NUCLEAR MATERIALS MANAGEMENT AT NUCLEAR FUEL SERVICES, INC.

This paper describes the scope of Nuclear Materials Management for a privately operated spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. A discussion of the reprocessing operation and the measurement system is presented. The results obtained from the first three processing campaigns are used to evaluate the reliability of the measurement system. The Nuclear Fuel Services fuel reprocessing plant is located near West Valley, New York, approximately forty-five miles south of Buffalo, New York. The plant began reprocessing spent reactor fuel in April, 1966 after ten months of pre-startup operations. The plant is presently reprocessing fuel from the Yankee Atomic Power Reactor. During its first year of operation, 126 metric tons of low enriched uranium were recovered. Nuclear Materials Control in an irradiated fuel reprocessing plant is characterized by: a) lot processing pf pre-specified quantities, b) relatively high quantities of inprocess hold-up during processing, c) there are a large number of remote measurements made, d) almost all of the measurements are of batch quantities, and e) frequent end-of-lot physical inventories.