The coronavirus outbreak will have no impact on the progress of nuclear power plant construction in China in the short term, and reactors already in operation have not been affected, a nuclear safety official said at a briefing on Wednesday.
Tang Bo, director of the nuclear safety inspection department at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, told reporters that all the 15 unfinished reactor units have now resumed construction, and no plants now in operation were suspended during the outbreak.
China originally aimed to bring total nuclear capacity up to 58 gigawatts (GW) by the end of this year, and have another 30 GW under construction, but is not expected to meet the targets due to prior project delays and a halt in new approvals.
