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In a strange twist of energy development, China is building at least three nuclear plants to power offshore oil and gas drilling.
The plants, scheduled to be finished by 2019, will float on the high seas and can be shipped to any location in the world.
In addition to powering offshore oil and gas production, the country could export the energy to
other countries by floating the plant to a coastline and selling the energy directly, reported Michael Zey in the Examiner.
China could also deliver the same resource to any of the artificial islands it’s currently building in the South China Sea.
The fact that it's investing heavily in nuclear power should come as no surprise.
China consumes the most electricity of any country on the planet. According to the World Fact Book, China used roughly 5.4 billion MW in 2014 compared to the United States, which used about 4.6 billion MW in 2013.
And it produces and consumes almost as much coal as the entire world, according to the US Energy Information Administration. That’s a lot of energy and a lot of pollution. Switching to nuclear would greatly reduce pollution and help China reach its goal of becoming a net energy exporter.
Already it has 30 nuclear power plants in operation with another 24 units under construction. By 2050, it wants to have 110 nuclear power plants.
In the United States, only one new nuclear power plant is coming online in the near future, the plants at Watts Bar in Tennessee.
But China’s floating plant will not be the first of its kind. Russia has been working on a floating nuclear power plant for year — the Akademik Lomonosov — and it’s scheduled for deployment this October.
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