Recent Status of PRM-50-93 and PRM-50-95

Subject: Status of PRM-50-93 and PRM-50-95
Date: 11/22/2017 12:17:19 PM Mountain Standard Time
From: Daniel.Doyle@nrc.gov
To: markleyse@gmail.com
Cc: bobleyse@aol.com, shadis@prexar.com, David.McIntyre@nrc.gov, Cindy.Bladey@nrc.gov, Meena.Khanna@nrc.gov

Mr. Leyse,

I am writing to provide an update on your letters dated November 17, 2009, and June 7, 2010, in which you submitted petitions to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).  In your letter dated November 17, 2009, you requested that the NRC amend the regulations in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations(10 CFR) Part 50 and Appendix K to Part 50 to require that the rates of energy release, hydrogen generation, and cladding oxidation from the metal-water reaction considered in emergency core cooling system evaluation calculations be based on data from multi-rod (assembly) severe fuel damage experiments.  In addition, you requested that the NRC create a new regulation to establish a minimum allowable core reflood rate in the event of a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA).  In your letter dated June 7, 2010, you requested that the NRC order Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station (Vermont Yankee) to lower the licensing basis peak cladding temperature to 1,832 degrees F in order to provide a necessary margin of safety in the event of a LOCA.

The NRC docketed your November 17, 2009, letter as petition for rulemaking (PRM) 50-93.  A notice of receipt and request for public comment on PRM-50-93 was published in the Federal Register on January 25, 2010 (75 FR 3876).  Your letter dated June 7, 2010, was submitted as a petition for enforcement action under 10 CFR 2.206.  On August 6, 2010, the NRC denied your § 2.206 petition because it did not demonstrate that Vermont Yankee was in violation of any NRC regulations.  Because your § 2.206 petition asserted that there were generic inadequacies in NRC regulations, the NRC decided to review it under 10 CFR 2.802 as a petition for rulemaking and docketed it as PRM-50-95.  Because PRM-50-93 and PRM-50-95 address similar issues, the NRC consolidated these two petitions for review as a single petition for rulemaking activity.  AnotherFederal Register notice was published on October 27, 2010 (75 FR 66007), and the comment period was reopened.  The public comment period ended on November 26, 2010.  Thirty-three public comments have been received to date on the combined petitions.  These comments have been posted at regulations.gov (ID:  NRC-2009-0554).

The NRC staff is considering the merits of your PRM and the public comments received.  As described in the NRC’s letter to you dated August 25, 2011, the NRC has decided to increase the visibility to the public of the NRC’s review of these particular petitions.  The NRC will publicly release its draft interim reviews regarding each group or category of issues on a periodic basis as the review progresses.  These draft interim reviews will be posted on regulations.gov.  So far, the NRC has publicly released four draft interim reviews:

• Evaluation of CORA test series (8/23/11)
• Evaluation of LOFT LP-FP-2 (9/27/11)
• Evaluation of conservatism of 2200F, metal-water reaction rate correlations, and “the impression left from run 9573” (10/16/12)
• Evaluation of request to establish minimum reflood rate (3/8/13)

The NRC staff will consider and respond to the comments you made regarding PRM-50-93 and PRM-50-95 at the Commission briefing on public participation in NRC regulatory decision-making on January 31, 2013, in the review of these petitions.

The NRC is considering the remaining issues and will notify you as the draft interim reviews are completed.  Once the petitions have been resolved, a notice will be published in the Federal Register explaining the Commission’s finding.  You will also receive a letter at that time notifying you of the action that the Commission has taken.

Please feel free to contact me at Daniel.Doyle@nrc.gov or 301-415-3748 if you have questions.

Sincerely,

Dan Doyle

Project Manager

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

daniel.doyle@nrc.gov

(301) 415-3748

FOIA at NSF - More tyranny at NSF

NSF routinely does not meet the 20 day statutory rule in responding to FOIA requests.  This current email exchange proves that.  Here is the key admission by NSF " As for the estimated response date, that date is automatically generated (20 days after your request is received and perfected) based on the statutory time limits of the FOIA.  However, we can rarely make that deadline because of the voluminous nature of most of our requests."

From: bobleyse@aol.com
To: kari_emond@risch.senate.gov
Sent: 11/22/2017 10:05:12 AM Mountain Standard Time
Subject: Fwd: RE: NSF FOIA Request: 2017-285F

Senator Risch,

The forwarded note discloses that NSF is routinely not meeting the requirement for a 20 day response time to a request under FOIA.  Nevertheless, NSF has plenty of resources to add ways of sending money to universities as is detailed in my most recent email to you. 

It is well past the the time that NSF needs to be shaken up.

Robert H. Leyse

---

From: jguz@nsf.gov
To: bobleyse@aol.com
Cc: foia@nsf.gov
Sent: 10/24/2017 10:50:25 AM Mountain Standard Time
Subject: RE: NSF FOIA Request: 2017-285F

Good afternoon Mr. Leyse

The National Science Foundation has "multitrack processing" of their FOIA requests -- which allows us to process requests on a first-in, first-out basis within each track, and also permits us to respond to relatively simple requests more quickly than requests involving complex and/or voluminous records.  As for the estimated response date, that date is automatically generated (20 days after your request is received and perfected) based on the statutory time limits of the FOIA.  However, we can rarely make that deadline because of the voluminous nature of most of our requests.  Technically, there are over 200 requests that should be processed before 2017-285F and our office move at the beginning of the month did no help either.  However, we hope to have a response to you early in November.

Regards,

Justin Guz

//

Justin Guz

Government Information Specialist

Office of the General Counsel

National Science Foundation

2415 Eisenhower Avenue

Alexandria, Virginia  22314

Telephone:  703-292-2289

From: bobleyse@aol.com [mailto:bobleyse@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 12:30 PM
To: Guz, Justin Joseph <jguz@nsf.gov>
Subject: Re: NSF FOIA Request: 2017-285F

Mr. Guz,

So far I have received nothing.

Robert H. Leyse

In a message dated 9/25/2017 4:28:35 PM Mountain Standard Time, jguz@nsf.gov writes:

The estimated response date to your request is October 20, 2017.

Tyranny at the National Science Foundation

Subject:                NSF discourages the real American Innovators

Date:     11/19/2017 1:23:56 PM Mountain Standard Time

From:    bobleyse@aol.com

To:          kari_emond@risch.senate.gov

Senator Risch, 

It is time for funding of our National Science Foundation (NSF) to be substantially reduced.  This past Saturday NSF issued the following spectacular announcement:

Innovation Corps - National Innovation Network Teams Program (I-CorpsTM Teams)

However, it is less spectacular hundreds of words later:

Who May Submit Proposals:

Proposals may only be submitted by the following:

·         Universities and Colleges - Universities and two- and four-year colleges (including community colleges) accredited in, and having a campus located in, the US acting on behalf of their faculty members. Such organizations also are referred to as academic institutions.

Briefly Senator, I know a lot about the NSF.  For example, I took my discoveries to UCLA and we jointly submitted a proposal to NSF.  It was rejected.  So, without my awareness, UCLA submitted an essentially identical proposal on its own  and it was accepted.  I then submitted my proposal and it was vehemently rejected.  The academicians resent significant discoveries that originated outside of their turf.  Following is one of the three reviews that is far more vindictive than objective; as well as being loaded with errors.  Furthermore, NSF will not disclose the identity of that reviewer and that is tyranny.

·         Proposal Number:		1132890
Proposal Title:		Proprietary Transformative Separations
Received by NSF:		03/01/11
Principal Investigator:		Robert Leyse

Review #3

Proposal Number:		1132890
NSF Program:		THERMAL TRANSPORT PROCESSES
Principal Investigator:		Leyse, Robert H
Proposal Title:		Proprietary Transformative Separations
Rating:		Fair

REVIEW: What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity? The most compelling portion of this proposal is that the PI has identified an anomalous boiling heat transfer regime from microscale wire surfaces. Unfortunately, the PI has not presented a convincing research plan that will lead to a fundamental understanding of the heat transfer process he has identified. Countless anomalous regimes have been identified in boiling heat transfer. While the PI believes that his discoveries are transformative, this Reviewer fails to see it. Truly transformative research will seek to explain the physical mechanisms driving the anomalous observations, and provide technologists with the understanding that may lead to technological advances. However, the PI fails to mention any of the various physical boiling phenomena at different length and time scale which may influence the process. For example, the PI claims his measurements are steady state. This completely ignores the time scales associated with ebullition. The PI claims the dispersive mechanism is turbulence without any evidence. It can just as easily be hypothesized that the dispersive mechanism is microbubble growth and collapse that has been observed in highly subcooled systems. It is unfortunate that the PI has expended so much effort to convince NSF to fund his proposed research. If the PI is convinced that his discoveries are transformative and can lead to revolutionary new technology, he should focus his efforts on developing that technology. For whatever it is worth, this Reviewer believes that the heat transfer behavior observed is confined to microscale wires, and attempts at scale-up would not be fruitful. What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity? It is difficult to identify broader impact associated with the proposal. Summary Statement Past Reviewers have been too gentle in pointing out the weaknesses of the proposed study. The PI should not be encouraged to resubmit a proposal covering the core topic.

Senator, this past Saturday’s Wall Street Journal has a significant discussion on page A11, Trump vs. the Deep Regulatory State.  It is time for an equivalent discussion of how the NSF has become dominated by assorted forces to the disadvantage of the real American innovators.

Robert H. Leyse