Nuclear energy has a “communication problem.” That’s according to the U.S. energy firm, X-Energy. For years, the industry has covered its best ideas behind complicated jargon that only scientists understand. Many of the terms used today are academic shorthand from old research papers, and they fail to appropriately explain the technical advancements.
One of the most common labels you’ll hear, according to X-Energy, is “Generation IV.” The company’s goal is to move past the complex “paper reactor” talk and focus on how this tech actually works in the real world.
What does “Gen IV” Mean?
The term was created in the early 2000s by an international group to group together different advanced reactor concepts. It wasn’t meant to describe a product you could buy off a shelf. Instead, it was a list of goals for the future, like making reactors more efficient, improving safety through basic physics, and creating less waste.
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The framework identified six specific types of reactors to study, ranging from those cooled by liquid lead or salt to others using high-pressure water. Most of these designs are still in the experimental phase. However, one specific type, the High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR), is much further along. While other concepts are still being tested, HTGRs have decades of data from previous plants that operated as far back as the 1960s.
Putting the Tech to Work
The Xe-100 is a commercial system that takes those high-temperature gas-cooled principles and turns them into something ready to build. It uses a modular design, which makes it easier to deploy than the massive plants of the past.
Instead of relying on complicated mechanical backups or human operators to stay safe, these advanced reactors use “intrinsic safety.” This means the safety is built into the materials themselves. The Xe-100 uses meltdown-resistant TRISO-X fuel and passive cooling. If something goes wrong, the physics of the reactor naturally shuts it down without needing electricity or pumps to keep things cool. It’s a practical step forward that proves “Generation IV” is finally moving out of the lab and into the power grid.
