Word: aec
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...word is go. Or, as AEC Chairman James R. Schlesinger put it, "The Atomic Energy Commission is now planning to proceed with the Cannikin test. We have received the requisite authority to go, including detonation...
Since tests in the atmosphere were banned by international treaty, the new warhead would have to be tested underground. The choice fell on one of the world's most remote islands-Amchitka, near the end of Alaska's Aleutian chain-where AEC officials dug a shaft more than a mile deep, and proposed to lower the five-megaton Spartan warhead down to the bottom. All it cost was $200 million, and they anticipated no trouble...
...with Nixon's decision made, AEC Commissioner Schlesinger was firm: "The primary purposes of Cannikin are to proof-test the Spartan warhead . . . before large investment of funds is made on that component of the Safeguard system. Environmental damage has been exhaustively considered, and overriding requirements of national security have, of necessity, taken precedence...
Fallout in Canada. Reaction elsewhere was less businesslike. Alaska's Governor William Egan declared that responsibility for any harm done to the Aleutian Islands (which with Japan and California are situated on the Circum-Pacific Girdle of Fire) should be borne by the AEC and the President. The Canadian government expressed a "deep sense of disquiet" and, like Egan, held the Administration accountable for any aftereffects that might be caused by the explosion. Taking a more direct approach, a Canadian group chartered a minesweeper, Greenpeace, Too, and sailed from Vancouver for Amchitka, where they intended to anchor outside...
...commercial scale. One difficulty lies in handling the coolant-the liquid or gas used to transfer heat from inside the reactor's core to a steam-producing boiler outside. Unlike conventional reactors, which use water as a coolant, the so-called liquid-metal "fast breeders" planned by the AEC will use liquid sodium, which is an extremely efficient thermal conductor. But since sodium also burns in air and reacts strongly with water, it requires elaborate safeguards to prevent a mishap that could leak radioactive materials...