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 http:// 

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 

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. 

§ 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. Ine ́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 

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Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 124 / Tuesday, June 28, 2011 / Notices 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 LowActivity 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 

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 

AGENCY: Department of Energy. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: 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. 

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. 

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