Year
2004
Abstract
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is interested in developing instruments, tools, strategies, and methods that could be of use to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the application of safeguards to the front end of the fuel cycle and has engaged several of its laboratories to conduct an initial study. Safeguards for the front end of the fuel cycle could involve materials that are produced in earlier steps of the fuel cycle than uranium hexafluoride or uranium oxides that are suitable as feed, respectively, for a uranium enrichment plant or a natural-uranium fuel fabrication plant and constitute the traditional starting points for IAEA safeguards. In consideration of IAEA safeguards for the front end of the fuel cycle, we are evaluating potential safeguards approaches for a uranium conversion plant that converts uranium ore concentrate (UOC) to uranium hexafluoride or other purified uranium compounds. One approach being evaluated could use unattended process monitoring (PM) equipment to measure the flows of uranium through various unit processes. The facility operator could be making daily “Mailbox” declarations, too. Since PM instrumentation for all unit processes could be prohibitively expensive, safeguards resources might be allocated according to the following criteria: 1) to monitor flows through process equipment that would be the most costly or difficult to duplicate in a clandestine facility, for example, because required components or materials of construction are subject to export control; or 2) to generate sets of PM data that will enable the inspector to determine most readily and unambiguously when the plant is being misused.