The researches of ADS and the sustainable development of the nuclear energy

China, as a developing country with a great population and relatively less energy resources, actively emphasizes the development of nuclear energy. To develop nuclear power in such a large scale, long-lived radioactive nuclear wastes have to be safely disposed to reduce the impact on the environment and to eliminate public fear of nuclear power. Considering MA and LLFP transmutation with more efficiency and non-criticality risk for new nuclear application the accelerator-driven sub-critical system (ADS) study has been started in China. The conceptual study of ADS that lasted for about five years ended in 1999 in China. As one project of the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) in the energy domain, which is sponsored by the China Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), a five-year-program of fundamental research of ADS physics and related technology was launched in 2000. From 2007, another five-year 973 Program, Key Technology Research of Accelerator Driven Sub-critical System for Nuclear Waste Transmutation, started. The research activities will focus on HPPA physics and technology, reactor physics of external source driven sub-critical assembly, nuclear data base and material study. For HPPA, a high current injector consisting of an ECR ion source, LEBT and an RFQ accelerating structure of 3.5 MeV has been built and will be improved. In reactor physics study, a series of neutron multiplication experimental study has been carried out and still being done. The VENUS facility has been constructed as the basic experimental platform for neutronics study in ADS blanket. It is a zero power sub-critical neutron multiplying assembly driven by external neutron produced by a pulsed neutron generator. The theoretical, experimental and simulation study on nuclear data, material properties and nuclear fuel circulation related to ADS is carrying on to provide the database for ADS system analysis. (author)