Here is an older story. Nuclear China Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2007  China is gearing up for the fastest deployment of nuclear energy in history, fuelled by Australian uranium.  At least thirty new reactors are planned to be built in the fifteen years. Nearly all will be Pressurised Water Reactors, the most common type in the world.  But one will be the first commercial Pebble-Bed Reactor, a radically different Chinese design that researchers claim is ‘meltdown proof’ and ‘inherently safe’.  As Australia debates whether we should build our own reactors, one thing is clear: our nuclear future is inextricably linked with China.  Catalyst visits two reactors in China to search for answers, in the first Australian science TV report about the practicalities of making nuclear energy in the world’s most populous nation.  TRANSCRIPT Narration: The fastest growing economy in the world is racing to find enough energy to feed itself. You only have to look at both sides of the Pudang River in Shanghai to get a sense of what’s driving the energy explosion.  Mark Horstman: The contrast along this river symbolises China’s booming growth and rapid change. Over the last century, people have looked to this side to see China’s prosperity. But in just the last fifteen years, this futuristic skyline has risen from the other side. As the Chinese saying goes: jiude buqu, xinde bulai: if the old doesn’t go, then the new can’t come.  Narration: China is being transformed. Energy consumption is skyrocketing, expected to double in the next fifteen years.  Even then, it will still consume less than the United States. But from China’s perspective, there’s a lot of catching up to do.  Professor Zhang Zuoyi: People in China like to have a big house, they like to have a better living standard. And it certainly needs some nuclear energy.  Narration: That’s where Australia comes in. As the only major uranium producer in the world without its own nuclear power stations, we’ve signed an agreement to supply our uranium to China.  Australia will need to mine twice as much yellowcake just to meet China’s future demand.  Our nuclear future will be shaped by what we can learn from China’s experience in nuclear energy.  Professor Zhang Zuoyi: If China can use a safe and cost-effective energy source, it will be better for this country and I think it will be better for the world.  Narration: At the other end of the uranium trail, to the north and south of Shanghai are most of China’s nine commercial nuclear reactors.  This is the massive Qinshan complex of five nuclear reactors, generating 3000 megawatts of electricity.  One of them is China’s newest, and that’s the one we’ve come to visit – like all of the power plants here, it’s a Pressurised Water Reactor, or PWR.  As our Catalyst crew arrives, we’re met by an army of Qinshan’s highest ranking executives.  Yang Lan He: Our nuclear power plant is just like a garden. The PWR type of nuclear power unit is the most mature, the safest, and the most reliable.  In the spirit of China’s nuclear industry, declares this billboard, caution is everything.  That’s why their government has adopted the PWR, a standard design that’s been in use around the world for nearly fifty years.  Guide: We call it a nuclear island.  Mark Horstman: Nuclear island? All the fuel is stored in this containment.  Narration: Inside the reactor are bundles of fuel rods filled with pellets of enriched uranium.  The core generates intense heat by splitting uranium atoms and controlling the chain reaction.  The Pressurised Water Reactor gets its name from the water used to cool it, kept under high pressure to stop it boiling.  The super-heated water is used to make steam, which drives turbines.  Its efficiency is how much heat it takes to make a megawatt of electricity.  Mark Horstman: What is the efficiency of this reactor?  Ye Danmeng: Its efficiency is about thirty one percent.  Narration: Surprisingly, that’s less efficient than a coal-fired power station in Australia.  And there’s much more at stake running a water-cooled reactor like this one.  Pipes become brittle; water becomes radioactive; valves have to withstand enormous pressures; and if the cooling system fails, the core can melt down.  There’s only seconds to make the right decision in an emergency.  Ye Danmeng: If you want to shut down the reactor, here.  Mark Horstman: Have you ever had to use these buttons?  Narration: That’s good news for the millions of people in eastern China at the end of the powerlines.  But for the farming families living next door to Qinshan, it’s too close for comfort.  Villager: The nuclear power plant is expanding, this way, that way. We will be surrounded by the nuclear power plant.  Narration: There’ll be many more generations growing up in the shadow of reactors, as another thirty are built over the next fifteen years.  That’s at least two every year. The fastest rollout of nuclear power in history is a program of national scientific pride.  But for a country that speaks of ‘out with the old and in with the new’, China is building the kinds of reactors that are being demolished elsewhere in the world.(BOOM!)…like the cooling tower of this PWR in Oregon, shut down 20 years early because it wasn’t worth fixing its leaky steam pipes anymore.  If the PWR has had its day, what could come next? We don’t have to go far to find out.  Mark Horstman: This is the outskirts of Beijing. And I’m at the gate of one of the only nuclear reactors of its type in the world. We’ve been trying to get approval for months, and now hopefully we’re going to get inside.  Mark Horstman: Kept under wraps inside this innocuous box at Tsinghua University is a Chinese prototype reactor that researchers claim is uniquely safe.  Professor Zhang Zuoyi: This reactor currently is the only pebble-bed test reactor in the world.  Narration: Because When Professor Wu Zongxin started nuclear research in the early sixties, water-cooled reactors were all the rage. So were the hats.  The pebble bed reactor he runs now is radically different.  Professor Wu Zongxin: This vessel is steam generation, this is for the reactor.  Narration: Because instead of fuel rods, his reactor is filled with 27,000 of these, the nuclear pebble.  Professor Wu Zongxin: (drops the pebble) OK, no problem.  Narration: Luckily they’re built strong enough here to be dropped 50 times before they break.  Each pebble is a perfect graphite sphere, filled with specially coated particles of enriched uranium.  Mark Horstman: These are the radioactive particles? The heart of the fuel?  Professor Wu Zongxin: Yeah, this is the heart of the fuel here and outside we coat it with four layers.  Narration: Eight thousand particles inside a hollow sphere means that each pebble works like a mini reactor.  The pebbles are recycled around and through the core.  Professor Wu Zongxin: This is the fission energy produced in the core.  Narration: Its high running temperatures are more efficient for generating electricity.  Because these reactors use helium gas for cooling instead of complicated plumbing, they should also be safer to operate.  Mark Horstman: That is very different from other reactors where it’s water under pressure.  Professor Wu Zongxin: Yeah. So it’s a feature of the reactor is your helium for the coolant. That is the main difference.  Narration: It all leads to a daring safety test that would be unthinkable in any other power plant.  Professor Zhang Zuoyi: For this reactor, I think that basically we can prove it is a meltdown-free reactor.  Narration: The Professor invites scientists from around the world to watch what happens when you deliberately set up an accident by switching off the cooling system.  Mark Horstman: That sounds like a dangerous thing to do in a nuclear reactor, to get it running, get it critical, then turn off the cooling system.  Professor Wu Zongxin: Yeah, sure, it’s very, very dangerous, of course.  Technicians: Start testing now. OK, understood. The helium power is shut down.  Narration: What they do here is exactly what causes catastrophic meltdowns at water-cooled reactors, as happened at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.  Mark Horstman: But is it dangerous here?  Professor Wu Zongxin: No, because always we have the passive way to remove all the decay heat.  Mark Horstman: So the reactor is able to get rid of more heat than it can actually hold in itself?  Narration: The nuclear physics inside this reactor means that the higher the temperature, the slower the chain reaction. Unlike a water-cooled reactor, the pebble-bed doesn’t go into meltdown. The reactor goes to sleep, and the test is a success.  The philosophy here is that reactor safety should rely on physics, not reinforced concrete.  Professor Zhang Zuoyi: Safety is number one. We should avoid the nuclear accident.  Narration: Just when I thought the safety issues were solved.  Professor Wu Zongxin: We’ll go real quick.  Narration: We’re in the elevator going to see some barrels in the basement. The waste storage facility is secured behind some wooden doors.  What to do with growing piles of nuclear waste is a problem that not even this reactor can solve.  Mark Horstman: Do you believe pebble bed reactors are the safest form of nuclear?  Professor Wu Zongxin: I think so. It is most recognised by the international nuclear community.  Mark Horstman: So in the future, new reactors could all be pebble bed reactors?  Professor Wu Zongxin: No, I don’t think so.  Narration: The Professor laughs, because he understands the commercial realities. Another ten water-cooled reactors will be built before the first pebble-bed is even up and running.  And what does this mean for Australia?  Professor Zhang hopes that one day we will use pebble-bed reactors from China. But for now, he’s surprisingly frank about our own nuclear capability.  Prof Zhang Zuoyi: It’s better not to use nuc
China's Ministry of Environmental Protection hastened to declare over the weekend the country's ambitious nuclear-energy expansion plans were unchanged by the worrying earthquake impact on Japanese power facilities. But that doesn’t mean that officials in China aren’t watching events in Japan with concern.