[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]
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