China touts success of its first home-grown nuclear reactor

FUJIAN (The Straits Times/ANN) -- In a coastal province known for fishery and trade, a grey, dome-topped, reinforced concrete building is the repository of China’s growing ambitions to export nuclear power.

The building – strong enough to withstand a commercial plane crash – houses the Hualong One, China’s first home-grown, third-generation nuclear reactor, which came online in March 2022.
Known as Unit 5 of the Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant, it is one of two reactors – Units 5 and 6 – that form the demonstration project.
China has joined the US, Japan, France, Russia and South Korea as countries that have developed commercial third-generation reactors since such designs for this clean form of energy began to be deployed in the 1990s. The US and Russia are leading exporters of nuclear reactors.
Third-generation reactors have better safety features, shorter construction times and longer lifespans – typically 60 years – than their earlier counterparts. Second- and third-generation reactors form the majority of nuclear reactors in operation today.
While the Hualong One is not seen as a technological game changer, and building costs have yet to come down significantly, analysts said it could make for a competitive export to developing countries, especially if financing is included.
But geopolitics will still figure strongly in potential customers’ considerations, they added. The US has accused China of using reactor sales as a way of fostering energy dependence on Beijing, and has discouraged other countries from these deals.
Still, American-led tech restrictions on China, such as on cutting-edge semiconductors, are often viewed by China as attempts to hold back its development.
On a media trip to Fujian organised by the All-China Journalists Association in late October, Chinese officials spoke of the Hualong One’s reliability, safety record and China’s construction prowess as its main advantages in the international market.
The Hualong One is jointly developed by state-owned giants China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and China General Nuclear Power Group. The demonstration project at Fuqing city was built relatively quickly, in 69 months, starting in 2015. The target for subsequent units is 60 months, or five years.
The Hualong One is the culmination of more than 30 years of the country’s experience with nuclear power, since China’s first – and now largest – nuclear power plant was built in Qinshan in Zhejiang province in 1985. That plant was designed and built by China, although with foreign components involved.
The third-generation reactor is a source of pride for China. Senior nuclear simulation instructor Cao Yuhua vividly remembers the moment she received a WeChat message on March 25, 2022, that Unit 5 had turned operational. She is Hualong One’s first woman operator, who joined the project in 2014.
“I believe that on that day, everyone who was part of the Hualong One project would have felt gratitude and pride,” she told reporters on October 23 during the media tour.
Nuclear energy is regarded as a key source of clean energy for China, even as nuclear accounted for just 4.8 percent of its total power generation in 2023. Rapid construction over the last decade means that China now has 102 nuclear reactors, with 56 in operation and 46 under construction.
Of the 102, 30 are Hualong One units. Four are in operation – two at Fuqing and two in Guangxi autonomous region – and 26 are under construction.
Hualong Nuclear Power Technology, set up in 2016 to promote the Hualong One overseas, said the Fuqing project has supplied more than 300 billion kWh of clean electricity domestically, equivalent to saving 85 million tonnes of coal.
But overseas, China’s track record on the Hualong One is modest. Pakistan, a close Chinese partner, is the first, and so far only, importer of the Hualong One, with two units that began commercial operation in 2021 and 2022.
A 2022 agreement with Argentina to build the Hualong One there has stalled. Other countries that were reportedly considering the reactor, such as Saudi Arabia, have not made definite commitments.
Data from 2022 showed that leading exporters Russia, the US and Sweden each commanded more than 16 percent of the nuclear reactor market, while China had a less than 2 percent share. This includes reactors, fuel elements and other machinery.
Fears over nuclear safety in the 2010s, fuelled by the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, coupled with Beijing’s accelerated drive for technological self-sufficiency, formed the backdrop for the development of the indigenous Hualong One.
Mr David Fishman, a senior manager specialising in the Chinese power sector at the Lantau Group economic consultancy, said that up until the 2010s, many countries had been planning to build a large variety of second- and third-generation reactors, including China.
But the catastrophic accident in Japan, following an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, caused China to pause approvals for new nuclear power plants for more than three years, until 2014.
The Fukushima accident also prompted China to cancel all plans to build any more second-generation reactors in favour exclusively of third-generation reactors, which have better safety performance.
The Hualong One’s design – like other later third-generation designs – is meant to be “Fukushima-proof” in preventing nuclear leakages.
Mr Fishman said the decision to build only third-generation reactors meant that China’s only options were to build imported AP1000s from American company Westinghouse or import EPRs from France’s Areva.
“Later, starting around 2016, the trade war and geopolitical tensions underlined the importance of developing an indigenous reactor tech,” he added, referring to the US-China rivalry.
China said at least 88 percent of the Hualong One is made domestically, including core technology such as steam generators and pressure vessels. This is expected to increase to 95 percent when mass production starts.

(Latest Update November 11, 2024)