China has successfully connected its first fast neutron nuclear reactor to its electricity grid, according to several news reports.
Fast neutron nuclear reactors produce less radioactive waste, but their deployment has run into problems in other countries, including the United States.
According to the reports, one advantage of the technology is that it uses less uranium. That’s important to the Chinese because it is increasingly relying on uranium imports for its nuclear power, according to the World Nuclear Association.
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Bloomberg reports that the Chinese 65-megawatt fast neutron reactor near Beijing connected to the grid on Thursday.
According to the report:
“This is a pretty big breakthrough, as in the reactor is actually producing electricity,” Dave Dai, regional head of utilities research at Daiwa Securities Capital Markets, said by telephone from Kong Kong. “This basically means that they can go ahead in terms of schedule for real commercial ones.”
China has been operating the reactor for a year prior to connecting it to the grid, according to the China Institute of Atomic Energy. The country has been researching the field since the 1960s.
The Wall Street Journal talked to Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who said that he had visited the fast-neutron reactor near Beijing. He described it as a “tiny research reactor.”
Nevertheless, Bloomberg quotes the China Institute of Atomic Energy’s Chief Engineer Xu Mi saying that China plans on building a one gigawatt fast reactor at Sanming City in the southeastern Fujian province in 2018 with its homegrown technology.
China plans on finishing safety checks on its nuclear power plants by this October in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The country has 14 operating nuclear power reactors, more than 25 under construction, and more planned, according to the World Nuclear Association. Many of the planned ones will be the world’s most advanced.
