Kazakhstan is not convinced by the half-price nuclear power plant offered by China
If they offered you a car at half the market price, would you buy it with your eyes closed, or would you first have it thoroughly analyzed by your trusted mechanic? In other dimensions this is happening between Kazakhstan and China.
China has proposed that Kazakhstan build a nuclear power plant at a cost that is half that of the Russian, Korean and French alternatives. The proposal involves the use of obsolete technology, but compatible with Kazakhstan's nuclear fuel production, but, despite this, some doubts have arisen in the Central Asian country.
A Kazakh media, citing a representative of a nuclear safety watchdog group, reports that the Kazakh government does not have a positive opinion on the Chinese proposal to build what would be the first nuclear power plant in the Asian country.
The Kursiv news agency quotes Baurzhan Ibrayev , chairman of the Central Asia advisory committee of the UK-based New Nuclear Watch Institute, as saying that the expected cost of building the Chinese plant would be up to half the price of the proposals presented by French, Russian and South Korean entities. At the same time, Ibrayev appeared to cast shade on China's nuclear industry, hinting in Kursiv's report that a Chinese entity used "non-cutting-edge technology" in a previous joint venture , started in 2015 to produce assemblies. nuclear fuel in Kazakhstan.
One advantage of Beijing's proposal is that the Chinese design would be compatible with fuel assemblies produced in Kazakhstan, which are structured assemblies of fuel rods used to power nuclear reactors, Kursiv reported. According to Ibrayev, however, the other projects being considered could not work with domestically produced fuel assemblies. “Today there is new technology, new reactors” that require a different fuel, Ibrayev said.
The cost of building a two-unit nuclear power plant could exceed $12 billion, according to Energy Ministry estimates. According to current forecasts, the two-unit plant could produce 2.4 GW of energy but doubts remain over China's supply.
Elsewhere, China is actively pursuing solar energy development in Uzbekistan. Uzbek diplomats from the consulate in the Chinese city of Guangzhou held talks with representatives of Laplace Energy Solutions in early December, focusing on developing a training program for Uzbek workers. The company's experts will soon travel to Uzbekistan on a fact-finding mission, as reported by the Uzbek news agency Dunyo.
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The article Kazakhstan is not convinced of the half-price nuclear power plant offered by China comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-kazakistan-non-e-convinto-della-centrale-nucleare-a-meta-prezzo-offerta-dalla-cina/ on Thu, 28 Dec 2023 11:21:17 +0000.