Speaker
Description
Neutrino detection has been proposed as a complementary monitoring tool for current reactor designs, yet adoption has remained limited due to perceptions that such technologies do not provide meaningful improvements over existing safeguards methodologies. However, the emergence and potential widespread deployment of advanced nuclear reactors poses significant challenges to traditional safeguards approaches. Reactors with continuous fuel cycles, including molten salt reactors, sodium fast reactors, and pebble bed modular reactors, fall into a safeguards gap between item-counting facilities and bulk facilities where conventional verification methods become impractical or ineffective. These designs feature online refueling, novel fuel forms, and reprocessing capabilities that fundamentally alter material flow patterns and increase proliferation risks through plutonium diversion. The separation and recycling of fissile material in continuous fuel cycles creates multiple access points where weapons-usable plutonium could be diverted without detection by traditional item accountancy methods. The International Atomic Energy Agency currently lacks tools to directly measure reactor power or fuel burn-up, relying instead on operator declarations and indirect verification.
Neutrino-based safeguards offer a unique solution to these challenges. Antineutrinos are emitted in fixed quantities per fission event, are virtually impossible to shield, and provide a direct, non-intrusive measurement of fission rates and isotopic content regardless of reactor design. The neutrino signal is proportional to reactor power and the fissioning isotope inventory, enabling remote monitoring without requiring physical access to restricted areas.
This poster presents a case study framework for evaluating neutrino-based safeguards at an advanced reactor with a continuous fuel cycle, aiming to expand the technical verification toolset available to policymakers and safeguards practitioners as advanced reactor deployment accelerates globally.