Year
2010
Abstract
The Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited (JNFL) MOX fuel fabrication plant, J-MOX, is a new large scale, highly automated MOX fuel fabrication facility in Japan. The J-MOX has been designed to produce both BWR and PWR MOX fuel assembly and will be constructed adjacent to the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant (RRP) to form an integrated nuclear fuel cycle at the Rokkasho site in Aomori prefecture. In general, a large scale commercial facility has potentially difficulty how to fulfill the safeguards requirements in harmony with its commercial operation and JNFL started the consultation with the IAEA on the safeguards design for J-MOX from a very early design stage in a spirit of full co-operation. The J-MOX is about to face with the construction phase and JNFL has been focusing on concretizing the safeguards design in close collaboration with IAEA and the Japanese national authority (JSGO: Japan safeguards office). The safeguards design is being built on combinations of various conventional measures to lead the J-MOX to successful safeguards conclusion. The subject of this paper is to present the current state of safeguards design for J-MOX on the basis of discussions with inspectorates as well as to present the operator’s consideration how to solve the challenge of safeguarding the large scale facility.