China imports gear for nuclear-power industry

Press, 23 April 1984, Page 10

China imports gear for nuclear-power industry

NZPA-Reuter Peking China is building its nuclear-power industry as fast as possible and will speed the process by importing equipment from abroad, says a leading Chinese official.

Professor Jiang Shengjie, president of the China Nuclear Society, told the New China News Agency that development would be in three stages with the first based on pressurised water reactors. Next would be fast breeder reactors due to come on stream during the next century. The final stage would be controlled fusion reactors, for which China already has advanced

experimental facilities, he said.

China has no operational nuclear-power plants but has started building one south of Shanghai and plans a second one near Hong Kong which will be built with foreign technology.

The Vice-Premier with responsibility for Energy, Li Peng, also told the agency that a leading policy group for China’s nuclear programme had been established under the State Council (cabinet). “China must develop its own nuclear industry because practice has proved that nuclear power is both safe and reliable,” Mr Li Peng said.

The first large contracts with British and French firms for a pressurised water reactor plant at Daya Bay near Hong Kong are expected soon. The project is due for completion in 1989.

Professor Jiang said that first generation plants would be sited in the industrialised coastal regions which now faced energy shortages. Transmission and transport problems have hindered energy supply to industrial bases from the often remote centres of China’s energy resources.

He said that China had mastered the technology of mining and smelting uranium, extracting isotopes, manufacturing nuclear fuel, and disposing of nuclear waste.

China had already built preliminary experimental equipment for nuclear fusion, he said.