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NRC Regulatory Guides

Why interact with Regulatory Guides (RGs) here if you've already seen them before or could just read them on NRC's website? Well, in a way that resumes can not convey, here you can submit completion forms about your level of expertise on specific Regulatory Guides and when Nuclear Talent Scout LLC has a client with a need for a real expert in that specific area we can use your responses to instantly prove your worth as a candidate and get you to the front of the line past so many other applicants for your next job! Here you can ask questions and see answers from a community of colleagues when (as is often the case) it is confusing how to apply this NRC guidance to your specific situation (being mindful to stay non-proprietary).
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The NRC's RGs provide guidance on implementing specific parts of the NRC's regulations, describe techniques used by the NRC staff in evaluating specific problems or postulated accidents, and states data needed by the staff in its review of applications. Many RGs are specific to light water reactors of a specific design, but they still contain relevant information for non-light water designs in such cases and most RGs are not design specific anyway. The ~250 RGs of Division 1 "Power Reactors" are given here, but 9 other Divisions exist related to "Research and Test Reactors", "Transportation", etc.  

 
An RG typically does the following: Lists what sorts of applicants the RG applies to (and just because you aren't listed doesn't mean it's not applicable to you), lists the regulations that you can meet through use of the RG, describes related guidance documents and references, discusses the history and nuances of the issues, and most importantly (typically in Section C, which is often skipped to by sophisticated readers) gives the actual "Staff/Regulatory Positions" which are the meat and potatoes "Staff Regulatory Guidance" that the NRC has ruled is acceptable.    

 If you do what the RG's Staff/Regulatory Position tells you to, the NRC staff nearly has to approve you fast with few questions asked... but if you don't then they have to think about it and it can take them a looooong time to think about sticking out their neck to say your non-standard approach is ok. Yet, at the same time adherence to RG Staff Positions is not mandatory. RGs are "one pre-approved way out of many possible ways" to meet the regulations and you can ask for an exemption to the regulations as well, which to a greater degree is a 'non-standard thing that the NRC will have to think a loooong time about'. Navigating when it's worth it or not to depart from an RG or obtain an exemption to a regulation is certainly the high stakes art of being in the nuclear industry and some artists are better than others.