China Tests 4th Generation Nuclear Reactor

Anchor: China has successfully tested its first experimental fourth-generation nuclear reactor, becoming the eighth country to own the cutting-edge technology.

A senior engineer involved in developing the system says this technology is safer, more fuel efficient and cheaper than designs currently being rolled out.

Zhang Ru has more.

China has invested 2.5 billion Yuan to build the experimental reactor. The reactor's successful startup came eight months later than originally scheduled.

Xu Mi, chief engineer with the China Institute of Atomic Energy's Fast Reactor Experiment Department, says the delay was due to cross-sectional verification to ensure its safety.

Current reactors in operation around the world are generally considered second- or third-generation systems.

Xu Mi says the new technology can improve fuel efficiency and cut China's dependency on imported uranium, which has already seen a price hike in the global market.

"Compared with third-generation pressurized water reactors, which have a utility rate of just 1 percent for uranium, it boasts a utility rate of 60-70 percent. What's more, the high utility rate means that relatively lean mines are also worth exploiting. That will bring the uranium output to more than 1,000 times the current level worldwide."

In addition, the engineer says the fourth-generation reactor yields significantly cleaner energy.

"Highly radioactive nuclear waste will be burnt in the reactor as fuel or transformed into stable or short-lived material. These are easy to process and have little impact on the environment."

Globally, the new generation of reactors isn't expected to be available for commercial construction before 2030. Xu Mi says China is marching towards the goal according to its three-phase strategy.

"The completion of the Experimental Fast Reactor is the first step. For the second step, we are building a reactor with a designed annual power-generating capacity of 800 megawatts, and it is due to come online around 2020. And finally, we are planning to build the first commercial one with a generating capacity of 1,200 megawatts by 2028, and build more around 2030."

The project is in line with the country's plan to massively build up its civil nuclear reactor capacity.

China plans to build dozens more reactors by 2020, bringing the sector to 5 percent of its generating capacity. In the latest case, southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region will start building a nuclear power plant in the coming week.

China's existing 11 nuclear power generating units all use second-generation technology. Construction on its first third-generation reactors started last year.

Lin Boqiang, professor with the Center for China Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, calls for balanced development of the third- and fourth-generation technologies.

"We can't sit here and wait. How to allocate the resources for them is a problem. I think it should be balanced because we are still years away from the commercialization of fourth-generation technology. But as we build third-generation reactors, we must also invest in research on the fourth-generation technology."

He adds that developing nuclear power is critical given China's high electricity consumption and the low cost of generating nuclear power.

For CRI, I'm Zhang Ru.