China has approved four new nuclear power plants, and the total scale of nuclear power plants under operation, under construction, and approved now exceeds that of the United States!

The new plants are still located in coastal provinces. Why aren't inland provinces like Henan home to nuclear power plants? Will they have any in the future?

On July 31, 2026, the State Council's Executive Meeting approved four new nuclear power projects—these are the first batch of nuclear projects to be implemented under China’s "14th Five-Year Plan" (the "15th Five-Year Plan").

Today, half of all newly built nuclear power plants worldwide are located in China. With these four newly approved nuclear power stations comprising eight reactor units, China continues to expand this advantage.

It won’t be long before China’s nuclear power generation surpasses that of the United States, ranking first globally!

The four new nuclear power projects are distributed across four provinces: Zhejiang, Guangdong, Liaoning, and Shandong.

Clearly, they are still all located in coastal regions.

Why are there no nuclear power plants in inland provinces such as Henan?

Currently, all large-scale commercial nuclear power plants across China are situated along the coast. All inland provinces, including Henan, currently have no approved, large-scale 1-million-kilowatt-class pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear power projects ready for construction.

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan served as a stark warning to people around the world.

The state has adopted an extremely cautious principle toward nuclear power development:

1. The previously planned inland nuclear power projects in Hunan's Taohuajiang, Hubei's Xianning, and Jiangxi's Pengze were all frozen; only the site reservations were retained, with no construction allowed;

2. Over the past more than ten years, all large-scale reactors such as Hualong One and Guohé One approved have been restricted to coastal sites only;

3. The latest "15th Five-Year Plan" and newly approved projects continue to follow the policy of prioritizing coastal locations for large-scale nuclear power plants;

4. There is currently no timeline for restarting inland large-scale nuclear power projects. Safety assessments and site evaluations continue, but applications for construction approval are not being accepted at present.

Traditional third-generation pressurized water reactor nuclear power plants require vast amounts of cooling water—the key difference between coastal and inland locations.

Inland nuclear plants must rely on freshwater sources such as the Yangtze River, Yellow River, and lakes for cooling.

The Yellow River is Henan Province’s core drinking water source, while the Yangtze River connects to water intake points serving hundreds of millions of people. The environmental carrying capacity of freshwater basins is far lower than that of the ocean.

If an extreme accident occurs, pollutants would spread downstream along rivers, directly threatening drinking water safety across entire river basins—resulting in widespread and severe consequences.

Henan lies in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, where water resources are already scarce and populations are densely concentrated—making it inherently unsuitable for large-scale riverside nuclear plant construction.

China has strict requirements for nuclear power plant site selection: designated planning restriction zones and population evacuation isolation zones must be established.

The North China and Central Plains regions (including Henan) are highly populated and feature continuous plains. It is extremely difficult to find large areas with sparse populations that meet the 5-kilometer restriction zone and emergency evacuation requirements.

However, Henan did once have plans for nuclear power.

In the early days, preliminary site selection studies were conducted in places like Luoyang, but these were merely exploratory research efforts.

After policy freezes, the projects came to a complete halt and were never formally submitted to the State Council for approval. The prospect of actual construction remains very distant.

So, is there any possibility in the future?

In the short term (during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period), large-scale 1-million-kilowatt-class Hualong One or Guohé One reactors are virtually impossible to be built in inland provinces like Henan;

But if policies relax later, small modular reactors (SMRs)—which occupy less land, offer higher safety margins, and require smaller isolation zones—could potentially be piloted in inland urban industrial parks or for combined heat and power supply. However, large-scale construction remains a long way off.

Original source: toutiao.com/article/1872546370029571/

Disclaimer: This article represents the personal views of the author.