NRG SAFEGUARDS AND RELATED ISSUES

My main purpose today is to discuss issues raised by the need for nuclear safeguards. As you know, these embrace both nuclear material accountability systems and physical protection systems for nuclear facilities. The main purpose of physical security systems is two-fold: to protect facilities containing potentially explosive nuclear materials, and to protect facilities--chiefly reactors --against sabotage of a kind leading to harmful release of radioactive materials. The purpose of the accountability systems is, of course, to help keep track of and control special nuclear material—primarily plutonium and highly enriched uranium--to prevent their theft for use in nuclear explosive devices.