The 2-Billion-Year-Old Natural Fission Reactors in Gabon, Western Africa

[n2doc]

By Evelyn Mervine | Jul 13, 2011 07:00 AM | 20

Two billion years ago— eons before humans developed the first commercial nuclear power plants in the 1950s— seventeen natural nuclear fission reactors operated in what is today known as Gabon in Western Africa . The energy produced by these natural nuclear reactors was modest. The average power output of the Gabon reactors was about 100 kilowatts, which would power about 1,000 lightbulbs. As a comparison, commercial pressurized boiling water reactor nuclear power plants produce about 1,000 megawatts, which would power about ten million lightbulbs.


Despite their modest power output, the Gabon nuclear reactors are remarkable because they spontaneously began operating around two billion years ago, and they continued to operate in a stable manner for up to one million years. Further, at the Gabon reactors many of the radioactive products of the nuclear fission have been safely contained for two billion years, providing evidence that long-term geologic storage of nuclear waste is feasible.

The possibility that natural nuclear reactors may have operated on the ancient Earth was first hypothesized by scientists in the 1950s, when commercial nuclear reactors were first being developed and becoming popular. Notably, in a 1956 paper Paul Kuroda theorized the conditions under which nuclear fission could spontaneously develop and be sustained.

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http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=natures-nuclear-reactors-the-two-bi-2011-07-13

[BeFree]

1. The pre-Pyramid builders had nuke plants?

And they buried the waste in Gabon? Who knew?

[somone]

2. Kuroda's one-pager is a classic:

http://nuclearplanet.com/Kuroda%201956.pdf

[eppur_se_muova]

3. DUgle "Gabon reactor" in E/E and you'll get a few hits ...

going back to 2004, at least.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor

I remember seeing this article back when it was first published -- "A Natural Fission Reactor" by George A. Cowan in Scientific American, July 1976. (Pages 36 - 47) (Hey, this is close to the 35th anniversary!)

[bananas]

4. Natural Nuclear Reactor Explosion

Here's a reply I made to one of those posts back in 2006:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=228&topic_id=25515&mesg_id=25516

1. Natural Nuclear Reactor Explosion.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Those natural fusion reactors are notoriously unstable.

OK, most of them don't blow up, but the ones that do can wipe out half a galaxy ...

[Igel]

5. "Oklo fossil reactor" is how I presented it to some Earth Science high school students. n/t

[jul61252]

7. interesting..