INTERNATIONAL SAFEGUARDS CONCERNS OF SPENT FUEL DISPOSAL PROGRAM

The purpose of this paper is to stimulate discussions on the subject of safeguarding large quantities of plutonium contained in spent fuels to be disposed of in geologic repositories. All the spent fuel disposal scenarios examined here pose a variety of safeguards problems, none of which are adequately addressed by the interna- tional safeguards community. The spent fuels from once-through fuel cycles in underground reposi- tories would become an increasingly attractive target for diversion because of their plutonium content and decreasing radioactivity. Current design of the first geologic repository in the U.S. will have the capacity to accommodate wastes equivalent to 70 000 Mt of uranium from commercial and defense fuel cycles. Of this, approximately 62 000 Mt uranium equivalent will be commercial spent fuel, containing over 500 Mt of plutonium and a variety of other valuable elements. Inter- national safeguards commitments may require us to address the safeguards issues of disposing of such large quantities of plutonium in a geologic repos- itory, which has the potential to become a pluto- nium mine in the future. This paper highlights several issues that should be addressed in the near term by U.S. industries and the DOE before geologic repositories for spent fuels become a reality.