Published on July 13, 2019.
As a continuation of Toyohito Matsuoka’s essay in the monthly magazine WiLL, this article examines China’s wide-ranging efforts in next-generation nuclear reactor development, including high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, small modular reactors, fast reactors, thorium molten salt reactors, and traveling wave reactors.
It shows the reality that while the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and others in Japan repeatedly promoted anti-nuclear and anti-reactor-restart reporting, China has been moving to stand at the forefront of global nuclear technology.

July 13, 2019.
Readers must have thought how much China must have smiled as it watched the absolute anti-nuclear and absolute anti-reactor-restart reporting by the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and others.
Readers who have read this far must have thought how much China must have smiled as it watched the absolute anti-nuclear and absolute anti-reactor-restart reporting by the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and others.
Far from that, they will realize that it is no exaggeration at all to say that money from China had flowed into the anti-nuclear movement.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Next-generation reactors pursued in many forms.
Regarding the technological development of next-generation reactors, interest is high not only in Japan but throughout the world, and Russia is also steadily advancing, but the distinctive feature of China’s challenge is that it extends over a broad range.
One of these is the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, or HTGR.
In China, Tsinghua University has been advancing development, completing the basic research reactor HTR-10 in 2003, and in December 2012, Tsinghua University and the China Nuclear Engineering & Construction Group, or CNEC, with China Huaneng Group as an investor, began construction of the demonstration reactor HTR-PM, at the Huaneng Shidaowan Nuclear Power Plant in Shandong Province, with an output of 200,000 kW.
There is information that it will begin generating electricity soon.
Furthermore, a 600,000 kW-class demonstration reactor and a 1,000,000 kW-class commercial reactor are under development, and there is also a view that HTGR will become a leading candidate for inland nuclear power plant sites.
As for small modular reactors, or SMRs, which are also attracting attention in Japan, the Nuclear Power Institute of China under CNNC is developing ACP100, also known as Linglong One, with a thermal output of 385,000 kWt and an electrical output of 125,000 kW, as a multipurpose SMR suited to uses such as regional heating heat sources.
By modularizing the reactor and assembling it in a factory, it aims to reduce construction costs, and CGN and SNPTC are also working on their own SMR development.
In addition, development of floating SMRs as offshore nuclear power plants is also being advanced; CNN C is researching ACP100S, and CGN already began manufacturing ACPR50S, with an output of 60,000 kW, in November 2016.
In fast reactors, or FRs, China began research in 1965, and the China Institute of Atomic Energy, or CIAE, under CNNC, constructed the China Experimental Fast Reactor, or CEPR, with an output of 25,000 kW; it reached criticality in 2010 and was connected to the grid in 2011.
CIAE further began construction of the CFR600, with an output of 600,000 kW, in Xiapu, Fujian Province, in December 2017, as a fast neutron reactor, or FNR, demonstration reactor.
The thorium molten salt reactor, or TMSR, is a technology expected to be useful in inland areas where water resources are scarce, and in 2011, a TMSR center was established at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, and research and development is underway.
In addition, in the field of traveling wave reactors, or TWRs, TerraPower, established in the United States by Microsoft’s Bill Gates and others, and CNNC concluded a memorandum of cooperation in 2015.
As regional heating heat sources, CNNC and CGN are also carrying out technological development of low-temperature heat supply reactors, or LTHRs.