Safeguards concepts for a US spent-fuel management system
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
The US strategy to dispose of all spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and high-level wastes in engineered geologic repositories has a sometimes-overlooked consequence, namely, the need to maintain domestic and international safeguards in perpetuity. The current International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) criterion for spent fuel from safeguarded reactors is to maintain containment and surveillance only. Some scenarios require quantitative estimations of fissile materials to deter certain types of diversions, but limitations of available technologies would make it difficult to make such requirements mandatory. However, a new state system entering the IAEA safeguards regime has to have some verification. The time between reactor discharge and geologic disposal may be 25 to 100 yr. Therefore, safeguards during surface storage will be enormously expensive, but it is possible to design simple and less expensive safeguards systems for retrievable storage locations. Management of SNF in perpetuity is very difficult from all other nuclear materials management, and consideration should be given to modifying current IAEA goals to meet the unique requirements of long-term SNF management. In the context of a recent US Department of Energy effort to develop a research and development plan, this paper proposes safeguards concepts for the US spent-fuel management system. 4 refs.
- OSTI ID:
- 6676669
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-921102--
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States), Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States) Vol. 66; ISSN 0003-018X; ISSN TANSAO
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
055002* -- Nuclear Fuels-- Safeguards
Inspection
& Accountability-- Nontechnical Aspects
056000 -- Nuclear Fuels-- Legislation & Regulations-- (1987-)
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL PROTECTION
ACCOUNTING
ENERGY SOURCES
FUELS
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
IAEA SAFEGUARDS
MANAGEMENT
MATERIALS
MONITORED RETRIEVABLE STORAGE
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
NUCLEAR FUELS
NUCLEAR MATERIALS MANAGEMENT
RADIOACTIVE WASTE FACILITIES
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
RADIOACTIVE WASTE STORAGE
REACTOR MATERIALS
REGULATIONS
SAFEGUARDS
SPENT FUEL STORAGE
SPENT FUELS
STORAGE
US NRC
US ORGANIZATIONS
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE STORAGE