Chinanews, Wuhan, Sept 11 – Nuclear energy is a clean energy. China might improve its energy structure by promoting the use of nuclear energy, said experts and scholars who attended a forum on nuclear energy exploitation and construction held in Wuhan on Sunday.As China has further developed its economy in recent years, how to solve the environmental pollution problem has become a serious issue. At present, China is implementing a strategy that aims at conserving energy and reducing emissions. The Chinese government requires that by 2010, all the 12 provinces and regions which witness a fast economic growth should reduce their chemical oxygen demand and the emission of sulfur dioxide. For cities unable to meet related standards, the central government will stop them from developing new projects. In addition, the Chinese government will also raise the threshold of thermal power plants, said Pan Ziqiang, an expert on nuclear radiation prevention and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.China has also reached its full capacity of exploiting hydropower resources. China is developing the Three Gorges project along the Yangtze River. In Hunan, a province with rich water resources, it is said that 80% of the water resources there have been exploited. However, with regard to nuclear materials, related exploitation work has just begun. Experts predict that China has 1.7 million tons of uranium deposit, a key material for developing nuclear energy. In China, large uranium mines that have over 10,000 tons of uranium resources each have also been found, Pan said.Compared with traditional energy resources, such as coal and water, nuclear resources cause very small environmental pollution. The emission released by nuclear material is only 1% of that of coal. Its production cost is also a little bit less than that of coal and water, Pan said.While thermal power has caused heavy pollution and the hydropower exploitation has reached its full capacity, China has to change its energy structure by developing more nuclear power projects if the country wants to further develop its economy, Pan noted.His points are echoed by Yang Qi, chairman of the Sichuan Provincial Nuclear Association. He said that four one-million-kilowatt nuclear power sets could generate power equal to a thermal power plant with six million kilowatt generation capacity. According to him, if the thermal power plant is replaced by the nuclear power plant, about 18 million tons of coal resources can be reserved and 30,000 tons of sulphur dioxide will be reduced in the atmosphere. Nuclear energy, as well as coal and oil, have been ranked as three major energy resources in the world. Nuclear power plants are highly effective in energy production and the energy they make is clean, safe and economical. In many developed countries, nuclear energy has been exploited in a far greater extent than in China. Developing nuclear energy will become an inevitable trend in China, Yang said.