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Shillofnoone t1_ja86e49 wrote

To give a perspective, the number of coal plants that these guys are opening are more than all the coal plants opened by rest of the world. Why aren't they moving to nuclear reactors. They did started making molten thorium reactors. What happened to them

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Tagan1 t1_ja8uw5q wrote

I assume those take time to set up and get working. China has a number of large cities that get most of their energy from hydro, but late last year there was a big heat wave that caused lower water flow and affected energy production.

They're probably looking to diversify more and need something quick to set up in the meantime, leading to the larger expansion of coal power. Here's an article touching on the heat wave if you're interested:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/22/china-drought-causes-yangtze-river-to-dry-up-sparking-shortage-of-hydropower

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grchelp2018 t1_ja8v0q2 wrote

They are building those also. I believe they plan to build 220 odd nuclear plants by 2035.

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