Russian nuclear power plants

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The experience of the past shows that it takes about a century to replace one source of energy with another. Thus, wood was replaced with coal, coal with oil, oil with gas, and chemical fuels were replaced by nuclear energy. The starting point of the history of mastering the last type of energy can be considered 1939, when the fission of uranium was discovered. It was then that IV Kurchatov substantiated the need for research work related to atomic energy. Seven years later in Ro

SSI built and launched the first nuclear reactor, then still experimental. The uranium mining industry began its development, the purpose of which was the production of plutonium-239 with uranium-235 (nuclear fuel, which was required by nuclear power plants).

In 1954, a nuclear power plant was launched in Obninsk. The world did not yet know what nuclear power plants were. Three years later, the legendary icebreaker "Lenin" was launched, which became the world's first nuclear-powered vessel.

It took only a decade and a half for the large-scale development of nuclear energy. Now nuclearpower plants built around the world.

Energy is the engine, the basis of the fundamentals. Almost all the benefits created by civilization, from an elementary light bulb to devices that explore outer space, require a certain amount of energy. And the cheapest energy today is supplied by nuclear power plants. The energy of the atom is ultimately used by absolutely all branches of the modern economy. It is used in biology, medicine, agriculture, metallurgical production, mechanical engineering, etc.

Practically all nuclear power plants in Russia are built in densely populated areas. There are currently 10 such power plants in operation (32 power units, the plan is to build another 26 reactors, two of which are floating). About 5 million people live in the 30-kilometer zone adjacent to them.

The strength of the undeniable advantages of nuclear power plants is great, but the disadvantages cannot be ignored.

To work, hydropower requires the creation of large reservoirs, which flood huge tracts of fertile land along the banks of rivers. Water stagnates, loses quality, and, in turn, other problems associated with water supply, fisheries, and the leisure industry are aggravated. But the main thing here is still environmental problems. Thermal power plants are gradually destroying the natural environment of the Earth, the biosphere. It would seem that the trouble-free operation of nuclear power plants excludes various kinds of pollution. But for some reason they are silent about thermal pollution, because this is also a kind of pollution. Built around the worldmore than a hundred nuclear power plants, and only 10% of nuclear power plants are in Russia, each power plant has several reactors. The product of the reactors is radioactive waste, potentially dangerous. Of course, the amount of waste is small, “working out” is stored in special containers, which seem to exclude leakage. And some countries (including Russia) even recycle this waste, but the risk still remains, which means there is a reason for concern. More than a hundred and fifty incidents of varying severity have been recorded since the launch of the first nuclear power plant. Although the term “of varying severity” is perhaps inappropriate here, any, even a minor failure in the operation of a nuclear power plant can have irreversible consequences…