Nuclear Energy in China

Introduction

Fig. 1: Nuclear energy consumption in China. [2] (Source: P. Patel)

China is the largest energy consumer and producer as it needs to provide the worlds most populous country with energy. [1] As the population of China increases, the country is expecting an increase in energy demand. [1] In particular, Chinas energy demand rose by 2.1% in 2020. [2] This was the largest increase in energy demand globally as very few countries grew their energy demand in 2020. [2] China was one of the very few countries to see an increase in carbon emissions, up 0.6% from the previous year. [2] They contributed towards 31% of the worlds total carbon emissions in 2020. [2] Coal is the largest contributor to these carbon emissions as it accounted for about 58% of Chinas total energy consumption. [2] Thus, the government has been proponents of supporting clean energy sources such as nuclear energy. [1]

Nuclear Energy in China

Nuclear power generation by the Chinese increased by 4.7% in 2020, compared to a 3.7% decline globally. [2] The consumption of nuclear energy has been rapidly increasing in China the past few years as seen in Fig. 1. In 2020, the nuclear energy consumption in China was 3.25 EJ (3.25 × 10¹⁸ Joules) compared to the world consuming 23.98 EJ (2.398 × 10¹⁹ Joules). [2] This accounts for 13.56% of the world's nuclear energy consumption coming from China in 2020, up from 12.47% in 2019. [2]

Recent Developments

Uranium is typically used to fuel nuclear power plants for fission. Uranium often has to be imported from other countries and can potentially be exhausted if Uranium reserves run low. [3] Thorium is a potential replacement China has been looking into. Thorium is a weakly radioactive metal which naturally occurs in rocks and does not have much industrial use. [3] It is a good alternative for China as it is a waste product from Chinas mining industry and generates less long- lived radioactive waste compared to traditional reactors. [3] Specifically, these nuclear reactors would have molten salts instead of having water circulating. [3] This project launched in 2011 and currently the molten salt reactor is designed to produce 2 megawatts of thermal energy. [3] Currently, China is investigating its abilities of building larger reactors on a greater scale.

Conclusion

Overall, nuclear energy is gaining strong traction in China and is a very promising source of energy to a country that has the largest energy demand in the world. Advancements such as molten salt reactors can potentially further improve the outlook of nuclear energy in China.

© Pujan Patel. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.

References

[1] "Country Analysis Executive Summary: China," U.S. Energy Information Administration, 30 Sep 20.

[2] "BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2021," British Petroleum, June 2021.

[3] S.Mallapaty, "China Prepares to Test Thorium-Fuelled Nuclear Reactor," Nature 597, 311 (2021).