Nuclear Power Generation In China
“Climate change is destroying our path to sustainability. Ours is a world of looming challenges and increasingly limited resources. Sustainable development offers the best chance to adjust our course. ”-Ban Ki-moon, former secretary general of the UN. With our ever-increasing need for power, sustainable development, environmental issues, and power quality and reliability have become great matters of distress. Nuclear energy is one way to satisfy our national power needs and to counter the adverse effects of our overconsumption and dependence on fossil fuels. Having said that, radiation, nuclear waste and power plant accidents are just some of the apprehensions relating to the execution of nuclear power generation. China’s main source of energy is fossil fuels which has led to much air pollution.
In 2014 China reached its peak coal consumption level increasing its struggle to tame climate change. However, 2017 saw an increase in nuclear plants in mainland China. As the largest developing country, China has been committed to the development and utilization of nuclear energy while also ensuring its security. As of now it has 40 nuclear power reactors in operation, 20 under construction and many more coming up in the near future. China is the fastest growing nuclear power producer in the world and is expected to acquire 58 GWe capacity by 2020 under the government’s Energy Development Strategy Action Plan. China’s stratagem is to follow a closed nuclear fuel cycle and has become self-sufficient in reactor design and construction while also taking inspiration from foreign methods, altering and improving them in the process.
Moreover, China’s implementation of the amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM) forms a structured configuration for protecting nuclear material and facilities. In prospect China aims to go global by exporting nuclear technology in the supply chain. Contretemps in nuclear power generation is limited not only to a particular nation as nuclear radiation and climate change are known to cross political boundaries and adversely affect citizens around the world. To counter these ill effects certain measures can be taken to make nuclear power plants as secure as possible. China calls upon other nations of the world to give up the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuels and to switch to the safer low enriched uranium (LEU) fuels as it has done in the Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MNSR). Additionally, a solution to the crisis of the disposal of nuclear waste is to build underground waste repositories for long-term storage by which high-level radioactive waste will be buried deep in the ground where it will hopefully remain unexposed to groundwater and unaffected by earthquakes. Further, two essential components-water and electricity are vital to reactor core cooling operations.
Therefore, installing generators off the ground, ensuring mobile backup generators are available and storing water in the immediate vicinity are some essential precautions to be taken collectively by all nations of the world to ensure international security. China’s development has been possible because of the world, and China has contributed to the world's development. We will continue to pursue a win-win strategy of opening-up, share our development opportunities with other countries and welcome them aboard the fast train of China's development. “What we plant in spring will blossom in summer, come to fruition in autumn and sustain us throughout the winter. The more we plough, the more we will gain. As long as we cooperate in good faith and continue to step up nuclear security, nuclear energy will certainly deliver a brighter future to mankind. ”-President Xi Jinping of China.
