TECHNOLOGY

History outline of nuclear technology

Undoubtedly, any nuclear power station, would be never come into being, without willing of atomic bomb production. By this willing, some of the most developed countries of those days were possessed. To countries interested in atomic bomb building, the US, the Nazi Germany, Great Britain, France, Japan and the Soviet Union belonged. Even though, the US wasn't the only, who has been working on bomb, but constructed nuclear weapon as first. Americans hadn't even expected, how powerful, atomic bomb turned out to be. First bomb, containing enriched uranium, was dropped on Hiroshima, on August 1945. Three days later, second bomb with Pu-239 felt on Nagasaki.

Building nuclear weapon, was of course, only a consequence of earlier discoveries in area of atomic radiation. As a beginning of nuclear researches, the year of 1895 is assumed. Development of science, which made atomic bomb construction available, took about 50 years. Through these years scientists has been working on atomic change and, in the last stage of researches, on nuclear fission. It is necessary to admit, that scientists, weren't only Americans. Many of them were emigrants. They had to escaped from Nazis persecution. Work started to advance, after Enrico Fermi's discovery on nuclear transformation, caused by bombarding atoms with accelerated neutrons. As it appeared, while experiments, some new elements were produced. In near future these parts were proved to be a half mass of uranium. This inclined scientist to made an assumption, that nuclear fission process has occurred. It was the year 1938. Next researches was turned on making nuclear reaction stable and controllable. It led to discovery, that process more likely occur in U-235. Problem with U-235, is that natural uranium consist only 0,7% of U-235 isotope and the rest is U-238, which become quite useless. It was solved be another process called uranium enrichment. After that scientist founded that U-235 can be replace with artificial produced Pu-239.

It was the moment, when the first conception of atomic bomb was presented. Next few years were spent for constructing a reactor, which produces plutonium 239. In spite of emitting huge amount of energy, the world has forgotten about possibilities to use atomic fission to electricity generation. Luckily, not for a long time.

In 1942, Fermi proposed first experimental nuclear reactor with graphite pile, called CP1. It was operating with a power of 0,5 MW. Since this moment constructing of atomic bomb has become possible. Reactor CP1, was a prototype of reactors, able to produce plutonium. Next constructions, based on CP1, were characterized by bigger heat power. It is obvious, that main aim of those reactors was delivering nuclear material to bomb. Launching CP1 - enabling stable fission process directly led to atomic bomb production.

After World War II, and destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki, people realized that nuclear weapon is very dangerous, and they turned to peaceful use of great nuclear energy. It is worth to admit that bomb's constructors definitely raised objections to bomb usage in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However it was impossible to completely stop a nuclear weapon's development, especially on the second side of "iron curtain", in ZSRR. Nuclear weapon possession in post-war reality was a guarantee of security. Due to this, development in nuclear weapon industry was being continued but very big effort was put to harness the fission's energy to produce steam and electricity. Moreover scientists realized, that gigantic heat produced in the fission process can be used not only to steam and electricity generation but also as a moveable, compact power source for various purposes including naval propulsion, especially in submarines.

First reactors, with purpose of electricity production, were constructions inspired by military weapon industry. It was possible to replace burned-out fuel during normal work of reactor. Those reactors used enriched uranium as fuel, were graphite moderated and water - cooled.

In 1951, in Idaho Falls (the US) started to operate first experimental reactor for purpose electricity production. It was called "Experimental Breeder Reactor", EBR-1. Fluid metal - cooled reactor with plutonium fuel. Next in 1953, also in Idaho Falls, prototypes of PWR's and BWR's reactors was presented. Generally, according to [12] the US avoided 1st generation reactors - they introduced in power industry 2nd generation reactors directly. But they weren't able to jump over development road to PWR's and BWR's in power industry in general. So they were using also 1st generation reactors, as a prototypes of above mentioned. It was for example Shippingport reactor, located in Pennsylvania. With power of 60 MWe it is classified by the U.S. Department of Energy as a 1st generation reactor. It started operating in 1957, and was producing electricity until 1982. Origin of this can be found in naval reactor (Pressurized Water Reactor), used in 1954 in first submarine with nuclear propulsion.

As a first nuclear power plant, Obninsk with AM-1 (5 MWe, 30 MWt) reactor is said. It started up in 1954, and it was completely Russian construction. It was producing until 1959 and later, up to year 2000 Russian were using AM-1 as a research reactor. AM-1 was a prototype of RBMK (Chernobyl) reactor. It is worth to mention that in FEI (The Institute of Physics and Power Engineering), located in Obninsk, fast neutron reactor's researches were made. They led to starting up BR - 1 reactor. After improvements, nowadays version BR - 10 (5 MWt) is actually working, and used to science and industry aims.

First commercial power plant was located in Calder Hall in Great Britain. The British constructed their own reactor Magnox. It is a reactor, which construction is a bit different from others, developed those days. Magnox operated with power of 50 MWe, was fuelled by metal of natural uranium, moderator was graphite, cooler - gas. It were operating until 2003, and started British attachment to AGCR ( Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor).

After first reactor, mentioned above were also: Vallecitos - prototype of BWR, Dresden - first BWR (250 MWe), Canadian channel reactor CANDU (moderator, coolant : heavy water; fuel: natural uranium), Russian first RMBK and VVER.

Next reactors built in the World in years late 70's to about 90's can be classified as a 2nd generation constructions. In fact they are mostly PWR or BWR class, with higher capacities, with prototypes based on military's constructions. They are described in later chapters of this report.

Generally after serious breakdowns in 1979 (Three Mile Island) and in 1986 (Chernobyl), development of nuclear power plants was significantly decreased. It is a reason why first 3rd generation class reactor wasn't built before late 90's, when Advanced BWR Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 6 in Japan, started to operate.

After Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 6, nuclear industry, considerably increase rate of development in area of new technologies. New nuclear programs come to being, and assume building first 4th generation reactor until 2030 [13]. New generation, doesn't mean new technology - in fact technology of fission is constantly the same. Improvements are especially in range of safe operation, environment friendliness, nuclear safety, economy - efficiency. First completely new technology can be nuclear fusion - but taking into account problems with technology, materials and stable reaction active long enough, fusion is outside of human possibilities at least to 2050, and probably longer.

  • Copyrights 2011 © Michal Wierzbowski