China to Develop Floating Nuclear Power Plants
By MICHAEL FORSYTHE

HONG KONG — All the radar systems, lighthouses, barracks, ports and airfields that China has set up on its newly built island chain in the South China Sea require tremendous amounts of electricity, which is hard to come by in a place hundreds of miles from the country’s power grid.

Beijing may have come up with a solution: floating nuclear power plants.

A state-owned company, China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, is planning to build a fleet of the vessels to provide electricity to remote locations including offshore oil platforms and the contentious man-made islands, the state-run newspaper Global Times reported on Friday.

The paper quoted an executive at the company, Liu Zhengguo, as saying that “demand is pretty strong” for the floating power stations, which would be built by one of its subsidiaries.

In January, Xu Dazhe, the director of the China Atomic Energy Authority, told reporters in Beijing that China was planning to develop offshore floating nuclear energy plants, saying they “must undergo a rigorous, scientific evaluation,” but also linking these to China’s desire to become a “maritime power.”

Mr. Xu said at the time that developing China’s nuclear power-generating capacity was part of the country’s five-year economic development plan, which runs through 2020. China has more civilian nuclear power stations under construction than any other country.

China would not be the first country to employ floating nuclear power plants. In the 1960s, the United States Army installed a nuclear reactor inside the hull of a World War II freighter to provide electricity for the Panama Canal Zone. And nuclear power has been on vessels since 1955, when the commanding officer of the Nautilus, an American submarine, sent word that the craft was “underway on nuclear power.” Since then, nuclear reactors have provided propulsion — and electrical power — for ships like American aircraft carriers and Russian icebreakers.

Typhoons regularly cross the South China Sea, and ships and submarines that run on nuclear power generally have the means to quickly sail away from a storm. It is unclear how mobile or seaworthy these reactor ships will be. Safety regulations for the seaborne reactors are being drawn up and reviewed, Global Times said, quoting Tang Bo, an official at China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration.

David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and the director of the Nuclear Safety Project for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that in the event of a major nuclear accident at a floating barge, like a meltdown of the reactor core, winds could carry radioactivity to large population centers.

“The floating nuke accident scenario also carries with it the potential for molten parts of the reactor core burning through the bottom of the barge to reach the water below,” Mr. Lochbaum wrote in an email. “The water is good for cooling, but not good for containment.”

In the 1970s, an industry consortium called Offshore Power Systems also had plans for floating nuclear power plants in the United States. An electric utility had ordered a plant that would have been moored outside Atlantic City. The facility, which would have been built in Florida, was canceled, Mr. Lochbaum said.

The Army’s floating nuclear reactor in the Panama Canal Zone provided power during the late 1960s and into the 1970s to the grid in what was then United States territory. But China would be placing floating atomic power stations at islands that until recently did not exist in seas claimed by several nations.

The artificial islands built by the Chinese in the past two years in disputed waters of the South China Sea have stoked tensions with neighbors, especially the Philippines and Vietnam, and prompted the United States to assert its right to transit the area freely by sailing navy ships close to the islands, often shadowed by Chinese vessels.

In February, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington reported that the Chinese were probably building radar facilities on several of the islands. That is in addition to airstrips capable of handling large jets like one on Fiery Cross Reef, harbors to berth seagoing vessels, lighthouses and large buildings such as barracks.

All that requires electricity, provided now by generators and augmented by limited solar and wind power, said Gregory B. Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at C.S.I.S.

Mr. Poling said it was too soon to tell how a possible deployment of the floating nuclear power stations would play out in the complicated politics of the South China Sea, though he said it was “potentially worrisome.”

“But it appears that the idea hasn’t gotten any farther than conceptualization yet, so we seem to have years to wait before we find out,” Mr. Poling wrote in an email.

A rendering of a possible Chinese floating nuclear power station was published on the English-language website of Global Times’s parent company, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, People’s Daily. The image showed the small ship or barge next to a pier, surrounded by what looked like floating ice.

430億人民幣！ 南海擬建20座浮動核電站

中國在核電站選址方面有了新的探索。環球時報報導，中船重工集團正耗資430億人民幣著手建造20座海上浮動核電站，日後可在有領土爭議的南海用於支援方案，未來每年可形成上百億的核動力裝備製造產值，同時帶動相關配套產業的發展。

報導指出，這些核動力平台可能「航向」偏遠地區，以穩定供電。負責設計並興建這些平台的中國船舶重工集團辦公廳主任劉正國說，該集團「正在加緊推動這項工程」。

劉正國說：「海上浮動核電站的發展是新興趨勢，該公司興建核電站的確切數量，端看市場需求。」

他另表示，需求「相當強勁」。然而，中國外交部發言人華春瑩則低調指出，這只是媒體的報導，她未聽過這些計畫。

今年1月，中國海洋石油總公司與中國廣核集團兩家國營能源企業針對外海石油及核電，簽署戰略合作框架協議。

另據香港媒體報導，中船重工集團目前正斥資30億籌畫國內首個海上浮動核電站的總裝工作，未來還計畫批量建造近20座海洋核動力平台，共耗資400億人民幣（約61億7600萬美元），也有媒體報導稱，這20座海上浮動核電站耗資600億人民幣（約92億6400萬美元）。

環球網報導，中船重工設立海洋核動力平台「國家能源科技重大示範工程」已獲國家發改委覆函，確定在總部位於遼寧葫蘆島市的渤船重工建造，並已召開論證會。

供應偏遠島嶼 能源添助力

中船重工科技部負責人稱，該海上浮動核電站投資約為30億元，建成後的40年內，透過售電可獲226億元收入。此外，為滿足渤海油田的能源需求，中船重工將建造近20座海洋核動力平台，預計每座投資約20億元，每年可形成上百億的核動力裝備製造產值，同時帶動相關配套產業的發展。

另據多維新聞報導，為盡快獲取項目開工資質，19日渤船組織遼寧省經信委、葫蘆(產品庫求購供應)島市經信委、代表室、中船重工核安全辦駐公司監督組、719研究所，召開了海洋核動力平台示範工程總裝建造廠址有關事宜論證會。

據悉，海上浮動核電站，是種小型的、可移動式的核電站，將陸上核電站的縮小版安裝在船舶上，既可為偏遠島嶼供應安全、有效的能源供給，也可為遠洋作業的海上石油、天然氣開採平台提供電力、熱力和淡水資源，有用電需求時將電站拉過來，不需要便可用船將電站拉走。另外，海上浮動堆不易受地震和海嘯影響，並可在極端事故中引海水入船體，阻止堆芯熔化進程。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/world/asia/china-nuclear-power-south-china-sea.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/china/20160425/c25chinanuclear/zh-hant/

2016-04-24 世界日報 中國新聞組