The Russian-Ukrainian war and the US and the West’s sanctions on Russia’s energy have triggered a surge in global energy prices. Nuclear power generation, which has been neglected by Western countries for many years, is on the rise.
A recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) said that China and Russia are dominating the market for new nuclear reactors as soaring energy prices open up new opportunities for nuclear power. Although 70% of the world’s existing installed nuclear power capacity currently comes from developed countries, since 2017, 27 of the 31 nuclear reactors under construction around the world have been designed by China or Russia. is losing market leadership.
The United States was originally the largest country in nuclear energy, with the largest number of nuclear reactors in the world. In terms of the number of global nuclear reactors in mid-2021, the total number of nuclear reactors in the United States ranked first with 93, France with 56, China with 52, and Russia with 38. ranked fourth. But China is the country with the largest increase in nuclear reactors in the past decade, with an increase of 39. The International Energy Agency predicts that China will surpass the United States in the number of nuclear reactors in 2023.
Matt Bowen, a research scholar at Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy Policy, said that China’s nuclear energy technology is developing rapidly, and the level of nuclear power plant construction is likely to surpass that of the United States. China has the most advanced technology for large light water reactors, the AP1000, which they loaded and operated earlier than the United States.
As the world grapples with the global energy crisis, nuclear power can help countries safely transition to an energy mix dominated by renewables, the IEA report said. The International Energy Agency points out that global nuclear power capacity needs to double over the next three decades to achieve the twin goals of net-zero carbon emissions and energy independence.
China has also vigorously exported nuclear power technology. Since 2013, it has proposed a nuclear power “going out” strategy, which has been promoting nuclear power generation in conjunction with the “Belt and Road” development plan.
In Pakistan, the “Hualong No. 1” reactor “Karachi No. 2” built by China National Nuclear Corporation was put into commercial operation last year, and “Karachi No. 3” also passed the inspection in April this year. The two nuclear power plant projects cost a total of $9.59 billion, and China agreed to provide Pakistan with a $6.5 billion loan for the two projects.
In addition, in Argentina, China National Nuclear Corporation and Argentine Nuclear Power Corporation signed the construction contract of Argentina’s Atucha 3 nuclear power plant in February this year. The total investment of the Atucha 3 nuclear power plant is 8.3 billion US dollars. Argentina requires China to provide 100% financing.
The success of China’s nuclear power strategy of going global has sparked concerns that the United States will be “overtaken”. “Voice of America” raised a variety of questions:
The debt trap. The Voice of America, citing unnamed former officials, said there was concern that developing countries might end up in a largely unsustainable debt relationship with an alternative mechanism created by China through the Belt and Road project.
The problem is that developing countries lack electricity and cannot develop at all. China lends money to poor countries to build nuclear power plants, so that they have the basic conditions for economic development. What’s the problem?
Second, geopolitical considerations. “Voice of America” said that for any country, the development of nuclear energy will inevitably bring security concerns. When a country formulates new nuclear energy projects, it will introduce China’s safety culture. The report also questioned whether China would have the same nuclear non-proliferation commitments as the United States.
However, this so-called security perspective seems to be the only concern of the United States, not of the countries that use nuclear energy. Moreover, the US export of nuclear submarine production capacity to Australia is itself nuclear proliferation.
3. Miniaturization of nuclear power. “Voice of America” pointed out that with the development trend of miniaturization of nuclear reactors, the United States can build cheaper small modular reactors (SMRs) to compete with China. In December 2021, companies such as General Electric of the United States signed a letter of intent for cooperation with Poland to build a BWRX-300 modular small reactor in Poland.
The problem is that to build a reactor of the same quality, the United States must be more expensive than China. The United States has turned to some sympathetic countries to sell small reactors, but it is just breaking down the budget to make it easier for them to eat. These small reactors are not cost-effective.
The conclusion is that the Sino-US nuclear power industry dispute, the United States can not fight once morest China.
Facing the skyrocketing price of natural gas and other energy sources in Hong Kong, electricity bills will inevitably rise. Hong Kong is close to the water and should negotiate with the state to use more nuclear power. In 2013, natural gas accounted for 21% and nuclear power accounted for 22%. By 2020, natural gas had risen to 48%, and nuclear and renewable energy combined 28%. The Environment and Ecology Bureau estimates that Hong Kong’s electricity consumption will rise from 43 billion kWh last year to regarding 50 billion kWh next year. In the future, local electricity demand will be huge. If more nuclear power can be used to absorb the increase in electricity consumption, the increase in electricity bills can be controlled.
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Lu Yongxiong
