ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the promising steps now being taken around the world in pursuit of innovative nuclear technologies suitable for development and application to the electricity generation demands of the twenty first century. It includes in an extensive list are recent advances in thorium-based nuclear energy technologies, and the six proposed Generation IV nuclear reactor technologies now under international study for deployment over the next 30 years. All six new generation designs offer significant advances in environmental sustainability, economic viability, reliability and safety, and weapon proliferation resistance. The chapter outlines the evolutionary pathways along which nuclear energy's scientific and technological advances have resulted in their present mature state, as well as providing the jumping off point for an incremental nuclear renaissance with critically important scientific and engineering foundations. The detail of nuclear fuel cycle management may seem somewhat arcane in the context of the wide sweep of factors influencing the successful introduction of enhanced existing nuclear reactor technologies.
