Three more nuke plants this year

[FarCenter]

China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC) said it expected to start construction of three nuclear power plants with a total of five reactors in 2009.

CNNC, the country's largest nuclear power company, will start construction of the Sanmen nuclear power plant in Zhejiang in March. The project will have two 1,250-megawatt reactors, said a source with the company.

The company will start building another nuclear power plant in Haiyang, Shandong province, at the end of September, said the source, who declined to be named.

Both plants will use AP1000 technology from US-based Westinghouse. China in 2007 signed an agreement with Westinghouse for use of the third-generation nuclear technology.

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http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90884/6575284.html

Although Westinhouse is based in the US, Toshiba owns 51% of Westinghouse.

[shintao]

1. Yep, watching a third rate country outpace America

Looks like China is looking to their future. That energy will be powering their 300mph bullet trains around China. Meanwhile, America will be spinning it's wheels in the sand dunes of ME.

[TheWraith]

2. The AP1000 seems to be a damn fine piece of hardware.

There's a reason China is standardizing on the AP1000 as its reactor of choice. Westinghouse designed a simpler, safer, and more robust plant that's also dirt cheap, modular, and fast to put up. Their initial cost estimates are about $1800 per megawatt, built and running in three years. It has fewer subsystems so it's both cheaper to build and easier to maintain, while having a design that uses gravity and natural circulation instead of pumps, and as such it keeps cooling itself even if it can't generate power for whatever reason. They're planning for two of them in Georgia, and the Chinese are talking about having 100 units either built or in progress by 2020.

[hunter]

3. Good. The less coal China burns, the better.

I'd trade coal plants for nuclear plants here too.