ATOMIC ENERGY IN INDUSTRY—WINNE 
by the United States to the United 
Nations such reactors would be under 
the control of an international author- 
ity. 
By a secondary reactor is meant one 
which consumes but which does not 
produce fissionable material. If the 
fuel charged into such a reactor is 
“denatured” so that it could not be 
converted easily to bomb use, the 
international control plan would per- 
mit such a reactor to be under national 
or private authority. 
The system would include a chemi- 
cal-reprocessing, or fuel-reclamation, 
plant. When the fuel in the reactor 
has reached a certain state of depletion, 
it will have to be removed and passed 
through a remote-controlled shielded 
process for removal of the fission prod- 
ucts, and put into suitable form for 
further use. Here again the interna- 
tional control plan would require 
operation by the international author- 
ity because of the possibility of 
diversion of atomic fuel. 
It is obvious that consideration of 
national and international security 
will have a large bearing on how such 
operations will be conducted, how fuel 
will be stored and transported, even on 
geographical location of plants. 
Here again there are many factors 
which will have a profound effect on 
future developments, factors which 
today cannot be evaluated with any 
degree of accuracy. 
ECONOMICS OF ATOMIC POWER 
Treatment of the subject of the 
economics of atomic power has been 
placed after the preceding discussion 
purposefully. Estimates of economy 
and cost of atomic power sufficiently 
accurate to predict where or when or 
if atomic power will be in competition 
with other fuels do not appear feasible 
in view of the multitude of unknown 
technical and economic factors which 
will be established only as research and 
engineering produce results. How- 
ever, the long-term future prospects 
for competitive and economic atomic 
183 
power look bright. The magnitude of 
the potential ultimate gains to society 
are so great that research and develop- 
ment must proceed vigorously on a 
wide front. 
The following quantitative state- 
ments can be made with a consider- 
able degree of accuracy. 
As an atomic power station or 
system will be similar to a coal- or 
oil-fired station in all parts from the 
turbine steam pipe on to the consumer, 
the investment and operating costs for 
this part of the station will be essenti- 
ally the same as for coal or oil. 
The nuclear reactor and heat ex- 
changer in an atomic plant probably 
will have a somewhat higher first cost 
than the boiler installation in an 
ordinary steam plant. ‘Thus it is 
probable that an atomic plant’s oppor- 
tunity for reducing cost of power to 
the consumer lies in the cost of fuel 
only. In modern public utilities, cost 
of fuel represents, on the average, only 
about 20 percent of the total cost of 
power to consumers, so atomic power 
can affect only this percentage of the 
total cost to the consumer. 
Some of the significant unknowns, 
or unavailable data, which make it 
impossible to estimate accurately the 
over-all cost of atomic fuel today are 
first cost of atomic fuel in suitable 
concentration and form; cost and 
efficiency and frequency of chemical 
extraction, reprocessing, and final 
preparation; plus waste disposal; all of 
which are ultimately chargeable to the 
consumer. Also included, but on the 
credit side, are the gains from sale 
of radioactive tracers, byproducts for 
research, and use of facilities for test 
and research. These latter gains are 
estimated by the Carnegie Endow- 
ment Committee on Atomic Energy 
(2) to be small compared with revenue 
from power. Another unknown factor 
is the extent to which national or 
world interest may require the produc- 
tion of fissionable material by national 
or international authority for any 
reason, and perhaps regardless of cost 
In this event, atomic power is a by- 
