China commissions first-of-its-kind nuclear reactor

China has begun commercial operations at the world’s first fourth-generation nuclear power plant, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The 2-GW Shidaowan project located in the Shandong province consists of a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor that can purportedly maintain a safe state and avoid meltdown or radioactive leaks even with complete loss of cooling capacity.

The facility uses a modular design, which can be constructed off site. These types of projects have a maximum capacity of 3 GW and are intended for use in remote areas to generate power for heavy industry.

The technology was jointly developed by power generation company China Huaneng Group, Tsinghua University and China National Nuclear Corporation.

The project involved more than 500 companies, with 93.4% of the material used in the project being domestically sourced.

Construction began on the project in December 2012 and generated power for the first time in December 2021.

China has set a goal to produce 10% of its power generation from nuclear sources by 2035 and 18% by 2060.

However, the country failed to reach its 2020 target of having installed nuclear capacity of 58 GW.

More than 20 nations around the world including the USA, the UK, France and Japan recently pledged to triple global nuclear power generation capacity by 2050 at the COP28 event held this week in Dubai, UAE.

According to the World Nuclear Association, tripling global nuclear power by 2050 will involve adding 40 GW of nuclear power generation capacity per year until 2050.