Reactor Types
How every major nuclear reactor design works - from the world-dominant PWR to experimental fast breeders and the quest for fusion.
The world's most common reactor type. Uses water under high pressure as both coolant and moderator, keeping it liquid above 100ยฐC.
Water boils directly inside the reactor vessel, sending steam straight to the turbines - a simpler single-loop design.
The Soviet graphite-moderated channel reactor - infamous for Chernobyl. Has a dangerous positive void coefficient that made it unstable at low power.
Uses heavy water (DโO) as both moderator and coolant, allowing it to run on natural uranium - no enrichment needed.
Britain's second-generation graphite reactor, cooled by COโ gas. Runs at higher temperatures than PWRs - but all are now being decommissioned.
Uses fast neutrons with no moderator - and "breeds" more fissile fuel than it consumes by converting uranium-238 into plutonium-239.
Next-generation compact reactors under 300 MW - factory-built, modular, and designed for rapid deployment. The future of nuclear.
The holy grail of clean energy - fusing hydrogen isotopes as the Sun does, releasing enormous energy with no long-lived radioactive waste.