PNNL

Abstract

The term “Technology Base” is commonly used but what does it mean? Is there a common understanding of the components that comprise a technology base? Does a formal process exist to assess the health of a given technology base? These are important questions the relevance of which is even more pressing given the USDOE/NNSA initiatives to strengthen the safeguards technology base through investments in research & development and human capital development. Accordingly, the authors will establish a high-level framework to define and understand what comprises a technology base. Potential goal-driven metrics to assess the health of a technology base will also be explored, such as linear demographics and resource availability, in the hope that they can be used to better understand and improve the health of the U.S. safeguards technology base. Finally, through the identification of such metrics, the authors will offer suggestions and highlight choices for addressing potential shortfalls. Introduction The U.S. safeguards technology base got its start almost half a century ago in the nuclear weapons program of the U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) and their predecessors: AEC & ERDA. Due to nuclear materials’ strategic importance and value, and the risk associated with the public’s and worker’s health and the potential for theft, significant investments were made to develop techniques to measure nuclear materials using both destructive assay (DA) and non-destructive assay (NDA). Major investment within the U.S. DOE Domestic Safeguards Program continued over the next three decades, resulting in continuous improvements in the state-of-the-art of these techniques. This was particularly true in the area of NDA with its ability to use gamma rays, neutrons, and heat to identify and quantify nuclear materials without the need to take direct samples of the material. Most of these techniques were commercialized and transferred to industry, opening their applications to the nuclear industry worldwide and to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).