How Nuclear Fission works in nuclear facilities.
A Nuclear fission is when a atom splits in two until it depletes its source while at the same time releasing huge amounts of energy, which is heat. All nuclear reactors mainly use rocks called uranium, very rare and most uranium are enriched to a highly enriched uranium pellets. Then these highly enriched pellets go in to rods. These rod will go into fuel assemblies later to be installed in nuclear reactors.
These rods then are carefully installed in nuclear reactors, which are heavily reinforced with concrete and steel. Once the reactors doors are closed, many control rods in the reactor slowly pulls out of the reactor, their main purpose is to slow down the chain reaction by absorbing mass amounts neutrons, starting the chain reaction by activating uranium-235.
Then the reaction will slowly get intense as atoms split faster and faster while producing exothermic reaction thus creating extreme amounts heat transferring that heat to heat pipes filled with either pressured water or water around the core. The average temperature of a reactor is around 320 degrees Celsius or 608 Fahrenheit.Using uranium-238 and 235 which is an isotope of 238, in a reactor only about 5 percent is in the pellets because they are fissile which means they can proceed in nuclear fusion. While 95 percent of the uranium is uranium-238 which is fertile, or in nuclear definition term not able to proceed in nuclear fission unless converted into fissile material by absorbing neutrons. which allows the reaction to fission for a long time. A typical nuclear power plant will use all its uranium core about 5 years until it needs fresh uranium. The depleted uranium will be stored in a coolant because it is still emitting radioactive waves and still producing large amounts of exothermic reaction, and if we don't cool down these rods, they will melt causing mass destruction and give radiation poisoning around the affected area. We as humans use this power to harness this power to provide millions of megawatts of electrical power every year, one nuclear power plant can provide Boston alone for years. This is still a breakthrough to mankind, giving us electricity and destruction.
History of Fission
The first devices that was used nuclear technology was bombs. Nuclear technology first used to fight in World War 2 mainly against the axis.The Manhattan project begun in 1942 to 1946 created by The United States and supported by United Kingdom and Canada. Many tests were made as they added more uranium-235 in the nuclear bombs as they became more fissile, basically adding more rare gunpowder to a gun. This would result in a out of control chain reaction of fission. The bombs were very in-efficient as only 1.5% efficient of the Little Boy. It came to this of the cold war era between the Soviet Union and United States.This made Soviet Union create the biggest nuclear device in history, equivalent to World War 2 times 10, The Tsar bomb yielding more than 58 megatons of tnt, only 1 bomb was detonated and had to be limited because of its chaotic size, it was never built again. The first commercial use for nuclear technology was first built in the Soviet union called APS-1 Obninsk or Atomic power station number one, it started in 1951 and decommissioned in 2002 lasting for about 48 years. This led to many nuclear stations of improvising and improving their power stations.
Nuclear Future?
In the future, we will begin to use thorium. Thorium will be the new method of choice towards clean energy and the future. It is many times safer, cheaper, more efficient and more reliable. It will change almost everything about power we use everyday.Thorium is much more safer than uranium 235 and 238, because it is already molten, why is that a big reason? The reason why failures happen such as Chernobyl, and Fukashima, both reactors in the facilities failed to cool their reactors as there backups both of which failed in reasons of flooding and power surges. For Chernobyl, this led to the fail of the emergency shutdowns creating a uncontrollable chain reaction, causing an huge explosion. For Fukashima was the result of a natural disaster from the tsunami that hit the reactors submerging all emergency shutdowns after stopping the chain reaction, but still the nuclear material must be cooled at all costs or else the materials will melt ,causing nuclear meltdown and causing steam to build up in the building resulting a explosion like a balloon popping. Thorium produces more heat than uranium-235 and 238 meaning more efficiency gaining more power. It can bring fresh water by bringing sea water to the reactor, creating steam and leaving salt behind giving us pure water and salt. These reactors are more compact which means we can either make a more powerful reactor or make a nuclear engine for transportation and power. This energy has the potential to last over 300 hundred years without refueling while in its liquid state and can replace oil and other natural sources bringing clean and abundant energy.