China Boasts Breakthrough in Nuclear Technology

[GliderGuider]

China Boasts Breakthrough in Nuclear Technology

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese scientists have made a breakthrough in spent fuel reprocessing technology that could potentially solve China's uranium supply problem, state television reported on Monday.

The technology, developed and tested at the No.404 Factory of China National Nuclear Corp in the Gobi desert in remote Gansu province, enables the re-use of irradiated fuel and is able to boost the usage rate of uranium materials at nuclear plants by 60 folds.

China, as well as France, the United Kingdom and Russia, actively supports reprocessing as a means for the management of highly radioactive spent fuel and as a source of fissile material for future nuclear fuel supply.

But independent scientists argued that commercial application of nuclear fuel reprocessing has always been hindered by cost, technology, proliferation risk and safety challenges.

China has set an official target of 40 gigawatts (GW) of installed nuclear generating capacity by 2020, but the government indicated it could double the goal to about 80 GW as faster expansion was one of the more feasible solutions for achieving emissions reduction goals.

This is most excellent news! I invite all those who wish to see a future with lower atmospheric CO2 levels to join me in celebrating this discovery!

[Drale]

1. I had the opportunity to Tour Argonne National lab over the summer

and the tour guide said that they where trying to create a plant where the used rods would be reprocessed on site, so their is no movement of nuclear material.

[wtmusic]

2. I'm down...how do you recommend celebrating?

In the meantime, I'll rely on my not-exactly-methane-neutral-but-nonetheless-satisfying standard

:beer:

[GliderGuider]

3. That works for me!

:toast:

[XemaSab]

4. I'm sequestering CO2

:D

[NNadir]

5. I have always been surprised that PUREX chemistry lasted as long as it has.

I have long been surprised that many of the advances in actinide chemistry have not been advanced further.

The best techniques were those that were developed to support the IFR, which was regrettably killed by the Clinton administration in 1994. That was a huge mistake.

That said, Purex is not bad chemistry except in the minds of people who don't know much science. It is unlikely that all the Purex chemistry practiced in the last 5 decades killed as many people as the oil refineries operating in the Torrance/Lomita/Wilminton area of LA county.

I would be surprised if this chemistry is really a "breakthrough." More likely it is the scale up of some well known chemistry that has not been commercialized.

[GliderGuider]

7. .

[jpak]

9. PUREX was developed to make bombs and it's relatively simple chemistry

the perfect combo for nuclear proliferation

that's why it lasted so long.

yup

[GliderGuider]

10. So you must be very happy with this new development

Given that it may reduce both the high-level waste and the possibility of proliferation...

[jpak]

11. "Given that it may reduce both the high-level waste and the possibility of proliferation..."

Where does this appear in the press release?

Does this process make 137-Cs, 90-Sr and other highly radioactive fission products go *poof* - and "reduce high level waste".

nope

If this process improves the ease of extraction of plutonium and fissionable U from commercial spent fuel, how does it reduce the "possibility of proliferation"???

it doesn't

try again

[GliderGuider]

12. "Enables the re-use of irradiated fuel" = "reduces high level waste"

It doesn't need to make the isotopes you mention go "poof" to reduce high-level waste. That's your own straw man.

We don't yet know if it WILL reduce proliferation possibility, which is why I used the weasel-word "may". However, if it doesn't use PUREX, the possibility is there.

Of course, the controlled risk of nuclear weapons proliferation pales in comparison to the deaths that are already occurring due to uncontrolled CO2 - up to a Hiroshima's worth of deaths (150,000+) every year according to WHO and the University of Wisconsin.

http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarmingandhealth/a/gw_deaths.htm

Anything that has the ability to bring down that outrageous death toll and reduce the risk of the proliferation of Carbon Dioxide should be celebrated, don't you think?

[jpak]

13. = "reduces high level waste" it does not say this and you are wrong

try again

[GliderGuider]

15. What does "Enables the re-use of irradiated fuel" imply to you?

To me it implies that more of the original fuel will be reduced during re-use. And that implies less waste at the end of the re-use cycle.

[jpak]

16. No it does not - those fission products do not magically disappear from reprocessed spent fuel

Those isotopes are part of the reprocessing high level waste stream.

They do not go *poof* when spent fuel reprocessed

Reprocessing increases the volume of high level waste - it does not reduce it. Look at volume of high level waste at Hanford, SRP and Nuclear Fuel Services in West Valley NY.

Furthermore, the irradiated uranium is unusable and much of the reprocessed plutonium in MOX fuel remains after burn up.

Chinese reprocessing "breakthrough" = pig-in-a-poke

yup

[NNadir]

14. Almost all of the PUREX chemistry in use today is used for fuel purposes.

Basically the planet doesn't give a fuck about the rantings of paranoids and nuclear industrial engineering is now in a growth mode, including in Japan and China.

I guess they don't give a shit there about Amory Lovins and his denizens, not one of whom can point to a nuclear war, even though they keep hoping for one.

Duh.....

[jpak]

17. Yeah - except in China, India, Israel and North Korea where they use it to make bombs

The only reason Russia and the US don't use it anymore is because they stockpiled enormous quantities of plutonium - for bombs.

Amory Lovins is cool

yup!

:rofl:

[NNadir]

19. Well it's probably not worth discussing with critics of sciences that they hate,

but it is well known to educated people that weapons grade plutonium requires short irradiation times which means very, very, very low concentrations of plutonium.

This requirement makes it economically unfeasible to produce weapons grade plutonium other than in reactors specifically designed for that purpose.

For this reason, very few reactors that generate electricity have been used to make weapons grade plutonium, and in all such cases, the electricity was a by product.

Russia and the United States have significant quantities of surplus weapons grade plutonium, and 100% of the proposals for nuclear disarmament involve running that plutonium through commercial nuclear reactors to degrade it.

In fact this is the only workable means of nuclear disarmament.

That said, all of the crybaby's whining on this point are spectacularly unable to produce an example of a nuclear war after 1945, or even after 1980, when the oil company Amory Lovins tried to foist his stupid claim that nuclear power inevitably would cause a nuclear war.

By contrast, oil continually creates war and almost all of the weapons used use oil to fuel themselves. Anti-nukes couldn't care less. They would rather be paranoid about wars that don't happen (except in their imaginations) and otherwise show complete disregard for observed wars.

The Swiss apparently think that idea was out to lunch, as do most rational people with a knowledge of nuclear science.

Have a swell soot generating day.

[jpak]

20. Yes - Israel, India, Iran and North Korea have figured that out

and they used foreign commercial/research reactor technology to produce plutonium for bombs.

Cost was not an issue.

Ambien induced hysterical pseudoscience meets reality

yup!

[jpak]

18. Oh yeah - I forgot Iran which is bulding a heavy water natural uranium plutonium-producing reactor

for peaceful purposes of course

:rofl:

[NNadir]

21. Heavy water?!? Really do tell...

Like I always say, anti-nukes are just like creationists inasmuch they hate sciences they know nothing about.

[joshcryer]

6. China single handedly debunking the "review of solutions."

By providing substantiative ones?

[GliderGuider]

8. Perhaps the Chinese don't know about opportunity cost

Or that wind and nuclear power are somehow mutually exclusive...

[Dogmudgeon]

22. Well, at least China will have the ability to maintain a technological society

They're also unconcerned with Internet flame wars, Jacobson and Lovins worship, script-kiddie snarking, and Mr. Rofl emoticons.

I can forsee a time in 20 or 30 years when the entire world runs on nuclear energy, except for the USA, Germany, Austria, and Australia -- which will hit a ceiling of 15% renewables and 85% fossil fuel as their nuclear power stations are retired and shut down to appease elderly politicians nostalgic for the 1970s.

--d!