LABORATORY AND COMMERCIAL COOPERATION FOR SAFEGUARDS

The four RBMK reactors of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) have been shut down since December 2000. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been charged with providing safeguards to verify Spent Fuel (SF) by unattended non-destructive assay at Reactors 1, 2, and 3, as well as wet storage. Further plans call for 1) the decommissioning of the three reactors, 2) transforming the shelter enclosing Reactor 4 into an ecologically safe condition, and 3) transferring the spent fuel (SF) stored in the wet storage, and the SF still present in the core, or stored in the interim core fuel storage ponds of Reactors 1, 2, and 3, to interim dry storage. Under the sponsorship of the USA Support Program (USSP) to the IAEA for Safeguards, an Integrated Safeguards System under Task USA E 1375 was approved for a Mobile Safeguard System for Spent Fuel Transport from the Chernobyl NPP to a Conditioning Facility for cutting, conditioning, and canning both fuel assemblies and absorbers prior to storage at the dry storage facility. The SF and absorbers will be transported from the Chernobyl NPP to the Conditioning Facility along an existing public railway that passes through the closed city of Pripiaty. The railcar in which this SF will be transported is to be placed under IAEA Safeguards by means of this Mobile Safeguard System. The Mobile Safeguard System (“Mobile Monitoring System for Container Transport – MMCT”) was developed by a collaborative effort including Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and Canberra Aquila, Inc (Aquila). This paper will discuss the USSP task with respect to the means by which this collaboration was developed, its costs and benefits, and the results of the initiative. Emphasis will be placed on the cooperative technical transfer of information between the laboratories and commercial partner to underscore the success that can be achieved using the technical expertise of the national laboratories and the high productivity and cost effectiveness of commercial partners.