China has 21 nuclear reactors under construction which will have a capacity for generating more than 21 gigawatts of electricity, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That is two and a half times more nuclear reactors under construction than any other country.
I love that China is not planning to power all future demand with more coal and gas.
I’ve got no reason to believe they’re doing anything dangerous. I found this piece which indicates that they did a review in the wake of Fukushima. Sounds like things were adequate but they also found things to improve. Do you have reason to believe China is not taking safety seriously in there nuclear energy program?
Following Fukushima, however, Beijing immediately suspended approval of all new nuclear power projects while it undertook a comprehensive safety review of existing and under-construction nuclear power plants, as well as research reactors and fuel cycle facilities, and developed its Twelfth Five Year Plan for Nuclear Safety. In June 2012, after gaining approval of the State Council in principle, the National Nuclear Safety Administration released drafts of the Nuclear Safety Plan (Chinese here) and the “Report on Safety Inspection of National Civilian Nuclear Facilities” (Chinese here) for public comment.
As discussed in the Safety Inspection report, the safety inspection took over 9 months and covered 11 areas of safety, including site selection and external event evaluation; flood and earthquake resistance capacity; extreme natural disaster prevention and protection; electricity blackouts and emergency plans; severe accident prevention and mitigation; environmental monitoring systems; and emergency response system effectiveness.
The report concluded that operating reactors “basically fulfill” China’s nuclear safety laws and regulations and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s most recent standards, that they have the capacity to respond to design-basis accidents and severe accidents, and that safety risks are under control. However, in spite of these conclusions, the inspection report and nuclear safety plan also identified areas for improvement. In particular, the nuclear safety plan lays out short- (by the end of 2012), mid- (by the end of 2013) and long-term (by 2015) tasks to strengthen safety for operating and under-construction plants, research reactors and fuel cycle facilities.
Do you have reason to believe China is not taking safety seriously in there nuclear energy program?
If the China government were doing the wrong thing, would Chinese scientists and engineers be safe to say so, or would they be subject to imprisonment and torture for disagreeing with their political superiors?
Without freedom of political speech there is no freedom to tell the truth on matters of political controversy. This includes environmental and safety issues.
It goes the other way too. The Chinese government harshly punishes those who take dangerous shortcuts that undermine public safety and trust. The 2008 baby formula scandal comes to mind, which led to the execution of two executives for their crimes.
Anyway, nuclear power has proven to be very safe under all types of government. To say that it would somehow be less safe in China is maybe just a little bit sinophobic.
White man wonders if yellow man can do things white man can. News at 11.
Right until Chernobyl almost kills all of Ukraine.
A roughly equivalent disaster also happened in the anti-communist free state of Japan. What’s your point?
That took an earthquake and a tsunami to happen. Chernobyl was a test to see if it the plant was built to spec, and it wasn’t.
In the case of the Chernobyl disaster, the test revealed a flaw in the design of the reactor, not a deviation from the specification. Likewise, in the Fukushima disaster, it was a tsunami that revealed a flaw in the design of the reactor cooling system and backup generators.
The flaw being graphite tips on the control rods which was not in the design.
The graphite ends were part of the RMBK design and the power surge behavior caused by them was observed previously at a reactor in Lithuania (but no accident occured). The design was not changed at that point because the particular circumstances that would lead to an accident (like what happened in the Chernobyl disaster) were determined to be too unlikely. A similar determination must have been made regarding the likelihood of a flood that would disable the emergency generators at Fukushima.
Yes? Unlike in the US, whether to care about safety or health aren’t political issues.
Also, the punishment for severely fucking up isn’t a small fine or imprisonment, it’s execution. If Fukushima happened in China, heads would literally roll. That’s a pretty strong incentive to not fuck up from the plant manager/architect/designer standpoint.
I get it, you don’t like China. They’re still a big player in global emissions and I’m still glad they’re not meeting their complete energy demand with coal/ng. You should be too.
The ability of chinese scientists and engineers to act in their roles without interference from the state is offtopic. If you want to talk about that, go make a thread about it.
ability of chinese scientists and engineers to act in their roles without interference from the state
In a discussion about plant safety that is relevant, surely.
That’s kind of true, but the Chinese government is probably competent enough to not mess with nuclear safety.
China’s safety record in other energy sectors is poor. This is presumably not on purpose. What reason is there to believe it will be better at managing nuclear?