Nonproliferation and safeguards aspects of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR)

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has declared that the large and growing stocks of plutonium from weapons dismantlement in the U.S. and the former Soviet Union FSU are a ''clear and present danger'' to peace and security. Moreover, the opinion of some experts that plutonium of any isotopic blend is a proliferation threat has been well publicized, heightening the concern that plutonium produced in the civilian fuel cycle is itself a proliferation threat. Assuring that separated plutonium, from dismantled warheads as well as from civilian power programs, is under effective control has (again) become a high priority of U.S. diplomacy. One pole of the debate on how to manage this material is to declare it to be a waste, and to search for some way to dispose of it safely, securely, and permanently. The other pole is to view it as an energy resource and to safeguard it against diversion, putting it into active use in the civilian power program. The ultimate choice cannot be separated from the long-term strategy for use of peaceful nuclear power. Continued use of a once-through fuel cycle will lead to an ever-increasing quantity of excess plutonium-requiring safeguarding. Alternatively, recycling the world's stocks of plutonium in fast reactors, contrary to common misconception, will cap the world supply of plutonium and hold it in working inventories for generating power. Transition from the current-generation light water cooled reactors (LWRs) to a future fast-reactor-based nuclear energy supply under international safeguards would, henceforth, limit world plutonium inventories to the amount necessary and useful for power generation, with no further excess production. (author)