How do Nuclear Plants works?

Nuclear Plants are much like fossil-fueled power plants. The idea of fossil fueled power plant is to heat up the water until it boils and changes to steam, then the steam will turn the turbine generator to produce electricity. The difference between them is the source of heat. Inside of a nuclear power plants, the heat to make the steam is created when uranium atoms split, also known as the fission.

Fission:

Fission is a process that the nuclear reactor to provide heat. It is a process that a neutron, in this case uranium neutron, collides with a target nucleus, in this case is uranium nucleus. After the first collide the products are more neutron and more nucleus then the neutron will keep repeating the collision with other nucleus. The process will create heat and we use the heat to boil water.

Types of Reactor:

There are two types of Nuclear reactor.

First is called pressurized water reactor, known as PWRs. It keeps water under pressure so that it heats, but does not boil. This heated water is circulated through tubes in steam generators, allowing the water in the steam generators to turn to steam, which then turns the turbine generator.

 

The water between the reactor and the steam are separated.

 

Second,  called Boiling Water Reactors also known as BWRs. In this type of reactor, the water heated by fission actually boils and turns into steam to turn the turbine generator.

In both PWRs and BWRs, the steam is turned back into water and can be used again in the process.

 

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster

It was March 11, 2011, an earthquake led to major problems at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. A 14-m high tsunami triggered by the earthquake disabled all AC power to Units 1, 2, and 3 of the Power Plant, and carried off fuel tanks for emergency diesel generators. The cooling systems did not work and hydrogen explosions damaged the facilities, releasing a large amount of radioactive material into the environment. On April 12, 2011 the Japanese government officially announced that the severity of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster had reached level 7, the highest on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Before Fukushima, the only level 7 case was the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, whose 25th anniversary was marked on April 26.

 

 

The Fukushima nuclear disaster showed us once again that nuclear reactors are fundamentally dangerous. Not only do they cause significant damage to the environment, the health of populations and to national economies, the heavy financial cost of a meltdown is inevitably borne by the public, not by the companies that designed, built, and operated the plants. None of the world’s 436 nuclear reactors are immune to human errors, natural disasters, or any of the many other serious incidents that could cause a disaster. Millions of people who live near nuclear reactors are at risk.The lives of hundreds of thousands of people continue to be affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster, especially the 160,000 who fled their homes because of radioactive contamination, and continue to live in limbo without fair, just, and timely compensation. They have only a false hope of returning home, yet the Japanese government is eagerly pushing to restart reactors, against the will of its people, and without learning true lessons from Fukushima.

Fukushima disaster caused Japan at a stroke the country to lose 20% of its nuclear electricity supply. Nuclear produced 300 TWh of power in 2010, and before the March tsunami, the plan was for this to increase by nearly 50% to 447 TWh by 2019. Japan had made aggressive commitments to reduce carbon emissions, and despite broad targets for renewable energy.

New strategy

After the disaster Japan now has couple targets they want to improve on.

1. Target world leadership in energy efficiency

Japan should now embark on a crash programme of energy efficiency, in industrial, commercial and residential applications. Creating large pools of demand for LEDs, building automation systems, smart grids and other efficiency technologies should be accompanied by programmes to support the supply side, so that Japanese companies can become export powerhouses to help fund the investment.

2. Pass a feed-in tariff

In Japan today, there is a need for speed. Restoring the country’s electricity supply is urgent. A feed-in tariff should be the policy-maker’s weapon of choice in giving momentum to a clean energy roll-out.

3. Restructure power markets

Despite much debate about liberalisation, Japan’s power markets are more rigid than in almost any other divided up into 10 regional near-monopolies. Given the extremity of the challenge, the priorities must be innovation, flexibilityand rewards for problem-solving, but the system is biased towards protecting the status quo. In particular, with Tepco, one of the world’s largest privately-owned utilities with 24m customers, bearing massive liability and needing full support from the national government, now would be a good time to advance a broader reform agenda on energy.

4.Start to rebuild trust in nuclear power

It will be hard to erase those images of Japanese toddlers being checked for radiation by masked inspectors. From an engineering standpoint, however, there is no reason why nuclear power cannot meet a significant and even growing part of Japan’s energy needs. The nuclear industry practically invented the science of risk management, and has at its disposal
techniques to understand and manage risk with clinical thoroughness.

5.  Fire up gas generation to bridge some of the gap

Inevitably, ramping up renewables and, especially, rebuilding trust in nuclear power will take years. In the short term, Japan needs quickly to increase its ability to import natural gas and increase gas-fired power capacity, beyond 2010’s figure of just over 60GW.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“How Do Nuclear Plants Work?” -Duke Energy. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.<http://www.duke-energy.com/about-energy/generating-electricity/nuclear-how.asp>

 

“NCBI. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.” <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3246178/>

“Global Research.” Global Research. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2013. <http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-severity-of-the-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-disaster-comparing-chernobyl-and-fukushima/24949>