Toward a New Approach to Risk Complexity in the Nuclear Fuel Cycle

The growth and evolution of safety, security and safeguards (3S) challenges to the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC)—whether stemming from asymmetries in nuclear energy program capabilities or today’s dynamic environment—represent an increasing complexity in the risk associated with these activities. In real terms, ‘risk’ relates to those pressures and dynamics that oppose the completion of desired NFC activities. The multi-modal and multi-jurisdictional nature of international transportation of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) provides a clear example of this increasingly complex risk space. Motivated by ongoing Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) research involving an integrated 3S assessment of international SNF transportation, this paper develops a broader concept of, and technical and socio-political context, for risk. Traditional engineering approaches, such as Kaplan and Garrick (1981), define risk as a function of scenario, probability, and (adverse) consequence. While quantifying risk in this manner is often useful for comparing risk management strategies, this paper argues that quantification is not sufficient to adequately capture the real pressures and dynamics of the complex risks related to NFC activities.