Review Of and Prospects For the Nuclear Fuel Cycle in China

Abstract

The paper briefly introduces the establishment and development of nuclear fuel cycle in whole scope in China, including refining, conversion and enrichment of uranium, fabrication of fuel assemblies, reprocessing of spent fuels and solidification of liquid wastes with different level radioactivity, and also describes the outline of the national policy, strategy and development programme to expand and improve the cycle for supporting the programme of nuclear power generation by 2000 year. The nuclear fuel cycle is the basis of the nuclear power industry and the nuclear science and technology as a whole, which includes uranium mining and milling, conversion and enrichment, fabrication of fuel elements, reprocessing of spent fuels, treatment and disposal of radioactive wastes. The nuclear fuel cycle consist of a series of special industry categories characterized by the concentration of knowledge and techniques, by the adoption of specific and complicated processes by the utilization of large quantity of special materials with high purity, radiation resistance, anticorrosiveness and perfect nuclear characteristics, as well as of equipment having high precision and reliability. All of these require strong economic basis, large scale of developed industry and quite high level of science and technology. Therefore only a few countries have an integral nuclear fuel cycle complex founded nowadays in the world although application of nuclear energy and nuclear techniques is becoming world-wide spread in various fields.