China wants 100 Westinghouse AP1000 operating or under construction by 2020

Tweet China wants to have 100 of Westinghouse Electric Co.'s nuclear reactors in operation or under construction by 2020 -- more than double what was anticipated. The Westinghouse AP1000 are being scaled up to 1700 MW and some of the ones already being built for China are 1250MW designs, which will be followed by 1400MW designs and then the 1700MW versions. If China follows through on these and other nuclear plans they should have 200GW of nuclear power completed by 2025. This would be double what the USA has now.

H/T Idaho Samizdat

Chinese officials shared those plans with Westinghouse during a mid-May meeting.

FURTHER READING
Uranium reserves have increased 17% since the last Red Book report The new economical reserve estaimate worldwide is now around 5.5 million tonnes of uranium. the category of uranium that could be expected to be found based on the geologic characteristics of known resources has grown by 500,000 tonnes to 10.5 million tonnes. The data comes from Uranium 2007: Resources, Production and Demand - often known as the Red Book - published every two years by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). IAEA projections for the future of nuclear power see it expanding from 372 GWe today to 509-663 GWe by 2030. Such growth would cause an increase in uranium demand from 66,500 tonnes per year to between 94,000 and 122,000 tonnes. The NEA concluded that "currently identified resources are adequate to meet this expansion," noting that advanced reactors and the reprocessing and recycling of uranium "could increase the long-term availability of nuclear energy from a century to thousands of years."

Russia is accelerating its nuclear reactor plans and construction as well

France will be ordering a second new nuclear reactor

Those in favor of more nuclear power in Europe now almost equals those opposed and over one third of opposition would vanish with an understanding of waste solutions.

China is also planning to factory mass produce smaller high temperature reactors

This continues to show that Amory Lovins is full of crap about any nuclear illusion.

The nuclear build rate is accelerating around the world

The supply chain issues are being addressed, such as the limitations on large forgings

Constructing a lot of nuclear power plants is not resource constrained

Staffing and training issues can be resolved with better management and more automation

Nuclear power is an important part of any sensible energy plan