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.