China says its nuclear industry has made a fresh technological breakthrough, which, even if it doesn’t immediately solve the country’s energy needs, underscores Beijing’s determination to be a leading font of knowledge about the controversial power source.

The China Institute of Atomic Energy said Thursday that a small, experimental “fast breeder” reactor outside Beijing had been hooked to the grid to produce electricity. Essentially, the tiny 20 megawatt nuclear plant “863” is now helping satisfy China’s vast power needs.

To supporters of nuclear power, fast-breeding is alluring. The idea is that it produces more plutonium than the plant needs to run, providing fissionable material usable elsewhere in the nation’s nuclear program. For China, which is long on nuclear ambitions but short on uranium, it’s an especially desirable technology.

Yet the process hasn’t proved workable on a large scale elsewhere. Fast-breeder programs have been abandoned in a number of countries, including the U.S., and the plants that remain are small. To some critics, it is a nuclear version of the “perpetual motion machine,” a seemingly problem-solving theory that doesn’t work well outside the laboratory.

In a statement posted to its website (in Chinese) Thursday, China’s atomic institute said the advantages of fast-breeder reactors are that they save uranium and reduce nuclear waste. “The establishment of sustainable development of nuclear energy is important,” the statement said, noting that a number of industry dignitaries were on hand for the announcement.

China’s nuclear engineers, of course, are operating in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, a game-changing event that would seem likely to make the industry more risk averse.
In days after Japan’s March 11 earthquake-tsunami-nuclear crisis, Beijing defiantly pledged to continue with its huge nuclear rollout but quickly reversed course and said it would proceed cautiously.

In fact, the grid hook-up to the experimental fast-breeder plant may underscore that caution, as Beijing spent a year testing the plant’s operations before linking it to the grid.

Among the practical challenges associated with fast-breeders: they are potentially riskier than more conventional light-water reactors, relying on cooling of the reactor core with a potentially dangerous loop of flammable sodium, rather than water. Plus, the fuel input is essentially weapons-grade uranium, which is difficult to handle compared with the chemically stable material that powers most nuclear plants, namely uranium dioxide.

The fast-breeder process also appears for China to be a degree more tricky to develop on a commercial scale than reprocessed fuel, another controversial technology the country says it is pursuing to address its uranium needs. Fast breeding is something new for China while the country’s military has long-term experience with reprocessing.

Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says he visited China’s fast-breeder reactor in the weeks after the Fukushima disaster. He describes it as a tiny “research reactor,” and says he got the sense officials planned to proceed extremely cautiously in building an 800-megawatt plant as scientists once discussed.

Breakthroughs like fast breeder reactors might not result in commercially applicable programs any time soon, but in the age of Fukushima they may signal that China possesses world class nuclear power expertise. According to Mr. Hibbs, news of the efforts say, “Look, China is a high-technology nuclear country.”

– James T. Areddy. Follow him on Twitter @jamestareddy

Reforms started in the late 1970s with the phasing out of collectivized agriculture, and expanded to include the gradual liberalization of prices, fiscal decentralization, increased autonomy for state enterprises, the foundation of a diversified banking system, the development of stock markets, the rapid growth of the non-state sector, and the opening to foreign trade and investment.

Deterioration in the environment – notably air pollution, soil erosion, and the steady fall of the water table, especially in the north – is another long-term problem.

The People’s Republic of China is the world’s second largest economy after the United States by both nominal GDP ($5 trillion in 2009) and by purchasing power parity ($8.77 trillion in 2009).

The restructuring of the economy and resulting efficiency gains have contributed to a more than tenfold increase in GDP since 1978.

Agricultural output has been vulnerable to the effects of weather, while industry has been more directly influenced by the government.

China has acquired some highly sophisticated production facilities through trade and also has built a number of advanced engineering plants capable of manufacturing an increasing range of sophisticated equipment, including nuclear weapons and satellites, but most of its industrial output still comes from relatively ill-equipped factories.

Over the years, large subsidies were built into the price structure, and these subsidies grew substantially in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Both forums will start on Tuesday.

China’s ODI growth witnessed strong momentum this year.

China is aiming to be the world’s largest new energy vehicle market by 2020 with 5 million cars.

Although China is still a developing country with a relatively low per capita income, it has experienced tremendous economic growth since the late 1970s.

Even with these improvements, agriculture accounts for only 20% of the nation’s gross national product.

Except for the oasis farming in Xinjiang and Qinghai, some irrigated areas in Inner Mongolia and Gansu, and sheltered valleys in Tibet, agricultural production is restricted to the east.

Livestock raising on a large scale is confined to the border regions and provinces in the north and west; it is mainly of the nomadic pastoral type.

China is one of the world’s major mineral-producing countries.

China is among the world’s four top producers of antimony, magnesium, tin, tungsten, and zinc, and ranks second (after the United States) in the production of salt, sixth in gold, and eighth in lead ore.

The largest completed project, Gezhouba Dam, on the Chang (Yangtze) River, opened in 1981; the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest engineering project, on the lower Chang, is scheduled for completion in 2009.
Beginning in the late 1970s, changes in economic policy, including decentralization of control and the creation of special economic zones to attract foreign investment, led to considerable industrial growth, especially in light industries that produce consumer goods.

The iron and steel industry is organized around several major centers (including Anshan, one of the world’s largest), but thousands of small iron and steel plants have also been established throughout the country.

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China’s Nuclear Scientists Unveil Latest ‘Breakthrough’