China will build a new hybrid reactor that can burn nuclear waste via a combined fusion-fission method by 2030.
This
could give a potentially dramatic boost to China's attempt to switch to
more environmentally friendly energy production methods, by recycling
the waste produced by traditional nuclear plants into more electricity.
Traditional
nuclear power plants produce large amounts of waste, the primary
component in which is uranium-238, which cannot be used by current
fissile-based reactors. The proposed hybrid reactor will use nuclear
fusion to burn u-238 and could in theory recycle the waste from
traditional reactors into new fuel.
The project is being
developed at the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics in Sichuan, a
top secret military research facility where China's nuclear weapons are
developed.
Toss a dart at a map of the United States and, more often than not, it will land where shale can be found underground. A drab, relatively featureless sedimentary rock that historically attracted little interest, shale (as used here, the term includes clay and a range of clay-rich rocks) is entering Americans’ consciousness as a new source of gas and oil. But shale may also offer something entirely different—the ability to safely and permanently house high-level nuclear waste.
"We direct the NRC Staff to complete and issue the Safety Evaluation Report (SER) associated with the construction authorization application.” So states the Memorandum and Order issued by the commissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in compliance with an August decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals to restart the review of the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste repository.
