NRC Blog Update: Moments in NRC History: Regulating for Safety and Non-Proliferation, Part II

Moments in NRC History: Regulating for Safety and Non-Proliferation, Part II

3 Comments Posted by Moderator on November 30, 2015

Thomas Wellock
Historian
Part I of our Research and Test Reactor Series looked at the promise and unique safety challenges of research reactors, beginning with North Carolina State’s first civilian-owned reactor in 1953.
In Part II of our video series, we look at how the focus on safety of these reactors evolved into a concern about their security.
The Atomic Energy Commission (the NRC’s predecessor) had developed design requirements for research reactors with large safety margins that tolerated errors. Extensive training and supervision was required of licensed operators. Sabotage was foiled by making the reactors’ uranium fuel difficult to remove or destroy.
However, weapons proliferation became a persistent concern. Reactor designers favored fuel highly enriched in fissionable uranium-235. Uranium-235, however, was also the stuff of atomic bombs.
Initially, the AEC only permitted export of reactor technology with low enrichment, but in the 1960s, it granted international requests to U.S. manufacturers for high performance research reactors. The reactors needed only small quantities of enriched fuel, and it was believed bilateral agreements and regular inspections would assure the used fuel was returned to the U.S.
But events in the 1970s – including India’s detonation of a nuclear device made possible with fissionable material from a Canadian research reactor — demonstrated the limits of this approach.
Lowering the fuel enrichment was seen as a viable solution. In 1978, the Department of Energy launched a program to develop a low enriched fuel that met the performance needs of research reactors. In the U.S., operators of 20 research reactors opted to switch to low-enriched fuel.
After the 9/11 attacks, the United States launched the Global Threat Reduction Initiative to accelerate the conversion to low-enriched fuel. Twenty-seven reactors around the world, including six in the United States made this conversion, taking out of circulation enough fissionable material to make 20 crude bombs.
The NRC also pursued enhancements against sabotage and theft with better staff background screening, access controls, security searches, and coordination with emergency responders.
The decline of the nuclear industry since the 1970s and the production of isotopes abroad have reduced the need for research reactors in the U.S. Their numbers have dwindled to about 30. This brought a new concern — the vulnerability of the nation’s isotope supply for medical uses, especially molybdenum-99.
The video explores how that vulnerability is being addressed and how the NRC continues to ensure research reactors operate safely in today’s threat environment. I hope you’ll take the time to watch the video.