Then there are other factors to be considered that greatly balance the scales in our favor. To produce plutonium bombs requires tremendous quantities of uranium, something that cannot be conjured up by just dialectic materialism. It so happens that we have access to the only two rich uranium deposits known in the world: the Belgian Congo, and the Great Bear Lake area in Canada. There were no known rich uranium deposits in Russia proper or in the territories of her satellites, with the possible exception of Czechoslovakia. We know this from the fact that she never competed for the world markets for radium, extracted economically only from rich uranium ores, which sold before the war at $25,000 per gram, or at the rate of nearly $12,000,000 a pound. The best evidence, however, that she does not have at her command rich uranium deposits either in Russia or elsewhere is her ruthless exploitation, at the cost of thousands of human lives, of the depleted uranium mines in the mountains of Saxony, which had long been abandoned by their German owners. The only other known source of pitchblende (the mineral richest in uranium) under Russian control is Joachimsthal (Jachymov) in Bohemia, from which came the first radium sample isolated by Mme Curie about fifty years ago. This mine, too, has been largely depleted, though much of its uranium may possibly be recoverable from the dump-heaps, if they have not in the meantime been disposed of.
Now, every ton of pure uranium metal contains just fourteen pounds of the fissionable element uranium 235. The latter, when split, releases the neutrons that create plutonium out of nonfissionable uranium 238. On the basis of one hundred per cent efficiency, impossible in this operation, the yield of plutonium would thus be fourteen pounds per ton. Since the plutonium must be extracted long before all the U-235 atoms have been split, however, the likelihood is that the yield would be no more than two to four pounds per ton. Russia would thus need tens of thousands of tons of uranium ore to build up a sizable stockpile of A-bombs, and while she may be able to process low-grade ores, it would take her much longer to produce a given quantity of plutonium than it takes us to produce it from our much richer ores. For example, an ore containing fifty per cent uranium would yield a given quantity of plutonium ten times faster than an ore containing only five per cent, unless a refining plant ten times the size is built at ten times the cost of construction and of operation.
If we take Professor Oliphant’s published estimate that the critical mass (that is, the minimum amount) needed for an A-bomb is between 10 and 30 kilograms (22 and 66 pounds), we get a clear picture of the enormous difference there is between rich ores and poor ores for the building up of an A-bomb stockpile, and a further concept of the difficulties that Russia will face in trying to produce an H-bomb.
According to the best available prewar information, the pitchblende of the Belgian Congo has a uranium content as high as 60 to 80 per cent; the Canadian ore yields from 30 to 40 per cent. A conservative estimate would thus place the average uranium content of Belgian and Canadian ores at somewhere around 50 per cent. This contrasts sharply with a prewar figure of around 3 per cent uranium for the pitchblende of Czechoslovakia, and the ore in the mountains of Saxony is of even lower grade.
Hence on the basis of two to four pounds of plutonium per ton of uranium metal, it would require the mining and processing of only 2 tons of Belgian and Canadian ore to obtain that amount as compared with 34 tons for the ore from Czechoslovakia, and a larger amount for the Saxon ore. To make a bomb containing 22 pounds of plutonium would thus require us to mine and process from 11 to 22 tons of ore, whereas Russia would need from 187 to 374 tons. For a bomb requiring 66 pounds, the amount, of course, would be correspondingly tripled, reaching a possible figure of 1,122 tons of ore to produce one A-bomb, as compared with a maximum of no more than 66 tons of the ores available to us. In a state employing slave labor and heedless of the wastage of human lives, the production cost does not count. But even Russia’s manpower is not unlimited, and workers removed from other lines of production must inevitably hurt the economy. This factor must put a definite limit to Russia’s capacity to produce A-bombs and will make it very difficult, if not impossible, for her to produce a large stockpile in a short time.
When it comes to producing an H-bomb, the disparity between ourselves and Russia assumes astronomical proportions. It takes 80 pounds of uranium 235 to produce one pound of tritium. Since, as we have seen, there are only 14 pounds of U-235 in a ton of natural uranium metal, this means that 5.7 tons of uranium metal would be required, assuming one hundred per cent efficiency of utilization, which is out of the question. On the basis of figures already given, it can be seen that we would require the mining and processing of only 11.4 tons of ore whereas Russia would have to use as much as 194 tons to produce that single pound of the element which, as the facts cited earlier appear to demonstrate, is vital for the construction of a successful H-bomb.
All these basic facts, never presented before, should convince us that, despite the fact that Russia has exploded her first A-bomb, we still have tremendous advantages over her that she will find extremely difficult to overcome. And we must not forget other advantages on our side that may prove decisive even after Russia succeeds in building up a sizable stockpile. Bombs can be delivered against us at present only by airplane or by submarine. A look at the map will show that whereas the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans stand between us and Russia’s nearest bases, we are in a much better position to deliver A-bombs to her vital centers, such as the oil fields in the Caucasus, for example, from bases close by. It is, furthermore, not unreasonable to assume that we, as the most advanced industrial nation in the world, will manage to maintain our lead not only in methods of delivery by superior and faster airplanes, or by guided missiles, but also in the development of radar, sonar, and other detection devices, as well as of superior interceptors and other defensive measures, which would make delivery of A-bombs against us much more difficult than it would be for us to deliver them against Russia.
For the next three years, it can thus be seen, and possibly for a considerably longer period, the initiative, as far as atomic weapons are concerned, will remain with us. Let us therefore be done with all visionary plans for destroying the shield that now protects civilization as we know it, and proceed to build bigger and better shields, hoping that by our very act of doing so we can prevent the ultimate cataclysm. Right now the outlook is not bright, but our strength, physical and spiritual, should give us faith that the forces of good will prevail in the end over the forces of evil, as they have always done throughout history; that the four freedoms will triumph over the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
V
A PRIMER OF ATOMIC ENERGY
The material universe, the earth and everything in it, all things living and non-living, the sun and its planets, the stars and the constellations, the galaxies and the supergalaxies, the infinitely large and the infinitesimally small, manifests itself to our senses in two forms, matter and energy. We do not know, and probably never can know, how the material universe began, and whether, indeed, it ever had a beginning, but we do know that it is constantly changing and that it did not always exist in its present form. We also know that in whatever form the universe may have existed, matter and energy have always been inseparable, no energy being possible without matter, and no matter without energy, each being a form of the other.