Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 78: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“RARE” METAL The following is the verbatim text of a release from the Atomic Energy Com- mission. And you know, they used to have a group of metallic elements known as the “rare earth elements.’ Wonder what the latest quotation on praesodymium, in ton lots, is? Le Atomic Energy Commission has entered into a contract with the Carborundum Metals Co., Incor- porated, a subsidiary of the Carborun- dum Company of Niagara Falls, New York, for the production of zirconium and hafnium metal. A. Tammaro, Manager of the Chicago Operations Office, signed the contract for the AEC. It provides for the sale of approximately 150,000 pounds of zir- conium and hafnium sponge metal each year for a period of five years at a unit price of less than $15 per pound. The Carborundum Metals Company will design, build and operate its own production facilities. The Commission’s present: require- ments for zirconium and hafnium are being met by pilot plant production in government-owned facilities at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the raw ma- terial is purified, and Albany, Oregon, where purified zirconium oxide is con- verted into metal. The Carborundum contract represents a significant step in the Commission’s program to en- courage private enterprise, using private capital, to take over. portions of AEC work which can be handled on a conventional business basis. Zirconium is a metal useful in the construction of nuclear reactors. Its desirable properties are its corrosion resistance, ductility, strength and low rate of absorptions of neutrons. It had not been produced on a large scale prior to the time the Government began pilot plant operations about two years ago. The present process for production of zirconium sponge was developed and placed in pilot plant production by the Bureau of Mines at its North- west Electro Developmental Labora- tory at Albany, Oregon. The Bureau of Mines was encouraged in this work by the Navy’s Bureau of Ships and by the AEC because of their long-range interests in zirconium. The mutual co- operation among these three Govern- ment agencies has contributed sub- stantially to the success of the work in Oregon. Both zirconium and hafnium are produced from zircon sands presently obtained from the beaches of Florida. 76 connicloooks.c© nn