Category: News Story

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

El Salvador has made significant progress in terms of implementing its National Cancer Control Plan, concluded a team of international experts during a recent imPACT Review mission to the country. To continue leveraging earlier achievements such as the new national law for the prevention, control and care of patients with cancer, however, more work is needed to streamline data collection, harmonize the delivery of diagnostic and therapeutic services across institutions, and reliably estimate costs.

The Review — carried out from February to June 2023 on request of the Salvadoran Ministry of Health – included a week-long field programme and resulted in a comprehensive set of tailor-made recommendations based on existing cancer control efforts in the country and in line with international quality and safety standards.

Among its population of 6.5 million, El Salvador reports over 9600 new cancer cases annually, primarily of the prostate and breast. The country’s public health system provides full coverage of its services to such patients, who are typically referred to one of three national hospitals — Benjamin Bloom, Nacional de la Mujer and Rosales.

“The IAEA’s technical cooperation program with El Salvador has been instrumental to support the strengthening of cancer prevention and control initiated by the Government after the imPACT Review in 2015. Therefore, we gladly welcome this important tool, which gives us the opportunity to periodically evaluate the progress made and to develop new strategies adapted to the capacities and needs of the country,” said Adriana Mira, Vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador.

The Ministry of Health facilitated visits by the international imPACT team — comprising 11 cancer professionals appointed by IAEA, WHO-PAHO and IARC — to 18 hospitals and health clinics. This included a field trip to the regional hospital of Santa Ana and meeting more than 100 national health professionals as part of the Review.

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

The IAEA and the Centre for Ion Beam Applications (CIBA) at the National University of Singapore have agreed to carry out joint work on enhancing the use of accelerator science and technologies in multi-disciplinary applications, ranging from materials science and cultural heritage to cancer care. This is the first IAEA Collaborating Centre in the Southeast Asian country.

With a new agreement signed this week, the Agency has designated CIBA as an IAEA Collaborating Centre until 2027. CIBA’s core facility is an ion beam accelerator, which is used for multi-disciplinary research. CIBA can produce highly energetic (MeV) proton and alpha beams. By using a cutting-edge nano-focusing system developed by CIBA, it recently produced beam spot sizes as small as 10 nm, which has not been achieved anywhere else in the world. A strand of hair is around 100 000 nm wide.

“The IAEA values CIBA’s innovative approaches to research and development, as well as its unparalleled research infrastructure for developing new technologies based on fast ions,” said Najat Mokhtar, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications. “We have already been working together for several years in the fields of materials science, quantum science, cultural heritage and forensic sciences. I am really pleased that we are taking our cooperation to the next level.”

By exploring materials composition and properties down to the atomic level with fast ions from accelerators, experts can study and develop new materials for green technologies, such as improved photovoltaic cells for solar energy conversion and advanced hydrogen-evolution processes for energy storage. The new Collaborating Centre will also use accelerator-based techniques to determine the origin and authenticity of, for example, food packaging, food supplements, toys and their packing materials with the aim of increasing public awareness and safety.

“The designation of CIBA as an IAEA Collaborating Centre is a testament to our researchers’ quality innovations and expertise”, said Professor Koh Lian Pin, Vice Dean for Research and Development in the Faculty of Science at National University of Singapore. “The Collaborating Centre will investigate highly relevant research topics, from materials science to radiobiology, using accelerator-based technologies. We look forward to working with the IAEA to spur knowledge transfer and capacity building through local, regional and global research partnerships to develop solutions to real-world problems.”

CIBA’s nuclear microscopy beamline can detect elements down to the level of parts per million and visualize their distributions with sub-micrometre resolutions. These capabilities will be used to investigate the composition, structure, origin of materials and the techniques used to create cultural heritage objects. This is highly relevant in Singapore because the city was and is a trading hub in the Asia-Pacific region. This work will be done in collaboration with the Singapore Synchrotron Light Source and the National Heritage Board of Singapore. As part of this new Collaborating Centre programme, the first session of a new IAEA Webinar series on Nuclear Analytical Techniques for World Heritage will be hosted in Singapore on 3 October 2023.

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

Many of the benefits of SMRs are inherently linked to the nature of their design – small and modular. Given their smaller footprint, SMRs can be sited on locations not suitable for larger nuclear power plants. Prefabricated units of SMRs can be manufactured and then shipped and installed on site, making them more affordable to build than large power reactors, which are often custom designed for a particular location, sometimes leading to construction delays. SMRs offer savings in cost and construction time, and they can be deployed incrementally to match increasing energy demand.

One of the challenges to accelerating access to energy is infrastructure – limited grid coverage in rural areas – and the costs of grid connection for rural electrification. A single power plant should represent no more than 10 per cent of the total installed grid capacity. In areas lacking sufficient lines of transmission and grid capacity, SMRs can be installed into an existing grid or remotely off-grid, as a function of its smaller electrical output, providing low-carbon power for industry and the population. This is particularly relevant for microreactors, which are a subset of SMRs designed to generate electrical power typically up to 10 MW(e). Microreactors have smaller footprints than other SMRs and will be better suited for regions inaccessible to clean, reliable and affordable energy. Furthermore, microreactors could serve as a backup power supply in emergency situations or replace power generators that are often fuelled by diesel, for example, in rural communities or remote businesses.

In comparison to existing reactors, proposed SMR designs are generally simpler, and the safety concept for SMRs often relies more on passive systems and inherent safety characteristics of the reactor, such as low power and operating pressure. This means that in such cases no human intervention or external power or force is required to shut down systems, because passive systems rely on physical phenomena, such as natural circulation, convection, gravity and self-pressurization. These increased safety margins, in some cases, eliminate or significantly lower the potential for unsafe releases of radioactivity to the environment and the public in case of an accident.

SMRs have reduced fuel requirements. Power plants based on SMRs may require less frequent refuelling, every 3 to 7 years, in comparison to between 1 and 2 years for conventional plants. Some SMRs are designed to operate for up to 30 years without refuelling.

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

The IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi began his opening address to the IAEA’s Board of Governors by pledging support to the victims of Friday’s devastating earthquake in Morocco. He promised a quick IAEA response to provide technical assistance to the country.

Fukushima Daiichi ALPS Water Release

Mr Grossi updated the Board on the controlled release of ALPS-treated water into the sea from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, which Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the Plant’s operator, began last month.

IAEA experts have assisted in ensuring the relevant international safety standards continue to be applied by sampling the treated water before release. Japan also requested assistance from the IAEA to monitor the seawater after the treated water began to be released on 24 August. Mr Grossi stated he was happy to note that the independent sampling and monitoring from the Agency has confirmed that the levels of tritium in the discharged water are below Japan’s operational limit and said the IAEA would continue to monitor the seawater.

The Agency is also providing continuous live data from Japan on the release of treated water.

Nuclear safety, security and safeguards in Ukraine

Mr Grossi reiterated his support for nuclear safety and security in Ukraine, speaking of the five main principles he outlined at the United Nations Security Council in May, and urging that these continue to be observed. Mr Grossi also highlighted the 53 missions the IAEA has carried out since 31 August 2022, including to all five nuclear sites in Ukraine. 

It has been just over a year since the IAEA established a team of experts and inspectors at Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. In June the Director General led a mission to assess how damage of the Kakhovka dam is impacting safety at the plant. However, the overall situation at the facility remains highly precarious, and in the past week, IAEA experts based at the plant have heard numerous explosions, in a possible sign of increased military activity in the region that could also pose a potential threat to nuclear safety and security at the site.

“It is the increase of military activity around the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant that worries us the most,” he told the 35-member Board “The possibility of a nuclear accident with serious radiological consequences continues to be a reality, and we hope this will not happen.”

In addition to programmes supporting nuclear safety and security, the Director General said the IAEA was also providing technical assistance in Kherson Oblast province, in response to flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.

Verification and monitoring in Iran

The Director General presented his latest reports on verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran. He updated the Board on how cooperation with Iran is progressing, following the joint statement by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the IAEA in March and regrets no further progress has been made.

“Of course, our work with our colleagues from the Islamic Republic of Iran continues … I hope to do better,” he said “And our Iranian colleagues know that. So, we will continue working together, trying to go faster and better and deeper in this important and indispensable area.”

Nuclear solutions for global challenges

The IAEA continues to assist countries in addressing some of their most pressing development challenges through peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology.

Mr Grossi announced the IAEA is launching a new initiative, Atoms4Food, aimed at supporting Member States in increasing food production, food safety, agricultural planning, and nutrition programming, using nuclear and isotopic techniques. This will involve working closely with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Continuing on the theme of the IAEA’s technical cooperation programme, which includes almost 150 Member States, Mr Grossi spoke of recent successes in the IAEA’s Rays of Hope initiative, which has helped widen access to cancer care in Benin, Chad, Kenya, Malawi and Niger, and citing a major milestone in Botswana, which opened its first public radiotherapy centre in July, with IAEA support.

He also referred to the NUTEC plastic initiative, which is helping countries in Latin America, Asia and the Pacific address the global challenge of plastic production. He spoke about the Zoonotic Disease Integrated Action’s (ZODIAC) initiative, aimed at helping prevent pandemics from diseases that pass from animals to humans.

In relation to the energy and climate crisis, Mr Grossi highlighted the efforts to harmonize regulatory approaches and standardize industry approached through the IAEA’s Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative (NHSI), which will support the timely deployment of safe and secure small modular reactors.

Next month, the IAEA plans to launch the IAEA World Fusion Outlook at the 29th International Fusion Energy Conference, which will become the global reference for authoritative information and foster international cooperation and knowledge sharing regarding the latest developments in fusion energy.

Nuclear Security Training and Demonstration Centre

Another new development is the opening of the IAEA’s Nuclear Security Training and Development Centre on 3 October, which Mr Grossi described as “the first truly international centre of capacity building in the area of nuclear security”. The new centre will help strengthen countries’ abilities to tackle nuclear terrorism, by providing

advanced training in the physical protection of nuclear and other radioactive materials and facilities, detection of and response to criminal and intentional unauthorized acts, nuclear forensics and preparation for major public events implementing nuclear security measures.

Closing the gender gap in nuclear

Mr Grossi concluded his statement by celebrating gender equality initiatives such as the IAEA’s flagship Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme, which aims to support the next generation of women nuclear professionals through scholarships and internships. Mr Grossi said the programme would soon award scholarships to 200 women engaged in nuclear related master’s programmes, bringing the total number of fellows to more than 500. In terms of the Lise Meitner Programme for early- and mid-career women professionals, he said the first cohort had their first round of professional visits in the United States. It is hoped more countries will come forward to host LMP professional visits in future.

He said: “My promise, my commitment to get to gender parity [at the IAEA] by 2025 is still on. We have reached and gone above the 43 per cent line. I’m very happy to announce this.”

The Board of Governors is meeting at the IAEA’s headquarters in Vienna from 11-15 September.

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

Khreis’s first mentor was her father. He was a school principal who fostered a supportive academic environment at home. “He always gave me the same opportunities as my brothers. He strived to help me develop skills applicable to any discipline, such as critical thinking, analysis and self-expression,” she said. “He made me who I am.”

As in many STEM fields, there were few women studying technology at her university, and Khreis was frequently the only woman in her class. “It was often challenging, but I would just become more determined, and this made me stronger,” she recalls.

After a few years working in the private sector in Lebanon, Khreis moved to Austria where she had her first professional experience in an international organization as an IT Consultant at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). She embraced the multicultural environment.  

Motivated by the IAEA’s impact on many aspects of people’s lives, Khreis joined the Agency in 1998 as IT Coordinator and Project Manager. Later, as IT Service Manager and then Unit Head of IT Services Design, she worked on the implementation of IT service management best practices to support Agency staff. In 2014, she became Head of the Client Services Section, a position she held for ten years. “Through this role, I had the privilege of working directly with all departments to understand their needs and decide how to best serve them,” she said.

Today, Khreis manages 120 staff and leads the use of digital capabilities at the IAEA to add value through IT. Khreis describes her role as “an enabler, leveraging technology to enable business outcomes and to drive operational efficiency.” By collaborating closely with colleagues across the organization, she uses her understanding of their specific needs to ensure that IT investments are aligned with the organization’s strategic goals. “My aim is to make a difference to the Agency’s work by understanding how we can support stakeholders from an IT perspective to do their work more easily and more efficiently, to enable them to be more effective in what they do,” she said.

Going forward, Khreis aims to identify areas where digital transformation initiatives and innovation can further enhance work processes and overall efficiency, focusing on areas such as artificial intelligence, data management, analytics, visualization and decision making capabilities.

When asked about her professional achievements so far, she said, “Being the IAEA’s first woman Chief Information Officer and Director of Information Technology is a great achievement, and I am also particularly proud of having built highly motivated teams throughout my career.”

Khreis attributes much of her career success to her persistence and the ability to recognize opportunities. In her view, a supportive environment for women depends very much on an organization’s leadership and policies that support gender equality, diversity and the elimination of bias. “I truly believe that diversity creates excellence,” she said.

Khreis advocates for girls and young women to pursue studies in IT and believes this needs to start at home by encouraging them to explore scientific fields and building confidence in their abilities with a ‘you can do it’ attitude. “Women have always faced challenges in STEM-related fields, and that includes women in IT,” she said. Khreis coaches younger colleagues and regularly promotes the field through IT workshops for 11- to 16-year-old girls during the annual Vienna Daughters’ Day event.

Khreis’s advice to young women beginning their professional journey in this evolving field is to “embrace your passion and be resilient. Obstacles and setbacks are natural in any career, but don’t let anyone stop you. Be confident and remember that challenges often create great opportunities.”

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

The IAEA, through its Rays of Hope initiative, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, through its Global Alliance, are exploring ways to work together to save children’s lives through access to quality radiotherapy and diagnostic imaging. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi and James R Downing, President and CEO of St. Jude, signed a letter of intent on 14 August to establish a partnership on expanding access to radiotherapy for childhood cancer.  

“Many children around the world do not have access to cancer care simply because of where they live, and we can change that,” Mr Grossi said. “We are proud to be working together with St. Jude, a global leader in the research and treatment of childhood cancer and other life-threatening paediatric diseases.”

St. Jude was established in 1962, and since then, the hospital has helped to improve childhood cancer survival rate from 20 per cent to 80 per cent in the United States of America.

“The mission of St. Jude is to advance cures and means of prevention for paediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment,” Dr Downing said. “To accomplish this in low- and middle-income settings will require increasing access to diagnostics imaging and radiation oncology. Working collaboratively with IAEA through their Rays of Hope initiative, we will accelerate the implementation of these modalities into the treatment plan for children everywhere.”

Around the world, an estimated 400 000 children and adolescents develop cancer each year. Nearly 90 per cent of these children live in low- and middle- income countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Survival in these countries is less than 30 per cent, compared with 80 per cent in high-income countries.

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

Women from around the world took part in an International School on Nuclear Security at the IAEA in August. It was the fourth time the school had hosted fellows from the IAEA Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme (MSCFP) since the launch of the programme in 2020. The MSCFP aims to support the next generation of women leaders in the nuclear field through scholarships, internships, and training and networking opportunities.

“This is a unique programme introducing nuclear security to participants,” said Marina Labyntseva, Head of the Education and Training Development Unit in the IAEA Division of Nuclear Security. “Through a series of lectures, demonstrations and practical exercises, participants learned about the national nuclear security regimes, and what prevention, detection and response to nuclear security threats actually means.”

Within the last three years, a total of 169 MSCFP recipients from various educational backgrounds in the field of nuclear science and technology have participated in the school. This year, 56 fellows from 46 countries attended the school, both in person and virtually.

The school is designed to provide participants with a fundamental knowledge of nuclear security, and was co-funded by the European Union and the United States of America.

“As a nuclear engineering student, I have mainly focused on technical aspects of my studies and work. However, attending the school has taught me about the broader significance of nuclear security. I am now intrigued to learn more on nuclear security,” said Razia Nushrat from Bangladesh.

Throughout the two week programme from 31 July to 10 August, the fellows attended a series of training activities that paired informative lectures with hands-on demonstrations. For example, by using virtual reality tools to explore a 3D model of a nuclear facility, the fellows simulated responses to nuclear security threats. The participants also visited the IAEA Nuclear Security Detection and Monitoring Equipment Laboratory and the Incident and Emergency Centre.

“I have learned that a multidisciplinary and integrated approach is necessary for nuclear security,” said Adriana Jiménez Amorós, MSCFP fellow from Bolivia, adding that “the school helped me clarify multiple concepts used in the nuclear field.”

An integral component of the school was to bridge the gap between education, training and professional networking in the field of nuclear security. To this end, the school’s programme included a high level panel discussion on empowering and inspiring youth to lead in the nuclear sector and a Women in Nuclear Security Initiative panel discussion on the importance of gender equality and diversity in nuclear security.

“As someone who was involved in the engineering side of the nuclear industry, it was very enriching to be able to converse with highly qualified specialists with different expertise,” said Manal El Abidi, a participant from Morocco. “The nuclear security school gave me access to relevant opportunities for future training and mentorship.”

Promoting gender equality in the nuclear field

The IAEA is committed to providing early and mid-career women professionals with opportunities to advance their technical and leadership skills through programmes such as the Lise Meitner Programme and the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme.

The IAEA’s Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme provides financial support for women enrolled in master’s programmes in the nuclear field. You can apply for the 2023 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme here until 30 September.

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi descended deep underground in coastal Sweden this week to study the Nordic nation’s advanced preparations to store its spent nuclear fuel safely and securely for many thousands of years, saying they demonstrated the availability of technical solutions for managing such used radioactive material at a time of growing global interest in nuclear energy. 

On the third day and final day of his official visit to Sweden, Director General Grossi travelled to the country’s south-east yesterday to visit the Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory 500 metres below ground, located on an island north of the town of Oskarshamn and near one of its nuclear power plants. Sweden has six reactors generating nearly a third of its electricity but is planning to build more.

At the laboratory, the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) has for decades been carrying out cutting-edge geological research in realistic conditions for the planned construction – at the Forsmark site further north – of a final repository for thousands of tonnes of spent fuel generated by Sweden’s nuclear industry over the past half century.

The Swedish government has approved the plan and SKB – owned by the nuclear plant operators – aims for the facility to be operational in the 2030s. In neighbouring Finland, the nuclear fuel repository at Onkalo is expected begin operating in the next few years. Both will use the KBS-3 method largely developed at the Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory and the nearby Canister Laboratory, which Director General Grossi also visited yesterday.

The method is based on three protective barriers: copper canisters, bentonite clay and bedrock. Once the final repository stands ready, the spent fuel – currently stored in an interim facility in Oskarshamn – will be encapsulated in copper canisters and transported by sea to Forsmark, where they will be placed in tunnels half a kilometre underground.

“More countries around the world are planning to introduce nuclear power or – like Sweden – expand existing programmes to fight climate change and ensure energy security. In this context, it is very important that people know that the spent fuel and radioactive waste the nuclear sector is generating is managed in a sustainable and responsible way,” Director General Grossi said.

“Countries like Sweden and Finland – with decades of nuclear power experience – are leading the way on how to do it, also ensuring that the local communities hosting the sites are engaged, informed and in favour of these important projects,” Director General Grossi said.

Opinion polls cited by SKB show that a large majority in the municipalities that will host the final repository and the associated encapsulation plant support the construction of these facilities.

“Few industries are investing as much time and resources in taking care of its waste as the nuclear sector. Engaging with local stakeholders is key in this context. Without local backing, it would be very difficult to pursue the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel. Sweden is showing it is possible to gain the confidence of the local communities, which is very important,” he said.

Director General Grossi said the work carried out at the two laboratories was a “magnet” for international interest and indicated that the IAEA would step up its cooperation with the facilities so that other countries could benefit from their expertise and experience.

“I’m very impressed and encouraged by what I saw here,” he said.