Evening star., 1957-12-22

remain.
Need rather than scientific re-
search is behind the drive toward
hydrogen power. The most widely
accepted estimates are that the
worlds total reserves Of oil, gas
and coal which can be tapped at
twice today's cost will be ex-
hausted sometime between the
years 1000 and 2050-perhaps
within the lifetime Of todays
babies.
This is taking into account to-
days living standards and pro-
jected population growth. Bar
ring unexpected changes in the
steepening population curve. to-
days world population OF rs bill
lion will be 4 billion by the year
1000 and from billion TO 8 bill
lion by 2050. Three hundred mil
lion Of these in 1000 will be living
in the United States, compared
to today's l72 million: by 2050,
the Nations population is ex-
pected to reach 375 million. 3
These billions will need energy,
that does not exist today-enerSy
that will come from the duplica-
tion by man Of the explosions on
the SUN that nurture all Of eartiS
life.
But before this energy car oe
put to work. science has a nun sr
OF tremendous problems TO Sc :.
The theoretical physics is kno an:
the most formidable problems at
this stage are those Of engineer
ing.
Contoining the Sun
To produce the fusion, scien-
lists must fashion what amounts
to a miniature sun John jay
Hopkins. president of General
Dynamics Corporation, has said
that it's like taking a piece Of
the sun and putting it in a box').
The explosion Of Britain's hydro
gen bomb last summer is said to
have produced heat OF 20 million
degrees Fahrenheit.
no known material can with
stand this kind of heat, so the
problem naturally arises: What
can we put it in?
So far, the scientists are tack
ling the coptainer problem by
trying TO use electric or magnetic
fields as insulation" for the walls
OF the reaction chamber. The mag
netic field is created by great cur
rents Of electricity which bind the
hydrogen atoms closely together
and suspend them from the cham
ber's walls.
In the search for insulation.
the experts have already created
several million degrees of heat
for split second lit is not known
whether fusion has occurred in
these experiments. But when
usable energy is TO be derived,
the great heat must be sustained
long enough to permit fusion Of
an appreciable number of atoms.
just last week. the first full
scale nuclear fission power plant
in the United States. at Shipping
port. Pa. began feeding electricity
into the lines Of the DuquesnC
Power Co. cat cost IL times thai
Of coal-steam generators. Ths
process here involves fssion
! rather than fusion, and thus re-
quires the use Of uranium fuel in
expensive quantities. II develop
ment stopped at this point, there
still would eventually be the prob
lem Of where to get fuel when
uranium reserves are exhausted.
Representative Melvin Price. an
Illinois Democrat on the Joint
Atomic Energy Committee, has
said: 1T is clear that uranium. in
spite Of all its promise, can only
stave off-not remove forever
the day when the world will need
still greater sources Of energy" /"
Complementary Processes
Which points up another ad-
vantage Of fusion produced power
derived from an illimitahle supply
Of fuel. In controlled fusion on q
large scale. the economy actually
is enriched. for byproduct Of the
fusion process is a steady stream
| Of fashionable materials. 1t has
thus been suggested that the two
power programs. fission and fu-
sion. should be developed together,
with the controlled fusion process
supplying fuel to the fission oper-
ationS.
Still another advantage offered
by fusion is the fact that its plant
would be less bulky and less COM
plicated than plants that produces
power by nuclear fisSion. Also,
fusion is safer than fission: the
danger Of radioactive contamins-
ton is leSSened. since the only fis-
sion (which. unlike fusion, pro-
duces radio-poisons) involved
would come from the device used
to trigger the fusion.
When will we have economically
competitive fusion power?
Scientists agree that it will not
be in the near future. Some say
80 years. others so years, and
the most cautious say 100 years,