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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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.
Charalampos Andreades, Anselmo T. Cisneros, Jae Keun Choi, Alexandre Y. K. Chong, Massimiliano Fratoni, Sea Hong, Lakshana R. Huddar, Kathryn D. Huff, James Kendrick, David L. Krumwiede, Michael R. Laufer, Madicken Munk, Raluca O. Scarlat, Nicolas Zweibaum, Ehud Greenspan, Xin Wang, Per Peterson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 195 | Number 3 | September 2016 | Pages 223-238
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT16-2
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The University of California, Berkeley (UCB), has developed a preconceptual design for a commercial pebble-bed (PB), fluoride salt–cooled, high-temperature reactor (FHR) (PB-FHR). The baseline design for this Mark-I PB-FHR (Mk1) plant is a 236-MW(thermal) reactor. The Mk1 uses a fluoride salt coolant with solid, coated-particle pebble fuel. The Mk1 design differs from earlier FHR designs because it uses a nuclear air-Brayton combined cycle designed to produce 100 MW(electric) of base-load electricity using a modified General Electric 7FB gas turbine. For peak electricity generation, the Mk1 has the ability to boost power output up to 242 MW(electric) using natural gas co-firing. The Mk1 uses direct heating of the power conversion fluid (air) with the primary coolant salt rather than using an intermediate coolant loop. By combining results from computational neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and pebble dynamics, UCB has developed a detailed design of the annular core and other key functional features. Both an active normal shutdown cooling system and a passive, natural-circulation-driven emergency decay heat removal system are included. Computational models of the FHR—validated using experimental data from the literature and from scaled thermal-hydraulic facilities—have led to a set of design criteria and system requirements for the Mk1 to operate safely and reliably. Three-dimensional, computer-aided-design models derived from the Mk1 design criteria are presented.