Did You Know?

The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is a multilateral regime of 48 Participating Governments that supply nuclear and nuclear-related equipment, materials, and technology, and seeks to contribute to the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons through the implementation of two sets of Guidelines for these exports. The Trigger List Guidelines and the Dual-Use List Guidelines govern the export of nuclear technologies.

Opportunity

The U.S. is a participating government of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and contributes to the review and development of nuclear export controls to help prevent the transfer of nuclear equipment, materials, and technology that may contribute to a nuclear weapons program while allowing legitimate trade of commodities for non-nuclear and non-weapons applications.

Solution

Argonne nuclear subject matter experts have direct knowledge of and experience working in nonproliferation policy, in addition to technical expertise in the development, production, and use of nuclear reactors and related fuel cycle technologies. U.S. Government participants in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) leverage Argonne’s capabilities and subject matter expertise to support their mission and contribution to the NSG, including Argonne’s leadership role as the DOE lead to the Technical Experts Group (TEG) and the lead laboratory for Proliferation Research and Analysis Projects (PRAPs).

Results

Argonne’s nuclear subject matter experts support a range of NSG activities related to U.S. participant’s technical and policy support. These activities include technical reviews of TEG proposals, drafting of U.S. TEG proposals, TEG meeting preparation, and support to the Information Exchange Meeting (IEM). The IEM is one of two standing bodies that reports to the NSG Plenary and provides an avenue for sharing ​“information and developments of relevance to the objectives and content of the NSG Guidelines,” such as licensing and enforcement challenges.

Additionally, Argonne supports a range of PRAPs related to the completion of studies that seek to build intellectual capital and deep knowledge on understudied, emerging, or evolving technical, market, or political developments, which may challenge U.S. nonproliferation policy and influence. These activities include completion of PRAP studies, in which ANL is the lead laboratory, peer reviews of technical studies prepared by other laboratories, and program management of all PRAP studies underway across the DOE laboratory complex.