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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 234 / Thursday, December 9, 2021 / Rules and Regulations storage certificate of compliance design are required to demonstrate that SSCs important to safety will continue to perform their intended function for the requested renewal term. As discussed in the NRCs SER for the renewal of the initial certificate and Amendment No. 1, the NRC has approved conditions in the renewed initial certificate and Amendment No. 1 requiring the general licensee to implement the aging management activities described in the renewal application and incorporated into the UFSAR. These conditions ensure that the TN Americas LLC, TN
68 Dry Storage Cask system will continue to perform its intended safety functions and provide reasonable assurance of adequate protection of public health and safety throughout the renewal period.
Incremental impacts from continued use of the TN68 Dry Storage Cask system under a general license for an additional 40 years are not considered significant. When the general licensee follows all procedures and administrative controls, including the conditions established because of this renewal, no effluents are expected from the sealed dry cask systems. Activities associated with cask loading and decontamination may result in some small incremental liquid and gaseous effluents, but these activities will be conducted under 10 CFR parts 50 and 52 reactor operating licenses, and effluents will be controlled within existing reactor site technical specifications. Because reactor sites are relatively large, any incremental offsite doses due to direct radiation exposure from the spent fuel storage casks are expected to be small, and when combined with the contribution from reactor operations, well within the annual dose equivalent of 0.25 mSv 25
mrem limit to the whole body specified in 72.104. Incremental impacts on collective occupational exposures due to dry cask spent fuel storage are expected to be only a small fraction of the exposures from operation of the nuclear power station.
The TN68 Dry Storage Cask system is designed to mitigate the effects of design-basis accidents that could occur during storage. Design-basis accidents account for human-induced events and the most severe natural phenomena reported for the site and surrounding area. Postulated accidents analyzed for an independent spent fuel storage installation, the type of facility at which a holder of a power reactor operating license would store spent fuel in casks in accordance with 10 CFR part 72, can include tornado winds and tornadogenerated missiles, a design-basis
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earthquake, a design-basis flood, an accidental cask drop, lightning effects, fire, explosions, and other incidents.
During the promulgation of the amendments that added subpart K to 10
CFR part 72 55 FR 29181; July 18, 1990, the NRC staff assessed the public health consequences of dry cask storage accidents and sabotage events. In the supporting analyses for these amendments, the NRC determined that a release from a dry cask storage system would be comparable in magnitude to a release from the same quantity of fuel in a spent fuel storage pool. As a result of these evaluations, the NRC determined that, because of the physical characteristics of the storage casks and conditions of storage that include specific security provisions, the potential risk to public health and safety due to accidents or sabotage is very small.
Considering the specific design requirements for each accident or sabotage condition, the design of the cask would maintain confinement, shielding, and criticality control. If confinement, shielding, or criticality control are maintained, the environmental impacts from an accident would be insignificant.
There are no changes to cask design or fabrication requirements in the renewed initial certificate or Amendment No. 1. Because there are no significant design or process changes, any resulting occupational exposure or offsite dose rates from the implementation of the renewal of the initial certificate and Amendment No. 1
would remain well within the 10 CFR
part 20 limits.
Decommissioning of dry cask spent fuel storage systems under a general license would be carried out as part of a power reactors site decommissioning plan. In general, decommissioning would consist of removing the spent fuel from the site, decontaminating cask surfaces, and decontaminating and dismantling the independent spent fuel storage installation where the casks were deployed. Under normal and offnormal operating conditions, no residual contamination is expected to be left behind on supporting structures.
The incremental impacts associated with decommissioning dry cask storage installations are expected to represent a small fraction of the impacts of decommissioning an entire nuclear power station.
In summary, the proposed changes will not result in any radiological or nonradiological environmental impacts that significantly differ from the environmental impacts evaluated in the environmental assessment supporting
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the July 18, 1990, final rule. Compliance with the requirements of 10 CFR parts 20 and 72 would provide reasonable assurance that adequate protection of public health and safety will continue.
The NRC, in its SER for the renewal of the TN68 Dry Storage Cask system, has determined if the conditions specified in the certificate of compliance to implement these regulations are met, adequate protection of public health and safety will continue to be reasonably assured.
Based on the previously stated assessments and its SER for the requested renewal of the TN68 Dry Storage Cask certificates, the NRC has determined that the expiration date of this system in 10 CFR 72.214 can be safely extended for an additional 40
years, and that commercial nuclear power reactor licensees can continue using the system during this period under a general license without significant impacts on the human environment.
D. Alternative to the Action The alternative to this action is to deny approval of the renewal and not issue the direct final rule. Under this alternative, the NRC would either 1
require general licensees using the TN
68 Dry Storage Cask to unload the spent fuel from these systems and either return it to a spent fuel pool or re-load it into a different dry storage cask system listed in 72.214; or 2 require that users of the existing TN68 Dry Storage Cask request site-specific licensing proceedings to continue storage in these systems.
The environmental impacts of requiring the licensee to unload the spent fuel and either return it to the spent fuel pool or re-load it into another NRC-approved cask system would result in increased radiological doses to workers. These increased doses would be due primarily to direct radiation from the casks while the workers unloaded, transferred, and re-loaded the spent fuel. These activities would consist of transferring the dry storage canisters to a cask-handling building, opening the canister lid welds, returning the canister to a spent fuel pool or dry transfer facility, removing the fuel assemblies, and re-loading them, either into a spent fuel pool storage rack or another NRCapproved dry storage system. In addition to the increased occupational doses to workers, these activities may also result in additional liquid or gaseous effluents.
Alternatively, users of the dry cask storage system would need to apply for a site-specific license. Under this option for implementing the no-action
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