Introduction

Being a robust international city, the electricity consumption per capita of Hong Kong has been continuously increasing during the last decade¹. In view of this surging energy demand and to comply with the international standards of greenhouse gas emission, the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) of HKSAR published the Hong Kong's Climate Change Strategy and Action Agenda (CCSAA) in 20102. One of the major proposals in CCSAA is to increase the portion of nuclear power of fuel mix in Hong Kong from 23% to 50% ², and this has caused social repercussions and even demonstrations by anti-nuclear organizations, such as Greenpeace ³. While this issue has already evolved into a vigorous controversy, it is time for us to learn more about the current situation of nuclear power in Hong Kong and explore the feasibility and suitability of expanding it in the near future.

Guangdong Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station

Source: http://www.cgnp.com.cn

Since 1994, Guangdong Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station (Daya Bay) has been exporting 70% of its generated electricity to Hong Kong⁴. It is located in Guangdong, at a distance of about 50 km from Hong Kong⁵. The two reactors in Daya Bay generate electricity by nuclear fission, a reaction in which a neutron bombards a uranium atom into smaller atoms together with 2 to 3 neutrons, and these neutrons will in turn bombard other uranium atoms to cause a chain reaction⁶ (Figure 1). We can imagine this reaction as placing thousands of bombs in a chamber. When one of the bombs is ignited, the fragments produced in the explosion will hit the other bombs and trigger them to explode consecutively. Yet, there is one crucial difference between the above analogy and the real reaction: some masses ‘disappear’ after each ‘explosion’ in a nuclear fission6. The ‘disappeared’ mass will in fact be converted into tremendous amount of energy based on the Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence equation: (E, m, c represent energy, mass and velocity of light () respectively)⁷. This famous equation also accounts for the high production capacity of Daya Bay, which is approximately 14 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per year⁵.

Source: Drawn myself

Advantages of Expanding Nuclear Power

One of the most perceived advantages of expanding nuclear power is that it can reduce the emission of greenhouse gas, especially carbon dioxide, which is the main culprit of global warming⁸. This is verified by an official report published by Civil Exchange, an independent policy think tank in Hong Kong, which reveals the greenhouse gas emission have dropped remarkably since Daya Bay has started to export nuclear power to Hong Kong in 1994 ⁹. It is seemingly true that increasing the portion of nuclear power in Hong Kong’s fuel mix can reduce the greenhouse gas emission significantly and would be potentially beneficial to our environment.

In addition, according to the information provided by the Environment Bureau of HKSAR, the cost of nuclear electricity is relatively lower (approximately HKD 0.5/kWh) compared to that of natural gas (approximately HKD 0.8/kWh) and coal (approximately HKD 0.5/kWh), which are the current major sources of electricity in Hong Kong ¹⁰ Electricity cost is now a substantial expenditure of Hong Kong households, so the reduction of cost of electricity can possibly alleviate the financial burden of Hong Kong citizens.

Shortcomings of Expanding Nuclear Power

You may think that nuclear power is quite advantageous at this point, nevertheless, it also has a number of drawbacks. Firstly, safety is undoubtedly a major concern of nuclear power. Though China Light and Power (CLP) claims Daya Bay is of absolute safety⁴, there were various news reports concerning a minor nuclear leakage in Daya Bay in May 2010 ^{11, 12}. Unfortunately, the Security Bureau of HKSAR and CLP admitted the leakage only in June¹³, nearly a month after the incident, which attracted lots of criticism and was accused of concealing the scandal deliberately^{11, 12}. The Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 ¹⁴ reminded us of the potential danger of nuclear power as well. If Hong Kong is going to rely more on nuclear power, it is inevitable to build more nuclear power plants near Hong Kong, which will put the lives of Hong Kong citizens at a higher risk.

Secondly, a recent study conducted by Benjamin K. Sovacool, a researcher from the National University of Singapore, reveals that the carbon emission level of nuclear power is not as low as we think⁸. Most of the carbon dioxide is discharged to the environment during the mining and refinement of uranium, which are not taken into account in the calculation of total greenhouse gas emission in Hong Kong, since those processes are not carried out locally⁸. If we simply make decision based on the seemingly appealing air pollutant emission data of nuclear power, this report tells us this would be far too superficial and naïve. The Government should take the greenhouse gas emission in other countries into account before making the decision of expanding nuclear power.

Thirdly, statistics from the International Atomic Energy Agency show that the reserve of uranium will be sufficient to meet the demand in the upcoming 100 years¹⁵, which implies uranium may be used up in the foreseeable future. In simpler words, uranium is non-renewable and non-sustainable. In fact, different kinds of renewable energy can be readily obtained nowadays, so the Government should investigate their feasibility as well.

Conclusion

So can we say nuclear power is a satisfactory major electricity source for Hong Kong? Not really, unless all problematic issues of nuclear power have been addressed properly. We cannot deny that nuclear power is an attractive source of energy in some senses, but at the same time it might bring us detrimental and disastrous effects. While the technology of nuclear power is still not sophisticated enough and other renewable sources of energy are available, we should probably consider these alternatives more thoroughly before coming to the final definite conclusion that we should double the portion of nuclear power fuel mix in Hong Kong.

References

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