Safeguards Perspectives an Expression of Industry's Responsibilities and Views

The subject of safeguards, and in particular plutonium safeguards, is a widely discussed issue in today's nuclear deliberations. In fact, it is said that plutonium safeguards may be the most important remaining issue related to licensing the nuclear fuel cycle and could take as long as other prior nuclear regulatory issues to resolve. The importance of plutonium safeguards lies not only in the context of closing the back end of the light water reactor fuel cycle today, but extremely important, long-range considerations in extending the utilization of uranium through the breeder reactor are also at stake. Apart from the near and long term aspects mentioned above, there is emerging a concern of threat deterrence which is being examined by segments of our government, the public, and as well by the fuel cycle industry.