A Pilot Workshop on Nuclear Material Accounting and Control at Facilities

With collaboration among the US Department of Energy, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA), we have developed a Pilot Workshop on Nuclear Material Accounting and Control at Facilities and held on May 19- June 1, 2004 in Beijing, China. The purpose of the workshop is to provide instruction in facility-level safeguards and security to participants from China and other invited countries a variation on the traditional course on State System of Accounting and Control (SSAC) by focusing on the nuclear material control and accounting (NMC&A) measures as applied at the facility level. Moreover, the shift in emphasis from the state system of accounting and control to the facility level offers an opportunity to address insider threats. In this manner, the traditional SSAC course would be merged with issues more closely associated with nuclear security and terrorism prevention. All instruction and practical exercises were in English with sequential interpretation into Chinese. The workshop materials were in both English and Chinese. In addition to course lectures and invited guest lectures, all participants visited a nuclear fuel fabrication plant used as a reference model for an exercise in designing the safeguards system for a bulk facility. This paper reports the result and experience from the workshop and discusses the course evaluation from participants.