China leeps forward in nuclear reactor technology

crazyinsane105

Junior Member
VIP Professional
Wow! It seems like when most of the nuclear research in America and Europe ended after the Cold War, China took the opportunity and is probably now ahead in nuke technology (in respect to civilian nuclear reactors)!!! I won't be surprised if the US starts to buy Chinese nuclear reactors within the next several years.:china:


China Leaps Forward
The people's republic is embarking on the world's biggest nuclear building spree.

BY SARAH SCHAFER
Newsweek International

Feb. 6, 2006 issue - American businessman Edwin deSteiguer Snead went to China seeking a future for nuclear energy. He's pretty sure he found it. On a recent bitterly cold day, Snead took a ride out to a military zone northwest of Beijing, not far from one of the most well-known sections of China's Great Wall. In the spartan lobby of an unassuming concrete office building that contains the control center of a nuclear reactor, Snead studied a model of the reactor, housed in a hillside at the site. Nuclear scientist Chang Wei pointed at the model, which looked like a basement furnace split down the middle, and explained how the design—including 27,000 balls of uranium wrapped in layers of super-strong silicon carbide, ceramic material and graphite—makes it physically impossible for the reactor to do anything but shut down if something goes wrong; the dangerous uranium would be trapped inside the spheres, which have a melting point much higher than the temperature inside the reactor could ever reach.
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"So let me see if I can describe it in Texas English," said Snead, 76, an entrepreneur who hopes to build a nuclear power plant on 55 acres in Texas. "There's no way it can explode or melt?"

Chang nodded in the affirmative. She went on to explain how the design requires only a fraction of the control-room staff a more conventional reactor would need. Snead, apparently impressed, exclaimed that this newfangled Chinese technology may be the key to assuaging the nuclear fears of Americans. He wants to go back and sell the idea to Texas A&M University or another school willing to back a research center. "I think the Americans will be buying nuclear plants from China within five years," he said.

While experts in the United States and Europe talk about reviving plans for nuclear power, China, as in so many other fields, is racing ahead. The so-called pebblebed technology behind the Beijing test plant originated in Germany more than three decades ago, and the U.S. nuclear-power industry also pursued it. But when public opposition to nuclear energy forced those countries to curtail nuclear research in the 1980s, Beijing took over. China expects to complete a small commercial plant, which will produce 195 megawatts of electricity, within five years in the eastern province of Shandong. Huaneng Power, one of the country's largest electricity companies, is ponying up about half the $300 million price tag. What makes the pebblebed technology so important is its fail-safe design—it would not be possible for the reactor to melt down or explode like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. The uranium in each sphere can't get hot enough to melt the casing and escape. Also, the main coolant for the system is inert helium, not water, as is used in other types of reactors (water, of course, contains oxygen, which is combustible). As global warming and politics render the world's reliance on fossil fuels problematic, China may in a few short years hold the key to a renaissance in nuclear power.

And the pebblebed reactor is only a small part of China's nuclear ambitions. In the past few years, Beijing has embarked on the boldest nuclear-energy plan since the one orchestrated by the United States in the 1970s. Chinese leaders recognize that their reliance on fossil fuels—about 80 percent of China's energy comes from coal—is unsustainable. Nuclear power has thus become an essential part of their plan to prevent an energy and environmental crisis. China intends to increase its output of nuclear power at least fourfold by 2020, from 8,700 to 36,000 megawatts. That will require building up to three reactors a year until then. So far, Beijing has committed $50 billion toward construction. China will soon add two more reactors to the nine it already has running. At least 16 provinces and municipalities plan to build nuclear power plants. The goal is to derive at least 4 percent of the country's energy from nuclear power in 15 years. Although that's far behind today's world average of 16 percent, it will amount to the biggest nuclear-construction binge the world has seen in decades. Already, China's enthusiasm for nuclear power is helping rekindle interest among countries that had abandoned their own programs (following story).

China is positioned to leapfrog the world in nuclear power precisely because it entered the race late. Until now, the country has built a hodgepodge of reactors with different technologies and safety features. But recently top leaders decided to build a newer infrastructure virtually from scratch based on the most advanced, and safest, technologies. Although the pebble-bed reactor is not yet ready for prime time, the government is buying equipment and designs that have never been built before. China plans to choose one design of three submitted by Areva of France, Atomstroyexport of Russia and Westinghouse Electric for an $8 billion program to build reactors in the eastern province of Zhejiang. (Some industry experts say Areva will probably win, especially since the Chinese government may bristle at the recent takeover bid by Japan's Toshiba on Westinghouse.) The Chinese plan to work closely with the winner to learn how to design and operate the reactors. The goal is to use this technology as the basis for subsequent Chinese plants.

The ultimate goal is to improve China's own design and construction capabilities so it will not have to rely on foreigners to build and operate the country's reactors. Eventually, Beijing hopes to export some of its own expertise in the construction and operation of plants, ultimately contributing power-plant designs as well. Its contracts with foreign firms are thus structured to maximize technology sharing. In fact, Beijing recently delayed awarding the Zhejiang contract in part to squeeze even more concessions from the bidders (as well as to get a better price): the Westinghouse technology, for example, uses state-of-the-art passive safety design, which China's engineers hope to learn. The Chinese leadership is expected to announce soon a sharp increase in plans for research in nuclear reactors. "I think that, unfortunately, in the U.S. we've lost our market leadership," says Andrew Kadak, a professor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's nuclear-science and engineering department who has worked on joint programs with the Chinese. "We're going to be watching how emerging nations of the world, such as China and South Africa, do with these technologies and perhaps follow them, which is sad to say."

The most likely technology to export, of course, is the pebblebed reactor. All reactors, including the pebblebed, use uranium fuel to produce heat that is used to turn electrical turbines. In conventional so-called light-water reactors, the heat is generated by thousands of fixed metallic rods, which require elaborate cooling systems to keep them from overheating and backup cooling systems in case the primary ones fail. Furthermore, a conventional reactor must be housed in a concrete containment vessel to mitigate damage in case it overheats. In the pebblebed reactor,thousands of tennis-ball-size spheres coated in layers of silicon carbide, ceramic material and graphite each contain thousands of granules of the fuel, uranium dioxide. Because the pebbles dissipate heat so efficiently, say the designers, the fuel inside them couldn't possibly get hot enough to penetrate the graphite casing. The pebble-bed reactor, in fact, doesn't even have a containment vessel. Another advantage of pebblebeds is that it's easier to make small plants and put them up quickly, which lends itself to China's plan of spreading plants around the hinterlands. Extracting fuel from pebblebed reactors to use for weapons would be difficult and expensive.

Engineers at the research facility outside Beijing are working to create a next-generation version that will use helium as a coolant, rather than water. The facility is run by the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology of Beijing's Tsinghua University (with cooperation from MIT) and Chinergy, a company owned in part by the institute and partly by the state-owned China Nuclear Engineering Group. The only other country actively working on a commercial pebblebed reactor is South Africa, but the project has faced delays due to pressure from environmentalists; many experts expect China, which keeps its greens on a short leash, to finish first. Other countries are interested in the technology because one of its byproducts is hydrogen, a potential energy source.

Some experts worry that Beijing's grand plan could founder over political turf battles. For one thing, it's not certain that the large electric-power utilities will buy into the central government's vision. Even though nuclear power has strong political support from the leadership, the state-owned utilities are mostly con—trolled by provincial and local governments, many of which are poor and would prefer cheaper sources of energy. Some provincial officials also have ties to traditional energy companies.

Construction and contract delays could also scuttle China's ambitions, forcing authorities to resort to using older reactor technologies it can put up quickly. Many have fewer automatic-safety features and therefore are more vulnerable to human error. And using many different technologies would both preclude the economies of scale that make construction cheaper and operation safer, and slow the anticipated blistering pace of construction. "If you have one type of reactor, you can give very clear management procedures to reduce risk," says Wang Yi, assistant director for the Institute of Policy and Management at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "China already has so many types of reactors that it could cause problems in the future."

Safety is also a growing concern. For one thing, experts such as Wang claim that Beijing does not have a clear strategy for dealing with spent fuel. The country has a spent-fuel storage facility that could eventually hold up to about 1,100 tons. There is also a pilot reprocessing plant in the works, but Beijing has no comprehensive plan to handle the waste from all the plants it's building; that could reach 3,800 tons by 2010, according to the World Nuclear Association. As Chinese grow more environmentally aware, they may balk at the idea of storage facilities in their backyards.

Indeed, even if China avoids accidents, a growing domestic environmental movement could slow its nuclear-energy strategy. Twenty years after the disaster at Chernobyl and nearly 30 years since the Three Mile Island incident, leaders such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Australian Prime Minister John Howard and U.S. President George W. Bush have only recently begun to suggest the possibility of re-examining nuclear energy. The Chinese government has been careful to treat its pursuit of nuclear energy as a potential boon to the economy and a source of nationalism. It has also discouraged public debate of the risks. Towns with reactors advertise them as though they were national treasures. On the road to the Qinshan nuclear power plant in Zhejiang province, for example, visitors are welcomed with propaganda. construct nuclear power, make the people wealthy, reads one sign. But environmental activism is catching on in China, as witnessed by the public outcry over the toxic chemical spill in the Songhua River.

Even if the nuclear strategy is a runaway success, it won't come close to solving China's energy problems. Demand far surpasses supply—in large part because Chinese companies are notoriously inefficient energy consumers. China is quickly running out of raw materials, such as coal, while demand for electricity has seen double-digit growth for more than three years. Renewable-energy sources won't come close to meeting China's needs. But that only fuels the urgency Chinese officials express when discussing the nuclear boom. "We need every type of energy," says Zhang Zuoyi, head of the institute that helps run the pebblebed test reactor. "We are hungry." China's leaders won't listen to naysayers. They can't afford to.

With Duncan Hewitt in Zhejiang
 

sumdud

Senior Member
VIP Professional
Umm, Crazy, do you happen to have the site for this data? Or the drawing of the powerplant? I am interested. :D

(Maybe this is the same AGR that will be put into the type 93. ;-) )
 

adeptitus

Captain
VIP Professional
I'd like to note that Western Europe is heavily dependent on nuclear power, and the US did not stop nuclear research. But, building new civilian nuclear power plants is very difficult under current political environment.

Here in California, we had a really sour experience with nuclear power at Diablo Canyon site. First, PG&E failed to identify an earthquake fault directly under the powerplant site, then their engineers read the blueprints backwards.

The nuclear power plant was built, then torn down and rebuilt twice before it passed safety standards. Needless to say we're kinda wary of nuclear power these days.
 

vincelee

Junior Member
you know, if China is so much ahead, why are they asking Westinghouse and other Western companies to construct nuke plants in China?
 

Defense

New Member
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SHANGHAI, China -- China's reliance on nuclear energy is bound to grow, with new atomic power plants likely even in inland areas, industry experts said Tuesday, stressing Beijing's keenness to develop competitive technologies of its own.

Embarking on an aggressive expansion of nuclear power, China has announced plans to add 40 new nuclear generators by 2020, raising the share of electricity generated by atomic power to 6 percent of the total from the current 2 percent.

The aim is to reduce reliance on heavily polluting coal, which is used to generate two-thirds of China's electricity. Most of the nuclear facilities planned so far are expansions of existing facilities or new projects in eastern and southern coastal areas, where coal is relatively expensive.

But northern and inland provinces are also eager to develop nuclear power, Shen Wenquan, deputy chief of the science and technology committee of China National Nuclear Power Corp., told a conference in Shanghai.

"Nuclear power development is a must for China, especially in coastal areas," Shen said.

"In the hinterland, Sichuan has also proposed a project and we have rendered our full support to that," he added. "I think there will be a necessary transition of plants from the coasts to the inland areas of China."

Possible projects have been announced for Fujian, in the southeast, and Shandong, to the north of Shanghai. In the northeastern province of Liaoning, planners expect to build up to six nuclear generators, Shen said.

Work on an extension of the Qinshan nuclear power plant, near Shanghai, is due to begin next month, while construction of a new project at its Ling'ao nuclear plant, in southern China's Guangdong province, is scheduled to start by the end of this year, he said.

The country's newest nuclear power plant, Tianwan station north of Shanghai, started generating electricity in October and is due to begin commercial operations by the end of this year, with an eventual capacity of 60-70 billion kilowatt hours a year.

Meanwhile, the government has made development of new nuclear power technologies, including nuclear fusion, a key strategic priority, said experts speaking at the conference, which focused on European and Chinese energy cooperation.

So far, China has relied on imported technology for its nuclear plants. But the medium to long-term plan for 2015-2025 calls for development of China's own "third generation" nuclear power technology.

By 2020, China hopes to build a prototype fast-breeder reactor _ a technology that produces plutonium that can be then used as fuel, reducing radioactive waste and alleviating dependence on imports of uranium.

Ultimately, though, China is placing its hopes in nuclear fusion, said Shen Rugang, vice president of China Guangdong Nuclear Power Co.

"Fusion will be the final way out for the future," Shen said.

Nuclear fusion, which replicates the sun's power source by colliding atoms at extremely high temperatures and pressure inside a reactor, is expected to one day generate endless, cheap energy without greenhouse gas emissions and with only low levels of radioactive waste.

China which is participating in joint fusion research with the U.S., European Union, Russia, South Korea, Japan and India, hopes to be one of the first users of fusion energy, said Li Jianjiang, an expert from the Institute of Plasma Physics at the Chinese Academy of Science.

"My dream is to witness within my lifetime a light bulb powered by fusion electricity," Li said.
 

sumdud

Senior Member
VIP Professional
No way of disposing the waste............
Well, I'd rather use the radioactivity of those waste and throw it into CANDUs, which China should have already...... Those CANDUs can take in any waste and sometimes produce more fuel.....
But, how will China break those pebble-balls?

Fusion..... Actually, can we start a fusion by starting fission first? As for the walls, magnetism is probably the only thing good enough....
 

vincelee

Junior Member
you don't break the pebble balls, that's the whole point. My impression is that the carbide has been designed into the entire life cycle of the fuel.
 

walter

Junior Member
sumdud said:
Fusion..... Actually, can we start a fusion by starting fission first? As for the walls, magnetism is probably the only thing good enough....

isn't that how H-bombs work?

also, my understanding is that fusion reactors have been built and operated (lab scale of course), but that the energy required to keep them operating is far greater than the energy they produce, so a net loss of energy. Maybe someone here knows more?

By the way, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project mentioned in the article will have a prototype plant built in France. The whole time there was a big competition between France and Japan to have the right to build the plant on their respective soils, France won but had to make big concesiions elsewhere:

In its long battle to host the project, the EU, backing member France, used some of the tactics of unilateralism it often criticizes in the United States, vowing to go it alone or build ITER with a "coalition of the willing" if the Japanese did not yield.

In the end, the EU made huge financial and industrial concessions to the Japanese.

The EU will fund 40 percent of the 4.6 billion euro construction cost with France paying an additional 10 percent, while each of the other five members of the consortium will pay 10 percent.

In Tokyo's case, this will be offset by contracts for up to 10 percent of the procurement, EU participation in science projects in Japan with up to 8 percent of the cost of ITER construction, and a disproportionate share of Japanese staff on the ITER organization, including the post of director-general.

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FreeAsia2000

Junior Member
Necessity is the mother of invention.

I'm sure despite the author's comments that the Chinese will not allow their
future to be retarded by a group of green's.

Oddly enough here in the UK the green lobby is now pro-nuclear energy
 

walter

Junior Member
that's just the thing, nuclear energy is greener in one very important regard than fossil fuel power plants: no CO2 emmisions. It's just that nasty nuclear waste that poses a problem:(

When you consider how expensive oil and NG are becoming and the political complications that arise for many western countries needing oil from the middle east, it just makes sense to at least invest a larger proportion of the energy budget towards nuclear power, not to mention renewables.
 
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