2. SAFEGUARDS CAPACITY BUILDING ARGENTINE EXPERIENCE
STELLA MARIS BONET DURAN, LEONARDO PARDO
Nuclear Regulatory Authority
Argentina
RUTH SMITH
National Nuclear Security Administration
U.S. Department of Energy

3. Presentation Outline
To provide a quick overview of the cooperation actions carried out, the resulting impact in the Argentinean safeguards community, and how this long-term endeavor strengthens safeguards application in the country and in the region
Background Information
Cooperation Areas
The Nuclear Regulatory Authority and The Department of Energy Cooperation.
New Applications for spent fuel containment and surveillance
Technical Training for safeguards specialist
Regional Workshop on domestic inspections
Conclusions

4. Background Information
Nuclear Regulatory Authority of Argentina
Nuclear Regulatory Authority is an Argentinean institution with the mandate to establish, develop and enforce a regulatory system applicable to all nuclear activities carried out in Argentina
The goals of this regulatory system are:
To provide an appropriate standard of protection for people against harmful effects of ionizing radiation
To maintain a reasonable degree of radiological and nuclear safety for nuclear activities performed in Argentina
To ensure that nuclear activities are not developed with unauthorized purposes by the law and regulations resulting there from, as well as by the international agreements and the non-proliferation policies adopted by Argentina.
To prevent from performing intentional actions, which may either have severe radiological consequences or lead to the unauthorized removal of nuclear material or other materials or equipment subject to control.

5. Background Information
Nuclear Regulatory Authority of Argentina
From the nuclear safeguards perspective there is a well-defined State System of Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (SSAC)
Common System of Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials applied by ABACC. This system has been established through an Agreement between Argentine Republic and the Federative Republic of Brazil for the exclusively peaceful use of nuclear energy, which is fundamentally based in a crossed inspection scheme.

6. Nuclear Regulatory Authority and The Department of Energy
Cooperation
Agreement between the United States Department of Energy (DOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory Authority of Argentina (ARN) “Concerning Research and Development in Nuclear Material Control, Accountancy, Verification, Physical Protection, and Advanced Containment and Surveillance Technologies for International Safeguards Applications”, dated on April 18th, 1994
Generic Action Sheet Structure
Introduction
Background
Scope of Work
Program Management
Financial Management
Duration
Signatures (in duplicate)

7. This presentation will focus in the last four years
Cooperation Areas
Capacity Building
This presentation will focus in the last four years
Cooperation for the purpose of this presentation can be divided in two main areas:
Capacity building with national impact
Cooperation areas with regional impact

8. Cooperation Areas
New Applications for spent fuel containment and surveillance
Main objective: To involve all the national safeguards community in an interactive process of evaluation of containment and surveillance technologies applied to a particular project. Workshop
Operators
Designers
Regulators
Regional safeguards organizations
This training helps to create a synergic safeguards perspective for an specific project – Safeguards by Design

9. Cooperation Areas Technical Training for safeguards specialist
ARN identifies some areas of cooperation based on Argentinean safeguards personnel capacity building needs:
Non-destructive Assays technologies, based on gamma and neutron radiation
Statistical analysis for safeguards applications

10. Cooperation Areas Technical Training for safeguards specialist
Non-destructive Assays technologies, based on gamma and neutron radiation
Three Argentinean safeguards inspectors attend a two weeks program in Los Alamos National Lab at US.

11. Cooperation Areas Technical Training for safeguards specialist
Statistical analysis for safeguards applications
Customized training course.
Four days course named “Statistical Concepts for Safeguards” was carried out in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Subject covered:
Basic statistical concepts review.
Statistics concepts applied on measurements technics in nuclear safeguards and nuclear material sampling methodologies. Uncertainty estimation.
Sampling plans developments.
Material balance evaluation.
Chemical analysts
Safeguards inspectors
Operators
Statistical evaluators

12. Cooperation Areas Regional Workshop on domestic inspections
Domestic safeguards inspections play and important role in facilitating international inspections performed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Another purpose is to identify and resolve safeguards issues before, during and after international inspections take place.
A national regulator with complete knowledge about all nuclear activities taking place within the State’s borders ultimately promotes the effectiveness and efficiency of international inspections.
Thus, it is important for States operating nuclear facilities and managing nuclear material inventories to ensure their national regulators are able to plan, coordinate, conduct, and document a safeguards inspection at a nuclear facility.

13. Cooperation Areas Regional Workshop on domestic inspections
This activity can be considered as cooperation with regional impact.
A practical exercise on a real facility, Research Reactor 3 located at Ezeiza Atomic Center, was performed.
A five-day workshop on domestic safeguards inspections was carried out for countries in South and North America operating nuclear fuel cycle facilities.

14. Conclusions
The agreement between the Argentine Nuclear Regulatory Authority (ARN) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will celebrate its 25th anniversary next . It is a fundamental tool for the Argentinean safeguards regulator capacity building process.
Experts and professionals from both organizations exchanged knowledge and technical experiences.
The involvement of all safeguards community, operators and designers during training and courses has shown to be an excellent opportunity to discuss about safeguards.
The Regional Workshop on Domestics Safeguards Inspection, jointly coordinated between DOE and ARN, is a good way to demonstrate the degree of maturity of this long term endeavor, shifting the focus from a bilateral cooperation scheme to a partnership with regional scope on safeguards related expertise.

15. (Thank you for your time)
Gracias por su tiempo
(Thank you for your time)
Autoridad Regulatoria Nuclear