How exactly does nuclear power plants work? How are they able to generate electricity using radioactive things?
In: Physics
Radioactivity heats up the material as it decays. The water that cools the reactor absorbs that heat in two ways, directly by contact with the fuel rods, but also by catching the neutrons that the decay sends flying. (Moderate the radioactive decay with control rods so it doesn’t overheat)
So you have hot water, send that through a heat exchanger to evaporate water in a second cycle. Send that steam through a turbine that spins a generator to make electricity.
It’s basically the same like a coal powerplants only that the source of the heat is different.
A second way is the radionucleid battery wich generates electricity more directly using a thermoelement (works similar to photovoltaic cells but with heat)
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