[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 192 (Wednesday, October 3, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Pages 60481-60482]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-24395]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[NRC-2011-0296]
Design, Inspection, and Testing Criteria for Air Filtration and
Adsorption Units of Post-Accident Engineered-Safety-Feature Atmosphere
Cleanup Systems in Light-Water-Cooled Nuclear Power Plants
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Regulatory guide; issuance.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or the Commission)
is issuing a revision to Regulatory Guide (RG) 1.52, ``Design,
Inspection, and Testing Criteria for Air Filtration and Adsorption
Units of Post-accident Engineered-Safety-Feature Atmosphere Cleanup
Systems in Light-Water-Cooled Nuclear Power Plants.'' This guide
applies to the design, inspection, and testing of air filtration and
iodine adsorption units of engineered-safety-feature (ESF) atmosphere
cleanup systems in light-water-cooled nuclear power plants.
ADDRESSES: Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2011-0296 when contacting the
NRC about the availability of information regarding this document. You
may access information related to this document, which the NRC
possesses and are publicly available, using any of the following
methods:
Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2011-0296. Address
questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher; telephone: 301-492-
3668; email: [email protected].
NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System
(ADAMS): You may access publicly available documents online in the NRC
Library at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. To begin the
search, select ``ADAMS Public Documents'' and then select ``Begin Web-
based ADAMS Search.'' For problems with ADAMS, please contact the NRC's
Public Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-
4737, or by email to [email protected]. The ADAMS accession number
for each document referenced in this notice (if that document is
available in ADAMS) is provided the first time that a document is
referenced. Revision 4 of Regulatory Guide 1.52 is available in ADAMS
under Accession No. ML12159A013. The regulatory analysis may be found
in ADAMS under Accession No. ML12159A538.
NRC's PDR: You may examine and purchase copies of public
documents at the NRC's PDR, Room O1-F21, One White Flint North, 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852.
Regulatory guides are not copyrighted, and NRC approval is not
required to reproduce them.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mekonnen Bayssie, Regulatory Guide
Development Branch, Division of Engineering, Office of Nuclear
Regulatory Research, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
20555-0001; telephone: 301-251-7489; email: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Introduction
The NRC is issuing a revision to an existing guide in the NRC's
``Regulatory Guide'' series. This series was developed to describe and
make available to the public information such as methods that are
acceptable to the NRC staff for implementing specific parts of the
agency's regulations, techniques that the staff uses in evaluating
specific problems or postulated accidents, and data that the staff
needs in its review of applications for permits and licenses.
Revision 4 of RG 1.52 was issued with a temporary identification as
Draft Regulatory Guide, DG-1274. This guide provides a method that the
NRC considers acceptable to implement part 50 of Title 10 of the Code
of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), ``Domestic Licensing of Production and
Utilization Facilities,'' Appendix A, ``General Design Criteria for
Nuclear Power Plants,'' as it applies to the design, inspection, and
testing of air filtration and iodine adsorption units of ESF atmosphere
cleanup systems in light-water-cooled nuclear power plants. For the
purposes of this guide, ESF atmosphere cleanup systems are those
systems that are credited in the licensee's current design-basis
accident (DBA) analysis, as described in the safety analysis report
(SAR), or those systems that the licensee has described in the SAR as
ESF atmosphere cleanup systems. This guide addresses ESF atmosphere
cleanup systems, including the various components and ductwork, in the
postulated DBA environment.
The NRC published the previous Revision 3 of this RG in June 2001.
Since this publication, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
(ASME) Committee on Nuclear Air and Gas Treatment (CONAGT) has expanded
the scope of equipment covered by ASME AG-1, ``Code on Nuclear Air and
Gas Treatment.'' The NRC staff had previously endorsed earlier
revisions of ASME-AG-1 in RG 1.52. The revision to ASME-AG-1
consolidated select requirements from ASME-N509, ``Nuclear Power Plant
Air-Cleaning Units and Components,'' ASME-N510, ``Testing of Nuclear
Air-Treatment Systems,'' and other documents previously endorsed by the
NRC staff in RG 1.52. In addition, CONAGT has developed and published a
new standard, ASME-N511-2007, ``Inservice Testing of Nuclear Air
Treatment, Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning Systems.'' This new
standard provides comprehensive test and inspection requirements and is
written to complement the expanded ASME-AG-1. Revision 4 of this RG is
necessary to address these changes to the referenced industry
standards.
II. Further Information
DG-1274 was published in the Federal Register on December 30, 2011
(76 FR 82323), for a 60-day public comment period. The public comment
period closed on February 25, 2012. Public comments on DG-1274 and the
staff responses to the public comments are available under ADAMS
Accession No. ML12159A049.
III. Backfitting and Issue Finality
Issuance of this final regulatory guide does not constitute
backfitting as defined in 10 CFR 50.109 (the Backfit Rule) and is not
otherwise inconsistent with the issue finality provisions in 10 CFR
Part 52. As discussed in the ``Implementation'' section of this
regulatory guide, the NRC has no current intention to impose this
regulatory guide on holders of current operating licenses or combined
licenses.
This regulatory guide may be applied to applications for operating
licenses and combined licenses docketed by the NRC as of the date of
issuance of the final regulatory guide, as well as future applications
for operating licenses and combined licenses submitted after the
issuance of the regulatory guide. Such action does not constitute
backfitting as
[[Page 60482]]
defined in 10 CRF 50.109(a)(1) and is not otherwise inconsistent with
the applicable issue finality provision in 10 CFR Part 52, inasmuch as
such applicants or potential applicants are not within the scope of
entities protected by the Backfit Rule or the relevant issue finality
provisions in Part 52.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 26th day of Sept., 2012.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Thomas H. Boyce,
Chief, Regulatory Guide Development Branch, Division of Engineering,
Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. 2012-24395 Filed 10-2-12; 8:45 am]
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