日本核电站在地震后的危机让人为中国未来快速的核电建设担忧。虽然号称使用了第三代核电技术而将大大加强安全系数，但日本这个让人认为最保险、认真、准备最充分的国家都可能发生核灾难，中国那些吹嘘自己安全的人也该冷静一下。万一核电站建在地震带上如何，那么多的万一你都能防止吗？
     核泄漏或爆炸和一个劣质的桥梁房屋不同，任何闪失造成的结果可以把一个或数个城市摧毁。而且你保证现在安全，能保证未来几十年的安全吗？我是说百分之百的安全。

Safety key to nuclear power plants

The fight to avoid a possible meltdown in Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after the devastating 8.9-magnitude earthquake serves as a warning how China should proceed with extra caution in its ambitious nuclear energy program over the coming decades.

Already on Sunday, Xie Zhenhua, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, expressed that the country will bolster the monitoring and assessment of its nuclear power stations.

On Saturday, Vice Minister of Environmental Protection Zhang Lijun said China will draw lessons from the Japanese experience in mapping out its nuclear power development strategy. He voiced the country’s unchanging determination to develop nuclear power energy.

To meet the nation’s skyrocketing energy demand and the urge for carbon reduction to fight climate change, China has made a nuclear energy plan that will be the most aggressive in the world in the coming decades.

Under the plan, China will raise its percentage of electricity produced by nuclear power from the current 1 percent to 6 percent by 2020. That proportion in the United States is around 20 percent with 104 nuclear power plants in 31 states. The world’s average in 2009 was between 13-14 percent.

There is no doubt that nuclear power remains one of the cleanest sources of energy, given the fact that it produces no carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. All these elements are causing severe air pollution and health hazards among the Chinese population.

However, that has not assured many of the beauty of the nuclear power especially after the tragic accidents in the Three Mile Island in the US in 1979 and Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in 1986. The unfolding situation in Japan is again reminding everyone that if there were a nuclear meltdown, the consequences are catastrophic.

That will be especially true considering the huge population density in China. Many nuclear power plants, such as Qianshan in Hangzhou Bay and Daya Bay between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, are located in areas populated by tens of millions of people.

It has been fortunate for China that there has been no nuclear leakage in the 13 units now in operation. These days officials and experts have been extolling the safety features of the mostly third-generation nuclear power plants that China is going to build.

What’s happening in Japan suggests that disaster is still possible even in a nation widely regarded as the most prepared for earthquake and the most serious in safety standards.

According to the International Atomic Energy Authority, a fifth of the 442 working commercial nuclear power stations in the world are located in areas of "significant" seismic activity. With some 350 new reactors expected to be built in the next 20 years to meet soaring electricity need and to fight climate change, the risk of a catastrophe from a natural disaster is growing significantly.

That means that China has a tough job to make sure that the 60 nuclear power plants it plans to build over the next decade should be away from areas prone to seismic disasters. It would be unimaginable if an earthquake, like the one in Sichuan province on May 12, 2008, were followed by a nuclear meltdown.

As some already pointed out, assessment and monitoring are vital in any construction projects in China since construction projects have brewed so much corruption in the past decades. A shoddy nuclear power plant will be hundreds times worse than poorly-built bridges and apartment buildings. It could literally wipe out a city.

While we pray for the Japanese and hope major disasters at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could be averted, we should do everything we can to make every single of our nuclear power plants the safest in the world and safest for decades to come. There should be zero tolerance for any negligence.

 （By Chen Weihua)