St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 11

msmm 11A Sept. 15, 1986 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH- Keeping Posted cDonnell Has Vital Part In Fusion Effort 11 1 -n -ym fi- I mm i i.h in li 4ii mm 1 7t WW- I I mm i sin SECOND OF TWO ARTICLES By Robert Sanford Of the Post-Dispatch Staff This summer, Princeton University's plasma physics laboratory announced that it had heated a gas to 200 million degrees Celsius, or 360 million degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest temperature ever achieved in a laboratory. The temperature, about 13 times as hot as the core of the sun, was obtained in an experiment in the continuing contest to produce nuclear fusion. The accomplishment was a world-beater, experts say, an indication that the United States is at least a year ahead of any other country in the race to achieve fusion.

Fusion is a reaction in which light atoms such as hydrogen join together and release energy. Theoretically, fusion could be harnessed as an inexhaustible supply of energy. The pursuit of fusion has been called one of the most complex and important fields of research ever undertaken. The Princeton announcement was an occasion for satisfaction for some employees at McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co. here because they made vital parts of the complex vessel in which the experiment was conducted.

The vessel at Princeton, N.J., is called the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor. It is a hollow metal doughnut 25 feet across and 8 feet high. In testing, a vacuum is maintained in the doughnut and magnets around the outside create a force field that pushes the rarefied test material toward the center of the enclosure. In the heat test, an isotope of hydrogen, deuterium, was inserted into the chamber and heated by injecting other atoms of the substance into the chamber at high speed. The injected high-energy ions become involved in many collisions and the substance heats up.

McDonnell Douglas Astronautics made the beam machines that shoot the particles into the chamber. The company also made about 2,400 graphite that line the inside walls of the tube. "We made a contribution," said Dale A. DeFreece, manager for nuclear technology programs at the company. "The capital costs were about $400 million and we provided about $15 million worth of the parts." The work was obtained from the Department of Energy through competitive bidding.

Harold Furth, director of the Princeton laboratory, said at the time of the heat test announcement that researchers hoped to achieve next year the right combination of heating, insulation and gas density to reach a long-sought goal of getting as much energy out of a fusion reaction as was put into it. This "break-even" point should be proved by experiment by 1989, he said. In contrast to the Princeton 'I The Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (above) at Princeton Univer nologists at McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co. (below) in i tlx- 1 25 feet across. Nuclear tech director.

"We really hate to see this thing come to an end, but it was a budgetary decision and there is not much that we can do about it." Thomassen said the decision meant that the administration had decided to eliminate its mirror-fusion programs and focus instead on the tokamak approach. The essential difference between the two is that the tokamak is doughnut-shaped, while a mirror is a straight tube or bottle. (Tokamak is a derivative of a Russian word meaning torus or circle.) Some researchers say the achievements at Princeton and other toka-maks have shown more promise than mirrors, so if a choice must be made the circular devices are the best choice. But researchers who favor mirror devices say the straight tube design would be more workable in a commercial power plant. The idea that drives fusion research is a perception that energy is in short supply or will be, said DeFreece at McDonnell Douglas.

"During the perceived oil crunch in the 1970s, the government began to increase its funding for research," he See FUSION, Page 13 1 ii 7 sity contains a doughnut core achievement, another major Department of Energy fusion project at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California was closed down this year by budget cuts. The decision came at an unexpected time. Contractors had just finished an eight-year job building a magnetic mirror fusion research device called the Magnetic Fusion Test Facility. It cost $350 million and is the largest "mirror" fusion device in the world. Researchers turned on the many magnets of the straight-tube device and found that they worked.

(The superconducting magnets in the big test machine were made by General Dynamics Corp.) A ceremony honoring the scientists and engineers was planned. But then the proposed budget cut, from $75 million to $55 million, was announced and lab officials said it would mean that the new facility would have to be placed in "mothballs." "This is bad news for fusion," said Kenneth Fowler, associate director. "A lot of people are distressed because we put so much effort into the program during the past 20 years," said Keith Thomassen, an assistant 'hlit re 1 -'Ji -i Private Club Opening Near Lambert Field The Park Terrace Hilton is planning to open a private lunch club, the first in the area of Lambert Field. The hotel at 10330 Natural Bridge Road is managed by Stan Musial Biggies Inc. and Prism Hotel Management.

The management plans to open its fanciest restaurant, Posh's, for lunch to club members only. Diane L. Wiggins, spokeswoman for the hotel, said Posh's has been open for dinner for two years. The lunch menu will be similar to the dinner menu, featuring a number of seafood, steak and chop entrees. The private lunch club is aimed at corporate executives in the North County area.

While there are private clubs in downtown St. Louis and in Clayton, "there are few private places to take clients to lunch," in North County, Wiggins said. Posh's has seating for 80 and provides a quiet, intimate atmosphere in which to conduct business, she said. Other perquisites available to members will include use of the hotel fitness center; preferential seating for dinner, when the restaurant is open to the public; and a limousine service to and from the airport so that members can meet incoming clients and take them to lunch in style, Wiggins said. Membership fees will be $350 to join and $300 a year.

The restaurant will treat a number of prospective customers with free lunches this week. The lunch club's grand opening will be Sept. 21. to -to Credit Card Business Up At Mercantile, Boatmen's Credit cards were a fast-growing business last year for both Mercantile Bank and Boatmen's National Bank, a trade publication's survey shows. Mercantile ranked 46th and Boatmen's 94th on the American Banker's list of the 100 largest credit-card issuing banks.

banks were ranked oy the amount of loans they had outstanding on Dec. 31. United Missouri Bank of Kansas City, number 87, was the only other Missouri bank on the list. Mercantile's credit-card portfolio grew 66.7 percent last year to $308 million and Boatmen's grew 200 percent partly through acquisitions to $136 million, the publication said. United Missouri's portfolio grew 3.6 percent to $160 million.

Credit cards represented 13.5 percent of total loans last year at Mercantile, 23.2 percent at United Missouri and 8.6 percent at Boatmen's. Miss Hullings Taking Spot At Plaza Frontenac Some new openings and closings at Plaza Frontenac include a Miss Hullings bakery that will debut in October on the second level in a space formerly occupied by the Mound City Nut Carousel of Playthings, a toy store scheduled to open in mid-October and a Mondi women's clothing store, part of a national chain, that will open by Christmas. In addition, Brentanos unveiled its new bookstore format last week. Ken Capps, vice president of Capitol Land which owns and manages the suburban shopping center, said another well-known national retailer will open at the center soon, although he wouldn't yet divulge who it is. it You Can Pat A Yuppie Before They Turn Extinct Just when everyone thought that businesses weren't marketing to Yuppies anymore, out comes a book published for that group and those aspiring to be part of it, according to a recent item in Advertising Age.

"Pat the Yuppie" from Perigree Books will allow Yuppies and others to experience the Yuppie lifestyle by touching the sheepskin covers that appear on their favorite mode of transport if they live on the East Coast the BMW. If they live on the West Coast, they prefer a Porsche, according to one of the book's authors. Readers can also touch one of the Yuppies' favorite foods a strand of pasta from, of course, an electric pasta maker. Father Of The Blizzard Is Dairy Queen Loyalist spect a grapnue me section Dunt By Jerri Stroud Of the Post-Dispatch Staff "Do you know what makes Dairy Queen so great?" Sam Temperato asked. It was more of a demand than a question.

Temperato has loved Dairy Queen's frozen dessert since he first tasted it 37 years ago. He has been operating Dairy Queens since 1949, just 10 years after soft-serve ice cream was invented. Temperato now owns 67 Dairy Queens in this area, 27 other Missouri counties and two counties in Illinois. For Temperato, his product is his passion. And he won't leave his question dangling.

Dairy Queen's soft-serve is, technically speaking, ice milk, says Temperato. That's because it contains only 5 percent butterfat. Ice cream and frozen custard have a minimum of 10 percent butterfat, and custard has to have a certain amount of egg yolk. But most ice cream is served at zero degrees Fahrenheit, explains Temperato. At that temperature, most human taste buds freeze and are thus non-functional.

Dairy Queen's dessert is served at 19 degrees, which freezes far fewer taste buds and permits the full flavor of the product to come through, says he. Most people dilly-dally over their ice. cream, stirring it up and letting it melt a little before they eat it, Temperato says. "What you're really doing is warming it up." Temperato is something of a legend in the Dairy Queen business, says Harris Cooper, president and chief executive of International Dairy Queen Inc. of Minneapolis.

Temperato has been around longer than most other franchise owners. His fertile mind, outspoken manner and persistence are known throughout the industry. Temperato, 62, started buying rights to franchise Dairy Queens long before International Dairy Queen was formed in the 1960s. Cooper took that company public in 1971. International Dairy Queen controls about 80 percent of the country's Dairy Queens.

As a franchise owner, Temperato is technically independent of International Dairy Queen. But he and other franchise owners cooperate with the national company in advertising, product development and in setting standards for franchise operators. Temperato is chairman of International Dairy Queen's concept commit lli here for the test reactor. tee "and a member of its menu committee. "Sam is one of the most original deep-thinking minds I've run into in, our business," says Art Hayes, a fran7 chise operator from Seattle who serves on the International Dairy Queen advisory council with Temper-u ato.

"His suggestions have all been' deep and substantive and have made 1 vast improvements in sales, and profits." Temperato's leading contributions' include the Full Meal Deal, a much, advertised promotion that consists of a hamburger, fries, drink and sundae i for one price; one-sixth-pound bur-1 gers in single, double and triple the chili-dog split and his latest howl-i ing success, the Blizzard, said Cooper. Cooper credits the Blizzard with re- juvenating Dairy Queen's image nationwide as well as boosting 15 to 17 percent last year. "That's quite humongous," Cooper said. "The public has just been really excited about it," said Charles purtn, a franchise owner in Oklahoma City. "Given the economy here, the Bliz- zard has just been a godsend to me." The Blizzard's success catapulted International Dairy Queen's stock to 72 'j last October from about 40 in early 1985.

In February, the stock split 5-for-l. It closed Friday at 24. "I didn't own any (stock)," laments Temperato. "I sold mine at 10." Temperato says sales at his 67 res-! taurants were up 28.1 percent in 1985 from 1984. Most of the credit goes tos the Blizzard.

This year's sales arej projected at $19 million, up 15 per-J cent from 1985. The Blizzard, Temperato freely ad-1 mits, was borrowed from Ted Drewes, whose concretes have been drawing long lines outside his frozen custard stands on Grand Boulevard and Chippewa Avenue for six or sev- en years. The concrete is an extra! thick shake made of Drewes' frozenj custard mixed with fruit, chocolate chips or other flavorings. But it was another St. Louis area custard stand the now-defunct Huckleberry's in West County that really piqued Temperato's interest." Huckleberry's was putting crushed! Healh bars, Oreos, Snickers and other? candies in its concretes.

"When 1 walked in there and tasted some of the product, I said, 'We've got to have this at Dairy So, in 1983, Temperato brought the. Blizzard to St. Louis, advertising it asj "the original concrete." Dairy Queen had a trademark on a thick shake! See TEMPERATO, Page 13k! if i j-. I ''iCi -) i if if (' -tvvvwmwmnmtmmm I A. i If i msmmmm mmm 1 'HWW ))-.

ft liyv Robert C. Holt Jr.Post-Dispatch Sam Temperato, a franchise owner who per- successful Blizzard, at his Dairy Queen at suaded Dairy Queen to make its fantastically 1326 South Florissant Road in Cool Valley. i.