China's Nuclear Output Tripled in a Decade as Beijing Sets 50% Clean Power Target for 2030
China supplied all of the net global nuclear growth in 2025, and its regulators are now betting that trajectory can underpin a grid transformation by decade's end.
China produced 485 terawatt-hours of nuclear electricity in 2025, nearly tripling its output over the prior decade at an average annual growth rate of almost 11%, according to the latest Statistical Review of World Energy published on August 1 (2026-08-01). That compares with a global nuclear total of 2,845 terawatt-hours last year — up just 30 terawatt-hours, or 1.3%, from 2024 — meaning China accounted for essentially all of the net increase while the rest of the world held flat.8,7
The trajectory arrived alongside a significant policy commitment. China's National Energy Administration and National Development and Reform Commission unveiled a plan in the week of June 22 (week of 2026-06-22) to generate 50% of the country's electricity from non-fossil sources — nuclear, hydro, wind and solar combined — by 2030. Nuclear is central to that ambition for a reason wind and solar are not: it delivers firm, dispatchable output around the clock, regardless of weather.5
The scale of ambition is not in doubt. By 2035, according to the Economist, China aims to operate the largest nuclear sector in the world, supplying 10% of its electricity from nuclear alone — roughly double the current share. New reactors take about five years to build in China at approximately $2.7 billion per unit, a timeline and cost structure that compares favourably with construction records in the United States and Europe, where similar projects have run years late and billions over budget.1,5
Yet the United States still leads in absolute output. American nuclear plants generated 826 terawatt-hours in 2025, 29% of the global total and nearly 70% more than China produced, according to the Statistical Review. France followed with 390 terawatt-hours. Wood Mackenzie projects global nuclear capacity will rise 44% over the next decade, with China overtaking the United States as the largest holder of installed capacity.8,6
The global picture is striking in one respect. Worldwide nuclear generation in 2025, at 2,845 terawatt-hours, was only about 1.5% above the 2,803 terawatt-hours produced in 2006 — a near-flat nineteen-year line outside China's expansion. That stagnation reflects the struggles of Western builders, where financing, regulation and construction competence have degraded. Between 2008 and 2021 Russia's Rosatom started and completed ten reactors at five plants; no Western operator came close.8,2
Russia's nuclear export machine remains active, though its European footprint is shrinking. At the start of 2026 Rosatom was expecting to build four reactors in the European Union, representing 7% of the 70 gigawatts of capacity it has plans for beyond Russia's borders, according to the Economist. The war in Ukraine has complicated those prospects, and several EU states have moved to reduce dependence on Russian nuclear services.2
Washington has moved to reclaim ground. President Trump's 2025 nuclear executive orders targeted a rebuild of America's domestic fuel cycle and a restoration of export competitiveness. Whether those orders translate into reactor completions is a separate question — the IEA expects more than 70 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity to come online by the mid-2030s globally, but Forbes noted on May 28 (2026-05-28) that this pipeline will not deliver near-term backup capacity to grids that need it now.3,4
China's own grid has not been without stress. Power cuts across 20 provinces in 2021 and 2022 made electricity security an acute political concern for party leaders. The response included a renewed commitment to coal: construction started on nearly 100 gigawatts of new coal-fired capacity in 2024, even as the clean-power targets were being set. Nuclear is the mechanism by which Beijing hopes to square that contradiction over time — firm generation that can eventually displace coal's reliability role.1
Storage is the other part of the equation. A third of all pumped-storage capacity under development worldwide is in China, and the Economist reported that Beijing looks likely to exceed its own 130-gigawatt pumped-storage target for 2030. But even with storage, dispatching variable renewables reliably across a grid the size of China's requires the kind of round-the-clock baseload that only nuclear and hydro consistently provide.1
The uranium ETF URA added 0.34% on August 6 (2026-08-06), a modest move on a day when broader commodities were mixed. JKM Asian LNG held at $20.91/MMBtu. The more consequential signal for traders is whether Beijing's reactor approval pace — already running faster than any other country — holds into the second half of 2026, and whether its construction timelines stay at the five-year mark as the programme scales. Slippage there would push the 50% target out of reach before the decade ends.8,5