GIF nations add decade to nuclear research effort

A signing ceremony was held at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Thursday in Paris to extend the Framework Agreement for International Collaboration on Research and Development of Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems for another 10 years.

The Generation IV International Forum has 13 member nations that are signatories of its founding document, the GIF Charter.

The Generation IV International Forum (GIF) is an international co-operative that was set up to carry out the research and development needed to establish the feasibility and performance capabilities for the next generation of nuclear energy systems.

The co-operative was set up in the early 2000s by the U.S. Department of Energy to advance research and development in the design of nuclear energy systems of the future. Since then, GIF has provided the basis for identifying and selecting six nuclear energy systems for development based on a variety of reactor, energy-conversion and fuel-cycle technologies. Their designs include thermal and fast-neutron spectra cores, and closed and open fuel cycles.

Generation IV technologies will be available when viability and performance issues have been ironed out, with commercial models expected to be on the market around 2030-2040.