Situation Report: Safety issues at Chinese nuclear plant highlight the need for transparency

On Monday, CNN reported the prospect of an “imminent radiological threat” at the site of the Taishan nuclear power plant in China’s Guangdong Province.

The Taishan Nuclear Power Joint Venture Company (TNPJVC) operates the nuclear power plant as a joint venture between China and France, where the state-owned China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) owns the majority stake, with French utility company Electrictie de France (EDF) serving as 30% minority owner.

Information about the threat became public after Framatome –a French company contracted to help construct and operate the plant– applied for a waiver with the U.S. Department of Energy to use American technical assistance to remedy a suspected “leak” reportedly leading to an increase in radiological levels at the plant. A waiver is required because CGN was added to the U.S. Commerce Department’s “Entity List” in 2019, meaning U.S. and non-U.S. companies are prohibited from exporting or transferring to CGN any goods, software or technology that is subject to control under the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR).

EDF publicly admits it was informed of “the presence of certain noble gases in the primary circuit,” presumably by Framatome.  According to a company memo cited by CNN, “a Chinese government agency was continuing to increase its limits on the amount of gas that could safely be released from the facility without shutting it down.”

Some security experts point out that such a shut down would have many “knock-on effects,” with “60K+ factories and multiple ports affected,” and the resulting blackouts may “dramatically increase food spoilage” – good reasons why the Chinese government would want to keep the plant running.

The Taishan plant is an Evolutionary Pressured Water Reactor (EPR), the first of its kind to go commercial.

In a recent radio interview on Secure Freedom Radio with Frank Gaffney control systems expert Joseph Weiss –who previously served as an expert witness in legal cases involving the EPR– said such reactors have not yet been produced in other nations because of licensing safety issues.

“The Chinese are marketing this type of plant all over the world,” Weiss noted, “so the last thing they want to do is have any question to its reliability or safety.”

So, an immediate lingering question is just how “dangerous” are these noble gases and what are the actual levels of radiation being released? Unfortunately, the CNN article does not include any figures for those actual radiological dose levels.

“Noble gasses are not, necessarily, a level of concern for radiological health, but certainly should be monitored,” said Steven Curtis, an expert on nuclear safety. “It is important to note that levels are set orders of magnitude below what would be dangerous, so exceeding them would not necessarily be a problem to long-term health,” he added.

Unfortunately, the Chinese government has a frightening record of disinterest in the long-term health of its population and no record of truth-telling when it comes to health risks.

Given China’s track record on transparency it is possible that the U.S. Government – and the world – would not have been made aware of the safety issues at the Taishan plant in a timely manner were it not for CGN’s presence on the “entity list.”

David Fishman – an economic analyst on the Chinese electricity sector – tweeted that it “doesn’t sound like Framatome reached out for *help* per se. Rather, they reached out for approval to conduct work to fix/mitigate the problem.”  Fishman points Framatone would want “full transparency” with the U.S. Government if “the information they are preparing to transfer originated in the U.S.”

The Taishan nuclear plant situation serves as an important reminder for  American policymakers and industry leaders of the challenges faced by engaging in corporate partnerships with Chinese companies closely linked to the Chinese state.  In 2020, the U.S. Department of Defense included CGN on a list of 20 companies operating within the United States that are tied directly or indirectly to the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

CGN has several significant relationships with America’s energy sector, including agreements with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the most prominent electric utility research organization. Similar Chinese power companies have substantive relationships with the Edison Electric Institute- an electrical utility lobbying group.

As the Taishan reactor incident is now revealing, there are significant challenges for western, and especially American, industry partnering with a company like CGN, especially when it comes to issues of transparency.