Hardened Vent: the basis was apparently only recently documented.

As is clear from my recent entries, it was only following my recent inquiry that NRC published the basis for the capacity of the hardened vent system.  Here it is:
http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1322/ML13221A011.pdf
The document is dated August 9, 2012, however this is backdated by one year.  The correct date is August 9, 2013.

What I am gong to try to find out now, is what actions the NRC went through in order to produce the above document.

I requested the basis for the following:


1.2 The HCVS shall include the following design features:
1.2.1 The HCVS shall have the capacity to vent the steam/energy equivalent of 1 percent of licensed/rated thermal power (unless a lower value is justified by analyses), and be able to maintain containment pressure below the primary containment design pressure. 

Page 3 of 3 of the August 12, 2013, document ML13221A011, lists 10 references as follows:

References:
1. “American National Standard for Decay Heat Power in Light Water Reactors.” American
Nuclear Society Standards Committee Working Group ANS 5.1. Approved August 29,
1979.
2. NUREG/CR-3908, “Survey of the State of the Art in Mitigation Systems.” January 1988.
3. Generic Letter 89-16, “Installation of a Hardened Wetwell Vent.” September 1, 1989.
4. Information Notice 9639, “Estimates of Decay Heat using ANS 5.1 Decay Heat Standard
may very significantly.” July 5, 1996.
5. HSK-R-40/d, “Filtered Venting for Containment Vessels of Light Water Reactors (LWR):
Design Requirements.” March 1993.
6. Technical Report 1998-03, “Decay Heat Estimates for MNR.” February 23, 1999.
http://www.nuceng.ca/papers/decayhe1b.pdf
7. Decay heat illustration2.PNG. http://enm.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Decay heat
illustration2.PNG.
8. IAEA-TECDOC-1661, “Mitigation of Hydrogen Hazards in Severe Accidents in Nuclear
Power Plants.” July 2011.
9. NUREG/CR-5597, “In-Vessel Zircaloy Oxidation/Hydrogen Generation Behavior during
Severe Accident.” September 1990.
10. NUREG/CR-2726 SAND82-1137R3, “Light Water Reactor Hydrogen Manual.” August
1983.
Date: August 9, 2012
ADAMS Accession No.: ML13221A011
It is noteworthy that of the ten references, reference 8, IAEA-TECDOC-1661, July 2011, is the only reference that has been published since the Fukushima detonations.  It is also noteworthy that although reference 8 itself has 100 pertinent references in the matter of Mitigation of Hydrogen Hazards in Severe Accidents in Nuclear Power Plants, none of the other nine references of document ML13221A011 are cited. 

On page 1 of 3 of is the assertion:
Generic Letter 89-16 (Reference 3) related to installation of hardened wetwell vents was issued in September 1989 and stated that the system installed by Boston Edison Company at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station and associated analysis was acceptable. The design analysis included a vent design objective of venting approximately 1 % of decay heat for a 56 psi saturated steam conditions in the torus.

So, I downloaded reference 3, but the attachment that discusses the Pligrim analysis is not included.  I'll contact NRC's PDR and ask for the attachment.  

The NRC's PDR very courteously provided the best copy that they could.  I e-mailed the following request:

From: Bobleyse@aol.com [mailto:Bobleyse@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2013 7:24 PM
To: JLD_Public Resource
Cc: CHAIRMAN Resource; CMROSTENDORFF Resource; CMRAPOSTOLAKIS Resource; CMRMAGWOOD Resource; CMRSVINICKI Resource
Subject: Fwd: Please assist (again)

JLD_Public Resource

The document that the PDR courteously sent is not completely readable, and those parts that are readable are not expediently readable. You should recognize that the matter is of intense importance.  Accordingly, you should take actions that will provide a very readable document in ADAMS, and those actions should proceed immediately.

Robert H. Leyse                 bobleyse@aol.com

And I received the following infuriating reply:

Subject:	RE: Please assist (again)
Date:	10/1/2013 8:00:32 A.M. Mountain Daylight Time
From:	JLD_Public.Resource@nrc.gov
Reply To: To: Bobleyse@aol.com

Thank you for contacting the NRC’s Japan Lessons-Learned Project Directorate. Your comments will be considered to the extent possible.

Japan Lessons Learned Project Directorate 

Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

And, we pay those clowns for that kind of service.  I suppose the staff of the NRC's PDR may be chastised for providing courteous attention to my request; that courteous attention is beyond the requirements on NRC regulations.

 

 

  

Documentation of Sizing of Hardened Venting of Boiling Water Reactors

It has been difficult, but via Senator Risch, documentation of the NRC basis for sizing hardened vents has become available.

http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1322/ML13221A011.pdf

The third page of the above link is dated August 9, 2012.  The correct date is August 9, 2013.   Also, the document is not identified as having been produced at the request of this blogger, Robert H. Leyse.  I e-mailed NRC asking for corrections and received the following non-commitment:

Subject:	RE: Satorius letter to Senator James E. Risch, August 29, 2013
Date:	9/26/2013 12:40:49 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time
From:	JLD_Public.Resource@nrc.gov
Reply To: To: Bobleyse@aol.com

Thank you for contacting the NRC’s Japan Lessons-Learned Project Directorate. Your comments will be considered to the extent possible.

Japan Lessons Learned Project Directorate 

Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Below is the e-mail that I sent requesting action:

From: Bobleyse@aol.com [mailto:Bobleyse@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 10:15 PM
To: JLD_Public Resource
Subject: Satorius letter to Senator James E. Risch, August 29, 2013

Mark A. Satorius

Executive Director for Operations

The attachment consists of five pages.  Page 1 is your cover letter to Senator Risch, August 29, 2013.   Page 2 is a copy of an e-mail that was allegedly sent to me on August 9, 2013.  Pages 3, 4, and 5  constitute a three page document that responds to my request for references that document the basis for technical requirement 1.2.1 that is in Order EA-13-109.

Page 5 of the attachment is page 3 of the three page document that responds to my request for references that document the basis for technical requirement 1.2.1 that is in Order EA-13-109.  This page 5 has the following in its final two lines. 

Date: August 9, 2012

ADAMS Accession No.: ML13221A011

Now, I have conducted an Advanced Search via the ADAMS Accession No.: ML13221A011 and I find that the Document Date is 08/09/2013 and that the date that it was added to ADAMS was 08/13/2013.

I believe  that you should correct the date of the three page document from August 9, 2012, to August 9, 2013.  I also believe that the three page document should acknowledge that it was prepared at the request of Robert H. Leyse.

Robert H. Leyse       bobleyse@aol.com

Following are the first two pages of the five page attachment that is referenced above.  The last three pages are the documentation that I requested and that also opens this entry, http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1322/ML13221A011.pdf

Hardened Vent References that yield 1%

On August 9, 2013, the NRC issued the three page document, prepared at my request, Basis for Venting Capacity in Order ER-13-109.  Here it is:

The above three page document is not without its problems. On page 3 it has a Date: August 9, 2012; the correct date is August 9, 2013. In addition, although the document was prepared in response to my request, this is not discussed, so there is no way of tracking the document with Leyse as a key word. This led me to immediately send the following e-mail to the NRC.

From: Bobleyse@aol.com
To: jld_public.resource@nrc.gov
Sent: 9/24/2013 8:14:48 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time

Subj: Satorius letter to Senator James E. Risch, August 29, 2013

Mark A. Satorius
Executive Director for Operations

The attachment consists of five pages. Page 1 is your cover letter to Senator Risch, August 29, 2013. Page 2 is a copy of an e-mail that was allegedly sent to me on August 9, 2013. Pages 3, 4, and 5 constitute a three page document that responds to my request for references that document the basis for technical requirement 1.2.1 that is in Order EA-13-109.

Page 5 of the attachment is page 3 of the three page document that responds to my request for references that document the basis for technical requirement 1.2.1 that is in Order EA-13-109. This page 5 has the following in its final two lines.
 
Date: August 9, 2012

ADAMS Accession No.: ML13221A011

Now, I have conducted an Advanced Search via the ADAMS Accession No.: ML13221A011 and I find that the Document Date is 08/09/2013 and that the date that it was added to ADAMS was 08/13/2013. I believe that you should correct the date of the three page document from August 9, 2012, to August 9, 2013. I also believe that the three page document should acknowledge that it was prepared at the request of Robert H. Leyse.

Robert H. Leyse

The three page document that I have pasted above may be found in an enlarged version at: 

http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1322/ML13221A011.pdf

Petition to NRC to require in-core thermocouples

NRC told Mark Leyse that work was in progress when it really had been completed.  Followng is the NRC report followed by the reaction by Mark Leyse.

Licensing the General Electric Test Reactor GETR TR-1

It was a great game in the late 1950's. Here is one of the early contacts that GE set up with the NRC. The Washington D. C. office did the spade work that greased the skids.

The above contact was effective. The meeting followed shortly and its success is documented below.  The left margin has been cut, but with patience the reader will understand that the forthcoming review was well set up for acceptance of the licensing of the GETR.

GETR Control Rods 1960

The control rods used boron impregnated stainless steel as a structural material as well as poison.  Below outlines the problems.

GREEN START-UP

This has never been called a green start-up, however, the following is clear.

Early Experience With Resistance Temperature Detectors in PWRs - The 1960s and 1970s

Very likely some of the manufacturers are still in business, so I will not disclose any identifications (at this time). 

Anyway, as a "side task" the boss told me to set up a test rig to screen RTDs for subsequent installation in the Company's PWRs that were being built for several utilities.  RTDs had been failing in service and replacement was costly (although I believe that in the long run the consumers of electricity paid the bills).

So, in my monthly report of November 1968:

SCC-156  NOK-320  Resistance Thermometer Testing

Failure of resistance thermometers due to water inleakage at PWR plant sites has been extremely costly.  Therefore, a test program  for operation of these units in pressurized water has been initiated.

The test consists of cycling the water temperature from 50 F to 570 F while pressure is maintained at 2000 psi.  The failure rate of the resistance thermometers has been high (over 50 percent) and the margin of reliability is therefore unknown for the units which have not leaked in this testing. 
The main  problem appears to be in the welds associated  with the thin wall (0.010 inch) tubing at the tip of the resistance thermometer.  

Oh well, a meeting was set up with the supplier. Here are soon excerpts from the report of that meeting.

From page 1:  "Because of the special conditions and the available data, ______ will not formally consider any of the units from _____ as failures to be returned to ___________."

From page 6:  "In view iof the total picture it must be noted that R. Leyse's statements made (but unrecorded) at our December 11 meeting were oput of context and based on a very limited sampling of RTDs. ... We apologize for those statements."

That above was a fantastic report indeed.  It appears that the very heavy costs associated with RTD failure must have ultimately been paid by the consumers of electricity.  Otherwise, the hordes of RTD failures would not have been tolerated.

On January 15, 1971, the Company issued a SERVICE INFORMATION REPORT that reported, "In early 1969, it became evident that the RTDs furnished by our RTD supplier (hereafter referred to as A) were experiencing abnormally high failure rates at all operating ___________ PWRs at which they were in use."

Finally, here is a paragraph from the publication Nuclear Plant Experience, Vol. PWR-2, November 1972:

RTD FAILURES

Ginna

The plant has experienced a series of failures of the primary loop RTDs.  As of mid 1971, 25 of them had been replaced.

It is likely that several hundred RTDs at several nuclear power  plants were replaced at high cost.  Ultimately the problems were corrected based on costly experience and the ratepayers likely paid the bills. 

As I have reported in prior entries, in the case of Upper Head Injection, neither the Nuclear Regulatory Commission nor  EPRI's Nuclear Safety Analysis Center believed there was anything wrong with placing defective equipment in service and then correcting the problems based on operating experience at the plants. Of course, competent engineering in advance of placing the equipment  in service might not have been as profitable. 

"Pervasive culture of tolerating the intolerable and accepting the unacceptable."

The retired head of one of those contractors, former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, told Congress this spring that the absence of day-to-day accountability and an ineffectual structure at the NNSA pose a national security risk. He described a "pervasive culture of tolerating the intolerable and accepting the unacceptable."

NNSA means National Nuclear Security Administration

Fun with the Army's Gas Loop at the General Electric Test Reactor

Maybe I lack all of the files, but I have memories.

During the early 1960s our U. S. Army was considering a small gas-cooled power reactor.  The Army was testing the fuel in a gas loop at the General Electric Test Reactor (GETR).

The test engineer, Bill Thompson, quit and went to work elsewhere.

GETR was shut down for periodic maintenance, etc. when the loop's gas accumulator became overheated and swelled under pressure.

I had the task of looking into that (or at least I did that).  I contacted Thompson and described the situation.  Thompson told me that when the loop is shutdown with no gas flow it was his practice to shut off all power to the loop since the saturable reactor "leaked" even when there was no power demand.

The leaked current was enough to overheat the pressurized accumulator.  It swelled but it did not burst.

I wrote up the case and that documentation was not appreciated.  Later, General Electric told Thompson that he would be welcome to return to his job.  Thompson countered that he would return, however, he wanted to be a program manager.  That was not in the cards and Thompson stayed where he was. 

Ultimately the Army commended GE for its great work. 

This belongs here

It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one.
-Honore de Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)

Here are three references:

50 Years in Nuclear Power: A Retrospective
Salomon Levy Item ID: 690075 / ISBN: 0-89448-573-3 
Hardcover / 2007 / 252 pages.

This book describes many significant experiences over a period of about 50 years in the field of nuclear power-generated electricity. The first 25 years deal with the development, design, safety, manufacturing, licensing, and operations of light water reactors and particularly of General Electric (GE) boiling water reactors. That was also the time when perceptions about nuclear power changed and no new orders for nuclear power were forthcoming. The subsequent 25 years cover the formation and operation of engineering/management firm, S. Levy Incorporated (SLI), which provided consulting services to the entire nuclear industry.

Nuclear Power From Underseas to Outer Space
John W. Simpson
Item ID: 690042 / ISBN: 0-89448-559-8 Hardcover / 1995 / 468 pages

John Simpson, former president of Westinghouse Power Systems Company and past president of the American Nuclear Society, provides a vibrant account of the events associated with the birth of the nuclear industry. Simpson's account of his career and the many turns it took is formidable. Sixteen chapters provide the reader with a historical perspective portrayed by a person whose role, energy, and contributions to the development of fission power are significant. Simpson takes you through the building and operation of the first submarine, nuclear propulsion units, Shippingport, the astronuclear years, and early commercial power. Written largely in narrative and anecdotal form, the technical story is also provided. The final chapter provides a summary and the author's thought-provoking view of the future of nuclear power.

TMI-2: An Event in Accident Management For Light-Water-Moderated Reactors
Robert E. Henry
Item ID: 300034 / ISBN: 978-0-89448-044-7 Hardcover / 2011 / 258 pages

 The term severe accident management describes those actions that would be taken by the operating personnel of a nuclear power plant during an accident that could result in significant damage to a reactor core. Such an accident occurred on March 28, 1979, at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) nuclear plant. This book captures and interprets the varied and numerous insights related to severe accident management that can be gleaned from the TMI-2 accident.

So, I'm thinking about about producing a book; organizing   stuff from this diverse blog, but what should be the title?

 65 Years in Nuclear Power

or maybe

65 Years Among the Nuclear Power Racketeers

NRC "Openness" and Hardened Venting Systems

This blogger, Leyse, has not found the NRC to have a long history of, and commitment to, transparency, participation, and collaboration in its regulatory activities. More recently I have had no success in receiving answers to reasonable requests in the arena of of hardened venting systems such as would apply to Idaho’s neighboring Columbia Generating Station and other boiling water nuclear power reactors.

On page 33 of 36 of reference ML13143A321, I read:
1.2 The HCVS shall include the following design features:
1.2.1 The HCVS shall have the capacity to vent the steam/energy equivalent of 1 percent of licensed/rated thermal power (unless a lower value is justified by analyses), and be able to maintain containment pressure below the primary containment design pressure.

I need the list of references that document the basis for 1.2.1. This request is specific, concise and vital.

The following assertion by NRC that it is open is also at: http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1205/ML12059A117.pdf

March 1, 2012

The Honorable James E. Risch United States Senator
1411 Falls Avenue E, Suite 2
Twin Falls, ID 83301

Dear Senator Risch:

On behalf of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), I am responding to your letter of January 30, 2012, and a subsequent email from Kari Emond of your staff, both of which forwarded correspondence from your constituent, Robert Leyse. Mr. Leyse raises additional issues on matters addressed in earlier correspondence with you or directly with the NRC in the past. Responses to Mr. Leyse’s latest inquiries are enclosed.

The NRC has a long history of, and commitment to, transparency, participation, and collaboration in our regulatory activities. As discussed with your staff, we would like to clarify and re-emphasize that your constituent and other members of the public have ample opportunity to make comments on public rulemakings and obtain technical information from the NRC’s Public Document Room. In the past, Mr. Leyse has raised issues of technical interest and issues regarding availability of information. As a result, a number of documents have been made available at his request. Mr. Leyse can fully participate in the NRC’s activities through direct contact with the agency, as he has in recent years. For example, in 2002, he submitted a Petition for Rulemaking to which the NRC responded.  All of the questions he submitted in his most recent correspondence can be accommodated in the normal manner in which the NRCdoes business.

In addition to public participation in our regulatory processes, we welcome the opportunity to respond to public concerns regarding safety or security. If he has any such concerns, Mr. Leyse can raise them directly to the NRC by contacting any NRC employee or by calling the NRC’s toll-free Safety Hotline at 1-800-695-7403. Calls to this number are answered 24 hours a day.

We appreciate you sharing this information with Mr. Leyse and urging him to contact the NRC directly in the future should he have additional questions.

Sincerely,
 /RA/ R. W. Borchardt
 Executive Director for Operations

Sam Untermyer and Zirconium

A while back I sent the following letter via e-mail to Nuclear News. They chose to not print it.

Subject: A great ANS publication
Date: 1/28/2013 12:09:11 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time
From: Bobleyse@aol.com
To: btompkins@ans.org

Nuclear News Letters

Almost 20 years ago, ANS published the book by John W. Simpson, Nuclear Power from Underseas to Outer Space, ANS 1994. This is a great reference with smooth text. For example, from page 12:

 “I was in Rickover’s office when Sam Untermyer came in carrying a shiny piece of pure crystal bar zirconium. He said they had removed the hafnium impurity, which would make excellent control rods, and the pure zirconium was ideal for cladding.”

Bob Leyse (Robert H. Leyse) P. O. Box 2850 Sun Valley, ID 83353

Perhaps the above was too succinct for Nuclear News.  Also I should have made it clear that these were Simpson's words.  That textbook has a lot, including a list of referenced persons, however,  Simpson missed some important contributors in this list of references.  One reader stated that being included in Simpson's list was equivalent to a burial spot in the Kremlin wall.  Even Untermyer is not listed.  Also, Harry Nicholas Andrews is not there.