The yield doesn't matter, that generated by the hydrogen stage.
The primary has only kilotons of power, its job is to ignite the hydrogen stage.
but the primary dominate the weight of the warhead.
China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread
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The primary has only kilotons of power, its job is to ignite the hydrogen stage.
but the primary dominate the weight of the warhead.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
You are keep repeating a defunct plant to show that China only has 2 preprocessing plant? When she has more than 40 plant but only 1 pre processing plant?
A cursory search on google will shot your argument. Here it is
China's Nuclear Fuel Cycle
(Updated May 2018)
- China has become self-sufficient in most aspects of the fuel cycle.
- China aims to produce one-third of its uranium domestically, obtain one-third through foreign equity in mines and joint ventures overseas, and to purchase one-third on the open market.
- China's two major enrichment plants were built under agreements with Russia but much current capacity is indigenous.
- China’s R&D investment in nuclear technologies is very significant, particularly in high-temperature gas-cooled and molten salt-cooled reactors.
The national policy is to obtain about one-third of uranium supply domestically, one-third from Chinese equity in foreign mines, and one-third on the open market. Increasingly, other stages of the fuel cycle will be indigenous. Uranium demand in 2020 is expected to be over 11,000 tU (with 58 reactors operating), in 2025 about 18,500 tU (for 100 reactors) and in 2030 about 24,000 tU (for 130 reactors). UxC reports that China imported over 115,000 tU over 2009-14, notably 25,000 tU in 2014 and 10,400 tU to July in 2015. With annual consumption currently about 8000 tU, much of this will be stockpiled.
China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) maintains a strong monopoly on the nuclear fuel cycle in China, notably the front end, forcing China General Nuclear Power (CGN) to work around this, principally with international ventures, some involving large capital outlays. With the merger of SNPTC and CPI to form SPI in 2015, so that SNPTC took over all the nuclear-related business of CPI to function as an active subsidiary of SPI, SNPTC said it intended to get into both uranium mining and fuel fabrication.
CNNC is also the main operator in the fuel cycle back end, evidenced by a series of agreements with Areva for a reprocessing plant. That in November 2015 was part of a wider agreement in relation to all aspects of the fuel cycle, and foreshadowing an intention to take equity in Areva NC (now Areva NewCo), in connection with evolving agreements to build a reprocessing plant based on Areva technology.
Following Areva’s restructuring, a new framework agreement between Areva New Co and CNNC was signed in February 2017, covering “the whole industrial chain of the nuclear fuel cycle”. In particular it supports plans for construction of a reprocessing plant in China. The commitmment was reaffirmed in January 2018 through the signing of an MoU.
As well as a long-standing close relationship with France, China has a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement (‘123 agreement’) with the USA from 1985 which was renewed in 2015. This is a prerequisite for nuclear trade in plant and materials that involves the USA.
Domestic uranium resources and mining
CNNC is the only current supplier of domestic uranium. CGN has responded energetically to this situation through its subsidiary China Guangdong Nuclear Uranium Resources Co Ltd (CGN-URC) as described below.
China now claims to be “a uranium-rich country” on the basis of some two million tonnes of uranium, though published known in situ uranium resources were 366,000 tU to $130/kg at 1/1/15, of which 173,000 tU were reasonably assured, and in situ inferred resources were 193,000 tU in the 2016 edition of the 'Red Book', which are modest in relation to the country's needs. New discoveries in the north and northwest in sandstones, and deep hydrothermal ones in southeast China have raised expectations. There is also potential in lignite, black shale and phosphates. Over 2013-14 about 71,000 tU was added to known resources in northern China – in the Yili, Erlian, Erdos, Songliao and Bayingebi basins as well as Longshoushan – and 29,000 tU in southern China in the Rouoergai and Dazhou uranium fields. The 2016 Red Book tabulates 366,000 tU in 21 deposits in 13 provinces, 39% of the total in Inner Mongolia, 21% in Jiangxi, 14% in Xinjiang and 12% in Guangdong.
As of 2012, 35% of resources were in sandstone deposits mainly in the north and northwest, 28% in vein/granite deposits in central and southeast China, 21% in volcanic deposits in the southeast, and 10% in black shale in the southeast. Most known resources are at less than 500m depth.
Domestic production was 1616 tU/yr in 2015, enough for about 7000 MWe, apart from new cores. This was approximately 530 t from sandstone by ISL, 620 t from granite-related ore and 450 t from volcanic-related ore. All production is acid-leached. By international standards, China's ores are low-grade and production has been inefficient. The nuclear power companies are not depending on the national goal of sourcing one-third of uranium domestically, and are ramping up international arrangements to obtain fuel.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Nuclear Power in China
(Updated July 2018)
and the new leadership from March 2013 has prioritised this.* Chronic and widespread smog in the east of the country is attributed to coal burning.
(Updated July 2018)
- Mainland China has over 40 nuclear power reactors in operation, about 20 under construction, and more about to start construction.
- The government's long-term target, as outlined in its Energy Development Strategy Action Plan 2014-2020, is for 58 GWe capacity by 2020, with 30 GWe more under construction.
- The impetus for nuclear power in China is increasingly due to air pollution from coal-fired plants.
- China’s policy is to have a closed nuclear fuel cycle.
- China has become largely self-sufficient in reactor design and construction, as well as other aspects of the fuel cycle, but is making full use of western technology while adapting and improving it.
- Relative to the rest of the world, a major strength is the nuclear supply chain.
- China’s policy is to ‘go global’ with exporting nuclear technology including heavy components in the supply chain.
and the new leadership from March 2013 has prioritised this.* Chronic and widespread smog in the east of the country is attributed to coal burning.
So, few interesting fact.
The US has TWO plutonium producing sites, the Savannah River and the Hanford site.
Both of them has the reprocessing site next to them.
The article that you cite is about the CIVILIAN PWR reactor fuel reprocessing/fuel fabrication.
It is complexly different topic, and require different technology, and first of all this hasn't needs to be next to the reactors, but the weapon plutonium reprocessing site has to be next to the reactor.
One commercial reactor require 1/3 of load per year, one Pu producing reactor require 20 full load per year.
And the reprocessing requirements is similar, apart from that the commercial require sophisticated equipment, and remote control, the Pu generating use humans for all job ( it is only slightly radioactive ).
So, there is small chance to have anywhere other Chinese Pu generating sites. Not impossible, but there is a reason why the USA and Russia concentrated everything to two / one site ( expertise, infrastructure, risk)
If China will develop molten salt reactors then that will change the equitation, that makes the reprocessing easy (theoretically) , but China will need to develop everything from scratch on this field, considering the USA (and everyone else) doesn't invested any money into this field beyond the absolute basic science.
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
The nuclear fuel production is the same whether it is for civilian or military. It is the enrichment that is different
Weapon grade nuclear fuel is highly enriched.
The problem is civilian nuclear fuel production is monitor and cannot be diverted to military use.China did sign the protocol for prevention of nuclear proliferation. But if China has the technology to process civilian nuclear fuel what prevent them to built nuclear fuel for military use?
Plutonium
(Updated October 2017)
- Over one-third of the energy produced in most nuclear power plants comes from plutonium. It is created in the reactor as a by-product.
- Plutonium recovered from reprocessing normal reactor fuel is recycled as mixed-oxide fuel (MOX).
- Plutonium is the principal fuel in a fast neutron reactor, and in any reactor it is progressively bred from non-fissile U-238 that comprises over 99% of natural uranium.
- Plutonium has occurred naturally, but except for trace quantities it is not now found in the Earth's crust.
- There are several tonnes of plutonium in our biosphere, a legacy of atmospheric weapons testing in the 1950s and 1960s.
- Plutonium-238 is a vital power source for deep space missions.
And to enrichment plant China did have it for sure and it is underground !
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Kind question, are you in write only mode?
Again, the commercial reactor reprocessing is completely different from the weapon grade.
The commercial require 4-5% enrichment, the military require few very high one, and a lot of depleted uranium one.
The plutonium is contaminated in the reactor with pu240, due to that the military reactor has to be refuelled/reprocessed frequently, ten, twenty times more frequently than a civilian one.
Hyperwarp
Captain
So, is that the reason why Pu-239 pit is in the primary stage?
As of 2017, Russia has the largest fissile materials stockpile. China's Pu stockpile is rather small -
Estimates say China has ~1.8t of weapons grade plutonium enough for up to 600 warheads which adds up to be a bad day for anyone on the receiving end.
As China hasn't performed any actual tests of nuclear weapons lately it still has ~1.8t of weapons grade plutonium. Not producing any weapons grade fissile material recently doesn't mean that the stuff they already have magically evaporates, Consequently, they can still use/re-use the plutonium they already have to make warheads. Likewise enriched uranium can be used for larger single warhead weapons where the weight difference of 10s of kg is rounding error, leaving the plutonium for smaller warheads used in MIRV/MARV systems. France also stopped the deliberate manufacture of weapons grade fissile materials funnily enough they're still able to renovate and produce new/better warheads!
With a no first use policy traditionally China built big city buster style weapons, since they're retaliatory weapons. The US withdrawal from the ABM treaties meant an overhaul of both Russian and Chinese arsenals. For the Chinese this meant a move towards MIRV/MARV based systems to ensure a viable deterrent is maintained from limited missile numbers.
There's a reason why China doesn't get dragged into the nuclear dis-armament debate, because it doesn't maintain a first strike posture and it doesn't do moronic things like produce and stockpile more weapons grade material than it needs to maintain deterrence. Some people consider this good policy, but there are always those, appendage measuring types, who are quick to spin it as some sort of in-adequacy
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
There is many way to generate Pu one of them is thru reprocessing But you can also get it from natural uranium From your own reference. china does have the technology of enrichment and power plant, reprocessing So there is no impediment whatsoever to produce weapon grade in large number
Plutonium-239 is more frequently used in nuclear weapons than Uranium-235, as it is easier to obtain in a quantity of . Both Plutonium-239 and Uranium-235 are obtained from , which primarily consists of Uranium-238 but contains traces of other isotopes of uranium such as . The process of , i.e. increasing the ratio of U-235 to U-238 to , is generally a more lengthy and costly process than the production of Plutonium 239 from U-238 and subsequent .
Every country report the production of Pu and other fissile material except China So nobody really know what is the stockpile of China's fissile material
Hans Kristensen estimate is way off He work for FAS that tend to minimize China stock pile in order to drive his agenda of complete disarmament of nuclear weapon
So China is his poster boy
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antiterror13
Brigadier
much more than enough
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