Q&A: How China is using nuclear power to reduce its carbon emissions - Carbon Brief
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In this Q&A, Carbon Brief looks at the trajectory of China’s nuclear development and what’s driving its strategy for the technology.

cross-posted from: https://lemmus.org/post/332049

China began building its first nuclear plant in 1985. The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES) estimates that it will have the world’s largest nuclear fleet by 2030.

For now, China is now the world’s second largest nuclear energy producer behind the US, having overtaken France in 2020. By the end of June 2023, China had an installed capacity of 57 gigawatts (GW), according to official data.

China remains behind the 96GW installed in the US – for now. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says China is the “world’s fastest expanding nuclear power producer”.

(The International Energy Agency estimates that electricity from nuclear power costs $65 per megawatt hour (MWh) compared with $105/MWh in the US and $140/MWh in the EU.)

Zhi agrees with this assessment. Coal power is getting increasingly expensive, “especially due to carbon pricing and other environmental fees”, he says.

He wrote that the “guaranteed tariff paid to producers for nuclear power…has been higher than the rate for either coal-fired or hydroelectric power”. He also quoted a Chinese nuclear industry executive, who said in 2015: “We watch this carefully…if the government were to take this away from us, the future of our business would be in a lot of trouble.”

The WNA points out that safety questions have slowed China’s nuclear ambitions. Following the Fukushima Daiichi accident, China temporarily suspended approvals of new power plants, to review concerns over safety and river pollution, according to Andrews-Speed.

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