriate quality assurance protocol during
     evaluation of the development and assessment process and
     secondly provide comprehensive, accurate, up-to-date
     documentation.  And I don't -- I hesitated to say much more
     than that, because every step of the process has to be
     informed by these two principles.
               DR. WALLIS:  You talked about peer review in the
     beginning of your document.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  And then, you don't sort of reinforce
     it later on about when it should be used.  And by quality
     assurance, you mean using peer review?
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes; I do mean, and I think I said it
     in here --
               DR. WALLIS:  It is included.
               MR. LAUBEN:  But it's going to be put in a
     separate section; the quality assurance thing is going to be
     a separate section by itself, and it's not going to be
     looked upon like an appendix to this.
               DR. WALLIS:  The last thing you guys need is to go
     through all this stuff and come to the ACRS, and the ACRS is
     your first peer review.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes, okay.
               DR. POWERS:  Let me ask some questions about the
     quality assurance here.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. POWERS:  I would assume that you meant NQA II.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Well, I mean, by it abiding by the
     applicable parts of appendix A, and when it comes to code
     development and design --
               DR. POWERS:  Are there certain code design
     criteria?
               MR. LAUBEN:  Appendix B; I'm sorry, appendix B. 
     There are certain things that are talked about in there that
     have to do with design reviews, and I discuss them in a
     paragraph or two in the reg guide, and if there is something
     additionally that should be emphasized, that would be --
               DR. POWERS:  I think I'd -- in NQA II, that people
     repeatedly try to look at -- which is essentially appendix
     B, the code quality assurance, and it's just never -- it
     just really wasn't --
               MR. LAUBEN:  That's right; I think that's probably
     true, and that's why we had to add the words about peer
     review.  Because I think that's -- it's more than just a
     management check; it's a peer review.
               DR. POWERS:  I think the problem should be
     configuration control and things like that.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. POWERS:  There are other standards to appeal
     to.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. POWERS:  And I think they work better.  I
     mean, I almost hesitate to bring it up.  There are certain
     fairly onerous undertakings, but quite frankly, the quality
     assurance on these codes is a very onerous undertaking.  I
     think I would appeal to something besides appendix B as
     guidance on this.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Well, I do have to -- okay, that's
     fine, except I just want to say I do have to tie most of
     these things to the regulations.
               DR. POWERS:  I understand why; I understand.
               MR. LAUBEN:  All right.
               DR. POWERS:  I mean, what they tried to do in NQA
     II was to take what's in NQA I, which is essentially
     appendix B, and say okay, here's how you apply these things
     to codes, because people were having so much difficulty
     taking the words out of what was basically a hardware
     quality assurance document and applying it to codes.
               DR. SEALE:  That's always a problem.
               DR. POWERS:  And let me ask you about the last
     one:  provide comprehensive --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. POWERS:  -- and accurate up-to-date
     documentation.  It's the comprehensive.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Well, I think that if you don't have
     comprehensive documentation, there's no hope for any peer
     review group to know what the heck is going on.  So I think
     that's what -- also, up-to-date.  If it's -- accurate is
     obvious.  Up-to-date means -- and we could see that when the
     original CSAU was done, the people complained that the
     documentation for the code was not up-to-date, and
     therefore, how can the peer reviewers, the CSAU people, do
     this if they do not have comprehensive or up-to-date
     documentation?
               DR. POWERS:  Yes, if it's not up-to-date; the only
     reason you're worried about it not being up-to-date is it's
     not accurate.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay; the next slide is to show what
     we consider to be a reasonable perception of a road map.  It
     identifies four overall parts, and these sections are not
     too unfamiliar.
               DR. WALLIS:  This is new, now, isn't it?
               MR. LAUBEN:  This is new.
               DR. WALLIS:  This is also new.
               MR. LAUBEN:  This is a new road map, and it's
     meant to be higher level.  If you will, the diagram that you
     saw in the previous reg guide spends most of its time here
     and a little bit of its time in one and not much of its time
     in --
               DR. WALLIS:  So the purpose of this is to guide
     the person who's sitting down --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  -- to write documentation to submit
     to the NRC.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  To think about it first of all.
               MR. LAUBEN:  And to think about it in this way as
     he's thinking about how he's going to do his development
     work.  That's correct; not just how he's going to document
     it but how he's going to go through it to do the work that
     he has to do to produce the product at the end.  And a lot
     of this was obviously informed by CSAU, and it was obviously
     also informed by some of the process that we went through in
     AP600 as well.
               DR. WALLIS:  This is helpful, because it gives a
     structure to thinking; it also gives us a check list in a
     way.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes; now, let me say what is -- you
     can see some of the -- well, let me just go through, and let
     me start by Roman numeral I, item one:  identifies transient
     power plant and figures of merit.  I added figures of merit
     because I think just because you know what plant you're
     going to analyze and just because you know what transients
     you're going to analyze, if you're going to do it for
     different purposes or different -- you had a different
     figure of merit --
               DR. WALLIS:  It might be uncertainty, for
     instance.
               MR. LAUBEN:  It might be uncertainty; it might be,
     if you're doing this for the PRA purpose of knowing success
     criteria rather than a peak cladding temperature.  So you
     need to get your fingers of merit clear in the first place.
               Secondly, I think number two:  identify systems
     component processes -- phases and fields that must be
     modeled; in other words, let's not -- you know, everything
     is not a correlation.  You need to know -- you need to get
     the basic engine right to begin with.  So you need to know
     what things you need to model here in your evaluation model. 
     And then, as a third thing, you can identify and rank
     phenomena and processes.
               DR. WALLIS:  So, for example, two might say for
     components, we're not going to model just straight pipes;
     we're going to model all this and --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Oh, yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  And that will teach us -- and
     therefore --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Pressurizers.
               DR. WALLIS:  And it doesn't make any sense for our
     model in two to only have a straight pipe in it.
               MR. LAUBEN:  That's exactly right, right.
               And number two is, then, knowing what your
     requirements need to be, Roman numeral two.  Then, you
     select and or modify the system codes and other
     calculational instruments and procedures that go to make up
     this whole process.  And the conditions that are required
     for these things and their relationships; so if you need to
     know how the whole thing gets put together, and that has to
     be done.
               And then, number two is determine the pedigree
     applicability of the numerics governing equations for the
     codes and calculational instruments.  Then, while you're
     doing this or after you start, perhaps, you go over to Roman
     numeral III and ask yourself do I have an adequate
     assessment base?  And if -- from the assessment base that
     you had, you may select certain experiments.  If you don't,
     then, you may need to perform experiments, and they may
     indeed be, depending on the transient and these things that
     you've established in number one, they may be separate
     effects or integral effects tests, and then, you need to
     make sure that between the database that you have to perform
     standard analysis of the entire experimental database to see
     how this applies.
               And then, number III is, okay, appropriate
     available plant transient data.  This is especially true of
     non-loca transients, where you may actually have some plant
     transient data that you can use to assess the probit.  Now,
     you've got your base; you've got the evaluation model. 
     Then, you can go through the assessment part that we -- that
     was the subject of most of the chart in the previous reg
     guide.
               DR. KRESS:  Where in those boxes will I find the
     uncertainty calculation?
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay; I think what I said is right
     here.  Let me see; let's see.  No, no, I had -- I did have
     it there.  Now, where is it?  It says -- no, I had
     uncertainty.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  It jumps out from your view graphs.
               MR. LAUBEN:  No, I had it in there.  I don't see
     where I use the --
               DR. WALLIS:  Well, you can do that when it comes
     up.  In several places --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes, but mostly --
               DR. WALLIS:  In the assessment phase as well as in
     the model.
               If you were to take CSAU figure one --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Oh, I know.  I have it on this
     previous paragraph, but I don't have it here, and it should
     indeed be in this box here, right.
               DR. WALLIS:  It may be elsewhere as well.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  If you took the CSAU figure one,
     their road map.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  And then sort of said where would it
     map on here?  Is it only in box four or --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Well, I'll tell you what:  if you
     look at CSAU, most of what's -- CSAU did not -- CSAU had a
     Roman numeral I, II and III, and Roman numeral I, II and III
     here, most of those things, would fit in Roman numeral I of
     the original CSAU.
               DR. WALLIS:  This is in the CSAU.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes; but I mean also is developing --
     documenting the code, which, you see there, was already
     done.  So that's --
               DR. WALLIS:  There are maps all over this thing.
               MR. LAUBEN:  What I'm saying is CSAU Roman numeral
     I encompasses I, II and III here.  And then, if you will,
     and I've forgotten uncertainty, II and III of CSAU would be
     in box four.
               DR. WALLIS:  I think my suggestion would be since
     CSAU is such a monument, 13 man-years of work; they really
     put a lot of thought into this; you ought to then tell the
     reader how this relates to that.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay.
               DR. WALLIS:  You know, and the reader should be
     able to start with this and then refer to CSAU for pieces of
     it or what?
               MR. LAUBEN:  As a matter of fact, my druthers is
     going to be that when I write this, I am going to
     specifically reference specific parts of CSAU rather than
     include them in the reg guide, in fact, and say this -- to
     learn more about this, go see CSAU section da da da da da
     da, and that would be the preferable way to do it.  That
     doesn't clutter up the high level structure that we want to
     maintain in this document.
               DR. WALLIS:  I think that's great.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay.
               DR. WALLIS:  You've got to make the linkage. 
     You've got to put one in the perspective of the other.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes, yes, okay.
               DR. WALLIS:  I'm going through a redesign process
     now.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Well, I'm hoping it's not too
     significant.
               DR. WALLIS:  Well, I think it's a very
     significant --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Very extensive is what I mean.  I'm
     saying I hope it's not going to be real --
               MR. ELTAWILA:  This is Farouk Eltawila again. 
     Really, I know that your enthusiasm about CSAU and things
     like that, but I really think it could inhibit creative
     ideas from coming in if we try to be so specific to mandate
     CSAU, and that's not the intent of the reg guide.  It's to
     provide high level guidance about what does the staff
     expect; that's all what's important.  If we force CSAU on
     them, I think it will be counterproductive for what the
     staff is trying to accomplish.
               DR. POWERS:  We've encountered enough examples
     where CSAU has proved difficult to understand to have it
     apply that -- that's what the group says there that I think
     many of the concepts behind CSAU are very valuable; some of
     the purpose may have been peculiar to the issue they were
     addressing at the time.
               DR. WALLIS:  I agree with everything that's been
     said.  This was the monumental study, so all of the
     technical community bought into it.  This was going to
     change the way the codes were done in the future.  I
     remember all this from the time.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  Since then, there have been a lot
     of developments all over the world.
               DR. WALLIS:  I respect that.  I'm not saying it's
     the way to do it, but you cannot -- you've got to reference
     it in some way.
               MR. LAUBEN:  I will reference it more
     specifically, and that will be fairly easy to do, I think.
               DR. WALLIS:  If you think some parts of it have a
     really good message, say so.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Because I think in some places, I
     literally plagiarized CSAU, so that's going to be easy to do
     that.
               DR. WALLIS:  I'm amazed that you're doing this reg
     guide presumably virtually yourself, and yet, this other one
     took 13 man-years, so you have --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Well, of course, I didn't do -- well,
     then, you're exactly right.  I really didn't do it by
     myself, did I?
               Okay; I just wanted to say that once you get
     through the assessment process in the existing reg guide,
     there is an adequacy question, and in truth, the adequacy
     questions need to be asked all the time.  They aren't really
     asked just here, but you have to ask it here in the end. 
     Once you've gone through this, are there any significant
     inadequacies?
               DR. WALLIS:  It's like at the beginning:  is it
     adequate for the particular --
               MR. LAUBEN:  You're really asking where we stuck;
     is it adequate?  And then, if it's not, then, you go back
     and you fix what's not adequate.  But and, in fact, you may
     find out that the plant isn't adequate, and you may even
     have to go back and redo the plant.  We found that out, for
     instance, in AP600C.  You know, you didn't have enough
     capacity in your ADS4, so you had to actually go back and
     change the plant.
               DR. WALLIS:  Adequate is the key question.  You've
     helped me a great deal again here.  Through all of this, you
     ask it; is each one of these adequate?
               MR. LAUBEN:  Exactly.
               DR. WALLIS:  You should help the reader with
     what's the measure of adequacy going to be.
               MR. LAUBEN:  And I'm just saying I couldn't put
     this question everywhere.
               DR. WALLIS:  See, that's the thing.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay.
               DR. WALLIS:  It could probably be about the
     original reg guide draft; it's adequate versus acceptable.
               MR. LAUBEN:  I can always use help on that,
     because I think that's one of the hardest things, in my
     mind, at least, to define is adequacy and sufficiency and so
     forth.
               DR. WALLIS:  The writer is going to be asking him
     or herself all the time; is what I'm doing here adequate? 
     And you've got to have some way of measuring that or
     estimating it.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  Norm, I think you're understating
     the work that we have done for AP600.  We defined what the
     measure of adequacy, and we are going to use the same
     standard that we --
               DR. WALLIS:  You're going to use AP600?
               MR. LAUBEN:  No, no, no, no, no.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  The principle; we're talking about
     the principle.
               MR. LAUBEN:  There are some documents we're going
     to try to make nonproprietary that we did, and I think we --
     there was a lot of effort, as Farouk says, that was spent on
     trying to find these things, and I understand some would say
     that -- you and Dr. Apostolakis said --
               DR. WALLIS:  I think that I'd like to go back to
     the purpose of all this.  The purpose of all this is to come
     up with a reg guide which really helps the future, so that
     it's less work and better work and everything in the future. 
     And we're all working towards that end.
               DR. KRESS:  The adequacy determination in AP600
     had almost -- wholly related to the predictions versus the
     data.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               DR. KRESS:  I think that's a risky way to go.
               MR. LAUBEN:  It is, and that's why we've included
     these first few steps; I agree.
               DR. KRESS:  I think your adequacy cannot be that
     completely.  I think you've got to think of some other --
               MR. LAUBEN:  You've got to do steps one, two and
     three, and you count there adequacy as well; that is
     correct.  I think we're acknowledging that.
               DR. WALLIS:  We all know the there are adequate
     ways to fit data which have nothing to do with adequacy of
     the --
               MR. LAUBEN:  But a lot of times, your adequacy
     answer isn't good, better, best.  Sometimes, your adequacy
     answer is yes or no, you know, are these the right
     equations?  Yes or no?
               DR. WALLIS:  Or can it even model --
               MR. LAUBEN:  That's a yes or no answer.
               DR. WALLIS:  Right.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay; I just -- I don't know if this
     is -- I counted your comments, Graham, and there were 31,
     and I decided that 12 of these had to do with structure of
     the guide, improper balance, lack of clear road map and
     focus beginning with the overall code structure based on
     fundamental equations, and I think -- I hope that what we've
     shown here is that we are going -- we believe that we can
     address these.
               DR. WALLIS:  These 31 are culled from about 100
     that I had.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay; and there are 16 that I judged
     to be easily accommodated, like numbering questions and
     things like that, and there are three that I don't think
     we're going to -- so it really looks like 28 to 3 here,
     right?
               [Laughter.]
               DR. WALLIS:  That's not too bad.  Is that
     adequate?
               MR. LAUBEN:  I don't know.
               DR. WALLIS:  Ninety-fifth percentile.
               DR. POWERS:  You get about a 90 on this.  That's
     pretty good.  That's a good B+, isn't it?
               MR. LAUBEN:  Here's the three that I think we
     believe that probably won't result in a change:  add more
     specificity about peer review, when it should be done.  I
     don't think that the degree of specificity would be
     consistent with office letter 3A on reg guide development. 
     They specifically tell us not to be too specific about some
     of these things, not necessarily this but --
               DR. WALLIS:  What you already do is make the
     general statement that peer review should be used at various
     stages in the process.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Sure.
               DR. WALLIS:  You're not explicit about where.
               MR. LAUBEN:  I may talk about some of the general
     headings.
               DR. WALLIS:  What is the message somehow.
               MR. LAUBEN:  That's right; okay.
               Number two, effect of changing regulations; I
     don't know what to say about that.  Regulations change
     slowly.
               DR. WALLIS:  The message there was what I've said
     here several times today.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Okay.
               DR. WALLIS:  That you cannot talk about adequacy
     without saying what you're going to use the code for.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Well, okay.
               DR. WALLIS:  And as the regulations get
     risk-informed, you're going to use the code in different
     ways.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Well, they will.  I agree with that. 
     I was also thinking about examples that I've had to
     encounter in the last few months, and what I have
     encountered is that the same questions we --
               MR. ELTAWILA:  Norm, if you look at box one --
               MR. LAUBEN:  Yes.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  -- one, identify transient power
     plants and figure of merit.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Right.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  Figure of merit is the one that's
     going to answer your question.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Good point.  That's really what --
               DR. WALLIS:  Maybe you ought to put not just
     figure of merit but requirements of the regulations or
     something up at that level in the box.
               MR. LAUBEN:  Well, that implies that but okay,
     sure, okay.
               And then, number three, I think that there is a
     very specific purpose for implementation.  I think we meet
     that.
               DR. WALLIS:  You meant something other than what I
     thought you meant.
               MR. LAUBEN:  I think that's right, right.
               Okay; so, that is it.  The status and summary is
     that DG10-96 on accident and transient analysis as it is
     addresses the findings of Maine Yankee panel and other
     review groups; timely inclusion of current ACRS comments is
     the next step in the process of eventually releasing DG10-96
     and SRP subchapter 15-01 for public comment.  After
     incorporation of ACRS comments, DG10-96 and the subchapter
     and the regulatory analysis will be sent to OGC and CRGR for
     review and after appropriate OGC and CRGR consent, the
     documents will be released for public comment.
               DR. WALLIS:  Now, let's see; where are we here? 
     You had some comments from me; there were some comments from
     the consultants and other members of the committee we can
     share with you.  I've shared some with NRR.  The question I
     have is whether it would help -- and this is a question we
     had at the subcommittee meeting -- for you to have a letter
     from the ACRS.  I mean, you seem to be doing a good job of
     modifying the document in light of comments that you
     receive.  Do you want a letter?  Is it useful to have a
     letter at this stage from the full committee, or should we
     wait until you've --
               MR. ELTAWILA:  I think we don't want a letter at
     this time.  I think we would like to modify the document. 
     We'll send it to you concurrently with the -- we'll send it
     to CRGR and OGC, and after we incorporate the public
     comments, we'll come back to the ACRS, and then, at that
     time, we'd like a letter.
               DR. WALLIS:  So you want a letter now?
               MR. ELTAWILA:  No, we don't want a letter now.
               DR. WALLIS:  You don't want a letter now?
               MR. ELTAWILA:  We don't want a letter.
               DR. WALLIS:  Because if you did get a letter, it
     would have to be based on the document that we've seen, not
     the document that we have a vision of today.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  So what does the committee think
     about this?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So you are going to circulate it
     for public comment with the --
               DR. WALLIS:  You were persuaded to bring it to the
     committee.  The subcommittee's feeling was that the reg
     guide was not really ready for public comment.  And what
     we've seen today is a completely new vision of parts of the
     reg guide so what --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But are they going for public
     comment using the existing document that we have seen?
               MR. LAUBEN:  No.
               DR. WALLIS:  So you're taking our advice about not
     going with the existing document.
               MR. LAUBEN:  That is correct.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  But we will not have a chance to
     look at the new document before it goes out.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  It's a different organization of
     the document and adding -- just beefing it in certain areas
     and reducing the level of the content of the document in
     other areas.  But I think the general flavor is as we
     indicated here in the outline, in that diagram that Norm put
     on there.
               DR. WALLIS:  So you will go out with a new
     document which we will not see; is that right?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  That's what they're saying.
               DR. WALLIS:  So the risk of not getting our input
     at that stage is that if we have significant input later,
     it's more difficult to make changes.
               MR. LAUBEN:  No, no, it's no more difficult to
     make changes based on your input and the public input than
     it is before we even send it out, Dr. Wallis.  The process
     is the same.  We would treat any additional input on the
     version that you see that goes out for public comment.
               MR. VERMEIL:  Yes, but doesn't it have to go back
     out for public comment then if it's changed?
               DR. WALLIS:  Yes, if it's changed significantly,
     it would have to go out again, wouldn't it?
               MR. LAUBEN:  We would make a judgment as to what
     significant means, how much of a change.
               DR. WALLIS:  It isn't minimal; we know that.
               MR. LAUBEN:  No, it's above minimal.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  As long as it doesn't touch on
     adequate protection.
               [Laughter.]
               MR. LAUBEN:  Fortunately, we're not dealing with
     that here.  This is not a regulation.
               DR. WALLIS:  but would it be useful for you, for
     some members of the committee, at least, to see the next
     version before you send it out or --
               MR. ELTAWILA:  We will send it to you at the same
     time we send it to --
               DR. WALLIS:  Will the subcommittee see it?
               MR. ELTAWILA:  We really believe we don't need
     another subcommittee meeting.  If you insist about having a
     subcommittee meeting, that's your choice.
               DR. WALLIS:  We are trying to be helpful, really.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  Trying to find the process which will
     produce the best document is what we're trying to do.
               MR. VERMEIL:  It will get to you and CRGR
     simultaneously, and there will be time between then and
     actually publishing it for us to consider any additional
     thoughts you might have, because we also have to consider
     any thoughts that CRGR might have that would change the
     document.
               DR. WALLIS:  Well, next time you bring it up here,
     you will get a letter.
               MR. VERMEIL:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  And if there are still some things
     that we have trouble with, that will appear in the letter.
               MR. VERMEIL:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  If we really like it, that will
     appear in the letter.
               MR. VERMEIL:  Yes.
               DR. SEALE:  You hope.
               MR. VERMEIL:  I hope.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  So the agreement is that this
     letter will be written after the period of public comment?
               MR. VERMEIL:  Yes; that's generally how it works.
               DR. SEALE:  And if we want to make any comments at
     the same time it goes out to help them, we can do that.
               MR. VERMEIL:  Okay.
               DR. WALLIS:  This is what the staff is proposing. 
     is that what the committee will agree to?
               DR. POWERS:  The committee will have to take a
     vote on this.  This is strictly advisory at this point.
               Take it into discussion?  My own view, right now,
     it would not be unusual for the staff to go out for public
     comments and come back to us with the resultant comments on
     a document of this nature.
               DR. KRESS:  Yes, we've done it both ways.
               DR. POWERS:  Well, I think this one is
     particularly susceptible to this because I think we're not
     bending metal when we have to make changes here.
               DR. SEALE:  And they're on a roll.  I mean, they
     know where they want to go.  It's not as if they're running
     up against a stone wall.
               DR. WALLIS:  We don't want to slow that down.
               DR. SEALE:  Yes; yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  So we do get, then, the old question
     about how much of our role is sort of participating with the
     staff and how much of it is formal review.  We may need to
     sort that out a bit.
               DR. POWERS:  Professor Wallis, if you would like
     to make a motion at this point, we can entertain this issue.
               DR. WALLIS:  The issue being?
               DR. POWERS:  The question of whether we should --
               DR. WALLIS:  Write a letter?
               DR. POWERS:  -- do this document before it goes
     out to public comment or not.
               [Pause.]
               DR. WALLIS:  I felt that the committee should make
     a decision, so perhaps we should have a motion, then.
               DR. POWERS:  Yes.
               DR. WALLIS:  And so we simply have to make a
     decision.  I will make a motion that we should review it
     before it goes out for public comment with the understanding
     that I don't -- this isn't necessarily the view I favor, but
     to get us going, I will make a motion that we review it
     before it goes out for public comment.
               DR. POWERS:  Okay; I have a motion to review the
     document before it goes out to public comment.
               DR. SEALE:  I'll second it.
               DR. POWERS:  All right; I have a second.
               Is there any discussion of this motion?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  What is the time frame for that? 
     When will we do this?
               DR. WALLIS:  We'll have to do it at the next
     meeting of this committee.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  You will have to be in the June
     meeting?
               DR. WALLIS:  How fast can you move?  When are you
     actually intending to have the new document ready for it to
     go out?
               MR. ELTAWILA:  We'll try to get it in the next
     month or so.
               DR. WALLIS:  Okay; so, it would be possible for us
     to review it.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  Yes.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  The latest in July.
               DR. WALLIS:  Now, the reason that I think you
     ought to consider this is that I don't want to get into a
     situation where our ability to be helpful to the staff
     ceases, and then, this results in something not being as
     good as it might be down the road.  I feel that we have made
     considerable input already; I hope it's been helpful.  But
     it seems to have been a big change, and I'm a bit nervous
     about saying now, the staff knows enough to go ahead without
     some --
               MR. ELTAWILA:  Am I allowed to say anything during
     this motion?  I don't want to interfere in the process, but
     what makes sense is to go to the CRGR, because you know that
     the CRGR is going to look at this document very thoroughly. 
     So we might be able to satisfy you, and the staff has all
     the intention to do the right things, but it might, in the
     eyes of CRGR, constitute a backfit, and we want to be
     careful about that, not to go all the way and to come here
     satisfying you and to go to the CRGR and undo everything
     that you're doing.
               So I think it will be appropriate to send it to
     CRGR; we'll send you a copy at the same time, and if CRGR
     blesses it, it will go out for public comment, and during
     that time, if you have any comments on it, we will be happy
     to receive them and try to accommodate them as much as we
     can.
               DR. WALLIS:  Well, maybe we could change the
     motion a bit, that we would like to see it before it goes
     out for public comment.  We don't necessarily need to have
     any input; we'd just like to decide at the time --
               MR. VERMEIL:  You would get it anyway, Dr. Wallis. 
     That's a given.
               DR. WALLIS:  -- to let you know whether at that
     time, we feel it would be useful to see you again or whether
     we should just let you go out with it.
               MR. VERMEIL:  You'll get it.
               DR. WALLIS:  We'd simply ask that we get given a
     document -- can I modify my motion?  We see the document,
     and we decide whether or not we want to review it?
               MR. VERMEIL:  Absolutely, because you will get it.
               DR. POWERS:  I really honestly need to turn to my
     parliamentarian on this.  There is a mechanism for modifying
     a motion.  It's cleaner if it isn't.  What do I do?
               DR. WALLIS:  You can substitute your own motion.
               DR. SEALE:  You have to ask me whether or not I'll
     agree.
               DR. WALLIS:  That's all you have to do.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  If the seconder agrees, then,
     you can.
               DR. SEALE:  I will.
               DR. POWERS:  Okay; so, we have a modified motion
     now, which is that we see the -- we receive a copy of the
     document --
               DR. WALLIS:  And then, we decide whether or not it
     would be useful for us to meet with the staff before it goes
     out for public comment or not.
               DR. POWERS:  You're just asking to defer.
               DR. WALLIS:  Otherwise, we're buying a pig in a
     poke, it seems to me.
               DR. POWERS:  You're not buying a pig in a poke.
               DR. WALLIS:  It's a little bit more risky than I'd
     sort of like to be.
               DR. POWERS:  You're not getting a pig in the poke;
     you get a chance to look at this again no matter what.
               DR. WALLIS:  But, you know, I'm not interested in
     getting a look.  I'm interested in the quality of the final
     document being as good as possible.  It's the only thing I'm
     really interested in.  And if we can intervene at some time
     before it goes out for public comment in a way which will
     increase the probability that it will be a really good final
     document, I think we ought to have that opportunity.
               DR. POWERS:  It is cleaner.
               I think you're just advocating a position of you
     want to see this before it goes out for public comment.  I
     mean, that --
               DR. WALLIS:  We can see it, but it doesn't mean
     we're going to have to bring the staff in here, yes; so
     maybe that's good enough, then, if that's the understanding,
     that see it doesn't mean a presentation like this,
     understand.
               DR. POWERS:  The effect on the staff is the same,
     is that they can't set a date for releasing it for public
     comment until they get clearance from us.  That's the
     effect.
               DR. WALLIS:  Now, is that the effect?  Is that the
     effect?
               DR. POWERS:  Sure it is; sure that is.
               I'd like to retain --
               DR. SHACK:  They can take the gamble that we'll
     approve it and just go ahead and then worry about the
     process.
               DR. WALLIS:  We may just write a --
               DR. POWERS:  That's what we've got a motion on the
     floor right now to decide to do, right?  Right as we speak
     now.
               DR. SHACK:  Have we accepted the modified motion? 
     There was a second that changed it.
               DR. POWERS:  I don't think the -- the modification
     is a reversal.
               DR. SHACK:  It's a reversal, yes.
               DR. POWERS:  I want to stick with the motion that
     we had.
               DR. WALLIS:  The only reason I'm making the
     motion --
               DR. SHACK:  All I want to know is which motion are
     we discussing?
               DR. POWERS:  That's right.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  That's important.
               [Laughter.]
               DR. POWERS:  I will try to clearly articulate the
     motion that we have.  I have not accepted the change.  The
     motion is that we see it before it goes out for public
     comment.  Now, is there any further discussion on this
     motion?
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  What does see mean?
               DR. POWERS:  Okay; it means you get the document
     in your hands; that we would make a collective decision on
     whether we wanted to bring the staff to the meeting --
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Oh, okay.
               DR. POWERS:  -- or not and review it and make a
     collective decision on whether we wanted to write a letter
     to the Executive Director of Operations on this document or
     not.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Okay.
               DR. POWERS:  Okay?  Any further discussions of
     this motion?
               [No response.]
               DR. POWERS:  All those in favor of the motion to
     see this before it goes out for public comment, please so
     indicate. 
               [Show of hands.]
               DR. POWERS:  All those opposed and that would
     prefer to have it go out for public comment and then come
     back to the committee please so indicate.    
               [Show of hands.]
               DR. POWERS:  The committee votes to allow this
     document to go out for public comment without being brought
     to this.  I certainly would appreciate if you could provide
     us a copy of it when it goes out at the time.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  We will definitely do that.
               MR. VERMEIL:  We were going to do that anyway.
               DR. SEALE:  That's what I wanted.
               DR. POWERS:  Any further matters on this issue to
     discuss?
               [No response.]
               MR. VERMEIL:  So we'll do a Larkinsgram on this.
               DR. POWERS:  Yes, you'll get a Larkinsgram from
     this that says something to the effect of the committee has
     no objections to this going out to public comment and that
     we'd like to see it after it comes back from public comment.
               MR. ELTAWILA:  Thank you very much.
               DR. APOSTOLAKIS:  Can we write additional comments
     to the Larkinsgram?
               [Laughter.]
               DR. POWERS:  At this point, I think I can dispense
     with the transcript.
               [Whereupon, the meeting was recessed, to reconvene
     at 8:30 a.m., Friday, May 12, 2000.]
 

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