Reactor Site Criteria

This standard review plan (SRP) provides guidance to the staff of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation and Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, on how to evaluate requests to release part of a power reactor facility or site for unrestricted use prior to NRC approval of the facility's license termination plan (LTP). This type of release is referred as a “partial site release” (PSR). The associated regulatory requirements are contained in Title 10, Section 50.83, “Release of Part of a Power Reactor Facility or Site for Unrestricted Use,” of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR 50.83). This SRP presents evaluation and acceptance criteria for the review of PSR applications submitted by licensees. In so doing, this SRP identifies technical areas for review, information to be submitted by licensees, regulatory requirements and guidance, and evaluation criteria for use in assessing compliance with the regulations. Although the main focus of this guidance is directed to the NRC staff's review process, this SRP presents information that licensees and applicants may find useful. Another important purpose of the SRP is to make information available so that the public has a better understanding of the staff's review process and criteria for rejecting or accepting such requests.

A compilation of currently available electronic versions of NRC regulatory guides.

The standard is to be used in evaluating research reactor sites and their associated boundaries.

The NRC has proposed revisions to 10 CFR 100 which include the codification of nuclear reactor site population density limits to 500 people per square mile, at the siting stage, averaged over any radial distance out to 30 miles, and 1,000 people per square mile within the 40-year lifetime of a nuclear plant. This study examined whether there are less restrictive alternative population density and/or distribution criteria which would provide equivalent or better protection to human health in the unlikely event of a nuclear accident. This study did not attempt to directly address the issue of actual population density limits because there are no US risk standards established for the evaluation of population density limits. Calculations were performed using source terms for both a current generation light water reactor (LWR) and an advanced light water reactor (ALWR) design. The results of this study suggest that measures which address the distribution of the population density, including emergency response conditions, could result in lower average individual risks to the public than the proposed guidelines that require controlling average population density. Studies also indicate that an exclusion zone size, determined by emergency response conditions and reactor design (power level and safety features), would better serve to protect public health than a rigid standard applied to all sites.