Recommendation Paper from the Advanced Nuclear and Emerging Technologies Workshop Series

Resulting from a series of three workshops held between April 2019 to November 2020, the VCDNP compiled a recommendation paper on work that could be done in order to strengthen nuclear safeguards and export controls in managing new challenges posed by advanced nuclear and emerging technologies.

The first workshop in the series took place on 5 April 2019 and assessed which technologies could pose a potential risk or benefit to non-proliferation in the safeguards and export control fields. The workshop focused on two categories of technologies:

1. Utilization technologies, related to the processes and facilities corresponding to the production or processing of nuclear material, such as advanced reactors, accident tolerant fuels and additive manufacturing; and
2. Operational technologies that impact the behaviour of suppliers and business practices related to nuclear safeguards and export controls like cloud computing, artificial intelligence, encryption and distributed ledger technology.

The second workshop was held on 15 November 2019 and focused on three main areas based on the discussion that pursued in the first meeting:

1. The impact of nuclear fuel cycle concepts and evolving supply chain models on regulators and industry;
2. The impact of advanced manufacturing on export-import and localization; and
3. The impact of emerging technologies on national, facility and company compliance.

The third and final workshop in the series took place virtually on 9 and 10 November 2020 and focused on ways to move the discussion forward and actionable items that could be taken. The workshop was facilitated by two discussion papers on:

1. Codes of conduct and reducing proliferation risk associated with emerging technologies, with a focus on additive manufacturing; and
2. Partnering with industry on safeguards and export controls.

Following the series, the VCDNP put together a short recommendation paper highlighting the key takeaways and including five recommendations for next steps. The five recommendations are:

1. Develop strategies to increase awareness of safeguards-by-design and promote its use;
2. Promote the adoption of a Code of Conduct for advanced manufacturing;
3. Consider a potential update of Annex II of the IAEA Additional Protocol;
4. Conduct research on the evolving business practices used by developers of advanced nuclear technologies; and
5. Conduct joint outreach to promote responsible and integrated approaches in the nuclear fuel cycle through “non-proliferation by design.”

Download the recommendation paper.

The VCDNP would like to thank the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration for its support in making the workshop series possible.

Featured image courtesy of Getty Images/iStockphoto.