Word: plutonium
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Communist takeover of all Asia, shaking hitherto staunch anti-Communists in their resolve-and giving other nations nuclear ideas. Thanks mostly to technology supplied by the U.S., a dozen or more countries-among them Egypt, Israel, India, Japan, West Germany and Mexico-possess reactors capable of producing uranium or plutonium. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission estimates that nowadays, for an investment of $50 million, a country can establish enough plutonium production to manufacture one crude weapon a year. Communist China's example, as President Johnson puts it, "tempts other states to equal folly...
...taken them 14 years, cost them more than $200 million and the talents of 1,800 scientists and engineers - all of which were badly needed elsewhere in China's near-starvation economy. Western experts believe the blast was fueled by plutonium and was slightly smaller than that of the 20-kiloton bombs that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 19 years...
Apparently the Chinese do not presently have the ability to produce large amounts of plutonium, the bomb's fissionable material. Some experts even speculated that yesterday's test device may have nearly exhausted their present supply...
...offer. The U.S. and Russia, he said, were both cutting back on the production of nuclear-arms materials. "Simultaneously with my announcement now," said Johnson, "Chairman Khrushchev is releasing a statement in Moscow." Khrushchev did, promising that the Soviets would stop construction of two new atomic reactors for plutonium production. In turn, the U.S. is cutting plutonium production by 20% and enriched uranium production by 40%. But President Johnson warned: "This is not disarmament. This is not a declaration of peace...
...fact, the U.S. decided months ago to proceed unilaterally on a plan for mothballing but not dismantling four plutonium reactors, all about ten years old. Still, by the end of this year, the Atomic Energy Commission will activate a new production reactor at Hanford Works, Wash., able to turn out one ton of plutonium (which costs $15,000 per lb.) a year-about as much as three of the older reactors could produce together...