PROLIFERATION RESISTANCE ANALYSIS FOR ADVANCED SPENT FUEL CONDITIONING PROCESS

The Advanced Spent Fuel Conditioning Process (ACP) is an electro-chemical spent fuel treatment technology, which is under development by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI). The KAERI has been developing this technology in terms of high-level waste (HLW) management since 1997 and is planning to perform a lab-scale demonstration in 2008. The goal of the project is to recover more than 99% of the actinides in metallic form from oxide-spent fuel in a proliferation-resistant manner. In this paper, the proliferation resistance of the ACP technology has been examined based on the Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee’s TOPS (Task Force on Technology Opportunities for Increasing the Proliferation Resistance of Global Civilian Nuclear Power System) metrics. Several options to enhance the resistance of the facility and its materials to possible proliferation threats were also discussed.