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China is betting heavily on nuclear power as an energy source. Their long-range plans call for the construction of hundreds of nuclear power reactors. One big question is where they will get the uranium to fuel these reactors. They do have internal reserves of uranium ore but uranium mining and refining are very energy intensive and polluting. Depending on external sources for their ore makes them vulnerable to other nations and may endanger their security. Now China is working on another internal source for uranium.
China’s nuclear authorities have announced plans to construct a fully operation facility able to extract uranium from ocean water by 2030. Construction is scheduled to begin as early as 2026. When the plant is complete it will have the capacity to extract tons of uranium each year from seawater. Although the comparison is difficult, it is estimated that China will be able to extract a thousand time more uranium from seawater than they would be able to mine from internal reserves.
The China Academy of Engineering Physics oversees the research and development of Chinese nuclear weapons. It will lead the extraction project with the collaboration of civilian research institutes such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Cao Shudong is the general manager of China National Nuclear Corporation. He said in an interview about the project that was published in the official newspaper China Energy News, “The nuclear industry is a hi-tech strategic industry, an important cornerstone of national security. Uranium resources play an important role in supporting the nuclear fuel cycle system.”
Compared to other nuclear nations and uranium suppliers, China is short on uranium. With reserves estimated at about three hundred and fifty thousand tons, China only has about half the reserves of Canada. It is estimated that projected fuel demands for its nuclear reactor fleet will be thirty-five thousand tons a year by 2035. That means that if it was depending on internal reserves for fuel, it would exhaust those reserves by 2045. This would make China dependent on imported nuclear fuel. The global supply chain for nuclear fuel is mostly controlled by Western countries. It has become less reliable because of rising political tensions between Beijing and the West.
Nuclear experts say that uranium security threatens China’s plan to become the biggest nuclear power producer in the world by 2030. China has also announced its intention to become carbon neutral by 2060 but this may be a difficult goal.
The technical details of how China plans to construct the extraction plant have not been revealed. However, researchers around the globe have been making significant progress in extracting uranium from seawater. The uranium absorption by materials has increased more than thirty times since the 1960s according to a recent report from Tsinghua University. Professor Ye Gang and his colleagues at the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology mentioned this progress in the article published in the March issue of Journal of Tsinghua University.
Please read Part 2 next