How does Nuclear Energy Generates Electricity?

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the demand for energy has increased dramatically year after year. As the world is developing and population is increasing, the rising rate for the demand of energy is very logical. Nuclear power system is one of the widely used energy source in the world.

History: 

It all started in the 1940s. After the shocking disasters by the use of atomic bomb, nuclear energy was promised to be used peacefully by the new technology. So, the world can be back on its feet. Everyone’s imagination was running wild. Would electricity become free? Could nuclear power help settle the Antarctic? Would there be nuclear powered cars, airplanes or houses? It seemed this was just a few years of hard work away. One thing was certain that the future would be atomic. Just a few years later, there was a sort of atomic age hangover. As it turned out, nuclear power was a very complicated and very expensive. Turning physics into engineering was easy on paper but hard in real life. Also private companies thought that nuclear power was much too risky for investment. Most of them would rather stick to Gas, Coal and Oil. But there were many people who didn’t just want to abandon the promise of the atomic age and exciting new technology. The prospect of cheap electricity, the prospect of being independent of Oil and Gas and in some cases, a secret desire to possess atomic weapons provided a strong motivation to keep going. Nuclear power started to become popular in the early 1970s when oil price in the Middle East increased. Now, commercial interest and investment picked up at a dazzling pace. More than half of all the nuclear reactors in the world ware build in between 1970 and 1985.

Buildings: 

Nuclear power plants are thermal power stations which generate electrical energy from it. They consist of numerous buildings and facilities. The most important of which are here:

1. ·       In Turbine buildings there are several turbines as well as generator necessary for electrical         power generation.
2. ·       There is a containment building where the nuclear reactor is housed.
3. ·       Inside the Cooling tower, nuclear reactions take place where water is heated up. In this               building, hot water is cooled.
4. 
   

Process: 

In order to easily understand the underlying principles, the following is a description of the most important components of a nuclear power plant that uses a pressurized water reactor (PWR). In the reactor pressure vessel, the nuclear reaction and the associated release of thermal energy takes place. Inside a pressurized water reactor, the fuel assemblies can be found. About 150 such assemblies are installed in it. A single fuel assembly is composed of many fuel rods. The actual nuclear fuel is found inside of each fuel rod. Small nuclear fuel pallets are composed of enriched Uranium or Plutonium that make nuclear fission chain reaction possible. In the fission chain reaction, thermal energy is released.

Water is needed in order to absorb the thermal energy and keep the chain reaction going. Inside the vessel the water is heated to over 570 degrees Fahrenheit. The water does not boil however since the pressurizer maintains the water pressure constant. The heated water is eventually pumped to a heat exchanger also called steam generator. Any water inside the heat exchanger begins to boil. The resulting steam is eventually fled through a set of pipes to the turbine building. The steam first arrive high pressure turbine and then is typically fled to two low pressure turbines. All of the turbines are connected by a spinning shaft through the electrical generator which in turn produces AC electricity from the shaft’s rotational energy. The steam is converted into liquid form in a condenser and then returned back to the steam generator.

The water needed for this often comes from a near river or is cooled in a cooling tower. The water circulation systems are always kept separate from one another.