What If: Nuclear Power Before Its Time

[BansheeOne]

Ever the fan of anachronistic tech scenarios, I've thought a couple of times about how early you could have had nuclear power. Yeah, I know nuclear fission was only discovered in 1938, and people didn't even know what a neutron was before 1932. You couldn't drop some refined uranium into heavy water on the off chance that something might happen either, because nobody knew the latter existed before 1931. Obviously nothing at all is gonna happen before Henri Becquerel and the Curies, but there was a general idea of "atomic energy" and all sort of tinkering (most of it hazardous to the health of the tinkerers and their "patients") going on once radioactivity was discovered.

 

So how do we get a crude nuclear reactor built without the proper theoretical basis? It will of course be trial and error, with a capital E in Error (though I don't think you're going to get a nuclear explosion any way you go about it). Come on, you have a chunk of metal that's warm to the touch - construct me a stove with it.

[sunday]

The most outstanding aspect in nuke power is that the nuke side of the reactor, at least in submarines was so well done at the first attempt that evolucion of the basic design has seen itself restricted to minor issues, such a longer recharging interval. I really have to grab a bio of Rickover.

 

Back to the tech fiction, I think the only feasible thing to do is a boiler using natural radioactive decay to heat water. So you'll need an isotope that decays mainly by alfa emission (and maybe, beta). Unfortunately, all the high energetic (in activity by mass) isotopes not occur in nature, so thatt's a non starter, as the other natural isotopes, Ra 226 included tend to be so strong a gamma emitter that handling of those is very unsafe. See all the cases of leukemia occurring among the first nuclear physicists.

[dpapp2]

As I am aware of it, you need either graphite moderation for natural uranium OR enriched uranium. And and adequately large lump of uranium. Pretty hard to find it out by accident.

[sunday]

Hmmm...

 

I forgot: the CANDU reactors uses natural uranium with heavy water as moderator. But I think the geometry of the reactor still requires some knowledge of nuclear physics, and there is the problem of reactivity control.

[DougRichards]

Quoting from

 

 

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200409312...trunc_sys.shtml

 

 

 

Natural Nuclear Reactor Shows Elegant Simplicity

Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have learnt some new tricks about operating a nuclear reactor from Mother Nature herself. Their research - appearing in Physical Review Letters - looked at the isotopic structure of noble gases produced from the only known natural nuclear fission chain reaction site in the world in Gabon, West Africa. It was known that the natural nuclear reactor operated two billion years ago for 150 million years at an average power of 100 kilowatts. The Washington University team solved the mystery of how the reactor worked and why it didn't blow up.....

[BansheeOne]

I thought of the natural reactors in Gabon and whether there was the uranium equivalent of "sweet" crude oil, i.e. with a higher-than-average portion of U-235. Obviously if enriched highly enough to go critical on its own, it will likely have depleted itself millions of years ago like at Oklo, but I gather local conditions were quite peculiar for that to happen. If there was sufficiently "hot" natural uranium to be moderated by light water, it would be a rather straightforward affair. I doubt that it exists though, or people would be all over it.

 

Without that, graphite appears to be the only available moderator before heavy water. What do we need for somebody to notice his uranium stocks heat up and make his hair fall out - storing them in graphite-lined water-filled cooking pots next to each other (probably nowhere enough thickness)? Testing the effects of radiation on various materials and surrounding a graphite block with uranium samples in a water bath? Drilling holes in a chunk of uranium to use it as a holder for graphite pencils?

[sunday]

I thought of the natural reactors in Gabon and whether there was the uranium equivalent of "sweet" crude oil, i.e. with a higher-than-average portion of U-235. Obviously if enriched highly enough to go critical on its own, it will likely have depleted itself millions of years ago like at Oklo, but I gather local conditions were quite peculiar for that to happen. If there was sufficiently "hot" natural uranium to be moderated by light water, it would be a rather straightforward affair. I doubt that it exists though, or people would be all over it.

 

Without that, graphite appears to be the only available moderator before heavy water. What do we need for somebody to notice his uranium stocks heat up and make his hair fall out - storing them in graphite-lined water-filled cooking pots next to each other (probably nowhere enough thickness)? Testing the effects of radiation on various materials and surrounding a graphite block with uranium samples in a water bath? Drilling holes in a chunk of uranium to use it as a holder for graphite pencils?

 

 

U-235 relative isotopical content is the same in all the uranium in the world, but that content varies as U-235 has a shorter half life than U-238 (linky). The rocks at Oklo contain a very high concentration of uranium. And at the times of the natural reactors, the percentage of U-235 was higher (but not only at Oklo).

[Guest JamesG123]

I think it could have been possible:

If there hadn't been a break down in western society's technological and knowledge progress post Roman empire.

If the Islamic world had maintained it ascendancy in math and science.

If some other culture had arisen that that placed an emphasis on some form of scientific curiosity, even if it were not "correct" to our way of thinking. Something like alchemy perhaps.

 

If the Earth had larger and more easily accessible radioactive deposits "we" might have caught on to atomic power much sooner, even if we didn't entirely know what we were dealing with. Analogous to early medicine.

[Gregory]

If the Earth had larger and more easily accessible radioactive deposits "we" might have caught on to atomic power much sooner, even if we didn't entirely know what we were dealing with. Analogous to early medicine.

And having a third arm would let you use stabilize muskets better...

[rmgill]

I think it could have been possible:

If there hadn't been a break down in western society's technological and knowledge progress post Roman empire.

 

I think this is key with regards to so many different things. the Romans seemed to have a knack for figuring out some pretty sticky chemistry that took what, more than a 1000 years to really rediscover in depth. If there were no fall of the western empire and no final fall of the eastern empire to the Turks, I expect we'd have been much further fowards now than we are.

[Guest JamesG123]

And having a third arm would let you use stabilize muskets better...

 

I was going to add; "Life would probably be more radiation tolerant as a result." But decided to leave an opening for the inevitable mutant joke.