ATOMIC ENERGY

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 December 1945, Page 10

ATOMIC ENERGY

USE IN INDUSTRY. LONDON, December 6. The chairman of the Atomic Energy Committee, Sir John Anderson, in a speech before the Manchester Research Council, expressed the opinion that it would be many years before atomic or nuclear energy came on the market for any but the most limited and specialised purposes in competition with existing sources of power. Sir John said' the work done so far pointed to certain lines of development in the future, but nothing had been discovered to justify the expectation that energy released by atomic explosion could be used directly as a source of industrial power. The only method existing knowledge suggested as practical depended on the conversion into heat of the energy released by a controlled process of nuclear fission, and that raised further difficulties of heat control. These and other difficulties would be overcome in time, and there was always the possibility of some fundamental new discovery completely changing the character of the problem. Britain should devote all the resources possible to further research. ARMAMENT FACTORIES LONDON, Dec, 5. Mr C. Osborne asked Mr Attlee, in the Commons, to-day if in view of the vulnerability of Britain to attack by atomic bombs, he would instruct the Defence Council to consider the possibility of transferring armament factories to various Dominions with proportionately a large-scale transfer of population. Mr Attlee replied: No. I favour a more positive approach to this problem.” ■ • SCIENTISTS’ STATEMENTS. WASHINGTON, December 6. The cost of the atomic bomb was so small compared with the cost of a battleship that it has raised a serious question concerning the value of capital ships. Dr. Oppenheimer, ex-director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, told the Senate Atomic Energy Committee that he declined to make any public statement on the specific effects of the atomic bomb against a fleet, pointing out that under the Presidential Order, he was able to give only a “quantitative answer.” However, he expressed the opinion that the bomb would do great damage, since it was far more effective under the sea than overhead. , Dr. H. E. Bethe, Associate of Dr. Oppenheimer, dispelled the widespread notion that the chain reaction might get out of hand and break down the earth’s atomic structure and convert it into a flaming mass akin to the sun. He explained that the present type of atomic bombs or any type now in sight would not produce high enough temperatures to cause a nuclear chain of reactions, in either the atmosphere or the water.