The United States Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Nonproliferation and International Security (NA-24) has initiated a Safeguards by Design (SBD) effort to encourage the incorporation of international (IAEA) safeguards features early in the design phase of a new nuclear facility in order to avoid the need to redesign or retrofit the facility at a later date. The main goals of Safeguards by Design are to (1) make the implementation of international safeguards at new civil nuclear facilities more effective and efficient, (2) avoid costly and time-consuming re-design work or retrofits at such facilities and (3) design such facilities in a way that makes proliferation as technically difficult, as time-consuming, and as detectable as possible. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has recently hosted efforts to facilitate the use of Safeguards by Design for new uranium enrichment facilities currently being planned for construction in the U.S. While SBD is not a NRC requirement, the NRC is aiding the implementation of SBD by coordinating discussions between DOE's NA-24 and industry's facility design teams. More specifically, during their normal course of licensing discussions the NRC has offered industry the opportunity to engage with NA-24 regarding SBD.

The Third International Meeting on Next Generation Safeguards (NGS3) was hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)/National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Office of Nonproliferation and International Security (NIS) in Washington, D.C. on 14-15 December 2010; this meeting focused on the Safeguards-by-Design (SBD) concept. There were approximately 100 participants from 13 countries, comprised of safeguards policy and technical experts from government and industry. Representatives also were present from the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC), the European Atomic Energy Agency (Euratom), and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The primary objective of this meeting was to exchange views and provide recommendations on implementation of the SBD concept for four specific nuclear fuel cycle facility types: gas centrifuge enrichment plants (GCEPs), GEN III and GEN IV reactors, aqueous reprocessing plants, and mixed oxide fuel fabrication facilities. The general and facility-specific SBD documents generated from the four working groups, which were circulated for comment among working group participants, are intended to provide a substantive contribution to the IAEA's efforts to publish SBD guidance for these specific types of nuclear facilities in the near future. The IAEA has described the SBD concept as an approach in which 'international safeguards are fully integrated into the design process of a new nuclear facility from the initial planning through design, construction, operation, and decommissioning.' As part of the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative (NGSI), the DOE is working to establish SBD as a global norm through DOE laboratory studies, international workshops, engagement with industry and the IAEA, and setting an example through its use in new nuclear facilities in the United States. This paper describes the discussion topics and final recommendations of the Enrichment Facilities Working Group. The working group participants were tasked with providing recommendations for facility operators and designers, while promoting the IAEA's objectives of: (1) avoiding costly and time-consuming redesign work or retrofits of new nuclear facilities and (2) providing for more effective and efficient implementation of international safeguards.

In the United States, the Department of Energy (DOE) is transforming its outdated and oversized complex of aging nuclear material facilities into a smaller, safer, and more secure National Security Enterprise (NSE). Environmental concerns, worker health and safety risks, material security, reducing the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy while maintaining the capability for an effective nuclear deterrence by the United States, are influencing this transformation. As part of the nation's Uranium Center of Excellence (UCE), the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, will advance the U.S.'s capability to meet all concerns when processing uranium and is located adjacent to the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF), designed for consolidated storage of enriched uranium. The HEUMF became operational in March 2010, and the UPF is currently entering its final design phase. The designs of both facilities are for meeting anticipated security challenges for the 21st century. For plutonium research, development, and manufacturing, the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) building at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in Los Alamos, New Mexico is now under construction. The first phase of the CMRR Project is the design and construction of a Radiological Laboratory/Utility/Office Building. The second phase consists of the design and construction of the Nuclear Facility (NF). The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) selected these two sites as part of the national plan to consolidate nuclear materials, provide for nuclear deterrence, and nonproliferation mission requirements. This work examines these two projects independent approaches to design requirements, and objectives for safeguards, security, and safety (3S) systems as well as the subsequent construction of these modern processing facilities. Emphasis is on the use of Safeguards-by-Design (SBD), incorporating Systems Engineering (SE) principles for these two projects.

Originally published in 1983, this book presents both the technical and political information necessary to evaluate the emerging threat to world security posed by recent advances in uranium enrichment technology. Uranium enrichment has played a relatively quiet but important role in the history of efforts by a number of nations to acquire nuclear weapons and by a number of others to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For many years the uranium enrichment industry was dominated by a single method, gaseous diffusion, which was technically complex, extremely capital-intensive, and highly inefficient in its use of energy. As long as this remained true, only the richest and most technically advanced nations could afford to pursue the enrichment route to weapon acquisition. But during the 1970s this situation changed dramatically. Several new and far more accessible enrichment techniques were developed, stimulated largely by the anticipation of a rapidly growing demand for enrichment services by the world-wide nuclear power industry. This proliferation of new techniques, coupled with the subsequent contraction of the commercial market for enriched uranium, has created a situation in which uranium enrichment technology might well become the most important contributor to further nuclear weapon proliferation. Some of the issues addressed in this book are: A technical analysis of the most important enrichment techniques in a form that is relevant to analysis of proliferation risks; A detailed projection of the world demand for uranium enrichment services; A summary and critique of present institutional non-proliferation arrangements in the world enrichment industry, and An identification of the states most likely to pursue the enrichment route to acquisition of nuclear weapons.

This report is the second in a series of guidelines on international safeguards requirements and practices, prepared expressly for the designers of nuclear facilities. The first document in this series is the description of generic international nuclear safeguards requirements pertaining to all types of facilities. These requirements should be understood and considered at the earliest stages of facility design as part of a new process called "Safeguards-by-Design." This will help eliminate the costly retrofit of facilities that has occurred in the past to accommodate nuclear safeguards verification activities. The following summarizes the requirements for international nuclear safeguards implementation at enrichment plants, prepared under the Safeguards by Design project, and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of NA-243. The purpose of this is to provide designers of nuclear facilities around the world with a simplified set of design requirements and the most common practices for meeting them. The foundation for these requirements is the international safeguards agreement between the country and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), pursuant to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Relevant safeguards requirements are also cited from the Safeguards Criteria for inspecting enrichment plants, found in the IAEA Safeguards Manual, Part SMC-8. IAEA definitions and terms are based on the IAEA Safeguards Glossary, published in 2002. The most current specification for safeguards measurement accuracy is found in the IAEA document STR-327, "International Target Values 2000 for Measurement Uncertainties in Safeguarding Nuclear Materials," published in 2001. For this guide to be easier for the designer to use, the requirements have been restated in plainer language per expert interpretation using the source documents noted. The safeguards agreement is fundamentally a legal document. As such, it is written in a legalese that is understood by specialists in international law and treaties, but not by most outside of this field, including designers of nuclear facilities. For this reason, many of the requirements have been simplified and restated. However, in all cases, the relevant source document and passage is noted so that readers may trace the requirement to the source. This is a helpful living guide, since some of these requirements are subject to revision over time. More importantly, the practices by which the requirements are met are continuously modernized by the IAEA and nuclear facility operators to improve not only the effectiveness of international nuclear safeguards, but also the efficiency. As these improvements are made, the following guidelines should be updated and revised accordingly.

For the past two years, the United States National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of International Regimes and Agreements (NA-243), has sponsored the Safeguards-by-Design Project, through which it is hoped new nuclear facilities will be designed and constructed worldwide more amenable to nuclear safeguards. In the course of this project it was recognized that commercial designer/builders of nuclear facilities are not always aware of, or understand, the relevant domestic and international safeguards requirements, especially the latter as implemented by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). To help commercial designer/builders better understand these requirements, a report was prepared by the Safeguards-by-Design Project Team that articulated and interpreted the international nuclear safeguards requirements for the initial case of uranium enrichment plants. The following paper summarizes the subject report, the specific requirements, where they originate, and the implications for design and construction. It also briefly summarizes the established best design and operating practices that designer/builder/operators have implemented for currently meeting these requirements. In preparing the subject report, it is recognized that the best practices are continually evolving as the designer/builder/operators and IAEA consider even more effective and efficient means for meeting the safeguards requirements and objectives.