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The heating value (or energy value or calorific value) of a substance, usually a fuel or food (see food energy), is the amount of heat released during the combustion of a specified amount of it. The calorific value is the total energy released as heat when a substance undergoes complete combustion with oxygen under standard conditions.
Uranium fuel was placed in aluminium canisters and pushed into the channels in the front, pushing previous fuel canisters through the channel and out the back of the reactor where they fell into a pool of water. The system was designed to work at low temperatures and power levels and was air-cooled with the help of large fans. [2] [3]
MOX fuel is an alternative to low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel used in the light water reactors which predominate nuclear power generation. Some concern has been expressed that used MOX cores will introduce new disposal challenges, though MOX is a means to dispose of surplus plutonium by transmutation.
Pressurized water reactors annually emit several hundred curies of tritium to the environment as part of normal operation. [26] Natural uranium is only 0.7% uranium-235, the isotope necessary for thermal reactors. This makes it necessary to enrich the uranium fuel, which significantly increases the costs of fuel production.
A heavy-water design can sustain a chain reaction with a lower concentration of fissile atoms than light-water reactors, allowing it to use some alternative fuels; for example, "recovered uranium" (RU) from used LWR fuel. CANDU was designed for natural uranium with only 0.7% 235 U, so reprocessed uranium with 0.9% 235 U is a comparatively rich ...
According to the patent application [5] the reactor design has some notable characteristics, that sets it apart from other reactor designs. It uses uranium hydride (UH 3) "low-enriched" to 5% uranium-235—the remainder is uranium-238—as the nuclear fuel, rather than the usual metallic uranium or uranium dioxide that composes the fuel rods of contemporary light-water reactors.
The floating panel can turn contaminated water or polluted seawater into both drinking water and clean, hydrogen fuel. The device works off-grid so could prove useful in places with limited resources.
Pumps circulate water from the spent fuel pool to heat exchangers, then back to the spent fuel pool. The water temperature in normal operating conditions is held below 50 °C (120 °F). [8] Radiolysis, the dissociation of molecules by radiation, is of particular concern in wet storage, as water may be split by residual radiation and hydrogen ...