Analysis of Advanced Safeguards Options for the National Enrichment Facility

Abstract

The National Enrichment Facility (NEF) is a large commercial uranium gas centrifuge enrichment plant (GCEP) that is being constructed in Eunice, New Mexico. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued NEF a license on June 23, 2006. The facility broke ground in August 2006, and operations are scheduled to begin in 2008. The facility is scheduled to reach its full capacity of 3,000 tonne separative work units (t-SWU) /year in 2013. In November 2004, the United States informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that the NEF facility had been added to the list of U.S. facilities eligible for the application of international safeguards under the U.S. Voluntary Offer safeguards agreement. Consequently, the facility could be selected by IAEA for the application of international safeguards. Based on this, a team of safeguards and systems analysts from U.S. Department of Energy laboratories has evaluated the potential means of applying IAEA safeguards at NEF. That evaluation is the basis of this report. Currently there are gaps in IAEA safeguards for detecting diversion by some of the above scenarios. Specifically, current safeguards do not provide adequate verification of UF6 process flow or for the timely detection of HEU. As a consequence of these deficiencies, a study by Moran, Sanborn, Whitaker, and Boyer in 2006 proposed a series of four safeguards options with progressively advanced safeguards regimes designed to address these deficiencies. This report evaluates the effectiveness and efficiency of a variation of these four options. This analysis shows that neither safeguards option 1 nor 2 meets the IAEA goals for the timely detection of the diversion of LEU, with a detection probability of at least 50%, for all of the postulated diversion scenarios. The analysis also shows that safeguards options 3 and 4 would significantly exceed the IAEA detection goal for all the postulated diversion scenarios. Therefore, options 3 and 4 provide tools to address existing weaknesses in IAEA safeguards effectiveness for large GCEPs (>2,000 t SWU/year) such as NEF. This analysis provides a cost estimate that includes equipment capital costs, maintenance and repair costs, field inspection and office labor costs, and sample analysis costs. Therefore, based on the effectiveness of the safeguards options proposed at NEF and taking into consideration the relative costs, option 3 is recommended because of its balance between labor and equipment costs and because the technology required to implement the option is mature and currently available. Some of the technology required to implement option 4 will require additional development, and there is uncertainty about the effectiveness of the option 4 measures and their costs. Based on the analysis of the advanced safeguards options, the following prerequisites have been identified as necessary to implement effective safeguards at NEF. They are divided into the need for the National Nuclear Security Administration to test proposed safeguards measures to ensure their applicability and performance and the need to engage the IAEA, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and NEF facility operator on specific safeguards issues. 1. Develop, test, demonstrate, and validate performance of systems that are described in the report. 2. Engage the IAEA, NRC, and NEF facility operator to perform the activities described in the report.