Year
2010
Abstract
Uranium enrichment service providers are expanding existing gas centrifuge enrichment plants and constructing new facilities to meet demands resulting from the shutdown of gaseous diffusion plants, completion of the U.S.-Russia highly enriched uranium downblending program, and the projected global renaissance in nuclear power. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is responsible for conducting verification inspections at safeguarded facilities to provide assurance that signatory States comply with their treaty obligations to use nuclear materials only for peaceful purposes. Enrichment plant operators, like any industrial facility operators, are installing advanced automated equipment to make the process safer and more efficient. The IAEA can make use of signals from these advanced systems to provide a picture of normal operation of the facility and guide inspection activities through an information-driven inspection regime. Examples of safeguards-usable advanced systems are automated “smart” cranes and trolleys, which use pre-programmed routes to move UF6 cylinders around the site in response to operator commands. Systems could be developed to access the usage history of the cranes to provide verification of cylinder movements, and load cells or other monitoring technologies could be incorporated into the cranes to provide additional safeguards-relevant information in a continuous, unattended manner.