Exhibition research display object 1: Power plant chart
24/12/06
nGbK
A nuclear power plant functions a lot like a coal-fired power plant; except that rather than burning coal, it generates heat by splitting atoms in order to boil steam to run a turbine which is connected to a generator that produces electricity.

This is a schematic drawing of the Hungarian Paks Nuclear Power Plant along the Danube, but it could be a picture of the Rheinsberg plant beside Stechlin Lake, or by any other body of water that a power plant needs to cool itself with. Not all nuclear power plants are the same, but the concept of using nuclear power to create steam to drive electricity generating-turbines is shared throughout all plants.
Often but not always, plants utilize uranium as a fuel (radioactive elements like plutonium and thorium are used in some plants). Exposed to pressurized water, uranium is broken down through a fission process, releasing electrons and heat. The heat is transferred to the water, becoming heated and pressurized water that is used to drive a turbine generator. Due to the electromagnetic properties of the generator, electricity is produced.
Because of the volume of the water needed to run a plant, the water flowing out of the plant most often does not have enough time to cool back to the temperature of its source. Thus, one way power plants disturb the environment by heating up the waters they release into. This was the case with Stechlin Lake located beside the GDR-era power plant Rheinsberg. It is said that the cooling water made the lake ten degrees warmer than average at the point of release and that people would even bathe there in January. It has also been the case with Paks in Hungary that has received permission to heat the Danube river at temperatures higher than regulations demand. Further, as the climate changes and river systems face more dramatic droughts than previously considered, nuclear plants risk having to temporarily shut down due to low water levels.

