Any student of economics wondering how important reliable and affordable electricity is to economic growth and industrialisation, need only look at China. The CCP may not be the flavour of the month at the moment, but its role in China’s economic success can’t be dismissed so readily.
In less than 25 years, China has dragged hundreds of millions out of agrarian poverty by launching itself into the modern industrial age, dominating manufacturing of all manner of household kit and appliances, improving living standards beyond the imagination of the previous generation.
China’s success as an industrial power and manufacturing powerhouse is down to one single policy: a focus on providing abundant supplies of cheap and reliable electricity.
The hundreds of new coal-fired plants under construction evidence China seriousness about serious power generation. So too, does its efforts to build the world’s largest fleet of nuclear power plants.
The team from JoNova take a look at how serious China is about powering itself into a new nuclear age.
China poised to be the largest global nuclear power by 2030
Jo Nova Blog
Jo Nova
1 September 2020
President Xi will be delighted that so many industrial competitors are sabotaging their electrical grids with erratic, unreliable solar and wind power. Right now, The People’s Republic of China is the biggest platform in the world for the deployment of nuclear power technology. In twenty years, China has increased its fleet of nuclear power reactors from three to 48, with 11 more plants under construction. That means it will soon surpass France which has 57:
By the end of the twentieth century, France’s mature nuclear energy industry operated over fifty nuclear power reactors to supply about 80 percent of the electricity consumed by its population of 60 million people.1 By contrast, when China connects its fiftieth nuclear power reactor to the grid, which is expected in a few years, China’s nuclear power plants will contribute only about 5 percent of the electricity demanded by its population of 1.4 billion.
At the moment the USA has the largest nuclear generation in the world, with more than double the production of the nearest competitor — France. But China began stockpiling uranium in 2007, and in the last five year plan released in 2016 — China aimed to double nuclear power by the end of 2020. It looks like falling short this year — but by 2030 plans to outdo everyone including the USA
China poised to overtake US in nuclear power by 2030
by Kotaro Fukaroka, Nikkei Asian Review.
TOKYO — China is on track to surpass the U.S. as the world’s top producer of nuclear energy as early as 2030, reflecting hesitance to build new capacity in Japan and Western nations even as emerging economies move ahead.
The trend reflects diverging approaches to nuclear power after the March 2011 Fukushima meltdowns in Japan. While the U.S., Europe and Japan grew risk averse in response to public fears, emerging nations have been keener. Indonesia and Philippines are among the countries dusting off old plans for reactors. And China and Russia have emerged as the main suppliers.
Nuclear Belt and Road:
China is competing with Russia to provide nuclear power in strategic deals, and already has agreements or MOU’s with Pakistan, Romania, Argentina, UK, Iran, Turkey, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Sudan, Armenia, and Kazakhstan. There are fingers in many pies.
China would also have a dominant role in the nuclear industry.
The bigger China’s nuclear power footprint grows, the more say China will have in global nuclear governance. If China in the coming decades becomes the leading nuclear power country, it will demand and obtain a commensurate role in members’ decisionmaking concerning multilateral technical rulemaking compacts and organizations, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). If China closes the nuclear fuel cycle, global governance mechanisms related to nuclear security and nonproliferation may be adjusted to reflect that accomplishment.
David Archibald calculates that China is burning through its coal quickly, but obviously, they are well prepared for the next step to nuclear.
There are 451 nuclear plants on the planet. Australia has largest uranium reserves in the world but has no nuclear power plants. Given the inevitable rise of nuclear power one way or the other — perhaps we should dig up and burn our 300 years supply of coal while it is still worth digging up?
If I were President Xi, I’d be donating to Greenpeace, funding The Greens, and sponsoring Greta to help hobble the competition.
Jo Nova Blog
STOP THESE THINGS 
I live in the only city in western Canada with its own clean green hydro electric generation and distribution making huge profits. They put solar panels at the dam, a political stunt dishonest, deceptive from an unethical phony engineers report showing it would payback. You could buy a 25 year contract for the power of a solar panel, get your warm fuzzy feeling, and all other hydro customers paid full retail for that so that money could be distributed among them, churches/co-ops/eco wackos, while cleaner greener water that would have made that power and profits spills down the river. We have 22 years left to pay while the solar panels age, along with stolen copper, solar panels and added security cameras. The power of green washing and result of the unethical hydro engineer presenting a consultants business case. The hydro engineer just left, and left us with this dinosaur of waste.
Robert Zubrin’s 2013 book mentioned in the Into The Black Post, is relevant to the propaganda being carried out against China. Being part of populist politics much of the public believe it all without understanding the difference between building for the future or to current requirements that then cause disruption.
It also explains why Attenborough is an over-populationist Malthusian.
Just as there’s little comprehension that the ilk of Elon Musk destroys the environment while being lauded as its saviour – getting mega rich on taxpayer money is the motive, not saving or making ordinary people’s lives better.
Still we can only keep plugging away sowing seeds in hope that the desert blooms.
Queensland’s ALP saw three politicians resign today like rats deserting a sinking ship, in the lead-up to the October state election – perhaps they’re starting to think renewables are a looser. As is the LNP’s Bradfield Scheme that nuclear energy would make obsolete, along with more environmentally destructive big dam projects.
Some time ago STT referred to NLP Hinkler MP Keith Pitt as an electrical engineer. I may be wrong but he started as an apprentice electrician, didn’t progress further than tradesman, became a cane farmer, then an MP.
Animals decline according to David Attenborough – will he mention the catastrophic killing of birds by windfarms as well as whales in the sea by offshore windfarms.
Can we highlight the damage done by so called renewables?
Sylvia Priest 12 Murray Road Wokingham Berks RG41 2TB
Reblogged this on Jaffer's blog.
There is no need for Xi to fund the Greens and other saboteurs, the great charitable trusts of the US are donating hundreds of millions per annum. While the tax-funded predatory regulating agencies in the west tie us up in red and green tape.
An important message but to be clear it was not cheap power that dragged millions out of poverty. It was a bit of capitalism allowed as a desperate expedient to address the devastation of the socialism of the great leap forward and the chaos of the cultural revolution. Partial private property rights for the peasants boosted food production, tolerance of small-scale trading created flourishing enteprises that in some cases grew very big, and then there were the free trade zones on the coast. Nothing to do with the official doctrines of the Party.
Take away the power, they would still be all working on collective farms.