Recently, two nuclear reactors designed by Europe and the United States were built and put into operation in China's Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant. They were designed by the French and German companies, the 1,400 MW EPR reactor at the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant, and designed by American companies. 1,117 MW AP1000 reactor at Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant.
The AP1000 of the Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant can be regarded as one of the slowest nuclear reactors. During its decades-long design process, numerous construction defects, construction delays and cost overruns have occurred, which not only slowed down the progress but also enabled developers. It took a heavy price. Today, the AP1000 unit is finally built and put into operation. Although it uses advanced safety technologies such as passive cooling and EPR aircraft crash shells, it is still too late in time.
Both sets of reactors are later than planned, and there are still several months to achieve full commercial operation, but their real problem lies in the operational difficulties of the design company behind.
The picture shows that after the completion of 9 years of construction work, the world's first AP1000 unit was successfully connected to the grid. (Source: SNPTC)
The planned delay is commonplace in the nuclear power market. For example, the Korean nuclear reactor originally scheduled to be put into operation in the United Arab Emirates last year was recently postponed to the local grid by the end of 2019 or early 2020. But the AP1000 and EPR in China are completely different. Different questions.
The AP1000 is designed to be passively cooled during unplanned downtime, theoretically avoiding accidents like the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. However, due to construction problems, especially in the dual reactor power plants built in Georgia and South Carolina, the AP1000 Developer Westinghouse (United States) declared bankruptcy last year. Although it invested $9 billion, Westinghouse eventually abandoned the AP1000 reactor being built in South Carolina because of operational problems and chose to keep Georgia's construction operations. Westinghouse is located in Georgia. Launched in 2012, it is expected to be completed by the end of 2022, and construction costs will be $1 billion to $25 billion higher than the budget.
The EPR, designed by a European company, uses a double-layer concrete shroud that resists the impact of the aircraft in strength. But the delay in the construction of the EPR power plant in Europe in 2015 led to the disintegration of the French nuclear power company Areva. Although after Areva was received by the French power company A Finnish-based EPR project, co-operated by France and Finland, was originally planned to be completed in 4 years in 2005, but the actual operation has been delayed. In June this year, the Finnish company announced that the start of construction will be postponed from May 2019. The second half of September.
The picture shows Units 1 and 2 of China's Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant (Source: CNNC)
It must be said that the two troubled projects, EPR and AP1000, have shown that companies in the US and Europe are losing their nuclear reactor construction and management capabilities. EU Energy Advisor, French nuclear power expert Mycle Schneider said: 'Two of the four US AP1000s It’s no coincidence that Finland’s EPR is much earlier than China’s power plants, but it’s no coincidence. China’s strong workforce can carry out the next project as soon as a project is completed, so their construction technology It will get better and better, but companies in Europe and North America have not built a reactor in recent decades. '
The nuclear powers in Europe and the United States have seen this loss of nuclear power as a threat. The White House mentioned this issue in a memo in May and directed Energy Minister Rick Perry to force utilities to be unprofitable from the US nuclear power plants and Coal power plants purchase electricity. The memorandum also pointed out that the 'overall US nuclear industry', including nuclear weapons and naval ship propulsion technology, needs strong private nuclear industry as a support to further develop.
In addition, 75 former US military, industry and academics also sent a letter to Energy Minister Rick Perry last month to highlight the issue, citing Trump's 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (2018 Nuclear Posture Review) A statement on the inability of the United States to produce nuclear-enriched uranium. The letter reads: 'With a strong, booming private nuclear energy market, rebuilding US nuclear capabilities will become easier and more economical.'
Mycle Schneider believes that the current dependence of the nuclear energy industry on China is putting the nuclear energy industry in other parts of the world into an unfavorable situation. If the plan is to go to China, the global nuclear industry is in a downward trend.
Schneider also believes that since China will start a new power plant in 18 months, the gap between China and other countries will be further widened.
For more than a decade, the AP1000 has been considered a major replacement for mainstream reactors in China. Most of the previous generations of China's operating reactors used French designs from the 1970s. Areva's EPR is currently an alternative for China. First, the government may now wait for a period of time after the first batch of reactors have been in operation to decide whether to start construction of a new reactor.
Nuclear energy has been lagging behind solar and wind energy for a long time. As Schneider pointed out, the new nuclear power generation capacity for access to the grid worldwide in 2017 was only 3.3 GW (including three in China, Chinese companies in Pakistan). The four built), this figure is dwarfed by the fact that there are 53 GW of solar power in China alone.