China could speed up nuclear power expansion
6 July 2007
China will accelerate construction of 30 new nuclear power plants over the next 20 years in order to ease the environmental pressure caused by coal fuel plants, said Zhai Qi, the vice chief secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Committee on Sustainable Development, CBN reports (in Chinese). According to China's medium- and long-term plan up to 2020, it will complete nuclear units with an annual capacity of 260,000 to 280,000 gigawatt-hours. With the new plants, nuclear power will account for 4-6% of the country's total installation capacity. China attaches great importance to developing nuclear power as a "green power", Zhai added.