When it comes to finding a solution to China's vexed air pollution problem, experts and environmental officials are unanimous that nuclear power is the best bet.

"China will need 200 nuclear power plants to meet demand, with four to six new projects being approved annually," says Jian Jingwen, deputy head of the equipment department at the State Nuclear Power Technology Corp. It is expected that about 10 new plants will be approved every year after 2020.

China's nuclear power industry is also one of the fastest growing industries in the world and accounts for more than 14 percent of the nuclear power generated globally every year. Of the 64 nuclear reactors under construction worldwide, 29 are in China, Zhao Yongkang, deputy director of the Nuclear Safety Management Department at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said in July.

Nuclear power generation capacity in China will rise from 10.7 million kilowatts in 2010 to 160 million kW by 2040. The nation will also account for more than 40 percent of the global net increase in nuclear capacity between 2010 and 2040, according to the International Energy Outlook 2013 report.

China now has 17 commercial nuclear power generating units, with an installed capacity of 14.74 million kW.

By 2017, the installed capacity of China's nuclear power plants will increase to 50 million kW. This, experts, say will help China meet its goal of cutting total coal consumption to below 65 percent of total primary energy use, and raise the share of non-fossil fuel energy to 13 percent from the 2010 level of 8.6 percent, as part of its comprehensive new plan to tackle air pollution.

According to industry sources, nuclear energy may see even more impetus in the next few years as other clean energy sources like solar and wind face storage and transmission bottlenecks.

Nuclear power production around the world currently accounts for 15 percent of the gross generation of electricity, through a total of 437 nuclear power stations.

Despite the impressive numbers, misgivings about nuclear energy still persist.

Factors like operational safety, waste disposal and public opinion need to be addressed thoroughly before proceeding with nuclear power projects, says Zhao of the Nuclear Safety Management Department.

Chen Xiaoqiu, deputy chief engineer of the ministry's Nuclear and Radiation Safety Center, says China has used the most advanced technologies in its newly built and those under construction nuclear power stations.

"The core-damage frequency (a term used in probabilistic risk assessment indicating the likelihood of an accident that could damage a nuclear reactor core) of the newly constructed units is less than 1x10-5, meaning that a core damage incident is likely to take place in no less than 100,000 reactor years," Chen says.

"The large release frequency, indicating the likelihood of an accident causing a massive discharge of radioactive materials into the environment, is less than 1x10-6 per reactor year, meaning one large release incident is likely to occur in at least 1 million reactor years."

The collective amount of radiation caused by the coal fuel chain, on the other hand, is 50 times that caused by the nuclear fuel chain, says Pan Ziqiang, an academic at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and an expert on nuclear radiation prevention and control.

But these statistics have failed to end public doubts over the use of nuclear energy.