Proliferation resistance: issues, initiatives and evaluation
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
The vision of a nuclear renaissance has highlighted the issue of proliferation resistance. The prospects for a dramatic growth in nuclear power may depend on the effectiveness of, and the resources devoted to, plans to develop and implement technologies and approaches that strengthen proliferation resistance. The GenIV International Forum (GIF) and others have devoted attention and resources to proliferation resistance. However, the hope of finding a way to make the peaceful uses of nuclear energy resistant to proliferation has reappeared again and again in the history of nuclear power with little practical consequence. The concept of proliferation resistance has usually focused on intrinsic (technological) as opposed to extrinsic (institutional) factors. However, if there are benefits that may yet be realized from reactors and other facilities designed to minimize proliferation risks, it is their coupling with effective safeguards and other nonproliferation measures that likely will be critical. Proliferation resistance has also traditionally been applied only to state threats. Although there are no technologies that can wholly eliminate the risk of proliferation by a determined state, technology can play a limited role in reducing state threats and perhaps in eliminating many non-state threats. These and other issues are not academic. They affect efforts to evaluate proliferation resistance, including the methodology developed by GIF's Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) Working Group as well as the proliferation resistance initiatives that are being pursued or may be developed in the future. This paper will offer a new framework for thinking about proliferation resistance issues, including the ways the output of the methodology could be developed to inform the decisions that states, the International Atomic Energy (IAEA) and others will have to make in order to fully realize the promise of a nuclear renaissance.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 962336
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-09-01463; LA-UR-09-1463
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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