Safeguarding reprocessing plants: Principles, past experience, current practice and future trends

Abstract

Under Article 6(c) of all comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards agreements, verification procedures are to concentrate on those stages in the nuclear fuel cycle involving the production, processing, use or storage of nuclear material from which nuclear weapons could readily be made. In that context, the most intensive IAEA safeguards are applied at chemical processing plants and other facilities at which separated plutonium is stored, processed or used. The principles underlying the design, implementation and evaluation of IAEA safeguards at chemical reprocessing plant are explored in this paper. The interrelation between the elements of the safeguards approach for such plants is examined, including design verification, extensive use of containment and surveillance, including operations monitoring in certain of the process areas, near-real-time accountancy and conventional accountancy measures. Reference is made to IAEA experience, and current practice is examined at length. New reprocessing plants of large throughput and/or having novel design features are under construction, and the measures currently in use will require extensive effort to provide effective and efficient safeguards implementation.