Shanghai, Oct.16 :  A senior International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official has said that China and India will outpace other countries in the next two decades with the help of nuclear power.

"In China, in India, you have very definite plans for increasing the nuclear capacity six to 10 times for 20 years, this is really fast growth.The growth of the world is not so fast," said Yury Sokolov, IAEA's Deputy Director-General and the Head of the Department of Nuclear Energy.

"Now, nuclear power exists in 30 countries, and 30 to 40 other countries have expressed their willingness to explore nuclear power," Sokolov added
He made the remarks on the sidelines of an IAEA symposium on nuclear power plant management, which opened here on Monday.

According to The China Daily, China started nuclear power operations in 1991, when Qinshan-I, a 300-megawatt (MW) presurized-water reactor unit, independently developed by China, plugged into the grid.

China has since fast-tracked development of nuclear power in recent years with a target to take its nuclear power capacity from about 9,000 MW in 2007 to 40,000 MW by 2020, according to China's long-term development plan for the nuclear power industry.

The Indian Department of Atomic Energy also had plans to increase the country's installed nuclear power capacity, expected to reach 20,000 MW by 2020.

Sun Libin, a scholar with the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology of Tsinghua University, was quoted as saying that: "Other forms of new energy, such as wind power and solar power, carry energy density much lower than nuclear power, and are unable to meet the tremendous power demand in China". (ANI)