The top layer contains hundreds of control channels through which pressurized water is pumped.
It is the AP 1000 reactor, a pressurized water reactor, sold by Westinghouse Electric Co.
Finland is using a new breed of pressurized water reactor that is being built by a German-French consortium for around three billion euros.
The 825-megawatt pressurized water reactor at Three Mile Island, about 10 miles outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has been in service since 1974 and can power about 800, 000 homes.
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Each of the 65-foot-tall, 640-ton generators -- built by Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries -- are packed with thousands of narrow tubes that carry hot, pressurized water from the reactors.
Japan's ANA, for instance, is outfitting its new 787 fleet with gender-segregated bathrooms that have windows and bidet-toilets ("Washlets") that offer warm, pressurized water jets for a fresher clean than one-ply paper.
In this process, after a well is drilled, pressurized water is injected into the well to fracture the shale and open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well.
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The pressurized water reactor plant is currently supplying 60 megawatts to the Iranian power grid, but will produce a whopping 1, 000 megawatts when operating at full capacity, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Shale gas is natural gas that is trapped inside shale rock and is extracted by using a technology called hydraulic fracturing, where highly pressurized water mixed with sand and chemicals is used to crack open rocks.
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When pressurized water is fed over such an intersection, the pressure pushes down the thin layer of rubber, separating it from the fluid below, and it clamps shut the fluid channel below, like stepping on a hose.
The pressurized-water design was a quick-and-dirty solution that we have been stuck with ever since.
That track record is especially impressive in light of the fact that D-5 missiles are designed to be ejected into the air by pressurized steam from submerged vessels, and only ignite once they are clear of the water.
Executives have been pressing officials in China to include GE's advanced boiling-water reactors in their next five-year economic plan (China uses the pressurized reactors championed by perennial GE rival Westinghouse, now part of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd.).
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