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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.
Edoardo Cavalieri d'Oro, Michael W. Golay
Nuclear Technology | Volume 179 | Number 1 | July 2012 | Pages 117-128
Technical Paper | Special Issue on Safeguards / Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A14073
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Although in the United States and worldwide, the acceptance of nuclear systems has been abundantly regulated from a safety standpoint, the regulation of the nonproliferation performance of these systems still needs to be formalized. For nonproliferation, there are no regulations, formal license processes, or protocols to follow similar to the ones used by the nuclear sector to quantify and address safety risks. Consensus on how to address nonproliferation standards has not been achieved yet by regulators, designers, and policy makers, despite the urgent need to construct a clear framework to understand and formalize nonproliferation requirements of future and current nuclear systems.Appropriate tools and policies are needed to systematically quantify the standard of proliferation performance of nuclear energy systems, and to define the boundaries within which proliferation metrics can be considered acceptable.This paper tackles these issues by setting up a framework where risk, specifically the risk to covertly acquire special nuclear materials, can be used to evaluate the antiproliferation performance of nuclear systems. Specifically, it presents a treatment that, built upon analogy with the nuclear safety case, incorporates all the relevant features needed to set up a risk-informed licensing process for nuclear nonproliferation. The conceived framework can be used to assist the evaluation of the different solutions proposed internationally in order to strengthen the current nonproliferation regime.