Phsyical Security Measures for the Reduction of Nuclear Material Physical Inventories

In response to the changing priorities of the Department of Energy (DOE), the Office of Security Affairs (SA) has re-evaluated current policy on nuclear material physical inventories. In July 1992, SA issued guidance on the reduction of nuclear material physical inventory requirements. This guidance allowed for the reduction of frequency of physical inventories through the use of alternative safeguards and security measures that provide equivalent or greater levels of control and assurance as those levels derived from conducting more frequent inventories. Some of these alternative safeguards and security measures are traditionally considered physical security measures. This paper describes these above-baseline physical security measures that may allow for the reduction of nuclear material physical inventories and provides discussion on systems upgrades/integration for the present day and future DOE complex.