Research

As part of the decarbonization of industrial processes and the mobility and transport sectors, hydrogen is emerging as an increasingly important climate-friendly energy source. Some countries are exploring the use of nuclear process heat for hydrogen production, particularly in high-temperature reactor concepts. Using nuclear heat sources can be a technically efficient option for hydrogen production processes that require high temperatures. However, this results in close spatial and technical coupling between nuclear and non-nuclear plant components. This new system integration raises specific safety concerns regarding the protection of the reactor plant and possible repercussions from storing large quantities of hydrogen nearby. This research project aims to systematically document international developments in using nuclear process heat for hydrogen production and evaluate them from a safety perspective. The project will provide an overview of existing technical concepts and plans for practical implementation, analyze possible risks and interfaces, and classify them according to international nuclear regulations.

The independent, scientific expertise in the field of nuclear safety / nuclear risk, which is based at the Institute for Safety and Risk Sciences (ISR for short), has been a unique selling point in Austria and at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna for many years. Accordingly, technical documents on the nuclear safety of nuclear facilities can be found at the Institute, which are otherwise unavailable or very difficult to obtain in Austria. Due to the advanced age of the people who ran the Institute in its early days and therefore know the provenance and significance of the individual documents, it is important to carry out the archiving work now so that this accumulated university knowledge, which is unique in Europe, is preserved and future generations can benefit from it. In view of the fact that Austria played a leading role in the endeavour to achieve a nuclear-free Central Europe, these documents also represent a part of Austrian history and identity. Some of this knowledge (external and internal documents, reports, publications, etc.), which has been generated since the ISR was founded, is stored on physical data carriers (paper, CDs, discs and other image and sound carriers) in the ISR archives and can currently only be accessed with great effort. The main focus of this project is to make this knowledge and the accumulated data available to the ISR, the BMK and the public in a simple way as a search engine and research tool. To this end, a large part of the material is to be digitised and entered into a flexible database.

The report should characterize on differences in the development and production processes of bioweapons compared to civilian research and production processes and the associated implications for the knowledge and skills of the people involved: - Summarize and analyze existing case studies on the successful use of bioweapons with a view to the effects achieved and the difficulties and “failures” of the various actors (state, state-supported or non-state). - What role does tacit, i.e. experiential knowledge play in the practical implementation of bioweapons production beyond the information available in scientific publications or published protocols? What kind of experience is needed? - What role does practical testing of potential warfare agents play? What is known about actual testing of such agents? - What scientific, technological, personnel and organizational requirements are necessary for the various actors mentioned to be able to develop biological weapons for their purposes at a threatening level? - To what extent can new technologies (e.g. gene editing, AI models, robotized laboratories/“cloud labs”) lower the knowledge and experience threshold for different actors (laypersons, people with academic biological training, trained microbiologists or virologists with laboratory experience in civilian research institutions) to such an extent that they are enabled to develop and produce weaponized biological agents?