Oklo: Natural Nuclear Reactors

[Mr. Analog]

What would you say if I told you that 2 billion years ago there was a nuclear fission reactor operating in Africa? Ok, now I'm sure you're thinking that I've been reading too much L. Ron Hubbard, but it's true. Way back in 1972 French physicist Francis Perrin discovered something very strange in Africa, a large deposit of Uranium 235 at Oklo contained only half as much isotope as normal in the U-235 samples, in fact the only other samples of U-235 that were similar all came out of contemporary man-made fission reactors. He concluded that a nuclear reactor had naturally formed and was producing something like 100 kilowatts for about 150,000 years.

Well, you don't have to take my word for it, but you can read about it at the U.S. Department of Energy's fact sheet site for the Oklo Natural Nuclear Reactors:
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml

Pretty wacky eh?

[Lazybones]

That's crazy..

[Tom]

You should see the thread on this forum. A few of them work with nuclear energy, and therefore know a bit about it. Of course the thread went straight into a "nuclear energy is bad!!!!111````oneoneone" argument, but hey.

[Mr. Analog]

You should see the thread on this forum. A few of them work with nuclear energy, and therefore know a bit about it. Of course the thread went straight into a "nuclear energy is bad!!!!111````oneoneone" argument, but hey.

LOL, if you really want to piss them off say we should just switch to burning cattle! (there's a train in Sweden that travels at 2.5 miles per cow. Seriously!).