Nuclear Issues

Faced with the twin pressures of a still-quickly growing economy and unprecedented smog from coal-fired plants, China is racing to expand its fleet of nuclear power plants. As it does so, Beijing is considering making large capital investments in facilities to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and recycle the resulting plutonium in fast neutron reactors that breed more plutonium. This report outlines the enormous costs China would likely face if it decides to build large-scale plants for reprocessing plutonium from spent nuclear fuel and recycling the plutonium in fast neutron reactors.

"With the aftermath of the Iran agreement hanging in the air, words such as “centrifuge,” “enrichment,” and “uranium” are still appearing regularly in news coverage. Which means that now is a good time to look at the enrichment capacity of a much larger power, thousands of miles away: China. The country’s enrichment capacity is a topic about which little has appeared in the popular press—possibly because little is publicly known, and what information there is has to be assembled, verified, and evaluated from many different independent sources."

"China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) is reported to have started preparations for what appears to be a demonstration reprocessing plant with a capacity of 200 tonnes/year at Jinta near Jiuquan city of Gansu province. This site is over one hundred kilometer away from China's pilot reprocessing plant (located at Plant 404, the former Jiuquan plutonium production complex), The new demonstration plant is assumed to be based on a scale-up of the pilot plant which has a capacity of 50 tons/year. Works seems to be at a very preliminary site preparation stage..."

The defining question about global order for this generation is whether China and the United States can escape Thucydides’s Trap. The Greek historian’s metaphor reminds us of the attendant dangers when a rising power rivals a ruling power—as Athens challenged Sparta in ancient Greece, or as Germany did Britain a century ago. Most such contests have ended badly, often for both nations, a team of mine at the Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has concluded after analyzing the historical record. In 12 of 16 cases over the past 500 years, the result was war. When the parties avoided war, it required huge, painful adjustments in attitudes and actions on the part not just of the challenger but also the challenged.

Based on satellite imagery, Chinese publications, and discussions with Chinese experts, This report suggests that China has much more civilian enrichment capacity than previously thought, and even more is on the way. If these new estimates are correct, China has enough enrichment capacity to meet its nuclear power fuel requirements for the coming decade and beyond. Further, China will have excess enrichment capacity and will likely become a net exporter of commercial enrichment services.

As the policy community prepares to assess an agreement between the U.S. and its P5+1 partners and Iran, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker asked me to review the history of analogous agreements for lessons that illuminate the current challenge. In response to his assignment, I reviewed the seven decades of the nuclear era, during which the U.S. negotiated arms-control treaties, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968; strategic arms limitation talks and agreements from SALT to New Start; the North Korean accord of 1994; the agreements that helped eliminate nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus in the early 1990s; and the pact that eliminated the Libyan nuclear weapons program in 2003.

Among many lessons and clues from this instructive history, five stand out

"Baldev Raj and P.R. Vasudeva Rao have argued that reprocessing and fast breeder reactors are necessary for the long-term sustainability of nuclear power. Indeed, fast breeder reactors' potential to produce more fuel than they consume has held an attraction since the advent of nuclear power, especially to those who envision a time when uranium will no longer be available cheaply. Unfortunately, several decades of experience have shown that plutonium recycling systems are much more costly and much less reliable than water-cooled reactors. If establishing sustainable nuclear power means successfully managing important issues such as nuclear safety and proliferation resistance, while also achieving economic competitiveness, minimizing production of radioactive waste, and using natural resources wisely, breeder reactors and plutonium recycling still have far to go before they can meaningfully contribute..."

Hui Zhang presented "Enhancing Nuclear Security Culture in China" at The 14th PIIC Beijing Seminar on International Security:Strategic Stability and Cooperation, Hangzhou, China, October 19-22, 2014.

Chinese President Xi Jinping addresses China’s new concept of nuclear security with four “equal emphasis” at the third Nuclear Security Summit, and makes four commitments to strengthen nuclear security in the future. To convert President Xi’s political commitments into practical, sustainable reality, China should take further steps to install a complete, reliable, and effective security system to ensure that all its nuclear materials and nuclear facilities are effectively protected against the full spectrum of plausible terrorist and criminal threats. This paper suggests the following measures be taken to improve China’s existing nuclear security system, including updating and clarifying the requirements for a national level DBT; updating and enforcing existing regulations; further promoting nuclear security culture; balancing the costs of nuclear security, and further strengthening international cooperation on nuclear security.

Washington Post Opinion Writer and Senior Fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project, David Ignatius, delivered an address entitled “Covering the Obama Administration in the Fog of Foreign Policy” and led a breakfast seminar with experts, students, and fellows on September 18. He explored current trends in the Middle East, critical factors at play in the negotiations with Iran, the West’s relationship with Russia and positive developments in the US-China relationship.