Science: Portable Atomic Power

The development of atomic power, unlike the production of atomic weapons, has only recently begun to show signs of real progress. The few experimental nuclear power reactors now in operation (e.g., at Arco. Idaho and Oak Ridge, Tenn.) have yet to match conventional power plants in cost per kilowatt. Last week the Army and the Atomic Energy Commission announced plans for a significant practical advance in the field of atomic power: a compact, 1.700-kilowatt nuclear power plant that can be broken down and airlifted piece by piece to U.S. bases overseas.

Officially dubbed the Army Package Power Reactor, the new device will generate enough power for a town (or military base) of 1,700. When fully assembled, it will fit into a building 42 ft. high but only 29 ft. wide by So ft. long (smaller than a standard Army barracks). To prove that an atomic power plant can be sufficiently tamed to live close to civilization, the Army will build the new model at the Army Engineer School at Fort Belvoir, Va., 18 miles down the Potomac from Washington. Estimated completion date: 1956 or 1957.

Despite a high initial cost of some $8,000,000, the portable reactor looks like an eventual money-saver to the Pentagon. Remote U.S. bases, especially those in the Arctic, burn up vast amounts of oil for heat and diesel-generated electricity at a cost that sometimes reaches $42 a barrel. Using the reactor and its enriched uranium fuel, the Pentagon could free ships and planes for other duties; 1 Ib. of easily transported uranium contains as much energy as 6,350 barrels of fuel oil. AEC has another outlook on the project. Said one AEC physicist: “We are buying information as well as electric power.”