The IAEA’s school on small modular reactors concluded its first year with a regional workshop in Argentina that brought together regulators, policy makers and international organization representatives from across Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss key aspects of small modular reactor (SMR) development and deployment.
The five-day training formed part of the IAEA’s SMR School initiative, which launched in May with the inaugural workshop held in Kenya. In July, participants from across Asia convened in Thailand for the second edition of the school.
Argentina hosted the workshop in September through the Argentine Nuclear Council, which was recently established to implement the country’s plans for nuclear power expansion. While only three Latin American countries currently operate nuclear power plants – Argentina, Brazil and Mexico – interest in nuclear power is growing in the region, with seven of the world’s newcomer countries located in Central or South America.
“This extremely important meeting brings together no less than ten countries in our region, as well as the Inter-American Development Bank, the Latin American and Caribbean Development Bank, CAF, and the Latin American Energy Organization, or OLADE, important institutions with which we have been working to support this new and exciting development we are seeing in the world and, of course, in our region, around nuclear energy,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said to the participants. “We hope this school enables you to have a more complete, informed, and systematic view of what is happening in the international market.”
Education to bolster preparedness
The school gathered over 50 participants from 10 countries and regional organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean. IAEA staff delivered lectures on SMR technologies, strategic energy planning, nuclear infrastructure, safety, radioactive waste management and legal frameworks. Participants also presented updates on the status of their national nuclear power programmes.
“This activity represents an important milestone for the Dominican Republic in our roadmap toward the implement of nuclear power in our generation mix,” said Gaddis Enrique Corporan Segura, Vice Minister of Nuclear Energy in the Dominican Republic. “It allowed us to learn about the main perspectives and advances of Latin American countries in nuclear power generation. It also helped us narrow the learning curve on the technical, economic and social aspects of SMRs as well as technology development.”
SMRs for a clean energy future
There are currently about 70 SMR designs in active development, though for now only China and Russia have SMRs in commercial operation. The latest IAEA projections have global nuclear capacity increasing by 2.6 times the 2024 level by 2050 in the high case scenario, with SMRs comprising about a quarter of this new capacity.
“The SMR School in Argentina offered Brazil a valuable opportunity to share its perspectives on SMR and microreactor technologies, while engaging with high-level specialists and Member States,” said Nelbia da Silva Lapa of Brazil’s National Nuclear Energy Commission. “Discussions highlighted Brazil’s alignment with the IAEA on regulatory framework updates and raised key issues such as emergency planning zones as well as the potential role of Brazil and Argentina in supporting newcomer countries.”
Participants also visited Argentina’s Atucha Nuclear Power Plant, which entered commercial operation more than 50 years ago, and the construction site for the CAREM, an SMR prototype.
“Nuclear energy, and particularly SMRs, is increasingly recognized as a valid and beneficial alternative for the energy transition in Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Guido Maiulini, Head of Strategic Advisory at OLADE. ““It is very important to take advantage of opportunities such as this workshop to build a regional dialogue on the expectations, challenges and opportunities that this technology represents for our region.”
IAEA Support on SMRs
This school was implemented through the IAEA technical cooperation project ‘Supporting the Development of Comprehensive Energy Plans Considering the Climate, Land, Energy and Water in Latin America and the Caribbean’, an initiative to introduce and implement sustainable energy planning that integrates climate, land use, energy and water considerations in the region.
The SMR School is part of a wider package of IAEA support, including the SMR Platform and the Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative (NHSI), which assist countries in building the infrastructure needed for SMR development, deployment and oversight. Additional SMR Schools are planned for 2026.