Word: reactors
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...complex problem of establishing the market values of new shares-even though the companies have no established value-to working out a novel method of financing freight cars or oil tankers. After being turned down by several banks, a group of utilities that wanted to finance an atomic reactor turned to Morgan; in a few days, the bank set up the plan to do the job. When General Electric asked Morgan Guaranty to buy up the shares of an affiliate abroad, the bank doggedly pursued one widow from city to city all over Europe until she finally sold her shares...
...Alamos' Omega West is a swimming-pool-type research reactor whose fuel rods are suspended under 25 ft. of water, which acts not only as coolant and moderator but also shields its human operators from radioactivity. In the spring of 1958, physicists peering down through it saw that the water was getting cloudy. They called Chemist-Bacteriologist Eric B. Fowler of the laboratory's radioactive-waste disposal group, who found that it was swarming with microorganisms, about i billion per quart. The bugs turned out to be rod-shaped bacteria of the genus Pseudomonas, which were feeding...
...fierce radiation in the reactor appeared to bother the bacteria hardly at all. When the reactor was shut down but still highly radioactive, they multiplied fast. Even when it was running full blast, they held their own. Since they normally divide every 20 minutes or so, this meant that radiation was killing only about as many as managed to live and divide. Just how much radiation the Pseudomonas got is hard to estimate, because the water circulates at varying distances from the core of the reactor, but Dr. Fowler thinks they may have absorbed more than 10 million rep (roentgen...
Since it cannot sustain a chain reaction itself, natural thorium is not classified as a nuclear fuel but as a "fertile" material. The thorium may be placed in a reactor fueled with uranium 235. Neutrons produced by the fissioning U-235 are run through a moderator made of graphite or heavy water, thus slowed from 10,000 miles a second to a modest one mile a second. Fast neutrons would bounce off or pass through the thorium, but at this speed neutrons are moving slowly enough to be captured by thorium 232 atoms, turning them into unstable thorium 233. When...
...fissioning U-233 produces more than enough neutrons to maintain the original chain reaction. If these extra neutrons are captured by thorium, the reactor will produce more U-233 fuel than it can use. The AEC thinks this breeding factor is the key to cheap nuclear power. If a breeding reactor such as the one being planned for Oak Ridge were to start operation in 1959, it could be expected to produce enough material to fuel a duplicate of itself...