The firm added that it had requested an extraordinary meeting of the power plant’s board for “management to present all the data and necessary decisions”.
Citing a letter from Framatome to the US energy department, CNN said the warning included an accusation that the Chinese safety authority was raising the acceptable limits for radiation outside the facility in order to avoid having to shut it down.
But a U.S. official told the broadcaster that “the Biden administration believes the facility is not at crisis level yet.” The environmental operator of the China General Nuclear Power Group, the power plant operator, said in a statement on Sunday evening that “environmental indicators of the Taishan nuclear power plant and its surroundings are normal.” He did not cite any leaks or incidents at the power station, which he said “meet the requirements of nuclear safety regulations and technical specifications of the power plant.”
In 2018, the Taishan plant was the first in the world to run a next-generation EPR nuclear reactor, a pressurized water design that delayed years of similar European projects in the UK, France and Finland.
The plant now has two EPR power units in Taishan, China’s most populous province, located off the coast of southern Guangdong. EPR reactors promise to increase safety and efficiency compared to conventional reactors by producing less waste. French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault visited the Taishan plant in 2013, on a visit where the French leader made a massive purchase of his country’s nuclear expertise in China.
According to the National Energy Administration, nuclear plants supply less than 5 percent of China’s annual electricity needs in 2019, but that share is expected to increase by 2060 as Beijing seeks to become carbon neutral. China has 47 nuclear power plants with a generating capacity of 48.75 million kilowatts, the third highest in the world after the United States and France, and has invested billions of dollars in developing its nuclear energy sector. Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping praised the close ties between their countries over the start of work on Russian-made nuclear power plants in China.
And in December, state media reported that China had for the first time successfully used a powerful magnetic field to fuse hot plasma into its “artificial sun” nuclear fusion reactor – HL-2M Tokamak reactor that Can reach temperatures above 150 million degrees Celsius. It is China’s largest and most advanced nuclear fusion experimental research device, and scientists hope the device could potentially unlock a powerful clean energy source.
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