Schumacher
Senior Member
Interesting thread. Here's a report today that a Chinese firm will begin construction of a commercial 'pebble bed' plant this yr.
And the 2nd report is of China's recent step in fusion tech.
Huaneng aims for nuclear plant `first'
A mainland group led by Huaneng Power International plans to start construction this year of the world's first commercial nuclear power plant using so-called "pebble bed" technology to help meet soaring energy demand.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
A mainland group led by Huaneng Power International plans to start construction this year of the world's first commercial nuclear power plant using so-called "pebble bed" technology to help meet soaring energy demand.
The 200-megawatt reactor in Shandong, 50 percent owned by Huaneng, will cost US$375 million (HK$2.93 billion), said Wu Zongxin, a professor at the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology at Tsinghua University, which developed the prototype and will own 5 percent of the project.
China last year began a US$48 billion plan to expand nuclear power capacity almost sixfold by 2020 to curb a soaring oil import bill and pollution from coal-fired stations.
Mainland scientists claim the new plant may be safer and cheaper than conventional plants.
"We're open to using local and foreign technologies in the development process," Wu said Friday.
China plans to raise nuclear capacity to 40,000 megawatts by 2020 from 6,700 megawatts, China National Nuclear, the nation's largest nuclear plant builder, said in June.
France's Areva, British Nuclear Fuels' Westinghouse Electric and Russia's AtomStroyExport are bidding for US$8 billion worth of contracts to build four reactors in China.
The equipment will be used in the Sanmen Nuclear Power Stations in Zhejiang, southwest of Shanghai, and the Yangjiang Nuclear Power Station in Guangdong.
China National Nuclear said Tuesday it has delayed selecting the winner of the contracts because it is seeking to cut project costs. A decision on the bids was expected at the end of last year.
China, which has to date favored the so-called pressurized water reactor technology developed by Westinghouse, designer of 61 percent of the world's nuclear reactors, is in a race with a rival project in South Africa to develop pebble bed technology.
South Africa's Pebble Bed Modular Reactor project is led by state-controlled utility Eskom Holdings and 15 percent owned by Westinghouse, Eskom spokesman Tom Ferreira said Friday.
The project is due to build a demonstration plant this year for commercial operation in 2010, according to the World Nuclear Association's Web site.
Pebble bed technology, invented in Germany, uses kernels of uranium oxycarbide surrounded by carbon and silicon carbide, either in hexagonal shapes or billiard ball-sized pebbles.
Eskom claims greater safety for the technology because helium, which is used to transfer heat from the core to the power-generating turbines, is chemically inert, cannot combine with other chemicals and is non-combustible.
Since air cannot enter the primary circuit, oxygen cannot get into the high temperature core to corrode the graphite used in the reactor, Eskom said.
Thus chemical reactions and oxidation, "two of the great dangers in conventional reactors," are sidelined, Eskom said.
Pressurized water or boiling water reactors, the most common types currently in operation, use water or steam to transfer heat from the core to the power-generating turbines.
Tsinghua University started operating a 10-megawatt test model of a pebble bed plant in Beijing in 2003 and the unit is operating smoothly, according to Wu.
The first commercial version, 35 percent owned by China Nuclear Engineering & Construction Group, may be completed by 2012, he said.
BLOOMBERG
China's 'man-made sun' experiment reaches final stages
By Terry Wang
Shanghai. February 10. INTERFAX-CHINA - An experimental nuclear fusion device dubbed EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) is now in the last phase of installation, and will be finished in the middle of March, officials connected to the project told Interfax.
The EAST project, described as a "man-made sun" by state news agency Xinhua, cost RMB 300 mln (USD 37.5 mln) to build. "It is a key project of China's 1996-2000 five-year plan, and RMB 165 mln [USD 20.63 mln] was funded by the state government," said Chen Yan, the PR director of the Hefei Institute of Plasma Physics, a unit of the China Academy of Sciences.
EAST produces nuclear fusion through the use of deuterium and tritium. The process is similar to the reactions that take place in the sun, but it is controllable.
Chen Yan told Interfax that the device would be put into the discharge and cooling stage in July or August, the results of which would finally decide whether the experiment was successful. If the EAST is deemed to have worked after a final series of tests, it will be the first nuclear fusion device of its kind.
It is an upgrade of China's first superconducting Tokamak device, dubbed HT-7, which was also built by the plasma physics institute in partnership with Russia in the early 1990s.
"The EAST project research will contribute valuable knowledge and experience to the ITER, another nuclear fusion program still in its initial stages, which involves Russia, Japan, the United States, the European Union, China and South Korea," Chen noted.
The chief Chinese scientist with the ITER program has said in an interview with Xinhua that China is aiming for the independent development of the reactor technology.
Chen said that it was impossible for any country to get detailed nuclear technology from others, and all the projects currently underway were just for the purposes of basic research, essential for the final application of the technology.
However, Chen said it would take a long time to apply the technology commercially. "It will be difficult to put the technology into large-scale operation within the next 50 years."
Asked whether the technology could eventually account for a large proportion of energy use, Chen said it was hard to forecast.
"The real application is something quite far away in the future. It is difficult to judge the profitability of the technology in terms of commercial application," Chen said. "However, it can support the energy supply for the whole world, in theory, for tens of billions of years."
And the 2nd report is of China's recent step in fusion tech.
Huaneng aims for nuclear plant `first'
A mainland group led by Huaneng Power International plans to start construction this year of the world's first commercial nuclear power plant using so-called "pebble bed" technology to help meet soaring energy demand.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
A mainland group led by Huaneng Power International plans to start construction this year of the world's first commercial nuclear power plant using so-called "pebble bed" technology to help meet soaring energy demand.
The 200-megawatt reactor in Shandong, 50 percent owned by Huaneng, will cost US$375 million (HK$2.93 billion), said Wu Zongxin, a professor at the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology at Tsinghua University, which developed the prototype and will own 5 percent of the project.
China last year began a US$48 billion plan to expand nuclear power capacity almost sixfold by 2020 to curb a soaring oil import bill and pollution from coal-fired stations.
Mainland scientists claim the new plant may be safer and cheaper than conventional plants.
"We're open to using local and foreign technologies in the development process," Wu said Friday.
China plans to raise nuclear capacity to 40,000 megawatts by 2020 from 6,700 megawatts, China National Nuclear, the nation's largest nuclear plant builder, said in June.
France's Areva, British Nuclear Fuels' Westinghouse Electric and Russia's AtomStroyExport are bidding for US$8 billion worth of contracts to build four reactors in China.
The equipment will be used in the Sanmen Nuclear Power Stations in Zhejiang, southwest of Shanghai, and the Yangjiang Nuclear Power Station in Guangdong.
China National Nuclear said Tuesday it has delayed selecting the winner of the contracts because it is seeking to cut project costs. A decision on the bids was expected at the end of last year.
China, which has to date favored the so-called pressurized water reactor technology developed by Westinghouse, designer of 61 percent of the world's nuclear reactors, is in a race with a rival project in South Africa to develop pebble bed technology.
South Africa's Pebble Bed Modular Reactor project is led by state-controlled utility Eskom Holdings and 15 percent owned by Westinghouse, Eskom spokesman Tom Ferreira said Friday.
The project is due to build a demonstration plant this year for commercial operation in 2010, according to the World Nuclear Association's Web site.
Pebble bed technology, invented in Germany, uses kernels of uranium oxycarbide surrounded by carbon and silicon carbide, either in hexagonal shapes or billiard ball-sized pebbles.
Eskom claims greater safety for the technology because helium, which is used to transfer heat from the core to the power-generating turbines, is chemically inert, cannot combine with other chemicals and is non-combustible.
Since air cannot enter the primary circuit, oxygen cannot get into the high temperature core to corrode the graphite used in the reactor, Eskom said.
Thus chemical reactions and oxidation, "two of the great dangers in conventional reactors," are sidelined, Eskom said.
Pressurized water or boiling water reactors, the most common types currently in operation, use water or steam to transfer heat from the core to the power-generating turbines.
Tsinghua University started operating a 10-megawatt test model of a pebble bed plant in Beijing in 2003 and the unit is operating smoothly, according to Wu.
The first commercial version, 35 percent owned by China Nuclear Engineering & Construction Group, may be completed by 2012, he said.
BLOOMBERG
China's 'man-made sun' experiment reaches final stages
By Terry Wang
Shanghai. February 10. INTERFAX-CHINA - An experimental nuclear fusion device dubbed EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) is now in the last phase of installation, and will be finished in the middle of March, officials connected to the project told Interfax.
The EAST project, described as a "man-made sun" by state news agency Xinhua, cost RMB 300 mln (USD 37.5 mln) to build. "It is a key project of China's 1996-2000 five-year plan, and RMB 165 mln [USD 20.63 mln] was funded by the state government," said Chen Yan, the PR director of the Hefei Institute of Plasma Physics, a unit of the China Academy of Sciences.
EAST produces nuclear fusion through the use of deuterium and tritium. The process is similar to the reactions that take place in the sun, but it is controllable.
Chen Yan told Interfax that the device would be put into the discharge and cooling stage in July or August, the results of which would finally decide whether the experiment was successful. If the EAST is deemed to have worked after a final series of tests, it will be the first nuclear fusion device of its kind.
It is an upgrade of China's first superconducting Tokamak device, dubbed HT-7, which was also built by the plasma physics institute in partnership with Russia in the early 1990s.
"The EAST project research will contribute valuable knowledge and experience to the ITER, another nuclear fusion program still in its initial stages, which involves Russia, Japan, the United States, the European Union, China and South Korea," Chen noted.
The chief Chinese scientist with the ITER program has said in an interview with Xinhua that China is aiming for the independent development of the reactor technology.
Chen said that it was impossible for any country to get detailed nuclear technology from others, and all the projects currently underway were just for the purposes of basic research, essential for the final application of the technology.
However, Chen said it would take a long time to apply the technology commercially. "It will be difficult to put the technology into large-scale operation within the next 50 years."
Asked whether the technology could eventually account for a large proportion of energy use, Chen said it was hard to forecast.
"The real application is something quite far away in the future. It is difficult to judge the profitability of the technology in terms of commercial application," Chen said. "However, it can support the energy supply for the whole world, in theory, for tens of billions of years."
