Fuel rods at Penn State's Breazeale Reactor. The blue light surrounding the fuel is known as Cherenkov radiation.
Penn State RS and EC

"On China’s Commercial Reprocessing Policy"

Presentation at Institute for Nuclear Materials Management 50th Annual Meeting, Tucson, Arizona, 12-16 July 2009

Conference Paper

July 16, 2009

Author: Hui Zhang, Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom

Belfer Center Programs or Projects: International Security; Managing the Atom; Science, Technology, and Public Policy

ABSTRACT

China is currently operating eleven nuclear power reactors with installed capacity of 9 GWe, and it plans to increase its total nuclear capacity to 40 GWe by 2020. China is seeking to reprocess the civilian spent fuel, and to recycle the plutonium in MOX fuel for its light water reactors (LWRs) and fast breeder reactors (FBRs). A pilot reprocessing plant with a capacity of 50-100 tHM/a is ready to operate now. A larger commercial reprocessing plant and a MOX fabrication plant are expected to be in commission around the year 2020. Also, the China Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR), capable of producing 25 MWe of power, will be operating soon. Furthermore, larger commercial FBRs are planned to be commissioned around 2030-2035. This paper will first discuss the status of China’s nuclear power reactors, breeders, and civilian reprocessing programs. In addition, this paper will examine whether the breeders and civilian reprocessing programs make sense for China, taking into account costs, proliferation risks, energy security tradeoffs, health and environmental risks, and spent fuel management issues.

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