International Safeguards for Spent Fuel

The Safeguards approach to spent fuel is usually based on containment and surveillance with additional measures to verify the fuel at routine inspections or in special circumstances. This verification could range from a simple item counting procedure to a comprehensive measurement of each assembly to confirm the operators declared values for burn-up, cooling-time and plutonium content of the discharged fuel. The range of options available and degrees of assurance given are considered in this paper. Each extra degree of verification will add to the cost of Safeguards and it is suggested that relatively simple qualitative measurements to confirm that the characteristics of each assembly are consistent with spent fuel would be sufficient. It would be in keeping with a policy of:- A responsible degree of Safeguards achieved at a reasonable cost.