China Promotes Another Boom: Nuclear Power

["Stabin, Michael" <michael.g.stabin@Vanderbilt.Edu>]

China Promotes Another Boom: Nuclear Power

By HOWARD W. FRENCH 

NY Times January 15, 2005



AYA BAY, China - The view from this remote point by the sea, with lines

of misty mountains stretching into the distance, is worthy of a

classical Chinese painting. In the foreground, though, sits a less

obvious attraction: one of China's first nuclear power reactors, and

just behind it, another being rushed toward completion. 

 

There are countless ways to show how China is climbing the world's

economic ladder, hurdling developed countries in its path, but few are

more pronounced than the country's rush into nuclear energy - a

technology that for environmental, safety and economic reasons most of

the world has put on hold. 



In its anxiety to satisfy its seemingly bottomless demand for

electricity, China plans to build reactors on a scale and pace

comparable to the most ambitious nuclear energy programs the world has

ever seen. 



Current plans - conservative ones, in the estimation of some people

involved in China's nuclear energy program - call for new reactors to be

commissioned at a rate of nearly two a year between now and 2020, a pace

that experts say is comparable to the peak of the United States' nuclear

energy push in the 1970's.



"We will certainly build more than one reactor per year," said Zhou

Dadi, director of the central government's Energy Research Institute,

which has strongly supported the country's nuclear program. "The

challenge is not the technology. The barriers for China are mostly

institutional arrangements, because reactors are big projects. What we

need most is better operation, financing and management."



By 2010, planners predict a quadrupling of nuclear output to 16 billion

kilowatt-hours and a doubling of that figure by 2015. And with

commercial nuclear energy programs dead or stagnant in the United States

and most of Europe, Western and other developers of nuclear plant

technology are lining up to sell reactors and other equipment to the

Chinese, whose purchasing decisions alone will determine in many

instances who survives in the business. 



France, which derives about a third of its energy from nuclear power, is

the only Western country committed to a large-scale nuclear energy

program. It is in a building lull now, but will need to begin replacing

aging reactors within a decade or so. 



Japan derives about 10 percent of its energy from nuclear sources and

was once among the most favorably disposed toward nuclear energy. But a

string of scandals involving comically shoddy practices, like mixing

radioactive materials in a bucket, and near accidents have turned public

opinion in many areas strongly antinuclear. 



That leaves China as the only potential growth area for nuclear energy.

And for China, which still derives as much as 80 percent of its

electricity from burning coal, the lure of nuclear energy is as obvious

as the thick, acrid, choking haze that hangs over virtually all the

country's cities. 



The problem with nuclear power, some experts say, is that China's energy

needs are so immense - each year, by some estimates, the country plans

to add generating capacity from all sources equivalent to the entire

current energy consumption of Britain - that even the enormous expansion

program will do little to offset the skyrocketing power demand.



China's eight nuclear reactors in operation today supply less than 2

percent of current demand. By 2020, assuming the national plan is

fulfilled, nuclear energy would still constitute under 4 percent of

demand. 



There has been almost no public discussion of the merits and risks of

nuclear energy here, as the government strictly censors news coverage of

such issues. But critics question whether such a small payoff warrants

exposure to the risk of catastrophic failures, nuclear proliferation,

terrorism and the still unresolved problems of radioactive waste

disposal.



"We don't have a very good plan for dealing with spent fuel, and we

don't have very good emergency plans for dealing with catastrophe," said

Wang Yi, a nuclear energy expert at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in

Beijing. "The nuclear interest group wants to push this technology, but

they don't understand the risks for the future. They want to make money.

But we scientists, we want to take a very comprehensive approach,

including safety, environment, dealing with waste and other factors, and

not rush into anything."



Chinese nuclear operators, like the people who run the Daya Bay plants

here, scoff at such concerns. 



Mike



Michael G. Stabin, PhD, CHP

Assistant Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences 

Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences 

Vanderbilt University 

1161 21st Avenue South

Nashville, TN 37232-2675 

Phone (615) 343-0068

Fax   (615) 322-3764

Pager (615) 835-5153

e-mail     michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu 

internet   www.doseinfo-radar.com



 



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