IAEA’S QUALITATIVE SURVEY OF PROLIFERATION RESISTANT TECHNICAL FEATURES: HOW CAN TECHNOLOGY CONCEPTS OF NUCLEAR ENERGY SYSTEMS INFLUENCE PROLIFERATION RESISTANCE?

In this paper, “Proliferation Resistance” is defined as that characteristic of a nuclear energy system that impedes the diversion or undeclared production of nuclear material, or misuse of technology, by States intent on acquiring nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. How can different technology concepts of nuclear energy systems influence proliferation resistance? The IAEA has held several meetings on this issue since 2001. One of them was the Technical Meeting on “Technical Basis for Increasing the Proliferation Resistance of Nuclear Energy Systems and Fuel Cycles” in June 2006, in which 12 experts from 11 countries participated. After the review and discussion by both internal and external experts of the IAEA, the results of the meeting have been documented and the draft of the document is now under the process of final review and approval. The document will be published as an IAEA TECDOC. The content of the TECDOC is reported in the author’s capacity as the responsible IAEA staff for compiling the document. More than 10 nuclear energy systems such as DUPIC, small reactors with extended life cores, and advanced aqueous reprocessing have been selected. Qualitative analysis of these systems, using “barriers framework” developed by the US DOE’s Task Force on Technological Opportunities to Increase the Proliferation Resistance of Global Civilian Nuclear Power Systems (TOPS), has been done. Some qualitative comparison between concepts for selected innovative nuclear energy systems and the current LWR once through or LWR MOX systems in material barriers and other intrinsic technical features has been done. The survey, however, is not intended to be used for comparison or selection of a particular system, but rather to describe their technical features with respect to proliferation resistance.