A new report from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation think tank suggests that the U.S. has more nuclear capacity than China at the moment but risks falling behind on both that and in the race to develop future nuclear energy technology.
The report says that the U.S. has 94 nuclear reactors to China’s 56. But the U.S. only has plans to build a handful of new plants (including one backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates), while China is looking to build 150 between 2020 and 2035.
“Where China has thrived, however, regarding nuclear power innovation more pertains to systemic and organizational innovation,” the report says. “This especially refers to the country’s coherent national strategy toward nuclear power — at both federal and provincial levels — which entails a range of supportive policies from low-interest financing, feed-in tariffs, and other subsidies that make nuclear power generation cost competitive to streamlined permitting and regulatory approval (i.e., of safety and environmental impact assessments), to coordinating supply chains in an effective fashion.”
