China nuke power plant starts operation

The Hongyanhe nuclear power station, the first nuclear power plant and largest energy project in northeast China, started commercial operation on Friday. The plant's first unit ended a test run on Thursday that began on Feb. 17, said Yu Changliang, deputy general manager of Liaoning Hongyanhe Nuclear Power Co., Ltd., the company that runs the station. All of the station's performance indicators have been up to standard and the station is in full operational condition, Yu said at a press conference. Construction on the first phase of the project, which features four power generation units built at a cost of 50 billion yuan (7.96 billion U.S. dollars), began in August 2007. The four units will generate 30 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh) of electricity annually upon their completion, which is scheduled for the end of 2015. Located near the county-level city of Wafangdian, about 110 km away from Dalian Port in Liaoning Province, the plant is the first Chinese nuclear power plant to use seawater desalination technology to provide coolant water.