Planned Guangdong nuclear facility meets protest
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E-mail Xinhua, July 13, 2013
Hundreds of people gathered in a city in south China's Guangdong Province on Friday to protest a planned industrial park processing nuclear fuel.
Protesters "took a walk" through Jiangmen, holding banners and wearing T-shirts with slogans calling against the planned construction of a nuclear facility in Zhishan Township in Heshan City, which is administered by Jiangmen.
According to information published by the government of Jiangmen, the 229-hectare industrial park will feature facilities for uranium conversion, enrichment and manufacturing of nuclear fuel equipment, involving a total investment of 37 billion yuan (6 bln U.S. dollars).
Industry insiders told Xinhua that the project is the first industrial park planned in southeast China for nuclear fuel production. It will supply to nuclear power plants in Guangdong and neighboring Fujian Province, with a designed capacity of 1,000 tonnes of uranium in 2020.
"We don't need such projects to boost the economy," said a resident surnamed Liu in the crowd of protestors. Liu said he knew little about the nuclear industry but was upset that the planned site was only 30 km away from the city.
Wu Yuxiong, mayor of Heshan, said on Friday that the public consultation period for the project, details of which were published on July 4, would be extended. Another official said the construction of the park was "a long way off being started."
The city will invite members of the public to tour other nuclear facilities to better understand their production, beef up publicity of relevant scientific knowledge and invite experts from home and abroad into the evaluation of the project, Wu said.
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