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> So I look to China and see if they think it's worth it. And Chinese nuclear power is spiking. Spiking? They approved two reactors this year and most years si
by yorwba 6y ago
> So I look to China and see if they think it's worth it. And Chinese nuclear power is spiking.
Spiking? They approved two reactors this year and most years since Fukushima they didn't approve any. https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3100097/chinas-cabinet-approves-two-new-nuclear-power-plants-push https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3100097/c...
...after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan, China halted its approval of new reactors for four years. These resumed in 2015, largely driven by Beijing’s pledge to cut carbon emissions. Then, from 2016 to 2018, the country again stopped granting permission for the construction of new nuclear power plants. After three new plants were approved in June 2019, government approvals again ground to a halt until this week.
- renewiltord 6y agoYou don't need that many approvals a year. They're doing just fine. Check out the construction pipeline. They have 10.6 GW under construction right now. That's a 25% increase when it's built. Tianwan-5 was just hooked up to the grid last month.
- epistasis 6y agoFor comparison, China added ~30GW of solar in 2019. To make the GW of solar more comparable, one must adjust for capacity factors, which round to 1 for nuclear but is ~0.25 for new solar. So China added the equivalent of 7 nuclear reactors worth of solar TWh last year. They are also great at adding HVDC, which the US desperately needs.