SAFEGUARDS CRITERIA FOR REAL-TIME MATERIALS ACCOUNTABILITY BASED ON IAEA AND US SAFEGUARDS GOALS/REQUIREMENTS

The domestic (NRC and DOE) requirements and international (IAEA) goals for a spent fuel reprocessing plant require unprecedented levels of measurement precision and as a result require additional safeguards measures in order to reach a level of assurance. The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) affords the US the opportunity to set tough goals at least as stringent as the current requirements. We have this time to push the envelope with new technologies and create a proliferation resistant reprocessing facility that can stand as a model to the rest of the world. To set this example for high confidence safeguards, the US must revolutionize the state of the art of safeguards in large throughput bulk handling facilities by utilizing improved technology to develop and test the next generation of safeguards technology. Whether that is possible or not must be proven. At LANL, we are developing alternate paths that focus on new and improved process monitoring and rapid integrated diversion path analysis to draw definitive safeguards conclusions and prove that a facility is operating at nominal conditions for all operations. As a first step in that direction we are examining the safeguards criteria for real-time materials accountability based on IAEA and US safeguards goals/requirements for a Uranium Extraction Plus (UREX+) reprocessing facility and the implications of those requirements on measurement error for materials accountability purposes and on the need for additional safeguards measures.