China plans to deploy floating N-power platform in SCS: Report
24 April 2016 5:23 AM IST
China is edging closer to building its first floating maritime nuclear power platform with the prospects of deploying it in the disputed South China Sea, a state-run daily said on Friday even as the Foreign Ministry declined to react, saying it had not heard of the plans.
The Global Times in a report said the nuclear platforms could significantly boost the efficiency of the country’s construction work on islands in the strategic South China Sea.
It said the nuclear power platforms could “sail” to remote areas and provide a stable power supply.
China Shipbuilding Industry Corp, the company in charge of designing and assembling the platforms, is “pushing forward the work”, said Liu Zhengguo, the director of its general office. “The development of nuclear power platforms is a burgeoning trend,” Liu told the paper when asked to comment on a previous media report that China plans to build 20 maritime nuclear power platforms. “The exact number of plants to be built (by CSIC) depends on the market demand,” he said, without confirming or denying the reported number. “Judging by various factors, the demand is pretty strong,” Liu said, adding the construction of the platforms is “based on mature technology.”
He emphasised that the plants are mainly for civilian use, such as providing electricity for oil drilling platforms.
The daily quoted a report published by eworldship.com, a Shanghai-based shipbuilding industry website, that Bohai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Company (BSHIC), a ship assembly enterprise under the CSIC, will be responsible for building China’s first maritime nuclear power platform, and the CSIC will build about 20 such platforms “in the future.”
The report said a group of experts has reviewed and discussed the technical plan on the construction of the platform proposed by Institute 719, which is also under the CSIC, and reached a unanimous conclusion.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, however, declined to react and played down the story as a media report. “What you said is a media report. I have not heard about that,” Hua said, when asked about the report the Global Times.
The construction of the first maritime nuclear power platform, which serves as a demonstration project, is expected to be completed by 2018 and be put into use by 2019, China Securities Journal reported in January.
The daily quoted analysts as saying that the maritime nuclear power platforms will play an important role in China’s long-term South China Sea strategy.
Li Jie, a Beijing-based naval expert, told the Global Times on Thursday that the platforms could provide reliable power for lighthouses, seawater desalination, rescue and relief equipment, defensive weapons and airports and harbours on islands in the SCS.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, believed to have huge deposits of oil and gas, and is building islands on reefs to bolster its claims. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims to parts of the waters.
China has witnessed the fastest growth in nuclear power worldwide.
According to China’s first white paper on nuclear emergency preparedness issued in January, the Chinese mainland had 27 nuclear power generating units in operation as of the end of October 2015, with a total installed capacity of 25.5 gigawatts (GW), while another 25 units with a total installed capacity of 27.51 GW were under construction.
The world’s second largest economy plans to raise its installed nuclear power capacity to 58 GW with an additional 30 GW under construction by 2020 and build itself into a strong nuclear power country by 2030.
China targets Mars mission launch in 2020
China on Friday unveiled plans to send a rover to Mars around 2020 to explore the Red Planet and launch 150 long range carrier rockets in the next five years for its ambitious space missions.
“The Mars probe is expected to orbit the red planet, land and deploy a rover; all in one mission, which is quite difficult to achieve,” Xu Dazhe, director of the National Space Administration told the media here.
Xu said the Chinese government has the Mars mission in early this year. Stressing the mission’s importance and difficulty, he said that although China has sent spacecraft deep into space, “only by completing this Mars probe mission can China say it has embarked on the exploration of deep space in the true sense.”
India became the first Asian country after Mangalyan reached the red planet joining US, European Union and Russia which have sent successful missions to Mars. China tried to launch its Mars probe Yinghuo-1 in 2011 along with Russian Fobos-Grunt from Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan but it was declared lost.
Also, China will launch about 150 of its Long March carrier rockets over the next five years. “In the 13th five-year plan period (2016-2020), we will see about 30 launches (of the Long March series) each year,” Chen Xuechuan, assistant president of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said ahead of celebrations marking the launch of China’s first satellite 46 years ago.
There were 86 Long March missions in the five years from 2011 to 2015, and 48 from 2006 to 2010. Chen said China is quickly catching up with other countries after being a relative latecomer in human space endeavours.
The launch of the SJ-10 retrievable scientific research satellite earlier this month marked the 226th mission of the Long March rocket family, and the pace of launches is accelerating.
“Our first 100 Long March missions took us 37 years. But it only took us seven years to complete the latest 100,” Chen said.
This year alone, China will conduct more than 20 space missions, including launching two navigation satellites, and a satellite designed for high-definition Earth observation.
China’s second orbiting space lab, Tiangong-2, will also be launched in fall this year and it is scheduled to dock with manned spacecraft Shenzhou-11 in the fourth quarter.
In addition, two new-generation Long March rockets, the heavy-lift Long March-5 and the medium-sized Long March-7, will also make their maiden space trips this year, according to Chen. China’s first Space Day has been scheduled for April 24, the day in 1970 on which Dong Fang Hong 1, or The East is Red 1, was launched into Earth orbit on a Long March rocket.
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