Word: reactors
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...chatter of cocktail parties, the scientists exchanged information, ideas and prognostications on the power for good that lies in a power associated for so long with war. Mostly it was the sound, detailed talk of scientists to scientists-facts about Russia's 5,000-kw. showpiece reactor (TIME, Aug. 15), U.S. uses of radio isotopes in medicine and industry, Britain's plans to begin making commercial atomic-power reactors...
...assure themselves of reactor fuel, the British are exploring the potential of thorium, an abundant metal once used in gaslamp mantles, as a replacement for uranium, which Britain must get at high cost from the U.S. While its atom cannot split like uranium, thorium can be converted by nuclear bombardment into fissionable U-233. In a breeder reactor seeded with plutonium or U-235, thorium could efficiently produce new fuel with compound interest. Moreover, the British announced, they are already operating a small, experimental "one-for-one" breeder reactor that produces one new neutron fuel for every neutron it consumes...
...cast, AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss disclosed what most scientists already knew: the U.S. (like Russia and Britain) has long been experimenting with fusion power on "a moderate scale." But, he added, H-power is a long-range project, and, barring an early, unforeseen "breakthrough," uranium will be the standard reactor fuel for some time to come...
...delegation made fusion seem even more tantalizing by releasing for the first time cost figures for fuel, for fusion and for fission. One pound of heavy hydrogen costs only $140; one pound of pure uranium 235, used as reactor fuel, costs a whopping $11,000. Most important, a fusion reactor's fuel supply is as inexhaustible as the oceans-in every gallon of water there is one part deuterium (heavy hydrogen) to 5,000 parts of light hydrogen, easily separated by electrolysis...
Main feature of the U.S. exhibit and hit of the show is the "swimming-pool reactor," a working research reactor set up on the lawn outside the palace. It is housed in a building that looks like a large, windowless Swiss chalet. Inside, from a black ceiling, beams of light slant down. On a red linoleum platform stands the reactor, a pool of crystal-clear water, faintly blue and 21 ft. deep, with control rods reaching into it. At the bottom, enveloped in blue luminescence, are the reacting uranium plates. Visitors can look down with perfect safety, and sense...