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Lecture 15

Lecture 15: The Nuclear Power Plants

The Nuclear Energy
The source of nuclear energy is the rearrangement of protons and neutrons to form more stable
nuclei. In this manner, nuclear reactions are akin to chemical reactions; the latter occur in nature
often spontaneously and except for the relatively few spontaneous endothermic reactions, the
products have less internal energy than the reactants and can therefore exist in a more stable
milieu.

Fusion is the combination of light nuclei such as the hydrogen nucleus, a single proton, to
produce something heavier such as the helium nucleus, two protons and two neutrons. Fission is
the process of breaking apart large nuclei such as uranium into some smaller pieces such as
krypton and iodine. Both nuclear reactions function under the principle that more stable nuclei
result, both releases very large amounts of energy in the process, and both types have been
achieved in some form although not always in a controlled fashion on earth.

Here discussion would be at both the principles behind nuclear energy and the energy resources
available to be used for this purpose. In addition, the wastes produced by both processes cannot
be ignored, but in the case of fusion, these wastes are insignificant and mostly nonradioactive.
Even heat produced by normal decay of nuclei after a reactor is closed down is astonishingly
small for a fusion reactor but a critical issue for a fission reactor.

The disaster at one of the Chernobyl RMBK reactor in 1986 launched public and political
concern about all nuclear fission reactors. In the United States, a backlash against nuclear energy
halted programs as plans for new plants were scrapped nationwide. The recent accident in
Fukushima Daiichi, Japan further intensified concern related to Nuclear Power Plant safety.

Figure 15.1: (a) Typical Nuclear Power Plant, (b) Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) Power Plant (Source IAEA)
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Lecture 15

Figure 15.2: (a) Total Number of Nuclear Reactors in World, (b) Countries Nuclear Share in Electricity (Source IAEA)

Figure 15.3: Pakistan Total Electricity Production and its Nuclear Share in Electricity (Source IAEA)
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Lecture 15

Chemistry Analogy

Chemical Process

C + O2 CO2

Chemical reactions involve the combination or separation of whole atoms. For example this
reaction is accompanied by the release of about 4 electron volts (eV). An electron volt is a unit of
energy in common use in nuclear engineering. 1 eV = 1.6021x10-19 joules (J) = 1.519 x 10-22 Btu
= 4.44 x 10-26 kWh. 1 million electron volts (1 MeV) = 106 eV.

To produce the thermal energy required to produce 1000 megawatts of power for a year: Fission
one ton of uranium, or Burn 3,000,000 tons of coal.

Nuclear Reactions

The neutron (symbol = n) plays a central role in nuclear physics and engineering. The neutron is
now described as containing three sub-nuclear particles called quarks. One of these carries a
positive electrical charge (the "up" quark) which is two-thirds (2/3) as large as that on a proton,
and the other two each carry a negative electrical charge (the "down" quarks) each equal to -1/3
times the charge on the electron. The neutron is so-called because it is electrically neutral, with a
total electric charge of: 2/3 -1/3 -1/3 = 0.

Particle Symbol Quark Composition Electrical Charge

neutron n up, down, down - 1/3 - 1/3 + 2/3 = 0
proton p up, up, down - 1/3 + 2/3 + 2/3 = 1

There is a close relationship between the neutron and the nucleus of the ordinary hydrogen atom,
the proton (symbol = p). The neutron has a mass slightly larger than that of the proton, and
subject to the famous formula E = mc2, it converts to a proton when one of the "down" quarks
emits an electron to carry away one negative charge and become an "up" quark. (In the process an
extremely low mass and difficult to detect particle, a type of "neutrino," is emitted to balance the
spin of the particles in the reaction.) The net result is the following radioactive decay of the
neutron:

Quarks have the interesting property of pulling on each other harder and harder as they are moved
farther apart. As a result, one of the quarks in a proton can only be separated from the others
when it is replaced by another quark. For example, if a proton and neutron are put next to each
other, they can exchange either an "up" or "down" quark. This process helps bind the neutron and
proton together in a stable nucleus appropriately called deuterium (symbol = d).

Deuterium nuclei are about twice as heavy as protons, so when they replace protons in ordinary
water the result is called "heavy water." A deuterium nucleus can also react with a neutron to
form tritium (symbol = t), However, deuterium does not absorb neutrons nearly as well as protons
do. This is why deuterium is used in place of protons in so-called heavy water for certain types of
nuclear reactors where neutron absorption needs to be minimized. The neutron in tritium is also
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Lecture 15

much less stable against the type of radioactive decay mentioned above than it is in the stable
deuterium nucleus; tritium has a "half life" of only 12.3 years.

Tritium is one of the reactants in the fusion reaction that requires the lowest energy in the
reactants to overcome the electrostatic repulsion between the nuclei. An important feature of this
reaction is the high energy of the neutron released:

To make this occur within a terrestrially useful time requires a temperature in excess of c. 57
million degrees Celsius, where each hydrogen nucleus and accompanying electron typically has
as much energy as if it had moved through a voltage of 5000 volts. (In this case we say the
temperature is 5 keV, where keV stands for "kilo-electron-volts.") This reaction yields more
energy per unit mass than any other nuclear reaction because the pair of protons and the pair of
neutrons in the resulting helium-4 nucleus are packed together in a way that maximizes the
change in binding energy per quark. The neutrons released in such reactions each have the huge
energy of 14,000 keV (i.e. 14 MeV). This leads to much more material damage per unit energy
release in practicable fusion compared to fission, where neutrons typically have energies between
one and two MeV. However, the high energy of such fusion neutrons makes them very useful for
increasing the yield of nuclear weapons.

There are only a few methods for producing temperatures exceeding 5 keV (57 million degrees).
Three basic laboratory methods (and their disadvantages for nuclear weapons) are:

1. Magnetic bottles (huge and expensive. $10 billion)

2. Laser compression of frozen deuterium-tritium mixtures (huge and still multi-billion $)
3. Compression using exploding wires (may not work, and needs large power supplies)

While there has been speculation that some such scheme might allow making at least a nuclear
land mine, there is no plausible reason to expect that this would be competitive with the simple
expedient of using a fission bomb to produce the needed temperatures. Thus, controlled fusion
experiments are only indirectly relevant to the production of nuclear weapons. Their main role in
weapons programs is to allow continued exploration of the physics of high temperature plasmas
in the absence of nuclear testing, and to maintain a cadre of scientists and engineers trained in
some of the technologies relevant to nuclear weapons design.

Of these laboratory methods, only a certain kind of magnetic bottle called the tokamak (a Russian
acronym for toroidal magnetic chamber) fairly clearly has a potential for net energy production,
albeit at a very high cost per unit energy produced. The other two approaches are funded
primarily through weapons and/or exploratory research programs.

Average Binding Energy per Nucleon

The curve reaches a maximum near A=60 and drops

significantly by A=235. The drop between A=120 and A=235
provides a measure of energy release in fission. The energy
release in fusion is related to the steeply rising left proton of
this curve. As can be seen, the iron group is the most tightly
bound with 8.8 MeV per nucleon binding energy. The lighter
elements are more amenable for nuclear fusion, while
elements heavier than iron can yield energy by fission.

Figure 15.3: Average Binding Energy per Nucleon