Word: reactor
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...first of the day's two great demonstrations of atomic progress (the second: announcement of a breeder reactor-see SCIENCE), the explosion at Yucca Flat was caused by the most powerful A-bomb ever set off in the U.S. With an estimated explosive force of 40,000 tons of T.N.T., the bomb produced an initial flash of unusual length (more than five seconds), which suggested that U.S. scientists had either changed the fissionable materials used or had discovered a new and probably more efficient method of detonation...
Atomic energy has passed a new and important milestone. Last week Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Gordon Dean told an Atlantic City meeting that the AEC's "breeder reactor" at arco. Idaho has been pronounced successful: The development multiplies by more than the energy-producing potential of the world's uranium. An analogy spelled out by Dean explained what atomic breeding...
...nonfissionable U-238. But when U-235 fissions (splits in two) and produces heat, it also yields free neutrons. Some of these are needed to keep the reaction going; they make other U-235 atoms split. Some neutrons escape or are absorbed by structural materials in the reactor. The rest of the neutrons enter the nuclei of U-238 atoms and make them turn into plutonium, which is just as fissionable as U-235 and can be used as atomic fuel...
Like Britain's Cumberland station, North American's plant will also be able to produce atomic fuel, i.e., plutonium. But its main purpose will be the study of practical production of electric power. Liquid metal (probably sodium) circulating through the reactor will absorb the tremendous heat generated by atomic fission. Piped through a water boiler, the superheated metal will produce steam. The steam, in turn, will drive a conventional turbogenerator...
...changing nuclear energy into electric power has long been known. The trick is to do the job economically. A single pound of U-235 fuel contains as much potential energy as 2,600,000 lbs. of coal. The U-235 fuel is expensive, and to use it in a reactor requires a critical mass, enough to generate a chain reaction. Providing the critical mass is much the same as stockpiling the potential power in 10 million tons of coal before a single shovelful is used...