Word: uranium
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Breeders can be fueled by uranium or Plutonium, but they produce only the latter. Plutonium is a far handier substance for making bombs, and some skittish critics are afraid that Clinch River might become a target for terrorists seeking to cadge a few pounds of plutonium to make an atomic weapon. The reactor is designed to be cooled by liquid sodium, a highly volatile substance, and there are some doubts about the ability of the reactor to control a catastrophic leakage in the sodium ducts. "It is a much more dangerous and complex device than other reactors," says Vanderbilt...
Clinch River's proponents insist (hat breeders are the only means that the U.S. has to guarantee itself an unlimited domestic supply of atomic fuel. But even this advantage may not justify the costs. "There won't be a shortage of conventional uranium for at least 50 years," says Jan Beyea, a physicist on the staff of the Audubon Society. "Certainly there is no urgent rush to get into breeder technology." President Jimmy Carter, worried about the proliferation of plutonium, tried to stop Clinch River. Even Budget Director David Stockman, while he was a Michigan Congressman, opposed Clinch...
...than dig their own. Firms with scarce natural resources are the most tempting takeover targets because the price of their assets in the ground has increased particularly fast. For example, since the first energy crisis in 1973, the value of Conoco's plentiful oil, coal, natural gas and uranium reserves has risen from $2.6 billion to $14 billion. Experts say that Conoco's shares are worth at least $45 more than any of the bidders are now offering...
...approval, and tried to force client countries to rewrite their previous nuclear agreements with Washington to conform to the new and tougher standards. But the Carter plan had only limited success. By the end of his term Carter was reinterpreting it himself by selling 38 tons of embargoed uranium to India despite the fact that New Delhi, which had exploded a nuclear device in 1974, refused to sign the N.P.T. Carter's rationale: the need for the U.S. to strengthen its shaky ties wth India at a time when the subcontinent was overshadowed by the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan...
...Conoco continues to rise because of the company's huge treasure chest of natural resources. Conoco has oil drilling rigs from the Gulf of Mexico to the South China Sea, coal mines from West Virginia to Alberta, natural gas wells from Texas to the North Sea and uranium deposits from New Mexico to Niger. Since the first oil price explosion in 1973, the value of Conoco's assets has soared from $2.6 billion to $14 billion. The firm's oil and gas holdings alone have a value of $2.3 billion on Conoco's books, but experts...