Page 20 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society

Neutrons for Science
centre at Ispra in 1959 and then a national one in 1960 in Rome. Before this the USSR had several sources, and an international research centre regrouping Eastern Bloc countries was created at Dubna, about 100 km from Moscow in which were built pulsed reactors (from 1960). Sweden and India too each had a reactor at this time. There were frequent meetings between users of these various reactors, especially amongst those in Western Europe.
1.1.1 In France
France like the UK entrusted a specific organisation to further nuclear research for civil and military purpose. The Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA) was initially directed by Frédéric Joliot who, with co-workers Hans von Halban and Lew Kowarski (Fig. 1.4), had deposited several patents before the war on the
use of nuclear fission for both civil and military purposes. France closely followed the UK with
the launch of ZOE (1948), a very
low power reactor like GLEEP,
but employing heavy water as a
moderator rather than graphite.
This was a result of several
considerations. The first was that
before the war the only factory
producing heavy water in Norway
was built with French capital. The
whole stock, amounting to 165
litres had been brought into France at the start of war, and then transferred across the Atlantic by Halban and Kowarski before
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Fig. 1.4: Lew KOWARSKI in 1964.