Safeguards Regime Research Articles

Neutron Measurements and Monte Carlo Simulations of Spent Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage Using a New Remote Monitoring System Prototype

Pending the availability of an operational long-term spent nuclear fuel (SNF) repository or other disposal methods, SNF will be increasingly stored in interim dry casks. Casks loaded with commercial SNF may contain several significant quantities of plutonium, so appropriate nuclear material safeguards monitoring is in order. An external remote monitoring system (RMS) developed by researchers at Texas A&M University is proposed to further the current dry cask safeguards regime, which is limited to containment and surveillance mechanisms. In this study, neutron measurements of SNF in dry cask storage were performed with the external RMS at a commercial interim spent fuel storage installation. Corresponding neutron transport simulations using MCNP were conducted with two types of detector responses (tallies) and the results were compared with measurements. The objectives of the study were to add dry cask measurement data to the literature, to assess the performance of the external RMS in full-scale dry cask measurements, and to investigate the degree to which measurements could be estimated with high-fidelity radiation transport simulations. The study demonstrated that the external RMS can acquire neutron count rate measurements with a relative error of less than 0.5% in 5 min or less through the shielding of a dry cask lid. Additionally, the developed simulation model matched trends in the measurement data to a degree that exceeds results in current literature, and normalization factors were calculated to better estimate the magnitude of neutron count rates.

Experimental and Computational Verification of a New Remote Monitoring System Design for Spent Fuel Dry Cask Safeguards Using Small-Scale, Generic Diversion Scenarios

Dry casks will be a prevalent spent nuclear fuel (SNF) storage option until solutions for long-term storage or disposal are deployed. A dry cask storing 32 pressurized water reactor fuel assemblies will likely contain about 20 significant quantities of plutonium, so these structures require effective safeguards monitoring. An external remote monitoring system (RMS) is proposed to advance the current dry cask safeguards regime which relies on containment and surveillance. The objectives of this study were to assess the performance of the external RMS as a detection system and to develop a simulation approach for estimating measurements. Small-scale experiments of generic neutron source diversions mimicking SNF diversion from a dry cask were conducted and the nondetection probability was calculated for a variety of measurement times. MCNP simulations were carried out to assess the degree to which the measurement results could be predicted. A previous simulation methodology was advanced to consider uncertainty in the activity of sources being measured. The study concluded that the external RMS performs well as a neutron detection system and that MCNP simulation is a viable tool both for predicting measurements made with the external RMS and for calculating nondetection probabilities of hypothetical, generic diversion scenarios.

The Influence of Alternative Development Finance on the World Bank’s Safeguards Regime

Abstract What shapes social-environmental regulations in the World Bank? To date, scholars have emphasized the influence of nongovernmental organization activism, donor power, and various elements of the Bank’s internal culture and incentive system. This article documents a new and important source of influence: outside financing options for borrower countries. I demonstrate this influence through an in-depth study of the World Bank’s Safeguards Review and Update, a four-year policy-making process that concluded in 2016. As alternative sources of finance carrying less stringent safeguard requirements than those of the World Bank proliferated in years preceding the Safeguards Review, borrowers gained negotiating power over Bank policy, enabling them to successfully push for more regulatory autonomy. These findings suggest that understanding the future of social-environmental standards in development finance institutions will require greater attention to new sources of finance and the power shifts they may entail.

The AIIB and Sustainable Infrastructure: A Hybrid Layered Approach

AbstractThis essay examines the AIIB’s approach to investing in sustainable infrastructure (SI). The main argument is that the AIIB is taking a hybrid layered approach to SI investment. On the one hand, the Bank is following the ‘do no harm’ pathway of the traditional MDBs, of using safeguards to avoid and compensate adverse social and environmental impacts. On the other hand, it is pursuing innovation, and a more transformative agenda, that encourages investment in SI projects that generate broader, positive developmental spillovers. In pursuing its hybrid agenda, the AIIB is developing its own multi‐layered safeguards regime to ensure smooth and strong SI investment, and alignment between the Bank’s overarching strategic policy, its ESF, sector and thematic strategies, and projects. The analysis also details three ways in which the AIIB stands out from other MDBs for how it is ‘trying new things’ with its approach to SI investment: first, is how ‘economic sustainability’ is one of the main considerations for project selection alongside environmental, social and governance sustainability; second, how the Bank has integrated social and indigenous and oversight safeguards into its ‘environmental and social framework’ (ESF); third, its creation of large‐scale public‐private Funds for green finance and climate finance.

Insights to the UK's impending departure from Euratom: Case study of UK nuclear safeguards and radiation protection in light of Brexit

One of the first pieces of legislation addressing the UK's departure from the EU/Euratom to complete its passage through Parliament is the Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018, which will enable the government to establish a domestic nuclear safeguards regime. This was driven by the need to prevent vulnerability to a vital energy system and indicates the short to medium term approach the UK has to its policymaking post-Brexit: dealing with issues immediately impacted, such as ensuring the continued supply of nuclear fuel. The contribution of this paper is the examination of two particular areas under the responsibility of Euratom – nuclear safeguards and radiation protection – that are presented to indicate the wider impact Brexit has in other areas currently the responsibility of the EU, for example, chemical safety. It shows that the UK has significant gaps in responsibility currently undertaken by Euratom (or other EU institutions) that need to be filled by UK bodies. Which bodies will assume these responsibilities and what resources will be available remain open questions. This case study highlights the need for systematic prioritisation by the UK government when filling the void of EU/Euratom institutions.

All hands on deck: advancing safeguards for naval nuclear materials

ABSTRACTWith the continued use of unsafeguarded naval nuclear-propulsion programs in all nuclear-weapon states, the commissioning of an Indian nuclear submarine, and the potential investment in such programs by non-nuclear-weapon states including Brazil and South Korea, movement toward a regulatory regime for nuclear material in the naval sector has become imperative. Such a framework faces a recurring debate on adequately protecting sensitive military technology while delivering assurances that naval nuclear material is not diverted to nuclear-weapon programs. In this viewpoint, we examine various prospective mechanisms to regulate naval nuclear stocks and assess them in terms of their effectiveness and scope. Drawing on lessons from the drafting, negotiation, and implementation of the Model Additional Protocol, we recommend a safeguards regime for naval nuclear material via a protocol that supplements the existing global nuclear-governance system. This protocol provides a standardized yet flexible approach to naval nuclear-material safeguards across all states (whether nuclear-weapon states, non-nuclear-weapon states, or outside the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) to handle variations among naval nuclear fuel cycles and technologies.

Negotiating Verification: International Diplomacy and the Evolution of Nuclear Safeguards, 1945–1972

ABSTRACTNuclear safeguards have been an essential part of the global order since the beginnings of the nuclear age. The International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], an international bureaucracy that is supposed to be a non-political, technical institution administers this global nuclear safeguards regime. Even though safeguards have always been controversial, they have turned out to be the most enduring item in the international community’s toolbox to prevent or slow down the spread of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear states. This analysis shows that nuclear safeguards, whilst they survived the fall of the Iron Curtain, were a genuine invention of the Cold War. At the beginning of the nuclear age, there was an overall understanding that safeguards were not strong enough to prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons. It was only over the course of the late 1950s and 1960s that safeguards moved from the margins to the centre of diplomatic negotiations about global nuclear order. Newly declassified records from the IAEA Archives in Vienna offer insights into the evolution of early nuclear safeguards and suggest that negotiation patterns, proceedings, and settings affected the outcome of this nuclear diplomacy.

Does Safeguards Need Saving? Lessons from the Ukraine–Passenger Cars Dispute

AbstractThe Panel Report in Ukraine–Passenger Cars provides an opportunity to revisit an old debate over the role of safeguard measures in the WTO. With regard to the legal findings, the Panel followed the established jurisprudence in this area, and found a number of violations of the Safeguards Agreement. With regard to the economics, we delve more deeply into the economic and political background of the safeguards investigation. Ukraine was hit by the economic crisis shortly after its WTO accession that significantly liberalized import tariffs on passenger cars. Next, we offer a de novo look at the injury and causation issues in this case, and discuss the challenges of an industry reliant on offshored production that sees a safeguard as a mechanism to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) for production. We conclude with an assessment of the operation of the WTO's safeguards regime, along with some tentative suggestions for reform. Overall, our examination of the economic analysis by the investigating authority and the legal review by the WTO Panel raises questions about particular aspects of the domestic and WTO processes, but concludes that the system worked well in this case.

Nuclear security and safeguards in Bangladesh: mapping risks and way out

Bangladesh has signed an Inter-Governmental Agreement with the Russian Federation in 2009 to set up two nuclear power reactors. In 1986, the country installed the 3MWth TRIGA Mark-II research reactor. The country possesses category 1 of nuclear and category 1-5 of radioactive materials for the purpose of research, medical and industrial applications. Bangladesh is a party to the nuclear security and safeguards related protocols and agreements. Owing to the global threat of nuclear/radiological terrorism, critics often raise questions about the country's technical and management capabilities to face the challenges of nuclear security and safeguards. This paper not only discusses about the current status and measures of nuclear security and safeguards regimes in Bangladesh but also recommends improving measures for them. Perceiving that the emerging threats derive from adversaries, the paper suggests among others to form a National Nuclear Security Council in order to enhance the State's nuclear security and safeguards capacity.

Does Safeguards Need Saving? Lessons from the Ukraine - Passenger Cars Dispute

The Panel Report in Ukraine - Passenger Cars provides an opportunity to revisit an old debate over the role of safeguard measures in the WTO. With regard to the legal findings, the panel followed the established jurisprudence in this area, and found a number of violations of the Safeguards Agreement. With regard to the economics, we delve more deeply into the economic and political background of the safeguards investigation. Ukraine was hit by the economic crisis shortly after its WTO accession that significantly liberalized import tariffs on passenger cars. Next, we offer a de novo look at the injury and causation issues in this case, and discuss the challenges of an industry reliant on offshored production that sees a safeguard as a mechanism to attract FDI for production. We conclude with an assessment of the operation of the WTO's safeguards regime, along with some tentative suggestions for reform. Overall, our examination of the economic analysis by the investigating authority and the legal review by the WTO panel raises questions about particular aspects of the domestic and WTO processes, but concludes that the system worked well in this case.

Contributing to the nuclear 3S's via a methodology aiming at enhancing the synergies between nuclear security and safety

Nuclear safety, nuclear security and nuclear safeguards regimes have not historically developed at the same pace and surely have not reached the same level of maturity. Nevertheless, these aspects are of special relevance in the current global nuclear energy context when considering the numerous countries that have and will have the legitimate ambition to start a nuclear energy production programme without any or scarce previous nuclear safety, security and safeguards cultures.The future development of nuclear energy exploitation will depend more and more on the convergence of decisions from governments, from the nuclear industry, from utilities, from private and institutional investors as well as from the level of acceptance by the public opinion.Following an in-depth state-of-the-art analysis and literature search, a methodological approach focussed on the safety and security connections is presented, as it seems a field where more commonalities and operational aspects could be possibly found and exploited.

Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person

In this legal article, Mathieu Culverhouse highlights the importance of being familiar with the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) regime, in order to identify situations where a deprivation of liberty is occurring and secure the appropriate authorisation

THE USE OF FAST NEUTRON DETECTION FOR MATERIALS ACCOUNTABILITY

For many years at LLNL, we have been developing time-correlated neutron detection techniques and algorithms for applications such as Arms Control, Threat Detection and Nuclear Material Assay. Many of our techniques have been developed specifically for the relatively low efficiency (a few percent) inherent in man-portable systems. Historically, thermal neutron detectors (mainly 3 He ) were used, taking advantage of the high thermal neutron interaction cross-sections, but more recently we have been investigating the use of fast neutron detection with liquid scintillators, inorganic crystals, and in the near future, pulse-shape discriminating plastics that respond over 1000 times faster (nanoseconds versus tens of microseconds) than thermal neutron detectors. Fast neutron detection offers considerable advantages, since the inherent nanosecond production timescales of fission and neutron-induced fission are preserved and measured instead of being lost in the thermalization of thermal neutron detectors. We are now applying fast neutron technology to the safeguards regime in the form of high efficiency counters. Faster detector response times and sensitivity to neutron momentum show promise in measuring, differentiating, and assaying samples that have modest to very high count rates, as well as mixed neutron sources (e.g., Pu oxide or Mixed Cm and Pu ). Here we report on measured results with our existing liquid scintillator array and promote the design of a nuclear material assay system that incorporates fast neutron detection, including the surprising result that fast liquid scintillator becomes competitive and even surpasses the precision of 3 He counters measuring correlated pairs in modest (kg) samples of plutonium.

Reactor Monitoring with Antineutrinos – A Progress Report

The Reactor Safeguards regime is the name given to a set of protocols and technologies used to monitor the consumption and production of fissile materials in nuclear reactors. The Safeguards regime is administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and is an essential component of the global Treaty on Nuclear Nonproliferation, recently renewed by its 189 remaining signators. (The 190th, North Korea, withdrew from the Treaty in 2003). Beginning in Russia in the 1980s, a number of researchers worldwide have experimentally demonstrated the potential of cubic meter scale antineutrino detectors for non-intrusive real-time monitoring of fissile inventories and power output of reactors. The detectors built so far have operated tens of meters from a reactor core, outside of the containment dome, largely unattended and with remote data acquisition for an entire 1.5 year reactor cycle, and have achieved levels of sensitivity to fissile content of potential interest for the IAEA safeguards regime. In this article, I will describe the unique advantages of antineutrino detectors for cooperative monitoring, consider the prospects and benefits of increasing the range of detectability for small reactors, and provide a partial survey of ongoing global research aimed at improving near-field and far field monitoring and discovery of nuclear reactors.

Reactor monitoring using antineutrino detectors

Nuclear reactors have served as the antineutrino source for many fundamental physics experiments. The techniques developed by these experiments make it possible to use these weakly interacting particles for a practical purpose. The large flux of antineutrinos that leaves a reactor carries information about two quantities of interest for safeguards: the reactor power and fissile inventory. Measurements made with antineutrino detectors could therefore offer an alternative means for verifying the power history and fissile inventory of a reactor as part of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and/or other reactor safeguards regimes. Several efforts to develop this monitoring technique are underway worldwide.

Nuclear power: Understanding the economic risks and uncertainties

This paper identifies the fundamental elements and critical research tasks of a comprehensive analysis of the costs and benefits of nuclear power relative to investments in alternative baseload technologies. The proposed framework seeks to: (i) identify the set of expected parameter values under which nuclear power becomes cost competitive relative to alternative generating technologies; (ii) identify the main risk drivers and quantify their impacts on the costs of nuclear power; (iii) estimate the nuclear power option value; (iv) assess the nexus between electricity market structure and the commercial attractiveness of nuclear power; (v) evaluate the economics of smaller sized nuclear reactors; (vi) identify options for strengthening the institutional underpinnings of the international safeguards regime; and (vii) evaluate the proliferation resistance of new generation reactors and fuel cycles.

Observation of the isotopic evolution of pressurized water reactor fuel using an antineutrino detector

By operating an antineutrino detector of simple design during several fuel cycles, we observed long term changes in antineutrino flux that result from the isotopic evolution of a commercial pressurized water reactor. Measurements made with simple antineutrino detectors of this kind offer an alternative means for verifying fissile inventories at reactors, as part of International Atomic Energy Agency and other reactor safeguards regimes.

Reactor monitoring and safeguards using antineutrino detectors

Nuclear reactors have served as the antineutrino source for many fundamental physics experiments. The techniques developed by these experiments make it possible to use these very weakly interacting particles for a practical purpose. The large flux of antineutrinos that leaves a reactor carries information about two quantities of interest for safeguards: the reactor power and fissile inventory. Measurements made with antineutrino detectors could therefore orer an alternative means for verifying the power history and fissile inventory of a reactors, as part of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other reactor safeguards regimes. Several erorts to develop this monitoring technique are underway across the globe.

Monitoring the thermal power of nuclear reactors with a prototype cubic meter antineutrino detector

In this paper, we estimate how quickly and how precisely a reactor’s operational status and thermal power can be monitored over hour to month time scales, using the antineutrino rate as measured by a cubic meter scale detector. Our results are obtained from a detector we have deployed and operated at 25m standoff from a reactor core. This prototype can detect a prompt reactor shutdown within 5h and monitor relative thermal power to within 7days. Monitoring of short-term power changes in this way may be useful in the context of International Atomic Energy Agency’s reactor safeguards regime or other cooperative monitoring regimes.

STRENGTHENING SAFEGUARDS AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

The nuclear weapon states see International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards as an important means of preventing proliferation and, therefore, of enhancing their own security. Many non-nuclear weapon states are, however, reluctant to accept the IAEA's Additional Protocol or even consider developing new safeguards instruments. They frequently claim that this is because the nuclear weapon states have failed to make sufficient progress toward their disarmament pledge, as embodied in Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). This viewpoint discusses whether the nuclear weapon states should adopt a strategy of working toward disarmament as a means of strengthening safeguards. Three questions are explored. First, are the weapon states right to see safeguards as an effective means of preventing proliferation? Second, will progress by the nuclear weapon states toward disarmament strengthen the safeguards regime? Third, what does that actually involve? There is a “political” connection between safeguards and disarmament. The weapon states should seriously consider exploiting that connection, with the aims of encouraging the adoption of additional safeguards by some states and putting pressure on others that use the slow pace of disarmament as an excuse for recalcitrance.