ML050670156
| ML050670156 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Catawba  |
| Issue date: | 01/13/2005 |
| From: | International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) |
| To: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| Byrdsong A T | |
| References | |
| 50-413-0LA, 50-414-0LA, Catawba-Staff-SECY 23, RAS 9468 415 | |
| Download: ML050670156 (4) | |
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As mentioned above, in applying safeguards at reprocessing plants, MOX fuel fabrication facilities and MOX fuelled reactors, the IAEA bases its requirements on the assumption that plutonium with any combination of the isotopes encountered in nuclear power activities can be used to fabricate a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device. The inspection activities are designed and implemented so as to detect abrupt diversions of one 'significant quantity' or more during each successive one month period, and protracted diversions of one 'significant quantity' or more during each successive one year period. One 'significant quantity' is defined in Section 9.3.
Safeguards experience in reprocessing, in conversion and MOX fabrication, and in plutonium fuelled reactors, has matured to the point that the MAEA is able to derive conclusions regarding such operations and the plutonium flows and inventories encountered. IAEA safeguards cannot determine whether or not a State might harbour nuclear weapon ambitions. Also the IAEA is not entitled to restrict the accumulation of separated stocks of any safeguarded materials (plutonium, highly enriched uranium (HEU), low enriched uranium (LEU), etc.) that could be converted to nuclear explosives in a relatively short period (which would depend on the effort the State is willing to exert, should the State so determine). The IAEA can, however, provide assurance at periodic intervals that the amounts of plutonium declared are consistent with expectations, and that all declared plutonium remains accounted for and committed to peaceful use.
Over the past 30 years the international non-proliferation regime has grown to include treaty obligations, controls on nuclear commerce and verification. The IAEA safeguards system has continued to evolve during that period to address increasingly complex facilities and, following the revelation of Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons programme (which used HEU), to include concerns for undeclared nuclear materials and nuclear operations in violation of the NPT and IAEA safeguards undertakings.
As a result of the Iraqi revelations, comprehensive IAEA safeguards agreements were extended to provide legal rights for ensuring that all nuclear material and all relevant nuclear operations are declared and subject to inspection. The mechanism for this expanded purview is the Additional Protocol [199], and efforts are underway to gain universal adoption of this fundamental measure. The non-proliferation regime continues to evolve to keep pace with new developments in the industry and elsewhere, and further effort will no doubt be required if plutonium utilization is to expand significantly.
In this section, in addition to a review of security and physical protection issues, the current status of safeguards implementation at MOX fabrication facilities is reviewed as an example of the implications of effective safeguards (at least for that portion of the chain). The implementation of safeguards at LWRs that use MOX is not considered further here due to the fact that the techniques applied are, in principle, similar to safeguards at LWRs that do not use MOX [200, 201]. For MOX fuelled 123
LWRs, the verification activities are merely reinforced so as to maintain the continuity of accurate knowledge on fresh MOX during shipment to, and storage at, the reactor site. The permanent monitoring and enhanced surveillance are maintained up to the loading of each MOX fuel assembly in the core; final confirmation that the MOX assemblies have not be removed is made before the core is closed. Should continuity of knowledge be lost for one or more MOX fuel assemblies, safeguards inspectors conduct at the reactor site non-destructive assay (NDA) verification of the plutonium content and the isotopic composition in this (or these) fuel assembly (assemblies).
9.2. THE AUTOMATION OF MOX FUEL FABRICATION ANI) THE EVOLUTION OF IAEA SAFEGUARDS TECHNOLOGY At present, there are three major MOX fuel fabrication facilities in operation producing LWR fuel (MELOX and Cogema/CFCa in France and Belgonucleaire in Belgium), a fourth in commissioning (SMB in the UK) and design activities are underway for a fifth (J-MOX in Japan). A major facility for fast reactor fuel is also in operation (PFPF in Japan). In the context of the excess weapons plutonium disposition programme, major MOX facilities are also being planned at Savannah River in the USA and Ozersk or Krasnoyarsk in the Russian Federation.
Each new facility constructed has introduced increased automation. In addition to normal industrial motivations of increasing productivity while reducing the number of plant operating staff, MOX plants have been driven by the desire to limit radiation exposures and to improve product quality control by means of 100% examination of the fuel products at key steps in the manufacturing operations. Distributed processors are used to control operations with a degree of reliability that humans are incapable of providing. Use of remote measurement equipment and other techniques provide a means for 'hands-off' operations with unparalleled product quality and minimal scrap rejection.
One of the requirements and benefits of automated processing is continuous, positive control over the flow of material. Process equipment is increasingly designed to prevent the accumulation of fissile material, especially powder, within and around the process equipment [42, 202]. This results in minimal process hold-ups, which might otherwise decrease safeguards capabilities and raise costs and radiation hazards in order to maintain the unmeasured working inventory (the so-called 'material unaccounted for') within acceptable limits.
During this same period, the tendency in safeguards has been towards increasing use of unattended measurement and monitoring systems [203-206]. Each system is designed using advanced computational techniques to optimize the sensitivity and uniformity of measurements. The measurement systems are integrated with containment and surveillance systems so as to provide assurance that all items 124