China's outlined a buildout of nuclear power in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), released in March 2021. China plans 150 new nuclear reactors over the ensuing 15 years to reach a production goal of 200 GW of nuclear energy by 2035. Analysts estimated that adding an additional 147 GW (to the 53 GW of nuclear energy China produced at the time) would entail an investment of $370 billion to $440 billion over that 15-year timeframe. By 2050, China wants nuclear to provide at least 15 percent of its electricity generation (which China envisions as its third overall source of energy by that year, behind wind and solar).
China is looking to make molten salt and thorium reactors as part of the plan.
China built a prototype of a thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR) with a capacity of 2 MW began in September 2018 and was reportedly completed in August 2021. The project was started in 2011 at a cost of ¥ 3 billion ($US 450 million). Construction of the reactor started in 2018 and was completed in 2021.
China plans to build the world's first NPP based on molten salt in the Gobi desert. Construction will begin in 2025 for the 10MWe/60MWth reactor. The reactor does not need water for cooling, since it uses liquid salt and carbon dioxide to transfer heat and generate electricity. New reactor specifications include: core graphite 3 m tall x 2.2 m wide, 700 °C operating temperature, 60 MW thermal output, and an experimental supercritical carbon dioxide-based closed-cycle gas turbine to convert the thermal output to 10 MW of electricity. Construction is slated to start in 2025, and be completed by 2029.
The reactor will use fuel enriched in less than 20% U-235, with a thorium reserve of about 50 kg and a conversion factor of about 0.1. FLiBe - a eutectic mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride containing 99.95% lithium-7 will be used, and the fuel will consist of uranium tetrafluoride (UF4).
China will follow up with a larger 373 MWth molten salt reactor around 2030. This 373 MWt/168 MWe liquid-fuel MSR small modular reactor is planned, with supercritical CO2 cycle in a tertiary loop at 23 MPa using Brayton cycle, after a radioactive isolation secondary loop. Various applications as well as electricity generation are envisaged. It would be loaded with 15.7 tonnes of thorium and 2.1 tonnes of uranium (19.75% enriched), with one kilogram of uranium added daily, and have 330 GWd/t burn-up with 30% of energy from thorium. Online refueling would enable eight years of operation before shutdown, with the graphite moderator needing attention.