system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How does a nuclear power plant work?
gpt
The same way most other power plants work; heat is used to boil water into steam and drive a turbine which turns a generator, making electricity. The only major difference is that instead of burning coal or something to make the heat, a nuclear pile is used.

Nuclear fuel is full of unstable atoms which will spontaneously break apart and release energy in the form of radiation and heat. When they break apart they can throw bits of themselves into other nearby atoms, causing them to break apart in turn. So if you cram them closer together the reaction rate speeds up. Moderating this speed of reaction allows the power plant to in essence dial in their desired level of heat, and they do this with "control rods" which are made of a material which is capable of absorbing neutrons (those bits that fly off to knock the other atoms into decaying themselves).