This article appeared in the African Engineering News ….. (UPDATE: Original China Daily Story )

China Central Television reported on Monday that the country’s scientists have successfully developed technology to reprocess spent nuclear fuel.

Other countries, such as France, Russia and the UK, have already developed and employ such technology, but, because it is highly sensitive, it cannot be bought and each country seeking to recycle nuclear fuel must develop the technology itself.

Recycling spent nuclear fuel reduces the amount of newly mined uranium required to feed nuclear power stations, thus extending the life of uranium reserves, or permitting the same resources to fuel a greater number of reactors.

China Central Television claimed that the newly developed recycling technology would, presumably at current usage, mean that China’s uranium resources would last for 3 000 years.

The China Daily newspaper reports that the country’s proven uranium reserves currently total 171 400 t, and are mainly found in the provinces of Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Liaoning and Yunnan. (The provinces are listed in the order given by the newspaper.)

The recycling technology was developed and tested at China National Nuclear Corporation’s No. 404 Factory, located in the Gobi desert in Gansu province.

China Daily states that the country now has 12 operational nuclear reactors with a total generating capacity of 10,15 GW.

The Chinese government has established an official target of 40 GW of nuclear generating capacity by 2020.

However, Beijing has indicated that it could double this to 80 GW, to more rapidly reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Prior to the announcement of the local development of nuclear fuel recycling technology, Chinese researchers had been of the opinion that the country would have had to import 60% of its uranium requirements by 2020, even if only the more modest nuclear expansion programme was implemented.