China starts to face reality, begins scaling back its nuclear energy plans

[bananas]

and they are still overly optimistic:

http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2011/09/china-restarts-progress-on-its-nuclear.html

September 4, 2011
China restarts progress on its nuclear energy program
Post-Fukushima safety checks are done, but the size of the new build will be smaller

<snip>

New build scaled back

However, the government said it would scale back the size of its new build. Last year China announced it would build the equivalent of 80 1,000 MW nuclear power plants. Now China’s National Energy Administration is saying it will complete an additional 30 GW of plants by 2015, and an additional 28 reactors in the next decade, for a total new build of about 60 GW.

Last December this blog wrote that it was unlikely that China would be able to complete construction of 80 GW of new reactor generating capacity in ten years.

The mandarins in Beijing will discover they're outrunning their ability to build out their plans for 80 GWe of new reactors in ten years. There are limits to how much concrete, steel, and nuclear engineering talent can be put into play in that short a period of time. They might build 25 GWE in ten years.

Improvements need in manufacturing quality and safety

<snip>

Another problem with safety is having enough trained nuclear engineers to run a credible program. The cables quote a former Westinghouse executive named Gavin Liu who is cited in them sometime in 2010 as saying “a bottleneck” exists in getting enough trained people to build the new reactors and regulate them in terms of safety.

<snip>

The cables reportedly compared the speed of construction, and lack of strong safety regulation for nuclear power, to the situation with China’s high speed railways. Last July a crash killed dozens of people. The cause of the accident is being blamed on China having put construction and start-up as priorities ahead of safety in operation.

<snip>

Links to some previous discussions posted here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x303602

[madokie]

1. K&R

[NickB79]

2. "The mandarins in Beijing"?

Odd choice of words in the article.

[TheWraith]

4. Since it's actually somebody's blog, and not actually "news," no, not so odd.

Any more than it's odd for Fox to reveal the bias of their own pseudo-news through mental slips.

[bananas]

7. What's the connotation? nt

[Systematic Chaos]

3. Let's all do the More Coal Happy Dance (tm)!!!

:woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

[Kolesar]

5. f--ked premise...eom

[Systematic Chaos]

6. Alles klar, Herr Cola Czar?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxManCpDrtQ

[kristopher]

8. I expect to see a further decline in their goals related to nuclear.

They've only turned to renewables in earnest since 2009 and they have already accelerated the global price decline for solar dramatically by building a solar supply chain and manufacturing base that is larger than the rest of the world combined. As the renewable approach proves itself through cost advantage and speed of deployment it will become more and more of an obvious waste to continue down the nuclear path.

[bananas]

9. I agree, especially as the expected economies of scale evaporate

They thought they'd be building lots of these, not just in China but in other countries as well.
Without the economies of scale, the costs go up - and other headaches like waste disposal etc.
Then whistle-blowers come forward, and grass-roots common-sense opposition takes hold.