RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:FCU Deposit vs ArrowSome Arrow grades must be close to those required for a natural reactor?? Nope, unless one slows down the fast neutrons with something like heavy water and in the right configuration like in a CANDU reactor, you can not have a sustainable fission process. Although about 1 billion years ago, conditions were right for a 100 kilowatt natural reactor in Gabon. When the Earth was first formed, uranium-235 comprised more than 30% of uranium. The proportion of uranium-235 relative to uranium-238 has been changing because isotopes of uranium are radioactive and decay to other elements over time. However, uranium-238 decays at a much slower rate than uranium-235, so uranium-235 has become more and more depleted (relative to uranium-238) over the Earth’s 4.54 billion year history. Billions of years ago, the abundance of uranium-235 in uranium ore was high enough for a self-sustaining fission reaction to develop. That is not possible today.
Alternately though, if one enriches the U235 content over the U238 and put that in the right configuration, one can have a sustainable nucelar reaction in a PWR reactor, and if one enrichesU235 even more and put that in the right configuration one can make a bomb. A little nuclear physics oscarwilde wrote: TV, I recall that the CEO of Queensland Mines who mined the high grade depopsit at Nabalek in Northern Australia proudly had a piece of pure uraninite sitting on his office desk which he purported to be harmless because it was in an air conditioned room. He also had a picture of a gentleman sitting on an open drum of yellocake which, it was said, is harmless until some radium is produced by decay.
Well, the physics is extremely well know and the avoidance system is best managed at zero tolerance. Bottom line; 80% U3O8 is better than 79% U3O8.
Some Arrow grades must be close to those required for a natural reactor??