INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR SAFEGUARDS REPORTING FROM THE FIRST U.S. NUCLEAR FACILITY

In order to provide the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with practical experience in the submission of U.S. reports for IAEA safeguards, a reporting exercise is being conducted. This exercise is presently underway within General Electric and involves government representatives of the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the International Safeguards Project Office of Brookhaven National Laboratories, technical support organizations and the IAEA. During the exercise, the General Electric Co. low-enriched uranium LWR fuel fabrication facility at Wilmington, North Carolina will submit all accounting reports to the Agency which would be submitted if the facility were actually under Agency safeguards. Because safeguards agreements are between the Agency and the U.S. Government, the flow of information during the exercise will be from GE to the U.S. Nuclear Material Management and Safeguards System (NMMSS - operated in Oak Ridge, Tennessee) and then from NMMSS to the Agency in Vienna. The exercise has commenced with an initial Physical Inventory List (PIL) for the physical inventory held March 14, 1977. Inventory Change Reports (ICRs) were initiated following the physical inventory and will continue through a date still to be determined (probably August 1977). Because this exercise is information intensive, a systematic development of nuclear material inventory and transaction information requirements and extensive use of computer capabilities is required. This report summarizes the results of the information definition and the development of the automation required to perform the exercise. A concept of on-line licensee reporting is also introduced to illustrate how modern information management technologies and systems can contribute to the significant improvement of the accountability of nuclear materials.