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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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BRIEFING BY DOE ON STATUS OF HLW PROGRAM
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PUBLIC MEETING
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission
11555 Rockville Pike
Rockville, Maryland
Wednesday, September 4, 1996
The Commission met in open session, pursuant to
notice, at 9:36 a.m., the Honorable SHIRLEY A. JACKSON,
Chairman of the Commission, presiding.
COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, Chairman of the Commission
KENNETH C. ROGERS, Member of the Commission
GRETA J. DICUS, Member of the Commission
NILS J. DIAZ, Member of the Commission
EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR., Member of the Commission
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STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
JOHN C. HOYLE, Secretary
KAREN D. CYR, General Counsel
LAKE BARRETT, Deputy Director, Office of Civilian
Radioactive Waste Management, DOE
DANIEL DREYFUS, Director, Office of Civilian
Radioactive Waste Management, DOE
STEPHAN BROCOUM, Assistant Manager, Suitability
and Licensing, Yucca Mountain Project, DOE
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P R O C E E D I N G S
[9:36 a.m.]
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Good morning, ladies and
gentlemen, Dr. Dreyfus and Mr. Barrett.
This morning, the Commission will be briefed by
representatives of the U.S. Department of Energy on the
status of the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program.
This continues a series of semi-annual briefings
by DOE for the Commission regarding the status of the high-
level waste program. Our last briefing by Dr. Dreyfus and
his colleagues and staff was on January 30 of this year.
Since last January, there have been considerable
developments in the high-level waste area. These
developments include technical issues. For instance,
elevated chlorine 36 concentrations were found at the
exploratories, studies facility level. The developments
include management issues such as DOE's issuance of a draft
revised program plan. They also include operational issues
such as the progress of the tunnel boring machine which, I
understand, has been substantial. And, finally, they
include legislative and judicial issues that affect the
future direction of the nation's high-level waste program.
Dr. Dreyfus, Mr. Barrett, the Commission looks
forward to hearing from you today on the status of DOE's
high-level waste program and how the DOE is responding to
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the various developments. You are on film today, I should
tell you, if you hadn't figured that out.
Do any of my fellow commissioners have any
comments? If not, Dr. Dreyfus, please proceed.
DR. DREYFUS: Thank you, Chairman Jackson, members
of the Commission.
I am pleased to address the Commission on the
status of the program. As is our custom, I would like to
start with a few photographs to give this a sense of reality
that sometimes is lost in the paperwork and if our media
people are ready, we will put the first one up.
This is a graph that depicts the tunnel boring
machine progress as of August 26. We remain well ahead of
schedule.
We were, along about June 13, 155 days ahead of
schedule but we re-benched the program at that time to
develop a metric more consistent with what we had been able
to achieve and since then, we are now again 25 days ahead of
the new schedule, so progress despite somewhat difficult
ground conditions and the necessity to take the time to do
the science has been substantial.
The next photo --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Does this include the progress
on the alcoves as well?
DR. DREYFUS: Yes, we are making progress on the
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alcoves and in my statement I will summarize some of that as
we go and I've got some pictures I think that will show some
of that.
This is a photo of the tunnel boring machine taken
from the photo mapping gantry behind the main machine
itself. It probably looks much like photos you have seen
before but it is, in fact, a new photo that shows the
machine leaving the main drift and entering the turn into
the ramp to the south portal, where it will exit the
mountain, hopefully, early next year.
This progress, I think, signifies a shift in
emphasis. We are done excavating the main drift in the
repository formation and we will now be concentrating on the
scientific experiments in that tunnel and in the alcoves.
The next picture is a view of the -- and I am
going to make sure it is -- yeah, it's a view of the heater
test array in the thermal mechanical alcove. We are
beginning a single heater test. It began on August 26 and
it will give us information on thermal effects and
experience with the instruments. We will then proceed to a
much larger, multi-element drift test -- drift scale test
which will simulate a waste package and the heat from
adjacent waste packages.
In the center of the picture, you can see the hole
that the heater element has been emplaced in and you can see
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the array of instruments that will measure the effect of the
heat on rock and the effect of the heat on moisture within
the rock.
The next photo is one of the heater element. The
heater element itself being emplaced in the bore hole. The
heater is five meters long and will put out about four
kilowatts and will heat the rock in the vicinity to about
200 degrees Centigrade.
The next --
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: How does that compare with
what you would expect a canister to deliver, roughly? About
the same?
DR. DREYFUS: Well, we are expecting the
temperature at the rock wall adjacent to a canister to be
above the boiling point, above 100 degrees. So this will
give us some feel for the immediate, near-term effects but
not a -- not a canister heat. That is the second test. We
will simulate an actual canister in place.
MR. BARRETT: The rock temperature should be
similar in both cases. So this will bring near-term rock
temperatures to what a repository would experience.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: That implies a particular
thermal loading strategy, right?
MR. BARRETT: Yes.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, are you going to speak to
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that at all in your remarks?
DR. DREYFUS: A little bit. I'll mention it.
Okay, the next photo is the construction of the
northern Ghost Dance Fault alcove. The excavation has been
completed now to the planned length of 90 meters. At this
point, we will drill a discovery bore hole into the face of
that alcove to locate the fault. If we do not locate the
fault, then we will excavate further and again drill ahead
of the drift. The idea is to get some data from the fault
in a relatively undisturbed state before we actually drive a
drift through the Ghost Dance Fault for observation and
testing.
I expect that the penetration of the Ghost Dance
Fault will be a major source of data in resolving several
issues that we are now dealing with.
The next picture is a technician measuring
moisture in the heater alcove in the thermo-mechanical
alcove. Again, this is a measurement to get a level of
water content in the rock prior to heater tests. We will be
looking at the influence on the heater test on the moisture
content and moisture travel.
And the last photograph shows technicians
measuring the dimensions of the opening near the entrance to
the heater alcove to check mechanical stability. The
thermal effects on rock stability are another important
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aspect of the heater tests.
Now, that concludes the graphics and I will
summarize very briefly my statement that you have had.
When I spoke with you in January, the program was
in transition. Now, during the past seven months, we have
revised the program approach both to manage our 1996 funding
reduction and to develop a new long-term plan which has been
presented in the Administration's fiscal year '97 budget
request.
The results of the effort are described in a
revised program plan which we released in June. We have
retained the objective that we adopted in 1995 to reach
early convergence on the major scientific and engineering
aspects of the investigation of the Yucca Mountain site.
Since January, we have also been able to regain target dates
for a formal site recommendation and for submitting a
license application to the Commission.
Our ability to achieve these targets, of course,
will continue to depend on funding in the future and upon
the adoption of a more focused approach to evaluating site
suitability. Our approach will be described in proposed
revision to our own siting guidelines that we will issue
shortly. It relies upon overall system performance as the
basic test of evaluating a site.
Simply stated, a site can't be judged to be
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suitable in the abstract. The only logical measure of the
suitability of the Yucca Mountain site is that it be able to
host a repository design that will meet the applicable
standards to protect public health and safety. Attributes
of the site that significantly influence that capability
are, of course, important. Attributes that do not are
irrelevant.
The important attributes can only be identified
and evaluated within the context of an assessment of the
performance of a proposed, engineered repository in the
specific geologic setting as we now understand that setting,
based upon scientific investigations that have extended for
over a decade.
Our revised program plan also includes non-site
specific activities that will address the long lead time
requirements of interim storage and spent fuel
transportation. These activities are consistent with the
Administration's position on interim storage and the pending
legislation.
Despite the severity of the fiscal year 1996
budget constraints, we have made substantial progress in the
project since I met with you in January. At Yucca Mountain,
as the pictures have shown, we completed excavation of the
main drift well ahead of schedule and the tunnel boring
machine is now proceeding up the south ramp.
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Funding constraints have reduced the progress from
time to time by reducing overtime on the shifts and things
like that but we have been able to maintain much of our
optimum progress on the tunneling. We expect to daylight
the tunnel machine at the south portal early in 1997.
We have completed initial construction of thermal
testing alcove, began the small-scale heater test last week.
Initial construction of the first two alcoves that will
provide access to the Ghost Dance Fault also was completed
last week and we will begin the second alcove in October.
Several months ago, we reported to the Commission
the observation of a zone of more highly fractured rock in
the south part of the main tunnel. Preliminary information
indicates that the zone of fracturing does not penetrate the
overlying rock units. Although the existence of the
fracture zone was not apparent from surface-based studies, a
zone such as this is not unexpected given the geologic
history and characteristics of this site. Studies of this
zone as potential significance to repository performance are
continuing.
Isotopes are being used to date fracture fill
materials and pore water samples collected in the
exploratory study facility and from surface bore holes. The
data indicate that most of the water currently distributed
in the rock at the potential repository horizon is very old,
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on the order of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands
of years.
In April, however, we reported detecting elevated
levels of chlorine 36 in some rock samples collected from
the exploratory studies facility. These concentrations are
sufficiently above the background level for this isotope to
indicate that small amounts of water containing elevated
levels of chlorine 36 presumably generated by nuclear
weapons tests in the Pacific has traveled from the surface
in less than 50 years to the repository level, possibly
along preferential pathways. Additional samples are being
collected as the tunnel progresses and analyzed to confirm
the results and to provide information on new areas of the
tunnel. Additional studies will be performed to validate
and evaluate the significance of these data to repository
performance.
In January, I noted that we are making progress
refining our waste containment and waste isolation strategy
for the site and that we were within a few months of
providing a draft to the Commission. Although a condensed
version of the strategy was included in the revised program
plan, we have not yet completed the strategy in detail. The
continuing effort to arrive at that completion is, of
course, serving its primary purposes by requiring
integration of the work being done and the remaining work
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needing to be done. I expect that a detailed version of the
strategy will be completed in fiscal year 1997, hopefully
early in '97.
In March, we published a report on the current
level of detail for the repository waste package advanced
conceptual design. This report gives us a new reference
design that will serve as the benchmark for development of a
repository designed to support our viability assessment in
1998.
In January, I informed you of our decision not to
proceed with the certification of a multipurpose canister
system for storage, transportation, disposal and commercial
spent nuclear fuel. The Administration's fiscal year 1997
budget request does not include funding for this system and
we do not intend to pursue its development beyond the
completion of current activities.
As you know, the congressional appropriation
action for '97 is not yet complete. The House has approved
an appropriation bill that, with certain contingencies,
would provide 382 million for the program. The Senate-
passed bill provides the full 400 million that we requested.
Our revised program plan is based on an increased
technical understanding of the repository for more than a
decade of scientific and engineering work done at the
mountain. Our site investigations and total system
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performance assessments have allowed us to reach much better
informed judgments regarding specific aspects of the site
than are significant to performance. These judgments have
enabled us to reduce the work required to support regulatory
decisions and thereby to accommodate a substantial reduction
in future funding while retaining our target dates for major
actions with minimal slippage.
The revised plan defines three objectives that
will maintain the momentum toward a national decision on
geologic disposal. First, we will update a regulatory
framework in 1997 for evaluating the suitability of the
Yucca Mountain site. That is our regulations. Second, we
will complete the viability assessment in 1998 and, third,
we will recommend a repository site to the President in 2001
if the site is suitable, and submit a license application to
the Commission in 2002.
Consistent with this program plan and supported by
our increased understanding of the site, we have decided to
revise our siting guidelines. Guidelines will be revised
through a public rulemaking process initiated by a notice of
proposed rulemaking later this year. Our goal is to publish
a final rule in 1997.
As was done during the 1984 promulgation of the
siting guidelines, we will obtain the Commission's
concurrence with the revised guidelines and we will work
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with your staff to facilitate that action.
Our near-term activities are focused on addressing
the major unresolved technical questions associated with
overall performance of the repository so that, by 1998, we
can make an assessment of viability of licensing and
constructing one. The viability assessment will include
four components, a package of more specific design work on
the critical elements of the repository concept and the
waste package.
Second, a total system performance assessment
based on that design concept and upon the scientific data
and analysis that will be available to us by 1998, which is
substantial. That performance assessment will describe the
probable behavior of the repository in the Yucca Mountain
site geologic setting.
Third will be an upgraded estimate of the cost to
construct and operate the repository in accordance, again,
with that design concept.
And, fourth, a plan and cost estimate for
remaining work required to complete a license application.
Based upon these components, the program can make
a measurably improved appraisal of the prospects for
geologic disposal at the site. The Administration has
stated its position that this appraisal should be available
to inform any decision concerning the site for federal --
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the use of the site for a federal interim storage facility
for commercial spent fuel.
Pending legislation in both the legislation on
interim storage and the appropriation bills also recognize
the assessment as a significant benchmark in the program.
The work completed for the viability assessment will be an
integral step to reaching our central goal of submitting a
successful license application to the Commission.
From our perspective, the near-term interactions
with your staff should be concerned with reaching a common
understanding regarding the issues that are significant to
overall performance of the repository. Additionally, we
hope to reach agreement on the adequacy of our methodologies
and approaches to address important technical issues such as
criticality control and seismic design. The goal is to
reach a mutual understanding of the developing repository
concept that will provide a basis for the Commission's
preliminary comments on the sufficiency of our site
characterization analysis and design for inclusion in a
license application.
This is a departure from previous efforts to
progressively address individual issues related to specific
site characteristics in relative isolation from one another
or from a specific design concept. In my view, the lack of
a conceptual frame of reference for discussing repository
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performance has been a source of discomfort in our
interactions with the Commission and even in these
briefings.
It seems to me that the sufficiency of site
characterization and analysis generally can only be
determined in relation to a coherent repository concept.
Therefore, we will concentrate first on developing the
overall concept for the repository system which I think we
are now knowledgeable enough to do and perhaps were not
several years ago and on communicating our progress to your
staff rather than our reaching agreement regarding
sufficiency and data analysis on isolated issues.
Although we were unable to proceed with work on
the licensing support system in fiscal year '96, our revised
program plan includes a budget and a schedule for system
development. We will begin again in fiscal '97.
Certification of licensing support system is
required six months before a license application is
submitted. Our current plans will allow us to have a
computer-based licensing support system in place and
available for certification in time to support our new
target dates.
Aside from the Yucca Mountain project, any future
scenario of interim storage or ultimate disposal will
require a national transportation effort. We have developed
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a revised strategy that will enable us to acquire the
capability to accept, store and transport spent nuclear fuel
as rapidly and efficiently as possible when a federal
storage or disposal facility is designated.
We would contract with private industry to provide
equipment and services for delivering spent fuel to a
federal facility. The strategy is in accordance with the
Administration's objectives for re-engineering government
and greater privatization.
In July, we met with the interested parties to
discuss these plans and to receive comments to assist in
shaping the concept. We are also currently developing a
topical safety analysis report based on a non-site specific
design for the first phase of a phased interim storage
facility of the type that is contemplated in congressional
discussions.
That facility would receive spent fuel in
transportable storage casks or canisters. We expect to
submit this topical report in fiscal year 1997 to the
Commission. We believe that the staff's acceptance of the
report would reduce the time required and the complexity
required for a license application and time for staff review
of a site-specific design when that becomes possible.
Over the past seven months, both of our
organizations have been reacting to changes that are
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directed in the high-level waste program both by
congressional edict, Administration policy and budget
constraints. During this period, in spite of funding
constraints on the scope of both our activities, I believe
the staff interactions have continued to become better
focused and more useful.
For example, a recent meeting on performance
assessments completed by the staff was constructive dialogue
that will improve both our understandings of subsequent
performance assessment work. Our interactions on the
methodology for evaluating seismic hazards has brought us
much closer to agreement on the associated issues.
I hope that we can continue to build on this
progress as we implement our new approach. I thank you for
the opportunity to brief the Commission and I am happy to
answer any questions that you might have.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you, Dr. Dreyfus.
I will start. I will ask one or two questions and
then I will come back.
I note that the first key objective in your
revised program plan is to update the siting guidelines in
10 CFR Part 960 with Commission concurrence. Now, if you in
fact plan to issue this in 1997, how are you accounting for
EPA's schedule on establishing a site-specific radiological
protection standard?
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DR. DREYFUS: I don't think that we necessarily
have to have that standard in order to have the siting
guidelines. The siting guidelines do, of course,
contemplate that the measure of success is the ability to
meet the standard but the standard doesn't have to be in the
guidelines. So I think we are not time-dependent on EPA to
do this.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: How much time are you, in fact,
planning for NRC review of the amended siting guidelines
before Commission concurrence?
DR. DREYFUS: We have had some interactions with
your staff on that and we have looked back at what happened
the last time and we do have, of course, a contemplated
schedule but we are obviously not in control. Let me see if
it is going to be quicker for me to find the schedule or ask
for assistance.
Six to eight months that we had allotted in our --
and I have it here -- came out about even. So we are
looking at about six to eight months.
Of course, this took considerably longer the last
time but that was with a brand new act and a complete new
concept and I think this is a revision.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: How large a scope do these
proposed revisions have?
DR. DREYFUS: This is a very concise document. It
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has great significance but not much volume. It is a much
simpler approach than the previous one.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, and let me ask one last
question. You have noted that a phased peer review of the
assessment, of the performance assessment results will be
initiated later this year. Have you decided who will, in
fact, conduct that peer review and what's going to be its
role in 1996 and early '97 before, in fact, the results of
the total system performance assessment are determined?
DR. DREYFUS: Well, the object of beginning early
is to get a review group familiar with the process and the
assessment that we have already done so that we can, in
fact, have relatively rapid turnaround when we have the
actual numbers. That's why we are starting early.
Do you want to comment on that?
MR. BARRETT: I suggest that Dr. Brocoum would be
better.
DR. DREYFUS: Dr. Brocoum, who is our regulatory
assistant manager and is directly involved can tell you
about the status and planning.
DR. BROCOUM: The peer review will go on for
several years, starting with the review of the 1995 TSBA and
then the review of all the steps we go through for the other
one. The exact composition of the peer review panel has not
been determined. It will probably be either contracted
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either by a technical support contractor if we have one in
place or the MNOs but we have that -- we're still working on
that so --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
Commissioner Rogers?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, just on this same
general part of your presentation.
Can you just give me a little bit of a feeling of
how the performance conformation program is going to relate
to the performance assessment program starting and
finishing? I know the performance conformation program will
go out very long in time to all the way out to closure of
the facility, presumably.
But when does it start and how does it relate to
the performance assessment program? Is there an iterative
process there that involves performance assessment,
performance confirmation and then back to performance
assessment again?
DR. DREYFUS: I think the performance assessment
will be an iterative process that doesn't stop. And, of
course, the way that the regulations are set up, and with
the built-in provision for extended retrievability, we are
going to be gathering data. The construction of this
repository contemplates something like 100 miles of tunnel
which, obviously, is an immense amount of information
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underground that we don't now have which will either confirm
or modify our understanding as we go. So we are looking at
a learning process.
Now, it is incumbent upon us to make the safety
case up front based on performance assessments associated
with the data available at the time of license application.
But the performance assessment process will continue to be
used to deal with incoming information, I would imagine all
the way through closure if not beyond.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: It is the performance
confirmation program that I don't understand enough about.
That's -- I mean performance assessment program I
understand. The performance confirmation program is the one
I am really asking about.
DR. DREYFUS: Well, shall we ask Dr. Brocoum to
come back and talk about that one? Because the metaphysics
of that are basically in his area of expertise.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: That's what I am having
trouble with.
DR. BROCOUM: This year, we are conducting or
completing a systems analysis on performance confirmation
that focuses, from the engineering side of the house so the
design that Dr. Dreyfus talked about can go on.
Next year, we will continue the performance
confirmations that will focus more on the site so there is a
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systems engineering study looking at all aspects of
performance confirmation, both the engineering side and the
scientific side. And we expect performance confirmation to
start, individual performance confirmation tests to start
about 1998, that time frame.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Not before 1998?
DR. BROCOUM: About. Probably not before, yes.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: All right.
How would you characterize the difference between
performance assessment and performance confirmation?
DR. BROCOUM: To do a performance assessment, you
develop -- the scientists collect data, you develop models,
what they call process models that model a particular
aspect, for example hydrology or saturation zone. Then you
take and you abstract those models to use in performance
assessment, then you run the performance assessment, so it's
all steps.
The performance confirmation, you focus on those
process models and the data that went into them to make sure
that if you collect -- that the bounds you put on the
various parameters that feed those process models are, in
fact, what you thought they were. So, you know, you collect
more information. Maybe as you construct the repository,
you know, you take more tests and samples and so on.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: It doesn't seem to be a
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really bright line that separates these processes; it is
just that one confirmation tends to focus more on questions
that reducing uncertainty bands and things of this sort, is
that --
DR. BROCOUM: That's correct. I would say, in
general, the performance confirmation focuses on the models
that input into the performance assessments.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: I know my fellow
commissioners have probably got a lot of questions too, so I
will try not to ask all my questions but, first, I wanted to
say that your new approach that takes a total system
approach is something I think we have all been looking for
for a long time and I think it is a major step forward in
our ability to deal with you in totality, which is really
the thing that I think our staff and I think the Commission
has been asking for for some time and I think this is very
good to see the new direction in which you are going.
I will tell you, though, I do have a concern and
that is that in your written statement starting on page 10,
the bottom of page 10, going on to page 11, just what the
implications of the sentence on page 11 that says, "It is
appropriate for us to complete the technical work, develop a
concept and satisfy ourselves of its ability to adequately
protect public health and safety before we seek approval
from outside parties."
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Approval is one thing but what about dialogue? Do
you -- it seems to me that that is really important, that
you have the benefit of dialogue with outside parties and,
presumably, we are an outside party from your point of view.
I wonder if you could just indicate to what extent you do
intend to continue dialogue with NRC staff on issues even
though it is important for you to get your whole act
together? I mean, that is what you are saying you want to
do here.
DR. DREYFUS: Well, we, of course, I think
probably the best evidence of that is in practice. We are
doing it. We certainly don't intend to stop.
I think the focus of attention, the notion of what
is on the agenda of management meetings and that sort of
thing, may change to some extent but the intensity of the
interaction should continue and in fact increase and in my
judgment, from what I hear back from the staff interactions,
the quality is improving and has improved immensely, in the
sense of being on point and on what is important.
I don't foresee any less interaction in any
respect but as I say, rather a chance in emphasis in the
agendas. We have, of course, Technical Review Board which
is always with us and which we meet with regularly and days
at a time and on every aspect of the program and they pretty
much make their own agenda so we are not the arbiters of
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what will be talked about in any of these interactions.
What we hope to do is get the thought process
channeled into the concept which provides a frame of
reference. For example, your staff and contractors to do
independent analysis. It has hard to do independent
analysis if you don't know what of. That, I think, is the
difference.
We, ourselves, I think, can no longer be in the
position of at this stage in this program and considering
the history of having every option remaining open and no
focus, no ability to tell people what the proposal looks
like.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I think we are going to have to
go on to Commissioner Dicus but if Commissioner Rogers will
allow me, I had a slight follow-on to his question and that
is, a lot it seems to rest with what you are calling your
conceptual frame of reference.
On the one hand, you said that you will define a
repository concept. This is on page 10, that includes a
facility and waste package design consistent with the
characteristics of the Yucca Mountain site. And then on
page 11 you go on to say that you want a coherent repository
concept that includes both a design and an assessment of its
performance and that you will concentrate first on
developing the overall concept for the repository system
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rather than on reaching agreement regarding the sufficiency
of our data and analyses to address isolated issues related
to specific site characteristics in advance of a concept.
But you have said that the concept has to do with design
related to the characteristics of the site but then you're
saying you don't want to be spending your time reaching
agreement on what you would call isolated issues related to
specific site characteristics in advance of such a concept.
Can you kind of put those together for me?
DR. DREYFUS: Yes.
Basically, the way this program has proceeded is
in the beginning of the program when there was -- there was
still a question of winnowing out sites, looking at many
sites and comparative analysis among the sites, those who
were involved at the time, and without a lot of data on any
of the sites, sort of meditated over what would be an
important consideration and came up with some notion of how
one would evaluate a site, largely in order to see if it was
a better prospect than another site.
We have now, for some time, had only one site and
that site is not a very typical one. It is a dry site,
which is a unique site, globally. So a lot of the generic
stuff, thought process is irrelevant or certainly not
appropriate directly to Yucca Mountain.
Where we are now is we have -- this is a perfectly
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adequate scientific approach. We went out and collected a
lot of data without very much focus because it was a
question of what do you think about this site. Then it's a
question of what are my systematic beliefs about this site,
we've got hydrology, with regard to seismic, with regard --
now you have a conceptual notion of the site.
Somewhere along the way, you have to bring this
thing together and say, here is how I would build a
repository in this setting and then you say, oh, now I know
this is very important and maybe it's something that is on
that original checklist and maybe it's not and maybe
something on that original checklist turns out to be pretty
irrelevant to what you intend to do.
I think we are at the point where we have to get
much more specific about what we intend to do. We have to
know that the technologies we are postulating in these
performance assessments can, in fact, be acquired. A
specification for a waste package has to be related to I can
build it and I can afford it, not just if there were, you
know, assume a can opener kind of stuff.
So that's what we are talking about, getting from
that first stage into the second stage and here is something
we know how to build for which technologies exist. Let's
see what the important considerations are for making that
thing work as opposed to, here are some considerations that
29
might be important and let's study them all until we are
conclusively sure we understand them.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
I think, if I may, just for the record, I am happy
that you are in fact focusing this way and I would just note
that even long before I came to the Commission the
Commission's perspective has been that there really needed
to be a focus on waste isolation strategy including things
like engineered barriers, what your thermal loading strategy
is, things that would really focus you on a repository
design that would then be referenced to the specific site.
If that is where you are going, then I applaud you.
Commissioner Dicus?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Thank you.
I have a couple of questions to begin with that
address the elevated levels of chlorine 36. The first part,
and maybe it's one question with two parts, but how do
preferential flow paths affect the waste isolation and then
what could be done to mitigate their effects?
And then I guess the second part of the question
is, could something like this become a show stopper?
DR. DREYFUS: Well, in the first instance, the --
there have -- first of all, what we -- we were looking for
this so it was not something totally unexpected. When we
took these samples specifically to look for evidence of
30
preferential flow paths or rapid movement of water in the
mountain, so that is not an unexpected situation.
It is -- the samples we got are actually
deposition in fractures, they are not water, though they
indicate relatively small amounts of water. We do not yet
know precisely what the path was that got them there,
whether it is a direct surface flow or some sort of flow
through the upper layers that collects but, in any event, we
have put that in perspective.
It need not be a critical problem but it could be,
because we are in fact assuming that the waste isolation
strategy expects there will not be a great deal of water or
moisture to deal with here, as an ambient condition in the
repository or as a path for radionuclides to get out and get
into the accessible environment. So we are planning for a
dry site.
How dry is dry? To what extent this is a
pervasive situation throughout the entire area, these we
don't have answers to yet. It is that kind of a situation.
So I don't -- I think at the moment it is a data point and
it is something that has to be accommodated first in the
performance models that they in fact do reflect that kind of
flow. They have expected there would be heterogeneous flow,
not just matrix flow. We can accommodate that in the models
but we have to be able to accommodate it in a way that
31
conforms to what we find. And then see if that gives a
design problem.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Another question a little bit
along these same lines.
You found the fractured zone, you said that was
not unexpected, which leads you to believe that you expect
to find more of these zones and how could this influence the
repository?
DR. DREYFUS: Well, there are many different
aspects. One of the things that we found out with the
tunnel, which is something that you don't find out with
surface boring, is that we can build a tunnel in Yucca
Mountain. We have struggled with -- the tunnel is proven to
have a fair amount of heterogeneity in it and some different
rock conditions. We have wrestled with those rock
conditions and I would say that the progress we made with
the tunnel machine indicates we learned to work with them.
They are not easy conditions and yet we have
managed them and we are getting more sophisticated even now
with dealing with different kinds of support techniques. So
we have learned to deal with it and a whole lot more about
what the costs of repository construction would be.
So, as a structural matter, I think we can deal
with it. We learned that this particular situation is
something one -- given, you know, the volcanic
32
circumstances, one might expect it but I would rather not
have found it. On the other hand, on the other end of the
tunnel, we found better conditions than we might have
expected so you get some good breaks and some bad breaks.
Basically, as I said before, I have said that I
have better confidence now than I had before the tunnel
began. Now we've found some things that are problematic and
have to be dealt with, but there are a whole lot of things
that we didn't find that might have been down there and
reliance on very widely spaced drilling and seismic work
without underground references and that sort of thing is
pretty iffy.
So I think the tunnel has given us hands-on
knowledge of the thing and I don't think we have yet found
anything we can't work with.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Just one follow up and then
we will pass, maybe, and then come back.
Given what you said about the importance of the
tunnel work, as you know, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review
Board briefed us I think it was toward the end of July and
they are very supportive, very positive about the program.
They also brought up a few things where they had some
concerns and one of them was this east/west exploratory
route west of the Ghost Dance Fault that the board tends to
think is important and I am not sure the program has
33
addressed.
Would you elaborate on that?
DR. DREYFUS: Well, simply put, I think that is a
decision that is not yet ripe. We have, in fact, budgeted
and anticipated additional underground exploration if it is
needed. I am not prepared to agree yet that it's needed and
I certainly am not prepared to buy into a specific drift
design before I see the Ghost Dance Fault.
When we get the information that we will get out
of the Ghost Dance Fault alcoves and out of the remaining
ramp of the tunnel and have had the time to think about it,
it may well be that we feel we have to do some exploration
but I don't know where and I don't know how much and I don't
have the input data upon which that decision should be
based.
So I am not disagreeing with the board. I am just
simply not as sure as they seem to be exactly what ought to
be done.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: This is actually a follow on.
There were five locations, I think you said, where
the chlorine 36 was above background. Were they spread
through the ESF, the Exploratory Studies Facility, or were
they concentrated in a particular area?
DR. DREYFUS: The sampling approach was to take a
34
sample every 200 meters and a sample where there were features
that were inclined to make you take a sample, discernable
fractures, for example.
We, in fact, found elevated chlorine 36 entirely
in samples associated with features, none was found in the
random or in the systematic, rather, sampling along the
tunnel. So the presumption is they are associated with
fractures.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I understand that but were they
still concentrated in a particular area or was it spread out
wherever?
DR. DREYFUS: Oh, along the entire tunnel? Well,
let's see. I've got a diagram here that starts at the Bow
Ridge Fault and goes to the Sundance.
MR. BARRETT: There are two types of sampling.
One was the periodic, okay, and then they also went to look
for any features where there might have been water at one
time, so where there was a precipitant in a crack. So they
also sampled in those places. Those were the places where
they found the elevated chlorine.
DR. DREYFUS: There was an elevated sample at the
Bow Ridge, so it is very close to the --
MR. BARRETT: Those were the ones, like the Bow
Ridge Fault was the first one and they had elevated at the
Bow Ridge Fault, as expected, very near to the surface.
35
Then also at the drill hole wash area at the corner, they
also found it there as basically expected. The Sundance,
they also found it as expected. Then there were two other
locations that were not so discernable from any surface work
as to what that would be, but there were fractures at that
horizon where you could see precipitant.
Now, exactly where the water on those two came
from, and there were only two initial samples that showed
elevated chlorine 36 back in the original report back in the
springtime, so that is what we are exploring.
DR. DREYFUS: They seemed to be pretty much along
the entire length of this tunnel and we are not done yet
because we haven't finished the sample analysis for --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Are you doing isotopic analysis
for other radionuclides?
DR. DREYFUS: Yes, we are, but we don't have the
confirmatory data, yet.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: You don't have that.
Commissioner Diaz?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I have no comments or
questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan?
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: In your testimony on
page 5 and orally, you talked about the House appropriations
bill and its contingencies and its funding cut. Could you
36
talk about what the implications of the $18 million cut in
your budget for any of the work you need to do is, and the
contingencies, I expect, may have a larger effect on your
program and what the implication of those contingencies
would be for you?
DR. DREYFUS: Well, the $18 million cut is
probably the easy one to work with. Eleven of that is
associated with funding of the states and counties. The
House Appropriation Committee directed that we not do that
funding in the statutory language and then remove the 11
million, so that part is a wash in the sense that if I -- it
was passthrough funding. So the net cut in program, if you
take the House bill as is, is 7 million.
We were directed to take that out of cooperative
agreements and program management. Cooperative agreements
have been cut by about two-thirds last year so it is going
to be very difficult to find much of it there; there isn't
much there anyway. So it's a program management problem.
I am not pleased with it, by any stretch of the
imagination, because we did some very severe cutting. We
took a 40 percent cut in '96 and there is not a lot of fat
left in anything so I think it is not -- it is not a good
thing but I don't think it would affect major aspects of the
programmatic stuff. It might make it difficult for me to
manage a program.
37
The contingency is, I hope, associated with
ongoing congressional action on the other bill and will be
resolved. I would imagine by the time that appropriation
bill becomes finalized, it will be clear what's going on in
the other legislation and that the Committee will, I trust,
in their judgment and wisdom, will not pursue that
contingency if the other bill is clearly dead.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Actually, I am not going to --
I am going to come back to you in a second but this brings
up an issue that relates to that.
The Commission is going to be appearing tomorrow
before our House Oversight Committee and high-level waste
funding is an issue that I may address. So how is DOE
preparing to respond to any new direction from the Congress
on the high-level waste issue? You alluded to some of it in
your testimony and how will that response impact NRC, if you
are willing to offer such an opinion?
DR. DREYFUS: Well, of course, should there be an
interim storage bill, the world changes considerably and
we'll all be looking to see what priorities are and how to
deal with it. The program plan that we have on the street
has in it an ability to address something like the large
authorization bills but it anticipates in accordance with
the Administration's position that that doesn't happen until
1999.
38
On the other hand, that lays out a framework for
how we would propose to deal with such matters as licensing
an interim storage facility or doing transportation but we
assume the starting gun in 1999, as the President has
proposed.
With regard to Yucca Mountain, the large bill
changes some aspects of the process but no aspects of the
program and in fact designates the program plan as the basis
for going forward.
The appropriation bills both cite the new program
plan and essentially lock in a viability assessment as one
aspect of Congressional expectation, which I think is
consistent with the Congressional attitude that they want
some more concrete evidence of viability earlier, so I think
everything that is going on in the Congress consistent with
the program plan that we now have, with the exception of the
time element on interim storage which the President of
course has opposed any immediate steps on interim storage.
Appropriation-wise, of course, the major question
is the contingency. If the contingency were to greatly
restrict the available funds for the program, then I think
we have serious problems and we have made the Congress aware
of that and so has the OMB and I am sure that you share our
concern.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan?
39
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: No other questions.
Thank you. I discovered the problem of asking questions
last.
[Laughter.]
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Has DOE formulated a position
on how it will implement the Court of Appeals ruling in July
about DOE's obligation to start taking utilities' spent fuel
no later than January 31st of '98?
DR. DREYFUS: No, we have not.
Of course, the immediate question is one of appeal
and the lawyers in both Justice and DOE are looking at the
implications of the court decision, but we have not.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Rogers?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Just one question on the
interim storage facility area.
You are intending to contract with private
industry to provide equipment and services for delivering
spent fuel to an interim storage facility or a repository.
What is your view of any licensing issues that
might have to be dealt with? Are you going to leave those
all up to private contractors or have you thought about that
at all? There might be some. I don't know exactly what
they might be at this point, but if you are taking this
approach, are you just simply going to say, well, come to us
all licensed and offer us your services? Is that what your
40
approach would be to the private contractors?
DR. DREYFUS: Well, I want to be sure that we
separate the notion of an interim storage facility from the
notion of transportation.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No, I understand.
DR. DREYFUS: The market approach is to
essentially go and get the waste from the reactors and move
it to a Federal facility. We would rely upon the contract,
that is, select technologies, to do that. Those
technologies clearly have got to have the Commission
certification so their range of selection is pretty much
what you'd certified.
There will, I think, if this process goes forward,
be immense amounts of marketplace interest and probably a
desire to certify a good deal more technology over a very
short period of time, but our intention is to leave the
selection of technologies to the marketplace based on
specifications for what can be handled at the facility.
The contractor would indeed be seeking certified
technologies. I don't know of another licensing situation.
Our only involvement at the technology level will be to
pursue burn-up credit, which we will require in line with
the repository and we are of course actively engaged with
you on burn-up credit for actinides right now and we intend
to stay in that game. It would have some advantage to
41
equipment manufacturers but we are pursuing it for our own
purposes.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: The licensing support system
is very important to you and to us if you are going to, if
the site is found suitable and a license application is
submitted at the proposed date. I was sort of wondering if
you feel pretty comfortable that the development and
completion of your licensing support system would proceed on
schedule according to this revised program plan that you
have.
DR. DREYFUS: Well, I understand that it has to
proceed on schedule in order to have a viable licensing
process. When we got the budget cut in '96 and when I was
here in January, we didn't know if we were going to have a
license application target in this program and we didn't
have at that time and it was only after the Administration's
new program went forward that we regained it, so we didn't
do anything in '96.
But on the other hand, the thought process did not
stop in any place. I think that the breather may have
advanced the cause because I believe that we have had
technology advantages coming out of that year of delay and
looking now on somewhat less elegant architecture and more
reliance on some things like Internet and that sort of
42
thing, so I think when we reconvene the user groups and
start doing this we may find we have gained some ground and
not really lost a year in terms of thinking about this
process.
We also are working on the corollary
considerations of decision documentation. We have a study
ongoing at Yucca Mountain of the existing documentation to
look for, those areas where it may be deficient, and to
improve the process, so we haven't stopped on that front.
Basically, I think we will find that we can do
this easier and better now.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Okay. The total system
performance assessment in your testimony said evaluations
would be made under both normal conditions and conditions
likely to be imposed by potential disruptive events.
What are some of those events that you have in
mind?
DR. DREYFUS: The logical ones -- volcanic and
seismic --
DR. BROCOUM: Those are the two --
DR. DREYFUS: -- basically are the biggest ones.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: So you are including the
possibility of volcanoes?
DR. DREYFUS: Oh, yes.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: That was under discussion I
43
think at one point, that it wasn't being considered.
DR. DREYFUS: Oh, it is being considered. It
is -- there's been some considerable discourse as to how to
consider it, but never whether it would be considered.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: And one final question has to
do with the transportation system. This is just for my
own -- it's been awhile since I dealt with it, but at one
point in time I believe it said that rail cars would
generally be used for the transport of the casks. Is
that --
DR. DREYFUS: Predominantly.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Predominantly, rail cars, and
there was some issue that the rail systems would be able to
handle the weight of these cars.
Has that been resolved and gone away or was that a
real concern in the first place?
DR. DREYFUS: I don't think it is a concern, but I
have an expert here with me.
DR. BROCOUM: We don't believe it is a major
concern. We're working with the American Association of
Railroads on the approval of the cars and the number of
axles. At one time the smaller casks were -- I think it was
240,000 pounds. It was free interchange for standard rail
cars. There are other standard for heavier rail cars and
that is what we are looking at for the casks that we would
44
probably be looking at now. At least the MPC was.
It is likely that most of the current technologies
would be that weight, the 125 ton weight, which is very
common. For example, the casks at Surry and in Palisades
and all of those are in that weight range.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I will save all my questions
till the next time.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan?
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I just have one comment
on one other event that occurred that may help you in the
licensing support system is in early '96, as part of the '96
Authorization Act for the National Defense, there was a
significant change made in how the Government can purchase
information systems.
Senator Cohen was the lead on that and I would
encourage you to use the full flexibility of that law and
use the DOE -- you know, get help from the DOE procurement
people because it's one area where obviously the Government
hasn't performed very well in the past across Government and
there is an opportunity now and I think Congress, speaking
in my old life, really intended to give you some
flexibility, the whole Government, but you in particular
some flexibility to go out and be more rational purchasers,
so I wish you luck.
45
DR. DREYFUS: We're using whatever flexibility we
can get.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Right.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Actually, a related question,
you in fact stated that you would welcome changes, you know,
with respect to the licensing support system that would take
advantage of advances in computer technology and
connectivity.
I mean do you have any particular ones in mind
that you might wish to share?
I mean it's kind of related to Commissioner
McGaffigan's question.
Do you have any specific recommendations for the
Commission?
DR. DREYFUS: Well, I'm hesitant to get out of my
depth on computer technology.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Does anyone have any specific
recommendations they wanted to make to the Commission in
this regard?
DR. BROCOUM: I think a year or two ago we were
thinking of, you know, developing, actually developing the
system, writing the programs.
Now I think we are thinking of more off-the-shelf.
As technologies advance a lot of things are available off-
the-shelf so you don't have to reinvent the wheel so I think
46
the direction we would like to go in is use what is coming
out in the Internet and all of these areas as opposed to
contracting to develop a whole new system from scratch that
is unique.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I wanted to ask you one last
question having to do with your overall repository concept.
It is not a question. It's actually a comment.
I think we understand where you are trying to go,
but I think it's important as you progress in the manner
that you have outlined here that you do interact with the
Staff in a way that we don't end up in a position in the
future where there may be agreement on approaches,
methodologies, and overall issues, but we are left with a
hole relative to the sufficiency of data and the analyses of
that data, you know, particularly as it does relate to total
system performance, because in the end we don't want to be
having you work along the line and we're doing our thing and
we have a major issue where one has to end up backtracking
in order to license repositories.
So I am just asking you to keep that in mind and
we are also asking our Staff to keep that in mind.
Unless there are any further questions or
comments, I would like to thank you very much, Dr. Dreyfus,
Dr. Brocoum, Mr. Barrett for this briefing on a very
important topic, not just for you and for us but obviously
47
for the nation, and as you know, we are briefed regularly by
our Staff as well as other organizations involved in the
high-level waste area, but hearing directly from you, the
DOE, on a routine basis is helpful to the Commission in
determining the status of your efforts and the direction of
the high level waste program and particularly as it relates
to what we have to do, and so I want to thank you for your
continued willingness to come and do this.
In your prepared statement and in today's
briefing, as we have been discussing, you have described a
revised program approach for the high level waste repository
and as I emphasized in January, it is important that we
continue, and I think this discussion is part of that, to
maintain clear communications between DOE and the NRC both
at the level of Commission briefings but especially in the
staff-to-staff interactions so that both organizations can
appropriately manage our high level waste resources, which
have various constraints attached.
Your statement in fact shows that DOE is
addressing a host of very difficult issues regarding our
high level waste management that span from chlorine
concentrations to transportation issues to court decisions,
and all of this is being done in an environment of reduced
budget appropriations -- but your draft revised program plan
is evidence that even with the reduced funding levels, DOE
48
is planning to move forward toward a national solution for
the disposal of high level waste.
So again I thank you very much for an informative
briefing, look forward to our next one, and unless my fellow
Commissioners have anything to add, we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:43 a.m., the briefing was
adjourned.]
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