Word: thermal
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...study of the Enrico Fermi Plant near Detroit. In 1966, the Fermi reactor was disabled by an accident that released no radiation, and it is still closed. According to the study, if all the radioactive material contained in the Fermi plant were blown into the air during a thermal inversion, 67,000 people could die of radiation poisoning. Even if only 1% of the radiation were released, there would be 210 fatalities. In 1957, when reactors used less fuel, an AEC study also considered the worst that might happen. In that case, it was assumed that a small unshielded reactor...
...Along with radiation, critics of the reactor program are alarmed about the effects of thermal pollution on marine life. The problem is that nuclear plants use cool water from rivers and bays, then return it hot. All steam-generated plants require cooling water-as do many other basic industries-but reactors can use as much as 35% more water because they use heat less efficiently than plants fueled by coal or oil. Heat decreases the dissolved oxygen content in the water, makes existing pollutants more toxic, disturbs the reproduction cycle of fish and spurs the growth of noxious blue-green...
...electric or gas-turbine-powered autos. Increasingly, it will be seen that any kind of mass transportation, however powered, is more efficient than the family car. The Rand Corp.'s Stanley Greenfield, however, cynically argues that the revolt against the car may not take place until a thermal inversion, combined with a traffic jam out of Godard's Weekend, asphyxiates thousands on a freeway to nowhere. In addition, factories will have to be built as "closed systems," operated so that there is no waste; everything, in effect, that goes in one end must come out the other...
...what a boast! We are not even as far advanced as Belgium. Our steel production is so low. So few people are literate. But now our nation is all ardor: there is a fervent tide. Our nation is like an atom. After the atom's nuclear fission, the thermal energy released will be so formidable that we will be able to accomplish all that we now cannot do." That was Mao's call to accelerate the Great Leap Forward, which soon turned into a great lurch backward. China is only now beginning to recover from the chaos created...
Just in time for Christmas, President Nixon last week signed the Child Protection Act of 1969, a new law giving the Government the right to ban toys that pose "electrical, mechanical or thermal" hazards to youngsters. Now the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare will be able to banish from the market such presently available items as a blowgun that allows the darts to be inhaled, a soldering set that exposes a child to molten lead, a tot-sized cookstove generating heat up to 600"', an electric iron with inadequate grounding, a catapult device launching a bird with...