Nuclear Energy
- Thread starter Strangelove
- Start date
To extract uranium from the sea water is more expensive than the traditional mining. If they have made no breakthroughs in efficiency, that doesn't matter.
This isn't exactly "new" since construction began in December and this news article is from January.
But it is still noteworthy. China currently has anywhere from 34 to 40 nuclear reactors under construction depending on which website you want to believe. However this number will go up to at least 50 in the near future. How do I know? The state council has been approving an average of 10 reactors per year and it takes 5 years to build a reactor therefore China will need to have 10 x 5 = 50 reactors under construction simultaneously to keep up with the approvals.
If this trend continues into the future, then 60% of all nuclear reactors on planet Earth is going to be built by China. So....if your grandkids want to become nuclear engineers I recommend they learn Chinese because the technical manuals will be written in Chinese.
I didn't mention this but Taipingling-1 reached criticality. I think it should reach grid connection soon.
other projects that could complete this year are 's CAP1400, Taipingling unit 2. ACP100 in Hainan.
Maybe San'ao 1.
It's annoying how there are so many projects now, but they are still like 3 to 4 years from massively going into grid. Nuclear plants really took several years to be ready for dumplings and they are just falling behind solar and wind.
In my opinion the most interesting reactors currently being built or planned in China are the CFR-1000 and the TMSR-LF2. I have to say however that the TMSR project is progressing surprisingly slowly, from 2MW(t) to 60MW(t)/10MW(e) to potentially 100MW(e). The road to GW(e) scale reactors will be a very long one. It is understandable that such a novel design to take significant amounts of time, however there is always the danger of it getting bogged down and abandoned along the way.
Thorium is a game changer on multiple levels - higher Carnot efficiency, vastly greater fuel supply, greater fuel efficiency due to cleaner burning fuel cycle with less long lived nuclear waste (because those waste products are also fissioned), etc. I don't think China will abandon it. Being careful is fine when it's something as high stakes as this.