"pros" and "cons" of nuclear power plants. Research work in physics "Nuclear energy: pros and cons"

I think that in the countries of the former Soviet Union, when it comes to nuclear power plants, the thought of the Chernobyl tragedy immediately flashes through the minds of many. This is not so easy to forget and I would like to understand the principle of operation of these stations, as well as find out their pros and cons.

Operating principle of a nuclear power plant

A nuclear power plant is a kind of nuclear installation whose goal is to produce energy, and subsequently electricity. In general, the forties of the last century can be considered the beginning of the nuclear power plant era. In the USSR, various projects were developed regarding the use of atomic energy not for military purposes, but for peaceful ones. One of these peaceful purposes was the production of electricity. In the late 40s, the first work began to bring this idea to life. Such stations operate on a water reactor, from which energy is released and transferred to various coolants. During this process, steam is released, which is cooled in a condenser. And then the current goes through generators to the homes of city residents.

All the pros and cons of nuclear power plants

I'll start with the most basic and bold advantage - there is no dependence on high fuel use. In addition, the costs of transporting nuclear fuel will be extremely low, unlike conventional fuel. I would like to note that this is very important for Russia, given that our coal is delivered from Siberia, and this is extremely expensive.

Now from an environmental point of view: the amount of emissions into the atmosphere per year is approximately 13,000 tons and, no matter how large this figure may seem, compared to other enterprises, the figure is quite small. Other pros and cons:

• a lot of water is used, which worsens the environment;
• electricity production is almost the same in cost as at thermal power plants;
• the big drawback is the terrible consequences of accidents (there are plenty of examples).

I would also like to note that after a nuclear power plant stops operating, it must be liquidated, and this can cost almost a quarter of the construction price. Despite all the shortcomings, nuclear power plants are quite common in the world.

The use of nuclear energy in the modern world turns out to be so important that if we woke up tomorrow and the energy from the nuclear reaction had disappeared, the world as we know it would probably cease to exist. Peace forms the basis of industrial production and life in countries such as France and Japan, Germany and Great Britain, the USA and Russia. And if the last two countries are still able to replace nuclear energy sources with thermal stations, then for France or Japan this is simply impossible.

The use of nuclear energy creates many problems. Basically, all these problems are related to the fact that using the binding energy of the atomic nucleus (which we call nuclear energy) for one’s benefit, a person receives a significant evil in the form of highly radioactive waste that cannot simply be thrown away. Waste from nuclear energy sources must be processed, transported, buried, and stored for a long time in safe conditions.

Pros and cons, benefits and harms of using nuclear energy

Let's consider the pros and cons of using atomic-nuclear energy, their benefits, harm and significance in the life of Mankind. It is obvious that nuclear energy today is needed only by industrialized countries. That is, peaceful nuclear energy is mainly used in facilities such as factories, processing plants, etc. It is energy-intensive industries that are remote from sources of cheap electricity (such as hydroelectric power plants) that use nuclear power plants to ensure and develop their internal processes.

Agrarian regions and cities do not have much need for nuclear energy. It is quite possible to replace it with thermal and other stations. It turns out that the mastery, acquisition, development, production and use of nuclear energy is for the most part aimed at meeting our needs for industrial products. Let's see what kind of industries they are: automotive industry, military production, metallurgy, chemical industry, oil and gas complex, etc.

Does a modern person want to drive a new car? Want to dress in fashionable synthetics, eat synthetics and pack everything in synthetics? Want colorful products in different shapes and sizes? Wants all new phones, TVs, computers? Do you want to buy a lot and often change the equipment around you? Do you want to eat delicious chemical food from colored packages? Do you want to live in peace? Want to hear sweet speeches from the TV screen? Does he want there to be a lot of tanks, as well as missiles and cruisers, as well as shells and guns?

And he gets it all. It does not matter that in the end the discrepancy between word and deed leads to war. It doesn't matter that recycling it also requires energy. For now the man is calm. He eats, drinks, goes to work, sells and buys.

And all this requires energy. And this also requires a lot of oil, gas, metal, etc. And all these industrial processes require nuclear energy. Therefore, no matter what anyone says, until the first industrial thermonuclear fusion reactor is put into production, nuclear energy will only develop.

We can safely list everything that we are used to as the advantages of nuclear energy. The downside is the sad prospect of imminent death due to the collapse of resource depletion, problems of nuclear waste, population growth and degradation of arable land. In other words, nuclear energy allowed man to begin to take control of nature even more, raping it beyond measure to such an extent that in a few decades he overcame the threshold of reproduction of basic resources, launching the process of collapse of consumption between 2000 and 2010. This process objectively no longer depends on the person.

Everyone will have to eat less, live less and enjoy the natural environment less. Here lies another plus or minus of nuclear energy, which is that countries that have mastered the atom will be able to more effectively redistribute the scarce resources of those who have not mastered the atom. Moreover, only the development of the thermonuclear fusion program will allow humanity to simply survive. Now let’s explain in detail what kind of “beast” this is - atomic (nuclear) energy and what it is eaten with.

Mass, matter and atomic (nuclear) energy

We often hear the statement that “mass and energy are the same thing,” or such judgments that the expression E = mc2 explains the explosion of an atomic (nuclear) bomb. Now that you have a first understanding of nuclear energy and its applications, it would be truly unwise to confuse you with statements such as “mass equals energy.” In any case, this way of interpreting the great discovery is not the best. Apparently, this is just the wit of young reformists, “Galileans of the new time.” In fact, the prediction of the theory, which has been verified by many experiments, only says that energy has mass.

We will now explain the modern point of view and give a short overview of the history of its development.
When the energy of any material body increases, its mass increases, and we attribute this additional mass to the increase in energy. For example, when radiation is absorbed, the absorber becomes hotter and its mass increases. However, the increase is so small that it remains beyond the accuracy of measurements in ordinary experiments. On the contrary, if a substance emits radiation, then it loses a drop of its mass, which is carried away by the radiation. A broader question arises: is not the entire mass of matter determined by energy, i.e., is there not a huge reserve of energy contained in all matter? Many years ago, radioactive transformations responded positively to this. When a radioactive atom decays, a huge amount of energy is released (mostly in the form of kinetic energy), and a small part of the atom's mass disappears. The measurements clearly show this. Thus, energy carries away mass with it, thereby reducing the mass of matter.

Consequently, part of the mass of matter is interchangeable with the mass of radiation, kinetic energy, etc. That is why we say: “energy and matter are partially capable of mutual transformations.” Moreover, we can now create particles of matter that have mass and are capable of being completely converted into radiation, which also has mass. The energy of this radiation can transform into other forms, transferring its mass to them. Conversely, radiation can turn into particles of matter. So instead of “energy has mass,” we can say “particles of matter and radiation are interconvertible, and therefore capable of interconversion with other forms of energy.” This is the creation and destruction of matter. Such destructive events cannot occur in the realm of ordinary physics, chemistry and technology, they must be sought either in the microscopic but active processes studied by nuclear physics, or in the high-temperature crucible of atomic bombs, in the Sun and stars. However, it would be unreasonable to say that "energy is mass." We say: “energy, like matter, has mass.”

Mass of ordinary matter

We say that the mass of ordinary matter contains within itself a huge supply of internal energy, equal to the product of mass by (the speed of light)2. But this energy is contained in the mass and cannot be released without the disappearance of at least part of it. How did such an amazing idea come about and why was it not discovered earlier? It had been proposed before - experiment and theory in different forms - but until the twentieth century the change in energy was not observed, because in ordinary experiments it corresponds to an incredibly small change in mass. However, we are now confident that a flying bullet, due to its kinetic energy, has additional mass. Even at a speed of 5000 m/sec, a bullet that weighed exactly 1 g at rest will have a total mass of 1.00000000001 g. White-hot platinum weighing 1 kg will only add 0.000000000004 kg and practically no weighing will be able to register these changes. It is only when enormous reserves of energy are released from the atomic nucleus, or when atomic "projectiles" are accelerated to speeds close to the speed of light, that the mass of energy becomes noticeable.

On the other hand, even a subtle difference in mass marks the possibility of releasing a huge amount of energy. Thus, hydrogen and helium atoms have relative masses of 1.008 and 4.004. If four hydrogen nuclei could combine into one helium nucleus, the mass of 4.032 would change to 4.004. The difference is small, only 0.028, or 0.7%. But it would mean a gigantic release of energy (mainly in the form of radiation). 4.032 kg of hydrogen would produce 0.028 kg of radiation, which would have an energy of about 600000000000 Cal.

Compare this to the 140,000 Cals released when the same amount of hydrogen combines with oxygen in a chemical explosion.
Ordinary kinetic energy makes a significant contribution to the mass of very fast protons produced in cyclotrons, and this creates difficulties when working with such machines.

Why do we still believe that E=mc2

Now we perceive this as a direct consequence of the theory of relativity, but the first suspicions arose towards the end of the 19th century, in connection with the properties of radiation. It seemed likely then that the radiation had mass. And since radiation carries, as if on wings, at a speed with energy, or rather, it itself is energy, an example of mass has appeared that belongs to something “immaterial”. The experimental laws of electromagnetism predicted that electromagnetic waves should have "mass." But before the creation of the theory of relativity, only unbridled imagination could extend the ratio m=E/c2 to other forms of energy.

All types of electromagnetic radiation (radio waves, infrared, visible and ultraviolet light, etc.) share some common features: they all propagate in vacuum at the same speed and all transfer energy and momentum. We imagine light and other radiation in the form of waves propagating at a high but certain speed c = 3*108 m/sec. When light strikes an absorbing surface, heat is generated, indicating that the stream of light carries energy. This energy must propagate along with the flow at the same speed of light. In fact, the speed of light is measured exactly this way: by the time it takes a portion of light energy to travel a long distance.

When light hits the surface of some metals, it knocks out electrons that fly out just as if they had been hit by a compact ball. , apparently, is distributed in concentrated portions, which we call “quanta”. This is the quantum nature of the radiation, despite the fact that these portions are apparently created by waves. Each piece of light with the same wavelength has the same energy, a certain “quantum” of energy. Such portions rush at the speed of light (in fact, they are light), transferring energy and momentum (momentum). All this makes it possible to attribute a certain mass to the radiation - a certain mass is assigned to each portion.

When light is reflected from a mirror, no heat is released, because the reflected beam carries away all the energy, but the mirror is subject to pressure similar to the pressure of elastic balls or molecules. If, instead of a mirror, the light hits a black absorbing surface, the pressure becomes half as much. This indicates that the beam carries the amount of motion rotated by the mirror. Therefore, light behaves as if it had mass. But is there any other way to know that something has mass? Does mass exist in its own right, such as length, green color, or water? Or is it an artificial concept defined by behavior like Modesty? Mass, in fact, is known to us in three manifestations:

• A. A vague statement characterizing the amount of “substance” (Mass from this point of view is inherent in matter - an entity that we can see, touch, push).
• B. Certain statements linking it with other physical quantities.
• B. Mass is conserved.

It remains to determine the mass in terms of momentum and energy. Then any moving thing with momentum and energy must have "mass". Its mass should be (momentum)/(velocity).

Theory of relativity

The desire to link together a series of experimental paradoxes concerning absolute space and time gave rise to the theory of relativity. Two kinds of experiments with light gave conflicting results, and experiments with electricity further aggravated this conflict. Then Einstein proposed changing the simple geometric rules for adding vectors. This change is the essence of his “special theory of relativity.”

For low speeds (from the slowest snail to the fastest of rockets), the new theory agrees with the old one.
At high speeds, comparable to the speed of light, our measurement of lengths or time is modified by the movement of the body relative to the observer, in particular, the mass of the body becomes greater the faster it moves.

Then the theory of relativity declared that this increase in mass was completely general. At normal speeds there is no change, and only at a speed of 100,000,000 km/h does the mass increase by 1%. However, for electrons and protons emitted from radioactive atoms or modern accelerators, it reaches 10, 100, 1000%…. Experiments with such high-energy particles provide excellent confirmation of the relationship between mass and velocity.

At the other edge there is radiation that has no rest mass. It is not a substance and cannot be kept at rest; it simply has mass and moves with speed c, so its energy is equal to mc2. We talk about quanta as photons when we want to note the behavior of light as a stream of particles. Each photon has a certain mass m, a certain energy E=mс2 and momentum (momentum).

Nuclear transformations

In some experiments with nuclei, the masses of atoms after violent explosions do not add up to the same total mass. The released energy carries with it some part of the mass; the missing piece of atomic material appears to have disappeared. However, if we assign the mass E/c2 to the measured energy, we find that the mass is conserved.

Annihilation of matter

We are accustomed to thinking of mass as an inevitable property of matter, so the transition of mass from matter to radiation - from a lamp to an escaping ray of light - looks almost like the destruction of matter. One more step - and we will be surprised to discover what is actually happening: positive and negative electrons, particles of matter, joining together, are completely converted into radiation. The mass of their matter turns into an equal mass of radiation. This is a case of disappearance of matter in the most literal sense. As if in focus, in a flash of light.

Measurements show that (energy, radiation during annihilation)/ c2 is equal to the total mass of both electrons - positive and negative. An antiproton combines with a proton and annihilates, usually releasing lighter particles with high kinetic energy.

Creation of matter

Now that we have learned to manage high-energy radiation (ultra-short-wave X-rays), we can prepare particles of matter from the radiation. If a target is bombarded with such rays, they sometimes produce a pair of particles, for example positive and negative electrons. And if we again use the formula m=E/c2 for both radiation and kinetic energy, then the mass will be conserved.

Simply about the complex – Nuclear (Atomic) energy

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Ensuring energy security is one of the key tasks of any modern state. Today, one of the most advanced options for generating electricity is the use of nuclear reactors. In this regard, a nuclear power plant is being built in Belarus. We will talk about this industrial facility in the article.

basic information

The Belarusian one is being built in the Grodno region of the country, literally 50 kilometers from the capital of neighboring Lithuania - Vilnius. Construction began in 2011 and is scheduled to be completed in 2019. The design capacity of the unit is 2400 MW.

The Ostrovets site - the place where the station is being built - is supervised by Russian specialists from the Atomstroyexport company.

A few words about design

In Belarus it will cost the state budget 11 billion US dollars.

The very issue of installing the facility in the country arose back in the 1990s, but the final decision to begin construction was made only in 2006. The city of Ostrovets was chosen as the main location for the station.

Policy influence

Several foreign powers were ready to begin building nuclear power plants immediately after analyzing the pros and cons of nuclear energy: China, the Czech Republic, the USA, France, and Russia. However, in the end the Russian Federation became the main contractor. Although it was initially believed that this construction would be unprofitable for the Russian Federation, which planned to commission its nuclear power plant in the Kaliningrad region. But still, in October 2011, a contract was signed between the Russians and Belarusians for the supply of equipment to the Belarusian city of Ostrovets.

Legislative aspect

In Belarus, it is built in accordance with the law regulating the radiation safety indicators of the country's population. This act specifies the conditions required to ensure them, which will allow people to preserve life and health under the operating conditions of nuclear power plants.

Cash loan

From the very beginning of the project's development, the final cost varied as different types of reactors were considered. Initially, 9 billion dollars were required, 6 of which were to be spent on the construction itself, and 3 on the creation of all the necessary infrastructure: power lines, residential buildings for station workers, railway tracks and other things.

It immediately became clear that Belarus simply did not have all the necessary funds. And therefore, the country’s leadership planned to take a loan from Russia, and in the form of “real” money. At the same time, the Belarusians immediately said that if they did not receive the money, the construction would be in jeopardy. In turn, Russian authorities have voiced their fears that their neighbors will be unable to repay the debt or will use the funds received to support their country's economy.

In this regard, Russian officials made a proposal to make the nuclear power plant in Belarus a joint venture, but the Belarusian side refused.

The end to this dispute was put on March 15, 2015, when Putin visited Minsk and provided Belarus with 10 billion for the construction of the station. The estimated payback period for the project is about 20 years.

Construction process

Excavation at the site began in 2011. And two years later, Lukashenko signed a decree giving the Russian general contractor the right to begin construction of such a huge industrial facility as a nuclear power plant in Belarus.

At the end of May 2014, the pit was completely ready, and work began on pouring the foundation of the second building. In December 2015, the vessel for the first reactor was delivered to the station.

Emergencies

In May 2016, information leaked to the media that a metal structure had allegedly collapsed at a nuclear power plant construction site. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry, in turn, conveyed an official response to the Lithuanians that no emergency situations occurred at the construction site.

But by October 2016, the number of official accidents during the construction of the station reached ten, three of which were fatal.

Scandal

As one of the civil activists in Belarus reported, according to his data, on July 10, 2015, during a rehearsal for installing the reactor vessel, it fell to the ground. It was planned that the next day the installation would take place in the presence of journalists and television.

On July 26, the country's Ministry of Energy confirmed the incident, indicating that the incident occurred at the storage site of the hull during its slinging for subsequent movement in the horizontal direction. This caused an immediate and extremely sharp reaction from Lithuania. On July 28, the Minister of Energy of this Baltic country submitted a note to the Belarusian ambassador with a request to clarify all the details of the incident and notify about them.

On August 1, the installation work on the installation of the vessel was suspended and at the same time the chief designer of this unit said that theoretical calculations carried out showed that the reactor did not receive serious damage from the fall. The head of Rosatom shared the same opinion, pointing out that there were no grounds for banning the operation of the building.

However, nuclear physicists and other technical specialists had a completely different opinion. They all said with one voice: the fallen hull cannot be used in the future. This was explained by the fact that, given the weight of the product, the welds and coating could be critically damaged. All these defects could subsequently appear due to the continuous exposure to a neutron flow and lead to the final destruction of the entire structure. In addition, engineers noted the lack of full-fledged experience in the production of such cases at the manufacturer located in Volgodonsk, which had not produced such components for more than thirty years.

As a result, on August 11, the Minister of Energy of Belarus announced that the reactor would be replaced after all. As a result, the completion dates for installation operations will shift indefinitely. As a solution to the problem, Rosatom made a proposal to use the reactor vessel of the second unit.

Protests

In the republic itself, numerous popular protests against the construction of nuclear power plants were repeatedly held. High-ranking officials in Lithuania and Austria also expressed a negative attitude towards the construction of the station. Both of these states noted that the project was not ready for implementation for a number of reasons.

Advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy

Considering the pros and cons of nuclear energy, it is worth noting that due to the specific nature of nuclear reactions, the cost of fuel consumed is quite low. This is the main positive aspect of this type of electricity production. Also, as strange as it may sound, it is environmentally friendly. Even thermal power plants produce more harmful emissions into the atmosphere than nuclear power plants.

Among the negative aspects of nuclear reactors, we can note the problematic nature of the waste disposal process and the high danger of man-made accidents, which can potentially harm millions of people.

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