51. Fusion Researchers: New Reactor Will Create Power Comparable to Hoover Dam

Self-sustaining fusion reaction “will be achieved within a few years,” researchers say.

by Clifford B. Hicks

The best evidence of progress in this field is not success, but lack of failure. As former Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis L Strauss has pointed out: “We think the fact that we have worked with it now for a number of years and have not been able to prove it impossible is a very considerable gauge of its eventual success.”

Dr. Arthur E. Ruark, chief of controlled nuclear research for the AEC, confirms the optimism: “There is general belief in the American laboratories that the ignition temperature, the temperature at which the fusion reaction is self-sustaining, will be achieved within a few years.” …

Scientists in attendance [at the Geneva conference] estimated that sometime within the next 10 or 20 years, the switch will be thrown and the first full-scale, power-producing fusion reactor will go into operation. Even this first crude reactor probably will have a power output comparable to the huge hydroelectric plant at Hoover Dam.

Publication Date: January 1959
Source: Popular Mechanics