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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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.
B. Sims, R. S. Bean, C. K. Choi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 3 | October 2015 | Pages 711-714
Technical Note | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-991
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A team at the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics has been working for several years to develop the Gas Dynamic Trap Mirror Neutron Source (GDT-NS) for fusion materials irradiation. In 2010 they optimized the design for a transmutation mission forecasting a 16 meter DT plasma with a fusion power of 15 MW and neutrons preferentially emitted into blankets placed around the mirror turning points. While this remains to be demonstrated experimentally, it is intriguing to explore what could be done with a low fusion power neutron source.
The GDT-NS team has previously modeled the burning of minor actinides. The work presented here builds on this by examining the burning of plutonium starting with transuranics recovered from spent nuclear fuel. It was found that a GDT plutonium burner with two blankets could eliminate nearly the plutonium produced in a single light water reactor core per full power year, 249 kg. By increasing the average blanket power with regular refueling, this quantity was increased to 381 kg per full power year. Next followed a preliminary overview of a GDT disposition blanket to meet US treaty commitments in burning surplus military plutonium.