Word: reactor
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...Administration and Congress neared a compromise in the fight over construction of a fast-breeder reactor at Clinch River, Tenn. The attraction of the fast-breeder is that it produces more fuel in the form of plutonium than it uses. But President Carter fears that some of the plutonium could find its way into unfriendly hands and increase the danger of atomic-weapons proliferation. The Administration also considers the project too costly for current needs. The likely compromise: if Congress abandons the Clinch River project, as Carter wants, the Administration will agree to bankroll another, more advanced, large demonstration breeder...
Instead, U.S. experts believe, the Russians needed a relatively large reactor to power a high-frequency radar carried aboard the satellite. The Soviets are thought to be trying to develop a radar sharp enough to detect changes in the pattern of plankton life near the oceans' surfaces. Such alterations are caused by the wake of deep-running subs, and thus could betray the presence of the previously untrackable U.S. nuclear deterrent...
...little difficulty that Brzezinski so soothingly soft-pedaled was the fiery return to earth of Cosmos 954-a Soviet spy-in-the-sky satellite carrying a nuclear reactor to power its ocean-scanning radar and radio circuitry. The craft crashed into the atmosphere over a remote Canadian wilderness area last week, apparently emitting strong radiation. American space scientists admitted that if the satellite had failed one pass later in its decaying orbit, it would have plunged toward earth near New York City-at the height of the morning rush hour...
...nuclear package on board Cosmos 954 was itself not a total mystery to U.S. intelligence. The U.S. has long used similar power sources in space. The Cosmos 954 reactor included 110 Ibs. of highly enriched uranium 235. This is a long-lived fuel whose "half-life"-the time it takes for half the material to lose its radioactivity-is an astonishing 713 million years...
...Canadian Defense Staff, confused matters by announcing that the high radiation reading had not been confirmed by other aircraft and might, in fact, have been the result of a malfunction in the measuring equipment. "It is unlikely there is anything on the ground," he said about the Soviet reactor. That was puzzling, since the chief of the crew manning the equipment on the original sniffer plane was a U.S. Air Force specialist who is a highly respected nuclear physicist and unlikely to be confused by false sensor readings. Were the Canadians and Americans trying to bluff the Russians into thinking...