[Federal Register Volume 61, Number 121 (Friday, June 21, 1996)]
[Notices]
[Pages 31964-31966]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 96-15838]



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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[Docket Nos. 50-029, 50-312, 50-344, 50-206; License Nos. DPR-3, DPR-
54, NPF-1, DPR-13]


Yankee Atomic Electric Co., Sacramento Municipal Utility 
District, Portland General Electric Co., and Southern California Edison 
Co.; Receipt of a Petition for, and Issuance of, a Director's Decision 
under 10 CFR 2.206

    Notice is hereby given that by a letter dated April 1, 1996, 
Citizens Awareness Network, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, 
and nine other organizations \1\ (Petitioners) requested action 
pursuant to 10 CFR 2.206 to modify the possession-only licenses of the 
Yankee Nuclear Power Station (or Yankee Rowe), Rancho Seco Nuclear 
Generating Station, Trojan Nuclear Plant, and San Onofre Nuclear 
Generating Station, Unit 1, licensed respectively to the Yankee Atomic 
Electric Company (YAEC), Sacramento Municipal Utility District, 
Portland General Electric Company, and Southern California Edison 
Company (Licensees). The Petitioners request that the U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC) take emergency action to require a 
collaborative effort by the licensees of the four nuclear power plants 
to document and research radiation embrittlement of reactor pressure 
vessels (RPVs) as an age-related deterioration phenomenon. 
Specifically, Petitioners request that the NRC: (1) Suspend the current 
plan by Yankee Atomic Electric Company (YAEC) for the removal, 
transport, and burial of the Yankee Rowe RPV; (2) require the licensees 
of the four permanently closed reactors, who are now developing plans 
to remove, transport, and bury their respective RPVs, to suspend such 
operations; and (3) require the owners of the four nuclear power plants 
to present substantial metal and weld specimens from their respective 
RPVs to the NRC for analysis in order to study and materially archive 
the radiation embrittlement phenomenon.
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    \1\ Don't Waste Oregon Council, Greenpeace, Environmental 
Coalition on Nuclear Power, Friends of the Coast Opposing Nuclear 
Pollution, New England Coalition Against Nuclear Pollution, Ohio 
Citizens for Responsible Energy, Physicians for Social 
Responsibility, the Redwood Alliance, and the Westchester People's 
Action Coalition.
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    As bases for their requests, Petitioners state that: (1) The four 
permanently closed reactors constitute a valuable asset for evaluating 
RPV embrittlement, (2) ``boat'' or scoop samples from the RPV could be 
retrieved with minimal occupational radiation exposure, (3) data from 
boat samples could be used to verify the veracity of simulated

[[Page 31965]]

embrittlement in research reactors, and (4) boat samples could be 
subjected to annealing or reheating processes to analyze the results 
for restoring ductility of the material and for determining the 
durability of an annealing process.
    Notice is also hereby given that by a Director's Decision (DD 96-
07) dated June 14, 1996, the Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor 
Regulation, has denied the petition. The NRC staff has concluded that 
sufficient information is already and will be available to the staff to 
satisfactorily and timely address such radiation embrittlement 
phenomenon in a manner which protects public health and safety, as 
explained in the ``Director's Decision Pursuant to 10 CFR 2.206'' (DD 
96-07), the complete text of which follows this notice and is available 
for inspection at the Commission's Public Document Room at 2120 L 
Street, NW., Washington, DC, and at the local public document room 
located at the Greenfield Community College Library, 1 College Drive, 
Greenfield, Massachusetts; the Central Library, Government Documents, 
828 I Street, Sacramento, California; the Branford Price Millar 
Library, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon; the Science 
Library, University of California, Irving, California.

    Dated at Rockville, MD, this 14th day of June 1996.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Frank J. Miraglia,
Acting Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.

Appendix to Receipt of a Petition for, and Issuance of, a Director's 
Decision Under 10 CFR 2.206

Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation

    In the Matter of: Yankee Atomic Electric Company (Yankee Nuclear 
Power Station), Docket No. 50-029, License No. DPR-3; Sacramento 
Municipal Utility District (Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station), 
Docket No. 50-312, License No. DPR-54; Portland General Electric 
Company (Trojan Nuclear Plant), Docket No. 50-344, License No. NPF-
1; Southern California Edison Company (San Onofre Nuclear Generating 
Station, Unit 1), Docket No. 50-206, License No. DPR-13.

I. Introduction

    Citizens Awareness Network, Nuclear Information and Resource 
Service and nine other organizations \1\ (Petitioners) submitted a 
Petition dated April 1, 1996, pursuant to Sec. 2.206 of Title 10 of 
the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), requesting that the U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) take action with regard to the 
Yankee Nuclear Power Station (or Yankee Rowe, licensed to the Yankee 
Atomic Electric Company), Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station 
(licensed to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District), Trojan 
Nuclear Plant (licensed to the Portland General Electric Company), 
and San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, Unit 1 (licensed to the 
Southern California Edison Company). These four power reactors have 
permanently ceased operation and are in various stages of 
decommissioning.
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    \1\ Don't Waste Oregon Council, Greenpeace, Environmental 
Coalition on Nuclear Power, Friends of the Coast Opposing Nuclear 
Pollution, New England Coalition Against Nuclear Pollution, Ohio 
Citizens for Responsible Energy, Physicians for Social 
Responsibility, the Redwood Alliance, and the Westchester People's 
Action Coalition.
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    Petitioners request that the NRC take emergency action to 
require a collaborative effort by the licensees of the four power 
reactors to document and research radiation embrittlement of reactor 
pressure vessels (RPVs) as an age-related deterioration phenomenon 
because an archive is essential in understanding the issues 
surrounding embrittlement of reactor vessels. Specifically, the 
petitioners request that the NRC (1) suspend the current plan by 
Yankee Atomic Electric Corporation (YAEC) for the removal, 
transport, and burial of the Yankee Rowe RPV; (2) require licensees 
of the four permanently closed reactors, who are now developing 
plans to remove, transport, and bury their respective RPVs to 
suspend such operations; and (3) require the owners of the four 
nuclear power plants to present substantial metal and weld specimens 
from their respective RPVs to the NRC for analysis in order to study 
and materially archive the radiation embrittlement phenomena.
    As bases for their requests, Petitioners state that (1) the four 
permanently closed reactors constitute a valuable asset for 
evaluating RPV embrittlement, (2) ``boat'' or scoop samples from the 
RPV could be retrieved with minimal occupational radiation exposure, 
(3) data from boat samples could be used to verify the veracity of 
simulated embrittlement in research reactors, and (4) boat samples 
could be subjected to annealing or reheating processes to analyze 
the results for restoring ductility of the material and for 
determining the durability of an annealing process.
    For the reasons explained below, Petitions request is denied.

II

    Irradiation of the reactor pressure vessel materials adjacent to 
the reactor core (the beltline materials), by neutrons escaping from 
the reactor core leads to embrittlement of those materials. This 
embrittlement phenomena causes the reactor pressure vessel to be 
more susceptible to fracture when subjected to operational or 
accident transients that cause overcooling (thermal shock) 
concurrent with or followed by significant pressure in the reactor 
vessel. Concern over this phenomenon has resulted in the NRC 
developing regulations to closely monitor embrittlement of reactor 
vessels. Additionally, to better understand and qualify the 
embrittlement process, the NRC Office of Research has a reactor 
pressure vessel safety research program that addresses the 
embrittlement phenomenon on a broad basis.

III

    The NRC staff has concluded that sufficient information already 
is and will be available to the staff in order to address radiation 
embrittlement phenomena in a manner which protects public health and 
safety, without ordering any of the four licensees to suspend 
decommissioning plans or decommissioning activities to supply metal 
and weld RPV samples for study. In addition to studying monitoring 
data which all licensees are required to supply, the staff has 
tested and will continue to test material from several sources as 
part of its confirmatory research program. Samples obtained from 
decommissioned reactor pressure vessels already do and will continue 
to supplement other embrittlement data.
    Licensees are required by 10 CFR 50.61 and appendix H, ``Reactor 
Vessel Material Surveillance Program Requirements,'' to monitor RPV 
embrittlement. Appendix H specifies requirements for material 
surveillance programs to monitor changes in the fracture toughness 
of ferritic materials in the RPV beltline region from exposure of 
these materials to neutron radiation. This regulation requires each 
licensee to monitor neutron irradiation embrittlement by placing 
weld and/or base materials (either plate or forging) that are 
representative of its beltline materials in capsules that are placed 
inside the RPV. Most plants have plant-specific surveillance 
programs under which the capsules are irradiated in the licensee's 
RPV. Some licensees are participating in integrated surveillance 
programs under which the capsules are irradiated in a vessel that 
has an irradiation and thermal environment equivalent to that of the 
licensee's RPV. The capsules are periodically withdrawn from the RPV 
and the materials tested to monitor the effect of neutron radiation 
on the fracture toughness of the vessel beltline materials. These 
programs have been reviewed by the staff and are sufficient for 
monitoring the effect of neutron radiation at all operating light 
water reactors.
    In addition to licensee programs, the NRC is sponsoring a number 
of other programs. NRC confirmatory research programs in which 
materials are irradiated in test reactors, and the effect of neutron 
radiation on the fracture toughness of beltline materials is 
analyzed, are the Heavy Section Steel Irradiation Program, the 
Radiation Embrittlement and Prediction Program, the Improved 
Radiation Embrittlement Correlation Program, and the Embrittlement 
Database and Dosimetry Evaluation Program. In the Improved Radiation 
Embrittlement Correlation and the Embrittlement Database and 
Dosimetry Evaluation Programs, the staff accumulates and evaluates 
data from power reactor licensee and test reactor programs and 
determines the effect of neutron radiation on the fracture toughness 
of beltline welds, forgings, and plates. In connection with these 
issues, the staff has documented in Regulatory Guide 1.99, Revision 
2, ``Radiation Embrittlement of Reactor Vessel Materials,'' a 
methodology for determining the effect of neutron radiation on 
reactor vessel welds, forgings, and plates. The methodology in 
Regulatory Guide 1.99 includes a margin term to account for the

[[Page 31966]]

uncertainties in the material properties and the radiation 
environment. As the NRC staff accumulates more surveillance data 
from licensees, it periodically evaluates the data to determine 
whether the Regulatory Guide 1.99 methodology needs revision. The 
licensee surveillance database consists of data from several hundred 
licensee capsules.
    The Heavy Section Steel Irradiation Program provides 
experimental evaluation of the effects of chemistry and radiation 
environment on the irradiation embrittlement of reactor pressure 
vessel steels, including the effects of thermal aging, recovery of 
fracture toughness by thermal annealing, and reembrittlement trends 
on annealed reactor vessel materials. This program, in conjunction 
with the Radiation Embrittlement and Prediction Program, is 
developing improved methods for predicting irradiation 
embrittlement. Both programs are evaluating, experimentally and 
analytically, the mechanisms that control irradiation embrittlement 
to justify extrapolation of the empirical model to predict plant-
specific irradiation embrittlement. These programs are validating 
the analytical and empirical models through the testing of service 
degraded reactor vessel materials.
    The NRC staff's recommended methodology for determining the 
effect of thermal annealing on RPV embrittlement is documented in 
Regulatory Guide 1.162, ``Format and Content of Report for Thermal 
Annealing of Reactor Pressure Vessels.'' NUREG/CR-6327, ``Models for 
Embrittlement Recovery due to Annealing of Reactor Pressure Vessel 
Steels,'' contains the data and evaluation that form the bases for 
the percent recovery of radiation embrittlement from thermal 
annealing that is documented in Regulatory Guide 1.162. The thermal 
annealing rule, 10 CFR 50.66, requires that each licensee performing 
a thermal anneal must monitor the post-anneal reembrittlement trend 
using a surveillance program that conforms with the intent of 
appendix H. The effect of thermal annealing on RPV embrittlement is 
adequately addressed by requiring licensees to monitor the post-
anneal reembrittlement trend through a surveillance program and by 
use of the Regulatory Guide 1.162 methodology.
    Based on analysis performed by licensees and the NRC, the staff 
has concluded that the overall integrity analyses, including the 
various margins, are conservative and that they provide reasonable 
assurance that the vessels can withstand normal operation and 
accident conditions. Furthermore, each licensee must bear the burden 
of demonstration the adequacy of its pressure vessel to withstand 
the effects of a transient causing overcooling concurrent with or 
followed by significant pressure when the methodology of Regulatory 
Guide 1.99, Revision 2, does not predict an acceptable result. 
Should a licensee not be able to demonstrate, or be unwilling to 
expend the resources to demonstrate, the adequacy of its pressure 
vessel (which may include actual samples of base material), the 
plant must be shutdown as was the case for Yankee Rowe.
    Test material from the Yankee Rowe pressure vessel would not be 
of value in estimating the level of embrittlement, thermal annealing 
recovery, and reembrittlement after annealing at currently operating 
U.S. facilities. The Yankee Rowe reactor operated at a lower 
temperature than typical of operating plants, making any data on 
embrittlement from Yankee Rowe difficult to correlate with other 
light water reactor designs in the U.S.
    Samples from the Rancho Seco vessel would not provide useful 
information since equivalent weld material and vessel wall samples 
are available from the Babcock and Wilcox Owners Group and from the 
canceled Midland Nuclear Plant. These samples are currently being 
evaluated in a program that irradiates the samples in test reactors. 
These components and samples, taken from power reactors and 
irradiated in test reactors, will provide data that could be 
correlated to other sample research programs that utilize research 
reactors.
    The licensee for the San Onofre 1 reactor has submitted a 
decommissioning plan to the NRC that proposes SAFSTOR, or long-term 
storage of the facility, until the licenses for San Onofre Units 2 
and 3 expire, sometime after 2013. Therefore, the Unit 1 vessel will 
remain onsite and in a condition that would allow samples of test 
material to be obtained for a substantial period of time, should it 
be determined that such samples would be useful for study.
    The Trojan Nuclear Plant is currently undergoing active 
dismantlement. Portland General Electric, the licensee, is planning 
to remove the reactor vessel and dispose of it at the Hanford, 
Washington low-level burial site no earlier than 1998. The staff 
currently is pursuing the possibility of obtaining samples from the 
reactor vessel once the reactor vessel reaches the burial site.
    For the above reasons, the staff concludes that sufficient 
information is already and will be available to appropriately and 
timely address the radiation embrittlement phenomenon.

IV. Conclusion

    the Petitioners have not provided sufficient bases to warrant 
the suspension of decommissioning plans or activities at the four 
nuclear power plants in order to take specimens of reactor vessels 
for the purpose of studying nuclear power reactor pressure vessels 
radiation embrittlement phenomena. Moreover, as explained above, 
sufficient information is available to the staff to address such 
radiation embrittlement phenomena in a manner which protects public 
health and safety without the issuance of an order. Accordingly, for 
the reasons discussed above, the Petition, including the request to 
take emergency actions is denied.
    A copy of this Director's Decision will be filed with the Office 
of the Secretary for the Commission to review in accordance with 10 
CFR 2.206(c). As provided by Sec. 2.206(c), this decision will 
constitute the final action of the Commission 25 days after 
issuance, unless the Commission, on its own motion, institutes a 
review of the decision within that time.

    Dated at Rockville, MD, this 14th day of June 1996.

Frank J. Miraglia,
Acting Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 96-15838 Filed 6-20-96; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-M