The reactor currently contains no fuel (like two more reactors at the plant, it was off line for maintenance when the quake struck) but there is spent fuel in storage tanks in the building.
All this is impressive, but Vogtle and two more reactors being built across the river in South Carolina are the last vestiges of what was heralded, four or five years ago, as America's "nuclear renaissance".Renaissance postponedThe Nuclear Regulatory Commission NRCC) has received applications for 24 more reactors, to add to the 104 already running (see table).
Toward that end, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited agreed to purchase from the French nuclear giant AREVA at least two 1650 MW European Pressurized Reactors, each priced at more than €3.5 billion, with an option for four more later.
Two more EPR reactors, called Taishan 1 and 2, are scheduled for construction in China.
Two or more reactors may of course attach quite different meanings to the same symbol.
But the action did come on the eve of a decision by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on lending $215 million for the completion of two more Soviet-designed reactors.
In April, Mr. Abbasi said that Iran planned to build five more medical reactors, and that it needed to create a stockpile of fuel for that purpose.
"In 2007 the decision was made to issue a tender for two nuclear reactors, plus a possible three more," said Vaclav Bartuska, the Czech ambassador at large for energy security and government commissioner for the completion of the Temelin nuclear complex.
Because of the requirement for inspections every 13 months, more reactors were taken offline, one after the other.
