Nuclear Security at Research Reactors in Argentina

Research reactors are less powerful than nuclear power plants;nevertheless they could be a target for terrorists determined tosteal the reactor fuel for:• nuclear weapons, or• dirty bombs.Or terrorists could sabotage the reactor to disperse radiationinto neighboring communities. For that reason, the nuclear securityof research reactors, nuclear material and the facilities themselvesmust be protected against theft or sabotage.Research ReactorThe regulations developed to protect nuclear power plants or otherrelevant nuclear installations (e.g., enrichment or reprocessing facilities)cannot easily be applied to research reactors, since thereare important differences between them. Research reactors areoften part of a larger research center or university where there arepotentially many users representing various scientific disciplinesand/or the research reactor is more likely to be located in or neara city for easy access by the users.Persons not part of the reactor operation staff, e.g., researchers,should be able to easily access the facility.In many cases, the perimeter protection of a research reactor,if there is such protection, is typically a wire fence without antivehiclebarriers, motion sensors, or electronic/computer-baseddetection and assessment systems.Research Reactor ConversionTo minimize the risk associated with “nuclear security” of researchreactors, an international program to convert all reactorsusing high enriched uranium to low enriched uranium (enrichmentless than 20 percent in 235U), was launched some years ago.Nevertheless there are still many research reactors using highlyenriched uranium.Note: In Argentina, there is no reactor fuel using enrichmenthigher than 20 percent in 235U.