China may approve nuke plants again in first half

The government of China will resume approving new plants after the announcement of the nuclear safety plan cleared by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The approvals may come at the first half of the year.

According to China Securities Journal report cited by Reuters, in order to meet the government-set target of having non-fossil fuels to supply 15 percent of China's primary energy use by 2020, the total installed nuclear capacity should not fall under 70 gigawatts by then.

To meet the 70-GW target by 2020, China will need to approve at least another 10 GW of projects before 2015, considering the time to build a reactor takes at least 5 years, the reprot said.