Medteal Isotope Production Without Highly Banched Uranium ‘nttp new nap edulopenbeok:phptrecond_id125098 page=102 102° MEDICAL ISOTOPE PRODUCTION WITHOUT HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM are required to establish security plans and systems to prevent theft, diver- sion, or radiological sabotage of HEU. Security guidelines are established by the International Atornic Energy Agency (IAEA, 1999) and promulgated in part or in whole in regulations by national authorities. In the United States, for example, civilian facilities possessing formula quantities of special nuclear materials fall under the authority of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and must meet the requirements in Title 10, Part 73 of the Code of Federal Regu- lations (10 CFR Part 73) entitled Physical Protection of Plants and Materials and also 10 CFR Part 74 entitled Material Control and Accounting of Spe- cial Nuclear Matcrials. The regulations require that cach facility have access controls, physical barriers, armed guards, and material inventory systems to secure special nuclear materials. These security systems are costly, and so the committee hypothesized that substantial cost savings might be realized by converting to LEU-based production because LEU does not fall under the same formula quantity requirements. After visiting HEU and LEU production and potential production facili- ties? and discussing security requirements with facility staff and national regulators, the committce concluded that the cost savings from conversion of existing HEU-based production to LEU-based production would likely be small,* primarily for the following reasons: 1.) Many Mo-99 producers utilize facilities that are located on multi- purpose sites. These sites are required to have high security hecause they contain sensitive facilities or store HEU. For example, the Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. (AECL) Chalk River site in Ontario, Canada, has HEU spent fuel and HEU waste from the past production of Mo-99, The ANSTO site in Australia has HEU fuel onsite from a shutdown reactor. High security will be required as long as this HEU remains on site. 2. Current HEU-based producers may possess less than formula quan- tities of HEU at their facilities or are exempt from the security regulations that govern formula quantitics.4 HEU is shipped to the target manufacturers Small groups of committee members and staff visited major HEU-based production facilities in (Canada (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited [AECL ), Belgium (Insticut National des Radioélérments), and the Netherlands (Petter); LEU-based production facilities in Australia (Australian Nuclear Sci- ence and Technology Organisation [ANSTO|]) and Argentina (Comisién Nactional de Energia Atomica [CNEAJ); one potential domestic production facility in Missouri (Missouri University Research Reactor [MURR |}; and a fuel manufacturing facility in France (Compagnie pour P Etude et la Réalisation de Combustibles Atorniques [CERCAI), See Appendix °This discussion docs not address the nonproliferation benefits of civilian HEU elimination, which was the primary motivation behind the Schumer Amendment (see Sidebar 1.3). See Chapter 11 for a discussion of HEU minimization efforts. +For example, 10 CFR Part 73, which regulates facilities that contain formula quantities of HEU (Category I facilities) does not apply to research reactor facilities in the United States (eg, MURR) even if they possess quantities of HEU greater than formula quantities.