‘1,000-year source’: China plans to fire up world-first accelerator-driven nuclear reactor

2026-03-06 - 04:05

China will soon power up an ultra-efficient, nuclear waste-burning reactor with a groundbreaking technology that it projects will safely meet humanity’s energy needs for the next 1,000 years. Accelerator-driven subcritical systems (ADS) are advanced nuclear reactors that can both generate energy and transmute long-lived radioactive waste into shorter-lived and less hazardous isotopes. Designed by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) along with state nuclear enterprises, the China...