The Problem with Continuity of Knowledge in Enrichment Plant Process Monitoring

It has been three years since the new Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plant Model Safeguards Approach was approved for implementation by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) Department of Safeguards. Among its recommendations are safeguard measures that place greater emphasis on instrumentation in the process area (Cooley 2007). Irrespective of the compelling technologies, an often overlooked impediment to the application of such instrumentation is maintenance of continuity of knowledge on material that has been identified as abnormal. Any instrument purporting to identify problems in the process area should include some means of containing or monitoring that material until IAEA inspectors can arrive to confirm the discrepancy. If no containment or surveillance is employed in the interim, and no discrepancy or anomaly is subsequently uncovered in storage cylinders, it is unclear what follow-up action inspectors can take. Some CoK measures have been proposed, but they usually involve an array of cameras or host- applied seals—options that may require a backup system of their own.