China’s rail disaster – a prelude to nuclear disaster?

The breadth of Chinese ambitions to indigenize foreign technologies and scale them for mass deployment has simply outpaced its ability to plan, operate and staff these complex undertakings in a safe and sustainable manner. This is true in the case of high-speed rail, and it threatens to become the overarching storyline for the country’s nuclear energy program.

Wenzhou Train Crash Highlights Risks of China’s Nuclear Program Epoch Times, July 29, 2011 by ML COULD A TECHNOLOGY mishap akin to Saturday’s deadly train crash near Wenzhou, China happen at one of China’s 40 operating or planned nuclear power reactors?….. Experts are attributing China’s high-speed rail woes to its policies of adapting foreign technologies without the means to adequately operate and maintain them.

The risky strategy isn’t just being used by China’s Ministry of Railways, it’s also the foundation of the country’s nuclear power program.

Kevin Jianjun Tu and David Livingston warn in a Jamestown Foundation report:

The accident is a “canary in the coal mine”, as it were, for a much larger structural challenge facing China. The breadth of Chinese ambitions to indigenize foreign technologies and scale them for mass deployment has simply outpaced its ability to plan, operate and staff these complex undertakings in a safe and sustainable manner. This is true in the case of high-speed rail, and it threatens to become the overarching storyline for the country’s nuclear energy program.

In order to meet its 2020 targets, Beijing has pushed forward with ambitious nuclear plans, aiming to quadruple (or more) its current operational capacity of 10.8 GW (gigawatts). China adapts nuclear technologies from France, Canada, Russia, and the United States, but, the report says:

From the perspectives of design standardization, operation safety and ease of maintenance, the existence of too many types of nuclear reactors is considered a very risky approach to deploying nuclear power generation technology in any given country.

In response to Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, China’s nuclear program is putting more of its money into newer, untested technologies that are intended to be electronically failsafe. However, the Jamestown Foundation notes:

No amount of technical innovation can eliminate the risk of human-induced errors associated with the design, construction, operation, maintenance, decommissioning and disaster response of nuclear power plants. … No matter how theoretically sound newer-generation nuclear technologies appear, such technologies may never have been sufficiently tested in any part of the world. All newer-generation nuclear technologies still impose significant risks in terms of design experience, construction safety, and operational reliability.

Doesn’t matter how great the technology is, human-induced errors are always a possibility, and the lack of training exacerabates the potential for those hazards.

The Washington-based think-tank’s dire warning:

If Beijing resumes its massive nuclear expansion plan without paying adequate attention to lessons drawn from the failures of its railway safety, any major nuclear accident in one of China’s increasingly numerous reactors could create shockwaves that are difficult for China’s vulnerable political system to tackle….

Wenzhou Train Crash Highlights Risks of China’s Nuclear Program | EYE ON CHINA: Politics, society, economy