Word: thorium
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Professor Wolfe believes that radioactive elements (e.g., uranium and thorium) in the deep rocks gradually release heat. Since rocks are poor heat conductors, the heat cannot easily escape. After millions of years, the temperature rises until a vast blister of hot, expanded rock has formed. If it works its way to the surface, or if cracks appear, the hot rock may liquefy and escape as a volcanic explosion or a quiet outflow of lava...
...Risky Business. But Bunker, who knows that uranium is often a risky business, is not betting all his money on it. His company has set up a separate department of industrial development to invest in a whole new series of strategic metals. Climax owns thorium deposits in Colo rado, wants to expand into large-scale production of such other vital metals as nickel, cobalt and manganese, all needed for U.S. strategic stockpiles...
...Thorium Breeder. The most radical of the reactors will be "homogeneous," i.e., its uranium, instead of being in the form of solid rods, will be a solution of uranye sulfate. Dr. Smyth did not say in what liquid its uranium will be dissolved. A fair guess is that it may be heavy water. Since the reactor will be a breeder, it must be economical of neutrons, and heavy water does not absorb as many neutrons as ordinary water does. Instead of breeding U-238 into plutonium, the excess neutrons from its reacting core will be absorbed in thorium, turning...
...supplies of energy. Coal and oil may burn out in a relatively short time, but sunlight and atomic energy can take their place. He points out that one ton of ordinary granite, from which the continents are largely made, contains as much energy in the form of uranium and thorium as 50 tons of coal. He thinks this energy can be drawn on when needed...
...lights in the palace square now work in bright new textile mills. A $20 million, German-financed steel-tube plant is under construction, and five cement companies are moving in. Though smiling at comparisons with lordly Sao Paulo, Mineiros agree that their state's natural wealth (manganese, thorium, bauxite, eleven billion tons of iron) points logically to the development of heavy industry. For his part, Juscelino just wants to get on with the power and the roads. "I have signed a promissory note to the voters and I've got to pay it," he says...