Impossible? Chinese nuclear power plant heats entire city

While in the Netherlands the minister of energy affairs claims that he does not know how to heat a city with nuclear energy, the Chinese – as the Eastern Europeans have done before – prove the opposite.

Nuclear power plants produce a lot of waste heat

Nuclear power plants use the heat released during nuclear reactions to heat water into steam. This steam is used to drive a turbine, which supplies the actual power. But you can of course also use that hot water for other things, for example for district heating.

In other words, everything starts with heat. In that respect, it is not very smart that we remove the waste heat with large cooling towers, which also pose a huge problem in the summer because there is not enough water. Hence the popularity of nuclear power plants to provide hot water. This way you kill two birds with one stone.

Air pollution is a major problem in China

China is notorious for massive air pollution. The eastern coastal province of Shandong in particular has a reputation to uphold, given the popularity of coal for heating homes.

This is a thorn in the side of many Chinese. The reason that a large nuclear power plant was planned in Haiyang city in 2008. This nuclear power station not only supplies electricity, but also heat for district heating. Haiyang has about 200,000 inhabitants and is therefore slightly smaller than the city of Utrecht. Thanks to this plant with a thermal capacity of 365 megawatts, all residents of Haiyang can now enjoy clean heat.

Replacing coal with nuclear energy

A system for district heating already existed: with the help of 12 coal boilers, spewing filthy clouds of smoke. These poisoned the inhabitants of the city with suffocating coal fumes.

Thanks to the location of this nuclear power plant, carbon dioxide emissions have been reduced by 180,000 t, sulfur dioxide by 1188 t and nitrogen oxides by 1123 t per heating season. As an added bonus, this also produces cleaner electricity, making Haiyang the first carbon neutral city in China.

There is also district heating in some large Dutch cities. It could be interesting to link a nuclear power plant to these systems. That way we kill two birds with one stone