CCTVNEWS visited China’s first nuclear power station in the Chinese mainland for an exclusive peek inside. The station started operations in 1991. This video footage shows a senior engineer entering the Qinshan nuclear power station, and how he dresses to prepare for a day’s work.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the 4th Nuclear Security Summit (NSS), which is to be held from March 31 to April 1 in Washington, DC.
The fourth and, according to the White House, the final Nuclear Security Summit (NSS), comes seven years after the first NSS was initiated by US President Barack Obama, aiming to advance tangible improvements in nuclear security behavior, and strengthen the global nuclear security systems currently in place to prevent any form of nuclear terrorism.
During a speech in Prague in 2009, Obama talked about the potential threat posed should nuclear weapons fall into the hands of terrorists, describing the security risk as the “most immediate and extreme threat to global security.”
In his speech Obama went on to urge a global push to lock down stocks of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium – materials many fear could be stolen by terrorists for the purpose of building destructive weapons. President Obama has reiterated his calls for greater nuclear security in global summits since then.
According to the NTI Nuclear Security Index, the summits held so far have helped convince 11 countries to “take the single most significant step to protect against catastrophic nuclear terrorism -- eliminate their stocks of weapons-usable nuclear materials.”
With the previous summits leading to good progress made in keeping global stockpiles of nuclear materials out of the reach of terrorists, this year’s meeting is expected to draw a clear path to continued progress in providing “rules of the road” that countries should follow to attain global nuclear security.
Countries at the summit are expected to stress their unilateral nuclear security commitments in a communiqué to be issued at the end of the talks. The document will provide an overview of top policy goals and objectives regarding nuclear security that all countries present will agree on and strive to achieve.
China is mostly self-sufficient in the way it goes about designing and building its nuclear reactors, and the vigorous development of nuclear power currently undergoing in the country is part of the “war on pollution” the government has declared to tackle the carbon emissions mainly produced from coal-fired power stations. China hopes that by 2030, 8% - 10% of the country’s entire electricity output will be generated by nuclear power.
