Author: United States. General Accounting OfficePublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nuclear facilities
Languages : en
Pages : 88
Book Description
Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing and the Problems of Safeguarding Against the Spread of Nuclear Weapons
Author: United States. General Accounting OfficePublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nuclear facilities
Languages : en
Pages : 88
Book Description
Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing and the Problems of Safeguarding Against the Spread of Nuclear Weapons
Author: United States. General Accounting OfficePublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 65
Book Description
GAO undertook a review to determine the relationship between commercial spent nuclear fuel reprocessing and worldwide weapons proliferation and the adequacy of safeguards technology to detect diversions of weapons-usable material. In 1977, the President decided to indefinitely defer commercial nuclear spent fuel reprocessing in the United States because of the risks of nuclear technology and/or materials being diverted from such plants. This decision was justified on the basis that the United States can sustain its nuclear power program for the foreseeable future without reprocessing and that premature commercialization of reprocessing in the United States could encourage other nations to expand reprocessing activities. Despite the U.S. policy, many other countries continue to expand their reprocessing programs. Reprocessing, the chemical separation of usable uranium and plutonium from spent nuclear power reactor fuel, produces plutonium which can be used to construct a nuclear weapon. Safeguard systems used at federal reprocessing plants cannot assure that diversions of weapons-usable material for unauthorized purposes can be detected in a timely manner. Material control and accountability systems cannot accurately measure and account for weapons-usable material in spent fuel rods and in the process and waste streams. Instruments needed to measure the precise quantity of this material in spent nuclear reactor fuel have not been developed and current accountability systems cannot determine precisely the quantity being processed. Accurate measurements are also lacking in the radioactive waste portions of reprocessing operations. Since material control and accountability systems do not provide timely information on quantities or locations of weapons-usable material, it is doubtful that a diversion could be discovered before the material could be converted into a suitable form for weapons. The Department of Energy (DOE) relies on physical security to ensure the integrity of its material control and accountability systems. While DOE recognizes the limitations of its systems, it has not comprehensively identified these limitations or developed an approach to provide for as much safeguard protection as may be necessary. To date, effective worldwide systems and controls are nonexistent partly because the United States is not fully supporting a proposed international plutonium management and storage regime. U.S. research and development efforts fall short of providing the needed framework to solve reprocessing safeguards problems.
Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing and the Problems of Safeguarding Against the Spread of Nuclear Weapons
Author: United States Accounting Office (GAO)Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781720949664
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 78
Book Description
Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing and the Problems of Safeguarding Against the Spread of Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Science. Subcommittee on EnergyPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Book Description
Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing and the Problems of Safeguarding Against the Spread of Nuclear Weapons
Author: United States. General Accounting OfficePublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nuclear facilities
Languages : en
Pages : 84
Book Description
Safeguarding the Atom
Author: David FischerPublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000199673
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
Safeguards play a key role in verifying the effectiveness of restraints on the spread of nuclear weapons. Originally published in 1985, this book is a study of the safeguards system of the International Atomic Energy Agency, an important element of the non-proliferation regime. It breaks new ground by focusing on the politics of safeguards, especially the political problems of the IAEA and of the day-to-day application of safeguards. It contains a critical appraisal and proposals for ways of improving existing procedures, and of adapting them to the political and technological changes of recent years. Safeguarding the Atom gives an analysis of the following questions: What are IAEA safeguards and how do they work? How effective are they? How can they be reinforced? What sanctions can be imposed in the event of non-compliance? IAEA safeguards represent the world's first and so far only attempt to verify an arms control agreement by systematic on-site inspection, and their applicability to other arms control measures is examined.
Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing: U.S. Policy Development
Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 7
Book Description
As part of the World War II effort to develop the atomic bomb, reprocessing technology was developed to chemically separate and recover fissionable plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel. In the early stage of commercial nuclear power, reprocessing was thought essential to supplying nuclear fuel. Federally sponsored breeder reactor development included research into advanced reprocessing technology. Several commercial interests in reprocessing foundered due to economic, technical, and regulatory issues. President Carter terminated federal support for reprocessing in an attempt to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons material. Reprocessing for nuclear weapons production ceased shortly after the Cold War ended. The Department of Energy now proposes a new generation of "proliferation-resistant" reactor and reprocessing technology.
Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation
Author: Allan S. KrassPublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100020054X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325
Book Description
Originally published in 1983, this book presents both the technical and political information necessary to evaluate the emerging threat to world security posed by recent advances in uranium enrichment technology. Uranium enrichment has played a relatively quiet but important role in the history of efforts by a number of nations to acquire nuclear weapons and by a number of others to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For many years the uranium enrichment industry was dominated by a single method, gaseous diffusion, which was technically complex, extremely capital-intensive, and highly inefficient in its use of energy. As long as this remained true, only the richest and most technically advanced nations could afford to pursue the enrichment route to weapon acquisition. But during the 1970s this situation changed dramatically. Several new and far more accessible enrichment techniques were developed, stimulated largely by the anticipation of a rapidly growing demand for enrichment services by the world-wide nuclear power industry. This proliferation of new techniques, coupled with the subsequent contraction of the commercial market for enriched uranium, has created a situation in which uranium enrichment technology might well become the most important contributor to further nuclear weapon proliferation. Some of the issues addressed in this book are: A technical analysis of the most important enrichment techniques in a form that is relevant to analysis of proliferation risks; A detailed projection of the world demand for uranium enrichment services; A summary and critique of present institutional non-proliferation arrangements in the world enrichment industry, and An identification of the states most likely to pursue the enrichment route to acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear Weapons Nonproliferation Policy Concerning Foreign Research Reactor Spent Fuel
Author: Nuclear Wastes
Author: National Research CouncilPublisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309052262
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 590
Book Description
Disposal of radioactive waste from nuclear weapons production and power generation has caused public outcry and political consternation. Nuclear Wastes presents a critical review of some waste management and disposal alternatives to the current national policy of direct disposal of light water reactor spent fuel. The book offers clearcut conclusions for what the nation should do today and what solutions should be explored for tomorrow. The committee examines the currently used "once-through" fuel cycle versus different alternatives of separations and transmutation technology systems, by which hazardous radionuclides are converted to nuclides that are either stable or radioactive with short half-lives. The volume provides detailed findings and conclusions about the status and feasibility of plutonium extraction and more advanced separations technologies, as well as three principal transmutation concepts for commercial reactor spent fuel. The book discusses nuclear proliferation; the U.S. nuclear regulatory structure; issues of health, safety and transportation; the proposed sale of electrical energy as a means of paying for the transmutation system; and other key issues.