Portal:Nuclear technology

The Nuclear Technology Portal

Introduction

This symbol of radioactivity is internationally recognized.

• Nuclear technology is technology that involves the nuclear reactions of atomic nuclei. Among the notable nuclear technologies are nuclear reactors, nuclear medicine and nuclear weapons. It is also used, among other things, in smoke detectors and gun sights. (Full article...)
  
• Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants. Nuclear decay processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as Voyager 2. Reactors producing controlled fusion power have been operated since 1958, but have yet to generate net power and are not expected to be commercially available in the near future. (Full article...)
  
• A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. (Full article...)

General images -

The following are images from various nuclear technology-related articles on Wikipedia.

• 
  The number of nuclear warheads by country in 2024, based on an estimation by the Federation of American Scientists. (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  An example of an induced nuclear fission event. A neutron is absorbed by the nucleus of a uranium-235 atom, which in turn splits into fast-moving lighter elements (fission products) and free neutrons. Though both reactors and nuclear weapons rely on nuclear chain reactions, the rate of reactions in a reactor is much slower than in a bomb. (from Nuclear reactor)
• 
  A visual representation of an induced nuclear fission event where a slow-moving neutron is absorbed by the nucleus of a uranium-235 atom, which fissions into two fast-moving lighter elements (fission products) and additional neutrons. Most of the energy released is in the form of the kinetic velocities of the fission products and the neutrons. (from Nuclear fission)
• 
  The status of nuclear power globally (click for legend) (from Nuclear power)
• 
  Schematic of the ITER tokamak under construction in France (from Nuclear power)
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  Share of electricity production from nuclear, 2023 (from Nuclear power)
• 
  The two basic fission weapon designs (from Nuclear weapon)
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  Some of the Chicago Pile Team, including Enrico Fermi and Leó Szilárd (from Nuclear reactor)
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  The basics of the Teller–Ulam design for a hydrogen bomb: a fission bomb uses radiation to compress and heat a separate section of fusion fuel. (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  Life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of electricity supply technologies, median values calculated by IPCC (from Nuclear power)
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  Proportions of the isotopes uranium-238 (blue) and uranium-235 (red) found in natural uranium and in enriched uranium for different applications. Light water reactors use 3–5% enriched uranium, while CANDU reactors work with natural uranium. (from Nuclear power)
• 
  The Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant in Switzerland (from Nuclear power)
• 
  Typical composition of uranium dioxide fuel before and after approximately three years in the once-through nuclear fuel cycle of a LWR (from Nuclear power)
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  Treatment of the interior part of a VVER-1000 reactor frame at Atommash (from Nuclear reactor)
• 
  Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn in their laboratory (from Nuclear reactor)
• 
  The CANDU Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant (from Nuclear reactor)
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  The "curve of binding energy": A graph of binding energy per nucleon of common isotopes. (from Nuclear fission)
• 
  The Torness nuclear power station – an AGR (from Nuclear reactor)
• 
  The multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG), used in several space missions such as the Curiosity Mars rover (from Nuclear power)
• 
  The guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey (CG 61) receives fuel at sea (FAS) from the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73). (from Nuclear power)
• 
  A comparison of prices over time for energy from nuclear fission and from other sources. Over the presented time, thousands of wind turbines and similar were built on assembly lines in mass production resulting in an economy of scale. While nuclear remains bespoke, many first of their kind facilities added in the timeframe indicated and none are in serial production.Our World in Data notes that this cost is the global average, while the 2 projects that drove nuclear pricing upwards were in the US. The organization recognises that the median cost of the most exported and produced nuclear energy facility in the 2010s the South Korean APR1400, remained "constant", including in export.
  LCOE is a measure of the average net present cost of electricity generation for a generating plant over its lifetime. As a metric, it remains controversial as the lifespan of units are not independent but manufacturer projections, not a demonstrated longevity. (from Nuclear power)
• 
  The Magnox Sizewell A nuclear power station (from Nuclear reactor)
• 
  The town of Pripyat abandoned since 1986, with the Chernobyl plant and the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement arch in the distance (from Nuclear power)
• 
  Scaled-down model of TOPAZ nuclear reactor (from Nuclear reactor)
• 
  Over 2,000 nuclear tests have been conducted in over a dozen different sites around the world. Red Russia/Soviet Union, blue France, light blue United States, violet Britain, yellow China, orange India, brown Pakistan, green North Korea and light green (territories exposed to nuclear bombs). The Black dot indicates the location of the Vela incident. (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  This view of downtown Las Vegas shows a mushroom cloud in the background. Scenes such as this were typical during the 1950s. From 1951 to 1962 the government conducted 100 atmospheric tests at the nearby Nevada Test Site. (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  UN vote on adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on July 7, 2017
  

    Yes

    No

    Did not vote

  (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  Activity of spent UOx fuel in comparison to the activity of natural uranium ore over time (from Nuclear power)
• 
  The Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant – a RBMK type (closed 2009) (from Nuclear reactor)
• 
  Nuclear fuel assemblies being inspected before entering a pressurized water reactor in the United States (from Nuclear power)
• 
  An assortment of American nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. Clockwise from top left: PGM-17 Thor, LGM-25C Titan II, HGM-25A Titan I, Thor-Agena, LGM-30G Minuteman III, LGM-118 Peacekeeper, LGM-30A/B/F Minuteman I or II, PGM-19 Jupiter (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  Death rates per unit of electricity production for different energy sources (from Nuclear power)
• 
  A schematic nuclear fission chain reaction. 1. A uranium-235 atom absorbs a neutron and fissions into two new atoms (fission fragments), releasing three new neutrons and some binding energy. 2. One of those neutrons is absorbed by an atom of uranium-238 and does not continue the reaction. Another neutron is simply lost and does not collide with anything, also not continuing the reaction. However, the one neutron does collide with an atom of uranium-235, which then fissions and releases two neutrons and some binding energy. 3. Both of those neutrons collide with uranium-235 atoms, each of which fissions and releases between one and three neutrons, which can then continue the reaction. (from Nuclear fission)
• 
  A demilitarized, commercial launch of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces R-36 ICBM; also known by the NATO reporting name: SS-18 Satan. Upon its first fielding in the late 1960s, the SS-18 remains the single highest throw weight missile delivery system ever built. (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  The Ikata Nuclear Power Plant, a pressurized water reactor that cools by using a secondary coolant heat exchanger with a large body of water, an alternative cooling approach to large cooling towers (from Nuclear power)
• 
  Drawing of the first artificial reactor, Chicago Pile-1 (from Nuclear fission)
• 
  The stages of binary fission in a liquid drop model. Energy input deforms the nucleus into a fat "cigar" shape, then a "peanut" shape, followed by binary fission as the two lobes exceed the short-range nuclear force attraction distance, and are then pushed apart and away by their electrical charge. In the liquid drop model, the two fission fragments are predicted to be the same size. The nuclear shell model allows for them to differ in size, as usually experimentally observed. (from Nuclear fission)
• 
  The Trinity test of the Manhattan Project was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, which led J. Robert Oppenheimer to recall verses from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita: "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one "... "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds". (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  Dry cask storage vessels storing spent nuclear fuel assemblies (from Nuclear power)
• 
  The now decommissioned United States' Peacekeeper missile was an ICBM developed to replace the Minuteman missile in the late 1980s. Each missile, like the heavier lift Russian SS-18 Satan, could contain up to ten nuclear warheads (shown in red), each of which could be aimed at a different target. A factor in the development of MIRVs was to make complete missile defense difficult for an enemy country. (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  Growth of worldwide nuclear power generation (from Nuclear power)
• 
  Demonstration against nuclear testing in Lyon, France, in the 1980s. (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  The International Atomic Energy Agency was created in 1957 to encourage peaceful development of nuclear technology while providing international safeguards against nuclear proliferation. (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner in 1912 (from Nuclear fission)
• 
  Animation of a Coulomb explosion in the case of a cluster of positively charged nuclei, akin to a cluster of fission fragments. Hue level of color is proportional to (larger) nuclei charge. Electrons (smaller) on this time-scale are seen only stroboscopically and the hue level is their kinetic energy. (from Nuclear fission)
• 
  The Calder Hall nuclear power station in the United Kingdom, the world's first commercial nuclear power station. (from Nuclear power)
• 
  Reactor decay heat as a fraction of full power after the reactor shutdown, using two different correlations. To remove the decay heat, reactors need cooling after the shutdown of the fission reactions. A loss of the ability to remove decay heat caused the Fukushima accident. (from Nuclear power)
• 
  Anti-nuclear protest near nuclear waste disposal centre at Gorleben in northern Germany (from Nuclear power)
• 
  Montage of an inert test of a United States Trident SLBM (submarine launched ballistic missile), from submerged to the terminal, or re-entry phase, of the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (from Nuclear weapon)
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  NC State's PULSTAR Reactor is a 1 MW pool-type research reactor with 4% enriched, pin-type fuel consisting of UO₂ pellets in zircaloy cladding. (from Nuclear reactor)
• 
  The first nuclear weapons were gravity bombs, such as this "Fat Man" weapon dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. They were large and could only be delivered by heavy bomber aircraft (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  Three of the reactors at Fukushima I overheated, causing the coolant water to dissociate and led to the hydrogen explosions. This along with fuel meltdowns released large amounts of radioactive material into the air. (from Nuclear reactor)
• 
  Anti-nuclear weapons protest march in Oxford, 1980 (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  Diablo Canyon – a PWR (from Nuclear reactor)
• 
  A Minuteman III ICBM test launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, United States. MIRVed land-based ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first. (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  Most waste packaging, small-scale experimental fuel recycling chemistry and radiopharmaceutical refinement is conducted within remote-handled hot cells. (from Nuclear power)
• 
  Following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the world's worst nuclear accident since 1986, 50,000 households were displaced after radiation leaked into the air, soil and sea. Radiation checks led to bans of some shipments of vegetables and fish. (from Nuclear power)
• 
  The nuclear fuel cycle begins when uranium is mined, enriched, and manufactured into nuclear fuel (1), which is delivered to a nuclear power plant. After use, the spent fuel is delivered to a reprocessing plant (2) or to a final repository (3). In nuclear reprocessing, 95% of spent fuel can potentially be recycled to be returned to use in a power plant (4). (from Nuclear power)
• 
  Mushroom cloud from the explosion of Castle Bravo, the largest nuclear weapon detonated by the U.S., in 1954 (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  Edward Teller, often referred to as the "father of the hydrogen bomb" (from Nuclear weapon)
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  The launching ceremony of the USS Nautilus January 1954. In 1958 it would become the first vessel to reach the North Pole. (from Nuclear power)
• 
  The cooling towers of the Philippsburg Nuclear Power Plant in Germany (from Nuclear fission)
• 
  In thermal nuclear reactors (LWRs in specific), the coolant acts as a moderator that must slow down the neutrons before they can be efficiently absorbed by the fuel. (from Nuclear reactor)
• 
  Ukrainian workers use equipment provided by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency to dismantle a Soviet-era missile silo. After the end of the Cold War, Ukraine and the other non-Russian, post-Soviet republics relinquished Soviet nuclear stockpiles to Russia. (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  Nuclear waste flasks generated by the United States during the Cold War are stored underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. The facility is seen as a potential demonstration for storing spent fuel from civilian reactors. (from Nuclear power)
• 
  The Chicago Pile, the first artificial nuclear reactor, built in secrecy at the University of Chicago in 1942 during World War II as part of the US's Manhattan project (from Nuclear reactor)
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  Soviet OTR-21 Tochka missile. Capable of firing a 100-kiloton nuclear warhead a distance of 185 km (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  The nuclear fission display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. The table and instruments are originals, but would not have been together in the same room. (from Nuclear fission)
• 
  The Superphénix, closed in 1998, was one of the few FBRs. (from Nuclear reactor)
• 
  Induced fission reaction. A neutron is absorbed by a uranium-235 nucleus, turning it briefly into an excited uranium-236 nucleus, with the excitation energy provided by the kinetic energy of the neutron plus the forces that bind the neutron. The uranium-236, in turn, splits into fast-moving lighter elements (fission products) and releases several free neutrons, one or more "prompt gamma rays" (not shown) and a (proportionally) large amount of kinetic energy. (from Nuclear fission)
• 
  Fission product yields by mass for thermal neutron fission of uranium-235, plutonium-239, a combination of the two typical of current nuclear power reactors, and uranium-233, used in the thorium cycle (from Nuclear fission)
• 
  The first light bulbs ever lit by electricity generated by nuclear power at EBR-1 at Argonne National Laboratory-West, December 20, 1951. (from Nuclear power)
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  Primary coolant system showing reactor pressure vessel (red), steam generators (purple), pressurizer (blue), and pumps (green) in the three coolant loop Hualong One pressurized water reactor design (from Nuclear reactor)
• 
  The USSR and United States nuclear weapon stockpiles throughout the Cold War until 2015, with a precipitous drop in total numbers following the end of the Cold War in 1991. (from Nuclear weapon)
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  Olkiluoto 3 under construction in 2009. It was the first EPR, a modernized PWR design, to start construction. (from Nuclear power)
• 
  Ballistic missile submarines have been of great strategic importance for the United States, Russia, and other nuclear powers since they entered service in the Cold War, as they can hide from reconnaissance satellites and fire their nuclear weapons with virtual impunity. (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  A photograph of Sumiteru Taniguchi's back injuries taken in January 1946 by a U.S. Marine photographer (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  The mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on 9 August 1945 rose over 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) above the bomb's hypocenter. An estimated 39,000 people were killed by the atomic bomb, of whom 23,145–28,113 were Japanese factory workers, 2,000 were Korean slave laborers, and 150 were Japanese combatants. (from Nuclear fission)
• 
  Protest in Bonn against the nuclear arms race between the U.S./NATO and the Warsaw Pact, 1981 (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  J. Robert Oppenheimer, principal leader of the Manhattan Project, often referred to as the "father of the atomic bomb". (from Nuclear weapon)
• 
  United States and USSR/Russian nuclear weapons stockpiles, 1945–2006. The Megatons to Megawatts Program was the main driving force behind the sharp reduction in the quantity of nuclear weapons worldwide since the cold war ended. (from Nuclear power)

Selected article -

The Alsos Mission was an organized effort by a team of British and United States military, scientific, and intelligence personnel to discover enemy scientific developments during World War II. Its chief focus to investigate the progress that Nazi Germany was making in the area of nuclear technology, and to seize any German nuclear resources that would either be of use to the Manhattan Project or worth denying to the Soviet Union. It also investigated German chemical and biological weapon development and the means to deliver them, and any other advanced Axis technology it was able to get information about in the course of the other investigations (such as the V-2 rocket program).

The Alsos Mission was created after the September 1943 Allied invasion of Italy as part of the Manhattan Project's mission to coordinate foreign intelligence related to enemy nuclear activity. The team had a twofold assignment: search for personnel, records, material, and sites to evaluate the above programs and prevent their capture by the Soviet Union. Alsos personnel followed close behind the front lines in Italy, France, and Germany, occasionally crossing into enemy-held territory to secure valuable resources before they could be destroyed or scientists escape or fall into rival hands.

The Alsos Mission was commanded by Colonel Boris Pash, a former Manhattan Project security officer, with Samuel Goudsmit as chief scientific advisor. It was jointly staffed by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), the Manhattan Project, and Army Intelligence (G-2), with field assistance from combat engineers assigned to specific task forces.

Alsos teams were successful in locating and removing a substantial portion of the German research effort's surviving records and equipment. They also took most of the senior German research personnel into custody, including Otto Hahn, Max von Laue, Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. By November-December 1944, they had concluded that there was no threat of a German atomic bomb, and that the German nuclear program had only reached an experimental phase, not a production phase. After the defeat of Japan, an Alsos mission was sent in to evaluate its nuclear program as well. (Full article...)

More selected articles

Selected picture -

Credit: Samat Jain

Looking at the front of the McDonald-Schmidt Ranch House. The concrete box in front of the stone wall is the remnant of a time capsule buried in 1984 when the house was restored. The time capsule was opened in Oct 2009. The ranch was used for assembling Gadget's plutonium core.

Did you know?

• ... that poet Peggy Pond Church became a strong pacifist and a member of the Society of Friends after the Manhattan Project used her home as a place to build nuclear weapons?
• ... that according to witnesses, the plutonium charge in the bomb used in the nuclear weapons test Gerboise Verte was transported in an economy car?
• ... that coral cores from Flinders Reef capture environmental changes caused by the use of nuclear weapons?
• ... that T. K. Jones thought that a nuclear war was survivable if "there are enough shovels to go around"?
• ... that after journalist Adele Ferguson's criticism of the U.S. Navy's sex discrimination attracted nationwide attention, she was offered a personal tour of a nuclear submarine?
• ... that a nuclear reactor was nearly built at the New York Hall of Science, but the money for the institution instead went to Yankee Stadium?

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Selected biography -

Richard Phillips Feynman (/ˈfaɪnmən/; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist. He is known for the work he did in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, and in particle physics, for which he proposed the parton model. For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 jointly with Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichirō Tomonaga.

Feynman developed a widely used pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions describing the behavior of subatomic particles, which later became known as Feynman diagrams. During his lifetime, Feynman became one of the best-known scientists in the world. In a 1999 poll of 130 leading physicists worldwide by the British journal Physics World, he was ranked the seventh-greatest physicist of all time.

He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II and became known to the wider public in the 1980s as a member of the Rogers Commission, the panel that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Along with his work in theoretical physics, Feynman has been credited with having pioneered the field of quantum computing and introducing the concept of nanotechnology. He held the Richard C. Tolman professorship in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology.

Feynman was a keen popularizer of physics through both books and lectures, including a 1959 talk on top-down nanotechnology called There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom and the three-volume publication of his undergraduate lectures, The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Feynman also became known through his autobiographical books Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?, and books written about him such as Tuva or Bust! by Ralph Leighton and the biography Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick. (Full article...)

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Nuclear technology news

5 November 2024 – Fukushima nuclear accident

A remote-controlled robot retrieves a piece of melted fuel from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the first time a piece of melted fuel has been retrieved from a nuclear meltdown. (AP)

15 October 2024 –

Google signs an agreement with Kairos Power to use small nuclear reactors to generate the energy to power its artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. (BBC News)

11 October 2024 – 2024 Nobel Peace Prize

This year's Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Japanese atomic bomb survivors group Nihon Hidankyo for "its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again". (The Washington Post) (Nobel Prize)

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