An amazing news is that wind power is leading over nuclear in China. China, with its long coastline and huge land mass, has a splendid wind resource. It has identified that the key growth of the nation's economy is wind power. The output from the wind farms was marginally more than the nuclear plants first time in 2012. Then, wind power pulled away nuclear by 22% in 2013. Chinese wind power generated 135 terawatt hours in 2013 that could power New York.
The capacity of generating wind power increased by 40% yearly and doubled every year from 2006 to 2009 to reach 91 gigawatts (1 gigawatt = 1000 megawatts).
In 2013, wind power could have been larger, almost 10%, but due to curtailment when turbines stop because more electricity could not be handled by the grid.That is why, China is establishing the world's largest ultra high voltage transmission systems, to reduce curtailment with 200 grid connected gigawatts.
But why nuclear energy could not keep up with wind energy?
This is because, it takes about 6 years to build a nuclear reactor and a wind farm can be established in a few months. The disaster in Fukushima, Japan in 2011 was another factor that interrupted the Chinese nuclear expansion. New reactor approvals were denied by the government till late 2012 and reviewed other reactors, which were under construction for a few months and also those which were running. Water, which was needed for cooling, is highly polluted and is short in supply.
But still, wind energy gives as low as 3% of China's power, which is behind hydropower (makes about 17%) and coal (leading source with 75%). By 2030, China can meet its electricity demand by wind energy. China has now set its 12th Five Year Plan, i.e., from 2011 to 2015, for non-fossil power accounted for 11.4 percent of the total power consumption and reduce carbon dioxide discharge per unit by 17% as a part of environmental goals. Still wind energy proves as safe, water sparing backbone of China's power economy.
Tags: Wind power, china, nuclear power, renewable source, economy, electricity, hydropower, wind farms, wind energy, nuclear energy, wind energy versus nuclear energy, conservation
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