It looks as if the safety and development plan that is currently being modified by Chinese regulators and planners for its nuclear industry will have its stamp of approval by June.
Quoting Xu Yuming, vice secretary general of the China Nuclear Energy Association, Bloomberg News reported the state council of China is poised to meet before the end of June to approve the nuclear plan once the proposed amendments have been incorporated into it.
An earlier submitted plan was rejected by the state council. The parties that drafted the plan are now making modifications to some “minor” details, Mr Xu said.
The magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011 along with its resulting debilitating effects, which not only killed thousands of people but also brought about a number of nuclear disasters and level 7 meltdowns at three reactors in the Fukushima Power Plant complex, have become not only Japan’s most hard-earned lessons but also beacons of standards for other nations, particularly China, as far as nuclear power safety handling is concerned.
China, forecast by the International Energy Agency to become the world’s largest energy consumer by 2035, is on a continuous manhunt scouting for approaches and methods to address of its electric power shortages. Its economic growth over the past decade may have led it to become the world’s second-largest economy in such short time, but the same zooming growth has put increasing stress on its electrical generation grid due to a rising urban population.
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In fact, prior to the Fukushima disaster, China had approved the construction of four nuclear reactors. But these were eventually ordered suspended pending safety checks and the approval of the nuclear safety and development plan.
Once the plan is approved, government is seen to immediately resume the approval of construction of new nuclear plants.
To support the expected massive influx of nuclear reactors potentially going online all at the same time, China will expectedly need to increase its uranium imports.
Two new reactors located at Hongyanhe and Ningde are expected to go online by end of the year, Mr Xu said. The facilities resumed construction after a nationwide safety inspection that started in April 2011, he added.
“China has 14 nuclear reactors operating, 27 under construction and many dozens more expected by 2020. That’s growth we haven’t seen [in the nuclear power industry] since the 1970s,” Tim Gitzel, Cameco Chief Executive, said in a trip to China in February 2012.
In that trip, the governments of China and Canada renewed their bilateral ties over a planned sale of some $3 billion uranium yellowcake exports to the world’s second-largest economy.
