China's spent nuclear fuel management: Current practices and future strategies

Abstract

a b s t r a c tAlthough China's nuclear power industry is relatively young and the management of its spent nuclear fuel is not yet a concern, China's commitment to nuclear energy and its rapid pace of development require detailed analyses of its future spent fuel management policies. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of China's fuel cycle program and its reprocessing policy, and to suggest strategies for managing its future fuel cycle program. The study is broken into four sections. The first reviews China's current nuclear fuel cycle program and facilities. The second discusses China's current spent fuel management methods and the storage capability of China's 13 operational nuclear power plants. The third estimates China's total accumulated spent fuel, its required spent fuel storage from present day until 2035, when China expects its first commercialized fast neutron reactors to be operational, and its likely demand for uranium resources. The fourth examines several spent fuel management scenarios for the present period up until 2035; the financial cost and proliferation risk of each scenario is evaluated. The study concludes that China can and should maintain a reprocessing operation to meet its R&D activities before its fast reactor program is further developed.

Sustainability of the Chinese nuclear expansion: Natural uranium resources availability, Pu cycle, fuel utilization efficiency and spent fuel management

“…According to his conclusion, the Chinese natural uranium resources are insufficient and China needs to import most of the uranium resources from abroad. A broader discussion on the natural uranium supply (either local or imported resources) is given in Zhou (2011). Here the author concludes that ''the availability of nuclear fuel is unlikely to constrain future nuclear expansions in China''.…”

“…In 2004, China had a total nuclear installed capacity of 9.1 GWe (WNA, 2014a) producing 2.3% of the nation's electricity generation (NBSC, 2009 (Zhou, 2011). As of June 2014 mainland China has 20 nuclear power reactors in operation, 28 under construction, and more about to start construction (WNA, 2014a,b).…”

“…The astonishing growth of nuclear power capacity in China calls for rational thinking in order to find a solution on how to close the nuclear fuel cycle as early as possible in order to avoid the accumulation of large amounts of spent fuel for reprocessing. Different studies have recently been published on the topic (Chen et al, 2012;WNA, 2014a,b;Zhou, 2011). Although every study called for reprocessing the SF, a common direction on which way to pursue the management of the minor actinide (MA) and fission product (FP) has not been identified.…”

Impact of the Taxes on Used Nuclear Fuel on the Fuel Cycle Economics in Spain

“…Suchitra and Ramana [12] assessed the economics of reprocessing in India and the cost of producing plutonium for the fast breeder reactor program. In the case of China, which opted the most recently for reprocessing and is currently building a reprocessing facility, Zhou concludes that recycling can and should be maintained in order to keep up China's R&D activities from the perspective of the future operation of fast reactors [13,14].…”

A Review of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Strategies and the Spent Nuclear Fuel Management Technologies

“…Also, Japan has been planning and building its own reprocessing facility for two decades in Rokkasho, but it is still not operational [53][54][55]. Finally, China's ambitious plans for nuclear energy, due to the environmental problems related to the massive use of coal [13,14], include the construction of a reprocessing plant [56].…”