A comparative quantitative assessment is made of the nuclear weapons proliferation risk between various nuclear reactor/fuel cycle concepts using a probabilistic method. The work presented details quantified proliferation resistance metrics of a pressurized water reactor (PWR), a PWR utilizing thorium as a fertile component of the nuclear fuel (Radkowsky Thorium Reactor-RTR) and a high temperature, gas cooled, reactor with a pebble bed core (PBMR). This probabilistic method permits integration of all aspects of fissile material proliferation in formulating an overall estimate of relative proliferation risk. The reactor/fuel cycle concepts are examined along a "weapons-useable plutonium diverted from spent reactor fuel" proliferation pathway in order to determine these values, and concepts with low values of this estimate are favorable for continued development in terms of lowered proliferation potential. A determination is also made of those reactor/fuel cycle technical features that contribute the most to minimizing the proliferation success within these risk estimates. Identification of areas affecting these "importance measures", (i.e., reactor/fuel cycle practices, technical features, safeguard practices and resource allocations) allows for further research into these vital areas. The example and results presented in this work are an illustration of an integrated analysis utilizing a probabilistic method. The subjectivity used in determining various factors and confidence levels for this analysis is based on the author's own reasoning, opinion and judgment in light of political, economic and technical considerations. The results, implications and conclusions concerning different reactor/fuel cycles are applicable only within the context of this subjectivity as applied within this methodology

The material that sustains the nuclear reactions that produce energy can also be used to make nuclear weapons-and therefore, the development of nuclear energy is one of multiple pathways to proliferation for a non-nuclear weapon state. There is a tension between the development of future nuclear fuel cycles and managing the risk of proliferation as the number of existing and future nuclear energy systems expands throughout the world. As the Department of Energy (DOE) and other parts of the government make decisions about future nuclear fuel cycles, DOE would like to improve proliferation assessments to better inform those decisions. Improving the Assessment of the Proliferation Risk of Nuclear Fuel Cycles considers how the current methods of quantification of proliferation risk are being used and implemented, how other approaches to risk assessment can contribute to improving the utility of assessments for policy and decision makers. The study also seeks to understand the extent to which technical analysis of proliferation risk could be improved for policy makers through research and development.

This case study reveals the process for researching and publishing a multi-method article on nuclear weapons proliferation. It explains how the author identified an interesting research question, drawing from a contemporary U.S. foreign policy debate about how best to combat the spread of nuclear weapons. The case study then explains how to locate existing quantitative replication datasets from which to begin statistical analysis. The article also discusses the challenge of publishing research with null findings and one possible strategy for overcoming it. It also illustrates the value of multi-method research designs that combine quantitative and qualitative analysis.

Originally published in 1983, this book presents both the technical and political information necessary to evaluate the emerging threat to world security posed by recent advances in uranium enrichment technology. Uranium enrichment has played a relatively quiet but important role in the history of efforts by a number of nations to acquire nuclear weapons and by a number of others to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For many years the uranium enrichment industry was dominated by a single method, gaseous diffusion, which was technically complex, extremely capital-intensive, and highly inefficient in its use of energy. As long as this remained true, only the richest and most technically advanced nations could afford to pursue the enrichment route to weapon acquisition. But during the 1970s this situation changed dramatically. Several new and far more accessible enrichment techniques were developed, stimulated largely by the anticipation of a rapidly growing demand for enrichment services by the world-wide nuclear power industry. This proliferation of new techniques, coupled with the subsequent contraction of the commercial market for enriched uranium, has created a situation in which uranium enrichment technology might well become the most important contributor to further nuclear weapon proliferation. Some of the issues addressed in this book are: A technical analysis of the most important enrichment techniques in a form that is relevant to analysis of proliferation risks; A detailed projection of the world demand for uranium enrichment services; A summary and critique of present institutional non-proliferation arrangements in the world enrichment industry, and An identification of the states most likely to pursue the enrichment route to acquisition of nuclear weapons.

A collection of papers presented at the PSAM 7 – ESREL ’04 conference in June 2004, reflecting a wide variety of disciplines, such as principles and theory of reliability and risk analysis, systems modelling and simulation, consequence assessment, human and organisational factors, structural reliability methods, software reliability and safety, insights and lessons from risk studies and management/decision making. This volume covers both well-established practices and open issues in these fields, identifying areas where maturity has been reached and those where more development is needed.

This book is the seventh in a series of titles from the National Research Council that addresses the effects of exposure to low dose LET (Linear Energy Transfer) ionizing radiation and human health. Updating information previously presented in the 1990 publication, Health Effects of Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR V, this book draws upon new data in both epidemiologic and experimental research. Ionizing radiation arises from both natural and man-made sources and at very high doses can produce damaging effects in human tissue that can be evident within days after exposure. However, it is the low-dose exposures that are the focus of this book. So-called “late” effects, such as cancer, are produced many years after the initial exposure. This book is among the first of its kind to include detailed risk estimates for cancer incidence in addition to cancer mortality. BEIR VII offers a full review of the available biological, biophysical, and epidemiological literature since the last BEIR report on the subject and develops the most up-to-date and comprehensive risk estimates for cancer and other health effects from exposure to low-level ionizing radiation.