Word: strontium
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Large atomic power plants will contain so much radioactive material that a blow-up would be a major disaster, causing serious damage over thousands of square miles. By 2000, figured the committee, the earth's reactors will contain so much strontium 90 (a cancer-causing radioisotope which deposits in the bones) that the dispersal of 1% of it would seriously contaminate the entire earth...
...support of his proposal, Murray placed a heavy stress on the fallout of radioactive strontium from thermonuclear explosions. He said that such particles would continue to settle down on the earth for years after an explosion, that they might enter the food supply and kill those who ate the food. He believes this danger has been inaccurately minimized in official public statements. He believes that for the U.S. there was no prudent alternative to the construction of the present terrible weapons. Yet if the peoples of the world, including those of the U.S., understood how terrible these weapons are, their...
...there could be long-range effects harder to guard against. One substance found in nuclear fallout is strontium-go, which, when taken into the body in dangerous amounts, causes deterioration of the bones. Its effects could reach people years after the blast, if it fell on soil where food later was grown for animals used for milk or meat...
...battery's strength (one millionth of a watt) is hardly one fly-power, and ninety-nine percent of the energy from the Strontium 90 is still wasted. But the battery is strong enough to work a transistor. RCA believes that its strength can be increased enough to make the battery useful. The Strontium 90 is durable; it loses only half of its power in 20 years...
Other atomic batteries have already found jobs. For two years, Radiation Research Corp. of West Palm Beach has been producing small quantities of "At-bee" batteries for radiation-detection instruments. The Atbee produces a smaller current at a higher voltage. It also gets its power from Strontium 90, and its producers say that its efficiency is the same. Unlike the RCAmen, they think it will be a long time before atomic batteries are used by the public...