Paper Mill Reactor

Most resource-poor countries have elaborate dreams of using the heat from atomic reactors to generate electricity. But practical Norway may well become the first nation to make commercial use of nuclear energy. Reason: Norway is willing to settle for first things first, is already at work on a nuclear reactor that will use heat directly to produce steam, widely used in the wood-cooking process in Norwegian paper mills.

Norway's first practical reactor--using natural uranium and a heavy water moderator--is being built beside a paper mill at Halden, south of Oslo. To be finished in 1957, it will produce 20,000 kw. of heat, which will be turned into steam by means of a heat exchanger. Norwegian papermakers often draw on the nation's supply of hydroelectricity to heat water for steam, since oil and coal imports are costly and, in case of war, vulnerable. While atom-generated steam may cost more, at first, than electrically generated steam, atomic heat will free hydroelectric power for use in Norwegian industries now dependent on coal and oil.

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