This study aims to prepare the energy sector for uncertainty using a foresight tool known as weak signals. Weak signals (subtle signs of emerging issues with significant impact potential) are often overlooked during strategic planning due to their inherent predictive uncertainty. However, the value does not lie in precise forecasting but in broadening the consideration of future possibilities. By proactively monitoring and addressing these otherwise neglected developments, stakeholders can gain early awareness of threats and opportunities and enhance their resilience, adaptability, and innovation.

SLUMBAT is a framework for nuclear material accounting and reporting on a permissioned blockchain. Testing SLUMBAT for a nuclear fuel supply scenario involving two State systems of accounting for and control of nuclear material (SSAC), and their national and international regulators, is used to investigate the application of blockchain technology to nuclear non-proliferation. SLUMBAT shows how a permissioned blockchain allows for detailed access controls within a safeguards information management system, eliminates the need to report duplicate information, and simplifies transit matching of nuclear material transactions between facilities. It promises to enhance trust between participants in global nuclear supply chains by enhancing data integrity. SLUMBAT is a significant step towards showing how an SSAC based on blockchain information systems could work, and shows how complex reporting structures, both for this and other similar applications, would be readily described.