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Changbiao / Xiapu - 26°47’59”N 120°09’12”E

The two reactors being built on Changbiao are closed fuel cycle nuclear breeder reactors. The project is also known as Xiapu fast reactor pilot project. The reactors produce plutonium. That plutonium could be reprocessed and used as a fuel source for other nuclear reactors. It could also be used to produce nuclear warheads, a lot of nuclear warheads, and produce them very quickly. If China decided to divert its civil-nuclear plutonium program to weapons spplications, it could increase the size of its nuclear arsenal to a level approximating the United States or the Russian Federation.

Like many of the over 5,000 small islands dotting China’s coastline, the islet of Changbiao is unremarkable in its history and geography. Jutting out from the shoreline of Fujian province like a small right-footed footprint, it has only gained recognition recently – and even then among a small handful of experts – for being home to China’s first two CFR-600 sodium-cooled fast-neutron nuclear reactors.

Only around 4.9 percent of China’s power is currently supplied by nuclear energy and there is room to grow that, Chinese authorities believe, with some estimates suggesting nuclear power could supply around 13 percent of the country’s energy needs by 2070. By 2025, China aims to have 70 gigawatts of installed nuclear power capacity, up from the current 51 gigawatts. The amount could double that or more by 2035, with some estimates as high as 180 gigawatts. The country has 50 nuclear reactors operating and 14 other conventional reactors under construction, not counting the two breeder reactors, according to IAEA data. China undershot its previous five-year target by around seven gigawatts, so appears to be making a major push to advance its nuclear power capacity over the next five to ten years.

The idea of expanded reproduction of nuclear fuel (in other words, abreeder) was expressed for the first time in January 1943 in the USA by Leo Szilard and picked up in the USSR. Since 1949, under the leadership of Academician Alexander Leipunsky, a multifaceted research work was carried out in Russia to create fast reactors. But the first experimental breeder reactor with a thermal power of 0.2 MW was launched in the United States, at the nuclear center in Idaho, on December 20, 1951. In the USSR, a similar facility was commissioned four years later in Obninsk.

Japan, having completed the construction of the experimental Joyo breeder in 1977, has not yet decided to issue a license for its operation. A large demonstration fast neutron reactor "Monju", which was commissioned in 1994, was closed a year later due to a fire due to a sodium leak. In the USSR, the first industrial reactor of this type, BN-350, was built on the shores of the Caspian Sea in the city of Shevchenko (Aktau in present-day Kazakhstan) and supplied power to the desalination plant. In 2000, it was stopped, the issue of decommissioning is still being resolved. The only fast neutron reactor currently operating is BN-600, the third power unit of the Beloyarsk NPP. It is not only the only one in operation, but also the most powerful sodium-cooled fast reactor in the world. And also the record holder in terms of work experience - it has been operated in industrial mode since 1980. There, at the site of the Beloyarsk NPP, a more powerful and more advanced BN-800 reactor is being built. And both of them were developed in the Experimental Design Bureau. Afrikantov.

China has been studying fast breeder reactors since 1964. CEFR (China Experimental Fast Reactor), which is the first fast reactor of China, achieved its first criticality at 21st July 2010 and was connected to the grid with 40% rated power on 21 July 2011. Based on the experience of CEFR, CFR-600 (China Fast Reactor-600), the second step of fast reactor development in China, is a sodium cooled pool type fast reactor, with 1500MW thermal power and 600MW electric power. CFR-600 is a prototype reactor and a three circuit design. The primary circuit and the second circuit both apply on the two-loop design. The inlet core temperature is about 380°, and the outlet core temperature about 550°. The design objective for thermal efficiency is 40%. CFR-600 is flexible for two fuel types, UO2 and MOX. UO2 fuel respectively, that will be loaded first and then convert to MOX fuel along with the development of MOX technology.

Breeding ability is a significant feature of CFR-600 with 1.2 as the breeding ratio objective. The multiplication ratio is not less than 1.15. At the pre-conceptual design stage, research about key parameters related to breeding ratio, including fuel pin diameter, axial blanket design, core layout etc., is done in detail. Another important feature of CFR600, sodium void effect is researched at the same time.

Unlike water, sodium coolant does not decompose under the influence of radiation, does not require regular drainage and cleaning from a dissolved absorber during refueling operations. In addition, sodium binds radioactive iodine into non-volatile chemical compounds, which, during normal operation of a nuclear power plant, practically excludes its release through ventilation systems. Therefore, during the operation of such installations, relatively little radioactive waste is generated, and their impact on the environment is less than that of other types of reactors.

The pre-conceptual design of CFR-600 started at 2012. The latest design status is technological design, which will be finished at 2014. China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) announced 29 December 2017 that construction had begun on the "landmark project for the development of China's nuclear industry". Earlier in the month, China Nuclear Industry 23 Construction Co Ltd signed the construction contract for installation of the nuclear island of the Xiapu fast reactor pilot project, following a tender process. At a ceremony to mark the start of construction, CNNC chairman Wang Shoujun described the project as a major national nuclear science and technology project. He said it is of great significance for realising the closed nuclear fuel cycle, promoting the sustainable development of nuclear energy in China and promoting the development of the local economy.

Representatives of the structures of the Russian nuclear power plant and the Chinese CNNC signed executive contracts forthe Chinese demonstration nuclear fast reactor CFR600 on November 6, 2018. The package of intergovernmental documents and framework contracts for these projects was signed on 8 June 2018, during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Beijing and his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The CFR600 contracts stipulate the supply of equipment and the provision of services, the provision of a license for the right to use software, as well as services for the examination of documentation. Starting from 2023, Rosatom will be required to deliver CFR-600 nuclear fuel required for the first 7 years after commissioning. Rosatom will act as a supplier of the elements of this reactor, the provision of services and fuel supplies. Also, the Russian side will supply spare parts, tools and accessories, and settlement codes. In addition, ASE will be engaged in installation supervision, commissioning supervision, technical support during construction and personnel training.

TVEL and CNLY signed a contract 10 January 2019 for the supply of nuclear fuel for the CFR-600 sodium-cooled pool-type fast-neutron nuclear reactor under construction in Xiapu County, in China's Fujian province. TVEL is the nuclear fuel manufacturer subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, while CNLY is part of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). To serve the contract, a new manufacturing line for the CFR-600 fuel assemblies is planned at the Elektrostal Machine-Building Plant, a TVEL facility located in the Moscow region.

The first of the two reactors is expected to connect to the grid in 2023; the second one around 2026. Together they will produce non-fossil-fuel-based renewable energy that could help China secure its energy needs while at the same time moving the country towards its 2060 carbon-neutral goal.

These breeder reactors are shrouded in mystery becauswe China, which had been transparent about its civilian plutonium programme until recently, stopped annual voluntary declarations to the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] on its stocks of civilian plutonium in 2017 and has not added the reactors to the agency’s database to date.

While there are occasionally reporting delays of up to a year among the nine members party to the IAEA voluntary guidelines for the management of plutonium, Frank von Hippel, a senior nuclear research physicist and co-founder of Princeton University’s Program on Science & Global Security, said China’s lack of transparency is beginning to draw concern among non-proliferation experts and governments around the world. “This is unique at this point,” von Hippel said of the silence over China’s plutonium activities.

“Confidence-building measures like plutonium declarations to the IAEA are really important,” said Nickolas Roth, senior fellow and director of the Nuclear Security programme at the think-tank the Stimson Center in Washington, DC. “When countries don’t submit those declarations, particularly as they’re going down the path of producing more materials, that is a legitimate reason for concern,” he said.

A paper co-authored by von Hippel and several other nuclear non-proliferation experts drew attention to this issue. The findings stated that China could “conservatively produce 1,270 nuclear weapons by 2030 simply by exploiting the weapons-grade plutonium this program will produce” or even increase that by a factor of two or more if China used highly enriched uranium or composite uranium-plutonium cores from the reactors in bombs and missiles. This would feed a huge increase from the number of estimated nuclear warheads in China’s arsenal.

Gregory Kulacki, a senior analyst on nuclear policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists who is now based in Japan, said that the good level of engagement built up between the US and China on nuclear policy prior to the early 2000s is something of a distant memory now, with the US side bearing much of the blame for the shroud of silence from China. “The [George W] Bush Jr administration’s decision [in 2002] to withdraw from the ABM [1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile] treaty pretty much gutted any real interest in China in pursuing arms control talks of any substance with the United States,” Kulacki said.