Proliferation Resistance Characteristics of Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems: a Safeguardability Point of View

Among the international community there is a renewed interest in nuclear power systems as a major source for energy production in the near to mid future. This is mainly due to concerns connected with future availability of conventional energy resources, and with the environmental impact of fossil fuels. International initiatives as the Generation IV International Forum (GIF), the International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (IAEA-INPRO), partially the US driven Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), aimed at defining and evaluating the characteristics in which future innovative nuclear energy systems (INS) will have to excel, have been set up. Among the identified characteristics, Proliferation Resistance plays an important role for being able to widely deploy nuclear technology worldwide in a secure way. Studies having the objective to assess Proliferation Resistance of nuclear fuel cycles have been carried out since the seventies, e.g. the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE) and the Nonproliferation Alternative Systems Assessment Program (NASAP) initiatives, and all agree in stating that absolute intrinsic proliferation resistance, although desirable, is not achievable in the foreseeable future. The above finding is still valid; as a consequence, every INS will have to comply with Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) connected agreements and will require safeguards measures, implemented through extrinsic measures. This consideration led to a renewed interest in the “Safeguardability” concept which can be seen a as a bridge between intrinsic features and extrinsic features and measures.JRC.G.8-Nuclear safeguard