Part 1:
Facilitator : RICK DANIEL
NRC is going to report on their findings, immediately following you will here a response from Edison,
Please Focus on degradation, tube wear
If there are questions later take a feedback form with you
Introduce NRC folks: first gentleman to the right is the regional director for region 4 ELMO COLLINS , then immediately to his left is TOM BLOUNT acting director for the division for reactor safety, GREG WERNER (in red shirt) branch chief and AIT team lead, (Bald guy) GREG WARNICK , senior resident inspector.
PETER DIETRICH, Senior vice president chief nuclear officer SCE, DOUG BOWER, vice site president San Onofre, TOM PAULISONE vice president of engineering, projects and site support
Elmo Collins: Thank you Rick, introduce another NRC member who is here : TOM HENCHMEN, technical assistant for NRC chairman Greg Jahzco
We all know that both units at San Onofre are shut down because what has proved to be a very difficult technical issues with the steam generators, start tonight buy saying issues are not resolved to NRC satisfaction. Understandably I think there is a lot of concern on your part and I think your concern is warranted. For tonight's meeting, we are here to present the teams preliminary results to Edison licensee and also to you tonight and we're gonna talk to you about those results
NRC is glad to be here to share with you what we know so far. This is a different public meeting than what we normally conduct. This is a n NRC inspection exit meeting this marks the end of the augmented team inspection of which we started several months ago and what you are going to hear tonight is the preliminary inspection results.
Tonight you are going to hear about what the inspection team found. No inspection report yet, that's to come, we are guessing in about 30 days.
Initially the augmented inspection teams are instructed to focus on fact finding and information gathering. We have not made any decisions about the resumption of the power operations at San Onofre nor have we made decisions about whether violations occurred as a result of that inspection those will be indicated to you the areas requiring additional followup.
When the team gives its findings so I ask you tonight to keep the issues that the team describes within that context remembering that the issues are not final agency conclusions. Tonight’s meeting is what NRC considers the first in a series of public meeting we are gonna have to conduct associated with the followup of these technical issues. We are going to be conducting additional inspection, getting submittals from Edison in writing that we are going to be following up on so as they work through the issues and the NRC inspects them we will continue to conduct public meetings with you . We do believe additional work by Edison is needed and we do believe additional NRC inspection is needed and that will have to happen before NRC is in a position to make a decision about the acceptability about the resumption of power at San Onofre.
TOM BLOUNT
thanks etc.
Before we get into he inspection results... team back ground..
Agency as a whole engaged as an inspection team and had support from not only region four but four other offices as well, including research and our nuclear reactor regulation office region 2 also provided support.
Some of the talent we have on this team included a steam generator tube integrity engineer, a thermal hydraulic specialist, a steam generator material removal engineer, quality assurance and control engineer, a design and evaluation engineer, all led by a branch chief from region 4 Greg WERNER who is going to give you the team results..... took very seriously...
GREG WERNER: overview of the event and steam generators themselves .
I'd just like to give a high level overview of the steam generator tube leak the licensee response to that event event, and what I personally observed Jan 31 2012.
The San Onofre plant is designed to rapidly detect small amounts of radioactivity, small amounts of leakage from the reactor system to the steam system using sensitive radiation monitors that continuously monitor and sample for radioactivity. It samples the steam as it makes its way from the steam generator to the turbine generator. Procedures are in place such that on indication of steam generator tube leaks actions are prescribed to put the plant into a safe condition to protect public health and safety. Finally, operators are trained on these types of events such that they can quickly diagnose problems and implement procedures and make the necessary decisions to minimize any radioactive release to the environment.
On the afternoon of Jan 31, I had just returned to my office from performing a plant tour as part of an inspection, at that time I heard a PA announcement about a secondary plant system radiation alarm. John and I, john is the resident inspector, we were both in the office, we went directly to the control room when we heard the PA announcement. Our offices are less than 100 yards from the control room so we were there within moments. Both john and I went there and observed actions to ensure that, to asses the conditions and assure that the appropriate actions were being taken. Upon arrival I determined that the plant had appropriately responded to the tube leak by identifying leakage from the reactant cooling system and alerting operators to the abnormal condition before any licensed release limits had been exceeded.
The operators responded in accordance with procedures to accurately diagnose the steam generator tube leak. They accurately assessed conditions to determine that a rapid power reduction and plant shut down was necessary . After the plant was shut down the operators promptly isolated the affected steam generator to terminate the radiation release and continued on to cool down and depressurize the plant. Because of the plant design, the established procedures and the skill and training of the operators, SONGS Unit 3 was placed into a safe condition and the radioactive release that did occur was minimized. Our regional experts have independently quantified the release and conclude that it was only a very small percentage of the release limits allowed by the plant license. Such that the release associated with the event did not represent a threat to workers on site, to the public, or to the environment.
(man from audience - MICHAEL AGUIRRE, former San Diego City Attorney): “what percentage?” (PMQ1)
GW- excuse me?
AGUIRRE- what percentage?
GW- it's a very small percentage
AGUIRRE- what was it?
GW-it was a very small percentage and go ahead and bring that up during the Q & A period and we will be happy to answer that
Woman from audience- what was it that was released? What kind of radioactivity?
Rick- Folks, hang on a second. Let the gentleman finish his presentation and we will answer questions at the appropriate time
GW, again to reiterate I work at the plant every day, went to the control room and assessed the conditions. I'd like tot just talk briefly about the steam generator conditions, function and some of the structural components so that you'll understand some of the terms as we go through the balance of this presentation.
The purpose of a steam generator is essentially to make steam out of water. It does this by acting as a large heat exchanger, that transfers heat from the primary radioactive system to the clean steam system where it boils water into steam. Hot radioactive water enters into the bottom of the tube area and travels up through the inside of the tubes, around the "U" bend, back down to the cold side of the bowl area and returns to the reactor to be reheated. The clean secondary water enters into the steam generator and flows down around the outside of the tube bundle and is then directed up around the outside of tubes of the tube bundle region where it's heated up, it boils into steam and that steam exits the top of the steam generator to go to the turbine to make the electricity.
Now I'll point out a few other structural components just again to aid in the understanding of terms that we will be using throughout the balance of this meeting.
A divider plate separates the hot and cold bowl areas. (PMQ2) That divider plate also helps to direct flow of the primary water up through the u tubes , it also acts as the support for the divider plate and the steam generator internals. It's hard to see in this picture but the vertical section of the tube bundle is supported by tube support plates . The tube support plates provide structural support to that vertical section. In the next picture again its hard to see but there are small holes throughout the tube support plates, there are several of them that go up through that vertical section, there are also flow channels the middle of the tube bundle region. The upper U band section of the tube bundles is supported by system of anti-vibration bars and retainer bars. The steam generators are 65 feet tall, 14 feet in diameter and they have a little less than 10,000 tubes throughout them to perform that function of transferring heat to the water . It was one of these tubes in one of these steam generators that developed a leak and resulted in the event that I just briefly outlined that happened on January 31 2012.
RICK: short break, too many people over capacity, move some folks outside.....
(meeting took a break, omitted from video)
Alright, we are going to continue, hold sign outside, but not while you are seated.
Man- freedom of speech doesn’t end at the door
RICK- I asked at the beginning that signs be held in the back so people don't get hit in the head.
GREG WERNER: augmented inspection team leader. Gonna go ahead and discuss the decision to conduct the augmented inspection.
During the pressure testing of the 129 tubes on the unit 3 generator, 8 of the tubes failed to meet the strength requirements necessary for tube integrity. Because the tubes failed, this resulted in conducting an augmented inspection.
Even before we made a decision
to perform the augmented inspection, two Region Four inspectors were already on-site accomplishing the unit 2 in-service inspection of the steam generators. This was part of the normal NRC inspection program, we always complete a in-service inspection that looks at 100% of the tubes after the first outage for replacement steam generator.
After the tube leak on Unit 3 we also brought in Emmett Murphy from headquarters to assist. Emmett has over 30 years of team generator experience. SONGS inspected 100% of all the steam generator tubes on unit 2 and 3, almost 40,000 tubes. The NRC independently reviewed and analyzed the results of the tube inspections and based upon our review of the type of flaws on the unit 3 tubes and the large number of tubes with deep wear and over a long length of the tube the NRC had very good reasons to believe there to be multiple failures of the tubes on unit 3.
So even before the first tube failed, Region 4 was working to put together an inspection team and an inspection charter. Because of this we have inspectors onsite during the pressure testing. The augmented inspection team was initially onsite for 2 weeks, however the team has continued tot review large quantities of documents including the cause evaluations, the 50.59 evaluations, draft operational assessments, thermal hydraulic and vibration computer simulation models as well as numerous other documents.
In addition, various team members including myself have traveled back to SONGS to observe expert panels on the cause evaluation computer simulation operational assessment. To date the augmented inspection team has expanded well over 1,500 hours associated with this issue. As Tom Blount mentioned earlier, individuals with specialized expertise were brought in from region 4, region 2, office of new reactors, the offices of nuclear reactor regulation research and head quarters in Rockville, Maryland.
I'm gonna discuss the key items or objectives that the augmented team was tasked to look at. We developed an event timeline to look at the design, construction, shipping, installation and operation of both unit steam generators. We reviewed information to determine the causes, we looked at the operational activities on the units to see if there was impacts associated with those. We compared the differences in the design and manufacturing between the 2 steam units. We reviewed quality assurance and quality control associated with the design and manufacturing of both of the steam generators. We also reviewed implementation of the generic communications and industry lessons learned to see that they incorporated lessons learned that we have gathered over the last 30 or so years of steam generator use. We reviewed the steam generator simulation models and also collected info from the NRC risk assessment. We also looked at other areas such as radiological controls that Greg discussed.
One of the key areas that we wanted to understand was the differences between Units 2 and 3. Why was there more wear on unit 3 than unit 2? Because essentially the designs were identical. It's important to note that for the number of items, we not only looked at what SONGS did but we also gathered info from Mitsubishi. We looked at what the resident collected during the rapid shutdown at unit 3, we wanted to make sure that the operators at the plant responded appropriately to the event. The team looked at 100s and 100s of documents including design, manufacturing and operational information. We did our own independent comparison of the information between the units, we compared manufacturing information with design information (26:42) to check to see if the steam generators were built in accordance with the design. Where there were differences we reviewed the justification or the associated change authorizations.
Now I plan to discuss what the AIT found. Throughout the US nuclear industry this is the first time that more than one steam generator tube failed pressure testing. As I discussed earlier, because of the failure of the unit 3 tube leak, 100% of the tubes were inspected with subsequent pressure testing of 129 of those tubes on unit 3, during this pressure testing of unit 3, 8 tubes failed. The pressure testing identified the strength of the 8 tubes was not adequate and structural integrity might not be maintained during an accident.
It is important that both SONGS and the NRC understand what occurred and why. This is a serious safety issue that must be resolved to prevent further failures from occurring again and this info will be shared throughout the nuclear industry. Songs did use multiple independent consultants in steam generator manufacturers. Personally I've never seen such a vast collection of experts working together- they had academia, independent consultants, industry experts from different utilities as well as the industry itself and they also had 4 different steam generator designer and manufacturers looking at the issues.
These next 2 items that I'll be discussing are really the most important items that the NRC identified during the inspection activities. These are the ones that everybody, including us, were interested in. Actions will have to be taken to address these to prevent the vibration that leads the tube to tube wear from occurring again.
The team identified the primary cause of the unexpected tube wear was higher than expected flow velocities in the steam generators. Early in our inspections we independently developed a simplified mathematical thermal hydraulic computer simulation model of the steam generators in units 2 and 3. Using this, we determined that the computer simulation used by Mitsubishi during the design of the steam generator had under-predicted velocities of steam and water inside the steam generator by factors of 3 to 4 times. San Onofre also had 3 other steam generator vendors conduct computer simulation. The results of their computer simulation also showed significantly higher steam velocities and confirmed our results.
Now the next item that I'm going to discuss deals with the differences between unit 2 and unit 3. We looked at a number of different items, however, we only identified one item that we could essentially determine as a cause. The cause for the difference in the tube wear between the units 2 and 3 is associated with the manufacturing differences in the tubes and anti- vibration bars. For unit 3 the anti-vibration bars do not come in contact with the tubes as tightly as they do on the unit 2. Along with higher steam and water flows created the conditions necessary for the high vibration. So, essentially the tubes are not held in place securely enough so it allows them to slide, or vibrate. SONGS is continuing to analyze and develop additional actions to fix and prevent this from happening again.
Now what I'd like to talk about is the item or the items that the team identified that require additional follow up. However on this team we believe that only 2 are related tot the tube to tube wear, I'm just going o very briefly discuss these items.
There’s a post trip in-transient procedure. SONGS did not conduct a formal review of the reactor trip because they considered a plant trip when they shut down the unit so we are going to look at the procedure as well as the operator actions and assess if it was appropriate.
We are going to evaluate and disposition, and look at the numerous unit 3 loose part monitor alarms. The NRC needs to look at how these alarms were evaluated. We do have concerns that these alarms were treated as “nuisance alarms” vs. being evaluated in accordance with procedures.
The retainer bar design was not evaluated for vibration impacts. Although this sounds familiar, this wear is not related to the tube to tube wear. We are reviewing the design basis of the retainer bars.
We’re also gonna look at the evaluation of and the control of the unit 3 divider plate repair. This by far was the most significant difference between the two units and it has been discounted as a potential cause for the tube to tube wear.
The bowl of the steam generator that directs the reactor fluid into the tubes as well as the plate that separates the hot and cold reactor coolant had to be cut, ( bound?) repaired, re-welded and re-tested. Again we did not identify an issue related to the tube to tube wear for this repair. Unit 3 steam generator shipping requirements were changed form what was required as compared to unit 2.
There’s nitrogen pressure, dew point, and oxygen contents were not controlled or monitored. These items were supposed to be controlled to minimize corrosion on the internals of the steam generators.
(32:28)
MR. WARNICK: Item No. 6. Lack of tube bundle
support for the steam generators during shipment. The
shipping specification did not initially have a
requirement for tube bundle support. I did have a
requirement for tube bundle short, but it was not used
during shipment. So again we're going back to look at
that to see how that was the disposition.
We got to look at the shipping accelerometer
data for Unit 3. Steam generator A.D.A., which one of
the generators for Unit 3, had all accelerometer
registered in excessive force, which could indicate
mishandling during the transportation of steam
generators. The N.R.C. was not able to determine if
this was properly reviewed.
We are looking at the 50.59 adequacy. The
N.R.C. is continuing to review the adequacy to SONGS
50.59. We did identify concern with a potential for
using a different methodology than what was described in
the updated final safety analysis report. SONGS changed
the structural analysis method as well as the tube
stress calculation and we need to do some additional
reviews on that to determine if they should have asked
for an amendment.
The next two follow-up items, No. 9 and 10,
are the ones that N.R.C. believes are related to the
unexpected tube wear. As I discussed previously, the
manufacturing differences, Mitsubishi improved the
manufacturing process, which sounds like it should be
good. However, they didn't go back and look and see
what that would do to the original design dimensions.
They didn't go back and compare should they very
reviewed, revised, shrunk the design dimensions. This
resulted in a less rigid tube bundle, which contributed
to the vibration issue.
And as I discussed before on No. 10 the
computer simulation model, the Mitsubishi model
under-predicted the behavior of the steam and water in
the steam generators.
Again, as described earlier, the combination
of those two, the higher than predicted steam water flow
and the less rigid tube bundle for Unit 3, they vibrated
and they caused the tube wear.
The N.R.C. will be conducting additional
inspections to review each of these issues. We have
been and will be requesting additional information from
SONGS as part of our follow-up inspection activities.
This complete my discussion to the augmented inspections
activities. I'm going to let Tom Blant, turn it back to
him. He's going as to summarize the key points
associated with this inspection. Thank you.
MR. BLANT: Thank you, Greg. So what we'd
like you to walk away from this inspection,
understanding is, the N.R.C. does understand what the
mechanistic causes of the tube degradation are. The
thermal hydraulic conditions were not accurately
predicted during the design phase.
However, additional actions, as Greg's pointed
out, additional actions are being evaluated and
developed by the licensee. And these additional actions
will need to be inspected by us to insure that this
condition will not exist in the future.
The N.R.C. is not done. We have not reached
any conclusion. We've got more inspection to do. We
recognize that and we want you to understand that we
recognize that. We'll take as much time as necessary to
insure safety, the safety of these facilities, and no
decision to this point has been made.
With that, I'd like to ask Pete Dietrich if
he'd like to provide his response.
MR. DEITRICK: Thank you, Mr. Blant. I'm Pete
Dietrich, the Senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear
Officer for Southern California Edison.
In our comments tonight, we'd like to update
you on the actions Southern California Edison has taken
and will take as we work to completely understand the
conditions of our steam generators and the effect on San
Onofre.
I'll make some opening remarks and then Doug
Bower, our site vice-president, will provide some
comments about the current conditions of the units, the
planned response to the tube leak and our learnings.
Because we are a learning organization and we learn from
all things that occur in our facility.
Doug will discuss our learnings in the area of
our response. And then Tom Pommassano, the
vice-president of engineering, will summarize our
technical evaluation and the conclusions that we have
reached to date. Much work has been done, yet we still
have much work to do to fully understand and address
what we have learned and then I will provide some
closing remarks.
Just to start with, Southern California
Edison's overriding interest is the health and safety of
the public and our employees. Consequently, both San
Onofre units are shut down and will remain shut down
until repairs have been made and we and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission are satisfied it is safe to
operate.
We are disappointed that the situation has
occurred and we recognize the impact on our
stakeholders, including customers of Southern California
Edison, San Diego Gas and Electric and the City of
Riverside. We're also concerned about the concerns that
you have, members of the public and also our neighbors.
Southern California Edison understands the
significance of the unexpected tube wear and we agree
with the facts presented tonight by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission. We appreciate N.R.C. insights
into this situation and we pledge to continue to work
with the N.R.C. to assure any remaining or additional
questions are answered promptly.
Early on we recognized the seriousness of the
situation. As a result of the complex technical nature
of the wear, we recognized that we needed to assemble
the very best team to augment our resources and the
resources of the steam generator designer manufacturer,
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
As a result, we have brought together experts
in thermal hydraulics and steam generator design from
around the world to help us gain an understanding of the
causes of this unexpected tube-to-tube wear and
potential corrective actions to address it.
The experts include such subject matter
experts from companies such as Areva, Westinghouse and
B & W Canada. We have used this assembled team, as
well as other industry experts and consultants to review
the progress of our work and challenged the thoroughness
and adequacy of our conclusions. And we will continue
to do so.
With that, I'd like to turn it over to Doug to
discuss the current status of the units and our response
to the tube leak.
MR. BOWER: Thank you, Pete. I would like to
cover the current status of the San Onofre units. Unit
2 remains shut down since January the 9th when we
started our planned refueling outage, an outage that
include that included a reactor vessel head replacement
and planned full scope testing of our Unit 2 steam
generator tubes.
On January 31st, the San Onofre operators shut
down Unit 3 in accordance with plant procedures after
detection of a very small tube leak on that unit. Their
actions demonstrated the right, conservative
decision-making and focus on protecting the health and
safety of plant personnel and the public.
I observed from the control room our operators
response. I was pleased with their calm delivered
approach properly quantifying the leak and the execution
of our plant procedures to safely shut down the plant.
In fact, in my discussion with the operators
after the event, they told me that plant response lined
up with their experience and training our simulator
where they frequently trained -- I'm going to switch
mics. Everything okay over there? Thank you.
So yes, to catch us back up. In my
discussions with the operators following the shut down
on January 31st, they confirmed with me the planned
response matched what they were trained for, evaluated
for in our plant simulator. And that evaluation is
frequently done before our operators for steam generator
tube leaks.
As a learning operation -- organization, we
have reviewed our plant equipment, our procedure and our
operator training programs as a result of the shut down
on January 31st. We have improved our leak detection
capability. (PMQ3) We have enhanced our operator training
programs and built the lessons learned from this event
into our plant stimulator training activities.
We have also reviewed the post shut down
critique process and we have enhanced the procedures
that tied the post shut down critique process to any
plant (indiscernible word). Also we have shared this
information in the industry. As Pete indicated, we are
a learning operation. We're all about learning,
building things back into our processes and sharing them
with the industry.
In conclusion, our operators took prompt,
conservative actions to shut down Unit 3, placing the
very highest priority in protecting the health and
safety of the public.
At this point I would like to turn the
presentation over to Tom Pommassano to talk through
insights and perspective on our open items, as well as
Southern California Edison's technical work so far on
steam generators. Tom.
MR. POMMASSANO: Okay. Thank you, Doug. Can
you hear me okay in the back? Great. Thank you. What
I would like to do is provide an update on the technical
work to date on our investigations and talk about some
of the upcoming actions that we have in place.
As Pete Dietrick has said and the N.R.C. has
said, we have more work to do. We realize that. And
we're being very deliberate and conservative in our
approach to our work.
First, Mr. Warnick did a good job of giving
you an overview of the steam generator's function of the
plant design and the steam generator design itself. I
just want to point out a couple of things.
Tom, if you highlight the steam generator.
Two key functions we're talking about tonight. One is
the transfer heat from the radioactive primary system to
the secondary side to boil water to make steam that
ultimately turns the turbine and generates electricity.
The other key function, and particularly from
a safety standpoint, is the function of the steam
generator tubes to prevent radioactive primary water
from leaking to the secondary side. Those are the two
key functions we're focused on in this discussion and in
our current work.
Next slide, please. In this slide, a cut-away
of the steam generator. We've already explained, or the
N.R.C. has already explained the flow path. Just let me
reiterate it. The hot radioactive water comes in
through what's called the hot leg at the bottom, flows
up through the steam generator tubes, around the U-tube
bend, the top of the tubes, and down through the
remaining straight portion and out the cold way.
The heat from that water is transferred to the
secondary side to boil water to make the steam that
exits the top of the steam generator. Of particular
importance tonight is what's labeled the U-bent section.
This is where the tube-to-tube wear has occurred that
caused the tube leak in one of the tubes and also caused
the damage in the other tubes that caused us to do the
in-situ pressure test and caused the test failures. So
it's the very top of the U-bend that we're going to be
talking about where the tube-to-tube wear has occurred.
Thank you, Tom. Next slide, please.
So let me kind of summarize the actions to
date at this point. Following the Unit 3 shut down on
January 31st, we performed a comprehensive and rigorous
inspection of all 19,454 steam generator tubes in the
two Unit 3 steam generators. Each steam generator has
9,727 tubes. Roughly 10,000 tubes per steam generator.
We did a comprehensive inspection of them.
We've reviewed these inspection results with industry
experts and identified the cause of the tube leak as
unexpected tube-to-tube wear. This wear caused one tube
to leak and caused the other eight tubes -- there were
eight tubes that we talked about that failed the in-situ
pressure testing.
Further inspection showed wear on 326 of the
these 19,454 tubes. I'd like you to have that
perspectives with those numbers. The wear is a very
localized root area of that upper tube bundle that we
saw on a previous slide. Based on the finding of this
unexpected tube-to-tube wear, we elected not to restart
Unit 2.
Unit 2 was in the process of completing a
refueling outage, had already had all of its tubes
inspected, and was in satisfactory condition to operate.
We elected not to restart Unit 2 at that time. We
wanted to make sure, given the unusual nature of this
tube-to-tube wear in Unit 3, that we took every
opportunity to inspect and test Unit 2 to help us
understand what was going on with the Unit 3 steam
generator tubes. We felt that was very important.
Recognizing the significance of this
unexpected tube-to-tube wear, we assembled a team of
experts to assist Southern California Edison and
Mitsubishi, the steam generator manufacturer. You've
heard this discussed by the N.R.C. and by Pete Dietrich.
And in a minute, I'll talk more about that panel.
To date we have now completed extensive tests
and analysis. We have done over 60,000 tests on steam
generator tubes on both Unit 2 and Unit 3 and have
performed significant analysis of the test results to
understand the cause of the tube-to-tube wear.
As has been pointed out by the N.R.C. and
significant note, there are differences between the two
units. Unit 3 where experienced the tube leak had 326
tubes damaged by this tube-to-tube wear. Unit 2 had
only two tubes which showed minor indications of
tube-to-tube wear, so small it was almost undetectable.
It was our rigorous re-testing that identified
two tubes that had minor indications. So Unit 2 is in
much better condition than Unit 3.
The comments that Mr. WERNER had about the
differences in the manufacturing tolerances between the
units explains partially why Unit 2 is in much better
condition than Unit 3 is with respect to tube-to-tube
wear.
Next slide. The expert panel. This is
significant. You know, in any outage, we start with our
own expertise. We start with the manufacturer,
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
As we realized the significance, the usual
nature of this tube-to-tube wear, we stopped and we
formed a group of experts to assist us both on-site and
off-site in an expert panels. We have brought in Areva,
Westinghouse and B & W Canada.
All of those firms design, manufacture and
test steam generators. They are competitors to
Mitsubishi.
Q. Is that Babcock and Wilcox?
MR. POMMASSANO: Babcock and Wilcox, Canada.
Yes. B & W, Canada. We brought in M.P.R. Associates,
which is a leading problem-solving firm, both in the
nuclear and non-nuclear industry, renown for their
ability to deal with difficult, technical issues.
We immobilized EPRI, the Electric Power
Research Institute. This is the electric utilities
industries' research group where we do cutting-edge
research across the board in the electric utility
industry, including nuclear. This is where we share
technical information and in the nuclear side, we
maintain some technical standards that we operate and
maintain our plants to, particularly for steam
generators.
We also brought in other industry personnel
from sister utilities of its similar steam generators
with good expertise to assist us and as has been
mentioned, some recognized academics and consultants who
do serious research in thermal hydraulic analysis,
vibration analysis, and steam generator testing.
So we have assembled a team, and I think it
has been alluded to, this is virtually an unparalleled
effort in the industry. The sharing, the cooperation,
the critical nature of this work has been the best I
have seen, and I think Mr. WERNER's comments have echoed
that.
Now the team was established not to just
assist us, but to also challenge our work. We wanted to
make sure that we put in place not just getting good,
solid technical assistance, but a good critical
challenge.
We used an expert panel board process. The
team forms up on site every three to four weeks, and we
spend one to two days reviewing the result of our work to
date, making presentations, getting critical comments
and getting some re-direction, if you will, on things
that they feel we should investigate more fully.
They've turned out to be quite valuable and we
are continuing their use through our remaining technical
work and our restart decisions as we formulate our final
plans.
Next slide. So what have we determined in
terms of cause? The specific mechanism -- you have
heard the N.R.C. discuss this. I'll use the term. It's
called Fluid Elastic Instability.
Basically, that is causing some of these
tubes, these selected tubes, to vibrate excessively to
where they are contacting adjacent tubes. That is not
the way these steam generators are designed to operate.
It's a vibration mechanism that should not be occurring.
We see this. This is causing the excessive wear and
it's in this limited area of the Unit 3 steam
generators.
It is caused, this Fluid Elastic Instability
or tube vibration, is caused by high steam flow
velocities. This has already been alluded to. Very dry
steam. In other words, very localized areas where there
is very dry steam, very little liquid as the water is
boiled to steam, and inadequate tube support structure,
that anti-vibration bar structure in the U-bend region
around these tubes that are experiencing wear.
The tube support structure is not providing
sufficient restraint. So a combination of high stream
flow velocities, very dry steam and the interaction with
this tube support structure in the Unit 3 steam
generators.
Again, we do not see much evidence of this
phenomena in the Unit 2 because Unit 2 clearly has a
tighter tube structure than Unit 3 does.
Our findings correlate very well with the
N.R.C.'s comments on the thermal hydraulic analysis.
These conditions were not predicted clearly during the
design phase to be as severe as they are.
We are in agreement with the N.R.C.'s
conclusions on that. And also the differences between
Unit 3 and Unit 2, likely due to manufacturing tolerance
differences and manufacturing process differences seem
to explain the difference between Unit 2 and Unit 3.
And we are in agreement with the N.R.C.'s Augmented
Inspection Team on those.
Now we have a good understanding of the cause
of the tube vibration which causes the tube-to-tube
wear. Our expert panel has reviewed this several times.
They have challenged us and they are in concurrence with
our conclusion as far as what is causing the
tube-to-tube wear.
Next slide, please. So the next steps.
Again, I'd like to emphasize something you heard Pete be
very clear on and the N.R.C. say, we are taking as much
time as necessary to insure this is understood and this
is properly corrected. That's been a theme from the
start of this investigation.
We are following up with the Augmented
Inspection Team's additional request. Two of their open
items clearly are related to the cause. They have
legitimate needs for more information on the other open
items and our team is supplying that information as it
becomes available and working with the inspection team.
We are designing and implementing our
corrective actions to prevent this tube vibration from
occurring, based on our understanding of the mechanism.
We are developing additional information as stated in
the confirmatory action letter which we committed to
prior to restart that we know we need to submit, and we
are continuing to work to develop intermediate and
longer term solutions to this problem.
As Pete said, we are disappointed in this and
we are working on longer term solutions. And those
longer term solutions will require extensive analysis,
mockup and testing prior to being implemented.
In summary, we've identified the cause of the
unexpected tube-to-tube wear. We are in agreement with
the comments as discussed by the N.R.C. tonight. We
continue to take a rigorous, deliberate and conservative
approach to complete our remaining actions, and we are
taking as much time as necessary to insure safety.
With that, let me turn it back to Pete
Dietrich.
MR. DEITRICK: Thank you. By bringing
together experts in thermal hydraulics and steam
generator design and conducting the rigorous tests and
analysis mentioned by Tom Pommassano, we have determined
the cause of the unexpected tube-to-tube wear. (PMQ4)
We are working on different options and
solutions for the future. We have been conducting
public outreach associated with this condition and we
see this interaction tonight as very important to those
efforts.
We do feel it is vital to continue to share
our learnings with the public and with our key
stakeholders. Because of the unique nature of the
unexpected tube-to-tube wear, we will continue to focus
on making not just the allowable decision, but the
prudent decision, focusing our efforts on the short-term
support of our customers and communities, as well as the
longer term life of the plant. But most important, our
overriding and paramount interest is the health and
safety of the public and our employees.
We are focused on making safe decisions and we
have been focused on making safe decisions since the
onset of the tube leak on January 31st. We will
continue to do so.
Consequently, the units will remain shut down
until we and the N.R.C. are satisfied that the units are
safe to operate. I can't emphasize enough: There is no
time line on safety. Thank you. I'd like to turn it
back to you, Mr. Collins.
MR. BLANT: Thank you, Pete. We appreciate
those comments.
Looking at our path forward, it's important to
note that the N.R.C. still has much more information to
review. The cause evaluation has been completed by
SONGS and they are working on additional actions to
prevent to tube-to-tube wear from occurring again.
We currently do not know what the final
actions will be. So for the N.R.C. to speculate on what
is going to occur would not be appropriate. However, I
will tell you what we do know. We continue to review
information as it becomes available, and as the
Augmented Inspection Team continues to review
information, we ask SONGS additional questions. And we
request additional information, as you've heard.
Our inspection will continue until we are
satisfied we have sufficient for enough information to
make a determination. Based on the confirmatory action
alert, we will have to complete additional inspections
when SONGS informs us that they are ready for those
inspections. They will have to have completed all the
actions required under the confirmatory action letter
before we will go out and do those inspections.
Portions of our A.I.T. team will be called
upon to go out and do follow-up inspections on the 10
items that we discussed earlier that were identified as
part of this inspection.
The N.R.C. does plan to have additional public
meetings to keep you informed of our activities. As
part of our plans, we will have meeting with SONGS
designed to present their readiness plan associated in
response to the confirmatory action letter.
After we have completed our inspection, we
will have another meeting to discuss the results of that
inspection. In addition, there are type of public
meeting and press conference that will be held by the
senior management, N.R.C. senior management, to discuss
any future N.R.C. decision about the acceptability of
resumption of power operations. That decision will be
based on discussions with both the Region 4 and N.R.C.
headquarter senior management.
And finally, as part of our normal process in
how the N.R.C. does business, we look back at our
inspection program and we look to see are there things
out of this event that we should have seen earlier? Are
there processes that we should have been engaged in, to
help us learn how to get better at what it is that we
do. Is there something that we could have been doing do
better in looking ast prior to this event occurring that
would have precluded that event?
That is also to help our inspection efforts
going forward. So with that, I'd like to turn it over
to Elmo Collins for closing remarks.
MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Tom. To conclude the
business portion of the meeting, I will say thank you to
the residents of California for being here tonight and
thank you for listening attentively. I have been quite
amazed at that how polite and how patient you have been
as we merge through a lot of information tonight. I
thank you for that.
I want to thank this Augmented Inspection Team
we've talked about. A lot of hours of work has gone on
with people with high expertise. I'm glad we were able
to hear the results of their inspection. I hope it was
informative for you.
I want to thank Edison, Mr. Dietrich, for your
presentation and response to information you shared with
us. And lastly, I probably would be remiss, all express
our appreciation to the representatives from the Orange
County Sheriffs Office who are here looking out after
our safety. Give them a round of applause. I know we
really you do appreciate that service. With that.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Elmo. Thank you
Southern California Edison and N.R.C. Thank you
audience, ladies and gentlemen, for being so attentive,
as Elmo pointed out.
We are going to take a 20-minute break. We
will start back at 7:20 sharp with question and comment
period. In the meantime, Mr. Collins is going to be
doing a media interview, I believe, during the break.
Enjoy the break. We will see you at 7:20.
(A recess was taken.)
PART 2
MR. DANIEL: For those of you that may not
have been here for the first 2/3. My name is Rick
Daniel and I will be the facilitator here. This is the
way we are going to try to work this tonight, folks.
The job, my job is to try to provide -- be fair and
balanced. I'm going to be moving about. I will
approach folks. If you have a question, you raise your
hand. I will come to you. We have our first question.
Just a minute. Folks, we will limit questions and
comments to two minutes. Okay. I'll be right with you.
Go ahead. Why don't you give us your name, if
you like, and go ahead.
Q. (BY MR. STONE): I'm Gene Stone from Residents
Organized for Safe Environment. On April 6, I had a
personal meeting with [NRC] Chairman Gregory Jaczko as many of our
local coalition did, and he promised us, as much as he
could, that this meeting would be open for people to
speak because of the last April meeting in San Juan
Capistrano, the lights were turned off at 8:30 and we
had to leave.
Now I understand and I agree that the steam
generator issue is very important and we should talk
about this issue. I agree with that for that tonight.
I would officially ask Elmo for the next
meeting to be a Category 3 meeting so that we can
actually discuss everything that the public wants to
discuss with no limited time on that meeting. (PMQ6) If Elmo
could tell me how to do that legally, publicly or
whatever it takes to get that done with the N.R.C., I'll
leave you my e-mail.
So my question is: How is it that 39 design
changes did not trigger a complete review by N.R.C. and
complete public hearings as is required by law? Has the
law been broken by either California Edison, Mitsubishi
or the N.R.C.? Thank you.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Gene. Greg.
MR. WERNER: Well, the 50.59 processes the
regulation and by regulation, they were -- they were
allowed to do what they did. Now to say that it wasn't
reviewed, portions were reviewed by the N.R.C.
Actually, there were two changes that required licensed
amendments that were reviewed by N.R.C. (PMQ7)
The N.R.C. did do reviews of part of the
design before the change integers were installed were,
as well as the Augmented Inspection Team also looked at
the design. As I said earlier, we are continuing our
review. We did identify those two issues -- I mean the
one issue, the 50.59 associated with the two changes to
the code of record that was used. There are follow-up
plans we have to look at.
MR. DANIELS: Elmo.
MR. COLLINS: I'd like to add to that, to that
response to your question. It's an outstanding
question. It's one we got ourselves. Because of what
was in the plant while the plant was operating, we had
to be absolutely clear, what happened here and how did
these steam generators get in the plant, what are the
N.R.C. review processes, what are our regulations to
make sure that this went the way that we want it. We
are still looking at that. We haven't reached our final
conclusion. We had that question, as well.
We indicated in the presentation -- this is
part of the augmented team inspection procedure that we
looked for these conditions, looked at ourselves, asked
ourselves what else we need to do. That's a question we
are trying to answer, as well. I think your question is
right on the money.
With respect to the Category 3 meetings, I got
to tell, we have been knocking our brains out, you know,
how to do these meeting, as best we could. Among this
one, we really would have preferred to have gone that
route, we just couldn't quite to get to it with the
information we wanted to present to you.
That is actually a question for our next
meetings, series of meetings, which ones would be
appropriate. We want to have those meetings so that we
can have a better exchange of information, a better
dialogue with you here in California. Thanks for
raising that.
Q. Respectfully, we demand that type of meeting.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you. I'm going to come to
this lady over here. Excuse me. Give us your name.
Q. MS. BECKER: Rochelle Becker Executive Director of the
Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility. I have two
questions. I thought I saw Mr. Craver here earlier. Is
he here?
MR. CRAVER: Yes, I am.
[Craver is Chair and CEO of Edision International, who can make an independent decision to shut down the plant.]
Q. Okay. Hello, Mr. Craver. I have a question
for you. If you could just stand up, because I think
the whole audience would like to hear the answer.
My question is: Is there a number, is there an
amount of money -- knowing that there is no amount of
safety before you reopen, but is there an amount of
money before you re-open? How much money do you expect
your rate payers to pay before this plant re-operates?
Is there a break out point in which Edison
decides this is just too much?
MR. DANIEL: Coming right to you.
MR. CRAVER: At this point all of our focus
has been on trying to understand the technical aspects
and what exactly is taking place here. What the
mechanism of where it is, what the causes of where are
and how we are actually going to address those.
As we get through the final evaluation of what
the final fixes are, what those will look like, are
those the same fixes for the near term as they are for
the long term, then I think we will have a better idea
of what those costs are.
I think it is actually really important for us
to not get the financial piece into this at this point,
for us to just focus primarily on the safety issues and
primarily on what we are going to do to fix it.
MR. DANIEL: Hang on, folks. Hang on. Going
to try to keep -- trying to keep the questions oriented
towards the steam tubes. Is this a question on the
steam tubes?
Q. MS. BECKER: Okay. This is to the N.R.C. We have just
been told that you spent 1300 man-hours or 1500
man-hours or whatever for this review, however, you
didn't spend this amount of time before you approved it
and the State of California invested in these steam
generators.
Is the federal government going to help in any
way with the rate payer cost of this, or are we supposed
to pay for your mistakes, as well as Edison's mistakes?
MR. DANIEL: Okay.
MR. BLANT: The agency -- you're asking for
us -- how are we going to handle our regulatory
responsibilities. We have an obligation to review the
safety of these facilities and how they are operated.
We will do that as we are mandated to do. When
situations arise, that's why we have reactive
inspections. We address those as they come up.
I guess I'm not sure how I would address that
much beyond that. Please.
MR. COLLINS: Thanks, Rochelle. Good to see
you hear tonight. It's been awhile. I think we already
indicated we need to go back and look. Did we follow --
did N.R.C. follow our processes, which are implementing
our regulations and was the right implementation and
inspection programs that were put in place to look at
this very thing. And our accountability, I think, goes
to the oversight committee as we answer through Congress
ultimately.
We have some representatives here. That hold
us to that, to make sure we follow our processes.
That's all I can do is follow my process from the
regional office. We're doing our best to make that
happen. If we're not, we want to be the first to fix
it. We are going to take a look at these processes to
see if they need to be improved because of what's going
on here.
This is a very difficult, technical issues, to
be quite honest with you, has not been seen before.
That doesn't give anyone any comfort. We need to be
smarter, upfront about these types of changes.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Elmo. This gentleman,
you have a question. Stand up, please.
Q. My name is Jim Cummings, retired Southern
California Edison employee. I have a question in
regards to why the design was changed on the steam
generators from the initial construction (PMQ8) to where we
fabricated something out of the -- maybe different from
what the final engineering public had to do, seemed like
maybe remediation right there as far as the steam
generator design.
MR. WERNER: I'll take that question. Of
course the steam generators were different than what was
originally put in because the original steam generators
had to be replaced. So they had issues with the
original generators across the industry and from a
lessons learned standpoint, the numerous changes that
had been incorporated in the new generators.
MR. DANIEL: We'll get to you. Steam tube
generators.
Q. Staying on focus. Joe Holtsman, Mission
Viejo. My question is one question. I would like to
direct it to the N.R.C., perhaps you can take it and
maybe Mr. Dietrich could take it.
Was there an failure mode effect analysis done
on these designs before construction was started?
Q. The silence is deafening.
MR. WARNICK: Like Greg said, as part of the
inspection process, we have a procedure that we
implement for replacement of steam generators. We
reviewed in part the 50.59s associated with the
replacement steam generators.
We did not review it to the level of detail to
determine if the failure mode analysis was done. Beyond
that, Edison, if they choose to reply, they can shed
some light on that.
MR. DEITRICK: Thank you. The steam
generators were replaced using an engineering design
change package, which does look at potential modes of
failure of the steam generators and it looks for
understood or anticipated modes of failure.
Included in our technical specification
changes were two license amendments to change the
plugging lights on the new steam generators compared to
the old steam generators to move to a lower percentage
of through wall wear to plug the steam generator tube.
We did look at and analyze the potential for
wear affecting our steam generators. That was
documented in our engineering change package. A failure
modes and effects analysis is traditionally done in our
business associated with looking at a new occurring
problem.
So specifically to answer your question, it
was not F.M.E.A., a failure modes effect analysis done
per se. We are working through that part of our
solution set and problem-solving situation.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you. I'll hand it to you.
Okay.
Q. Why is it that Mitsubishi is not present at
this meeting and the same for Areva and Westinghouse?
MR. BLANT: In this particular case for this
meeting, this meeting the augmented inspection team
results, it was as the N.R.C. providing our response to
the licensee on what we have found.
Mitsubishi, Areva, others are vendors to that
licensee, they are not the ones that we look to for
responsibility associated with that facility. So if
they were here, they would be here as an advisory
capacity to the licensee.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Tom. Steam tubes?
Q. My name is Emily. I'm a concerned citizen and
the Director of the California Public Interest Research
Group, Statewide Consumer Advocacy Group. I'm concerned
first and foremost about safety, but I am also concerned
about cost to rate payers.
We are already paying for the steam generators
that are now not operating and I'm wondering if Southern
California Edison can commit to not asking rate payers
to pay for those steam generators again should they need
to be replaced.
MR. COLLINS: I'll start. I appreciate your
question. We all know this is on the face of it a
costly -- the plant has been shut down since January for
a number of months. Just from N.R.C.'s perspective, we
are primarily interested in safety.
I can't put myself in your shoes as a
California rate payer, so I really don't understand how
you're feeling, but I would ask you to look at us and
say we are going to take a look at safety first and see
where it goes.
Now I'm going to see if you want to -- Pete
might add to that answer for you.
MR. DEITRICK: Thank you. You know tonight I
came out to talk about specifically the augmentation
team results and to talk specifically about what our
learnings are up to this point.
I will share with you the concerns of our
stakeholders, the concerns of our customers are very
important to us and we are mindful of that as we go
forward.
All of our discussions regarding costs or cost
issues are ahead of us types of discussions. We will
have opportunities to continue discuss that and it will
play out very openly in front of the California
Utilities Commission.
We are committed to providing that visibility
to the situation going forward. But I think tonight
it's important to talk about the technical situation and
how we move forward over the next few months. Thank
you.
MR. DANIEL: Going to move over here. I'm
coming, folks.
MR. COLLINS: I hope some of you have
questions. I've got a technical team sitting here in
the front row. They're just dying to answer your
questions.
Q. (BY MR. LUTZ): Okay. Ray Lutz with Citizens
Oversight. Now you mention that the unexpected
tube-to-tube wear was due to excessive steam velocity.
The question is -- you said your simulation simulated it
to be three to four times higher than the other
simulation.
My first question is: Did you actually
measure the velocity of the steam to find out if either
of those simulations is any good?
Did you measure the velocity in the actual
steam generator, No. 1?
No. 2, why is the steam at a higher velocity?
That is not the root cause. You need to jump back and
say: Why is it going faster? Is it because Southern
California Edison modified these steam generators by
adding 370 additional tubes and subtracting the certain
supports and so fourth? Is that the reason?
What is the reason? Because you guys came in
here saying you came to the cause of this and you give
us no cause. This is not the cause.
So I want to know the answer. What is the
cause of the excessive steam velocity? If you tell me
it is because of something that happened somewhere else,
then you have to ask: Why did that happen?
You're stopping just after one thing:
Excessive tube-to-tube wear. That's why the leak
started.
Why did that happen, excessive steam velocity?
Why did that happen? Please go down that trail.
I want to know: Did you measure the steam
velocity. Thank you.
MR. WERNER: Actually, that question is
outstanding. We have to understand that SONGS owes us
that answer as far as what specifically in the design
change in the steam generator causing the higher than
expected velocity, and as they talked about steam with
fractions. They still owe us that. That's been
something that we've discussed since we have been on
site. I'm sorry. What was the other question?
Q. (BY MR. LUTZ): Did you measure the steam
flows?
MR. WERNER: They do not measure steam flows
within the steam generators. There is not that
capability. The modeling is done based upon
experimental data, as well as the empirical data.
MR. DANIEL: Okay. Another question about
steam tubes. Yes, ma'am.
Q. All the simulations are deemed to be correct.
Q. Karen Stone from Laguna Hills. I wanted to
know just how much radiation was released from 3 when it
had its problem. You say it's minimal. How much was
it? We need to know.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Karen.
MR. WARNICK: Thank you for the question. As
I told you before, I was on site. I responded to the
event. I full time, when I'm on the site, I wear a
radiation badge that measures mild radiation. So I'm
monitored. We independently verified and quantified how
much release there was. The amount was 5.2 x 10 to the minus 5
millirem.
What that means, essentially, it was more than
10,000 times below what you would receive from, say, an
x-ray of the arm or what each of us receives daily from
naturally occurring background radiation, which is about
one millirem. It was 10,000 times
below that amount.
MR. DANIEL: Okay. Thank you.
MR. WARNICK: Essentially, on my radiation
badge that I wear every day, that measures my radiation,
it was negligible. It wasn't picked up at all.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you. Question. Gary
Headrick.
Q. My name is Gary Headrick, representing San Clemente
Green. 1500 citizens. I'd
like to share more general observation that will cover
the steam generator issue indirectly. Please indulge me
while I read.
This is an intervention. The people that you
are sworn to protect
the ones that you ultimately serve are speaking up in a
strong and forceful way because you are blindly
following a path that has become an habitual routine.
Unfortunately, it eventually will lead to the
destruction of everyone and everything for miles around
if allowed to continue indefinitely. We can't simply
let this situation continue any longer. We have been
extremely lucky so far.
The reckless behavior of Edison that has been
exhibiting over the years has got to stop. Edison's
insatiable appetite for gambling continues to escalate
when losing is virtually impossible thanks to the Price
Anderson Act and winning is practically guaranteed
simply by staying in the game.
This situation would be an irresistible
temptation for even the most timid gambler. Having
never lost, the obsession comes stronger. Yet the
longer one goes on a winning streak, the more likely it
is that luck will run out.
The nuclear regulatory commission is equally
responsible for this situation reaching such an
intolerable condition. Your good intentions aiming to
make sure that the power we need is delivered in a safe
manner has an inherent conflict of interest that can't
be avoided.
You either have to put safety first or follow
your loyalty to the industry from which you came. You
have become the enabler in this relationship, a
co-dependent partner torn between what is best for those
you work closely with and the public at large.
It is with concern for the good of all that we
must step in as interveners, reminding you that you must
act responsibly and remembering your original
obligations to the people and the environment.
MR. DANIEL: All right, Gary. Hang on a
second. Is this going to result in a question about
steam tubes. Another minute.
MR. HEADRICK: It's for a lot of people. The
plain truth is that we don't need to gamble our families
and our possessions in order to get the power we need
for the comfortable lifestyles we are accustomed to.
The last four months have been living proof of that
fact.
The cost of continuing to support this aging
nuclear power plant is not necessary. All of the
consternation over evacuation rounds and sheltering, in
place to escape radiation has vanished with this recent
revelation.
The only responsible action to take is for
Edison to transition to truly sustainable and safe
conservatives before the competition gets too far ahead
and for the N.R.C. to recognize that it is time to
retire this old racehorse and deal with the extremely
toxic waste that has been piling up in the stall for
almost 30 years now.
MR. DANIEL: All right, Gary. Thank you.
We'll get back to you, Gary. We'll get back to you.
MR. WERNER: I'd like to respond to that.
It's important to understand that the N.R.C. safety is
first. We do not have a schedule for restart. No
decision has been made. And again, the units are not
running because currently it is not safe to restart,
until they go ahead and do actions to prevent tube
degradation due to vibration.
The N.R.C. does not rely on luck, nor does the
nuclear industry. The steam generators of the reactor
itself, the design, actually incorporated looking at a
steam generator tube rupture. So that was part of the
design that the (? 23:35) respond to.
As Greg Warnick indicated earlier, that they
had the detection equipment that properly detects the
small leaks. Operators are trained. They go to
training, extensive training. They are able to respond
to the leak, isolate it, minimizes the leak, as well as
multiple (? 23:51) in place.
So again, the plant design, the training and
construction of the plants were specifically designed to
combat accidents, including steam generator tube
rupture. So there is no luck involved with that.
MR. HEADRICK: Can I finish one paragraph.
MR. DANIEL: Gary, I'll tell you what, as time
permits, we will get back to you for the last paragraph.
Okay. We're not going to forget you. Okay? I promise.
We're going to get back to you. Sir.
MR. WEISS: My name is Rick Weiss and I have
two questions, I think, are germane to this issue. They
concern the tubes.
I wanted to know a little bit more about the
details of the tubes. I understand that they're
three-quarter of an inch diameter.
I want to know what they're made of, how thick
the walls are and how they have been tested to
withstand -- we have been talking about vibration -- how
they have been tested to withstand the earthquakes that
we have around here. That's a concern for me.
And the other question is in the event that
they need to be replaced or something, what happens to
them? I mean, where did they go, what plans do you have
to dispose of them or restore them. Actually, what are
your plans to -- that was a good question about nuclear
waste piling up, I guess 30 years they have been piling
up. We have been looking for solutions, waiting for
solutions. Are there any new solutions?
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Rick.
MR. WERNER: I'm going to let Emmet answer the
question about the steam generator tubes. He's part of
the augment inspection team, 30 plus years experience
looking at team generators. Go ahead, Emmet.
EMMET: Okay. I believe one of the questions
was what are the tubes made of. They are made out of
inconel 690, chemically treated chromium iron alloy
(? 25:40). Very corrosion, test corrosion, crack
resistant, compared to the inconel 600 tubing used in
the original steam generators. I'm sure I'm missing
part of your question.
MR. DANIEL: Dimension, the size.
EMMET: The diameter -- the diameter of these
tubes is three-quarters inch. The thickness -- wall
thickness is .043 inches, 43 mills. The steam
generators were designed for seismic conditions to stay
within stress limits required by the code, the A.S.M.E.,
American Society of Mechanical Engineering, Section 3,
Code Stress (? 26:32).
Q. How are the tubes attached to the sheet?
EMMET: The tubes -- each of the tubes is
welded at the tube ends to the tube sheet and in
addition, they are hydraulically expanded for the full
thickness of the tube sheet.
Q. How far apart are they?
MR. DANIEL: All right. Thank you.
MR. WARNICK: I can't answer how far apart
each tube is. Maybe you can get that information from
Emmet. We can add that additionally.
EMMET: The tube pitch is one-quarter inch.
In other words, the closest nominal dimension between
the tubes is .25 inches.
MR. DANIEL: Thanks, Emmet.
MR. WARNICK: Your second question is what do
they do with the steam generators when you replace them.
That was actually part of our inspection, when they're
replaced the old steam generators with the new steam
generators.
The old steam generators are essentially
decontaminated best they can. The cleaned portion is
cut up and you know Edison, whatever they choose -- I
think they sold most of the metal that they had for
scrap. It was clean. There is a portion that is
radioactive on the primary side of the tubes and that's
shipped to low level waste facilities that are located
throughout the country.
As far as the bigger waste question, as you're
probably aware, that's something being debated in
Congress. There was a blue ribbon commission that gave
a report recently and that's something that's being
determined at the energy policy level.
EMMET: Just one previous correction to what I
said. That the minimum gap between the tubes is
one-quarter inch. The pitch is one inch, plus diameter
equal pitch.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Emmet.
Q. You asked about size --
MR. DANIEL: That was answered by Emmet. All
right. Ma'am, do you have a question?
Q. Yes. Specifically what are the local -- where
is the low level place -- places around the country?
MR. DANIEL: That's outside the scope of this
meeting. That's something for another meeting. But you
can put it on the feedback form and submit it and
somebody will try to answer it for you. We are going to
focus on the steam generators and the tubes, questions
about the tubes.
A. Utah.
Q. Yes. I know that the nuclear regulatory
agency has a lot of channel at its disposal. I assume
also that there is independence.
I'd like to know as there are trained
professionals if there is a minority report. I know
that that's considered to be a little difficult. The
N.R.C. has been under criticism because of the fact that
there has been dissent and it's lead to people saying
well, you're not playing the game right.
And we've had a recent hearing before Congress
about all of this. We want independent professional
opinion that this is a majority view and if there is a
minority view about the safety of this because safety is
supposedly your No. 1 concern and for that safety,
you're responsible to us.
MR. DANIEL: All right. Thank you. Your
question is is there a minority report related to the
steam tubes?
Q. Other than just the line that has been given
to us here, universal opinion.
MR. DANIEL: Okay. Do you understand that question?
MR. COLLINS: Yes. First of all, I couldn't
agree with you more in your comment and even to put a
finer point on that, when you do have opposing views or
differing views, that drives us to an even better
conclusion when they're considered evaluated, and
understood.
My definition of objectivity is I understand
the opposing view. I might not agree with it, but I
need to understand it when I make a decision. That's
when I can look at myself and say I'm close to making an
objective decision.
I've been watching this team work for a couple
of months. If there is a minority report or
non-concurrence, it will be documented in writing and it
will available to the public. I can tell you right now,
I am not hearing any. So far the team is fairly well
consistent and it converged on what you've heard here
tonight. So I think what this is really a team view.
MR. BLOUNT: If I could just add to that
discussion slightly. One of the things that we were
concerned with is that we would develop a mindset that
said we're headed down this path and that was the answer
and we put blinders on to this particular issue.
So we took the opportunity to bring two
separate individuals that are outside the agency as
experts to look at what it was that this team was
putting together and we handled them as separate and
distinct, much like the challenge on board to look at
what the team did and what their findings were and how
they went about doing their business to make sure that
we got the best insight that we could.
With that, then, we were -- we did make the
assession -- the determination that the team did do the
inspection that we expected of them and we did reach the
appropriate identification of issues.
MR. DANIEL: So in answer to this gentleman's
question, Tom.
MR. BLOUNT: At the end of the day, we will,
once the report is crafted, once we have finalized the
report, it will be a publicly available document and it
will be available on the N.R.C. website.
MR. COLLINS: Just to be clear. That's two
reports. There's the team report and then there's this
report that was prepared by the other engineers that we
brought in to challenge the conclusions.
MR. DANIEL: Okay. Steam tubes. Steam tubes.
MS. STEMKE: My name is Janesa Stemke and I
live in Riverside. The last I heard before tonight
about the radiation leaks, I heard, "We don't have
statistics on that. We need time. We want to take
accurate measurements and these things take time."
That was the last I heard. That was back in
February or something. We need timely and accurate
radiation reports, released and made available to the
public immediately. And if they cannot be provided,
then you did not have the right to operate a nuclear
power plant in this vicinity or any vicinity because the
public needs to know this information.
And is there a radiation monitoring system
made available to the public for this purpose and if
not, it makes me wonder in the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission is actually paid on commission to keep
nuclear power plants operating.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you.
MR. WERNER: Actually, the N.R.C. does get
information, annual report is published. It is
important to note that the utility did measure the
amount of radiation, as Greg Warnick said. They have
detectors on the secondary side, the steam side and they
picked up the amount of radioactivity and they analyzed
that and came up with the release phase a couple of
weeks after we actually had a radiation detection team
from the regional office out here. They actually looked
at it and looked at the values and confirmed the
numbers.
MR. COLLINS: This is Elmo. I'd like to add
to that response. I really appreciate the question.
Actually, I heard three questions in there. One was
what about the specific event on January 31st. I think
we've talked about the actual measurements and that
computation was made.
And then I heard about the N.R.C.'s annual
report that by regulation Edison has to publish. The
question with that is that doesn't seem very timely.
How good is that? Every year, how is that being done?
I do think we're into the process of taking a
look at that to see as an agency if there is anything we
can do to speed that up. I don't want to speak and say
more than I know. But I believe we had had that
question before. I appreciate it.
The last point on maybe some radiation
detectors off-site. I tell you one of -- I have been
with the N.R.C. almost 25 years -- one of the hardest
things we had to do is one of the hardest things I had
to do was stand in front of you and tell you that there
is little to no radiation being released from San
Onofre. How are you going to believe me? You can't
feel it. You can't taste it. You can't touch it.
There is no way you can intuitively tell whether or not
you can believe what I'm saying. I understand that.
And so one answer to that might be -- I don't
know how we would get there -- but to have detectors
off-site so that they can be available for you. I
understand why you want that. Regulations don't require
it, but there may be something, a solution there.
Q. Why not?
MR. DANIEL: All right. Thank you, Elmo. Rick.
Q. Rick (? 37:04). I live in Irvine, California.
A couple of things. Realtime reporting over the
internet, the emissions would be greatly appreciated by,
I'm sure, by most of the people in this room.
My concerns about the tubes are: Mitsubishi
has been making these stem generators for quite a long
time. They have been put in all kinds of plants across
the United States and there may be some design changes,
but the basic geometry and flow in and flow out are
probably pretty consistent amongst all these generators.
I can't imagine that their simulations are
three to four times off and if so, how can that be? And
they are that far off, how come we haven't had these
problems in other places and why is it showing up now?
MR. DANIEL: All right. Thank you, Rick. Greg.
MR. WERNER: Yes. And actually, Mitsubishi
has only had two generators that are currently designed
and operating in the United States. One is -- well,
both, they are at SONGS and Fort Calhoon outside of
Omaha, Nebraska. Those steam generators are similarly
designed, but they are much, much smaller.
And actually we had the same concern with
wider terminal hydraulic model, underpredicted the
flows. And again, that's another area that we were
asking what caused -- what was it -- what was it in the
model, what caused those thermal hydraulic conditions to
be underpredicted.
We already asked for that also.
MR. DANIEL: I told you, we'll try to get back
to you.
MR. HEADRICK: You cut me off.
MR. DANIEL: No. We've got to hear from
everybody. We will try to get back to you, Gary. Just
a minute.
Q. So you guys want timely information. Go to
the internet. We have our own sources. If you would
like them, you can come see me later.
Show of hands how many people here are here
because they do not want any nuclear power?
We're here on a post mortem. A lot of these
things are viewed upon delivery. I was listening to the
earlier part of it. There were accelerometers that had
been put off and showed that there could be damage to
these things. If I was a clerk at Ralph's and I
accepted a shipment like that, that would come out of my
paycheck. Why isn't that going to come out of your
paycheck?
How many of these -- you've actually answered
this question. The models were off by three to four
times. The confidence interval there is straight off
the normal curve. Here is one about how long has an
investigation of this sort had to have -- how many --
how long has it taken for an investigation of this sort
to have come to a conclusion in the past.
MR. DANIEL: All right, Zeke. Thank you.
Greg?
MR. WERNER: To answer the question about
accelerometers, they were actually evaluated by SONGS.
We just had a concerned as we looked at them to make
sure they were properly evaluated.
They just weren't blown off. They were
actually reviewed. We wanted to make sure that we
understood, to make sure they were actually evaluated in
accordance with their procedure.
The other thing about the model, again, we
feel the same way as far as being underpredicted. We
don't understand it and that's the situation we're in
right now.
MR. DANIEL: All right. Who had some question
about steam tubes. Stand up. Come on out here.
Q. Contractor North San Diego County. I got a
question for Greg. These steam tubes, did I hear you
right? The statistic were flying so fast. 128 tubes
were tested, pressure tested?
MR. WERNER: 129.
Q. 129. Eight of them failed?
MR. WERNER: Yes.
Q. Were they randomly tested throughout the
entire amount of tubes?
MR. WERNER: No. Actually, if you go back,
all approximately 40,000 tubes had inspections completed
on them, and then numerous tubes were reinspected beyond
what was required. The tubes that were selected for in
situ pressure testing were actually based upon the ones
that had the extensive tube wear.
Q. There was no random test of the entire 19,450 tubes in Unit 3?
MR. WERNER: That is correct, as far as the in situ pressure testing.
Q. With a failure rate of 6 percent, you might have 1,167 bad tubes.
MR. WERNER: I'll let Emmet help me out on
this also. But the way the tubes are selected, again,
we're looking once the (? 42:11) testing identified
those tubes that would be susceptible to failure, they
go and they test them. Because they don't have
information to analytically say they're okay.
The idea is to go ahead and physically test
them to make sure they will or will not hold. And of
course, those eight tubes did not hold. And we
suspected that a number of tubes would fail. That was
not beyond what we did not expect to happen. We
expected a number of tubes. Actually, I'm surprised
more didn't fail.
Q. They only tested 148?
MR. DANIEL: Hang on.
MR. COLLINS: We need some explanation here.
There is a misunderstanding what we know about the
tubes. Emmet.
EMMET: Okay. Every time a plant conducts a
steam generator inspection, one of the purpose is such
to find tubes that are -- that are damaged beyond
accepted (? 43:03). Those tubes are removed.
The second question, a steam generator
inspection is intended to address is whether or not the
utility was successful in maintaining adequate safety
margins in all of the tubes during the last cycle of
operation since the last inspection.
Normally, that assessment is performed through
analysis of the inspection or any current test data of
each of the tubes. They measure the depth and length of
the cracks. They take into account measurement error.
They utilize standard equations for predicting girth
strength of tubing as a function of the length and depth
of the flaw. And then they, based on all that
information, they determine whether or not they have
maintained factors of safety against failure consistent
with the requirement.
These analyses tend to be very conservative
because a lot of parameters uncertainty and so sometimes
you predict through these analyses that tubes don't have
sufficient strength. It is a very conservative
analysis. In situ pressure test, then, are a way to
then more realistically establish the amount of safety
margin or confirm that you have the appropriate safety
margin.
So based on your earlier analyses done by
Southern California, any current inspection data, they
identified a significant number of tubes where their
analyses indicated they didn't have the appropriate
margin, but these were conservative analyses. That's
why we did the pressure test to determine for sure
whether they had the appropriate margins.
The rest of the tubes that were not tested, it
was very clear upon any current inspection data that
they had the appropriate safety margins. So just the
ones -- they just test the ones where there was some
question as to whether or not they had appropriate the
safety margin.
MR. WERNER: I'd like to add to that also.
Even before the steam generators were brought here to
site, did each steam generator, at least one time, if
not multiple times, was pressurized, the entire steam
generator to 125 percent of design pressure. So every
steam generator tube was pressurized to 125 percent of
design pressure.
Q. Which is how many P.S.I.?
A. No. Again the primary side, so we'll go
approximately 2000 pounds, so add another, you know,
about 2500 pounds, add another 500 pounds. So they're
all pressurized to 2500 pounds. The entire steam
generator -- it just wasn't the tubes. It was entire
structure.
MR. COLLINS: I want to make sure -- this is a
very important point that's made by the gentleman.
Understand what's been done at the steam generators and
what the condition of the tubes are today. I need the
team to tell me. I wasn't on the team, so I could have
a misunderstanding. 100 percent of the tubes, almost
20,000 of them, had the tube thickness measured, I
think, for the full length, right?
So we know the thickness and that data on
every tube, almost 20,000 on the steam generator, and it
was only those that I think Emmet described that had the
most wear that received the in situ pressure testing.
We know what's out there with these tubes.
MR. WERNER: It's also important to understand
that the tubes will wear during the normal operation.
As part of the inspection program, they go and look at
them to make sure even if they don't have a leak, they
inspect so many tubes as required by tech specs. Again,
the first outage they inspect 100 percent of all the
tubes.
MR. DANIEL: Okay. Steam tubes.
Q. I'm Russ Teasley, local resident, Ocean
Society. My question is did the N.R.C. or any of the
investigators involve do specific analysis of the
presence or absence of the stay cylinder, the primary
stabilization element of the steam generator?
MR. WERNER: I'm going to let Joel answer that
question. Joel Rivera Ortiz was on the team. He
actually looked at the design changes associated with
the --
MR. RIVERA: This is Joe Rivera. As part of
the A.I.T., we looked at many of the design changes made
from the regional to the new steam generators and we
looked at how the stay cylinder was changed from the
regional to the new steam generator. We reviewed the
design basis of the steam generators and how the
regional steam generators rely on the stay cylinder to
performed their function, which formed the basis for
operating licensing, operating license of the facility.
And we determined that the final safety
analysis report of the facility did not rely
specifically on the stay cylinder for the safety
functions of the steam generators.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Joel. All right. I
got to go to this lady in the green shirt before her arm
falls off. You had a question about steam tubes?
Q. Thank you so much. This happened on January
31st, correct? Okay. What would the tubes' strength be
on January 30th if we had had a serious seismic
challenge to that plant? What would it take?
They certainly were damaged the day before,
but they only broke on the 31st. Now maybe they were
damaged on the 20th or the 21st. What do we know about
how strong these were prior to? Aren't we just gambling
here? Aren't we just taking our chances? We aren't a
test facility here, a nuclear test facility. We're
families. We're a community. We deserve better.
MR. WERNER: Thank you. I'd like to answer
that question. Of course, the steam generators, design
taking into consideration the seismic. As part of the
in situ pressure testing, again, they selected those 129
tubes, as Emmet described.
All those tubes were pressurized -- attempted
to pressurize up to 5200 P.S.I., which is, again,
essentially almost three times higher than normal
pressure. So three of the tubes failed around what we
call the main steam line pressure, which was -- I think
the test was 3300 P.S.I.
Those are the tubes that we were concerned
with from a safety standpoint because they failed the
lower pressure. And then the other tubes failed almost
at or near the 5200 P.S.I. The rest of the tubes
maintained the pressure and they had full strength and
showed the integrity that they needed.
MR. DANIEL: Okay. Go ahead, Elmo.
MR. COLLINS: Let me reask that question. Do
we think the tube degradation, the as-found condition of
the tubes, had significant impact on the ability of the
steam generators to withstand the seismic event. That
might have been one of the questions I heard there.
MR. DANIEL: That's right.
MR. COLLINS: What -- did we look at that? Do
we have an assessment on we think seismic qualification
was significant on the impact? I hate to put the team
on the spot. That's the question we got, I think.
MR. DANIEL: Go ahead, Emmet.
EMMET: Well --
MR. COLLINS: We had the team leader. Now we
need the expert.
EMMET: The pressure tests -- the test
procedure calls for considering not only the
differential pressures that are at work during normal
operation and during the accident conditions, the safety
margin, but for the section that you're testing, section
of the tube that you're testing, you must adjust the
test pressure to the extent that loading from a seismic
event or a local rare fractionly or some other
hypothetical event, if that could affect the pressure
capability of the tube, that should be reflected in the
test pressure that the in situ pressure test was
conducted.
It was my understanding during discussions
that I had with personnel during the time that the tests
were done that at the sections that they were testing
that no -- that the loading conditions for size
differential pressure did not impact the failure
pressures.
MR. WERNER: Thank you. That's why I have
people like him on the team. A lot smarter than I am.
MR. DANIEL: What does that mean? Okay.
Clarification.
MR. COLLINS: Let me restate it. Emmet, you
check me to make sure that I say this in plain language
accurately.
Q. What magnitude are we talking about?
MR. COLLINS: It would be the ground
acceleration for the design basis of earthquake at San
Onofre so .16, but I think I heard Emmet say -- I'm
looking at him carefully -- based on those stresses
alone, the tubes would have retained their structure.
Is that what you said? No? Emmet is going to clarify.
EMMET: The test pressure, test pressures at
which the in situ test was conducted should reflect any
seismic that has occurred.
I think maybe the point clarification was, you
know, is how much does seismic affect the failure
pressure for the conditions we have at San Onofre. It
affected it -- it affected it in a negligible manner.
In other words, it was differential pressure that
controlled the structural margins for this situation.
Q. At what magnitude?
EMMET: Whatever magnitude they were required
to consider. I don't know that -- that's not -- I don't
know the answer to your question.
Q. That's another I don't know, better than the
verbiage.
MR. DANIEL: All right. Thank you, Emmet.
MR. COLLINS: I think we all understand that
it's not the magnitude. It's the magnitude and how
close it is to the plant. What the plant has to be
built to is what is the maximum ground acceleration at
this site, and then it's doubled. Then that
acceleration is doubled. For San Onofre that's .67 Gs.
That constitutes the design. That's the ground
acceleration at the site that the plant has to
withstand.
Q. Horizontal and vertical?
MR. DANIEL: Is that horizontal and vertical?
MR. WARNICK: There are component, horizontal
and vertical. I don't know the numbers of exactly the
horizontal and vertical, but yes that is considered.
Part 3
MR. DANIEL: Okay. We have a gentleman here
who has a question about steam generators.
Q. Thank you. My name is Jeff Stimens (?
spelling @0:008). I've got concerns concerning some of
the changes regarding the generators and steam tubes.
Previously, you stated that you did not -- that you only
considered two changes to be under the 50.59 rule. This
I'm confused by because it's my understanding that you
guys removed the stay cylinder. This should have fallen
under the 50.59 rule.
The change tube sheet, the thickness of the --
excuse me -- of the change tube sheet was changed. This
should have fallen under the 50.59 rule. The tube alloy
change. This was the only, as I understand it, thing
that was clear to the N.R.C. that was changed that
S.C.E. notified you guys of.
The additional tubes, 370 tubes per generator,
this should have fallen under the 50.59 rule. The
changed tube supports should have fallen under the 50.59
rule. The adflow restrictor should have fallen under
the changed tube report. Any additional water bottle,
the (? @ 1:10) water distribution ring, as well.
I would like an answer on each one of these as
to why they did not fall under the 50.59 rule. Thank
you.
MR. WERNER: I'll answer a general question.
I'll let Joel answer the specifics for each of those
items. Actually, all those items did fall under the
50.59 rule and they were evaluated in disposition. As
we indicated, only two of those required licensed
amendments.
Joel, do you want to come up and touch base on
some of those other ones.
Q. That's just a statement. It's not an answer.
JOEL: Okay. Just for clarification, when we
talk about 50.59, we're talking about Title 10 of the
code Federal Regulation Section 50.59. And that section
of the regulation establishes the threshold for
regulatory review for planned changes that are
applicable to that regulation.
And those changes that apply to that
regulations are changes to the facility as described in
the Final Safety Analysis Report. And that is why that
something that is very, very important, is how that
facility and the functions of those structured system
and components are described in the FSAR, Final Safety
Analysis Report because they form the basis for the
operating license.
We look at those changes and we assess how the
FSAR describe those sub components that you mentioned
and how they affected the threshold of the steam
generators.
As Greg said, we still need to review. We
have more inspection to do in that area. But at this
time we don't have any indications that those particular
components were required to -- for a licensed amendment.
The licensee did consider those in one other process.
This process is normally is two-step process:
You do a screen where you identify all the changes that
are affecting your facility, and then you move, does the
screen mean, then you perform the evaluation under the
criteria of 50.59. That process was done in the course
of the industry process that we endorse through our
regulatory guide.
MR. DANIEL: Hang on. Joel, stay right there
for a second. Do you have a follow up question?
Q. I'm sorry. I just want to know from the
audience. Does anybody understand really why any one of
those things were changed?
MR. DANIEL: Hang on. We are not taking
surveys. Thank you, anyway.
MR. WERNER: N.R.C. was aware of the changes
that Southern California Edison was implementing.
Q. All of them? All of them?
MR. WERNER: Yes. Yes.
MR. DANIEL: Okay. All right. Question?
Elmo, were you going to say something? Okay.
What's your name, ma'am?
Q. Marion Pat. I'm a resident of
Laguna Beach. I would like to know -- I've got two
questions. The first one is when the steam generators,
the four of them arrived from Japan, there were some
identifiable problems at that point in time.
They were severe enough to even consider
returning two of the generators to Japan. What were
those problems? What was the fixed that was done on it
and has it led to the 4-11 generators we are now dealing
with at San Onofre.
My second question is: We are continually
assured that the release of radiation there was very
small. I would like to know when those generators are
in the containment dome that is four-foot thick of
concrete and re-bar, why didn't it contain this small
amount of radiation? Why was it released into the
atmosphere when it was within the containment dome?
MR. WERNER: I will go ahead and take the last
question. I will let John Reynoso answer the first
question. He actually did what we call review of the
receipt inspection. We're not aware of any issues
associated with what you talked about. I'll let John
address that.
MR. DANIEL: John.
MR. REYNOSO: My name is John Reynoso. I am
part of the A.I.T. and also the resident inspector there
at San Onofre. The way I understand your question was
the shipment of the steam generators was made. They
never left Japan, the Unit 3 steam generators. They had
issues with the divider plate issues. The arrival of
the steam generators were delayed. Is that your
understanding of that?
Q. Well, my understanding was that they were
considering returning it. They were already here and
there was some type of fix-it done and then they were
installed. I just want to know whether the fix-its that
took place have lead to where we are right now?
MR. REYNOSO: I'm not aware of any of those
fixes that you talk about, but there were conditions
that were found with Unit 3 steam generators where they
were stored in Kobi, Japan. They took additional tests
here on site with the Unit 2 steam generator and they
were determined not to have the same conditions.
MR. WERNER: Now you could be talking about
the issue that was identified in Japan on the Unit 3
steam generator where it had the divider plate well
crack, that had to be repaired in Japan. That is a true
statement, as far as they had to take extensive repair.
I discussed that during the (? @ 6:56) portion. That
was inherent team specifically looked at because that
would be the biggest differences between the two steam
generators.
They did have to cut off, if you remember the
picture, the bottom of the bowl, the divider plate,
because of heated cracks, had to rework the welds,
re-weld the bowl back on and do pressure testing, as
well as post-weld heat treatments associated with those
activities.
But again, we did not find that those
contributed at all to the steam generator tube wear.
MR. REYNOSO: Now our process is that we did a
steam generator inspection specifically for replacement
of steam generators. We would not allow Unit 2 steam
generators to go in until we knew more about the Unit 3
conditions. That's what occurred. That may be what you
have heard. But at no time did we install steam
generators that did not meet our safety standard.
MR. WERNER: As far as your second part of
your question about the leak, about why radiation leaked
out is because the tube leaked. Once the tube leaked,
as Greg Warnick described, the tubes actually separate
the primary radioactive water from the secondary clean
water. Once those tubes leaked, it leaks radioactive
water into the secondary, which goes to steam turbin,
which is outside containment.
One of the principal radiation barriers,
primary reactor coolant system, which the tube is,
actually leaked and allowed the greater activity go to
the secondary side. That's why it leaked outside of
containment because the steam goes under the turbin,
which is on the secondary side, outside of containment.
Q. What you're saying is if there is a larger
accident, a larger leak than what there was, the
containment dome provides no protection?
MR. WERNER: If there is a tube rupture,
you're absolutely correct. The containment dome does
not. Like we said before, because of the ability to
rapidly detect at low levels, the steam generators are
isolated.
Again, the steam generators of the plant is
designed for a tube rupture event. So there is a
possibility and I don't believe -- I mean, Emmet might
be able to tell me. I don't believe we've ever had what
we call a steam generator tube design event where
both -- what's called a double-ended sheer where
essentially a chunk of the tube fails. You have leak
from both the cold side and the hot side. I don't think
that's ever occurred. I think we've had some failure of
one tube, but not a double-ended shear. Is that right,
Emmet?
EMMET: We haven't had any (? @ 9:30).
MR. WERNER: Not double-ended shear.
Q. Earthquake might do it.
MR. DANIEL: All right. Thank you, Greg. You guys good? That's it?
MR. WERNER: Again, to clarify, the way that
is combatted and prevented to minimize release of
radioactivity is (? @9:50) warning identified, the
operators identify, complete button up the steam
generators that close the main steam isolation valves,
depressurize it so the primary system is less than the
secondary system, so it stops the leak.
There will be some radioactivity released, but
it's minimized because of the actions that the operators
take. Again, as discussed before, it's a combination of
design, monitoring, as well as training of the operators
to rapidly detect and isolate.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you. Sharon Hoffman, go
ahead.
Q. (BY MS. HOFFMAN) Thank you. I have two
technical questions and a logistics questions. The
first question, I'm hearing repeatedly that this was
unexpected and I'm wondering what the N.R.C. is doing to
look at other replacement parts at other plants, whether
they are steam generators, active pressure vessel,
pumps, valves, whatever they may be where there was some
kind of change.
Obviously, when you're allowing replacements,
you're allowing changes in an attempt to make things
better. Clearly, the simulations don't show what is
going to happen. And we've seen that very vividly in
San Onofre. And I'm wondering how you are applying
that. Are you going back to look at every other
application of this sort that you look for in the last
10, 20, 50 years. So that's my first technical
question.
MR. DANIEL: How about the answer to that one
first and then we'll get your second one? Okay?
Q. All right.
MR. DANIEL: All right.
MR. COLLINS: Make sure I understand the
question. What's N.R.C. doing with respect to other
significant design changes that they are implementing in
nuclear power plants. I, specifically, for steam
generators, the warnings we're getting from San Onofre,
No. 1, we talked about we need to take a look at our
processes, our inspection procedures and potentially,
even our licensed amendment review process to see if we
need to put more into that.
Also, there is one other plant, at least that
I know of, that has steam generator replacements and
we're looking at them as, well, with that licensee to
understand the design. The real question is how do we
know it meets its design objectives when a design is
made like that. So that falls back to the engineering
design review, independent verification, all those
engineering principles that are at stake that we all
rely on for safety, yet somehow our life's experience
has shown us over the years that design sometimes is not
what it's cracked up to be. That's what we got to watch
out for at N.R.C. and make sure it does not have a
significant impact on safety when those types of errors
do occur.
MR. DANIEL: All right, Sharon. Your second
question.
Q. I would just say it does have significant
impact on safety and you might consider that precaution
would be a prudent direction and you ought to stop
making changes and stop letting engineering simulations
project what we might have. My second technical
question has to do with what about the possibility of
cascading failures. It's been discussed that when the
tube burst, it could have sent something flying into
another tube. And people have discussed here
possibilities of an earthquake happening at the same
time.
Engineering failures do not happen in
isolation and so I would ask the technical team to what
degree they are considering what might have happened and
what could happen in the future if that steam generator
went flying out, hit another tube, hit another tube and
next thing you know we have a much larger release of
radiation.
MR. DANIEL: All right. Thank you, Sharon.
MR. WERNER: Well, as part of the N.R.C.
process we do a risk assessment and we'll look at the
possibility of the multiple tubes failing. That's being
conducted right now.
So again, we initially did an assessment for
risk. That's why we lost the augmented inspection team.
Risk did increase by quite a bit. So yes, we're
concerned. It is a serious safety issue, like I said.
We share some of the same concerns you do. We've got to
understand what happened so that it can be prevented.
Again, there is no decision that's been made. Clearly,
if it had been, it be started up. At this stage, they
have not done enough to demonstrate safety.
MR. DANIEL: Logistics question, final
question?
Q. Yes. Logistics question is there was an
opportunity to submit questions beforehand. We were
told there will be opportunity to follow up with written
questions. What are the mechanics for distributing
answers to those questions and to any questions that you
were not able to answer this evening to the public?
MR. WERNER: Again, I'll take that one. The
feedback form that Rick talked about, actually I
believe, is addressed to me, so I'll take those
questions. And if you put on feedback form how you want
to be contacted, preferably by e-mail, if that's okay or
if you would like a different type of response, we can
do that also. I will have the responsibility, as well
as some of my team members, to help me address those
issues, those questions.
MR. DANIEL: All right, Mr. Dan Hirst.
Q. (BY MR. HIRST) I have two questions. I would
like to preface it by trying to say what I think many
people here are feeling. There is tremendous skepticism
on the part of many of us about both Edison and the
N.R.C. and their very cozy apparent relationship.
We wouldn't be here today if Edison had told
the N.R.C. these were significant design changes and we
should go through a licensed amendment process, that the
public can be part of the review. We wouldn't be here
today if N.R.C. had said we are going to do a licensed
amendment with a full public hearing and with full
review. In light of that long history of things like
five years of (? @ 16:38) fabrication fire, four years
of diesel generators without batteries attached, and so
forth, and the N.R.C. doing essentially nothing.
My first question to you is: Will the N.R.C.,
before A decision is made on whether or not to permit
restart of either unit, hold a formal, full
adjudicatory, evidentiary hearing in which parties, not
just Edison and the N.R.C. participate, but whereby
experts who are critical of both of you testify with
cross examination, discovery and a full evaluation of
whether it is safe to restart.
My question, directly on point about your
steam generators and determination that you want to be
transparent. I, for three months, along with numerous
members of the press, have been trying to get some
numbers out of N.R.C. And I would like you to give us
those numbers today.
In early February N.R.C. spokesman Victor
Drake (? @ 17:30 ) said that they had inspected only one
of the four steam generators that one being Unit 2, only
80 percent of it had found somewhere in the vicinity of
900 tubes that had wear, wear more than 10 percent.
Through months we have been asking how many tubes have
you found with wear and we've been frankly given the run
around.
We have just been told by Edison we only found
two tubes of trouble in Unit 2. We know that's not true
because in early February you had nearly 900. Would you
tell us today how many tubes in Unit 2, how many tubes
in Unit 3 have wear of greater than 10 percent and also
how many tubes in Unit 2 and Unit 3 have shown any
indication of wear?
Those are the two questions. Will you permit
an adjudicatory, evidentiary hearing on the safety of
restart before making that decision?
MR. DANIEL: All right.
Q. (BY MR. HIRST): Secondly, how many bad tubes
are there in total?
MR. WERNER: The tube question, I'd have to
ask Emmet for the exact count. I don't even know if he
has the exact count. We do have that information.
That's part of our inspection activity. But there are a
significant number of tubes that had wear indications.
The ones we've talked about Unit 2 were the two that had
tube-to-tube wear. That is where the large concern.
There were other issues on the other
generators on Unit 2 have to do with any Unit 3 retainer
bar, which I also discussed. Those were measured and
plugged to address that issue.
As far as the specifics, I don't have the raw
data in front of me. I can't remember all of that
information.
Q. Where will you publish that information?
MR. WERNER: We will publish some of the
information in the inspection report. I don't know if
we will go to that level of detail, down to 10 percent
wear.
Q. Why not? Why not?
MR. DANIEL: Hang on, folks. Hang on.
MR. COLLINS: Mr. Hirst, I just don't think --
there's almost 20,000 tubes. That data we don't have at
our fingerprints. We have that information. We just
don't have it here to relate it to you tonight. And I'd
like to take away a commitment. What I'm going to offer
is see if we can find away to get that data and put it
on our website and make it publicly available so you can
take a look at the info. Would that be acceptable to
you?
Q. No. Numbers in rough terms, do you have a (?
@ 20:22) Unit 2?
MR. DANIEL: Listen, how about this. He
committed to putting the information on public website
so that it's publicly available. Rather than him
approximating, how about he doesn't -- he's made a
commitment to do that. All right. Hang on?
Q. Is this a cover up?
MR. DEITRICH: Thank you for the question. We
will get you the specific numbers. Just a second. I
will share the percentages with you tonight. Please
keep in mind, we already mentioned that we measure on
each tube, on each of the 9727 tubes on each steam
generator, we look for -- there could be several wear
indications as these tubes move through the tube support
links. Rough numbers, rough percentages on Unit 3, nine
percent of the tubes in the Unit 3 steam generators,
19,454 tubes in the Unit 3 steam generators, nine
percent of them showed wear with greater than 10 percent
through wall indications. Nine percent.
On Unit 2, 12 percent of the tubes showed wear
greater than 10 percent through wall indication. Let me
share with you that compared to other steam generators
in the industry, those numbers by themselves are not
alarming.
Q. That's alarming.
MR. DEITRICH: What is alarming and the reason
we are here tonight is because of the unexpected
tube-to-tube wear. We will get you the specific
information with that, with those numbers. On Unit 3,
we saw 326 tubes, with tube-to-tube wear, greater than
10 percent through wall.
On Unit 2, we saw two tubes with the
unexpected tube-to-tube wear greater than 10 percent
through wall. So we will get the information out to
you. I will get it to you, Mr. Hirst. But for tonight,
nine percent of the tubes on Unit 3 with greater than 10
percent through wall wear. On unit 2, 12 percent of
the tubes with greater than 10 percent through wall
wear.
Q. (BY MR. HIRST:) Full power plugging limit is
eight percent. If those tubes continue to wear, are you
restarting over your plugging limits?
Second point, you say that this is normal in
Unit 2. Victor Drake from N.R.C. is quoted in the paper
as early February saying for Unit 2, tube wear we are
finding so much of is very unusual.
That's why you need an evidentiary hearing,
where not as, but independent expert, before independent
body. I'd like an answer to the question as to whether
we will get that hearing.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you. Thank you for your
question. We are going to try to get an answer.
MR. COLLINS: Tonight is the augmented
inspection team exit meeting. I think if you have been
watching N.R.C., you understand our processes. You
might even know better than I do, for all I know.
You know that inspection process does not
provide opportunity for hearing. I'm not defending
that. I'm just being straight forward with you to let
you know. That is the process we're in and we do intend
to follow our processes.
I will go on further to say that though
because we are so early on in understanding what the
exact resolution of this problem will be, I cannot say
we will have a hearing and I can't say we will not have
a hearing. It's possible when we consider the actions
that need to be taken by Edison that it will drive us
into the hearing process, so I just don't know the
answer tonight. The inspection process does not send us
there.
Q. One quick comment. The regional
administrator, the region in which San Onofre exists,
there is a large number of people you are speaking for,
all you have to do is say you will go back and recommend
there be a full evidentiary hearing. Will you do that?
MR. COLLINS: I have been back to my superiors
and with this question and we are in collaboration on
whether or not such a hearing is possible. Thank you.
MR. DANIEL: All right. Okay. Brian. Brian
Crosby.
Q. (BY MR. CROSBY:) First of all, thank you for
the opportunity to have these sort of discussions. It's
my understanding that there is a nuclear plant in Ohio
Davis-Besse that has recently discovered a similar
pinhole leak in that facility.
My question is to the N.R.C., what effects
will this have on the overall nuclear -- the overall
nuclear industry.
And secondly, just another quick question is
when this facility comes back up, is there a specific
percentage capacity that it will be operating at and if
so -- I know you don't want to give specific time lines,
but can we expect maybe a testing period and then shut
down and full-blown -- bad choice of words -- full
capacity startup?
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Brian.
MR. WERNER: I'll do Davis-Besse last. Again,
no decision has been made for restart and those
decisions haven't been finalized. I can't speculate on
what the power would be. There will be, if you look at
the confirmatory action letter, talks about a mid cycle
outage. When we say mid cycle, that could be two
months, that could be three months, that could be four
months. Again, that will have to be part of the action
going forward. Again, no decision has been made on
start up.
As far as Davis-Besse, I'm not aware of that,
but I know we do -- actually, Emmet might be able to
answer that question better than I. We are actually --
his office is working on information notice that talks
about some other recent issues with steam generators.
So again, just to reemphasize where does
occurring steam generators, the idea is not to have
unexpected wear and make sure when you do have wear, you
monitor it so it doesn't cause an issue of wear heavily.
That's why there is an inspection program. It is a
mechanical system. You do get wear.
Emmet, do you know specifically about Davis-Besse?
EMMET: Davis-Besse, no.
MR. WERNER: Okay. Did you hear that? Emmet
is not aware what's going on with Davis-Besse. Sorry.
Can't answer that. Again, there are several -- I want
to say three or four sites, that have had recent steam
generator tube issues that are being -- an information
notice that described what occurred is being put out in
industry.
MR. DANIEL: Mr. Campbell, do you have a
question about steam tubes?
Q. (BY MR. CAMPBLELL): First of all, I want to
say that Southern California Edison is a privately owned
company and if they made a decision that didn't produce
the most profits for their shareholders, then they would
be removed.
MR. DANIEL: Is this about steam tubes,
though?
Q. It's getting there.
MR. DANIEL: All right.
Q. This guy, Salzman -- I went to the (? @ 28:20)
seismic hearings in the fall of 1980. Salzman headed
the three-man atomic safety and licensing appeals board
panel, note that safety and licensing are on the same
board. They have approved all licenses, to my
knowledge, and to my knowledge, haven't granted any
upheavals. Then Chairman Salzman got appointed to a
federal judgeship shortly before he ruled Diablo was
seismically safe, you can rest assured.
Then the Dietrich fellow with Edison, I guess,
he mentioned that over the longer term life of the
plant, as if it's an assumption that we're going fire it
up and have a longer life of plant, and introduced the
fellow prior to re-start, as if that's the obvious
conclusion of that where this process is heading.
And regarding the steam generator tubes, there
is supposed to be difference in the vibration bars
between Units 2 and 3. Now Edison installed one of the
reactor vessels 180 degrees backwards, discovered some
months later, and decided to rewire the control room and
turn other things around to fit the backward reactor.
Is the difference in the tube wear possibly
related to one of the reactor vessels being installed
180 degrees backward, or what accounts for the
difference? Thank you.
MR. WERNER: I'm sorry. I never heard about a
180 degree backward reactor vessel. Can't comment on
that.
Q. At the San Clemente hearing I asked the
question -- I mentioned that and the guy said, "Well, it
is true one of the reactors had the out-of-design
orientation." It is not a backward reactor. It's an
out-of-design orientation. Anyway, talk to the guy that
answered that question in San Clemente.
MR. DANIEL: We'll look into that. Okay.
MR. COLLINS: At the risk of speaking for the
team, I don't think that's been identified as one of the
causes. The installed configuration of the steam
generators was compared and looked at between Units 2
and 3 and they didn't identify any configuration
differences in the units, the likely greater prospective
cause, I think for the issue.
Q. (BY MR. FALCHI:) Thank you for answering the
questions as best as you can tonight. There was one
that was asked about the damage that was done to the
steam generators and so forth, and how that might be
affected by the level of seismic activity that could be
expected in California, just as it was expected in Japan
when they were planning for a 7.0 quake and had 9.0
quake.
We had a 4.2 one last week in Whittier.
That's not too far from here and there is big one
expected sometime in the future, whether it happens
precisely in San Onofre or nearby, it will affect all
the steam generators and all that other fragile
equipment here that will effect the lives of 8 million
people. Don't you know what capacity earthquake in this
area this plant is built for?
MR. WERNER: As Elmo indicated earlier, yes.
It is based on ground acceleration, not magnitude. They
are somewhat related, but not related. Steam generator
tubes, again, during initial design, seismic is taken
into consideration. That's again, why the tubes are
tested to insure that they can maintain tube integrity
through all accident condition situations.
MR. COLLINS: I'll add to that answer. The
original licensing of the plant the seismic hazard was
established and it did take into consideration faults
and potential movement of the faults and the energy in
the faults, which would translate into the magnitude
earthquake.
Then you got to build the plant to something.
How would that translate over what distance, what's the
soil, what are the characteristics of that to translate
that energy to ground acceleration and decide. That's
what determined the .67 G acceleration that the site is
designed for.
Then in addition to that, though, because of
the accident in Japan, N.R.C. right now is requiring all
nuclear power plant licensees to go back and reestablish
that seismic hazard characterization based on the best,
the latest and maybe even have to go get some new
information about the seismic hazard, so we can make
sure we understand the hazard, make sure the plant is
built strong enough to protect against it.
It's a major important question here in
Southern California that we get this right. Thank you.
MR. DANIEL: All right. Thank you.
Q. (BY MS. GREENBERG:) Lenore Greenberg. It's
become obvious to everybody here that these tubes are
horrendously dangerous, unreliable, unpredictable and
represent a tremendous threat to our lives and the lives
of our families. I'm not so sure about whether safety
is the first consideration here, especially for Edison.
I think that profit is.
When it comes to these tubes, one of the
articles in the newspaper, I know this is some of the
propaganda of Edison, was they were talking -- already
started to mention it -- they were talking about opening
this facility 50 percent, or some level like that. What
I want to know from the N.R.C. people is would that make
those tubes safe?
MR. DANIEL: Thank you.
MR. WERNER: Well, again, no decision has been
made for restart. We don't know what that level of
power is going to be. Have to be evaluated. The
decision could be no restart or the decision could be
restart. That hasn't been made. I want to make things
clear. We don't know what power level it will be.
Clearly if they reduce power, there will be reduction in
the steam flow velocity we are talking about, but again,
that's not the only thing that's causing the issue with
the vibration. So there's multiple causes and multiple
corrective actions that have been to be taken.
Again, we are waiting to see what they are
before we can make a safety decision because we can't
make it yet. Again, if it was right now if you ask me
right now, again, that's why they are shut down. Right
now it's not safe.
Q. I realize you would not know the level, the
percentage it would be open. Would any reduction make
it safe? That's what's I'm asking.
MR. WERNER: Again, without looking at
multiple corrective action, I can't answer that
question. If it was right now no other changes my
inclination would be no. Again, don't have information
as far as additional corrective actions.
MR. DANIEL: Richard Mc Phearson?
Q. (BY MR. MCPHEARSON): Earlier in talking
about, I think, it was Emmet that answered the question.
There are some people here that are actually trying to
understand everything that's said. And the term was
used LOCA verification pressure weight.
Well, those sort of things I understand a
little bit, but some of the people around go huh? When
you're giving the technical answer to something, please
try to explain yourself in something that people can
understand. When you talk about LOCA, a lot of us have
lived with those for four years. A lot of people here
that are serious people haven't and they would like to
know what things like that mean. Thank you. And thank
you to the people that work at SONGS for what you do.
You do a great job.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you.
MR. COLLINS: Thank you for your comment. We
live and work in this business every day. Sometimes
these things just slip out of our mouth. We don't even
really realize we're not using plain language. We
appreciate your patience and your listening and your
understanding tonight. And we do try to convey in
language you can understand. Thank you.
MR. WERNER: LOCA is loss in cooling accident.
Q. Just briefly, I wonder before Edison tries to
fix these -- looking like huge problems -- before rate
payers get asked to pay for this, can you provide an
honest cost comparison with, say, solar panels, solar
energy or alternative energy?
MR. DANIEL: That might be a little off the
subject, ma'am.
Q. Not really.
MR. DANIEL: That's something -- I know it may
not be for folks here tonight. We are on certain topic.
That's a question that might be forwarded --
Q. Look at benefits of cost and of repairing it,
versus fixed this problems. Problem you're talking
about.
MR. DANIEL: Okay.
Q. Talk about pay for it.
MR. DANIEL: All right.
Q. How much is it going to cost them? Is there a
better alternative?
MR. DANIEL: All right. Thank you.
Q. Del Mar, close neighbor of San Onofre. In the
newspaper -- to answer your question about alternatives,
we don't need any alternatives because we have 40
percent surplus in every alphabet soup government
agency. Electric grid operator said we have plenty of
power. We will not have a blackouts this summer. To
answer that question.
That raises the other question: Why do we
need to take this risk, maybe that's off topic. Anyway,
in 2009 when they installed -- you're holding that. I
don't need to hold your hand -- when they installed the
first generator there was a quote in the newspaper, "The
new steam generator is designed to last longer," said
manager Mike Warden, manager of the steam generator
replacement project. "They are designed for 40 years,"
he said. "We expect we'll actually be able get 60 years
out of it. Better materials, better designs. You learn
over the course of the year what works well and what
doesn't and you try to build that into the next
generation. Then he has special team N.R.C inspectors,
specialists in steam generators.
I'll thinking about this quote, as I'm listing
to all these expert that we brought in and all the
different ones that Edison said bringing in, and I have
a lot of respect for your skills and everything, but
there's a limit and there's still a risk.
There's probabilities and you're talking about
earthquakes. Earthquake is a just a friggin guess, you
know. They come on suddenly. So I'm listening to this,
experts, what I see what happened radiation leak after a
year, we were just lucky it wasn't a bigger accident.
Why are we taking these risks for energy we
don't need? That's the bottom line. Why would you boil
water with something that can destroy California,
destroy our food supply. Also get to your house in
Texas. Why take a risk for energy we don't need? I
know you're working hard and putting a lot of time on
this. I appreciate all of your hard work. I feel like
Alice in Wonderland here dropped some hole. This is
just craziness.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Donna. Elmo?
MR. COLLINS: I think this -- I really
appreciate your sentiment. I can convey to you the
nuclear regulatory commission. We are established by
law. We have a certain job to do. We are not advocates
or opponents of nuclear energy to generate electricity.
What the law charges us to do is, if it is going to be
done, if that decision is made, and it's implemented, to
make sure it's done safely.
We're set up as an independent agency. That
was for a reason, because back in 1975, the wisdom of
Congress said we don't want safety question, that there
really be compromise to the extent it can.
Once that policy decision is made and laws are
put in place, you know, the agency is then charged to go
out and carry that. That's where we're at today. We've
got to make sure the regulations are met. I think even
beyond that, I worked with licensee enough to know,
they're working to reduce the risk. Your question is
why accept the risk using this method of generating
electricity. That's a decision that is not mine to
make. Mine is to follow the law. I understand your
concern.
Q. On the safety issue, it is a safety issues
dealing with simulations.
MR. COLLINS: Exactly. I agree with you.
Q. (unable to hear @ (41:460) Hazard.
MR. COLLINS: That was a key factor, we think,
from the steam and that issue has to be understood more
fully and resolved before the unit is returned to power.
Q. Can it be resolved?
MR. COLLINS: That resolution has not been
given to me. It is a difficult technical issue, I would
offer to you or the answer already been evident. They
are not. A lot of analysis, a lot of evaluation is left
to be done before the answer is produced. We will take
a look at it when we get it.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Elmo. We had a
question clarification for (? @ 42:52)
Q. Earlier in the evening there was reference to
decommissioning of Unit 1 and what happens to the old
generator. The comment was because it has more
radioactivity, it's sent to another facility.
I was on the California Coastal Commission
when Unit 1 was decommissioned and a lot of time was
spent on how to get this generator on a raft, on a barge
to go around the tip of South America to go to the
Carolinas. I found out after five hours on the web and
asking probably 10 people from Edison where it was.
They all assumed that it ended up in the Carolinas.
It's buried on site. Earlier reference was that because
these are more radioactive, they should be moved.
MR. WARNICK: There is a misunderstanding.
That is not what I said. I was not talking about Unit
1. I was talking about Units 2 and 3 replacement, the
old steam generators. Unit 2 and 3 is what I was
talking about. This is all happened within the last
couple of years. I'm not talking about Unit 1,
something that happened years ago.
Q. Wasn't that long ago. The question comes out
and question, I think, is communication between Southern
California Edison and the N.R.C. I wondered if you're
aware of the fact that it was buried on site.
MR. WARNICK: It's actually not buried. It's
in a vessel above ground. I see it every day.
Q. Okay. Why did you spend -- why did Edison go
to the trouble of these hearings and lobby the way they
did to move this, if, in fact, it was all right to leave
it on site? What happened that you didn't follow
through with the approvals that were granted?
MR. DANIEL: Thank you.
MR. WARNICK: It was years before my time.
MR. DANIEL: Peter?
MR. DIETRICH: The question, thank you for
bringing it up. We're conflicting issues. What you are
speaking about is the Unit 1 reactor vessel, which is
from the original Unit 1 reactor. There is only one of
those. It is still located on site on San Onofre. We
are now working with shipping specialists for being able
to secure a safe and insured and viable shipping
alternative. That work continues.
We have not concluded, nor is it our plans to
leave that reactor vessel on site. But we have run into
over the years numerous problems with proposed manners
of shipping that the original Unit 1 reactor vessel.
That is what the issue that you're bringing up
specifically relates to. We are working quite
diligently to continue move that reactor vessel to its
final storage location.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Peter. Going to go to
the back here. Theses poor folks back here being
neglected all night. I was only back here once. Why
don't you give us your name?
Q. Chris. My question is two. I heard different
questions on the restart. My question N.R.C. discuss
Unit 2 is separate from Unit 3 as far as restart? Are
you separating that process? And then the second
question is: Will you allow temporary fixes? I heard a
little bit of language on long-term solutions versus the
N.R.C. saying we are looking at final solution. What's
N.R.C.'s perspective on both the long term and short
term and what's the N.R.C.'s perspective on Unit 2
versus Unit 3?
MR. DANIEL: Thank you.
MR. WERNER: I'll take that question.
Actually, the confirmatory action letter does have
different actions for Unit 2 and Unit 3. That was based
upon tube degradation different. The wear was very
significant in Unit 3 compared to Unit 2. There are
actions that are different.
Now it is important, if you look at the
confirmatory action letter, one of the steps was to
actually determine what happened in Unit 3 and take
actions to make sure that same mechanism doesn't show up
on Unit 2. Does that answer your question there?
Q. Are we going to see a resolution on Unit 2 or
are we going to see a resolution on Unit 3 or are they
going to happen at the same exact time?
MR. WERNER: We anticipate -- I will let
Southern California Edison answer that also. We
anticipate them come in with Unit 2 first and then Unit
3, but, again, that hasn't been finalized. It could
changed. I don't know what the final would be. We
anticipate Unit 2 before Unit 3 because of the severity
on Unit 3.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you.
Q. (BY MR. KIRSHENER) Good evening. My name is
Jeremy Kirshener. I'm the emergency services
coordinator for the City of Dana Point, located right
next door to San Juan Capistrano. I'd just like to say
a couple of things really quick.
First, thank you to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission for all the inspection process that's been
going on with the steam generators and the routine
inspections that happen at San Onofre every day.
Also, I'd like to just briefly mention the
communication that we have as the City of Dana Point
between Southern California Edison.
On numerous occasions, Mr. Deitrich and his
staff have met with our City management, our elected
officials, our emergency staff to update on us what's
going on throughout steam generator process and this
whole issue. And we have routine discussions with other
San Onofre staff regarding what's going on with the
plant, status of inspections, and everything going on
currently. That's not something that's just happened in
the last few months or since January. Those discussions
have been ongoing since the city's incorporation in 1989
and even before that with the other jurisdictions.
From our position, the City of Dana Point,
we're prepared to respond to any type of emergency,
whether it's San Onofre or not, whether the plant is
operating or not. We hope that you would all do the
same. Thank you all for being here tonight.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you.
Q. My name is (unable to hear @ 49:09). I'm
naturalized citizen. I'm born and raised in Japan. I
have a couple of questions.
You mentioned that steam amount was released
5.2 millirems I'm not familiar with how categorize the
steam. Could you please explain to me about the amount,
of radiation in severts?
MR. WARNICK: The number that I mentioned was
5.2 times 10 to the minus 5. So that's .000052
millirem. I can't in my head do the conversion to
severts. I have a little conversion on my
phone that I use. I apologize. Here in the U.S., we
use terms of rem and millirem and (? @ 50:10).
MR. DANIEL: 5.2 times 10 minus 5?
MR. WARNICK: That's right. If you want to
get with me after, I can put it into my little --
Q. That was severts, right. The answer severt.
MR. WARNICK: Millrem.
Q. I understand millirems.
MR. WARNICK: That's the unit that we use in
the United States to assess radiation exposure to humans.
Q. Okay. Secondly, I hope I can find out the
level in severt (? ). I'm familiar with?
(GAP IN THE COVERAGE)
Part 4 (Audio Only)
MR. DANIEL: Yes, the allowed amount.
MR. WERNER: Essentially the regulatory
limits, 100 millirem, but there's lower limits. I want
to say it's 5 -- forgive me. I don't remember the exact
number. I believe it's 5 millirem for gas and 3 for
liquid. I could have it backwards. Again, very low
level. That's for a year. And going from memory, the
effluent that was released last year from SONGS was no
more than a 10th of a millirem to a member of the
public. So that would be 0.1 millirem. That's probably
too high by a factor of 10 approximately.
So 0.1 millirem was what was released, both gas
and effluent from SONGS last year. I could be off a
little bit. Pretty close to that value.
MR. DANIEL: All right. Final question here.
MR. WARNICK: Let me just interject. To make
sure we get your response back to that conversion, if
you could fill out a feedback form and ask your question
that will insure that we can get directly back to you.
Q. Steam, what kind of radio isotopes were (?
unable to hear @ 1:23)?
MR. WERNER: It's again, without looking at
specifics, I think it's argon gas. And iodine. Thank
you.
A. Predominant radio nuclei released were argon
41, Xena 133, Xena 136. I'm sorry. 135, and then
there was some iodine components to noble gas.
MR. DANIEL: Yes, sir. What's your name?
Q. (BY MR. JOHNSTON:) Al Johnston, San Diego.
You talk about tube wear greater than 10 percent.
What's the upper limit on tube degradation that you're
going to accept before you say it's bad and how do you
monitor wear, tube wear and vibration while the unit is
running?
MR. WERNER: On the tube plugging is limited
to 35 percent once you reach that level it has to be
plugged. Again, that's a simplistic answer. When they
do steam generator inspections before they restart they
have to go ahead and do analysis to show that that won't
be reached before the next outage because, again, if it
happens, it's not acceptable per specifications. They
have to go ahead and make an analysis to show that they
won't have that much wear before the next outage. I'm
sorry. What was your last question?
Q. (BY MR. JOHNSTON:) Are they able to evaluate
degradation and amount of vibration while the unit is
running?
MR. WERNER: Actually, there is no current way
right now that you can evaluate vibration with the unit
is running. It's actually being looked at as a
potential method in the future.
They are doing it on boiling water reactors,
which is a different type of reactor. Different -- a
little slightly environment, not as harsh, but it
doesn't last for very long because it is a very harsh
environment. You can't go stick it on the tubes because
you may create an issue. If that detector was to fall
off, it can actually cause tube wear and tube damage and
cause a leak. There are issues that have to be
explored.
MR. DANIEL: All right. Mr. Cruz has a
question.
Q. (BY MR. CRUZ:) Yes. Had there been no
unexpected tube-to-tube degradation and were there not
to be some major local seismic event and were everything
to go as projected, what would have been the minimum
extended life expectancy of this plant?
I ask this to get some idea of whether
Southern Cal Edison has a sound business plan.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you.
MR. WERNER: I'm not sure I totally understand
your question, but the plant was originally designed for
40 years.
Q. (BY MR. CRUZ:) I was thinking about
approximately 700 billion dollars already spent on their
renewed and upgrading of the plant. On the additional
costs, which will come from modifying the flaws have
been found and about the approximate loss of one billion
dollars a day from lost revenue. These tubes have quite
an expensive bottom line.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Mr. Cruz. Next
question.
Q. Given -- my understanding is that the plant
originally on its 40-year licensing agreement would end
in 2014; is that correct?
MR. (? 5:17) 2022. Essentially 10 years.
Q. Okay. So how did -- this is my first
question: How did the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
find it acceptable to have, as I understand it, two 600
million dollar steam generators approved for a plant
that only had 10 years left in the hopes that it would
last 40 to 60 years, given that my understanding is that
any machinery -- sort of a car, think of it as a car,
where if you don't do any tune-ups on a car, beautiful
muscle car that was built in, say, the '60's and then
you turn around and say, "I think it's a time for a
tune-up," that car doesn't -- everyone probably will
know it, if they don't already -- knows that that car
doesn't adjust well to that tune-up and it never runs
quite the same again.
I'm wondering, again, how the N.R.C. approved
new steam generators that will last 40 to 60 years when
the licensing only goes for another 10?
MR. WERNER: Again, that's not considered as
part of what the N.R.C. looks at as far as the economic
life and it's based upon safety. The old generators did
have some issues. They couldn't reach full power and
the utility decided to go ahead and upgrade. So we
looked at it, again, from safety perspective, not from
an economic perspective.
MR. DANIEL: Last question from this lady.
Q. I have a question about the exact design
change and since I have to include it in my second
question, I want to know whether the U design was
changed to a V design and if any of these concerns were
brought up by the whistle blower that was hushed
recently by the Southern California Edison company?
MR. WERNER: Actually, the steam generators --
Emmet might be able to help me -- the original steam
generators had what they call a square bend. The new
steam generators have you a U bend, actually shaped like
a U. The other ones were more a square type
arrangement.
As far as the whistle blower, I'm not aware
of -- you have to give me a little more details. I'm
not aware of a whistle blower.
Q. In the past a while back, there was a whistle
blower who came to light and I don't know what he
whistle blew. I'm wondering if those concerns were
generated in way on any of these issues?
MR. WERNER: I don't have any knowledge of the
individual that you're talking about or what the concern
was. Sorry.
MR. COLLINS: I would add, by policy and I
think for good reason when people bring us concerns, we
protect their identity it and that process to the
maximum extent we can. If we did know of it, I don't
think I would be able to convey that to you in that way
that might connect and confirm if someone brought us
concerns.
Q. Thank you. I'm Marten Magda (? sp @ 8:32). I
appreciate, Mr. Collins, you being here, again. I did
hear you last September. That's when I got most
frightened because you said 7-0 protection against
earthquake was adequate.
Now that we look at this steam generator
problem and you're telling us that it's only guaranteed
at 7.0 earthquake, and we look at the way in which I
hear the language sometimes "I think" or "it's my
understanding," and I remember Tony Eisman standing
there giving us a quote of a man who said, "These are
going to be the best. They will be wonderful." And the
response from one of you was "Well, that was before my
time." My question is who is ultimately accountable?
Who's name goes on this forever that we can
all say, "This name, this person said that these were
safe," because there is not a person in this room that
has confidence in people with the Nuclear Regulatory
system or Edison. The language -- I already knew when
you said tube-to-tube you were hiding something. You do
this to protect yourselves and I guess make us feel
comfortable. None of us feel comfortable.
The latest concern of these steam
generators -- not just earthquake can ruin things. We
haven't even talked about fire storm that could come
through 140 homes in Laguna Beach that every September
we go against fire storms. That could put all the men
working and women working at San Onofre at stake. And
what if we have at the same time steam generator pipes
that start crack, what are -- what is your back up for
all of these possible contingency and who ends up --
whose name goes on this for the history of the world if
we go to Fukushima? Whose name is saying this is safe?
MR. DANIEL: Thank you.
MR. COLLINS: In was a lot in your question.
I think we've already talked about seismic. Size of the
earthquake, I think, is translated in ground motion at
the site. That's what it's designed for. We are
requiring all licensee to reasses that seismic with the
latest scientific information that's available and
updated if necessary.
More work to be done on seismic to make sure
that we have a facility that's built the way it needs to
be built. With respect to whose name goes on --
Southern California Edison. That is the name on the
license. They are the ones that primarily take the
responsibility for safety to make sure the regulations
are met, to make sure that the facility is operated and
supposed to be operated and for this specific issue, you
know, to make sure that when steam generators are
changed that it's properly, design objectives are met.
That's my job as a federal regulator and we
conduct inspection program and assessment programs to
check that, to check that along the way so within the
law and within our procedures and our guidelines.
The name on the license bears responsibility
for safety.
MR. DANIEL: All right. Thank you, Elmo.
Charles has a question about the steam generator.
Q. (BY MR. MURRY:) It's Charles Michael Murray
from Laguna Beach. Am I understanding that the new
generators that have gone in on Unit 3 are unique, that
there is one that is kind of similar somewhere else, but
very unique and there isn't anything identical on the
planet that we can compare and contrast to. So the
situation is unique and we are being exposed to this.
Am I understanding this correctly?
MR. WERNER: You're correct these generators
are the only type of generators in the world. There are
similar generators, Palo Verde, Waterford, Fort Calhoon,
Saint Lucy. Again, these specific generators designed
by Mitsubishi, these are unique generators, the size
wise.
Q. (BY MR. MURRAY:) If that's the case, how do
they get approved to be placed in an environment with 8
million people?
MR. WERNER: Again, as we discussed earlier
they were -- they did go through the 50-59 review
process and we are still reviewing that process. At
this time we have not identified anything that would
have required a license amendment, other than those two
items I talked about earlier. They did go through a
license amendment review.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you.
Q. (BY MR. GENE STONE) Gene Stone, Residents
Organized for a Safe Environment. Would like to ask
that before the plant is restarted, that a cost analysis
be done by the California Public Utility Commission to
determine whether it is cost effective for the citizens
to have the plant reopen and within that investigation,
it should be considered the twice through cooling that
is required by state law, but both nuclear power plants
in California are only doing once through cooling and
have been given three-year extension because they say it
is too expensive to do. But the law is -- and they have
closed coal fire plants for this and gas fire plants for
this once through cooling. Why shouldn't Southern
California Edison and this be considered in the cost
analysis?
MR. COLLINS: If I understand your question,
it's about -- you requested some information be provided
to the California Public Utilities Commission and cost,
the implementation of the cooling that's employed. I
don't know if anyone from Edison would want to tackle.
I'm not cognizant the N.R.C does not have purview over
the interactions of the Southern California Utilities
Commission. I guess I'm unable to be responsive to your
request.
MR. DANIEL: All right, folks. It's getting a
little late and I promised one gentleman that I would
get back to him when we finished, so I'm going to do
that. I'm not done yet.
Q. (BY GARY): Thank you very much. There's been
some great questions asked tonight, much more
analytical. I tend to be more going with analogy of the
intervention. I thought it was important and I just
want to finish up my final conclusion.
It has been mentioned a little bit tonight and
I know there's some questions, gray areas,
jurisdictions. It's a real human question and I just
want to finish my thought.
It has been a rewarding game for some and we
are grateful, especially considering Japan's state, that
we have not lost everything in one bad bet. Nature
holds the wild card where anything is possible. So far
she has been kind to us.
We are here to tell you it is time to take
your wings and go home. Don't even ask to place one
more bet. That will only confirm your gambling disorder
and co-dependent relationship.
This is the time for introspection and
reconciliation. We look forward to getting to a place
where everybody wins, embracing the future with the
healthy renewed perspective. Thank you.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Gary. Folks we are
going to take three more questions and then I'm going to
ask that you submit any remaining questions on those
feedback forms that I spoke of earlier they. Are out in
the lobby on the table. We are going to have three last
questions and we are going to wrap it up for the night.
Do you want to stand.
Q. (BY MS. CUMMINGS:) My name is Tara Cummings.
I'm a pediatric nurse. One of the things that has been
in the news lately is that because of new information
about the external and internal radiation exposures to
children, the new recommendations now are that they do
not receive as many or as intensive imaging because they
found that they increase the amount of leukemia and
brain tumors in these children by seven times.
We have a number of children that live close
to San Onofre. There is a direct proportional increased
risk for Leukemia and other things and the amount of
time living near a nuclear reactor. We have lots of
different radiation exposures that continue to fall upon
us. Some are being released by San Onofre. Some are
coming over through the jet stream from Fukushima. Some
of it has been here since the nuclear testing that went
on in the '50's.
Who is adding up the total exposure for our
area? Some issues these radio isotopes can stay lethal,
harmful for hundreds of thousands of years. Who is
adding up the total and measuring the total amount of
exposure in our population and determining what little
at risk and how are the new information -- what do you
call it? The learnings -- the new learnings about the
true risks to human life being implicated into the
testing that's being brought done and the regulations
that are being used to determine the risk assessment on
this nuclear power plant?
MR. DANIEL: Thank you.
MR. WERNER: I share your concerns about
children with radiation. I have a six-year-old.
Actually, up until about a year and a half or two years
ago, I didn't realize how much radiation CAT scan,
that's the stage you're talking about the other day.
For your perspective, a CAT scan, whole body
CAT scan gets between 2,000 to 5,000 millirem for each
whole body CAT scan. Again, for a child that has to be
weighed, that's something you talk to the medical doctor
to see if benefit outweighs the risk. You're actually
correct. As compared to what the plant released last
year, like I said, it was around .1, 0.1 millirem versus
2,000 to 5,000 millirem. As Greg indicated, naturaly
occurring radiation is about 3600 -- 360 millirem, and
then from other sources about 600, 650 millirem per
year.
Q. (?Inaudible @ 20:05) Fukushima and what if the
tsunami starts spinning more our way.
MR. WERNER: Again, actually, those radiation
was measured here along the coast in very low levels.
Yes. Actually, it does all add up. But still very low
level as compared to, for instance, the CAT scan they
talking, you know, thousands of more times of radiation
due to CAT scans, which you get naturally.
MR. COLLINS: I'd like to add a few thoughts.
Your question about who adds it up, who takes a look at
the total picture. I think it's well-established, I
think, N.R.C. believes, you know, there is no threshold
linear relationship in any, any exposure to radiation
has the prospect. Now at the levels we're talking about
is practically negligible and incalculable.
There are many on other sources of radiation.
For N.R.C. licensed material, which is the nuclear power
plant and most medical uses, cobalt therapies and many
of the diagnostic treatments, you know, we look at
those, look at those radiation exposures.
In terms of risk to people off-site at San
Onofre, we are engaged currently with the National
Academy of Sciences to propel another cancer study to
see what the data does show with respect to that.
The previous study did not show a correlation
of increased cancer with respect to exposure from
nuclear power plant, but we are engaged again to redo
that study. It's a very difficult study. When you take
0.1 perhaps calculable dose compared that to 2 rem, 5 rem
from CAT scans and other radiation, how do you ease that
out in the study. That's what the National Academy of
Science is struggling with that right now, how they got
to do that. We are serious about that and we want to
complete that study as best we can. We'll see where it
goes.
Q. (? @22:42 Inaudible) During the last year?
MR. COLLINS: You're potentially referring to
the E.P.A.
Q. Right.
MR. COLLINS: Radiation potentially.
Q. Radiation how much -- (? Inaudible @ 23:00).
MR. DANIEL: We wouldn't be in a position.
MR. COLLINS: I just don't have the
information.
MR. DANIEL: We are going to here from Lynn
Harris Hicks next here.
Q. (BY MS. HICKS:) I live two miles from San
Onofre. I lived there for most of my life. And my
children and grandchildren are living in the radiation
that you put forth. And we know that it has raised what
they call a natural background. There is no natural
background of radiation. It is a man-made poison. It
is the worst poison we have every discovered to put out
to kill people. It is being used to kill people in the
countries overseas in the armaments. And we just can't
keep on doing this.
When you sit there and talk about -- you have
to look to a little more to see what happened on this
one and that one, and you don't have any idea whether
when you once you start it again, the next week it be
all over again in the different tubes because the truth
of it is that the metals are the basic fault here and
that won't be mentioned because that's the way the
nuclear industry has gotten all of its -- I shouldn't
say all of it -- the nuclear industry has gotten its
guarantees, loan guarantees, because without the loan
guarantees they couldn't build anything.
They waited a generation. I mustn't get off
on that. The point is when you know you have not been
able to create an alloy which can resist the terrible
disruptive action of this terrible technology, why do
you go ahead looking for the little bits of fragments of
what might have influenced making it worse or less worse
when our lives are in the -- our lives, they harm us and
probably more than because we are learning every day
about Fukushima that that radiation is coming over to us
and more and more people, particularly the children.
How can you do that? How can you look in the mirror and
do that?
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Miss Hicks. Charles.
MR. COLLINS: I'd like to just comment. There
is probably nothing I can say to say Miss Hicks. I do
appreciate her sentiment and her challenge to us as the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to make sure we do our job
with respect to safety. And on these particular issues,
I'll just tell you that we are committed that we
understand this the best science and engineering that is
available right now. And San Onofre will not run again
until we are satisfied. Thank you for your comment.
MR. DANIEL: Okay. Elmo.
MR. COLLINS: Doing time check. We have to be
out by 10.
MR. DANIEL: Okay. This is going to be our
final question. Charles.
Q. (BY MR. GRIFFIN:) My name is Charles Griffin.
I'd like to speak about the tubes. My wife just passed
away in December from lung cancer. But about the tubes
and you've learned tonight that this is a different
design. I've learned tonight that it's quite a bit
different design than what was originally there. And
why didn't it trigger -- I initialed the California
Environmental Quality Act in 1970. It was passed by
Nixon and Governor Brown passed the California
Environmental Quality Act. Why isn't there an (? @
27:43) Environmental Impact Report, the protection act,
why Environmental Impact Report for the tubes on this
and because it involves looking for alternatives.
Certainly we have cheap, natural gas and
that's certainly a workable alternative, we build a gas
facility at John Wayne airport. We can build local
ones. We can put it out in the desert. We don't have
to cover desert with solar cells. We also can build an
alternative utilizing hydrogen and boron and make a
fusion reactor there the size of a bathroom and you can
put in any substation and diversify this. Thank you.
MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Charles.
MR. COLLINS: Make sure I understand your
question.
Q. Environmental impact report. Why you haven't
done it?
MR. COLLINS: Thank you. Federal law tells us
when the Environmental impact statement.
Q. I got to go to court, judge decide
A. I'm sorry. I stated that poorly. That wasn't
what I wanted to convey. First of all, let me express
my condolences on the loss of your wife. I'm sorry to
hear that. The licensing, the N.R.C. and the
implementation of our provisions, you know, has those in
our regulations about when an environmental impact
statement should be triggered.
We believe we followed those regulations in
this instance, but we also acknowledge because of the
prospect for license amendment which might trigger
additional reviews and additional Federal actions and at
least a statement of no significant hazards
determination. We got to go back and do our inspection
and review and make sure we got this one right. It's
actually a question we're asking ourselves, as well. We
haven't arrived at the answer yet. Thank you.
MR. DANIEL: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry.
The night is wearing long. Please give us your
questions on those feedback forms, but before you go, I
want to thank you for the thoughtful questions and
comments that you all came out and asked. I want to
thank you. You have been a wonderful audience. Thank
you very much. I will let Mr. Collins have the last
word here.
MR. COLLINS: I just want to -- I already said
what I wanted to say that's my personal appreciation for
you taking the time to come out. Your questions, we
tried our best to answer your question and forthright
with it. To restate what we've indicated a number of
times, we're not satisfied yet. A lot of work has to be
done for this difficult technical issue. We will have
more meetings and we're going to continue to talk about
it before N.R.C. makes a decision. I expect I will see
you again and we'll get to talk about this some more.
Thank you for your attendance tonight.
|