[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 223 (Tuesday, November 19, 2019)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 63819-63820]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-24936]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

10 CFR Part 50

[Docket No. PRM-50-120; NRC-2019-0180]


Alternative Method for Calculating Embrittlement for Steel 
Reactor Vessels

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 Thomas A. Bergman, on behalf of NuScale 
Power, LLC, dated August 19, 2019, requesting that the NRC revise its 
regulations to alleviate a requirement for calculating the 
embrittlement for advanced reactor designs and to add the embrittlement 
trend curve formula for calculating the mean value of the transition 
temperature shift described in American Society for Testing and 
Materials E900-152 to the NRC's regulations and guidance documents. The 
petition was docketed by the NRC on September 11, 2019, and has been 
assigned Docket No. PRM-50-120. The NRC is examining the issues raised 
in PRM-50-120 to determine whether these issues should be considered in 
rulemaking. The NRC is requesting public comment on this petition at 
this time.

DATES: Submit comments by December 19, 2019. 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 https://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2019-0180. 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: Yanely Malave-Velez, Office of Nuclear 
Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001; telephone: 301-415-1519; email 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments

A. Obtaining Information

    Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2019-0180 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 https://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2019-0180.
     NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System 
(ADAMS): You may obtain publicly-available documents online in the 
ADAMS Public Documents collection at https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. To begin the search, 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

[[Page 63820]]

White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852.

B. Submitting Comments

    Please include Docket ID NRC-2019-0180 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 
https://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 Petitioner and the Petition

    The petition was submitted by Thomas A. Bergman on behalf of 
NuScale Power, LLC. Thomas A. Bergman is the Vice President of 
Regulatory Affairs. The petitioner requests that the NRC amend part 50 
of title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) to alleviate an 
unnecessarily burdensome requirement on advanced reactor designs by 
adding an alternative formula for calculating the mean value of the 
transition temperature shift. The petition can be found in ADAMS at 
Accession No. ML19254B848.

III. Discussion of the Petition

    The provisions in 10 CFR 50.61 and Regulatory Guide 1.99 were first 
published in 1988 and focus on determining embrittlement inside the 
surface of the reactor pressure vessel. Additional irradiation 
embrittlement data has been collected since the time 10 CFR 50.61 and 
Regulatory Guide 1.99 were developed. The petitioner states that small 
modular reactor design is unnecessarily burdened with an excessively 
conservative methodology for determining radiation embrittlement based 
on outdated information. The petitioner requests that the NRC amend 10 
CFR part 50 to alleviate a requirement for calculating the 
embrittlement for advanced reactor designs and add the embrittlement 
trend curve formula for calculating the mean value of the transition 
temperature shift described in American Society for Testing and 
Materials (ASTM) E900-15 to the NRC's regulations and guidance 
documents. The petitioner states that ASTM E900-15 represents the 
latest industry consensus embrittlement trend correlation and is 
derived from a much larger database than was available when Regulatory 
Guide 1.99 was issued and last revised.

IV. Conclusion

    The NRC has determined that the petition meets the threshold 
sufficiency requirements for docketing a petition for rulemaking under 
10 CFR 2.803. The NRC is examining the issues raised in PRM-50-120 to 
determine whether these issues should be considered in rulemaking and 
is requesting public comment on this petition at this time.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 13th day of November 2019.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Annette L. Vietti-Cook,
Secretary of the Commission.
[FR Doc. 2019-24936 Filed 11-18-19; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 7590-01-P