Posted on 02/13/2016 8:53:18 AM PST by Titus-Maximus
In what would be a milestone for advanced nuclear power, China's Nuclear Engineering Construction Corporation plans to start up a high-temperature, gas-cooled pebble-bed nuclear plant next year in Shandong province, south of Beijing. The twin 105-megawatt reactors--so-called Generation IV reactors that would be immune to meltdown--would be the first of their type built at commercial scale in the world.
Construction of the plant is nearly complete, and the next 18 months will be spent installing the reactor components, running tests, and loading the fuel before the reactors go critical in November 2017, said Zhang Zuoyi, director of the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, a division of Tsinghua University that has developed the technology over the last decade and a half, in an interview at the institute's campus 30 miles south of Beijing. If it's successful, Shandong plant would generate a total of 210 megawatts and will be followed by a 600-megawatt facility in Jiangxi province. Beyond that, China plans to sell these reactors internationally; in January, Chinese president Xi Jinping signed an agreement with King Salman bin Abdulaziz to construct a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor in Saudi Arabia.
"This technology is going to be on the world market within the next five years," Zhang predicts. "We are developing these reactors to belong to the world."
Pebble-bed reactors that use helium gas as the heat transfer medium and run at very high temperatures--up to 950 °C--have been in development for decades. The Chinese reactor is based on a design originally developed in Germany, and the German company SGL Group is supplying the billiard-ball-size graphite spheres that encase thousands of tiny "pebbles" of uranium fuel. Seven high-temperature gas-cooled reactors have been built, but only two units remain in operation, both relatively small: an experimental 10-megawatt pebble-bed reactor at the Tsinghua Institute campus, which reached full power in 2003, and a similar reactor in Japan.
Construction of the plant is nearly complete, and the next 18 months will be spent installing the reactor components, running tests, and loading the fuel before the reactors go critical in November 2017, said Zhang Zuoyi, director of the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, a division of Tsinghua University that has developed the technology over the last decade and a half, in an interview at the institute’s campus 30 miles south of Beijing. If it’s successful, Shandong plant would generate a total of 210 megawatts and will be followed by a 600-megawatt facility in Jiangxi province. Beyond that, China plans to sell these reactors internationally; in January, Chinese president Xi Jinping signed an agreement with King Salman bin Abdulaziz to construct a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor in Saudi Arabia.
“This technology is going to be on the world market within the next five years,†Zhang predicts. “We are developing these reactors to belong to the world.â€
Pebble-bed reactors that use helium gas as the heat transfer medium and run at very high temperatures—up to 950 °C—have been in development for decades. The Chinese reactor is based on a design originally developed in Germany, and the German company SGL Group is supplying the billiard-ball-size graphite spheres that encase thousands of tiny “pebbles†of uranium fuel. Seven high-temperature gas-cooled reactors have been built, but only two units remain in operation, both relatively small: an experimental 10-megawatt pebble-bed reactor at the Tsinghua Institute campus, which reached full power in 2003, and a similar reactor in Japan.
Krupp Germany was supposed to have one 30 years ago that uses graphite spheres.
Stopped by the Dwpt of No Energy
I feel like I read that story, twice.
You might have nuclear capability, if you had uranium. However, Hilary sold it for a song to the Russians.
Against the best efforts of the Greenies and other neo-Luddites to run up costs and throw up roadblocks, (and, of course, the low cost of natural gas) there a 5 major commercial reactors under construction in the US. (That’s the same number as under construction in the Islamic states of Pakistan and UAE combined). Meanwhile China is building 24 (plus 2 in Taiwan), and Russia is working on 9 (Even India has 6 going).
What a joke!
All active US reactors since the 60’s have been “melt-down proof”.
TMI was a media event with a puff of steam, NOT “China-Syndrome”!!
Who’s building it for them?
It got sold down the river by leftist politicians/bureaucrats (particularly Harry TraitorReid) who burden the planning, construction, and operation with conflicting and unobtainable requirements. The Demonicrats and RINOs also switched the 10,000-year demonstrated containment for a spent fuel repository to a 1,000,000-year demonstrated containment.
And the financial industry provided their share of complicity when they dumped the cost overruns and financial collapse of the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS, pronounced "Whoops") fiasco into the municipal bonds of peoples' retirement accounts.
Ask where the tens of billions of dollars in nuclear electric energy surcharges (aka taxes) which were to fund the nuclear repository construction, monitoring, and final closure over the next 10,000 years.
Washington, DC's answer: GONE, suckers!!
Liquid Floride Thorium Reactors should have been ou future. No need for Uranium. We went with breeder reactors instead for the nuclear weapons programs in the 50s-70s.
Clean/safe and reliable everything we don’t want...
All true, and I think Hollywood whackos deserve some blame for Jane Fonda’s stupid movie that scared the s#it out of people and that idiotic “no nukes” movement that followed which poisoned the well so to speak, for a generation. Now of course kids are indoctrinated even more severely against nuclear power with the climate change garbage piled on top. Look at Germany for an example of “green” madness. This is one “transformation” that has been imposed after traditionalists with common sense lost control over the educational system and what little influence on the media we might have had.
I’ve idly wondered if there might be a more effective way to package nuclear fuel that could help avoid meltdowns, and it sounds as if the Chinese have done it.
Westinghouse has designs for these type reactors, but they aren’t getting built in the US because Obama won’t approve them.
Yes, I've been watching their economy.
One way to tell if someone is truly a climate change advocate is to examine their position on nuclear power. If they are for it and want to expand it, then they pass the test. If they are only for solar and wind, then they are democrats looking to socialize the country. Nuclear should be on the agenda if you think CO2 is the problem.
BTW, CO2 is plant food. But thats an other post.
+1
Yup, and a fraction of the waste but no weapons grade byproducts. You can even use the molten salt reactors to dispose of other radionuclides in the reaction cycle...
I believe Centrus Energy (USEC) operates the old archaic gaseous diffusion enrichment plant in Paducah Kentucky. and Urenco (German) has a centrifuge in Louisiana. Also I think Centrus's prototype centrifuge in Portsmouth Ohio has been mothballed. Iran undoubtedly has better technology and capacity than does the United States when it comes to uranium enruchment.
“All active US reactors since the 60’s have been “melt-down proofâ€.”
And here is a song just for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urMjGAimtRc
The reason that the pebble bed reactors never achieved any traction is that they do not produce waist that can used to make nuclear bombs. Although I am sure that they still produce deadly waist.
They claim that the temperature they can reach is self limiting. So that is good. But a definite list of negatives can still be found.
It is unfortunate that US companies and US nuclear engineers were not on the forefront of developing these reactors.
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