China to invest $13B for nuke upgrade

China is looking to spend $12.74 billion by 2015 to upgrade the security of its nuclear facilities and radioactive contamination control to international standards.

A report by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which laid out a road map for China's nuclear safety to reach international standards by 2020, suggested the government was moving closer to restarting the approval process for reactor expansion.

It evaluated safety in China's nuclear-power industry and recommended phasing out older nuclear reactors sooner, sharing and improving access to information, enhancing the research and development of nuclear safety and improving the handling of radioactive waste.

"The current safety situation isn't optimistic," the report said.

"China has multiple types of nuclear reactors, multiple technologies and multiple standards of safety, which makes them hard to manage," it said, adding that the operation and construction of nuclear reactors must improve.

China, which has an ambitious plan to build as many as 100 reactors over the next two decades, imposed a ban on approving new nuclear power plants after Japan's nuclear crisis in March 2011 and ordered nationwide safety checks on its 41 plants.

The report did not specify when approvals for new plants would resume or mention capacity goals.

China's official nuclear capacity target for 2020 for now is 40 GW, less than 5 percent of its current total installed capacity, but enough to power Spain.

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