URANIUM SUPPLIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 September 1946, Page 7

URANIUM SUPPLIES

IMPORTANCE IN ATOMIC • PROBLEMS AMERICA LIKELY TO LEAD (Rec. 12.10 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 18. The question of controlling the raw materials was the most hopeful approach to the atomic energy problem, =aid Professor Oliphant speaking at the Liberal Party Council meeting. He added that Belgium had the largest supplies of uranium, but she was not a member of the Atomic Commission. There were also large supplies of uranium in Canada, Brazil, India, the Dutch East Indies and Australia. There was no uranium in Britain and precious little in the United States. From the viewpoint of raw materials America was therefore, not important. It was not surprising, m view of this, that other nations should be suspicious when the United States advocated control. Countries with big industrial backgrounds would not always be the only ones able to carry out the segregation of uranium. The engineering and metallurgical pi oblems which had to be solved before atomic energy could be used for industrial purposes, were straight! or ward. . , ! It would take time before use could be made of atomic energy in industry. Russia would solve the problem before Britain, and America would solve it before either of them. “There would be no time to take I precautions against the atomic bomb, which would probably be fired by rocket, he added. The only protection for the individual would oe to «et behind one to two feet of conI crete at a reasonable distance from 1 the bomb. There is no cure foi the pci I son affected— you can not do anything I about these rays.”.