DOE Response to Recommendation 2010-2 of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Pulse Jet Mixing at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, 37798-37799 [2011-16138]
Download as PDF
<![CDATA[
37798
Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 124 / Tuesday, June 28, 2011 / Notices
proceedings or to be heard by filing
comments or protests to this application
should file a petition to intervene,
comment, or protest at the address
provided above in accordance with
§§ 385.211 or 385.214 of the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission’s Rules
of Practice and Procedures (18 CFR
385.211, 385.214). Fifteen copies of each
petition and protest should be filed with
DOE and must be received on or before
the date listed above.
Comments on the Freepoint
Commodities application to export
electric energy to Mexico should be
clearly marked with OE Docket No.EA–
379. An additional copy is to be filed
directly with Daniel M. Hecht, General
Counsel, Freepoint Commodities, LLC,
1281 E. Main Street, Third floor,
Stamford, CT 06902 and Margaret A.
Moore, Vincenzo Franco, and Julia
Wood, Van Ness Feldman, P.C., 1050
Thomas Jefferson St., NW., seventh
floor, Washington, DC 20007. A final
decision will be made on this
application after the environmental
impacts have been evaluated pursuant
to DOE’s National Environmental Policy
Act Implementing Procedures (10 CFR
part 1021) and after a determination is
made by DOE that the proposed action
will not have an adverse impact on the
reliability of the U.S. electric power
supply system.
Copies of this application will be
made available, upon request, for public
inspection and copying at the address
provided above, by accessing the
program Web site at https://
www.oe.energy.gov/
permits_pending.htm, or by e-mailing
Odessa Hopkins at
Odessa.Hopkins@hq.doe.gov.
Issued in Washington, DC on June 21,
2011.
Anthony J. Como,
Director, Permitting and Siting, Office of
Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability.
[FR Doc. 2011–16145 Filed 6–27–11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6450–01–P
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
DOE Response to Recommendation
2010–2 of the Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board, Pulse Jet
Mixing at the Waste Treatment and
Immobilization Plant
Department of Energy.
Notice.
AGENCY:
ACTION:
On May 20, 2011, the Defense
Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
reaffirmed their Recommendation 2010–
2, concerning Pulse Jet Mixing at the
Waste Treatment and Immobilization
SUMMARY:
VerDate Mar<15>2010
16:46 Jun 27, 2011
Jkt 223001
Plant, to the Department of Energy. In
accordance with section 315(b) of the
Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended,
42 U.S.C. 2286d(d), The following
represents the Secretary of Energy’s
final decision on the recommendation
and the reasoning for his decision.
ADDRESSES: Send comments, data,
views, or arguments concerning the
Secretary’s response to: Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board, 625 Indiana
Avenue, NW., Suite 700, Washington,
DC 20004.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr.
Steven Petras, Nuclear Engineer,
Departmental Representative to the
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board,
Office of Health, Safety and Security,
U.S. Department of Energy, 1000
Independence Avenue, SW.,
Washington, DC 20585.
Issued in Washington, DC on June 20,
2011.
Mari-Josette Campagnone,
Departmental Representative to the Defense
Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Office of
Health, Safety and Security.
June 20, 2011
The Honorable Peter S. Winokur,
Chairman,
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board,
625 Indiana Avenue, NW, Suite 700,
Washington, DC 20004–2901.
Dear Mr. Chairman:
This letter responds to your May 20, 2011,
letter which reaffirmed the Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board (Board)
Recommendation 2010–2, Pulse Jet Mixing
(PJM) at the Waste Treatment and
Immobilization Plant (WTP).
Your reaffirmation letter interpreted the
Department of Energy’s (DOE) February 10,
2011, response to Recommendation 2010–2
as a rejection of sub-recommendations 3 and
4. The intent of our response was not to reject
any of the sub-recommendations, but to
clarify the actions being taken to validate the
design, operation, and safety of the WTP PJM
and transfer systems.
Our response explained that we agreed
with both the intent of your
Recommendation and that more testing and
analyses should be conducted to provide
additional confidence that the WTP PJM and
transfer systems will achieve design and
operating requirements. Since then, we have
worked closely to ensure a mutual
understanding of your Recommendation. The
enclosure to this letter documents the
significant progress we have collectively
made in achieving the necessary clarification
and a path forward for implementing your
Recommendation. DOE is encouraged by the
level of clarity achieved to date, and
confident we have established the
foundational premises needed to bring each
of the remaining issues to closure, using the
Implementation Plan (IP) as the vehicle for
documenting a final technical approach that
can be mutually endorsed.
This clarification serves to restate my
decision to accept your Recommendation
PO 00000
Frm 00033
Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
2010–02. We believe our IP will meet the
underlying safety improvement objectives of
your Recommendation. Pursuant to 42 U.S.C.
§ 2286e, an IP for this Recommendation will
be prepared and delivered to the Board no
later than 90 days after publication of this
response in the Federal Register.
We look forward to further working with
the Board and your staff to reach final closure
on the intent and scope of deliverables while
maintaining our obligations to address
Hanford’s environmental liabilities. We are
confident that the IP for Recommendation
2010–2 is being developed, such that the
WTP Project completes its design and
construction activities with full assurance of
nuclear safety for the life of WTP operations.
Mr. Dale Knutson is the responsible
manager for Recommendation 2010–02. If
you have any further questions, please
´
contact me or Dr. Ines R. Triay, Assistant
Secretary for Environmental Management, at
(202) 586–7709.
Sincerely,
Steven Chu
Enclosure
Enclosure to 2010–2 Reaffirmation
Response
DOE has taken, and continues to take,
steps to increase confidence that the
pulse jet-mixed vessels will comply
with operating requirements. Your
reaffirmation letter highlights several
primary elements of the
Recommendation, and we believe our
shared concerns regarding pulse jet
mixing at the Waste Treatment Plant
(WTP) will be adequately addressed by
the Department of Energy’s (DOE)
current direction related to resolving
pulse jet mixing and transfer system
uncertainty. The project will rely on
preventing nuclear criticality safety
hazards by establishing and
implementing waste acceptance criteria
(WAC) for any waste transferred to
WTP. A large scale test program will be
used to determine the performance
limits of the mixing, sampling, and
transfer systems and its results will be
used to confirm the WAC are
implemented with due consideration for
uncertainties and margins.
Significant progress has been made on
achieving the clarifications needed to
further develop, and ultimately
complete the implementation plan for
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety
Board’s (Board) Recommendation 2010–
2. The Board’s May 20, 2011, letter
which reaffirmed the Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board Recommendation
2010–2, Pulse Jet Mixing at the Waste
Treatment and Immobilization Plant,
identified the following residual
concerns; progress in achieving
clarification on each of those concerns
is provided:
• Testing must be done at the proper
scale to demonstrate the limits of
E:\FR\FM\28JNN1.SGM
28JNN1
mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 124 / Tuesday, June 28, 2011 / Notices
performance of the vessel mixing and
transfer systems.
WTP will perform the first Large Scale
Integrated Tests (LSIT) at 4, 8 and 14foot scale. The project has identified
commercially available vessels to
support this increment of testing. If test
results indicate a larger scale test than
the 14-foot vessel is beneficial, a
decision point will be included in the
implementation plan to determine the
scope and benefit of testing at a larger
scale. A full technical justification will
be provided that will support our
decision.
• These tests must be conducted
using appropriate waste simulants with
properties that conservatively envelope
the properties of the high-level wastes
stored in Hanford’s tank farms.
WTP has issued a charter and formed
a panel of subject matter experts to
review and advise on all aspects of
large-scale mixing including the
simulants to be used for LSIT that
address the physical parameters of
testing and represent known properties
of tank waste. There are concerns with
selection of simulants which include
manufacture, use and disposal of large
volumes of potentially very hazardous
simulant materials that would require a
significant waste disposal effort of its
own; and potentially prohibitive cost for
manufacture and disposal of simulants.
It is understood these considerations
represent tradeoffs, but the goal is to
ultimately not undermine the
representative accuracy of the simulants
required for testing.
• Testing must demonstrate that
pulse-jet mixed vessels can be
adequately operated using prototypic
equipment (e.g., control systems) during
multi-batch operations.
DOE has approved an additional
scope of work to release the contractor
to initiate design, procurement and
perform ‘‘informational testing’’
activities that will be the predecessor to
the more formalized testing; conducted
in accordance with NQA–1
requirements, to support design
confirmation.
• The heel removal and cleanout
systems must be designed and tested as
early as practicable, the performance
limits for these systems established, and
the limits of their operation factored
into the development of the WAC and
the operating envelope of WTP.
Components of large scale testing that
will result in a better understanding of
mixing characteristics such as bottom
motion, zones of influence and partial
particle separation will be performed
early within the testing program to
better define what is required for heel
removal and cleanout system designs.
VerDate Mar<15>2010
16:46 Jun 27, 2011
Jkt 223001
The project then intends to test heel
removal and cleanout very early in the
testing phase and in every scale of LSIT
in order to inform design decisions for
process vessels.
• The Board considers that DOE has
rejected sub-Recommendation 3
associated with the use of large scale
tests to verify and validate
computational fluid dynamic (CFD)
models of full-scale WTP mixing
systems * * * the Board believes that
obtaining data from near full-scale tests
is necessary to establish within a
reasonable range of uncertainty, that the
WTP’s CFD model is an accurate
representation of the full scale mixing
systems.
DOE agrees that it is necessary that
the CFD model adequately represent
full-scale mixing systems, but has not
yet concluded that data from future
near-full-scale tests is necessary to
complete model verification and
validation (V&V). DOE is in the process
of determining if existing data sets are
sufficient to complete V&V
requirements of the CFD model for
pulse jet-mixed vessels in accordance
with the ASME V&V 20–2009, Standard
for Verification and Validation in
Computational Fluid Dynamics and
Heat Transfer. The DOE review is
ongoing, including evaluation by subject
matter experts from the National Energy
Technology Laboratory. If necessary,
additional data sets, that may include
the upcoming near-full-scale tests, will
be collected to support the V&V.
• The Board also considers that DOE
has rejected sub-recommendation 4
associated with the capability of WTP
and tank farms to obtain representative
samples. The DNFSB also stated that:
Testing must demonstrate that
representative samples can be taken
from waste feed delivery tanks to meet
the Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC),
and from WTP process vessels to meet
safety related operating requirements.
WTP distinguishes between safety
samples and process samples, and has
plans to accomplish both in a manner
that will result in meeting the WAC and
conducting safe and reliable operations
in WTP. The current control strategy for
the Pretreatment Facility safety basis
requires confirmatory samples for
criticality safety and inventory control
samples for the Low-Activity Waste
Facility safety basis. The sampling
portion of the control strategy for
criticality safety is in revision based on
previous mixing tests results, which
concluded that the assumptions in the
Criticality Safety Evaluation could not
be sufficiently verified in pulse jet
mixed vessels. The samples for LowActivity Waste Facility safety basis
PO 00000
Frm 00034
Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
37799
compliance can be obtained with the
current sampling design. DOE will
continue to work closely with the Board
staff to establish a common definition of
representative samples as applied to the
discussion above.
[FR Doc. 2011–16138 Filed 6–27–11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6450–01–P
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
DOE Final Decision in Response to
Recommendation 2010–1 of the
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety
Board, Safety Analysis Requirements
for Defining Adequate Protection for
the Public and the Workers
Department of Energy.
Notice.
AGENCY:
ACTION:
On April 27, 2011, The
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
reaffirmed their Recommendation 2010–
1, Safety Analysis Requirements for
Defining Adequate Protection for the
Public and the Workers, to the
Department of Energy. In accordance
with section 315(b) of the Atomic
Energy Act of 1954, as amended, 42
U.S.C. 2286d(d), the following
represents the Secretary of Energy’s
final decision on the recommendation
and the reasoning for his decision.
ADDRESSES: Send comments, data,
views, or arguments concerning the
Secretary’s response to: Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board, 625 Indiana
Avenue NW., Suite 700, Washington,
DC 20004.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms.
Amanda Anderson, Nuclear Engineer,
Departmental Representative to the
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board,
Office of Health, Safety and Security,
U.S. Department of Energy, 1000
Independence Avenue SW.,
Washington, DC 20585.
SUMMARY:
Issued in Washington, DC on May 27,
2011.
Mari-Josette Campagnone,
Departmental Representative to the Defense
Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Office of
Health, Safety and Security.
Report on the Secretary of Energy’s Final
Decision and Supporting Reasoning
Regarding Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety
Board (Board) Recommendation 2010–1,
Safety Analysis Requirements for Defining
Adequate Protection for the Public and the
Workers
SUMMARY: This report, together with its
attachments, documents the Secretary of
Energy’s final decision and supporting
reasoning regarding Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB or Board)
Recommendation 2010–1, Safety Analysis
Requirements for Defining Adequate
Protection for the Public and the Workers.
E:\FR\FM\28JNN1.SGM
28JNN1
]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 124 (Tuesday, June 28, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 37798-37799]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-16138]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
DOE Response to Recommendation 2010-2 of the Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board, Pulse Jet Mixing at the Waste Treatment and
Immobilization Plant
AGENCY: Department of Energy.
ACTION: Notice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: On May 20, 2011, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
reaffirmed their Recommendation 2010-2, concerning Pulse Jet Mixing at
the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, to the Department of
Energy. In accordance with section 315(b) of the Atomic Energy Act of
1954, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 2286d(d), The following represents the
Secretary of Energy's final decision on the recommendation and the
reasoning for his decision.
ADDRESSES: Send comments, data, views, or arguments concerning the
Secretary's response to: Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, 625
Indiana Avenue, NW., Suite 700, Washington, DC 20004.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Steven Petras, Nuclear Engineer,
Departmental Representative to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety
Board, Office of Health, Safety and Security, U.S. Department of
Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585.
Issued in Washington, DC on June 20, 2011.
Mari-Josette Campagnone,
Departmental Representative to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety
Board, Office of Health, Safety and Security.
June 20, 2011
The Honorable Peter S. Winokur,
Chairman,
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board,
625 Indiana Avenue, NW, Suite 700,
Washington, DC 20004-2901.
Dear Mr. Chairman:
This letter responds to your May 20, 2011, letter which
reaffirmed the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (Board)
Recommendation 2010-2, Pulse Jet Mixing (PJM) at the Waste Treatment
and Immobilization Plant (WTP).
Your reaffirmation letter interpreted the Department of Energy's
(DOE) February 10, 2011, response to Recommendation 2010-2 as a
rejection of sub-recommendations 3 and 4. The intent of our response
was not to reject any of the sub-recommendations, but to clarify the
actions being taken to validate the design, operation, and safety of
the WTP PJM and transfer systems.
Our response explained that we agreed with both the intent of
your Recommendation and that more testing and analyses should be
conducted to provide additional confidence that the WTP PJM and
transfer systems will achieve design and operating requirements.
Since then, we have worked closely to ensure a mutual understanding
of your Recommendation. The enclosure to this letter documents the
significant progress we have collectively made in achieving the
necessary clarification and a path forward for implementing your
Recommendation. DOE is encouraged by the level of clarity achieved
to date, and confident we have established the foundational premises
needed to bring each of the remaining issues to closure, using the
Implementation Plan (IP) as the vehicle for documenting a final
technical approach that can be mutually endorsed.
This clarification serves to restate my decision to accept your
Recommendation 2010-02. We believe our IP will meet the underlying
safety improvement objectives of your Recommendation. Pursuant to 42
U.S.C. Sec. 2286e, an IP for this Recommendation will be prepared
and delivered to the Board no later than 90 days after publication
of this response in the Federal Register.
We look forward to further working with the Board and your staff
to reach final closure on the intent and scope of deliverables while
maintaining our obligations to address Hanford's environmental
liabilities. We are confident that the IP for Recommendation 2010-2
is being developed, such that the WTP Project completes its design
and construction activities with full assurance of nuclear safety
for the life of WTP operations.
Mr. Dale Knutson is the responsible manager for Recommendation
2010-02. If you have any further questions, please contact me or Dr.
In[eacute]s R. Triay, Assistant Secretary for Environmental
Management, at (202) 586-7709.
Sincerely,
Steven Chu
Enclosure
Enclosure to 2010-2 Reaffirmation Response
DOE has taken, and continues to take, steps to increase confidence
that the pulse jet-mixed vessels will comply with operating
requirements. Your reaffirmation letter highlights several primary
elements of the Recommendation, and we believe our shared concerns
regarding pulse jet mixing at the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) will be
adequately addressed by the Department of Energy's (DOE) current
direction related to resolving pulse jet mixing and transfer system
uncertainty. The project will rely on preventing nuclear criticality
safety hazards by establishing and implementing waste acceptance
criteria (WAC) for any waste transferred to WTP. A large scale test
program will be used to determine the performance limits of the mixing,
sampling, and transfer systems and its results will be used to confirm
the WAC are implemented with due consideration for uncertainties and
margins.
Significant progress has been made on achieving the clarifications
needed to further develop, and ultimately complete the implementation
plan for Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board's (Board)
Recommendation 2010-2. The Board's May 20, 2011, letter which
reaffirmed the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Recommendation
2010-2, Pulse Jet Mixing at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization
Plant, identified the following residual concerns; progress in
achieving clarification on each of those concerns is provided:
Testing must be done at the proper scale to demonstrate
the limits of
[[Page 37799]]
performance of the vessel mixing and transfer systems.
WTP will perform the first Large Scale Integrated Tests (LSIT) at
4, 8 and 14-foot scale. The project has identified commercially
available vessels to support this increment of testing. If test results
indicate a larger scale test than the 14-foot vessel is beneficial, a
decision point will be included in the implementation plan to determine
the scope and benefit of testing at a larger scale. A full technical
justification will be provided that will support our decision.
These tests must be conducted using appropriate waste
simulants with properties that conservatively envelope the properties
of the high-level wastes stored in Hanford's tank farms.
WTP has issued a charter and formed a panel of subject matter
experts to review and advise on all aspects of large-scale mixing
including the simulants to be used for LSIT that address the physical
parameters of testing and represent known properties of tank waste.
There are concerns with selection of simulants which include
manufacture, use and disposal of large volumes of potentially very
hazardous simulant materials that would require a significant waste
disposal effort of its own; and potentially prohibitive cost for
manufacture and disposal of simulants. It is understood these
considerations represent tradeoffs, but the goal is to ultimately not
undermine the representative accuracy of the simulants required for
testing.
Testing must demonstrate that pulse-jet mixed vessels can
be adequately operated using prototypic equipment (e.g., control
systems) during multi-batch operations.
DOE has approved an additional scope of work to release the
contractor to initiate design, procurement and perform ``informational
testing'' activities that will be the predecessor to the more
formalized testing; conducted in accordance with NQA-1 requirements, to
support design confirmation.
The heel removal and cleanout systems must be designed and
tested as early as practicable, the performance limits for these
systems established, and the limits of their operation factored into
the development of the WAC and the operating envelope of WTP.
Components of large scale testing that will result in a better
understanding of mixing characteristics such as bottom motion, zones of
influence and partial particle separation will be performed early
within the testing program to better define what is required for heel
removal and cleanout system designs. The project then intends to test
heel removal and cleanout very early in the testing phase and in every
scale of LSIT in order to inform design decisions for process vessels.
The Board considers that DOE has rejected sub-
Recommendation 3 associated with the use of large scale tests to verify
and validate computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models of full-scale WTP
mixing systems * * * the Board believes that obtaining data from near
full-scale tests is necessary to establish within a reasonable range of
uncertainty, that the WTP's CFD model is an accurate representation of
the full scale mixing systems.
DOE agrees that it is necessary that the CFD model adequately
represent full-scale mixing systems, but has not yet concluded that
data from future near-full-scale tests is necessary to complete model
verification and validation (V&V). DOE is in the process of determining
if existing data sets are sufficient to complete V&V requirements of
the CFD model for pulse jet-mixed vessels in accordance with the ASME
V&V 20-2009, Standard for Verification and Validation in Computational
Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer. The DOE review is ongoing, including
evaluation by subject matter experts from the National Energy
Technology Laboratory. If necessary, additional data sets, that may
include the upcoming near-full-scale tests, will be collected to
support the V&V.
The Board also considers that DOE has rejected sub-
recommendation 4 associated with the capability of WTP and tank farms
to obtain representative samples. The DNFSB also stated that: Testing
must demonstrate that representative samples can be taken from waste
feed delivery tanks to meet the Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC), and
from WTP process vessels to meet safety related operating requirements.
WTP distinguishes between safety samples and process samples, and
has plans to accomplish both in a manner that will result in meeting
the WAC and conducting safe and reliable operations in WTP. The current
control strategy for the Pretreatment Facility safety basis requires
confirmatory samples for criticality safety and inventory control
samples for the Low-Activity Waste Facility safety basis. The sampling
portion of the control strategy for criticality safety is in revision
based on previous mixing tests results, which concluded that the
assumptions in the Criticality Safety Evaluation could not be
sufficiently verified in pulse jet mixed vessels. The samples for Low-
Activity Waste Facility safety basis compliance can be obtained with
the current sampling design. DOE will continue to work closely with the
Board staff to establish a common definition of representative samples
as applied to the discussion above.
[FR Doc. 2011-16138 Filed 6-27-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6450-01-P
