Generation IV Reactor

Generation IV, or Gen IV, reactors are nuclear reactor designs meant to succeed the current generation III designs, developed under a research program that took shape around 2000 and grouped its most promising directions under six candidate technologies chosen by the Generation IV International Forum: the gas-cooled fast reactor, the lead-cooled fast reactor, the molten salt reactor, the sodium-cooled fast reactor, the supercritical-water-cooled reactor and the very-high-temperature reactor. Three of the six, the very-high-temperature reactor, the molten salt reactor and the supercritical-water-cooled reactor, are thermal-spectrum designs, while the other three, the gas-cooled fast reactor, the sodium-cooled fast reactor and the lead-cooled fast reactor, are fast-spectrum designs. The stated aim of the program is to improve on current reactors across safety, sustainability, economics and proliferation resistance, so Generation IV names a shared research framework and a shortlist of candidate technologies rather than a single reactor design of its own. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/