THE CASE OF THE POISONED DUCKS

Unlike fossil fuels, uranium is good for nothing but energy production, and there is a penalty for conserving it: if you don't mine it, the radon bubbling up from it remains uncontrolled.

But is energy really its only use?

Not quite. Its ore is no longer used as a yellow pigment by the glass and pottery industry, nor by the Indians of the Southwest, who used to paint their faces with it. But it is denser (heavier for the same volume) than lead, and that gives it some applications, mainly as a shield against radiation.

That's right: its long halflife (4.6 billion years) makes its level of radioactivity very weak, while its high density will absorb radiation over a small distance. (Imagine: in Australia, where the college-educated illiterates have nothing nuclear but uranium to protest against, they object not only to electric power without air pollution, but also to the most effective shield against radiation.)

Now a new use has been suggested. Between two and three million ducks, geese and waterfowl die annually of lead poisoning by swallowing the lead shot that accumulates in heavily shot-over hunting grounds. In some areas, e.g. parts of Long Island, N.Y., lead shot has therefore been banned.

Steel is about four times lighter than lead, reducing its effectiveness at longer ranges; it is also much harder and can damage the barrels of some shotguns. The Fish and Wildlife Service therefore tested uranium on ducks and could not find anything harmful - the ducks don't absorb it.

I hope this can be overcome, just for the heck of seeing the Audubon Society siding against the birds; but of course, they will claim that the ducks breed the shot into plutonium.