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Disclaimer: This paper partially fulfills a writing requirement for first year (freshman) engineering students at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering. This paper is a student paper, not a professional paper. This paper is based on publicly available information and may not provide complete analyses of all relevant data. If this paper is used for any purpose other than this author’s partial fulfillment of writing requirement for first year (freshman) engineering students at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, users are doing so at their own risk.
PREVENTING NUCLEAR TERROR

Megan Nescio ([e-mail])


Nuclear Terrorism

Nuclear Terror: What’s the Problem

“Potentially the most devastating threat facing the world”. This phrase is said in many different forms, spoken out of different activists’ and politicians’ mouths. The threat they speak of is the terrifying potential of nuclear terror. Nuclear terror may come in 3 forms: explosions, destruction, and dirty bombs [1]. Explosions are often public, and they are an easy way to harm others with minimal work. Destruction is the annihilation of nuclear power plants and reactors- this method is useful when terrorists want to destroy other’s resources. A dirty bomb is meant to create chaos through the spreading of radioactive material [1]. Although no nuclear terror attacks have occurred, the possibility of one occurring is due to the availability of nuclear products.

The accessibility of nuclear products has been growing over the past decade. 25 countries around the world are using weapons-grade material- Russia and the United States being the top 2 culprits [2]. As of March 2016, 9 countries had an accumulated a total of just under 15,000 nuclear weapons; Russia has about 7,000 and the United States has about 6,800 [2]. Within the nuclear power industry, about 1,000 reactors are currently functioning, supporting the constant production of uranium and plutonium [3]. Uranium is produced through fission, but fuels for nuclear power reactors only hold 3-5% of enriched uranium. The reactors that do produce enriched uranium are usually used for research and submarines. Plutonium is acquired through the nuclear burning of uranium; 1,000 reactors run on plutonium for electric power or research projects [3]. Nuclear terrorists strive to get their hands on these two materials due to their highly reactive and extremely powerful tendencies. The amount needed is not a large quantity; the amount of enriched uranium needed for a nuclear bomb would fit into a 5-pound bag of flour, and the amount of plutonium needed is the size of a grapefruit [4].

Although there have fortunately not been any successes in nuclear terror, there have been implications of attempts at nuclear terror and poor security on the government’s part. 6 men were arrested for holding 4 grams of bomb quality uranium back in June of 2011 [4]. These men claimed to have 9kg more, but it was never found. The amount of bomb quality uranium they did have, however, is just 1/3 of what is needed to build a bomb. Going a little further back to 2007, there was an example of a poor security mistake that could have had chaotic consequences [4]. At Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, a B-52 bomber was assigned to fly 12 cruise missiles. Along with these missiles, 6 nuclear missiles were accidentally loaded onto the same plane. The amount of destruction these missiles could create combined would be equivalent to 60 Hiroshima explosions. These weapons sat on the runway, unguarded and unsecured, for 12 hours. Reportedly, as of 2016, al-Qaeda and Aum Shinrikyo were attempting to get nuclear weapons [4].

An Engineer’s Mission
The challenges of an engineer to prevent nuclear terror come in numbers. The specific problems are security, detecting, unarming, rebuilding, and prosecution [3]. Security is the securing of materials and keeping a safe watch over the production enriched uranium and plutonium, etc. Detecting is the task of knowing when nuclear materials are being smuggled or stolen. Unarming is figuring out how to disable a device when it has the potential to to harm others. Rebuilding would be working in the aftermath of such catastrophic events- working on the cleanup, repair, and rebuilding of civilization would all be included. Prosecution is solving the mystery of who committed the terror attack and then finding them.

Preventing nuclear war is not just an important topic to engineers, but it’s an important topic that is constantly discussed throughout the world and among our leaders. An organization that is constantly discussing this task is the Nuclear Security Summit. In 2016, there were over 25,000 deaths due to terrorist attacks, with over 33,000 people injured [5]. More than 50% of attack from these attacks were due to bombs and explosions [5]. This supports the point that if terrorist organizations were to get a handle of nuclear weapons, the advantage of their knowledge on how to create such deadly machines would create deadly results. It’s extremely important that this topic is continuously discussed and re-discussed, so that people are aware of the destruction that is going on in the world and how it may be able to be prevented.

In engineering, one’s job is to, in a very loose phrase, “solve the world’s problems”. With the major error in keeping track of the stock piles such as the one that occurred in 2007, there is always room for improvement in the technology that serves to prevent nuclear war. Discovering these advancements in nuclear prevention would serve as a gateway into different cyber security methods and inventions. Although this paper will not be discussing this new technology in full, it’s important to recognize Mark Hart’s new approach to security as an example of engineering shaping the nuclear security world. In 2014, a scientist and engineer in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Defense Technologies Division developed a technology that lets the weapon guard itself [6]. This “intrinsic use control” uses the fluctuation of the radiation field to create a long, random identification number for the weapon. This allows only the weapon to know its identification number, and when it detects an unknown system, it will be able to shut itself down [6]. Accomplishments in engineering such as this one is what amazes and strengthens my love for engineering. This technology could have a serious, long-term impact on the future of nuclear prevention. Preventing nuclear terror is important to engineering because it allows us to create technologies that will protect future of civilization from deadly attacks.

It’s important to me personally that we prevent nuclear terror because I’m only 18 years old, and yet I have lived through too many terrorist attacks that involve bombings. Such would include the Paris terrorist attack, the Boston Marathon bombing, and many more. From 2001 to 2011, bombs and explosives were the most common weapon used in terror attacks in the United States [5]. If we continue to live in a world like this, we’ll tear each other apart. As I become a chemical engineer, I want to find new ways of producing something or to create a new product. Preventing nuclear terror would have me working with chemical substances and hopefully developing technologies within the nuclear power plants, which would keep me excited for my job. I also want to travel around the world, and yet the posing threat on national security will prevent me from accomplishing this desire. There have been over 300 terrorist attacks each in 10 countries within the middle east which restricts my wanting to travel to unique place [5]. Chemical engineering is a field that offers job all over the world. For example, Johnson&Johnson offers positions in New Zealand and Italy. But if threats of terror attacks, specifically nuclear terror attacks, grow worse, I will not be able to experience all the benefits of my career choice.

Although there is a lot to be done in preventing nuclear terror, there have been many developments in the security and monitoring of the production of these dangerous materials, such as new creations within the reactors themselves that create these elements.
Passive Safety Systems
What They Are
One of the challenges of preventing nuclear terror is the securement and monitoring of the production of the nuclear elements such as uranium and plutonium. When something is going wrong, such as the system producing too much material in a short amount of time, there is usually an external force acting on the system to make the problem stop. The problem with this is that the external forces may work too slow or not at all. The solution to this problem is a technology that can monitor the reactors and protect itself: passive safety systems.

In order to manage the nuclear reactors in times of emergency, passive safety systems have been being installed on them. This feature does not have a need for external action to shut down; it turns itself off in times of emergencies such as over-heating [7]. It can use the physical nature of gravity, buoyancy, convection, and conduction to drive the flows [8]. Although passive systems have been in the process of being used for some decades, there has been a steep increase of development within the past 7 years. An example of an old, normally used passive safety system would be a light water reactor [8]. These work with a very low required enrichment level, which then ceases the fission reaction when the water moderator is taken away. However, this is not an ideal passive safety system since there is still the worry of heat dissipation, which is where the ability of work from the power lessens [8]. How a general passive safety works is: during an emergency where the reactor core is at low elevation, a passive safety system quickly vents the core to an appropriate atmospheric pressure and then uses the ways of gravity to flood it. This allows the reactor to flood itself, in contrast to having an external system pump in the water [7].

Why It’s Important to Engineering
Although it is not related to nuclear terror, the demand for the development of new passive safety systems increased when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex disaster occurred [8]. On March 11, 2011, the complex was hit by an earthquake and then a tsunami. Such a disaster left the world with the question “How do we improve this?”. The development of better passive safety systems in nuclear power plants is important for both the nuclear terror topic and nuclear safety topic. Passive safety systems use the same concept that engineers use every day: chemistry, physics, and mathematics. Engineers have been able to exploit laws of physics so that the reactors are able to protect themselves, while using their knowledge of chemistry to understand how the uranium and plutonium will react to certain heating setting and when they will begin to overheat. Engineers also use calculus to use the application of integrals and work equations to see how much hydrostatic pressure will be put on the reactor once the water is poured in. Going back to the different kinds of nuclear terror attacks, a popular method would be the destruction of nuclear power plants themselves. These passive safety systems make it much harder for this method to succeed, since the reactor itself can detect when it needs to shut down and cool off. This impact shows that the hard work engineers are putting into these technologies is making a difference in the nuclear power plants. It’s important that these kinds of accomplishments are recognized, so that the strategies of preventing nuclear terror that are discussed at Nuclear Security Summit are kept updated and fitting to the technologies we have on hand. Ian Schultz wrote “The key to understanding passive safety is that it is nothing more than elegant engineering -- it is getting physics to provide the safety measures instead of relying on forced systems” [8]. Schultz describes the engineering accomplishment perfectly-elegant.
Small Modular Reactors
Defining the Reactors
The most recent innovation in passive safety systems is small modular reactors (SMR). These small reactors have many advantages that make them stand out above the other reactors [9]. Due to their minimized size, these small reactors can be shipped to different sites and built at such locations through trucks, trains, etc. They take less time to build- approximately 3 years, which leads to more opportunities for investments [9]. The flexibility of production increases due to the ability of increased capacities inside the power plants. That is, if the demand for certain utilities increases, they can provide it since the capacity starts at less than 300 megawatts. SMRs also have an important design regarding preventing nuclear terror; “The ‘security by design’ concepts being applied to these technologies are expected to increase SMR resistance to theft and diversion of nuclear material” [9]. Within its functions, SMRs intertwine protection systems. Such would include “barriers than can withstand design basis aircraft crash scenarios and other specific threats”. Specific SMRs can also go for long periods of time without the need for being refueled. These kinds of functions allow for 3-stop sort of trips: fueling in a factory, transportation to a different site for use, and transportation back to the factory for defueling. This lessens the handling of nuclear elements, which prevents the risk of the elements being intercepted by terrorists or the “wrong hands”. Other specific SMRs only need low-enriched uranium to function- about 5% specifically. This contrasts with what terrorists would like to acquire for their nuclear weapons: highly enriched uranium [9]. Non-light water SMRs have the possibility of moving plutonium while decreasing the amount of waste at disposal. Since plutonium is also a desirable element for nuclear weapons, the disposition of this elements is an ideal operation. The job prospects that coincide with the production of SMRs are another positive effect [9]. A 2010 study shows that a typical SMR production would create nearly 7,000 jobs. Economically, it would create $1.3 billion in sales, $404 million in earnings, and $35 million in indirect business taxes [9]. It also predicts that an ideal production would be 30 units of SMRs per year. The creation of SMRs and construction of the factories are expected to cost less, which then causes a reduction in capital investment [9].

Small modular function in a very similar way to the older versions of passive safety systems. It can cool themselves off and cease operation for unknown amounts of time. The two main ideas of SMRs are that the cooling technology will be powered by light water and nonlight water media such as gas or molten salt [10]. The small modular reactors are still currently being developed, with it going through many different safety tests and paper work. NuScale Power LLC’s is in the process of becoming the nations first SMR facility, since they are the first comer to submit a design certification application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission [11]. They’re expected to begin their SMR operation in 2026. A new design is being handled that can hold a 180-megawatt power, by BWXT mPower. The Department of Nuclear Energy is considering issuing a multi-year cost-shared funding plan, which will provide the utilities needed to get behind new innovating ideas within the nuclear industry such as SMRs [11].

The Impact on Engineers
These fabrication of small modular reactors is extremely important to the discussion of preventing nuclear terrorism. It’s many security advantages, such as not having to be handled by too many staff members during its usage, furthers the cause of making it impossible for terrorist to acquire the dangerous materials needed for their bombs. The additional difficulty level that comes with drawing out plutonium and highly enriched uranium from the reactors is discouraging to terrorists, but a very encouraging feature to national and nuclear security.

As for engineer, this small modular reactor can be seen as a great step forward for chemical engineers and mechanical engineers. Since chemical engineers work in factories watching over the production of materials, it’s an important ability to be able to watch over the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium. Small modular reactors are going to make it easier to monitor the production by constantly keeping track of its conditions. And if anything does go unnoticed by the chemical engineer, the SMR has the ability to shut itself down in times of need. It’s also important to recognize that engineers have developed a way to not only cool with water but also with other liquid media such a molten salt, which is a great chemical advantage.

To me, the small modular reactor is a great expansion in passive safety systems because its providing not only economic benefits but safety benefits. Since I will hopefully be working as a chemical engineer, it’s possible that I will be working in nuclear power plants around these dangerous reactors. With small modular reactors, it will make the workplace safer the threat of nuclear terror seems smaller. It is using physics and chemistry in an amazing way to create a system that protects the plant, protects its worker, and protects the budget.
Small Modular (Almost) in Action
Although the small modular reactors are still in the making, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has partaken in several pre-application experiments that pertain to the SMR [12]. One example of this would be the BWXT mPower. Like the SMR, this is a reactor that works on the specific conditions of using “light water” [12]. In technical terms, it’s a “light-water integral pressurized water reactor with the reactor and steam generator located in a single vessel located in an underground containment. Another example is the SMR-160, which was another pressurized water reactor with a passive cooling system. It was created to discuss and visualize possible small modular reactor problems. In technical terms, its “a light water reactor with the reactor, steam generator, and spend fuel pool located in containment” [12]. The NRC has also participated in many issues regarding the SMR both technically and politically. On May 3, 2017 the NRC forwarded the NEI’s fee waiver request to research the securement of SMRs, and plans on having another meeting sometime this fall [12].

The experiment that the NRC is participating is in preparation of the use of SMRs. Researching and conducting experiments like these is important to the SMR cause because it helps show the government that the funding its being provided is not going to waste. So far, the outcomes of these experiments have been positive in that any problems that were detected in the SMR-160 experiment are now able to be noticed and worked on. This helps engineers tackle other technical issues that are like the SMRs while furthering the very important task at hand. Organizations like the NRC are important to preventing nuclear terror because they are ones who are pushing the technology that could potentially cease the destruction of nuclear power plants through nuclear terror.

Conclusion
Nuclear terror is threat that will not go away easily. Nor will any of the solutions that stop nuclear terror come easy to us. What’s important is utilizing what we have- calculus, chemistry, and physics- and using those principles to our advantage. That what engineers are here for. If they keep further the SMR through experiments, which will then advance passive safety systems, and protect nuclear power plants, we’ll be one step closer to ceasing nuclear terrorism.
Sources
[1] I. Helfand, L. Forrow, J. Tiwari. “Nuclear terrorism”. US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. 09.02.2002. Accessed 10.25.2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1122278/

[2] “World Nuclear Weapon Stockpile”. Ploughshares Fund. Accessed 10.25.2017 https://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report

[3] “Preventing Nuclear Terror”. Grand Challenges of Engineering. Accessed 10.25.2017. http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/9134.aspx

[4] “Nuclear Terrorism”. NIT. Accessed 10.25.2017. http://www.nti.org/about/nuclear-terrorism/

[5] “Terrorism-Statistics and Facts” Statista. Accessed 10.25.17 https://www.statista.com/topics/2267/terrorism/

[6] “Uncrackable Code for Nuclear Weapons” 11.20.2014. Accessed 10.25.2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Mnm5yTwZZE

[7] N. Giges. “Time for Passive Safety at Nuclear Plants”. 10.2014. Accessed 10.25.2017 https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/nuclear/time-passive-safety-nuclear-plants

[8] I. Schultz. “Passive Nuclear Safety Technology”. Winter 2012. Accessed 10.25.2017. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2012/ph241/schultz1/

[9] Office of Nuclear Energy. “Benefits of Small Modular Reactors”. Accessed 10.26.2017. https://www.energy.gov/ne/benefits-small-modular-reactors-smrs

[10] Office of Nuclear Energy. “Advanced Small Modular Reactors” Accessed 10.26.2017. https://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies/small-modular-nuclear-reactors

[11] “Nuclear Technology Innovations- A Look Forward” Nuclear Energy Institute. 01.26.2017 Accessed 10.26.2017 https://www.nei.org/News-Media/News/News-Archives/2017/Nuclear-Technology-Innovations-A-Look-Forward

[12] “Small Modular Reactors (LWR designs)”. United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Accessed 10.26.2017.

Acknowledgments
I would first like to thank Professor Schaub for always being a great professor. I would also like to thank my writing instructor for taking the time to review this essay. I would also like to thank the study lounge on the 9^th floor of the William Pitt Union for always being there for me in my times of studying needs.

University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering

10.31.17