China goes all-in on home grown tech in push for nuclear dominance
Source: Reuters
WORLD NEWS APRIL 17, 2019 / 1:32 AM / UPDATED 44 MINUTES AGO
China goes all-in on home grown tech in push for nuclear dominance
David Stanway
5 MIN READ
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China plans to gamble on the bulk deployment of its untested “Hualong One” nuclear reactor, squeezing out foreign designs, as it resumes a long-delayed nuclear program aimed at meeting its clean energy goals, government and industry officials said.
China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, was once seen as a “shop window” for big nuclear developers to show off new technologies, with Beijing embarking on a program to build plants based on designs from France, the United States, Russia and Canada.
But after years of construction delays, overseas models such as Westinghouse’s AP1000 and France’s “Evolutionary Pressurised Reactor” (EPR) are now set to lose out in favor of new localized technologies, industry experts and officials said.
China signed a technology transfer deal with the United States in 2006 that put the AP1000 at the “core” of its atomic energy program. It also pledged to use advanced third-generation technology in its safety review after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.
But by the time the world’s first AP1000 and EPR made their debuts in China last year, Chinese designs had become just as viable.
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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-nuclearpower-hualong/china-goes-all-in-on-home-grown-tech-in-push-for-nuclear-dominance-idUSKCN1RT0C0
