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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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.
Yigal Ronen
Nuclear Technology | Volume 46 | Number 1 | November 1979 | Pages 53-60
Technical Paper | Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A32379
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Light water reactors can be refueled with natural uranium and plutonium. When the plutonium provides less than one-half of the fissions, the plutonium fissile inventory ratio will be greater than unity. Therefore, a self-sustained system is obtained. The burnup that can be obtained by this refueling method is ∼4000 MWd/ton. A doubling of the fuel lifetime is obtained (∼8000 MWd/ton) when the spectral shift control method is adopted.
