10-A-368-INMM AN AMERICAN ACADEMY FOR TRAINING SAFEGUARDS INSPECTORS – AN IDEA REVISITED

In 2009, we presented the idea of an American academy for training safeguards inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), due to the declining percentage of Americans in that international organization. In this paper we assert that there is still a compelling need for this academy. While the American Safeguards Academy would be useful in preparing and pre-training American inspectors for the IAEA, it would also be useful for preparing Americans for domestic safeguards duties in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), U.S. DOE National Laboratories, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). It is envisioned that such an academy would train graduate and post-graduate university students, DOE National Laboratory interns, and nuclear safeguards professionals in the modern equipment, safeguards measures, and approaches currently used by the IAEA. It is also envisioned that the Academy would involve the domestic nuclear industry, which could provide use of commercial nuclear facilities for tours and demonstrations of the safeguards tools and methods in actual nuclear facilities. This would be in support of the U.S. DOE National Nuclear Security Administration’s Next Generation Safeguards Initiative (NGSI). This training would also help American nuclear safeguards and non-proliferation professionals better understand the potential limitations of the current tools used by the IAEA and give them a foundation from which to consider even more effective and efficient safeguards measures and approaches.