Meeting Minutes



		MEETING MINUTES Yankee Rowe Community Advisory Board September 24, 1998 The fifth meeting of the Yankee Rowe Community Advisory Board (CAB)was called to order by Chairman Brad Councilman at 7:08 PM. The meeting was held at the Rowe Town Hall in Rowe, MA with 14 members present. CAB ATTENDEES Carol Angelo Brad Councilman Robert Gallagher Doris Lewis Anne Skinner Lenny Laffond Nina Newington Chuck Bellows Bruce Lessels Allan Twitchell J. O'Brien Locke Rick Williams Gail Cariddi Ken Plumley ACCEPTANCE OF MINUTES The minutes of the July 23, 1998 meeting were accepted and seconded. PRESENTATIONS Two speakers were invited by the CAB to discuss Dry Cask Storage and Transportation System Presentation Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, Ph.D., Senior Associate at Radioactive Waste Management and an international consultant on radioactive waste management issues gave a twenty minute presentation on Dry Cask Storage and Transportation System. Dr. Resnikoff stated that dry cask storage takes less maintenance than storing fuel in a pool. He acknowledged that he wrote a book in 1983 stating that dry cask storage was a good idea but at the time he did not anticipate how the fuel would be stored. He expressed that he has some concerns with dry cask storage. His main concern is the fuel becoming too hot as a result of fire. He feels tornado winds or missiles caused by sabotage could damage the casks. He would prefer thicker all metal casks to thinner metal casks with concrete overpacks because he feels concrete acts as an insulator and all metal casks have better cooling ability. Dr. Resnikoff claimed the NRC testing of casks is for a general accident, not deliberate sabotage. He said missiles could penetrate a cask as they can penetrate a yard of steel. He suggests that an earthen berm be built around the facility to eliminate the target. According to Dr. Resnikoff the NRC last checked what heat does to fuel cladding in 1976. Another concern he has is that the casks be built to fit compatibly into a repository. Dr. Resnikoff also wonders who is going to pay for these casks, the ratepayer or will the DOE reimburse the company. He claims there is no database for long term storage and he wonders if there could be embrittlement and cracking under pressure. His concern in transporting is that the actual casks have not been physically tested and that computer analysis is used. He believes they should test a real cask to have a benchmark. Jane Grant spoke briefly before introducing the next speaker. She informed CAB Members, who were unable to attend the meeting in Williamstown, of Yankee's position concerning spent fuel. She explained that Yankee continues to pursue removal of spent fuel from the plant site. While Yankee has contracted with NAC to design and license a transportable storage cask system, Yankee has not made a decision to proceed with fabrication. Ivan F. Stuart, who has over 30 years experience in the nuclear industry and who is presently the Senior Vice President of NAC International, also gave a twenty minute presentation on storing and transporting fuel. Mr. Stuart said there will be a total of 81 thousand metric tons of spent fuel by the year 2010. The repository in Nevada is designed to handle this fuel. At present there are 40 thousand tons of fuel, most of which is kept in spent fuel pools and a small amount in dry cask storage. The first dry cask storage was built at the Surry plant in Virginia near Williamsburg. There are 32 casks on four concrete pads. There are 120 containers in the US. Each cask weighs approximately 120 tons and can contain 10 tons of fuel. The casks are 7 feet in diameter and are 15 feet long. The NAC design proposed for Yankee spent fuel are: 1. Canister: made of 5/8 inch thick stainless steel, filled with helium (inert gas) and welded with two lids, this canister can be stored in a cement overpack or shipped. They are structurally robust, thermally efficient and NRC approved. 2. The concrete overpack portion consists of 2 feet thick concrete walled cylinder, lined with 3 inches of steel. The overpack weighs about 130 ton (loaded). Mr. Stuart pointed out that transportation of nuclear fuel has been conducted for years by our government. Testing for the casks used for transporting is conducted using a quarter scale model which Mr. Stuart explained is a scientifically accepted approach to testing. There are shock absorbers on each end and they are tested by dropping the cask from 30 feet to an unyielding surface. It is then dropped on a steel peg and dropped on ends, sides and corners plus a slap down test. The cask was not penetrated and was leak tight. The cost to test the cask was one million dollars. Several years ago a 75 ton railroad cask, once used to transport used fuel from Yankee to a reprocessing facility, was tested by having a train run into it at 80 MPH and dropping it 2000 feet from an airplane to a hard desert surface. The cask maintained it's integrity. Outside the US more than 80 thousand tons of spent fuel have already been transported. In France, many tons of fuel have been transported by heavy haul transporters. The DOE can and does transport fuel safely. Mr. Stuart said the 120 tons of spent fuel at Yankee is a small project compared to transportation campaigns that have been conducted to date. Mr. Stuart said no member of the public has ever been hurt transporting fuel because of the attention paid to safety procedures, and the industry is proud of this. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Nina Newington said she continues to feel that dry cask storage is an experiment . Mr. Stuart explained that transport casks have been used for 25 years, and dry cask storage for ten years. He further stated that stainless steel does not become embrittled and that dry cask storage is not an experiment. He said that it is well known when stainless steel will bend and melt. In order to benchmark the computer codes used in testing casks, Dr. Resnikoff added he feels that a full scale cask should be tested and that DOE should pay for the test since this is a whole new generation of casks. Brad Councilman asked Dr. Resnikoff what he feels would be the most appropriate thing to do with Yankee's spent fuel. Dr. Resnikoff answered he is generally in favor of dry cask storage but has some concerns. Assuming the fuel will stay in Rowe for along time he would put the fuel in more casks to decrease the temperature and build a berm around the site to diminish the ability to sabotage. Mr. Councilman added that he thinks the building on site now is more vulnerable than dry cask storage. Mr. Stuart, in reply to Dr. Resnikoff's concern of too much heat in the casks, said Yankee's fuel is older and produces less heat. Mickey Buchheit added that Yankee's fuel is quite a bit shorter and therefore even less heat is being generated than assumed by Dr. Resnikoff. Bruce Lessels asked what could lead to a temperature rise in the fuel. He was answered that a fuel cladding could fail, vents could get plugged, or a fire could engulf the fuel. The concern is the cladding will fail at high temperatures. Ivan Stuart pointed out there would be eight vents on the casks, four at the top and four at the bottom. The vents would have to be plugged for four days before the temperature would rise. Jane Grant told the group that Yankee has accomplished a lot and has completed most of the decommissioning. She introduced Don Reid as the new Site Decommissioning Manger and Mike Terrell as Assistant Site Manager. She notified the group that Ken Heider is now at CY, and that she is now the Engineering and Licensing Manager. Brad Councilman then asked if the group thought it was time to begin to break into subcommittees. A sign-up sheet was passed and members signed up for subcommittees that interested them. It was decided to meet again on Thursday, November 12, 1998 to discuss the subcommittees. The meeting will be held at City Hall in North Adams, Massachusetts. Gail Cariddi will secure the hall. The Meeting was adjourned at 9:19 PM. SUBCOMMITTEE - FINAL SITE SURVEY Gail Cariddi Carol Angelo Robert Gallaghar (MDPH, non-voting member) Anne Skinner SUBCOMMITTEE - DRY CASK STORAGE Gail Cariddi Nina Newington Leonard Laffond Charles Bellows Rick Williams Ken Plumley Bruce Lessels Robert Hallisey J. O'Brien Locke Respectfully submitted, Doris Lewis Secretary