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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.
Haihua Zhao, Lambert Fick, Alexander Heald, Quan Zhou, Samuel Richesson, Noah Sutton, Brandon Haugh
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 5 | May 2023 | Pages 813-839
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2106724
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To meet the Kairos Power (KP) Fluoride Salt-Cooled High-Temperature Reactor (FHR) (KP-FHR) development and commercialization schedules, the System Analysis Module (SAM), which is an advanced systems code for Generation IV liquid-cooled reactors developed at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), has been selected as the basis for the development of the KP-FHR systems code KP-SAM. This allows for an accelerated joint development effort between the KP and ANL teams. This paper presents a general overview of the KP-SAM development process, its current status, completed verification, and ongoing validation efforts. KP-SAM development follows the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Evaluation Model Development and Assessment Process framework. SAM is a high-order fully implicit transient systems code written in C++. The SAM software design, major physical models, and Jacobian Free Newton Krylov–based numerical methods are briefly discussed. KP-SAM has matured enough to be used for the unvalidated demonstration safety analysis for the low-power KP-FHR test reactor (Hermes) as part of Preliminary Safety Analysis Report work. By following the guidance of an internal KP-FHR thermal fluid Phenomena Identification and Ranking Table report, some of the most important separate-effects-test validations were completed for the first iteration. A scaled integral-effects test is under detailed design and will be built in 2022 to provide key data to validate KP-SAM for licensing safety analysis.