Year
2016
Abstract
New analytical approaches are desired to effectively manage the growing complexity of safety, security and safeguards (3S) threats to the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) in today’s dynamic environment. As NFC global infrastructure expands within this multifaceted threat environment, increasingly complex risks emerge—a risk space impeccably captured in the 3S challenges of transporting spent nuclear fuel (SNF) via multimodal transportation routes between countries around the world. This research hypothesizes that an integrated, 3S analytical approach to SNF transportation risk results in design, implementation and evaluation benefits. Given that the extant 3S literature is primarily conceptual, this research develops a scientific and technically rigorous 3S approach to assessing, managing, mitigating and reducing the complex risks of SNF transportation. Traditional SNF transportation evaluation methods for 3S are challenged by uncertainties related to ignoring interdependencies, by stochastic assumptions of environmental factors and by time independent domain risk mitigation strategies. In contrast, this proof-of- concept paper utilizes system-theoretic approaches and dynamic risk assessment frameworks to model SNF transportation and demonstrates how to assess, manage, mitigate and reduce complex risks of SNF transportation with a time dependent, dynamic control theoretic complex system model. Leveraging the growing applications of the system theoretic process analysis (STPA) and dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (DPRA) methods, this paper outlines the gaps, interdependencies, conflicts and leverage points between SNF transportation 3S often overlooked by traditional methods that rely on analyzing each ‘S’ in isolation. This preliminary characterization of the multifaceted risk space facing SNF transportation and complex system model evaluation of risk mitigation strategies is based on a notional, international SNF transportation scenario (e.g., SNF crossing geopolitical borders). Preliminary results indicate that system-theoretic analysis of SNF transportation as a complex, socio-technical system is better able to mitigate the risk complexity of SNF transportation in international environments. As more countries obtain nuclear fuel cycle capabilities, the greater the need for a comprehensive framework for identifying and mitigating the complex risks of transporting SNF in a dynamic 21st century context—and the more powerful this 3S analytical framework for ensuring the responsible expansion and management of nuclear energy programs.