In February, four years after pressing pause on one of the world's most ambitious nuclear energy programs, China quietly green-lighted the construction of two new nuclear reactors.

The first new approvals in over two years, the decision seems to bode well for the almost 200 proposed projects that have sat in limbo since the country's nuclear industry ground to a halt following the March 2011 disaster at Japan's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear complex.

With calls to start construction on as many as 500 new reactors domestically by 2050, and even more abroad, China could single-handedly more than double the number of reactors worldwide.