Will China build a 1700 MW reactor? 

Will China build a 1700 MW reactor?

Technology transfer and R&D efforts in the past few year say they are thinking hard about it

Everyone familiar with China's civilian nuclear energy program knows that there are three principal sources of technology coming into the country. The first is the Russian VVER, a 1000 MW reactor which also comes in a 1200 MW model. The second is the Westinghouse AP1000 which is an 1100 MW design. Finally, there is the Areva EPR which weighs in at an impressive 1600 MW.  All three vendors are building reactors in China and both Westinghouse and Areva have signed licensing agreements to share their technological know-how with the Chinese.

But China has its own ideas about where to take these agreements. One of them is to explore development of an even larger reactor, a 1700 MW design that would borrow best-in-class features from its vendors' offerings and in particular from Westinghouse.  In January 2010 the State Nuclear Power Technology Corp, held a conference to assess the state-of-the art relative to a 1700 MW reactor.  The Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research & Design Institute and the State Nuclear Power Board sponsored the meeting.

According to English language media reports, the meeting considered topics like thermal reactor core physics, passive safety injection system capacity, serious accident mitigation measures, and, most importantly, how to handle the complex intellectual property rights that would be involved in transferring technology to the new design.

As a result of the meeting, and other internal government deliberations which are not transparent to the media, it became apparent that two of the major power companies in China will collaborate to build advanced, third-generation reactor designs in the city of Weihai in Shandong province. 

The first project is a 1400 MW unit based on the Westinghouse AP1000 design.  The State Nuclear Power Technology Corp (SNPTC) and the China Huaneng Group have taken stakes of 55% and 45% respectively.   The China Daily reports that the joint venture will break ground in April 2013 with hot start-up set for December 2017.   A second project to build a 1700 MW version has an unspecified start date.

The Chine Daily quotes Tang Zide, a nuclear energy expert with SNPTC, as saying, "Construction of such demonstration projects will bring technology upgrades to China's nuclear power industry, which is vital to the future of the sector."

SNPTC said on its English language web pages that it is making progress on the 1400 MW design

“Large Advanced Passive PWR Nuclear Power Plant CAP1400 Project is one of the symbolic projects for China to build an innovative country. As the leading role for LPP Project as well as the implementing unit of LPP demonstration project, SNPTC is actively making coordination and pushing forward related works. The collaboration mechanism has been set up and R&D has gained significant progress. CAP1400 demonstration project has commenced the preparation works before construction while CAP 1700 technology pre-research outline has been completed. “

The World Nuclear Association has this assessment of the status of the project and hints at even larger designs.

“Westinghouse announced in 2008 that it was working with SNPTC and Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research & Design Institute (SNERDI) to develop jointly a passively safe 1400 MWe design from the AP1000, for large-scale deployment. This development with SNERDI opens the possibility of China itself exporting the new larger units with Westinghouse's cooperation.

The 1400 MW unit may be followed by a larger, 3-loop CAP2100 design if the passive cooling system can be scaled to that level. Agreements with Westinghouse stipulate that SNPTC will own the intellectual property rights for any derivatives over 1350 MWe. SNPEC is doing the engineering under a team from SNERDI, the Shandong Electric Power Engineering Consulting Institute (SEPECI), and the State Nuclear Power Equipment Manufacturing Company (SNPEMC), which will make the components.”

A few challenges await the developers of both the 1400 MW and 1700 MW desgins.  The four AP1000 reactors China contracted for from Westinghouse came with a crate full of CDs containing in electronic form much of the design information involved in the technology transfer agreement. 

China must adapt the reactors to their power generation systems, e.g. turbines, generators, and the 50 hz electrical network that powers the nation.  The larger footprint of the bigger reactors will require more support infrastructure. The AP1000's passive safety features will have to be scaled up to the bigger design.

Perhaps more daunting is the AP1000 design, developed in Amercian units of measurement, will be converted to metric equivalents and then the safety significance of every single calculation will have to be looked at very hard.

Another obvious series of challenges is that pumps, steam systems, and just about every component in the AP1000 design will have to be looked at for the jump in size to 1400 or 1700 MW.  It's not just a case of making a bigger reactor core and buying more uranium. The whole shooting match needs to be reworked from the ground up.

There is another reason why China is giving priority to the 1400 MW design. It wants to be able to export them especially in southeast Asia.  To to this it will have to build something that can go head-to-head with South Korea's APR1400 which is based on the System 80 design. 

China last year offered to export its indigenous 1000 MW design to South Africa and also offered financing.  Eskom, the South African state-owned electric utility, is perpetually broke and needs the investment credits more than any specific light water reactor technology. So far not much has come of discussions. 

It is unlikely China would offer to revive the now mothballed Pebble Bed project.  China has its own effort to develop high temperature gas cooled reactors for commecial applications though the exact status of construction of two of them is open to conjecture.

Hat tip "Pro-nuclear activist" David Walters

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