Quantifying Safeguards Innovations: Impacts of Innovations on International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards Inspection Effort

Figures & data

Figure 1. The IAEA budget for safeguards verification, in millions of US dollars.

Figure 2. Significant quantities of nuclear material over Time.

Table 1. IAEA definition of significant quantities of nuclear material (International Atomic Energy Agency, 2022b, p. 31).

Material	Significant Quantity
Plutonium (for plutonium containing less than 80% plutonium-238)	8 kg plutonium
Uranium-233	8 kg Uranium-233
High enriched uranium (HEU, greater than or equal to 20% uranium-235)	25 kg Uranium-235
Indirect use nuclear material (less than 20% uranium-235), indicating low enriched uranium, natural uranium, and depleted uranium)	75 kg Uranium-235 or 10 t natural uranium or 20 t depleted uranium
Thorium	20 t

Figure 3. Count of total number of nuclear facilities under safeguards.

Figure 4. Count of enrichment and reprocessing facilities under IAEA safeguards.

Figure 5. Count of states with Additional Protocols to their safeguards agreements.

Figure 6. Person days inspection over time.

Figure 7. Safeguards inspection counts over time.

Figure 8. Growth of remote data transfer of safeguards data streams.

Figure 9. Count of states under integrated safeguards.

Figure 10. Safeguards extrabudgetary expenditures, in 2023 USD values.

Table 2. Variable descriptions.

Variable	Metric	Min	Mean st. dev	Max
Significant Quantities	Quantity of nuclear material under safeguards. Actual amount of material indicated by 1 significant quantity varies based on material quality, as defined by IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency 2022b). At the starting point in the data used for this analysis, there were already 447 significant quantities of nuclear material under safeguards, likely from IAEA safeguards agreements that predated the NPT.	447	97 717.66 76 960.5	230 754
Enrichment & Reprocessing Plants	The sum of the number of enrichment and reprocessing facilities under IAEA safeguards. Counts are based on facilities as declared by states to the IAEA. The sum is 0 until 1976 when the first enrichment plants came under IAEA safeguards.	0	16.08 8.74	31
Total Facilities	The sum of all types of nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards, excluding “locations outside facilities”, as defined by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency 2022b) and as declared by sovereign governments. Some nuclear facilities were under IAEA safeguards agreements prior to the NPT’s entry into force and the start-date of this dataset.	82	536.96 184.48	722
Additional Protocols	The count of states that have signed and ratified an Additional Protocol to their IAEA safeguards agreement. The first Additional Protocols were brought into force in 1997 and reported in the IAEA’s 1998 Annual Report.	0	42.58 55.23	140
Integrated Safeguards	The count of states that are under Integrated Safeguards measures as defined by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency 2022b). The first state to come under Integrated Safeguards (Australia) was in 2001.	0	16.55 25.61	69
Remote Data Transfer Streams	The count of streams of data that are remotely transferred to the IAEA for analysis. Remote Data Transfer began in 1999, and there can be multiple streams per state or per facility.	0	246.75 488.68	1782
Extrabudgetary expenditures	IAEA safeguards Extrabudgetary Expenditures per year, reported in 2023 US Dollars. Reporting started in 1986.	3 947 179.57	24 487 537.51 9 564 460.91	42 800 980
Year	The year of record. Data is available for 1970 to 2022. The dataset begins in 1970 based on the entry into force of nuclear safeguards agreements related to the NPT, which drastically increased in the IAEA’s safeguards responsibilities, and due to the availability of historical data. Though the total data available begins in 1970, this analysis begins in 1980 due to the availability of the PDI dependent variable. The IAEA Annual Reports are typically released in the summer after the recorded year, and 2022 represents the most recent annual report at the time of this analysis.	1980		2022
Person Days of Inspection	The count of person days inspection per year, according to IAEA safeguards records. Reporting started in 1980.	5061	11 022.21 2 846.24	15 980
Number of Inspections	The count of individual on-site inspections per year. Reporting started in 1970.	184	1 809.79 679.07	2507

Table 3. Regression model results for safeguards efficiency measured via PDI.

	MODEL 1 Full Model	MODEL 2 Lowest AIC	MODEL 3 Parsimonious
(Intercept)	2.25e + 06.	2.24e + 06.	−3.40e + 05***
Significant Quantities	0.14	0.15
Enrich. & Reproc. Facilities	407.4*	407.3*
Total Facilities	1.71
Additional Protocol	114.5***	114.5***	61.06***
Remote Data Transfer Streams	2.51*	2.56*
Integrated Safeguards	−176.4***	−177.7***	−128.56***
Extrabudgetary Expenditures	−1.43e-05	−1.39e-05
Year	−1.13e + 03.	−1.13e + 03.	175.06***
	p-value: 1.45e-09 Adjusted R^2: 0.81	p-value: 2.95e-10 Adjusted R^2: 0.81	p-value: 4.42e-15 Adjusted R^2: 0.82
	“***”0.001 “**”0.01 “*”0.05 “.”0.1

Table 4. Regression model results for safeguards efficiency measured via inspection count.

	MODEL 4 Full Model	MODEL 5 Lowest AIC	MODEL 6 Parsimonious
(Intercept)	−1.0e + 04	1.19e + 03*	−158.4
Significant Quantities	1.90e-03	3.48e-03	4.12e-03*
Enrich. & Reproc. Facilities	4.65
Total Facilities	1.33	1.42	3.68***
Additional Protocol	−8.52**	−8.79***	−10.11***
Remote Data Transfer Streams	1.92e-02
Integrated Safeguards	3.02	3.51
Extrabudgetary Expenditures	3.08e-06	4.05e-06
Year	5.67
	p-value: 1.90e-04 Adjusted R^2: 0.52	p-value: 7.01e-06 Adjusted R^2: 0.56	p-value: 2.2e-16 Adjusted R^2: 0.92
	“***”0.001 “**”0.01 “*”0.05 “.”0.1

Table 5. Regression model results for safeguards efficiency measured in inspection count, considering only safeguards innovations.

	MODEL 7 Full Innovation-Only Model	MODEL 8 Lowest AIC Innovation MODEL	MODEL 9 Parsimonious InnoVation Model
(Intercept)	6.05e+03	2.04e+03***	2.04e+03***
Remote Data Transfer Streams	0.28**	0.28**	0.28**
Integrated Safeguards	−9.57**	−10.01***	−10.01***
Extrabudgetary Expenditures	1.24e-05*	1.17e-05**	1.17e-05**
Year	−2.02
	p-value: 1.949e-03 Adjusted R^2: 0.33	p-value: 6.475e-04 Adjusted R^2: 0.35	p-value: 6.475e-04 Adjusted R^2: 0.35
	‘***’0.001 ‘**’0.01 ‘*’0.05 ‘.’0.1

International Atomic Energy Agency. 2022b. The Agency’s Budget Update for 2023. Vienna, Austria: International Atomic Energy Agency.

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Data Availability Statement

The data used in this analysis is openly available as described in the Data section of this paper. The data used in this analysis is available at https://github.com/zgastel/IAEASafeguardsInnovations.