Abstract
First Nuclear Reactor in Oklo. Earth’s first heat-producing nuclear reactor was accomplished without the assistance of humans. It produced 100 kW for 150,000 years, 1.8 billion years ago in Oklo, Gabon. The residue of fission fragments in the soil and the reduction in 235U content from 0.7 to 0.4 % proves the hypothesis. This happened without cooling pumps, fuel-rods and emergency-core-cooling systems. This natural thermal reactor operated merely because a good, rich deposit of uranium was concentrated in a watery estuary. Natural-uranium at that time was 4 % 235U, before it decayed to today’s 0.7 %. Water was needed to place uranium into solution, carry it downstream and concentrate it the estuary basin. This multi-step process concentrated the moderately rare uranium into a robust uranium ore. Water also slowed (moderated) high-energy fission neutrons to low velocities, to enhance the probability to fission. A reactor needs only a good concentration of fissionable materials (235U, 233U, 239Pu) in a reasonable geometry, with a moderator (H2O, D2O, graphite). No nuclear engineers were needed for the Oklo nuclear reactor.
The ingenuity of our scientists will provide special safe conditions under which such a bank of fissionable material can be made essentially immune to surprise seizure.
[President Dwight Eisenhower, UN Atoms for Peace Speech, 8 December 1953]
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Notes
- 1.
Hollister and Nadis (1998).
- 2.
- 3.
NuScale Power, Corvallis Oregon.
- 4.
The two atomic bombs dropped on Japan had quite different characteristics.
Hiroshima at 1000 m, gamma ray dose = neutron dose = 3 gray.
Nagasaki at 1000 m, gamma ray dose = 10 gray, neutron dose = 1 gray.
Peterson and Abrahamson (1998).
- 5.
Rate of decay:
1 curie (radiation from 1 g of radium) = 1 Ci = 3.7 × 1010 decay/s.
1 bequerel (SI) = 1 Bq = 1 decay/s.
Absorbed energy in air:
1 roentgen = 1 R = 87 ergs/g = 0.0087 J/kg.
Physical dose of absorbed energy:
1 rad = 100 erg/g = 0.01 J/kg.
1 gray (SI) = 1 Gy = 1 J/kg = 100 rad.
Biological dose equivalent is absorbed dose times a relative biological effectiveness Q.
X-rays, γ-rays, and electrons have Q = 1, neutrons have Q = 5–20 and alpha particles and fission fragments have Q = 20.
1 Roentgen equivalent man (rem) = 0.01 J/kg.
1 sievert (SI) = 1 Sv = 1 J/kg = 100 rem.
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Hafemeister, D. (2016). Nuclear Reactors and Radiation. In: Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism in the Post-9/11 World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25367-1_3
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