Transformative monitoring approaches for reprocessing.

The future of reprocessing in the United States is strongly driven by plant economics. With increasing safeguards, security, and safety requirements, future plant monitoring systems must be able to demonstrate more efficient operations while improving the current state of the art. The goal of this work was to design and examine the incorporation of advanced plant monitoring technologies into safeguards systems with attention to the burden on the operator. The technologies examined include micro-fluidic sampling for more rapid analytical measurements and spectroscopy-based techniques for on-line process monitoring. The Separations and Safeguards Performance Model was used to design the layout and test the effect of adding these technologies to reprocessing. The results here show that both technologies fill key gaps in existing materials accountability that provide detection of diversion events that may not be detected in a timely manner in existing plants. The plant architecture and results under diversion scenarios are described. As a tangent to this work, both the AMUSE and SEPHIS solvent extraction codes were examined for integration in the model to improve the reality of diversion scenarios. The AMUSE integration was found to be the most successful and provided useful results. The SEPHIS integration is still a work in progress and may provide an alternative option

Reprocessing plant scale model integration.

Abstract Not Provide

Fully integrated safeguards and security for reprocessing plant monitoring.

Nuclear fuel reprocessing plants contain a wealth of plant monitoring data including material measurements, process monitoring, administrative procedures, and physical protection elements. Future facilities are moving in the direction of highly-integrated plant monitoring systems that make efficient use of the plant data to improve monitoring and reduce costs. The Separations and Safeguards Performance Model (SSPM) is an analysis tool that is used for modeling advanced monitoring systems and to determine system response under diversion scenarios. This report both describes the architecture for such a future monitoring system and present results under various diversion scenarios. Improvements made in the past year include the development of statistical tests for detecting material loss, the integration of material balance alarms to improve physical protection, and the integration of administrative procedures. The SSPM has been used to demonstrate how advanced instrumentation (as developed in the Material Protection, Accounting, and Control Technologies campaign) can benefit the overall safeguards system as well as how all instrumentation is tied into the physical protection system. This concept has the potential to greatly improve the probability of detection for both abrupt and protracted diversion of nuclear material

Data validation and security for reprocessing.

Next generation nuclear fuel cycle facilities will face strict requirements on security and safeguards of nuclear material. These requirements can result in expensive facilities. The purpose of this project was to investigate how to incorporate safeguards and security into one plant monitoring system early in the design process to take better advantage of all plant process data, to improve confidence in the operation of the plant, and to optimize costs. An existing reprocessing plant materials accountancy model was examined for use in evaluating integration of safeguards (both domestic and international) and security. International safeguards require independent, secure, and authenticated measurements for materials accountability--it may be best to design stand-alone systems in addition to domestic safeguards instrumentation to minimize impact on operations. In some cases, joint-use equipment may be appropriate. Existing domestic materials accountancy instrumentation can be used in conjunction with other monitoring equipment for plant security as well as through the use of material assurance indicators, a new metric for material control that is under development. Future efforts will take the results of this work to demonstrate integration on the reprocessing plant model

The role of Z-pinch fusion transmutation of waste in the nuclear fuel cycle.

The resurgence of interest in reprocessing in the United States with the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership has led to a renewed look at technologies for transmuting nuclear waste. Sandia National Laboratories has been investigating the use of a Z-Pinch fusion driver to burn actinide waste in a sub-critical reactor. The baseline design has been modified to solve some of the engineering issues that were identified in the first year of work, including neutron damage and fuel heating. An on-line control feature was added to the reactor to maintain a constant neutron multiplication with time. The transmutation modeling effort has been optimized to produce more accurate results. In addition, more attention was focused on the integration of this burner option within the fuel cycle including an investigation of overall costs. This report presents the updated reactor design, which is able to burn 1320 kg of actinides per year while producing 3,000 MWth

Fusion transmutation of waste: design and analysis of the in-zinerator concept.

Due to increasing concerns over the buildup of long-lived transuranic isotopes in spent nuclear fuel waste, attention has been given in recent years to technologies that can burn up these species. The separation and transmutation of transuranics is part of a solution to decreasing the volume and heat load of nuclear waste significantly to increase the repository capacity. A fusion neutron source can be used for transmutation as an alternative to fast reactor systems. Sandia National Laboratories is investigating the use of a Z-Pinch fusion driver for this application. This report summarizes the initial design and engineering issues of this ''In-Zinerator'' concept. Relatively modest fusion requirements on the order of 20 MW can be used to drive a sub-critical, actinide-bearing, fluid blanket. The fluid fuel eliminates the need for expensive fuel fabrication and allows for continuous refueling and removal of fission products. This reactor has the capability of burning up 1,280 kg of actinides per year while at the same time producing 3,000 MWth. The report discusses the baseline design, engineering issues, modeling results, safety issues, and fuel cycle impact

Z-inertial fusion energy: power plant final report FY 2006.

This report summarizes the work conducted for the Z-inertial fusion energy (Z-IFE) late start Laboratory Directed Research Project. A major area of focus was on creating a roadmap to a z-pinch driven fusion power plant. The roadmap ties ZIFE into the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) initiative through the use of high energy fusion neutrons to burn the actinides of spent fuel waste. Transmutation presents a near term use for Z-IFE technology and will aid in paving the path to fusion energy. The work this year continued to develop the science and engineering needed to support the Z-IFE roadmap. This included plant system and driver cost estimates, recyclable transmission line studies, flibe characterization, reaction chamber design, and shock mitigation techniques