U.S. efforts to promote the international expansion of nuclear energy through the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) will result in a dramatic expansion of nuclear fuel cycle facilities in the United States. New demonstration facilities, such as the Advanced Fuel Cycle Facility (AFCF), the Advanced Burner Reactor (ABR), and the Consolidated Fuel Treatment Center (CFTC) will use advanced nuclear and chemical process technologies that must incorporate increased proliferation resistance to enhance nuclear safeguards. The ASA-100 Project, “Advanced Safeguards Approaches for New Nuclear Fuel Cycle Facilities,” commissioned by the NA-243 Office of NNSA, has been tasked with reviewing and developing advanced safeguards approaches for these demonstration facilities. Because one goal of GNEP is developing and sharing proliferation-resistant nuclear technology and services with partner nations, the safeguards approaches considered are consistent with international safeguards as currently implemented by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This first report reviews possible safeguards approaches for the new fuel reprocessing processes to be deployed at the AFCF and CFTC facilities. Similar analyses addressing the ABR and transuranic (TRU) fuel fabrication lines at AFCF and CFTC will be presented in subsequent reports.

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Advanced Safeguards Approaches for New Reprocessing Facilities

This second report in a series of three reviews possible safeguards approaches for the new transuranic (TRU) fuel fabrication processes to be deployed at AFCF – specifically, the ceramic TRU (MOX) fuel fabrication line and the metallic (pyroprocessing) line. The most common TRU fuel has been fuel composed of mixed plutonium and uranium dioxide, referred to as “MOX”. However, under the Advanced Fuel Cycle projects custom-made fuels with higher contents of neptunium, americium, and curium may also be produced to evaluate if these “minor actinides” can be effectively burned and transmuted through irradiation in the ABR. A third and final report in this series will evaluate and review the advanced safeguards approach options for the ABR. In reviewing and developing the advanced safeguards approach for the new TRU fuel fabrication processes envisioned for AFCF, the existing international (IAEA) safeguards approach at the Plutonium Fuel Production Facility (PFPF) and the conceptual approach planned for the new J-MOX facility in Japan have been considered as a starting point of reference. The pyro-metallurgical reprocessing and fuel fabrication process at EBR-II near Idaho Falls also provided insight for safeguarding the additional metallic pyroprocessing fuel fabrication line planned for AFCF.

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Advanced Safeguards Approaches for New TRU Fuel Fabrication Facilities

Proliferation Resistance Characteristics of Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems: a Safeguardability Point of View

This research investigated the electrochemical deposition behavior of plutonium (Pu) and curium (Cm) for safeguarding the electrorefiner (ER) in a pyroprocessing facility. The main goal of this investigation was to evaluate the feasibility of using a safeguards concept called the neutron balance method to account for Pu in the ER. The neutron balance method relies on a known Pu/Cm ratio and measures neutrons from 244Cm coming into and leaving a unit operation to track Pu. The application of the neutron balance approach for pyroprocessing facilities requires that Pu and Cm remain together in all extraction, product recovery, and waste streams. The electrochemical deposition experiments conducted, using a surrogate system of Tb and Gd, revealed that the Tb to Gd ratio was inconsistent between the electrolyte and the cathode deposit under different electrolyte concentrations. The Enhanced REFIN with Anodic Dissolution (ERAD) computer simulations of the same Tb/Gd surrogate system also found that the Tb to Gd ratio varied. ERAD simulations of a large-scale pilot facility also revealed that the Pu to Cm ratio was not constant between the electrolyte salt and the metal deposit when Pu co-deposition occurs. The safeguards assessment concluded that the neutron balance method was an insufficient safeguards approach for the eletrorefiner and working under the assumption that the Pu/Cm ratio was invariable resulted in the loss of significant quantities of special nuclear material (SNM) after processing only a few batches.

Investigating the Electrodeposition of Plutonium and Curium for Safeguarding the Electrorefiner

The global expansion of nuclear energy provides not only the benefit of carbon-neutral electricity, but also the potential for proliferation concern as well. Nuclear safeguards implemented at the state level (domestic) and at the international level by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are essential for ensuring that nuclear materials are not misused and are thereby a critical component of the increased usage of nuclear energy. In the same way that the 1950’s Atoms for Peace initiative provided the foundation for a robust research and development program in nuclear safeguards, the expansion of nuclear energy that is underway today provides the impetus to enter a new era of technical development in the safeguards community. In this paper, we will review the history of nuclear safeguards research and development as well future directions.

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Advanced safeguards for the Nuclear renaissance

The Advanced Spent Fuel Conditioning Process (ACP) is an electro-metallurgical treatment technique to convert oxide-type spent nuclear fuel into a metallic form. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has been developing this technology since 1977 for the purpose of spent fuel management and is planning to perform a lab-scale demonstration in 2006. By using of this technology, a significant reduction of the volume and heat load of spent fuel is expected, which would lighten the burden of final disposal in terms of disposal size, safety and economics. In the framework of collaboration agreement to develop the safeguards system for the ACP, a joint study on the safeguardability of the ACP technology has been performed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the KAERI since 2002. In this study, the safeguardability of the ACP technology was examined for the pilot-scale facility. The process and material flows were conceptually designed, and the uncertainties in material accounting were estimated with international target values.

Safeguardability of advanced spent fuel conditioning process

An advanced passive neutron counter has been designed and fabricated to measure the plutonium content in large remote handled (RH) waste crates. The waste crate assay system (WCAS) was developed under an agreement between Los Alamos National Laboratory, Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited (JNFL), and BNFL Instruments Inc. (BII) to measure the plutonium content in the waste generated in the Rokkasho reprocessing facility. The primary goal of the design was to produce an assay system for large waste containers. The system also includes 200-L drum pallet assay capability. The measurements are based on neutron-time correlation counting of the passive neutron emissions from the 240Pu, and the plutonium isotopic ratios are used to calculate the total plutonium. The system is designed for both RH waste and low-activity plutonium waste. The system permits the measurement of the singles, doubles, and triples rates and the multiplicity mode analysis is used together with the 'add-a-source' method to correct for the matrix materials in the crates. In the multiplicity analysis, the efficiency for counting the neutrons emitted from the crate is directly calculated from the three measured rates. For improved detectability limits, advanced methods have been incorporated in the WCAS-A to reduce the cosmic-ray neutron backgrounds.more » These methods include statistical filters and truncation of high-multiplicity events. The paper describes the WCAS-A design, performance, and calibration.« less

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T. K. Li

Papers

Safeguardability of advanced spent fuel conditioning process

Waste crate assay system (wcas): assay solutions for very large remote handled crates