Word: aec
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...critical point of U.S. foreign policy. The point: the President's decision, effective since midnight Oct. 31, to suspend all U.S. nuclear tests for one year, and to continue suspension if there was a prospect of reaching a workable stop-test agreement with the Russians at Geneva. The AEC's great concern: test stoppage without foolproof safeguards might undermine the U.S. nuclear power that had kept the world's peace since...
...excited AEC spokesman compared SNAP III to the discovery of gasoline as a source of power. Scientists were more restrained. SNAP III is an impressive achievement, they point out, but it is an application of an old principle. It merely converts the energy coming from polonium to its lowest form, heat-the standard process in any atomic power plant-and the production of electricity from heat (by means of thermocouples) is a familiar process. The conversion of nuclear radiation directly into electricity -an exciting possibility that is being vigorously explored in many laboratories -is yet to come...
...stations listened attentively during October while the AEC made underground tests in faraway Nevada. The rock waves came through all right, but not quite as strongly as had been anticipated. At distances above 700 miles, only explosions of more than 20 kilotons could be identified clearly as manmade. To sum up, said the panel, the 180-station detection system might be confronted by 1,500, not 100, natural seismic shocks a year that could not be distinguished from an underground test explosion. This number would presumably overburden the checking system as presently outlined...
...AEC and Congress have long been at odds over how far and how fast the Government should go in pushing atomic power. The AEC felt that the U.S. should go slow, wait for private enterprise to take the initiative in building commercial plants. Many Congressmen felt that the Government had to take the lead, offer fat subsidies to get large-scale commercial atomic power going now. Last week a special committee of businessmen and engineers appointed by new AEC Chairman John A. McCone to advise him suggested a solution. The Government would pay a major part of the costs...
...million would be required, with the Government's share around $150 million to $200 million, the rest coming from industry. Against this, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy had proposed $250 million to $275 million. The difference could be partly met by switching money already in the AEC budget. But Washington guessed that if AEC Chairman McCone vigorously pursues the advice he solicited, he will have to fight with the Budget Bureau for more civilian reactor funds...