Trial Application of the Facility Safeguardability Assessment Process to the NuScale SMR Design

Abstract

Executive SummaryThe International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is tasked with verifying that commitments made by States as part of their safeguards agreements with the IAEA are fulfilled. The IAEA verifies declarations made by States and detects undeclared activities in States through the implementation of a Safeguards Approach (SA) for the facility and a State Level Approach (SLA) for the entire state. At the facility level, the SA consists of measures to verify the special fissionable material present and its movement as declared by the facility. The SA measures also provide assurance that the facility operations are as declared and that the facility is not being misused. All these safeguards measures at the facility level contribute to the SLA for the entire state."Safeguards by Design" (SBD) is the practice of incorporating features to support application of these measures into facility designs throughout the entire facility lifecycle. The ultimate goal of SBD is to increase the safeguardability of a facility, a qualitative measure of "the degree of ease with which a nuclear energy system can be effectively and efficiently placed under international safeguards" (GIF 2006). Over the last 20 years, a growing volume of SBD literature has focused on safeguards principles and best practices. However, these informational and analytical tools have been independently developed with little effort made to form a consistent, structured methodology for a facility designer and the facility's safeguards experts to use in assessing the safeguardability of their design.To address this need, the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Next Generation Safeguards Initiative funded the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Brookhaven National Laboratory, and several consultants to develop the Facility Safeguardability Assessment (FSA) process (Bari et al. 2012). FSA is a screening process used by a facility designer to focus their attention on the aspects of their facility or process design that would most benefit from application of SBD principles and practices. The process is meant to identify the most relevant guidance within the SBD tools for enhancing the safeguardability of the design. In fiscal year (FY) 2012, NNSA sponsored PNNL to evaluate the practical applicability of FSA by applying it to the NuScale small modular nuclear power plant design. This report documents the application of the FSA process, presenting conclusions regarding its efficiency and robustness rather than evaluating the safeguardability of the NuScale design. The report describes the NuScale safeguards design concept and presents considerations for functional "infrastructure" guidelines to ensure safeguardability.The application of FSA to the NuScale design consisted of four activities:1. The authors compared the NuScale design to the design of a current large pressurized water reactor using the FSA screening tool (Bari et al. 2012). The comparison proved useful in identifying those aspects of the design that posed safeguards chall...

Guideline for the Implementation of Safeguards into the Design Process for Nuclear Reactors

“…Safeguards implementation at the Rokkasho reprocessing plant in Japan showed that SBD initiation and dialogue with the IAEA early in the design process is critical [4]. Additionally, with trends towards standardized, and in some cases regulator-certified, NPP designs, rather than individual designs for specific locations, a safeguards-by-design approach would be of further value, particularly for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) [5] [6], to ensure that the design can readily accommodates the safeguards measures the IAEA might apply…”

“…Because most fast reactors are in the earlier stages of development and design maturity, designers have a greater opportunity for inclusion of safeguards in the design considerations. These considerations include:  early provision of design information before it is finalized [5][6][7][8]  provision of additional information by the State regarding nuclear facilities and activities related to the fuel cycle  hardened, secure storage for plutonium, HEU or transuranic fuel  advanced, redundant containment and surveillance systems  continuous, unattended NDA to monitor fuel movements that can distinguish between fissile and fertile or non-nuclear material item  the implications of minor-actinide bearing fuels on the implementation of safeguards [27]  clear segregation of any hot cells and pin handling equipment from the rest of the reactor facility to allow them to be placed under more stringent safeguards measures without affecting the majority of the facility's item accounting status …”

“…Use of this tool can help orient the design team to address these issues, and to help facilitate discussions with a State's Safeguards Regulatory Authority and the IAEA on international safeguards for the facility. [6], [14] The questionnaire used in this Facility Safeguardability Assessment approach is to be found at Appendix B to this report.…”