With the end of the Cold War, new opportunities for interaction have opened up between the United States and the countries of the Former Soviet Union. Many of these important initiatives involve the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy (MINA TOM). Currently, collaboration is under way which involves reactor safety, the disposition of fissile materials from the weapons program, radioactive waste disposal, and the safety of nuclear warheads. Another fruitful area of interchange resulted from the radiochemical storage tank accident at the site of the Siberian Chemical Compound at Tomsk-7 in 1993. DOE and MINATOM agreed to meet and exchange information about the accident for the purposes of improving safety. A meeting on the Tomsk tank accident was held in Hanford, Washington in 1993, followed by a second meeting in st. Petersburg, Russia in 1994 in which the agenda expanded to include radiochemical processing safety. A third exchange took place in 1995 in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and additional papers were presented on nonreactor nuclear safety. Following a planning session in 1996 in Seattle, Washington, it was decided to hold a fourth technical exchange on the broader subject of nuclear materials safety management. Through a grant from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Disarmament Programme, the meeting took place on March 17- 21, 1997, in Amarillo, Texas as a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) through grant no. DISRM 961315.

Klappentext

With the end of the Cold War, the US and the Russian Federation have been actively dismantling tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. As a result, large quantities of fissile materials have become surplus to the strategic defence needs of both countries. In order to meet non-proliferation goals and to ensure the irreversibility of nuclear arms reductions, these excess fissile materials must be placed and maintained in secure storage prior to being dismantled and, ultimately, processed into a form that meets the `spent fuel' standard. A fundamental prerequisite for the successful disposal of these materials is the safe operation of the many components of the nuclear fuel cycle. br/ The present book reports on a technical exchange between the US Department of Energy and the Russian Ministry for Atomic Energy, with additional input from expert organizations in other countries, on the issue of nuclear materials safety management. It addresses the principal issues in the area, summarises past activities, and outlines potential future initiatives. The focus is on the non-reactor components of the nuclear fuel cycle, with consideration of excess weapons fissile materials. Coverage includes storage of plutonium; plutonium oxide manufacture, storage, and transportation; mixed oxide fuel fabrication, storage, and transportation; and spent fuel and waste issues.

Inhalt
Opening the Workshop-Welcome and Introductions.- 1. Remarks of US Representative Mac Thornberry.- Nuclear Materials Safety Management: Framework and Overview.- 2. Relationship of Past US/RF Nuclear Material Safety Management Activities to Workshop Goals.- 3. Toward An Integrated Nuclear Materials Safety Management Approach in the United States and Russia.- 4. Implementing a Nuclear Materials Safety Management Program in the US and Russia.- 5. Nuclear Materials Safety Management: US Perspectives.- 6. Problem of Safe Management of Radioactive Wastes in Russia.- 7 The System of Safety Assurance for Facilities of the Ministry of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation During Normal Operations and Emergencies.- Overview of Plutonium Storage and Transportation Safety Issues.- 8. Stabilizing Plutonium to Reduce Risk to the Public and Workers.- 9. Long-term Storage of Plutonium.- 10. Technologic Safety Assurance for Plutonium to MOX Conversion.- 11. Principles and Measures for Nuclear Safety in Storage of Excess Weapons-grade Plutonium in the Permanent Storage Facility Being Designed with in the Russian-US Agreement.- 12. Prevention of Accident Consequences in Plutonium Storage.- 13. Experiences in Plutonium Storage and Transportation.- 14. Safety Issues in Plutonium Transport.- 15. Maintenance of Safety During Transportation of Nuclear Materials.- Mox Fabrication and Transportation.- 16. Development of Technology and Equipment for MOX Fuel Production: Provision of Production Safety.- 17. Application of a Plasma-chemical Process for Safe Transformation of Weapons Plutonium into MOX Fuel.- 18 MOX Fabrication and Transportation Safety Issues in Belgium.- Spent Fuel Storage Issues and other Nuclear Materials Safety Topics.- 19. Management of DOE-owned Spent Nuclear Fuel.- 20. US Commercial LWR Spent Fuel Storage.- 21. Safety for Transportation, Reloading, and Storage of VVER-1000 Reactor Spent Fuel at the RT-2 Plant Storage Facility.- 22. Options for MOX Fuel Utilization, Interim Storage, and Disposition in Germany.- 23. Safety Problems in Storage and Transportation of Spent Fuel.- 24. Increasing Technological Safety at the Russian Radiochemical Plant RT-1.- 25. The Problems of Ensuring Safety for Underground Isolation of Nuclear Materials Contained in the Long-lived Radionuclides.- 26. The Application of Geological Similarity Principles for Securing the Safety of Isolation of Plutonium and Other Long-lived Technogenous Radionuclides in Deep Geological Formations and the Development of a Technology for Synthesis of Mineral-like Matrices for Radioactive Waste Immobilization.- 27. Methodology and Results of Studies of Environmental Contamination by Plutonium in Zones of Nuclear Facilities Impact.- 28. The Use of Nondestructive Nuclear Methods to Ensure the Safety of Nuclear Materials Management.- 29. Safety Assessment as a Basis for Decision Making.- 30. Nuclear Safety Arrangements While Storing Enriched Uranium.- 31. Radiation Safety and Work with Plutonium.- 32. Safety of Handling Nuclear Materials at the State Research Center of Russia-Institute of Biophysics.- 33. Container for Transportation and Long-term Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel.- Meeting of the Nuclear Group of the Amarillo National Resource Center for Plutonium.- 34. Neutronics Benchmarks for the Utilization of Mixed Oxide Fuel in Water Reactors.- 35. Removal and Collection of Gallium from Surplus Weapons Plutonium.- 36. Fuel Test System for Gallium-Zirconium Interaction at the Texas A&M University Nuclear Science Center.- 37. Can-in-Canister Alternative for Vitrification of Surplus Weapons Plutonium: Overview of Thermal Issues.- 38. Evaluation of Thermal Stresses During a Glass Pour.- 39. A Research Program in Automation, Robotics, and Tele-operation.- Strategy for the Nuclear Materials Safety Management Initiative.- 40. Perspectives on Nuclear Materials Safety Management Methods at DOE Sites.- 41. Russian Perspectives on Nuclear Materials Safety Management Methods.- Ongoing Programs.- 42. US-Russian Technical Exchanges on Radioactive Aerosol Monitoring.- 43. Overview of Sandia National Laboratories and Khlopin Radium Institute Collaborative Radiological Accident Consequence Analysis Efforts.- 44. Review of Current Russian-American Joint Projects on Safe Management of Nuclear Materials.- Planning for the Nuclear Materials Safety Management Initiative.- 45. Summary: Planning for the Nuclear Materials Safety Management Initiative.- 46. Protocol of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Nuclear Materials Safety Management.- 47. Internet Sites on Nuclear Materials Safety Management, Environmental Safety and Health, Arms Control and Disarmament, Performance-based Management, and Lessons Learned.- Author and Subject Index.