Word: reactors
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...Nuclear reactors can be made in many ways. Some look good on paper but turn out to be impractical in actual use. In its effort to develop low-cost nuclear power, the Atomic Energy Commission has long experimented at such places as Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, with new liquid reactor fuels-a low-melting alloy of U-233 and bismuth, a solution of uranyl sulfate, and others. But AEC soon discovered that the program was leading only to prohibitively expensive means of obtaining competitive electrical energy, and last week it announced a shift in emphasis: funds...
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...
...Nonsense." This jovial atmosphere cooled when Nixon & Co. were taken to visit the 16,000-ton Lenin, Russia's vaunted atomic icebreaker, and Vice Admiral Hyman Rickover asked to visit the ship's reactor room-only to be told that it was "closed" for the day. "Nonsense," snapped Atomic Expert Rickover, "the reactor room is never closed." From Nixon himself Rickover got the firm order: "You stay here an extra day if necessary, and say that it is our understanding that you see just as much as Kozlov...
...takes 20 tons of material a year to supply one airman or soldier and a little less for a civilian-up to 75% of it fuel. As the population of the North grows, the supply problem increases apace. The scientists may soon beat the problem with a nuclear reactor to provide heat and power for a year on one fueling. The first small portable reactor, now being built by Alco Products, Inc. at Dunkirk, N.Y. for the U.S. Army, is scheduled for installation in the Arctic next year. When it works, the Arctic frontier will indeed push...
Unless the triumphant Los Alamos men decide to give Kiwi-A a second full-power run, last week's test will probably be its finish. After a few days, when radioactivity dies down somewhat, the unshielded reactor will be hauled along a railroad track by a remote-controlled locomotive to a special MAD (Maintenance, Assembly and Disassembly) shop, where mechanical hands will take it apart. The condition of its still deadly interior parts (examined by periscope, TV, or through thick, transparent shields) will tell the Los Alamos men much about how to build nuclear rockets that actually...