Book Description

Material control and accounting takes place within an envelope of activities related to safeguards and security, as well as to safety, health, and environment, all of which need to be managed to assure that the entire nuclear fuel complex can operate in a societally accepted manner. Within this envelope the committee was directed to carry out the following scope of work: (1) Review the MCandA systems in use at selected DOE facilities that are processing special nuclear material (SNM) in various physical and chemical forms. (2) Design and convene a workshop for senior representatives from each of DOE's facilities on the flows and inventories of nuclear materials. (3) Plan and conduct a series of site visits to each of the facilities to observe first hand the processing operations and the related MCandA systems. (4) Review the potential improvement in overall safeguard systems effectiveness, as measured by expected reduction in inventory difference control limits and inventory differences for materials balance accounts and facilities, or other criteria as appropriate. Indicate how this affects the relative degree of uncertainty in the system. (5) Review the efficiency of operating the MCandA system with and without the upgrading options and assess whether upgrading will contribute further efficiencies in operation, which may reduce many of the current operations costs. Determine if the current system is cost-effective. (6) Recommend the most promising technical approaches for further development by DOE and further study as warranted.