Comparison for thorium fuel cycle facilities of two different capacities for implementation of safeguards

Thorium based nuclear fuel cycle has many attractive features, its inherent proliferation resistance being one of them. This is due to the presence of high energy gamma emitting daughter products of U232 associated with U233. This high energy gamma radiation also poses challenges in nuclear material accounting. A typical thorium fuel cycle facility has a number of plants including a fuel fabrication plant for initial and equilibrium core, a reprocessed U233 fuel fabrication plant, a reprocessing plant, a fuel assembly/disassembly plant and associated waste handling and management plants. A thorium fuel cycle facility can be set up to serve reactors at a site. Alternatively, one can follow a hub and spoke approach with a large thorium fuel cycle facility acting as a hub, catering to the requirements of reactors at several sites as spokes. These two concepts have their respective merits and shortcomings in terms of engineering and economics. The present paper is aimed at comparing the merits and challenges for implementation of safeguards on the two concepts viz. a large fuel cycle hub catering to reactors at several sites versus a small fuel cycle facility dedicated to reactors at a single site.