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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.
J. T. Mihalczo
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 53 | Number 4 | April 1974 | Pages 393-414
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE74-5
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Cross-correlation measurements between the pulses from an ionization counter containing a 252Cf neutron source, which provided the initiators of fission chains in a neutron-multiplying assembly, and the pulses from a detector observing the particles from the fission chains leaking from the assembly were performed for unmoderated and polyethylene-moderated uranium (∼93 wt% 235U)-metal cylindrical assemblies with uranium masses varying from 12 to 160 kg and with prompt-neu-tron decay constants varying from 3 × 103 to 108 sec-1. The applicability of this randomly pulsed neutron method with 252Cf as the neutron source for the determination of the prompt-neutron decay in plutonium was investigated in experiments with unmoderated plutonium-metal assemblies with masses varying from 2.2 to 16 kg and with spontaneous fission rates from 240Pu varying from 4.5 × 104 to 8.2 × 105 fiss/sec. These assemblies included spheres and parts of spheres of plutonium with 4.5 or 20.1 at.% 240Pu. The ratio of the correlated count rate in the randomly pulsed neutron method to that in a Rossi-α method is inversely proportional to the detector efficiency and was as large as 8000 for some assemblies where both measurements were made. Thus, the randomly pulsed neutron method allowed the determination of the prompt-neutron decay without the use of a complicated pulsed-neutron source where the Rossi-α method was not practical. In assemblies for which Rossi-α measurements were also made, the prompt-neutron decay constant agreed within the precision (<1%) of the measurements with those obtained in much less time by this technique. Since the prompt-neutron decay can also be determined for plutonium-metal assemblies with ∼20 at.% 240Pu, using a californium source as small as 3000 fiss/sec, this technique can be used for the subcriticality determination for both unreflected and unmoderated uranium (93.2)- or plutonium-metal assemblies.
