We have all witnessed the speed at which China completed a brand new airport in preparation for the Olympic games. They did it in just four years in contrast to Heathrow Airport, which took six years just to get planning approval. So they have now applied that same speed of construction to the nuclear sector and the result is astounding.

“China is expanding nuclear power construction plans faster than earlier planned, a senior energy official told state media on Saturday, saying installed power capacity by 2020 could be 50 percent above the initial goal” according to Reuters

China’s nuclear energy development plan had hoped to achieve an operating power capacity of 40 gigawatts by 2020. To put it into perspective that is the same amount of power that Spain requires and represents approximately 4% of China’s energy needs. However, the vice Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission has announced that that this figure will be exceeded by 50% to 60 gigawatts in the very same time frame. This news ties in with what we have been saying on this web site for some time, that in the rush to secure a supply of uranium for the future energy needs. it is better to understate your real needs until you have those supply contracts in place. (27th September 2007 we wrote: we tend to think that China will announce more and more new proposals once it has tied up the supply of uranium) We believe that this is the first of many such announcements that will come out of China on a timely basis. News flow needs to be managed in order to avoid causing a panic in the market and driving up the price, well at least until you have made certain that you can actually feed these new power plants.

It may take a while for this sort of news to sink in, but it does bring forward the delivery dates for uranium and will keep on doing so as China charges ahead with record breaking construction schedules. It is also well known that China is sitting on a mountain of US Dollars and other foreign currencies. The UD Dollar, in particular is falling out of bed, so what better way to unload this fast depreciating paper asset but to swap it for your future power requirements?

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