Year
2014
Abstract
This paper discusses the issue of what material should be covered under international safeguards. The IAEA is responsible for the application of international safeguards to nuclear material stored and processed at nuclear fuel cycle facilities worldwide. However, the definition of the so-called Starting point of Safeguards is imprecise and open to interpretation. At the other end of the nuclear fuel cycle, there remain open issues around the termination of safeguards on “waste” materials. The Starting Point of IAEA Safeguards is defined in Paragraph 34(c) of INFCIRC/153 and refers to material being of a “composition and purity suitable for fuel fabrication or for being isotopically enriched”. IAEA safeguards is implemented in line with the published Safeguards Policy Series document. However, with the increasing public interest in uranium enrichment activities throughout the world and the subsequent increased attention in associated uranium ore concentrate and uranium hexafluoride production facilities, IAEA have been further examining their current interpretation of the Starting Point of Safeguards. This issue is further complicated by a trend for producers of uranium ore concentrate to be manufacturing to ever increasing purity levels, some to the level where it is now being questioned as to whether it may actually meets the criteria set out in INFCIRC/153. In contrast, as more countries start to plan and construct geological disposal facilities, the issue as to what nuclear material qualifies as waste material on which safeguards can be terminated is coming increasingly into focus. As some countries consider disposing spent nuclear fuel directly into such repositories, very difficult issues are raised in relation to the safeguards strategies that will need to be developed and adopted. This paper addresses both safeguards issues in detail and looks at potential solutions from the perspectives of regulators and facility operators.