China has a long range plan to develop nuclear power that is cheaper than coal. China will develop its own commercial scale fast reactor in 2023 with a more advanced version in 2030. They will then scale up production as part of a build up to around 400 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2050. This would be four times more than the nuclear power currently in the USA.
China will build a lot more hydro power, wind power and solar power but there are limitations based on running out of rivers to dam and how much solar and wind can be integrated into the electrical grid.
Conditions to Deploy Fast Reactors
• The scale of PWR is large enough which could provide initial fuel loading and refueling fuel to FR
• Uranium becomes expensive enough.
• Safety level has been validate and could be built at inland site.
• Cost is lower than coal power plant.
• China Nuclear Phase 1：
– Reprocessing plant of PWR spent fuel (provide Pu to FR).
– MOX fuel plant
– Breeding FR (BR≈1.2)
– Reprocessing plant of FR spent fuel
• China Nuclear Phase 2：
– Metal fuel plant
– Pyroprocessing plant
– High breeding FR with metal fuel (BR>1.2) while the nuclear grow fast, and
– Low breeding ratio (BR≈1) while nuclear energy maintain a fixed level.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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