Word: uranium
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...prohibitively expensive means of obtaining competitive electrical energy, and last week it announced a shift in emphasis: funds for the Brookhaven liquid-fuel project and similar ones elsewhere have been largely diverted to AEC's Oak Ridge laboratory for development of a thermal breeder reactor that will make uranium 233 from thorium, the first natural raw material other than uranium to be used as a producer of peaceful atomic energy...
Thorium, on the AEC's back burner for at least five years, is more abundant in the earth's crust than uranium, but usable concentrations are limited. It occurs in monazite sand deposits throughout the world, notably in Brazil, India, South Africa, Ceylon, Madagascar, Indonesia, Malaya and Russia's Ilmen Mountains. In the U.S. it is present in the sand of East Coast beaches, is also found in Idaho and Wyoming...
Since it cannot sustain a chain reaction itself, natural thorium is not classified as a nuclear fuel but as a "fertile" material. The thorium may be placed in a reactor fueled with uranium 235. Neutrons produced by the fissioning U-235 are run through a moderator made of graphite or heavy water, thus slowed from 10,000 miles a second to a modest one mile a second. Fast neutrons would bounce off or pass through the thorium, but at this speed neutrons are moving slowly enough to be captured by thorium 232 atoms, turning them into unstable thorium 233. When...
...carry 60 passengers and 10,000 tons of cargo, Savannah has no hopes of turning a profit, will fulfill its mission if it can lead the way to more efficient models and prove the safety and reliability of seagoing nuclear power. The power plant and 690 lbs. of enriched uranium-to be loaded next spring-will be shielded by a 33-in.-thick ring of water, a steel cylinder, then a 2,000-ton composite shield, and finally by a 24-in. redwood and steel collision mat. Dotted around the ship will be twelve monitors to gauge radiation on passengers...
...Public Health Service reported last week some disturbing byproducts of the Atomic Age. For a year its experts studied the Animas River in Colorado and New Mexico, whose water is used for the homes of 30,000 people. Below the Durango, Colo. uranium refinery of the Vanadium Corp. of America, the water was loaded with radium from the plant's wastes. Some samples were 160% above the maximum level officially considered safe for health. Vanadium Corp. has agreed to do something at once...