Britain Planning to Have Ten New Nuclear reactors by 2018 and China Prepares to Independently Build Six AP1000 Reactors

1. The British government wants to have 10 nuclear power plants online by 2018. They want the reactors to generate a quarter of Britain’s power, compared with 13 percent today.

2. China is building another six AP1000 reactors. These new units are to be the first built independently after the technology transfer that was part of Westinghouse’s contract.

The sites are Xian’ning, Hubei province, Tauhuajing in Hunan, and Pengze in Jiangxi. All have been given the go-ahead for final design and initial construction work, such as site clearance, for the first two reactors at each site. Main construction is set to start on all three sites around this time next year, with commercial operation following around 2015.

The AP1000 features modular construction and China has quickly set up specialised nuclear facilities to produce the very large modules – effectively creating a production line for nuclear power plants.