Safeguards on Spent Fuel and Other Irradiated Nuclear Fuels Destines for Waste Management

DOE safeguards policies require the graded protection of spent fuel and other nuclear material forms commensurate with their safeguards attractiveness and quantity. Recent assessments of safeguards practices throughout the Department of Energy (DOE) indicate that, among other things, the quality of nuclear material accountability on spent fuel and other irradiated nuclear fuel (INF) is not validated and in many cases may not be reliable. Recommendations on the validation of INF from a safeguards accountability standpoint have been developed. Concurrently, the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management is developing disposition plans for these inventories that require that the knowledge of their nuclear material content, particularly plutonium and uranium, be establishes. OCRWM's interest in is to assure that waste management controls at the final repositories provide an appropriate level of nuclear material protection. To these ends, the INF recommendations are important in program direction development to ensure that safeguards and material disposition mission requirements are met in the long-term management of INF.