Nuclear Energy is No Solution

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When Shanghai has only three to four days of coal reserves for fuel, and fourteen provinces of China are suffering partial electricity cuts, it is time to ask what has happened.

Given the snowstorm that hit the central China, Shanghai municipality is rerouting its coal importation from Qingdao, a major sea port in northan China. But, when Shanxi province is cutting coal production, unfortunately at a time when the nation’s economy keeps on growing fast, the problem between supply and demand is exacerbated.

In this chilly winter, China is experiencing its most severe period of energy shortages since 2004. Three years ago, the government bragged that the new energy generation capacity installed could meet the demand for quite a while. Then, it is too short "a while".

Beijing’s annual statistics indicates that the Chinese economy is increasing at 11% per annum. However, its own data has suggested something else: China’s economy has doubled every 5 years �GDP at US$2.2trillion in 2005 vs. US$1trillion in 2000. That is virtually 14-15%/year increase on average for five years consecutively, rather than merely 10-11%.

To meet the soaring demand, the remedy remains adding new energy supply and reducing energy consumption whenever and wherever possible, especially through adjusting people’s way of life, with the philosophy of sustainability behind it all.

Actually China’s energy production has already grown faster than its economic development in the last few years. In 2006, China’s energy investment mounted to RMB 1,197 billion, a 15.5% increase on 2005, while the year 2005 had increased by over 19% on 2004. In 2006, China’s power generation subsequently increased by 20.3% over that of 2005.

On the surface, it is hard to understand why there is still an energy shortage despite the substantial investment in the energy industry and the rapid growth of electricity generation that has been faster than the economic expansion. One would only assume that China’s basic energy need is too big and the pace of increase too demanding, and, its waste of energy use too significant.

The authorities in Beijing have demanded a cooling of the economy (doubling the economy every decade rather than every five years), to reduce the energy elasticity (increase of energy consumption vs increase of economic output), and to lower the environmental pollutants due to energy use. From the aforementioned data, obviously, it has failed to attain all of these objectives.

Then, there is the call for nuclear energy. At the moment, China is running eleven nuclear power reactors, with total nuclear capacity of 9GW accounting for 1.9% of all energy consumption (lower than 2.2% in 2002).

China is also constructing five new nuclear power reactors with a combined capacity of 3.3GW. Therefore, it is likely that by 2010 China will have acquired over 10GW in total. Beijing has envisioned attaining 40GW of installed nuclear capacity in total by 2020, with another 18GW in construction at that time.

This vision is ambitious, though unrealistic. China made similar plans in the late 1990s that attracted American interest in making large amounts of quick money by selling civilian nuclear plants to China. America must have felt disappointed that it waited for ten years to sell the first reactor, an AP 1000 from Westinghouse, which has been acquired by Toshiba now. As a hastened step, China has also ordered two 1.6GW EPRs from AREVA, during President Sarkozy�/span>s recent visit to Beijing.

Developing nuclear power is obviously one route away from fossil energy and hence can be seen as environmentally sound. Given the advanced safety technology, including the inherently safe fuel designs of Generation VI Pebble-bed reactor technology, there will be far less chance of a failing that would lead to a Chernobyl style disaster again.

But the problem is how to quadruple China’s nuclear energy output in merely ten years: from approximately 10GW to 40GW during 2010-2020. There will be a tremendous amount of tasks to tackle:

-         Money: Each AVERA 1.6GW EPR costs US$6 billion. Then to add 30GW in ten years would incur some US$110 billion. This one-time investment entails rather strong financial demands.

-         Absorbing nuclear cultures: With each power reactor at 1-1.6GW, China would have to build nineteen to thirty such reactors in ten years, with quite a few from the United States, France, Russia, and Canada. It is important to digest these nuclear cultures in ten years.

-         Fuel supply: With the rapid increase of nuclear power generation by China and the rest of Asia, there will be strong competition in access to uranium ore. It is imperative to implement China’s initiative of a national uranium strategic reserve.

-         Waste disposal: With a nuclear power target of 40GW by 2020 and 60GW eventually, China will be bothered by the disposal of all of the nuclear waste. China is also likely to face its own NIMBY phenomenon, especially when its society becomes more diversified.