Minutes - 12-06-2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

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forum. He thinks that Orange County has a case that is far more solid and well grounded than any previous case. There were several questions about the vulnerability of the Harris plant from natural disasters, particularly any kind of explosion or terrorist attack, extreme weather conditions, etc. Dr. Thompson said that the vulnerability to sabotage and terrorism is very real. After a lot of protests, the NRC required its reactor licensees to have vehicle barriers in place to keep suspect vehicles at a greater distance. There are extensive security provisions on the site. He said that there were numerous cases where an inside person could cause a reactor accident, acting alone. Regarding natural disasters, the Harris plant is pretty well protected against tornadoes and hurricanes because of the heavy concrete construction. Off-site power would be the most vulnerable feature of the plant. Do you think that there will be a national repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain or anywhere in the United States anytime soon? Dr. Thompson said that the federal government has accepted responsibility far tang-term storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel. The utility companies have been paying the federal government to provide this service. The government has failed to meet its deadline for doing so, and there have been lawsuits that have obliged the government to pay back this money. The government is proceeding with one possible repository site, Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The licensing of this will require that the federal government, in the form of The Department of Energy, to apply to itself in the farm of the NRC for a license to construct and operate the repository inside this mountain. In addition, there is a plan to develop an interim storage facility nearby. This would be a monitored retrievable storage facility, which would use dry storage technology and fuel would be transported from around the country to this facility and placed underground in the mountain. The technology for having surface storage at Yucca Mountain exists today. Whether or not it will be implemented is purely a political question and not a technical one. Congress has, for several years in succession, voted in favor of shipping fuel to this surface facility and it has been vetoed by the President. He said that it was fairly clear under the Bush administration that there would be no such veto and a surface storage facility would exist in Nevada, perhaps beginning to operate within 5-10 years. The underground repository has some technical issues. By law, there has to be a licensing process and the public in Nevada can intervene. Can you comment on the legal requirements for CP&L to ensure itself against a potential accident with the spent fuel or any other potential large release? Dr. Thompson passed an this question. There were several questions about Dr. Thompson's original comments on the probability of an accident. Dr. Thompson said that the minimum probability number that he came up with, 1.6 by 10 to the -5, is based on previously conducted studies by the NRC staff and by CP&L. This number is 1.6 in 100,000 reactor years, which over a 30-year period is a one in 2000 probability of a pool fire. With 100 plants around the country, that is a one in 20 chance of a pool fire over a 30-year period. (Someone from the audience asked a question, but it did not pick upon the tape.) Dr. Thompson said that a decision on what matters and what does not is not a technical question. He said that his job was not to decide whether it matters ar nat. He said that he extrapolated the numbers nationwide because pool fires in other states could affect North Carolina significantly. Of the 100 plants in the United States over the last 20 years, how many have been involved in accidents? Dr. Thompson said that the United States has accumulated approximately 2000 reactor years in the history of commercial nuclear power. In that time, there has been one care melt accident in 1979. Worldwide, there have been 7,000 reactor years and there have been two core melt accidents, one in 1979 and one in 1986. There has never been a pool fire. How long must spent fuel stay in pools before it can be transferred to dry cask?