[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 56 (Thursday, March 22, 2018)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 12504-12505]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-05776]


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 Proposed Rules
                                                 Federal Register
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 This section of the FEDERAL REGISTER contains notices to the public of 
 the proposed issuance of rules and regulations. The purpose of these 
 notices is to give interested persons an opportunity to participate in 
 the rule making prior to the adoption of the final rules.
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  Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 56 / Thursday, March 22, 2018 / 
Proposed Rules  

[[Page 12504]]



NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

10 CFR Part 72

[Docket No. PRM-72-8; NRC-2018-0017]


Requirements for the Indefinite Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Petition for rulemaking; notice of docketing, and request for 
comment.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has received a 
petition for rulemaking from Raymond Lutz and Citizens Oversight, Inc. 
(the Petitioners), dated January 2, 2018, requesting that the NRC amend 
its regulations regarding spent nuclear fuel storage systems. The 
petition was docketed by the NRC on January 22, 2018, and has been 
assigned Docket No. PRM-72-8. The NRC is examining the issues raised in 
PRM-72-8 to determine whether they should be considered in rulemaking. 
The NRC is requesting public comment on this petition.

DATES: Submit comments by June 5, 2018. Comments received after this 
date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the NRC is 
able to assure consideration only for comments received on or before 
this date.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any of the following methods:
     Federal Rulemaking Website: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2018-0017. Address 
questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher; telephone: 301-415-
3463; email: [email protected]. For technical questions contact 
the individual listed in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of 
this document.
     Email comments to: [email protected]. If you do 
not receive an automatic email reply confirming receipt, then contact 
us at 301-415-1677.
     Fax comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission at 301-415-1101.
     Mail comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN: Rulemakings and 
Adjudications Staff.
     Hand deliver comments to: 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, 
Maryland 20852, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. (Eastern Time) Federal 
workdays; telephone: 301-415-1677.
    For additional direction on obtaining information and submitting 
comments, see ``Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments'' in the 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Gregory Trussell, Office of Nuclear 
Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington DC 20555-0001; telephone: 301-415-6244, email: 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments

A. Obtaining Information

    Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2018-0017 when contacting the NRC 
about the availability of information for this action. You may obtain 
publicly-available information related to this action by any of the 
following methods:
     Federal Rulemaking website: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2018-0017.
     NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System 
(ADAMS): You may obtain publicly-available documents online in the 
ADAMS Public Documents collection 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 (if it is available 
in ADAMS) is provided the first time that it is mentioned in this 
document.
     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.

B. Submitting Comments

    Please include Docket ID NRC-2018-0017 in your comment submission.
    The NRC cautions you not to include identifying or contact 
information that you do not want to be publicly disclosed in your 
comment submission. The NRC will post all comment submissions at http://www.regulations.gov as well as enter the comment submissions into 
ADAMS. The NRC does not routinely edit comment submissions to remove 
identifying or contact information.
    If you are requesting or aggregating comments from other persons 
for submission to the NRC, then you should inform those persons not to 
include identifying or contact information that they do not want to be 
publicly disclosed in their comment submission. Your request should 
state that the NRC does not routinely edit comment submissions to 
remove such information before making the comment submissions available 
to the public or entering the comment into ADAMS.

II. The Petitioners

    The petition was filed by Raymond Lutz and Citizens Oversight Inc. 
Raymond Lutz is the founder and president of Citizens Oversight, Inc., 
a nonprofit organization.

III. The Petition

    The petitioners are requesting that the NRC revise part 72 of title 
10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) regarding spent nuclear 
fuel (SNF) stored in independent spent fuel storage installations 
(ISFSIs) at nuclear power stations. The petitioners are concerned that 
there is a mismatch between the NRC's 10 CFR part 72 regulations that 
define requirements for ISFSIs and the current situation, which the 
petitioners assert is that surface storage of spent nuclear fuel will 
continue indefinitely. The petitioners observe that 10 CFR part 72 was 
initially developed at a time when a repository was anticipated to be 
available in 1998 and, therefore, this PRM would address concerns with 
a much longer time frame for surface storage. The petitioners make 14 
contentions that propose specific revisions to 10 CFR part 72 that 
would address issues concerning the indefinite surface storage of spent 
nuclear fuel in dry cask storage systems. In particular, the 
petitioners request that 10 CFR part

[[Page 12505]]

72 be revised to require: a 1,000 year design life goal for spent 
nuclear storage systems; estimates for the operating costs over the 
design life; determination of the safety margins over the design life; 
and time limited aging analyses demonstrating that structures, systems, 
and components important to safety will continue to perform for the 
design life. The petition may be found in ADAMS at Accession No. 
ML18022B207.

IV. Discussion of the Petition

    The petitioners request that the NRC amend its regulations in 10 
CFR part 72 ``regarding spent nuclear fuel.'' The petitioners believe 
that ``the actual situation has now changed, while the NRC regulations 
have not changed sufficiently to respect the current reality'' of 
ongoing storage at nuclear plants and that the NRC should use a 
``Hardened, Extended-life, Local, Monitored Surface Storage'' (HELMS) 
type of approach as further described in a white paper submitted with 
the petition (ADAMS Accession No. ML18022B213).
    The petitioners contend that there is a timeframe difference 
between that of the useful life of an operating commercial nuclear 
plant and the storage of SNF at those nuclear plants indefinitely. The 
petitioners further contend that the ``license term and renewal periods 
for the facility operating license and CoC are defined to be (up to) 40 
years, and the design life is only implied as perhaps several multiples 
of the licensing period.'' The petitioners' position is ``that the 
design life should be explicitly defined as the initial 1,000 years.''
    The HELMS approach would require that SNF containers be designed 
for a 1,000-year life goal ``while still allowing a 40-year license 
term.'' The petitioners provided a specific proposal for the HELMS 
approach to assist their description; however, the petitioners 
emphasized ``that the HELMS proposal does not rely on the adoption of 
this specific proposal as long as the extended-life criterion is 
satisfied.'' The petitioners stated that the 1,000-year design life 
goal ``is likely NOT feasible without some monitoring and replacing 
part of the system on regular intervals.''

V. Request Under Sec.  2.206 Seeking Enforcement Action

    The petitioners also request enforcement action under Sec.  2.206 
of the NRC's regulations. The petitioners assert a violation of Sec.  
72.106, regarding the controlled area of an ISFSI or monitored 
retrievable storage installation, and ask for enforcement-related 
action, as appropriate; however, the petitioners have not provided 
information to support this charge. The NRC considered the request for 
review to determine whether the claim qualifies for enforcement-related 
action. The petitioners' claim does not constitute a valid request for 
action under Sec.  2.206. The petitioners do not specify the action 
requested but leave it up to the NRC to determine (based on the limited 
information provided on page 10 of the petition) whether enforcement is 
warranted of a licensee's ISFSI or monitored retrievable storage 
installation. Although the petitioners allege that a licensee has 
violated the requirement, the petition does not provide the facts that 
constitute the basis for taking enforcement action. Therefore, the 
petitioners' claim does not meet the requirements for Sec.  2.206 
enforcement action.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 16th day of March, 2018.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Annette L. Vietti-Cook,
Secretary of the Commission.
[FR Doc. 2018-05776 Filed 3-21-18; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 7590-01-P