Word: tritium
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...months, radioactive tritium had been leaking from the American Atomics Corp. factory in central Tucson, Ariz. The plant, which used the substance for luminous signs and watch dials, had shut down in July after state investigators found a tritium-tainted chocolate cake in a nearby kitchen that supplied lunches to 40,000 city schoolchildren. Radiation levels higher than normal were also found in the urine of local residents and in the water of a parochial school swimming pool. Rather than fight to retain its license, American Atomics decided to leave the state. Said Company President Peter Biehl...
...company was still obliged to clean up its mess by Oct. 19. But the decontamination process was slow, and much time was spent in bickering with state officials over the amount of tritium lost. The company asked for a 13-month extension. A delay was permissible, but the danger uncertain. What to do? For Democratic Governor Bruce Babbitt, 41, the answer was obvious and unprecedented: declare a state of emergency and call in the National Guard...
...invaded the factory last week, their drab fatigues covered by yellow plastic suits, gloves and shoe covers. Under the direction of officials from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy and the state's own atomic energy commission, the Guardsmen sealed some $500,000 worth of tritium into 55-gal. drums. To the infiltrators the plant appeared "sloppier and worse than anticipated," Babbitt said. Company officials retorted that the hubbub was "like a Nazi camp in there." They called Babbitt's action "absolutely crazy" and accused him of having chosen "to throw law to the wind...
...intended to become a nuclear scientist, but a few introductory courses at Atlanta's Emory University convinced him otherwise. He majored in economics, spent five years as an Air Force pilot and held down various jobs. His first contribution to the Progressive, a 3,400-word piece on tritium, a form of hydrogen used in H-bombs, appeared in February...
Other groups of scientists are placing their bets on a different technique: "inertial confinement." This process involves the high-power laser or electron-beam bombardment of tiny pellets crammed with deuterium and tritium. The sudden application of the energetic beams causes instant vaporization, or boiling away, of the outer surface of the sphere. As the pellet coating flies outward, it pushes back against the deuterium and tritium, compressing and heating the mixture. If the impinging beams are energetic enough, the effect will be so great that the nuclei will fuse, releasing energy like a miniature H-bomb. Among others, researchers...