The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) unveiled an interactive map that shows how much spent nuclear fuel is produced around the world and where it sits in the respective countries.
IAEA said in a Monday press release that this tool is the second edition of its Global SNF Inventory, with the first being published in 2019 based on data presented at the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management as infographics.
This new version of the interactive tool is built on data submitted under 2025’s reporting cycle of the Joint Convention, with additional publicly available information. According to the tool, the global amount of spent nuclear fuel is nearly 448,000 tonnes of heavy metal (tHM). Of that total amount, the United States has produced 94,926 tHM, which makes up 21.2% of the world total.
Nearly three quarters of the near 448,000 tHM, about 322,000 tonnes, are in storage and the other quarter, about 126,000 tonnes or 28% of spent nuclear fuel, has been reprocessed.
According to the release, of the global amount, 41% of spent nuclear fuel sits in wet storage, which is mainly the pools that cool spent nuclear fuel after it comes out of the reactor and centralized pools. Another 31% is in dry storage, which are casks, buildings and modular systems used for keeping spent fuel under dry conditions, IAEA said.
Amparo Gonzalez Espartero, the technical lead for the IAEA division of nuclear fuel cycle and waste technology, said that this new tool provides transparency and reachable information for countries exploring spent fuel management approaches.
“By displaying information on worldwide spent fuel inventories in a structured manner, including reprocessed and stored spent fuel in different storage systems, the tool benefits technical analysis, and facilitates informed discussions on long-term spent fuel management strategies among countries and interested stakeholders,” Gonzalez Espartero said.