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- Most of China’s nuclear reactors did not take 7 years to build since 2010
- Building nuclear power plants in Europe and America takes 10 years or more
- Russian and Korean companies have experience close to China’s in rapid reactor construction
- Emerging economies can learn from China’s experience more than developed countries
- Coastal sites are more suitable for the construction of nuclear power plants and are less expensive
The rates of building nuclear reactors in China have accelerated significantly over the past two decades, confusing experts and specialists who believe that the construction of conventional nuclear plants may take a decade or more.
A recent analytical report – reviewed by the Energy Research Unit – showed China’s success in breaking the stable time equation in the sector globally, with its ability to complete the construction of nuclear reactors within 7 years or less.
The analysis was based on tracking the construction of nuclear reactors in China since 2010, and found that every nuclear project that entered service since that date did not take 7 years to build.
Building nuclear reactors in China
Since the beginning of 2022, China has completed the construction of 5 nuclear reactors, the completion period of which ranged from less than 5 years to just over 7 years, according to the analysis published on the Breakthrough Institute website (break through Institute), an environmental research center based in Berkeley, California.
The acceleration of nuclear reactor construction rates in China has contributed to maintaining a tremendous annual growth rate for nuclear electricity generation compared to other renewable energy sources, which has continued to grow from 2010 until now.
Chinese financiers and construction companies have also demonstrated their ability to complete nuclear reactor projects abroad in relatively attractive time frames, with China successfully building 6 reactors in Pakistan within a period ranging from 5.5 to 6 years each.
Construction of a nuclear reactor in China, Shandong Province – photo from Bloomberg
The accelerated construction rates by Chinese companies have contributed to gaining the confidence of more potential customers, such as Argentina, which is counting on China to build reactors faster, which imposes enormous challenges on global competitors – especially in the United States and Europe – in the coming years.
Russian and Korean companies also boast most of the major nuclear power projects they have completed abroad in recent years, with Russia having a good record of delivering finished reactors within 6 to 9 years with some exceptions.
South Korea also built 3 reactors in the UAE in less than 9 years each, amid expectations that the duration of building another additional reactor will be in the same time frame.
Why are reactors built so quickly in China?
The speed of construction of nuclear reactors in China represents a major challenge to some of the prevailing statements in the global nuclear energy industry, as there is a belief that nuclear energy technology is inherently difficult to build, in addition to the long-standing belief that building reactors needs a decade or more to complete.
The speed of nuclear construction in China is explained by several reasons, the most prominent of which is: the relative ease of obtaining the necessary financing for nuclear energy projects, which are known to be capital-intensive in nature.
This is partly due to the broad support that China’s nuclear reactor construction projects have received from the public sector and provincial governments, along with battery manufacturing, magnesium refining, and solar energy equipment projects that have received widespread support in recent years.
The large-scale growth of industrial infrastructure over the past decades has led the Chinese to gain significant experience in managing mega projects and building capabilities in the nuclear energy sector.
Public and private sector projects have learned to target economies of scale in construction by planning and co-locating identical units or manufacturing lines on the same site.
Developers in China’s nuclear reactor sector have benefited from a supply chain that is shared in some aspects with heavy industry supply chains, especially in the field of heavy road equipment used in building reactor pressure vessels.
Developers have also benefited from strong policy support for nuclear energy, conventional and advanced reactor technologies at the domestic level, as a sector of strategic importance, along with promising growth potential and export opportunities.
The nuclear sector in China has given priority to developing a strong local supply chain for reactor components since the start of the modern wave of reactor construction in 2005, by benefiting from foreign technology and experimenting with many American, European and Russian reactor designs, even while developing new local reactor technologies.
Coastal sites most suitable for nuclear energy
Although solar and wind energy installations have accelerated in China in recent years, nuclear energy is still present in the national energy strategy, especially in urban coastal provinces with high residential density and limited renewable resources.
Coastal nuclear energy projects are characterized by their low cost, as they can receive construction materials and components via barges, and they can use seawater chillers instead of 600-foot-high cooling towers, while avoiding the risks of earthquakes and floods to which non-coastal projects may be exposed.
Coastal sites are usually selected and planned in ways that allow for two to four successive phases of reactor construction in pairs on the same site; This allows greater flexibility in construction and operation processes.
Site of a nuclear power plant built by China in Karachi, Pakistan – Photo from China Daily
The experience of building nuclear reactors in China can inspire the experiences of other rapidly growing emerging economies such as India, Bangladesh and Indonesia, while imitating the experience in the United States and Europe will be very difficult, due to different conditions, environment, historical experience and technical expertise.
On the other hand, advanced economies with free markets for electricity and modest expertise in the nuclear sector can study the Chinese experience to benefit from it in formulating their future strategies for deploying nuclear energy in a balanced manner, while addressing their own local weaknesses, according to an analysis by the Breakthrough Institute. ).
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2024-03-17 13:56:19
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