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Conference Spotlight
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.
Milorad Dusic, Mark Dutton, Horst Glaeser, Joachim Herb, Javier Hortal, Rafael Mendizábal, Fernando Pelayo
Nuclear Technology | Volume 188 | Number 1 | October 2014 | Pages 63-77
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-16
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In 2009 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published “Deterministic Safety Analysis for Nuclear Power Plants Specific Safety Guide,” Specific Safety Guide No. SSG-2 (hereinafter referred to as SSG-2). SSG-2 addresses four options for the application of deterministic safety analyses. Option 1, which has been used since the early days of civil nuclear power and is still used today, uses conservative codes/models and conservative initial and boundary (I&B) conditions. Option 2, which is frequently used worldwide, uses realistic codes/models but with conservative I&B conditions. Option 3 uses realistic codes/models and realistic I&B conditions and therefore needs also to consider the associated uncertainties. Today, option 3 is known as the Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty option. Option 4 is not developed in SSG-2 and only indicates that option 4 is an attempt to combine insights from probabilistic safety analyses with a deterministic approach, which results in a risk-informed safety analysis. In options 1, 2, and 3, the availability of safety systems is based on conservative assumptions, whereas in option 4, the availability of safety systems is derived by probabilistic means. This paper explains in more detail the approach proposed for option 4 and provides illustrative examples for its application, recognizing the fact that option 4 is still a research option and will remain so for some time.
