Word: reactor
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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...
Core & Blanket. Zuckert did not explain what he meant by a "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...
...spent metal that remains when U-235 is extracted from natural uranium to make atom bombs. Through both blanket and core circulates a sodium-potassium alloy that is liquid at ordinary temperatures. This coolant carries away the heat of the nuclear reaction. The fluid metal leaves the reactor at 660° F., and produces enough steam to generate 250 kw. of power...
Four years ago, the U.S. Navy began toying with a design for an aircraft carrier of unprecedented range, to be powered by an atomic engine. Last week the Atomic Energy Commission gave the plan a bright green light, contracted with Westinghouse Electric to build an atomic reactor "suitable for propulsion of large naval vessels, such as aircraft carriers...
...gaseous-diffusion plants, such as the new one in the Ohio Valley, may be used to make "enriched" uranium. Natural uranium contains only .7% of the fissionable isotope U-235. When it is used as fuel in a nuclear reactor it behaves rather sluggishly; the reactor, whether intended for plutonium production or as a source of energy, must be made very large. But uranium that has been enriched by removal of part of its nonfissionable U-238 is a livelier substance; it will work in smaller reactors, which will yield more energy and plutonium for their size...