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China Is Restarting Its Reactor Pipeline, Westinghouse Isn't Invited (technologyreview.com)
"China hasn't launched a new nuclear reactor build for over two years, but Chinese press reports that this nuclear hiatus has broken," writes Slashdot reader carbonnation. "Approvals have reportedly been made for four Hualong One reactors -- a domestic "Generation III" design -- instead of U.S.-designed AP1000s." From a report via MIT Technology Review: China's Jiemian News started the chatter on Tuesday with an exclusive interview with senior leadership of the Hualong One design's owner, Hualong International Nuclear Power Technology, a collaboration of nuclear heavyweights China General Nuclear Power (CGN) and China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC). According to the news site, the joint venture's leaders said that two dual-reactor projects had received provisional permission to begin pouring concrete. Other publications also picked up the story yesterday, including First Financial Journal, which claimed to have confirmed the approvals through "relevant authoritative channels." CNNC and CGN have not responded to the media reports.
The reactors are slated for two new sites along China's coast: CNNC's Zhangzhou power project in Fujian and CGN's Huizhou Taipingling project in Guangdong. Both projects had been planned and approved by Chinese authorities with Westinghouse's AP1000 reactor design, which promises safety advances such as passive cooling. That means it stores water above the reactor, leveraging gravity to keep the plant cool should the pumps fail. But Westinghouse's flagship AP1000 projects have been plagued by cost overruns and delays. Those troubles may have helped the Hualong One to catch up. CNNC started building the first Hualong One reactor in 2015 at its Fuqing power plant and expects to have it operating later this year.
The reactors are slated for two new sites along China's coast: CNNC's Zhangzhou power project in Fujian and CGN's Huizhou Taipingling project in Guangdong. Both projects had been planned and approved by Chinese authorities with Westinghouse's AP1000 reactor design, which promises safety advances such as passive cooling. That means it stores water above the reactor, leveraging gravity to keep the plant cool should the pumps fail. But Westinghouse's flagship AP1000 projects have been plagued by cost overruns and delays. Those troubles may have helped the Hualong One to catch up. CNNC started building the first Hualong One reactor in 2015 at its Fuqing power plant and expects to have it operating later this year.
They screwed the pooch at every opportunity with AP600/1000 and now they're out of customers. These hidebound Western companies (yes I know it was owned by Toshiba for a time; the mentality of Westinghouse wasn't improved through that change) have thoroughly purged the decision making process of any meaningful engineering contribution. Designs are driven by fantastical cost and efficiently promises that look great on paper, but no manufacturer is seriously consulted about whether building any of it is realistic prior to contracts being signed. This manifested as an outrageously large and impractical coolant pump design that took years to deliver, blew out every deadline, and squandered every last bit of good will that Westinghouse was generously provided in both the US and China.
The management and marketers of Westinghouse turned the act of pumping water into a engineering disaster and ruined the company with it. What's left of Westinghouse is now the property of some investment cabal; They'll retire the name and milk the IP and service contracts for decades.
Perhaps this is best left to the Chinese. They probably have a few decades to go before their processes are subsumed by the same bullshit that ruins the West.
So instead of building something safe by design, they're going to dick around with Rube Goldberg cooling and control systems.
What is safe by design? There are no Gen IV reactors on the market at present. All of these inherently safe reactors are still in the R&D phase. In the meanwhile Gen III reactors feature plenty of passive safety systems and inherently safer design than earlier versions, and that include's Westinghouse's baby the AP1000 which would have been Westinghouse's bid should they have been allowed to play.
I hate to break it to you, but *all* your stuff comes from China. Well most of it. The good stuff, and the bad.
Which is why these trade wars are such an absurdity. That horse bolted the stable 20 years ago.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Both are very reasonable choices. You don't want foreign power have control of your critical infrastructure.
so why should China invite others for their power plants, ..?
They do invite others to bid on projects. And they insist on having detailed engineering documentation as part of the bid. Then they decline the bid and use a "design" of their own, which is remarkably like the one they rejected.
We can achieve a "zero carbon" economy in one of two ways. The first is to revert to near stone age technology. Given the discoveries in science and technology I'm sure that our lives would not be nearly as poverty stricken, brutal, nasty, and short but we'd lose access to many luxuries we have today. Airplanes would be right out. People would need to resort to travel long distances by water, rail, or maybe lighter than air vessels.
If you want a modern economy that is "zero carbon" then the only solution must include nuclear power. That does not mean we cannot also include sun, wind, and hydro power, in fact ruling them out is not anything I have seen nuclear power advocates call for. What we need to do though is not shoehorn these technologies into places where they do not make economic sense. Doing that leads to poverty, and the brutal and short lives that come with it.
China could leapfrog the rest of the world on achieving a modern and "zero carbon" economy because they are investing in nuclear power while the rest of the world is not. Right now the USA gets 20% of it's electricity from nuclear power and powers many vessels in its navy by nuclear power. To remove nuclear power means replacing those nuclear reactors with something that, barring some leap in technology, will be less safe, higher CO2 emissions, and less reliable.
We cannot have both a modern economy and a "zero carbon" economy without nuclear power. I put "zero carbon" in scare quotes because I know someone will point out that nuclear power is not truly zero carbon, and they'd be right. What they ignore, or chose to remain ignorant of, is that nuclear power produces less carbon per energy produced that wind, solar, and perhaps even hydroelectric energy. What these anti-nuclear types also ignore, or chose to remain willfully ignorant of, is the long safety record of nuclear power. Even though many died from Chernobyl, and dozens died in the poorly managed (and likely unnecessary) evacuations from Fukushima, nuclear power is still far safer than any other energy source we have. Don't believe me? Look it up!
Here's one source to prove my point: http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...
If you dispute my source then I'm happy to provide others so long as there is a source cited that shows otherwise. Best I've seen so far is speculation on how many could die if we deployed the same 1950s technology that was used at Chernobyl or an explanation of the dangers of nuclear power with no comparisons to what might replace it. Yes, nuclear power is dangerous. Much like a republican form of government is the worst except all the others we tried we know that nuclear power is the worst except all the others we tried.
Our choices are nuclear power, keep burning coal, or reverting to near stone age in living standards. You can claim that future technology will bring another option and I can agree but for now, as of today, we have only those three choices. Until technology advances to give another option we must choose from those three. I suggest we choose nuclear power, just as China has.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Only one China? Wonder what the Dalai Lama
Who gives a shit what the Dalai Lama thinks? I suggest you do some research into what life was like under the 'Lama's' before China. For the average peasant it was a living hell. Don't buy that love and peace bullshit that shaved hippie is peddling. All he wants is his power base back so he can rule Tibet with an iron fist. Just like his predecessors did.
An no, I'm not to fond of Mother Teresa ether.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
We can achieve a "zero carbon" economy in one of two ways. The first is to revert to near stone age technology. Given the discoveries in science and technology I'm sure that our lives would not be nearly as poverty stricken, brutal, nasty, and short but we'd lose access to many luxuries we have today. Airplanes would be right out. People would need to resort to travel long distances by water, rail, or maybe lighter than air vessels.
You forgot the fact that without carbon/industrialization we can't feed most of the people on the planet. That will lead to lots of happy outcomes I'm sure. Other than that, spot on post. Mod parent up...without nuclear in the long run, we are done...all of us...
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."