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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
IAEA again raises global nuclear power projections
Noting recent momentum behind nuclear power, the International Atomic Energy Agency has revised up its projections for the expansion of nuclear power, estimating that global nuclear operational capacity will more than double by 2050—reaching 2.6 times the 2024 level—with small modular reactors expected to play a pivotal role in this high-case scenario.
IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi announced the new projections, contained in the annual report Energy, Electricity, and Nuclear Power Estimates for the Period up to 2050 at the 69th IAEA General Conference in Vienna.
In the report’s high-case scenario, nuclear electrical generating capacity is projected to increase to from 377 GW at the end of 2024 to 992 GW by 2050. In a low-case scenario, capacity rises 50 percent, compared with 2024, to 561 GW. SMRs are projected to account for 24 percent of the new capacity added in the high case and for 5 percent in the low case.
J. S. Jaquez, E. L. Alfonso, A. Nikroo
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 49 | Number 4 | May 2006 | Pages 768-772
Technical Paper | Target Fabrication | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1199
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We have successfully sputter deposited 2 m thick layers of SiO2 on CH mandrels ~ 2 mm in diameter to act as a permeation barrier for deuterium. Such targets can be used for experiments at Sandia's Z facility as well as at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). This permeation barrier has been shown to have a half-life (1/2) of ~2-4 weeks for a thickness of ~ 1.5 m. The sputter coating conditions have been successfully optimized to produce smooth uniform SiO2 coatings with enough integrity to allow routine handling as well as filling to the required pressures (20 atm). The key coating conditions investigated were the agitation mechanism and the coating pressure. We found that an agitation mechanism using gentle rolling produced coatings with a half-life of greater than three weeks, whereas a more vigorous bouncing agitation yielded half-lives of only a few days. Coating pressures of 2, 5, and 10 mTorr were studied and it was found that coatings at 5 mTorr produced coatings free of cracking. Since the sputtering is performed in a background atmosphere of argon, the sputtered SiO2 layer was found to contain trace amounts of argon as measured by x-ray fluorescence (XRF) measurements. Our work has yielded a controllable uniform alternative permeation barrier to the traditionally used poly(vinylalcohol) (PVA).