Volcanic Hazards Assessment for Proposed New and Advanced Nuclear Power Plants
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing for public comment draft regulatory guide (DG), DG-4028, "Volcanic Hazards Assessment for Proposed Nuclear Power Reactor ...
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing for public comment draft regulatory guide (DG), DG-4028, “Volcanic Hazards Assessment for Proposed Nuclear Power Reactor Sites.” This DG proposes new guidance for facilitating NRC staff reviews of volcanic hazard assessments performed by applicants to support the siting and licensing of new nuclear power reactors. The DG also provides applicants with the methods and approaches the NRC staff considers acceptable for the assessment of volcanic hazards in license applications.
DATES:
Submit comments by May 19, 2020. Comments received after this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the NRC is able to ensure consideration only for comments received on or before this date.
Although a time limit is given, comments and suggestions in connection with items for inclusion in guides currently being developed or improvements in all published guides are encouraged at any time.
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-2020-0076. Address questions about NRC dockets IDs in
Regulations.gov
to Jennifer Borges; telephone: 301-287-9127; email:
Jennifer.Borges@nrc.gov.
For technical questions, contact the individuals listed in the
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT
section of this document.
Mail comments to:
Office of Administration, Mail Stop: TWFN-7-A60M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN: Program Management, Announcements and Editing Staff.
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:
Jenise Thompson, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, telephone: 301-415-1811, email:
Jenise.Thompson@nrc.gov;
and Edward O'Donnell, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, telephone: 301-415-3317, email:
Edward.ODonnell@nrc.gov.
Both are staff of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments
A. Obtaining Information
Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2020-0076 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:
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
pdr.resource@nrc.gov.
The DG-4028 is available in ADAMS under Accession No.
( printed page 16148)
ML20007D621 and the Regulatory Analysis under Accession No. ML20007D618.
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-2020-0076 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. Additional Information
The NRC is issuing for public comment a draft guide in the NRC's “Regulatory Guide” series. This series was developed to describe and make available to the public information regarding methods that are acceptable to the NRC staff for implementing specific parts of the NRC's regulations, techniques that the staff uses in evaluating specific issues or postulated events, and data that the staff needs in its review of applications for permits and licenses. The staff is also issuing for public comment a draft Regulatory Analysis. Regulatory Analyses are developed to assess the value of issuing a guide as well as alternative courses of action.
The DG, entitled, “Volcanic Hazards Assessment for Proposed Nuclear Power Reactor Sites,” is a proposed new guide temporarily identified by its task number, DG-4028. It provides guidance for facilitating NRC staff reviews of volcanic hazard assessments performed by applicants to support the licensing of new nuclear power reactors. The guide also provides applicants with the methods and approaches the NRC staff considers acceptable for the assessment of volcanic hazards in license applications.
III. Backfitting, Forward Fitting, and Issue Finality
Issuance of this draft regulatory guide does not constitute backfitting as defined in title 10 of the
Code of Federal Regulations
(10 CFR) section 50.109, “Backfitting,” and as described in NRC Management Directive 8.4, “Management of Backfitting, Forward Fitting, Issue Finality, and Information Requests” and as described in NRC Management Directive 8.4, “Management of Backfitting, Forward Fitting, Issue Finality, and Information Requests;” would not affect the issue finality of any approval issued under 10 CFR part 52; and would not constitute forward fitting as that term is defined and described in Management Directive 8.4. As explained in the draft regulatory guide, licensees would not be required to comply with the positions set forth in this draft regulatory guide.
April 24, 2020
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 16th day of March 2020.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Thomas H. Boyce,
Chief, Regulatory Guidance and Generic Issues Branch, Division of Engineering, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
Use this for formal legal and research references to the published document.
85 FR 16147
Web Citation
Suggested Web Citation
Use this when citing the archival web version of the document.
“Volcanic Hazards Assessment for Proposed New and Advanced Nuclear Power Plants,” thefederalregister.org (March 20, 2020), https://thefederalregister.org/documents/2020-05830/volcanic-hazards-assessment-for-proposed-new-and-advanced-nuclear-power-plants.