By Anna Turnage, 12/2006

• 1: Introduction
• 2: Nuclear Power Today part 2
• 3: North Carolina’s electric cooperatives’ interest in nuclear energy
• 4: How a nuclear generator plant works
• 5: Learning about nuclear energy at Catawba Nuclear Station
• Download the full article as a

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How a nuclear generator plant works

In most electric power plants, water is heated and converted into steam, which drives a turbine-generator to produce electricity. In fossil fuel plants, steam is generated using coal, oil or natural gas. Nuclear plants work much the same way, except that an atomic “chain reaction” inside the reactor makes the steam, which drives the turbine-generator.

In a nuclear power plant, the “fission” of uranium atoms in the reactor provides the heat that produces steam for generating electricity. “Fission” is the splitting of atoms into smaller parts. Some atoms split when they are struck by even smaller particles, called neutrons. Each time this happens more neutrons come out and strike other atoms. This process of energy release is the “chain reaction.” Operators in the plant control the chain reaction to keep it from releasing too much energy too fast so that the reaction can continue for a long period of time. The chain reaction is controlled with “control rods,” that contain the chemical element boron which naturally absorbs neutrons. When the rods are lowered into the reactor, they absorb more neutrons and the fission process slows down. To generate more power, the rods are raised and more neutrons can crash into uranium atoms, speeding up the process, generating more electricity.

The energy released from the reaction heats the water to over 500 degrees F, which produces the steam to spin the turbine-generator. Finally, the steam is cooled—condensing back to water—and recycled through the entire process again. The plume often seen coming from the huge cooling towers at a nuclear plant is, in fact, steam generated in the cooling process that has turned to water vapor.