Nuclear Issues

In this essay, Hui Zhang reviews the status of spent fuel storage in China.  He suggest that China should take steps to improve physical protection, reduce insider threats, promote a nuclear security culture, and improve nuclear cyber security. He also recommends China, South Korea, and Japans’ nuclear security training centers should cooperate and exchange best practices on insider threat reduction, contingency plans for emergency response, and discuss regional cooperation for long-term spent fuel storage, including building a regional center of spent fuel storage.

On April 25, 2017 China put on public display the Changzheng-1, its first Type 091 Han-class nuclear powered attack submarine. It entered service in 1974 and was decommissioned in 2013.

China launched its nuclear-powered submarine program in 1958, soon after starting its nuclear weapon program. To avoid the nuclear submarine program competing with the nuclear-weapon program for scarce HEU, according The Secret Course, an authoritative book on China's nuclear history, the decision was made to use LEU fuel for naval reactors.