Meanwhile, the first phase of the planned Ningde nuclear power station in eastern China's Fujian province is reported to be undergoing evaluation prior to approval from the country's economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission. The first phase of the project will see the construction of four 1000 MW CPR-1000 units, similar to those at the existing Ling Ao plant. The CPR-1000 is billed as a Chinese-designed pressurized water reactor (PWR), although the initial Ling Ao units were based on French technology. Preparations for construction at the site, located on three islands near Fuding, are reported to be nearly finished, ready for plant construction to start in earnest. The Ningde units are currently slated for start-up in the period 2012-2015.
China has 11 nuclear reactors in operation, providing around 2% of its electricity, with five more units already under construction. It has plans to increase its nuclear capacity five-fold to 40 GWe by 2020 with a further three to fourfold increase to 120-160 GWe by 2030. This would give it more nuclear capacity than any country in the world today.
This little item above appeared on WNN yesterday at:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/...
China, unlike the US, has a real energy policy. Their state regulators ARE the builders of energy plants. [Actually there are various regional nuclear and utility power companies that work closely with the Energy Ministry in Beijing]. This article focuses in on nuclear but they lead on every area of energy: coal (bad), solar and wind (irrelevant), high temperature Bryaton cycle nuclear power plants (good), LWRs (good), hydro (questionable) etc.
The projected 140 GWs (that's about 120 NPPs) by 2030 may seem ambitious (compared to our 32 or so) but it it only means about 30% of the total increase in projected growth in this same period!!!! The Chinese are increasing everything. We all know about their terrible policy of including and building 1 coal plant a week.
Obviously this is a bad thing, not a good thing.
The Chinese are trying to increase the small % of nuclear power (3% now) to something like 10% in 30 years. This simply will not do it. The Chinese need a 500% increase in their plans. From what I've been able to garner, their model is a good one. They double and triple the operator crews on shifts at existing NPPs. After a few years, they will be the core staff of the new plants. Same with their massive nuclear engineering student body that is being recruited to double and triple as well. By over staffing through ever vertical aspect of the nuclear industry, and planning for this, they are able to provide, exponentially, the need staff for new plants. Well that's good. Better than us again. But...
The irony is that they have no long term plans to end coal use. They could, but the don't. Chinese have devolved their old Stalinist "Five year economic plans" to sector 5-year plans. Their energy expansion is along these lines and the WNN article has links to these plans on their web sites. I raise this because it would be reletiavely easy for the Chinese to really go at it and look toward a 500 GW installed based of nuclear instead of the paltry 160 (max).
Via the Chinese consulate in San Francisco, I've actually talked to some of their economic people on this, but none of them were energy folks. I will report more here on this as I get more information from them directly.
