Published on July 15, 2019.
Through an essay by Matsuoka Toyohito published in the monthly magazine WiLL, this article introduces China’s wide-ranging development of next-generation reactors, including high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, small modular reactors, fast reactors, thorium molten-salt reactors, and traveling wave reactors. It points out the possibility that Japan’s anti-nuclear and anti-restart reporting has benefited China, and questions the reality of international competition over nuclear technology.

July 15, 2019.
Regarding the traveling wave reactor, or TWR, TerraPower, established in the United States by Microsoft’s Bill Gates and others, and CNNC concluded a memorandum of cooperation in 2015.
Readers who have read this far must have thought how much China must have been grinning inwardly as it watched the absolute anti-nuclear-power and absolute anti-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 funds from China had entered the anti-nuclear-power movement.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Next-generation reactors being pursued in many forms.
Regarding technological development of next-generation reactors, interest is high not only in Japan but worldwide, and Russia is also steadily moving forward, but China’s challenge can be said to be characterized by its broad scope.
One of these is the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, or HTGR.
In China, Tsinghua University has advanced development, completing the basic research reactor HTR-10 in 2003, and in December 2012, Tsinghua University and the China Nuclear Engineering & Construction Group Corporation, or CNEC, with China Huaneng Group as investor, began construction of the demonstration reactor HTR-PM at Huaneng Shidaowan Nuclear Power Plant in Shandong Province, with an output of 200,000 kW.
There is information that it will begin power generation 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 strong candidate for inland nuclear-power siting.
In small modular reactors, or SMRs, which are also attracting attention in Japan, the Nuclear Power Institute of China under CNNC is developing ACP100, or Linglong One, with thermal output of 385,000 kWt and electric output of 125,000 kW, as a multi-purpose SMR suited to regional heating heat sources and other uses.
It aims to reduce construction costs by modularizing the reactor and assembling it in factories, 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 moving forward; CNNC is researching ACP100S, and CGN had already begun manufacturing ACPR50S, with 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, built the China Experimental Fast Reactor, or CEFR, with output of 25,000 kW; it reached criticality in 2010 and was connected to the grid in 2011.
CIAE further began construction in December 2017 of the CFR600, with output of 600,000 kW, at Xiapu in Fujian Province 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 lacking water resources, and in 2011 the TMSR Center was established at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, with research and development now underway.
In addition, regarding the traveling wave reactor, or TWR, TerraPower, established in the United States by Microsoft’s Bill Gates and others, and CNNC concluded a memorandum of cooperation in 2015.
For the low-temperature heat-supply reactor, or LTHR, CNNC and CGN are also conducting technological development as a regional heating heat source.