Nuclear power is China’s key for transitioning to a fully renewable grid design

Between late 2016 and August 2026, China connected 27 new nuclear reactors to its grid. In the same period, the United States connected two. As Jacopo Buongiorno—professor of nuclear science and engineering and director of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—tells me, “China is the world’s leader in nuclear power plant (NPP) construction.” It’s an impressive data point on its own but when you consider the greater picture, it’s even more striking. Those nuclear power plants are only a small fraction of China’s current power throughput, but they are the crux of the country’s electricity generation. The reason is that Chinese engineers have designed a power grid that relies heavily on renewables (and aims to eventually be 100% green). But, since wind and solar generation fluctuate a lot, they need a lot of nuclear generation to keep their electrical network stable and fully operational. Without that constant power, the fluctuations will make the grid crash. Beijing’s electricity hunger traces back to Deng Xiaoping’s “Reform and Opening-Up” policies, launched in December 1978, which set China on a path of rapid industrialization,…