China seeks united front in reactor export push

China's domestic nuclear rivalries are spilling overseas as state-owned rivals jostle to promote their reactor designs despite Beijing's efforts to present a united front.

China's State Council, or cabinet, this month formally approved the first Hualong 1 reactor, to be built in coastal Fujian Province. Successfully constructing the Hualong 1 will bring China into the elite club of countries exporting reactors. China National Nuclear Corp already has agreements to build six reactors in Pakistan but a framework agreement to build a Hualong 1 reactor in Argentina would be the first overseas example of China's indigenous prowess.

"This project will change the environment for our indigenous reactors and will promote the national strategy of 'going out' with the nuclear industry," Xing Ji, CNNC vice-general manager, said last week.

China plans to complete eight reactors this year. It has 26 under construction, as part of its programme to develop 58GW of nuclear generating capacity by 2020.

A four-year suspension of new approvals after the meltdown of a tsunami-hit reactor in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011 resulted in a 7 per cent dip in nuclear investment in China last year, to Rmb56.9bn ($9.2bn).

The delay allowed regulators to make Chinese-designed "third-generation" reactors a priority that could eventually represent the Chinese industry overseas. Critics say China's plans to beef up nuclear power generation at home would be better served by constructing familiar second-generation plants.

"We tend to be more interested in new things and lack enthusiasm for the old, but in the nuclear industry we must balance the two," warned Li Ganjie, vice-minister of the environment.

To promote the national interest, Beijing ordered its two top nuclear companies to work together on international projects. CNNC has already muscled in on the proposed investment by its chief rival, China General Nuclear Power Corp, in the Hinkley Point reactor proposed for the UK county of Somerset by French developer EDF.

Hualong 1 is supposed to represent combined design efforts by CNNC and CGN. But its booth at a nuclear exhibition in Beijing this month made it clear that the Hualong 1 that CNNC is building in Fujian is its own design, better known to the industry as ACP1000.

CGN for its part is marketing a version of Hualong 1 that differs slightly from CNNC's. CGN hopes to build its Hualong 1 at the Bradwell site on the UK's Essex coast, where it expects to be the controlling shareholder.

"Broadly speaking, they are the same. But there are some differences," says Xian Chunyu, deputy president of China Nuclear Power Design Co, an institution that reports to CGN.

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The fig leaf of the harmonised name makes it harder for outsiders to judge the performance of the Hualong 1 design and components as prototypes are built. One confused industry official said: "We have to look at which site is being built. Then we know which design it is, CNNC's Hualong 1 or CGN's Hualong 1."

Hualong 1 was not always China's anointed export design. The state council last year approved construction of the first AP1400, adapted from Westinghouse's AP1000 design, at Shandong Province's Shidaowan site. Westinghouse granted China the right to export similarly configured reactors that were either 40 per cent larger or 40 per cent smaller.

Four Westinghouse reactors are under construction in China but teething problems with a pump have delayed their completion. Those delays allowed CNNC to promote the Hualong 1 over the AP1400 design.

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