The single natural fission nuclear reactor discovered until the date
The own nature has created at least one fision nuclear reactor. A nuclear reactor who is feed only with uranium, water and oxygen that one type of algae (actually they are not algae, they are photosynthetic bacterias) produces.The place where this event was discovered is Oklo, in Bangimbé, Gabón (in the occidental equatorial Africa), in the uranium mine of Francenville. And it has switched on by itself about 1.700 million years ago.Nowadays, Oklo’s reactor is gone, but on the year that it was discovered (may, 1972), it showed that fision reaction had been invented long time ago. An excess of oxigen had been produced by the algae in a river. The excess oxygen from the river had infiltred across the porous land under it. This oxygen had been disolving the uranium from the bedrock and year after year it was disappearing. The water that was infiltrating was valatile, this efect helped the uranium to concentrate in the same place at the end of this concentration, the uranium had got it’s critical mass.
The geologist that discovered this place had awoked that the uranium from that place were too worned. But the reason for that in Africa there are not huge craters is that when the uranium started to heat up, the water arround it started to evaporate, this steam ocludded tre porous land and watter stopped to fall. About 150 minutes later the uranium had got colder and steam had disaopeared so water would start to fall again. This cycle had had consumed 6 tonnes in 150.000 years.
Let me explain the situation. Only one tonne of uranium can produce the same that 16.000 tonnes of coal and 80.000 tonnes of petrol, about 40 million killowat. But loots of this energy has been wasted.
The reason for that in our time this natural reactors had disappeared is that the fisionable uranium (uranium-235) has a life expentancy of 713 million years, and the earth is about 4.500 million years old. This kind of uranium, formed about a 33% of all the fisionable uranium in the begining of the earth, but nowadays it´s onli a 0.7% of it, a insuficient cuantitie for a natural fision reaccion. Now people is trying to extract and concentrate the uranium for make an artificial reaction.
Xián Pérez Pérez