I’m not sure what process of extraction they are discussing here. Most of the original tests used a small amount of Uranium Hexaflouride in a cascading system to extract some small quantities. The article may be describing a plan to use the process on a large industrial scale. We did this at the K-55 separation plant in Oak Ridge. Other techniques were also possible, such as use of large electromagnets. We used that process too, by taking the entire US silver bullion reserve and making giant magnets out of them. To think that the silver mined out of the Comstock Lode was used to make atomic weapons two generations later.
As far as national defense secrets go, the Times didn’t reveal the exact method of extraction. The hexaflouride process was fairly widely known; even the Japanese tinkered with it on a small scale during the war. The problem for most countries was that their industrial resources were already strained to the limit in their war efforts. The United States was the only country with enough spare engineering and industrial resources to pull it off.
Interesting how they are already thinking of powering a submarine with this stuff. And no, ordinary water won’t “moderate” the neutron “reaction.” They need something heavier. A different type of water. Or some pure carbon (don’t tell the Krauts they messed up by using carbon with too much Boron).
I treasure these articles while the Times is printing them. Once we get serious about pursuing the “explosive” potential of this stuff, the Times will go dark on nuclear research.
Might have something to do with centrifuges?
Wasn't something like that eventually going on at the plant in Washington State?