PRADA – NEXT STEPS

The PRADA (Collaborative Project on Proliferation Resistance: Acquisition/Diversion Pathway Analysis) study was tasked to further develop the INPRO (International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles) methodology in the area of assessing proliferation resistance (mitigating proliferation risk). This paper reports on the results. A DUPIC (Direct Use of Spent PWR Fuel In CANDU) fuelled CANDU reactor was used as a test case in order to develop appropriate methods for the identification and analysis of plausible acquisition paths and to determine the multiplicity and robustness of barriers against proliferation. The study resulted in several recommendations: • The proliferation assessment should be performed at three levels: the State level, the INS (Innovative Nuclear Energy System) level, and the facility level. • The robustness of barriers against proliferation depends on the State’s capabilities, and the relevance of each barrier is dependent on assessment level. • The robustness of barriers is not a function of individual barrier characteristics but is an integrated function of all of the barriers, and is measured by determining whether the safeguards goals can be met. • The INPRO assessment methodology requires information regarding proliferation risks derived from quantitative analysis. The PRADA study identified several areas where the INPRO proliferation resistance manual could be expanded and improved: 1) through a better explanation of acceptance limits, 2) through a restructuring of the evaluation tables, and 3) by provision of more explanatory details. An important conclusion was a proposal to form a “GIF (Generation IV International Forum) / INPRO coordinated set of Proliferation Resistance and safeguardability assessment tools”. This set of tools would bring together the complementary strengths of the GIF and INPRO approaches and demonstrate that the two methods can be used in harmony and provide consistent results. The PRADA study also recommended that an expanded test of the methodology be applied inter alia to an open fuel cycle in a State with an emerging nuclear energy system, or to a generic pyroprocessing fuel cycle building on the GIF ESFR (Example Sodium Fast Reactor) evaluation study.