This is huge! When will China start to successfully export this technology to other countries? Will the West focus narrowly only on the nuclear weapons aspect of it?
There are countries (mostly Western countries) that are stuck in the Global Warming hoax and Climate Change religion and there other countries that could not care less and take advantage of it!
While Germany has phased out its nuclear power plants and can barely agree to keep the few remaining ones running for more than a few months, China builds new nuclear power plants that produce Plutonium!
China brings back the very old idea to use breeders to produce more fissile material! Very smart move by the Communist Party of China! Western countries have largely shunned breeders not least, because of proliferation of nuclear weapons! What nearsightedness!
"the China National Nuclear Corp. is building two fast-neutron nuclear breeder reactors, the first of which is slated to connect to the grid in 2023, the second in 2026. So China could start producing weapons-grade plutonium there very soon.
They are called breeder reactors because they produce more nuclear fuel than they consume. ...
But each reactor could also yield up to 200 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium each year, enough for about 50 nuclear warheads—which is making nuclear-arms-control experts in Western countries nervous. ...
Fast breeder reactors date back more than half a century, when the global nuclear community thought there wouldn’t be enough uranium fuel available for the nuclear-power industry. ... But when bombarded with neutrons, U-238 is readily transformed into an isotope that can [be fissile]: plutonium-239 ...
While many countries explored the possibility of using fast breeder reactors early on, only one of the breeder reactors built in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, or the United States survived into the 21st century before it, too, was shut down. Japan also developed a fast breeder power reactor, one that proved to be a costly mistake, prompting a decision in 2016 to decommission it. ...
Russia has built two fast breeder reactors, which are still operating today. But Russia has decided not to build another one until the 2030s, because they are more expensive than conventional water-cooled reactors. ...
The new breeder reactors in China, meanwhile, are demonstration projects, the second step in a three-step program to develop fast breeder reactors to reduce the country’s dependence on coal. The first step was a 20-MW experimental fast breeder reactor near Beijing, which was begun in 2000 but took many years to complete and connect to the grid. The country will soon decide whether to continue to the third step of building a commercial 1,000-MW breeder reactor. ...
An added concern is that China stopped voluntarily disclosing its civilian plutonium stockpiles to the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2018. ..."
They are called breeder reactors because they produce more nuclear fuel than they consume. ...
But each reactor could also yield up to 200 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium each year, enough for about 50 nuclear warheads—which is making nuclear-arms-control experts in Western countries nervous. ...
Fast breeder reactors date back more than half a century, when the global nuclear community thought there wouldn’t be enough uranium fuel available for the nuclear-power industry. ... But when bombarded with neutrons, U-238 is readily transformed into an isotope that can [be fissile]: plutonium-239 ...
While many countries explored the possibility of using fast breeder reactors early on, only one of the breeder reactors built in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, or the United States survived into the 21st century before it, too, was shut down. Japan also developed a fast breeder power reactor, one that proved to be a costly mistake, prompting a decision in 2016 to decommission it. ...
Russia has built two fast breeder reactors, which are still operating today. But Russia has decided not to build another one until the 2030s, because they are more expensive than conventional water-cooled reactors. ...
The new breeder reactors in China, meanwhile, are demonstration projects, the second step in a three-step program to develop fast breeder reactors to reduce the country’s dependence on coal. The first step was a 20-MW experimental fast breeder reactor near Beijing, which was begun in 2000 but took many years to complete and connect to the grid. The country will soon decide whether to continue to the third step of building a commercial 1,000-MW breeder reactor. ...
An added concern is that China stopped voluntarily disclosing its civilian plutonium stockpiles to the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2018. ..."
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