China to pioneer ‘pebble bed’ N-reactor
By Mure Dickie in Beijing
FT.com
China is poised to develop the world's first commercially operated “pebble bed” nuclear reactor after a Chinese energy consortium chose a site in the eastern province of Shandong to build a 195MW gas-cooled power plant.
An official representing the consortium, led by Huaneng, one of China's biggest power producers, said the proposed reactor could start producing electricity within five years.
If successfully commercialised, the pebble bed reactor would be the first radically new reactor design for several decades. It would push China to the forefront of development of a technology that researchers claim offers a new “meltdown-proof” alternative to standard water-cooled nuclear power stations.
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High-temperature gas-cooled reactors have for decades offered the theoretical promise of cheap, safe and easily scalable nuclear power and China’s bold try at making them work will be closely watched.
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China and South Africa have led efforts to develop “pebble bed” reactors, so called because they are fuelled by small graphite spheres the size of billiard balls, with uranium cores. The reactor's proponents say its small core and the dispersal of its fuel among hundreds of thousands of spheres prevents a meltdown.
Advocates of “modular” pebble bed reactors argue they offer the hope of cheap, safe and easily expandable nuclear power stations a potent appeal for China, which is struggling to meet huge growth in energy demand while avoiding environmental disaster.
Pebble bed reactors are small, which suits remote and rural areas and makes them easy to expand.
The reactor's supporters also argue that the technology is secure from proliferation. The low-enriched uranium fuel consists of half-millimetre-sized particles of uranium dioxide encased in graphite and silicon carbide, which in turn is encased in a graphite ball. Experts say it is expensive and difficult to process such spent fuel. Plans for a rival pilot plant near Cape Town, developed by Eskom, the South African power utility, US-based Exelon and British Nuclear Fuels, have been stalled by environmental challenges.
The Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology at Beijing's Tsinghua University, which has links with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, operates the world's only test pebble bed reactor outside Beijing and is providing the technology for the planned power station.
The Chinese consortium, which includes Huaneng, Tsinghua and China Nuclear Engineering and Construction (CNEC), has identified the city of Weihai on Shandong's northeastern coast as their preferred site for the plant and is preparing to apply for government approval.
Huaneng, one of China's biggest electricity generators, plans to take a 50 per cent stake in the joint venture that will build the plant. CNEC would own 35 per cent and Tsinghua 5 per cent. The remaining 10 per cent may be offered to other investors.
South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki had said his country was seeking co-operation with China for the development of the nuclear technology. The Eskom-led joint venture was hoping to build its test commercial pebble bed reactor within 10 years.
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