1 / 12

Nuclear Reactors

Nuclear Reactors. Health Physics Society - Power Reactor Section Radiation Science Education. Location of Operating Nuclear Reactors.

etienne
Download Presentation

Nuclear Reactors

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Nuclear Reactors Health Physics Society - Power Reactor Section Radiation Science Education

  2. Location of Operating Nuclear Reactors

  3. Think of a Tea KettleThe fission process creates heat that produces steam in a secondary water system. The steam turns a turbine-generator which produces electricity.

  4. Three Barriers to Contain Radiation

  5. Defense In Depth • 48” concrete containment building • 35” concrete shield • 8” steel reactor vessel • solid nuclear fuel inside steel tubes

  6. How Used Fuel is Removed

  7. What Happens to Used Fuel? • Nuclear reactors split atoms of uranium which creates heat. This process is called fission. • Uranium in a nuclear reactor comes in the form of ceramic pellets. • Only one of the uranium isotopes fission, U-235. New fuel contains about 5% U-235, the rest is U-238. • When most of the U-235 has split, the used-up or “spent fuel” is stored in a large pool to cool off.

  8. Dry Cask Storage • After the fuel has “cooled”, it is moved into concrete casks. • Eventually, the fuel will be sent to Yucca Mountain for permanent disposal deep under ground.

  9. Transportation Safety • A 120-ton locomotive, speeding at 80 miles an hour, crashed broadside into a container on a flatbed. • The impact demolished the train, but hardly dented the container.

  10. Transportation Container • Used nuclear fuel: ceramic pellets encased in steel tubes. • Used nuclear fuel cannot explode. • Used nuclear fuel does not burn.

  11. Yucca Mountain • Volcanic eruptions created Yucca Mountain about 10 million years ago. • Over the ages, layers of volcanic ash compressed and consolidated into a hard rock called tuff. • There is very little rainfall, most of which quickly runs off the surface or evaporates. • The water table under Yucca Mountain is extremely deep.

  12. Permanent Disposal • Yucca Mountain is federally owned land that borders the Nevada Test Site. • More than 900 atomic weapon blasts have been conducted at the Nevada Test Site, mostly underground. • $2 billion dollars have been spent on scientific investigation of the geology and hydrology of the site. • Spent fuel will be stored 1000 feet below under ground, 800 feet above the water-table, protected by corrosion-resistant containers.

More Related