ORNL leads international community on safeguards, security for advanced reactors

New and advanced nuclear reactor technologies - including small modular reactors, or SMRs - and their associated fuel cycles represent growing opportunities for scalable carbon-free energy production. But their novel designs, new fuel types and forms, and unique operating environments pose distinct challenges for safeguards, the methods used to verify that nuclear materials are being used only for peaceful purposes.

Because of these challenges, the safeguards verification and security technologies implemented for the previous generation of nuclear reactors are not directly applicable to advanced reactors. Yet, the early stage of many next-generation nuclear power reactors and known challenges offer the unique and timely opportunity to integrate safety, security and safeguards, or 3S, solutions into the design phase.

While research by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory is leading the charge on addressing the science and technology challenges, the lab is also engaging industry and the international safeguards community to accelerate secure advanced reactor adoption, licensing and deployment while enabling the industry to meet the highest standards of nuclear nonproliferation.

In early November, ORNL hosted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Interregional Workshop on Safety, Security and Safeguards by Design in Small Modular Reactors, which welcomed 76 attendees representing 15 countries, three U.S. national labs, domestic and international industry partners, as well as IAEA officers.

The workshop brought together these diverse stakeholders to discuss and promote the timely implementation of 3S during the design stage, ensuring full integration into the lifecycle of a nuclear facility, from initial planning through design, construction and operation.

"Integrating safeguards into the design phase will be crucial to accelerating the anticipated deployment of advanced reactors," said ORNL's Don Kovacic, distinguished R&D engineer. "This workshop provided a platform for knowledge exchange among numerous designers, highlighting international safeguards considerations for different reactor technologies and discussing practical arrangements and specific examples of 3S by design."

As part of the main takeaways of the workshop, Shahen Poghosyan, senior nuclear safety officer at the IAEA's Department of Safety and Security, highlighted the value of collaborating with national laboratories to explore creative and efficient 3S solutions.

"3S solutions will need to evolve if the ambitious deployment scenarios of SMRs are going to be practical - this will require implementing security and safeguards measures in more creative ways as past approaches may not work," Poghosyan said during his closing remarks. "Collaboration with national labs to explore creative and efficient 3S solutions was demonstrated during the workshop. In particular this illustrates how bringing diverse voices into the conversation can lead to out-of-the-box ideas that can lead to efficiencies."

In that spirit, attendees participated in breakout sessions, where they developed input for a forthcoming IAEA publication that will provide actionable items for reviewing the 3S interfaces. They also toured various ORNL facilities that highlight the laboratory's capabilities and interdisciplinary research activities, including the High Flux Isotope Reactor, the Spallation Neutron Source, the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility that houses the Frontier supercomputer, the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, the Safeguards Laboratory and the Thermal Hydraulics High-Bay Laboratory.

The workshop was organized by the National Security Sciences Directorate's Don Kovacic, Francisco Parada Iturria, Alena Zhernosek, Rachel McCausland and Royce Jacomen. It was sponsored by the National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of International Nuclear Safeguards (NA-241), Advanced Reactor International Safeguards Engagement (ARISE) Program, and held in collaboration with the IAEA.

"We are honored that the IAEA and our U.S. government sponsors chose ORNL as the host for this important event," Kovacic said. "We were able to bring in experts from the U.S. advanced reactor community, subject matter experts from across the lab complex, and other invited speakers to share the importance that the U.S. places on the safe, secure and peaceful deployment of new nuclear technologies across the globe. The IAEA stands at the forefront of these efforts and ORNL has been able to play a key role in supporting them and to further U.S. interests in nuclear safety, security and safeguards at home and abroad."

The High Flux Isotope Reactor, the Spallation Neutron Source and the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility are DOE Office of Science user facilities. The Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, supported by DOE's Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office, is a nationwide consortium of collaborators working with ORNL to innovate, inspire, and catalyze the transformation of U.S. manufacturing.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.