China starts building third-generation reactors
20/04/2009 14:59 BEIJING, April 20 (RIA Novosti) - China has started building its first third-generation pressurized-water nuclear reactors with advanced U.S. technology, national media said on Monday.
The reactors, located in Sanmen in the Zhejiang Province, will be the first in the world to use the AP1000 technologies developed by Westinghouse Electric Company, the Global Times newspaper said.
An agreement between China's State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation and Westinghouse was concluded in July 2007. According to the deal, China will buy four third-generation pressurized water reactors from Westinghouse and later build its own reactors under a technology transfer agreement.
The first two reactors will be put into operation in 2013 and in 2014. The Sanmen plant will have six reactors.
China currently has 11 nuclear reactors at six plants, all on the east coast, with combined capacity of 9.1 GW, which satisfies only 1.3% of the country's energy demands.
According to the newspaper, "of the 11 reactors, three use domestic technologies, two are equipped with Russian technology and four with French technologies, and two are Canadian-designed. All the reactors employ second-generation nuclear power technologies."
China plans to have 40 GW of installed nuclear power capacity on its mainland by 2020 to satisfy its growing demand for electricity, and reduce its dependence on coal-fired power plants.
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