Pu Jilong, former general manager of Guangdong Dayawan Nuclear Plant, said that much of his work involves organizing tree and flower plantings in and around his power plant.

"When we began to supply power in 1994, the memory of Chernobyl accident was still on people's mind," said Pu, now a senior researcher of Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Ltd.

"Although we have installed highly safe equipment, people cannot see these safety measures. Rather, the fresh and beautiful environment will help them form the impression that nuclear power is clean and safe," Pu told China Daily.

Safer measures

Pu's effort is part of the Chinese nuclear power industry's overall work to glean lessons and experiences from the Chernobyl disaster, which occured 20 years ago taday to improve safety.

Fu Manchang, secretary general of China Nuclear Society, said, "When the disaster took place, the Chernobyl-style nuclear reactor had been generally abandoned in the West, but in the former Soviet Union, it was kept to save costs."

He added that from the very beginning, the Chinese nuclear power industry has been trying to adopt the newest nuclear technologies from the West.

"We found one of the problems in the former Soviet Union is that it lacked a professional nuclear safety supervision commission," said Wang Jun, deputy director of nuclear safety department of the State Administration of Environmental Protection.

Absorbing this lesson, China has established a legal structure to ensure the safe operation of nuclear power, said Wang, adding that the design and ratification of nuclear power plants in China have been highly strict and conservative.

Su Xu, director of the National Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety under the Chinese Centre for Disease Control, said since the debut of China's nuclear power industry, his institute has been frequently monitoring the radiation level around the nuclear plants.

Studies show that the radiation level around the plants is no higher than the natural level and far below the World Health Organization's standard.

China has nine nuclear reactors located in six nuclear power plants in Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces in operation, which will be expanded to 11 early next year. The reactors supply a total of 8.6 million kilowatts of power.

The nuclear power accounts for about 2 per cent of China's total electricity output.

After the Chernobyl disaster, the world's rapidly developing nuclear power industry experienced a serious setback in the 1990s.

But Ma Xuquan, a professor of nuclear physics at Tsinghua University, said that the high attention generated from Chernobyl hid the fact that there was an oversupply of electricity with extremely low oil prices as low as US$8 per barrel.

During the 1990s, the nuclear reactors' operation level in the United States was only 50 per cent.

In China, the construction speed of nuclear plants also slowed beginning in early 2000.

"The slowed speed is not for nuclear power plants alone, but for all types of power plant development because of the seemingly oversupply of electricity at that time," said Ma.

But with surging oil prices in the previous two years and increasing power shortage in China, the zeal to build new nuclear power stations was revived not only in China but also in France, the United Kingdom and Japan.

According to Ma, the emission of greenhouse carbon dioxide the primary reason for global warming of thermal power is nearly 100 times that of nuclear power. The radiation level of thermal power is 50 times that of nuclear power, because coal often contains some radiation material.

"In terms of economic efficiency, production safety and environmental friendliness, nuclear power is much better than thermal power," said Ma.

"Despite the enhanced safety of our nuclear equipment, Chinese leaders were also very cautious in developing nuclear power after the Chernobyl accident," Ma said.

But Fu said that the high precautious attitude of the Chinese leadership toward nuclear power was changing recently.

"From late last year, when they talked about nuclear power, the tone of the central leadership has been changed from 'moderate development' to 'positive development'," Fu said.

Late last month, the State Council passed the Middle and Long-term Development Plan for Nuclear Power, which will increase China's nuclear power supplies to 40 million kilowatts by 2020, accounting for 4 per cent of the total electricity.

"Considering the high capability required to build a nuke plant, the planned nuclear construction step has not been slow. This means that in each of the coming 15 years, we will build at least two nuclear reactors. This is a very big task for us," said Pu.

Despite the enhanced zeal to develop the nuclear power, Li Jifang, a retired teacher at Wuyuan Town in East China's Zhejiang Province, close to Qinshan Nuclear Power Station, urged nuclear power generators to consider locals.

"The construction of the nuke power plant has broken the quiet life of local people. More out-of-town people have rushed in, but fearing the possible nuclear fuel release, many old residents have moved out," Li told China Daily.

Zheng Chunkai, a professor of nuclear physics at Peking University, said nuclear power stations should have more communication with local communities to ease their worries.

Editor¡êoYan