AN AMERICAN ACADEMY FOR TRAINING SAFEGUARDS INSPECTORS – AN IDEA REVISITED

摘要

In 2009, we presented the idea of an American academy for training safeguards inspectors for theInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), due to the declining percentage of Americans in thatinternational organization. In this paper we assert that there is still a compelling need for thisacademy. While the American Safeguards Academy would be useful in preparing and pre-trainingAmerican inspectors for the IAEA, it would also be useful for preparing Americans for domesticsafeguards duties in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), U.S. DOE National Laboratories, and theU.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). It is envisioned that such an academy would traingraduate and post-graduate university students, DOE National Laboratory interns, and nuclearsafeguards professionals in the modern equipment, safeguards measures, and approaches currentlyused by the IAEA. It is also envisioned that the Academy would involve the domestic nuclearindustry, which could provide use of commercial nuclear facilities for tours and demonstrations of thesafeguards tools and methods in actual nuclear facilities. This would be in support of the U.S. DOENational Nuclear Security Administration’s Next Generation Safeguards Initiative (NGSI). Thistraining would also help American nuclear safeguards and non-proliferation professionals betterunderstand the potential limitations of the current tools used by the IAEA and give them a foundationfrom which to consider even more effective and efficient safeguards measures and approaches.