In the ongoing great power competition between the United States and communist China, nuclear power is emerging as a critical battleground to secure the energy resources necessary to build the economy of the future.
With the advent of new technologies like artificial intelligence, the U.S. and China, along with the rest of the developed world, now face an increase in power demand unseen since the Industrial Revolution. The electricity demand for data centers alone is forecasted to grow by up to 75 percent over the next five years, while overall global power needs are expected to increase by roughly 15-18 percent in that same time span according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
To meet this demand, both China and the United States are turning to nuclear energy. But both countries face hurdles to ramp up their nuclear capacities. China’s socialist economic system is stifling innovation, while liberal preoccupation with wind and solar and ideological opposition to nuclear is hampering progress in the United States.
Chinese President Xi Jinping clearly understands the importance of nuclear energy and made it a focus of his remarks at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation earlier this month. He spoke specifically about creating a “forum on the peaceful use of nuclear energy,” building “thirty joint laboratories” with African nations and creating “engineering technology academies” for nuclear power.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang subsequently revealed more details of China’s nuclear expansion plans, announcing that Beijing would also be investing $31 billion in 11 new reactors at home.
At first glance, China’s nuclear energy activities might look like a major economic breakthrough, but closer examination reveals a somewhat different reality.
Professor of Physics and Mathematics Jin Zhong, who supervised nuclear energy policy at China’s National Energy Administration until the mid-1990s when he defected to the West, told me that “Beijing owed details on how many initiated projects were marked successful.” As he explained, Beijing has a habit of unveiling many projects to great fanfare but failing to follow through on completing them.
Zhong pointed specifically to an announcement back in 2016 when the state-owned Nuclear Power Technology Corporation claimed that 60 new nuclear plants with a $570 billion budget were to be constructed over the next ten years. “A decade has almost passed,” said Professor Jin, “and it seems not even half of it was achieved.”
“The socialist system is inherently ineffective, including Chinese socialism,” he continued, adding that bureaucracy and ideology are always the main issues. “It usually takes years for Beijing to make a decision on projects like a nuclear plant.”
As Zhong also explained, endemic corruption in the Chinese government and the failures of China’s communist economic model have created persistent threats of blackouts for decades, while millions of rural Chinese citizens are still literally living in the dark. As late as the turn of the century, as many as 70 million people in China were forced to rely on liquid gas lamps, heaters, and even candles in some circumstances. “Many Westerners wouldn’t believe it, but many Chinese villagers still live in caves,” Zhong said. “The disparities in living conditions are massive.”
Zixuan Hai, a professor of physics, told me that he does not expect China to be a leader in nuclear energy “anytime soon.” As he sees it, China is still largely powering its economy with “slightly modernized French technology from the 1980s.”
Both Zhong and Hai said they believe it is “improbable” that China’s nuclear energy capacity will increase by 176 gigawatts in the next few years as the IEA has suggested. Neither believed that China was capable of becoming an energy hub under its current leadership.
While that is good news for the United States, America faces its own challenges in expanding its nuclear power capacity. According to a recent report from the Oak Ridge Institute, the number of students graduating with degrees in atomic engineering has now declined to the lowest point in a decade. Nuclear facilities and research outfits are also struggling to find employees with requisite graduate degrees and experience.
While professing a desire to invest in nuclear power, the Biden-Harris administration has also hampered the progress of existing nuclear projects through a sea of red tape and increased regulatory compliance costs. NuScale Power canceled a small modular reactor (SMR) project last November due to profitability reasons. TerraPower, led by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, recently started building a nuclear power plant in Wyoming but faces red tape delays in the review process before construction can begin.
The United States could see a turnaround in nuclear with a change in leadership this November. Former President Donald Trump was an early champion of SMR technology, which many experts believe is the future of the industry. He has pledged to “unleash energy production from all sources, including nuclear, to immediately slash inflation and power American homes, cars, and factories with reliable, abundant, and affordable energy” if he becomes president again.
Traditional energy sources such as coal and natural gas will continue to play an important role in fueling the economies of both China and the United States. But which nation most effectively bolsters its nuclear capacity in the years ahead may well determine who has the economic edge for decades to come.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.
