Impact of Japanese nuclear power plant accident on China’s nuclear power policy

Will China, the country has the world’s most nuclear power plants under construction, also has the largest nuclear power planning and development change its attitude on nuclear power after the Japanese nuclear power leakage on March 12?

 “The nuclear leakage raised by the earthquake in Japan will not change our decision and planning on the nuclear power development plan in China.” Said by the Administer ZHANG li jun of MEP(Ministry of Environmental Protection of PRC) in the press conference on 12^th of March.

 However related authorities believe there will be an impact on the nuclear power policy in China, this nuclear accident in Japan gave the world nuclear power industry a new lesson, will affect on all aspects of nuclear power development in the future. Mr. ZHANG mentioned: “China will learn and gain experience from Japan for our future development and strategy of nuclear power”.

At present, those 26 nuclear power units which under construction in China are mainly using the upgraded 2^nd generation nuclear technology (the Fukushima plants in Japan are using 2^nd generation nuclear technology), the authority in MEP said “the upgraded 2^nd generation nuclear tech” has an earthquake-proof of 8 magnitude. AP1000-The new nuclear power technology, also knew as the 3^rd generation nuclear technology which imported in 2007 has approved to start in 4 units in China, however without a fair enough test, the Chinese central government will not approve new AP1000 nuclear power units.

If the coming report from IAEA holds identical views to the current analysis, which means this accident has exposed the design imperfection of Fukushima plants, the fault of 2^nd generational nuclear tech, we believe the policy of nuclear power planning and development in China will put favour to the 3nd generation technology -AP1000