Approach for enhancing nuclear materials tracking and reporting in waste

Recent policy from the Department of Energy/Office of Safeguards and Security (DOE/OSS) has identified the need to report nuclear materials in waste in a manner that is consistent with the Department of Energy's Nuclear Materials Information System (NMIS), which uses Form 471 as its official record. NMIS is used to track nuclear material inventories while they are subject to safeguards. This requirement necessitates the reevaluation of existing business practices that are used to track and report these nuclear materials. This paper provides a methodology for applying a systems approach to the evaluation of the flow of nuclear waste materials from a generating facility through to permanent disposal. This methodology can be used to integrate existing systems and leverage data already gathered that support both the waste reporting requirements and the NMIS requirements. In order to consider an active waste reporting system that covers waste management through to final disposal, the requirements for characterization, certification, and transportation for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) are used as an example. These requirements are found in the WIPP Waste Acceptance Criteria (WIPP/WAC) and associated requirement documents. This approach will prevent inconsistencies in reported data and address current and future needs. For example, spent fuel (which the U.S. intends to dispose of as high-level waste) has not been viewed as particularly attractive in terms of proliferation in comparison to materials associated with other parts of the nuclear fuel cycle. However, collecting high-level waste (or some types of defense waste) in one location where it will be left for hundreds or thousands of years presents proliferation and safeguards issues that need to be considered as part of a systems evaluation. This paper brings together information on domestic and international safeguards practices and considers the current system of documentation used by the U.S. Department of Energy for radioactive waste disposal. The information presented represents current practices, and we recognize that the practices were designed to address different goals. After providing an overview of these areas, some steps that may help develop safeguards systems for geologic repositories in the U.S. context are discussed