Nuclear Power: Generation Principles and Fuel Cycle

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Nuclear Power: Generation Principles and Fuel Cycle

To provide the power for a dynamo-electric machine, or electric generator, nuclear power plants rely on the process of nuclear fission. In this process, the nucleus of a heavy element, such as uranium, splits when bombarded by a free neutron in a nuclear reactor.(1) The fission process for uranium atoms yields two smaller atoms, one to three free neutrons, plus an amount of energy. Because more free neutrons are released from a uranium fission event than are required to initiate the event, the reaction can become self-sustaining–a chain reaction–under controlled conditions, thus producing a tremendous amount of energy.

In the vast majority of the world’s nuclear power plants, heat energy generated by burning uranium fuel is collected in ordinary…