Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 233 / Monday, December 6, 2004 / Notices 70473

2. Environmental—primarily concerns 

issues relating to matters discussed or 

referenced in the Environmental Report for 

the license renewal application 

3. Miscellaneous—does not fall into one of 

the categories outlined above.

As specified in 10 CFR 2.309, if two 

or more requestors/petitioners seek to 

co-sponsor a contention, the requestors/

petitioners shall jointly designate a 

representative who shall have the 

authority to act for the requestors/

petitioners with respect to that 

contention. If a requestor/petitioner 

seeks to adopt the contention of another 

sponsoring requestor/petitioner, the 

requestor/petitioner who seeks to adopt 

the contention must either agree that the 

sponsoring requestor/petitioner shall act 

as the representative with respect to that 

contention, or jointly designate with the 

sponsoring requestor/petitioner a 

representative who shall have the 

authority to act for the requestors/

petitioners with respect to that 

contention. 

Those permitted to intervene become 

parties to the proceeding, subject to any 

limitations in the order granting leave to 

intervene, and have the opportunity to 

participate fully in the conduct of the 

hearing. A request for a hearing or a 

petition for leave to intervene must be 

filed by: (1) First class mail addressed 

to the Office of the Secretary of the 

Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission, Washington, DC, 20555–

0001, Attention: Rulemaking and 

Adjudications Staff; (2) courier, express 

mail, and expedited delivery services: 

Office of the Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, 

One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville 

Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, 

Attention: Rulemaking and 

Adjudications Staff; (3) E-mail 

addressed to the Office of the Secretary, 

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 

HEARINGDOCKET@NRC.GOV; or (4) 

facsimile transmission addressed to the 

Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission, Washington, 

DC, Attention: Rulemakings and 

Adjudications Staff at 301–415–1101, 

verification number is 301–415–1966. A 

copy of the request for hearing and 

petition for leave to intervene must also 

be sent to the Office of the General 

Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission, Washington, DC 20555–

0001, and it is requested that copies be 

transmitted either by means of facsimile 

transmission to 301–415–3725 or by email to OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov. A copy 

of the request for hearing and petition 

for leave to intervene should also be 

sent to the attorney for the applicant. 

Attorney for the Applicant: Mr. Steven 

R. Carr, Associate General Counsel—

Legal Department, Progress Energy 

Service Company, LCC, Post Office Box 

1551, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27602–

1551. 

Non-timely requests and/or petitions 

and contentions will not be entertained 

absent a determination by the 

Commission, the presiding officer, or 

the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 

that the petition, request and/or 

contentions should be granted based on 

a balancing of the factors specified in 10 

CFR 2.309(a)(1)(i)–(viii). 

Detailed information about the license 

renewal process can be found under the 

Nuclear Reactors icon at http://

www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/

licensing/renewal.html on the NRC’s 

Web site. Copies of the application to 

renew the operating licenses for 

Brunswick Steam Electric Plant, Units 1 

and 2, are available for public 

inspection at the Commission’s PDR, 

located at One White Flint North, 11555 

Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, 

Maryland 20852–2738, and on the 

NRC’s webpage at http://www.nrc.gov/

reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/

applications.html while the application 

is under review. The NRC maintains an 

Agencywide Documents Access and 

Management System (ADAMS), which 

provides text and image files of NRC’s 

public documents. These documents 

may be accessed through the NRC’s 

Public Electronic Reading Room on the 

Internet at http://www.nrc.gov/readingrm/adams.html under ADAMS 

accession number ML043060444. (Note:

Public access to ADAMS has been 

temporarily suspended so that security 

reviews of publicly available documents 

may be performed and potentially 

sensitive information removed. Please 

check the NRC’s Web site for updates on 

the resumption of ADAMS access.) 

Persons who do not have access to 

ADAMS or who encounter problems in 

accessing the documents located in 

ADAMS may contact the NRC Public 

Document Room (PDR) Reference staff 

at 1–800–397–4209, 301–415–4737, or 

by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov.

The staff has verified that a copy of 

the license renewal application is also 

available to local residents near the 

Brunswick Steam Electric Plant, Units 1 

and 2, at the North Carolina University 

at Wilmington, William Randall Library, 

601 South College Road, Wilmington, 

North Carolina.

Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 30th day 

of November, 2004.

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

Pao-Tsin Kuo, 

Program Director, License Renewal and 

Environmental Impacts Program, Division of 

Regulatory Improvement Programs, Office of 

Nuclear Reactor Regulation.

[FR Doc. 04–26693 Filed 12–3–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7590–01–P

NUCLEAR REGULATORY 

COMMISSION 

[Docket No. 50–346] 

Firstenergy Nuclear Operating 

Company; Davis-Besse Nuclear Power 

Station; Amended Exemption 

1.0 Background 

The FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating 

Company (the licensee) is the holder of 

Facility Operating License No. NPF–3, 

which authorizes operation of the DavisBesse Nuclear Power Station (DBNPS). 

The license provides, among other 

things, that the facility is subject to all 

rules, regulations, and orders of the 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC, 

the Commission) now or hereafter in 

effect. 

The facility consists of a pressurizedwater reactor located in Ottawa County, 

Ohio. 

2.0 Request 

Title 10 of the Code of Federal 

Regulations (10 CFR), Part 50, Section 

50.46 provides acceptance criteria for 

the emergency core cooling systems 

(ECCS), including an option to develop 

the ECCS evaluation model in 

conformance with Appendix K 

requirements (10 CFR 50.46(a)(1)(ii)). 10 

CFR Part 50, Appendix K, Section 1.D.1, 

in turn, requires that accident 

evaluations use the combination of 

ECCS subsystems assumed to be 

operative ‘‘after the most damaging 

single failure of ECCS equipment has 

taken place.’’

An exemption issued on May 5, 2000, 

exempted the licensee from the singlefailure requirement for the two systems 

(paths) for preventing boric acid 

precipitation (boric acid precipitation 

control or BPC) during the long-term 

cooling phase following a loss-ofcoolant accident (LOCA). Additionally, 

the licensee was exempted from the 

calculation requirements of 50.46(b)(5) 

and Appendix K, Section I.A.4 for the 

second or backup path for BPC. The 

proposed action would amend the 

existing exemption by approving a new 

path for BPC. This new path would 

become the primary path and the 

original primary path would become the 

backup path. The original backup path 

would no longer be credited as part of 

70474 Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 233 / Monday, December 6, 2004 / Notices 

the licensing basis, although it would 

remain as a third option procedurally. 

As such, the parts of the exemption 

related to the calculation requirements 

of 50.46(b)(5) and Appendix K, Section 

I.A.4 are removed from the exemption 

as they only applied to the original 

backup path and are no longer needed. 

Specifically, DBNPS requested the 

following amended exemption: 

FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating 

Company, with respect to the DavisBesse Nuclear Power Station, is exempt 

from the single-failure criterion 

requirement of 10 CFR 50, Appendix K, 

Section I.D.1, with respect to failure of 

either Motor Control Center E11B or 

Motor Control Center F11A and the 

resulting inability to initiate an active 

means of controlling core boron 

concentration. 

In summary, the licensee has 

modified the plant to install a better 

method of post-LOCA BPC and wants to 

credit the new method for use. 

3.0 Discussion 

Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12, the 

Commission may, upon application by 

any interested person or upon its own 

initiative, grant exemptions from the 

requirements of 10 CFR Part 50 when (1) 

the exemptions are authorized by law, 

will not present an undue risk to public 

health or safety, and are consistent with 

the common defense and security; and 

(2) when special circumstances are 

present. Special circumstances are 

present whenever, according to 10 CFR 

50.12(a)(2)(ii), ‘‘Application of the 

regulation in the particular 

circumstances would not serve the 

underlying purpose of the rule or is not 

necessary to achieve the underlying 

purpose of the rule.’’

The requirements of 10 CFR Part 50 

apply to the DBNPS request to amend 

the existing exemption. The underlying 

purpose of the single-failure criterion 

requirement is to assure long-term 

cooling performance of the ECCS in the 

event of the most damaging singlefailure of ECCS equipment. 

As a licensing review tool, the singlefailure criterion helps assure reliable 

systems as an element of defense in 

depth. As a design and analysis tool, it 

promotes reliability through enforced 

redundancy. Since historically only 

those systems or components that were 

judged to have a credible chance of 

failure were assumed to fail, the 

criterion has been applied to such 

responses as valve movement on 

demand, emergency diesel generator 

start, short circuit in an electrical bus, 

and fluid leakage caused by gross failure 

of a pump or valve seal during longterm cooling. Certain types of structural 

elements, when combined with other 

unlikely events, were not assumed to 

fail because the probabilities of the 

resulting scenarios were deemed 

sufficiently small that they did not need 

to be considered. 

The single-failure criterion was 

developed without the benefit of 

numerical failure assessments. 

Regulatory requirements and guidance 

consequently were based upon 

categories of equipment and examples 

that must be covered or that are exempt, 

and do not allow a probabilistic 

consideration during routine 

implementation. Hence, a single failure 

that was not judged to be exempt would 

need to be addressed, whether or not 

there is a substantial impact upon 

overall system reliability. A result that 

does not improve safety is inconsistent 

with the objective of the single-failure 

criterion, which was not intended to 

force changes if essentially no benefit 

would accrue. This is the case with 

potential failure of the active means of 

BPC.

No U.S. plants have encountered 

LOCA conditions where BPC was of 

concern. BPC measures are not needed 

for hot-leg breaks because water will 

flow through the core, thus preventing 

significant boric acid buildup. 

Additionally, BPC measures are not 

needed if excore thermocouples indicate 

an adequate subcooling margin because 

there is no boiling to cause 

concentration of boric acid. Neither are 

they needed for many of the remaining 

pipe breaks until decay heat is low, 

because water will flow from the core to 

the upper downcomer via the reactor 

vessel vent valves, thus providing a 

mechanism to control accumulation of 

boric acid in the core. Active means for 

BPC are needed in case one of the above 

conditions is not satisfied. 

In reviewing the proposed BPC ECCS 

alignments, the NRC staff used 

substantial improvement in reliability as 

its criterion for acceptance, since the 

existing BPC ECCS alignments were 

found acceptable on a probabilistic 

basis. 

The licensee submitted information 

that compared the previously approved 

BPC alignments with the proposed 

alignments to show that the proposed 

BPC ECCS alignments are more reliable 

than the previously approved 

alignments. 

The new proposed primary path takes 

suction from the ECCS sump through 

decay heat pump 1–1 to a newly 

installed crossover line to the decay 

heat removal system hot leg drop line 

and through decay heat system valves 

DH–11 and DH–12 to the reactor coolant 

system (RCS) hot leg, and finally to the 

reactor vessel to back-flush precipitated 

boron from the core. The NRC staff 

determined that this is an improvement 

over the previous primary alignment in 

that it provides a faster, higher, 

flushing/diluting flow to the reactor 

vessel from the RCS hot leg side. For 

RCS cold leg pipe breaks, this alignment 

would provide the optimal flow 

direction for flushing of the core. 

The new proposed backup path is the 

previous primary path through the 

pressurizer spray line. This continues to 

be an acceptable path as was 

determined by the staff’s review for the 

exemption issued on May 5, 2000. 

Additionally, the new proposed backup 

path through the pressurizer spray line 

does not need additional exemptions 

regarding the calculation requirements 

of 50.46(b)(5) and Appendix K, Section 

I.A.4 that the original backup path 

needed. 

The proposed new BPC primary path 

is significantly more reliable in terms of 

capacity and timeliness than the 

previous primary path. As stated above, 

the proposed new backup path is the 

previous primary path and does not 

need two additional exemptions 

regarding calculation requirements that 

the original backup path needed. 

Therefore, the staff concludes that the 

proposed backup path is significantly 

better than the original backup path. 

Based on its review, the NRC staff has 

determined that the proposed BPC 

alignment paths are significantly more 

reliable than the previously approved 

paths and, therefore, the staff concludes 

that they are acceptable. 

For the foregoing reasons, the NRC 

staff has concluded that amending the 

existing exemption to the requirements 

of Appendix K, Section I.D.1, and 10 

CFR 50.46(a)(1)(ii) with respect to the 

revised alignment paths for active 

means of BPC at DBNPS is acceptable. 

The NRC staff has determined that there 

are special circumstances present, as 

specified in 10 CFR 50.12(a)(2)(ii), in 

that application of the specific 

regulations is not necessary in order to 

achieve the underlying purpose of these 

regulations to assure long term cooling 

performance of the ECCS. 

Additionally, the NRC staff has 

concluded that the parts of the 

exemption related to the calculation 

requirements of 10 CFR 50.46(b)(5) and 

Appendix K, Section I.A.4 are now 

withdrawn as they are no longer 

needed. 

4.0 Conclusion 

Accordingly, the Commission has 

determined that, pursuant to 10 CFR 

50.12(a), the amendment to the 

exemption is authorized by law, will not 

Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 233 / Monday, December 6, 2004 / Notices 70475

present an undue risk to the public 

health and safety, and is consistent with 

the common defense and security. Also, 

special circumstances are present. 

Therefore, the Commission hereby 

grants FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating 

Company an amendment to the 

exemption from the requirements of 10 

CFR 50.46(a)(1)(ii) and 10 CFR Part 50, 

Appendix K, Section 1.D.1 for DavisBesse Nuclear Power Station. 

Pursuant to 10 CFR 51.32, the 

Commission has determined that the 

granting of this exemption will not have 

a significant effect on the quality of the 

human environment (69 FR 47469). 

This exemption is effective upon 

issuance and shall be implemented 

within 120 days.

Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 29th day 

of November 2004.

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

Ledyard B. Marsh, 

Director, Division of Licensing Project 

Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor 

Regulation.

[FR Doc. 04–26692 Filed 12–3–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7590–01–P

NUCLEAR REGULATORY 

COMMISSION 

Notice of Availability of Interim Staff 

Guidance Documents for Fuel Cycle 

Facilities

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission.

ACTION: Notice of availability.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Wilkins Smith, Project manager, 

Technical Support Group, Division of 

Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards, Office 

of Nuclear Material Safety and 

Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission, Washington, DC 20005–

0001. Telephone: (301) 415–5788; fax 

number: (301) 415–5370; e-mail: 

wrs@nrc.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Introduction 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

(NRC) plans to issue Interim Staff 

Guidance (ISG) documents for fuel cycle 

facilities. These ISG documents provide 

clarifying guidance to the NRC staff 

when reviewing either a license 

application or a license amendment 

request for a fuel cycle facility under 10 

CFR part 70. The NRC is soliciting 

public comments on the ISG documents 

which will be considered in the final 

versions or subsequent revisions. 

II. Summary 

The purpose of this notice is to 

provide the public an opportunity to 

review and comment on a draft Interim 

Staff Guidance document for fuel cycle 

facilities. Interim Staff Guidance-10 

provides guidance to NRC staff relative 

to determining whether the minimum 

margin of subcriticality (MoS) is 

sufficient to provide an adequate 

assurance of subcriticality for safety to 

demonstrate compliance with the 

performance requirements of 10 CFR 

70.61(d). 

III. Further Information 

The document related to this action is 

available electronically at the NRC’s 

Electronic Reading Room at http://

www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. 

From this site, you can access the NRC’s 

Agencywide Document Access and 

Management System (ADAMS), which 

provides text and image files of NRC’s 

public documents. The ADAMS 

ascension number for the document 

related to this notice is ML043290270. 

If you do not have access to ADAMS or 

if there are problems in accessing the 

document located in ADAMS, contact 

the NRC Public Document Room (PDR) 

Reference staff at 1–800–397–4209, 301–

415–4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. 

This document may also be viewed 

electronically on the public computers 

located at the NRC’s PDR, O 1 F21, One 

White Flint North, 11555 Rockville 

Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. The PDR 

reproduction contractor will copy 

documents for a fee. Comments and 

questions should be directed to the NRC 

contact listed above by January 5, 2005. 

Comments received after this date will 

be considered if it is practical to do so, 

but assurance of consideration cannot 

be given to comments received after this 

date.

Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 24th day 

of November 2004.

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

Melanie A. Galloway, 

Chief, Technical Support Group, Division of 

Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards, Office of 

Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.

Draft—Division of Fuel Cycle Safety 

and Safeguards Interim Staff 

Guidance—10; Justification for 

Minimum Margin of Subcriticality for 

Safety Issue 

Technical justification for the 

selection of the minimum margin of 

subcriticality (MoS) for safety, as 

required by 10 CFR 70.61(d) 

Introduction 

10 CFR 70.61(d) requires, in part, that 

licensees demonstrate that ‘‘under 

normal and credible abnormal 

conditions, all nuclear processes are 

subcritical, including use of an 

approved margin of subcriticality for 

safety.’’ To demonstrate subcriticality, 

licensees perform validation studies in 

which critical experiments similar to 

actual or anticipated calculations are 

chosen and are then used to establish a 

mathematical criterion for subcriticality 

for all future calculations. This criterion 

is expressed in terms of a limit on the 

maximum value of the calculated keff, 

which will be referred to in this ISG as 

the upper subcritical limit (USL). The 

USL includes allowances for bias and 

bias uncertainty as well as an additional 

margin which will be referred to 

hereafter as the minimum margin of 

subcriticality (MoS). This MoS has been 

variously referred to within the nuclear 

industry as subcritical margin, arbitrary 

margin, and administrative margin. The 

term MoS will be used throughout this 

ISG for consistency, but these terms are 

frequently used interchangeably. This 

MoS is an allowance for any unknown 

errors in the calculational method that 

may bias the result of calculations, 

beyond those accounted for explicitly in 

the calculation of the bias and bias 

uncertainty. 

There is little guidance in the fuel 

facility Standard Review Plans (SRPs) as 

to what constitutes an acceptable MoS. 

NUREG–1520, Section 5.4.3.4.4, states 

that the MoS should be pre-approved by 

the NRC and that the MoS must 

‘‘include adequate allowance for 

uncertainty in the methodology, data, 

and bias to assure subcriticality.’’

However, there is little guidance on how 

to determine the amount of MoS that is 

appropriate. Partly due to the historical 

lack of guidance, there have been 

significantly different margins of 

subcriticality approved for different fuel 

cycle facilities over time. In addition, 

the different ways of defining the MoS 

and calculating keff limits significantly 

compound the potential for confusion. 

The MoS can have a significant effect on 

facility operations (e.g., storage capacity 

and throughput) and there has therefore 

been considerable recent interest in 

decreasing the margins of subcriticality 

below what has been accepted 

historically. These two factors—the lack 

of guidance and the increasing interest 

in reducing margins of subcriticality—

make clarification of what constitutes 

acceptable justification for the MoS 

necessary. In general, consistent with a 

risk-informed approach to regulation, 

smaller margins of subcriticality require 

more substantial technical justification. 

The purpose of this ISG therefore is to 

provide guidance on determining 

whether the MoS is sufficient to provide