Safeguards by Design of a New Nuclear Material Storage Facility – An Operator’s Perspective

Safeguards-by-design is defined as the consideration of safeguards throughout the lifetime of a facility, from conceptual design to decommissioning. A new nuclear material storage facility has been designed and is in the process of being constructed on Sellafield site as part of the UK strategy for consolidating nuclear material from other UK facilities to allow for their declassification. The design work started in 2012, construction is ongoing, and the first receipt of nuclear material is due to arrive in late 2014. The store has been designed for long term storage of a variety of plutonium and highly enriched uranium bearing materials, as well as Prototype Fast Reactor mixed-oxide fuel assemblies. Although safeguards-by-design has not introduced any new safeguards requirements to the project, it has presented an opportunity for Sellafield Limited to engage voluntarily with DG ENER earlier than legally required in order to reduce project risk. It is in the interest of both Sellafield Limited and DG ENER to cooperate in order to facilitate the implementation of safeguards in terms of enhancing understanding of the facility capability, its suitability for safeguards implementation, as well as keeping costs low and the project to schedule. This paper describes the application of safeguards-by-design commencing at the conceptual design stage based upon the safeguards approach to be applied by DG ENER. In order to meet the safeguards requirements, a close dialogue was established between the various interested parties and early contact at the design stage has facilitated the inclusion of safeguards instrumentation into the overall design and facility construction. Detailed discussions at the early stages of the design phase have raised the profile of nuclear material safeguards within the wider Sellafield community. While nuclear materials accountancy and safeguards has a small impact on project cost and overall schedule, lack of sufficiently detailed consideration early in the design process can result in a much larger impact. The task of avoiding such increases has been assigned to the facility design and construction project management, with the support of safeguards specialists, who can better address the issues once informed about them.