All
these difficulties were resolved with the development of the ion
exchange process. It provided the most economic method of recovering
over 99 per cent of the uranium in solution in a concentrated highly
purified form. The process could efficiently handle vast quantities of
solution. It would be no exaggeration to say that ion exchange provided
the key to the extraction of uranium from the Witwatersrand ores.
This
process, in turn, was made possible by the use of high capacity
synthetic organic ion exchange resins, themselves only developed in
recent times.110
♦ XXXVI ♦
The
compelling necessity behind all this intense activity was war or the
threat of war; only gradually did the possible peaceful, and
peacetime, applications of atomic power emerge as an object of
national and international interest. From the first, therefore, the
Governments of the United States of America, the United Kingdom and the
Union of South Africa were involved. Secrecy, however hampering and
time-consuming, and the appropriate security methods and procedures
were imperative; only governments could give the necessary directives,
provide or authorize the appropriate research agencies, provide the
finance, and, at a time of world shortages and the apportionment of
available resources of materials and of men to fit in with the
exigencies of war programmes, give the requisite sanctions for the
diversion of supplies to this new end. It was the governments also
which were the ultimate buyers of the product and therefore in
possession of the 'last word' so far as prices were concerned. The
predominance of the State111 finds its most general
expression in two related circumstances: (i) the ownership in and
control of all 'prescribed material' mined or extracted in the Union
and South West Africa vested in the Atomic Energy Board on behalf of
the State, (ii) the written authority of the Minister
110 R. E. Robinson, 'Ion exchange —the key to uranium production', 6 Optima, no.
4 (Dec. 1956). Dr. Robinson is chief of the Chemical Engineering
Division of the Anglo American Corporation's Central Metallurgical
Laboratory at Johannesburg.
111 Legislation
in the Union of South Africa began with War Measure No. 70 of 1945 and
War Measure No. 11 of 1947. These measures were replaced by the Atomic
Energy Act, No. 35 of 1948, enlarged and amended by Act No. 8 of 1950
and Act No. 18 of 1952. (For a short analysis of the legislation and a
description of events up to 1952, vide 'Uranium in South Africa' (prepared in the office of the Atomic Energy Board) in 21 S.A. Journal of Economics, 1953; vide also
'South Africa becomes a uranium producer' by V. H. Osborn (Secretary
for Mines and deputy chairman of the Atomic Energy Board) in 3 Optima, no. 1 (1953).
