SEPT 2, 2004 China to build 27 more nuclear power plants
Pollution from coal-fired plants and uncertainties in oil market force Beijing to look to alternative sources of energy
By Chua Chin Hon
BEIJING - China plans to build 27 nuclear power plants by 2020, a marked increase from the current nine in operation, a top atomic energy official said yesterday.
This would work out to two to three 1,000MW nuclear plants being built annually for the next 15 years, said Mr Zhang Huazhu, chairman of the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA).
The new plants, alongside existing ones, will be located in the more economically developed south-eastern and coastal regions, such as the Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.
Nuclear power already accounts for more than 13 per cent of the electricity supply in Guangdong and Zhejiang, said Mr Zhang, adding that atomic energy 'is going to be an important pillar in the electricity-mix in the coastal areas'.
A report in July by the World Nuclear Association (WNA), a global industrial organisation promoting the peaceful use of atomic energy, listed Fujian and Shandong as the next two likely provinces to go nuclear with two new plants each.
These provinces house a large part of China's manufacturing base but are far from the coalfields in the north or north-west.
As a result, they are among the regions worst hit this year by the energy crisis as electricity demand soars and the transportation bottleneck shows little sign of easing.
Though several inland Chinese provinces have requested permission to build nuclear power plants as well, comments by the CAEA suggest that the central government is unlikely to accede to such requests.
China relies on fossil fuel, mainly coal, to generate about 80 per cent of its electricity, with hydropower and nuclear energy accounting for the rest.
But mounting pollution from coal-fired plants and uncertainties in the international oil market have forced Beijing to speed up its develop- ment of alternative sources of energy.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Mr Zhang said that China's nuclear energy strategy remained a 'moderate' one despite the central government's decision to speed up construction of the plants.
He revealed that the existing nine nuclear power plants accounted for only 2.29 per cent of total electricity generated in China.
Even with 27 new nuclear plants by 2020, this figure is expected to increase only marginally to 4 per cent, he said.
He added: 'Overall, the contribution from nuclear energy is still small. In this light, we can still call it a moderate development of nuclear energy.'
China began developing its nuclear industry 50 years ago, but it was only in 1991 that it put the country's first nuclear power plant into operation in Zhejiang, about 100km south- west of Shanghai.
Allaying concerns about safety, officials at the press conference said China has not encountered any major nuclear incident.
Staff in key posts go through thorough training and strict examinations to ensure their competence, the officials added.
Asia is the only region in the world where electricity generation by nuclear power is increasing significantly, the WNA said in an online report, pinning down most of this growth in China, Japan, India and South Korea.
There are now 100 nuclear power reactors in six Asian countries - with Japan topping the list with 53 plants - and 56 other reactors for research purposes in 14 countries in the region, the report added.
