Beijing plans to build new reactors at a rate of nearly two a year between now and 2020 to quadruple nuclear output to 16 billion kilowatt-hours by 2010. This could represent a reversal to an aversion to nuclear energy in many countries.
Unlike in the U.S. or Europe, where the mere mention of nuclear power is considered a political anathema, there has been no public discussion of nuclear energy. The government strictly censors its news coverage and nuclear power proponents scoff at warnings.
U.S. and other nuclear plant technology companies are lining up to sell reactors to the Chinese, whose purchasing decisions alone could decide who survives in the business. China's nine nuclear reactors now supply less than 2 percent of electricity demand. But China's power needs are so great that even assuming present plans go through, nuclear energy would still meet less than 4 percent of demand in 2020. China now gets 80 percent of its electricity from coal.
"In China we have state-owned power companies, whereas abroad they have private companies," said Yu Jiechun, an engineer at the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Co. "It's not a matter of someone's profit here."
Foreign manufacturers are facing increasing problems in the China market. Beijing has told bidders for a current project in Guangdong that 70 percent of its components must be made in China in order to develop a domestic nuclear power industry. But the increasingly tough localization demands do not seem to have deterred foreign companies, such as Atomic Energy of Canada, which has already built two reactors, and Areva, which owns 66 percent of Framatome and has supplied four of the existing Chinese reactors. Westinghouse, the British-owned U.S. nuclear developer that has yet to break into the Chinese market, is also said to be interested.
Korean nuclear developers have been looking at breaking into the Chinese market with Seoul's snowballing trade relationship with Beijing. Japanese companies could offer the advanced boiling water reactor developed by General Electric, two of which are already being built in Taiwan. Russian nuclear developers, which are building two 1,000-megawatt VVER reactors in Taiwan, could also bid.
