International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation [INFCE]

Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency, 1980. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Trade paperback. Good. Nine volume set. Approximately 2000 pages. Figures. Footnotes. Formulae. Tables. Covers have some wear and soiling. Titles are: Fuel and Heavy Water Availability: Report of INFCE Working Group 1; Enrichment Availability: Report of INFCE Working Group 2; Assurances of Long-Term Supply of Technology, Fuel and Heavy Water and Services in the Interests of National Needs Consistent with Non-Proliferation; Report of INFCE Working Group 3; Reprocessing, Plutonium Handling, Recycle: Report of INFCE Working Group 4; Fast Breeders, Report of INFCE Working Group 5; Spent Fuel Management, Report of INFCE Working Group 6; Waste Management and Disposal, Report of INFCE Working Group 7; Advanced Fuel Cycle and Reactor Concepts, Report of INFCE Working Group 8; and INFCE Summary Volume. The participants considered that INFCE has accomplished its task. It has identified ways and means of strengthening assurances of nuclear supply while at the same time minimizing the risk of the proliferation of nuclear weapons. These would involve international co-operation and include technical, legal and institutional measures as well as developments in the field of safeguards. It analyzed the needs of developing countries in this regard and pointed to actions that might be taken by States through the IAEA and to other means to meet those needs. The delegates recognized the role that the IAEA must continue to play in the future in meeting the problems that were the focus of the INFCE study. The Working Group reports were presented without separate or dissenting views. The International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation, INFCE, was set up on an initiative of the USA at an organizing conference held in Washington, D.C. on 19—21 October 1977. This took place against a background of rising concern in some countries about the risks of
proliferation of nuclear weapons from nuclear power fuel cycles and international disagreement on how these risks were to be met. The communiqué issued by the organizing conference stated that the participants: — were conscious of the urgent need to meet the world's energy requirements and that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes should be made widely available to that end; — were convinced that effective measures can and should be taken at the national level and through international agreements to minimize the danger of proliferation of nuclear weapons without jeopardizing energy supplies or the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes; — recognized that special consideration should be given to the specific needs of and conditions in developing countries. The organizing conference agreed that INFCE was to be a technical and analytical study and not a negotiation. The results were to be transmitted to governments for their consideration in developing their nuclear energy policies and in international discussions concerning nuclear energy co-operation and related controls and safeguards. Participants would not be committed to INFCE's results. This communiqué also laid down the organization, terms of reference, procedures and methodology for the study. The INFCE working groups held a total of 134 meetings between 1977 and 1979. The Technical Co-Ordinating committee (TCC) had nine meetings and there were two plenary conferences, the first in November 1978 and the final one in February 1980. The Agency reproduced some 25,000 pages of report material for the various working groups and for the Final Plenary Conference. It is very difficult to estimate the total number of experts who participated in the work but the Agency's mailing list of people to whom the papers and reports in the various working groups were sent comprises 700 names. It has thus been a considerable effort which has gone into INFCE. The final result is given in 8 volumes of working group reports and a Summary Volume which contains a Summary and Overview Report by the TCC.