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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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.
William A. Yingling, Charles J. Bridgman
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 53 | Number 2 | February 1974 | Pages 123-136
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE74-A23338
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new approximation based on continued fractions is defined that yields simple closed-form solutions to the single-velocity time-dependent Boltzmann equation in a homogeneous, isotropic infinite medium. The approximation is developed for an isotropic Green’s function source with both absorption and scatter. The method is based on the development of the complete continued fraction solution of the infinite set of time-dependent P-N equations in transform space. The approximation then consists of truncating the continued fraction after a number of terms, which is shown to be equivalent to the standard P-N approximation; then, unlike the standard P-N approximation, the discarded portion of the continued fraction is replaced with a closed function. For low-order approximations, the result can be successfully inverted, yielding useful closed-form approximate solutions which demonstrate excellent temporal and spatial resolution, particularly near the wave front. Both spherically symmetric and one-dimensional plane geometries are treated. In spherical geometry, the approximation offers a closed-form solution for the time-dependent flux emanating from a point source in a scattering medium such as is of current interest in atmospheric transport studies. In an example presented in this paper, a low-order continued fraction approximation does exhibit a wave front and compares well with a time-dependent numerical calculation (TDA). In plane geometry, the method offers closed-form approximate solutions which may be of interest in the study of neutron waves. An example is presented and compared to a numerical evaluation of an exact solution by Erdmann. The continued fraction approximation compares favorably with Erdmann’s data and can be easily evaluated at positions other than the spatial origin. Finally, in the case of reduction to steady state, the continued fraction approximation predicts fluxes which closely approximate the asymptotic portion of an exact solution presented years ago by Case, de Hoffmann, and Placzek.