Although China’s nuclear power industry is relatively young, and the management of its spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste is not yet a major concern, China’s commitment to nuclear energy and its rapid pace of nuclear generation capacity development require detailed analyses and planning of its future spent fuel management and nuclear waste policies. Specially, China is moving forward on its commitment to operate a closed nuclear fuel cycle, a policy that was first articulated in the 1980s. Figuring out how to manage and store the high-level nuclear waste resulting from reprocessing—a necessary part of a closed nuclear fuel cycle—could be a challenge for China.
This report reviews China’s spent fuel management policy, including its plans for reprocessing, including and China’s nuclear waste management plan, and explores the feasibility of deep borehole disposal (DBD) as an alternative to at-reactor, centralized surface- and near-surface storage, or mine geologic storage of spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste.
Yun Zhou is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Belfer Center’s Project on Managing the Atom and International Security Program.