Nuclear Energy - A New Generation Of Nuclear Plants?

In January 2000 the United States entered into a collaboration with international partners on nuclear energy. Formally chartered in 2001, the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) is a group of leading nuclear nations that agree that nuclear energy is important to future world energy security and economic prosperity. These countries are dedicated to joint development of the "next generation" of nuclear energy systems. Members of GIF are the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, the Republic of Korea, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

The GIF countries have selected six nuclear power technologies to develop for the future. These "Generation IV" nuclear energy systems would follow the three other periods of nuclear reactor development: (a) Generation I experimental reactors developed in the 1950s and 1960s; (b) Generation II large, central-station nuclear power reactors, such as the 104 plants still operating in the United States, built in the 1970s and 1980s; and (c) Generation III advanced light-water reactors built in the 1990s, primarily in East Asia, to meet that region's expanding electricity needs.

In 2003 GIF examined more than one hundred reactor concepts and identified nineteen as potentially viable. One new concept, the advanced high-temperature reactor (AHTR), may reduce electricity production costs and may be able to produce hydrogen. GIF research and development began in 2004.