This news is from China Daily.
First nuclear plant is being constructed in the coastal city of Huludao in Liaoning
China is planning to build about 20 floating reactor platforms to meet the demand of maritimeatomic propulsion, driving a market that could be worth tens of billions of dollars, a report saidon Thursday.
The country's first-ever floating nuclear plant is about to start the final assembly in Huludao, acoastal city in Liaoning province, and it will be built by Bohai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry CoLtd, a unit of China Shipbuilding Industry Corp, according to eworldship, a Shanghai-basedmaritime industry information provider.
"CSIC is the first company with the permission to construct the floating nuclear-powered vessel,and it aims to become the strongest builder of floating nuclear platforms within five years," thereport quoted Wu Zhong, general manager of CSIC Asset Management Co Ltd, as sayingduring an expert review held this week.
Zhu Hanchao, deputy chief engineer of the CSIC 719 Research Institute, said that the averagecost of a pilot project is about 3 billion yuan ($463 million), but it will be able to generate salesof 22.6 billion yuan in 40 years, the life span of the vessel. He said that the cost could go loweras the company realizes mass production of such platforms.
The CSIC 719 was established in 2014 to develop a maritime nuclear power platform and coretechnologies in the field.
At the end of last year, the shipbuilder got the nod from the National Development and ReformCommission, the country's top economic regulator, to start research for a demonstrationproject of the platform.
Earlier this year, China General Nuclear Power Group signed a strategic cooperationagreement with CSIC to develop a reactor design－200-megawatt ACPR50S for the offshorenuclear power platform.
CGN is currently working on the preliminary design for ACPR50S, which is expected to startconstruction in 2017 and be commissioned by 2020.
The floating nuclear power plant, which can be equipped inside a section of the vessel, is oftenused to supply stable electricity not only to remote areas, but also to large industrial facilitiessuch as seawater desalination plants and offshore oilfield exploration rigs, CGN said.
"The project has a wide range of civilian applications in providing safe and stable energy formaritime resources exploration and development," CGN said.
The offshore oil drilling demand will keep growing in the next five years with a market value of100 billion yuan, while the industry of nuclear-powered equipment is expected to reach 50billion yuan per year in the Bohai Bay, Wu Zhong said.
