Nuclear materials safety management [proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Nuclear Materials Safety Management, Amarillo, Texas, U.S.A., March 17-21, 1997

With the end of the Cold War, new opportunities for interaction have opened up between the United States and the countries of the Former Soviet Union. Many of these important initiatives involve the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy (MINA TOM). Currently, collaboration is under way which involves reactor safety, the disposition of fissile materials from the weapons program, radioactive waste disposal, and the safety of nuclear warheads. Another fruitful area of interchange resulted from the radiochemical storage tank accident at the site of the Siberian Chemical Compound at Tomsk-7 in 1993. DOE and MINATOM agreed to meet and exchange information about the accident for the purposes of improving safety. A meeting on the Tomsk tank accident was held in Hanford, Washington in 1993, followed by a second meeting in st. Petersburg, Russia in 1994 in which the agenda expanded to include radiochemical processing safety. A third exchange took place in 1995 in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and additional papers were presented on nonreactor nuclear safety. Following a planning session in 1996 in Seattle, Washington, it was decided to hold a fourth technical exchange on the broader subject of nuclear materials safety management. Through a grant from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Disarmament Programme, the meeting took place on March 17- 21, 1997, in Amarillo, Texas as a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) through grant no. DISRM 961315. Front Matter....Pages i-xvi Remarks of US Representative Mac Thornberry....Pages 1-3 Relationship of Past US/RF Nuclear Material Safety Management Activities to Workshop Goals....Pages 5-12 Toward an Integrated Nuclear Materials Safety Management Approach in the United States and Russia....Pages 13-21 Implementing a Nuclear Materials Safety Management Program in the US and Russia....Pages 23-28 Nuclear Materials Safety Management: US Perspectives....Pages 29-31 Problem of Safe Management of Radioactive Wastes in Russia....Pages 33-47 The System of Safety Assurance for Facilities of the Ministry of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation During Normal Operation and Emergencies....Pages 49-64 Stabilizing Plutonium to Reduce Risk to the Public and Workers....Pages 65-68 Long-Term Storage of Plutonium....Pages 69-70 Technologic Safety Assurance for Plutonium to MOX Conversion....Pages 71-74 Principles and Measures for Nuclear Safety in Storage of Excess Weapons-Grade Plutonium in the Permanent Storage Facility Being Designed Within the Russian-US Agreement....Pages 75-80 Prevention of Accident Consequences in Plutonium Storage....Pages 81-85 Experience in Plutonium Storage and Transportation....Pages 87-91 Safety Issues in Plutonium Transport....Pages 93-96 Maintenance of Safety During Transportation of Nuclear Materials....Pages 97-108 Development of Technology and Equipment for MOX Fuel Production: Provision of Production Safety....Pages 109-114 Application of a Plasma-Chemical Process for Safe Transformation of Weapons Plutonium into MOX Fuel....Pages 115-118 MOX Fabrication and Transportation Safety Issues in Belgium....Pages 119-129 Management of DOE-Owned Spent Nuclear Fuel....Pages 131-138 US Commercial LWR Spent Fuel Storage....Pages 139-142 Safety for Transportation, Reloading, and Storage of VVER-1000 Reactor Spent Fuel at the RT-2 Plant Storage Facility....Pages 143-154 Options for MOX Fuel Utilization, Interim Storage, and Disposition in Germany....Pages 155-168 Safety Problems in Storage and Transportation of Spent Fuel....Pages 169-181 Increasing Technological Safety at the Russian Radiochemical Plant RT-1....Pages 183-190 The Problems of Ensuring Safety for Underground Isolation of Nuclear Materials Contained in the Long-Lived Radionuclides....Pages 191-208 The Application of Geological Similarity Principles for Securing the Safety of Isolation of Plutonium and Other Long-Lived Technogenous Radionuclides in Deep Geological Formations and the Development of a Technology for Synthesis of Mineral-Like Matrices for Radioactive Waste Immobilization....Pages 209-218 Methodology and Results of Studies of Environmental Contamination by Plutonium in Zones of Nuclear Facilities Impact....Pages 219-235 The Use of Nondestructive Nuclear Methods to Ensure the Safety of Nuclear Materials Management....Pages 237-243 Safety Assessment as a Basis for Decision Making....Pages 245-252 Nuclear Safety Arrangements While Storing Enriched Uranium....Pages 253-256 Radiation Safety and Work With Plutonium....Pages 257-262 Safety of Handling Nuclear Materials at the State Research Center of Russia-Institute of Biophysics....Pages 263-267 Container for Transportation and Long-Term Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel....Pages 269-270 Neutronics Benchmarks for the Utilization of Mixed Oxide Fuel in Water Reactors....Pages 271-279 Removal and Collection of Gallium from Surplus Weapons Plutonium....Pages 281-285 Fuel Test System for Gallium-Zirconium Interaction at the Texas A&M University Nuclear Science Center....Pages 287-290 Can-In-Canister Alternative for Vitrification of Surplus Weapons Plutonium: Overview of Thermal Issues....Pages 291-296 Evaluation of Thermal Stresses During a Glass Pour....Pages 297-314 A Research Program in Automation, Robotics, and Tele-operation....Pages 315-320 Perspectives on Nuclear Materials Safety Management Methods at DOE Sites....Pages 321-325 Russian Perspectives on Nuclear Materials Safety Management Methods....Pages 327-328 US-Russian Technical Exchanges on Radioactive Aerosol Monitoring....Pages 329-332 Overview of Sandia National Laboratories and Khlopin Radium Institute Collaborative Radiological Accident Consequence Analysis Efforts....Pages 333-340 Review of Current Russian-American Joint Projects on Safe Management of Nuclear Materials....Pages 341-344 Summary: Planning for the Nuclear Materials Safety Management Initiative....Pages 345-360 Protocol of the Nato Advanced Research Workshop on Nuclear Materials Safety Management....Pages 361-368 Appendix: Internet Sites on Nuclear Materials Safety Management, Environmental Safety and Health, Arms Control and Disarmament, Performance-Based Management, and Lessons Learned....Pages 369-374 Back Matter....Pages 375-378 With the end of the Cold War, the US and the Russian Federation have been actively dismantling tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. As a result, large quantities of fissile materials have become surplus to the strategic defence needs of both countries. In order to meet non-proliferation goals and to ensure the irreversibility of nuclear arms reductions, these excess fissile materials must be placed and maintained in secure storage prior to being dismantled and, ultimately, processed into a form that meets the 'spent fuel' standard. A fundamental prerequisite for the successful disposal of these materials is the safe operation of the many components of the nuclear fuel cycle. The present book reports on a technical exchange between the US Department of Energy and the Russian Ministry for Atomic Energy, with additional input from expert organizations in other countries, on the issue of nuclear materials safety management. It addresses the principal issues in the area, summarises past activities, and outlines potential future initiatives. The focus is on the non-reactor components of the nuclear fuel cycle, with consideration of excess weapons fissile materials. Coverage includes storage of plutonium; plutonium oxide manufacture, storage, and transportation; mixed oxide fuel fabrication, storage, and transportation; and spent fuel and waste issues.