From the Sydney Morning Herald, via Google News (link):
CHINA began its mission to become a nuclear power in 1951, when it signed a secret deal with Russia under the guise of developing clean nuclear energy. But half a century later its voracious energy needs mean it is actually focusing on developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
China’s energy self-sufficiency ended in 1993, when it was forced to become a net importer of oil to meet the demands of its surging economic growth, and although it is the world’s second-largest consumer of oil after the US, its fuel of necessity is coal. It is the world’s biggest producer and biggest consumer of coal, but the environmental degradation resulting from its reliance on freely polluting coal, much of it brown coal with a high sulfur content, is unsustainable.
