§ 72.3 - Definitions.

§ 72.3 Definitions.

Cross Reference

Link to an amendment published at 88 FR 57879, Aug. 24, 2023.

As used in this part:

Act means the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (68 Stat. 919) including any amendments thereto.

Affected Indian Tribe means any Indian Tribe—

(1) Within whose reservation boundaries a monitored retrievable storage facility is proposed to be located;

(2) Whose federally defined possessory or usage rights to other lands outside of the reservation's boundaries arising out of congressionally ratified treaties may be substantially and adversely affected by the locating of such a facility: Provided, That the Secretary of the Interior finds, upon the petition of the appropriate governmental officials of the Tribe, that such effects are both substantial and adverse to the Tribe.

Affected unit of local government means any unit of local government with jurisdiction over the site where an MRS is proposed to be located.

AMP, for the purposes of this part, means a program for addressing aging effects that may include prevention, mitigation, condition monitoring, and performance monitoring.

As low as is reasonably achievable (ALARA) means as low as is reasonably achievable taking into account the state of technology, and the economics of improvement in relation to—

(1) Benefits to the public health and safety,

(2) Other societal and socioeconomic considerations, and

(3) The utilization of atomic energy in the public interest.

Atomic energy means all forms of energy released in the course of nuclear fission or nuclear transformation.

Byproduct material means—

(1) Any radioactive material (except special nuclear material) yielded in, or made radioactive by, exposure to the radiation incident to the process of producing or using special nuclear material;

(2)

(i) Any discrete source of radium-226 that is produced, extracted, or converted after extraction, before, on, or after August 8, 2005, for use for a commercial, medical, or research activity; or

(ii) Any material that—

(A) Has been made radioactive by use of a particle accelerator; and

(B) Is produced, extracted, or converted after extraction, before, on, or after August 8, 2005, for use for a commercial, medical, or research activity; and

(3) Any discrete source of naturally occurring radioactive material, other than source material, that—

(i) The Commission, in consultation with the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the head of any other appropriate Federal agency, determines would pose a threat similar to the threat posed by a discrete source of radium-226 to the public health and safety or the common defense and security; and

(ii) Before, on, or after August 8, 2005, is extracted or converted after extraction for use in a commercial, medical, or research activity.

Certificate holder means a person who has been issued a Certificate of Compliance by the Commission for a spent fuel storage cask design.

Certificate of Compliance or CoC means the certificate issued by the Commission that approves the design of a spent fuel storage cask in accordance with the provisions of subpart L of this part.

Commencement of construction means any clearing of land, excavation, or other substantial action that would adversely affect the natural environment of a site, but does not mean:

(1) Changes desirable for the temporary use of the land for public recreational uses, necessary borings or excavations to determine subsurface materials and foundation conditions, or other preconstruction monitoring to establish background information related to the suitability of the site or to the protection of environmental values;

(2) Construction of environmental monitoring facilities;

(3) Procurement or manufacture of components of the installation; or

(4) Construction of means of access to the site as may be necessary to accomplish the objectives of paragraphs (1) and (2) of this definition.

Commission means the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or its duly authorized representatives.

Confinement systems means those systems, including ventilation, that act as barriers between areas containing radioactive substances and the environment.

Controlled area means that area immediately surrounding an ISFSI or MRS for which the licensee exercises authority over its use and within which ISFSI or MRS operations are performed.

Decommission means to remove a facility or site safely from service and reduce residual radioactivity to a level that permits—

(1) Release of the property for unrestricted use and termination of the license; or

(2) Release of the property under restricted conditions and termination of the license.

Design bases means that information that identifies the specific functions to be performed by a structure, system, or component of a facility or of a spent fuel storage cask and the specific values or ranges of values chosen for controlling parameters as reference bounds for design. These values may be restraints derived from generally accepted state-of-the-art practices for achieving functional goals or requirements derived from analysis (based on calculation or experiments) of the effects of a postulated event under which a structure, system, or component must meet its functional goals. The values for controlling parameters for external events include—

(1) Estimates of severe natural events to be used for deriving design bases that will be based on consideration of historical data on the associated parameters, physical data, or analysis of upper limits of the physical processes involved; and

(2) Estimates of severe external man-induced events to be used for deriving design bases that will be based on analysis of human activity in the region, taking into account the site characteristics and the risks associated with the event.

Design capacity means the quantity of spent fuel, high-level radioactive waste, or reactor-related GTCC waste, the maximum burn up of the spent fuel in MWD/MTU, the terabequerel (curie) content of the waste, and the total heat generation in Watts (btu/hour) that the storage installation is designed to accommodate.

DOE means the U.S. Department of Energy or its duly authorized representatives.

Floodplain means the lowland and relatively flat areas adjoining inland and coastal waters including floodprone areas of offshore islands. Areas subject to a one percent or greater chance of flooding in any given year are included.

Greater than Class C waste or GTCC waste means low-level radioactive waste that exceeds the concentration limits of radionuclides established for Class C waste in § 61.55 of this chapter.

High-level radioactive waste or HLW means means—

(1) the highly radioacive radioactive material resulting from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, including liquid waste produced directly in reprocessing and any solid material derived from such liquid waste that contains fission products in sufficient concentrations; and

(2) other highly radioactive material that the Commission, consistent with existing law, determines by rule requires permanent isolation.

Historical data means a compilation of the available published and unpublished information concerning a particular type of event.

Independent spent fuel storage installation or ISFSI means a complex designed and constructed for the interim storage of spent nuclear fuel, solid reactor-related GTCC waste, and other radioactive materials associated with spent fuel and reactor-related GTCC waste storage. An ISFSI which is located on the site of another facility licensed under this part or a facility licensed under part 50 of this chapter and which shares common utilities and services with that facility or is physically connected with that other facility may still be considered independent.

Indian Tribe means an Indian Tribe as defined in the Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act (Pub. L. 93–638).

Monitored Retrievable Storage Installation or MRS means a complex designed, constructed, and operated by DOE for the receipt, transfer, handling, packaging, possession, safeguarding, and storage of spent nuclear fuel aged for at least one year, solidified high-level radioactive waste resulting from civilian nuclear activities, and solid reactor-related GTCC waste, pending shipment to a HLW repository or other disposal.

NEPA means the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 including any amendments thereto.

NWPA means the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 including any amendments thereto.

Person means—

(1) Any individual, corporation, partnership, firm, association, trust, estate, public or private institution, group, Government agency other than the Commission or the Department of Energy (DOE), except that the DOE shall be considered a person within the meaning of the regulations in this part to the extent that its facilities and activities are subject to the licensing and related regulatory authority of the Commission pursuant to section 202 of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, as amended (88 Stat. 1244), and Sections 131, 132, 133, 135, 137, and 141 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (96 Stat. 2229, 2230, 2232, 2241);

(2) Any State, any political subdivision of a State, or any political entity within a State;

(3) Any foreign government or nation, or any political subdivision of any such government or nation, or other entity; and

(4) Any legal successor, representative, agent, or agency of the foregoing.

Population means the people that may be affected by the change in environmental conditions due to the construction, operation, or decommissioning of an ISFSI or MRS.

Principal activities, as used in this part, means activities authorized by the license which are essential to achieving the purpose(s) for which the license was issued or amended, excluding activities incidental to decontamination or decommissioning.

Reconciliation means the process of evaluating and comparing licensee reports required under this part to the projected material balances generated by the Nuclear Materials Management and Safeguards System. This process is considered complete when the licensee resolves any differences between the reported and projected balances, including those listed for foreign obligated materials.

Region means the geographical area surrounding and including the site, which is large enough to contain all the features related to a phenomenon or to a particular event that could potentially impact the safe or environmentally sound construction, operation, or decommissioning of an independent spent fuel storage or monitored retrievable storage installation.

Reservation means—

(1) Any Indian reservation or dependent Indian community referred to in clause (a) or (b) of section 1151 of title 18, United States Code; or

(2) Any land selected by an Alaska Native village or regional corporation under the provisions of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (43 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.).

Site means the real property on which the ISFSI or MRS is located.

Source material means—

(1) Uranium or thorium, or any combination thereof, in any physical or chemical form or

(2) Ores that contain by weight one-twentieth of one percent (0.05%) or more of:

(i) Uranium,

(ii) Thorium, or

(iii) Any combination thereof.

Source material does not include special nuclear material.

Special nuclear material means—

(1) Plutonium, uranium-233, uranium enriched in the isotope 233 or in the isotope 235, and any other material which the Commission, pursuant to the provisions of section 51 of the Act, determines to be special nuclear material, but does not include source material; or

(2) Any material artificially enriched by any of the foregoing but does not include source material.

Spent fuel storage cask or cask means all the components and systems associated with the container in which spent fuel or other radioactive materials associated with spent fuel are stored in an ISFSI.

Spent nuclear fuel or Spent fuel means fuel that has been withdrawn from a nuclear reactor following irradiation, has undergone at least one year's decay since being used as a source of energy in a power reactor, and has not been chemically separated into its constituent elements by reprocessing. Spent fuel includes the special nuclear material, byproduct material, source material, and other radioactive materials associated with fuel assemblies.

Structures, systems, and components important to safety means those features of the ISFSI, MRS, and spent fuel storage cask whose functions are—

(1) To maintain the conditions required to store spent fuel, high-level radioactive waste, or reactor-related GTCC waste safely;

(2) To prevent damage to the spent fuel, the high-level radioactive waste, or reactor-related GTCC waste container during handling and storage; or

(3) To provide reasonable assurance that spent fuel, high-level radioactive waste, or reactor-related GTCC waste can be received, handled, packaged, stored, and retrieved without undue risk to the health and safety of the public.

Term certified by the cask's Certificate of Compliance, for the purposes of this part, means, for an initial CoC, the period of time commencing with the CoC effective date and ending with the CoC expiration date, and for a renewed CoC, the period of time commencing with the most recent CoC renewal date and ending with the CoC expiration date.

TLAAs, for the purposes of this part, means those licensee or certificate holder calculations and analyses that:

(1) Involve structures, systems, and components important to safety within the scope of the license renewal, as delineated in subpart F of this part, or within the scope of the spent fuel storage certificate renewal, as delineated in subpart L of this part, respectively;

(2) Consider the effects of aging;

(3) Involve time-limited assumptions defined by the current operating term, for example, 40 years;

(4) Were determined to be relevant by the licensee or certificate holder in making a safety determination;

(5) Involve conclusions or provide the basis for conclusions related to the capability of structures, systems, and components to perform their intended safety functions; and

(6) Are contained or incorporated by reference in the design bases.

[53 FR 31658, Aug. 19, 1988, as amended at 59 FR 36038, July 15, 1994; 62 FR 39092, July 21, 1997; 64 FR 53614, Oct. 4, 1999; 64 FR 56121, Oct. 15, 1999; 66 FR 51839, Oct. 11, 2001; 72 FR 55933, Oct. 1, 2007; 73 FR 32462, June 9, 2008; 76 FR 8889, Feb. 16, 2011; 88 FR 57879, Aug. 24, 2023]