Fissile Material Proliferation Risk

The proliferation risk of a facilty depends on the material attractiveness, level of safeguards, and physical protection applied ot the material in conjunction with an assessment of the impact of the socioeconomic circumstances and threat environment. Prolifleration risk is a complementary extension of proliferation resistance. We believe a better determination of nulcear proliferation can be achieved by establishing the proliferation risk for facilities that contain nuclear material. Developing a method that incorporates the socioeconomic circumstances and threat environment inherent to each country enables a global proliferation assessment. To effectively reduce the nuclear danger, a broadly based set of criteria is needed that provides the capability to relatively assess a wide range of nuclear related sites and facilities in different countries and still ensure a global decrease in proliferation risk for fissile material (plutonium and highly enriched uranium).