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| Fig. 1: Spent fuel management pathway at KANUPP (Karachi, Pakistan). [2] (Image source: C. Yang.) |
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), announced by China in 2013, is a comprehensive global development strategy aimed at improving connectivity and cooperation across Eurasia. While infrastructure projects such as railways and ports are its most visible hallmarks, energy infrastructure is a growing pillar of the initiative. [1] Within the energy sector, nuclear power has emerged as a strategically important component: China has accelerated domestic reactor construction to become the worlds largest builder of new nuclear capacity, and it has leveraged that industrial base to pursue a small but growing program of reactor exports to BRI partner states. [2]
As of early 2025, China has precisely two nuclear power reactors operating abroad: both Hualong One (HPR1000) units located at the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP) in Pakistan, designated K-2 and K-3, and one additional Hualong One unit under construction at the Chashma site in Pakistan's Punjab Province. [2] The analysis that follows addresses the four questions most consequential for evaluating this export program: the capital cost of the reactors, the financing model by which the Chinese vendor is paid, the source and pricing of enriched uranium fuel, and the fate of the spent fuel waste these reactors generate.
China's nuclear BRI expansion supplies participating countries with fissile material in the waste products. Nuclear power generation creates two distinct types of radioactive byproducts. High-level waste consists almost entirely of spent fuel rods taken out of nuclear reactors after power generation. In contrast, low-level waste is produced by day-to-day reactor operations, as well as by various medical, academic, and industrial applications of radioactive isotopes. The plutonium in high-level waste is fissile and can be used in the production of nuclear weapons.
China has established a sophisticated regulatory framework to support this expansion. The primary bodies include the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) and the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA). The legal framework consists of state laws (such as the 2017 Nuclear Safety Law), administrative regulations, and departmental rules. [3] Following the 9/11 attacks and accession to international conventions, China significantly strengthened its nuclear security systems, including physical protection and material accounting. [3]
The flagship of Chinas export strategy is the Hualong One, or HPR1000, a Generation-III pressurized water reactor developed jointly by China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN). The reactor core is loaded with 177 fuel assemblies using CF3 fuel. Its safety philosophy combines active and passive systems: powered active systems are backed up by gravity-driven passive systems, including Passive Containment Heat Removal and Passive Cavity Injection, each capable of operating for 72 hours without external power. [4] Nominal net electrical output is 1,0901,100 MW(e) per unit.
The two operating Hualong One units are located at KANUPP, situated at Paradise Point on the Arabian Sea coast within Sindh Province, approximately 25 kilometers west of central Karachi, a metropolitan area of roughly 15 million people and Pakistan's largest city. K-2 achieved commercial operation in 2021 and K-3 in 2022. Together they constitute the largest source of low- carbon baseload electricity currently operating in Pakistan. [1]
To support Pakistan's nuclear development, China also financed more than 80% of the estimated project cost through a US $6.4 billion loan from China's SOE Export-Import (Exim) Bank. [5,6]
A third Hualong One unit is currently under construction at the Chashma Nuclear Power Complex. The reactor will add a further 1,000 MW(e) of generating capacity to the national grid. [6]
Enriched uranium fuel for K-2 and K-3 is supplied by China under a long-term government-to-government agreement. CNNC has committed to providing fuel for the complete 60-year operational lifetime of the reactors. Pakistan has no domestic uranium enrichment capability qualified for power reactor fuel, and its exclusion from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) makes China the sole available commercial supplier.
The unit price of enriched fuel has not been disclosed in publicly available documents.
Spent fuel at the Karachi site goes through multiple stages, see Figure 1. In the first stage, spent fuel assemblies are placed in the on-site wet storage bay (spent fuel pool), where they remain submerged in water for a minimum of ten years. This cooling period reduces decay heat to a level at which the assemblies can be handled without forced cooling. [2]
After the mandatory ten-year wet storage period, assemblies are transferred to the KANUPP Spent Fuel Dry Storage (KSFDS) facility, which became operational in 2019. In this facility, 54 spent fuel bundles are loaded vertically into an austenitic stainless-steel basket; two baskets are placed into a single storage cask, giving each cask a capacity of 108 bundles. The cask is decontaminated, its lid bolted, and the drain port welded shut before transport to the dry storage pad. Cooling is entirely passive and no powered systems are required. The facility is licensed for 336 storage casks. As of February 2024, the total inventory stood at 3,672 spent fuel assemblies stored in 34 casks. [2]
The KSFDS is designated as interim storage only, with a design life of approximately 50 years, pending a future policy decision on either deep geological repository (DGR) construction or reprocessing. Neither a DGR site nor a reprocessing facility has been approved or constructed in Pakistan as of this writing. The long-term disposition pathway for high-level waste from K-2 and K-3 therefore remains unresolved.
This unresolved endpoint carries significant implications. The spent fuel contains fissile plutonium and its secure, permanent disposal requires not only a geological repository but decades of guarded stewardship. The cost of that stewardship, and which party Pakistan, China, or some future international arrangement will bear it, has not been publicly determined.
China's deployment of the Hualong One in Pakistan demonstrates a coherent export model: the Chinese vendor is compensated as an EPC contractor, with project finance provided through China Eximbank concessional lending backed by Pakistani sovereign guarantees. Enriched fuel is supplied by China under a classified long-term agreement whose price terms are not publicly available. Spent fuel remains in Pakistan under interim dry storage, with no long-term disposal pathway yet defined and no repatriation agreement in place. These financial and waste-management uncertainties are not peripheral details: the cost of permanent spent fuel disposal and the security of the plutonium- bearing waste are central questions for any evaluation of the programs long-term viability and safety.
© Chuer Yang. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] F. Bega and B. Lin, "China's Belt and Road Initiative Energy Cooperation: International Assessment of the Power Projects," Energy 270, 126951 (2023).
[2] "Management of Spent Fuel from Nuclear Power Reactors," International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA Poceedings Series STI/PUB/2127, November 2025.
[3] X. Guo, "Nuclear Security in China," in The Oxford Handbook of Nuclear Security, ed. by C. Hobbs, S. Tzinieris, and S. Aghara (Oxford University Press, 2024), p. 447.
[4] J. Xing, D. Song, and Y. Wu, "HPR1000: Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor with Active and Passive Safety," Engineering 2, 79 (2016).
[5] A. Dreher et al., Banking on Beijing: The Aims and Impacts of China's Overseas Development Program (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
[6] B. Lin, N. Bae, and F. Bega, "China's Belt and Road Initiative Nuclear Export: Implications For Energy Cooperation," Energy Policy 142, 111519 (2020).