Word: reactor
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...REACTORS. British, Dutch and U.S. scientists spelled out almost to "do-it-yourself" simplicity the operations of their most advanced reactor designs. Chief among them: AEC's Brookhaven liquid-metal fuel reactor, powered by circulating molten solution of uranium in bismuth, in a "blanket" of thorium-bismuth compound (Th 3 Bi 5 ). The thorium breeds U-233, which is recycled as fuel, making fuel costs "negligible...
...visiting U.S. Senator Clinton P. Anderson, chairman of Congress' Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, observed: "Many things are not quite as secret as we thought." One prime example: for ten years, the U.S., Britain and Russia had independently (and secretly) measured the rate of neutron absorption by reactor fuels (U-235, U-233, plutonium); plotted on a graph at Geneva, each country's data produced precisely the same answer...
...most information, learned much at Geneva, especially about the Russians, who showed up as strong on theory, weaker on practical application. Calling for "regular" meetings in the future, the Russians announced they would supply their allies with the tools of peacetime atomics, including a 6,500 kw. reactor for Red China. The conference chairman, India's Homi Bhabha, was happiest about the lack of politics interfering with science. "There should be another conference," he said. "But let's wait three years. This will give time for some more really interesting information to accumulate...
...from the Nautilus. Westinghouse arrived at Geneva's trade fair with a big salesman's advantage. It was the only company in the world that could take orders for a well-tested reactor. Though Britain could show off great technological advances-and its businessmen drew most of the preconference attention-it was far from the production stage on any specific model. Westinghouse, as the firm that built the power plant for the atomic submarine Nautilus, could boast of two years of practical experience with working reactors...
...product it put up for sale was a 10,000-kw. package plant (big enough to power a town of about 15,000 population), with parts that could be boxed and flown anywhere in the world for reassembly. It is a "pressurized water'' reactor plant, i.e., ordinary water under high pressure is used both to control the reactor and to produce steam to turn the turbine that generates the electricity, and similar to the 60,000-kw. plant that Westinghouse is building for Duquesne Light Co. at Shippingport, Pa. The price: $4,000,000, if Westinghouse gets...