GUARDIAN OF THE ATOM

[Music] the rugged Colorado Plateau time the early 1950s this isolated area is about to influence the future of the world [Music] here prospectors and geologists equipped with strange new tools and spurred by government incentives located one of the rarer elements in the Earth's crust wealth never dreamed up uranium ore thus nature gave mankind atomic energy without directions how to find it how to make it how to use it but scientists found the way they captured the key atomic material by separating brilliantly colored oxides from crude or in this salt our minut amounts of u-235 the essential form of uranium needed for power and defense for Science and Industry for medicine and agriculture the green salt is further processed before it is converted into oxide more metal slugs jacketed and stainless steel tubes the uranium enriched in u-235 will be used as fuel in a nuclear power plant packaged as an element the fuel will release its heat in a safe controlled manner for light and power [Music] other promising uses of nuclear energy come through the production of atoms called radioisotopes working by remote control a skilled technician handles these atoms which give off heat and radiation and can be used as tools for the study of life and matter who encourages the safe effective use of this atomic energy who helps explore its nature develops and regulates its power who sees that this new source of energy serves the people [Music] established in 1946 to direct the use of atomic energy with headquarters in Maryland the United States Atomic Energy Commission is responsible to the President and accounts to the Congress principally through the Joint Committee on atomic energy the Chairman and the commissioners of the AEC are like a chairman and a board of directors in industry the general manager and the division directors like the president and vice presidents of a private company to carry out the United States Atomic Energy Policy a ec officials direct a vast nationwide industrial scientific and educational complex the cost more than two billion dollars a year about half for national security and the rest for peaceful uses much of the vast research and development work is done in national laboratories across the country Brookhaven in New York and Oak Ridge in Tennessee are gone in Illinois Los Alamos in New Mexico and Lawrence radiation Laboratory in California [Music] since the ancient Greeks gave it a name the atom has intrigued alchemists philosophers and scientists many sensing that within the atom a powerful force is held captive hidden from man the incredible energy inside the atom has been in the earth from the dawn of history a search revealed that this country has vast resources of uranium ore work starts with mining millions of tons milling crushing mixing drying refining a complex process to extract only a few pounds of uranium from each ton of ore it took 20th century scientists from several countries through a unique partnership of government and industry to free this nuclear energy to control it and make it serve mankind safely in the process was created a new technology employing almost a quarter million people and many new industries worth billions of dollars at a processing plant under AEC contract the material containing uranium is further refined to make a substance more valuable than gold then to one of the nation's three gaseous diffusion plants among the largest industrial facilities in the world for the secret multistage process of enriching the uranium so that it can be used for national defense or as fuel in a nuclear reactor in Idaho a EC's national reactor testing station is one of the principal centers for further developing nuclear energy here the world's largest and most varied collection of nuclear reactors are tested and developed for power and propulsion technology to help develop economic nuclear power more than 40 such facilities have been designed and put to work [Music] at the AEC Hanford works in Washington State and at the Savannah River plant South Carolina another vital material is produced from uranium this is the man-made element plutonium after irradiation in a reactor slugs are discharged into underwater basins then fishermen collect the slugs for chemical separation first used in weapons plutonium will be the nuclear fuel for civilian power plants of the future as for nuclear weapons the work is done by contractors at government-owned facilities under closed AAA EC supervision in cooperating with the Department of Defense the AEC performs research development testing and production of nuclear weapons required for national defense the safe handling of such weapons is continually developed through rigorous safety tests [Music] finally under the stringent terms of the limited nuclear test ban treaty a prototype of the weapon may be tested deep under the desert of the Nevada Test Site [Music] a test detonation may kick up some surface dust but the tremendous explosive power of the atom has been tamed to serve man as a peaceful engineering tool the goal of AEC's ploughshare program before the test ban treaty a 100 kiloton device was placed 635 feet deep when the device was fired the desert domed upward 290 feet [Music] here is Earth moving on a grand scheme operator more than twelve hundred feet across and 320 feet meet eventual uses of these nuclear explosives dig a new Harbor on a barren coast build a lake or a dam carve underground storage cavities help produce natural gas and oil and create new elements nuclear explosives may be the most efficient way to excavate a sea-level canal safely quickly and for less cost than conventional means new canals for ships of any size on the other hand the addams value is more than an explosive force in a nuclear reactor the power can be released slowly to make heat to be converted into electricity from original conceptions and designs models and prototypes had to be constructed and tested experimental power plants answered technical and economical feasibility questions and laid the groundwork for the many economical nuclear power plants being built by private industry today [Music] however before nuclear power plants may be built plans must undergo intensive reviews by the AEC and its advisory groups before during and after construction and operation [Music] when an electric utility announces plans to build a nuclear plant public hearings are held in the area after establishing assurances that the plant can be built and operated safely a construction permit is issued [Music] hundreds of industries contribute their skills and services to the design and construction of the reactor [Music] [Applause] [Music] finally the reactor is fueled one fuel assembly at a time each assembly made up of a cluster of rods containing uranium-235 each assembly ready to do the work of 40,000 tons of coal [Music] reactor operators must take intensive training and pass comprehensive tests before they receive AEC licenses to run a nuclear power plant then with safety a major concern the operating power reactor is inspected periodically and thoroughly during its lifetime by the AEC [Music] in this way more than a dozen nuclear power plants have come into use across the country producing enough electricity for more than a million families the consumption of electricity in the United States is doubling every 10 years and nuclear energy will help fill the growing need an upsurge in nuclear power is now under way by the year 2000 it is expected that about half the total electricity in the United States will be nuclear while nuclear plants are only producing power today in the future they will do double duty as they make fresh water from seawater thus more efficient and more economical use of the country's nuclear fuel resources will serve mankind even more by producing millions of kilowatts of electricity and desalting billions of gallons of water the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission dr. Glenn T Seaborg has explained some of the AEC's important objectives when the field of nuclear power one of our major objectives is increasing the efficiency with which we can put to work the nuclear energy of the atom this is not only a scientific and technical objective but one of economics the more energy we can get from every pound of uranium and thorium the greater our opportunity will be to put this source of energy to work around the world we are working towards this cheaper or economical power by developing reactors which will burn more of their fuel the conventional present-day nuclear power reactor actually uses only a small fraction of its fuel because this is the percentage of its fissionable uranium-235 now what we are developing our converter reactors a converter reactor is one which has its working producing electrical power is also producing new fuel further efficiency will be gained by the use of what we call breeder reactors and this is a field in which we're putting a great deal of emphasis the breeder reactor goes one step further than the converter reactor and it actually achieves the remarkable feat of producing more fuel than it consumes [Music] production of electrical power is only one of many applications of controlled nuclear energy consider the nuclear power plants working in submarines and combat surface ships here's an atomic-powered task force completing a two-month 30,000 miles around the world cruise demonstrating the Navy's ability to send these high-speed ships anywhere in the world without logistic support and notice no smokestack the world's first nuclear-powered merchant ship the nuclear ships Savannah during two years visited 43 ports and traveled 90,000 miles for this immense journey the Savannah consumed only 33 pounds of fuel a hatful enriched uranium for space in a cooperative program with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration the Commission is developing a nuclear rocket engine to provide the capability of performing deep space exploration beyond the limits of chemical rockets nozzle pointed skyward an experimental nuclear rocket engine is ready for a ground test [Music] the rush of expanding hydrogen heated by a nuclear reactor providing 55,000 pounds of propulsive thrust the forerunner of a nuclear power plant with approximately four times this thrust which may someday propel a manned space mission to Mars or beyond look down the throat of a working reactor designed to produce Radio isotopes the brilliant blue glow results from the irradiated fuel protected by 20 feet of water the technicians are preparing to remove the Radio isotopes manufactured in this reactor these have been made radioactive by placing stable isotopes in the paths of neutrons released by the splitting of atoms in a reactor core [Music] [Applause] it is this radiation emitted by Radio isotopes that is employed in a number of useful ways ingenious equipment had to be invented for the safe handling of large amounts of these radioactive atoms [Music] thousands of radioisotope shipments valued at millions of dollars are routinely shipped to almost every part of the world these packages of obediently peaceful atoms are safely and effectively used in engineering industry and scientific research in medicine radioisotopes have made possible a new method of medical diagnosis called tracing using radioactive tracers this machine actually scans an accurate outline of a man's disease lungs thousands of medical facilities now use radioisotopes to diagnose and treat a variety of human ills [Music] in agriculture a unique use of radioisotopes led to the eradication of screwworm flies a serious pest of cattle in Florida because female flies mate only once millions of male pupae were sterilized with radioactive cobalt 60 when spread in the infested area sterilized flies literally annihilated the species in the region isotopes used as a gauge for the control of production operations are saving industry millions of dollars a year advantages of the isotopic gauge no mechanical contact with the material continuous measurements without stopping production these gauges now reduce costs by controlling quality and manufacturing many consumer and industrial materials automatically a new concept for preserving food through irradiation pasteurization [Music] here is a way to extend the shelf life of perishable foods and reduce insect and bacterial contamination through the use of radiation [Music] thus various seafoods fruits vegetables and meats are preserved a radiation method also has been developed to improve wood [Music] after the wood sample is impregnated with a liquid plastic under pressure it is irradiated gamma rays link the plastic molecules with those of the wood to form essentially a new material a plastic reinforced wood resistant to moisture stronger and harder than the original good for boats floors and furniture [Music] 700 miles from the South Pole the United States Navy erected an atomic-powered weather station operation of a number of such atomic generators which convert heat directly into electricity have demonstrated their reliability for long periods in isolated areas where frequent servicing of standard batteries is not practical [Music] similar isotopic power devices have been developed for boys and lighthouses for beacons and electronic foghorns on offshore oil and gas platforms providing more power than isotopic generators was the nuclear reactor system called snap 10a heat from this small reactor was designed to produce 500 watts of electricity in space [Music] [Applause] [Music] in a spectacular launch the snaptun a sitting on top of an Atlas Athena missile was boosted off the coast of California then on a signal from Earth the compact reactor was started it operated at full power for 43 days while circling the earth in perfect orbit while the atom helps give us the energy to explore our universe we continued to explore the atom to investigate something we have never seen the nucleus of the atom require some extremely large machines the so-called atom smashers do this work at AEC's National Laboratories from the master control room studies are directed in elementary particle physics in which high-energy particles are used to look inside the nucleus [Music] electrical power is applied to the magnets magnetic field begins to rise protons are injected accelerated at extremely high speeds then high energy protons emerge as a beam and can be directed on a target [Music] in a bubble chamber particle tracks of these atomic collisions are photographed thus physicists get a partial view into the interior of the target nucleus the Linear Accelerator at Stanford University can generate up to 20 billion electron volts to pulse pencil-thin beams in arrow straight lines through its two mile length with the upcoming 200 billion electron volts elevator we will ultimately have an atom smasher about one mile across and three miles around to penetrate deeper into the submicroscopic building blocks of matter using a specially designed research reactor the AEC also conducts a program to produce and study new elements elements even heavier than manmade plutonium elements which may exist naturally only in the stars [Music] in fusion research scientists are attempting to gain power not by splitting us but by fusing atoms by can tastily hot unstable gases in a magnetic field while much of the Commission's work involves huge machines large laboratories tremendous sources of energy all is dependent on human energy and human knowledge already the impact has been felt in every scientific endeavor most important for the rapid growth of the atomic energy industry is that all who have worked on the program large and small companies government and research and educational institutions have willingly shared the new knowledge and experience [Music] extensive technical information about atomic energy once a national secret is now available through many libraries in the United States and in other countries in cooperation with foreign hosts the AEC establishes and operates scientific exhibits in other lands demonstrating beneficial uses and methods of teaching nuclear science to supply scientists and students with this knowledge the Commission conducts extensive programs of technical and public information and works closely with universities and educational institutions throughout the world according to the chairman of the AEC the unfolding of the nuclear age has had a tremendous effect in broadening scientific horizons one has only to look into any area of science to see its influence how it has affected scientific thought and methods of Investigation laboratory techniques it has created new scientific specialties nuclear physics radio chemistry radio biology to health physics and many others it has turned the eyes of science outward further into the universe by giving it a better understanding of the forces of the universe while at the same time turning it inward toward the nucleus of the atom to investigate the very essence of matter in life the nuclear age has made science important important to Nations and to government's to industry and most of all to people yes the power of nuclear energy has been demonstrated and some of the benefits it can bestow have been revealed [Music] to see that it continues to serve us safely and efficiently and that it's many and growing peaceful uses are encouraged and employed to their fullest is an important task and a great responsibility the United States Atomic Energy Commission works for the American people serving as their guardian of the atom [Music]