Atomic Fuel May Run Out In 40 Years

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28795, 16 January 1959, Page 9

Atomic Fuel May Run Out In 40 Years

(Rec. 9 p.m.) WASHINGTON, January 14. A committee of experts told the United States Atomic Energy Commission this week that the only currently usable atomic fuel could run short in about 40 years. But the committee’s report said developments now well advanced could, if they bore fruit, multiply the world’s reserves of atomic fuel 50 to ,100 times.

The committee was appointed by the commission la - ' year to review its power programme. The possibility that atomic fuel might run short by 2000 A.D. arose from some facts about nuclear raw materials, according to United Press International. It said the basic raw material of nuclear power, the kind liberated by atomic fission was uranium. In nature, uranium consisted of 139 parts uranium-2°3 to one Part uranium-235. Only uranium--235 could be used as a chain reacting fuel in a fission power plant.

fuel. These materials were the U-238 left over when U-235 was removed, and the metal thorium

U-238 exposed in a U-235 reactor was changed into plutonium, the prime ingredient of atomic bombs. Means of using plutonium as a power fuel had not been perfected, but there were ground« to believe they would be. Thorium exposed in a realtor was changed into uranium-233 which, like U-235 and plutonium, was fissionable. U-233 had even farther to go than plutonium up the' road of atomic development before it would be usable as reactor fuel.

The committee said there was hot enough U-235 to satisfy the anticipated United States atomic power demands for mo r e than a few decades. But there were possibilities of converting other more plentiful materials into atomic

The committee urged the Atomic Ehergy Commission to keep on with its research. “Otherwise we might find ourselves faced with a shortage of fissionable material by file year 2000,” it said.