Apart from the recent thread about the small Chinese thorium-fueled test reactor, China is currently undergoing a large nuclear power construction program. Most of these projects are the large, gigawatt-scale plants, similar in size to the power plants currently in service in the US and elsewhere.
Since the start of 2019, China has started up 12 nuclear power plants. This represents about 12 GW of capacity. There are 28 or so nuclear power construction projects presently going on in the country, which will add another 30 GW or so.
An article today in World Nuclear News says China’s State Council recently approved another 10 plants for construction at 5 different sites. Most of these will be the indigenously developed Hualong One design, while two will be CAP1000 design, which is the Chinese version of the Westinghouse AP1000 plant.
I figure these ten new reactors will add another 12 GW of electrical capacity to China’s nuclear power fleet. The article says the cost of these plants will be US $27.4 billion, which comes to around $2300 per kw, and is rather inexpensive compared to nuclear projects in the US and Europe. Since China has a large nuclear construction workforce, and has completed several projects in the last few years, they have become skilled at building the plants quickly and efficiently.
_ Pete