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Nuclear Energy Is Energy Generated From The Fission Or Fusion Of Enriched Uranium

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Nuclear Energy Jason Venturini April 6, 2016 What is nuclear energy? Nuclear energy is energy generated from the fission or fusion of enriched uranium. The power plants in which this type of energy is made are called nuclear power plants, but have many variations in how this energy is achieved. Almost all reactors use heat generated from the enriched uranium pellets to bring water to a boil, and use steam powered generators to create power. In Canada, the type of reactor used is called a Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR), a method created by Canada in the 1950’s. In the next sections the inner workings of the PHWR method will be examined and its safety explained. How does PHWR work? As mentioned before, many nuclear reactors use enriched uranium. PHWR, however, does not for cost reasons as enrichment facilities for uranium are complicated, expensive and the PHWR method is much more efficient. It avoids the usage of enriched uranium through heavy water as a coolant instead of light water. Canada-specific reactors, called CANDU (CANada Deuterium Uranium) reactors use 30-40% less fuel than light water based reactors. With the benefits of using heavy water out of the way, the complicated process of creating energy from small uranium pellets the size of half an AA battery will be explained as simply as possible. The process starts with hundreds of pellets being incased in metal, welded into small cylinders and inserted into a large tank called the “calandria”. Nuclear

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