On Monday our class took a field trip to the MIT nuclear power plant. The purpose of the trip was to learn the basics about nuclear power. Our class was given a tour by one of the employees at the power plant. The tour did not last very long, only about an hour but it was extremely informational.
The first piece of information that was told to us was that the MIT nuclear power plant is mainly used for research purposes and not power. The power plant itself gives out 6 mega watts of power. Last year the power plant ran at 5 giga watts of power. The research that has been conducted at nuclear power plant have been mostly medical research for cancer more specifically brain cancer. The doctors created a beam that shot neutrons at the brain cancer. The neutrons forced the cancer cells to break down. The patients that had this procedure done only had a month to live. This procedure prolonged their life by 8 months on average. Cancer research is not being done anymore because the power plant does not have the funding to continue.
The tour guide gave us a very watered down version of how the power plant works. Boron rods are used to control the reaction. When the rods are raised, the more power that is produced, when the rods are lowered into the water the less power that is produced. The rods are designed to avoid boiling from the water. 2200 gallons of water flow naturally into the reactor per minute to help cool it. The city of Cambridge does not have to worry about an incident like Fukushima. The MIT mainframe is programmed to shut down when it senses an earthquake. If the mainframe even senses the smallest malfunction it shuts down the reactor. MIT has its own special workshop where they repair the parts that are broken and get the reactor back up and running in a quick and timely manner.
