The spent fuel standard - does the can-in-canister concept for plutonium immobilization measure up?

Critics continue to question whether or not the can-in-canister concept for immobilization and disposal of surplus plutonium meets the ''Spent Fuel Standard.'' Following this standard would make this plutonium roughly as ''inaccessible for weapons use as the much larger and growing quantity of plutonium that exists in spent fuel from commercial reactors.'' These critics take a narrower view of the ''Spent Fuel Standard'' than was intended in the National Academy reports, rather than considering the total effective barrier. This paper directly compares retrieval and recovery of plutonium from a can-in-canister to a spent fuel assembly. The conclusion from this study, as from earlier studies, is that the plutonium in the can-in-canister form is less accessible and less attractive to a potential proliferate than the plutonium that exists in spent fuel from commercial reactors