Graphite moderated reactors
Encyclopedia
- "Graphite Reactor" directs here. For the Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, see X-10 Graphite ReactorX-10 Graphite ReactorThe X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, formerly known as the Clinton Pile and X-10 Pile, was the world's second artificial nuclear reactor and was the first reactor designed and built for continuous operation.When President Roosevelt in December 1942...
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There are several types of graphite
Nuclear Graphite
Nuclear graphite is any grade of graphite, usually electro-graphite, specifically manufactured for use as a moderator or reflector within nuclear reactors...
moderated nuclear reactor
Nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are used for generating electricity and for the propulsion of ships. Usually heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid , which runs through turbines that power either ship's...
s that have been used in commercial electricity generation
Electricity generation
Electricity generation is the process of generating electric energy from other forms of energy.The fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered during the 1820s and early 1830s by the British scientist Michael Faraday...
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- Gas-cooled reactors
- MagnoxMagnoxMagnox is a now obsolete type of nuclear power reactor which was designed and is still in use in the United Kingdom, and was exported to other countries, both as a power plant, and, when operated accordingly, as a producer of plutonium for nuclear weapons...
- Advanced gas-cooled reactorAdvanced gas-cooled reactorAn advanced gas-cooled reactor is a type of nuclear reactor. These are the second generation of British gas-cooled reactors, using graphite as the neutron moderator and carbon dioxide as coolant...
(AGR)
- Magnox
- Water-cooled reactors
- RBMKRBMKRBMK is an initialism for the Russian reaktor bolshoy moshchnosti kanalniy which means "High Power Channel-type Reactor", and describes a class of graphite-moderated nuclear power reactor which was built in the Soviet Union. The RBMK reactor was the type involved in the Chernobyl disaster...
- RBMK
- High temperature gas-cooled reactors (past)
- Dragon reactorDragon reactorDragon was a high temperature gas cooled reactor at Winfrith in England operated by UKAEA. Its purpose was to test fuel and materials for the European high temperature reactor programme, and was built and managed as an OECD/NEA international project...
- AVRAVR reactorThe AVR reactor was a prototype pebble bed reactor at Jülich Research Centre in West Germany. Construction began in 1960, first grid connection was in 1967 and operation ceased in 1988....
- Peach Bottom Nuclear Generating StationPeach Bottom Nuclear Generating StationPeach Bottom Atomic Power Station, a nuclear power plant, is located southeast of Harrisburg in Peach Bottom Township, York County, Pennsylvania, on the Susquehanna River on the Maryland border....
, Unit 1 - THTR-300THTR-300The THTR-300 was a thorium high-temperature nuclear reactor rated at 300 MW electric . The German state of North Rhine Westphalia, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Hochtemperatur-Kernkraftwerk GmbH financed the THTR-300’s construction. Operations started on the plant in Hamm-Uentrop,...
- Fort St. Vrain Generating StationFort St. Vrain Generating StationFort Saint Vrain Generating Station is a natural gas powered electricity generating facility located near the town of Platteville in northern Colorado in the United States. It currently has a capacity of just under 1000MW and is owned and operated by Xcel Energy, the successor to the plant's...
- Dragon reactor
- High temperature gas-cooled reactors (in development or construction)
- Pebble bed reactorPebble bed reactorThe pebble bed reactor is a graphite-moderated, gas-cooled, nuclear reactor. It is a type of very high temperature reactor , one of the six classes of nuclear reactors in the Generation IV initiative...
- Prismatic fuel reactor
- UHTREXUHTREXThe Ultra High Temperature Reactor Experiment was an experimental gas cooled nuclear reactor experiment starting in 1959 and lasting about 12 years UHTREX was located at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. The reactor first achieved full power in 1969...
Ultra High Temperature Reactor Experiment
- Pebble bed reactor
History
The first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1Chicago Pile-1
Chicago Pile-1 was the world's first man-made nuclear reactor. CP-1 was built on a rackets court, under the abandoned west stands of the original Alonzo Stagg Field stadium, at the University of Chicago. The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1 on December 2, 1942...
, a graphite-moderated device that produced a microscopic amount of heat, was constructed by a team led by Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi was an Italian-born, naturalized American physicist particularly known for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics...
in 1942. The construction and testing of this reactor (an "atomic pile") was part of the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
. This work led to the construction of the X-10 Graphite Reactor
X-10 Graphite Reactor
The X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, formerly known as the Clinton Pile and X-10 Pile, was the world's second artificial nuclear reactor and was the first reactor designed and built for continuous operation.When President Roosevelt in December 1942...
at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a multiprogram science and technology national laboratory managed for the United States Department of Energy by UT-Battelle. ORNL is the DOE's largest science and energy laboratory. ORNL is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near Knoxville...
, which was the first nuclear reactor designed and built for continuous operation, and began operation in 1943.
The nuclear reactor in the Chernobyl disaster
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine , which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities in Moscow...
was an RBMK
RBMK
RBMK is an initialism for the Russian reaktor bolshoy moshchnosti kanalniy which means "High Power Channel-type Reactor", and describes a class of graphite-moderated nuclear power reactor which was built in the Soviet Union. The RBMK reactor was the type involved in the Chernobyl disaster...
graphite-moderated reactor.