The. Biggest takeaway for me is that we have hard proof that any unusable waste products can be stabilized for at least a billion years! With processed SNF leaving waste that is around 300 years until equaling the mine they came from, I’d say that’s an acceptable safety factor!
There was no understanding of the existence of nuclear fission or radioactive decay in the 19th century or before. The view in the 19th century was that the Earth was simply radiating stored heat out of the planet's core. This prompted Lord Kelvin to calculate the age of the Earth as 20 million to 400 million years old, based on the rate of heat radiation out of the ground to atmosphere. Most of the earth's heat comes as we now know from the radioactive decay of uranium in the planet's liquid metal core. Lack of such radioactive decay is most of the reason why Mars does NOT have a liquid core and no seismic activity but is entirely a dead planet. Kelvin similarly argued that the Sun was simply radiating stored heat, and he argued for a lifespan of just a few hundred million years rather than the billions of years that we now know it to be.
William Thompson 1st Baron Kelvin, made many great contributions to science, particularly in the fields of thermodynamics and atmospheric physics. But his rejection of Rontgen's discovery of XRays, his rejection of the engineering of heavier-than-air flight, and his insistence that the Earth had only a 400 year supply of oxygen were proved very wrong within his lifetime. Ernest Rutherford's discovery of radiation and the basic structure of the atom would refute much of Kelvin's reliance on classical physics.
So what was discovered at Oklo was hard evidence that nuclear forces were indeed a very large part of our planet's formation and remain such today.
Not so. There is no possible fission reaction of uranium except in the presence of a moderator. There was a moderator at Oklo in the form of salt-saturated water. There is no moderator in our planet's core. Please do not confuse radioactive decay from nuclear fission; they are two entirely different processes.
What does exist is a huge mass of uranium, producing energy from radioactive decay. And given the enormous half-life of U-238, this source of radiation will continue long after the disappearance of all life on our planet about 400 million years from now.
You perhaps should have explained that U-235 has a relatively short half-life (700 million years), so natural uranium contained more readily fissionable uranium back when Oklo was active.
Thanks - very interesting.
The. Biggest takeaway for me is that we have hard proof that any unusable waste products can be stabilized for at least a billion years! With processed SNF leaving waste that is around 300 years until equaling the mine they came from, I’d say that’s an acceptable safety factor!
Great story. “Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.” - Juvenal
There was no understanding of the existence of nuclear fission or radioactive decay in the 19th century or before. The view in the 19th century was that the Earth was simply radiating stored heat out of the planet's core. This prompted Lord Kelvin to calculate the age of the Earth as 20 million to 400 million years old, based on the rate of heat radiation out of the ground to atmosphere. Most of the earth's heat comes as we now know from the radioactive decay of uranium in the planet's liquid metal core. Lack of such radioactive decay is most of the reason why Mars does NOT have a liquid core and no seismic activity but is entirely a dead planet. Kelvin similarly argued that the Sun was simply radiating stored heat, and he argued for a lifespan of just a few hundred million years rather than the billions of years that we now know it to be.
William Thompson 1st Baron Kelvin, made many great contributions to science, particularly in the fields of thermodynamics and atmospheric physics. But his rejection of Rontgen's discovery of XRays, his rejection of the engineering of heavier-than-air flight, and his insistence that the Earth had only a 400 year supply of oxygen were proved very wrong within his lifetime. Ernest Rutherford's discovery of radiation and the basic structure of the atom would refute much of Kelvin's reliance on classical physics.
So what was discovered at Oklo was hard evidence that nuclear forces were indeed a very large part of our planet's formation and remain such today.
Note: Geothermal power also comes from nuclear fission. The Earth is a huge reactor whose containment is the Earth's crust.
Not so. There is no possible fission reaction of uranium except in the presence of a moderator. There was a moderator at Oklo in the form of salt-saturated water. There is no moderator in our planet's core. Please do not confuse radioactive decay from nuclear fission; they are two entirely different processes.
What does exist is a huge mass of uranium, producing energy from radioactive decay. And given the enormous half-life of U-238, this source of radiation will continue long after the disappearance of all life on our planet about 400 million years from now.
You perhaps should have explained that U-235 has a relatively short half-life (700 million years), so natural uranium contained more readily fissionable uranium back when Oklo was active.