ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT TUESDAY, JULY 26, 1988 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met at 10:40 a.m. in room SD-192, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. J. Bennett Johnston (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Johnston, Hollings, DeConcini, Hatfield, McClure, and Domenici. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY NEW PRODUCTION REACTOR CAPACITY Senator JOHNSTON. The committee will come to order. We want to extend a warm welcome to all of you this morning. The purpose of this hearing is to review the Department of Energy's strategy and plans for a new nuclear materials defense production reactor capacity. This is a matter of paramount importance. This committee has been intimately involved in the process for many years now in helping to assure that special nuclear material needs of the nation for defense requirements are provided in a timely and cost conscious manner. The Department is proceeding with plans to provide for a new production reactor capacity and has recently received the report of the Energy Research Advisory Board providing assessment of candidate reactor technologies for new production capacity. So, we want to learn as much as we can this morning about the ERAB views and study, and cover other aspects of this subject as well. INTRODUCTION OF WITNESSES First, we want to welcome our witnesses, several distinguished officials who were involved in technology evaluation-Dr. Joseph F. Salgado, Deputy Secretary of Energy; Mr. John H. Schoettler, Chairman of the Energy Research Advisory Board; Dr. William Graham, Science Adviser to the President; Dr. Robert C. Duncan, Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology for the Department of Defense, and Chairman of the Nuclear Weapons Council; and Mr. Troy E. Wade, Acting Assistant Secretary for Defense Programs of the Department of Energy, and DOE member of the Nuclear Weapons Council. We asked that your oral testimony be as brief as possible. We will put your full statements into the record. Before I call on Dr. Salgado, I want to ask the distinguished ranking minority member, Senator Hatfield, for any comments he may have. Senator HATFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I have no opening remarks at this time, but I do have some questions that I will either submit for the record or ask during the course of the hearing. Thank you. Senator JOHNSTON. Senator Hollings, do you have any comments? SAVANNAH RIVER PRODUCTION CAPABILITY Senator HOLLINGS. Yes; I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. The hearing this morning is very timely. The nation clearly needs a new production reactor to meet the important defense needs as you pointed out. Equally important, the Energy Department's own expert advisers have now given us the facts we need to make the right decisions. That recent report of the Energy Department's Energy Research Advisory Board showed that the heavy water reactor at the Savannah River plant is the best choice. As our colleagues will recall, this report concluded that building an updated version of the type of reactor already operating at the Savannah River production complex “appears to have the best chance of quickly providing the needed capacity because of the existing facilities, personnel, and experience at Savannah River." This key passage touches on two vital points. First, we need the capacity quickly. The National Academy of Sciences, this last year, had concluded that the existing reactors need replacement, and in the judgment of the Advisory Board heavy water reactors of the type already operating at Savannah River can be built more quickly than any other type. They can also be built with state-of-the-art safety measures. I know that some people favor more exotic reactor designs that may even work in the long run, but for now they are unproven and would require substantial research in order to adapt them for defense production needs. The Advisory Board report makes its point simply and directly and I quote: The heavy water reactor has the most mature U.S. technology for tritium production at the present time. The other reactor types require varying degrees of research, development, and qualification testing. In my view, we should not gamble with the nation's security, we should go with the proven approach. Savannah River has the support facilities and experienced personnel needed for large-scale production. In particular, the Savannah River plant has full-scale fuel fabrication and waste handling facilities, including the nearly completed Defense Waste Processing Facility. No other site in the country has this range of support plants. Duplicating them elsewhere would cost billions and take precious time. These conclusions by the Advisory Board are not surprising. Dr. Keith Glennan chaired a similar panel back in 1982, 6 years ago, and he and his colleagues reached the same conclusion. They said: The heavy water reactor located at the Savannah River site is the panel's recommended concept, providing the greatest assurance of meeting production goals. There is another issue. The new Advisory report says that building more than one reactor would provide high production assurances, but it would be at an increased cost. We, in Congress, would like to see three reactors, or maybe four, if we can get them-two at Savannah River, one at Hanford, and then one at Idaho-if we have that much money, but I question whether we have the money. We will undoubtedly discuss whether to pursue a multiple reactor strategy, but it is incontestable that the first new production reactor should go to Savannah River. It has the proven technology, the experienced personnel, and the needed support facilities. In short, Savannah River is simply the best site, and I will continue to work for an early decision to put that reactor at the Savannah River plant and to start construction as soon as possible. Thank you, Mr.Chairman. Senator JOHNSTON. Thank you, Senator Hollings. Senator McClure. Senator MCCLURE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Senator Hollings might be surprised, but I don't object to the statements by the Chamber of Commerce from Savannah River, and I think that they will be well taken in most respects. Senator Hollings and Senator Thurmond might also be surprised that I am entirely comfortable with the notion that the first of the production reactors will be built at Savannah River. That is nothing that I am contesting, but because there seems to be some confusion about what it is that I really wish to accomplish, and to support, and to be able to support Senator Holings and Senator Thurmond, and others, who would want to see a reactor built at Savannah River, I will take just a few minutes to try to outline exactly what I hope this hearing can do and what kind of decision, perhaps, can be supported as a result of it. ERAB PANEL REPORT I am really grateful to the chairman for his willingness to schedule this hearing on relatively short notice, and I apologize to him and to you, the witnesses and others, who are interested, that we had an aborted attempt at holding this hearing on July 13, when circumstances beyond our control forced a cancellation. The ERAB panel has just issued its report on new production reactor technologies to the Department and the decision based on that report, and based on other input, will be made by the end of Juy, which is less than 1 week from today. By holding this hearing during the decisionmaking process, it is certainly not my intent to delay the process, but rather to make the end result of that process more likely to withstand the test of time. Therefore, I had hoped that all the witnesses that appear here today will listen very carefully to our comments and suggestions, for they are intended to assist you, not deter you, from your goals. Let me first extend my appreciation to Mr. John Schoettler, the Chairman of the Energy Research Advisory Board, who so willingly agreed to testify on behalf of the ERAB panel. I understand that Dr. Larry Papay, who actually headed the NPR Technology Assessment Panel, would have also wanted to participate in this hearing had he not already had an unavoidable schedule conflict. There is no question that Dr. Papay and the members of the ERAB panel did a truly heroic job in assimilating, processing, and evaluating a tremendous amount of information in a very short period of time. The panel went to great efforts to address all of the evaluation criteria given to them by the Department. At this point, I would like to enter into the record two articles from Nucleonics Week, entitled, "Technology Choices for the New DOD Reactor All Include Uncertainties," and "Weapons Technologies, How Safe Is Safe Enough," which summarize the ERAB report very well. SAFETY ISSUES The panel even went a step further than their mandate by elevating safety to a primary role, right alongside of the obviously crucial criteria of tritium production capability. This makes enormous sense to me, because no matter how good a tritium producer we build, we will not be able to run the machine that produces the tritium if we can't do it in a safe and environmentally benign manner. I just hope that we will all take a hard look into the safety issues before we make a choice of any single technology for the NPR. A prudent delay for the sake of safety will more than pay off later on in terms of avoided costs and risk to the public and, ultimately, in time. These safety issues are particularly well addressed in a report recently issued by the National Defense Council Foundation, which I would like to enter into the record following my opening remarks. A very succinct summary of this report was printed in the July 25, 1988, issue of the Energy Daily, which I will also include in the record. NEED FOR DUAL REACTOR SITING The panel also did an admirable job in addressing another issue that in my estimation is vital to our nation's security; that is, duality of sites and diversity of technologies. As I have said many times before, we simply cannot afford to put all of our eggs in one basket. If we choose to build one full-sized plant at a single site, we are exposing our national security unnecessarily to events that can bring us to our knees in terms of nuclear deterrence capabilities. Whether it is an act of God, a terrorist attack, an unfortunate safety concern, or an unanticipated design flaw, we could find ourselves without any production capability if we select only one site or one technology. I would like to think we were wiser than to let that happen. After all, we are going to be committing huge amounts of money and time in this effort and if we spend just a little extra to achieve duality and diversity, we would be buying huge amounts in terms of national security. We cannot afford not to do so. If we were really on our toes, we might even be able to find some way to recoup some of the costs of this endeavor. To that end, the ERAB report suggests that revenues from the sale of steam could significantly offset the costs of building and operating an NPR facility. I will pursue that matter further during questioning, following the oral testimony. REPORT SHORTCOMINGS AND INCONSISTENCIES One last comment, Mr. Chairman, concerning the ERAB report. While there were many good points made in the document, I could not help but notice some areas of inconsistencies and some statements which were inadequately substantiated by the facts. I am sure that much of this is a direct result of the shortness of time within which the panel had to finalize its efforts. But, I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of these gaps weren't purposely included to entice those of us with inquisitive minds to go much deeper into many of these issues. before making any final decision on NPR capacity. The gaps are so transparent in some instances that I am sure that even the ERAB panel itself would not want to see an NPR technology decision made based solely on this one report. Which leads me into one final area I wanted to cover and that concerns the process by which the Energy Systems Acquisition Advisory Board, chaired by Mr. Salgado, will assimilate the ERAB report, as well as input from the site evaluation team and other administrative agencies, to come up with a consistent and coherent and a defensible decision with respect to our future capabilities to produce weapons materials. I am most anxious, Mr. Chairman, to hear from Secretary Salgado, Dr. Graham, Dr. Duncan, Mr. Wade, and Mr. Ahearne concerning this crucial decisionmaking process. For the record, I would remind the witnesses, who have so generously agreed to appear here today on such short notice, that the purpose of this hearing is not to delay decisions on the NPR and not to put down the ERAB report or the decisionmaking process, but rather to help enable the process and the outcome to withstand the tests of time in terms of our nation's well being and in terms of the health, safety, and security of our people. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that the articles to which I made reference be made a part of the record at this point. I also have an article from Energy Daily, and report by the National Defense Council Foundation which I also ask be included in the record. Senator JOHNSTON. Without objection, so ordered. [The information follows:] |