Atomic Heating

Winston Churchill, when he led the Opposition against the late Labor government, complained tellingly about Britain's failure to produce atomic bombs of its own. "It is indeed depressing," he said in the House of Commons last February, "that we have been outstripped by the Soviets in this field." So far as the public knows, Britain still hasn't produced a bomb, but last week it proudly hailed a byproduct. British nuclear scientists have learned how to heat a building by tapping the heat given off by a reactor. Beginning this week, a building with 80 offices at Harwell's research station will have central hot-water heating, piped in from the nearby experimental atom pile.

One major problem solved by the technicians: eliminating radioactivity from the heating plant's water (by using two systems of water pipes). Next hope of Britain's nuclear physicists: turbine power stations, fueled not by coal but by heat from atomic piles. All this was cheering news to coal-short Britain.

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