China has big plans for nuclear power, hoping to build 27 new reactors at a cost of $1 billion each in order to quadruple capacity by 2020.
That should take China to 36,000 megawatts, according to Zhang Huazhu, chairman of the China Atomic Energy Authority.
“It is not easy to realize the target of 36,000 megawatts by 2020. It means we should build 27 nuclear power generators each with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts by then,” said Zhang, also vice minister of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.
With nine nuclear power generators in operation, China had a total nuclear power capacity of 7,010 megawatts by the end of July, he said.
Capability would reach 9,130 megawatts by the end of 2005 when the Tianwan plant in the eastern province of Jiangsu came online, Zhang said.
Pillar 'of the power structure'
He said the goal is for nuclear power to account for about 4 percent of China’s total output by 2020 compared with just 1.7 percent at present.
The new plants would be concentrated in the thriving but energy-thirsty eastern and southern coastal areas, Zhang said, though inland provinces had also drawn up plans.
“Nuclear energy will become one of the pillars of the power structure in the booming coastal areas,” he said.
All China’s existing nuclear power plants are along the east and south coast.
In July, Beijing approved to two nuclear power projects, the first in over five years. Each plant, one in Zhejiang and one in Guangdong, will have two 1,000 megawatt reactors.
Two other plants in the same provinces were in the approval process, Zhang said.
Foreign firms would be invited to tender for construction of two of the four plants, while the other two would rely mainly on China’s own technology, he added.
China’s government had attached great importance to the safety of nuclear power plants and its safety supervision and management system proved to be effective, Zhang said.
“Radiation dosage of employees in our nuclear plants are below one percent, much lower than the government’s limit,” he said.
Coal and hydropower
Three-quarters of China’s 400,000 megawatts of installed power capacity, the world’s second largest after the United States, are fired by coal.
The country has suffered from its worst power crunch in 20 years this summer due to a galloping economy and a coal squeeze.
Engineers blocked the Yangtze at the Three Gorges Dam in June last year, filling the reservoir for a $25 billion hydro-electric project, the world’s largest, that is a point of national pride.