nuclear-news

Nuclear marketing going ahead in China and India, anyway

in China, which has the world’s most ambitious nuclear expansion plans, a vice minister of environment, Zhang Lijun, said on Saturday that Japan’s difficulties would not deter his nation’s nuclear rollout…..The United States has lobbied extensively to open India’s nuclear power market to American industry. Indian and American officials spent more than five years negotiating a nuclear energy agreement that was blessed by both governments and international nuclear agencies.

Emerging economies move ahead with nuclear plans, New York Times, by Heather Timmons and Vikas Bajaj, 15 March 11, NEW DELHI — Despite Japan’s crisis, India and China and some other energy-ravenous countries say they plan to keep using their nuclear power plants and building new ones.

The Japanese disaster has led some energy officials in the United States and in industrialized European nations to think twice about nuclear expansion. And if a huge release of radiation worsens the crisis, even big developing nations might reconsider their ambitious plans. But for now, while acknowledging the need for safety, they say their unmet energy needs give them little choice but to continue investing in nuclear power.
And in China, which has the world’s most ambitious nuclear expansion plans, a vice minister of environment, Zhang Lijun, said on Saturday that Japan’s difficulties would not deter his nation’s nuclear rollout.

With those two countries driving the expansion — and countries from elsewhere in Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East also embracing nuclear power in response to high fossil fuel prices and concerns about global warming — the world’s stock of 443 nuclear reactors could more than double in the next 15 years, according to the World Nuclear Association, an industry trade group….

The United States has lobbied extensively to open India’s nuclear power market to American industry. Indian and American officials spent more than five years negotiating a nuclear energy agreement that was blessed by both governments and international nuclear agencies.

That deal, completed last August, is considered one of Mr. Singh’s major foreign policy successes and a cornerstone of his Congress Party’s pledge to help India’s economic growth.

But the pact included an unusual liability clause that makes nuclear power plant suppliers, not just operators, liable if accidents occur.

Despite American pressure to change that provision, the Japan disaster could encourage Indian legislators to keep it in place.

G.E. and Westinghouse have said they will stay out of the Indian nuclear market unless the country changes its liability law…..http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/business/energy-environment/15power.html

March 15, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, India, marketing