Volume 7, Number 2
December 2009

The 2nd Japan-IAEA Workshop on Advanced Safeguards Technology for the Future Nuclear Fuel Cycle

Melissa Schear at Tokai JPARC Facility Photo by Brian Boyer

By Melissa A. Schear Los Alamos National Laboratory

In November, I had the remarkable opportunity to travel to Tokai-Mura, Ibaraki, Japan, to attend the 2nd IAEA-Japan workshop on Advanced Safeguards Technology for the Future Nuclear Fuel Cycle, which was hosted by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA). There were representatives from R&D organizations, safeguards inspectorates, the nuclear industry, state systems of accountancy and control, and member states support programs. As a young professional in nuclear safeguards, I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the range of safeguards technology, to meet other professionals in this field, and to present my research to an experienced and internationally diverse audience.

I learned a great deal from the technical content presented at the workshop. The first three days of the workshop consisted of presentations and discussions covering a wide range of issues, from the current status of safeguards technology development to the foreseen technology and instrumentation needs, as a part of a broader discussion of the use of guidelines and safeguards approaches to aid in future safeguards implementation. It was instructive to hear about experiences and lessons learned in areas such as Joint Use of Equipment and Safeguards by Design. I valued the understanding of how safeguards instrument R&D, which is my focus, fits into the larger safeguards approach. The session titled "Improvement of NDA Technologies for New and Spent Fuel" had two talks, directly related to my research. Another talk, "Recent Developments in Neutron Detection and Multiplicity Counting with Fast Liquid Scintillator," was relevant to my instrument design and performance.

One of the most valuable aspects of attending this workshop was the chance to meet safeguards professionals from several domestic and international organizations. There were several attendees from the IAEA Division of Technical Support, who are responsible for the development and maintenance of safeguards equipment, and there were many who had worked as IAEA and EURATOM inspectors, relating their experiences of safeguards technology implementation at different facilities throughout the world. There were also representatives from the JAEA's Nuclear Nonproliferation Science and Technology Center (NPSTC) and the Japan Safeguards Office (JSGO). A few of us, from the Pu-NDA research effort sponsored by the DOE's Next Generation Safeguards Initiative (NGSI), seized the opportunity to seek a possible U.S.-Japan collaboration on spent fuel measurements. We met with officials from the Tokai Reprocessing Plant (TRP), NPSTC, and the Quantum Beam Science Directorate (QBSD), and toured the Reactor Fuel Examination facility (RFEF) the day before the workshop began.

There were also tours for the workshop attendees on the last day. We toured the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC), a high intensity accelerator facility at the Tokai location of the JAEA with proton beams and secondary particle beams for research areas in material and life science, nuclear and particle physics, and Transmutation R&D. We then toured the Clean Laboratory for Environmental Analysis and Research (CLEAR), which are clean-room facilities to analyze nuclear materials in environmental samples. CLEAR provides support to the domestic safeguards system and is a member of the IAEA network analytical laboratories. Overall, attending this workshop was of great professional and personal worth to me. I experienced the Japanese culture and hospitality, and also learned a lot in the process.