Beijing is promoting a program to recycle spent nuclear fuel. Chinese scientists have developed a technology for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel that could solve in the future the problem of uranium supply, according to yesterday’s report of the state television.

This development has important implications for a country that has embarked on an ambitious program to build nuclear power plants. The technology, developed and tested in the facilities that the China National Nuclear Corporation has in the Gobi desert, in the remote province of Gansu, allows to recycle the irradiated fuel and is capable of multiplying by 60 the performance of uranium in nuclear power plants.

"With this technology, existing stocks of uranium [calculated for 70 years] can last up to 3,000 years," the television said. China, like France, UK, Russia and India, works actively in reprocessing technology, which is seen as a solution for the management of spent fuel, highly radioactive, and as a source of fissile material for future nuclear fuel supplies.

However some independent scientists argue that the commercial application of nuclear fuel reprocessing has always been hampered by the cost and the challenges in terms of technology, security and nuclear proliferation risk.

China has 171,400 tons of confirmed reserves of uranium, mainly distributed in eight provinces: Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Liaoning and Yunnan.

The Beijing government is promoting nuclear energy to diversify its energy sources and to free itself from its dependence on coal, the most polluting fossil fuel.

At the moment, it already has 12 reactors with a total capacity to generate 10,15 gigawatts. China will seek to generate 40 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2020, but the Government has indicated that it could double the target, which would reduce its polluting emissions. Even so, according to some researchers, by 2020 China will have to obtain from foreign sources more than 60% of the uranium required for its nuclear power plants, even if the country moves on with a modest nuclear expansion plan.

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