Page 32 - May-June 2013

Meeting
Safety
Challenges
By Rita Bowser and Jim Brennan,
Westinghouse Electric Company.
Rita Bowser
Dr. Rita C. Bowser is a Vice President
for Westinghouse Electric Company.
She is supporting the Americas Region
responding to
nuclear utility
needs in a post-
Fukushima
environment. She
recently led the
development of a
post-Fukushima
Westinghouse
strategy for a key
segment of the
nuclear fuel cycle.
She comes to the
Americas role
after serving
as the Regional
Vice President -
South Africa for
Westinghouse
Electric Company.
Dr. Bowser served
on the Boards of Westinghouse Electric
South Africa (WE-SA), and the Board
of American Chamber of Commerce.
She was a founding member and served
on the Board of the Nuclear Institute
of South Africa (NIASA). Dr. Bowser
is a founder and Executive Sponsor of
Women in Nuclear-WE-SA.
Dr. Bowser received her Doctor of
Business Administration (DBA) from
the American University of London,
a Master of Science in Mechanical
Engineering (MSME) in Heath Physics
from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
She is a Registered Radiation Protection
Technologist.
An interview by Newal Agnihotri,
Editor of Nuclear Plant Journal at the
Regulatory Information Conference in
Bethesda, Maryland on March 13, 2013.
1. How has US NRC’s post Fukushima,
licensing requirements affected Westing-
house’s projects related to:
License renewal? •
Plant maintenance? •
Outage management? •
Jim: Plans continue to support
safety-related plant maintenance and
license renewal projects. Some projects
not related to plant safety have been
delayed so plants can focus on the U.S.
NRC Tier 1 safety requirements.
Fukushima has also affected some of
the Diverse and Flexible Coping Strate-
gies (FLEX) work we’ve done. Some of
that work needs to be implemented and
completed as early
as fall 2014, so we’re
on a tight schedule.
We’re trying to sup-
port not only the first
two phases of FLEX
implementation, but
also the third and
fourth phases. We
need to make sure
all the equipment
is procured, all the
work packages are
procured or com-
pleted, procedures
are in place, people
are training and then
plants are ready to
implement and com-
plete by as early as
fall 2014.
Most of our
focus thus far has been on the near-term
task force, Tier 1 requirements and the
FLEX work. We’ve provided extensive
support for FLEX requirements and the
Tier 1 requirements. As part of Tier 2 and
3, we’re investing in innovation programs
to upgrade our products and services so
that we can support our customers in
responding to these requirements.
2. What projects, has Westinghouse
completed for utilities to deal with US
NRC’s tier one recommendations related
to:
Beyond Design Basis External •
events.
Spent fuel, instrumentation. •
Jim: Early on we dedicated a team
of people to interface with the industry
groups,theNuclearEnergyInstitute(NEI),
Institute of Nuclear Power Operations
(INPO) and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC). Westinghouse
participates in numerous working groups
within the industry, so that we can work
with the industry to understand the event,
and develop a path for moving forward.
We’ve also been very active
within the industry to develop generic
programs, where applicable, with the
PressurizedWater Reactor Owners Group
(PWROG), such as to further understand
extended loss of all AC power (ELAP)
requirements. We have worked with 30
plants to implement the first phases of
FLEX. We have also developed a guided
wave technology for application for Spent
Fuel Pool level indication.
Rita: NSAIC is the Nuclear Strategic
Advisory Committee (NEI). Right after
Fukushima they took a leadership role
in ensuring that there was alignment
within industry, between INPO and NEI,
and suppliers, ensuring that the industry
was tasking its members to work in one
direction and not push-pull in different
directions.
Jim: The AP1000® is designed
and built so that it doesn’t have to rely
on operator interaction. As far as the
coping time of the standard plant versus
an AP1000® plant, the coping for the
AP1000 with no operator interaction on
the extended loss of offsite power event
is 72 hours.
For operating plants, we looked at a
lot of different technologies for measuring
spent fuel pool level.We eventually settled
on a highly reliable technology that is
already being deployed in new nuclear
plant design, which utilizes guided wave
radar. We’ve also developed a wireless
technology option to help our customers
get the indication to a lot of different
places without the need for extensive
wiring. Our customers have been very
receptive to this solution and we have
received several orders so far.
3. What has been Westinghouse’s
activity related to the containment vents?
Jim: We’ve been very active in
Japan on boiling water reactors (BWRs)
and pressurized water reactors (PWRs)
because of our filtered vent technology.
This technology applies one of two
basic methods: a dry filtered vent or a
32 NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2013