On June 14, CNN issued a news article stating that the US government was assessing the leakage of China's nuclear facilities.

The content of the news is roughly: Framatome, a subsidiary of EDF, wrote to the U.S. government, hoping that the U.S. government can provide shared technology to help repair China’s Taishan nuclear power plant, which uses EDF’s EPR technology and is partially owned by EDF. However, after evaluation by the U.S. government, the facility was deemed not to be in a dangerous state, and the application for shared technology was not approved. Information obtained by CNN shows that French companies pointed out that China's nuclear safety regulators are raising the standards of environmentally acceptable radiation in order to prevent nuclear power plants from being shut down due to leaks.

What's even more outrageous is that in the CNN report, China's nuclear safety authorities were portrayed as if there are Tokyo Electric Power Company, deliberately concealing facts and constantly revising government standards, in order to "prevent nuclear power plants from shutting down."

Guangdong Taishan Nuclear Power Plant is a joint venture project between China General Nuclear Power Corporation and the French state-owned EDF Power Group. In a CNN report on June 13, they insinuated that because "China does not recognize the leak," the French company in charge of joint operations was helpless and had to contact the United States for help. The United States has become an image of justice.



Is this really the case?

Some energy experts explained the truth:

China General Nuclear Power was included in the export control "entity list" by the US in August 2019. And Framatome, a subsidiary of the EDF Group involved in the operation of the Taishan Power Station, contacted the US in order to seek an exemption for technology sharing.

After understanding the truth, looking back at CNN's operating methods, I was once again shocked by the shamelessness of the media. Perhaps it is their guilty conscience that prevents readers with good memory from discovering flaws. CNN did not even mention CGN's name.

Regarding the impact of the incident itself, China General Nuclear Power issued a statement on the 13th stating that the environmental indicators around the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant are all normal.



On June 13, CNN spread rumors on the program that the US government was evaluating a report last week regarding the "leakage" of China's Taishan nuclear power plant. Prior to this, Framatome contacted the US government and "warned" that an "imminent threat of nuclear radiation" was about to occur in China.

Where is the source of the report? In CNN related exclusive reports, all the sources are unnamed US officials and government documents.

CNN claimed that the Chinese security department had relaxed its radiation monitoring standards "in order to prevent nuclear power plants from shutting down." As for why China would take such a big risk, the report did not explain.

The CNN report also even stated that the Biden administration has determined that Taishan had not reached a "crisis level." But the report went on to exaggerate that "a foreign company unilaterally contacted the US government for help, this is unusual."

The article declared, "If the leak continues or even worsens, it will put the United States in a complicated situation."



According to reports, the National Security Council of the United States has held several meetings in response to the incident in China last week. The Biden administration not only consulted experts from the domestic energy agency, but also contacted the French government. Although the National Nuclear Safety Administration of China has determined in April that this is a level 0 operational incident, CNN's reporting was completely according to the level of potential risks of something like the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Of course, some shadows of the truth can be found in the report. For example, it reads that “Framatome contacted the US government to obtain an exemption from sharing US technical assistance in order to resolve the incident at the Chinese nuclear power plant.”

But why should it be exempted? What event? Nothing was mentioned in the report. What CNN doesn't want to tell you is the most important thing.

First of all, regarding the corporate background of nuclear power plants, CNN only wrote about the French company and operator TNPJVC—that is, Taishan Nuclear Power Joint Venture Co., Ltd. The report did not mention that one of the investors in Taishan Nuclear Power Company is China General Nuclear Power Group.

Secondly, CNN did not mention that as early as August 14, 2019, the US Department of Commerce added China General Nuclear Power Group and its affiliates to the "Entity List."


In fact, in 2018, the U.S. Department of Energy issued the "U.S. Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation Framework with China", which put forward a number of specific restrictions on civil nuclear energy cooperation with China. At that time, the document divided US nuclear energy-related exports into three categories: technology exports, equipment and parts exports, and material exports. CGN was listed as presumed disapproved export targets in all three types of exports. In 2019, it directly targeted China General Nuclear Power.

At that time, China General Nuclear Power Group stated that it had noticed these reports, and after preliminary analysis, its influence on CGN's development was controllable.

So can be seen that it is the United States' own restrictions on nuclear technology exports that paved the way for the US media's hype.

David Fishman (Chinese name: Yu Dewei), a researcher in China's energy field and energy regulation, saw CNN's one-sided report on the 14th and posted a long series of tweets to clarify the truth. [DF note: haha I'm translating myself from English to Chinese from English]

He wrote in a Tweet, “Taishan Nuclear Power Plant is (partly) owned by China General Nuclear Power, and the latter is on the US 'Entity List'. Therefore, the US technology or data is prohibited to be transferred to China General Nuclear. Framatome is applying for the relevant exemption, the reason being 'operational safety'. The reasons for their application for the exemption are: 1. The information they intend to transfer originates from the United States. 2. They don't want to affect their business in the United States because of their cooperation with China General Nuclear Power. Perhaps both are right."

Yu Dewei said, so this matter does not sound like Framatome is seeking so-called "help." They are seeking (exemption) permission from the US to fix or alleviate the problem.

Yu Dewei works with the Lantau Group, a well-known energy consulting company in the Asia-Pacific region. He obtained a Master's Degree from Johns Hopkins University and Nanjing University. He graduated from International Relations and Energy Policy. He has in-depth research and experience on the regulatory mechanisms and business research in China's energy sector, mainly focusing on renewable energy and the nuclear power market.

According to a report from the National Nuclear Safety Administration on April 9, on April 5, a level 0 operational incident occurred at Taishan Nuclear Power Plant.

According to the website of the National Nuclear Safety Administration, on April 5, 2021, Unit 1 of the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant was in full power operation. At 11:45, the operator implemented the water seal and water filling operation of a certain section of the exhaust gas treatment system as planned. After the first water seal was filled with water, the water seal did not achieve the expected effect; after the water seal was refilled, the chimney gas radioactive emission dose rate was at a high 1 alarm. At 13:58:14, the chimney gas radioactive dose rate fell below the high 1 alarm threshold, and the incident ended.

After the incident, the operator carried out inspection and verification and the cause of the alarm was initially analyzed. After the water seal was filled with water the first time, a small amount of radioactive gas unexpectedly entered the water-sealed pipeline. During the water-seal refilling process, the remaining gas in the water-sealed pipeline passed through, due to the exhaust of the ventilation pipes to the chimney. After calculation, the total amount of inert gas radioactivity discharged this time accounted for 0.00044% of the annual emission limit.

According to Article 22 "(9) Radioactive Release and Radiation Exposure Incidents" of the "Regulations on Nuclear Safety Reporting by Operating Organizations of Nuclear Power Plants", the incident is defined as an operational incident. During the entire incident, the unit was in a stable state with no other abnormalities. According to the International Manual for the Classification of Nuclear and Radiation Events, this operational event is defined as a level 0 event (minor events that are not of safety significance are called "deviations" and are classified as level 0).

In addition, the environmental radiation monitoring report of Hong Kong in April 2021 showed that on and after April 5, there was no abnormality in the environmental gamma radiation levels in various parts of Hong Kong.

On June 13, China Guangdong Nuclear Power issued an announcement stating that the environmental indicators around the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant were normal.



5 ways to get the truth:

[Power industry expert: Liu Wenhui] In this era of information explosion and rumors flying, I think the most important way to identify the veracity or falseness of information is to expand your professional information channels and cross-comparison through multiple channels. I prefer to distill the channels and basic information to share with you who are reading this article, and leave it to you to judge. Is there a nuclear leak at Taishan Nuclear Power? We can find answers from several subjects involved in the report, including Taishan Nuclear Power and its parent company China General Nuclear Power Group, Framatome and EDF, China National Nuclear Safety Administration, and the US government.


Taishan Nuclear Power Station Shan Nuclear Power Joint Venture Co., Ltd. issued a response on its official website as early as the evening of June 13, stating: "Currently, continuous monitoring of environmental data shows that the environmental indicators of Taishan Nuclear Power Station and its surroundings are normal."


There is no relevant announcement on EDF’s official website, but there is a relevant announcement on Framatome’s official website. The reference translation is: “Framatome is supporting a performance issue of Taishan Nuclear Power. According to existing data, the power plant is operating within safe parameters. Our team is working with relevant experts to evaluate the situation and propose solutions to resolve any potential problems."


As of the publication of this article, the NNSA of China has not yet responded to the news about the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant on the official website of the National Nuclear Safety Administration. But we can get information from two official monitoring websites. One is the overall safety status of nuclear power plants (spi.mee.gov.cn:8080/spi ). Based on international practice, the NNSA has organized the development of safety performance indicators for nuclear power plants to reflect the overall safety of nuclear power plants. situation. Click to view the safety performance indicators of the two units of Taishan Nuclear Power Station in the past three quarters, and you can see that they are all at the expected level. Another website is the National Air Absorbed Dose Rate Release System (data.rmtc.org.cn:8080/gis/PubInfo0M.html) The air absorbed dose rate includes the environmental surface gamma radiation dose rate and the cosmic ray dose rate from space. The environmental surface gamma radiation dose rate in Guangdong is 17.7-193.1 nGy/h, and the average cosmic ray dose rate is 27.4 nGy/h. On June 13, 2021, the absorbed dose rate of the peripheral air monitored by Taishan Nuclear Power was 153 nGy/h. For comparison, on the same day, the data measured at the detection point in Guangzhou Avenue in Guangzhou City was 96 nGy/h, while in Tibet (Lhasa Dongga Town Station) it was 194 nGy/h. Combining these two monitoring websites, there is no data showing that a nuclear leak occurred at the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant.

CNN's own source in the US government stated that the Biden administration believes (Taishan nuclear facility) is not yet at a "crisis level." Uh...that's kind of embarrassing.

In addition to the above four sources, we can also understand the situation of Taishan Nuclear Power from another channel, which is the relevant monitoring websites in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Observatory Hong Kong is close to Guangdong. Hong Kong's CLP has an equity stake in Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant and Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant. Therefore, Hong Kong has always been concerned about the safety of nuclear power.

Hong Kong Observatory's radiation detection, evaluation and protection page: www.hko.gov.hk/tc/radiation/monitoring/index.html

The environmental gamma radiation level in Hong Kong is updated every hour, and the data changes at various monitoring points in the past 24 hours can be obtained. It is worth mentioning that the environmental gamma radiation level measurement service of the Observatory was certified at ISO9001:2008 in October 2015, and ISO9001:2015 in August 2018. It can be said to be quite international and of high standard. On this page, we can see that in the past 24 hours, the environmental gamma radiation levels obtained by various monitoring points in Hong Kong were stable and within the normal range.


In addition, interested friends can also learn about Hong Kong's environmental radiation testing plan.

https://www.hko.gov.hk/tc/radiation/monitoring/landing_ermp.html

The official website says: In order to monitor long-term changes in environmental radiation levels, especially to ensure that the Guangdong/Ling'ao nuclear power plant will not cause adverse effects on Hong Kong after it is put into operation, the Hong Kong Observatory launched an environmental radiation monitoring program in 1987. "We are constantly monitoring the main ways that radioactive materials released from nuclear power plants may reach us. The observatory has the most advanced technology and instruments for measurement and analysis. Since the released materials are all man-made radionuclides, the focus of the plan is naturally to monitor whether these nuclides have changed in the environment. As for natural radionuclides and non-ionizing radiation, although interesting, they are not routinely monitored items. Our data shows that since the Guangdong/Ling'ao nuclear power plant was put into operation, the amount of artificial radionuclides is not increasing."

Through these sources, I believe you have a preliminary judgment on whether a nuclear leak occurred at the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant. Of course, there is another question that remains to be answered, and that is the performance issue mentioned by Framatome. From the expression, we can understand that this performance problem is for Unit 1 (Unit 1 is written in the Framatome announcement), and Unit 1 is currently operating at full power. If this performance problem is a very urgent safety-related problem that needs to be resolved, then they would stop the unit and slowly resolve the problem. It is not uncommon for nuclear power plants to shut down, as you can see from the official website of the NNSA. The experience feedback of nuclear power plants indicates that the reactor should be shut down in case of an urgent situation. http://nnsa.mee.gov.cn/ywdh/hdc/ywjyfk


I understand that this problem may be related to safety, or it may be related to operational performance issues such as increasing power, but in short, it is not an urgent issue that needs to be resolved immediately. Therefore, judging by the available information, I believe that this problem did not lead to a nuclear leak.

What do you think?