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Comment by philipkglass | Hacker News Reader

It's still the country building the most new nuclear power, but it's also reducing ambitions from just a few years ago.

From your own link:

The 13th Five-Year Plan formalized in March 2016 included the following nuclear projects and aims: ... Reach target of 58 GWe nuclear operational by end of 2020, plus 30 GWe under construction then.

China actually has 47.5 GWe operational now. See table "Operable nuclear power reactors" in your link. They fell short of the 2020 target and with only 15 GWe under construction they're not catching up with their original goals either.

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A large part of that is actually due to civilian opposition after Fukushima that led local governments to attempt to get others to build nuclear.

The really long term Chinese goals are ~80% nuclear still.

Falling 20% short of a five year plan that included 2020 is not strong evidence they're pulling back.

That 58 gigawatt goal for 2020 was already less ambitious than the goal of 70 GW by 2020 from 2012.

"China may resume approving nuke plants in H1" (January 2012)

https://www.reuters.com/article/china-nuclear/china-may-resu...

The government will resume approving new plants after the announcement of the nuclear safety plan which recently won clearance from the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), the China Securities Journal said.

The report also said in order to meet the government-set target of having non-fossil fuels to supply 15 percent of China’s primary energy use by 2020, the total installed nuclear capacity should not fall under 70 gigawatts (GW) by then.

That in turn was less ambitious than the 2020 nuclear goals China had before the Fukushima accident.

"Nuclear power to rise 10-fold by 2020" (July 2009)

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-07/02/content_83464...

China is planning for an installed nuclear power capacity of 86 gigawatts by 2020, up nearly 10-fold from the 9 GW capacity it had by the end of last year, two people familiar with the matter said.

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