Proliferation Risk Reduction Study of Alternative Spent Fuel Processing Technologies

This paper presents the results of an evaluation of the relative proliferation risks of particular reprocessing technologies of current interest. The assessment focuses on determining whether three alternative reprocessing technologies – COEX, UREX+, and pyroprocessing – provide nonproliferation advantages relative to the PUREX technology because they do not produce separated plutonium. This study considers how a facility may be threatened under various proliferation scenarios. For each alternative, the measures of proliferation risk considered include the relative difficulty of achieving the objective, the time required, the cost to the adversary, the likelihood of detection, the cost of safeguards and physical protection, and the characteristics of the material acquired. This evaluation found only a modest improvement in reducing proliferation risk over existing PUREX technologies and these modest improvements apply primarily for non-state actors.