Oklo: Explaining the Mystery of a 2 Billion Year Old Nuclear Reactor

A nuclear reactor is considered the peak of modern engineering, but did you know that a reactor can occur naturally? And that one DID occur naturally in Africa over a2billion years ago?
In 1972, scientists studying samples from the Oklo Uranium mining facility in the Central African country of Gabon, noticed something odd. Natural Uranium deposits should be 99.27% U238 and 0.72% U235. But these samples had less U235 than expected. Some of the samples showed as little as 0.44%.
Further sampling showed that the uranium in the mine only contained on average 0.717% U235. This may sound like a small discrepancy, but that means that around 200 kg of U235 was missing from what should have been expected.
Join me as I explain what happened at the Oklo natural nuclear reactor!
I’m a nuclear engineer with over 20 years of experience operating, maintaining, and testing nuclear reactors. I want to demystify nuclear power and promote it as a solution to our vast energy needs in the modern world. Safety is the most important concern of an engineer and company culture is vital in maintaining the high standards of safety required for complex engineering projects.
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#nuclear #nuclearpower #atomic #engineering #science #stem #reactor #nuclearreactor #africa #gabon #uranium #fission #nature #natural #geology #oklo

[@martinlacouline2049]

I heard about that in college 25 years ago! I was talking about it to my brother just a week ago but i'm NOT a nuclear physicist at all, i didn't know how to explain it like you do, so he didn't really believe me! Thx i will send him the link right now! (i love the channel btw keep posting👍)

[@trishayamada807]

Truly fascinating! 🌟

[@daniforg]

I saw a lot of explaining vids, you do such a superior job of explaining, that I enjoyed this so much! Thanks and careful with them reactions out there lol… half life omg lol I’m glowing now…☢️🤢👻

[@irritatingaccount]

Stephen Baxter covers something like this in somewhere like Africa in his book, Space. Great read, and that segment of the book is... good. Poor Malenfant.

[@multicoloredwiz]

Insane that such a thing could have even come to be. Awesomen!

[@1over137]

BTW... Have you played Nucleares on Steam? Would make an interesting video (if you are permitted) to see how you play with the simulated reactor. (It's basically a "College level" PWR quite like TMI). There is no manual and they aren't actually allowed to give you one apparently.

[@AtomicAgeofReason]

I have not played that. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the idea.

[@1over137]

@@AtomicAgeofReason It's a very steep learning curve, though maybe not for you. I have made it through about 4 refueling cycles without major event, all audits passed. The most annoying thing is the pressurizer. Its just difficult to keep it balanced. Everything is fine for days and then pressurizer under pressure alarm or a transient steam alarm. The trouble seems to be how the game models wear and integrity of components/machines. If you let the pressurizer get out of tolerance once, it damages it slightly and it just won't retain balance from then on. You have to constantly switch the manual heaters in and out. Other than that, balancing the heat flow through the steam gens, turbines and condensor with the reactor "factor" is the hardest bit to work out as it can reach many different equilibriums, so unless you know that you just chase your tail and constantly drop out of steam, drying the steam gens or flooding them.

[@Heka41]

Something about this is kinda creepy.

[@martinlacouline2049]

(If you want an idea for a future video, explaining nuclear fusion would be much appreciated. It's really interesting, but I have a hard time understanding the whole thing)

[@AtomicAgeofReason]

Thank you for the idea. I'll add it to the list. I believe fusion could be our future and would love to help people understand how it works.

[@arpioisme]

Is that a batik tablecloth behind you?

[@AtomicAgeofReason]

It’s a blanket that has a Persian carpet-style print.

[@1over137]

Surely it doesn't need to be a sustained critical reaction, a pulsed, spartatic, infrequent sequence of small fissions would still make the daughters. Of course natural uranium under goes fission, why would it not? It's just that the 0.7% thing being the initiator of any means it is small and cant go critical at any mass. I am assuming all naturally occurring uranium has daughter isotopes or possibly 'activated' or heavier elements like Pu.

[@1over137]

Sorry. Correcting myself. It can go critical with the right moderator and shape.

[@AtomicAgeofReason]

So, Yes, uranium undergoes natural fission periodically. However, that is a predictable statistical property of the material. The thing here is that there was a LOT more of the fission products than should have been there indicating a significant amount of fissioning beyond what would be expected. Yes, it is possible for natural uranium to be used for sustained fission, but not with normal light water as a moderator. The CANDU reactors use heavy water as their moderator and use natural uranium as a fuel. It is not really possible for what we're talking about with a 'natural" reactor like at Oklo.