Sustainable Development of China With Nuclear Energy System Beyond Generation-IV

Two aspects of the development trend of current nuclear fission technology are discussed. The first aspect is to improve economic competitiveness and safety for searching opportunity of enlarging the share of nuclear power. The second aspect is to explore new ways of improving the efficiency of nuclear fuel utilization and of reducing the geological repository volume of radioactive products from nuclear power generation. Sustainable development of Chinese economy in 21st century will mainly rely on sustainable supply of clean energy with indigenous natural resources. The burden of current coal-dominant energy mix and the environmental pollution due to energy consumptions has led nuclear power to be an indispensable choice for further expanding electricity generation capacity and for reducing greenhouse effect gases emission in China. The long-term sustainable development strategy with nuclear fission technology beyond generation-IV for electric power generation, namely the fusion-fission hybrid subcritical reactor technology, is discussed. The impact of the proposed fission-fusion hybrid reactor to future nuclear power generation technology will reply on the success of the ITER-scale (500MW fusion power) Tokamak to burn plasma continuously in the predictable future. The main challenges and prospects of the strategy are also analyzed. The preliminary analysis has shown that the fission in the subcritical blanket driven by fusion neutrons can effectively amplify the energy carried by fusion neutron and maintain breeding of fissile material and tritium. It has been found from the results of a conceptual design that this new type of fusion-fission hybrid reactor may meet the requirement of China’s long-term sustainable development of nuclear energy.