KS 150
KS 150 is a Gas Cooled Reactor using Heavy Water as a moderator (GCHWR) nuclear reactor design. A single example, A-1, was constructed at the Bohunice Nuclear Power Plant in Jaslovské Bohunice, Czechoslovakia. The power plant suffered a series of accidents, the worst being an accident on February 22, 1977, rated INES-4. Since 1979 the plant has been undergoing decommissioning. History The decision to build a nuclear power plant in Czechoslovakia was made in 1956. Construction of A-1 in Jaslovské Bohunice (western Slovakia) started in 1958 and took an unexpected 16 years. A-1 was commissioned on October 24, 1972. The KS 150 reactor was built entirely in Czechoslovakia, designed together with USSR, built by Škoda Works. One advantage of the design was its ability to use unenriched uranium mined in Czechoslovakia, similar to a CANDU reactor. Because of its experimental design the power plant suffered from accidents resulting in over 30 unplanned shutdowns. On January 5, 1976, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gas Cooled Reactor
A gas-cooled reactor (GCR) is a nuclear reactor that uses graphite as a neutron moderator and a gas (carbon dioxide or helium in extant designs) as coolant. Although there are many other types of reactor cooled by gas, the terms ''GCR'' and to a lesser extent ''gas cooled reactor'' are particularly used to refer to this type of reactor. The GCR was able to use natural uranium as fuel, enabling the countries that developed them to fabricate their own fuel without relying on other countries for supplies of enriched uranium, which was at the time of their development in the 1950s only available from the United States or the Soviet Union. The Canadian CANDU reactor, using heavy water as a moderator, was designed with the same goal of using natural uranium fuel for similar reasons. Design considerations Historically thermal spectrum graphite moderated gas cooled reactors mostly competed with light water reactors, ultimately losing out to them after having seen some deployment in Brit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Beryllium
Beryllium is a chemical element with the symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is a steel-gray, strong, lightweight and brittle alkaline earth metal. It is a divalent element that occurs naturally only in combination with other elements to form minerals. Notable gemstones high in beryllium include beryl ( aquamarine, emerald) and chrysoberyl. It is a relatively rare element in the universe, usually occurring as a product of the spallation of larger atomic nuclei that have collided with cosmic rays. Within the cores of stars, beryllium is depleted as it is fused into heavier elements. Beryllium constitutes about 0.0004 percent by mass of Earth's crust. The world's annual beryllium production of 220 tons is usually manufactured by extraction from the mineral beryl, a difficult process because beryllium bonds strongly to oxygen. In structural applications, the combination of high flexural rigidity, thermal stability, thermal conductivity and low density (1.85 times that of water) ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1977 In Czechoslovakia
Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...). * January 17 ** 49 marines from the and are killed as a result of a collision in Barcelona harbour, Spain. * January 18 ** Scientists identify a previously unknown Bacteria, bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease. ** Australia's worst Granville rail disaster, railway disaster at Granville, a suburb of Sydney, leaves 83 people dead. ** SFR Yugoslavia Prime minister Džemal Bijedić, his wife and 6 others are killed in a plane crash in Bosnia and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Radioactively Contaminated Areas
Radioactive describes something undergoing radioactive decay, the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus emits radiation. Radioactive may also refer to: Materials *Naturally occurring radioactive material *Nuclear pharmacy, the preparation of radioactive materials for nuclear medicine *Radioactive contamination *Radioactive waste Entertainment * ''Radioactive'' (Yelawolf album), a 2011 album by rapper Yelawolf * "Radioactive" (Gene Simmons song), a song from the 1978 album ''Gene Simmons'' by Gene Simmons *'' Radio:Active'' the fourth album from British pop rock group McFly * "Radioactive" (The Firm song), a song from the 1985 album ''The Firm'' by the English supergroup The Firm * "Radioactive" (Imagine Dragons song), a 2012 song by Imagine Dragons * "Radioactive" (Kings of Leon song), a 2010 song by Kings of Leon * "Radioactive" (Marina and the Diamonds song), a 2011 song by Marina and the Diamonds * "Radioactive" (Rita Ora song), a 2013 song by Rita Ora *Radioactive Recor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Civilian Nuclear Power Accidents
Civilians under international humanitarian law are "persons who are not members of the armed forces" and they are not "combatants if they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war". It is slightly different from a non-combatant, because some non-combatants are not civilians (for example, military chaplains who are attached to the belligerent party or military personnel who are serving with a neutral country). Civilians in the territories of a party to an armed conflict are entitled to certain privileges under the customary laws of war and international treaties such as the Fourth Geneva Convention. The privileges that they enjoy under international law depends on whether the conflict is an internal one (a civil war) or an international one. In some nations, uniformed members of civilian police or fire departments colloquially refer to members of the public as civilians. Etymology The word "civilian" goes back to the late 14th century and is from Old French ''civ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nuclear Reactors
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid (water or gas), which in turn runs through steam turbines. These either drive a ship's propellers or turn electrical generators' shafts. Nuclear generated steam in principle can be used for industrial process heat or for district heating. Some reactors are used to produce isotopes for medical and industrial use, or for production of weapons-grade plutonium. , the International Atomic Energy Agency reports there are 422 nuclear power reactors and 223 nuclear research reactors in operation around the world. In the early era of nuclear reactors (1940s), a reactor was known as a nuclear pile or atomic pile (so-called because the graphite moderator blocks of the first reactor were placed into a tall pi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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MAGNOX
Magnox is a type of nuclear power/production reactor that was designed to run on natural uranium with graphite as the moderator and carbon dioxide gas as the heat exchange coolant. It belongs to the wider class of gas-cooled reactors. The name comes from the magnesium-aluminium alloy used to clad the fuel rods inside the reactor. Like most other " Generation I nuclear reactors", the Magnox was designed with the dual purpose of producing electrical power and plutonium-239 for the nascent nuclear weapons programme in Britain. The name refers specifically to the United Kingdom design but is sometimes used generically to refer to any similar reactor. As with other plutonium-producing reactors, conserving neutrons is a key element of the design. In magnox, the neutrons are moderated in large blocks of graphite. The efficiency of graphite as a moderator allows the Magnox to run using natural uranium fuel, in contrast with the more common commercial light-water reactor which re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Silica Gel
Silica gel is an amorphous and porous form of silicon dioxide (silica), consisting of an irregular tridimensional framework of alternating silicon and oxygen atoms with nanometer-scale voids and pores. The voids may contain water or some other liquids, or may be filled by gas or vacuum. In the last case, the material is properly called silica xerogel. Silica xerogel with an average pore size of 2.4 nanometers has a strong affinity for water molecules and is widely used as a desiccant. It is hard and translucent, but considerably softer than massive silica glass or quartz; and remains hard when saturated with water. Silica xerogel is usually commercialized as coarse granules or beads, a few millimeters in diameter. Some grains may contain small amounts of indicator substance that changes color when they have absorbed some water. Small paper envelopes containing silica xerogel pellets, usually with a "do not eat" warning, are often included in dry food packages to absorb any h ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Three Mile Island Accident
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor in Pennsylvania, United States. It began at 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979. It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. On the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale, it is rated Level 5 – Accident with Wider Consequences. The accident began with failures in the non-nuclear secondary system followed by a stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) in the primary system that allowed large amounts of nuclear reactor coolant to escape. The mechanical failures were compounded by the initial failure of plant operators to recognize the situation as a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). The failure of operators is attributed to the out-of-the-loop performance problem. TMI training and procedures left operators and management ill-prepared for the deteriorating situation. During the event these inadequacies were compounded by design ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Turbogenerator
A turbo generator is an electric generator connected to the shaft of a steam turbine or gas turbine for the generation of electric power. Large steam-powered turbo generators provide the majority of the world's electricity and are also used by steam-powered turbo-electric ships. Small turbo-generators driven by gas turbines are often used as auxiliary power units (APU, mainly for aircraft). History The first turbo-generators were electric generators powered by water turbines. The first Hungarian water turbine was designed by the engineers of the Ganz Works in 1866; industrial-scale production with dynamo generators started only in 1883. Engineer Charles Algernon Parsons demonstrated a DC steam-powered turbo generator using a dynamo in 1887, and by 1901 had supplied the first large industrial AC turbo generator of megawatt power to a plant in Eberfeld, Germany. Turbo generators were also used on steam locomotives as a power source for coach lighting and water pumps for heat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |