Nuclear power across the Solway

You can see Chapelcross power station from Wigton. It used to have cooling towers but they were blown up a few years ago. It was an early nuclear power station. Natural unenriched uranium was used. A neutron splits one nucleus of uranium-235. The split releases particles with a lot of kinetic energy. In other words, these fragments move around. Now think: when you heat something up, the particles move around more. So if the fission process splitting the nucleus makes particles move around more, they must have a higher temperature. Pressurised carbon dioxide gas was blown over the hot fuel. The heat energy went into the CO2. This then heated water in separate pipes by ,means of a heat exchanger. The water turned into steam which turned a turbine and thus a generator. Each fission releases more neutrons which hit more nuclei in a chain reaction. Slow neutrons split nuclei of uranium-235 more easily so graphite was used to slow the neutrons. The graphite here is referred to as a moderator.