Atomic Power in Ten Years?

Early last year news came from Germany, Denmark and France that hit physicists like a punch in the solar plexus. The massive atom of uranium, heaviest of the 92 elements, had been cracked by neutrons (electrically neutral subatomic particles), yielding some 200,000,000 electron-volts of energy per cracked atom (TIME, Feb. 6, 1939). These uranium explosions or "fissions" were most effectively touched off by slow moving neutrons of only one-thirtieth of one electron-volt energy, so that the energy profit was 6,000,000,000 to 1. Prospect of using atomic power-the old dream of sending a ship around the world on the energy in a pint of atoms-seemed much closer than before. Question: how close?

Natural uranium exists in three isotopes (variant forms) weighing 238, 235 and 234 units. Experiments showed that U-235 held out the most promise of a "chain reaction" (continuous energy release). But U-235 comprises less than 1% of the natural element, so the problem was to isolate it.

Few weeks ago a furor blew up over the imminent possibility of atomic power when it was learned that Physicists Alfred O. Nier of the University of Minnesota and

Kenneth Hay Kingdon and H. C. Pollock of the General Electric laboratories had isolated small amounts of U-235. But costly, slow and tedious, the method of isolation employs the mass spectrometer the uranium ore is vaporized in a tiny electric furnace, then electrified, and the isotopes are separated and sorted by weight in a magnetic field. The rate of isolating U-235 is one ten-billionth of a pound per hour. It is generally agreed that at least a pound would be needed for practical power experiments. By this method a pound would take about 11,000 centuries to produce.

Last week, however, word came from Stockholm that a Swedish scientist had been building thermal diffusion tubes expected to speed up U-235 production 11,000 times, when he was stopped by the war raging around his beleaguered country. In the U. S. Gano Dunn, president of J. G.

White Engineering Corp., predicted that atomic power would be available in 20 years, may be ten. Mr. Dunn, a practical man who personally holds over 30 patents, said he was sure that Robert Andrews Millikan would agree with him. Dr. Millikan, Caltech's famed cosmic-ray authority who used to say that atomic power was a visionary dream, was "unavailable" to reporters who wanted to know whether he agreed or not. As a friend of Mr. Dunn's, he may possibly not have wanted to contradict him.

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