Year
1972
Abstract
The Jersey Nuclear Company, a subsidiary of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, has constructed a nuclear fuels fabrication facil- ity in Richland, Washington. An artist's drawing of the facility is shown in Figure 1. The larger building to the left is our UC\"2 fuels plant which includes all process steps from receipt of UF§ through bundle assembly. The building at the right is our mixed oxide fuels plant. Both plants are now licensed and in operation producing prototypical fuel for light water reactors. Part of the objective of these plants is to pilot operations for larger fuel plants in the future (including nuclear materials safeguards); thus, in that sense, they may be regarded as pilot plants. A new fuels plant is looked upon as an ideal vehicle to test new concepts and procedures in the management of special nuclear materials. The ability to incorporate new ideas is easier in a new plant, particularly when requirements are identified early and taken into account in the design, early operation, and break- in phases. Likewise, the pilot nature of the Jersey Nuclear facilities makes it easier to accommodate new ideas. Thus, what 1 have to report on monthly physical inventories, may not be accommodated so easily in larger, older plants. Nevertheless, I hope that some of the things we have learned are helpful to others in facing tighter safeguards regulations in the future. We conducted our first physical inventory in the U02 plant in October of 1971 and inventories have been taken each month since that time. This paper summarizes our experience in the conduct of these inventories, presents some of the results, and describes in qualitative terms the costs and benefits of monthly inventories.