News on China's scientific and technological development.

OppositeDay

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This is the experimental fast neutron reactor in Beijing. A bigger demonstration plant is being built in Fujian.

China right now is simultaneously constructing demonstration plants for three types of Gen IV designs:

1. Sodium-cooled fast reactor (closed fuel cycle).
2. Very high temperature gas reactors (for hydrogen/electricity co-generation)
3. Molten salt reactor (super safe reactors for inland sites, hydrogen/electricity co-generation, potentially thorium fuel cycle?)

Note both VHTR and MSR designs aim for hydrogen co-generation. China's biggest steelmaker Baowu is cooperating with Tsinghua and China National Nuclear to research on hydrogen production.

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Australians know their steelmaking coal is going to be replaced by hydrogen, so they want to start their own hydrogen industry using solar power. But I just don't think China is planning on buying Australian hydrogen.
 

Temstar

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Synthetic blood plasma plant under construction at Wuhan, to produce albumin, a blood plasma protein. This is a critical drug used to treat many conditions such as shock from burns, kidney failures etc. Currently albumin is produced by extraction from blood plasma, requiring a ton of blood plasma to produce 25 kg of albumin. Low yield aside this production also completes with blood bank needs. In 2020 China used 600 tons of albumin, 65% of which was imported.

Production of albumin from recombinant rice with human albumin genes yield 10g of albumin from 1kg of the genetically modified rice. The plant under construction would both be a R&D centre for further research as well as test production facility able to produce 10 tons of albumin per year. The plant is expected to be completed in March 2022. The synthetic albumin has been undergoing phase 1 clinical trial in China since May 2017, it has also gained FDA approval for phase 1 clinical trial in the US in August 2019.

In addition to albumin the company also has three other rice-based recombinant drugs in different stages of development. One is synthetic human lactoferrin lysozyme used to treat diarrhoea in children due to rotavirus infection. This drug has recently passed phase 1 clinical trial and is about to begin phase 2.
 

KYli

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Source: "Guangdong Province Land and Space Planning 2020-2035"

   Airlines are probably getting anxious!

  Recently, the Department of Land and Resources of Guangdong Province released the public version of "Guangdong Province Land and Space Planning 2020-2035", which interprets and displays the land and space arrangements for the next 15 years. The plan proposes to reserve six important traffic corridors, while the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao high-speed magnetic levitation and Shanghai (Shenzhen)-Guangzhou high-speed magnetic levitation channels will be reserved in the provincial space. Suddenly, there are many excitement online, and the Shanghai-Shenzhen-Guangzhou maglev system is really coming. What about airlines?

In fact, on September 16 last year, He Huawu, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, stated at the "International Conference on Innovation and Emerging Industry Development" that China has conducted two studies on the route selection of the 600 km/h high-speed maglev train: They are Shanghai-Hangzhou Maglev and Guangzhou-Shenzhen Maglev. According to reports, Guangzhou-Shenzhen Maglev will select the Guangzhou East to Shenzhen Xiangmihu Station, with a total length of about 110 kilometers, including Guangzhou East Station, Dongguan Hadi Station, and Shenzhen Xiangmihu Station. It is expected to be connected to Hong Kong Kowloon Station in the future.

1500 kilometers from Shenzhen to Shanghai, if calculated at a speed of 600 kilometers per hour, it only takes 2.5 hours. Be on time and do not need to run to the airport. Competitors on the Shanghai-Guangzhou-Shenzhen route are really coming this time, and the ground-to-air war may be about to start. Some netizens joked: Leave a way for the plane. However, the plane is indeed not very competitive. In addition to the usual non-punctuality, Boeing had another accident this weekend.

   So, is the house in Xiangmihu going to replace Maotai and become the end of the universe? Is the maglev sector going to cheer again?

   Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou magnetic levitation is coming

   The public version of "Guangdong Province Land and Space Planning 2020-2035" was released recently. Among them, the expression of magnetic levitation is particularly concerned.

According to the plan, in terms of transportation infrastructure, it is proposed to reserve 6 important transportation corridors, including Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao high-speed magnetic levitation, Shanghai (Shenzhen)-Guangzhou high-speed magnetic levitation, northern ecological development zone express railway, northern Guangdong to coastal economic belt express railway, Qiongzhou Strait passage, high-speed rail from eastern Guangdong to western Guangdong.

n addition, in the future, Guangdong also needs to improve the construction of coastal tourist roads, Nanling eco-tourist roads, characteristic waterways and land island wharfs. Optimize the layout of urban roads, increase road network density, and rationally allocate road space resources. Steadily improve the quality of national and provincial roads, and improve the technical level and coverage of county roads and rural roads.

Centering on the construction of the regional development pattern of "one core, one belt and one area" (one core, one belt and one area: the core area of the Pearl River Delta, the coastal economic belt, and the northern ecological development zone), the plan proposes, Shanghai-Shantou-Shanwei-Shenzhen-Guangzhou, Beijing -Shaoguan-Guangzhou-Foshan-Zhuhai-Macao maglev line, as well as Yangjiang-Zhuhai-Shenzhen high-speed rail (the west extension of Ganshen Passenger Dedicated Line) and Qiongzhou Strait Channel It can be seen from the above plan that the four cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau are the core of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area planning outline. And Shantou, Shanwei, Foshan, Zhuhai and other cities are necessary cities for planning maglev lines.

   In addition, Zhanjiang-Yunfu-Foshan-Taishan has also planned a high-speed railway (coastal-Yuebei line), connecting Yangjiang-Zhuhai-Shenzhen high-speed railway. Yunfu-Yangshan-Xinfeng-Heyuan has also planned a high-speed railway (northern line).



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Nutrient

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This is the experimental fast neutron reactor in Beijing. A bigger demonstration plant is being built in Fujian.

This could be the most important news of the year; the earlier Russian BN-800 could be the most important news of the century. If there are no serious problems, the future of humanity looks suddenly much brighter.

The reason is, fast neutron breeder reactors can burn Uranium 238, which is about 140 times more abundant than U-235. There should be enough U-238 to last the world for thousands of years. Additionally, there is enough U-238 dissolved in the sea to last millions of years -- this should buy us plenty of time to harness fusion.
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
This could be the most important news of the year; the earlier Russian BN-800 could be the most important news of the century. If there are no serious problems, the future of humanity looks suddenly much brighter.

The reason is, fast neutron breeder reactors can burn Uranium 238, which is about 140 times more abundant than U-235. There should be enough U-238 to last the world for thousands of years. Additionally, there is enough U-238 dissolved in the sea to last millions of years -- this should buy us plenty of time to harness fusion.

Well fast breeder is not new Many countries has the experimental fast breeder. Japan has one for decades but recently mothballed There is problem with heat transport carrier They don't use water I believe instead they use liquid sodium which very corrosive

Liquid sodium is used as a coolant in fast breeder reactors on account of its excellent heat transfer properties. It must, however, be in the pure form to be compatible with structural materials. Techniques for its purification to nuclear grade and its characterization had to be developed in our laboratory before we could embark on an R&D programme.

Corrosion of structural materials in the sodium environment depends on the oxygen content of sodium. In order to understand the mechanism of this corrosion, one must have a good grasp of the thermochemistry of the ternary systems, Na-M-O, where M stands for the alloying constitutents of stainless steels. The phase diagrams of most of these systems were established in our laboratory. A specially designed sodium loop is used in the study of corrosion, activity transport and kinetics of sodium-water reaction.

Japan wastes billions​

The latest setback was the
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of the Japanese government at an extraordinary Cabinet meeting on September 21 to abandon plans to restart the Monju fast breeder reactor.

Monju reached criticality in 1994 but was shut down in December 1995 after a sodium coolant leak and fire. The reactor didn’t restart until May 2010, and it was shut down again three months later after a fuel handling machine was accidentally dropped in the reactor during a refuelling outage. In November 2012, it was revealed that Japan Atomic Energy Agency had failed to conduct regular inspections of almost 10,000 out of a total 39,000 pieces of equipment at Monju, including safety-critical equipment.

In November 2015, the Nuclear Regulation Authority declared that the Japan Atomic Energy Agency was “not qualified as an entity to safely operate” Monju. Education minister Hirokazu Matsuno
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on 21 September 2016 that attempts to find an alternative operator have been unsuccessful.

Japan has wasted around US$37 billion on Monju (US$15bn) and Rokkasho (US$22bn) and plans to continue to throw good money after bad
The government has already
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1.2 trillion yen (US$12bn) on Monju. The government
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that it would cost another 600 billion yen (US$6bn) to restart Monju and keep it operating for another 10 years.

Decommissioning also has a hefty price-tag ‒ far more than for conventional light-water reactors. According to a 2012
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by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, decommissioning Monju will cost an estimated 300 billion yen (US$3bn).

So Japan will have wasted over US$15 billion on the Monju fiasco. Perhaps those responsible will argue that the figure pales into insignificance compared to the estimated long-term costs of around
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arising from the Fukushima disaster.

Allison MacFarlane, former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, recently made this sarcastic
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of fast reactor technology: “These turn out to be very expensive technologies to build. Many countries have tried over and over. What is truly impressive is that these many governments continue to fund a demonstrably failed technology.”

India has a track record of making absurd projections for both fast reactors and light-water reactors ‒ and failing to meet those targets by orders of magnitude
Japan neatly illustrates MacFarlane’s bemusement. Despite the Monju fiasco, the Japanese government wants to stay involved in the fast reactor game, either by restarting the Joyo experimental fast reactor (
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since 2007 due to damage to reactor core components) or pursuing joint research with France.

Why would Japan continue its involvement in fast reactors? Most likely, the government has no interest in fast reactors per se, but giving up would make it more difficult to justify continuing with the partially-built
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. Providing plutonium fuel for fast reactors was one of the main justifications for Rokkasho.

Rokkasho has been an even more expensive white elephant than Monju. Its scheduled completion in 1997 has been delayed by more than 20 times due to technical glitches and other problems, and its
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is now estimated at 2.2 trillion yen (US$22bn) ‒ three times the original estimate.

Japan has wasted around US$37 billion on Monju (US$15bn) and Rokkasho (US$22bn) and plans to continue to throw good money after bad. According to the
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, if Rokkasho operates it is expected to increase the electricity bills of Japan’s ratepayers by about US$100 billion over the next 40 years.

India’s failed program​

India’s fast reactor program has also been a failure. The budget for the Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) was approved in 1971 but the reactor was delayed repeatedly, attaining first criticality in 1985. It took until 1997 for the FBTR to start supplying a small amount of electricity to the grid. The FBTR’s operations have been marred by
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.

Preliminary design work for a larger Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) began in 1985, expenditures on the reactor began in 1987/88 and construction began in 2004 ‒ but the reactor still hasn’t
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. Construction has taken more than twice the expected period. In July 2016, the Indian government announced yet another delay, and there is scepticism that the scheduled start-up in March 2017 will be realised. The PFBR’s
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has gone up by 62%.

“It’s very likely that the current economic crisis, the deepest in history since the USSR collapsed, will axe most of the new reactors”
India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has for decades projected the construction of hundreds of fast reactors ‒ for example a 2004 DAE document projected 262.5 gigawatts (GW) of fast reactor capacity by 2050. But India has a track record of making absurd projections for both fast reactors and light-water reactors ‒ and
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to meet those targets by orders of magnitude.

Princeton academic M.V. Ramana
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: “Breeder reactors have always underpinned the DAE’s claims about generating large quantities of electricity. Today, more than six decades after the grand plans for growth were first announced, that promise is yet to be fulfilled. The latest announcement about the delay in the PFBR is yet another reminder that breeder reactors in India, like elsewhere, are best regarded as a failed technology and that it is time to give up on them.”

Russia’s snail-paced program​

Russia’s fast reactor program is the only one that could be described as anything other than a failure. But it hasn’t been a roaring success either.


 

Nutrient

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Well fast breeder is not new Many countries has the experimental fast breeder. Japan has one for decades but recently mothballed There is problem with heat transport carrier They don't use water I believe instead they use liquid sodium which very corrosive

Yes, I know that fast breeders are not new. What I found most significant in the article by World Nuclear News is that China is building a second CFR-600 in Fujian province. That means the first one must be working. In addition, Russia's BN-800 has been running for several years. These items make me cautiously optimistic that the problems have been solved.

For convenience, here's the World Nuclear News article again:

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The following article says "BN-600 at Beloyarsk has operated well, supplying electricity to the grid since 1980, and is said to have the best operating and production record of all Russia’s nuclear power units." (Emphasis added.)

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So I am cautiously optimistic. If the fast breeders work out, they should meet the world's energy needs for a long, long time. This means the world should have the time to make fusion work.
 

ansy1968

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WOW!!! Huawei is into solar power?

from CnTechPost

Huawei solar panels installed at one of Shanghai's busiest metro stations, can save 1,200 tons of coal per year​

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February 22, 2021
Huawei solar panels installed at one of Shanghai's busiest metro stations, can save 1,200 tons of coal per year-CnTechPost

Shanghai's Longyang Road metro station has installed solar panels with a total capacity of 3.66 MW using Huawei's solar solution, which can generate an average of 3.4 million kWh of electricity per year, saving about 1,200 tons of standard coal and reducing 3,390 tons of CO2 each year.
The metro station is an interchange station for Line 2, Line 7, and Line 16, as well as a departure station for the high-speed maglev trains.
According to
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, the total area of the solar project on the roof of the subway garage here is 50,000 square meters, equivalent to the size of five or six soccer fields.
A total of nearly 13,000 280-watt modules have been installed, and the solar power generated is grid-connected to a comprehensive substation at the base for use close to the subway.

Huawei solar panels installed at one of Shanghai's busiest metro stations, can save 1,200 tons of coal per year-CnTechPost

(Source: ifeng.com)
The solar power plant's annual power generation is enough to run a train of 8 sections 200,000 kilometers, equivalent to more than 1,560 round trips.
Huawei Smart Solar is a total solution based on string inverters, which integrates ICT technology with solar energy.
Compared to traditional solutions, Huawei's solutions increase power generation by more than 2%, improve operation and maintenance efficiency by more than 50%, and reduce overall LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy) by 6%, which can help solar energy enter the era of parity.
In addition to the Shanghai Metro, Huawei's intelligent solar solutions are now in use at many major transportation hubs, including Beijing Daxing International Airport and Xiong'an Station, Asia's largest high-speed rail station.

The above report quoted Huawei sources as saying, "In power generation, we will 5G, AI, cloud and other new ICT technologies and solar energy deep integration, to promote the development of solar energy to light storage integration. Solar power cost continues to decrease, has been realized from supplementary energy to affordable energy, and is gradually becoming the main energy source."
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The total area of the solar project on the roof of the subway garage here is 50,000 square meters, equivalent to the size of five ...
February 22, 2021
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