1. Splitting Atoms, Canadian Style
(Unvarnished nuclear history)
Chalk River Branch of the Canadian Nuclear Society
2017 October 17
Morgan Brown
Much credit to:
Jeremy Whitlock (now IAEA, Vienna)
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories
Canadian Nuclear Society
Society for the Preservation of Canada’s Nuclear Heritage, Inc.
Knights of the Neutron (Bunch o’ nuclear nerds)

2. WARNING!
The following presentation is unashamedly biased towards a Canadian power reactor.

3. The Canadian reactor that Could …
No, not a sunset industry!!
… still Does
… and will Do!
“Canada” – because it was invented in Canada, in the late 50’s and early 60’s
“Deuterium” – because a defining characteristic is its use of heavy water moderator (deuterium oxide)
“Uranium” – because it was designed to operate on natural uranium, one of the most abundant minerals in the earth’s crust.
“One of Canada’s top ten engineering achievements of the past century”
Canadian engineering centennial, 1987
(Other nine: CP Railway, St. Lawrence Seaway, Polymer Corp. synthetic rubber, oil sands, Hydro Quebec HV transmission, Beaver aircraft, Alouette satellite, Bombardier snowmobile, Trans-Canada telephone network)

4. Why learn nuclear history?
It’s mighty interesting (maybe only for technophiles)
You might learn something (repeat only the good stuff)
You might correct a wrong

5. 1. It’s just plain interesting
: Martin Co. 5 W Sr-90 (RTG) powered unmanned weather station, Axel Heiberg Island in Canadian Arctic.
Oct 1970: AECL MAPLE-1B RTG installed in Brockville lighthouse.
CGE competed to build a PHWR in Finland in the 1960s. What would have happened if ...?

6. 2. You might learn something
Accidents / incidents: NRX, NRU, Pickering-2, Pickering-2, Bruce-4 fuelling machine, Bruce-2 cold channel failure, THERAC-25 (e-beam radiation therapy, programming errors), TMI-2, SL-1, Chornobyl-4, Fukushima Daiichi 1-4, Bruce A LP turbine drop (concrete), PL turbine drop (sea water).
Designs (successes, failures, those that never had the chance): CANDU 6; SLOWPOKE-II; CANDU 9; CANDU 3; MAPLE; ACRs; SDR; NRU; NRX; WR-1; Gentilly-1; NPD (1 and 2)
Processes: Bruce-2 SG Pb blanket (FME, 1986); Point Lepreau retube (verification, 2009); Radium paints in abandoned Toronto warehouse (materials control, 1961); CIRUS and Operation Smiling Bhudda (proliferation, 1974 May)

7. 3a. You might correct a wrong
Stephen Whelan died in chemical explosion (~90 kg NH4NO3), Dec Only (?) industrial accident death at CRNL.
Whelan family unsure what happened, felt poorly treated / forgotten. Decades later, CRL communications staff caught off guard (didn’t know) - public shame / embarrassment.
CNS members (Mike Stephens, Jeremy Whitlock, me) contacted family in 2009 (serendipitous). Visited Rita (widow) with family and friends. Wonderful time; reassured Rita that Stephen was not responsible (58 years thinking maybe he was!). Family later visited where Stephen died. Rita died 2017 Sep 23.

8. 3a. You might correct a wrong
Stephen’s story now part of CRL OPEX training – important to remember and learn.

9. 3b. You might correct a wrong
Did the nuclear industry (or anyone) promise nuclear would be “Too cheap to meter”?
Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter," he declared,   ...    "It is not too much to expect that our children will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age." Lewis L. Strauss, Chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission Speech to National Association of Science Writers, Sep   

10. 3b. You might correct a wrong
“Too cheap to meter”? (CNS web page)
To express it in the simplest terms: you can save a lot of money on fuel if you have an atomic power plant, but it will cost a great deal more to build than a coal-burning plant.
Gordon Dean, 1953, Chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission
It is expected that power from nuclear energy can be generated at a cost competitive with that from coal but such factual knowledge can only be gained by actual experience. Dr. David Keys, Scientific Adviser to the AECL President, April   

11. 3c. You might correct a wrong
Nuclear Sunset: The Economic Costs of the Canadian Nuclear Industry
Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout, Feb 1996
Phasing Out Nuclear Power in Canada: Toward Sustainable Electricity Futures
Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout, July 2003
Really?
Phased out?

12. The report of my death was an exaggeration. -Mark Twain, June 1897
Nuclear Sunset ?!?
The report of my death
was an exaggeration.
-Mark Twain, June 1897

13. Back to the beginning …
1.8 billion years ago: Natural reactor at Oklo, Gabon. (Is earth’s core a reactor?)
1789: Martin Klaproth discovered uranium and zirconium! (Both metals very important to nuclear science & technology - no one knew about radiation at the time)
1895 Nov 8: Wilhelm Roentgen discovered x-rays. First Canadian diagnostic radiograph 1896 Feb 7, showed surgeons bullet location (probing hadn’t worked - ouch!).
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1901
1896 Mar 1: Henri Becquerel discovers radioactivity in uranium. (Abel Niépce de Saint Victor had discovered it in 1856, reported to French Academy of Science; no one investigated further!)
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1903
1898 Jul: Marie and Pierre Curie extract polonium and radium from pitchblende (a uranium ore).
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1903
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1903
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1911

14. Claimed by NZ, Canada and UK!…
As McGill University professor
describes radioactivity, half-life.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1908
Worked with chemist Frederick Soddy.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1921
1910 …
Nuclear structure of atoms
1919 …
Artificial transmutation (nitrogen to oxygen)
Ernest Rutherford
( )
Claimed by NZ, Canada and UK!
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1944
Otto Hahn, 26. (Unknowingly) demonstrated fission with Fritz Strassman in Hahn sent unexplained chemical results to Lise Meitner who, with nephew Otto Frisch, developed nuclear fission theory (Nobel committee ignored contribution of Meitner and Frisch!)
Rutherford, 1905

15. 1935 LMS locomotive (Honours don’t get any better)
“If it were ever possible to control at will the rate of disintegration of the radio-elements, an enormous amount of energy could be obtained from a small amount of matter”
Ernest Rutherford, 1904
1971 postage stamp
1935 LMS locomotive (Honours don’t get any better)

16. Gilbert Labine
( )
He and brother Charles born in Westmeath, Ont (70 km from CRL)
1930 …
Cigar Lake, Saskatchewan. Highest grade ore in world. Canada = 22% world supply U3O8 in 2015.
Discovered uranium (radium for cancer therapy) at Great Bear Lake, NWT
Faraday Mine, Bancroft ,
Port Hope refinery, 1933

17. ? James Chadwick 1932 … - discovers the neutron, 1932
(UK )
- discovers the neutron, 1932
- start of the neutron transmutation bandwagon, leads to controlled atomic fission in uranium!
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1935
# protons
# neutrons ?

18. “The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine”
Sir Ernest Rutherford, 1933
( )

19. 1939 … January: FISSION! September: WAR!
(Hahn, Strassmann, Meitner, Frisch)
(Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo)
September: WAR!
A twist of fate: One of the biggest and most powerful energy sources known to mankind, the fission of uranium and the unprecedented energy thus released, was discovered just months before the the start of the biggest global conflict known to mankind -- and the discovery was made in the country that instigated that conflict.

20. Have heavy water, will travel
1940 …
Have heavy water, will travel
Target of commando operations Grouse, Freshman and Gunnerside. (“Heroes of Telemark” 1965: Kirk Douglas, Richard Harris but an inaccurate movie)
Norsk Hydro “Vemork” plant,1935
Hans von Halban 1st Cdn lab director
Lew Kowarski ZEEP
Frédéric Joliot-Curie
Paris, France
World stock 180 kg
early 1940
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1935
World stock 180 kg
May 1940
Drum T-7
May 1943
Post-war return (1948)

21. …
George Laurence
( )
World’s first large-scale fission experiments in graphite: “Uranium Fission in a Bulk of Carbon and Uranium Oxide”, Laurence and Sargent
National Research Council
100 Sussex Drive, Ottawa

22. Meanwhile:
1940 Spring: UK MAUD committee examines weapon possibility. Kowarski, von Halban, Guéron, Auger, Goldschmidt and others escaped Nazi Europe; continued work at Cambridge U.
1940 Dec 14: Pu (238) produced at UCLA Berkeley by Seaborg and McMillan.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1951
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1951
1941 Dec: MAUD concluded atom bomb and heavy- water “boiler” feasible with Commonwealth help. “Tube Alloys” project set up: UK “well ahead [of everyone] in uranium research”.
1942: After Pearl Harbour, US moves very rapidly (Manhattan Project, Sep 1). Proposal to move UK heavy water team to Canada, with Canadian participation (National Research Council).

23. Aug. 17, 1942 …
“Okay, let’s go!”
C.D. Howe Cdn. wartime Minister of Munitions & Supply
(“Minister of Everything”)
Clarence Decatur Howe (1886 – 1960)
G.C. Laurence, C.D. Howe, C.J. Mackenzie, J.D. Cockcroft (2nd Cdn lab director). Aug 1945
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1951

24. Meanwhile, south of the border ...
Enrico Fermi
( )
First nuclear reactor
Chicago: December 2, 1942
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1938
Dr. George Laurence, working in his spare time at the NRC labs on Sussex Drive, was one of the first in the world to experiment with nuclear fission chain reactions in piles of graphite and uranium. If he had purer materials and more resources he might have been the first to achieve a self-sustaining chain reaction, an honour that went to Enrico Fermi in Chicago, on December 2, For more on Canada’s early history, see “Entering The Nuclear Age” by Jeremy Whitlock at:
and “Early Years of Nuclear Energy Research in Canada” by George Laurence, at: .

25. Montreal Laboratories
1943 …
Montreal Laboratories
(NRC, at U. of Montreal)
Bernice Sargent
Hans von Halban
Bertrand Goldschmidt Trigly process (Pu extraction)
Jules Guéron
Misplaced (?!) U-233 and U-235 samples
John Cockroft
Alan Nunn May (oops! Samples of U U-235 given to Soviets!)
George Laurence
Bruno Pontecorvo (oops?)

26. 1944 April 13 Combined Policy Committee decision:
Build pilot heavy water plant [i.e., reactor] in Canada ...
...site officially selected 1944 Aug 19
Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories
(NRC of Canada)
aka “Defence Industries Limited Petawawa Works”
Fall 1944
June
Spring 1945
May
NRX = National Research X-metal
(later eXperimental)
But first, ZEEP goes here
The location for the heavy-water reactor project designed by the Montreal Group was a place on the Ottawa River near Chalk River, Ontario. This became Chalk River Laboratories.
Photos courtesy AECL

27. Photos courtesy AECL and NRCC
ZEEP: first reactor outside the U.S.A.
1945 …
Committed: 1944 Aug 24
First operates: Sep 5
Final shutdown: 1970 Jul 27
ZEEP, built by Lew Kowarski (bringing “closure” to his long journey than began with heavy water experiments in France), was a small reactor producing a few watts of power (practically “zero”; hence its name). It’s mission was to test the design of the NRX reactor, then under construction. ZEEP started operating for the first time on Sept. 5, 1945, becoming the world’s first reactor outside the United States. It operated for 25 years as a versatile and simple research reactor, and was shut down in 1970.
George Klein (designer, NRCC)
Lew Kowarski (physicist)
Photos courtesy AECL and NRCC

28. THE DEPARTMENT OF RECONSTRUCTION
FOR RELEASE: Monday, August 13, 1945
CANADA’S ROLE IN ATOMIC BOMB DRAMA
Bursting of Atom Opens New Realms to Science, Says Government Statement
OTTAWA – “Enquiries received from all parts of the world indicate the widespread interest in the work carried out in Canada in making possible the production of the atomic bomb,” said the Hon. C.D. Howe, Minister of Munitions and Supply and Reconstruction, here today.
“Having ample supplies of basic materials, good water supplies, and isolated sites well suited to the work,
Canada has been able to enter as a pioneer into an important new field of technology. The future will disclose the full peacetime potentialities of this remarkable new source of energy.

29. Canada in 1945: Second largest nuclear infrastructure on the planet.
ZEEP works! World’s most powerful research reactor (NRX) under construction (1st operation 1947 Jul 22).
Atomic bomb knowledge (limited knowledge – bombs difficult to build).
Experts on heavy-water reactors. Cominco (Trail, BC) produced D2O, sold to USA but shared with CRNL.
Canada has uranium (apparently limited resources). Believed U-233 or Pu-239 needed for reactors, hence “J-rod” (Th) annulus in NRX & NRU.

30. Canada’s Choice: Peaceful Applications of Nuclear Energy
59 years old Nov Final shutdown Mar 2018
NRX ( )
NRU ( )
WR-1 ( )
Canada was the only one of the three nations with nuclear weapons potential at the end of WWII, to decide to not pursue their production. Canada did continue to make plutonium in the NRX reactor, and later the NRU reactor, which it sold to the U.S. until the early 1970s. Canadian policy then prohibited further involvement in the supply of uranium or plutonium for nuclear weapons, which continues today. More importantly, the NRX and NRU reactors were both designed to be the world’s most powerful research reactors in their day, and both fulfilled this role beyond all expectation – testing reactor materials, supporting reactor fuel development, supplying neutrons for basic physics research and isotope production. They put Canada at the forefront of the physics world – a “Mecca for nuclear research”. NRX was shut down in 1992 after 45 years of service. NRU still operates and is one of Canada’s biggest and most productive science facilities, among other things supplying most of the world’s nuclear medicine isotopes.
AECL: A Mecca for nuclear research
Photos courtesy AECL

31. “The Atom Bomb That Saves Lives”
1951 …
COBALT CANCER THERAPY
“The Atom Bomb That Saves Lives”
Maclean’s Magazine, Feb
University of Western Ontario
University of Saskatchewan
Two independent teams raced to become the first to operate cancer therapy machines, both based on cobalt-60 manufactured in the NRX reactor. Eldorado Mining and Refining’s machine at the University of Western Ontario became the first, narrowly beating the team from the University of Saskatchewan. Eldorado’s medical division was absorbed into AECL the following year (1952), becoming the Commercial Products division of the crown corporation.
FIRST PATIENT: 27 Oct, 1951
FIRST PATIENT:
8 Nov, 1951

32. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.
1952 …
Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories
NRC division
AECL Canadian Nuclear Laboratories
Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment
(1963, now being decommissioned)
Radiochemical Company (1946)
Nordion (privatized 1988)
In 1952 the Crown Corporation AECL was create to purse the peaceful applications of nuclear power in Canada.
Photos courtesy AECL

33. Deep River Players, Ontario Regional Drama Festival 1951
Triple Axis Spectrometer, 1958
Deep River Players, Ontario Regional Drama Festival 1951
Bertram Brockhouse
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1994
The Golden Era of physics at AECL saw cutting-edge experiments and world-leading scientists (like Nobel laureate Bertram Brockhouse) become part of the routine operations of Chalk River Laboratories.
Ted Litherland, Allan Bromley, Harry Gove
Tandem Accelerator, 1959
Photos courtesy AECL
Born in Westmeath, later Science Advisor to George Bush Sr

34. NRX Accident Dec. 12, 1952 … George Laurence:
Partial meltdown (“pinhole leak”!) No injuries (no “radioactive death”)
REAL: The exciting magazine FOR MEN (1955 Apr)
Demonstrated that a major accident need not be a disaster. Reactor rebuilt and restarted 14 months later!
Taught lessons on reactor safety (independent, diverse & separated shutdown systems), Canada became world leader.
George Laurence:
1956: Chair of Reactor Safety Advisory Committee
: 2nd President of Atomic Energy Control Board (CNSC predecessor)

35. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
1957 …
Canada instrumental in establishing IAEA
Follows Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech

36. McMaster Nuclear Reactor
1959 …
McMaster Nuclear Reactor
5 MWth pool-type AMF Atomics (Canada) Ltd

37. Nuclear Power Demonstration 25 MWe
1962 …
Nuclear Power Demonstration 25 MWe
Rolphton, Ontario
NPD-1
Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.
In 1962 Canada started up its first nuclear power reactor, Nuclear Power Demonstration (NPD), about 30 km upstream from Chalk River Laboratories. The 20 MW reactor (about 3% the size of CANDU 6) was a joint effort of AECL, Canadian General Electric (now GE Canada), and Ontario Hydro (now OPG). It operated for 25 years, being shut down in 1987.
Ontario Hydro-Electric Power Commission
Canadian General Electric

38. NPD-2 Reactor Face Spent fuel ports
Fuelling machine (currently attached to spent fuel port)
End fittings on each of 132 fuel channels
Lorne McConnell. Evidently before first NPD operation!
Feeders to steam generator or from pump

39. Nuclear Power Demonstration (NPD-2)
Des Joachims (“Swisha”) hydro dam 429 MWe. Completed 1951.
Nuclear Power Demonstration (NPD-2)
1962 – 1987 (expected life = 10 years!)
Boom to keep logs out of cooling intake
Photo courtesy AECL

40. NPD first “criticality”
April 11, 1962
NPD first “criticality”
Lorne McConnell
First electricity
June 1, 2002
Jeremy
Lorne
June 4, 1962

41. NPD first on-line refuelling
Nov. 24, 1963
NPD first on-line refuelling
Photos courtesy AECL

42. Wilfrid Bennett (W.B.) Lewis
( )
The driving force behind the application of nuclear science to electricity production.
Canada decides to build its program on its expertise: natural-uranium fuel and heavy-water moderator.
W.B. Lewis:
“The father of CANDU”
Photos courtesy AECL

43. Early years of AECL Power Plant Design
Douglas Point “CANDU”
1958: AECL creates Nuclear Power Plant Division in Mississauga
Privatized to Candu Energy Inc. (SNC Lavalin) in 2011
1966: First plant project of Power Division starts up: “CANDU” at Douglas Point, Ontario.
1972: Pickering A officially opened: world’s largest nuclear plant and first under computer control
Pickering

44. CANDU in Canada Pickering, Ontario (1971-73, 1983-86)
Darlington, Ontario ( )
Nuclear Power Demonstration (NPD), Ontario (1962)
Bruce, Ontario ( , )
CANDU in Canada
Douglas Point, Ontario (1966)
Gentilly 1 and 2, Quebec (1971, 1983)
Pt. Lepreau, New Brunswick (1983)

45. Wolsong, South Korea (1982, 1997-99)
Embalse, Argentina (1984)
Qinshan, China ( )
Cernavoda, Romania (1996, 2007, …?)
CANDU around the world
India completed RAPS-2, copied, improved design, enlarged to 540 and 700 MWe versions
India reprocessed CIRUS (not Rajastan) fuel for Pu bomb exploded May , Canada ended nuclear cooperation 1976, renewed 2012
Kanupp, Pakistan (1972) Canadian General Electric
Pakistan also cut off from Canadian support in 1976 (except safety-related) due to NPT concerns.
Rajasthan, India
(1973, 1982)

46. Canadian Gifts to the World: Cancer Therapy and Nuclear Medicine

47. physicist Takaaki Kajita
Art McDonald
Director of SNO
1980s (and continuing)
Sudbury Neutrino Observatory founding team
Chalk River, 1986
Nobel Prize in Physics, 2015
Jointly with Japanese
physicist Takaaki Kajita
Results
Endorsement
Concept
Reality

48. Ontario Power Generation
Darlington refurb (4 units) began Oct with unit 2
Pickering (6 operating units) currently licensed to Aug , OPG requesting licence extension to final shutdown 2024
New Brunswick Power
Refurbished (78.1% cap. factor since Oct 2012 restart, increasing)
Hydro Québec:
Gentilly-2 final shutdown Dec Safe storage, decommissioning with Gentilly-1 (AECL prototype)
Bruce Power
Restarted 2 units; refurbed 2; 6 more refurbs planned.
Final shutdown planned for 2064 (!)
Nuclear north of 60 (Small Modular Reactors)?

49. The shape of things to come (?)
Climate & GHGs: We have to do many things, starting now! Time to step up!)
The shape of things to come (?)
Our 61% nuclear-powered 2017 Kia Soul BEV (Love it!) >150 km range (~$0.03/km electricity vs. ~$0.07/km for gas)

50. Electric Cars
Ont Goal: 5% annual vehicle sales by 2020 (~41,000/y)
3277 EVs = 0.40% of sales 2016
2904 EVs = 0.66% of sales Q1 & Q2 2017
1 million EVs would require about one Pickering-size reactor (80% CF) or
~475 BIG (3 MWe) wind turbines (A way to store capricious wind energy?)
Assume:
1 million EVs in Ontario (eventually)
Avg 15,000 km/year. ~85% charging efficiency.
Avg 5 km / kWh (Kia gets ~7 in non-winter)
Average EV = 15,000 / 5 / 0.85 = 3,500 kWh / year, or
1 million EVs use 3,500,000,000 kWh/year

51. Perceptions are changing
(?)

52. Nuclear is about good people …
NPD design team (CAPD), Peterborough, 1955
… doing good work

53. … but let’s learn from the past !
Welcome to the future…
… but let’s learn from the past !
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories:
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission:
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited:
Canadian Nuclear FAQ:
Canadian Nuclear Society:
Society for the Preservation of Canada’s Nuclear Heritage: