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The Oklo region has now-exhausted Uranium deposits. From Wikipedia: "Some of the mined uranium was found to have a lower concentration of uranium-235 than exp
by b800h 1y ago
The Oklo region has now-exhausted Uranium deposits.
From Wikipedia:
"Some of the mined uranium was found to have a lower concentration of uranium-235 than expected, as if it had already been in a nuclear reactor. When geologists investigated they also found products typical of a reactor. They concluded that the deposit had been in a reactor: a natural nuclear fission reactor, around 1.8 to 1.7 billion years BP – in the Paleoproterozoic Era during Precambrian times, during the Statherian period – and continued for a few hundred thousand years, probably averaging less than 100 kW of thermal power during that time. At that time the natural uranium had a concentration of about 3% 235U and could have reached criticality with natural water as neutron moderator allowed by the special geometry of the deposit."
- jvanderbot 1y ago100 kW for a few hundred thousand years is basically the best sales pitch for nuclear power I've ever heard. Even of "just" heat output.
- Alupis 1y agoIts impressive the amount of clean, cheap energy that's been locked away because of fearmongering tales from well before many were even alive.
- cdaringe 1y agoIt is natural and reasonable to be of two minds on the matter. Surely that’s not controversial.
- jvanderbot 1y agoAll power generation has tradeoffs. I like nuclear because it can be small, tucked away, generate _lots_ of power, and has few day to day environmental risks. Spent fuel is an issue, but there's very likely a virtuous cycle that will evolve if we start ramping up nukes again. Dry cask storage is no big deal IMHO, and something will likely evolve that either can use spent fuel or can deal with it better.
- throw310822 1y agoCheap until it isn't. I wonder what has been the actual cost per kWh of nuclear power in Japan once factored in the price of Fukushima's disaster (between 200 and 600 billion dollars).
- linotype 1y agoMaybe don’t build a nuclear reactor near the ocean in a place famous for tsunamis?
- jvanderbot 1y agoAgree - there are places that maybe should consider other methods of power generation. Upper Midwest USA / Middle Canada? probably pretty darn safe.
- keepamovin 1y agoThe cost you cite sounds more like the cost of the earthquake and tsunami, rather than the Daiichi reactor meltdown cost. Even if it were, in the time limit safety increases, such costs decrease, more so with more development. More broadly, nuclear looks expensive not because it's unproductive — but because standard asset pricing discounts its most valuable feature: time. Dense, stable power for centuries gives a low net present value due to long-duration-use and high up front cost, but this more a flaw in how future value is discounted in common economic models that punish rather than reward long life.
- sokoloff 1y agoThat’s “just” a matter of the choice of discount rate, which needs to account for both inflation and uncertainty effects. (I’m pro-nuclear energy, but think the costs are indeed high and uncertainty is medium or high.) If you’re arguing the chosen discount rate is too high in some models, we can have a productive discussion about that. If you’re arguing the methodology is wrong, you’ll need to explain more before I understand your point of view, or perhaps you’ll be interested in lending me $1M today and I’ll pay you $100/day for the next 55 years, by which time you’ll have more than doubled your money.
- 1y ago