Comment by rob74

12 days ago

> China’s innovation strengths in nuclear power pertain especially to organizational, systemic, and incremental innovation. Many fourth-generation nuclear technologies have been known for years, but China’s state-backed approach excels at fielding them.

...not to mention being able to build a nuclear power plant anywhere they like without resistance from the local population, environmentalists etc.

21 comments

rob74

yodelshady 12 days ago

Projects I've seen recently refused permission by the local population in the UK on environmental grounds:

- A data centre using the site of an old landfill. - A data centre next to an oil refinery. - A film studio using the site of a disused quarry. - A solar farm. That one was opposed by Greens. - A housing development, by a roundabout.

And organised campaigns on environmental grounds against:

- A cycle bridge, built next to a railway bridge. A grade-separated railway bridge, in case you were wondering about safety concerns. - A sewage works, near greenbelt land. Not on greenbelt land. Servicing a conurbation that currently dumps raw sewage into the local river. Also opposed by Greens, naturally.

Dare I even say that, after writing a forty-five thousand page environmental report for Hinckley, legal objections - based on matters clearly covered by said report - continued?

Or everything to do with HS2? Also, again, naturally most vocally opposed - by vocally, I mean by trespass - near me by Greens.

Or literally any wind turbines visible by anyone. Including offshore.

Our local democracy, like a fair few other institutions I can think of, was built by idiots with no concept that said system could be abused, from inside (I've not mentioned bribery, have I?) and outside. And so it's a tool of abusers. If the only way China could avoid that abuse was to override the locals entirely, that's a shame. But I can't in good conscience say they've picked wrong.

tempnow987 12 days ago

Got to see this first hand. A bunch of environmentalists killed a solar project because supposedly part of it would cast a shadow on a stream that the fish wouldn't like. Ironically, fish often hide under rocks etc, so my guess is the fish WOULD have like the added protection if there actually was a periodic shadow.
The other reality - everyone had nice houses with views and didn't want to see solar panels :) So after fighting and protecting for things like solar, they now only wanted the solar to be forced on folks elsewhere. The project was actually super cool otherwise - an old school type business was going to go green in part with this project.
inglor_cz 12 days ago
"was built by idiots with no concept that said system could be abused, from inside"
I think you are being too harsh on said "idiots". These democratic mechanisms were built in times when no one knew what Ctrl-C + Ctrl-V meant, and when it was an order of magnitude harder to organize any campaign.
It is like calling Vauban idiot, because his fortifications are not designed to withstand air attacks. He wasn't in a position to anticipate this way of attack, and neither were the pre-Internet regulators.
- iudqnolq 12 days ago
  
  Or maybe the purpose of the system is what it does. Why assume the intended primary purpose of the planning system can't be making constituents happy by preventing construction?
WheatMillington 11 days ago
Here's a cool one from here in New Zealand - Greenpeace opposed a wind farm because a portion of the energy would be used to make (carbon-free) urea. They were ultimately unsuccessful in their opposition, but they tied it up for 3 years.
- pfdietz 11 days ago
  
  Since the urea molecule contains a carbon atom, carbon-free urea would be a neat trick. :)
  
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noxs 12 days ago

> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-23298663

This is not true. People do protest, and project gets cancelled.

rob74 12 days ago
That was more than 10 years ago though. Back then, the Uyghurs in Xinjiang could still live in relative freedom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_Chin...), people in Hong Kong could still protest etc. etc.
- alephnerd 12 days ago
  
  Protests still happen in China very often.
  For example, the strike at BYD's factory due to wage cuts and silent layoffs a couple weeks ago [0] (the original QQ post was taken down under the NSL [1]), a work stoppages and strikes in Anhui [2], Guangzhou [3], and Shandong [4] a week ago, as well as Workers Call for Help (basically workers complaints to the govt that often turn into strikes if not listened to) [5]
  The issue is Western reporters don't really use Chinese social media and aren't monitoring it, and in a lot of cases can't even really speak or read Mandarin.
  Also, China is not that centralized. In most of these protests, the organizers take efforts to point out they are protesting against local functionaries, not Beijing - and they aren't wrong, as Deng's reforms devolved power significantly to the local and provincial level.
  In China, it tends to be the working class and poor (rural and urban) that tend to protest the most as they have the least to lose and are the ones that face the brunt of economic slowdowns.
  [0] - https://archive.is/dwGdd
  [1] - https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/io1cSoE_i_pohJEoDOjkgw
  [2] - https://v.kuaishou.com/EokPBo
  [3] - https://v.kuaishou.com/CXrU74
  [4] - https://v.m.chenzhongtech.com/fw/photo/3xxbacwt646zfwu?fid=3...
  [5] - https://liuyan.people.com.cn/threads/mobilelist?tid=20864736...
  
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defrost 12 days ago

China isn't building inland nuclear reactors:

    China imposed a moratorium on inland nuclear construction following the 2011 Fukushima accident, which impedes nuclear from hitting the 10% of power generation goal.

    While surveys show nuclear has public support, Chinese citizens have more negative views towards building reactors inland.

    “Considering current social and economic pressures, the Chinese government probably deems it too risky to lift the inland nuclear moratorium and agitate the public further,” commented Philip Andrews-Speed of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies in an interview.

From: Don’t Panic US: China’s Nuclear Power Ascendancy Has Its Limits https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2024/05/dont-panic-us-chinas...

the May 2024 Wilson Centre pushback on nuclear China concerns.

Also a concept of "Ecological civilization" is currently a key part of the CCP policy framework and, regardless of how others see this, wind, solar, and nuclear are all seen as technologies for an ecologically sensible and sustainable future .. currently being paid for with coal expansion for "seed energy" and planned retirement of coal.

Various publications cover this, eg: the French Groupe d'études géopolitiques in: https://geopolitique.eu/en/issues/chinas-ecological-power-an...

and (Wilson Centre again) Ecological Civilization Goes Global: China’s Green Soft Power and South-South Environmental Initiatives https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/ecological-civiliza...

cm2187 12 days ago
What do they mean by “inland”? The vast majority of the chinese population and industry is near the coast.
- defrost 12 days ago
  
  TBH right now I'm wondering about the accuracy of the 2024 Wilson newsletter quote I gave (it could be true) as it stands in contrast to a 2015 Guardian article:
  Proposals to build plants inland, as China ends a moratorium on new generators imposed after the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, are particularly risky, the physicist He Zuoxiu said, because if there was an accident it could contaminate rivers that hundreds of millions of people rely on for water and taint groundwater supplies to vast swathes of important farmlands.
  - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/25/china-nuclear-...
  The context of "inland" here is near rivers and farmland that provide food and water for the population that live in dense urban areas nearer the coast.
  Both could be true, just talking about different moratoriums, or one lifted then reimposed, both may have errors, etc.
  It really needs a far better China watcher than myself to clarify.
  
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Izikiel43 11 days ago

That's a good advantage to have, most fears toward nuclear energy are unfounded.

renewiltord 12 days ago

Environmentalists will kill us all in time. Probably the Western civilization's greatest present threat.