Sometimes I do some STRANGE research… I was intrigued about the idea of Natural Nuclear Reactors… So I did a bit more searching. I found Three interesting articles on the subject… All the research suggests that the reactors were putting out about 100 kWatts each for about 150 million years. What would happen is that the reaction would go on for about 30 minutes until the water turned to steam, and then it would cool down for about 90 minutes and water would seep back in… And the process would start again.

The reaction was started when the yield of the important part of uranium arriving in France was much lower than it should have been in one batch. The percentage is the same throughout the world… But in this case there was a lot less U235 than expected, and the french were wondering if terrorists had worked out some new way of extracting it as it was transported. Then they worked out that the reaction had taken place 1.7 billion years before. Interesting…

On another subject, one of my friends posted a link on a small mailing list about the banking system in Australia and how monies are credited and debited. It is really interesting to look at the legal basis for transfers, and how the systems fit together. The issue is of risk in case of collapse of an institution… and when over $100 billion goes through the system each day this is an important issue. The reason for this is that if a bank becomes insolvent then all transactions since mid-night are reversable. And this is a big concern. So systems have been set up to reduce this liability significantly. It is interesting, although too detailed in parts…