What is the different between a light water and a heavy water nuclear reactor?

Hazelwood

Seem Canada is using heavy water reactor and the US is using light water. what is the different between them in the following area?1. construction cost2. running cost 3. maturity of the technology4. safety5. effiecncy6. any other...



Galena

As they say in the South Park movie "Blame it on Canada". Heavy water is a stronger absorber of neutrons than is light water. So the heavy water reactor would use less material than the light water reactor, and might initially cost less to build. Then there is a tradeoff in the cost of providing heavy water vs light water (nearly free). The technology are both mature; in fact, the realization that the Nazis were interested in nuclear bombs was due to their vitality at a heavy water plant introduce Norway, which was subseqently destroyed.



West Elizabeth

light water or standard pure water was Chemically = H20.Heavy water chemically was = H202.(All the "2"s should be written as subscripts, slightly below the base line.) (Two parts of Hydrogen, and two parts of Oxygen for heavy water).