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Expanding advanced nuclear raises national security risks: IISTP report

By Brian Martucci5-6 minutes 4/29/2024

The Institute for International Science and Technology Policy cautioned against an unqualified embrace of nuclear power as a climate change solution as cooperation on nuclear safety frays.

Many advanced reactor designs have passive safety systems that make them more resistant to sabotage than conventional reactors, Nuclear Innovation Alliance Research Director Patrick White said. Nikolay Chekalin via Getty Images

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Dive Brief:

• A commitment by more than 20 countries to triple nuclear energy by 2050 poses significant national security challenges amid declining international cooperation on nuclear safety, the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy at George Washington University, or IISTP, said in a report released Tuesday.
• “The nuclear energy future that is being proposed now — small, flexible reactors distributed everywhere for many uses besides electricity — will not reduce, but will add to the national security risks that are unique to nuclear energy,” the report said.
• There are legitimate security concerns around conventional reactors that rely on active safety measures, but many advanced reactor designs have passive safety systems that make them more resistant to sabotage, Nuclear Innovation Alliance Research Director Patrick White said.

Dive Insight:

The IISTP report identified several potential threats that could increase as advanced nuclear technologies expand around the globe — including illicit proliferation of nuclear materials, plant sabotage, coercive threats and military attacks on nuclear facilities.

IISTP drew on historical examples such as hijackers’ threats to crash a commercial airliner into an Oak Ridge National Laboratory reactor in 1972, communist militants’ seizure of an under-construction nuclear facility in Argentina in 1973 and the United States’ bombing of two Iraqi research reactors in 1991.

The report noted that nuclear safety risks have been limited to date by the fact that “fewer than three dozen countries worldwide” have operational reactors.

But new reactors are being studied, proposed or built in countries without preexisting nuclear industries or where political stability is a concern — including Belarus, Egypt and Bangladesh, IISTP said.

For potentially unstable countries pursuing or operating nuclear reactors, the question for the international community is “how to isolate nuclear power operations from government and political structures,” White said. That’s likely to require independent, external oversight, he added.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s close cooperation with Ukrainian authorities to ensure safety at the country’s nuclear power sites is a potential model for that oversight, White said. Following active fighting in the vicinity of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility, operators were able to put the plant into a safer “shutdown” mode, he noted.

The IISTP report advocates for an active role for the United States as well. The U.S. government “should use [its] influence to ensure that any expansion of nuclear energy does not exacerbate national security risks,” the report said.

The report concludes with four recommendations for U.S. policymakers:

• Conduct two “objective” studies led by federal entities: a “technology-based assessment [that] could help set guardrails around a more proliferation-resistant nuclear future” led by “national laboratories with expertise in proliferation risk,” and a State Department-led geopolitical risk study to examine “prospects for nuclear terrorism, sabotage, coercion, and weaponization of power plants.”
• Pursue a more “holistic” approach to international cooperation on climate change and energy issues that eschews nuclear technology as a “sweetener” in strategic diplomacy and “prioritize the fastest and most efficient measures rather than technology-specific options” to reduce planet-warming emissions.
• Propose an international study to explore “the conditions under which multinationally controlled enrichment plants could reduce proliferation risks” and a related study to explore proliferation risks specific to advanced nuclear technologies.
• Weigh the potential expansion of nuclear energy against “other low-carbon options that pose fewer national security risks.”

On the last recommendation, IISTP urged policymakers to consider whether nuclear energy can be deployed “fast enough” to stay ahead of the worsening impacts of climate change, which the GAO found earlier this year could negatively affect reactor safety if not accounted for in NRC licensing processes.