SHANGHAI/BEIJING
China has said it had resumed construction of a new nuclear power plant suspended after a meltdown in Japan's Fukushima plant in 2011.
Work on the new nuclear reactor in Rongcheng in eastern China's Shandong province resumed last month and the plant will be operational in 2017, China's state-run news agency, Xinhua, said.
The construction of the plant begun last year but it was suspended after the meltdown in Fukushima, which was set off when a huge tsunami hit the facility.
Citing a statement by state-run Huaneng Shandong Shidao Bay Nuclear Power Co. (HSNPC), the biggest investor in the project, Xinhua said the new plant was designed to be safer and more environment friendly.
The 200-megawatt plant will cost nearly 3 billion yuans (around $476), and it will be the first fourth-generation reactor in the world in commercial use, according to the HSNPC.
In China, 15 nuclear reactors are currently operational and 27 others are under construction in country's coastal areas.
The HSNPC said the reactor was independently developed by China's Tsinghua University, and the design included "inherent and passive nuclear safety" measures that enables the reactor to shut down safely in the event of an emergency without causing a reactor core meltdown or massive leakage of radioactive material.
