In FocusChina is building nuclear reactors faster than the West. Can it keep up the pace?

When Francois Morin, China director at the World Nuclear Association – a leading international industry body – took a group of foreign nuclear engineers to a Shanghai Electric plant last year, the scale of production caught them off guard. Heavy machinery, from steam generators to reactor cores, was already assembled and ready for shipment to sites where construction had not even begun. The equipment towered over the delegates, many of whom were accustomed to supply chains back home that produce such components one at a time, if at all. “It was in this place that they understood how China’s construction capability compared to Western ones,” Morin said. Despite connecting its first nuclear power plant to the grid in 1991, decades after Western pioneers, China today is building reactors faster and at lower cost than its peers. Since the end of 2016, it has added 27 operational nuclear units, nearly doubling installed capacity, according to calculations based on official data. By contrast, the United States – still the global leader in nuclear capacity – added just two new units over the same period, hampered by lengthy delays and financing challenges. “In terms of continuity in construction experience, China is now the only country in the world that has that,” said Victor Nian, founding co-chairman of the Centre for Strategic Energy and Resources think tank based in Singapore. Yet, even as nuclear power remains central to Beijing’s green transition, sustaining that breakneck pace over the long term presents new challenges. As prime space for sites grows scarce, the industry is racing to develop next-generation alternatives – and potentially look inland. The economics behind China’s nuclear edge While scientists broadly consider modern nuclear energy one of the safest forms of electricity generation, a handful of high-profile historical disasters has slowed global adoption over the decades. China is so efficient ... because the builders have access to loans at low interest rates Francois Morin, World Nuclear Association In the US, expansion ground to a halt following the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979, as protests and lawsuits drove up regulatory hurdles and damaged public support. European construction similarly froze after the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986. Decades later, the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in Japan triggered another global retreat. Even China temporarily paused new project approvals to conduct nationwide safety audits, but by late 2012 it lifted the suspension as much of the world remained hesitant. This continuous buildout allowed Chinese companies to gain experience, reduce construction timelines and lower costs, Nian explained, while standardisation pushed prices down further. Today, China’s nuclear deployment centres on two primary pressurised water reactor designs: the domestic Hualong One, co-developed by state enterprises China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and the China General Nuclear Power Group, and the CAP1000, a localised adaptation of American manufacturer Westinghouse’s AP1000. “The supply chain is all built around this standardisation,” Nian said, noting that domestic suppliers now manufacture nearly every component required for new reactors. With equipment produced locally and project schedules coordinated by state planning, China’s ability to complete reactors in five years was “not a surprise”, Nian added. By contrast, the latest commercial nuclear additions in the US – Units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle in Georgia – each took more than a decade to complete, suffering severe cost and schedule overruns before entering service in 2023 and 2024 respectively. Morin of the World Nuclear Association argued that financing costs were the main obstacle to Western build times, contrasting with China’s model. “That is the true brake on speed,” Morin said. “China is so efficient ... because the builders have access to loans at low interest rates.” Backed by state-directed capital, domestic heavy equipment makers secure funding to build major components long before site assembly begins. This, in turn, enables suppliers to deliver finished parts ahead of construction schedules, as Morin’s delegation saw at Shanghai Electric. Standardised designs and a steady pace of approvals by the State Council, China’s cabinet – which has greenlit at least 10 reactor units annually since 2022 – also reassured manufacturers that they would continue to receive future orders, he added. The result of the model, Morin said, was shorter construction timelines and a lower levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) – a metric used to measure the average cost of power generation over a plant’s lifespan, calculated at 60 years for nuclear plants. According to Morin’s estimates, the LCOE for a 1 gigawatt (GW) reactor financed at a 5 per cent interest rate was about US$83 per megawatt-hour (MWh). Under China’s state-backed model, where borrowing rates can fall to just 1.5 per cent, that cost drops by nearly half to US$42 per MWh. With speed and cost under control, China’s nuclear ambitions are rapidly gaining pace as it targets 110GW of installed capacity by 2030, bolstering fixed-asset investment amid a broader soft domestic economy. The country currently operates 62 nuclear units with a combined capacity of 66.1GW, while another 58 units totalling 69.5GW were under construction, according to National Energy Administration data reported by state-run People’s Daily on August 3. By comparison, the US had about 98.4GW of capacity currently in operation, according to the US Energy Information Administration, albeit with no major commercial reactors under construction. This puts China on track to surpass America within the next few years. Modest share, big ambitions Despite this rapid growth, Chinese nuclear power has accounted for only about 5 per cent of the national electricity mix in recent years – a share Morin expected to rise only marginally even as absolute capacity expands. Coal continued to generate about half of the country’s total electricity, while renewables like wind and solar accounted for 41.2 per cent in the first half of 2026, according to the National Energy Administration. That remained far below the world’s other two top nuclear operators, the US and France, where nuclear provided about one-fifth and 70 per cent of electricity respectively, according to official data. Even so, industry analysts warned against dismissing nuclear energy based solely on its relatively modest share. China’s overall power consumption is expanding rapidly as it moves towards its climate targets – peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 – prompting Beijing to deploy every available low-carbon energy source. “We’re in this incredible race to add enough power generation capacity in China to meet what is adding one extra Germany of new electricity consumption every year,” said David Fishman, a principal at energy consultancy The Lantau Group. “Nuclear in China is cost-competitive enough to actually be part of the equation, and it is low carbon.” National power consumption rose 5 per cent to surpass 10 trillion kilowatt-hours for the first time in 2025, driven by surging demand from advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence, and is only expected to continue rising. However, Fishman noted that maintaining stability on a grid with such a high share of renewables would create distinct challenges. Solar and wind generation fluctuate with the weather and require costly utility-scale battery storage to help keep the grid stable. They also need substantial investment in ultra-high-voltage transmission lines to move power from western regions – home to most of the country’s solar and wind farms – to coastal demand centres. Nuclear power provides reliable, continuous baseload output and would help relieve some of the structural pressures on the grid, Fishman said. The coastal expansion conundrum While nationally modest, nuclear power’s role shifts drastically at the provincial level, Morin pointed out. In the southeastern province of Fujian – which has a population of 42 million, comparable with Canada – nuclear power accounted for 28.1 per cent of electricity generation last year, according to a report published by a nuclear centre under the National Energy Administration last month. In Liaoning province, an industrial base in the northeast, it supplied more than one-fifth of total electricity generation last year and about 18.5 per cent and 16.9 per cent in the southern provinces of Hainan and Guangdong respectively. In those provinces, nuclear power plays a crucial role in the grid instead of merely acting as a supplement. “Once you have it, you cannot switch it off,” Morin said. At the same time, all operational and under-construction commercial reactors are currently restricted to coastal regions, after Beijing suspended approvals for inland nuclear plants following the 2011 Fukushima meltdown. Unlike coastal plants that draw on open ocean water, inland reactors often rely on rivers for cooling. This exposes them to drought, which could hinder cooling capacity, while accidents risk contaminating vital downstream drinking supplies. Industry analysts warned, however, that the country would eventually hit an expansion ceiling. “China will physically run out of suitable sites at some point,” Fishman said, adding that inland reactors would help provide stable, dispatchable power to central and western regions. Morin agreed, noting that China’s 31 identified coastal sites could accommodate about 163 reactors, representing about 192GW of total capacity. In May, a representative for CNNC said national operational capacity was projected to reach 170GW by 2035, before rising to between 400 and 500GW by 2060 – more than double the capacity that existing coastal sites can support. If China lifted the inland moratorium, Morin said, the development pipeline would expand to 77 total sites nationwide, providing capacity for 345 reactors and about 419GW. This could reach 500GW should China develop more CAP1400 reactors, the enlarged version of the CAP1000 design, he added. Embracing next-generation technology Beijing is pushing next-generation reactor designs that require less water and enhance safety, making them better suited to inland deployment. Among these are fast-neutron reactors, which typically use liquid sodium or lead rather than water as a coolant, Morin said. China already operates two 600-megawatt (MW) demonstration fast-neutron reactors in Xiapu, Fujian province, designed to recycle spent fuel and generate more fissile material than they consume. Nian of the Centre for Strategic Energy and Resources noted that thorium molten-salt reactors could present another option. These use liquid salt instead of water and operate close to ordinary atmospheric pressure. While early tests at a 2MW experimental reactor in Gansu province had progressed as planned, Nian cautioned that commercial scaling faced major technical hurdles because of the high corrosiveness of molten salt and the lack of a commercial supply chain for thorium fuel processing. Still, these experimental reactors could one day reduce China’s reliance on uranium – a crucial step for a nation almost entirely reliant on imports. According to Damien Ma, director and chair of the Carnegie China research centre, the country accounted for about a quarter of global uranium demand but was dependent on imports for 80 to 90 per cent of its supply. The next four to five years are going to be a very telling period, because a lot of things are supposed to come online around then Damien Ma, Carnegie China To hedge against supply risks, state-owned nuclear companies have bought controlling stakes in Namibian uranium mines and acquired mining assets in Kazakhstan, two countries with some of the richest uranium reserves in the world, Ma noted. Morin also pointed to estimates that China had likely maintained several years of strategic uranium stockpiles to buffer against potential supply disruptions. Additionally, Beijing announced major uranium discoveries in two of the country’s autonomous regions last year: Ordos Basin in Inner Mongolia and the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, in the country’s north and west, respectively. Authorities have not disclosed the ore grades or commercial viability of the finds. Beyond conventional nuclear power, China has also joined the global race to develop nuclear fusion. Unlike fission, which generates power by splitting heavy atoms, fusion combines light atomic nuclei and promises abundant energy without long-lived radioactive waste or meltdown risks. However, analysts remain divided on its near-term commercial viability. “I don’t think it will be a relevant energy play for the global decarbonisation timeline, which is carbon neutrality by 2050 or 2060,” Fishman said. Nian echoed these concerns, noting that while scientific progress had been exciting, widespread deployment was likely decades away because of technical, supply chain and regulatory constraints. In contrast, Ma offered a more optimistic outlook, highlighting a surge of investment and private sector activity in recent years – particularly in the US, which could hold an edge over China’s predominantly state-directed initiatives. “I’ve just not seen this amount of private sector energy and entrepreneurialism put behind fusion in my lifetime,” he said. “The next four to five years are going to be a very telling period, because a lot of things are supposed to come online around then.”

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}While delays and soaring costs bog down projects in the US, China’s state-directed model is moving at record speed – but geographical limits pose huge challenges

While delays and soaring costs bog down projects in the US, China’s state-directed model is moving at record speed – but geographical limits pose huge challenges