China Leaps Forward

China expects to complete a small commercial plant, which will produce 195 megawatts of electricity, within five years in the eastern province of Shandong. Huaneng Power, one of the country’s largest electricity companies, is ponying up about half the $300 million price tag. What makes the pebblebed technology so important is its fail-safe design—it would not be possible for the reactor to melt down or explode like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. The uranium in each sphere can’t get hot enough to melt the casing and escape. Also, the main coolant for the system is inert helium, not water, as is used in other types of reactors (water, of course, contains oxygen, which is combustible). As global warming and politics render the world’s reliance on fossil fuels problematic, China may in a few short years hold the key to a renaissance in nuclear power.

And the pebblebed reactor is only a small part of China’s nuclear ambitions.

..The goal is to derive at least 4 percent of the country’s energy from nuclear power in 15 years. Although that’s far behind today’s world average of 16 percent, it will amount to the biggest nuclear-construction binge the world has seen in decades.

..Even if the nuclear strategy is a runaway success, it won’t come close to solving China’s energy problems. Demand far surpasses supply—in large part because Chinese companies are notoriously inefficient energy consumers. China is quickly running out of raw materials, such as coal, while demand for electricity has seen double-digit growth for more than three years. Renewable-energy sources won’t come close to meeting China’s needs. But that only fuels the urgency Chinese officials express when discussing the nuclear boom. “We need every type of energy,” says Zhang Zuoyi, head of the institute that helps run the pebblebed test reactor. “We are hungry.” China’s leaders won’t listen to naysayers. They can’t afford to.

MSNBC/Newsweek