China’s First Industrial Nuclear-Powered Steam Supply Project Releases Carbon Footprint Factor: Lianyungang City’s “Nuclear Steam” Generates Wealth and Environmental Benefits

From: Lianyungang Updated: 2025-11-23 04:28

On November 21, the author learned from the press conference on the release of the carbon footprint factor for the “Heqi No.1” nuclear-powered steam supply project that the country’s first industrial nuclear-powered steam supply project, “Heqi No.1”, located in Lianyungang city, officially released its carbon footprint factor. Data shows that the carbon footprint factor of nuclear-powered steam supply is 1/600 of that of steam from coal-fired cogeneration and 1/100 of that of steam from natural gas-fired cogeneration. The release of this data indicates that China has initially established a carbon footprint factor measurement system for industrial steam in nuclear-powered steam supply projects, which will facilitate the wider application of nuclear-powered steam supply technology in more scenarios and promote the comprehensive utilization of nuclear energy and industrial transformation and upgrading.

“Heqi No.1” is China’s first nuclear-powered industrial steam supply project. Since its operation, it has provided 4.8 million tons of industrial steam to Lianyungang Petrochemical Industry Base, saving the base more than 700,000 tons of carbon emission quotas annually. To fully tap into the green “potential” of the project, Jiangsu Nuclear Power has taken “Heqi No.1” as a starting point and systematically built a carbon footprint factor measurement system for nuclear-powered steam supply.

The carbon footprint factor of “Heqi No.1” nuclear-powered steam supply refers to the greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of steam throughout its entire life cycle when seawater is converted into industrial steam using nuclear energy. To ensure the scientific and compliant construction of this system, the project research team, in accordance with domestic and international product carbon footprint quantification standards, collaborated with a professional carbon footprint verification team. Using the first anniversary of “Heqi No.1”’s commissioning as the accounting cycle, they obtained 90% of the measured data through methods such as checking equipment nameplates and reviewing literature reports.

As a carbon footprint factor measurement system for an energy source with relatively little research, there is no established model for measuring the carbon footprint factor of nuclear-powered steam supply. The research team from Jiangsu Nuclear Power referred to the carbon footprint measurement system for nuclear power generation and constructed a nuclear-powered steam supply carbon footprint measurement system covering the entire life cycle and production process of facilities such as nuclear fuel, nuclear power units, seawater desalination systems, and energy stations. Zhou, the leader of the expert consulting group at Jiangsu Nuclear Power, introduced that the carbon footprint factor measurement of “Heqi No.1” has formed a full-chain carbon footprint tracing network “from cradle to grave”.

In simple terms, when constructing the measurement system, the research team not only needed to consider the carbon emissions during the construction, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning stages of facilities unique to nuclear-powered steam supply but also had to superimpose, in a certain proportion, the carbon emissions generated throughout the entire life cycle of associated nuclear power units, public facilities in the plant area, and the nuclear fuel cycle.

These data were not randomly selected. Taking the construction stage as an example, the research team needed to measure the carbon emissions during the production of raw materials such as carbon steel, carbon steel seamless pipes, stainless/alloy steel, concrete, glass wool, rock wool, cast pig iron, steel bars, and diesel, as well as the carbon emissions during the manufacturing of relevant equipment. It can be said that the data sources are comprehensive, scientific, and reliable.

In addition, the methods of steam generation, production efficiency, and quality characteristics vary in the industrial sector. The research team from Jiangsu Nuclear Power also innovatively adopted a dual-factor measurement method based on mass and energy to illustrate the carbon emissions per kilogram of steam or per megajoule of steam produced.

Zhou Ping said that they will also compile a carbon footprint quantification standard for nuclear-powered steam supply, build a dynamic tracking platform for nuclear-powered steam supply carbon footprint factors, and collaborate with authoritative third-party institutions and universities and research institutes to conduct research on the Chinese Certified Emission Reduction (CCER) methodology for nuclear-powered steam supply projects, quantify the emission reduction effects of nuclear-powered steam supply, so that every ton of steam can not only provide heat but also create carbon value.