The Role of ESARDA and its Current R&D Efforts

The peaceful use of nuclear energy has substantially increased worldwide during the last decade. At present about 400 power stations are connected to the grid providing a total capacity of 280 GWe. According to present day projections a further increase is to be expected. The generation of electricity by nuclear energy is inherently linked to the production of plutonlum, presently worldwide about 75 t per year. Some countries already have or are going to recyle plutonium commercially in thermal and fast reactors. The related reprocessing capacity in countries of the European Community will increase from its current value of 400 t heavy metal per year to more than 3000 t within the next decade. This situation will result in a challenge for safeguards mainly for two reasons: Firstly its recourses are not likely to be increased accordingly, therefore more emphasis has to be put on cost/effectiveness. Secondly, new techniques such as long term storage and remote handling are supposed to be applied requiring adequate safeguards measures. Therefore the present day status of safeguards techniques will need to evolve in order to master all future safeguards aspects.