China plans to start construction of a fast nuclear reactor at the country’s southeast by 2017 using next-generation nuclear power technologies designed for cleaner and more sustainable energy, according to one official privy to the project.
Construction of a pilot project for a fast neutron nuclear reactor facility in Xiapu, Fujian Province, is set to begin at the end of 2017, Xu Mi, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told the Shanghai-based China Business News.
The nuclear power project, designed with 600,000kw installed capacity, utilizes a fast neutron nuclear reactor that is the fourth generation of nuclear power technology in the world.
Xu, who is dubbed as the "father of fast reactors" in China, said that fast reactor technology will increase the amount of energy extracted from uranium from the current level of 1 percent to 60 percent, reducing nuclear wastes in the process.
According to the World Nuclear Association's website, six technologies, including four categorized as "fast reactors," have been selected as the Generation IV nuclear power technologies slated for deployment between 2020 and 2030.
The world's first fast reactor was built by physicist Enrico Fermi and other scientists in the U.S. in 1946, according to the association.
In its report, China Business News speculated that the new facility, based on its planned full scale size, is the long anticipated joint commercial venture between China Nuclear Power Corp. and TerraPower, a Bellevue, Washington-based firm co-founded by Microsoft's former CEO and founder BiIl Gates. Gates has visited China at least three times in recent years for possible cooperation in nuclear power.
In his latest trip to Beijing in February this year, Gates met with Nur Bekri, a vice chair of China's National Development and Reform Commission, and with China National Nuclear Corp. chairman Sun Qin. The latter is China's largest nuclear power company and a major partner of TerraPower.
Gates also visited an experimental fast reactor, built by the China Institute of Atomic Energy that went online in 2011, during a previous trip, the report said.
According to Xu, the experimental reactor project launched in 1992 and cost 2.5 billion yuan ($390 million).
Xu said that it will take China more than a decade to start commercial operations of fast reactors, although the new technology should not pose a threat to existing nuclear power plants.
Fast reactors can use spent fuel rods from existing nuclear power plants to generate electricity, he added.