China General Nuclear on 15 March signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Italy's Ansaldo Nucleare to cooperate on the development of key technology and system design of a lead-cooled fast reactor.
The MOU was signed during the International Symposium on Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor Technology Development held in Shenzhen, China. In 2011, the Chinese Academy of Sciences launched an engineering project aimed at developing an Accelerator Driven System (ADS) for nuclear waste transmutation. The CLEAR (China LEAd-based Reactor) proposed by the Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology (INEST) was selected as the ADS reference concept. The first step, namely CLEAR-I, of the ADS deployment strategy is a 10MWth pool-type fast reactor cooled by Lead-Bismuth Eutectic (LBE), capable of being operated both in critical and sub-critical mode. Ansaldo Nuclear was commissioned to undertake the design review of the conceptual design.
China is to establish an industrial supply chain for the reactor, which will be built in China, Xinhua reported on 17 March, citing INEST.