China’s nuclear know-how

Posted: April 21, 2025

On Thursday 28^th November 2024, on the western shores of Dongshan Bay, China’s latest nuclear reactor was connected to the national grid. Zhangzhou 1, as it's called, joined 57 other operational reactors in the country, which together make China the world's second-largest producer of nuclear energy, behind only the U.S.

The first of those reactors started operating commercially in 1994. For context, France has switched on five reactors since then; the U.S., just four. The U.K. has managed one, and that was in 1995.

China’s formidable pace of construction shows no signs of slowing: according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, of the 61 nuclear reactors currently under construction around the world, 28 are located in China. That makes it by far the most active builder of nuclear reactors in the world (India, the second-most active, has just six reactors under construction).

In a recent report, the technology think tank ITIF also placed China ahead of other world leaders in reactor design, and likely "10 to 15 years ahead of the United States in its ability to deploy fourth-generation nuclear reactors at scale."

In 30 years, China’s nuclear industry has gone from emerging to pre-eminent. How has the country managed this remarkable feat—and where is it going next?

The Chinese government’s central role in the nuclear industry

Every five years, the Chinese government releases an updated economic development plan. The last two five-year plans both included ambitious goals around nuclear energy.

The thirteenth plan (2016–2020) pledged to roughly double the country’s operating capacity to 58 GW. The fourteenth (2021–2025) pledged 150 new reactors over the next 15 years, with a target capacity of 200 GW by 2035—almost four times the current capacity.

Whether such an ambitious goal will be met remains to be seen (previous goals around nuclear capacity were missed, although not by much), but by now there is a well-established network of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) collaborating to meet the government’s targets.

SOEs’ common goal and deep integration with the state greatly simplifies the financial considerations of a nuclear power plant. Unlike private power companies in the West, state-owned owner-operators can take out low-interest loans with state-owned banks. They are also guaranteed an on-grid rate for every kilowatt-hour of electricity the plant produces, rather than having to operate in spot markets.

The overall system might be less efficient than one more exposed to market forces, but its stability makes building less risky—not least because quarter-to-quarter profitability is not a major concern for SOEs.

“They are expected to try to be profitable, so they have cashflow to do things and be functional, but if they have to take a hit, sometimes they will,” David Fishman, a China-based energy analyst at The Lantau Group, told Bloomberg’s Odd Lots. “They'll make it back later. It's okay. The system didn't fall apart.”

Close technical collaboration and modularized construction

Building nuclear capacity became programmatic with the publication of the twelfth five-year plan in 2011.

The effort started with the French-designed M310, which formed the basis for the Chinese CPR-1000 reactor, which gave way to the ACPR-1000, which was in turn superseded by the Generation III Hualong One design.^[1] Zhangzhou 1, the recently completed reactor in Dongshan Bay, is a Hualong One reactor.

The close relationship between SOEs eases the technical burden of transitioning from one generation of reactor to the next. “When they need to prototype, when they need to iterate, when they need to troubleshoot something, it's all in one industrial cluster,” Fishman explains. “It's all a company and its subsidiaries or its sister partner companies, and so they can quickly trouble through things.”

Taking inspiration from pioneering American nuclear firm Westinghouse, China also leans heavily on modularized construction, which involves manufacturing key components of nuclear reactors (such as the reactor pressure vessel, or the condensers) in a factory, and then using giant cranes to lower them into place on the construction site. Incidentally, China is now a leading manufacturer of heavy-duty cranes.

But China’s nuclear success is not only down to canny state intervention and novel manufacturing processes. Projects also employ huge numbers of tremendously committed workers.

One example: according to Chinese outlet The Paper, at the beginning of the Zhangzhou  project, its steelworkers “had to work overtime until nine o'clock in the evening every day, and, at the busiest time, all staff had to take turns in two shifts to ensure 24-hour non-stop production.”

China’s nuclear future: SMRs and global exports

For all the recent activity in China, nuclear power still generates just 5% of the country’s electricity—compared to the 60% generated by coal power plants.

But the emerging technology of small, modular reactors (SMRs) could soon change that. SMRs produce a fraction of the energy of large-scale reactors but they are much easier to manufacture and, unlike large reactors, could be installed on the sites of most existing coal plants.

In the field of SMRs, China is leading the world, with 16 different designs being worked on in the country according to the World Nuclear Association. The first SMR, the product of nine years’ worth of R&D, was connected to the grid in 2021. Another, the Linlong One, is due to enter service in 2026.

The country has also started exporting its nuclear technology. Pakistan has two Hualong One reactors feeding its capital, Karachi and four CNP-300 reactors in Chashma. Argentina was also close to buying a Hualong One reactor, although the project has been fraught.^[2]

But, with a new era of SMRs on the horizon, it would be no surprise at all if the list of countries buying Chinese nuclear technology soon becomes far, far longer.

^{[1] There were actually two competing predecessors to the Hualong One, each designed by a different SOE: the ACPR-1000, designed by China General Nuclear, and the ACP-1000, designed by the China National Nuclear Corporation. In 2011, the National Energy Administration instructed a merger of the designs, which was undertaken by the CNNC.
[2] World Nuclear Report 2024, pp. 405–407.}