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Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- a history

Oak Ridge National Laboratory was one of the key places where Nuclear Development was done in the early 1940's. It served as not only a place of research, it was also the pilot lab that determined the best way to extract Plutonium -- this method was scaled up and went online at Hanford. Because of it's Uranium separation facilities (the Calutrons), it consumed 20% more electricity than New York City. It also became the world's source for Medical Radioisotopes. This website traces it's roots from the 1940's through the 1980's and into the future. It starts with a prophecy:

To understand the story of Oak Ridge fully--that is to say, to grasp not just the facts but also the deeper truths and symbols--you must first know the story of John Hendrix, a mystic who roamed the East Tennessee woods around the turn of the century, more than 40 years before Oak Ridge existed.

One day, after weeks of absence, Hendrix reappeared at a crossroads store and told a group of neighbors he'd seen a startling vision.

"In the woods, as I lay on the ground and looked up into the sky, there came to me a voice as loud and as sharp as thunder," Hendrix reported. "The voice told me to sleep with my head on the ground for 40 nights and I would be shown visions of what the future holds for this land... And I tell you, Bear Creek Valley someday will be filled with great buildings and factories, and they will help toward winning the greatest war that ever will be. And there will be a city on Black Oak Ridge... Big engines will dig big ditches, and thousands of people will be running to and fro. They will be building things, and there will be great noise and confusion and the earth will shake."

"I've seen it," he concluded. "It's coming." And so it was.

Oak Ridge has a fascinating history -- Google it for other links... Here is a picture of a Calutron -- these used the slight differences in mass to seperate U-235 from U-238. The lighter (and desirable) U-235 would drift to the intside of the "racetrack" and would hit the walls. To recover, the individual Calutrons were taken apart and acid washed. Due to a wartime shortage of Copper, the US Treasury Department loand the Oak Ridge labs about 14 tons of Silver for the magnet coils. (Silver being an excellent conductor). Calutrons are not an old technology -- Saddam Had-em. So does Iran.
Click for full-size Image Posted by DaveH at March 15, 2005 9:22 PM | TrackBack