GAS CENTRIFUGE URANIUM ENRICHMENT FACILITIES IN THE UNITED STATES – IAEA SAFEGUARDS IMPLEMENTATION

Both Louisiana Energy Services (LES) and the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) have recently submitted license applications to construct new gas centrifuge uranium enrichment plants in the United States. In addition, USEC has been recently issued a license to operate a centrifuge lead cascade facility. In November 2004, in accordance with the U. S. – International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safeguards Agreement, the United States added the LES gas centrifuge enrichment facility in Eunice, New Mexico, and the USEC lead gas centrifuge cascade at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site in Piketon, Ohio, to the Eligible Facilities List and has begun reviewing the planned USEC production plant for addition to the list. These will be the first gas centrifuge facilities to be constructed in the United States since 1985. In anticipation of a possible decision by the IAEA to eventually select these facilities for the application of safeguards, the United States has begun evaluating generic safeguards approaches for gas centrifuge facilities that could go beyond the measures agreed to under the Hexapartite Safeguards Project (HSP) in 1983. In addition to permitting the IAEA to effectively verify the operation of the centrifuge enrichment plants, the United States must also meet its commitments to implement controls on centrifuge enrichment technology to ensure that international access to the facility will not facilitate the development of enrichment capability supporting a nuclear weapons program in another country.