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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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.
Adrienne M. LaFleur, William S. Charlton, Howard O. Menlove, Martyn T. Swinhoe
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 171 | Number 3 | July 2012 | Pages 175-191
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE11-40
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new nondestructive assay technique called self-interrogation neutron resonance densitometry (SINRD) is currently being developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory to improve existing nuclear safeguards and material accountability measurements for light water reactor fuel assemblies. The viability of using SINRD to quantify the fissile content (235U and 239Pu) in pressurized water reactor 17 × 17 spent low-enriched uranium and mixed-oxide fuel assemblies in water was investigated via Monte Carlo N-particle extended transport code simulations. SINRD utilizes 244Cm spontaneous fission neutrons to self-interrogate the fuel pins. The amount of resonance absorption of these neutrons in the fuel can be quantified using 235U and 239Pu fission chambers placed adjacent to the assembly. The sensitivity of this technique is based on using the same fissile materials in the fission chambers as are present in the fuel because the effect of resonance absorption lines in the transmitted flux is amplified by the corresponding (n,f) reaction peaks in the fission chamber. SINRD requires calibration with a reference assembly of similar geometry. However, this densitometry method uses ratios of different fission chambers so that most systematic errors related to calibration and positioning cancel in the ratios.
