Eli5: How are Nuclear Weapons different from Nuclear Power Plants?
In: Physics
A nuclear power plant we put in radioactive rods. These rods do not explode. They just generate a ton of heat. The heat causes water to turn to steam, just like in a gas or coal power plant. The steam then rises, and turns a turbine, which then creates electricity. The steam is then cooled back into water, and then ran back through the system again and again, creating more and more electricity.
In a nuclear weapon, we use weapons grade radioactive material, uranium or plutonium, and we surround it with another type of conventional explosive, usually in a ball shape (for the first stage). Then, when the outer conventional explosion happens it pushes the highly radioactive material in on itself, and causes the radioactive material to explode. It’s a lot more complicated than this because it actually involves a bit of fission and fusion to make modern day nuclear weapons, but that’s the simplified version.
So in a nutshell: Nuclear Power Plants heat up water, and have no explosions. Nuclear bombs use explosives to compress radioactive material so it causes a big explosion.
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