New England Coalition VT. NH. ME. MA. RI. CT. NY - POST OFFICE BOX 545, BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT (802)

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1 New England Coalition VT. NH. ME. MA. RI. CT. NY - POST OFFICE BOX 545, BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT (802) May 10, 2005 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Raymond Shadis (207) New England Coalition Technical Comments Halt NRC Licensing of Holtec Dry Nuclear Fuel Caskets US Nuclear Regulatory Commission official, Mark Delligatti, of the Office of Nuclear Materials Safeguards and Safety, informed New England Coalition (NEC) by phone yesterday (May 9) that technical comments submitted by NEC on April 30 had resulted in the withdrawal of planned NRC approval of design modifications to a nuclear fuel storage casket intended for use at the Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor in Vernon, VT. The casket, a Hi-Storm 100 dry fuel Storage container that is a product of New Jersey-based, Holtec International, is currently the focus of debate in the Vermont Legislature where lawmakers are considering whether to give preliminary approval to its use before sending the question on for consideration by the Vermont Public Service Board. The proposed amendment to HOLTEC s Hi-Storm 100 Certificate of Compliance, contains numerous proposed changes to the design of the system, including to the materials used in construction, changes to the types of fuel that can be loaded, changes to shielding and confinement methodologies and assumptions, revisions to various temperature limits, changes in allowable fuel enrichments, and more. Raymond Shadis, Staff Technical Advisor for NEC noted that it is extremely rare for safety concerns brought forward by a citizen s group to be given such prompt and affirmative response by NRC Staff. The licensing process for these containers, which are supposed to hold for at least 100 years the most pernicious toxin known, has become a matter of routine for the industry and the NRC, said Shadis. They spent over 1-1/2 years processing the Holtec application, but the applicants work was, in our view, technically indefensible. We found multiple issues that neither industry nor, apparently, the NRC had considered. Delligatti, who is with NRC s the Office of Nuclear Materials Safeguards and Safety, noted New England Coalition s concern with the shortness of the public

2 comment period and assured Shadis that the group could use the NRCs extended review period of approximately two to three months to file additional technical critique. This is a major and timely victory for New England Coalition and the people of the region, said NEC executive director Peter Alexander. The Vermont Legislature is even now considering a proposal by Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee to move high-level radioactive waste into Holtec Hi-Storm 100 caskets. Entergy s assurances of casket safety, made to the Legislature and the people of Vermont, must now be looked at in a new light. Not only is the manufacturer in the throes of changing the casket design the NRC now agrees with NEC s analysis that there are numerous unresolved technical and safety issues with the new design. HOLTEC International applied almost two years ago for an amendment (No.2) to their NRC certificate of Compliance (license). On February 28th, 2005, NRC published Federal Register Notice that NRC was ready to issue approval of the amendment by direct rule on May 26th unless "significant adverse comments" were received by March 30th. "Significant," in this use, means that comments must be technically and legally supported and of such serious consequence as to cause the NRC staff to alter its decision. On March 30th NEC s Raymond Shadis asked for an extension of time to file. In mid-april NRC informed NEC that comments could be filed until April 30th. After consulting with three experts, casket construction, fuel, and radiation protection, Shadis filed on April 30th. Yesterday, May 9th, Shadis received word from NRC that they were withdrawing their approval of the amendment pending resolution of the issues that NEC raised. NRC estimated that this would not happen sooner than two or three months and that NEC would be welcome to complete review of the amendment application and file additional comments in the interim. In February, HOLTEC also filed application for amendment no.3. NRC has promised to keep NEC in the loop for correspondence on this third application. In sum, said Shadis, ENVY is either ordering the old, unimproved cask or they are ordering the new unapproved casket. END-- * The Licensing Process: NRC issued, through rulemaking, a General License describing the criteria to which all dry storage caskets must comply. As each

3 new design (or major modification) is proposed, NRC rules on its compliance with the General License and issues a Certificate of Compliance. This process is intended to streamline review and eliminates the opportunity for formal hearings on each individual fuel storage system. COPY OF NEC s Technical Comments as submitted to NRC: New England Coalition VT. NH. ME. MA. RI. CT. NY - POST OFFICE BOX 545, BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT (802) May 2, 2005 By [SCY@nrc.gov] Copy to Ms. Jayne M. Mc Causland, USNRC [imm2@nrc.gov] Secretary U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff Re: RIN 3150-AH64 Amendment No.2 to Certificate of Compliance Number (CoC No.) 1014, Holtec International Hi-Storm 100 cask Dear Secretary and Staff, On March 30, 2005, New England Coalition, a non-profit environmental advocacy organization incorporated in the State of Vermont, requested an extension of time in which to file comments on the proposed direct final rule captioned above. By letter dated April 12, 2005, NRC extended the deadline and agreed to accept comments from New England Coalition until April 30, In consideration that April 30th fell on a Saturday, and in accordance with time calculation provisions of 10 CFR 2, New England Coalition, respectfully submits its comments this next business day, May 2, Although New England Coalition was pleased and somewhat relieved to have the additional time for comment, we report with regret that documents vital to our

4 review remained elusive and otherwise difficult to retrieve from the NRC Agencywide Document Access and Retrieval System (ADAMS). For example, an attempt to search under the terms, HOLTEC and FSAR yielded voluminous extraneous material that required long hours of precious time to sift for relevant documents. Some documents were simply not retrievable in usable form. For example the document referenced in the ADAMS search result table below was only available in a scanned, unofficial, and highly flawed text version, shot through with typographical errors and confused formatting. A tiff or pdf version simply could not be raised on the ADAMS web page. 52. (82)HI-Storm 100 Certificate of Compliance 1014, HI-Storm License Amendment Request , Attachment 1 - Section 3.6, Page 3-21.ML RFPFR 1014 TAC L ' 0' - 0~ 0 ½ S if) 0* 0~ ROs U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ATTN: Document Control Desk Document ID Attachment I Pagelofl8 INFORMATION NEEDED TO REVIEW HI-STORM 100, AMENDMENT 2 Te Perforce, New England Coalition s comments, based largely on review of the Safety Evaluation Report (SER), are quite broadly drawn and also quite brief: 1. Most changes in this Certificate of Compliance (CoC)/Amendment, though not all, appear to diminish engineering conservation and increase impact or risk. While these changes all appear to be within the bounds of regulation, it is not apparent that NRC or the CoC holder have demonstrated that diminished engineering conservation and increased impact or risk are offset by gains and benefits elsewhere. Examples of changes with significant negative impact include; Incorporating the storage of high burnup fuel, resulting in increased heat and radiation stress on fuel and components as well as increased radiation exposure to workers and the environment. Raising maximum permissible fuel cladding temperatures per Proposed Change Number 15a in LAR 1014 to incorporate a permissible single spent fuel cladding temperature limit of 4000C. Holtec s interpretation of revised guidance in ISO-11, Revision 2 has resulted in elimination of all FSAR /CoC description of how the permissible spent fuel-cladding temperatures were computed for low burnup fuel and, citing changes in the guidance pertaining to peak clad temperature limits, cladding strain, and cladding oxide thickness, Holtec has also moved to completely eliminate FSAR Appendix 4.A for high burnup fuel. The net effect is the loss of ready access to documentation of reference data regarding the mechanical, creep, and hydride properties of various cladding types for the design temperature/stress regimes. While we can construct no scenarios, short of sabotage, where temperatures of 4000C would be achieved, if the canister were breached to allow exit of coolant gas; it would also allow the entrance of oxygen; and thus potential for a zirconium cladding exothermic reaction should be considered. No benefit, necessity, or cost consideration is included.

5 2. NRC staff state that no review of the existing CoC was repeated. We believe that this may be an error if it also means that no review was undertaken to ascertain if the changes affect conditions, assumptions, and other inputs in determining compliance in the original application. 3. The SER would allow the storage of damaged fuel in the multi purpose canister (MPC) -32 and damaged fuel and damaged fuel debris in the MPC-32F. Additionally, include appropriate values for soluble boron for MPC-32 and MPC- 32F based on fuel assembly array/class, intact versus damaged fuel, and initial enrichment. [Emphasis added] A definition of damaged fuel vs. fuel debris including a bounding description of damaged fuel and fuel debris should be included. Damaged fuel could range from a rod that marginally failed a leak test to a fuel fragment. Small, unclad bits of fuel would need to be properly containerized and those containers certified to some degree. 4. The SER has it that, the change requested in this amendment affected the inspection and leak testing of the final closure welds. The applicant applied the criteria described in ISG-15, Materials Evaluation and ISG-18, The Design/Qualification of Final Closure Welds on Austenitic Stainless Steel Canisters as Confinement Boundary for Spent Fuel Storage and Containment Boundary for Spent Fuel Transportation in the amendment request. ISG-15 provides an NRC approved alternative to the ASME Code for the inspection of final closure welds for austenitic materials. The inspection techniques described by ISG-15 will detect any such flaws which could lead to a failure. In addition, ISG-18 states that when the closure welds of austenitic stainless steel canisters are executed in accordance with ISG-15, the staff concludes that no undetected flaws of significant size will exist. Therefore, the staff has reasonable assurance that this inspection demonstrates no credible leakage would occur from the final closure welds of austenitic stainless steel canisters. ISG-18 removes the need for a helium leak test of the final closure welds in accordance with ANSI N14.5. [Italics and bold added] Inspection systems have, in the past, not been considered adequate for critical welds. A proof-system is typically required due to the consequence of container leakage for failure. It should also be noted that helium is used as a leak test agent due to its small size and inert properties. We do not credit that the referred-to inspection system or any inspection system that could be used expeditiously can detect flaws at the molecular level. Therefore, it is possible by this revised process to approve welds that may have ordinarily failed a helium leak test. This change could constitute a significant reduction in the gas-tight certification of the containers. 5. The SER has it at Section 2.3.5, Criticality, The criticality analysis is

6 presented in Chapter 6 of the FSAR. The design criterion for criticality safety is that the effective neutron multiplication factor, including statistical biases and uncertainties, does not exceed 0.95 under normal, off-normal and accident conditions. The design features relied upon to prevent criticality are the fuel basket geometry and permanent neutron-absorbing materials. The continued efficacy of the neutron-absorbing materials over a 20-year storage period is assured by the design of the system. Depletion of the 10B in the neutronabsorbing materials is negligible because the neutron flux in the MPC over the storage period is low. A MF of <= to 0.95 under accident conditions is pretty close to >1 multiplication, or criticality. We are concerned that after pencil-whipping a design someone is willing to work under a margin of error of 0.6. So, the exact interior of the structure, the boron loading of the Metamic neutron absorber, the exact position of the fuel (damaged or otherwise) plus other factors must be within a margin of error, potentially, of 0.6. We find it difficult to credit that the fuel assemblies are packed so tight that they can be packed to a MF of The SER has it that, The applicant provided a new methodology to determine the allowable burnup of each loaded spent nuclear fuel (SNF) assembly, as a function of decay heat, cooling time, enrichment, and fuel type. As discussed in Sections and of the FSAR amendment, the applicant developed a seven-coefficient polynomial equation as listed in Equation and derived coefficients (e.g., A thru G) for several fuel array classes at several different cooling times. The applicant performed unique source term analyses and curve-fitting analyses to derive the coefficients. The new burnup equation and associated coefficients essentially allows a cask user to determine an unlimited combination of fuel parameters (e.g., burnup and cooling time) that result in various decay heats that it could specify for loading. The user may define variable decay heat values for loading based on the limits for uniform loading and thermal methodology for regional loading patterns. NRC staff has not demonstrated consideration of a reasonably assumed error bandwidth within each of the seven coefficients (inputs) to this equation. The cumulative error potential is large enough to have Biblical overtones, as in 77 times 7. One would like to assume that parallel calculations were performed using traditional methods as a sanity check. With unique source-term analyses and curve-fitting analyses designed by the applicant to drive the coefficients, verification and validation information regarding this burnup model is essential and should be included or referenced in the SER. 7. It is troubling that NRC has shot the SER through with subjective language, for example, The amendment request addresses a slight increase of 10% in the off-normal internal design. [Emphasis added]. Describing a 10% increase as slight is amateurish in regulatory language or in

7 any technical document. It also gives the appearance of collusion, as if to help sell to the audience any changes that are less conservative. Would a 10% reduction in the allowable pressure be described as huge? There is also an element of vagueness in the SER that offers little guidance to a reader seeking to confirm the degree of rigor to which the amendment application was exposed. NRC refers to many staff reviews of the licensee s practices, but without specifics. In some cases it is inferred that the staff verified calculations, in others that approval was cursory because of similarities with other cask models. It is difficult to say that early casks designs will be safe in the long term. One has to be careful in approving a new design that is similar to the old one when the old one hasn t met the test of time yet. The old pioneers of the Atomic Age would have loaded up a test canister in a hot cell and run the thing under accelerated aging conditions until it failed. Finally, we are concerned that the NRC review does not extend beyond a review of the proposed theoretical model. The applicant has a notorious history of quality assurance and quality control issues, yet the application speaks very little about QA/QC with respect to cask/canister materials and performance. In reviewing the materials for this application, we took notice that Holtec has applied for a third amendment to this CoC. Please place us on the NRC service list for the new amendment. Thank you for your kind attention to our comments. We eagerly await your response. Raymond Shadis Pro Se Representative New England Coalition Post Office Box 98 Edgecomb, Maine A conforming copy of these comments will be mailed to NRC within 24 hours.