Nuclear power development "top-heavy": lack of spent fuel processing capacity

The core message: If the post-processing technology cannot be quickly industrialized and the high-level geological repository cannot be completed, the Chinese nuclear industry will face a situation where nuclear waste is not stored. Xu Wei, chief fast reactor expert of China National Nuclear Corporation, and chief engineer of the Fast Reactor Engineering Department of China Institute of Atomic Energy, said that the development of nuclear power in China is top-heavy. At present, China attaches great importance to the construction of nuclear power plants and the development of mineral resources, and has paid less attention to the downstream development of nuclear power.

Xu Hao introduced that a million-kilowatt pressurized water reactor nuclear power plant produces 25 to 30 tons of nuclear spent fuel every year. According to the plans of the National Energy Administration, the installed nuclear power capacity in China will reach 40 million kilowatts in 2015 and 86 million kilowatts in 2020. Based on this calculation, the spent nuclear fuel in 2020 will reach more than 2,400 tons.

"The pre-nuclear spent fuel has not yet been processed, and the newly built nuclear power plants have produced a large amount of spent fuel. The accumulation of nuclear spent fuel has been increasing year by year, which has a great potential for safety. It is imperative to accelerate the commercialization of post-processing technologies and improve processing capabilities," said Xu Wei.

If the post-processing technology cannot be rapidly industrialized and the high-level geological repository cannot be completed, the Chinese nuclear industry will face a situation where nuclear waste is not stored.

At least 15 years after the spent fuel reprocessing plant was built, Professor Wang Yan from Tsinghua University’s Institute of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering introduced that there are currently two methods for treating spent fuel at home and abroad. The first is the "one-pass" strategy. That is, spent fuel is cooled, packaged, and sent to deep geological formations for disposal or long-term storage.

The second is the post-processing strategy, the core of which is *,* separation and recycling, followed by MOX (**Mixed Oxide) fuel production, supply to the fast reactor combustion and proliferation of fuel, fast reactor spent fuel for post-processing. In this process, fission products and minor actinides are solidified and then subjected to deep geological disposal or separation and transformation.

According to Xu Wei, landfill storage is the stupidest method. First, a lot of * resources are wasted, spent fuel contains more than 95%*, new elements such as * are generated in the combustion process, and second, the radioactive waste of nuclear waste lasts for several million years, with potential risks. He suggested accelerating the construction of spent fuel reprocessing plants.

However, at present, China has not built a pressurized water reactor spent fuel reprocessing plant. On December 21, 2010, CNNC publicly announced that China's first power reactor post-processing intermediate pilot plant in nuclear power plant 404 pilot test heat successfully.

Pan Ziqiang, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and executive director of the China Nuclear Society, said: “The success of hot commissioning does not mean that the pilot plant is put into operation. It only shows that China has mastered the post-processing technology. In order to adapt to the rapid development of nuclear power, the construction process of spent fuel reprocessing plants should speed up ."

At present, the pilot plant processing capacity is only 600,000 tons / year. CNNC hopes to expand it to 4 million tons/year, or even 8 million tons/year. However, the timetable has not been determined.

Li Yongjiang, vice chairman of the China Nuclear Industry Association and former chairman of the nuclear power Qinshan Affiliation Co., Ltd., said: “A pilot plant will be constructed for a minimum of 15 years. According to the development speed of nuclear power in China, at least 100 million kilowatts of nuclear power will be installed in 2025, and the previous spent fuel will be stored. In 15 years, the maximum storage time limit must be dealt with in a timely manner. The post-processing technology is more complex than the nuclear power technology, and the radioactivity is strong and the investment is large. The local government is not interested and the construction funds are under pressure."

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