SCIENCE Some Facts on Thermo-nuclear Power

By Our Scientific. Correspondent, J. H. Bradley Wuy is it that the search.for nuclear energy sources is concentrated on ‘the very heavy elements uranium, - plutonium and thorium, and on the very light elements hydrogen, helium and. lithium?

It is because energy can be liberated by converting any “other element. into iron, the atoms of which are about 56 times as heavy as an atom of hydrogen, or into any element of about that atomic weight. :

Breaking uranium into two parts brings each nearer to weight 56; combining -hydrogen into helivm does the same.

Many othier processes are conceivable, but at the present time we are not within sight of their practical achievement.

So the fission of uranium and the fusion of hydrogen are the only processes for which we can hope to create the con_ditions at present; they also happen to be those which give ~most energy for every pound of fuel.

The various reactions which can be used to convert the _ three kinds of hydrogen into helium give roughly five times --as much energy as the fission of the sdme weight of uranium.

In addition, hydrogen is éasily obtained from water, while uranium and thorium are scarce in geological minerals, and difficult to. extract and purify.

Qver 10 million degrees L .The most promising means of combining -hydrogén ifto ‘helium is by the use of very high temperatures, over I0 million x degrees centigrade. Under such.conditions all know. materials ‘vaporize; so the reacting gas must be kept well away from ~ the surrounding -vessel.

This’ may be achieved by a magnetic field; which curls up :

ghe path ‘of..an electrically charged. particle into a spiral. All. “the atoms “are electrical y charged « ‘at such “temperatures. a [ECONOMICS — I'S THE WORKING CLASS THEY FIGHT By Our Economic Cerrespondent - Aut the’ important financial centres in the world are : reducing ifterest rates in an effort to counter the American recession—all. except London.

The recently whitewashed City: of London and the Tory “Government are still conducting a tremendous battle against "inflation, Reading. “the speeches of, Amory and - ‘Thorneycroft. ‘one . thing. is cléar: whatever their differences,. both are ‘determined = ‘to continue: the fight against ‘inflation’ to the ‘end.

On the siirface it ‘seems that either America, Germany, Switzerland,;*Belgium etc. are crazy or thé Tries’ are. Either the rest of the world is wrong and world trade is ‘not declin«ing or the City is wrong and it is.

Look: at the facts... In.~ 1957 Britain’s. principal customers were as follows: The USA took £252 million, Canada £200 million, Australia £238 million, India £178 million, South Africa £174 million and New Zealand £141 million.

-Extremely sensitive Congressmen + America and: Canada are in’ recession. Unemployment in ‘the USA. is: likely to go over 5 million by the spring; in Canada it is already 698,000. (equivalent to over 2- million in Britain):and it has not reached the peak.

In these circumstances’ can “Britain sell £452. million-worth The reactor will have to be very large, or heat will* be lost from the gas by radiation~faster than it is replaced by. the nuclear’ reaction. ‘Very. large’ may turn out to mean several hundréd -yards each way. ~ Fer the same reason, the hydrogen must be extremely pure, as. heavy elements cause too much radiation of heat.

Now, the necessary high temperatures can be reached -by__ passing an electrical discharge through. the gas. In order to avoid vaporizing any material from electrodes, the discharge: must be coiled up in a circle and created by a coil wrapped round the tube (‘doughnut’), in the so-called electrodeless discharge.

This is the method: used in the Zeta apparatus:

Many ‘wild speculations Various Soviet publications have announced that neutrons were cbserved from a thermo-nuclear reactor, but no experiment has been published in which they clearly came from the desired reaction, rather than from undesired secondary processes in the walls of the vessel. :

Many wild speculations have asserted that thermo-nuclear power is just round the corner, but in fact a whole maze of corners and blind alleys has yet to be traversed.

Perhaps it will be several decades before we make a reactor which will give- out more power-than we have to put. in to start the reaction.

Years more may elapse before economic thermo-nuclear power flows into the National Grid. The cost will be thousands of millions of pounds, but the prize is. beyond price.

The limiting factors are social and political, net scientific. The’ greatest obstacle is secrecy.

Although the radio-active dangers are not.so severe as with uranium piles, thermo-nuclear reactors can cause very serious - accidents, and public vigilance against irresponsibility i is essenBET ee ee of commodities in-the i USA: and Canada: in 1958? It is unlikely, to say. the least. -The. overwhelming: probability is that sales in the USA will . fall in 1958, especially as-it is an election year and Congressmen will be extremely sensitive to the lobbying of home producers for protection against foreign competition.

Canada, Australia, India, South Africa and New Zealand are all -primary producers: The prices of basic commodities, . their. products, -have-all:fallen-due to. overproduction.

These countries will be unable to buy from Britain in 1958 as-much as they: did in the past.

True, Britain- may be able to get a higher proportion of total sales to these-countries than: in the past, but this is. extremely unlikely, for her proportion of the total expanding sales in the period 1950-57 has come down year. by. year’ without any exception, and nothing so. far has indicated that . her competitive: power has. increased. _ It is. more. likely that in the scramble: for markets that must: take place in 1958, Britain’s proportion will fall. What they are really. fighting — Then how explain the crazy economic policy? Why are the Tories and’ the City fighting: an inflation that is at an end instead of cheapening credit, as their competitors are doing, in order to assist producers to cheapen their products?’

In fact they are not crazy. ‘ Unemployment in Germany is. over 1,200,000 and in the USA it is growing fast. In Britain, it is ‘only 350,000.

The ‘Tories’ know that high. interest rates are a handicap. . But they also. know that-the only chance they. have of com: peting with the USA and Germany—their major competitors

—is if they can reduce the wage level-and increase the number of -hours worked. :

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To do so the number of unemployed must be pushed up to at least a million. Hence the phoney fight against inflation.

They are not fighting inflation, they are fighting the working-class. The only real fight the Tories afe putting up today is the fight against wage increases and the fight to force up the level of unemployment, a necéssity to the Tories if the wages cffensive is to- be successful. :

Gaitskell is a professional economist. Why-did he not expose this racket in the economic debate? Wilson considers himself “p future Labour Chancellor. Why didn’t he? Because they too stand for ‘wage restraint’.

[caBoUR] MAKE IT A BAN-THE-H-BOMB MAY DAY INCREASING fear of an H-bomb war is shown in the growing number of resolutions passed in local Labour Parties. These express opposition to preparations for nuclear war, and usually call upon the party to initiate a national campaign against them.

We should be wrong to think that once such a resolution is passed at Constituency Labour. Party or Borough Party level the rank and file have done their job. Transport House will not automatically organize effective opposition to the war preparations.

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More than probably, some official will wirte back that : the resolution has been. received and will be considered by a future national executive meeting, and meanwhile the Labou MPs have ‘made their protest’ in Parliament.

Not ‘Tf we do ‘hot keep on raisthg the question, th That will be the © end of. it..Many. of us know: this run-around -only too well. = But the matter is too. serious and the public feeling is too : great to accept the routine dow.

In ‘each town and city the local Labour. Party can be ; mobilized: f6r poster paradeg and mass meetings of protest, -even against the objections of the local Right wing.

We are not so far off May Day; Labour Parties can make these demonstrations the centre of anti-war feeling.

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Once the mass of people are called into the streets, as during the Suez crisis, the Tory Government can begin to tremble. The Labour MPs will do a more effective job in Parliament when they feel behind them the people demanding the end of Tory rule.

Our leaders ought to welcome. mass demonstrations. now, which would help to ensure a speedy Labour victory.

Crime: to curtail activities The NEC’s policy of curtailing the political activities of borough parties is a crime. Less frequent meetings and restricted discussion cannot fail to check ‘the political vigour of the Borough Parties. .

In this H-bomb age speed is essential, yet the NEC wants us back to penny-farthing methods, to borrow the words of the Wilson report.

-Imagine six different constituency parties in a city separately organizing demonstrations! Militants should make sure, by being on the Constituency Committees and Borough Parties, that the demonstrations are efficiently organized andco-ordinated, so. that maximum strength is mustered throughout the country.

And we have the job, too, of insisting that the NEC shall lead a national effort as part of the campaign to get rid of the Tories. .

-FEBRUARY 1;-1958 ~ Cunvin’s Column It is not very often that this column. finds itself wholeheartedly in agreement with the Daily Herald, but that papér: had a point when it commented on Transport House’s latest pamphlet ‘Success Story’ that it does not shout loudly enough.

‘Success Story’ examines the performance of the. nationalized air, transport, coal, electricity, gas and atomic power - ~ .The history of these industries, says Margan Phillips in a foreword,.is ‘a vindication of the claims made for a.policy of democratic socialism in contrast to the dogma of private greed and acquisitiveness’.

As far as it goes, the pamphlet performs quite a useful job of work. It effectively replies to some of the attacks made against nationalization by the capitalist class and’ its Press.

La Thus we find that whereas the general increase in retail