Nuclear Nonproliferation
Addressing Full Spectrum Threats
In a world of constantly evolving threats, maintaining a high level of preparedness is essential to both national and international security. Idaho National Laboratory’s nuclear nonproliferation mission helps the nation prevent, counter, and respond to nuclear and radiological threats. INL has top nonproliferation experts with real-world experience and backgrounds in areas including nuclear facility inspection, modeling and simulation, material science, physics, and engineering. These employees hold dozens of patents, have won numerous awards and lead global nonproliferation programs. From developing new technologies for safeguarding nuclear material to refining analytical techniques designed to assess fallout composition after the use of a nuclear device, our staff members are at the forefront of the nation’s nonproliferation efforts.
INL provides technical resources, special nuclear materials and dedicated outdoor training ranges with access to short-lived radioactive materials that support civilian and military programs. Many of these programs support the missions of the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security.
Capabilities
Radiochemistry and Nuclear Measurements
Nonproliferation and security experts play an important role in developing technology, policy, and systems for safeguarding and securing nuclear materials and facilities.
Securing Nuclear Material
Nuclear facilities have traditionally relied on after-the-fact security like armed guards, weapons systems, monitoring devices, delay barriers and denial systems. Increasingly, these add-on protective measures have become more costly to protect against modern threats.
Reports
- Best Practices Guide for Insider Threat Mitigation: Nuclear Facilities
- Best Practices Guide for Insider Threat Mitigation: Radiological Facilities
- Small Reactors in Microgrids: Technology Modeling and Selection (Net-Zero Microgrid Program Project Report)
- Integrated simulation of U-10Mo monolithic fuel swelling behavior
- Resumption of water capsule reactivity-initiated accident testing at TREAT
- Cyber threat assessment of machine learning driven autonomous control systems of nuclear power plants
- Contributions to the mechanistic understanding of the microstructural evolution in irradiated U-Mo dispersion fuel
- Radiation-induced dry reforming: A negative emission process
- High uranium loading TRISO particle for microreactor applications
- Surrogate Distributed Radiological Sources—Part II: Aerial Measurement Campaign
- Investigating sol–gel matrix loading capacity toward producing surrogate nuclear explosive debris with realistic composition
- Chapter 5 – Cyber risk considerations for nuclear digital I&C systems