Climate Change and Renewable Energy News and Discussion

gelgoog said:

If China manages to have success with its fast reactor program then the uranium requirements will be hugely decreased.
From what I know most of the fuel used in the reactors in China is made in China. Of course the uranium ore used to make that fuel might be imported.

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Actually, in order to access the Kazakhstan Uranium deposit, they had to transfer the processing technology there. So, now a port of the fuel rods are imported from Kazakhstan. And then there are the fast breeder plants, which I believe get the fuel from Russia

tphuang said:

Actually, in order to access the Kazakhstan Uranium deposit, they had to transfer the processing technology there. So, now a port of the fuel rods are imported from Kazakhstan. And then there are the fast breeder plants, which I believe get the fuel from Russia

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I doubt they will continue to import the rods for the fast breeder plants in the long term. It was probably done just to get those reactors into service more quickly. If you look at the construction schedule, these CFR-600 power plants are supposed to enter service in a remarkably short time.

Very interesting here. ACWA Power and Chinese energy company combining in green energy projects around Global south. Something to keep an eye on. Saudi money + Chinese tech in projects

Facing an ever-growing demand for energy, China isn’t letting up. It aims to install between six and eight nuclear reactors each year. Some officials seem to think that target is low. The country’s nuclear regulator says China has the capacity to add between eight and ten per year. The State Council (China’s cabinet) approved the construction of ten in 2022. All in all, China has 22 nuclear reactors under construction, many more than any other country.

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Honestly, China could build a lot more and probably needs to. France and America back in their heyday of rapid nuclear buildout in the 1970s/1980s, were bringing online 4-5 new reactors a year. If you account for per capita both population size and economy, China needs to build something like 100 nuclear reactors a year to match France's nuclear buildout per capita back then.

Granted, per capita measurements are often flawed and France/America back then were building gen 2 reactors, which had a lot less safety features then today's gen 3 designs and thus cheaper, faster and easier to build. The point is that even 10 nuclear plants a year probably isn't anywhere close to China's limit and hopefully we see them surpass even that.

tacoburger said:

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Honestly, China could build a lot more and probably needs to. France and America back in their heyday of rapid nuclear buildout in the 1970s/1980s, were bringing online 4-5 new reactors a year. If you account for per capita both population size and economy, China needs to build something like 100 nuclear reactors a year to match France's nuclear buildout per capita back then.

Granted, per capita measurements are often flawed and France/America back then were building gen 2 reactors, which had a lot less safety features then today's gen 3 designs and thus cheaper, faster and easier to build. The point is that even 10 nuclear plants a year probably isn't anywhere close to China's limit and hopefully we see them surpass even that.

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France built its entire electricity supply around nuclear power, to China it's only one of many building blocks.
Question is how much of Chinas electricity supply will end up being nuclear? My guess would be 10-20%, with mainly Solar, Wind, Hydro and Natural Gas occupying the remainder
Currently that would be around 100-200 reactors, if Chinas electricity demand plateaus around twice of current consumption (China is already at a fairly similar level to Germany and France though.) that would be 200-400 reactors.
If you want a full buildout before 2060 (for net zero), that would be some 4-8 reactors/year on average.

Huge

Xinhua is officially reporting China's First of a Kind 4th Gen nuclear reactor - the pebble-bed High Temperature Gas Reactor, (HTGR) in Shidaowan, Shandong - has finally formally entered commercial service. It has now completed 168 hours (7 days) of continuous operation.



according to Xinhua News Agency, the world's first fourth-generation nuclear power plant, Huaneng Shidaowan High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor Nuclear Power Plant, was officially put into commercial operation, marking that China has reached the world's leading level in the field of fourth-generation nuclear power technology. .

Zhang Yanxu, general manager of Huaneng Shandong Shidaowan Nuclear Power Company, said that the nuclear power plant was led by China Huaneng and jointly constructed by Tsinghua University and CNNC. Construction started in December 2012 and was connected to the grid for the first time in December 2021. This time it is to stabilize the power level. It was officially put into production and transferred to commercial operation.

Huaneng Shandong Shidaowan Nuclear Power Plant has gathered more than 500 upstream and downstream units in the industrial chain such as design and R&D, engineering construction, equipment manufacturing, and production operations. It has successively conquered a number of world-class key technologies and achieved a high equipment localization rate. Over 90%. The commercial operation of nuclear power plants is of great significance and has a positive impact on promoting the safe development of nuclear power in our country and improving our country's nuclear power technological innovation capabilities.

According to reports, relying on this project, China has systematically mastered the design, manufacturing, construction, commissioning, operation and maintenance technologies of high-temperature gas-cooled reactors. China Huaneng and Tsinghua University jointly developed six key core technologies for commissioning and operation unique to high-temperature gas-cooled reactors. We have cultivated a team of professionals with experience in high-temperature gas-cooled reactor construction and operation and maintenance management, formed a standardized management system that can be replicated and promoted, and established independent intellectual property rights with patents, technical standards, and software copyrights as the core. system.

@tphuang .. @vincent @taxiya

2 hydrogen news today.

They developed a 5t/day hydrogen liquefaction system. Again, this is still very new and the transportation technology is a whole different beast

Sinopec has started operation on 1st distributed ammonia to hydrogen production station at its hydrogen fuel station

so basically to use hydrogen fuel, right now you need to either transport it in ammonia or methanol or liquid hydrogen. All have their own challenges. Which is probably why hydrogen FCEV will never take off

huge green jet fuel project underway in Heijlongjiang province


might produce as much as 400,000 ton of jet fuel/year (which using 1 ton = 30 galloon) is 12 million ton of jet fuel.

but keep in mind that the world uses probably over 100 billion ton of jet fuel a year, so this is a small piece of the overall pie

but the market is huge

China’s largest onshore wind-power facility started full-capacity operations in the northern Inner Mongolia autonomous region on Sunday, according to its operator, state-owned China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGNPC).

With a capacity of 3 gigawatts (GW), the project’s 701 turbines can generate more than 10 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, according to the company. This is equivalent to cutting standard coal consumption by about 2.96 million metric tonnes and avoiding around 8.02 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year.

The project, which started construction in 2020, is also the first in a batch of renewable energy projects targeted for the desert region, according to state news agency Xinhua.

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Ming Yang has now produced worlds first 20 mw
It is also extremely domestic. All critical components are domestically sourced