ATOMIC POWER

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 September 1945, Page 5

ATOMIC POWER

PROFESSOR’S PREDICTIONS (Recd. 10.10 a.m.) LONDON, Sept. 17. “I am confident that within ten years, power stations will be working under automic power,” said Professor M. E. Oliphant, a member of the atomic bomb technical committee, in an address to the Rotary Club, Birmingham. “The power of nuclear energy would in future replace all other forms of power for all largescale production. The production costs of atomic power were already tumbling.” Professor Oliphant said it would not be long before atomic power would be made with a force equivalent to' one million tons of T.N:T., and subsequently ten million tons. It was “just rot” to think Britain and America could retain the secret of the bomb. Any industrial country would have it in five years, and any determined industrial country in two. He described the use of the bomb against cities as a tragedy, and contended that at could have been effectively demonstrated against a naval base in Tokio Bay. If the scientists had controlled the use of the bomb, it would never have been used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was not possible to complain, if atomic bombs were dropped on New York or London. S. AFRICAN URANIUM (Recd. 2 p.m.) PRETORIA, Sept. 17. The South African Government will issue a proclamation to-morrow, introducing control over mining and export of uranium and its compounds. Pitchblende from which uranium is extracted is found in North-west Cape province near the Orange River.