Is China on the verge of a historic moment like the Messmer plan which saw France accidentally decarbonize by nuclearizing its grid in 15 years while electrifying much of its heating & rail? Francois Morin of the @WorldNuclear answers this and more.. anchor.fm/chris15401/epi…
2.) China is currently third in the world in Nuclear Energy capacity with ambitious plans to have the most reactors in the world by 2030. The Tsinghua climate plan calls for a 7 fold increase by 2050.
3.) At great expense in a time of post civil war crushing agrarian poverty and "great leap forward" economic mismanagement China managed to join the nuclear weapons club in the 1964. It was however very late to develop power reactors with its first coming online only in 1991.
4.) Since then China has imported many different turnkey projects from Europe, USA, Canada, Russia while also developing its own indigenous designs culminating in the Hualong 1.
5.) For a variety of pragmatic reasons including the transport and air pollution externalities of coal and the ability to make Nuclear cheap and profitable by very low interest financing Nuclear is on the rise in China.
6.) However coal use is still increasing as is energy demand with data centre and 5G infrastructure alone expected to use as much energy as is currently produced by the entire Chinese nuclear fleet.
7.) I am joined by Francois Morin, the China Director of the @WorldNuclear Association, to discuss the fascinating past, present and future of Nuclear energy in China.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
