The history of human civilization is the history of the use of energy – energy does not mean political energy, social energy or spiritual energy, but energy such as electricity or heat. The more advanced a nation is in the world at the moment, the more power it uses - to be precise, electrical power. In order to get electrical power, a generator needs to be installed, and fuel is needed to run the generator.
Most of those fuels are oil and gas. Burning oil or gas increases carbon dioxide in the air, the increase in carbon dioxide in the air is called the "green house effect", which causes the earth's temperature to rise. Global warming has a far-reaching effect, Sea level rise due to melting of polar ice caps.
And when it really happens, first of all, the large area of Bangladesh will sink under water! That's why no one will stop generating electricity, as long as more and more electricity will continue to be generated in this world. But all are trying to generate electricity without increasing carbon dioxide, and nuclear power plants are at the top of that list. This energy can generate thousands of megawatts of electricity without emitting any carbon-dioxide.
Reading this one might think that now everyone should build only nuclear power station instead of any other power station. But in reality it is not happening. That's because there are just as strong arguments for nuclear power plants as there are against them. The most difficult argument among them is the danger of burdening the Earth with nuclear waste. The nuclear waste generated from nuclear power plants is radioactive and requires at least ten thousand years for its radioactivity to decrease to a tolerable level.
Therefore, the radioactive waste coming out of the nuclear power plant must be kept in a safe place for at least ten thousand years. Humans on Earth have yet to create anything that lasts for ten thousand years – so we don't know if the horrible radioactive elements stored away in safe havens have somehow come out and are known to us. Will the world turn into a horrible world? Do we have the right to put our future generations in danger so that we can live comfortably?
Not only is there a risk of danger in the future, but there is also a risk of danger in this moment. More recently, there have been major nuclear power plant accidents at Chernobyl in Russia and Three Mile Island in the United States. The city of Chernobyl in Russia had to be declared abandoned. The radioactive waste that came out from there is spread not only in Chernobyl or Russia but all over the world. But it is true that a technology has risks but people never stop using that technology. Car accidents kill the most people in terms of numbers but we never see people stop riding cars because of it.
When a plane crash happens, people feel terrible panic. Sometimes plane crashes happen. Hundreds of people die but thousands of planes fly in the sky every minute around the world. Just as there are dangers in nuclear power plants, people are still building nuclear power plants. New technologies are being invented and people are reducing the risk of danger little by little. There are currently around 450 nuclear power plants around the world and these power plants meet 15 percent of the world's energy needs.
Some countries have taken nuclear power plants very seriously. France is one such example, with 77% of their country's electricity demand coming from nuclear power plants. Our neighboring country India gets only 2 percent of its energy needs from nuclear power plants but still has a distinct importance. Because they have developed their own kind of technology with their own scientists and technicians. Many people are curious about how nuclear power plants work.
In fact, its core is similar to that of the ancient steam generator. 6.1 Shown in the middle of the figure is a generator that rotates to produce electricity. To rotate the generator there is a turbine, that turbine is rotated by hot steam. A boiler is used to generate hot steam, which is fed directly with hot water from the nuclear reactor. The water dissipates the heat generated inside the nuclear reactor. If the heat is not removed for some reason, the nuclear reactor will melt down in no time. If someone 6.
If you take a closer look at the picture No. 1, you will roughly guess that a lot of heat has to be removed to convert the steam that remains after turning the turbine back into water, for that there is a huge cooling tower. A few questions will remain after looking at the picture, that is what are the control rods inside the nuclear reactor, and how it controls the energy that is generated inside the nuclear power plant.
To understand that, we need to do a little bit of nuclear physics. We all know that everything is made of atoms and at the center of the atom is the nucleus. Almost the entire mass of an atom is contained in the nucleus, But surprisingly it is very small compared to atoms. (To illustrate how small it is, it can be said that if a human being can be squeezed into the nucleus by crushing its atoms, then the human cannot be seen with the naked eye, it must be seen with a microscope!) The nucleus of some basic substances has a special feature.
It is fairly stable as it is, but if a neutron is somehow introduced into it, it suddenly becomes unstable and breaks into pieces. (Fig. 6.2) The initial mass of the nucleus is reduced after the fragmentation. The mass that has been reduced comes out as energy according to Einstein's famous formula E = mc^2. To understand that nuclear energy center cannot be understood only by this matter 6. No. 2 should look a little better. This picture shows that when the nucleus is disintegrating, the fragments also contain some neutrons. If these extra neutrons can be pushed into other nuclei, they will also break apart, giving rise to new energy and new neutrons, those new neutrons will enter the new nucleus and give birth to more new neutrons, and so the process continues! If this process can actually continue, it is called a chain reaction.
This chain reaction has to be kept going inside the nuclear reactor. As easy as it sounds, it is not so easy to do. The main reason is that the number of nuclei that can provide nuclear energy is small. The best known is uranium 235. Most of the uranium found in mines is Uranium 238, Uranium 235 is only 0. 7 percent. Uranium-235 must be enriched to at least 2 to 3 percent for use in nuclear power plants (to 90 percent for nuclear bombs).
Therefore, the fuel enriched with uranium 235 has to be kept inside the nuclear reactor. As the chain re-action begins, unimaginable heat begins to emerge. As we have already said, the supply of neutrons must be maintained to keep the chain reaction going. If the supply of neutrons is reduced for some reason, the chain reaction will stop.
Those who understand the subject must be able to guess what the control rods are! These are nothing more than an element that can absorb neutrons – cadmium is an example. So it is very easy to control the power generation in nuclear power plants. As control rods made of cadmium are inserted into the reactor, The less energy will be generated. The more that is brought out the more energy is born. If someone gets it all out by mistake, a huge disaster can happen – like what happened at Chernobyl!
