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The Nuclear Reactor Theory

            As of today there are 102 light water reactors working with the United States, of these there are two different types. There are boiling water reactors (BWR) and pressurized water reactors (PWR), an example of each may be found right here in south Louisiana. River Bend generating station located outside of Baton Rouge in St. Francisville is a BWR, and Waterford 3 generating station is a PWR located outside of New Orleans in Killona. As an interesting side note, due to the changes in homeland security following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 it is now illegal for these power stations to feature nuclear within their names. So why should the mass populist care about nuclear power generation and why do we even need it? Well, to start with it must be understood that the only other way the United States produces large scale power for the country is buy burning coal or natural gas both of which are fossil fuels. The heat from burning these fuel is then used to boil water to generate steam. The steam is then used to drive turbines which in turn drive generators that produce electricity. We as a country must understand that it will only become vastly expensive to continue to burn massive amounts of fossil fuels for power generation due to not only EPA regulations but to the rising costs of recovering fossils fuels. So how does nuclear power help? To start with a nuclear reaction contains a million times more energy than a rapid oxidation chemical reaction for example it takes a little less than a pound of coal to power a 100 watt light bulb for 24 hours. On the other hand it would only take one millionth of the same amount of Uranium to be fission to power the same 100 watt light bulb for 24 hours with no green house or NOx gases released into are atmosphere as a byproduct of the reaction. Now that we can see a little of the benefits of nuclear power generation let's explore what actually happens inside of the reactor itself.


Essays Related to The Nuclear Reactor Theory

1. Radioactivity and the Nuclei of Atoms

... is used to kill bacteria and other microorganisms and sterilize medical devices. The Concept Half Life In theory, the decay process is never complete and there is always some residual radioactivity. For this reason, the half-life of a radioactive isotope is measured, rather than the total decay time. The time it takes for half the atoms in a given mass to divide (emit radiation and change to a stable ... released from the inner core, or nucleus, of the atom. Energy produced by nuclear fission (the splitting of uranium or plutonium nuclei) has been harnessed since the 1950s to generate e...

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2. Iran's Pragmatic Confrontation with the West

... increasingly skeptical that Mosaddeq would become dependent on the Tudeh Party, the active communist party, giving the Soviet Union growing influence in Iran. This could lead, in the eyes of the U.S. leaders, to the domino theory occurring in the Middle East. Once Dwight Eisenhower was inaugurated as president in 1953, the CIA, along with the British MI6 carried out the coup d'tat, overthrowing Mosaddeq in August 1953 ... opponent of press freedom. During this time, Ahmadinejad began to implement populist economic policies, which entailed increasing public spending and driving down inter...

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3. Werner Heisenberg and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

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4. Werner Heisenberg and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle 2

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5. Dangers of nuclear wewapons

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6. The Cold War-Account of Arms Race

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7. The Atomic Bomb

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8. Infinite Energy

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9. Thorium Research Paper

... nuclear power. There is a current theory by a number of different scientists that thorium probably has more energy available for use from minerals in the earth's crust than from both uranium and fossil fuels combined. Any sizable demand from thorium as a nuclear fuel is still several years in the future, however research work has been done in the development of thorium cycle converter-reactor systems. Several prototypes, including the ... high-temperature gas-cooled reactor ... ...

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