The International Nuclear Facilities Experience
The International Nuclear Facilities Experience (INFE) is as a unique opportunity for graduate students from U.S. universities and early career professional from U.S. national laboratories to visit nuclear fuel cycle facilities in other countries and discuss applied safeguards and security measures with actual practitioners and facility operators. Participants can see first-hand how safeguards are implemented at various types of facilities, while networking with their peers around the U.S. and experiencing travel to a foreign country.
Past INFEs have taken place in Japan and the UK and generally include visits to different types of fuel cycle facilities, cultural experiences, and interaction with a university in the host country:
Japan NFE Highlights
- Tour of the Hiroshima Peace Park and Peace Memorial Museum and presentation by Hiroshima bombing survivor.
- Visits to facilities: the Plutonium Fuel Development Facility; the Tokai Reprocessing Center; and the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant.
- Interaction with students and faculty from the Academy of Global Nuclear Safety and Security program at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
- Visit to the Fukushima Daiichi Power Station Site and presentation on the cleanup efforts.
UK NFE Highlights
- Team-building activities in London.
- Visits to facilities: the URENCO UK uranium enrichment plant in Capenhurst; the Sellafield Nuclear site in Seascale, Cumbria, which includes the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) and the decommissioned Calder Hall nuclear power station; Heysham Nuclear Power Station in Heysham, Lancashire; and Westinghouse’s Fuel Fabrication facility in Springfields, UK.
- Educational exchange with faculty and students in the KCL College of War Studies’s Centre for Science and Security Studies (CSSS).