China crosses milestone: 20th operating nuclear reactor
Why is it important that China has 20 operating nuclear reactors? A single gigawatt-class nuclear reactor (like the newly-operational Yangjiang 1) "produces an estimated 293 kilograms of plutonium per year -- enough plutonium every year to make forty thermonuclear bombs."
China's civilian nuclear reactors produce sufficient plutonium for at least 500 thermonuclear warheads per year.
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Commercial operation for Yangjiang 1 | World Nuclear News
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Commercial operation for Yangjiang 1
27 March 2014
Unit 1 of the Yangjiang plant in China's Guangdong province has entered commercial operation, becoming China's 20th operating nuclear power reactor.
Yangjiang 1 is now in commercial operation, while the adjacent unit 2 will soon start pre-operational tests (Image: CGN)
Yangjiang 1 - the first of six units under construction at the site in China's Guangdong province - began a full-power demonstration phase on 18 March. China General Nuclear (CGN) announced that this trial run was successfully completed on 25 March at which point it formally started commercial operation.
Yangjiang 1 represents CGN's ninth operating unit and brings the company's installed generating capacity to 9410 MWe.
Work on the first reactor at Yangjiang began in December 2008. It achieved first criticality on 23 December 2013 and was connected to the grid on 31 December. The equipment localization rate at the unit reached 83%, according to CGN.
The first four Yangjiang units are 1080 MWe CPR-1000 pressurized water reactors, with units 5 and 6 being ACPR-1000. With unit 1 now in operation, unit 2 is currently preparing to conduct hot tests, aimed at simulating the temperatures and pressures which the reactor's systems will be subjected to during normal operation. This phase ensures coolant circuits and nuclear safety systems are functioning properly before fuel is loaded. Equipment installation is underway at unit 3 while civil construction works continue at units 4, 5 and 6.
All six reactors should be in operation by 2018, producing a grand total of around 6100 MWe.
Researched and written
by World Nuclear News"
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A gigawatt nuclear reactor produces 293 kg of plutonium (40 fusion bombs) per year
China has four sources of plutonium to build 5,000 thermonuclear warheads. For a modern warhead, you need 25 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and 4 kg of plutonium (see illustration below).
a) Two above-ground plutonium plants. These two plants produced a stockpile of plutonium. Also, the two plants can be reactivated if necessary.
b) Underground plutonium plants, such as the massive one at Chengdu.
c) Extraction of plutonium from civilian spent nuclear fuel rods. China has operated numerous nuclear power plants for fifty years. There is plenty of spent nuclear fuel rods from the civilian nuclear reactors.
d) Fast breeder reactors. China has an operational 60 megawatt fast breeder connected to the electricity grid. It is safe to assume there are military-specific fast breeder reactors.
I have previously said that China has four sources of plutonium. Today, we will discuss the plutonium available from China's civilian nuclear reactors. I don't know much about China's smaller nuclear research reactors, but those produce plutonium too.
China currently has 16 large nuclear reactors in operation. Source:
China Nuclear Power | Chinese Nuclear Energy
Though China has 16 large (gigawatt-class) nuclear reactors in operation, there are a few that are supplied with Australian uranium. The Australians are picky. They basically said, "we know China is a recognized nuclear weapons state (that is allowed to freely manufacture thermonuclear weapons), but we want you to agree not to use our uranium to make thermonuclear weapons." China said okay.
This means the total number of available gigawatt-class nuclear reactors as a source of plutonium is less than 16. Let's just say the correct number is somewhere around 10 reactors supplied with Chinese uranium and not subject to the Australian restriction.
I don't want to get entangled in minutiae and my goal is to simply obtain a ballpark figure for Chinese plutonium availability from civilian nuclear reactors. There is also plutonium available from smaller nuclear research reactors (both civilian and military), but I have no idea how to compile the information for research reactors and I'm just going to ignore the research reactors.
Referring to the citation below, a single gigawatt nuclear reactor produces 293 kg of plutonium each year. This provides sufficient plutonium to build 40 thermonuclear warheads. As a rough estimate, China probably has 10 reactors using indigenous uranium. This means China produces 2,930 kg of plutonium each year from its civilian nuclear reactors or the ability to manufacture 400 thermonuclear warheads.
Of course, China has been operating nuclear reactors for decades. I have no idea how much plutonium they have, but it should be a pretty big stockpile. The point is pretty simple. If Chinese nuclear reactors are producing enough plutonium to build 400 thermonuclear warheads a year then China should have plenty of plutonium in their stockpile to build a few thousand thermonuclear warheads.
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Nuclear Power Plant Fuel--a source of Plutonium for Weapons? - NIRS
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Nuclear Power Plant Fuel--a source of Plutonium for Weapons?
Many people may not realize that every nuclear power plant -- as a normal part of the fissioning process -- produces plutonium. Plutonium and/or highly-enriched uranium are essential ingredients of nuclear bombs.
Every year the thousand-megawatt Callaway reactor in Missouri, for example, produces an estimated 293 kilograms of plutonium[1] -- enough plutonium every year to make forty nuclear bombs (each containing about 7.3 kilograms [16 pounds] of mixed isotopes of plutonium per bomb).[2]
If the nuclear power reactor continues operating for a total of 30 years, it will have produced enough plutonium for at least 1200 bombs.
Every year and a half, some of the irradiated fuel rods -- all of which contain plutonium[3] -- are removed from the reactor vessel and are replaced with fresh uranium rods. The irradiated rods are then stored in a concrete spent-fuel pool or in dry-storage canisters -- on site --for an indefinite amount of time. No permanent repository exists anywhere for the irradiated rods.
"Reprocessing" technologies exist that can extract plutonium from irradiated reactor fuel. Although no commercial reprocessing plant is currently operating in the U.S., reprocessing is under way in Japan, England, France, Russia and India. And the Department of Energy and Japan are expending significant funds here in the U.S. on research, development, and demonstration projects for cheaper, faster, more efficient ways to reprocess irradiated fuel.
The nuclear industry and others support the reprocessing of irradiated, commercial nuclear power plant fuel and the "recycling," then, of its extracted plutonium into new nuclear plant fuel (a mixture of uranium and plutonium oxides). Proponents of reprocessing are advocating the "burn-up" of plutonium as fuel in existing and/or "advanced" nuclear power reactors.
Environmentalists, on the other hand, point out that past reprocessing has been responsible for major environmental degradation in the countries that have employed it, including the United States. In order to extract plutonium, reprocessing requires that irradiated reactor fuel rods -- the most radioactive materials on earth -- be cut up, and dissolved in a solvent, resulting in the release of massive quantities of radioactive gases and other substances. Leakage of the remaining stored high-level radioactive wastes at West Valley, New York; Hanford, Washington; Idaho Falls, Idaho; and Savannah River, South Carolina, has created cleanup problems that will take hundreds of billions of dollars, with complete remediation an impossibility.
They also warn that terrorists could steal the extracted plutonium from stockpiles at reprocessing or fuel fabrication plants, or during transport between the facilities, and use it in the manufacture of nuclear bombs. The potential for sabotage or theft at these facilities would be substantial.
Additionally, other dangers inherent in nuclear power plants would remain: the routine releases of fission products into the environment, the exposure of workers to radiation, the potential for a major accident, and the accumulation of long-lived wastes from the reactors' continuing operation.[4]
Proposals pending in Congress to transport the irradiated fuel that is currently stockpiled at some seventy nuclear power plant locations out to Nevada for interim storage -- and possibly someday, for ultimate disposal or reprocessing -- would place thousands of shipments of plutonium-bearing fuel onto our railroads and highways, coast-to-coast. Federal regulations require that armed escorts be present during all shipments of irradiated fuel -- evidence that the threat of nuclear terrorism is real.
No American electric utility has placed an order for a nuclear power plant that was not subsequently canceled since October 1973 (the Palo Verde plant in Arizona). That is, no new nuclear plants are being added. However, every existing reactor, because of the presence of plutonium, is a potential target for terrorism.
Nuclear reactors and the plutonium they generate threaten the hope for world peace and survival.
We would like to acknowledge the contribution by Dr. Thomas B. Cochran, Senior Staff Scientist of the Natural Resources Defense Council, who calculated the annual plutonium production of the Callaway nuclear power plant.
NOTES:
1. The above calculation of 293 kilograms of plutonium per year assumes the Callaway reactor (1150-megawatt electric; 3565-megawatt thermal) operates at 80% of its capacity. Please remember: approximately 60 percent of the plutonium will be plutonium-239, which has a half-life of 24,000 years and remains hazardous for at least ten half-lives.
2. See Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 50, No. 1, Part II, Jan. 1978, page S29. With greater technical expertise, a nuclear weapon can be built with considerably less plutonium than the amount estimated here.
3. Although the plutonium generated by a commercial nuclear power plant is not technically "weapons grade," it has long been acknowledged that nuclear bombs can be and have been built with reactor-grade plutonium.
4. All nuclear power plants release radioactive gases, liquids, and particulates into the environment as a part of their routine operation. It does not take an accident. Such releases include tritium (radioactive hydrogen) and other radioactive gaseous material, much of which can be neither filtered nor monitored.
July 19, 1996, Kay Drey"
