63. 



MR. STRUXNESS: -AT ell, I don't know. Dr. Johnson says that 

 the dry mass was uniformly heated. 



DR. BENSON: I suppose you suspected that you would be very 

 closely simulating it when you have the heat released by radioisotope 

 decay. 



MR. STRUXNESS: Yes. I suppose if the heat were not evenly 

 distributed we would have gotten burping. 



DR. HUBBERT: Coming back to power versus energy: if to 

 reach an equilibrium based on the curve would take a long time, it 

 will take a very large amount of energy. If, on the other hand, you 

 put in larger power you produce that temperature in much shorter 

 time and I suspect you would bring about much lower energy cost. I 

 think the energy is important, not the power. 



MR. STRUXNESS: I will have to get the information. 



DR. KOHMAN: When you do this by self-fusing you won't get 

 any power failure. Your heater won't burn out. You would be able 

 to turn it off when you want to. But it is difficult to get it solidified 

 if it is hot enough so it will liquify, and this brings up the general 

 problem of the heat that will be produced by insoluble waste. 



MR. STRUXNESS: There are other difficulties connected with 

 this experiment. It requires wastes with an activity of the order of 

 500 curies per litre to produce enough heat. 



DR. HUBBERT: The problem involved is the energy problem. 

 You can melt anything with that amount of heat coming off continually 

 at the center. 



DR. P. H. ABELSON: What is the object of using self-heating 

 or self-fusing as against using other sources of heat? 



MR. STRUXNESS: At the moment we don't know whether self- 

 fusion will work or not. The heat is there. 



DR. ABELSON: Obviously the self-fusion will work if you have 

 enough heat per unit of volume and if you don't allow too much to es- 

 cape. I mean, suppose that you can have self-fusion, why use it? 



