TRS435_web

3.3.1. Short and medium term impact
In the short term, the currently designed monitoring scheme for
neptunium and americium would be a cost effective means of providing
assurance that the quantities of separated neptunium and americium in CSA
States, including those resulting from P&T development programmes, are, and
remain, small. Under this regime, large scale laboratory facilities engaged in
developing actinide partitioning technology would be subject to FSV in order
to maintain confidence. It would also enable the IAEA to inform the Board of
Governors in a timely manner whenever the accumulation of separated
neptunium and americium in a CSA State was about to become substantial.
However, strengthened monitoring arrangements at specific facilities or in a
specific CSA State might become necessary in the medium term, when technological
advances in partitioning have been made and separation activities have
become significant. Strengthened arrangements could include an increase in
the intensity of and an extension of the FSV activities as currently designed,
and possibly an expansion of FSV to include americium, in order to deal with
the changed situation, and would require close cooperation of the State and
facility operators involved.
3.3.2. Long term impact
The long term impact of P&T on nuclear non-proliferation could become
significant and extensive when the application of a P&T cycle reaches the
industrial scale. It would involve institutional arrangements (political, legal and
commercial) and IAEA safeguards.
3.3.2.1. Impact on institutional arrangements
If the development of P&T resulted in industrial scale applications, and
substantial quantities of separated neptunium and americium became
available, it would certainly have a significant impact on nuclear nonproliferation
institutions, since the monitoring schemes as currently designed
or subsequently strengthened would be insufficient to deal with such circumstances.
It seems likely that the application of IAEA safeguards with detailed
material accountancy would be necessary for such industrial scale applications
of P&T. In order for neptunium and americium to become subject to
safeguards, these materials would have to be included in the statutory
definition of special fissionable material, which could be done by a determination
to that effect by the IAEA Board of Governors. Each party to a CSA
would need to accept the change in the definition of nuclear material in its
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