Investigating Safeguards Options for Natural Uranium Conversion Facilities: A Collaborative Effort between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Energy Commission of Brazil (CNEN)

CNEN and DOE have agreed on a collaborative effort that provides for the evaluation of measures that can strengthen the effectiveness of international safeguards at a natural uranium conversion plant (NUCP). The work is being performed by CNEN and DOE’s ORNL. The project foresees the development of a generic model of a NUCP by defining typical processing steps; by identifying potential safeguards activities and evaluating their effectiveness, costs, and impacts to operations of a variety of options; and by identifying advanced instrumentation and techniques for verification purposes. It is expected that the project will ultimately provide key technical information that can be used by the International Atomic Energy Agency for universal applications. DOE and CNEN are modeling a generic NUCP facility created to define processing steps and typical material flows. This paper describes the work that has been conducted to date between the two organizations toward a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness, costs, and impacts to facility operations.