Word: cockcroft
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Back from a one-week official visit to Russia, Sir John Cockcroft, in charge of research for Britain's Atomic Energy Authority, reported that the Russians are working hard on the problem of controlled fusion. He estimated that the situation is about "level pegging" between the Russians on one side, the British and Americans on the other. The Russians have an experimental machine which is virtually the twin of Britain's famous Zeta. But they built it in six months, while Britain needed two years. They have also constructed a "mirror machine," a U.S. specialty which is another...
Three Doughnuts. Britain's ZETA (Zero-Energy Thermonuclear Assembly), which was shown last week by Sir John Cockcroft at Harwell atomic laboratory, looks like three 10-ft. doughnuts laced together like links of a chain. The central horizontal torus (scientific word for a doughnut shape) is a ring-shaped aluminum vacuum chamber with a 39-in. bore. The two vertical doughnuts linked into it are the iron cores of a transformer. When a small amount of deuterium gas is fed into the evacuated torus and a heavy electric current is shot through the transformer, an even heavier current (this...
...question is whether these neutrons really come from the fusion of deuterium into helium 3. Powerful electrical discharges can give "false neutrons." formed in other and less important ways, but Scientist Cockcroft is "90% certain" that at least some of ZETA's neutrons come from a thermonuclear reaction. Dr. Thonemann of Harwell does not want to commit himself definitely. U.S. scientists are not sure either. Dr. James Tuck, head of the Los Alamos group, wants to learn more before he makes positive statements...
...even as much energy as it consumes. All sorts of thorny practical problems will have to be solved before thermonuclear energy flows through practical wires. No one wants to predict definitely how long it will take. "It couldn't possibly be less than ten years," says Sir John Cockcroft. "It might be as long as 50. Twenty plus is about the most reasonable guess...
...Cockcroft also stated that the United States' nuclear power plants will not be producing a comparable percentage of our electrical energy needs until 1975. He explained that power from American coal and oil reserves will remain economically competitive with nuclear power for another 15 years...