Word: plutonium
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...atomic energy. He noted that eight utility and chemical companies had been participating in the AEC program for more than six months to explore the feasibility of power production from atomic energy. All were intensely interested in the fact that nuclear reactors could, theoretically, produce power while producing plutonium for weapons...
Most estimates of the cost of atomic power, said Zuckert, have been based on the amount of plutonium that is produced, along with energy, when Uranium-235 is "burned" in a reactor. The operation can be made profitable for a power company if the Government will buy the plutonium at a high enough price and stockpile it for atomic weapons. Now, said Zuckert, "we may hit upon the development of power at competitive cost from non-plutonium-producing reactors . . . The strides that engineers and scientists are making are so great that 'power only' reactors may be nearer than...
...power only" reactor, but in the current issue of Nucleonics, Dr. W. H. Zinn, director of the AEC's Argonne National Laboratory, described the experimental "breeder" reactor built and operated by the University of Chicago at Arco, Idaho. It produces "power only" by burning its own byproduct, plutonium...
More important is what happens in the blanket of U-238. The fissioning U-235 in the core sends out a dense flux of highspeed neutrons. They are absorbed by the blanket, turning some of its U-238 into plutonium. Since this is also fissionable, it can be extracted chemically and used as fuel in the heat-giving core...
...Burning Plutonium. The purpose of the Arco breeder is to "breed" more plutonium than is needed to replace the U-235 that it consumes. Dr. Zinn did not say so directly, but his and Commissioner Zuckert's optimism suggests that it can be done. If so, the "power only" reactors of the future can burn all of their uranium, not merely the .7% that is naturally fissionable. There will be no need for the Government to buy their plutonium; it will be burned too. If uranium gets scarce, the "fertile blanket" can be made of thorium, which neutrons turn...