Hamburg 2009 – scientific programme

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AGA: Arbeitsgruppe Physik und Abrüstung

AGA 5: Verification and Detection

AGA 5.1: Talk

Friday, March 6, 2009, 10:30–11:00, VMP 9 HS

Detectability of unreported nuclear reprocessing analysed by atmospheric krypton-85 modelling — •Ole Ross^1,4, Robert Annewandter¹, Johann Feichter², Sebastian Rast², K. Heinke Schlünzen³, and Martin B. Kalinowski¹ — ¹Carl Friedrich v. Weizsäcker Centre for Science and Peace Research, University of Hamburg — ²Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg — ³Meteorological Institute, University of Hamburg — ⁴International Max Planck Research School on Earth System Modelling

As project within the German support programme to IAEA Safeguards the detectability of additional ⁸⁵Kr sources using atmospheric transport modelling was investigated. ⁸⁵Kr is released into the air during reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods. Therefore it can possibly be used as indicator for the detection of undeclared plutonium separation. First, the global ⁸⁵Kr background produced by known reprocessing facilities from 1971 until 2006 was simulated with the atmospheric general circulation model ECHAM5. Based on the background study, the detection sensitivity to a set of arbitrarily specified source locations is analysed with a lagrangian particle dispersion model. This, in combination with the location specific background variability simulated by the global model, is giving first benchmarks on the capability of using ⁸⁵Kr for IAEA Safeguards on the NPT based on the Additional Protocol and its possible contribution for the verification of a future Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty.