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After the Chernobyl disaster in 1989, a moratorium on the use of nuclear energy was in established. Later, the law prohibited the use of nuclear energy. To this day, the Directorate for Nuclear and Radiation Safety (Srbatom) is strongly opposed to any kind of nuclear energy use in Serbia or neighbouring countries.
Modern nuclear reactor designs have had numerous safety improvements since the first-generation nuclear reactors. A nuclear power plant cannot explode like a nuclear weapon because the fuel for uranium reactors is not enriched enough, and nuclear weapons require precision explosives to force fuel into a small enough volume to become supercritical.
A total of 72 reactors were under construction at the beginning of 2014, the highest number in 25 years. [28] Several of the under construction reactors are carry over from earlier eras; some are partially completed reactors on which work has resumed (e.g., in Argentina); some are small and experimental (e.g., Russian floating reactors); and some have been on the IAEA's “under construction ...
A fission fragment reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates electricity by decelerating an ion beam of fission byproducts instead of using nuclear reactions to generate heat. By doing so, it bypasses the Carnot cycle and can achieve efficiencies of up to 90% instead of 40–45% attainable by efficient turbine-driven thermal reactors.
Two reactors have been operating for decades, while the third reactor entered commercial operation on July 31, becoming the first new nuclear unit built from scratch in the United States in decades.
A fission nuclear power plant is generally composed of: a nuclear reactor, in which the nuclear reactions generating heat take place; a cooling system, which removes the heat from inside the reactor; a steam turbine, which transforms the heat into mechanical energy; an electric generator, which transforms the mechanical energy into electrical ...
Taking decades, an intricate clean-up process has to be followed after a nuclear power station closes.
Most nuclear reactors use a chain reaction to induce a controlled rate of nuclear fission in fissile material, releasing both energy and free neutrons. A reactor consists of an assembly of nuclear fuel (a reactor core ), usually surrounded by a neutron moderator such as regular water , heavy water , graphite , or zirconium hydride , and fitted ...