Global Times | February 09, 2012
By Zheng Yi
The Global Times
A campaign initiated by authorities in Central China's Wangjiang county, Anhui Province 安徽望江縣 aimed at halting the construction of a nuclear power plant in a neighboring county has drawn nationwide attention after a report handed to higher authorities was posted online recently.
Sun Bin, from the publicity department of the Wangjiang Development and Reform Commission, confirmed to the Global Times Wednesday that the government handed the report to the Anhui Development and Reform Commission in November, in a bid to stop the nuclear power plant from being built. Provincial authorities are planning to pass the report to the State government for a decision, according to Sun.
According to information on the official website of the Jiangxi branch of the China Power Investment Corporation, the nuclear plant, located in Pengze, Jiangxi Province 江西彭澤, is expected to start operations in 2015, and will have an annual capacity of 60 billion kilowatt hours, more than the entire capacity of Jiangxi's current coal-burning power plants. Preparation work for construction is complete, according to the website.
http://easss.com/nuclear
However, the project has met with strong opposition from across the Yangtze River in the neighboring county of Wangjiang.
According to the report, the plant would be in violation of a regulation issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which states that nuclear power plants should not be built within 10 kilometers of cities with a population over 100,000 people. Several townships in Wangjiang are located within 10 kilometers from the plant.
"We all believe the plant is a time bomb," Sun told the Global Times.
The report also pointed out that the plant is located in a fault zone with frequent occurrences of earthquakes, a fact that was not mentioned in the plant's environmental evaluation report.
Construction on the nuclear plant has been suspended and is awaiting reevaluation after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in March, according to Zhang.
Calls from the Global Times to the Pengze nuclear power office went unanswered Wednesday.
"Nuclear power plants will cause little pollution only if they are built more than 10 kilometers away from cities with dense populations, and they are safe for nearby residents if they release fewer than 250 mSv in radiation per year," Feng Weiheng, chief expert in radiation prevention at the Shanghai Environmental Protection Industry Association, told the Global Times Wednesday.
At present, six nuclear power plants have been put into use in China and another 12 are under construction, while preparation work on the construction of 28 plants is underway.
According to a State plan released in 2007, by 2020, nuclear power installed capacity will reach 40 million kilowatts.
Operations at a number of power plants were suspended after the Fukushima nuclear leak.
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