Bilibino Nuclear power plant in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, houses the world's smallest commercial nuclear reactor. It is equipped with four EGP-6 light water graphite reactors (LWGR) with gross power capacity of 12MWe each.
Here the world's 10 smallest commercial nuclear reactors, either in operation or under construction.
It depends on critical mass. For uranium-235, at normal density, at 100% enrichment, a perfect sphere would be critical mass at about 52 kg, or about 17 cm diameter. For plutonium-239, it would be about 10 kg, or about 9.9 cm diameter.
Problem is, that if you are right at critical mass, then the first event would take the reactor subcritical, because that first event would consume fuel, reducing mass, and reducing criticality. Its an interesting problem, and I can't get any more detailed than that, because information beyond this is classified, and I don't have access to it.
Cooling stacks, often referred to as cooling towers, are installed around nuclear reactors to dissipate excess heat generated during the nuclear fission process. They facilitate the cooling of water that has been heated by the reactor, allowing it to be reused in the cooling system. By releasing steam and heat into the atmosphere, cooling towers help maintain safe operating temperatures, ensuring the reactor functions efficiently and safely while minimizing environmental impact.
For the cooling system of the power plant
By Reactor I assume you mean a thermonuclear reactor. Most thermonuclear reactors use Boron rods to absorb radiation. This prevents the chain reaction in the reactor (where uranium nuclei split, each split nuclei further colliding and splitting more nuclei). They steam systems (that drive the turbines) are usually heated by gas or water. That is what the big towers are - cooling towers. The water is pumped to the top of the tower, and allowed to fall under gravity. this provides contact with the air and has a similar effect to sweating. If gas cooling is used, large radiators (like those on a fridge) use convection currents to move heat away from the reactor.
More of an explanation is needed to give a good answer. It is possible for a line reactor to overheat due to harmonics. What voltage? What is the sub layout? When does this appear to occur? How old is the reactor (perhaps it is actually failing, so the harmonics are just pushing it over the edge)? How big is the reactor? Is there a capacitor bank nearby? Capacitance of the line? Length of the line? When is it switched on/off? How strong is the source bus that it is being switched to (is it turned on and the line is energized locally, or from the remote end)? etc., etc. If possible, a better forum for such a question may be Eng-tips, although there are people here that may be able to give some good insights.
The main difference is specilization. I am a chemical engineer myself, and we have the option of specializing in a wide variety of degrees, such as genetic engineering. Note that chemical engineering is a very broad field dealing with polymers, metallurgy, biology, environmental chemistry, and the list goes on. Genetic engineering, in short, is really a specialization of chemical engineering to specifically biological chemistry.
it's the size of a pea.
It is about the size of your pinkie finger nail.
the size of a gold ball.
I didnt measure when I had it in hand but I would guess 12cm diameter, and maybe 80 cm long, for a magnox reactor anyway
It was 1000 megawatt electric (RBMK-1000)
One big event that happened in 1961 was the inauguration of John F. Kennedy. Also, in 1961, China uses its 1st nuclear reactor.
It is a reactor, where atomic nuclei are either combined (fusion) or split (fission), with the consequent release of energy . That great big bright yellow UFO ( unidentified flying object) in the sky , the SUN is a giant nuclear reactor, whereby hydrogen nuclei are fused together to form helium nuclei. , with the consequent release of energy ; electromagnetic waves( heat, radio waves, UV waves , light etc.,) If we could see inside a nuclear reactor on Earth it would just look the same, however, nuclear reactors on Earth are just used to collect heat, for electric generation.
Not directly, but as a comet approaches the sun, which is one big fusion reactor, the heat will cause the surface of the comet to vaporize, forming the comet's tail.
Nuclear reactors can vary in size depending on their purpose. A typical commercial nuclear reactor used for generating electricity can be around 1,000 megawatts in size, which is enough to power a city of about one million people. Small modular reactors (SMRs) are also being developed that can be much smaller in size, around 50-300 megawatts.
You can see a list of nuclear plants in New York state in the link below
A reactor vessel in a boiling water reactor is approximately 300 tons.
Cooling stacks, often referred to as cooling towers, are installed around nuclear reactors to dissipate excess heat generated during the nuclear fission process. They facilitate the cooling of water that has been heated by the reactor, allowing it to be reused in the cooling system. By releasing steam and heat into the atmosphere, cooling towers help maintain safe operating temperatures, ensuring the reactor functions efficiently and safely while minimizing environmental impact.