Emil

I've recently moved my mastodon instance off masto.host to a server I own. First thing I changed was the character limit and default UI (to Mastodon-Bird UI). But I was wondering about:

• How to increase the maximum image per post limit.
• How to change poll options, like maximum numer of answers.
• How to increase the alt text character limit.

Maybe there are other cool options I forgot about but you want to share 🙂

Does someone know which files to amend?

The landlocked African country's Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources has marked the launch of an initiative to achieve sustainable development by harnessing the power of nuclear technology in areas such as agriculture, health and energy planning.

The Country Programme Framework (CPF), developed with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is a strategic document that outlines Eswatini's priorities for 2024-2029, with a particular focus on the application of nuclear technology for social and economic development through the effective integration of nuclear technology into the country’s existing development plans and initiatives.

Launching the CPF earlier this month, Eswatini Minister of Natural Resources and Energy Prince Lonkhokhela Dlamini said it aligns closely with the country’s National Development Plan and the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework, focusing on five key areas where nuclear technology can be leveraged to support national priorities. These are: nuclear and radiation safety; enhancing food security; improving healthcare services; optimising water resources; and energy planning, to support the development of an integrated energy strategy that utilises nuclear energy as a viable and sustainable energy source.

"The CPF provides a roadmap for the application of nuclear technology in a way that supports our national priorities and contributes to the social and economic development of our country. We are excited to work with the IAEA to bring these priorities to fruition," the minister said.

"These priority areas represent the key sectors where we believe nuclear technology can contribute to our development goals and build a stronger, more resilient Eswatini."

According to the IAEA, a CPF is the frame of reference for the medium-term planning of technical cooperation between a Member State and the IAEA, and identifies priority areas where the transfer of nuclear technology and technical cooperation resources will be directed to support national development goals. The CPF was signed earlier this year.

The Kingdom of Eswatini - formerly known as Swaziland - has been an IAEA Member State since 2016. According to data from the International Energy Agency, the country's largest source of domestic electricity generation is hydro, which accounted for just over half of the country's total generation in 2021. Eswatini relies heavily on imports of electricity from its neighbour, South Africa.

The adulterating of food products for financial gain, either through dilution, substitution, mislabeling, or other action, has become a lucrative industry. And because food fraud is designed to avoid detection, gauging its financial impacts can be difficult to determine. Experts estimate that food fraud affects 1 percent of the global food industry at a cost of about $10 billion to $15 billion a year, with some estimates putting the cost as high as $40 billion a year, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

One common form of food fraud is the mixing of inferior, lower-cost ingredients to a high-value product to reduce the concentration and lower the cost of production. For example, high-quality extra-virgin olive oil can be diluted with low-cost vegetable oil, or honey and maple syrup can be mixed with cheaper sweeteners such as corn syrup, rice syrup, or sugar beet syrup. The diluted products are then sold as pure at a higher cost.

While food fraud can lead to consumers paying a premium for substandard products, in some cases it can cause health issues, as toxic additives may be added or essential nutrients may be removed as part of the fraud process. This can lead to foodborne illnesses, allergic reactions, or even death.

In 2008, the FDA noted that manufacturers in China added synthetic melamine to infant formula to make it seem like their products had enough protein. Often used in plastics, melamine has a high nitrogen content, and nitrogen is used as an indicator of protein in formula. This fraud led to kidney failure in babies, and news reports indicated that it caused over 300,000 illnesses, 50,000 hospitalizations, and at least 6 deaths.

Isotopic signatures: According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, mitigating the risk of food fraud can be difficult, as it may happen at any stage of the supply chain, and in some cases it cannot be detected without special equipment. In developing countries, the problem is aggravated by the lack of technical capacity to detect food fraud.

While industry can use certification and labeling techniques to combat food fraud and improve food safety, vulnerabilities remain where there are no reliable methods of verification. Working with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the IAEA is seeking to provide that verification by developing analytical methods to measure the ratios of stable isotopes found in food samples. Those isotopic ratios will vary due to different factors, such as when, where, and under what environmental conditions the food was produced. Isotope ratio mass spectrometry is commonly used for high-precision measurements of isotopes.

According to the IAEA, “Stable isotope ratios are like nature’s ‘fingerprints’ or signatures on food. This hidden evidence can provide information on whether the foods we are buying consist of the authentic ingredients described on the label or have been falsified. By tracing these isotopic fingerprints, scientists can also track the geographical or botanical provenance of food.”

These methods can also be used to detect the adulteration—or complete substitution—of food with cheap ingredients that have identical chemical structures but different isotopic signatures.

Watch an IAEA YouTube video on using nuclear science to combat food fraud here.

IAEA’s role: To help improve food fraud detection techniques, the IAEA is involved in the following efforts:

• With the FAO, the IAEA supports its member states in the use of nuclear and complementary techniques for science-based solutions to improve food safety, authenticity, and security, as well as sustainable agricultural practices.
• The Joint FAO/IAEA Center of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture is working on nuclear technologies to improve the safety and quality of food products, tracking the origin of food products and checking their authenticity.
• The FAO/IAEA center supports its member states in improving their laboratory and regulatory capacity to trade safe and high-quality food products and verify their authenticity using stable isotope measurements.
• The FAO/IAEA center gathers best practices and provides guidance on the use of nuclear techniques for the verification of origin of food products, for example, dairy products.
• The FAO/IAEA center conducts various coordinated research projects focusing on the use of nuclear and complementary techniques, for instance, the identification of food fraud or products with high-value labeling claims.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has awarded GBP30 million (USD39.1 million) to four-year projects to drive "new techniques to deliver safe, sustainable and cost-effective decommissioning".

Seven consortiums involving 60 organisations were involved in the successful bids for contracts covering three areas: supporting academic research to grow skills within the nuclear decommissioning sector; research into radioactive waste management and decommissioning techniques; and research relating to used fuel storage and disposal and plutonium and uranics strategy development.

The NDA Research Portfolio (NRP) competition is part of the UK government agency's annual GBP100 million investment in research and development.

Head of Research and Development at the NDA, Kate Canning, said: "It’s an exciting time for the nuclear industry and we believe the range of organisations involved in the frameworks will provide a diverse range of experience and knowledge to deliver innovative research supporting the delivery of the NDA mission."

Previous NRP research has included the development of a non-contact asbestos detection system utilising hyperspectral techniques.

Germany's Krümmel nuclear power plant has been given the regulatory go-ahead to move from post-operation to decommissioning, with dismantling work scheduled to take about 15 years.

The permit to begin the decommissioning and dismantling was issued by the head of the nuclear supervisory authority in Kiel, Andreas Wasielewski, to Ingo Neuhaus, managing director of Vattenfall's nuclear energy division in Germany, and Torsten Fricke, the head of the nuclear power plant.

Neuhaus said: "This is an important milestone on the way to the 'greenfield' site of the power plant. During the dismantling work, we can draw on the experience we gained at the Brunsbüttel nuclear power plant. We started dismantling there in 2019."

The Krümmel plant - comprising a single 1260 MWe boiling water reactor - is jointly owned by Vattenfall and EOn. The plant, operated by Vattenfall, was connected to the grid in 1983, but was out of service for several years. It suffered a transformer fire in 2007 and, following repairs, was restarted in June 2009 but taken offline again the following month due to a transformer fault.

Krümmel was one of eight older power reactors that had their operating licences withdrawn by the federal government shortly after the Fukushima accident in Japan in March 2011 as part of the political decision to phase out nuclear power in the country. Vattenfall submitted an application to decommission and dismantle the plant, in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, in 2015.

The total weight of the power plant to be dismantled is estimated at 540,000 tonnes and will cost around EUR1 billion (USD1.1 billion). The last fuel element was removed in 2017 and the last individual fuel rods in 2019. Around 99% of the radioactive inventory has already left the power plant.

The next phase of work will start with the reactor pressure vessel internals, which make up the vast majority of the remaining 1% of radioactive inventory. A consortium of specialist companies has put together a team to work on the reactor pressure vessel internals, starting towards the end of this year, with completion for that part of the work scheduled for 2027. Each part of the dismantling operation must be applied for individually.

Decommissioning and dismantling work is taking place at a number of Germany's nuclear power plants. Earlier this week the two cooling towers at the Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power plant were demolished in a controlled explosion.

A UK site that was formerly one of the first civil nuclear power stations in the world has been sold for £6.5m (€7.6m, $8.4m) with the new owners planning to redevelop it as a “super cluster” for nuclear energy research, training and AI.

South Gloucestershire and Stroud College (SGS) first agreed to sell its 40-acre (16-hectare) science park in Berkeley, southwest England, to Chiltern Vital Berkeley in January.

The park was set up in 2016 when SGS bought the redundant Berkeley nuclear power station site for £3m from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, a public body responsible for cleaning up the UK’s legacy nuclear sites.

The college put the site up for sale in 2023, reportedly soon after a site visit from Great British Nuclear (GBN), the government body formed to oversee the deployment of new nuclear capacity in the UK.

Berkeley was previously home to two Magnox plants that began operation in 1962 and were shut down in 1988 and 1989. The site was saved from demolition in 2016, with its laboratory turned into a science and technology park by SGS.

The buyer, Chiltern Vital Berkeley, a wholly owned subsidiary of project development company Chiltern Vital Group, said it would seek to transform the site into the UK’s R&D centre of excellence for the next generation of small modular and micro reactor technology.

An onsite university technical college for around 400 students is not being sold as part of the agreement and will continue to operate, according to BBC News.

Today’s announcement follows the acquisition of a nearby site at Oldbury earlier this year by GBN which Chiltern Vital Group said would made its new Berkeley site well positioned to support the UK’s nuclear energy training needs.

Oldbury has two gas-cooled Magnox plants that were permanently shut down in 2011 and 2012.

Chris Turner, chief executive of Chiltern Vital Group, said: “I look forward to being involved in turning Berkeley/Oldbury into a low carbon supercluster over the next decade and supporting the positive impact that this project will have on the local, regional and national economy.”

SGS said the government would soon announce a technology provider to develop SMRs at the site.

New Nuclear ‘A Step Closer’

Chiltern Vital Group has already said it is supporting Rolls-Royce SMR in the selection of UK sites for the rollout of its SMRs and in the creation of long-term offtake agreements to support the financial viability of their deployment.

Chris Cholerton, Chief Executive of Rolls-Royce SMR, said: “Today’s announcement that CVG has completed the purchase of Berkeley Science and Technology Park brings the possibility of new nuclear at Berkeley a step closer.

“We continue to urge Great British Nuclear to complete their SMR selection process this year, which will unlock the immediate deployment of SMR units and the long-term opportunity at sites like Berkeley.”

The previous Conservative government announced in October 2023 that six companies’ designs for SMRs had been selected to progress in a government competition supporting the development of SMRs for greater energy security.

The government said at the time it hoped to announce in spring 2024 which of the six companies it will support, with contracts awarded by summer 2024.

That was before a July general election which saw a new Labour government take power.

The new UK Labour minister in charge of energy recently underlined his “absolute support” for the SMR programme.

The California legislature has signaled its intent to cancel a $400 million loan payment intended to help finance a longer lifespan for the state’s last nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon.

During state budget debates, the votes in the state senate and assembly last week on funding for the two-unit plant exposed a disagreement between lawmakers on one side and Gov. Gavin Newsom on the other. Newsom has said that the power generated by Diablo Canyon is critical to safeguarding energy supplies amid a warming climate, according to the Associated Press. The disagreement also set up a public friction point involving one of the governor’s signature proposals—Diablo Canyon—which he has championed alongside the state’s rapid push toward solar, wind, and other renewable sources.

A closer look: The dispute unfolded in Sacramento as environmentalists and antinuclear activists warned that the estimated price tag for keeping the seaside reactors running beyond a planned closing by 2025 had ballooned to nearly $12 billion, roughly doubling earlier projections. That also raised the prospect of higher fees for ratepayers.

Pacific Gas & Electric, operator of Diablo Canyon, called those figures inaccurate and inflated by billions of dollars.

Another view: In an opinion piece in the Sacramento Bee, Maureen Zawalick, vice president of business and technical services at Diablo Canyon, argues that the plant has been the backbone of California’s clean-energy ambitions for decades. And it remains a provider of 9 percent of the state’s electricity, all delivered clean and emissions free.

“I believe Californians deserve a full accounting of both the costs and financial benefits of operating California’s largest source of clean energy,” Zawalick wrote. “The math is clear that keeping Diablo Canyon open through 2030 will not only ensure that California can keep the lights on without backsliding on its climate goals, it will also save customers $200 million per year on average—or more than $1 billion—over the duration of the extended operations period.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission noted two low-level regulatory violations during a recent inspection of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, which is currently undergoing decommissioning in Southern California. The violations involved the shipment of two reactor pressurizers from San Onfre to EnergySolutions’s disposal facility in Clive, Utah.

The NRC assigned the violations as Severity Level IV, the lowest severity level for violations of minor significance. Because of the nature of the violations, plant owner Southern California Edison (SCE) was not cited for the incident.

According to the NRC’s August 9 inspection report, other than the two violations, SCE and its decommissioning contractor, SONGS Decommissioning Solutions (SDS), were “found to be conducting activities in accordance with site procedures, license requirements, and applicable NRC regulations.” The NRC’s routine on-site inspection was conducted June 24–27, and the inspection report was made public on August 16.

What happened: According to the NRC inspection report, the rail transport carrying the pressurizers, which were being shipped to Clive as Class A waste, made a temporary stop at a rail yard in San Bernadino, Calif. On July 1, SCE was notified that the Unit 2 pressurizer was observed to be leaking liquid while at the rail yard. The leak was later determined to be reactor coolant system liquid containing low levels of radioactive cobalt-60 and cesium-137.

The Orange County Register reported on August 15 that radiological surveys found no detectable radioactivity above background levels on or around the transport package. The package was reported to have leaked about one drop every two minutes. After being detected, the leak was stopped and sealed, and the deck of the railcar was cleaned.

The pressurizers were returned to San Onofre, where it was discovered that the Unit 2 pressurizer contained about 190 gallons of reactor coolant system liquid.

The violations: According to the NRC, San Onofre failed to meet Department of Transportation requirements by shipping a package that was not properly closed and sealed to prevent the release of radioactive content.

In addition, the pressurizers were mistakenly shipped as “surface contaminated object” packages. Because the Unit 2 pressurizer contained internal liquid, it did not meet the definition of “surface contaminated object.” SCE and SDS also failed to properly drain the pressurizer to ensure no liquid remained in the component.

“Since the licensee placed the deficiency into its corrective action program and the safety significance of the issue was determined to be low, and because the violation was not willful or repetitive; these violations were treated as non-cited violations,” the NRC report states.

TerraPower has announced its selection of industry experts Sargent & Lundy to design the Kemmerer Training Center for its Natrium reactor demonstration project in Wyoming.

Sargent & Lundy will begin design work immediately, with the hope of completing construction on the training center in the fall of 2025. The 30,000-square-foot training center in Kemmerer, Wyo., will host all Natrium operation training activities for both the demonstration project and future plants.

The center will also house the Natrium training simulator, training classrooms, an auditorium, laboratories for electrical and instrumentation & control, mechanical and scientific laboratories, and more. It will also support all operator-accredited programs.

Quotable: “When we announced Kemmerer as the location for the first Natrium plant, we promised long-term, high-paying jobs to the community. I am excited that not only will the Natrium project bring permanent positions to operate Kemmerer Unit 1 but that TerraPower will continue to bring future Natrium operators from around the country to this cutting-edge training facility,” said TerraPower president and chief executive Chris Levesque in an August 15 press release. “Sargent & Lundy has over 100 years of expertise in creating high-tech facilities, and I know they’ll design a world-class training center at our site in Wyoming.”

A closer look: Sargent & Lundy is a global leader in full-service architect engineering design for the power industry, with nuclear power leadership dating as far back as the 1950s, when the company designed the world’s first boiling water reactor installation at Argonne National Laboratory.

The firm has designed more than 30 nuclear units and continues to engage heavily in the nuclear power industry by supporting the operating fleet as well as advanced reactor projects. It aims to build cutting-edge facilities to support the training and development of Kemmerer Power Station control room operators and staff.

About TerraPower: The company broke ground in June at the site of its planned Natrium reactor demonstration project in Wyoming, though license approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is still being reviewed.

Natrium is a first-of-its-kind commercial advanced reactor that will use liquid sodium instead of water as a coolant. According to TerraPower, the reactor features improved fuel utilization, enhanced safety features, and a streamlined plant layout that will require fewer overall materials to construct.

Kemmerer Unit 1 would operate as a 345-MW sodium-cooled reactor in conjunction with molten salt–based energy storage. The plant’s storage technology would enable boosting of the system’s output to 500 MWe—enough energy to power 400,000 homes—for more than five-and-a-half hours when needed to meet additional demand.

TerraPower plans to expand rapidly across the country, installing several more Natrium facilities to meet growing energy demand with clean, reliable nuclear power and energy storage.

Newly released nuclear power data for 2023 collected by the IAEA, paint a picture of a clean energy technology at a crossroads amid the emergence of a new global consensus to accelerate its deployment.

Electricity production from nuclear power rose by 2.6 per cent last year compared to 2022, according to the operating data provided by IAEA Member States to the Power Reactor Information System (PRIS) — the IAEA’s comprehensive and publicly available database on nuclear power. Nuclear power continued to generate almost 10 percent of the world’s electricity and a quarter of all low carbon electricity last year, according to the data, which are featured in two newly released annual IAEA publications: Nuclear Power Reactors in the World (RDS-2) and Operating Experience with Nuclear Power Stations in Member States (OPEX).

The USA remained the world’s top producer of nuclear electricity, followed by China and France. China continued to lead in newbuilds, beginning construction on five reactors. Newcomer Egypt started building its second reactor, according to the data, which showed the global fleet operating at nearly full strength with a median capacity factor of 88 per cent. While new grid connections were made at nuclear power plants in Belarus, China, Republic of Korea, Slovakia and the United States of America, reactors were shut down in Belgium, China and Germany.

The 2023 data come against the backdrop of growing global ambitions for nuclear technology amid an aging reactor fleet. More than two-thirds of reactors are at least 30 years old. In December 2023, in the historic first Global Stocktake at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, the 198 signatory countries to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change called for accelerating the deployment of low-emission energy technologies including nuclear power for deep and rapid decarbonization, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors such as industry. In addition, more than 20 countries at COP28 pledged to work towards tripling global nuclear power capacity to reach net zero by 2050.

“IAEA data shows the global fleet of nuclear reactors continues to be a large and indispensable source of low-carbon electricity,” said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. “But it’s also clear that we will need to extend the lives of existing reactors, replace retiring facilities with new ones, and add a lot of new capacity so that global climate change and energy security goals can be reached.”

As of the end of December 2023, global operational nuclear power capacity was 371.5 GW(e), provided by 413 reactors in 31 countries. However, only 403 reactors, with a combined capacity of 364.5 GW(e), reported their electricity production to the IAEA. Twenty-five reactors remained in suspended operations throughout the year, despite being licenced for operation. This includes four reactors in India with a combined net capacity of 639 MW(e) and 21 reactors in Japan with a combined net capacity of around 21 000 MW(e). Japan restarted two reactors in 2023, Takahama-1 and Takahama-2, which had been in suspended operation since 2011.

Nuclear power capacity has remained at a consistent level over the past decade, with an additional 69.8 GW(e) nuclear capacity connected to the grid since the beginning of 2013. Over 79 per cent of this capacity growth occurred in Asia. China is still the fastest expanding nuclear power producer of the world, the reports on nuclear power reactors and operating experience show.

China currently has 56 nuclear power reactors in operation and a further 27 reactors currently under construction.

Background

The annual OPEX report underscores the IAEA's long-standing commitment as the custodian of the only officially collected and maintained data relating to nuclear power operating experience. As in previous years, the 55th edition of the report includes annual performance data, outage information, and statistical information on electricity production and the overall performance of individual nuclear power plants that were operational in 2023.

Nuclear Power Reactors in the World (RDS-2) is one of the IAEA’s most popular annual publications. It contains a summary of recent specification and performance data on nuclear reactors in IAEA Member States and technical data on reactors that are either planned, under construction, operational or that were shut down or decommissioned.

Both publications are entirely based on data submitted to IAEA by officially nominated national data providers and maintained in the Power Reactor Information System (PRIS), the world’s only authoritative and most comprehensive database on nuclear power.

Information and data received by the IAEA through 21 June 2024 are included in the 2023 highlights and in the OPEX and RDS-2 publications. Any modifications received at a later date, although not included in these publications, are available in the PRIS Statistics (PRISTA) online application.

A new heat exchanger set designed to meet projected increases in the temperature of Lake Michigan will be installed within the next 12 months to support the repowering of the Michigan plant.

Palisades draws its cooling water from the lake, but global warming means that the lake's bulk temperature - like the rest of the world's water reservoirs - has been increasing, and is expected to continue rising in the coming decades during its projected service life, Holtec said.

To meet the projected water temperature increase, the new unit needed to be more than twice as large in heat transfer surface area as the existing unit, but had to fit in the same space, which presented challenges for the system's developers.

"It was like asking to put two gallons of milk in a one-gallon carton," said Edward Bell, Director of Holtec's Heat Transfer Division.

The innovative design means the cooling system upgrade will require very little civil/structural work, which may reduce the project cost by more than 50% compared with the initial projection, the company said. The heat exchanger system is being manufactured at Holtec's fabrication plant in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Palisades was shut down in 2022, and was to be decommissioned. Holtec is now working to bring the 800 MWe pressurised water reactor back into service, aiming to repower it by the end of 2025. It would be the first nuclear power plant in the USA to return to commercial operations after being closed down, and current plans would see it provide baseload clean power until at least 2051.

China's State Council has approved five nuclear power projects - Xuwei Phase I, Lufeng Phase I, Zhaoyuan Phase I, San'ao Phase II and Bailong Phase I - with a total of 11 reactors.

China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) said Phase I of its Xuwei plant in Jiangsu project will be "the world's first to couple a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor with a pressurised water reactor". The plant will mainly supply industrial heating in addition to electricity. The project plans to build two Hualong One pressurised water reactors and one high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. The project will be equipped with a steam heat exchange station, which will adopt the heat-to-electricity operation mode for the first time.

The desalinated water will be heated by the primary steam of the Hualong One units to prepare saturated steam, and the primary steam of the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor will be used to heat the saturated steam for the second time.

"After completion, it will have both high-quality steam supply and power generation capabilities under the designed operating conditions," CNNC said. "After the project is completed and put into operation, it will supply 32.5 million tonnes of industrial steam annually, with a maximum power generation of more than 11.5 billion kilowatt-hours, which can reduce the use of standard coal by 7.26 million tonnes and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 19.6 million tonnes each year.

China General Nuclear (CGN) controlled companies have received approval to construct two Hualong One reactors as units 1 and 2 of the Zhaoyuan plant in Shandong province; two CAP1000 reactors as units 1 and 2 of the Lufeng plant in Guangdong province; and two Hualong Ones as units 3 and 4 of the San'ao plant in Zhejiang province. The company noted that Zhaoyuan Phase I "is the group's first nuclear power project in Shandong and its tenth nuclear power base".

"Currently, the company is carrying out various preparatory work for the construction of the above-mentioned units in an orderly manner, the full construction of which will begin when the Permit for Nuclear Power Station Construction has been obtained from the National Nuclear Safety Administration," CGN said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

In addition, State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) has been given approval for the construction of two CAP1000 pressurised water reactors as the first phase of the Bailong nuclear power plant. An investment of about CNY40 billion (USD5.6 billion) is planned for the two units, which are expected to take 56 months to construct. The company noted it is the first nuclear power plant developed by SPIC in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Four CAP1400 reactors are also planned to be built at the site in later phases.

From 2019 to 2023, the number of new reactors approved in China was six, four, five, 10 and 10 respectively, "showing an overall positive, safe and orderly development momentum", state-run China Energy News reported.

At its 19 August meeting, the State Council said that safety is the "lifeline" of nuclear power development. "We must continuously improve the level of nuclear power safety technology and risk prevention capabilities, strengthen safety supervision throughout the entire chain and in all areas, ensure that nuclear power is absolutely safe, and promote the long-term and healthy development of the industry," it said.

According to World Nuclear Association figures, China currently has 56 operable reactors with a total capacity of 54.3 GW. A further 30 reactors, with a total capacity of 32.5 GW, are under construction.