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Conference Spotlight
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.
Victor Bykov, Jiawu Zhu, Andre Carls, Ilia Ivashov, Joachim Geiger, Bernd Hein, Hans-Stephan Bosch, Lutz Wegener, the W7-X Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 7 | October 2019 | Pages 730-739
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1623568
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The largest modular stellarator, the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), has completed its second phase of operation, OP1.2, in Greifswald, Germany. The inertially cooled divertor installed between mid-2016 and mid-2017 has allowed a wider range of plasma configurations in comparison with the first operation phase, OP1. The sophisticated W7-X superconducting magnet system is further loaded up to 70% of its maximum design loads for all main components. The extensive set of mechanical sensors clearly shows a highly nonlinear system response, which is in rather good correspondence with the predictions from the available advanced numerical models.
However, there are also significant deviations observed in several areas. Therefore, modeling improvements and/or parameter variation analyses are necessary to clarify the issues in preparation for the upcoming, more demanding phase OP2 (2021+) with the actively cooled divertor and longer plasma pulses to guarantee safe and reliable W7-X operation.
The updated strategy to release multiple new plasma configurations being compatible with W7-X component design values is described briefly. In this approach, the numerical model linearization in the vicinity of an accurately analyzed point is a key method to accelerate the process and to highlight areas for vacuum field parameters not allowed for plasma operation due to structural criticality.
A brief overview of the W7-X measurement results, the observed deviations with numerical models, and the implemented improvements, as well as the lessons learned so far, are presented.