1. To attempt to fulfill the commitment for the successful demonstration of the liquid metal fast breeder reactor by 1980, as announced by the President of the United States in his June 4, 1971, message on energy to the Congress of the United States.

2. To help confirm and demonstrate the potential value and environmental desirability of the LMFBR concept as a practical and economic future option for generating electric power (consideration to the impact of the demonstration plant on the environment will be given throughout the design and planning decisions); confirm the value of this concept for conserving important nonrenewable natural resources; develop for the benefit of government, industry, and the public, important technological and economic data; provide a broad base of experience and information important for commercial and industrial application of the LMFBR concept; and verify certain key characteristics and capabilities of breeder powerplants for operation on utility systems such as licensability and safety, operability, reliability, availability, maintainabilty, flexibility, and prospect for economy.

3. To utilize to the maximum extent practicable the technology developed or being developed in the AEC's programs recognizing that this project is an indispensable part of AEC's overall longrange LMFBR research and development program and that the base program is and will be essential to the success of the LMFBR demonstration plant.

Those are quotations from the purpose clause of the proposed contract. In view of the completeness of the written submittals, I propose to limit my opening remarks to a review of the most significant. aspects of the contract modifications. These will relate to the assigned lead role concept; the arrangement regarding resolution of disagreements by the heads of the parties; application of AEC cost principles to project funds; the reduction in scope of indemnities to be given by AEC; and the inclusion of an AEC option to take title to the plant prior to start of construction.

The assigned lead role concept is based upon and amplifies assignments of responsibility within the project management structure previously contemplated. However, the contract now spells this out in greater detail and makes clear that the initiative for action lies with the party having an assigned lead role, that is AEC, TVA, and PMC, and that this continues even during the application of the appeal process in regard to a matter in disagreement. The parties believe that this feature will greatly reduce the possibility of project delays in the event of any disagreements, and we do not expect any disagreements.

At this time I would like to ask Mr. Shaw to brief the committee on how the assigned lead role concept is expected to operate and to review the contract arrangements for management of financial resources relating to the project.

Chairman PRICE. Mr. Shaw.

Representative HOLIFIELD. Mr. Shaw, do you have any flow sheets on anything like that that you wish to give to the committee?

STATEMENT OF MILTON SHAW, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF REACTOR DEVELOPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY, ATOMIC ENERGY COMMIS

SION

Mr. SHAW. No, sir, I am using the charts either containing information which is in Chairman Ray's letter of April 9 to the committee or which I have used before the committee at previous hearings.

In discussing the lead role concept and its operation, I think it is important to place it within the overall framework in which we are working today. Most importantly, I would like to point out that a great deal of work has been done on the project and most of the important overall technical characteristics and design decisions have been agreed upon and the ability to do this was derived mostly from two parallel efforts. One was the project definition phase which has been going on under the present authorization. We have spent about $8 million to date, of the authorized $100 million working with three manufacturers, Atomic International, General Electric, and Westinghouse, in conjunction with the utilities and architect-engineers. Second, we had the senior utility advisory committees where we met with both top management as well as the senior technical people for over a year. These ongoing efforts, of course, gave us an excellent base from which we have been proceeding even though there is not a contract signed as yet.

The principal design guidelines for the plant have been approved and have been in use by all of the participants including the subcontractors. These guidelines cover codes and standards for design and operation, the approach to safety, plant availability and reliability requirements, maintenance philosophy, and matters such as that.

The more detailed parameters for the plants have also been approved and have been in use by all the participants as well. These, in their preliminary form, were part of the request for proposals that went out in order to select the reactor manufacturer. They were also part of the proposals that went out for the architect-engineers and, of course, these have been refined subsequently.

Examples of these more detailed plant design parameters include the thermal power of the reactor, 1,000 megawatts thermal, sodium outlet temperature 1,000 degrees, nonreheat steam cycle 900 degrees F and 1,400 pounds per square inch gage.

The plant design will have three isolatable primary heat transfer loops, each located in independently inerted cells. Emergency cooling, that is in the event of loss of all power of the plant, shall be based on natural circulation in the primary heat transfer loops with no separate primary loop for emergency cooling.

The plant fuel element and fuel element assembly will be based on the FFTF fuel experience, as will the control rod material, to take advantage of the FFTF experience to the maximum possible degree. The control system will be designed for manual as well as automatic operation. The control drives and the other control features will have the capability to follow automatic loads that will be imposed on the plant by the turbine under a predesignated set of turbine generator demands that have been standard in accordance with normal utility practice.

Representative HOLIFIELD. I did not catch that at the beginning. You used the term "we have agreed on these matters." Would you tell us who the "we" is?

Mr. SHAW. We are the PSC, the Project Steering Committee.
Representative HOLIFIELD. Will you give the names?

Mr. SHAW. Of the Project Steering Committee? Wally Behnke, Jim Watson, and myself. Wally, of course, is with Commonwealth Edison, Jim Watson is with TVA. In addition since these have been promulgated in the requests for the proposals to the reactor manufacturers, these were taken up, reviewed, and approved by the Project Management Board.

In order to do this we have had to have agreement among our various staff members. There have been many discussions, and disagreements have developed, but we have managed to work them out within this framework. This is very important because in looking back over the years, we have had difficulty in resolving some of these basic matters, and I can cite at least one project particularly, the FFTF; we were never able to bring about resolution of these types of disagreements over such a short period of time as this, and we are pleased with the capability that has been demonstrated to do this even though we do not have a contract.

In addition, we do have agreement from Westinghouse and Burns and Roe in their area of involvement on these same plant parameters. In a sense I know of no prime participant who does not agree with the parameters.

It is important to emphasize that these will permit each of us in our lead role efforts to push ahead with the more detailed design matters and we certainly recognize that there are additional principal design parameters that must be established. But these require more work.

Example: The seismic design conditions for the plant. This requires detailed core borings which have been underway for quite sometime. It requires some soil condition studies at the exact location of the plant. We believe that when this work has been done we will be able to review the recommendations of the architect-engineer and others that have been associated with this test effort in order to reach an agreement among us about the seismic parameters to be used in the design of this plant.

I am sure that we will be playing it on a very conservative basis. Now, we are fortunate this plant is in the TVA area where there is a lot of precedent for seismic design criteria. We don't envision any problems in this area but it does take a great deal of work in order to complete the drilling and the seismic studies.

If one looks at the detailed design parameters, it is quite clear that many of them have integral with them vital characteristics related to the sound safety approach for this plant. Everyone working on this project has agreed on one very important matter and that is the detailed design of this plant will have as an integral part of it a sound safety approach.

We have had many discussions related to how we build safety into every aspect of the plant and these considerations are reflected in these design parameters and also many of the design decisions.

For example: Regarding the sodium outlet temperature, we know that in many aspects we have the capability to go much higher, however, we are being very conservative on this plant. Guard vessels will be used to protect critical components; inerted cells or compartments have already been agreed upon in order to be very conservative in our safety and environmental approach on this plant as well as technology extrapolations.

We have agreed that the most important thing here is to build a safe, reliable plant. Even though desirable in the program from an overall standpoint, we will let economies go on the plant as they will develop in the future in order not to do any more extrapolation than is absolutely necessary to achieve our objectives. Economics will be more precisely developed in the future.

This reinforces the position that was developed in the environmental report on the demonstration plant, WASH-1509, which was issued about 1 year ago.

Within that framework one can then address the responsibilities and roles of the lead organizations since we do have this upper level agreement. Each of us is now able to go ahead and proceed with our work. Of course, we must develop many detailed operating procedures and matters such as that to take care of the mode of operation between us. But I must emphasize that without these detailed procedures to date we have managed to develop the position we are in today and I think it is a commendable situation on a project as complex and as difficult as this one.

The first chart before you is just the upper half of the similar chart which has been provided to you.

[Chart 1 follows:]

Mr. SHAW. This chart summarizes the lead role responsibility of the individual participants that is TVA is "Responsible for operations and maintenance of the plant."

PMC is "Responsible for integration of overall plant aspects and balance of the plant."

And RDT is "Responsible for the nuclear steam supply system."

These are merely summary notes of details previously presented to you in form of the next chart which is the first chart of a set of charts provided to you on April 9. I wouldn't suggest you try to read the fine print because I have supplementary charts that duplicate and expand on each of these points.

[Chart 2 follows:]

Mr. SHAW. The next chart shows the Project Management Corp. lead role which includes the integration of overall plant activities per the project requirements. They will do the balance of the plant per approved project requirements.