How to Drive a Nuclear Reactor (eBook)

Preface and Acknowledgements 7
Contents 10
1: One Man and His Dog 17
1.1 Reading This Book Won’t Qualify You to Drive a Nuclear Reactor 17
1.2 What This Book Covers 19
1.3 The Three Key Concepts 20
1.4 And Finally… 20
2: Physics Is Phun! 22
2.1 Atoms and Nuclei 22
2.2 Fission 24
2.3 Fast and Slow Neutrons 26
2.4 Chain Reactions 27
3: Being Friendly to Neutrons 29
3.1 Introducing Reactivity 30
3.2 Niles and milliNiles… 31
3.3 Your Reactor’s Fuel 32
3.4 Your Control Rods 34
3.5 The Boiling ‘Point’ of Water 36
4: Criticality Is Not as Bad as It Sounds 38
4.1 Criticality: One of Science-Fiction’s Biggest Mistakes 38
4.2 Starting Subcritical: A Shutdown Reactor 38
4.3 Approaching Criticality 40
4.4 Supercriticality: Also Not a Problem 41
4.5 Prompt and Delayed Neutrons 42
4.6 Chicago Pile 1 (CP-1) 43
5: What Makes Nuclear Special? 48
5.1 A Compact Source of Energy 48
5.2 Fission Products 50
5.3 Decay Heat 53
5.4 The Worst That Could Happen 54
6: The Thing You Put Your Reactor in… 55
6.1 The Reactor Pressure Vessel 58
6.2 The Steam Generators 60
6.3 The Reactor Coolant Pumps 60
6.4 The Pressuriser 62
6.5 Putting It All Together 65
6.6 Inside the ‘Can’ 66
6.7 A Sense of Scale 67
7: Pull the Rods Out and Stand Back 68
7.1 Where Do You Start? 68
7.2 Are You Protected? 70
7.3 Predicting Criticality 70
7.4 Changing Boron 71
7.5 First Steps 73
7.6 Approach to Criticality 75
7.7 Waiting for Criticality… 76
7.8 Doubling Time and Start-Up Rate 77
7.9 Where to Next…? 78
8: Watt Power? 79
8.1 Three Problems with Flux 80
8.2 Nitrogen-16 85
8.3 Using Heat (Primary Circuit) 86
8.4 Using Heat (Secondary Circuit) 87
8.5 What Doesn’t Work 89
8.6 Back to Fissions 89
9: Your Reactor Is Stable (Part One) 91
9.1 Fuel Temperature 92
9.2 Moderator Temperature 95
9.3 It’s a PWR, so It’s Stable 97
9.4 Another Coefficient 97
9.5 Chernobyl Reactor Number 4, 26th April 1986 98
9.6 Remember That You Have a PWR 100
10: You’ve Got to Do Something with All that Steam 101
10.1 Steam Generators: Viewed from the Other Side… 101
10.2 Main Steam Lines 104
10.3 Steam Turbines 105
10.4 The High Pressure Turbine 107
10.5 Re-using the Steam 108
10.6 The Condensers 110
10.7 The Way Back 111
10.8 The Generator 112
10.9 The Big View of the Power Station Cooling Circuits 113
11: The Big Red Button… 114
11.1 What Next? 115
11.2 Trips and Scrams… 117
11.3 What Makes a Good Control Room? 118
11.4 How Many Reactors? 122
12: Your Reactor Is Stable (Part Two) 123
12.1 Steam Generator Conditions 123
12.2 Heat Transfer 124
12.3 A Practical Example: A Small Change in Electrical Power 125
12.4 Keeping on Program 127
12.5 Steam Dumping 129
12.6 And Finally… Boron 130
12.7 Routine Dilutions 132
13: Putting a Spin on It 134
13.1 Stable at Low Power 134
13.2 Supporting Your Turbine 135
13.3 Spinning-Up 137
13.4 Synchronising 137
13.5 Turbine Power Raising 140
14: Going Up! 142
14.1 Reactor Power Raising 142
14.2 Power Defect 143
14.3 Power Shape 144
14.4 Iodine and Xenon 146
14.5 Xenon Build-Up 146
14.6 Xenon After a Trip 148
14.7 January Sales 149
15: Power, and How to Change It 151
15.1 The Toolkit 151
15.2 Practical Example: A Significant Power Reduction 152
15.3 What You Really Do 153
15.4 Controlling Axial Power Shape 154
15.5 And Xenon 154
15.6 Flexible Operation 156
15.7 Load Following 158
15.8 Taking the Long View 158
16: Steady Power with Nothing to Do? 160
16.1 The ‘Q’ Word? 160
16.2 Burning-Up 160
16.3 Primary Circuit 162
16.4 Steam Generators 165
16.5 Steam Demand 165
16.6 What Else Might You Be Doing? 166
16.7 Predicting Criticality 167
17: It’s All About Safety 171
17.1 The Interview 171
17.2 Building a Bridge 171
17.3 Safety Cases 173
17.4 What Can Go Wrong with Your PWR? 174
17.5 The Three ‘C’s 175
17.6 Automatic Protection 175
17.7 Engineered Safety Features 177
17.8 How Safe Is ‘Safe Enough’? 178
17.9 The Windscale Fire 179
17.10 International Perspectives 181
17.11 Tolerable Risk 182
17.12 Just a Small One… 182
18: What Can Go Wrong (and What You Can Do About It) 184
18.1 Can You Cope? 184
18.2 Fault 1: A Loss of Grid 185
18.3 Natural Circulation 186
18.4 Batteries and Back-Up Generators 188
18.5 Pumps etc. 189
18.6 Recovering from a Loss of Grid 189
18.7 Fault 2: A Large Break Loss of Coolant Accident (LB LOCA) 190
18.8 Safety Injection (SI) 191
19: Smaller Isn’t Always Easier 196
19.1 Fault 3: A Small Loss of Coolant Accident 196
19.2 The Operator’s Choice 197
19.3 Finding a Balance 198
19.4 Moving On, Moving Down 199
19.5 Small LOCA, Big Problem 201
19.6 Fault 4: Steam Generator Tube Leak (SGTL) 203
19.7 How Is That Acceptable? 206
20: What Else Can Go Wrong? 207
20.1 Fault 5: Main Steam Line Break (MSLB) 207
20.2 Fault 6: Severe Accidents 209
20.3 Fukushima Daiichi 211
20.4 In the Longer Term 212
20.5 The Best Way to Deal with a Severe Accident… 212
21: When You Run Out of Oomph 214
21.1 Coast-Down 214
21.2 Shutting Down 215
21.3 Cooling Down 216
21.4 Reactor Coolant Pumps 218
21.5 Boron 218
21.6 The Chemists Are in Charge 219
21.7 Cooling When Cooled Down 219
21.8 Lifting the Lid 221
21.9 Defuelling, Shuffling, Refuelling 223
21.10 The Way Back 224
21.11 Physics Testing 225
21.12 Afterwards 226
22: Other Reactor Designs Are Available 227
22.1 A Little Bit of History 227
22.2 Pressurised Water Reactors (PWRs) 229
22.3 Boiling Water Reactors 229
22.4 CANDU Reactors 231
22.5 MAGNOX Reactors 231
22.6 Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGRs) 233
22.7 RBMK Reactors 235
22.8 Fast Reactors 237
22.9 Thorium 238
22.10 The Paper Reactors 239
22.11 And the Winner Is? 240
22.12 Don’t Just Take My Word for It… 240
23: How to Build Your Own Reactor 241
23.1 First the Fuel 241
23.2 Plutonium 241
23.3 Enriched Uranium 242
23.4 The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) 243
23.5 Natural Uranium 244
23.6 It’s Not Going to Happen 245
23.7 Has Anyone Ever Tried? 245
24: And There’s More… 247
24.1 One Small Book 247
24.2 Not Just Operations 247
24.3 Spent Fuel… 249
24.4 …and Radioactive Wastes 249
24.5 At the End of the Day 250
24.6 Off the Grid? 251
24.7 Books, Accidents and Weapons 251
24.8 The Politics and the Campaigning 252
25: Conclusion 253
Picture Credits and Sources 256
Index 258