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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The RAIN scale: A good intention that falls short
Radiation protection specialists agree that clear communication of radiation risks remains a vexing challenge that cannot be solved solely by finding new ways to convey technical information.
Earlier this year, an article in Nuclear News described a new radiation risk communication tool, known as the Radiation Index, or, RAIN (“Let it RAIN: A new approach to radiation communication,” NN, Jan. 2025, p. 36). The authors of the article created the RAIN scale to improve radiation risk communication to the general public who are not well-versed in important aspects of radiation exposures, including radiation dose quantities, units, and values; associated health consequences; and the benefits derived from radiation exposures.
Meng Yue, Lap-Yan Cheng, Robert A. Bari
Nuclear Technology | Volume 165 | Number 1 | January 2009 | Pages 1-17
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A4058
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the proliferation resistance characteristics for different fuel cycle arrangements in the context of a global nuclear energy system using a Markov approach, which is capable of modeling complex systems and providing probabilistic measures. A technique that groups a set of reactors similar to each other and yet captures major fuel cycle features for proliferation study is proposed as an enhancement to the Markov approach to reduce the modeling complexity. In evaluating impacts on proliferation, both the amounts of total materials around the world and the amounts of materials that are used by the host state are considered. Proliferation concerns are represented based on the proliferation resistance measures of fuel cycles. In addition to representing proliferation impact in terms of proliferation success probability, a measure of proliferation risk is also introduced by using a product of the proliferation success probability and the material type index that represents the consequence of the proliferation. Sensitivity analyses are performed by varying the scale of the nuclear energy system owned and operated by a host state.