Progress and prospects for system engineering and safeguards technology development of a pyroprocessing facility in Korea

The rate of spent fuel generation in Korea will inevitably increase in the future considering the currently planned nuclear power program of Korea. Thus, to realize the more efficient and effective management of spent fuel, the Atomic Energy Commission reviewed and confirmed 'A Long term Development Plan for Future Nuclear Energy System' at the 255th meeting. The plan includes the R and D plan on proliferation resistant pyroprocessing which is connected with Sodium Fast Reactor. Pyroprocessing possesses a high proliferation resistance since specific nuclear materials cannot be obtained in high purity by this technology. Other advantages include the effective utilization resources as well as reduction of amount of spent fuel and size of the required repositories. Moreover, pyroprocessing is compact and adequate for small facilities with high economical efficiency and it is an environmentally friendly process discharging small amount of radioactive waste. KAERI is devoting its research efforts to developing pyroprocess technologies in two main areas: processing and system engineering. The system engineering technology includes facility design, safeguards system, remote handling technology, transport system and fuel cycle system analysis. In this paper, the current status of the pyroprocess system engineering including the safeguards technology will be reviewed