When one hears of nuclear power, one immediately thinks of nuclear weapons and mass destruction, but nuclear power has a positive side as well.
Following the Second World War, nuclear power developed alongside nuclear weaponry. Nuclear power generation is the use of nuclear reactions to produce energy. The first nuclear power plant to be set up was the Obninsk nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union on June 27, 1954. It was the first grid-connected nuclear power plant in the world; in other words, the first nuclear reactor that produced electricity industrially. It remained in operation between 1954 and 2002. This year marks 68 years since its installation.
The design for the plant started in 1950 and construction started a year later. The Obninsk reactor used 5 percent enriched uranium. The reactor AM-1 (Atom Mirny which is Russian for ‘peaceful atom’) was built in 9 months. It had a total electrical capacity of 6 MW and the thermal output was 30 MW. The reactor had a prototype design using a graphite moderator and water coolant.
Igor Kurchatov, regarded as the father of the Soviet atomic weapons programme, was one of the leading forces behind the establishment of the plant.
The power plant functioned without significant safety incidents for a period of 48 years! It is a model of stability that many of today’s nuclear plants strive to emulate, especially since presently around 10 per cent of the world’s power requirements are met by nuclear power.
Picture Credit : Google
