Atomic Energy for Industry

Report Outline
Steps Toward Commercial Atomic Power
International Atomic Energy Developments
Atomic Energy and World Power Demands
Economic Feasibility of Nuclear Power
Special Focus

Steps Toward Commercial Atomic Power

Electric power generated by an atomic reactor at a government-built and operated experimental facility at West Milton, N. Y., is expected to become available in limited quantities for commercial use late in the summer of 1955. Electricity produced by the country's first full-scale nuclear power plant, a joint government-private utility venture, may go on the market by 1957. The first offer to construct an atomic electric power plant without government assistance was announced last month, and the Atomic Energy Commission has invited private companies to submit proposals by Apr. 1 for building and operating other power reactors.

Research and experimentation in the adaptation of atomic energy to industrial use have progressed to a point where the experts, formerly absorbed in the problems of nuclear technology, are now concerned also with the economics of nuclear power. Development of the atomic-powered submarine Nautilus from the idea stage to seagoing ship in half-a-dozen years suggests the advances that have been made in nuclear science. A.E.C. Chairman Lewis L. Strauss nevertheless cautioned the congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Jan. 31, that although nuclear power was now a reality, “Low-cost competitive power for our homes and industries …is an ambition and a challenge, rather than a reality.”

Plans For Private Building Of Power Reactors

Ten years after the first atomic explosion in New Mexico, private industry is taking steps to build and operate its own, as distinct from the government's, atomic power reactors. H. R. Searing, president of the Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, disclosed on Feb. 10 that his company planned to construct at Indian Point, between Peekskill and Croton-on-Hudson, N. Y., a 100,000–200,000 kilowatt nuclear electric power plant—the first in the country that will be privately financed, built, and operated. Testifying before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Searing said: