What is a nuclear reactor?

A nuclear reactor is a system that contains and controls sustained nuclear chain reactions. Reactors
are used for generating electricity, moving aircraft carriers and submarines, producing medical
isotopes for imaging and cancer treatment, and for conducting research.

Fuel, made up of heavy atoms that split when they absorb neutrons, is placed into the reactor vessel
(basically a large tank) along with a small neutron source. The neutrons start a chain reaction where
each atom that splits releases more neutrons that cause other atoms to split. Each time an atom
splits, it releases large amounts of energy in the form of heat. The heat is carried out of the reactor
by coolant, which is most commonly just plain water. The coolant heats up and goes off to a turbine
to spin a generator or drive shaft.Nuclear reactors are just exotic heat sources.

Main components
The core of the reactor contains all of the nuclear fuel and generates all of the heat. It contains
low-enriched uranium (<5% U-235), control systems, and structural materials. The core can
contain hundreds of thousands of individual fuel pins.
The coolant is the material that passes through the core, transferring the heat from the fuel to
a turbine. It could be water, heavy-water, liquid sodium, helium, or something else. In the US
fleet of power reactors, water is the standard.
The turbine transfers the heat from the coolant to electricity, just like in a fossil-fuel plant.
The containment is the structure that separates the reactor from the environment. These are
usually dome-shaped, made of high-density, steel-reinforced concrete. Chernobyl did not have
a containment to speak of.
Cooling towers are needed by some plants to dump the excess heat that cannot be converted
to energy due to the laws of thermodynamics. These are the hyperbolic icons of nuclear
energy. They emit only clean water vapor.
The control room

Animated reactor system

The image above (reproduced from the NRC) shows a nuclear reactor heating up water and
spinning a generator to produce electricity. It captures the essence of the system well. The water
coming into the condenser and then going right back out would be water from a river, lake, or ocean.
It goes out the cooling towers. As you can see, this water does not go near the radioactivity, which is
in the reactor vessel.

Fuel pins

The smallest unit of the reactor is the fuel pin. These are typically uranium-oxide (UO2), but can take
on other forms, including thorium-bearing material. They are often surrounded by a metal tube
(called the cladding) to keep fission products from escaping into the coolant.

Fuel assembly

Fuel assemblies are bundles of fuel pins. Fuel is put in and taken out of the reactor in assemblies.
The assemblies have some structural material to keep the pins close but not touching, so that
theres room for coolant.

Full core
This is a full core, made up of several hundred assemblies. Some assemblies are control
assemblies. Various fuel assemblies around the core have different fuel in them. They vary
in enrichment and age, among other parameters. The assemblies may also vary with height, with
different enrichments at the top of the core from those at the bottom.

Types of Reactors
There are many different kinds of nuclear fuel forms and cooling materials can be used in a nuclear
reactor. As a result, there are thousands of different possible nuclear reactor designs. Here, we
discuss a few of the designs that have been built before, but dont limit your imagination; many other
reactor designs are possible. Dream up your own!

Pressurized Water Reactor

The most common type of reactor. The PWR uses regular old water as a coolant. The primary
cooling water is kept at very high pressure so it does not boil. It goes through a heat exchanger,
transferring heat to a secondary coolant loop, which then spins the turbine. These use oxide fuel
pellets stacked in zirconium tubes. They could possibly burn thorium or plutonium fuel as well.

Pros:

Strong negative void coefficient reactor cools down if water starts bubbling because the
coolant is the moderator, which is required to sustain the chain reaction
Secondary loop keeps radioactive stuff away from turbines, making maintenance easy.
Very much operating experience has been accumulated and the designs and procedures have
been largely optimized.

Cons:

Pressurized coolant escapes rapidly if a pipe breaks, necessitating lots of back-up cooling
systems.
Cant breed new fuel susceptible to "uranium shortage"

Boiling Water Reactor

Second most common, the BWR is similar to the PWR in many ways. However, they only have one
coolant loop. The hot nuclear fuel boils water as it goes out the top of the reactor, where the steam
heads over to the turbine to spin it.

Pros:

Simpler plumbing reduces costs

Power levels can be increased simply by speeding up the jet pumps, giving less boiled water
and more moderation. Thus, load-following is simple and easy.
 Very much operating experience has been accumulated and the designs and procedures have
been largely optimized.

Cons:

With liquid and gaseous water in the system, many weird transients are possible, making safety
analysis difficult
Primary coolant is in direct contact with turbines, so if a fuel rod had a leak, radioactive material
could be placed on the turbine. This complicates maintenance as the staff must be dressed for
radioactive environments.
Cant breed new fuel susceptible to "uranium shortage"
Does not typically perform well in station blackout events, as in Fukushima.

Canada Deuterium-Uranium Reactors (CANDU)

CANDUs are a Canadian design found in Canada and around the world. They contain heavy water,
where the Hydrogen in H2O has an extra neutron (making it Deuterium instead of Hydrogen).
Deuterium absorbs many fewer neutrons than Hydrogen, and CANDUs can operate using only
natural uranium instead of enriched.

Pros:

Require very little uranium enrichment.

Can be refueled while operating, keeping capacity factors high (as long as the fuel handling
machines dont break).
Are very flexible, and can use any type of fuel.

Cons:

Some variants have positive coolant temperature coefficients, leading to safety concerns.
Neutron absorption in deuterium leads to tritium production, which is radioactive and often
leaks in small quantities.
Can theoretically be modified to produce weapons-grade plutonium slightly faster than
conventional reactors could be.

Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor

These reactors are cooled by liquid sodium metal. Sodium is heavier than hydrogen, a fact that
leads to the neutrons moving around at higher speeds (hence fast). These can use metal or oxide
fuel, and burn a wide variety of fuels.

Pros:
 Can breed its own fuel, effectively eliminating any concerns about uranium shortages (see what
is a fast reactor?)
Can burn its own waste
Metallic fuel and excellent thermal properties of sodium allow for passively safe operation
the reactor will shut itself down safely without any backup-systems working (or people around),
only relying on physics.

Cons:

Sodium coolant is reactive with air and water. Thus, leaks in the pipes results in sodium fires.
These can be engineered around but are a major setback for these reactors.
To fully burn waste, these require reprocessing facilities which can also be used for nuclear
proliferation.
The excess neutrons used to give the reactor its resource-utilization capabilities could
clandestinely be used to make plutonium for weapons.
Positive void coefficients are inherent to most fast reactors, especially large ones. This is a
safety concern.
Not as much operating experience has been accumulated. We have only about 300 reactor-
years of experience with sodium cooled reactors

Molten Salt Reactor

Update! There is now a full page discussing MSRs in detail.

Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) are the internets favorite reactor. They are unique so far in that they
use fluid fuel.

Pros:

Can constantly breed new fuel, eliminating concerns over energy resources
Can make excellent use of thorium, an alternative nuclear fuel to uranium
Can be maintained online with chemical fission product removal, eliminating the need to shut
down during refueling.
No cladding means less neutron-absorbing material in the core, which leads to better neutron
efficiency and thus higher fuel utilization
Liquid fuel also means that structural dose does not limit the life of the fuel, allowing the reactor
to extract very much energy out of the loaded fuel.

Cons:

Radioactive gaseous fission products are not contained in small pins, as they are in typical
reactors. So if there is a containment breach, all the fission gases can release instead of just
the gases from one tiny pin. This necessitates things like triple-redundant containments, etc.
and can be handled.
 The presence of an online reprocessing facility with incoming pre-melted fuel is
aproliferation concern. The operator could divert Pa-233 to provide a small stream of nearly
pure weapons-grade U-233. Also, the entire uranium inventory can be separated without much
effort. In his autobiography, Alvin Weinberg explains how this was done at Oak Ridge National
Lab: "It was a remarkable feat! In only 4 days all of the 218 kg of uranium in the reactor were
separated from the intensely radioactive fission products and its radioactivity reduced five
billion-fold."
Very little operating experience, though a successful test reactor was operated in the 1960s

High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor

HTGRs use little pellets of fuel backed into either hexagonal compacts or into larger pebbles (in the
prismatic and pebble-bed designs). Gas such as helium or carbon dioxide is passed through the
reactor rapidly to cool it. Due to their low power density, these reactors are seen as promising for
using nuclear energy outside of electricity: in transportation, in industry, and in residential regimes.
They are not particularly good at just producing electricity.

Pros:

Can operate at very high temperatures, leading to great thermal efficiency (near 50%!) and the
ability to create process heat for things like oil refineries, water desalination plants, hydrogen
fuel cell production, and much more.
Each little pebble of fuel has its own containment structure, adding yet another barrier between
radioactive material and the environment.

Cons:

High temperature has a bad side too. Materials that can stay structurally sound in high
temperatures and with many neutrons flying through them are hard to come by.
If the gas stops flowing, the reactor heats up very quickly. Backup cooling systems are
necessary.
Gas is a poor coolant, necessitating large amounts of coolant for relatively small amounts of
power. Therefore, these reactors must be very large to produce power at the rate of other
reactors.
Not as much operating experience