Editing Boiling water reactor (section)

=== Steam turbines ===
Steam produced in the reactor core passes through steam separators and dryer plates above the core and then directly to the [[turbine]], which is part of the reactor circuit. Because the water around the core of a reactor is always contaminated with traces of [[radionuclide]]s due to neutron capture from the water, the turbine must be shielded during normal operation, and radiological protection must be provided during maintenance. The increased cost related to operation and maintenance of a BWR tends to balance the savings due to the simpler design and greater [[thermal efficiency]] of a BWR when compared with a PWR. Most of the radioactivity in the water is very short-lived (mostly N-16, with a 7-second [[half-life]]), so the turbine hall can be entered soon after the reactor is shut down.

BWR steam turbines employ a high-pressure turbine designed to handle saturated steam, and multiple low-pressure turbines. The high-pressure turbine receives steam directly from the reactor. Some of the High-pressure turbine exhaust is sent to the Moisture Separator Reheaters (MSR) and some is sent to the feedwater heaters. This moisture separator reheater employs a group of chevrons to remove entrained moisture from the steam. The steam is then superheated to over 400 degrees F (204.4 degrees Celsius) for the low-pressure turbines to use. The exhaust of the low-pressure turbines is sent to the main condenser. The moisture separator reheaters take some of the high pressure turbine's steam, and some of the reactor's steam, and use it as a heating source to reheat what comes out of the high-pressure turbine exhaust. While the reheaters take steam away from the turbine and reactor, the net result is that the reheaters improve the thermodynamic efficiency of the plant.