2 Billion Year Old Nuclear Reactors Found In Africa

NASA ^ | 9/12/10 | NASA

[Dallas59]

Oklo: Ancient African Nuclear Reactors

Explanation: The remnants of nuclear reactors nearly two billion years old were found in the 1970s in Africa. These reactors are thought to have occurred naturally. No natural reactors exist today, as the relative density of fissile uranium has now decayed below that needed for a sustainable reaction. Pictured above is Fossil Reactor 15, located in Oklo, Gabon. Uranium oxide remains are visible as the yellowish rock. Oklo by-products are being used today to probe the stability of the fundamental constants over cosmological time and distance scales and to develop more effective means for disposing of human-manufactured nuclear waste.

[Erasmus]

One of my favorite Massachussetts jokes:

Do you know that they recently had a Governor who was named after a city in that state?

It’s true. “Athol.”

[happygrl]

That’s the charging station for their cell phone.

[JoeProBono]

[garbanzo]

A watt is the SI (standard scientific unit system) measure of power dissipation, that is, energy dissipated per unit time. 100kW is 100 kilowatts (100 000 watts) of power produced by the reactor, dissipated as heat.

[Straight Vermonter]

Ping

[Cvengr]

I suspect the meaning intended was for 100kW-hr as a measure of quantity of heat generated naturally by the system.

Energy, quantity of heat, and Work are all expressed in units of Joules (N.m) in the SI system,

Power or Radiant Flux is measured in units of Watts (W) = J/s in the SI system.

[dglang]

I was born and raised in Chicago. I moved out to the burbs shortly after getting out fo the Army, and then to Florida in 1992.

Chicago was already well on it’s downward slide long before then. Even during the 60’s, the hch school I was attending had almost 90% black students coming in.

That school (Harrison Tech)was once among the better schools in the city among it’s graduates was Arthur Goldberg (Supreme Court Justice) and Benny Goodman (Jazz Clarinetist).

During 1964, Benny came back for the school’s 50th anniversity and played in a concert at the school with the band. I was in the band at that time. Today, that beautiful high school is closed down and the building is now occupied by a middle school.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I sorta surprised the black nationalists types haven’t appropriated this as evidence of the superiority of African technology.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Didn’t the Soviets try this inadvertently at Chelyabinsk-40? ;)

[colorado tanker]

The result of Lord Xenu's handiwork:

[redgolum]

Interesting.

[MHGinTN]

You carry ots? ... I been lookin’ for a few of them.

[Vaquero]

?????????

???

ots?

Over the shoulder????

[MHGinTN]

A pun on a type of bacterium

[Docbarleypop]

You make my brain cry! I like the small car engine comparison better!

[buckrodgers]

I saw this same thing maybe 10 years ago in a science magazine . The legislators in Vermont think a small tritium leak in VT Yankee is bad . I wonder how Three Mile Island would stack up against this type of nature radiation hazard ?
Ah it is Bush’s fault !