In 2025, commercial nuclear reactors provide 9% of the electricity supply worldwide. These fascinating machines are intricate and sometimes even ethereally beautiful, but you don’t want to be standing close enough to them to notice that! It’s better to admire these metal monoliths from the safety of your own computer.
Today, nuclear reactors are largely concentrated in Europe, North America, and East Asia, but other places have them too and many are still being constructed. Though plenty have been decommissioned, many old reactors are still active, with the majority of operational nuclear power plants being 30-50 years old.
Take a look!
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The spent fuel pool in the Angra II nuclear reactor in Brazil. Spent fuel rods can reach dangerous levels of heat and radiation so they are kept in cooled water.
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The Angra I reactor in Brazil being inspected after a radiation leak. Both Angra reactors are in the Angra Nuclear Power Plant, Brazil’s only nuclear power plant, operational since 1985.
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The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, Arizona’s only nuclear power plant, is located southwest of Phoenix.
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The interior of one of the reactors at Palo Verde. Fuel rods are placed inside.
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The Joint European Torus, a fusion reactor in Oxfordshire. The reactor was put into commission in 1983, and was operational for 40 years before it was just recently decommissioned in 2023.
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A nuclear power plant in Civaux, France. The plant’s commission date was January 29, 2002, meaning it has been in operation for 23 years.
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A reactor vessel being raised into position in the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in 1971. Calvert Cliffs is Maryland’s only nuclear power plant and it’s still operational today.
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A nuclear fusion reactor in China known as the ‘artificial sun’ broke a nuclear fusion record this year by maintaining a steady loop of plasma for over 17 minutes.
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Construction of China’s ‘artificial sun’ reactor in 2020.
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The Beznau nuclear power plant in Switzerland is Europe’s oldest operating nuclear reactor, put into commission in 1969.
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The control panel at the Beznau nuclear power plant.
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The Koeberg Nuclear Power Station in Cape Town, South Africa. It was the first nuclear power plant on the African continent. Construction began in 1976 and the plant was put into commission in 1984.
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The Kalinin-4 reactor being prepared for startup. This reactor is located in the Kalinin nuclear power plant, about 120 miles northwest of Moscow. It’s been operational since 1985.
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The JT-60SA, the world’s largest experimental nuclear fusion reactor, located north of Tokyo. It was inaugurated in 2023.
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Another image of the JT-60SA in Japan.
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A Triga Mark II nuclear reactor at Kansas State University. It’s used to train students on the operations of nuclear reactors.
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The refueling cavity of Sizewell B, one of the nuclear power stations located near the fishing village of Sizewell in Suffolk, England. The live reactor is exposed for maintenance.
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Inside the No. 1 reactor at Sendai Nuclear Power Station, which was made operational in 2015. It was Japan’s first active nuclear reactor since the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011.
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The Reed Research Reactor, an on-campus nuclear reactor at Reed College in Portland, Oregon operational since 1968. The blue glow is called Cherenkov Radiation. It’s caused by particles in the water traveling faster than the local speed of light.
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The control console at the Reed Research Reactor.
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The Missouri S&T Nuclear Reactor achieved criticality in 1961, making it the first operational nuclear reactor in the state of Missouri.
