How does a nuclear power plant work?
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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.
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