Assessing Hedging Risks of Novel Reactor Designs

包括英国在内的世界各国目前正计划在未来十年内开发、使用和出口新的反应堆设计。这些努力是建立在对抗气候变化的雄心之上的。我的博士评估了这些新的反应堆设计——所谓的小型模块化反应堆（smr）——是否会被国家滥用，从而更接近于获得核武器。虽然人们普遍认为小型核反应堆会更安全、更有保障，但我的研究评估了这是否自动意味着它们也不太适合一种国家战略，这种战略正在向核武器靠近，但却没有立即制造核武器的愿望。这种“保留核选项”的秘密行为被称为“核对冲”，目前是根据一个国家制造核弹的能力和意图来评估的。我的研究建议改变这种评估方法，转而评估哪些民用核反应堆最容易成为这种对冲策略的一部分。因此，我希望对理解国家行为、国家决策和核安全有所贡献。基于这项研究的结果，核工业可能会改变他们的核反应堆设计，以保护他们的反应堆免受对冲，政策制定者将意识到与特定反应堆设计相关的任何内在对冲风险，特别是关于小型反应堆。

Various countries around the world - including the UK - arecurrently planning on developing, employing, and exportingnew reactor designs within the next decade. Suchendeavours are founded on ambitions to combat climatechange. My PhD assesses whether these new reactordesigns - so-called Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) - couldbe abused by states to advance ever closer to nuclearweapons acquisition. Whilst it is widely believed that SMRswill be safer and more secure, my research assesseswhether that automatically means that they are also lesssuitable for a state strategy that creeps closer to a nuclearweapon without an immediate desire to build one. Thisclandestine behaviour of "keeping nuclear options open" iscalled "nuclear hedging" and is currently assessed basedon a state's capability and intent to build a bomb. Myresearch proposes to change this assessment method byinstead evaluating which civilian nuclear reactors are mostprone to become part of such hedging strategies. Thereby, Ihope to contribute to the understanding of state behaviour,state decision-making and nuclear security. Based on theresults of this research, the nuclear industry may changetheir nuclear reactor designs to guard their reactors againsthedging, and policy makers would be made aware of anyinherent risks of hedging connected to specific reactordesigns, in particular regarding SMRs.