Nuclear Reactors facts

While investigating facts about Nuclear Reactors In India and Nuclear Reactors In Us, I found out little known, but curios details like:

Canada's nuclear reactors (CANDU) are designed to use decommissioned nuclear weapons as fuel and can be refueled while running at full power. They're considered among the safest and the most cost effective reactors in the world.

how nuclear reactors work?

Manhattan Project nuclear physicist Alvin Weinberg was fired from his job for continually advocating for a safer and less weaponizable nuclear reactor using Thorium, one that has no chance of a meltdown.

What are nuclear reactors?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what are nuclear reactors used for. Here are 50 of the best facts about Nuclear Reactors In Canada and Nuclear Reactors In The World I managed to collect.

what nuclear reactors do?

Canada's CANDU nuclear reactors are designed to use fuel from decommissioned nuclear weapons, can be refueled while running at full power, and are considered among the safest and most cost effective in the world.
1.7 billion years ago, there was a natural nuclear reactor that ran for a few hundred thousand years.
One year the University of Chicago's annual scavenger hunt included the impossible task of building a working nuclear reactor, which one team did in their dorm room.
The $4billion nuclear powered supercarrier "USS Ronald Reagan" has an unlimited range distance up to 20-25 years, powered by two A4W Reactors
The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise was the longest warship ever built, and weighed over 90,000 tons. Despite this, it was one of the fastest, due to having 8 seperate nuclear reactors putting out a total of 280,000hp. No other carrier has more than two.
When Jimmy Carter was a young Nuclear officer in the US Navy, they sent him to help a partial meltdown in a Canadian nuclear reactor. They built an exact copy of the reactor to train with, then lowered him into the still extremely radioactive reactor to take it apart one piece at a time.
Leo Szilard conceived the nuclear chain reaction,the nuclear reactor, and wrote the letter suggesting the Manhattan Project, which Einstein signed. After being diagnosed with bladder cancer, he designed his own radiation therapy which led to a full recovery.
A US nuclear submarine that sank in deep water in 1968 is still resting at the bottom of the sea at a known location. Its nuclear reactor and nuclear weapons have never been recovered.
In 1959, an experimental nuclear reactor meltdown in Simi Valley (35 miles from Los Angeles) released an estimated 458 times more radiation than the Three Mile Island incident. The site remains radioactive to this day, which is surrounded by 500,000 people within 10 miles
Since 1965, a nuclear reactor has been orbiting the Earth. It's broken now but will continue its orbit for another 4000 years

nuclear reactors facts — What is graphite used for in nuclear reactors?

Why nuclear reactors are dangerous?

You can easily fact check why nuclear reactors are used by examining the linked well-known sources.

Deuterium, one of the ingredients of nuclear fusion, is readily found in seawater, and "viewed as a potential fuel for a fusion reactor, a gallon of seawater could produce as much energy as 300 gallons of gasoline."

David Hahn, who at 17 years old attempted to build a nuclear reactor in his backyard, which at one point was emitting over 1000 times normal background radiation. - source

There are more nuclear reactors powering ships (mostly military) than there are generating electric power in commercial power plants worldwide.

In 1989 a scuba diver was sucked up by an intake pipe of a nuclear power plant, dragged over 1,600 feet, and deposited in one of the reactor cooling ponds. He lived. - source

When will we have nuclear fusion reactors?

When a Canadian nuclear reactor melted down in the 1950s, Jimmy Carter was one of the Americans sent to help. His crew built an exact replica of the reactor on a Tennis court to practice disassembling it, and had to enter and take apart the reactor one piece at a time, 90 seconds at a time.

How nuclear reactors are built?

The US were working on a nuclear cruise missile capable of staying multiple YEARS in the air by pushing air through an open nuclear reactor, heating said air, meanwhile spewing radioactivity everywhere, they even had a working engine, but they abandoned it, deeming it too provocative.

In 1994 a 17 yr old boy used radioactive material from homemade items like clocks to build himself a nuclear reactor. Although it never came anywhere near reaching critical mass, it ended up emitting dangerous levels of radiation, likely over 1,000 times normal background radiation.

The 'Warp Core' shown in "Star Trek: Into Darkness" is not a set piece or prop, but actually the experimental nuclear fusion reactor at The National Ignition Facility.

The China Syndrome" film about a nuclear reactor meltdown was released just 12 days before the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown catapulting the film into a blockbuster hit

When were nuclear reactors built?

Masao Yoshida, the plant manager at Fukushima in 2011, disobeyed orders to stop pumping seawater into the nuclear reactor. This stopped a greater disaster that would have affected millions of lives.

A molten-salt reactor, a piece of technology conceived during the Cold War that forgoes solid nuclear fuel for a liquid one, can generate energy with far greater efficiency than any power technology in existence.

In 1955 the US designed a nuclear powered cruise missle. The SLAM's unshielded reactor would sicken, injure, and/or kill living things beneath its flight path and its strategically selected crash site would receive intense radioactive contamination.

President Jimmy Carter was a Nuclear Engineer and visited Three Mile Island during the crisis there. He had previously helped dismantle a damaged reactor in Canada.

How nuclear reactors produce electricity?

In 1952, President Carter was one of the US Nuclear officers sent to Canada to enter and disassemble a crippled Canadian nuclear reactor. He personally entered the reactor to help disassemble the core, and tested positive for radiation for several months afterwards.

Camp Century, a top-secret US military base built under the ice sheets of Greenland in 1960 to house missiles. Built under the cover of climate research, it housed 200 people and was powered by the world's first portable nuclear reactor. Denmark didn't uncover the base's existence until 1995.

When the USA decommissions a nuclear submarine, the reactor compartment will end up in a special submarine graveyard. It's an open trench meant to be visible for treaty verification by satellite.

The safety system for the Chicago Pile, the first nuclear reactor, consisted of a man with an ax and a man with a bucket. In the case of a runaway reaction, one would cut a hemp rope attached to a control rod, and the other would throw a bucket of concentrated cadmium nitride over the pile

During the Manhattan Project, the emergency nuclear reactor shutdown (SCRAM) mechanism was simply a man with an axe.

Jimmy Carter was the only President to have ever lived in public housing. His father died shortly after Carter had led a team disassembling a Canadian nuclear reactor, so he went home to run the family farm. A drought killed his first crop and drove him into debt...but eventually he made it.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was still operational and producing power up until 2000, a full 14 after the infamous reactor 4 meltdown

There exists areas where self-sustaining nuclear fission has occurred naturally, essentially a natural "nuclear reactor"

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant which suffered a reactor melt down in 1986, continued to produce electricity until 2000, and still has three intact nuclear reactors.

Toshiba developed micro-nuclear reactor to power a standard home for 40 years at 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.

The Simpsons depiction of Homer's job qualifications are correct. You only need a High School diploma to operate a nuclear reactor.

In 1973, the US government stopped research into thorium based nuclear reactors as, unlike Uranium reactors, their byproducts could not be used to make nuclear weapons

Although the Chernobyl nuclear-power-plant had a meltdown in 1986 and had rendered the land around it uninhabitable, the remaining reactors of the facility remained in normal operation and generated power until the year 2000.

This is our collection of basic interesting facts about Nuclear Reactors. The fact lists are intended for research in school, for college students or just to feed your brain with new realities. Possible use cases are in quizzes, differences, riddles, homework facts legend, cover facts, and many more. Whatever your case, learn the truth of the matter why is Nuclear Reactors so important!