Can Nuclear Repower China's Coal Fleet? - Ep163: Staffan Qvist & Dr. Yaoli Zhang

Bryony Worthington
Hello, I'm Bryony Worthington and this is Cleaning Up. We kicked off this season with Michael's fascinating conversation with Dr. Ma Jun. China's policies that direct capital towards cleaner industries have been game-changing, and this week we're continuing the China theme, sharing two conversations I had earlier this month at a conference at Xiamen University in Fujian Province. China's role in the clean energy transition couldn't be more important. The think tank Ember's latest report on the state of the global electricity transition states: over half of the world's new wind and solar power capacity last year was added in China. And together with hydro and nuclear, clean electricity in China now meets 35% of their electricity demand. And yet, the scale and the nature of the Chinese economy is so enormous it's hard to grasp, the majority of which is still powered by roughly 1000 gigawatts of coal-fired power stations - half of the global total. The focus of the conference was on a specific lever that could help China further along its decarbonisation path: the repowering of existing coal stations with clean sources of heat. My first guest, Dr. Staffan Qvist, is a published academic co-author of the book A Bright Future, and founder of a number of companies dedicated to the clean energy transition. He's been studying this concept of coal re-powering since he first co-authored papers on the subject with Polish colleagues in 2019. I was delighted to get a chance to sit down in person with both Staffan and the conference host Professor Yaoli Zhang to discuss this idea. Please join me in first welcoming Staffan Qvist to Cleaning Up.

Michael Liebreich  
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BW  
Staffan, it's a delight to be with you here in China. I'm going to start with the first question which is just: could you tell us who you are and what you do? 

Staffan Qvist  
Very difficult question, yes, but I'll try. So, I used to be - and somewhat still is - a researcher, so I went to university, I got a PhD in nuclear engineering and I did a whole bunch of research, scientific research on that, then kind of transitioned out of academia and started my own consulting company working specifically-and-only on decarbonisation projects. So not very specifically - what, but the topic was always how can we decarbonize, make clean energy or anything around that. And out of that sprung - from a conversation with a certain baroness - the project- the idea of re-powering as well, which I've been leading for the last four years, and why we are currently sitting in Xiamen, China together. 

BW  
Right, so- but before we get there, so your background is as an engineer, right? And you did your- did you do- from Sweden, was your first degree from a Swedish University?

SQ  
Yeah, I studied at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, where I'm from, and then I started as a mechanical engineer. I didn't think I had it in me- I didn't think I was smart enough to do physics. I wanted to do physics but it was too daunting for me to try to apply. I wasn't very good in high school- at school, so I did mechanical engineering, primarily because it had the lowest entry level grades. So it was the least popular thing you could do. Not the simplest thing but the fewest people wanted to do it so you can get in there. And so that's what I started doing- I wasn't too inspire by mechanical engineering. And at that time, Sweden had just launched its first - for many decades - its first nuclear engineering programme. And so I was, I think, the first cohort of them ever doing it in modern times. So I jumped ship, and I tried that, having no experience or any understanding of anything nuclear. It sounded- sounded cool so I tried it, yeah.

BW  
Right. And- but then you went to- you spent some time in California. So what was- what led to that?

SQ  
So, I wanted to go to California and so I asked my professors in Sweden, "is there any way we could-" - well, I wanted to go to the US. I was always fascinated by the US: - "is there any way I could maybe do my master's thesis at a US university?" And we found a welcoming host at the University of California-Berkeley. So I went and did my master's thesis there and they asked me to stick around for a PhD, which I also did. 

BW  
And what was your PhD in?

SQ  
Also nuclear - reactor physics. So how this very, very exotic new kind of reactors would work and if they could be stable and safe and all that.

BW  
And so, fast forwarding then, several years; I was first introduced to you by Armond Cohen from the Clean Air Task Force, when I'd asked him the question, "when it comes to nuclear, who do I speak to about high temperature nuclear reactors?" And his first words were, "Staffan Qvist". So what was it- why would he have known that you were interested in high temperature reactors? 

SQ  
So, it's actually a weird coincidence; so the first time I ever met Armond Cohen was about a few hundred kilometres from here in Hainan in China. So we were - for some reason - at a meeting with the Chinese Academies of Science, discussing air pollution in China. Armond came from the ATF- you know, taskforce - and I came on the invitation of James Hansen, the climate researcher who I knew. So we met there, and we started to discuss many things, including what could nuclear do in China for air pollution? At the time, the focus here was not CO2, it was particulate matter - air pollution in cities. So the climate researchers here realised the only way they could get their climate funding is connected to air pollution, youu know, it's kind of a very connected issue. So Armond and I started talking there, and we started- it's a long journey, but we started talking about a researcher that got a lot of attention at the time, Mark Jacobson, Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson. It's a difficult topic to discuss because he's litigious, but we discussed whether we think- we thought the studies that he was then very much promoting were actually accurate. And so, we decided that we should have a look into it and the rest is history, I guess. There was a paper and a lot of work. That's how I got to know Armond. 

BW  
Right, so that was around the controversial subject of 100% renewables, right, which is Mark Jacobson's- but as you say, there was a court case and then a county court case, and perhaps we should just not go there. But you were involved- you were involved in that?

SQ  
I was the second author of the paper that was so controversial, pointing out - say - some shortcomings that we thoughgt in Mark's work, yeah. So, the first author was, unfortunately, having to be involved in that lawsuit, which - Chris Clark - was the first author obviously, won all those court cases. They've all been settled now in his favour. But he had to go through a lot of torturous times  because of that-

BW  
Wow, yeah.

SQ  
-which I completely avoided. I was not involved in any of that. 

BW  
Right. But you- so how did you come to know James Hansen- Jim Hansen?

SQ  
That's a good question as well. So James- Jim - as he likes to be called - realised early on that nuclear would be, you know, one weapon in the toolbox. And he is, you know, the original climate activist scientist. And for some, I think- actually I don't remember how we got to know each other, but we knew each other well enough that we went to Hainan together anyway.

BW  
Yeah, okay. Great. And I mean- that is kind of the- where are we today, do you think, in terms of people's acceptance that we need all the tools or as many of the tools as can be seen as sustainable in the toolbox? I mean, do you think things are getting more polarised or less? Or what's your sense?

SQ  
Mostly getting better, I would say. It was- it started from a very low point - there's obviously still two camps: there's what we call now "bros" on both ends, that only one just their solutions. There's the "nuke bros", the really hardcore nuke bros who say, "everything else is useless and pointless," and obviously, the traditional 100% renewable camp that says primarily, "nuclear is pointless and useless and dangerous and terrible." The middle has grown and it's keeps growing. I would say the middle now dominates; before they- a few years ago, this edge dominated but you know- the edge cases dominated, and the middle has now grown to be dominant, I would say, most places.

BW  
Right. And do you think that's because we've had- well, we've had 20 years of promoting or supporting of renewables, and in that time- I mean they've done amazing things, right? They've come down in price, there are gigawatts now, of solar going in, wind is an established industry. And yet, emissions is stubbornly high. Is that- do you think that's what's causing this new shift to the middle or- ?

SQ  
Yeah, I think there's a realisation that although everything's going really well - and there has been an amazing development on costs, on technology, you know, it's not going- it's not as easy as some might have hoped and there's a growing realisation that there isn't- there isn't any benefit to kind of- you have a team and you're just arbitrarily benching one of your players that could participate, it's just not going to help you. And it's really difficult to stand by that position, these days. You can make arguments, "where it makes sense," and, "how much, you know, cost you can take before it starts to not make sense," and all that. But before you even start analysis, just bench one of your possibly best players that you're- historically your second best player in the team, if you would go back - to just bench that player and not even have him or her be part of a potential lineup, it's a very- it's getting very, very difficult to motivate that kind of thinking these days. It's not very popular, it's kind of- it's starting to become a fringe opinion, I would say.

BW  
Right, okay. But it's a kind of vocal fringe opinion, right. And this, as you say, there are faults on both sides, it seems to get very heated at the extremes. But is that noise is helping, you know, confused politicians or decision makers?

SQ  
Yeah, it's kind of the curse and the blessing of social media, and you know, the increased spread of everything you do. Whenever I put out any kind of work, the first comments are either, "you're an absolute idiot, this is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life," or "this is brilliant, this is fantastic." And then that's what you see, that's what you think: either I'm an idiot or I'm fantastic. Actually, most people are not the first people to comment on Twitter, or, you know, social media, it's just the most vocal people get seen the most and heard the most, but they don't represent the majority opinion. And once you realise that, you kind of filter it out. But if you don't, especially if you're a journalist, you might think this is what people think. It is- teah, it's biassing towards the extremes. And you see that, not just in energy policy discussion, you see that in any type of policy discussion, extremes get amplified, even though they're not many, they're very loud. And so they get a disproportionate airtime, or they claim - themselves - disproportionate airtime.

BW  
Yeah. But overall, you're optimistic that that quieter but more considered central position is making progress?

SQ  
It's- yeah, it's been making political progress, which is, you know, a clear sign that successful, you know. There's not many standing by an extremist position, politically, anymore. 

BW  
There's a couple of notable countries- 

SQ  
Yes, but they're getting more and more isolated, I would say. They- if you look at- if you, like, plot out where the positions have been, the very extremist- Germany being maybe the main example in Europe, they're getting more and more isolated in that position. Most of Europe have- many were kind of in that camp and have now transitioned to a more "all-of-the-above", "whatever works" kind of strategy that's more rational.

BW  
Yeah. And obviously Sweden very recently switched its policy to include nuclear, right. And did you have any hand in that or watched it from the sidelines?

SQ  
We tried to provide the research to back up the position - I mean, which is, you know, we tried to make what we say a "technology-neutral study". So we made a pretty big one in Sweden. It's a small pond, but in that small country, it got quite a lot of attention. We just said, "okay, let's say we could use anything." And we had these targets: decarbonize, continued economic growth, all of these things: what would be a good mix? And how would that- you know what factors determine a good mix? And if you are putting players on the bench, as we said, what impacts does it have? Does it become more costly or more difficult? And we could show, I think, quite convincingly- it was a very receptive audience in the new government, obviously, but we could show quite convincingly that there are no benefits to a more extremist position. So the new government of Sweden is promoting essentially all clean energy. The previous one was promoting a specific subset of their favourites.

BW  
Right. Okay. And so here we are in China where- we had our conversation about high temperature reactors all those years ago, partly because: you look at the data on China and the sheer number and volume of power being generated by coal is kind of what keeps me up at night: 1000 gigawatts of coal. And such a vast population so heavily dependent on energy for prosperity and economic development. It's just hard to see how they can get rid of that coal without something that's going to be very energy-dense and able to be replicated and built in a fairly fast rollout. And they've been doing a lot of renewables over the last decade for certain- but what project we're here to discuss is is repowering of existing coal with clean sources of heat. Do you want to just explain a bit more about that?

SQ  
Yeah. So on the very highest level, decarbonisation is essentially building stuff and closing stuff. And what China has been doing is building stuff but they have haven't been closing stuff. And that's- it's a sticky problem. It's way easier to build stuff than close stuff. So it's not- there's a timing issue and there's also political entrenchment issues where it's- it's not easy to build stuff, but it's easier to build stuff than close stuff. So China has been adding both nuclear and wind, solar and batteries at what looks like an incredible rate, but all of them-

BW  
And hydro, right? 

SQ  
Yeah. Even hydro, yeah. World-beating- typically they do more than the rest of the world combined on all of these things every year.

BW  
Yeah. 

SQ  
But they're starting from a position where there's so much to be done, that if you look at their own energy mix, it's not that dramatic. It's dramatic in numbers and absolutes. I think China, for example, added more solar last year than the US has done in its history. So it's- you know, the numbers are very impressive, but when they get normalised to the size of the challenge, they're actually not that impressive. They're not impressive enough. So the repowering idea is trying to tackle many of these issues in one. So you have all these coal power plants, obviously, they can't keep running. They can't keep running for their normal technological lifetimes. But we've had investments in them, you've spent, you know, collectively, humanity has spent trillions of dollars building coal plants very recently. It's very difficult to walk away from. So usually a decarbonisation plan says, you know, "these assets should just be scrapped, you should blow them up," more or less. And people do very publicly blow up cooling towers of coal plants and celebrate that, "and then you should build a clean energy system kind of on the side or at the same time." So what repowering is trying to introduce is the idea of kind of not stranding everything we did, but actually recycling it in a way - taking all that is valuable in what we have done and converting it to clean energy. So, for example, you have- if you want to establish a greenfield clean energy project, you are faced with a large number of headaches. One is finding a site - and that site has to have, hopefully, for you, ability to get permits for a power plant of whatever kind you want to build -; you have to get, somehow, a connection - usually to the grid, a very large connection becuase it's a large power plant, so overhead power lines, transformer stations; you need a workforce; you need local acceptance for this kind of development. All of these are giant headaches. Most of these headaches are solved if you go to an existing thermal power plant like a coal power plant - you have, obviously a huge grid connection there; you have the overhead power lines that were already going in; you have a workforce; you have cooling water permits; you're allowed to take in water, heat it up, release it warmer, or you have cooling towers; you have permits for that. So when you list your headaches for a greenfield, clean energy project of any kind, many of those headaches have a kind of an aspirin here, if you go and do this. There's also the added benefit that if the coal plant is young enough, actually some of the technical equipment could be reused, because especially thermal power plants which create heat and then make steam and then run a steam turbine, they use the same type of equipment. So this has maybe been over emphasised in the coal repowering idea. It might not be the most important part, but it is a very neat feature that sometimes you can actually reuse a lot of the equipment, not just retrain the people and reuse the site, the grid connection and permits, but actually some of the equipment as well. 

BW  
Right. And would you say- because obviously, the reason we spoke about high temperature reactors was because the pressurised water reactor doesn't really give you high-temperature steam. So you couldn't- there's no real way in which, unless you're boosting it, a PWR could match the turbine temperatures, but a high temperature gas-cooled reactor could, and that's something China has been exploring, which is why we got excited, I think, initially.

SQ  
Yeah, so as I was telling the conference here and all our Chinese delegates in my introductory speech yesterday, the first time I ever thought about this idea was from hearing a presentation about the Chinese high temperature reactor project where the presenter didn't put any emphasis on it but just had a slide up saying, "by the way, we're making in this system steam of the exact same pressure and qualities of temperature and pressure as our coal boilers are doing." And it just, immediately for me, "okay, you're gonna replace your coal boilers with this heat source. It's just another heat source and your power plants will look the same, you're just putting- instead of the thing that kind of burns the coal and coal power plant - that component - you're just going to put these reactors in. I asked the - this was many years ago - I asked the presenter - maybe a language barrier or so, but there was there was no reaction. But for me, it was always there at the back of my head, you know: they're making a thing that makes the same steam And the steam side of a power plant. doesn't care who made the steam.

BW  
And the turbines are very similar... But, so this this concept, the first time I ever heard about it was I think I read a New Scientist article that was talking about the advanced gas-cooled reactors the UK built. So, before we fell in love with the pressurised water reactors, we had gas-cooled reactors, and there was an article about how the engineers who worked on the ADRs had engineered them so that the size and scale would match the coal units, because we had 500 megawatt coal units in the day, and their thought was back then - this was in the 60s, I think - that this eventually would replace coal, and we would reuse the sites that the coal had been built on. And then, you know, the rest is history, because that never happened; we fell in love with the pressurised water reactor, and then found natural gas, right, and it was CCGTs that came in. So, there was this fork in history where we could have gone down a different path. 

SQ  
Yeah. There was much more- thinking much more along those lines, if you read the old engineering reports of essentially a power plant, they used to make, you know, the power plant engineers used to make coal power plants and now they're making a power plant with another heat source. But usually, they were thinking in the same way for, you know, the conventional side of the power plant. And there is even an example, which I mentioned briefly here, a reactor called Elk River in the US that actually combined the coal power plant and a nuclear reactor. There was nothing controversial. They weren't making a big deal of it. They though, "okay, we can run the steam cycle - the turbines to make the drive the generator make the electricity - more effectively if we had higher steam temperature, but the water cooled reactor can't make that high temperature, so let's just put a coal-boiler and up the temperature of what the reactor can do."  And so they had a combined coal power plant/nuclear power plant running.

BW  
Wow. 

SQ  
And this wasn't like a big deal back then, because that's how they were thinking about these things. And we stopped, we kind of siloed these things. And that's why it seems- if we would have said, "coal repowering" in the 60s, it would be completely natural to everyone, it wouldn't have been a novel idea. But we kind of got away from that kind of thinking, and now we're trying to bring it back in. So these things kind of look the same, only one isn't polluting and the other one is. And so, there's a lot of things you can do, not just for the technical - I just said we focus too much on the technical equipment, now, we talked about technical equipment for a long time! But you have to think about what is- we have to move away from these trillions of dollars and 1000s of sites. They can't keep running as they are and there is a better way to present what's going to happen with these than just say, "we're all gonna blow them up and everyone that works there is gonna get fired." It's not a compelling story. And there is a better story out there. That's what's repowering is.

BW  
But, some people might say, "sure, go in theory, but when it comes to the hard financing and the costs, why not just use- overbuild wind and solar and hydro, and then batteries or some form of storage, and you can get right- you can get the same outcome in terms of energy services at a lower cost, you know, you just really headache yourself if you go back to this nuclear conversation."

SQ  
That's a obviously contentious - as we know, as we discussed briefly here - question of what is this cheaper total system? The studies we've been making makes it clear to us, at least, that in most cases, in most applications, it's better to have a mix than going for only that. There are maybe cases where that could be better. Also, everything depends on your input assumptions. If you're always going to assume that, for instance, solar and wind and batteries are going to be extremely cheap and always getting a lot cheaper and nuclear is always going to be extremely expensive in your assumptions and maybe getting even more expensive: yes, there is a way that you can tweak or, you know, make a model that would show you that would be better. If you're in a place like China, where nuclear is already very cost competitive in the market, these input assumptions are, you know, not true. So any study here will show you - as we've seen in this conference as well - that a mix of these options solves this more effectively, not just for lower costs but also lower challenges in the expansion of the power grid. So a lot less overhead power lines and transformer stations and permits and fights about this and less land use. So let's just - yeah, the footprint of the system can be reduced. And so, not all of these things are easy to put a dollar-value on. But if you would try to make the system work, it just becomes a lot more - let's say- "easy" is a bad word to use - this is a challenge - but less challenging.

BW  
Right. And not every coal station in the world - you mentioned really the newest stations are probably some of the best that you might do a repowering - but there's, you know, you're going to need to reuse certain sites, aren't you; not all sites are going to be need to be repowered because we will have variable renewables entering in- displacing thermal, and that would be the cheap way to do it now. So , tell us a bit a little bit about repower school which is a way of helping filter right which sites you should look at.

SQ  
I should also clarify, before we go in there, that the Repower Program and our initiative and all of our discussion is not a nuclear program. It's essentially agnostically looking at what you could do with coal power plant sites, and even all thermal fossil power plant sites. So there will be cases where the best way to repower a site could be a coastal coal power plant that is next to a good offshore wind area. The best way to reuse that asset would probably be the interconnecting point where the wind farm lands- on land would be in the coal fired power station's grid connection. Or it could be that you are in a place where it's quite hot under the ground and there's good geological concerns and conditions for geothermal power plant, and then geothermal would be the best way to repower-reuse that asset and that site. Sometimes it's nuclear, and no, not all coal power plants will be converted this way.  They won't need to be. If you conver all coal power plants in China, you would have- since they're only running, you know, 55, 60% capacity factor, if they will be converted to something that runs all the time, you would double the power output. So, not all sites will be good for any kind of conversion, and most of them will be good for some kind of conversion, and only a small subset will be suitable for a nuclear conversion. Now I forgot what your actual question was!

BW  
Ah- so have I! We don't need to worry. I was talking about Repower Score.

SQ  
Yeah, yeah. So there is a- we have tried for the last year or so to try to codify - encode - all of the research that's been done by us and all the partners that are working across the world on repowering, to make a tool that tries to guide the process of understanding what coal plants are suitable for what kind of conversion, at what date?  So repowerscore.org - which you can visit, it's freely available, the methodology is freely available, how it's calculating, you an even download the results of it - it will tell you our best understanding of- let's say you were in a certain place or in China, you're in Guangdong Province in China, you want to figure out, "okay, let's try this. Which is the best coal plant to do, if I want to do this kind of conversion and I want to do it 10 years from now? It will tell you, "this is the- this is what the system thinks is the best one and why."

BW  
Right. And what- so just tell us a little bit then about what you're doing here in Xiamen Province and who else is here with you.

SQ  
So we- this is the second global partner meeting for the Repower Initiative. So we have gathered our partners from Korea, India, Indonesia, obviously China - a lot of partners in China - Poland, and the global team, all in one place, physically. There is a carbon footprint to doing a meeting like this, but it's very clear only a few hours in that we need- human beings still need to meet physically, especially when we're working on opposite sides of the planet, and we need to meet and we need to have, not just presentations and PowerPoints, but the discussions afterwards and in between to find ways to work together. So, there's a lot of people working on this idea now. There wasn't a few years ago, and they all need to coordinate and they need to learn from each other and help each other. And, you know, that's what this meeting is about. That's why we're having them. And I think it's- every one of the two meetings we have are so useful that it's validated why we're doing it.

BW  
Yeah. And it's been really fascinating to watch the Polish team -who that very first paper that you helped write was about Poland, because Poland's got many similar attributes to China, right? It's heavily coal-dependent, the coal is used not just for power but for heat as well, in CHP. Very hard to see- doesn't have the huge offshore wind resource that maybe the western part of Europe has, so that was the first study. And it's been great to see the Polish team interacting with the Korean team or with the Indian team, sharing examples of the things you have to think through when you're thinking about this sort of system efficiency research really. That's what they're doing, isn't it. They're looking at the system to see: how will you most efficiently switch this to zero emissions?

SQ  
Yeah, it's been- it's very effective, in a way that we are a bit staggered in timeline. So the Polish team are the biggest and they're most advanced in their studies. They're maybe one or two years ahead of the other teams; they can really share what went well and what went wrong and how to interact with government, all these things so that, you know, it's more effective for the followers. So that kind of information sharing is happening right now.

BW  
Yeah. Well, Staffan, I'm going to let you get back to the conference. But thank you so much for spending the time and for coming on Cleaning Up.

SQ  
My honour and pleasure. 

BW  
And I think- for me, you know, the moderate position is: it's not going to be just this as the answer, but to rule it out completely, it seems like - as you say - leaving one of your players on the bench might be-

SQ  
Yeah, this is one more tool that we're trying to add to the toolbox, and we shouldn't discard any tool in the toolbox. We should try to add more tools into this- that's what we're trying to do here; yet another way in the menu of great things that you can do to try to tackle this problem. That's how we look at it.

BW  
Thank you very much. 

SQ  
Thank you. 

BW  
So that was Dr. Staffan Qvist. My next guest is Assistant Professor Yaoli Zhang of Xiamen University, a thermal generation engineer by training who later repowered himself and switched to nuclear engineering. He currently oversees a team researching the repowering of coal in China from both a practical and economic perspective. Please join me in welcoming Professor Yaoli Zhang to Cleaning Up. 

Professor Yaoli Zhang, I'm so pleased to be here with you in China. And I'm delighted you agreed to do this interview. Could you just start by introducing who you are and what you do?

Dr. Yaoli Zhang  
Sure. So thank you for having me, Lady Bryony. My name is Yaoli Zhang and I am an Associate Professor at the College of Energy, Xiamen University.

BW  
And what is it you do at the university?

YZ  
First, I teach, and second, I do some research on thermal engineering. So something related to thermal power plants, and something related to nuclear power plants. 

BW  
And what was your first degree in? Was it on the engineering side or-?

YZ  
Yeah, engineering side, Yeah, my major is thermal engineering. And then I got my PhD in Nuclear Engineering.

BW  
And so you're here in Xiamen? Tell us a little bit about the province, and what's the famous thing about Xiamen?

YZ  
Well, Xiamen is in south-east part of China. And it is a very nice, small city. And the weather is always warm here. And as Xiamen is a small island, so we have very good seafood here, yes. And I love the people here in Xiamen because they are always very polite. Yeah. My wife was was raised in Xiamen, yeah- that's why I said I love people in Xiamen!

BW  
But you did your first degree in Beijing, in Tsinghua? or-

YZ  
Yes, I got my first degree in Tsinghua University, Beijing, yeah. I think one of the best universities in China, yeah. And then I got my PhD also in Tsinghua. Then after getting my PhD, I come to work here in Xiamen University I think 12 years until now. And I also spent one year in MIT in the United States as a Visiting Scholar.

BW  
Ah, excellent. And at what point did, say, climate change or environmental issues- you studied engineering, but do you remember a conversation, or when concern for the environment started to be something you thought about?

YZ  
Well, climate change is a big question, yeah. And I think I started to know the concept of climate change when I was in college, and that is why I switched my area from thermal engineering to nuclear engineering, because thermal engineering, our major focus is on coal fired power plants. And when I realised the climate change problem, then I decided that I would like to do something in "clean" or "green". Yeah, then I switched my major to nuclear engineering, because I think nuclear is - at that time yeah - maybe the only practical way to replace coal-fired power plants. So that is my opinion.

BW  
Right. And that's because you know about coal-fired power stations, having studied them. And what was it that made you think nuclear - and not some other solution, like carbon capture and storage or maybe renewables - what was it about nuclear that made you feel, "this is the one"?

YZ  
Well, in fact, there are many kinds of clean technologies, you have- you have already mentioned, like nuclear energy or wind energy, carbon capture or solar PV, etc. Yeah, we have many, many new technologies. But the world, I think, needs practical ways. Yeah. If the solar energy is stable and affordable, then why don't we use it? But the problem is that: many green energies - they have their own problems. So, when I look at all the possible ways to replace coal-fired power plants, I found that: maybe at this time for the world, nuclear power is the best choice. If we don't care the money we spend, yeah, we can use carbon capture. But if we use carbon capture, it will be too expensive for the society. So, if no one can afford it, then it cannot be practical for everyone.

BW  
I see. And so- because, interestingly, I mean, China has been building nuclear power stations now for the last maybe 20/30 years. And it's probably built more reactors in recent years than any other country. And- are those- is the power from those reactors affordable? Is it cheap?

YZ  
Yeah, as far as I know, yeah. Nuclear power plants in China is affordable. It's a little [more] expensive than coal-fired power plants, but to make the world cleaner and greener, so we will choose a little more expensive nuclear instead of cheaper coal-fired power plants.

BW  
But it's still only a small percentage of overall power generation in China - is it something like 5% of power is from nuclear now, today?

YZ  
That is true.

BW  
So, what are China's plans? Is it going to stay a small percentage? Or what- I know there have been announcements of- there are new plants under construction today. What's the target, do you think, in the next 10/15 years for China? 

YZ  
Well, I think- first of all, China is a developing country. Yeah, although the East Coast of China is well developed, maybe. But China as a whole, it is still a developing country. So you have already mentioned that nuclear percentage is about 5%, right, but maybe several years ago, the share of nuclear power is even less, maybe 2%. So we can see that the percentage - or the share - of nuclear power is increasing. And another good point is that the share of wind and solar and other kinds of green energy is also increasing. So that is very good point there, especially when we have the growing energy demand, yeah, China has fit all the energy demand, and then we are building more and more clean energy like nuclear power plants, solar and wind.

BW  
Yeah. Some people would say that the nuclear build is- it's just very slow. In the West, we've had a number of reactors that run very late and cost more money than expected. What's been the experience in China of the nuclear build? How long does it take?

YZ  
It is always a problem that nuclear needs more time to build. The reason why is because we always pursue a very safe nuclear power plant. So considering the safety issues, that we have to build the nuclear power plants very carefully. But it is a problem, and that is why nuclear power plants are expensive. But if we have very good engineering experience, and we can build it with not so much, not so expensive, so we can build it a little more expensive than the coal-fired power plants. And for like, 5 to 10 years, if you are well planned, you just can meet the energy demand, then that will be okay - if you can meet the energy demand if you can provide affordable energy, then that will be fine. So you don't need to worry about the time period. 

BW  
But climate change is all about time, right? Because the time it takes us to build the clean, that means the more emissions into the atmosphere. It's already 2024. Maybe we're running out of space in the atmosphere for more pollution. So the fact that nuclear takes a long time to build, does that worry you or it's something that kind of be made to happen faster if there's more experience - more learning from the building of the reactors?

YZ  
If we want to take bus from one place to another place, we always want the driver to drive the bus a little more quickly. But if we want safety, then you will ask the driver to obey the rules, right? You don't want the driver to drive the bus- exceed the time limit. So, the same concept can be applied on nuclear. You have to follow the rules to make sure the nuclear power plant is safe, and that is the only practical way. So if- We do really want to build it very fast, then if we have no choice, then we just build it under the speed limit, right? Yeah.

BW  
Yeah. Which is good, right? Because what the world doesn't need is another nuclear accident, right. At the moment, people are starting to take more interest in nuclear. But if there is one accident anywhere in the world, that will probably cause the programme to be stopped. 

YZ  
That is true. Yeah. 

BW  
Yeah. And that's what happened in China, right, when Fukushima happened. Was there a slowing down after Fukushima? 

YZ  
That is true, yeah. After Fukushima accident, I think all the nuclear power plants maybe needs more- need more examination to make sure that they are safe enough.

BW  
And all the plants being built today, they are being built where? On the coast of China? Is that where they're being located?

YZ  
Yes. As far as I know, all the commercially-run nuclear power plants are built by the coast, yeah, because of the ease of cooling. I think it is good for the safety.

BW  
But can you imagine- will there be Chinese reactors built inland do you think?

YZ  
Maybe there will be inland nuclear power plants in the future, but I don't think we can see inland power plants in China in the next five years.

BW  
Right, okay. They will be on the coast. But that is where the demand for energy is, at the coast?

YZ  
Correct. 

BW  
Right. And it's also where there's a lot of coal-fired power stations. 

YZ  
Yes. 

BW  
So do you want to tell me a bit about the work your students and you have been doing, looking at repowering of coal with nuclear?

YZ  
Oh, yeah, sure. First, I meet the concept of cultural nuclear by Staffan, yeah. Staffan Qvist told me the idea and I found it very interesting, yeah, at the very beginning. And then, when I dig into the concept, I think maybe it is one of the most practical ways to make coal-fired power plants less and make nuclear power plants more. That's why I lead a group in Xiamen University to do something about coal-to-nuclear. And then first, we examined, what is the capacity potential for coal to nuclear power? And we found that: wow, it is a huge market! And second, we want to examine whether coal-to-nuclear is affordable, whether it's more expensive, or whether it's much cheaper. And we found - at that time - maybe coal-to-nuclear can make nuclear power even cheaper, then that is very good point. And nowadays, we are working with many Chinese colleagues; we want to make the coal-to-nuclear, from a concept to practical. So the many more Chinese friends are involved, in like Tsinghua University, like Chinese Academy of Science, and some companies shows their interest in this concept. So I hope that we can work together to make the concept into reality in China. And one more very important thing is that through this project, I know you, and I know a group of people all over the world who is working on this idea. Like people from Korea, Indonesia, India, etc, yeah. I'm very happy to see that so many people all over the world have found this concept practical, and we are all working together to make it happen.

BW  
Yeah. And one thing that I have learned in this summit was speaking to colleagues who are from Guangdong region- Rrovince, where the coal being used here is not Chinese coal; it's being imported. 

YZ  
Yes. 

BW  
So, it's more expensive to make the coal-fired power stations in Guangdong. And tell me a little bit about the study that your students did. You've looked at Guangdong, haven't you? From the repowering perspective? 

YZ  
Yeah. We chose Guangdong as our case study for several reasons. First, you know, China as a country, it is very big. So we decided to find a smaller part of China. Guangdong Province, well, we say small, but it's almost at the size, maybe as Italy or something. Yeah. And the GDP of Guangdong is almost as big as Canada. And so it's a medium-sized European country. So I think the case study of Guangdong can be applied to many European countries, maybe, yeah. And we found that: yes, there are many coal-fired power plants in Guangdong Province, and we want to know which kind of power plants are suitable for repowering. And we want to know whether repower[ing] can bring benefits to the region of Guangdon. Yeah. So our study finds that: if we want to accomplish a zero-carbon goal before 2060, we have to build more nuclear power plants, because Guangdong as a province, its solar energy and wind energy alone cannot provide all the energy demand that Guangdong needs. So we must need other kinds of clean energy. So if we do not want to use coal, then nuclear is the only choice. And another interesting finding is that: if we use coal to nuclear power, the whole society can benefits. Through the study in Guandong, we at least make ourselves believe that coal-to-nuclear is a good strategy.

BW  
And by benefit, you mean that the costs are not too high and that they will- it'll provide the right sort of energy for industry, so it will sustain the economy. Those are the benefits that you found?

YZ  
Yes.

BW  
Tell me a little bit about it- because one of the things we see is the hydropower in China has- recently there's been problems, right, with the hydro. There was a drought and Chinese power was affected by the lack of rain. Does that affect the the calculation in China strategy?

YZ  
Well, in our study, we didn't consider yet as a very important issue, because we don't have the exact input data. So we didn't consider it. And I am not an hydropower expert, yeah. But as far as I know about climate change, I know that is a problem, because the climate change may affect hydropower.

BW  
Yeah. I think it did last year, the first really big impact was that drought, where the rains didn't come in the summer into the provinces that have the hydro, and that had a big effect globally. 

YZ  
Yes. 

BW  
Yeah. So we are coming to the end of the conference here. Tell me: what you are going to work on now- next, after this meeting? Have you met colleagues here that you can take forward practical ideas to collaborate?

YZ  
I talk with my Chinese colleagues and I also talk to our international friends, yeah. We found that- yeah - the concept of coal-to-nuclear has started from the very starting point to grow in process, yeah. And we found that we should put more resources into this project and make more people know this idea. And I mean, we will spread the idea, we will educate people, and we should make more inference to either the industry or to the government, and try to make coal-to-nuclear happen in the future. 

BW  
Right. Well, I wish you very well in your future work, and it a very great pleasure to be here. Thank you for hosting us. And I look forward to our next meeting, which I hope will be somewhere else in Asia where we can continue this conversation.

YZ  
Okay. Thank you, Lady Bryony.

BW  
Thank you, Yaoli.

YZ  
Thank you. 

BW  
So that was Professor Yaoli Zhang. I came back from China feeling optimistic that they could very realistically decide to repurpose some of the coal stations that power its vast grid, and that Guangdong Province - the largest by economic output and population - could be a great place to start. Experts from Poland, Korea, Indonesia, and India, who are all pursuing similar ideas, also gave me hope that by sharing insights and best practice, this idea could emerge as a powerful additional tool in the de-fossilisation toolbox. For full disclosure, I'm a consultant to the International Repowering Initiative that organised this conference, and also a founding board member of Ember. As usual, we'll put relevant links in the show notes, including to Michael's episode with Professor Ma Jun. Many thanks for listening.

ML
Cleaning up is brought to you by the Liebreich Foundation, the Gilardini Foundation, and EcoPragma Capital. Thank you for listening, and we'll be back with another episode next week.