Efforts to Develop, Test and Evaluate New Techniques for Strengthening International Safeguards

There has been a global effort to evaluate and identify new measures and technologies for strengthening international safeguards. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), through cooperation agreements in place with several countries and international organizations, has been investigating, implementing, and developing new safeguards measures and technologies. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is actively supporting DOE cooperation with the Argentine Nuclear Regulatory Authority (ARN), the Brazilian- Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC), the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization, the Brazilian National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN), the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM), Japan’s Atomic Energy Research Institute and Nuclear Cycle Development Institute, and South Korea’s Atomic Energy Research Institute. The particular areas to interest of the ORNL Safeguards Groups are new measures for conducting design information verification, initial physical inventory declarations, improved on-site measurement capabilities, and continuous operations and item monitoring. The primary objectives for developing these new techniques are to increase safeguards effectiveness and efficiency, reduce implementation and operational costs, minimize impact and cost to facility operators, and to protect proprietary information. This paper describes technologies and measures being developed and evaluated by ORNL and explains how their use serves to improve and strengthen international safeguards.