An agreement has been concluded to renew the Generation IV International Forum, which aims to build on its first 25 years of sharing research and development on innovative nuclear reactor designs. In this episode, William D Magwood IV, Director-General of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, which supports GIF as its Technical Secretariat, explains how the forum came about, how it works, what the key achievements have been so far and what the hopes for the future are.

He says that originally it was expected to be governments and government laboratories taking the lead, but now the private sector is doing it "which is very energising and very exciting". He says a key priority is to facilitate private sector success in the deployment of these technologies, albeit with challenges from working with IP issues across the private and public sector, and looks ahead to some lead countries demonstrating how these technologies can be regulated effectively.

All in all, he believes that the future for nuclear energy "is brighter than it's probably been in history".

In the World Nuclear News round-up Claire Maden reports on what we know so far about the impact on the nuclear sector from the return to the White House of US President Donald Trump, while Warwick Pipe has an update on the French nuclear power programme, following the Flamanville EPR's long-awaited connection to the grid.

Key links to find out more:
World Nuclear News
Gen IV International Forum
Climate and energy in Trump's Day One executive orders
French auditor warns of challenges for EPR2 programme
France's Flamanville EPR starts supplying power

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Episode credit:  Presenter Alex Hunt. Co-produced and mixed by Pixelkisser Production