Ernest Rutherford Quotes
For the first time in history we have got more energy out of something than we put in … [but] …. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of the atom is talking moonshine.
Rutherford had been the first to split the atom in 1919.
Ernest Rutherford, 1871-1937, English Nobel Laureate in Physics, Statement after J. D. Cockroft’s and E. T. S. Walton’s famous experiment transmuting hydrogen atoms into helium atoms in Ruthfords Cambridge University laboratory, May 1, 1932
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Nuclear fusion is different from nuclear fission that currently powers atomic power plants. Fusion is the process the sun uses to generate all its power. Scientists understand exactly how fusion works—it’s much simpler than fission, but actually creating a way of doing it on earth has been a very difficult challenge. The National Ignition Facility has been trying to produce a fusion reaction for a number of years with no success.
Corporations in the nuclear business argue that Nuclear power is less expensive than otehr forns of ower that are in common use. However, when a nation adds the huge cost of maintianing a scientific infrastructure to inspect and regulate the nuclear power plants, and the costof establishing the contingency capability of popularion evacuation and containment when there is a nuclear accident, and then the cost of safely stopring and containing the spent but deadly radioactive fuel, the incredibly high cost of insurance, then it is clear that nuclear power is the most expensive form of power. However, some countries do it better than others with France being the only country at the beginning of the 21st century that operated nuclear power safely and efficiently. The United States, Russia and Japan had huge costs
He was speaking from retirement. When he was Prime Minister--2001-2005, and active politically, he was in favor of nuclear power for Japan. But after the meltdown of the reactors at Fukishima, he saw happening exactly what the corporation executives running the nuclear power told him could never happen. He aslo supported the claims of American Sailor who had provided much help in the nuclear emergency that they were suffering from deseases brought on by teh excessibe radiation that they encountered.
There was massive opposition to nuclear power in most countries of the world except France where the operators and technicians are so well trained and there are such high safety standards that the public had confidence in the nuclear management that did not exist in most other countries.
Under this initiative the US declassified and distributed technical, previously secret information, about atomic science to the world for scientific development. It has been very successful and there are few modern nations that have not benefitted from the program.
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM, FRS, HonFRSE was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. Encyclopædia Britannica considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday (1791–1867).
