Antineutrino monitoring of spent nuclear fuel

TL;DR

This paper investigates the use of antineutrino detectors to monitor and safeguard spent nuclear fuel, demonstrating their potential in verifying storage contents, long-term storage, and locating underground contamination.

Contribution

It introduces a method to compute antineutrino flux from spent fuel and illustrates practical applications for nuclear waste monitoring and security.

Findings

Antineutrino flux can verify spent fuel contents.

Detectors can identify disruptions in monitoring chains.

Potential use in locating underground contamination.

Abstract

Military and civilian applications of nuclear energy have left a significant amount of spent nuclear fuel over the past 70 years. Currently, in many countries world wide, the use of nuclear energy is on the rise. Therefore, the management of highly radioactive nuclear waste is a pressing issue. In this letter, we explore antineutrino detectors as a tool for monitoring and safeguarding nuclear waste material. We compute the flux and spectrum of antineutrinos emitted by spent nuclear fuel elements as a function of time, and we illustrate the usefulness of antineutrino detectors in several benchmark scenarios. In particular, we demonstrate how a measurement of the antineutrino flux can help to re-verify the contents of a dry storage cask in case the monitoring chain by conventional means gets disrupted. We then comment on the usefulness of antineutrino detectors at long-term storage facilities such as Yucca mountain. Finally, we put forward antineutrino detection as a tool in locating underground "hot spots" in contaminated areas such as the Hanford site in Washington state.