Carbon Cutters Look to Nuclear Energy

China, the world's second largest consumer of oil after the US, yesterday said high oil prices and threats to the climate from fossil fuels were forcing it to become the world's biggest producer of nuclear power . . .

Liu Jiang, vice chairman of the national development and reform commission of China, also urged western countries to give Chinese industry access to renewable energy technologies.

He said Beijing, as well as experimenting with advanced pebble-bed technology, hoped to "achieve self-reliance on nuclear power" by introducing advanced 1,000 megawatt pressurised water reactor nuclear technology.

"Nuclear power belongs to clean energy, and nuclear power construction also serves the purpose of achieving a low-carbon economy," he said.

Jiang made his comments at a conference in London that brought together energy and finance ministers from some of the world's largest economies to discuss how to cut carbon emissions without harming economic growth. For a previous post on China's plans for nuclear energy, click here.

Liang's comments regarding nuclear were echoed by one of his counterparts from Europe:

Greater use of nuclear power would help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, France's Industry Minister Patrick Devedjian told the meeting, which was attended by fellow G8 representatives as well as other industrialised nations such as Australia, Spain and Poland.

"Nuclear power can play an essential role in the sustainable development of energy," Devedjian said.

Nuclear power stations already in existence cut 2.2 billion tonnes in carbon dioxide emissions compared with the 24 billion tonnes released worldwide, he said.

"That is more than two times the reduction demanded of developing countries by the Kyoto Protocol for the period 2008-2012," the minister said.

For his part, Claude Mandil, director of the Paris-based International Energy Agency who is also at the gathering, noted that stabilising the use of carbon dioxide was a formidable task with no simple solution.

UPDATE: William Anderson likes what he's hearing about nuclear energy and carbon reduction.

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