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China: Forum Reviews Achievements, Problems in Nuclear Power Development

Posted on: Saturday, 20 August 2005, 09:00 CDT

Text of report by Xinhua reporters An Bei and Han Qiao entitled: "China adopts 'active promotion' strategy to develop nuclear power", carried by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency) Asia-Pacific service

Beijing, 11 August: China's rapidly developing economy is facing a tremendous energy source challenge, which urgently requires the establishment and development of a diversified energy source supply structure. The message has come from the "2005 Forum on China's Electric Power", now under way, that nuclear electric power is regarded as an important way of optimizing the energy source structure and has been assigned the strategic status of "active promotion".

Data show that China now has an installed nuclear power capacity of 7m kW, less than 2 per cent of total installed capacity. According to China's nuclear power development target, installed nuclear power capacity will reach 40m kW by 2020, about 4 per cent of total installed capacity at that time; and nuclear power generation will account for 6 per cent of total national power output. "China's nuclear power development is facing a historic opportunity," Guangdong Nuclear Power Company General manager He Yu said at the forum.

At the time of the initial design of the 11th Five-Year Plan, China decided on the guideline of "appropriate development of nuclear power". However, China's sustained and rapid economic growth in recent years and the emergence of bottlenecks in electric power, including coal and oil energy sources, have set demands on the restructuring of China's energy sources.

State Council Premier Wen Jiabao emphasized when inspecting Daya Bay nuclear power plant last January that "we must actively promote the building of nuclear power". State President Hu Jintao pointed out at a CCP [Chinese Communist Party] Central Committee Politburo collective study session in June that "we must speed up the development of nuclear power, encourage the development of new and renewable energy sources, and optimize the energy source structure".

Prof Wu Zongxin, head of the Institute of Nuclear Power and New Energy Source Technology Research of Qinghua University, pointed out that China's non-renewable energy sources are mainly distributed in west and north China, whereas east and south China where the electric power load is the heaviest are relatively short of resources. At present, transporting coal from north to south and transmitting electricity from west to east have put very heavy pressure on the environment and on transport. As a clean and economic electric power generation method that can be developed on a large scale, nuclear power is an important option for resolving the shortage of energy sources along the southeast coast.

Prof Wu said nuclear power together with hydroelectricity and electricity produced by coal now compose the three main props in world electric power resources, and nuclear power already accounts for 16 per cent of total world installed generating capacity. Installed nuclear power generating capacity in 19 developed countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan, exceeds 20 per cent of total installed capacity there.

Enthusiasm for developing nuclear power has revived in various countries in recent years. As a country where per-capita resources are below the world average, China should adopt a positive approach to developing nuclear power.

He Yu said that China adheres to the guideline of "concentrating on our own efforts, and cooperating with foreign countries"; at present we have built five nuclear power stations, namely Qinshan- I, II, and III, Daya Bay, and Lingao-I. The Tianwan plant now under construction is planned to start operating this year. Work on Lingao- II and the expansion of Qinshan-II will respectively start this year and next. Apart from that, China has also decided to build third- generation technology nuclear power plants at Yangjiang in Guangdong and Sanmen in Zhejiang, each with two 1m kW generator sets.

The experts here reminded everyone, however, that there are also a number of problems in China's nuclear power development. He Yu pointed out, since in the past there was no unified plan for nuclear power development, and no explicit scale and distribution of this development, it has been hard to take decisions on resource allocation for fields associated with nuclear power development such as nuclear fuel production, equipment manufacture, scientific research, design, and a technical services system. In addition, since there is a variety of nuclear reactor types in the stations already built, technology sources are complex and we have been unable to form a standardized and systematized structure, and scale effect has been hard to form, and this has also increased the difficulty in nuclear power safety supervision and control.

He said China's own ability to develop nuclear power is not strong; so far we have been unable to form our own capability for designing and building 1m kW-class pressurized water reactor nuclear power stations, with the result that it has been difficult to lower costs. Apart from that, China's nuclear industry is not yet on a sound basis, and the degree of marketization is low, and this also restricts the scale development of nuclear power. Zhang Guobao, vice- chairman of the State Development and Reform Commission, emphasized at the forum that judging by China's current progress, there will be a certain degree of difficulty in attaining the goal of installed generating capacity of 40m kW by 2020.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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