Nuclear power in China

In March 2007 the Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Steven Chu told a U.S. Senate Commitee on Finance that


 * "China is also looking at nuclear power as a means to reduce its dependence on foreign sources of energy. But, nuclear power remains a minor energy form in China. Currently, generation capacity totals 7.6 GW out of a total 622 GW nationwide, or just a little over 1% of the total. China has another 4.2 GW under construction, to be completed by 2012, and by 2020, China hopes to bring 40 GW total into operation, providing just 3 to 4% of electricity supply in that year. This very aggressive plan, requiring the commissioning of over 2 GW of new capacity every year to 2020, can do very little to offset the growth in coal use for power generation. In 2006 alone, China installed a total of 102 GW of new power generation capacity, of which 90 GW was coal-fired (mentioned earlier). In contrast, 2 GW of nuclear power capacity is expected to come online in 2007."

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