Everyone is building nukes except here. Now China has agreed to build nuke plants in Romania and Argentina.
The design? Not the Ka-Boom kind the USA has been locked into - they are using the Canadian CANDU design - a lot better.
From World Nuclear News:
China signs Candu deals with Romania and Argentina
Two Chinese nuclear utilities have signed agreements that would see them cooperate in the construction and financing of new Candu units at Romania's Cernavoda plant and at Argentina's Atucha plant.
China Nuclear Power Engineering Co (CNPEC) has signed a "binding and exclusive" cooperation agreement with Candu Energy Inc for the construction of two more reactors at the Cernavoda nuclear power plant in Romania.
The agreement, signed in Vancouver yesterday, follows a letter of intent signed by CNPEC's parent company China General Nuclear (CGN) and Romanian national nuclear company Nuclearelectrica last November for investment in and development of Cernavoda units 3 and 4.
Cernavoda is home to two operating Candu 6 pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs) supplied by Candu Energy's predecessor, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL), and built by a Canadian-Italian consortium of AECL and Ansaldo. Unit 1 started up in 1996, but work was suspended on a further four units in 1991. Unit 2 was subsequently completed and has been in operation since 2007. The two reactors currently generated almost 20% of Romania's electricity.
And Argentina:
The signing of the Romanian agreement comes days after China and Argentina signed a new high-level agreement towards construction of a third PHWR at the Atucha plant in Argentina.
I prefer Thorium reactors but the CANDU is a very close second and in fact, it can run the Thorium cycle with decent efficiency. What makes the CANDU so nice is that it burns the fuel a lot more efficiently than the US designs (90% as opposed to 30%) and it can also burn waste materials from other reactors. It is inherently safe and survive a total loss of power with zero problems. Wikipedia has a page on them: CANDU Reactor. Here is the page from the Canadian Nuclear Association.
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