1. Alternate Nuclear Proliferation Pathways
in the Age of Non-State Actors
Elie Katzenson, James Bevins, Bethany L. Goldblum, Tom Hickey, James Kendrick,
Nathaniel Mahowald, Rebecca Krentz-Wee, Sarah Laderman, Yubing Tian
Nuclear Science and Security Consortium, University of California, Berkeley, California 94704, USA
Motivations
• The current U.S. administration and
international community have made the
prevention of nuclear terrorism a
priority starting in 2010
• Though indigenous development of
special nuclear material has historically been
viewed as unviable for a non-state actor,
the capabilities and resources of non-state
actors continue to increase
• To assist in developing appropriate policies
and approaches to limiting the threat of
nuclear terrorism, this research explores and
compares pathways to indigenous
development given non-state actors’
capabilities, resources, and stated goals
Scope
Figure 1: Representation of nuclear fuel cycle pathways for de-
velopment of special nuclear material
• Fig. 1 represents the pathways to develop special
nuclear material for weapons development
• Red-shaded region shows the fuel cycle steps
required for the Plutonium pathway, which are
eliminated for the non-state actor scenario
• The four stages in blue represent the highly
enriched uranium (HEU) pathway explored in
this research
Research Metrics and Methods
Future Work
Completion of this research will result in a flexible
framework that can be used to evaluate prolifera-
tion pathways for indigenous development of HEU
by non-state actors. Key steps required for the com-
pletion of this research:
• Finalize the development of metric binning
structures relevant to ISIL and their occupied
territory
• Coding of the fuel cycle processes according to
the single-use fuel cycle concept
• Evaluation of the fuel cycle processes within a
coherent, scalable mathematical model resulting
in an assessment of the probability of indigenous
development of SNM and a relative comparison of
each pathway’s desirability
Contact Information
npwg.berkeley.edu
eliekatzenson@berkeley.edu
Acknowledgments
This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Ad-
ministration through the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium under Award Number(s) DENA0000979.
1
This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government.
Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any war-
ranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or
usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not
infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by
trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement,
recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opin-
ions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government
or any agency thereof.
At A Glance
Examination of the possibility of indigenous
development of special nuclear material given
the perceived capabilities and known
resources of non-state actors