There are about 220 such reactors operating. These are much smaller than power reactors or those propelling ships and many are on university campuses. Many of the world s nuclear reactors are used for research and training materials testing or the production of radioisotopes for medicine and industry.
Research reactors nuclear reactors used for research. The crippled fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant is seen from bus windows in fukushima prefecture november 12 2011. See inside the nine mile 2 nuclear reactor duration.
Fuel in the pool atomicheritage. I have seen with my own eyes commercial divers swimming in a spent fuel pool with fuel in it installing high density fuel racks in place of the original density fuel racks after it became clear that the us government was going to renege on its ob. Photo courtesy of tokyo electric power company holdings inc kyodo as such the pool is thought to be free of debris and in a relatively stable condition.
2 reactor at the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant. Supplied photo shows the fuel rods inside the no. The water acts as neutron moderator cooling agent and.
The rest of this article will assume that water is being used. Some sodium cooled reactors like the bn 600 have sodium pools instead. Pool type reactors also called swimming pool reactors are a type of nuclear reactor that has a core consisting of the fuel elements and the control rods immersed in an open pool of usually water.
While powering a nuclear reactor these fuel rods become very very hot 2 800 degrees celsius. Spent nuclear fuel pools are designed to cool fuel rods after they come out of a nuclear reactor. Such pools are used for immediate cooling of the fuel rods which allows short lived isotopes to decay and thus reduce the ionising radiation emanating from the rods.
A reactor s local pool is specially designed for the reactor in which the fuel was used and is situated at the reactor site.
