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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.
David A. Greene
Nuclear Technology | Volume 14 | Number 3 | June 1972 | Pages 218-231
Technical Paper | Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT72-A31111
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A computer code has been written to predict pressure on the shell side of a steam generator during a large scale sodium-water reaction. A typical pressure transient has two main features. An initial pressure spike is followed by a secondary pressure pulse whose amplitude is a function of the inertia forces governing the growth of the hydrogen bubble. Unlike the primary pressure spike which lasts a very short time, the secondary pulse can last for a long time and must be considered a steady-state pressure acting on the shell. Rupture disks under sodium may not provide an effective means of relieving the secondary pressure pulse unless the sodium-water reaction occurs close enough to the disk to cause its rapid failure. It is concluded that both superheater and evaporator units of a reference steam generator design can withstand the pressure transient associated with the sodium-water reaction resulting from a guillotine failure of a single heat transfer tube.