China Energy/Power Technology, Strategic Layout of Resources: News & Discussions

[TaiShang]

For future reference:

https://defence.pk/threads/globaldata-china-now-the-largest-installer-of-clean-energy.471142/

https://defence.pk/threads/guardian...ce-of-renewable-energy-and-technology.471212/

 

[ahojunk]

China issues five-year plan on saving energy, cutting emissions
2017-01-07 09:18 | Xinhua | Editor: Gu Liping

The State Council, China's cabinet, issued on Thursday a comprehensive plan on energy conservation and emission reductions for the 2016-2020 period.

The plan listed 11 detailed measures to push forward China's energy-saving and emission-reduction work, including reducing the coal consumption rate, promoting energy consumption in key areas, intensifying pollutant emission control, developing the circular economy, improving technological support, increasing financial policy support and enhancing management.

According to the plan, China's total energy consumption will be capped at 5 billion tonnes of coal equivalent by 2020. This will translate into a 15-percent reduction of energy use per unit of GDP by 2020.

China's GDP grew 6.7 percent in the first three quarters of 2016, on track to achieve the government's goal, but the country is also confronted by challenges, including environmental degradation.

Nearly 62 percent of 338 Chinese cities monitored by the Ministry of Environmental Protection suffered from air pollution on Wednesday. Coal is the main energy source in China, accounting for 64 percent of total energy consumption in 2015.

Many Chinese cities have suffered from frequent winter smog in recent years, triggering widespread public concern. Emissions from coal are cited as a cause of the high concentration of breathable toxic particulate matter, known as PM 2.5, which causes smog.

 

[TaiShang]

New unit of S. China nuclear plant starts operation
Xinhua, January 8, 2017

Yangjiang nuclear plant in Guangdong province. Several new projects are expected to start construction this year to meet the government's target of having about 15 percent of non-fossil fuels in its energy mix by 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

The fourth unit of the Yangjiang nuclear power plant in the southern province of Guangdong was connected to the grid on Sunday, said China General Nuclear Power Corp. (CGN), the owner of the plant.

The fourth unit now enters the final testing phase before its commercial operation, said the company.

The first, second and third units of the nuclear power plants have all realized commercial operation. The fifth and sixth units are under construction.

The CGN has currently 20 nuclear power units capable of generation, with a total installed capacity of more than 20 million kw.

 

[ahojunk]

Amid overcapacity cuts, Shanxi upgrades coal tech, eyes normal prices
2017-01-16 09:43 | China Daily | Editor: Feng Shuang

A miner takes an overhead man-riding device to come out of a mine of Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Coal Mining Group in Jincheng, Shanxi province. (Photo/Xinhua)


Shanxi province, which has coal reserves accounting for a quarter of China's total, aims to update its coal mines while continuing to reduce capacity in 2017.

"Capacity reduction involves two parts: getting rid of outdated capacity and adding high-performance capacity," said Liang Jinghua, director of the research department of the general office of the provincial government.

The current way of coal exploitation is highly wasteful. Statistics show that for every metric ton of coal, eight tons of minerals, such as bauxite, pyrite, kaoline and fire clay, are used.

The central government has recently approved Shanxi's plan for installing advanced capacity of 122.8 million tons per year in 18 existing mines in the province. By the end of the year, the advanced capacity will account for 16.9 percent of the total capacity, compared with the current 10 percent.

By the end of 2020, 150 modern mines will be built, featuring green excavation and unmanned operation.

Coal products are becoming more technology intensive. For instance, Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Mining Group Co Ltd, together with South China Agricultural University, has developed one technology to extract liquid fertilizer from coal. The fertilizer, which is 100 percent soluble in water, is able to change its ingredients accurately according to the needs of the plant. Moreover, it is absorbed three times easier than ordinary fertilizer.

In 2015, Jincheng Anthracite Mining Group exported 146,600 tons of liquid fertilizer, or the equivalent of 83,000 tons of coal, to countries such as the United States and Australia.

Lu'an Group is pushing forward with coal-based fine chemicals technology. Its high-end wax has been exported to more than 10 countries and regions in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea. Its environment-friendly solvent oil has been exported to international cosmetics companies such as L'Oreal and Unilever. Its high-end lubricant has increased the working life in diesel motors from 20,000 kilometers to 60,000 kilometers.

Progress gained n capacity reduction was made in 2016. According to Xiang Erniu, director of the department of coal industry of the province, Shanxi had closed all the 25 mines as of Oct 31 that were set to be closed at the start of the year. By the end of the year, 23.25 million tons of capacity had been eliminated.

"As of November, the reduction in the province accounted for 39 percent of the reduced capacity throughout the country," said Xiang.

Wang Bin, deputy governor of the province, said that 2017 will see 20 million tons of capacity cutting. By 2020, coal capacity in Shanxi will stay around 1.2 billion tons per year. The annual output will be around 1 billion tons, of which 400 million tons will be for the demand within the province and 600 million tons for demand outside the province.

Yan Shichun, deputy director of China Taiyuan Coal Transaction Center, said that coal prices will gradually fall back to a normal level this year.

"The government is formulating mechanisms that adjust coal price in times of fluctuation. Power coal price this year is going to be affected more by the macro policy than by demand and supply. Coking coal, on the other hand, is going to stay at a relatively high price level in the coming years," said Yan.

.

 

[JSCh]

Rise of the supergrid
Electricity now flows across continents, courtesy of direct current
Transmitting power over thousands of kilometres requires a new electricity infrastructure
Jan 14th 2017

THE winds of the Oklahoma panhandle have a bad reputation. In the 1930s they whipped its over-tilled topsoil up into the billowing black blizzards of the Dust Bowl. The winds drove people, Steinbeck’s dispossessed, away from their livelihoods and west, to California.

Today, the panhandle’s steady winds are a force for creation, not destruction. Wind turbines can generate electricity from them at rock-bottom prices. Unfortunately, the local electrical grid does not serve enough people to match this potential supply. The towns and cities which could use it are far away.

So Oklahoma’s wind electricity is to be exported. Later this year, lawsuits permitting, work will begin on a special cable, 1,100km (700 miles) long, between the panhandle and the western tip of Tennessee. There, it will connect with the Tennessee Valley Authority and its 9m electricity customers. The Plains and Eastern Line, as it is to be known, will carry 4,000MW. That is almost enough electricity to power Greater London. It will do so using direct current (DC), rather than the alternating current (AC) that electricity grids usually employ. And it will run at a higher voltage than such grids use—600,000 volts, rather than 400,000.

This long-distance ultra-high-voltage direct-current (UHVDC) connector will be the first of its kind in America. But the problem it helps with is pressing everywhere. Fossil fuels can be carried to power stations far from mines and wells, if necessary, but where wind, solar and hydroelectric power are generated is not negotiable. And even though fossil fuels can be moved, doing so is not desirable. Coal, in particular, is costly to transport. It is better to burn it at the pithead and transport the electricity thus generated instead.

Transmitting power over thousands of kilometres, though, requires a different sort of technology from the AC now used to transmit it tens or hundreds of kilometres through local grids. And in China, Europe and Brazil, as well as in Oklahoma, a new kind of electrical infrastructure is being built to do this. Some refer to the results as DC “supergrids”.

Higher voltage

AC’s ubiquity dates from the so-called “war of the currents” that accompanied electrification in the 1880s and 1890s. When electricity flows down a line as AC, energy travels as a wave. When it flows as direct current, there is no oscillation. Both work well, but the deciding factor in AC’s favour in the 19th century was the transformer. This allows AC voltages to be increased after generation, for more efficient transmission over longish distances, and then decreased again at the other end of the line, to supply customers’ homes and businesses. At the time, direct current had had no such breakthrough.

When one eventually came, in the 1920s, in the form of the mercury arc valve, AC was entrenched. Even the solid-state thyristor, a cousin of the transistor invented in the 1950s, offered no great advantages over the tens or hundreds of kilometres that power grids tended to span. Some high-voltage DC lines were built, such as that under the English Channel, linking Britain and France. But these were justified by special circumstances. In the case of the Channel link, for example, running an AC line through water creates electromagnetic interactions that dissipate a lot of power.

Over transcontinental distances the balance of advantage shifts. As voltages go up, to push the current farther, AC employs (and thus wastes) an ever-increasing amount of energy in the task of squeezing its alternations through the line. Direct current does not have this problem. Long-distance DC electrical lines are also cheaper to build. In particular, the footprint of their pylons is smaller, because each DC cable can carry far more power than an equivalent AC cable. Admittedly, thyristors are expensive—the thyristor-packed converter stations that raise and lower the voltage of the Plains and Eastern line will cost about $1bn, which is two-fifths of the project’s total bill. But the ultra-high voltages required for transcontinental transmission are still best achieved with direct current.

For all the excitement surrounding the Plains and Eastern Line, however, America is a Johnny-come-lately to the world of UHVDC. Asian countries are way ahead—China in particular. As the map at the top of this piece shows, the construction of UHVDC lines is booming there. That boom is driven by geography. Three-quarters of China’s coal is in the far north and north-west of the country. Four-fifths of its hydroelectric power is in the south-west. Most of the country’s people, though, are in the east, 2,000km or more from these sources of energy.

China’s use of UHVDC began in 2010, with the completion of an 800,000-volt line from Xiangjiaba dam, in Yunnan province, to Shanghai. This has a capacity of 6,400MW (equivalent to the average power consumption of Romania). The Jinping-Sunan line, completed in 2013, carries 7,200MW from hydroelectric plants on the Yalong river in Sichuan province to Jiangsu province on the coast. The largest connector under construction, the Changji-Guquan link, will carry 12,000MW (half the average power use of Spain) over 3,400km, from the coal- and wind-rich region of Xinjiang, in the far north-west, to Anhui province in the east. This journey is so long that it requires 1.1m volts to push the current to its destination.

China’s UHVDC boom has been so successful that State Grid, the country’s monopolistic electricity utility, which is behind it, has started building elsewhere. In 2015 State Grid won a contract to build a 2,500km line in Brazil, from the Belo Monte hydropower plant on the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon, to Rio de Janeiro.

China’s neighbour India is following suit—though its lines are being built by European and American companies, namely ABB, Siemens and General Electric. The 1,700km North-East Agra link carries hydroelectric power from Assam to Uttar Pradesh, one of the country’s most densely populated areas. When finished, and operating at peak capacity, it will transmit 6,000MW. At existing levels of demand, that is enough for 90m Indians. The country’s other line, also 6,000MW, carries electricity 1,400km from coal-fired power stations near Champa, in Chhattisgarh, to Kurukshetra, in Haryana, passing Delhi on the way.

Overdose

Valuable though they are, transcontinental links like those in China, Brazil and India are not the only use for UHVDC. Electricity is not described as a “current” for nothing. It does behave quite a lot like a fluid—including fanning out through multiple channels if given the chance. This tendency to fan out is another reason it is hard to corral power over long distances through AC grids—for, being grids, they are made of multiple, interconnected lines. Despite UHVDC connectors being referred to as supergrids, they are rarely actual networks. Rather, they tend to be point-to-point links, from which fanning out is impossible. Some utilities are therefore looking at them to move power over relatively short distances, as well as longer ones.

One such is 50Hertz, which operates the grid in north-east Germany. Almost half the power it ships comes from renewable sources, particularly wind. The firm would like to send much of this to Germany’s populous south, and on into Austria, but any extra power it puts into its own grid ends up spreading into the neighbouring Polish and Czech grids—to the annoyance of everyone.

50Hertz is getting around this with a new UHVDC line, commissioned in partnership with Germany’s other grid operators. This line, SuedOstLink, will plug into the Meitingen substation in Bavaria, replacing the power from decommissioned south-German nuclear plants. And Boris Schucht, 50Hertz’s boss, has bigger plans than that. He says that within ten years UHVDC will stretch from the north of Sweden down to Bavaria. After this, he foresees the development of a true UHVDC grid in Europe—one in which the lines actually interconnect with each other.

That will require new technology—special circuit-breakers to isolate faulty cables, and new switch gear—to manage flows of current that are not simply running from A to B. But, if it can be achieved, it would make the use of renewable-energy sources much easier. When the wind blows strongly in Germany, but there is little demand for the electricity thus produced (at night, for instance), UHVDC lines could send it to Scandinavian hydroelectric plants, to pump water uphill above the turbines. That will store the electricity as potential energy, ready to be released when needed. Just as sources of renewable energy are often inconveniently located, so, too are the best energy-storage facilities. UHVDC permits generators and stores to be wired together, creating a network of renewable resources and hydroelectric “batteries”.

In Asia, something similar may emerge on a grander scale. State Grid plans to have 23 point-to-point UHVDC links operating by 2030. But it wants to go bigger. In March 2016 it signed a memorandum of understanding with a Russian firm, Rosseti, a Japanese one, SoftBank, and a Korean one, KEPCO, agreeing to the long-term development of an Asian supergrid designed to move electricity from windswept Siberia to the megalopolis of Seoul.

This project is reminiscent of a failed European one, Desertec, that had similar goals. But Desertec started from the top down, with the grand vision of exporting the Sahara’s near-limitless solar-power supply to Europe. Today’s ideas for Asian and European supergrids are driven by the real needs of grid operators.

Such projects—which are transnational as well as transcontinental—carry risks beyond the merely technological. To outsource a significant proportion of your electricity generation to a neighbour is to invest huge trust in that neighbour’s political stability and good faith. The lack of such trust was, indeed, one reason Desertec failed. But if trust can be established, the benefits would be great. Earth’s wind-blasted and sun-scorched deserts can, if suitably wired up, provide humanity with a lot of clean, cheap power. The technology to do so is there. Whether the political will exists is the question.


Electricity now flows across continents, courtesy of direct current | The Economist

 

[TaiShang]

Rise of the supergrid
Electricity now flows across continents, courtesy of direct current
Transmitting power over thousands of kilometres requires a new electricity infrastructure
Jan 14th 2017

THE winds of the Oklahoma panhandle have a bad reputation. In the 1930s they whipped its over-tilled topsoil up into the billowing black blizzards of the Dust Bowl. The winds drove people, Steinbeck’s dispossessed, away from their livelihoods and west, to California.

Today, the panhandle’s steady winds are a force for creation, not destruction. Wind turbines can generate electricity from them at rock-bottom prices. Unfortunately, the local electrical grid does not serve enough people to match this potential supply. The towns and cities which could use it are far away.

So Oklahoma’s wind electricity is to be exported. Later this year, lawsuits permitting, work will begin on a special cable, 1,100km (700 miles) long, between the panhandle and the western tip of Tennessee. There, it will connect with the Tennessee Valley Authority and its 9m electricity customers. The Plains and Eastern Line, as it is to be known, will carry 4,000MW. That is almost enough electricity to power Greater London. It will do so using direct current (DC), rather than the alternating current (AC) that electricity grids usually employ. And it will run at a higher voltage than such grids use—600,000 volts, rather than 400,000.

This long-distance ultra-high-voltage direct-current (UHVDC) connector will be the first of its kind in America. But the problem it helps with is pressing everywhere. Fossil fuels can be carried to power stations far from mines and wells, if necessary, but where wind, solar and hydroelectric power are generated is not negotiable. And even though fossil fuels can be moved, doing so is not desirable. Coal, in particular, is costly to transport. It is better to burn it at the pithead and transport the electricity thus generated instead.

Transmitting power over thousands of kilometres, though, requires a different sort of technology from the AC now used to transmit it tens or hundreds of kilometres through local grids. And in China, Europe and Brazil, as well as in Oklahoma, a new kind of electrical infrastructure is being built to do this. Some refer to the results as DC “supergrids”.

Higher voltage

AC’s ubiquity dates from the so-called “war of the currents” that accompanied electrification in the 1880s and 1890s. When electricity flows down a line as AC, energy travels as a wave. When it flows as direct current, there is no oscillation. Both work well, but the deciding factor in AC’s favour in the 19th century was the transformer. This allows AC voltages to be increased after generation, for more efficient transmission over longish distances, and then decreased again at the other end of the line, to supply customers’ homes and businesses. At the time, direct current had had no such breakthrough.

When one eventually came, in the 1920s, in the form of the mercury arc valve, AC was entrenched. Even the solid-state thyristor, a cousin of the transistor invented in the 1950s, offered no great advantages over the tens or hundreds of kilometres that power grids tended to span. Some high-voltage DC lines were built, such as that under the English Channel, linking Britain and France. But these were justified by special circumstances. In the case of the Channel link, for example, running an AC line through water creates electromagnetic interactions that dissipate a lot of power.

Over transcontinental distances the balance of advantage shifts. As voltages go up, to push the current farther, AC employs (and thus wastes) an ever-increasing amount of energy in the task of squeezing its alternations through the line. Direct current does not have this problem. Long-distance DC electrical lines are also cheaper to build. In particular, the footprint of their pylons is smaller, because each DC cable can carry far more power than an equivalent AC cable. Admittedly, thyristors are expensive—the thyristor-packed converter stations that raise and lower the voltage of the Plains and Eastern line will cost about $1bn, which is two-fifths of the project’s total bill. But the ultra-high voltages required for transcontinental transmission are still best achieved with direct current.

For all the excitement surrounding the Plains and Eastern Line, however, America is a Johnny-come-lately to the world of UHVDC. Asian countries are way ahead—China in particular. As the map at the top of this piece shows, the construction of UHVDC lines is booming there. That boom is driven by geography. Three-quarters of China’s coal is in the far north and north-west of the country. Four-fifths of its hydroelectric power is in the south-west. Most of the country’s people, though, are in the east, 2,000km or more from these sources of energy.

China’s use of UHVDC began in 2010, with the completion of an 800,000-volt line from Xiangjiaba dam, in Yunnan province, to Shanghai. This has a capacity of 6,400MW (equivalent to the average power consumption of Romania). The Jinping-Sunan line, completed in 2013, carries 7,200MW from hydroelectric plants on the Yalong river in Sichuan province to Jiangsu province on the coast. The largest connector under construction, the Changji-Guquan link, will carry 12,000MW (half the average power use of Spain) over 3,400km, from the coal- and wind-rich region of Xinjiang, in the far north-west, to Anhui province in the east. This journey is so long that it requires 1.1m volts to push the current to its destination.

China’s UHVDC boom has been so successful that State Grid, the country’s monopolistic electricity utility, which is behind it, has started building elsewhere. In 2015 State Grid won a contract to build a 2,500km line in Brazil, from the Belo Monte hydropower plant on the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon, to Rio de Janeiro.

China’s neighbour India is following suit—though its lines are being built by European and American companies, namely ABB, Siemens and General Electric. The 1,700km North-East Agra link carries hydroelectric power from Assam to Uttar Pradesh, one of the country’s most densely populated areas. When finished, and operating at peak capacity, it will transmit 6,000MW. At existing levels of demand, that is enough for 90m Indians. The country’s other line, also 6,000MW, carries electricity 1,400km from coal-fired power stations near Champa, in Chhattisgarh, to Kurukshetra, in Haryana, passing Delhi on the way.

Overdose

Valuable though they are, transcontinental links like those in China, Brazil and India are not the only use for UHVDC. Electricity is not described as a “current” for nothing. It does behave quite a lot like a fluid—including fanning out through multiple channels if given the chance. This tendency to fan out is another reason it is hard to corral power over long distances through AC grids—for, being grids, they are made of multiple, interconnected lines. Despite UHVDC connectors being referred to as supergrids, they are rarely actual networks. Rather, they tend to be point-to-point links, from which fanning out is impossible. Some utilities are therefore looking at them to move power over relatively short distances, as well as longer ones.

One such is 50Hertz, which operates the grid in north-east Germany. Almost half the power it ships comes from renewable sources, particularly wind. The firm would like to send much of this to Germany’s populous south, and on into Austria, but any extra power it puts into its own grid ends up spreading into the neighbouring Polish and Czech grids—to the annoyance of everyone.

50Hertz is getting around this with a new UHVDC line, commissioned in partnership with Germany’s other grid operators. This line, SuedOstLink, will plug into the Meitingen substation in Bavaria, replacing the power from decommissioned south-German nuclear plants. And Boris Schucht, 50Hertz’s boss, has bigger plans than that. He says that within ten years UHVDC will stretch from the north of Sweden down to Bavaria. After this, he foresees the development of a true UHVDC grid in Europe—one in which the lines actually interconnect with each other.

That will require new technology—special circuit-breakers to isolate faulty cables, and new switch gear—to manage flows of current that are not simply running from A to B. But, if it can be achieved, it would make the use of renewable-energy sources much easier. When the wind blows strongly in Germany, but there is little demand for the electricity thus produced (at night, for instance), UHVDC lines could send it to Scandinavian hydroelectric plants, to pump water uphill above the turbines. That will store the electricity as potential energy, ready to be released when needed. Just as sources of renewable energy are often inconveniently located, so, too are the best energy-storage facilities. UHVDC permits generators and stores to be wired together, creating a network of renewable resources and hydroelectric “batteries”.

In Asia, something similar may emerge on a grander scale. State Grid plans to have 23 point-to-point UHVDC links operating by 2030. But it wants to go bigger. In March 2016 it signed a memorandum of understanding with a Russian firm, Rosseti, a Japanese one, SoftBank, and a Korean one, KEPCO, agreeing to the long-term development of an Asian supergrid designed to move electricity from windswept Siberia to the megalopolis of Seoul.

This project is reminiscent of a failed European one, Desertec, that had similar goals. But Desertec started from the top down, with the grand vision of exporting the Sahara’s near-limitless solar-power supply to Europe. Today’s ideas for Asian and European supergrids are driven by the real needs of grid operators.

Such projects—which are transnational as well as transcontinental—carry risks beyond the merely technological. To outsource a significant proportion of your electricity generation to a neighbour is to invest huge trust in that neighbour’s political stability and good faith. The lack of such trust was, indeed, one reason Desertec failed. But if trust can be established, the benefits would be great. Earth’s wind-blasted and sun-scorched deserts can, if suitably wired up, provide humanity with a lot of clean, cheap power. The technology to do so is there. Whether the political will exists is the question.


Electricity now flows across continents, courtesy of direct current | The Economist

Image from the above article (which was not available).

 

[cirr]

China builds world's biggest solar farm in journey to become green superpower


Vast plant in Qinghai province is part of China’s determination to transform itself from climate change villain to a green energy colossus



Longyangxia Dam Solar Park – the 850MW plant has the capacity to power up to 200,000 households. Photograph: Tom Phillips for the Guardian

Tom Phillips in Gonghe county, Qinghai province

Thursday 19 January 2017 12.00 GMTLast modified on Thursday 19 January 201722.45 GMT



High on the Tibetan plateau, a giant poster of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, guards the entrance to one of the greatest monuments to Beijing’s quest to become a clean energy colossus.

To Xi’s right, on the road leading to what is reputedly the biggest solar farm on earth, a billboard greets visitors with the slogan: “Promote green development! Develop clean energy!”

Behind him, a sea of nearly 4m deep blue panels flows towards a spectacular horizon of snow-capped mountains – mile after mile of silicon cells tilting skywards from what was once a barren, wind-swept cattle ranch.

“It’s big! Yeah! Big!” Gu Bin, one of the engineers responsible for building the Longyangxia Dam Solar Park in the western province of Qinghai, enthused with a heavy dose of understatement during a rare tour of the mega-project.

The remote, 27-square-kilometre solar farm tops an ever-expanding roll call of supersized symbols that underline China’s determination to transform itself from climate villain to green superpower.

Built at a cost of about 6bn yuan (£721.3m) and in almost constant expansion since construction began in 2013, Longyangxia now has the capacity to produce a massive 850MW of power – enough to supply up to 200,000 households – and stands on the front line of a global photovoltaic revolution being spearheaded by a country that is also the world’s greatest polluter.

“The development of clean energy is very important if we are to keep the promises made in the Paris agreement,” Xie Xiaoping, the chairman of Huanghe Hydropower Development, the state-run company behind the park, said during an interview at its headquarters in Xining, the provincial capital.

Xie said that unlike Donald Trump, a climate denier whose election as US president has alarmed scientists and campaigners, he was convinced global warming was a real and present danger that would wreak havoc on the world unless urgent action was taken.

“When I was a child, rivers usually froze over during the winter; heavy snowfall hit the area every year, so we could go skiing and skating … people weren’t very rich, and nobody had a fridge, but you could still store your meat outside,” the Qinghai-born Communist party official remembered. “We cannot do that any more.”


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Sheep graze amid the panels at Longyangxia Dam Solar Park in China’s Qinghai province. The plant has the capacity to produce 850MW of power. Photograph: Tom Phillips for the Guardian
Anders Hove, a Beijing-based clean energy expert from the Paulson Institute, said that as recently as 2012 solar power was shunned as a potential source of energy for China’s domestic market because it was seen as too expensive.

No more. Costs have since plummeted and by 2020 China – which is now the world’s top clean energy investor – hopes to be producing 110GW of solar power and 210GW of wind power each year as part of an ambitious plan to slash pollution and emissions. By 2030, China has pledged to increase the amount of energy coming from non-fossil fuels to 20% of the total.

Earlier this month, meanwhile, China’s energy agency vowed to spend more than $360bn on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind by 2020, cutting smog levels, carbon emissions and creating 13m jobs in the process.

“The numbers are just crazy,” said Amit Ronen, director of the George Washington University’s GW Solar Institute, who described feeling “awed” by the scale of the Chinese solar industry during a recent trip to the country.

Activists now hope Beijing will up the ante once again following Trump’s shock election.

Amid fears the billionaire US president will water down attempts by his predecessor, Barack Obama, to fight global warming, campaigners are calling on China’s rulers to seize the mantle and position their country as the world’s number one climate leader.

“As Mr Trump drops Obama’s legacy, Mr Xi might establish one of his own,” Greenpeace campaigner Li Shuo told the Guardian on Wednesday .

That campaigners are now looking to China for green leadership underlines the once unimaginable changes that have taken place in recent years.

While China remains the world’s biggest emitter, thanks to its toxic addiction to coal, it has also become an unlikely figurehead in the battle against climate change.


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Longyangxia Dam Solar Park in China’s Qinghai province. Photograph: Tom Phillips for the Guardian
Last September campaigners hailed a major victory in the war on global warmingwhen China and the US jointly announced they would formally ratify the Paris agreement.

“Our response to climate change bears on the future of our people and the wellbeing of mankind,” Xi said, vowing to “unwaveringly pursue sustainable development”.

Ronen said: “A decade ago, China’s attitude was: ‘You guys put all that carbon in the atmosphere growing your economy, we should be allowed to put a lot of pollution up there too to grow our economy. Now look at where we are.”

Sam Geall, the executive editor of China Dialogue, a bilingual website on the environment, said Beijing viewed having a climate change denying US president as a rare and unexpected opportunity to boost Chinese soft power by positioning itself as the world’s premier climate change fighter.

“[China sees it as] an opportunity for them to show leadership,” he said. “I’ve already heard that from people who work in environment bureaucracy in China. They see this as an opportunity for China to step up.”

Ronen said China’s renewable revolution, which has seen sprawling solar and wind parks spring up across its western hinterlands, was part of a dramatic political U-turn that culminated in Beijing throwing its weight behind the Paris climate accord last year.

He said part of the explanation was air pollution – repeated episodes of toxic smog have convinced Beijing it must take action to quell public anger – and part was climate change.

“They are very much impacted by a lot of these climate change weather patterns that are particularly troublesome: drought in the north, flooding they are very vulnerable to,” Ronen said.

But Paulson Institute’s Hove said the key driving force behind China’s low carbon quest was economic.

“Most of the things that China is doing related to the environment are generally things that China … wants to do for the economy as well,” he said, pointing to Beijing’s desire to rebalance the economy away from investment-led heavy industry-focused growth while simultaneously making itself the key player in an “industry of the future” and guaranteeing its own energy security.

Hove said Beijing saw a “huge investment opportunity” in exporting low-carbon technology such as high speed rail, solar power or electric vehicles to developing nations in Africa, south Asia and Latin America. “This is a 20-30 year mission to develop [clean] markets,” he said.

A recent report captured how China was already dominating the global clean energy market, pointing to billions of recent investments in renewables in countries such as Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam.

Xie, the Huanghe chairman, said his company was now making its first steps into Africa with solar and hydro projects under development in Ethiopia.

“We are actively going global,” he said, warning that the developing world could not copy the west’s dirty development model without bringing about “the destruction of the world”.

Geall said one indication of whether China was prepared to become the world’s premier climate leader would be if it was seen helping to finance more low-carbon projects beyond its own borders – such as a huge Chinese-built solar park in Pakistan.

“You’d hope to start seeing more of those sorts of projects around the world being financed … rather than [China being] just a source of cheap finance for dirty energy projects.”

Not all are convinced China is ready or even willing to become the world’s top climate leader in a post-Trump world.

Zhang Junjie, an environmental expert from Duke Kunshan University, believed China would stick to its Paris commitments out of self-interest, particularly since the fight against global warming empowered its environmental agencies to crack down on toxic smog despite strong resistance from vested interests.

“[But] if China needs to do more, to commit more, I don’t expect that is likely,” Zhang added, noting that China wanted to be a climate leader but not the climate leader. “Leadership is not just power … it is responsibility.”

With China’s economy losing steam, Zhang said tightening regulations on greenhouse gas emissions further would inflict “major trouble” on its manufacturing sector. China’s clean industries were not sufficiently developed to provide jobs for all those who would be made unemployed as a result. “I would say, don’t count on [China to fill the gap left by the US],” he said. “China has its own troubles now.”

China’s push to develop renewables has not been entirely plain sailing either, with concerns about over-capacity, falling demand for electricity andcurtailment, the amount of energy that is produced but fails to make it to the grid.

Hove said despite the rapid growth of the sector, wind still accounted for just 4% of China’s electricity last year and solar for about 1%. Government subsidies meant many of the biggest solar and wind parks had been built in “sub-optimal” locations such as Qinghai, Gansu and Xinjiang, far from the southern and eastern metropolises where the energy was most needed.

Those behind the world’s largest solar park admitted obstacles such as energy wastage and transmission had yet to be overcome, but said there was no looking back as China forged ahead towards a low-carbon future.

“New energy is surely the future ... It’s hard to predict the future but I believe that solar energy will account for 50% of the total in 50 years,” said the engineer Gu.

Xie said authorities in Qinghai were now so confident the future of China was green that they were planning two massive new solar parks on the Tibetan plateau, with the capacity to produce 4GW of power.

In a sign of the central government’s support for the renewable revolution, Xi recently visited Xie’s company, urging staff to “make every reasonable effort to develop the PV industry”.

Xie, who hosted the Chinese president, scoffed at Trump’s suggestion that climate change was a Chinese hoax and said such claims would do nothing to dampen his country’s enthusiasm for a low-carbon future.

“Even if President Trump doesn’t care about the climate, that’s America’s point of view,” he said. “The Chinese government will carry out and fulfil its international commitments as they always have done in the past, and as they are doing now in order to try to tackle climate change.

Xie concluded: “I don’t care what Mr Trump says – I don’t understand it and I don’t care about it. I think what he says is nonsense.”

Additional reporting by Wang Zhen

 

[onebyone]

Russia Wrests Crown of Top China Oil Supplier From Saudi Arabia


Bloomberg News
23 มกราคม 2560 16:33 GMT+7

• Russian supplies rise 24% in 2016 while Saudi almost flat
• Russia seen aiming to retain top spot in 2017: ICIS-China

Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as China’s top oil supplier last year for the first time ever amid the ongoing battle for market share in the world’s biggest energy market.

Russia boosted crude supply to the Asian nation by 24 percent from 2015 to 52.5 million metric tons, or 1.05 million barrels per day, according to data released Monday by the General Administration of Customs. The Middle Eastern kingdom became the second-biggest supplier, shipping 51 million tons, or 1.02 million barrels per day, little changed from a year earlier.

Russia has been tussling with Saudi Arabia for dominance in the Asian nation amid efforts by oil producers to defend market share during a worldwide glut. Chinese demand has been seen as a key to a sustainable recovery in prices, while benchmark rates are climbing from the worst crash in a generation amid output cuts by major producing nations. China last year bought the commodity at the fastest pace since 2010 amid growing appetite from private refiners, known as teapots.

“Saudis have always dominated the top supplier spot to China,” said Amy Sun, an analyst with Shanghai-based commodities researcher ICIS-China. “High imports from Russia mostly can be attributed to growing demand from teapots and strategic reserves purchase.”

The proximity of Kozmino port, from where Russia ships Siberian crude, to Qingdao, where teapots typically receive their supplies, has helped boost cargoes after the processors were allowed to use overseas oil in 2015.

“With teapots’ import growth set to continue in 2017 and the expected expansion of Sino-Russia pipeline by year-end, Russia is likely to aim for the top spot again this year,” said Sun.

Angola was the third-largest supplier in 2016, exporting 43.7 million tons, or about 875,000 barrels per day, 13 percent higher from last year, today’s customs data showed. China’s total crude imports climbed 13.6 percent last year to 381 million tons, according to customs data released on Jan. 13.

— With assistance by Sarah Chen


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...n-of-top-china-oil-supplier-from-saudi-arabia

 

[ahojunk]

Angola was the third-largest supplier in 2016, exporting 43.7 million tons, or about 875,000 barrels per day, 13 percent higher from last year, today’s customs data showed. China’s total crude imports climbed 13.6 percent last year to 381 million tons,

.
One effective way for Saudi to increase exports to China is to accept RMB instead of the dollar.

If Saudis are not careful, Angola will replace them as the number two supplier.

How the world has changed, in the past it's the supplier dictating terms but now it is a big customer dictating the terms.

The western MSM narrative is that China is not doing well economically. If that is so, then why "China’s total crude imports climbed 13.6 percent last year to 381 million tons". Yes, some of the increase goes to the SPR but what about the rest.

 

[cirr]

January 29, 2017 1:10 am JST

Marubeni to build 1.18GW solar plant

UAE sun farm to have more capacity than a nuclear reactor

Marubeni operates this mega solar power plant in Hokkaido, Japan.

TOKYO -- Japanese trading house Marubeni will build and manage what will become one of the world's largest mega solar power plants, with a capacity of 1.18 or so gigawatts -- more than a nuclear reactor.

The plant will be built in the United Arab Emirates.

With the Paris Agreement, which is aimed at curbing greenhouse gases, having taken effect late last year, the world is shifting toward renewable energy.

Japanese industry is viewing this shift as an opportunity.

The plant is to be constructed on a 7.8-sq.-km desert plot in eastern Abu Dhabi. The land will be on loan from a local government.

Marubeni, which could sign papers regarding the plant as early as next month, aims to fire up the panels in 2019.

Total costs are estimated at 100 billion yen ($868 million). The money is expected to come from financial institutions in the form of project financing. The Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority will sign for 60% of the loan package, with Marubeni and Chinese solar panel maker JinkoSolar responsible for 20% each.

The consortium will sell electricity from the plant for 25 years.

The plant will use panels made by JinkoSolar that allow for stable power generation even in dust storms.

The shift to sun-provided power is gaining momentum in the Middle East, which gets heavy doses of solar radiation, the stuff that falls on photoelectric panels and makes them work.

It will be Marubeni's second overseas mega solar plant; the first is in Chile. The trading house, however, manages numerous power plants, mostly thermal, around the world. Together, these plants have about 11GW of capacity.

According to an industry representative, India has a mega solar plant with the capacity of 0.64GW, and China has a plant that has been expanded to 0.85GW. These are currently the world's two largest solar plants.

(Nikkei)

http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Marubeni-to-build-1.18GW-solar-plant

 

[onebyone]

China’s Nuclear Power Capacity Set to Overtake U.S. Within Decade
by Stephen Stapczynski
31 มกราคม 2560 12:13 GMT+7

• Nuclear capacity to soar to nearly 100GW by 2026: BMI
• Last year’s nuclear capacity increased by 7GW, most on record

China’s rapid nuclear expansion will result in it overtaking the U.S. as the nation with the largest atomic power capacity by 2026, according to BMI Research.

The world’s second biggest economy will almost triple its nuclear capacity to nearly 100 gigawatts by 2026, making it the biggest market globally, analysts said in a note dated Jan. 27. The nation added about 8 gigawatts of nuclear power last year, boosting its installed capacity to about 34 million kilowatts, according to BMI.

Source: BMI Research


China has committed to boosting nuclear power, which accounted for about 1.7 percent of its total generation in 2015, to help reduce reliance on coal, which accounts for about two-thirds of the country’s primary energy. The nation has 20 reactors currently under construction, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Another 176 are either planned or proposed, far more than any other nation, according to the World Nuclear Association.

“We expect growth to continue and China to emerge as one of the largest nuclear markets globally in terms of total installed capacity over the coming decade, as the huge pipeline of reactors that are planned, proposed or under construction gradually comes online,” Georgina Hayden, head of energy and renewable research at BMI, said by e-mail. ‘’Furthermore, by expanding its own domestic nuclear sector, the country will develop the expertise to export nuclear capabilities and nuclear technology abroad.”

Exporting Technology

China General Nuclear Power Corp., along with its fellow state-run nuclear giant China National Nuclear Corp., is seeking to sell and build nuclear power plants across the globe as part of the country’s efforts to export technology and surplus production capacity as it copes with a slowing domestic economy.

Coal’s share in the nation’s energy mix will gradually fall to just under 54 percent by 2026 from its current 70 percent, according to BMI.

“Nuclear additions are unlikely to slow in terms of absolute amount given the urgent priority to shift the generation mix away from thermal coal, today still over two thirds of output,” Joseph Jacobelli, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said by e-mail. “Unlike solar and wind, where the construction cycle is typically short, nuclear’s longer planning and construction timing allows for the nation’s grid to better prepare the network and ensure dispatch and stability.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...power-fleet-seen-overtaking-u-s-within-decade

 

[TaiShang]

China well-placed to power its future through green technology advances
By Frank-Jürgen Richter Source: Published: 2017/1/31


China has been moving toward a more sustainable future based on electrical power. Even so, China has invested in new highly efficient coal-fired power stations to the dismay of those clamouring for a "green" future - though it is rapidly removing old inefficient generators from its production mix. Greens also dislike China's investment in nuclear power even though that source of electricity hardly pollutes: they state it creates too much radioactive waste plus later, a decommissioning conundrum. The problem besetting most nations is that demand for electrical power nearly outstrips their capacity to generate.

The globe must rely on fossil fuels for several years and coal usually offers the cheapest source. China, through its massive investment in this source is well placed to also offer its newer power stations for comparative at-scale experimentation on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) of polluting flue gases that cause global warming. Other nations have not progressed along the CCS route, and some, like the UK, have lost millions in sunk costs as its government has withdrawn CCS development subsidies. China therefore might be our future savior via this technology.

All fossil fuels have a limited future being non-renewable. The conventional oil-field is weakest: the International Energy Agency (IEA) said we passed peak oil in 2005 after which few new oil-fields would be discovered. In their 2017 annual report they note that "… another year of low upstream oil investment in 2017 would risk a shortfall in oil production in a few years' time and cause potential market-place issues from 2020 onwards." They continue: "… almost all of the projected growth in oil demand to 2040 comes from freight, aviation and petrochemicals, sectors where alternatives are scarce." Even if total vehicle numbers almost double, fuel demand for passenger vehicles falls because of fuel efficiency gains, use of biofuels and greater numbers of electric vehicles - though we must remember the latter's "fuel" has to be generated somewhere by some means.

China's decision makers have invested in high voltage direct current (HVDC) electricity distribution grids, which for transmissions of over 800 kilometers is superior to the alternating current alternative. China has constructed many HVDC lines from fuel sources (often in the remote regions which are fossil-fuel rich and wind-power rich: the provinces of Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang or Yunnan Province) where electricity is generated to supply distant consumers in homes, offices and factories, often in the coastal regions: the Pearl River, or the Yangtze River manufacturers. In the future, HVDC grids will aggregate and distribute all sources of electricity generation - from fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewables. Direct current will be the force supporting inter-state electricity flows allowing a true market east/west, north/south to guarantee our demand for power as the sun rises and falls.

China is supporting the use of electric vehicles in towns. Soon there will be reduced car ownership through both sharing and by the increasing use of Uber-style autonomous taxis - we expect traffic density and exhaust pollution to fall making cities much less stressful. Electric trucks complete the story.

However Professor Ni Jun (of Michigan and Shanghai Jiaotong universities) stated in a 2008 SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) that undue reliance had been made upon the R&D of global vehicle manufacturers like Ford, Fiat/Chrysler, Renault or the VW Group. These global players have left a niche for over 200 Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers to show their intrinsic versatility. However the government has recently said that EV firms must pass effectiveness tests relating to safety and battery range so as not to disappoint buyers. Overly cheap EVs are poor designs they say, and while much cheaper than foreign EV cars they do not represent value for money. Such foresight is especially important looking forward to the new relationship with President Trump's re-jigging of US manufacturing, trade deals, and their renegotiation with respect to overseas investment in China.

Several cities in China are developing eco-clean low speed maglev links - in their metro systems, or connecting airports to cities. These new transport systems as well as the deployment of high speed maglev will eventually be the long-distance backbone for trade to and from China along its One Belt and One Road initiative. Already inside China, new townships are coalescing at hubs near high-speed rail stations. These hubs are usually supported by a new regional airport as well as good long-distance road systems so attracting rural-to-urban migrants before they overwhelm the already developed coastal regions.

Even higher speed systems are being developed. Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, revealed a test track in 2014 demonstrating a super-maglev that could travel at 2,900 kilometers per hour within a partial-vacuum tube utilizing high temperature superconducting magnets. This is similar to the Hyperloop proposed by Elon Musk (of Tesla car fame) which will be further developed in Toulouse, France. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) announced the new French research facility in January 2017, as well as plans for tracks in Bruno, Czech Republic and in Abu Dhabi. Such developments are of interest to the EU as they potentially strengthen Europe/Asian trade through the traditional Central Asian corridors. These technologies will depend on HVDC backbones being in place to supply all their energy needs.

It is expected that technological diffusion will flow along the Belt and Road initiative into regions far from China, thus re-developing Central and South East Asian towns as trading posts in their own right, and providing route maps for the re-development of Africa and the Middle East. This will offer a seamless continuum of trade and people flows, good living, and intellectual exploration in the future era without oil. This will take time to achieve - China is well-poised to advance the future.

The author is founder and chairman of Horasis, a global visions community. Horasis hosts the annual Horasis China Meeting - the 2017 edition of the event will be held in Sheffield, UK. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn

 

[TaiShang]

Delays could end CNPC's South Pars involvement
By Zhang Junmian
China.org.cn, August 1, 2012

An official from China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) implied that the company was forced to delay, and may have to pull out of the South Pars gas field project in Iran, due to current instability in the country, according to a report by the 21st Century Business Herald on Tuesday.

China's largest oil company China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) was forced to delay, and may have to pull out of the South Pars gas field project in Iran, due to instability in the country. [File Photo]


The unnamed official said: "So far, we haven't withdrawn from the South Pars project, but the situation is really complicated."

He explained: "South Pars has a gas reserve of more than 20 trillion cubic meters, much more than the reported figure. Yet all investors, including us, have to slow down, or even abandon our projects there. "

CNPC, China's largest oil producing company, has been developing Phase 11 of the South Pars gas field under a US$4.7billion contract signed with Iran's Oil Ministry in 2009. The company also agreed to buy 400 trillion tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year from 2009 for a 25-30 year term. .

But like many other international oil companies who turned their focus to Iran, CNPC has become more cautious about investing in the country following a subsequent string of events which destabilized the region, including the escalation of tensions between the U.S. and Iran conflict since 2009 and the political turmoil in Egypt and Libya.

Commenting on the subsequent delay of the project, the official said: "It's rational for CNPC to make delays in investment under such circumstances. In addition, project workers' safety and poor logistics are some of the other issues to be settled, as there are still a great number of minefields left over from both the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War."

He continued: "It's natural for the two sides to have disputes over the project's progress when Iran demands that gas should be produced for export immediately, which is impractical."

The official claimed that CNPC has sent staff members to negotiate with the Iranian side over the issue. However, irrespective of whether or not the negotiations are successful, the current instability negates the prospect of any progress being made on the project.

Iran has accused CNPC of falling behind schedule, citing the company's reasons as "Iran's unstable political environment and the improper conditions around the gas field." National Iranian Oil Company also warned CNPC last year that it would replace CNPC with domestic companies if the Chinese company continued to delay the project.

The unnamed official quoted in the 21st Century Business Herald report has not responded to a Mehr News Agency report which cited Iran's Oil Ministry as saying that the Chinese company had not even begun preliminary work such as leveling land and putting up fencing.

CNPC's predecessor,-France-based Total SA, was forced to abandon the project out of concerns over Iran's stability.

***

@Serpentine , I am surprised that the project appears to be failing in such a miserable way. China companies are not foreign to working in not so promising environments like Sudan, so, what makes Iran an even more unwelcome place, if any, for CNPC?

I am for greater energy cooperation with Iran, especially in natural gas.

 

[TaiShang]

The world’s largest nuclear plants differ by age, number of reactors, and utilization

February 6, 2017， EIA

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on data from International Atomic Energy Agency Power Reactor Information System
There are currently 449 operating nuclear reactors in 31 countries, with a total installed generating capacity of more than 390,000 megawatts (MW), based on data from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nuclear power plants differ in various ways including reactor types, vessel containments, cooling methods, and dispatch purposes. The largest nuclear plant in the United States, the Palo Verde plant near Phoenix, Arizona, ranks as the ninth-largest operating nuclear plant in the world and has the highest capacity factor among large nuclear plants.

The list of the largest nuclear plants has changed in recent years. Three plants in Japan, each with a generating capacity of more than 4,000 MW, were suspended from operation following the accident at Fukushima Daiichi and, like nearly all of Japan’s existing nuclear plants, are not currently generating electricity. Other countries, especially China, are adding large nuclear plants. For instance, the Hongyanhe plant near Dalian, China, had a capacity of 3,183 MW at the end of 2015 but, with the startup of another 1,000 MW reactor in 2016, the plant's capacity now totals 4,183 MW, with another two reactors under construction.

With the idling of Japan’s 7,965 MW Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, located on Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada, is currently the world’s largest operating nuclear power plant. Bruce has eight reactors, configured as two separate facilities operating four reactor units each, and has a combined installed capacity of 6,274 MW.

Of the top ten operating nuclear plants in the world, the United States’ Palo Verde plant has the fewest number of reactors (three) but has the highest capacity factor, a measure of plant utilization. Plants that operate more have higher capacity factors and produce more electricity per unit of generating capacity. Based on the most recent five years of data (2011–15), Palo Verde’s capacity factor averaged 92%, while other large nuclear plants’ capacity factors ranged from 73% to 88%.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on data from International Atomic Energy Agency Power Reactor Information System
Over the past 15 years, nuclear capacity factors in the United States have typically remained above 90%, which is higher than nuclear plants in other regions of the world. The duration of refueling and maintenance outages is a significant factor in why U.S. capacity factors are so high. Nuclear reactors undergo routine maintenance and refueling outages about once every 18 to 24 months. Although a nuclear reactor can be refueled in as little as 10 days, outages often last longer, as operators conduct other noncritical maintenance work simultaneously to minimize overall operational downtime.

In the United States, the average duration of refueling outages has been steadily declining. In the early 1990s, refueling-related outages lasted nearly three months. In spring 2016, refueling outages in the United States averaged 29 days. Using data from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, EIA maintains a tool displaying the daily operating status of each nuclear plant in the United States.

 

[ahojunk]

China has decided the locations of inland nuclear plants
2017-02-14 08:53 | Global Times | Editor: Li Yan

To meet the growing demand for power and reduce reliance on coal, China is planning to build more inland nuclear power stations despite concerns about potential risks.

Wang Yiren, vice director of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, said in an interview with China National Radio, which was published Monday, that the country has already decided the locations of its inland nuclear reactors and that construction is likely to start by 2020.

There are around 400 nuclear power stations in the world, most of which are located inland and therefore not usually affected by tsunamis, typhoons or other extreme coastal weather phenomena.

"If it is safe to build nuclear power plants in coastal areas, it is also not a problem to build them inland," stressed Wang.

China halted all its nuclear power projects after Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, but began construction work on several projects in eastern coastal areas in 2015. Although the resumption of the construction of the inland nuclear power projects has yet to be officially announced, at least 10 provinces have already proposed to develop their own nuclear power industries.

Despite governments' and companies' efforts to ease public fears, some scholars argued that an inland nuclear power plant may carry bigger risks of accidents and nuclear leaks.

Mixed reactions

Wang said in the interview that nuclear power development is one of the best ways to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and major pollutants. China has an urgent need for inland nuclear power plants to meet power demand and ensure stable electrical supply.

According to the plan, China's nuclear power capacity would reach 58 million kilowatts by 2020. The total capacity of the plants currently under construction will be 30 million kilowatts.

Wang said the third-generation nuclear power technology has greatly promoted the safety of the reactors. Once an accident happens, it will be confined within the reactor. Moreover, he clarified that an inland nuclear power station will use cyclical cooling water towers, instead of draining away or pumping water from the rivers.

Three inland nuclear reactors with an investment of over 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) have already obtained approval from the National Development and Reform Commission, which include the Taohuajiang nuclear power plant in Hunan Province, the Xianning nuclear power plant in Hubei Province and the Pengze nuclear power plant in Jiangxi Province.

"Technology is not a problem. The difficulty lies in letting the public accept the plan," an employee from the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) told the Global Times.

However, the inland nuclear power plants also have run into strong opposition from Chinese scholars.

He Zuoxiu, a theoretical physicist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that building inland nuclear power plants is more complex. Except for seismic and geologic siting, ecological factors including the growth of population and release of radioactive liquid waste should also be taken into consideration.

"We cannot simply draw a conclusion that China should have inland plants because European countries have them," said He, adding that the population density in the three sites is much higher than in European countries while the atmospheric dispersion conditions for possible radioactive emissions is not as ideal as the US.

Floating stations

Moreover, Wang revealed that China will also develop floating nuclear power stations during the 13th Five-Year Plan and has already organized experts to conduct research into how to build the plants.

Floating power stations will aim to promote the exploitation of oil and gas resources and provide safe and efficient power supply to remote islands in the South China Sea, said Wang.

CNNC declined to reveal any details about the floating stations on Monday but an article published on its official WeChat account in July said that China is expected to build 20 floating nuclear power stations in the future, which will significantly beef up the power and water supplies on the South China Sea islands.

Sun Qin, former chairman of the National Nuclear Corporation, told the Xinhua News Agency in March 2016 that the facility is scheduled to be put into operation in 2019.

"Floating power stations are less susceptible to natural disasters. In an emergency, the station could pump seawater into a boat to prevent core melting. Besides, the platform is small and can be dragged to a suitable place for maintenance," thepaper.cn reported in February, quoting an expert.