The France boosts its nuclear partnership with China

The France Monday gave a boost to its nuclear partnership with China through technology transfers announced by French Prime Minister during an official visit to Beijing.
François Fillon, accompanied in China by Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of Areva, and Henri Proglio, new CEO of EDF, said at a ceremony the importance and history of cooperation between France -Chinese in the civil nuclear power.

"Nuclear power is more than ever a fundamental theme of Franco-Chinese dialogue," he said in the imposing walls of the Grand Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

"For France, it is an honor and pride to have been able to master nuclear technology by China in a partnership started there almost 30 years," he added.

Paris and Beijing have plans to form all nuclear engineers and build on Chinese soil a plant for the reprocessing of fuels.

Both reactors third generation EPR under construction in Guangdong province have also been further advanced with the signing by the Chinese CGNPC holding one hand, Areva and EDF on the other hand, two joint ventures.

The TNPC, consisting of 30% by EDF and 70% by the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group (CGNPG), part of CGNPC will be responsible for construction and operation for 50 years these two EPRs in Taishan in southern China.

EDF's investment in this joint venture is 600 million euros according to the daily Les Echos.

Areva also hold 45% of Wecan, a joint venture it formed with the CGNPC for engineering reactors Taishan said Anne Lauvergeon.

The French nuclear group and its partner Dongfang also validated the sale for 200 million euros of coolant pumps for the CPR 1000, second-generation reactors.

The first EPR, whose construction began in November, should be operational in late 2013 and the second in late 2014.

TRANSFER OF TECHNOLOGY

Areva, initially reluctant to transfer technology, has come to bow to Chinese demands. The French group has struggled to convince Beijing of the quality of its third-generation reactors and was preceded initially by Westinghouse, a subsidiary of Japan's Toshiba Corp., which won a four reactors in 2007.

China is indeed "the country that manufactured the largest number of reactors" in the world, "said Francois Fillon.

The Republic has 11 reactors in operation for a total production capacity of 9.1 gigawatts (GW). Twenty-four new reactors representing 25.4 GW are under construction and, according to China Daily, the government wants to increase its capacity to 86 GW by 2020.

The France now wants to work with China on the fourth generation of EPR. One billion euros drawn from the next great French loan will be devoted to research on these future reactors, "with which the management of the fuel cycle will be even more efficient," said Francois Fillon.

"The development of a sustainable nuclear industry and responsible is our nuclear cooperation a new priority area," he added.

The Franco-Chinese alliance in the nuclear decline in the downstream and upstream of the reactor operation.

An agreement was signed Monday between the University Sun Yat-sen of Canton and a consortium of five French schools to open next year a school Franco-Chinese nuclear engineers.

The two countries have also proposed a reprocessing spent fuel, based on French technology.