A nuclear power station.

The nuclear reactor is contained inside the cylindrical containment buildings to the right left is a cooling tower venting water vapor from the nonradioactive side of the plant. A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is one or more nuclear reactors. Nuclear power plants are base load stations, which work best when the power output is constant.

The control room at a U.S. nuclear power plant

History
y Electricity was generated for the first time ever in the

United States by a nuclear reactor on December 20, 1951 at the EBR-I experimental station near Arco, Idaho in the United States. On June 27, 1954, the world's first nuclear power plant to generate electricity power grid started operations for a at Obninsk,USSR.[1] The world's first commercial scale power station, Calder Hall in England opened in October 17, 1956.[2]

Systems
y The conversion to electrical energy takes place indirectly, as in conventional thermal power plants: The heat is produced by fission in a nuclear reactor (in a coal power plant it would correspond to the boiler) and given to a heat transfer fluid usually water (for a standard type light water reactor). Directly or indirectly water vapor-steam is produced. The pressurized steam is then usually fed to a multi-stage steam turbine. Steam turbines in Western nuclear power plants are among the largest steam turbines ever. After the steam turbine has expanded and partially condensed the steam, the remaining vapor is condensed in a condenser. The condenser is a heat exchanger which is connected to secondary side such as a river or a cooling tower. The water then pumped back into the nuclear reactor and the cycle begins again. The water-steam cycle corresponds to the Rankine cycle

BWR schematic.

BWR schematic

Pressurized water reactor

Nuclear reactors
y A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear

chain reaction. The most common use of nuclear reactors is for the generation of electric energy and for the propulsion of ships. y The nuclear reactor is the heart of the plant. In its central part, the reactor core's heat is generated by controlled nuclear fission. With this heat, a coolant is heated as it is pumped through the reactor and thereby removes the energy from the reactor. Heat from nuclear fission is used to raise steam, which runs through turbines, which in turn powers either ship's propellers or electrical generators. y Since nuclear fission creates radioactivity, the reactor core is surrounded by a protective shield. This containment absorbs radiation and prevents radioactive material from being released into the environment. In addition, many reactors are equipped with a dome of concrete to protect the reactor against external impacts. y In nuclear power plants, different types of reactors, nuclear fuels, and cooling circuits and moderators are sometimes used.

Steam turbine
y The object of the steam turbine is to convert the heat contained in steam into rotational energy. The engine house with the steam turbine is usually structurally separated from the main reactor building. It is aligned to prevent debris from the destruction of a turbine in operation from flying towards the reactor. y In the case of a pressurized water reactor, the steam turbine hermetically separated from the nuclear system. To detect a leak in the steam generator and thus the passage of radioactive water at an early stage is the outlet steam of the steam generator mounted an activity meter. In contrast, boiling water reactors and the steam turbine with radioactive water applied and therefore part of the control area of the nuclear power plant.

Generator The generator converts kinetic energy supplied by the turbine into electrical energy. Low-pole AC synchronous generators of high rated power are used.

Safety valves
y The pressure in the reactor pressure vessel at an incident, to limit upward, two independent safety valves are available. The pressure relief prevents bursting of pipes or reactor. The valves are in their capacity designed so that they can derive all of the supplied flow rates with little increase in pressure. In the case of the BWR, the steam is directed into the condensate chamber and condenses there. The chambers are on heat exchanger connected to the intermediate cooling circuit. y Should not close the safety valves, are very close again safety shut any, should, if necessary, prevent coolant accident. The non-closing of a safety valve led to a serious accident at Three Mile Island.

Feed water pump

y The Feed water pump have the task of the water from the feed

water tank to the vapor pressure in the reactor and the steam generator to bring and promote a water with approximately 2200 kg / s. The power required amounts here to about 20 MW per pump. About the feed water system, the water level in the steam generator and nuclear reactor is controlled. Emergency power supply y The Emergency power supply a nuclear power plant is several times redundant built up by diesel generators and battery buffers. The battery backup provides uninterrupted coupling of the diesel units in the network secure. If necessary, the emergency power supply allows the safe descent down the nuclear reactor. Less important auxiliary systems such as, for example, heat tracing of pipelines are not receiving it. The majority of the required power is used to supply the feed pumps and Not speisepumpen order to shut down the nuclear reactor, the Decay heat even with a Failure of the power system, A Blackout permanently dissipate.

People in a nuclear power plant

y Nuclear power plants typically employ just under a thousand people y y y y y

per reactor (including security guards and engineers associated with the plant but possibly working elsewhere). Nuclear engineers Reactor operators Health physicists Emergency response team personnel Nuclear Regulatory Commission Resident Inspectors

y In the United States and Canada, workers except for management,

professional (such as engineers) and security personnel are likely to be members of either the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) or the Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA).

Safety
y Complexity y Nuclear power plants are some of the most sophisticated and complex

energy systems ever designed. Any complex system, no matter how well it is designed and engineered, cannot be deemed failure-proof. Stephanie Cooke has reported that: y The reactors themselves were enormously complex machines with an incalculable number of things that could go wrong. When that happened at Three Mile Island in 1979, another fault line in the nuclear world was exposed. One malfunction led to another, and then to a series of others, until the core of the reactor itself began to melt, and even the world's most highly trained nuclear engineers did not know how to respond. The accident revealed serious deficiencies in a system that was meant to protect public health and safety. y A fundamental issue related to complexity is that nuclear power systems have exceedingly long lifetimes. The timeframe involved from the start of construction of a commercial nuclear power station, through to the safe disposal of its last radioactive waste, may be 100 to 150 years.

Failure modes of nuclear power plants

y There are concerns that a combination of human and

mechanical error at a nuclear facility could result in significant harm to people and the environment: y Operating nuclear reactors contain large amounts of radioactive fission products which, if dispersed, can pose a direct radiation hazard, contaminate soil and vegetation, and be ingested by humans and animals. Human exposure at high enough levels can cause both short-term illness and death and longer-term death by cancer and other diseases.[