Couple weeks ago my freshman seminar class had a field trip to MIT nuclear reactor. There was a lecture about the reactor before we went inside. I learned from the power point the reactor operates 24/7 up to 6 MW thermal power and it has sixty-five percent of capacity factor. It is four and half in diameter and no more than two feet; it has 3,000 MW reactors. The MITR-2 uses heavy water for neutron reflection; the light water cools and moderates it using aluminum clad fuel elements. It contains safety channels with three power levels and three on reactor period. There are six boron stainless blades in the core that are positioned in hexagonal shape; any of the blades can shut down the reactor less than one second. I remembered Lin-Wen Hu explained there were 92 elements on the periodic table and anything greater than Uranium was man-made materials (unstable radioactivity). He talked about the Chernobyl and sand contains boron. Lin discussed the one-way chain reaction is intended to prevent atomic bombs and in every generation 2 of 3 neutrons are removed to control the nuclear reactor. The reactor is incapable of melting down and every power plant in United States has an atomic relieve valve of hydrogen. The tour around the reactor was extremely fun I was able to see the control room and it was fascinating to be inside the nuclear reactor. This trip makes me love MIT more and I am considering going there in the future.

http://web.mit.edu/nrl/www/index.html