China faces shortage of nuclear workers

BEIJING, May 8 (Via  UPI) -- China's plans to develop its nuclear power industry faces a major hurdle: a shortage of personnel, a top nuclear expert says.

"The number of current staff is far below the demand of the nuclear industry, especially the nuclear power industry," said Kang Rixin, general manager of China National Nuclear Corp., according to a report in the official Xinhua news agency Sunday.

Asia's second-largest economy needs energy to feed its rapidly growing markets and as part of this effort, Beijing is seeking to diversify its sources of energy. It plans to expand installed nuclear power generating capacity to 40m kW by 2020, up from 8.7m kW now.

This is expected to offset some energy demand and ease environmental pollution from coal-fired power plants.

"China will experience rapid development of its nuclear industry in the next 10 years," Kang said.

He urged colleges and universities to attach more importance to training nuclear technicians, noting only some 100,000 people were working in the country's nuclear industry, Xinhua said.