Beijing building world’s 1st commercial 4G N-reactor
7 Jan 2013 6:09 AM IST
China has launched construction of a new USD 476 million nuclear power plant with a 200 mw fourth generation reactor, claimed to be the first in the world for commercial usage. ‘China has broken ground on a 3 billion-yuan (USD 476 million) nuclear power project that will be the first in the world to put a reactor with fourth-generation features into commercial use,’ state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.
It marks China's latest move to speed up nuclear power development, which came to a halt after the Fukushima atomic crisis in Japan in 2011. Construction of the project at Shidao Bay in the coastal city of Rongcheng in east China's Shandong Province began last month, Xinhua quoted Huaneng Shandong Shidao Bay Nuclear Power Co. Ltd. (HSNPC), the builder and operator of the plant, as saying. With a designed capacity of 200 megawatts and ‘the characteristics of fourth-generation nuclear energy systems,’ the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor will start generating power by the end of 2017, the HSNPC said. China had 15 nuclear power-generating units in operation with a total installed capacity of 12.54 GW, and another 26 units currently under construction will add another 29.24 GW, according to a government white paper on energy policy released in October 2012.
Though it has developed high-power reactors, China still relies on the US, French and Japanese technology for its 1000 mw (one Gw) reactors and reports say that its mega reactor is still under development. China has pledged to construct one-MW reactor for Pakistan in Karachi but it may take time as an indigenous one is still under development.
China has already constructed two reactors with over 300 mw capacity at Pakistan's Punjab province.
The new 200 mw reactor is being developed by China's Tsinghua University and has the features of ‘inherent safety’ and ‘passive nuclear safety’ in line with the fourth-generation concept, meaning it can shut down safely in the event of an emergency without causing a reactor core meltdown or massive leakage of radioactive material. The reactor can have an outlet temperature of 750 degrees Celsius, compared with 1,000 degrees Celsius that can be reached by the very-high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, an internationally-accepted fourth-generation reactor concept.
It marks China's latest move to speed up nuclear power development, which came to a halt after the Fukushima atomic crisis in Japan in 2011. Construction of the project at Shidao Bay in the coastal city of Rongcheng in east China's Shandong Province began last month, Xinhua quoted Huaneng Shandong Shidao Bay Nuclear Power Co. Ltd. (HSNPC), the builder and operator of the plant, as saying. With a designed capacity of 200 megawatts and ‘the characteristics of fourth-generation nuclear energy systems,’ the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor will start generating power by the end of 2017, the HSNPC said. China had 15 nuclear power-generating units in operation with a total installed capacity of 12.54 GW, and another 26 units currently under construction will add another 29.24 GW, according to a government white paper on energy policy released in October 2012.
Though it has developed high-power reactors, China still relies on the US, French and Japanese technology for its 1000 mw (one Gw) reactors and reports say that its mega reactor is still under development. China has pledged to construct one-MW reactor for Pakistan in Karachi but it may take time as an indigenous one is still under development.
China has already constructed two reactors with over 300 mw capacity at Pakistan's Punjab province.
The new 200 mw reactor is being developed by China's Tsinghua University and has the features of ‘inherent safety’ and ‘passive nuclear safety’ in line with the fourth-generation concept, meaning it can shut down safely in the event of an emergency without causing a reactor core meltdown or massive leakage of radioactive material. The reactor can have an outlet temperature of 750 degrees Celsius, compared with 1,000 degrees Celsius that can be reached by the very-high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, an internationally-accepted fourth-generation reactor concept.
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