There are two very different ways in which material might be stolen from the nuclear power industry. One involves the use of force by persons not authorized to have access to the material taken. The other involves the use of stealth by persons authorized access to the material involved. Measures to deal with the external threat are very different from those to deal with the internal threat.

Prevention of Employee Thefts

Measures to prevent employees of nuclear industry from stealing nuclear materials include limiting access to the materials, security clearance of employees authorized access, surveillance of employees while they are working with such materials, inspections of employees entering and leaving areas where such materials are located, and surveillance of the perimeters of areas containing nuclear materials.

Access Controls. From a safeguards viewpoint, the fewer the people who have access to nuclear weapon materials the better. Thus access to such materials should be limited to those whose jobs require it. Included in this category are jobs in uranium enrichment, fuel fabrication, chemical reprocessing, and material storage facilities, and in some cases nuclear power plants. Jobs in the transportation of nuclear materials in certain stages of the fuel cycle would be included in this category, not because they necessarily require direct access to the nuclear material being transported, but because the employees holding jobs may be in a position to divert vehicles and steal entire shipments.

From a safeguards viewpoint, less stringent procedures would seem necessary in the case of jobs handling only low-enriched LWR fuel, as opposed