Boiling Water Reactors

Boiling Water Reactors

The boiling water reactor (BWR) is a type of light water nuclear reactor used for the generation of electrical power. It is the second most common type of electricity-generating nuclear reactor after the pressurized water reactor (PWR), also a type of light water nuclear reactor. The main difference between a BWR and PWR is that in a BWR, the reactor core heats water, which turns to steam and then drives a steam turbine. In a PWR, the reactor core heats water, which does not boil. This hot water then exchanges heat with a lower pressure water system, which turns to steam and drives the turbine. The BWR was developed by the Idaho National Laboratory and General Electric in the mid-1950s. The main present manufacturer is GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, which specializes in the design and construction of this type of reactor.

Read more about Boiling Water Reactors:  Overview, Advantages and Disadvantages

Famous quotes containing the words boiling and/or water:

    Unmeasured power, incredible passion, enormous craft: no thought
    apparent but burns darkly
    Smothered with its own smoke in the human brain-vault: no thought
    outside; a certain measure in phenomena:
    The fountains of the boiling stars, the flowers on the foreland, the
    ever-returning roses of dawn.
    Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)

    The more I see of democracy the more I dislike it. It just brings everything down to the mere vulgar level of wages and prices, electric light and water closets, and nothing else.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)