China is Building Nuclear Reactors Faster Than Any Other Country 323
An anonymous reader shares a report: To wean their country off imported oil and gas, and in the hope of retiring dirty coal-fired power stations, China's leaders have poured money into wind and solar energy. But they are also turning to one of the most sustainable forms of non-renewable power. Over the past decade China has added 37 nuclear reactors, for a total of 55, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a un body. During that same period America, which leads the world with 93 reactors, added two.
Facing an ever-growing demand for energy, China isn't letting up. It aims to install between six and eight nuclear reactors each year. Some officials seem to think that target is low. The country's nuclear regulator says China has the capacity to add between eight and ten per year. The State Council (China's cabinet) approved the construction of ten in 2022. All in all, China has 22 nuclear reactors under construction, many more than any other country. The growth of nuclear power has stalled in Western countries for a number of reasons. Reactors require a large upfront investment and take years to construct. The industry is heavily regulated.
China, though, has smoothed the path for nuclear power by providing state-owned energy companies with cheap loans, as well as land and licences. Suppliers of nuclear energy are given subsidies known as feed-in tariffs. All of this has driven down the price of nuclear power in China to around $70 per megawatt-hour, compared with $105 in America and $160 in the European Union, according to the International Energy Agency, an official forecaster. China is not immune to the safety concerns that have turned many in the West against nuclear power. After the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in 2011, China temporarily put its construction programme on hold. It has maintained a ban on inland nuclear plants, which have to use river water for cooling. Earlier this year China reacted angrily when Japan began releasing treated and totally harmless wastewater from the Fukushima plant into the ocean.
Facing an ever-growing demand for energy, China isn't letting up. It aims to install between six and eight nuclear reactors each year. Some officials seem to think that target is low. The country's nuclear regulator says China has the capacity to add between eight and ten per year. The State Council (China's cabinet) approved the construction of ten in 2022. All in all, China has 22 nuclear reactors under construction, many more than any other country. The growth of nuclear power has stalled in Western countries for a number of reasons. Reactors require a large upfront investment and take years to construct. The industry is heavily regulated.
China, though, has smoothed the path for nuclear power by providing state-owned energy companies with cheap loans, as well as land and licences. Suppliers of nuclear energy are given subsidies known as feed-in tariffs. All of this has driven down the price of nuclear power in China to around $70 per megawatt-hour, compared with $105 in America and $160 in the European Union, according to the International Energy Agency, an official forecaster. China is not immune to the safety concerns that have turned many in the West against nuclear power. After the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in 2011, China temporarily put its construction programme on hold. It has maintained a ban on inland nuclear plants, which have to use river water for cooling. Earlier this year China reacted angrily when Japan began releasing treated and totally harmless wastewater from the Fukushima plant into the ocean.
Consider they're still massively dependent on Coal (Score:4, Insightful)
This is their only alternative.
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Coal is cheap, but dirty. And China is already heading into an environmental disaster if it doesn't watch out, the air in some cities is already hostile to human life.
If they don't want to stop their economy, it's pretty much their only chance at this point.
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I would take the propaganda on the topic from China with a grain of salt. They are still responsible for over a third of all global emissions and according to the WEF - China’s air pollution is now higher than pre-pandemic levels, China's CO2 emissions increased an estimated 10% year-on-year.
Even if you take the sponsored study at face value, their metrics are still 40% worse than US and 20-30% worse than EU.
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Even if you take the sponsored study at face value, their metrics are still 40% worse than US and 20-30% worse than EU.
That's an amazing result for a country with a 332% higher population than the USA and a 212% higher population than the EU. Looks pretty damning for the USA and EU.
Re:Consider they're still massively dependent on C (Score:5, Informative)
China's emissions have mostly flat lined, and are expected to be falling in the next year or two. If that happens, they will have peaked at about a third of the US per-capita emissions peak.
That's 5 years ahead of their Paris climate goal too. Don't use China as an excuse for your own country's lack of progress. All developed nations are moving more slowly than China, that's just a fact. And even China needs to do a lot more as they are only in track for 2.5-3C.
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It isn't their only alternative. They are also building out massively with solar and wind, as well as their existing hydro infrastructure.
One solution isn't the answer... (Score:4, Insightful)
In this case, I want to point out that a hybrid power grid is probably the best overall option. Nuclear power has it's benefits and detriments, it's strengths and weaknesses. Solar and wind each have their own as well.
We need to be wary of "single solution" fallacies, and realize that a hybrid approach is probably for the best here.
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It's common sense. As explained, each power source has pros and cons. You don't want critical infrastructure to be an all your eggs in one basket situation.
If you need a detailed analysis to accept the obvious, there's no point in explaining to you any further.
Re:One solution isn't the answer... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've seen Chinese quality construction in person. It was hard to sleep that night after I saw the multiple exposed electrical wires at my hotel, for example. They just tucked them away behind the drapes... !!!! Holy fuck, no joke!
But bad Chinese construction is not a reason we shouldn't use multiple types of energy generation. That was my only point. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
I think of mix of everything is appropriate and should vary based on location, weather, land stability, etc etc etc. Wind, solar, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, and even coal. And if someone comes up with ocean wave or other tech that works at scale at reasonable cost then add that, too. They all have pros n cons.
Are nukes safe? Nope. But life is full of risk and there needs to be a proper cost benefit analysis for each new plant and put in a reasonable location but that study shouldn't take 10 years plus 10 more years of lawsuits.
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So you're in favor of single-points-of-failure in critical life-saving and economy-crushing-if-it-fails infrastructure then?
It's blisteringly obvious to anyone paying attention that you don't want to sole-source your energy production, since every means of energy production has downsides that other means of energy production do not have.
Re: Consider they're still massively dependent on (Score:2)
False, you overbuild them, which is still cheaper, and then you use excess energy for things like charging up storage, desalinization, etc. that makes them load following unlike nuclear or even coal. Among fossil fuels only natgas is very good at load following, and it depends on fracking, which destroys clean water.
Re:Consider they're still massively dependent on C (Score:5, Interesting)
They add 50-100GW install solar power *per year*.
So to make it clear: right now China adds roughly as much solar power per year as they have nuclear power in total......
So it seems that this in *not* their only option to get rif of the dependency on coal. It seems that it is a minor complementing technology which is important to have a national nuclear fuel cycle so that the govt does not have to pay for the nuclear technology alone for nuclear weapons.
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China is a big country. It's roughly 3.7 million square miles. For reference, the United States is 3.8 million square miles.
Don't you think it's perfectly plausible that the whole fucking country won't be clouded over at once, just like North America doesn't get clouded over at once even when major storms are hitting? And did you know that solar panels still produce wattage when there are clouds? Yes, it's not as much, but it's still something.
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So it's lucky that china also has 6-8x the amount of Hydropower of their nuclear capcity.
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Ever hear of batteries..
Look at the big brain over here. Batteries why didn't I think of that? Oh wait. I did. That math proves building enough batteries to overcome solar and wind intermittency is an order of magnitude more expensive and slower than building a nuclear baseload. That's why China is building a nuclear baseload.
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Ever hear of batteries...
I have heard of batteries, and I suspect any grid scale battery storage would be great for making up for changing demand to allow nuclear power plants to run at an optimal constant output.
So I hate Elon Musk with a passion (Score:2)
I don't like the idea of handing something that important over to private corporations to profit from when we ought to just build it out ourselves as a civilization, but the fact of the matter is it can and is being done with massive amounts of battery capacity and solar capacity being rolled out every year. And mo
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I read your link. I don't dispute the basic math of can a solar panel generate X many units of power per year (in NW Texas) and that X many square KM of panels will generate enough over a year to equal US electric consumption. I didn't re-calculate the total foot print but the rest looked correct so I'll roll with it and assume the sq km is close enough, too.
Here's the issue(s):
1) solar only generates when the sun is up. How many batteries do we need to cover off peak-sun usage?
A) link doesn't mention th
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The reason people stopped building nuclear power plants in America is because solar is just plain more profitable and it's guaranteed money.
Then why don't utilities want to install them? Your post about powering all of the US with PV is a joke. Its so full of holes that I don't even know where to start. It confuses capacity with generation. It ignores fertilizer and fuels. It ignores storage. And it ignores long term outages and seasons. PV and wind have an EROEI of 4. Most of the PV installed in Europe actually makes emissions worse because of this. If you are in the NE US or north of about SF, then you are in the same boat. You are r
Re:Consider they're still massively dependent on C (Score:4, Insightful)
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If only there were means of storing electricity....
If you could do basic math you would see that building enough electrical storage to overcome wind and solar intermittency is more expensive and slower than building a nuclear baseload.
global grid
That's fucking stupid. We can't even get Texas to connect the grid to the rest of the US and you want to build a global grid. Even if the international political problems could be ironed out(they can't) it would take more than a century and would cost significantly more than a nuclear baseload.
That's a pie in the sky idea
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What's needed is a truly global grid because the sun is always shining somewhere.
Right, lets run some wires from Spain to Argentina by way of Russia and Canada. I'm sure nothing could go wrong there. We have to keep an eye on those Canadians, right?
I'm not saying ditch every other method but the sun is radiating free energy daily and we're fools to not utilize a free resource.
You have an interesting definition of "free". We don't get solar PV panels for "free", we have to pay people to mine materials out of the ground, refine that material, then use the material to make PV panels. By that logic nuclear power is equally "free" and we'd be fools to not exploit it.
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I don't understand the anti solar sentimite on slashdot. Imagine explaining solar panels to someone who has never heard of them. Solar sounds like literal magic.
You're telling me these things make electricity just from the sun?
Yes!
How long do they last?
10-15 years
Why aren't they on every unused surface?
Beats me, something about gay frogs
Re:Consider they're still massively dependent on C (Score:4, Informative)
I can explain. I have a huge solar setup on my roof. Pretty much every place a panel can go has a panel. I have 6 10+kw batteries. That required 2 control panels so I effectively have 2 separate solar setups, not one, but they're cross wired to each other at the battery level. The batteries burn to zero in about 4 hours if I have the AC on and I live in a very sunny place where AC is necessary but I get maximum sun.
If I'm lucky, I will pay off the whole thing in about 15-20 years after which I'll become ever more dependent on the power company as the panels produce less power. As it is now as a brand new and EXTREMELY expensive (well over 100k after tax credits) system, it covers my usage on the really sunny days but not the rest of the time. What's my usage? AC, fridge, freezer, electric stove, tv, laptop, some lights, laundry, dish washer, and model 3 Tesla charge about once a week. The Tesla is the only unusual item and it isn't a particularly huge drain relative to the rest of what's going on.
Tl;dr: too expansive, doesn't generate enough power, batteries don't hold enough power, lucky to last long enough to pay for itself, increased my insurance costs too.
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Conclusion I came to as well. I had 7 acres and was doing the math, figured i'd need to devote an acre or so to panels to completely cover my usage at my latitude (not particularly convenient for solar, lot of cloudy days) and then batteries...
I sold the place at the end of last year but geothermal heat pump was my next splurge.
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As we pointed out last time, despite your user name, you are an idiot. Your house apparently needs a constant 15kW of cooling.
It's actually worse than that, because air conditioners are typically 3-400% efficient. So it's 15kW of electricity, but around 45-60kW of heat moved. That's completely insane. Maybe you keep the windows open or something.
Seriously, your house is so incredibly inefficient, it's hard to imagine how you got it that bad. Does it have a roof? Are you trying to air condition your garden?
A
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That guy I linked to seems to have a fairly typical house, but in any case Mr Way Smarter Than You should have spent some money on insulation and other cheap upgrades before buying an oversized yet underspeced solar/battery system.
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Something about not enough magic in the ground to make these things to cover every unused surface and what magic do you need if the sun is not shining.
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China installed more solar in the first 3 quarters of this year than the US has installed in its entire history.
They already have more wind power installed than the rest of the world combined, and installations are increasing.
The coal industry in China is quite powerful, and there is a lot of competition with renewables.
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Good! (Score:5, Informative)
1. The less countries dependent on Middle East oil, the better for national security.
2. The less countries burning oil the better for the environment -- it causes not just climate change but health risks. Crude oil processing and burning injects hazardous radioactivity into the air and environment than nuclear power plants because of the health risks (cancer especially) caused by exposure to Radium-226 and Radium-228. You don't wanna breathe in those particles.
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There are a few that do, but it's really insignificant. Yes, the Op would have been better off saying "coal".
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There are a few that do, but it's really insignificant. Yes, the Op would have been better off saying "coal".
The number that burn natural gas is pretty significant, though, and AFAIK, most natural gas is a leftover from oil drilling, so the two aren't entirely unrelated.
Also, the original comment said "countries", not "power plants". That was presumably more about cars and trucks than power. Power is, of course, needed for electric cars and trucks.
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I forgot that diesel generators don't exist. Oh wait, they do, and you're 100% wrong.
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China use coal from the USA.
Unless the USA is now the middle east..?
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Hm, I thought they got a huge amount of coal from Australia...?
Shrug.
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China imports a small amount of anthracite coal from Australia for steel-making. China's coal-fired electricity production is fuelled almost exclusively by indigenous lower-quality coal mined in the north-west of the country.
Much of Australia's coal exports go to places like Indonesia and other Pacific Rim countries for power generation but they also burn a lot themselves, about 5 tonnes per capita annually. That's actually twice the per-capita coal consumption of China and the US (both around 2 tonnes per
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Interesting. Thank you.
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But how else am I gonna get super-powers?
Get on an orbital space station during a solar storm?
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia won't be happy (Score:2)
Once China gets its nuclear plants up and running, not even India will be able to buy oil in large enough quantities to make up the difference. The whining from Moscow will be hilarious.
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China pretty much has Russia by the balls. That last Chinese-Russian summit was something to behold, Winnie was strutting out like he owns the place with Vovochka plodding in like his lapdog.
And I have a hunch that isn't too far from how they're talking with each other at the moment.
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China's oil imports will not go down with nuclear energy - it will go up as more Chinese enter the Middle Class.
You needn't worry about Ol' Vlad - he will die of old age before the two countries are fully electrified.
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China's oil imports will not go down with nuclear energy - it will go up as more Chinese enter the Middle Class.
China demonstrated their ability to synthesize fuel for their space program, something deemed necessary due to a lack of imported fossil fuels of necessary quantity and quality. There's nothing stopping them from using nuclear power to synthesize more fuels for more markets to reduce the need for petroleum imports.
You needn't worry about Ol' Vlad - he will die of old age before the two countries are fully electrified.
Russia has plenty of ability to produce fossil fuels, and their ability to export has diminished because of their invasion of Ukraine. Even so Russia is building nuclear power plants. Perhaps m
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Russia is a very resource rich country that could easily self sustain forever in complete isolation if they weren't a poorly run kleptocracy.
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Even the USSR wasn't self sustainable. Russia, being technologically behind the soviet union in many ways, is even less so, considering how much their agricultural sector depends on Western seeds, Western fertilisers and Western tractors and harvesters. Even if their cleptocracy disappears overnight they still will be several decades of scientific and technological advance away from being self sustainable.
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If they weren't a basket case they'd be fine. Their natural resources are truly outstanding. Sure they'd be behind the West but that's not the same as staving and needing outside help. In time their efficiency would improve. The human race has thousands of years of being less efficient than we are now and somehow not all dying off, eh? And this is with just current Russia territory. It was of course even more resource rich as USSR.
But their corruption and broken economic system are so wasteful they ca
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WTF are you on about, rockets don't use oil to go to space (at least not since the V2-era), they use liquid hydrogen and oxygen, both of which can be made without oil.
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Maybe your grandpa's rockets used H2 and LOX. The Falcon-9 uses RP-1, which is based on kerosene. See https://www.spacex.com/vehicle... [spacex.com]
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Yeah, H2 *can* be made without oil, but for all purposes is not due to costs. Steam-methane reforming accounts for nearly all commercially produced hydrogen in the United States. And where does all that methane come from? It's a byproduct of... wait for it... oil drilling.
Oh, and with everyone in rocketry moving to Methalox and kerosene fuels, well that means not steam-methane reforming the methane into hydrogen, and just using it as cryogenically cooled methane to begin with. And kerosene is a petroleu
Very Sad (Score:2)
Americans could have been the world leader in atomic energy but the Soviet Greenpeace op fooled the dumb ones into cowering in fear, including FedGov.
If only they knew about the mercury in their fresh air from coal!
Soon Americans will be hiring Chinese companies to build domestic energy plants - very sad!
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Soon Americans will be hiring Chinese companies to build domestic energy plants - very sad!
Indeed. And the ironic thing is that China's recent reactors are all Westinghouse designs. The exact same kind we can't manage to build ourselves.
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The ironic thing is that most of the components are built outside China and shipped in using as you said western designs and engineers from GE and co. China doesn't have the knowledge and capacity yet to build them, although they do demand and pay for every project to have Chinese engineers trained by their Western counterparts.
It's not that the west can't build them or doesn't know how, we do, we sell them to China, Iran and other places at record pace. The problem is western governments are blocking cheap
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As the article clearly stated, the Chinese nuke plants are massively subsidized. Nuclear power is among the most expensive sources of electricity.
Re:Very Sad (Score:4, Interesting)
There is no lack of technology or know how in the nuclear industry in America its the financial risk and lack of government support stopping it
Government support is growing. Democrats are in a bit of a tough spot this election and energy is on people's minds. There's public opinion polling showing voters that lean Democrat are more supportive of nuclear power than in the past, and that will mean Democrat candidates will be more supportive to get those votes. Republicans and independents have been supportive of nuclear power for some time, but any gains on nuclear power by Republicans in the past 40 years or so have been largely reversed when Democrats regained power later. Many of the worst opponents to nuclear power in US Congress are retiring, if they haven't already died of old age. Those that replace them will in part be from the "Yang Gang", people that have been quite vocal about supporting nuclear power in the future.
Most of the financial risk in nuclear power comes from government opposition. To keep the nuclear power plant at Diably Canyon open the California government issued a big loan to cover costs for refueling and improvements. Part of the conditions on the loan is that the loan would be forgiven if the government backs out and tries closing the plant later. This relieves a lot of fears on financial risk. This also shows that Democrats are changing their minds on nuclear power.
People can complain about the Diablo Canyon loan being a case of "socializing the costs and privatizing the profits" but if that loan didn't carry the conditions it did then the state government would be facing a difficult problem on how to keep the lights on after that nuclear power plant closed. If they hadn't been making trouble for nuclear power for the last 50 years then it would be unlikely nuclear power plants could demand such a sweet deal, and get it.
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China shows what can be done (Score:3, Insightful)
China building our reactors at a rapid clip and for cheap, shows what a lie it is that nuclear reactors take a long time to build and are expensive.
Nuclear reactors in the west are only that way because in the past politicians didn't want them built, and put up a lot of purely political roadblocks (not really safety related).
Now that the world as a whole has come to the realization of how valuable and stable nuclear power really is, regulations will fall away and rapid construction will begin in other countries as well...
Power means prosperity.
Re:China shows what can be done (Score:5, Insightful)
Those roadblocks you refer to aren't primarily about nuclear in the US. In the US it takes a decade plus to get ANY major project done. The bulk of the time is spent in court before a single shovel breaks the ground. The NIMBY and environmentalist crowds will delay, delay, delay. The only winners are the lawyers on the respective sides of the argument. Projects frequently end up cancelled after their financial backers get sick of throwing money into a black hole. This even happens with Government funded public works projects that do not have to consider the profit incentive.
What's rich is one of the key ways they accomplish this filibustering is via environmental laws. Let's use laws written to protect the environment to fight to stop a new wind farm, transmission lines, lithium mines, and every other green and green adjacent project. Because that makes sense.
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Hinkley Point C is taking 20 years, and it didn't spend a decade tied up in court. It's on an existing nuclear site, so most of the work had already been done for units A and B.
The only way you can shorten the construction time is if you lower the safety standards. That's what China does because China doesn't need to worry about accidents or insurance costs.
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The only way you can shorten the construction time is if you lower the safety standards.
Cool story bro.
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Has anything else worked? SMRs only exist on paper.
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Construction of Vogtle Unit 3 started in 2009 and was just recently completed at a cost of $34 billion. The 14 years of construction and gigantic cost overruns had nothing to do with spending time in court or environmental delays.
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Because eventually some projects go get pushed through and we all pay the price in higher costs for no reason.
Do you have a detailed analysis to explain your position?
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Do you have a detailed analysis to explain your position?
It's right there at the end of his post where he called me a moron. Are you unable to read? Moron. ;-)
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lol, no, I'm dumb as bricks which puts me at the right level to ask the right questions of people like him. He and I vibe. :-)
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Nobody ever claimed that things get "stopped in their tracks" permanently - that's your incorrect inference. The GP post was saying that everything just gets delayed and more expensive in order to eventually do it anyway, which in the best case means that we're making things more inefficient than they need to be, while prolonging problems and causing more damage while the legal bullshit grinds away.
Re: China shows what can be done (Score:2)
Weâ(TM)ll know in 20 or 30 years whether theyâ(TM)ve cut corners on safety in a detrimental way.
Alternate site ... (Score:2)
MSN [msn.com]
In other news, IAEA makes statements at COP28 (Score:5, Interesting)
In looking for an alternate source that wasn't behind a paywall I discovered this...
https://www.iaea.org/newscente... [iaea.org]
It looks like there's a shift in the thinking on the need for nuclear fission to lower CO2 emissions. I was reading a week or two ago that there was supposed to be some big announcement during COP28 that the USA, UK, and about a dozen other nations would be making big investments in nuclear power going forward. If this is that statement then it is a pretty watered down commitment, the "real" statement hasn't happened yet, or the statement isn't getting the same kind of coverage as the early news leaks.
In the past are many examples of the USA getting scared of some other nation reaching a technological, economic, or military advantage only to leap ahead in about three years, and I suspect this may happen with nuclear power. One specific example I want to point out is how China launched an anti-satellite weapon, made a bunch of noise about it, only to have the US Navy show that they could do it better months later. I expect that there will be some noise out of China on how they have some "first" in nuclear power only for the USA to get something bigger and better about three years later.
How could the USA get something as big and complex as a nuclear power plant complete in only three years? One is that there's been dozens of new nuclear power plants put on hold for a long time, decades in many cases, that only need a license to get construction started immediately. They have a site, often already well prepared as it is in or near an existing nuclear power plant. They have the plans, because it is something they built before somewhere else in the world. There's plenty of relatively idle construction capacity, because the economy has been in something of a slump for the last few years. Most of all we've built nuclear power plants and many similar "mega-projects" in three years before, we only needed sufficient motivation to make it happen. China saying they have a thorium reactor, or something, would certainly motivate people in the USA to show they can do it better.
Energy is a big concern in the USA, and this is not likely to go away as easily as it did before. We've had some scares on getting petroleum or natural gas before but they often faded away with something else taking up the news. I doubt that's going to happen so easily again. Russia is not likely to restore natural gas sales to Europe, assuming that anyone in Europe would be willing to buy. Winter is coming, as are primary elections for POTUS. Then next year will be a repeat of this as the general election comes around in the fall as people look to what options they have to stay warm in the winter. It looks like the Biden administration is warming up to the idea of new nuclear power plants, perhaps as a response to public opinion polling showing more Democrats support nuclear power than those that do not. Europe is going to want our natural gas to keep warm, and that's going to raise prices here. If the option is more nuclear power or more natural gas the voting public may respond with, "Both please!"
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We didn't blow them up. Joe said so. He said the Russians did it to themselves.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u... [cbsnews.com]
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The current story is that Ukrainians blew it up. [washingtonpost.com]
So much for Biden's story. Well he was half right, it was an act of sabotage.
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True, and a few others along the way. It was everyone but us.
Obviously we did it. There's no doubt about it. I'm too lazy to find the link where earlier Joe basically threatens to blown them up a year or so earlier but it's out there and his message was clear.
But oh no, not us! We didnuh do nuffin!
Opposite of China Syndrome is? (Score:2)
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Makes sense, but don't take names that seriously. It would never get even as far as the Mohorovicic discontinuity.
What I wonder is "What are they using for fuel?". I suppose it's too much to hope that they're using Thorium.
(If I really cared, I'd read the article. But IIUC good quality Uranium sources are limited.)
You want reactors? (Score:2)
Then you have to pay. The last unit at Watts Bar came with a $12 billion price tag.
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According to Lazard the LCOE of nuclear power in the US starts at about $0.14 per kWh and goes way up from there. That's more than the retail price of electricity in many states.
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As the article clearly shows, there is a cheap and effective way of doing it and China is doing it. There is no reason for a reactor to cost $1B even. $100M tops is what it should cost for a relatively large reactor.
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Yeah, the "cheap and effective way of doing it" is massive state subsidies. In the US this would come out of taxpayer's pockets.
"providing state-owned energy companies with cheap loans, as well as land and licences. Suppliers of nuclear energy are given subsidies known as feed-in tariffs. All of this has driven down the price of nuclear power"
Wait a second.. (Score:3)
Even $70 a megawatt sounds high. Higher than solar. That's 7 cents per kilowatt.
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How much per kw at night?
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The average installed cost of solar for commercial purposes is $2.00 per watt.
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Add in batteries, cloudy days requiring huge inter connectors from other parts of the country and it’s no longer 7c.
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China basically has no choice. Hence they accept excessively expensive and risky nuclear.
China of course has a choice and knows exactly what they are doing, building out lots of variable wind and solar and backing it up with predictable nuclear, all carbon free. They are the smart kids on the block when it comes to electrical grids.
China having a nuke grid is a win-win. (Score:2)
a un body. (Score:2)
You mean... Like a ghost?
Comparing China... (Score:2)
China hosts over 18% of the global population and is responsible for over 16% of the global GDP.
I'm shocked to see it does better, worse, faster, more. /s
And yet, stats with absolute numbers keep popping up everywhere. Guess writer went into journalism because statistics wasn't their forte. Or maybe it was and then they're part of some propaganda machine. Or just looking for clicks.
So if any stats on "country has so many x,y,z blah blah climate change" want to make proper sense, can we get pro capita number
This is scary with the amount of tofu dregs (Score:2)
China has rampant construction (among others) corruption. Nothing is ever made to spec and the extra money is siphoned off.
This sometimes is just inconvenient, but with a nuclear reactor, it's a bit more than inconvenient.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Most sustainable (Score:2)
"But they are also turning to one of the most sustainable forms of non-renewable power."
For 184000 years or so.
What a Waste (Score:2)
Massive subsidies (Score:2)
"has smoothed the path for nuclear power by providing state-owned energy companies with cheap loans, as well as land and licences. Suppliers of nuclear energy are given subsidies known as feed-in tariffs. All of this has driven down the price of nuclear power in China to around $70 per megawatt-hour, compared with $105 in America and $160 in the European Union"
What this does is continuously add to the Chinese national debt, which is already grotesquely high. Lazard shows that the LCOE of onshore wind and ut
Needs the plutonium in a big hurry (Score:2)
Nuclear provides power for industry (Score:3)
China is still in the process of building their grid and they manufacture a lot of the worlds consumables, this takes enormous amounts of energy.
The US uses about 11.5MWh of electricity per capita and China uses about 5,5MWh so there's a way to go before parity in the energy space.
While solar and wind are good for some dispatchable loads they're not good for industry, for that you need 24x7 power. Unless you live on a volcanic province or a blessed with rain and mountains, nuclear is your only choice.
Rather than argue about this simply look to the failure of the German approach and what happened to the Canadian grid when they tried to follow suit. High power prices and an exodus of industry. Luckily for the Canadians they were able to fall back on their CANDU nuclear technology which has resulted in a massive reduction in their carbon emissions. Intermittents such as wind and solar are really difficult.
German meanwhile has an exodus of industry and some of the highest CO2 emissions and power prices in Europe. Compare this to the French and Swedish approaches and things look pretty dire for Germany.
China meanwhile has been busily building nuclear plants from a variety of manufactures as well as building their own native types. They've built pressure water reactors and have a prototype molten salt reactor with an improved alloy which was developed with the assistance of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). The speed at which they've developed and deployed these reactors puts western industry to shame, for instance they built a CANDU reactor from breaking earth to operation in 4 years. The west really needs to look to China and learn because everyone needs to master building reactors fast, safe and cost effectively.
While SMRs have had their time in the sun to drive change we need to build lots of large nuclear plants. Their cost per MW is lower and newer designs are more flexible.
Re: (Score:2)
Risk is disconnected from reward because those taking the risk aren't the ones getting the reward.