China puts another nuclear power plant on line

BEIJING -- China has put a 728 megawatt nuclear reactor into operation in the eastern province of Zhejiang to supply electricity to the booming and energy thirsty east.

The Canadian-design heavy water reactor was the second and last to come on stream at the Qinshan nuclear power plant in Haiyan, Qinshan officials told Reuters.

A similar reactor was put into operation at the end of last year and has generated some 2.5 billion kilowatt hours (kwh) of electricity so far, they said.

The two reactors will generate 10 billion kwh of electricity a year for the eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu and the city of Shanghai, they said.

After nearly two decades of construction, Qinshan now has a generation capacity of 2,300 megawatts. The last 600 megawatt reactor was scheduled to be on stream in the middle of next year, they said.

China had a nuclear generation capacity of 5,400 megawatts at the end of last year, accounting for less than two percent of its capacity.

That is scheduled to rise to 8,700 megawatts by 2005, making up three percent of the country's total.

Reuters