Just a few hours’ drive from Hong Kong, in a bay near the mouth of the Pearl River, the outline of what will become the world’s largest nuclear power plant is taking shape. Inside two vast, windowless concrete buildings sit the Taishan plant’s twin reactor vessels, each bounded by stainless steel and protected by walls thick enough to withstand a direct hit from a Boeing 747.

“This is my baby,” grins Guo Ruiting, deputy chief engineer, patting a 1,750 megawatt steam turbine at the plant in Guangdong province.

The power station, owned by state-backed group China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGN), is Mr Guo’s sixth such project in a career that spans three decades. And it is one of almost 30 nuclear plants Beijing is building, or plans to build, in an infrastructure dash to meet China’s thirst for energy.