China's Nuclear Reactors Are Falling Apart

Thanks to cheap crappy Chinese construction, China could become the next Chernobyl. Welcome to China Uncensored, I'm Chris Chappell. You are about to learn some things that YouTube doesn't want you to know, because they're constantly unsubscribing our viewers without telling them. Or at least that's what a lot of you are saying again and again and again. And here's how YouTube auto-completed a search for China Uncensored. What on earth is China Uncle Goose? That's probably not what you were searching for. Well, maybe you, Greg. Anyway, stick around to the end and I'll show you how to fight YouTube suppression. But now, on with the show. So China is building up nuclear power at breakneck speeds, both for its nuclear weapons program and its civilian energy infrastructure. Which is a great idea. I mean, what's the worst that could happen with rushing something like nuclear energy? Right now, China is outpacing the US on nuclear power. And it's not just by a little. By a lot. The New York Times reported that during the same time it took the US to build two nuclear reactors, China built 13 with 33 more underway. That's nearly as many reactors under construction as the rest of the world combined. Quantity over quality. Nuclear reactors are booming in China. Hopefully not literally. China is second only to the US with the number of nuclear reactors in operation. But China's nuclear capacity could surpass the US as early as 2030. There's just one problem, which I'm sure you didn't see coming a mile away. China's nuclear power plants are being built on the cheap. And you know what they say about construction. It can be done well, fast, or cheap, but not all three. In this case, China has chosen fast and cheap over well. And it shows big time. According to Kyoto News, China's own authorities found over 200 defects and trouble with construction at Chinese nuclear plants between 2011 and 2024. And some of these problems were beyond common sense. So what kind of issues did they find? Well, here are just a few. Authorities noticed defects in a main piping system at the Saman nuclear plant in Zhejiang province and the Haiyang plant in Shandong province. At the Hongyanghe plant in Liaoning province, workers found an abnormal deformation in a spare tank that contained reactor cooling water. Apparently, operations at the facility didn't follow the blueprints and lacked safety awareness. I never thought I'd say this, but if that's the standard they're working with, I can't wait for robots to take over more jobs. At the Ningde plant in Fujian province, there were leaks from heat transfer tubes in the steam generators during water pressure tests. And in the Fuching plant in Fujian, workers ignored operation manuals and damaged important equipment, and a foreign object was left inside a nuclear reactor in a separate case. They're lucky that object didn't grow into a kaiju and destroy the city. I've seen a bunch of documentaries about that sort of thing happening. Meanwhile, the strength of concrete used in the Taishan nuclear plant in Guangdong province apparently didn't meet standards. This is the same nuclear plant that had US officials worried about a reported leak back in 2021, after a French company that part owns and operates it warned of an imminent radiological threat. The owners of these power plants are so cartoonishly negligent, they make certain American nuclear power plant owners seem saintly. Of course, China denied there was any imminent threat, but admitted there was some damage to fuel rods. Which in turn led to a year-long shutdown. Yes, their response was, there's no danger. Now, if you'll excuse us, we're going to go shut down for a year. Stop looking at it. Here, look at these jingly keys instead. Those are only just the examples of Kyoto News picked out. There are a ton more, including little things, like defects in the fire safety systems, or failures to properly report anomalies. There have also been issues with inexperience and lack of technical know-how. This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows about Chinese construction, and how Chinese companies constantly take shortcuts to build things as cheaply and quickly as possible. Safety, be damned. It's not like an explosion ever hurt anybody the CCP cared about. Of course, these 200 defects are just the ones Kyoto News was able to find out about. The CCP is notoriously good at keeping anything that makes it look bad under wraps. So, you know, there's probably a lot more. And yet, countries all over the world are thinking about getting their nuclear technology from China. That's insane. That'd be like relying on Mr. Magoo as a chauffeur. And yes, I will keep referencing decades-old cartoon shows. As you just saw, Pakistan's already getting reactors from China, and a lot of other countries are eyeing it as well, including Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Thailand, Kenya, and Ghana. Argentina is also on the list, although progress there has been stalled since 2022. So obviously, all of these Chinese reactors and Chinese nuclear projects all over the world have some people worried for some reason. Especially China's floating nuclear plants in the South China Sea. But didn't you know China is a responsible nuclear role model? State-run media told me so. The real nuclear threat we gotta worry about is Japan. After all, according to Chinese state-run media, Japan has enough plutonium to make 5,500 nuclear warheads. And the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident was, in essence, a man-made disaster that goes to show just how reckless Japan is. Yes, these are recent articles. Worry about Japan. Stop looking at China. Here, look at these jangly keys instead. So obviously, this is a problem not just for China, but for the entire world. After all, with safety practices like these, it's only a matter of time before nothing happens at all. Nope, nothing whatsoever. You'd think something as sensitive as nuclear energy would be given a little more care and attention, but no. It's all thanks to the system that the CCP has put in place. Speaking to Radio Free Asia back in 2017, a former nuclear power plant engineer named Liang Taiping said, the system has created a whole layer of trained technical staff who are under huge amounts of pressure. This means that not many people want to train in the technical professions. They all want to be party officials, so accidents and malfunctions are more likely. They're like mullets. There's business in the front, but all they want to do is party in the back. This is the kind of thing that makes a radioactive meltdown like Chernobyl even more likely to happen. Like China, the Soviet Union was a communist state that did not prioritize safety when it came to nuclear energy. They rushed to get things done without proper safety standards, training, and coordination. And look where that got them. Besides, a nuclear meltdown wouldn't exactly be the first time China kept a disastrous secret from the world. But how did China get all of this state-of-the-art nuclear technology anyway? Well, they had help from, you guessed it, the West. In the 1980s, French companies like Framatone and EDF built reactors and provided maintenance, supplies, equipment, and key technology. And in 2006, Westinghouse Electric Company, an American company, helped build an initial four Chinese nuclear power plants, based on its AP1000 top-of-the-line design. In addition, scientific institutions like MIT, Berkeley, and Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have done nuclear research collaborations with China. Fortunately, more recently, some steps have been taken to restrict nuclear technology from going to China. But far more needs to be done before nothing at all happens. Yep, nothing to see here. This kind of analysis requires funding from viewers like you, which is why I want you to become an official member of my China Uncensored 50-Cent Army, which you can do by simply going to ChinaUncensored.tv and clicking that orange button to subscribe. And when you join me, you'll get awesome stuff like exclusive episodes, live streams, and a vibrant chat community. But you don't do it for the awesome stuff. You do it for the feels. Because your support helps us fight YouTube censorship, pay our studio bills, hire great researchers and editors, and stand up to the CCP. We need 3,000 subscribers to stay afloat. We have about 2,000 so far, so we're more than halfway there. But if you've been on the fence about supporting us, now is the time. Again, go to ChinaUncensored.tv, click this button or the link below. Once again, I'm Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.