RANKING ATTRACTIVENESS FOR THEFT OF DOE SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL (SNF) RELATIVE TO COMMERCIAL SNF

This paper extends an innovative approach that was developed to rank potential attractiveness, from a theft standpoint, of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and other candidate materials relative to a commercial SNF benchmark. This approach may eliminate the need for performing relatively expensive analytical measurements to characterize a wide variety of waste forms based on attractiveness criteria. In addition, this tool may provide a useful input towards determining the appropriate level of safeguards and security at the monitored geologic repository. Specifically, this work explores the role of the DOE standard canister in the model’s computation of relative attractiveness for theft. Previous analyses are reviewed that support the overall conclusion that none of the hundreds of fuel records in the DOE SNF database were ranked significantly more attractive for theft than commercial SNF when packaged in standard canisters. The current study extends an expert system model, showing that most DOE SNF remains no more attractive than the commercial SNF benchmark even when the standard canister is no longer considered in the model as a barrier to theft. A major assumption is that the special nuclear material would be used for the purpose of creating a nuclear explosive device. The model uses a decision support tool that employs the Analytic Hierarchy Process, a pair-wise comparison technique relying on elicitation of expert judgment. The approach decomposes the concept of relative attractiveness into four intrinsic characteristics: overall weight, fissile material content, relative difficulty of separation, and homogeneity and concentration of special nuclear material. The latter two characteristics were combined into a single component designated as chemical separability. By first determining overall weights of importance for these attractiveness factors and subsequently varying these weights of importance, one can observe the role that these components would play in contributing to the relative attractiveness for a spectrum of fuel types.