There has been a substantial resurgence of interest in nuclear power in the United States
over the past few years. One consequence has been a rapid growth in the research
budget of DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE). In light of this growth, the Office of
Management and Budget included within the FY2006 budget request a study by the
National Academy of Sciences to review the NE research programs and recommend
priorities among those programs. The programs to be evaluated were: Nuclear Power

To advance nuclear energy to meet future energy needs, ten countries—Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Republic of South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States—have agreed on a framework for international cooperation in research for a future generation of nuclear energy systems, known as Generation IV. The figure below gives an overview of the generations of nuclear energy systems. The first generation was advanced in the 1950s and 60s in the early prototype reactors.

The world’s population is expected to expand from
about 6 billion people to 10 billion people by the year
2050, all striving for a better quality of life. As the
Earth’s population grows, so will the demand for energy
and the benefits that it brings: improved standards of
living, better health and longer life expectancy, improved
literacy and opportunity, and many others.