A Concept for the Affordable and Rapid Deployment of a WAES Capability

Undeclared nuclear fuel cycle facilities pose a great safeguards challenge to IAEA's timely detection objectives. While INFCIRC540 (Additional Protocol) provides for the future implementation of Wide Area Environmental Sampling (WAES; Article 9), such implementation requires approval by the IAEA Board of Governors following consultations with the IAEA and others. Historically, assessments of potential WAES applications has been revisited on numerous occasions, most found to be very costly. This challenge has been further compounded by a lack of cost-effective implementable approaches. This paper considers a mobile collection and analysis laboratory that is tractor-trailer based for deployment on road provides, offering a cost-effective option in the timely detection of undeclared nuclear activities. Such platform also offers an excellent manner for collecting baseline data at selected locations, establishing patters-of-life signatures at these locations.