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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China Plans 40 Nuke Power Plants |
| 2005-04-08 |
| China plans to build 40 nuclear power plants over the next 15 years, making them the main power source for its booming east coast, a government official said in remarks reported Thursday. China is expected to be the world's biggest developer of nuclear power stations in coming decades as the government tries to meet soaring demands for electricity while reducing pollution from coal-fired power plants. Zhang Fubao, an official of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, made the prediction Wednesday at a symposium on the nuclear power market and technology, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. With no plants planned in the United States and few in other Western countries, suppliers of equipment are looking to China to drive sales in their industry. Zhang said the Chinese nuclear industry's generating capacity was expected to reach 40 million kilowatts in 2020, though he did not say how that compared to current levels. "Nuclear power will become the pillar of energy supply in coastal areas of east China," the center of the country's export-driven economic boom, he was quoted as saying. China is reviewing plans for expanding two nuclear power plants and proposals to start building two more in the booming southern provinces of Guangdong and Zhejiang, Xinhua said. According to the news agency, China's nuclear power plants supplied 50.4 billion kilowatt hours of electricity last year, accounting for 2.3 percent of the national total. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #2 Even after China has built the 40 plants it will still generate less of its electricity as a percentage of the total than many developed countries. Plants that were built 30 years ago still produce cheaply reliably and are not subject to feedstock supply disruptions. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-04-08 6:59:43 PM |
| #1 40 thousand megawatts from 40 plants sounds reasonable, given that the world currently gets about 360,000 megawatts from 440 existing plants. The Chinese will be using the latest technology, which hopefully will be more efficient than some of the existing plants, thus explaining the slightly higher figures. One hopes - you can never tell with Communist-trained engineers. They might be trying for some sort of idiotic gigantism. Cross your fingers and hope they've all been properly trained in the United States. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2005-04-08 1:44:36 PM |