How do nuclear power plants work?
In: Engineering
An atom of fuel gets hit by a neutron, and splits, releasing energy as heat(also more neutrons to go hit other atoms).
The heat is used to boil water.
The steam is used to spin a turbine, running a generator.
They boil water. The water releases steam that spins a fan. The spinning fan generates electricity.
Highly radioactive materials—meaning unstable atoms are placed in tight space with other unstable materials. What happens is that the more unstable atoms eject a proton or neutron which will hit something nearby. If there are other unstable atoms nearby it might cause another reaction, hitting a nucleus and splitting off a neutron or proton. Once this happens on its own, it’s called a sustained reaction (or reaching criticality). Without careful control, (meaning taking out some rods of the material when the reactions occur too much or putting in a more stable element (control rod)) this reaction could become supercritical, which becomes dangerous as the level of reactions becomes too high, heat rises and causes even more reactions and the material could melt. Anyway, the heat from the reactions warms water above the rods, to a high enough temperature to make steam. This steam builds pressure, and is only relieved through a small tube (so it holds the pressure). That pressurized steam is powerful enough to spin a turbine, which creates electricity with a magnet around the spinning part and another in a still environment. This electricity is then put through wires to a panel (transformer) that can up or lower the voltage, it is then taken through more wires to power homes.
Hot rock make steam. Steam goes roundy roundy in a turbine generator to make sparky sparky.
It’s the same thing as a coal or natural gas power plant: you boil water and use the steam to spin a turbine.
The difference is that you use the heat of radioactive uranium to boil the water instead of burning some other fuel like coal to make the heat. That’s it. Put some uranium near water so the heat boils it and makes steam – from there on it’s the same tech we’ve had for 100+ years.
Why TF wouldn’t you just go on YouTube?
Chernobyl scene : How an RBMK reactor works
Hot Rock makes steam, steam make turbine spinny, spinny turbine makes sparky, sparky makes lights glow
Smart people use uranium to create “fission” which is basically atoms splitting apart which release insane amount of heat.
They used this heat to boil water, the water creates a lot of steam, the steam make large fans spin, the spinning fan is what creates electricity.
The steam is condensed back to water and reused in the heating process.
It’s the cleanest and carbon free form of energy.
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