Piles for Peace

Atom-powered ships might sail a million miles on a single fuel charge of uranium or plutonium; the prospect was most promising, said General Electric's Vice President Harry A. Winne last week. But atomic power for public utilities, he thought, was not quite so promising. To compete with soft coal at $4 a ton, "fissionable material" would have to sell at $6,000 a pound.

Nevertheless, giant General Electric Co. was brimming over with high hopes for the Atomic Age. Already G.E. had committed itself to an extensive program of basic atomic research. At the Knolls, outside Schenectady, the company will build a 300-acre research center to house its dangerous new activities. Meanwhile, armed with their 100,000,000-volt betatron and other high-voltage machines, its scientists are studying the "meson," a mysterious, sub-atomic particle which may hold the key to a revolutionary course of atomic power.

Last week General Electric completed a dicker to take over, from Du Pont, the management of the $347,000,000 Government-owned plant at Hanford, Wash. Although the three great piles in the Hanford desert were built to produce plutonium for bombs, their byproduct is unharnessed energy in enormous quantities. G.E. will run the piles at cost plus $1. Its profit will be in priceless experience.

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