中国快堆及先进核燃料循环体系发展战略思考

中国是世界上最大的发展中国家，能源消耗位列世界第一。为实现社会、经济的可持续发展，确保能源供应安全和降低环境压力，大力发展包括核能在内的清洁能源是能源发展战略的必然选择。目前，中国的核能经过近30年的发展取得了长足进步，但在能源体系中依然占比很小。鉴于中国的铀资源总体储量有限，仅靠热中子反应堆支撑核能作为主力能源发展难以实现。快堆具有资源利用率高、固有安全性好等优点，配以先进核燃料循环系统，可实现核能的大规模、可持续、环境友好的发展。其中，快堆的发展应遵从先增殖、后嬗变的路线，燃料方面在经过氧化物陶瓷燃料后应尽快过渡到金属燃料；后处理方面初期主要通过水法处理压水堆乏燃料，为快堆提供初装料，后续要尽快实现干法后处理，以缩短增殖燃料的倍增时间和提高整个体系的经济性；同时，还需要同步发展高放废物的处理处置技术。在快堆和先进核燃料循环体系的支撑下，我国的核能能实现在千年量级上作为主力能源发展。

Strategic Thinking on Development of China Fast Reactor and Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycle System

China is the largest developing country with its energy consumption ranks first in the world. In order to achieve the sustainable development of society and economy, ensure the security of energy supply and reduce the pressure of environment, it is an inevitable choice of energy development strategy to vigorously develop clean energy including nuclear energy. At present, China’s nuclear energy has made great progress after nearly 30 years of development, but it still accounts for a small proportion in the energy system. In view of China’s limited overall uranium reserves, it is difficult to develop nuclear energy with thermal reactors as the main energy source. Fast reactor has the advantages of high resource utilization rate, good inherent safety and so on, and equipped with advanced nuclear fuel cycle system, the large-scale, sustainable and environmentally friendly development of nuclear energy can be achieved. Among them, the development of fast reactor should follow the route of first proliferation and then transmutation, and the fuel should be transferred to metal fuel as soon as possible after passing through oxide ceramic fuel. In terms of post-treatment, the spent fuel of PWR is mainly treated by aqueous reprocessing method in the early stage to provide the initial loading for fast reactor. In the subsequent stage, dry reprocessing should be implemented as soon as possible to shorten the doubling time of proliferating fuel and improve the economy of the whole fuel cycle system. At the same time, it is also necessary to develop the treatment and disposal technology of high-level radioactive waste. With the support of fast reactor and advanced nuclear fuel cycle system, China’s nuclear energy can be developed as the main energy source in a thousand-year scale.