Word: reactor
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...become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power would be generated." He was present at the University of Chicago's secrecy-shrouded squash court under the Stagg Field stands when the first nuclear reactor went critical on Dec. 2, 1942. He was responsible for the design of the great plutonium reactors at Hanford, Wash...
...fallout from an atom bomb. Millions of people live within a few miles of Con Ed's projected installation. To reduce this danger to a minimum, the plant proposed for the Borough of Queens, on New York's East River, will have fantastically elaborate safeguards. The reactor core will be housed in a pressure shell of steel 121 in. thick, weighing 627 tons. It will be fitted with numerous devices to shut it down instantly if anything goes wrong. Above the reactor are reservoirs of water doped with a "poison" that stops a chain reaction by absorbing neutrons...
Fact & Fission. Nuclear power plants are also growing bigger. Six years ago, the first commercial reactor at Shippingport, Pa., generated 60,000 kw. Last week Niagara Mohawk Power announced that it will build a 500,000-kw. plant in upstate New York for $100 million. New York City's Consolidated Edison plans a 1,000,000-kw. plant in Queens. Among others: > Pacific Gas & Electric's on Bodega Head, Calif. (325,000 kw.), due for 1966 completion at a $61 million cost...
Electrical companies can build on this scale because they are pooling more power over longer interconnecting lines. At the same time, the AEC has encouraged experimentation on reactors that would be bigger and better than current ones that use water to transfer their heat. General Dynamics is working on a reactor that transfers its heat by gases; North American Aviation is experimenting with a sodium-graphite reactor; Babcock & Wilcox is developing a heavy-water reactor...
When Giants Battle. At present, the sales field is dominated by General Electric and Westinghouse, both pushing their own types of water reactors in a competition that one engineer says "is reducing costs faster than scientists ever could." Westinghouse holds an edge in the U.S. market: it won the last three contracts (for Connecticut Yankee and the two Los Angeles plants), and has an inside track on Con Ed's New York plant, for which it did the design research. The two companies are knocking heads over Jersey Central's reactor; for General Electric's prestige, that...