[img]http://www.nucleartourist.com/images/pwr-cycle.gif[/img]

A nuclear reactor.

-------

[img]http://wsphotofews.excite.com/024/eQ/bX/tA/ZV17134.jpg[/img]

This is the top of a Nuclear reactor. It consists of fuel rods that contain uranium pellets and control rods that slow down or speed up the chain reaction of splitting atoms by inserting or removing from the core which all sits in a pool of water. In case of an emergency to shut down the reactor a hydraulic press does what is called a SCRAM which drops all of the control rods into the core and stops the chain reaction. SCRAM stands for: [b]Safety Cut Rope Axe Man[/b] because the first nuclear reactors had control rods above the core and in case of an emergency an Axe Man would chop the rope to each rod as fast as he could so that they would fall into the core thus shutting it down.

[img]http://wsphotofews.excite.com/010/Gv/ZV/q4/ZC88993.jpg[/img]
Control Rod blades.

Fuel rod: [img]http://www.nucleartourist.com/images/Pwrfuel1.gif[/img]

[img]http://wsphotofews.excite.com/024/Mf/XB/ie/9s55201.jpg[/img]

Fuel rod being moved from reactor core pool to storage pool.

The blue/green glow you see is called Cerenkov radiation - attributed to radioactive particles moving faster than the speed of light in water. With time the blue glow diminishes.

[img]http://wsphotofews.excite.com/024/Mf/XB/ie/9879344.jpg[/img]

[img]http://wsphotofews.excite.com/023/Ev/2E/ol/0S41232.jpg[/img]

[img]http://wsphotofews.excite.com/012/Ot/uT/gg/1n58148.jpg[/img]

E=mc²

Frank to get it really correct
the change in energy = the change in mass * c^2

other that that everything looks good, the Cerenkor radiation is cool to see in real life.
TRW

I don't see Homer

Thanks TRW

So you've really seen all this in person?!? I bet it is amazing! How did you see it?

Those are cool pics!

The guys handling the fuel rod really give some perception as to the actual size of the reactor.

The reactor seems pretty small considering how much power it generates and how big the whole plant has to be for that small arangment of fuel rods in a pool of water. As well as it puts out enough radation to kill a large town (such as Chernobyl).

cool, detailed plans and all. Now i know what my weekend project will be.

the glow in person is really cool but sitting next to one all day is boring trust me

Frank which reactor did you think was small the GE?

And the radiation isn't bad at chernobel there was a fire to contend with after the top blew off

There are 2 kinds of reactors used in the US.  The one depicted in Spanks first post is a pressurized water reactor or PWR.  The water that passes over the core is pressurized and never turns to steam.  Instead super heated water is run through a seam generator where another water loop is heated to produce steam.  This was the kind that "melted down" at Three Mile Island.

The other type is a boiling water reactor where the actual coolent water over the reactor is converted to steam over the reactor core.  Actual steam that passes over the core as water, passes over the turbine.

I got to play with a swimming pool reactor at the University of Michigan.  Looking at the Cerenkof Radiation is like looking into a camp fire, it's almost hypnotic.

Well a reactor is big in size when ya stand next to it.

[img]http://wsphotofews.excite.com/035/cz/AA/fI/vD53404.jpg[/img]

But think about what it does, the energy it can produce. It's small when you think about it.

The city of Chernobyl is gone. It does have high levels of radation, VERY high which is why it was evacuated. But still children are being deformed and dying of cancer. The tree's and grass in Chernobyl are all brown and deformed. You can search for pictures on all this, pretty disturbing. Russians shouldn't be allowed to build nuclear power plants... buncha morons.

You're absolutely right Frank.  Nuclear power is nothing to try to take the cheap, back yard approach to.

A lot of people fear nuclear power.  If you take a logical approach to assessing the dangers you would find that many more lives have been lost and damaged due to any one of either the coal or oil industry than due to the nuclear power industry.  In fact the hazards with production and waste have greaater impact in this country from the 2 former than the worlds nuclear power generation.

This country developed the nuclear power industry and now every modern country in the world takes advantage of it but us (US).

Edited to add, if we would start becoming more dependent on nuclear power and less dependant on oil (the majority of all new gereration built in this country since The mid 70's, (read Three Mile Island, an accident where no one was killed or injured and the amount of radiation leaked into the atmosphere amounted to about what 1 square mile of earth would see every 10 seconds,) has been based on gas or oil) gasoline would be back to $0.70 a gallon.

i always thought it was 2+2=5!

Frank,

Do you have any links to the Chernobyl pics you were referring to?  

I agree re the Russians and nuclear power, especially now.

Halfcocked, I agree. Nuclear power is dangerous, IF you run the plant as if it were a McDonalds. Nuclear power can be very safe if you run it right. Three Mile Island is a prime example of how you do NOT run a nuclear generating facility. The accident at Three Mile Island happened due to improperly trained personnel as well as not having a nuclear engineer on duty at the time of the accident and poor maintenance of equipment.

Rancho Seco which is 30 miles from me was ran the same way. It is amazing that they didn't have a meltdown as well. It is the same Westinghouse PWR and plant design as Three Mile Island. That reactor SCRAM'ed so many times that it had the worst operating record in the U.S. They were fined millions and never operated to full capacity so that it cost more to run that it actually made. SMUD almost went bankrupt because of Rancho Seco.

Their poor track record: [url]http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/RanchoSeco.htm[/url]

Due to popular vote Rancho Seco was shut down and now sits there rotting away.

[img]http://wsphotofews.excite.com/031/Ef/i7/T3/op38119.jpg[/img]
(image by me)

It is such a waste... all that technology capable of so much power is gone now. Just because they spent millions to build the plant and skimped on the actually training and maintenance. I don't get how Navy nuclear subs are run. I mean... they have a mini nuclear power plant in the damn thing that floats and sinks and shoots!! I mean... god damn... how the hell can they maintain a reactor on something that is meant for battle?!? That just goes to show you have safe nuclear power is and how stupid theses power companies are.


Steve-in-VA,

[img]http://www.earthsystems.org/images/nuke2.jpg[/img]

Notice how the field around Chernobyl is all dead. This was all prime farming country, now a waste. There are some 800 rad-waste dump sites in the zone.

The children... [img]http://www.adiccp.org/images/abandoned/abandoned2-large.jpg[/img]

After the explosion: [img]http://members.tripod.com/~Chernobyl486/1.gif[/img]

As it sits today. It is wrapped in a huge iron curtion called The Sarcophagus [img]http://www.chernobyl.com/sarclast.gif[/img]

Frank,
You have a few of your facts mixed up. Three Mile Island is not a Westinghouse Reactor. It's a B&W. They have a design problem with the surge line to the Pressurizer. It can create a loop seal and it gave them a false level in the Reactor during the accident.

I operated reactors on Subs while I was in the Navy. I work as a senior reactor operator at a westinghouse reactor.

Wanna talk waste.

Google search Seabrook.

Some of my best engineering work was done there.

Thanks AR-Head, I always thought they were Westinghouse reactors. I heard the kind at Three Mile Island and Rancho Seco are the most delicate reactors made and require lots of maintenance. How big is a reactor on a submarine? It is just amazing you can have a nuclear reactor on a ship that dives and shoots things..

Halfcocked,

I looked up Seabrook, has it been shut down? I hear it is the symbol of atomic debates and how hippies were arrested outside the plant.

Yeah...I always thought subs were quite intriguing...

Take a nuclear reactor...then get some very large explosives and even nuclear explosive devices and add some diesel fuel.  Put it all in a big steel container, then put 120 people in it...take it out to the middle of the ocean, and intentionally sink it.

Then without any windows, navigate it around the world without hitting anything and watching out for other naval vessels and aircraft that may want to track you or even sink you.

The reactor on the sub was actually quite small for the power it produced. As with most things in the military it was engineered very differently from its civilian counterparts. The first patrol I made was very interesting, a new way of life. After that they get very boring.

More info on the Rancho Seco reactor.

[b]Problems at Rancho Seco date from the initial decision to build a Babcock and Wilcox reactor, a twin to the reactor at Three Mile Island, which suffered the worst accident to date in the U.S. B&W reactors are known to be the most delicately built reactors in the country and are susceptable to severe problems if not properly maintained.[/b]

Reading more they almost had a meltdown like TMI... shit.. damn thing is 30 miles from where I live. They had so many screw up's at this plant it's no wonder it was shut down. They released radiactive gases and 12 million gallons of radioactive water from that plant, radation was found in the milk of cows that grazed nearby.

Seabrook Nuclear Generation Station in Seabrook/Hampton Falls, NH is alive and well. My father in an engineer there.

Seabrook was (one of?) the LAST nuke plants to be licensed in this country, and it opened despite the best efforts of the enviro-hippies. They delayed the plant's licensing for years and years, causing billions in mortgage debt that the plant is still trying to pay off today. Driving by seabrook, you'll notice the concrete dome (unit 1, opertional since the eraly 90's) and a rusted rebar frame for a second dome (unit 2, still under construction when the litigation started and sicne abandoned). Unit 2 has since become a hanger-deck-queen.

There's still a protest, though very small, every year, and a few people jump the fence and get arrested.

Seabrook residents pay almost no taxes. The plan lies on the contaminated seabrook dump, which they cleaned up.

There are rumpors the guards really do have surface-air missiles.

Interesting trivia - Seabrook, due to it's proximity to Pease (fmr air force base) and the enviro-hippies, is the only containment in the US specifically designed to withstand a passenger airliner strike. No shit.

Halfcocked -  what did you do there? Backchannel me at [email protected]

Thanx Frank, that's some scary sh*t.

Why would they need defense like that? I mean... the containment dome is what... 6 feet thick of steel and cement? Crash as many jets as you want into those..

Although they might need them for...

[img]http://members.home.net/spacemenace/images/nukem.jpg[/img]

:)

I beleive they're intended for enemy helicopters.  Defense is as much to prevent the theft of fissionable materials as it is to protect against loonies who want to melt the place down.  Speeking of which, meltdowns themselves aren't so bad as you'd think. Expensive, sure, but TMI illustrated that all it does is melt the core into bedrock, still contained.