Spent fuel management in China

Full text: China has made good progress in the development of nuclear power. Qinshan NPP-I has been operated more than 10 years and Daya Bay NPP has been operated near 10 years. This year three new units in China have been put in operation. Other five units will be connected in grid before 2005. Spent fuel from NPPs in China is in wet-storage on site. Since the capacity of storage facility in Daya Bay NPP is near fully occupied, transportation of spent fuel from Daya Bay to reprocessing plant is planned to be conducted soon. This article presents briefly the status and trends of spent fuel management in China, the activities carried out and problems faced with. Research programmes established at the China Institute of Atomic Energy, such as the application of burnup credit technology for storage and transport of spent fuel, and R and D on high burnup fuel and MOX fuel, are also introduced in this paper. (author)