Earthquake hurts nucleair plans

by kelvinhu via FlickrThe Sichuan earthquake has severely shaken China's ambitious plans to generate more nuclear power, writes the leading financial magazine Caijing.
In its quest for non-coal energy sources, Sichuan had been one of the corner stones for setting up nuclear power stations, an ambition that now falls apart as those stations are not supposed to be build in earthquake zones. At this stage it does not have yet a nuclear power station.
Up to last week, Sichuan was not known for its earthquakes, also not on official UN-documentation, but that has changed dramatically.

“The earthquake will make the government decide more cautiously when selecting sites for nuclear power stations,” an expert from the China Electricity Council told Caijing.
Indeed, an expert with French nuclear power provider Electricite de France said a necessary precondition for building any nuclear power station is to select a site outside earthquake zones.

Considering the impact of the Sichuan earthquake on a huge part of the rest of China, a larger part of the country might become a non-nuclear zone.