Enhanced Proliferation Resistance for Closing the Nuclear Fuel Cycle

Concerns over energy resource availability, climatic changes and air quality have all heightened the important role nuclear energy will play in the future energy diversity of the Unites States and the growing global market. However, the global expansion of nuclear energy has raised the importance of the national security dimension to nuclear fuel cycle closure, both in terms of energy security and proliferation resistance. As part of the effort to ameliorate the valid concern of globalization of nuclear energy, this paper has been written to define specific concepts that can improve proliferation-resistance in the next-generation nuclear fuel cycle technologies. Implementation of these concepts could enable the projected expansion in nuclear energy without increasing the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation. Indeed, they offer the possibility of enhancing the performance of traditional safeguards tools and technologies.