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China Slows Nuclear Expansion
An anonymous reader writes "Hui Zhang and Shangui Zhao describe China's decision to move ahead with nuclear power. Following the Fukushima Daiichi accident, China slowed its rapid expansion of nuclear power and undertook a major reevaluation of safety practices. The government has now resumed approval of new nuclear power projects, and is cautiously moving forward. Good description of safety issues that remain."
They are suspending in-land construction, and are aiming at 58GWe instead of 80GWe of generation capacity by 2020. It's still more than the 40GWe they planned to build under their 2007 plans.
Once we get the first running AP1000 maybe people will no longer pretend that that next generation is perfect in every way and we can get some sane discussions with real numbers.
I also read that and was worried North Korea (*) had attacked them... but thought the wording was a bit weird.
* Maybe they feel like China backstabbed them for not supporting them in the recent "confrontation".
According to TFA the 80GW number was ''expected'' by experts and officials. Only 40GW was written into the plans. Now the plans have 58GW. The planned capacity has increased, contrary to the summary.
Much more important thing is that Chinese are actually looking seriously into safety. Another fuck-up after the Fukushima disaster would seal the fate of nuclear electricity generation, and consequently, the last hopes that we'd do something substantial with regards to climate change. The outcome would not be pretty.
I agree, the fall out (no pun intended) of such an explosion in China will be felt the world over. The deaths alone from a failure will be astronomical. While I'm not opposed to nuclear power, I'm opposed to people doing it wrong.
21st Century Renaissance Man
why American civilian infrastructure is like the 3rd world comparing to China and Japan.
Do any of their new reactors use thorium?
Why is it off-topic to mention the US? I thought that's always on topic.
Please reply with further geopolitical analysis regarding whatever topic you feel appropriate.
All your base belong to us!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Good job that's not in the slightest bit radioactive then.
If nuclear adopted the same attitude that coal has always had, then reactor leaks would be result in a shrug and a response of "So what, you can't see it, so it can't hurt you."
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Mod parent up. Whether you or not you like or agree w/ the PP, it's not flamebait or a troll, and doesn't deserve -1. When I use my mod points, I never mod things to -1 unless they're flamebait or a troll.
Safety-first was on [China's] mind when they built train lines and then when they derailed, buried the train, corpses and all.
Cite?
No source for burying with corpses inside, but the wreckage was buried:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzhou_train_collision#Reaction
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Please reply with further geopolitical analysis regarding whatever topic you feel appropriate.
All your base belong to us!
No, no. To be on topic you have to say:
"All your base load belong to us!"
That works, scarily enough.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Is it me or the TFA encouraging them to fuck up?
For the new safety standards to be effective, China should streamline the regulatory and legal framework governing nuclear power.
So to make it safer they should... get rid of safety standards and checks? Um...
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
But, But ...
They said they were going to do it right
The second plan approved by the State Council, the Twelfth Five-Year Plan and the 2020 Vision of Nuclear Safety and Radioactive Pollution Prevention -- the Nuclear Safety Plan, for short -- goes farther. It requires that all operating reactors maintain good safety records and avoid accidents. New reactors must put in place prevention and mitigation measures for severe accidents.
The wrote it down. They put it on the Internet. What else could they need to do?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNhD7OtgBI8&feature=player_detailpage#t=189s
The payback isn't that small, actually. The famous example in Canada is Darlington for incredible cost overruns (from incredibly bad financing) of 14.4 Billion in the early 90s has more than made up for it, and the profit it generates yearly is enormous. The problem is that 90% of the costs are all upfront and pre-power generation, the inverse of fossil-fuel methods. If you are a Keynes follower, you should build these in recessions, since as infrastructure investment there is a large payback, and in prosperity, since it will smooth out future rough spots. If you are a Chigaco/Austrian-school follower, you never build these since you are in austerity during bad times and other investments have better (ie: faster, inflation tracked) return in good times. Basically, the economics are either excellent or terrible based on which camp you follow and how shortsighted your goals are, and how cost effective nuclear actually is is determined almost entirely in how it is financed.
stop building nuclear power plants out in the open air and bury the damn things half a kilometer underground.
Takes care of explosions. (Even if it blows up, get your people out before it blows, seal the shaft and who cares?)
Takes care of terrorist attacks. (The terrorists are NOT going to dig half kilometer long tunnels to get to your fissiles.)
Takes care of leakage. (Its half a kilometer down so its not going in your water table.)
Takes care of waste disposal. (You just dig a bunch of side chambers.)
Takes care of expansion. (You just dig a bunch of side chambers.)
Takes care of exposure. (It never sees the light of day, it never gets above ground.)
You can build the cooling towers, the power distribution towers and the offices above ground but BURY all the rest way down deep.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is anti-nuclear.
Read about the plans for new nuclear reactors worldwide.
Over 60 power reactors are currently being constructed in 14 countries including China, South Korea and Russia.
Mainland China has 17 nuclear power reactors in operation, 28 under construction, and more about to start construction. Additional reactors are planned, including some of the world's most advanced, to give a five- or six-fold increase in nuclear capacity to at least 58 GWe by 2020, then possibly 200 GWe by 2030, and 400 GWe by 2050.
...then we're all fucked: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w26WMRstQUk
If you are a Keynes follower, you should build these in recessions
The problem is that for economic stimulus you want to start spending serious money as soon as possible, and not wait years for the planning of a plant. Of course, considering how long the economy has been in the toilet, that might not be an issue nowadays.
the containment vessel is designed to withstand a 9.5 earthquake (Fukushima was a 9.1)
I wonder what that means in engineering terms. The Richter (actually moment magnitude scale) measures the total energy released in the quake, but what matters for structural design is the peak ground acceleration and the peak ground velocity. The chart on the PGA page shows a remarkable lack of correlation between MMS and PGA. The highest energy quake ever recorded (9.5 Chile 1960) had a PGA of only 0.3g, where the 2011 Thoku earthquake that caused the Fukushima accident was 2.7g. The 2008 Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku earthquake was a 7.2 that had a vector sum PGA of 4.36g.
This has actually already been considered, but was shot down due to possible ground water contamination and steam explosions. That and the sheer complexity of analyzing ground structure as far as would be necessary for the NRC's satisfaction.
It is MUCH easier to build a practically impenetrable containment dome with defense in depth than it is to bury a reactor in a shaft. However, for small modular reactors, underground is totally the way to go. Can't do it with current commercial sized reactors as they just generate too much heat and waste, but small modular reactors would be fine if they're unable to melt through their containment and contaminate ground water.
lol.
slashdot reporting any story regarding engineering brings out the most inane drivel. a failure in the tertiary pressure boundary would result in a severe casualty, not to mention the absolutely bizarre and needless expense of such an undertaking. the expense of creating the largest deeply buried structure ever created as a housing for a device designed to provide cheap power, and already costs several billion dollars... simply moronic.
Or just drill all the way to the mantle to create your own source of geo-thermal power. Pump water in, out comes steam. And if causes a massive volcanic eruption, you now have a nice place to dispose of all your e-waste. Can't go wrong.
Life is not for the lazy.
Industrial scale geothermal works fine where the crust is thin. (Hawaii, Iceland, Japan, Yellowstone etc.)
Solar would be used in places where there is lots of sun to melt salt. (Like death valley, Saskatchewan, the Sahara desert, most of the middle east, the Gobi desert, the Atacama desert.)
Nuclear could/should/would be only used where the crust is too thick or where a source of water is problematic.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I understand GWe is electrical GWh. If so, 58 GWh seems low: as a comparison, France produce more than 400 TWh from nuclear power plants. Is there an error here?