Advanced Approaches to the International Oversight of Neptunium: Challenges and Opportunities

Recently, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) moved to place neptunium under international oversight in certain circumstances. The goal of this action is to provide the IAEA Board of Governors with timely notification of any steps taken to separate substantial quantities of neptunium from spent fuel or other matrices. This action was brought about by the recognition that neptunium can be used to produce nuclear explosive devices. Upon notification, the Board could take further action, such as declaring neptunium to be a special fissionable material and requiring measures like those applied to plutonium and highly enriched uranium. In this paper, we examine the occurrence and flow of neptunium in the nuclear fuel cycle and describe work being done at Los Alamos National Laboratory to generate novel ways of minimizing the cost of oversight.