A Job for Free Enterprise

ATOMIC POWER A Job for Free Enterprise IN most predictions, commercial atomic power is usually about "ten years away." Businessmen--and many scientists--feel that commercial atomic power will always be "ten years away" unless some basic changes are made in U.S. policy. Under present law, only the Government can own uranium and plutonium. Since the Government's primary interest in atomic energy is military, it has done little to develop commercial uses. While there is a Government monopoly, private enterprise has no opportunity and no incentive to put its competitive genius to work to develop commercial power. Although President Eisenhower, the Atomic Energy Commission and businessmen all agree that the doors should now be opened to private enterprise, Congress has been in no hurry to amend the laws to make this possible.

At the start of the atomic age, the nation's security required that the Government have absolute control over the program. But many of the atomic secrets are secrets no longer: the Communists have long since learned them. In fact, too much secrecy is now hampering atomic development by preventing the free interchange of ideas.

To date, AEC has given private industry merely a peek. AEC information has been made available to five "study teams" from ten corporations so that they can judge the possibilities of commercial atomic power. But the companies can only look, not act. Even these companies have no incentive to explore the commercial possibilities. All their discoveries and patentable processes must be turned over to the U.S. Thus, though the Government has spent $8.6 billion in its atomic program, industry has spent only a few millions. Businessmen and AEC agree that the Atomic Energy Act should be amended thus: tj Private companies should be permitted to own the fissionable materials needed to run their own reactors. CJ Patents on nuclear discoveries made by companies with their own money should go to the private companies. CJ Security restrictions should be relaxed to enable a freer flow of information between corporations to cut down duplications and wasted effort.

These recommendations have already brought rumblings of opposition on the ground that such a plan would be a "giant giveaway" of all the secrets of the atom. Actually it would be nothing of the sort, since the available information on commercial applications of the atom is extremely limited. In fact, a liberalization of the Atomic Energy Act would be a "give away" only of corporate funds; it would merely give the corporations an opportunity to gamble hundreds of millions in a field where there is still no guarantee of any return.

For most corporations, the cost of building a full-scale atomic power station will be prohibitively high--anywhere from $50 million to $100 million. Even groups of companies, working together, may need Government aid, not only in financing the reactor but in the form of a purchase contract for all the plutonium produced. At present, plutonium is the end product of a reactor, and the byproduct is heat. In commercial use, plutonium would be the byproduct, and heat from reactors to drive turbines to make the electricity would be the end product.

Charles A. Thomas, president of Monsanto Chemical Co., which has already spent $250,000 investigating commercial uses of atomic energy, estimates that it would cost $60 million to build a 125,000-kw. atomic power plant (about one-tenth of the power used by greater Boston). Of this sum, $44 million would be the cost of a reactor for plutonium production and could come from the Government; the rest would be for the heat-transfer units, turbines, etc. for the power plant, and might come from private industry.

By basing the price of power on the $16 million capitalization, Thomas estimates that power could be produced for as low as .003 cents per kw-h compared to .008 cents per kw-h for coal power. Since the return from electric sales would cut down the cost of making plutonium, the Government would get it cheaper than at present. Other businessmen, such as Detroit Edison's President Walker L. Cisler, insist that they need no Government help. As soon as Congress lets in private industry, Detroit Edison and 25 companies now joined with it in studying commercial atomic power are ready to stake upwards of $50 million to build an atomic-power plant without Government help. The use of plutonium and other radioactive products for medicine, industry, etc., will increase so fast that there will be a growing market for all the plutonium they can produce. Atomic energy now costs the U.S. taxpayers $1.8 billion a year, and there is little prospect that the burden will lessen under the present law. With private industry in the field, atomic energy will stop being only an enormous drain; commercial atomic projects will be taxable, and thus a source of revenue. And instead of being "always ten years away," industrial atomic power will be a reality.

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