As soon as scientists managed to carry out the splitting reaction atomic nucleus, the question immediately arose about the prospects practical application this remarkable discovery. Considering the current political situation in the world, it is natural that the first application for the new discovery was to use it to create weapons of unprecedented power - atomic bomb. But, in parallel with the use of the reaction of fission of the atomic nucleus for mass murder, a number of scientists raised the question of a “peaceful atom”.

The leadership in the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes was immediately seized by the Soviet Union. Already in 1954, the first industrial nuclear power plant was built in Obninsk. Its power was 5 MW. However Western countries did not remain aloof from the opportunity to join in the use of such a powerful source of energy. Great Britain was the first to commission an industrial nuclear reactor in 1956, and the nuclear power plant was named Calder Hall. A year later, a similar power plant was built in the USA in the town of Shippingport. Its power was 69 MW and at that time it was the most powerful nuclear power plant.

Naturally, like any other work of human hands, the development of nuclear energy could not do without accidents. Let's look at the most famous of them.

Three most famous nuclear power plant accidents

Trimal Island Nuclear Power Plant Accident

This incident is the most major disaster at nuclear facilities in the United States. On March 28, 1979, more than half of the core of the second reactor melted. This led to the release of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere, and the local river was contaminated with water containing radioactive elements. Due to the accident, about 200,000 people living in the danger zone were evacuated.

Accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant

As a result powerful earthquake On March 11, 2011, the reactor cooling system in the first unit of the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant was shut down in Japan. This led to a fuel melt and explosion. The result was the emergence of a ten-kilometer exclusion zone around the plant and a revision of energy policy by the Japanese government

Accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

The largest disaster to date at a nuclear power plant occurred on April 26, 1986 at Chernobyl nuclear power plant. As a result of the destruction of part of the reactor core at power unit No. 4, more than 8 tons of radioactive fuel were released into the air. The area within a radius of thirty kilometers was contaminated with radiation, and total area The area that experienced the consequences of this accident exceeded 160 thousand km2.

From the above short list disasters, it is clear that nuclear power plants can pose a serious danger. So why do they not only continue to be used, but also why is there a constant increase in the number of countries wishing to build a nuclear power plant on their territory? There are several reasons for this.

The main advantages of nuclear energy

Nuclear power plants are environmentally friendly. They do not emit into the atmosphere harmful substances(if, of course, they work in normal mode) how thermal stations and do not burn oxygen. For their construction there is no need to flood a huge territory, which is a necessary condition during the construction of a hydroelectric power station. True, there are two problems: nuclear power plants have a high level of thermal pollution and disposal of spent fuel is necessary. And if the first problem can be solved by using the generated heat in the economy, then the reprocessing of spent fuel for reactors still remains challenging task.

The cost of nuclear energy is relatively low and is little subject to price fluctuations. If hydrocarbon prices are constantly changing, then the price of fuel for nuclear power plants is more stable.

Fuel for nuclear power plants has a very small volume, especially compared to coal power plants, which makes it possible to build nuclear power plants without regard to the availability of raw materials. What is even more important is that the explored reserves of uranium ores are still very far from being fully depleted, unlike, for example, oil and gas reserves.

The most powerful nuclear power plants in the world

There are now almost two hundred nuclear power plants operating in the world. Their geography is quite extensive - there are nuclear power plants in 31 countries. Let's take a closer look at the largest nuclear power plants. Here are the top five nuclear power plants installed capacity.

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa (Japan)

This power plant has seven boiling water reactors (of which two are improved). Its power is 7965 MW. After the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, it was decommissioned, but returned to operation in 2012.

Zaporozhye (Ukraine)

This power plant is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Its six reactors can generate power of 6,000 MW.

Hanul (South Korea)

It is one of the pair of largest nuclear power plants in South Korea. It has six operating and two reactors under construction. The power of the commissioned reactors is 5881 megawatts.

Hanbit (South Korea)

The power of the six pressurized water reactors at the Hanbit power station is 5875 MW. Until 2013, this station was called Yongwan, but due to requests from local fishermen, it received a new name, since many buyers associated the caught fish with nuclear energy.

Nord (France)

This power plant is located in the canton of Gravelines. It is the most powerful nuclear power plant in France, and its capacity is 5460 MW.

What about Russia? What place does nuclear energy occupy in its home country? There are currently 10 nuclear power plants in operation in Russia, producing 18% of all electricity generated in the country. The share of nuclear energy in the overall energy balance is not very large, which is understandable given the country’s rich hydrocarbon reserves and huge hydro potential.

It is quite difficult to determine the most powerful nuclear power plant in Russia - four nuclear power plants have four reactors, each of which has a capacity of 1000 megawatts. These are Balakovo, Leningrad, Kursk and Kalinin nuclear power plants. Therefore, to determine the largest nuclear power plant in Russian Federation it is necessary to resort to an additional indicator - generated electricity per year. According to this indicator, the title of “the largest nuclear power plant in Russia” belongs to the Balakovo NPP - it produces more than 30 billion kWh per year. The same power plant also occupies an honorable tenth place in the world ranking of the most powerful nuclear power plants.

Due to the ever-decreasing reserves of hydrocarbon raw materials and the high cost alternative energy, nuclear energy has all the prerequisites to take a leading position in the issue of providing humanity with electricity. Unless, of course, a breakthrough in the field of controlled thermonuclear reactions is achieved in the near future.

Nuclear energy is one of the most developing areas of industry, which is dictated by constant growth consumed electricity. Many countries have their own sources of energy production using “peaceful atoms”.

Map of nuclear power plants in Russia (RF)

Russia is included in this number. The history of Russian nuclear power plants begins back in 1948, when the inventor of the Soviet atomic bomb I.V. Kurchatov initiated the design of the first nuclear power plant on the territory of what was then Soviet Union. Nuclear power plants in Russia originate from the construction of the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, which became not only the first in Russia, but the first nuclear power plant in the world.

Russia is a unique country that has full-cycle nuclear energy technology, which means all stages, from ore mining to the final production of electricity. At the same time, thanks to its large territories, Russia has a sufficient supply of uranium, both in the form of the earth’s interior and in the form of weapons equipment.

Currently nuclear power plants in Russia includes 10 operating facilities that provide a capacity of 27 GW (GigaWatt), which is approximately 18% of the country's energy mix. Modern development technology makes it possible to make nuclear power plants in Russia environmentally friendly, despite the fact that the use of nuclear energy is the most dangerous production from the point of view of industrial safety.

The map of nuclear power plants (NPPs) of Russia includes not only operating stations, but also under construction, of which there are about 10. At the same time, those under construction include not only full-fledged nuclear power plants, but also promising developments in the form of creating a floating nuclear power plant, which is characterized by mobility.

The list of nuclear power plants in Russia is as follows:

Current state nuclear energy in Russia allows us to talk about the presence of great potential, which in the foreseeable future can be realized in the creation and design of new types of reactors that make it possible to generate large volumes of energy at lower costs.

And the dramatic events at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant caused serious damage to the development of nuclear energy throughout the world. Through the efforts of means mass media a strong belief has been created about the inevitable danger of any power plant with a nuclear power plant.

But, according to many scientists, worthy alternative there is no need for electricity yet, and, for example, Balakovo - the largest nuclear power plant in Russia - poses no more of a threat than any other industrial facility of a similar scale.

Operating principle of nuclear power plants

All largest power plants, operating on nuclear fuel, have a similar principle of operation. To produce electricity, heat is used, which is generated under controlled chain reaction fission of nuclear fuel - mainly This process is carried out in a nuclear reactor - the “heart” of a nuclear power plant.

Next, hot steam is prepared, which drives the turbines of electric generators. Depending on the design, these can be rotors used in power plants of all types or built taking into account the specifics of installations operating on nuclear fuel.

Reactor types

There are several types of reactors, which differ in the fuel, coolant passing through the core, and the moderator needed to control the chain reaction.

Reactors that use ordinary, “light” water as a process fluid have proven to be the most economical and productive. By design, they come in two main types:

• RBMK is a high-power channel reactor. In it, the steam that rotates the turbines is prepared directly in the core, which is why such an object is called boiling. This was the reactor of the fourth power unit in Chernobyl; a similar type of installation is used, for example, by the Kursk station, the largest nuclear power plant in Russia.
• VVER - pressurized water power reactor. This is a system of two sealed circuits: in the first - radioactive - water circulates directly through the reactor core, absorbing heat from the nuclear fission chain reaction, in the second - steam is generated, which is supplied to the turbines of electric generators. Such reactors are used in the most powerful Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in Europe, and another largest nuclear power plant in Russia, Balakovo, operates on them.

The second type of reactor is gas-cooled, where graphite is used to control processes (EGP-6 reactor at the Bilibino NPP). The third one uses fuel in the form of natural uranium and with “heavy water” - deuterium oxide - as a coolant and moderator. The fourth - RN - fast neutron reactor.

The first nuclear power plants

First experiment using nuclear reactor for the production of electricity was carried out in the USA, at the Idaho National Laboratory, in 1951. The reactor operated at a power sufficient to illuminate four 200-watt electric lamps. After some time, the installation began to provide electricity to the entire building where the scientific research at a nuclear reactor. It was connected to the power grid after 4 years, and the city of Arco, located near the laboratory, became the first in the world to be provided with electricity using a nuclear power plant.

But the world's first industrial nuclear power plant is a nuclear power plant launched in the summer of 1954 in the Kaluga region of the USSR and immediately connected to the network. This is where Russian nuclear energy originates. The power of the Obninsk nuclear power plant was small - only 5 MW. Three years later, in the Tomsk region, in the city of Seversk, the first stage of the Siberian nuclear power plant was put into operation, subsequently producing 600 MW. The reactor installed there was intended to produce weapons-grade plutonium, and the electrical and thermal energy were by-product. Today the reactors at these stations are shut down.

Nuclear power plant on the territory of the former USSR

Since the late 1950s and early 1960s, the USSR began intensive construction of such power plants in different regions of the country. The list of nuclear power plants in Russia and the union republics includes 17 similar structures, 7 of which remain outside the current Russian Federation:

• Armenian, near the city of Metsamor. It has two power units with a total capacity of 440 MW. After the Spitak earthquake of 1988, which the nuclear power plant withstood without serious accidents thanks to the seismic resistance built into the design, a decision was made to shut it down. However, later, due to the high demand for electricity, the government of the republic decided to launch the second power unit in 1995. Despite the fact that this happened taking into account increased requirements for technological and environmental safety, the European Union insists on its conservation.
• in the north-east of Lithuania operated from 1983 to 2009 and was closed at the request of the European Union.
• Zaporozhye, the most powerful nuclear power plant in Europe, is located on the shore of the Kakhovka reservoir, in the city of Energodar, built in 1978. It consists of 6 VVER-1000 power units, producing a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity - about 40 billion kWh per year. It fully complies with the standards International agency on Atomic Energy (IAEA).
• Rivne, near the city of Kuznetsovsk in the Rivne region of Ukraine. It has 4 VVER power units with a total capacity of 2835 MW. Received a high rating from the IAEA based on the results of a safety audit.
• Khmelnitskaya, near the city of Neteshyn, near the Gorini river in Ukraine. 2 VVER-1000 are involved.
• Yuzhno-Ukrainskaya, located on the banks of the Southern Bug in the Nikolaev region of Ukraine. 3 VVER-1000 power units provide 96% of the electricity needs of the south of Ukraine.
• Chernobyl, near the city of Pripyat, became the site of the largest man-made disaster year. The last of the four RBMK-1000 power units was shut down in 2000.

The share of electricity generated at nuclear power plants in the total energy balance of the largest nuclear power plants, hydroelectric power plants, and thermal power plants in Russia is about 18%. This is significantly less than, for example, the leader in nuclear power energy industry- France, where this figure is 75%. According to the energy strategy adopted by the government, for the period until 2030 it is planned to increase this ratio to 20-30% and increase electricity production using nuclear fuel power units by 4 times.

Nuclear energy in Russia

How many nuclear power plants are there in Russia today? There are 10 power plants operating in our country, comprising 35 power units of various types (there are about 100 such units in operation in the USA). The most widespread in our country are pressurized water reactors (VVER) - 18 in total. Of these, 12 are with a capacity of 1000 MW, another 6 are 440 MW. There are also 15 boiling channel reactors in operation: 11 RBMK-1000 and 4 EGP-6.

Which nuclear power plant is the largest in Russia

At the moment, in the Rosenergoatom system there is no clear leader among nuclear power plants in terms of capacity and contribution to the overall balance of the country. There are 2 complexes where the same number (4) of the same type of VVER-1000 reactors are used. These are the Balakovo and Kalinin nuclear power plants. Each of them has a total capacity of 4000 MW. The same power is included in the Kursk and Leningrad power plants, which each use 4 RBMK-1000 power units. At the same time, the most powerful nuclear power plant in the world - the Japanese Kashiwazaki-Kariwa - has 7 power units with a total capacity of 8212 MW.

The concentration of energy enterprises of this type in has led to the fact that they are playing vital role in providing electricity to the central regions of the country. In the center of Russia, and especially in the north-west, the share of nuclear power plants in the energy balance reaches 40%.

6 other Russian nuclear power plants

The Kola power plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Russia, makes its contribution to the Russian energy sector. northern territories, operating two thousand-megawatt power units. The introduction of new capacities continues at the Novovoronezh NPP, where new, improved VVER-1200 power units are being used. Beloyarsk NPP in Sverdlovsk region can be considered an experimental site for Russian nuclear scientists. It uses several types of power units, including fast neutron reactors. The Bilibino station is located in Chukotka, supplying this region with the necessary heat.

The question of which nuclear power plant is the largest in Russia may again become relevant when new power units are commissioned at the Rostov station, of which there are currently three, and their capacity is 3,100 MW. Smolenskaya, which operates on RBMK reactors, has the same power.

Prospects

The industry development program takes into account how many nuclear power plants need to be built in Russia, how many power units need to be reconstructed and put into operation in order to improve energy supply. This is especially true for the regions of the North, Siberia and Far East. Most of the oil and gas production enterprises, which still form the basis of the Russian economy, are located there.

One of the most promising directions, which the Russian nuclear energy industry has, is the creation of floating nuclear thermal power plants. These are transportable power units low power(up to 70 MW) based on fast neutron reactors of the KLT-40 type. Such mobile structures can provide the most inaccessible areas with electricity, industrial and domestic heat, and even fresh water. Commissioning of the first floating nuclear power plant "Mikhail Lomonosov" is planned in the coming years.

10. Wintersburg

Located in Arizona, USA. The largest nuclear power plant in the USA (occupies 16 km²). The enterprise generates energy for the needs of more than 4 million people. The maximum possible power is 3,942 MW.

9. Ohi

Located in Japan, Fukui.The station's 4 reactors are designed for a power of 4,494 MW.

8. Bruce County

Located in Canada, Ontario. Includes 8 reactors with a total capacity of 4,693 MW.

7. Cattenom

Region: France, Lorraine. Despite the small area of ​​the facility, it has a capacity of 5,200 MW.

6. Paluel

Region: France, Upper Normandy. The station provides work to the entire population of a small Norman village. The permissible power of the nuclear power plant is 5,320 MW.

5. Nord

Region: France, Gravelines. The largest nuclear facility in France. The enterprise's capacity is 5,460 MW.

4. Yeonggwang

Located in South Korea. It began operation in 1986, and now the maximum power of the station is 5,875 MW.

3. Zaporozhye NPP

Located in Ukraine, Zaporozhye. This unique, largest nuclear facility in Europe consists of 6 reactors producing power within 6,000 MW.

2. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa

Region: Japan. A modern nuclear power plant, which includes 5 unique BWR class reactors and 2 ABWR class reactors. The facility's capacity limit is 7,965 MW.

1. Fukushima I and II

Until recently, the total nuclear power plant capacity was 8,814 MW (world leader). After natural disasters(earthquake and tsunami), 4 of 6 reactors received significant damage.