todayonline.com
THE NEW YORK TIMES
November 23, 2015
The Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant, near Shenzhen, was the first civil nuclear power plant on China’s mainland when it began power operations in 1993. China now has 30 reactors and is considering 135 more. Photo: Bloomberg
HUBIN VILLAGE (China) — This placid, leafy hamlet tucked beside a dam in the countryside hardly seems like the next testing ground for China’s efforts to cut smog and greenhouse gases. But here, among cornfields and crumbling stone homes skirted by persimmon trees, the government intends to build a nuclear power plant.
“They want to build it here, right here,” said Mr Wang Jiuxing, a retired village official, tapping his foot outside a dilapidated general store, 870km west of Shanghai in China’s central Henan province. “They say all the preliminary work has been done.”
Hubin is one of dozens of sites across the country where officials have plans ready, awaiting further approval, to build atomic reactors over the next decade — an ambitious programme to expand the use of nuclear energy, which Beijing considers essential to weaning the Chinese economy off its reliance on coal-fired plants that churn out air pollution and carbon dioxide.
Ask villagers here what they think about the proposed plant, though, and talk quickly turns to the Communist government’s dismal record of industrial accidents, as well as the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Residents in Hubin will be resettled to new homes a few kilometres away, but many said that they would still feel threatened living so close to a nuclear station.
“It’s just not safe,” said Ms Liu Shimin, a farmer in her 20s, nursing a baby outside her home near the banks of the Yahe River. “We’ll always be wondering, ‘What if there’s a big accident, like that one in Japan?’ ”
Such fears are on the rise in China as the nation embarks on a new phase of nuclear power construction that could make it the world’s biggest producer of nuclear energy by 2030. To meet its goals, analysts say, China must add six to eight reactor units — a plant usually has several — every year over the coming decade, most likely including its first in inland provinces such as Henan and neighbouring Hubei.
China’s authoritarian government, adept at corralling public opinion, can ram through its plans over the objections of people such as Ms Liu.
But opponents say its closed, secretive political system is ill equipped to manage a rapid expansion of nuclear power, pointing to its struggle to prevent industrial disasters such as the chemical explosions in Tianjin in August that killed 173 people.
“The Chinese are beginning to wrestle with the same issues that Western countries were dealing with, concerning fear of the technology, transparency in decision making and trust of the authorities,” said Mr Mark Hibbs, an expert on nuclear issues at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who follows China.
To the government and many energy experts, China faces a choice: Build more nuclear plants, despite the public opposition and safety risks, or continue to rely on coal and accept the pollution and greenhouse gases that go with it.
Without expanding nuclear power, they say, it will be difficult if not impossible for President Xi Jinping to fulfil his pledge to stop China’s carbon emissions from growing by 2030 — a commitment made in a landmark climate change agreement with United States President Barack Obama last year. Mr Xi also pledged that so-called clean energy sources would account for 20 per cent of China’s total energy production by then.
“A lot is at stake here,” said Mr Hibbs. “If the Chinese don’t get it right, their entire plans for shifting the electricity generation system towards non-carbon sources would come under considerable stress.”
China already operates 30 nuclear power reactors, mostly along its east coast, accounting for 2.4 per cent of national electricity consumption. Twenty-one additional plants are under construction, and the World Nuclear Association counts 135 proposed reactors under serious consideration. By 2030, officials want nuclear power to generate 10 per cent of China’s electricity.
Up to now, China has built its reactors close to the coast, where water needed for cooling systems is plentiful and there are big cities nearby hungry for power. But the next phase is almost certain to push inland, and that has become a chief focus for opponents of the nuclear programme.
They argue that limited water supplies and poor radiation dispersal make the proposed inland sites more dangerous, and that the sites are more densely populated than places where reactors have been built away from the coast in countries such as the United States. They worry especially about the risk of radiation leaking into China’s biggest river, the Yangtze.
“If there’s an accident, the environmental impact from an inland nuclear station will be far more serious than one on the coast,” said Mr He Zuoxiu, a prominent retired physicist who is China’s most vocal opponent of nuclear energy. “Imagine if the Fukushima accident had happened on the course of the Yangtze River. Then how many people would have their food and water contaminated?”
Proponents of nuclear power in China say the proposed inland sites are not very different from those on the coast, and that the new reactors will be much safer than older models. They also argue that China’s nuclear safety administration is more effective than other regulators in the country, especially since the Fukushima disaster prompted Beijing to devote more resources to it.
“After Fukushima, they have thought about the lessons learned,” said Mr Gavin Liu, president of Asia for Westinghouse Electric, whose AP1000 reactor is a cornerstone of China’s nuclear plan. He added: “I think we’re going to see a more robust and reliable nuclear construction programme going to happen here.”
Opponents of nuclear power in China maintain that the country can achieve its clean energy goals without a nuclear building spree, by investing heavily in improving solar and wind power and by upgrading the power grid so it can send electricity more efficiently across vast distances.
They point to the deadly explosions in Tianjin, where hazardous chemicals were stored improperly at a facility close to residential areas, as an example of how lax regulation, graft and official obfuscation can undo government promises to put safety first.
“Those searing lessons must never be played out in a nuclear reactor accident,” Ms Wang Yinan, a researcher at a government think tank and influential critic of the nuclear plans, told the Chinese magazine Caixin last month.
“For our political stability, economic development and social order, that would be a weight too heavy to bear.”
Studies indicate that many Chinese oppose a nuclear plant near their homes, but support nuclear energy in principle. That support, though, reflects the government’s ability to control information and discourage debate, said Mr Arthur Mol, an environmental policy professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Ms Xuehua Zhang, a Chinese environmental policy researcher who has questioned plans to build more nuclear plants, especially inland, said: “Public participation in this decision-making process of whether and where to build nuclear power plants is extremely important.”
Mr Ning Li, dean of the School of Energy Research at Xiamen University in eastern China, who supports greater use of nuclear energy, said “not in my backyard” protests were on the rise.
“So far it hasn’t risen to the level of stopping nuclear, but in some areas it is slowing it down,” he said.
