According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 63 power units are currently under construction in the world, and of these, the world leaders in nuclear energy, Russia and China, account for 82.5% of nuclear power construction projects. Three Chinese state corporations (CNNC, CGN,)account for 30 power units (of which only two power units are in Pakistan). At the same time, taking into account the fact that two units are being built by Rosatom at the construction sites of the Chinese nuclear power plants “Tianwan” and “Xudaipu”, the situation is as follows: each of the parties – Russian and Chinese – is now building 26 power units and often acts on the market not only as competitors, but also as partners in mutually beneficial cooperation. For more than a quarter of a century, nuclear scientists of the two countries have been closely cooperating in the construction of 8 power units, the construction of an enrichment centrifuge plant on Chinese territory and the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant in Turkey after the sudden refusal of the German company Siemens to supply components. With a high degree of probability, China’s China Nuclear National Corporation (CNNC) will join the Rosatom-led international consortium for the construction of a nuclear power plant in the village of Ulken in Kazakhstan.Russia
It is interesting that the world’s first nuclear power plant in Russian Obninsk was connected to the unified energy system of the USSR on June 27, 1954, and 37 years later, the first Chinese industrial reactor CNP 300 produced the first current on December 15, 1991. Taking into account the fact that in the early 1950s, the young Chinese state, which was formed on October 1, 1949, there were no explored reserves of uranium ores, no nuclear specialists, no developed economy, no scientific and technical base, nevertheless, the Chinese have been able to match Rosatom over the years in terms of the volume of nuclear power plant construction. Although in those years the PRC had only one nuclear physicist – “Chinese Kurchatov” – Qian Sanqiang, who in the 30-40s of the last century worked in France in the laboratory of the world-famous nuclear scientist, Nobel laureate Frederic Joliot-Curie and later became the father of the Chinese nuclear program and the Chinese atomic bomb. It was Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai who managed to get Stalin’s consent to admit 127 Chinese students to the Soviet higher educational institutions of Moscow State University and MEPhI and subsequently to an internship at the nuclear power plant in Obninsk, who later became the backbone of the Chinese Institute of Atomic Energy and a scientific team headed by Qian Sanqiang. In 1951, with the help of Soviet geologists, it was possible to discover the first Chinese uranium deposit, and in the late 1950s, the USSR handed over a heavy-water research reactor to the PRC.
After 1960, there was a complete political and ideological break in Soviet-Chinese relations, as a result of which all deals and agreements, including the program for cooperation in nuclear energy, were curtailed. After the first nuclear power plant with a capacity of only 300 MW was built in China with great difficulties after ten years, the Chinese leadership decided to continue to develop its nuclear technologies on the basis of national capabilities, and to provide electricity to the PRC – to attract all those external players who were ready to cooperate. As a result of these decisions, the construction of Chinese power units using French technologies began in the 1990s with the full transfer of all patents and licenses. In addition, two EPR 1600 (Evolutionary Power Reactor) reactors were built by the French themselves, as well as AP 1000 pressurized water reactors of the American Westinghouse Electric Company and the Canadian Candu 7 reactor (Canada deuterium uranium) using heavy water as a coolant (Canadian pressurized heavy water reactor). Thus, China’s nuclear power industry now operates reactors of its own technology, as well as French, American, Russian and Canadian technologies. As a result of the fact that all technologies have significant differences between each other, the Chinese are forced to train their specialists to work on five different types of reactors. In addition, different reactors require fuel assemblies (fuel rods) of certain sizes. For example, in Russian fuel assemblies, the cross-section is a hexagon, while the French and American ones have a cross-section in the form of a tetrahedron. There are also problems with the reprocessing of irradiated nuclear fuel. For each of the five types of nuclear reactors, it is fundamentally different. Thus, spent irradiated fuel from Russian and Chinese reactors must be transported to the Urals to the city of Ozerny to the Mayak plant. Fuel from French, American and Canadian reactors, which in its physical and chemical composition differs from Russian irradiated fuel, must be reprocessed according to another French technology. That is why Paris proposed to build a plant on Chinese territory to reprocess irradiated fuel extracted from the core of Western reactors, preliminary worth 14 billion euros.
In the 90s of the last century, the nuclear industry of Russia was in complete decline. Not a single nuclear power plant was built over the years. The tragedy of Chernobyl and the lack of state funding had an effect. And only thanks to the contract signed in 1997 with Beijing for the construction of two VVER 1000 reactors, and then two more reactors of this type for the Tianwan NPP, the nuclear engineering industry was able to revive.
Russia has built the seventh and eighth units for this nuclear power plant. Moreover, if Rosatom was engaged in the nuclear “island” (reactor, casing, primary circuit equipment), then CNNC was engaged in the second circuit and mounted the turbine responsible for generating electric current. All this made it possible to complete the construction of power units in 56 months, instead of 60 months according to the plan.
A promising area for Russian-Chinese cooperation is the program for the development of fast neutron reactors, which is considered as a technology for the future of nuclear energy. At present, there are only two operating Russian sodium-cooled reactors (sodium-cooled pool-type fast neutron nuclear reactor) in the world as part of the Beloyarsk NPP. It is planned to launch a more powerful third reactor BN 1200 M in the near future. Since 2017, the Chinese have also been developing the China Fast Reactor 600 (CFR-600) sodium-cooled fast neutron reactor, and the second similar CFR-600 reactor began to be developed in 2020. Both reactors are used at the Xiapu nuclear power plant under construction in Fujian Province. Under the 2018 agreement with Rosatom, the Russian side undertook to provide fuel to fast neutron reactors. Today, only two countries in the world can produce such fuel, Russia and France. which is part of the structure of Rosatom.
An important step for China in the development of nuclear energy was the creation of the world’s first commercial low-power reactor – the ACP100 (modular reactor Linglong One) modular reactor – at a site near the operating Changjiang nuclear power plant. CNNC began developing this reactor back in 2010 and plans to launch it at full capacity only in 2026. This project demonstrates the country’s determination to modernize its energy infrastructure and move towards more sustainable solutions while maintaining stable economic growth.
As for Rosatom, it intends to scale up its project for the development of low-power nuclear power plants, based on the successfully proven Rhythm 200 reactor in the Russian nuclear icebreaker fleet and in operation at the first floating nuclear power plant M. Lomonosov. A modified version of this reactor, to which the letter “n” is added, which means ground-based, is planned to be placed at a low-power plant under construction in Yakutia. In accordance with the agreement signed with Uzbekistan in 2024, Rosatom will supply 6 Ritm200 N reactors to the site of the nuclear power plant under construction in Jizzakh.
According to nuclear experts, compared to the Chinese ACP100, the Russian reactor is more technologically advanced and has the following significant advantages. Thus, the frequency of fuel loading is at least 8 years (the Chinese one has 2 years), the ability to smoothly change the power of the output energy from 20 to 100%, more compact, as well as earthquake-resistant, with a high degree of factory readiness, easy to transport and install at the site.
According to the strategy for the development of the Russian nuclear industry for the period up to 2045, the share of nuclear generation should reach 25% of the country’s total electricity generation. 25 new nuclear power plants will be built, mainly in the Urals, Siberia and the Far East, primarily using high-power fast reactors in order to eliminate the existing energy shortage in the Far East as soon as possible. At the same time, the construction dates will be shifted to the late 2020s and early 2030s. It is planned to decommission old reactors that have reached the end of their life and replace them with new, more powerful ones.
Rosatom does not plan to refuse new contracts for the construction of nuclear power plants in friendly countries, since it has a high reputation in the world as a reliable partner for the fulfillment of its obligations, compliance with turnkey deadlines and high and guaranteed quality of work. Against this background, the results of the work of French nuclear scientists, namely EDF, look especially contrasting. For example, at the Flamanbill nuclear power plant in France, after 18 years of work, its third unit EPR1600 has just reached its design capacity. At the same time, the total cost of construction exceeded 19 billion euros, although initially at the start of work in 2007 it was 3.3 billion euros. And the initial contract value of 3.2 billion euros in 2005 was exceeded by 4 times and amounted to 12.7 billion euros in 2023.
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