* Pressure from provinces for nuclear growth
* No shortage of money, labour
* Minimal safety concerns
* Exports in 10-15 years, like South Korea
By Farah Master and Nao Nakanishi
LONDON, Sept 11 (Reuters) - China may well be able to achieve its ambitious nuclear targets, with strong support from the government as well as local people, who are hoping the production of nuclear plants will boost economic development.
Steve Kidd, director at private sector body the World Nuclear Association, said China faced challenges in building a large number of reactors but the goal was within its reach thanks to its huge labour pool and strong financial base.
"China is not short of money," he said. "Issues of public acceptance are not a problem in China, not because it's undemocratic. People in general are very supportive."
China, now the world's top greenhouse gas emitter, has shifted its focus from hydro power, because of pressure from local governments in the internal provinces, which have seen economic benefits from nuclear plants on the coast.
"They see what economic development has happened," he said, adding one plant created 4,000-5,000 jobs for 50-60 years.
China is racing to expand its nuclear capacity to 70-86 GW -- the equivalent of Britain's entire capacity -- by 2020 as part of a campaign to cut the use of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, which accounts for about 80 percent of its electricity.
China's current nuclear capacity is about 9 GW, accounting for less than 1 percent of its electricity generation.
While setting up supply chains or recruiting enough skilled labour may pose challenges, Kidd said China's nuclear plans may be achieved, given France, a country of 60 million, put up 35-40 reactors during the 1980s.
SAFETY, EXPORTS
Asked whether such a drive in nuclear might risk another Chernobyl, Kidd said: "I think it's virtually impossible. I have no worries about safety in China.
"Let's take some example of airline safety. I don't think there's any evidence that Chinese operators are any inferior to western operators," said the official, who frequently travels to China to advise on nuclear issues and staff training.
While nuclear waste is not an issue at the moment, China has already adopted a reprocessing strategy based on France's recycling of uranium. As China does not have extensive uranium resources, the French approach will help it buy less natural uranium and expand nuclear more cheaply.
"You can save on natural uranium and you can run reactors on reprocessed materials which is what EDF do in France," said Kidd. EDF is the world's largest utility and France's second largest company by market capitalisation.
China recently signed a deal with French nuclear reactor supplier Areva to help it reprocess fuel but Kidd said the timing of the plant and details for a final disposal site were still unclear.
Lower labour costs also helped reduce unnecessary investment in China with its indigeneous model known as CPR-1000, made up from around 90 percent local content, able to be made much more cheaply than similar reactors in developed countries.
"The key advantage they've got compared with the rest of the word is they can build reactors cheaper," said Kidd
"They can definitely build them less than $2,000 per kilowatt, versus in the U.S., where you are looking somewhere around $5,000."
Kidd said the CPR-1000, developed with the help of French technology, is an example of how the Chinese, like the South Koreans previously, are learning from foreign reactors and should be set to export their own technology in 10-15 years.
(Editing by Keiron Henderson)