"Under plans already announced, China intends to spend $50 billion to
build 32 nuclear plants by 2020. Some analysts say the country will
build 300 more by the middle of the century. That's not much less than
the generating power of all the nuclear plants in the world today.
By that point, the Chinese economy is expected to be the world's
largest, and the idea that it may get most of its electricity from
nuclear fission is being met with both optimism and concern. Nuclear
power plants, unlike those that run on fossil fuels, release few
greenhouse gases. But they produce waste that can be dangerously
radioactive for thousands of years.
...
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology report said China may have to
add as many as 200 nuclear power plants by 2050 to meet its needs.
Academics from China's leading technical university, Tsinghua
University, said the country might need more, equivalent to the output
of 300 plants.
In comparison, the United States has just more than 100 operating
nuclear plants. Nuclear power has effectively been on hold in the United
States since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania,
but, with encouragement from the Bush administration, companies are
thinking about ordering new plants.
...
In the desert of Central Asia, China is planning its own version of
Yucca Mountain, albeit without serious opposition. Some local leaders
have protested the Beishan Mountain disposal project, but their concerns
have been muted.
The Beishan Mountains are a lonely outpost, with the closest permanent
residents more than 60 miles away. The only people who venture here are
nomadic Mongolian herdsmen with goats and camels. They move from one
small oasis to another in what is otherwise a desolate, gray desert for
hundreds of miles around. The only signs of the nuclear waste site to
come are the dark tents that scientists put up and take down as they
test rock layers to find the best place for disposal..."
Source: Washington Post, May 29, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/3c6fo6
