Nuclear Power
MICHAEL OLIVER AND DIANA OLSEN
Personal Background
 6 months Navy Nuclear Field ‘A’ school
 6 months Navy Nuclear Power School
 6 months Nuclear Field Prototype School
 4 years on board the USS Nimitz/USS Enterprise as
a Reactor Operator
Fission
 1938 Hahn and Strassman fired neutrons from the
elements radium and beryllium into uranium.
 The sums of the fission products’ masses did not
equal uranium’s atomic mass.
 Uranium underwent fission, converting some its
mass to energy, thus proving Einstein’s theory.
General History
Fission Graphically
First Reactors
 December 2, 1942 Chicago Pile became the first self-
sustaining chain-reaction.
 Relatively small, total output power was 200W
 First reactors built so quick because it was during
World War II
General History
After the War
 1946 Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was created
 Energy Act of 1954, first steps towards commercial
use of nuclear power
 Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, replaced the AEC
with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
 NRC responsibilities include licensing operators and
plants
General History
Reactor Licensing Process
Radiation
 “Radiation consists of several types of subatomic
particles, called gamma rays, neutrons, electrons and
so on, that shoot through space at very high speeds,
something like 100,000 miles per second”
 They can penetrate your skin, cause biological
damage to our cells, potentially resulting in cancer or
genetic defects.
Getting exposed to radiation
Radiation
 The average person is struck with about 15,000 of
these subatomic particles daily from natural sources
 Probability that one of these subatomic particles will
actually cause cancer is 1 in 50 million billion.
NRC Regulations
 Rem—amount of ionizing radiation required to
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produce the same biological effect as one rad of high
penetration x-rays
5,000 mrem/year to the whole body
50,000 mrem/year to an organ, the skin, or
extremity
15,000 mrem/year to the lens of an eye
500 mrem/year to a pregnant woman
100mrem/year to the general public
Perspective
 Chest radiograph – 3.2 mrem
 X-rays from TV set 1” away - 0.5mrem/hour
 Airplane ride at 39,000 ft. 0.500mrem/hour
 Natural Gas in your home 9mrem/year
 If you actually work in the power plant
0.6mrem/year
 Average dose from nuclear power plant less than
0.1mrem/year
 Average dose from coal fire power plant
0.165mrem/year
Relative Radiation Dosage
Radiation Sickness
 Earliest onset is 75,000 mrem
 Genetic defects occur at 100,000 mrem
 Expected death without medial treatment occurs at
400,000 mrem
Deaths by TW
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deathsper-twh-by-energy-source.html
Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh)
• Coal electricity – world avg 60
(26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
• Coal (elect,heat,cook)– China 170
• Coal electricity- China 90
• Coal – USA 15
• Oil 36
• (36% of world energy)
• Natural Gas 4
• (21% of world energy)
• Biofuel/Biomass 12
• Peat 12
• Solar (rooftop) 0.44
• (0.2% of world energy for all solar)
• Wind 0.15
• (1.6% of world energy)
• Hydro 0.10
• (Europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
• Hydro - world including Banqiao) 1.4
• (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
• Nuclear 0.04
• (5.9% of world energy)
Pressurized Water Reactors
Maintains water in liquid state by high pressure
 Water is heated in the reactor vessel
 RCPs pump hot water through S/G, which heats secondary
water supply
 Secondary water boils, producing steam
 Steam drives the turbines
 Turbines drive the generator which produces electricity
Pressurized Nuclear Reactor Plant
Boiling water reactors
 Water boils directly in the reactor vessel
 Steam is carried through pipes directly to the turbine
 Which drives the generator
 Which produces electricity
Boiling Water Reactor Plant
Reactor Pressure Vessel
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Fuel - Uranium 235 and Uranium 238
 Water – acts as a coolant, moderator, and heat
transfer agent
 Control rod drive mechanisms – used to maintain
level of desired reactivity
Containment Building
 Purpose: Prevent the release of fission products to
the general public
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45” of steel-reinforced concrete
2.5” of steel reinforcement rods
36” of concrete shielding
8” of steel for the reactor vessel
¼” steel linder
Molten Fluoride Salt Thorium Reactor
* * * Design in Progress * * *
Molten Fluoride Salt Thorium Reactor
 Wouldn’t have
potential of core
meltdown: plug in
bottom of core would
allow for salt to drain
 Able to operate at
lower pressures 
wouldn’t need
very thick concrete
containment vessel
More advantages:
check out TED talk
video
Three Mile Island
 March 28, 1979, accident started with the failure of
the cooling system
 “Within two minutes after the start of the accident
the steam generators boiled dry, because they had no
feed water source and there was a substantial heat
output from the reactor core due to radioactive
decay”
Misconceptions
 Myth: The accident would result in a large release of
radioactive material
 Fact: The accident was over exaggerated and there
was relatively little, to no, actual damage to the
reactor
Reality
The average exposure to the general public was 1.2
mrem.
After the initial clean up of TMI-2 reactor many were
surprised the pressure vessel itself withstood the
molten fuel on the bottom
Accident has no associated deaths, or significant
injuries
Greenhouse Gas Problem
 In 2011 nuclear generated electricity prevented the
release of 613 million metric tons of carbon dioxide
 Equivalent to taking 118 million cars of the roads
 Possible because nuclear power does not burn
anything
Waste
Dr. Bernard Cohen:
“ The Nuclear waste is 5 million times smaller by weight and
billions of times smaller by volume [ than coal-burning waste].
The nuclear waste from one year of operation weighs about 1.5
tons and would occupy a volume of half a cubic yard, which
means it would fit under an ordinary card table with lots of
room to spare. Since the quantity is so small it can be handled
with a care and sophistication that is completely out of the
question for the millions of tons of waste spewed out annually
from our analogous coal-burning plants. [Also,] if all the air
pollution emitted from a coal plant in one day were inhaled by
people 1.5 million people could die from it, which is 10 times the
number that could be killed by ingesting or inhaling the waste
produced in one day by a nuclear power plant.”
Waste
 2,000 metric tons annually
 Securely managed on site in used fuel pools, lined with
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steel
After cooling, are put in dry casks
Fuel rods replaced every 15-18 months, so overtime have
the issue of space
General consensus, safest way to dispose of nuclear
wastes is in a specialized facility 1,650 feet below the
ground.
1.7 million miles, over 3,000 shipments, in the past 40
years, with no harmful radiation effects to general public
or environment
Future
 D.O.E believes the U.S will need an additional
250,000 MW of electric generation capacity by 2035
 Nuclear power has lower production cost than their
analogous coal or natural gas plants
 Overall lower production costs
 Technological advances and a better understanding
of reactor power has improved nuclear power plant
efficiency since 1990, raising total electricity output
by an amount equal to building 28 new reactors