Transmutation, reactors and reactions - amazing stuff

 

In 1956 Paul Kazuo, in a published academic paper, proposed that it was possible for the Earth itself to create a natural nuclear reactor and to sustain its reactions. Given that humans had only discovered nuclear fission was possible in 1939 and then managed to design the very first nuclear reactor in 1942 that claim must have seemed downright outrageous.  How could the earth manage the required conditions to make a running nuclear reactor?    Well, surprisingly it did.  A French physicist Francis Perrin in 1972 found 17 sites at the Oklo mines in Gabon, West Africa where the earth made its own nuclear reactor.  It happened 1.7 billion years ago and the reactor ran for 300,000 years.  Mind-blowing isn’t it?

In order to have the conditions for a nuclear reactor to take place you need a concentration of uranium U235 of more than 3%.  The average amount of this isotope found today in the environment is usually 0.72% so those conditions are very rare.  But 1.7 billion years ago, the perfect conditions were found in Oklo, West Africa to produce a concentration of 3.1%.  A moderator to slow down neutrons produced was required and fortunately there was a water source present.  If there had been boron or lithium they would have stopped the reaction but fortunately they were both absent from this particular geographical area.  It is thought that oxygen, which was required, was contributed by aerobic oxygen from bacteria. There needed to be a uranium layer 1 metre thick, which Oklo had and as the fission reaction took place it generated heat.  This heat gradually boiled away the available water which stopped the reaction.  Then after cooling, water would return and the reaction started again. In three hours, one whole cycle would be completed but imagine this cycle successfully repeating itself for 300,000 years!  Eventually with time the fissile material concentration was reduced so that it could no longer sustain a chain reaction.  

All of this is pretty amazing and Paul Kazuo’s predictions turned out to be completely verified.  It helps to understand a bit of the chemistry and physics behind this world we live in.  The periodic table contains all the elements or atoms that exist.  From the lightest Hydrogen which has just one proton and one electron to very heavy atoms like one of the heaviest uranium with 92 protons, 92 electrons and 143 neutrons.  As you go up the periodic table the atoms get fatter!  They gain neutrons and protons deep inside the nucleus. The neutrons have no charge but they do add weight. Radioactive decay comes from deep inside the nucleus and involves a change in the number of neutrons or protons due to instability in their neutron/proton ratio.  This instability means they will decay. All elements with atomic numbers greater than 83 have unstable nuclei and are radioactive. As a radioactive element tries to stabilize, it may transform into a new element in a process called transmutation. I just want to emphasis here that nuclear reactions involve changing the fundamental nature of the element you started with.  This transformation happens right at the heart of the atom and when you have nuclear fission you divide the atom nucleus creating two smaller lighter nuclei along with a lot of neutrons, alpha particles, gamma radiation and electrons from deep inside the nucleus.

The story could end there but this planet is more mysterious than we suspected.  It keeps surprising scientists regularly.  It has now been proposed that georeactors could (earth’s natural reactors) exist deep beneath us where the earth’s mantle meets its metalcore.  It is thought such reactors burn uranium and produce plutonium with other products such as helium and xenon.  This would explain the confusing ratios of such gases found in volcanic magma.  

Radioactive decay of unstable isotopes of heavy metals such as uranium contribute to the heat of the earth’s mantle and help to create convection currents in the mantle rock that power the drift of the tectonic plates at the surface of the earth causing mountain ranges and earthquakes.  Nuclear fission reactors deep below us could release an immense amount of heat and it is thought that radioactive decay provides over 50% of the earth's total heat.  It has long been known that the earth is radiating much more heat than it should (45TW, where a TW is unit of power equal to one million million (1012) watts).

But how do we find out if this proposed explanation is true?  Well, fortunately when nuclear reactions take place neutrinos and antineutrinos are released.  These particles pass right through the earth easily.  In Japan there is Kamioka Liquid Scintillator Antineutrino Detector (KamLAND).  It is an underground neutrino detection facility situated in a drift mine shaft in the Japanese Alps. Kamland is surrounded by Japanese commercial nuclear reactors and is, therefore, able to measure antineutrinos from these reactors.  When The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, the largest single nuclear power station in the world, was completely shut down for 21 months following an earthquake in 2007 it allowed the KamLAND to monitor antineutrinos that might be coming from deep beneath the earth’s mantle.  It did find evidence of antineutrinos from deep in the earth’s mantle.  

The jury is still out on exactly what is going on but this earth is an amazing place that we need to have so much respect for.  It somehow strikes me as an important metaphor that transmutation (the change in the nucleus of the atom) powers the earth's tectonic plates producing earthquakes and volcanoes that shape our physical world.  Perhaps our inner spiritual transmutation should achieve changes in our world’s society of equally epic dimensions.

“..every atom in the universe possesses or reflects all the virtues of life”

Abdu’l Bahá

warmth and freckles

The sun massages muscles 

easing tightness

The very bones begin to melt

Losing the rigidity of stress

Body sinks into the oblivion of heat

Nothing here to fear

Relaxes out of its foetal position

Stretches out limbs to seek the sun

Light hugs the contours of the skin

Which tingles in delight

At all this attention and exposure

After a winter hidden

Beneath the woollens and layers

Within one week the cosiness of socks

Have become an obscene encumbrance

It seems to happen so suddenly

This winter summer transition 

in two more weeks I shall hunt out the shade

But now in this excitement of sudden summer heat

I soak up the rays that cook the skin

and generate both warmth and freckles 

in equal abundance.

It's hotting up, our lives matter

In August 2003 there was an extraordinary loss of life that occurred in the heart of Europe that seems to have been overlooked by many.  In these days of terrorism, mass shootings and Ebola quiet deaths are just not news.  So when 70,000 people died during the month of August it barely made a ripple abroad.  It was caused by an unusual heat wave and the deaths were mostly elderly.  France alone lost 15,000.  The temperatures rose into the 40s and stayed there for days.  Strangely, even the nights were hot and with so many without air conditioners the elderly were particularly vulnerable.  Social isolation and fragmented families meant that there were just too few to care or notice.  From the 4^th – 14^th August France suffered its longest sequence of hot days on record.  The extent of the human toll was first detected by undertakers, who were being overwhelmed with unclaimed bodies. In Paris, some of the corpses had to be kept in a warehouse outside the city when mortuaries were full.  By the heat wave’s end it became clear that the nation had some soul searching to do.  It was made worse by the fact that bodies, in large numbers, remained unclaimed for burial.  

Given that global warming should contribute to more, not less, of these unusual extreme conditions we have all much to reflect on. Dehydration, hyperthermia and heat stroke fuelling cardiac and respiratory diseases claimed many lives.  The elderly were the vulnerable section of society that bore the brunt of deaths. A disheartening discovery was that one of four victims had no family, friends, or even a single social link.  Such stark isolation along with a lack of national policy of how to deal with such extreme conditions meant the deaths took everyone by surprise.  Shame was also felt by the nation as a whole.  If we judge our society by how it treats the young, the old and the ill then this tragic event highlighted deep problems.  In this electronic age of world wide communication, instant messages, Facebook and Skype it seems, in reality, people are often more isolated than every before.  Loneliness and isolation can actually kill.  How we live as a society can either contribute to our wellbeing or lead to us dying alone and unnoticed.

Lessons must be learned.  Heat waves have happened before in other places.  Chicago had a heat wave in the summer of 1995 and fatalities were mostly from the poorest and most vulnerable African American community.  One community that bucked the trend was the equally poor Hispanic population.  This community is thought to have better survival rates due to its unity and cohesion.  In July 2010 Russia lost a third of their wheat harvest in fires due to a heat wave reaching temperatures of 44 degrees.  By the end of that month 56,000 Russians had died.  

Climate change is happening and its costs are already being felt by life on this planet.  Society is wasting time on wars and battles that are using resources that should be put in place to save lives not end them.  This is one planet and we are one race, the human race.  Each life lost diminishes us.  How we choose to live will effect who and how many will die.  As a society we need to make wise informed choices and learn to build cohesive communities, as if our lives depended on it.  Because they do!

Saving tiny birds one day at a time

Visited my elderly neighbour Joyce a few doors down from our old home yesterday in Coleraine.  Our house was a rotten wreck invested with wood worm and had a capacity to be much colder inside than the ambient temperature outside.  But our neighbours were universally lovely.  When we moved in we were greeted by one who brought flowers, chocolates and a massive bowl of fruit.  Joyce two doors down would appear at Easter, Christmas etc with one of her home baked cakes, those heavenly concoctions that only six decades of practice can produce.  I remember when my husband had a bypass operation in London and we had to fly over together, she sent a lovely note to my youngest son, left alone in the house, saying if he was lonely or hungry to call with her.  I really thank God for such people they make the world around them so much sweeter. 

You’ll not find them on the front page of your newspaper, or interviewed in a Jeremy Kyle show, or in your local court building, she will not create litter or vandalise your street, so you will probably never get to meet Joyce but be heartened that she exists.  I had obviously visited a little too early, half ten in the morning, but she welcomed me in with nice cup of coffee and slice of cake.  All with one hand.  It took me some time to notice that all the time we were talking a tiny bird was being held in one of her hands.  When I drew attention to the bird, she said it had flown into her kitchen window and stunned itself.  So she was holding it in her hand in the hope that the warmth of her hand would help revive it.  Sure enough the tiny bird began to become more lively and open and close its beak.  They say the best cure for shock in people is talking and warmth.  So Joyce was providing both to this tiny package of life.  After ten minutes the bird was much livelier and Joyce took it outside to see if it could fly.  Who does such things?  Who would share their human warmth with a tiny stunned bird.  Well, I hope you, like me, are strangely uplifted that Joyce certainly does!