Ewa reactor
Poland's first research nuclear reactor
The EWA Reactor was Poland's first research nuclear reactor. The name of the reactor is an acronym derived from the first letters of the Polish words: Eksperymentalny (Experimental), Wodny (Water), and Atomowy (Atomic).
The image of the reactor was placed on the reverse side of the 20,000 Polish złoty banknote. On the front of the banknote, there is an image of Maria Skłodowska-Curie, a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in 1903.
History
The reactor was activated on June 14, 1958, in the Instytut Badań Jądrowych (Institute of Nuclear Research) (Currently the Instytut Energii Atomowej [Atomic Energy Institute] ) in Otwock near Warsaw. In February 1995, the reactor was shut down due to the wear of individual components and materials. The decommissioning process began in 1997. By 2002, the nuclear fuel and high-level substances had been removed, and the reactor was dismantled.
Ewa was based on the Soviet VVR-S design, had an initial power of 2 MW, was fueled by enriched uranium, and moderated by pressurized water.
“Ewa reactor” enters the record as poland's first research nuclear reactor. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what reactor, Poland's and first can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 30, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q1438102. Authority coordinates are 52.123, 21.344. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1903, 1958, 1995 and 1997.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ewa reactor” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.