China is at the centre of mankind’s on-off flirtation with nuclear power. After Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, Beijing joined the rest of the world in recoiling in horror, suspending approvals for new nuclear projects. That caution was justified: within months, a high-speed rail crash blamed on design flaws and poor management revealed that China’s ability to run high-profile projects was no better than anyone else’s. Now, though, the world’s biggest nuclear development programme is being rebooted.

China’s cabinet this month approved the industry’s safety plan, indicating that the green light for new projects is imminent. Meanwhile, the environment ministry gave the nod for China National Nuclear Power, one of the nation’s biggest operators, to begin raising up to $27bn – including via a stock market listing – to fund five nuclear projects.

China needs nuclear power. Total power consumption per capita is one-third that of the world average. While coal dominates today, coal consumption would need to quadruple for per capita power use to reach that average, which would quickly exhaust domestic coal supplies. Even the use of natural gas, green energy and scaled-back plans will see China’s nuclear power capacity jump fivefold by 2020.

Investors looking for a slice of that action should be cautious, if the experience of China’s thermal power industry is any guide. Shares of such operators as Datang surged almost 1,000 per cent in the decade that followed listings in the late 1990s as generating capacity ramped up. Those gains have since been reversed as coal prices surged. For CNNP, as a nuclear operator, the risk will not be the price of uranium, but transparency. Unless Beijing develops a regulatory regime that matches or improves on those that exist elsewhere, it will be hard to convince investors. China’s nuclear equipment makers with 10 years of collaboration with overseas experts are better placed. Nuclear is here to stay in China, but investors will need to tread wisely.