Year
2024
Abstract
| As the nuclear material accountancy (NMA) arm of the U.S. System of Accounting for and Control of nuclear material (SSAC), the Nuclear Materials Management and Safeguards System (NMMSS)[1] provides mission-critical data analytics, products, and services to inform policy decisions and responses to global nuclear security and nonproliferation developments. NMMSS tracks the movements, inventories, and locations of nuclear material, including plutonium (PU) and highly enriched uranium (HEU), within the U.S boundaries and exports of U.S. nuclear material to foreign facilities. It also tracks the subsequent declared retransfer of U.S. origin nuclear material between the IAEA members states. The NMMSS nuclear security functionalities extend to preparation of U.S. reporting and transparency commitments under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT), Voluntary Safeguards Agreements, and the Agreements for Peaceful Use Nuclear Cooperation. Equally important is the application of data in support of physical inspections and inventory verifications. The interdependencies between domestic and international nuclear security objectives have necessitated adapting to the constantly evolving world events to meet increasingly complex nuclear security and nonproliferation information needs. The paper describes the noteworthy practices, resultant lessons learned, and recommendations of potential benefit to other IAEA member states. [1] NMMSS is managed and operated by the Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) via an interagency agreement extends NMMSS functionalities to the regulated commercial nuclear industry. |