Word: uranium
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...boom in uranium? How long will it last? Last week, for the first time, the Atomic Energy Commission gave businessmen a dazzling glimpse into uranium's future. After "phenomenal development" in discovery and mining since 1948, said AEC's Raw Materials Chief Jesse Johnson, uranium prospecting, mining, milling and construction have become a $100 million-a-year operation. The U.S., which imported 90% of its uranium ore before the Korean war, may soon become the world's biggest uranium producer...
...uranium bonanzas have been found in India yet, but there is plenty of low-grade ore that can be mined economically by cheap hand labor. Probably more important are India's thorium deposits, the richest in the world. Thorium cannot be used directly as nuclear fuel. It must be turned into uranium 233 in a reactor, just as uranium 238 is turned into plutonium. Dr. Bhabha thinks that this conversion may be standard practice a few years from now. Uranium 233 derived from thorium is in many important respects the most desirable of all the nuclear fuels...
...Bombs. In about five years, India hopes to have a large atomic power plant in operation in Rajputana, where power is scarce. Fueled with natural uranium, it will produce plutonium as well as energy...
...Dallas, two sons of Croesus-rich Oilman H. L. Hunt bought a half-interest in Wildcatter Samuel L. Shepherd's water-flood-oil property in and around Oklahoma's Nowata County and his process for leaching uranium out of the ground with water (TIME, Jan. 17). Estimated price: $400,000. The two Hunts agreed to pay all future costs of development and exploration. Said 28-year-old N. Bunker Hunt: "It wasn't too long ago that we were still mining sulphur like we mine gold. Then someone thought up the idea of melting it and forcing...
...uranium fever spread, geological consulting offices opened up in several Texas panhandle towns, lease prices soared from $1 to $10 an acre, and papers started running tips for prospectors. Exasperated Texas ranchers, whose tempers have worn thin as prospectors tramped across their land, pressured Texas state legislators to pass a bill giving them more protection against the invasion. Said Chairman William Mather of the Minerals Technology Department of San Antonio's Southwest Research Institute: "Uranium is more widely distributed than anyone thought only a few years ago. The problem now isn't to locate...