plants, albeit that is something we are going to have to come to grips with.

But what really struck me was that the Westinghouse had 1.84 transients per reactor-year. And that Combustion Engineering had 1.83 transients per reactor-year. When I saw that 1.84 and 1.83 I said, it is amazing how in line they were, one one-hundredth of a point difference.

Are these predictable, these transients? They almost seem to be.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Let me say this. The fact that they are 1.83 and 1.84, I would say is highly fortuitous or just by chance, and I do not believe, at least at this point, we are in a position to answer the question of why is that different from the roughly three that might reflect the B. & W. experience.

I would like to say this, and that is that the feedwater system, the initiating source of all the transients that you are mentioning, is a system that is designed and supplied by the utility or his engineer. So the frequency of upset conditions or loss of feedwater or transients in the secondary system is not really related to the design of the nuclear steam system. And so I would not want you to draw any correlation or to reach a conclusion that because of the statistics there, there is something unique to the B. & W. system versus the G.E., or Westinghouse, or Combustion.

The question of whether they are predictable or not, I guess they are predictable to this extent that in feedwater systems in steam plant operation, that kind of frequency of loss of feedwater seems to be typical of the kind of operation that steamplants are exposed to, and they frequently are initiated by protective devices built into the system to keep from damaging equipment, because usually the condensate pumps or the booster pumps or the feedwater pumps and so onMr. WEAVER. Is there much difference? You build coal plants. Is there

Mr. MCMILLAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. WEAVER. Is there much difference between the secondary system in Three Mile Island and the secondary system in a coal plant, the steam system?

Mr. MCMILLAN. I just have to say, in general they are very similar. There are a couple of significant differences. Your boiler pressurethat is the pressure at which you deliver steam from a boiler-and the temperature at which the steam is delivered from a boiler are higher than the temperatures and pressures.

For example, typically a boiler might deliver 2,400-pound pressure and 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, frequently with some reheat. The steam comes back and gets reheated to 1,000 degrees. Whereas with a nuclear plant, of course, it is delivered at 1,000 pounds pressure and at temperatures in the 500- to 600-degree range.

So that the temperature and pressure range of the steam coming out and the pressure of the feedwater coming in are different in a boiling unit than they would in a nuclear unit.

Mr. WEAVER. Give me those figures again, because I thought I heard the same thing for coal as nuclear, 1,000 pounds. I thought you said coal delivered at 1,000 pounds.

Mr. MCMILLAN. In nuclear, steam is delivered at 1,000 pounds. A coal-fired plant would deliver at either 2,400 or some of the units are supercritical; they get up over 3,000 pressure.

Mr. WEAVER. I see. And the temperature in the two is 600?

Mr. MCMILLAN. In the nuclear unit it would be 500 to 600 degrees, and in a boiler it would be 1,000 degrees.

Mr. WEAVER. 1,000 degrees. OK, I got you.

Now, to let you know what politicians are doing when they are out on the hustings, when I make a speech I often use this analogy, and I would like you to criticize it, please, because I never like to say something that I think is wrong.

I say, if something goes wrong with a coal plant, take a monkey wrench out there and fix it. If something goes wrong in a nuclear plant, you cannot do that.

Would you comment on that?

Mr. MCMILLAN. I think there is no question that the element of radiation associated with the reactor coolant system in a nuclear plant complicates the maintenance or repair functions that would be required as it applies to the reactor portion of the plant. I do not think it makes much difference for the secondary system. If you have a feedwater problem in a nuclear plant, you could go right down and stand next to that pump and work on it and maintain it with a monkey wrench, the same way you could maintain a feedwater pump on a coal

Mr. WEAVER. I know. But frankly, I do not think it is even a matter of degree. I think it is a matter of the most profound category. If you had had a condensate pump go out on a coal plant you would not have had this problem you had at Three Mile Island, nothing even faintly resembling it. Is that not correct?

Mr. MCMILLAN. I would rather address the question this way, because I do not know the answer to the question about what happens in a boiler when you lose a feed pump. It is a very traumatic transient, and not something

Mr. WEAVER. In a coal plant?

Mr. MCMILLAN. In a coal-fired plant.

Mr. WEAVER. Oh, it is? You see, I did not know this.

Mr. MCMILLAN. You have to kill the fire and you have hot slag on the walls of the furnace, and you have to get water in there and keep that furnace cool.

Mr. WEAVER. It is costly but not dangerous; would that be fair?

Mr. MCMILLAN. When I said traumatic, I meant it is a very severe. transient. It is not something that the operator handles just like that. He has to be very careful in the way he recovers in a fossil unit.

Mr. WEAVER. But you could not lose your plant, could you?

Mr. MCMILLAN. If he makes a mistake in the operation or he interferes with the cooling, normal cooling process in a boiler, what can happen is you can burn through the wall of the furnace, melt the wall of the furnace and blow water and steam around.

The repair of that wall segment is an easier job than the kind of recovery operation we are faced with at Three Mile Island, and the difference there is the ingredient of radiation. You can walk in with a welding torch and cut out a section of the wall and put a new one in

and weld it up and hydrotest it and inspect it and so forth, with direct hands-on operations, without any having to wait for any decay of radiation.

Mr. WEAVER. You would only be down a couple months, 3 months? Mr. MCMILLAN. Two or three months, probably.

Mr. WEAVER. Mr. McMillan, I want to thank you very much. I really appreciate your taking the time and being so courteous with us. Thank you very much.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Could I just extend to the committee an invitation, Mr. Chairman? I know these are very complicated matters and I know that it helps, from my own personal experience, to see some of these operations take place. And we certainly would be very pleased to have the committee or any portion of the committee or the staff come to Lynchburg and visit our simulator facility there. We can show you the facility, run through the transient as it occurred at Three Mile Island, show you some of the training operations that we have available for our operators.

And I think you would find it helpful in terms of trying to get some visual picture of what kind of an operation is involved in running these nuclear plants. We would be delighted for you to come and visit us.

Mr. WEAVER. We thank you very much, because we want very much to do that. I appreciate the opportunity. We will try to schedule it. Thanks again.

[Whereupon, at 1:20 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]