International safeguards without material balance areas
Recently altered perceptions of the role of the non-proliferation regime, as well as continued IAEA funding constraints, suggest a need to re-examine the fundamentals of IAEA verification strategy. This paper suggests that abandoning certain material balance area (MBA) related concepts that nominally form the basic framework of full-scope'' safeguards would result in a more flexible inspection regime. The MBA concept applied in the domestic context enables a national authority to localize losses in space and in time and to minimize the need to measure in-process inventory. However, these advantages do not accrue to an international verification regime because it cannot truly verify the flows'' between MBAs without extensive containment/surveillance measures. In the verification model studied, the entire nuclear inventory of a state is periodically declared and verified simultaneously in one or two large segments (containing possibly many MBAS). Simultaneous inventory of all MBAs within a segment would occur through advance mailbox'' declarations and random selection of MBAs for on-site verification or through enhanced containment/surveillance techniques. Flows are generally speaking not verified. This scheme would free the inspectorate from the obligation to attempt to verify on-site each stratum of the material balance of every facility declaring significant quantities of nuclear material.
- Research Organization:
- Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-76CH00016
- OSTI ID:
- 7023653
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-45081; TSO-92-12; CONF-9207102-50; ON: DE92019237
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM) annual meeting, Orlando, FL (United States), 19-22 Jul 1992
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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