China plans to upgrade emergency procedures for nuclear power plants, a government official said Sunday.
Liu Hua, who heads China's nuclear safety and radioactive safety management department under the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said there would be a revision of the country's safety standards "to ensure the integrity of reactors," China Daily newspaper reports.
Liu spoke on the sidelines of the Seventh Cross-Straits Economic, Trade and Culture Forum in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province. For the first time, nuclear power safety was included on the agenda for the meeting, this time occurring nearly two months after an earthquake and tsunami crippled Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant.
"The lesson of Fukushima is that we need to improve emergency procedures, especially coordination among government departments," Liu said.
He noted that safety checks on the country's existing nuclear plants on the Chinese mainland show the facilities meet international standards. Yet he said his department is trying to complete inspections before August, after which it will issue a nuclear safety plan.
Liu said his department might work with the State Grid Corp. to prevent any disruption of power, as experienced in Fukushima.
"Access to power supplies is vital for nuclear safety," he said, adding that the use of mobile power generators for the country's nuclear plants was being considered.
Liu also said higher standards would be established for flood control facilities and for the exterior walls of reactors.
Liu said he supports a cross-strait nuclear energy safety agreement between Taiwan and China and an official hotline on nuclear safety, the Taipei Times reported Monday.
While Taiwan's and China's state-owned power companies have already been exchanging nuclear power technology for several years, Liu said, closer cooperation is now needed in the wake of Japan's nuclear crisis.
China Daily says China has six nuclear plants in operation, with 12 under construction and more than 25 more plants were in the pipeline. China National Nuclear Corp said last September it planned to invest $123 billion in nuclear projects by 2020.
But following the Fukushima disaster, China's State Council said it would suspend the approval of new nuclear projects, including those in the pre-approval phase, until new safety rules were revised. It gave no timeline for how long the freeze would last.
The Financial Times last month quoted Feng Yi, deputy secretary-general of the China Nuclear Energy Association, as saying, "China's nuclear development will slow down during the next two to three years."
Share This Article With Planet Earth
