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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.
Roberto Passalacqua, Didier Tarabelli, Claude Renault
Nuclear Technology | Volume 116 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 283-292
Technical Paper | Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT96-A35284
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Large-scale experiments show that whenever a loss of coolant accident occurs water pools are generated. Stratification of steam-saturated gas develops above growing water pools causing a different thermal hydraulics in the subcompartment where the water pool is located. Hereafter, the LWR Aerosols Containment Experiment (LACE) LA4 experiment, performed at the Hanford Engineering Development Laboratory, will be studied; this experiment exhibited a strong stratification, at all times, above a growing water pool. JERICHO and AEROSOLS-B2 are part of the Ensemble de Systèmes de Codes d’Analyse d’Accident des Réacteurs à Eau (ESCADRE) code system, a tool for evaluating the response of a nuclear plant to severe accidents. These two codes are used here to simulate respectively the thermal hydraulics and the associated aerosol behavior. Code results have shown that modeling large containment thermal hydraulics without taking into account the stratification phenomenon leads to large overpredictions of containment pressure and temperature. If the stratification, above the water pool, is modeled as a zone with a higher steam condensation rate and a higher thermal resistance (that is acting as a barrier to heat exchanges with the upper and larger compartment), ESCADRE predictions match experimental data quite well. The stratification region is believed to be able to affect aerosol behavior; aerosol settling is improved by steam condensation on particles and by diffusiophoresis and thermophoresis. In addition, the lower aerosol concentration throughout the stratification might cause a nonnegligible aerosol concentration gradient and consequently a driving force for the motion of smaller particles toward the pool.