Australia Has Leading Role In Atomic Age

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27471, 4 October 1954, Page 16

Australia Has Leading Role In Atomic Age

(Australian Correspondent Australia is fast becoming of major importance as a uranium producer. The big uranium mines at Radium, hill (South Australia) and Rum Jungle (Northern Territory) y' l * l So into full production by OctoTfrdteH h «t r . combi £ le J exports to the United states and. Britain will earn Austraha annually millions of dollars and large amounts of sterling Queensland will also come into the picture as a major producer when mining starts in the Mary Kathleen lease at Mount Isa. Initial exploratory work on this field points to it being one of the richest uranium strikes in Austraha. Preliminary sampling has proved the presence 7 of pSlend m ost valuable ore of uranium. Australia, with her vast potential of uranium could become one of the leading countries of the atom age. Australian industry already is interested m the effect of large-scale uranium production on development and research. Sydney University is now turning its attention to the immediate problems connected with the development of nuclear power. A significant statement on the use of uranium in international bargaining , re l ent l y by Professor Harry Messel. head of the Sydney University School of Physics. Professor Messel said: “It is almost certain that this country is blessed with vast uranium ore resources. Uranium should be regarded as a natural heritage and it should not be frittered away as some politicians might wish. Australia will stand or fall by uranium ” ° vers , eas capital has been round for development work for uranyj?l, m he v,, Pr^ mier of s °uth Australia (Mr. T. Playford) obtained a loan of nearly £4.000,000 from the United States and Britain to help South Australian uranium development. So far South Australia has had to provide only about £2,000,000 for the project. Exporting of high grade uranium oxide to the United States and Britain is expected to begin from South Australia early in the new year. South Australia also hopes to lead in establishing Australia’s first atomic power plant on Spencer’s Gulf The ore from Radium Hill will be refined at Port Pirie which is in the Gulf. The refinery will cost £1,500,000 Perhaps the most colourful of the uranium boom areas is at Rum Jungle m Australia’s north. The Northern Territory, which for so long has been the graveyard of the hopes of count-

less miners and prospectors, has been given a new lease of life. Millions of pounds spent at the Rum Jungle and its model town at Batchelor, and the influx of skilled tradesmen from the southern States, have brought unprecedented prosperity to the Darwin area. This has given an optimism and a drive which the Territory sadly lacked. The Commonwealth Government has accepted the challenge offered by uranium discoveries in the Territory. The scale on which development at Rum Jungle is being carried out shows that the Commonwealth is not dealing in half-measures. Rum Jangle lies in the “Hundred of Goyer”—an area originally .surveyed and listed as capable of supporting 100 families. It covers 168 square miles to the west of the Darwin-Alice Springs highway. The Commonwealth owns the Hundred of Goyer and all mining rights to the land. The Rum Jungle mine, concentration plant and refinery will go into full production a few weeks before Radium Hill and will be Australia’s first uranium ore treatment plant, which will produce the raw material for the West's atomic piles. The ore looks grey and uninteresting except for an occasional. streak of yellow or, green. The uranium oxide, raw material of the atomic world, is a yellow powder very like mustard. The plant delivers the oxide in tiny pellets to reduce possible loss of the powder being blown away as dust. Work at the uranium mines and treatment plants presents no danger from radio-activity. Uranium gives off radio-activity during its process of decay into lead. In the form of ore, and, a$ it leaves the plants as uranium oxide, it is relatively stable and decaying very slowly. The time it takes to lose half its radio-activity is called its half-life. Its half-life form is measured in billions of years. In an atomic pile, in which its decay is greatly speeded up its half-life may be a fraction of a second. Only then is it dangerously radio-active. Australia’s uranium workers are tested reguarly for radioactivity.

Uranium has already made individual Australians wealthy. Australian Oil Exploration, it has been stated, paid £250,000 plus one-quarter share to the finders of the Mary Kathleen lease. The main mine at Rum Jungle was discovered by Mr Jack White in 1949. He was paid' £25,000 by the Commonwealth for his find.