Assessing Hedging Risks of Novel Reactor Designs

世界各国--包括英国--经常计划在未来十年内开发、采用和出口新的反应堆设计。Suchendeavour建立在对抗气候变化的雄心上。我的博士学位评估了这些新的反应堆设计--所谓的小型模块化反应堆(SMR)--是否会被各国滥用，以推动核武器的获得。虽然人们普遍认为，SMRS将更安全、更可靠，但我的研究评估了这是否自动意味着它们也不太适合这样一种国家战略，即悄悄接近核武器，而没有立即制造核武器的愿望。这种“保留核选择余地”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进行评估的。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此类对冲战略的一部分。因此，我希望为理解国家行为、国家决策和核安全做出贡献。根据这项研究的结果，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，政策制定者将被告知与特定反应堆设计有关的任何对冲的内在风险，特别是关于SMR。

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.