Magnox Reactor Schematic
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 requ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Magnox Reactor Schematic
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 requ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Graphite
Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on large scale (300 kton/year, in 1989) for uses in pencils, lubricants, and electrodes. Under high pressures and temperatures it converts to diamond. It is a weak conductor of heat and electricity. Types and varieties Natural graphite The principal types of natural graphite, each occurring in different types of ore deposits, are * Crystalline small flakes of graphite (or flake graphite) occurs as isolated, flat, plate-like particles with hexagonal edges if unbroken. When broken the edges can be irregular or angular; * Amorphous graphite: very fine flake graphite is sometimes called amorphous; * Lump graphite (or vein graphite) occurs in fissure veins or fractures and appears as massive platy intergrowths of fibrous or acicular crystalline ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center
The Nyongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center is North Korea's major nuclear facility, operating its first nuclear reactors. It is located in Nyongbyon County in North Pyongan Province, about 100 km north of Pyongyang. The center produced the fissile material for North Korea's six nuclear weapon tests from 2006 to 2017, and since 2009 is developing indigenous light water reactor nuclear power station technology. Facilities The major installations include all aspects of a Magnox nuclear reactor fuel cycle, based on the use of natural uranium fuel: * a fuel fabrication plant, * a 5 MWe experimental reactor producing power and district heating, * a short-term spent fuel storage facility, * a fuel reprocessing facility that recovers uranium and plutonium from spent fuel using the PUREX process. Magnox spent fuel is not designed for long-term storage as both the casing and uranium metal core react with water; it is designed to be reprocessed within a few years of rem ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) and Tumen River, Tumen rivers, and South Korea to the south at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. North Korea's border with South Korea is a disputed border as both countries claim the entirety of the Korean Peninsula. The country's western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eastern border is defined by the Sea of Japan. North Korea, like South Korea, its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula and List of islands of North Korea, adjacent islands. Pyongyang is the capital and largest city. In 1910, Korean Empire, Korea was Korea under Japanese rule, annexed by the Empire of Japan. In 1945, after the Surrender of Japan, Japanese surrender at the End of World War II in Asia, end ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anglesey
Anglesey (; cy, (Ynys) Môn ) is an island off the north-west coast of Wales. It forms a principal area known as the Isle of Anglesey, that includes Holy Island across the narrow Cymyran Strait and some islets and skerries. Anglesey island, at , is the largest in Wales, the seventh largest in Britain, largest in the Irish Sea and second most populous there after the Isle of Man. Isle of Anglesey County Council administers , with a 2011 census population of 69,751, including 13,659 on Holy Island. The Menai Strait to the mainland is spanned by the Menai Suspension Bridge, designed by Thomas Telford in 1826, and the Britannia Bridge, built in 1850 and replaced in 1980. The largest town is Holyhead on Holy Island, whose ferry service with Ireland handles over two million passengers a year. The next largest is Llangefni, the county council seat. From 1974 to 1996 Anglesey was part of Gwynedd. Most full-time residents are habitual Welsh speakers. The Welsh name Ynys M ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wylfa Nuclear Power Station
Wylfa nuclear power station ( cy, Atomfa'r Wylfa) is a Magnox nuclear power station undergoing decommissioning. Wylfa is situated west of Cemaes Bay on the island of Anglesey, off the northwestern coast of Wales. Construction of the two 490MW nuclear reactors, known as Reactor 1 and Reactor 2, began in 1963. They became operational in 1971. Wylfa was located on the coast because seawater was used as a coolant. In 2012, Reactor 2 was shut down. Reactor 1 was switched off on 30 December 2015, ending 44 years of operation at the site. Wylfa Newydd (literally New Wylfa) was a proposed new nuclear station on a site adjacent to the old plant. An application to build two advanced boiling water reactors was submitted by Horizon Nuclear Power to the Office of Nuclear Regulation on 4 April 2017. , parent company Hitachi has withdrawn from the project. In 2022, the UK parliament expressed interests about the construction of a possible set of two EPR reactors on the site. History Wylfa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sellafield
Sellafield is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste processing and storage and nuclear decommissioning. Former activities included nuclear power generation from 1956 to 2003, and nuclear fuel reprocessing from 1952 to 2022. Reprocessing ceased on 17 July 2022, when the Magnox Reprocessing Plant completed its last batch of fuel after 58 years of operation. The licensed site covers an area of , and comprises more than 200 nuclear facilities and more than 1,000 buildings. It is Europe's largest nuclear site and has the most diverse range of nuclear facilities in the world situated on a single site. The site's workforce size varies, and before the COVID-19 pandemic was approximately 10,000 people. The UK's National Nuclear Laboratory has its Central Laboratory and headquarters on the site. Originally built as a Royal Ordnance Factory in 1942, the site briefly passed into the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pressurized Water Reactor
A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water reactor, light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary nuclear reactor coolant, coolant (water) is pumped under high pressure to the reactor core where it is heated by the energy released by the Nuclear fission, fission of atoms. The heated, high pressure water then flows to a Water-tube boiler, steam generator, where it transfers its thermal energy to lower pressure water of a secondary system where steam is generated. The steam then drives turbines, which spin an electric generator. In contrast to a boiling water reactor (BWR), pressure in the primary coolant loop prevents the water from boiling within the reactor. All light-water reactors use ordinary water as both coolant and neutron moderator. Most use anywhere from two to four vertically mounted steam generators; VVER reactors use horizo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Burnup
In nuclear power technology, burnup (also known as fuel utilization) is a measure of how much energy is extracted from a primary nuclear fuel source. It is measured as the fraction of fuel atoms that underwent fission in %FIMA (fissions per initial metal atom) or %FIFA (fissions per initial fissile atom) as well as, preferably, the actual energy released per mass of initial fuel in gigawatt-days/metric ton of heavy metal (GWd/tHM), or similar units. Measures of burnup Expressed as a percentage: if 5% of the initial heavy metal atoms have undergone fission, the burnup is 5%FIMA. If these 5% were the total of 235U that were in the fuel at the beginning, the burnup is 100%FIFA (as 235U is fissile and the other 95% heavy metals like 238U not). In reactor operations, this percentage is difficult to measure, so the alternative definition is preferred. This can be computed by multiplying the thermal power of the plant by the time of operation and dividing by the mass of the initial fue ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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B205
The Magnox Reprocessing Plant is a former nuclear reprocessing facility at Sellafield in northern England, which operated from 1964 to 2022. The plant used PUREX chemistry (based on tributyl phosphate (TBP)) to extract plutonium and uranium from used nuclear fuel originating primarily from Magnox reactors. The plant was originally constructed and operated by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), but in 1971 control was transferred to British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL). Since 2005 the plant has been operated by Sellafield Ltd. Operation The plant was commissioned in 1964 as both a replacement for the UK's First Generation Reprocessing Plant, and to process spent fuel from the national fleet of Magnox reactors. The First generation Plant was then converted into a pre-handling plant for Magnox reprocessing and was recommissioned in 1969. In 1973, after both plants had been shut down for one year for maintenance, a violent reaction called a "blowback" occurred in the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reactor-grade Plutonium
Reactor-grade plutonium (RGPu) is the isotopic grade of plutonium that is found in spent nuclear fuel after the uranium-235 primary fuel that a nuclear power reactor uses has burnt up. The uranium-238 from which most of the plutonium isotopes derive by neutron capture is found along with the U-235 in the low enriched uranium fuel of civilian reactors. In contrast to the low burnup of weeks or months that is commonly required to produce weapons-grade plutonium (WGPu/ 239Pu), the long time in the reactor that produces reactor-grade plutonium leads to transmutation of much of the fissile, relatively long half-life isotope 239Pu into a number of other isotopes of plutonium that are less fissile or more radioactive. When absorbs a neutron, it does not always undergo nuclear fission. Sometimes neutron absorption will instead produce at the neutron temperatures and fuel compositions present in typical light water reactors, with the concentration of steadily rising with longer irradi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Steam Turbine
A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbine involves advanced metalwork to form high-grade steel alloys into precision parts using technologies that first became available in the 20th century; continued advances in durability and efficiency of steam turbines remains central to the energy economics of the 21st century. The steam turbine is a form of heat engine that derives much of its improvement in thermodynamic efficiency from the use of multiple stages in the expansion of the steam, which results in a closer approach to the ideal reversible expansion process. Because the turbine generates rotary motion, it can be coupled to a generator to harness its motion into electricity. Such turbogenerators are the core of thermal power stations which can be fueled by fossil-fuels, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |