How does a nuclear power plant work?
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The decay of certain atoms into smaller ones releases energy to the surrounding environment. Nuclear plants do two things:
* manage a controlled, self-sustaining chain reaction of atoms breaking down
* use that energy to heat water, evaporating it so that the steam can be used to spin a turbine
They hit an atom with a neutron, which breaks the atom apart into smaller parts AND some more neutrons which will break apart other atoms.
Whenever an atom breaks apart that creates a lot of energy.
This energy in the form of heat heats up some water which turns into steam, which rotates a turbine, which is hooked up to a generator that turns the rotation into electricity.
a nuclear powerplant is effectively just a closed circuit waterboiler that is using forced **CONTROLLED** nuclear decay as its source of heat. the water that gets boiled in this circuit is turned into steam that isused ot spin a turbine(not unlike any other powerplant).
what makesthem Really good si the fact the nuclear fuel is a very efficient way to get a LOT of heat for a long time.
In the simplest of terms: we use heat from nuclear reaction to generate steam, the steam rotates turbine, turbine spins a generator, generator makes electricity.
To get more technical, nuclear reaction happens when an unstable atom falls apart, and causes other unstable atoms to fall apart. To make that reaction useful, we control it by having a moderator media and control material surround the nuclear material. Moderator media can be heavy water or graphite. It slows down the neutrons that are created when atom splits, so that they have a higher chance of interacting with other atoms (just quirky nuclear physics thing). Control media can be rods from neutron absorbing material, or regular water, or some chemicals like gadolinium or boron. Those materials capture neutrons, reducing the likehood of reactions. By maintaining a balance, we can sustain reaction at a level that allows it to be useful.
Then we capture the heat from the reactor by running water through channels inside reactor to heat it up, or use entire reactor as a boiler. There are quite a few methods of capturing the heat from reactor. The rest of nuclear plant is quite similar to any regular thermal power plant, as far as overal process of getting electricity goes.
I’m going to suggest the [explanation](https://youtu.be/Sm5p2K9eW9o?t=285) given by engineering experts at the Well There’s Problem podcast.
Tl;dr You get a bunch of spicy rocks that give off heat when you put a lot of them together and put them in water to turn the water into steam. The steam then turns a turbine that generates electricity.
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It depends a bit on the fuel and exact reactor design, but the basics are:
* Rods of refined fissile material (usually Uranium) in a fluid medium are allowed to get close enough to each other that the radiation they naturally emit begins a sustained fission reaction. An atom splits (fissions) and fires off extra neutrons and sometimes protons, as well as releasing a fair bit of extra energy. The particles it fires off when it splits hit additional atoms and split those, in a chain reaction.
* Control rods of some neutron-absorbent material are interspersed with the reactor rods to absorb some of the excess neutrons. Rods can be added or removed to control the speed of the fission reaction, so that it can be sustained without getting out of control and making the reactor too hot.
* The energy released by the reaction heats the core. Outside the core is another layer of fluid that absorbs the reaction heat. This fluid is heated enough that the pressure can be used to drive a turbine (usually as steam). The turbine produces electrical power. It’s important to note that the fluid turning the turbine typically has no direct contact with the radioactive material in the core.
It works like putting a pin wheel next to a steaming tea kettle. The steam causes the pin wheel to spin. In a nuclear power plant, the spinning pin wheel is a generator, and nuclear material is what heats the tea kettle (reactor).
When you think about it it’s a very simple process at how nuclear power works.
First you have a core. Which is a giant cement shaped bathtub filled with water. In this water are “fuel rods” and “control rods” when you life the control rods? The fuel rods heat the water causing it to boil.
The steam from the boiled water turns a turbine which is connected to a dynamo. The dynamo turns and that’s how electricity is made
Let me give my take on this. Most atoms are made up of 3 parts.
Protons – these literally define what an atom is. If it has 2, it’s helium. If it has 6, it’s carbon. They’re also positively charged, so they like to push away from each other, just like if you push two positive sides of a magnet together. These live in the middle of an atom.
Neutrons – these guys sit with protons in the middle, and are about as heavy as a proton, but have no charge. They can help stick between protons to make them push apart less, and when you add or subtract them, it can shift up the structure of the center. This can make an atom more or less stable, because of those protons pushing against each other. Every atom has a most stable number. If an atom has a different number of neutrons, it is an *isotope* of that atom. One of the most famous isotopes is U-235, or a Uranium atom with 235 neutrons. It is pretty unstable, with all that energy in it, barely held together.
Electron – these are super light and super fast, and fly around outside the edge of an atom. These have a negative charge. If an atom has more or less of these, it is an *ion*. These aren’t terribly relevant for nuclear reactions, though they’re talked about when you talk about multiple atoms hooking together into molecules.
So if you get these unstable isotopes, they want to break apart, they just need something to start it off. That something is usually a very fast neutron smashing into it. When that happens, all hell breaks loose. The center breaks into 2 lighter pieces with some protons and some of the neutrons. And 2 or 3 neutrons go flying off, super fast.
If Uranium-235 is enriched enough (there’s enough uranium-235 in there, and less of other uranium isotopes), those 2 or 3 neutrons will smash into other uranium atoms, breaking them, which makes more neutrons, and keeps chaining together. If this goes too fast, you can add something to soak up neutrons, to slow the reaction down. In reactors, that is a Control Rod.
Over time, we get the uranium turned mostly into other elements. But when they split, it releases a LOT of energy. As an example, there was about 10 pounds of plutonium in the bomb dropped on Nagasaki in World War 2. It released as much energy as 42,000,000 pounds of dynamite (21 kilotons). Something about the weight of a bowling ball released as much energy as millions of pounds of high explosives.
But slowed down, and controlled, that can provide a stable, reliable, and long lasting heat source that can boil water to produce electricity in much the same way that any other plant does.
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