Far-Reaching Results From Fusion Reactor

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28532, 11 March 1958, Page 18

Far-Reaching Results From Fusion Reactor

The country which first perfects the fusion reactor will hold a position of pre-eminence in the world for a time at least, according to Mr H. D. Orchiston, lecturer in the soils and fertilisers department at Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, who has returned from refresher leave in Britain. Mr Orchiston spent a month of his time overseas on a course of instruction at the Isotope School at Harwell, which is part of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority’s research establishment. Discussing the development in Britain of the experimental fusion reactor, “Zeta,” Mr Orchiston said that because of the nature of hydrogen, especially heavy hydrogen, and its almost inexhaustible supply in sea water, the harnessing of the energy released from the hydrogen bomb—a thermonuclear fusion process—must be considered the greatest technical achievement within man’s reach. “Perhaps the man in the street in England would be more enthusiastic about this venture if

he realised that the first country in the world to perfect the fusion reactor will be temporarily in the position of having more energy at its beck and call than man has ever dreamed of,” he said. “It will have enough to do whatever it likes—to introduce really largescale automation and undersell the rest of the world if need be and rule the world’s trahsport. The perfecting and use of the fusion process is more significant than all the sputniks and space flights put together—in fact it will facilitate them.”

The recent accident at Windscale in which radioactive material was spread over the surrounding countryside and the increasing contamination of the earth from radiation, with its probable detrimental effects on the genetic make-up of all living creatures was one price that man had to pay for his ignorance, said Mr Orchiston. There was now a race between efforts to overcome this ignorance and the damage that was being done in the meantime. “The evidence would appear to be in favour of enlightenment winning the race and so plunging man into the new atomic age with its attendant mastery of the universe....” The general isotope course which Mr Orchiston attended at the Isotope School consisted of a series of lectures arid laboratory work on the handling, measurement, and use of radioactive materials. At the course were 12 Englishmen, five Germans, three Italians, two Jugoslavs, and one from each of Colombia, Iraq. Sweden, Australia and New Zealand. They included an entomologist, two medical practitioners, chemical engineers, physical chemists, chemists, a metallurgist, a pharmaceutical chemist (from Australia) and physicists.

The Isotope School was established in 1951 to provide basic courses of instruction in the handling and use of radioactive isotopes. Since then its scope has been considerably extended and this year nine courses of up to a month each in duration are being held.