Nuclear industry in Canada - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Nuclear industry in Canada is an active business and research sector, producing about 15% of its electricity in nuclear power plants of domestic design. Canada is the world's largest exporter of uranium

Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...

, and has the world's second largest proven reserves. Canada also exports nuclear technology

Nuclear technology

Nuclear technology is technology that involves the reactions of atomic nuclei. Among the notable nuclear technologies are nuclear power, nuclear medicine, and nuclear weapons...

within the terms of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to...

, to which it is a signatory, and is the world's largest producer of radioactive medical isotopes.

Uranium mining

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

has a long history of uranium

Uranium

mining. Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited

Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited

The Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited company was originally organized in 1927 as Eldorado Gold Mines Limited to develop a gold mine in Manitoba. Its president Gilbert LaBine later found radioactive deposits at Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories in 1930, which led to the development of the...

was among the earliest mining entities to work with radioactive ores. Originally owned by the gold prospector Gilbert Labine, Eldorado began to prospect for pitchblende ore in 1929 and set up the Port Radium mine in the Northwest Territories

Northwest Territories

The Northwest Territories is a federal territory of Canada.Located in northern Canada, the territory borders Canada's two other territories, Yukon to the west and Nunavut to the east, and three provinces: British Columbia to the southwest, and Alberta and Saskatchewan to the south...

four years later. Initially worked for the then more valuable radium

Radium

Radium is a chemical element with atomic number 88, represented by the symbol Ra. Radium is an almost pure-white alkaline earth metal, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, becoming black in color. All isotopes of radium are highly radioactive, with the most stable isotope being radium-226,...

deposits, it also became Canada's first uranium-producing operation. When the demand for uranium increased during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Eldorado became involved in further prospecting around Canada. An urgent need for uranium in quantity arose with the inception in 1942 of the Manhattan Project

Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...

, the joint British-United States-Canadian undertaking which eventually brought forth the atomic bomb. Initially Canada's role was to supply uranium raw material.

The government nationalized the company in 1944. A year after establishing the Atomic Energy Control Board the government lifted the private prospecting ban that had been in force and offered incentives to private prospectors in 1946. This ushered in the "uranium rush", leading to over 10,000 radioactive ore discoveries, most notably the deposits in the Athabasca region of Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....

, once hailed as "The Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

of the Uranium Industry", boasted five active mines within an area of about 200,000 square kilometres. The first of these mines was established in 1953, on the shores of Lake Athabasca

Lake Athabasca

Lake Athabasca is located in the northwest corner of Saskatchewan and the northeast corner of Alberta between 58° and 60° N.-History:The name in the Dene language originally referred only to the large delta formed by the confluence the Athabasca River at the southwest corner of the lake...

. A full-fledged settlement was established near the mine and christened Uranium City. However, when the bottom fell out of the market the population dropped from a high of 4,000 in 1973, during the heyday of mining, to 200 in 1983, when the mining stopped.

In the late nineteen eighties, the Saskatchewan government restructured the uranium mining industry and largely divested its own interests to form Cameco

Cameco

Cameco Corporation is the world's largest publicly traded uranium company, based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. In 2009, it was the world's second largest uranium producer, accounting for 16% of world production.-History:...

in 1988. This would soon become the largest uranium mining company in the world with control over two thirds of the world's largest, high grade uranium mines at Key Lake and Rabbit Lake in Saskatchewan.

Due to the strategic importance of uranium, the industry is regulated at the federal level and falls under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Atomic Energy Control Board. In March, 1997, the Nuclear Safety and Control Act

Nuclear Safety and Control Act

The Nuclear Safety and Control Act of Canada replaced the Atomic Energy Control Act of 1946 with new, more effective and explicit legislation to regulate the activities of the Canadian nuclear industry. The NSCA also provided for the establishment of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission , which...

was passed and replacing previous legislation pertaining to nuclear safety.

Nuclear technology

The Nuclear industry (as distinct from the uranium industry) in Canada dates back to 1942 when a joint British-Canadian laboratory was set up in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, under the administration of the National Research Council of Canada

National Research Council of Canada

The National Research Council is an agency of the Government of Canada which conducts scientific research and development.- History :...

, to develop a design for a heavy-water nuclear reactor. This reactor was called National Research Experimental

NRX

NRX was a heavy water moderated, light water cooled, nuclear research reactor at the Canadian Chalk River Laboratories, which came into operation in 1947 at a design power rating of 10 MW , increasing to 42 MW by 1954...

and would be the most powerful research reactor

Research reactor

Research reactors are nuclear reactors that serve primarily as a neutron source. They are also called non-power reactors, in contrast to power reactors that are used for electricity production, heat generation, or maritime propulsion.-Purpose:...

in the world when completed. In the meantime, in 1944, approval was given to proceed with the construction of the smaller ZEEP

ZEEP

The ZEEP reactor was a nuclear reactor built at the Chalk River Laboratories near Chalk River, Ontario, Canada . ZEEP first went critical at 3:45 PM, September 5, 1945...

(Zero Energy Experimental Pile) test reactor at Chalk River

Chalk River

Chalk River is a Canadian rural community part of the Laurentian Hills municipality in Renfrew County, Ontario. It is located in the Upper Ottawa Valley along Highway 17 , 10 km inland from the Ottawa River, approximately 21 km northwest of Petawawa, and 182 km northwest of Ottawa...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

and on September 5, 1945 at 3:45 p.m., the 10 Watt ZEEP successfully achieved the first self-sustained nuclear reaction outside the United States. ZEEP operated for 25 years as a key research facility.

In 1946, Montreal Laboratory was closed, and the work continued at Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories. Building partly on the experimental data obtained from ZEEP, the National Research Experimental

NRX

(NRX)—a natural uranium

Natural uranium

Natural uranium refers to refined uranium with the same isotopic ratio as found in nature. It contains 0.7 % uranium-235, 99.3 % uranium-238, and a trace of uranium-234 by weight. In terms of the amount of radioactivity, approximately 2.2 % comes from uranium-235, 48.6 % uranium-238, and 49.2 %...

, heavy water

Heavy water

Heavy water is water highly enriched in the hydrogen isotope deuterium; e.g., heavy water used in CANDU reactors is 99.75% enriched by hydrogen atom-fraction...

moderated research reactor—started up on July 22, 1947. It operated for 43 years, producing radioisotopes, undertaking fuels and materials development work for CANDU reactors, and providing neutron

Neutron

The neutron is a subatomic hadron particle which has the symbol or , no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton. With the exception of hydrogen, nuclei of atoms consist of protons and neutrons, which are therefore collectively referred to as nucleons. The number of...

s for physics experiments. It was eventually joined in 1957 by the larger 200 megawatt (MW) National Research Universal

NRU

NRU may refer to:* National Reform Union , the formal name for the Reform Union, a minor, yet significant pressure group within the United Kingdom that demanded a secret ballot, extension of the franchise and equal sized constituencies in relation to the democratic process...

(NRU) reactor.

In 1952, the Canadian Government formed AECL, a Crown corporation with the mandate to develop peaceful uses of nuclear energy. A partnership was formed between AECL, Ontario Hydro

Ontario Hydro

Ontario Hydro was the official name from 1974 of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario which was established in 1906 by the provincial Power Commission Act to build transmission lines to supply municipal utilities with electricity generated by private companies already operating at Niagara...

and Canadian General Electric to build Canada's first nuclear power plant, called NPD for Nuclear Power Demonstration. The 20 MWe Nuclear Power Demonstration (NPD) started operation in 1962 and successfully demonstrated the unique concepts of on-power refuelling using natural uranium fuel, and heavy water moderator and coolant. These defining features formed the basis of a successful fleet of CANDU power reactors (CANDU is an acronym for CANada Deuterium Uranium) built and operated in Canada and elsewhere.

In the late 1960s (1967–1970), Canada also developed an experimental miniature nuclear reactor named SLOWPOKE

Slowpoke

Slowpoke may refer to:*Slowpoke , a fictional species of creatures in Pokémon media*SLOWPOKE reactor, a nuclear research reactor*Slowpoke , a band from Dallas, Texas, who have worked with the Toadies*Slowpoke...

(acronym for Safe Low-Power Kritical Experiment). The first prototype was built at Chalk River and many SLOWPOKEs were subsequently built, mainly for research. This reactor design is extremely safe and requires almost no maintenance (it is even licensed to operate unattended overnight); it can run for more than 20 years before the nuclear fuel needs replacement. There was an attempt at commercializing the reactor, as it could be used in remote areas or vehicles (research stations, electric-diesel submarines). Then, China entered the market with its SLOWPOKE-like reactor and thus, the project lost its commercial potential. Many SLOWPOKEs are still in use in Canada; there is one running at École Polytechnique de Montréal

École Polytechnique de Montréal

The École Polytechnique de Montréal is an engineering school/faculty affiliated with the University of Montreal in Montreal, Canada. It ranks first in Canada for the scope of its engineering research. It is occasionally referred to as Montreal Polytechnic, although in Quebec English its French...

, for instance.

Radioisotopes

The existence of Canada's early nuclear program, and in particular the powerful NRX research reactor, nurtured a medical isotope and nuclear medicine R&D community at several locations across the country. Canada pioneered the Cobalt-60

Cobalt-60

Cobalt-60, , is a synthetic radioactive isotope of cobalt. Due to its half-life of 5.27 years, is not found in nature. It is produced artificially by neutron activation of . decays by beta decay to the stable isotope nickel-60...

cancer therapy technology that became standard medical practice throughout the world (the first Cobalt-60 cancer therapy was administered at the Royal Victoria Hospital in London, Ontario on October 27, 1951), and has also been involved in the development of accelerator-based cancer therapy technology.

Framework

Natural Resources Canada

The Department of Natural Resources , operating under the FIP applied title Natural Resources Canada , is the ministry of the government of Canada responsible for natural resources, energy, minerals and metals, forests, earth sciences, mapping and remote sensing...

oversees nuclear power R&D and regulation in Canada, with responsibility for the crown corporations Atomic Energy of Canada Limited

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited or AECL is a Canadian federal Crown corporation and Canada's largest nuclear science and technology laboratory...

(AECL) and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission , previously known as the Atomic Energy Control Board , is the governmental nuclear power and materials watchdog in Canada...

(CNSC). AECL’s commercial operations include reactor development, design and construction of CANDU nuclear reactors, and provision of reactor services and technical support to CANDU reactors worldwide.

Power generation

The province of Ontario

Ontario

dominates Canada's nuclear power industry, containing most of the country's nuclear power generating capacity. Ontario has 16 operating reactors providing about 50% of the province’s electricity, plus two reactors undergoing refurbishment. Quebec

Quebec

and New Brunswick

New Brunswick

New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...

each have one reactor. Overall, nuclear power provides about 15% of Canada's electricity. The industry employs about 21,000 people directly and 10,000 indirectly.

Recently there has been renewed interest in nuclear energy, spurred by increasing demand (particularly within Ontario), and the desire to comply with Canada’s Kyoto Agreement obligations. The Government of Ontario proposed plans in 2004 to build several new nuclear reactors in the province. The leading candidate is AECL

AECL

AECL is an acronym that can stand for:*Advanced Electronics Company Limited*Atomic Energy of Canada Limited*Australian Egg Corporation Limited...

's Advanced CANDU Reactor

Advanced CANDU Reactor

The Advanced CANDU Reactor is a Generation III+ nuclear reactor design and is a further development of existing CANDU reactors designed by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. The ACR is a light-water-cooled reactor that incorporates features of both Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors and Advanced...

. Environmental assessments are currently underway for one site next to Bruce Power

Bruce Power

Bruce Power Limited Partnership is a Canadian business partnership composed of several corporations. It exists as a partnership between Cameco Corporation , TransCanada Corporation , BPC Generation Infrastructure Trust , the Power Workers Union and The Society of Energy Professionals...

's Bruce Nuclear Generating Station

Bruce Nuclear Generating Station

Bruce Nuclear Generating Station is a Canadian nuclear power station located on the eastern shore of Lake Huron, in the communities of Inverhuron and Tiverton, Ontario. It occupies 932 ha of land. The facility derives its name from Bruce County in which it is located, in the former Bruce Township...

in Tiverton

Tiverton, Ontario

Tiverton is a community located in Ontario, Canada. It is near the shore of Lake Huron on Highway 21 between Port Elgin, Ontario and Kincardine, Ontario.Tiverton is incorporated in the Municipality of Kincardine.- History :...

and another next to Ontario Power Generation

Ontario Power Generation

Ontario Power Generation is a public company wholly owned by the Government of Ontario. OPG is responsible for approximately 70% of the electricity generation in the Province of Ontario, Canada. Sources of electricity include nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, wind, and fossil fuel...

's Darlington Nuclear Generating Station

Darlington Nuclear Generating Station

Darlington Nuclear Generating Station is a Canadian nuclear power station located on the north shore of Lake Ontario in Clarington, Ontario. The facility derives its name from the Township of Darlington, the former name of the municipality in which it is located.The Darlington station is a large...

. Bruce Power has applied for a license to generate nuclear power at Cardinal Lake

Cardinal Lake

Cardinal Lake is a lake in north-western Alberta, Canada. It is located at the southern end of Mackenzie Highway, near Grimshaw.Cardinal Lake has a total area of 50 km². Its waters are drained through the Whitemud River into the Peace River....

in the province of Alberta.

Medical radioisotopes

About 85% of the world's medical and industrial Cobalt-60

Cobalt-60

is produced in Canada. The medical-use Cobalt-60 is produced in the NRU research reactor at AECL's Chalk River Laboratories, while industrial-use Cobalt-60 is produced in selected CANDU power reactors (in these units some adjuster rods are made of Cobalt-59 for this purpose). Furthermore, over half the Cobalt-60 therapy machines and medical sterilizers in the world were built in Canada, treating over half a million patients yearly.

In addition to Cobalt 60, MDS Nordion also produces radioisotopes that are essential in diagnostic therapy. Some can be mixed chemically with other substances and injected into the body to allow physicians to “see” into the body, even the brain, lungs and organs that hitherto were inaccessible. Not only have these diagnostic techniques eliminated the need for much exploratory surgery, they have provided physicians with diagnostic capabilities that would otherwise have been impossible. Mild irradiation is also used to sterilize many medical supplies and some pharmaceuticals.

Canada was also a pioneer in the production of medical isotopes, and today is the world's biggest supplier of Molybdenum-99, the "workhorse" and most commonly-used isotope in nuclear medicine. This isotope is generated in the NRU reactor; this is then shipped to MDS Nordion, a global supplier of radiopharmaceuticals based in Kanata, Ontario (near Ottawa). There are more than 4000 Mo-99 treatments daily in Canada, and 40,000 daily in the US. Canada produces about 30-40% of the global supply of molybdenum-99

Molybdenum

Molybdenum , is a Group 6 chemical element with the symbol Mo and atomic number 42. The name is from Neo-Latin Molybdaenum, from Ancient Greek , meaning lead, itself proposed as a loanword from Anatolian Luvian and Lydian languages, since its ores were confused with lead ores...

Uranium production

Canada is the world’s largest producer of uranium

Uranium market

The uranium market, like all commodity markets, has a history of volatility, moving not only with the standard forces of supply and demand, but also to whims of geopolitics. It has also evolved particularities of its own in response to the unique nature and use of this material.The only significant...

with about one third of world production coming from Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan

mines. There are two major players in the uranium mining

Uranium mining

Uranium mining is the process of extraction of uranium ore from the ground. The worldwide production of uranium in 2009 amounted to 50,572 tonnes, of which 27% was mined in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia are the top three producers and together account for 63% of world uranium...

sector.

Cameco

Cameco

operates the McArthur River mine, which started production at the end of 1999. Its ore is milled at Key Lake

Key Lake

-See also:* Unconformity uranium deposits* Uranium mining* List of uranium mines...

, which once contributed 15% of world uranium production but is now mined out. Its other former mainstay is Rabbit Lake mine

Rabbit Lake mine

Rabbit Lake is the second largest uranium milling facility in the western world, and is the longest operating uranium production facility in Saskatchewan. The facility is located approximately 800 km north of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on the northeast edge of the uranium rich Athabasca Basin....

, which still has some reserves at Eagle Point mine

Rabbit Lake mine

, where mining resumed in mid 2002 after a three-year break. An underground reserve replacement program is adding to reserves faster than they are being mined.

Areva Resources Canada

Areva

AREVA is a French public multinational industrial conglomerate headquartered in the Tour Areva in Courbevoie, Paris. AREVA is mainly known for nuclear power; it also has interests in other energy projects. It was created on 3 September 2001, by the merger of Framatome , Cogema and...

operates the McClean Lake mine

McClean Lake mine

The McClean Lake mine is a uranium mine and milling operation located west of Wollaston Lake, about 700 kilometres north of Saskatoon, in the Athabasca Basin region of Saskatchewan, Canada. The McClean ore body was discovered in 1979, followed by the discovery of the JEB ore body in 1982...

, which started production in mid 1999. Its Cluff Lake mine

Cluff Lake mine

Cluff Lake mine, located about from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan at the northern terminus of Saskatchewan Highway 955, is owned and operated by AREVA Resources Canada, formerly COGEMA Resources. The mine ceased uranium production at the end of 2002 when the ore reserves were depleted...

has now closed, and is being decommissioned.

In December 2004, the Cigar Lake Joint Venture (AREVA Resources Canada 37.1%,
Cameco Corporation 50.025%, Idemitsu Uranium Exploration Canada Ltd. 7.875%, and
TEPCO Resources 5%) partners agreed to proceed with development of the Cigar Lake uranium mine -the second largest known high-grade uranium deposit in the world, after McArthur River. With federal and provincial approvals in place, full construction began in January 2005.

All of Canada's uranium production now comes from the high-grade unconformity-type uranium deposits of the Athabasca Basin

Athabasca Basin

This article is about the uranium mining region near Lake Athabasca. Not to be confused with the drainage basin of the Athabasca River.The Athabasca Basin is a region of Northern Saskatchewan and Alberta Canada that is best known as the world's leading source of high grade uranium...

of northern Saskatchewan, such as Rabbit Lake, McClean Lake, McArthur River, and Cigar Lake.

The uranium industry invested at least CDN $3.5 billion during the 20th century, with capital investment in mines of CDN $2.5 billion, and exploration and predevelopment expenditures exceeding CDN $1 billion. Adjusting for inflation, there have been three investment booms. The first small one came with the initial developments in the Beaverlodge area in the 1950s. The second and largest boom was in the 1970s, with the opening of the Cluff and Rabbit lake mines, and the third was in the 1990s with the development of the higher grade ores on the east side.

Nuclear waste management

Radioactive waste in Canada can be grouped into three broad categories: nuclear fuel waste, low-level radioactive waste, and uranium mill tailings. The most recent inventory of these wastes is provided in the LLRWMO 2004 report. At the end of 2003, the total amount of nuclear fuel waste was 6,800 m³.

Canada’s used nuclear fuel

Spent nuclear fuel

Spent nuclear fuel, occasionally called used nuclear fuel, is nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in a nuclear reactor...

is now safely stored at licensed facilities at the reactor sites. On site storage options are expected to perform well over the near term; however, existing reactor sites were not chosen for their suitability as permanent storage sites. Furthermore, the communities hosting the nuclear reactors have a reasonable expectation that used nuclear fuel will eventually be moved.

In 2002 the Government of Canada passed the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act, requiring the owners of used nuclear fuel to create the Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organisation

Nuclear Waste Management Organization (Canada)

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Canada was established in 2002 under the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act to investigate approaches for managing Canada’s used nuclear fuel...

(NWMO). This Act required that the NWMO engage citizens, specialists, stakeholders and the Aboriginal peoples in research and dialogue to assess the options for long-term management of this material.

In 2005, the NWMO recommended "Adaptive Phased Management" as the foundation for managing the risks and uncertainties that are inherent in the very long time frames over which used nuclear fuel must be managed. In 2007, the Government of Canada approved this approach, and authorized NWMO to begin implementation.

In summary the program commits Canada to the first steps to manage the used nuclear fuel it has created. It espouses sequential and collaborative decision-making to provide flexibility to adapt to experience and technical change. It aims to provide a viable, safe and secure long-term storage solution, with the potential of retrieving used fuel until and if and when a decision is made to seal the facility permanently. It is meant to provide the capacity to transfer responsibility from one generation to the next. The key technical element of the approach is the ultimate centralized containment and isolation of the used fuel and other high level waste in a deep geological repository

Deep geological repository

A deep geological repository is a nuclear waste repository excavated deep within a stable geologic environment...

in a suitable rock formation, such as the crystalline rock of the Canadian Shield

Canadian Shield

The Canadian Shield, also called the Laurentian Plateau, or Bouclier Canadien , is a vast geological shield covered by a thin layer of soil that forms the nucleus of the North American or Laurentia craton. It is an area mostly composed of igneous rock which relates to its long volcanic history...

or Ordovician

Ordovician

The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic Era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago . It follows the Cambrian Period and is followed by the Silurian Period...

sedimentary rock.

External links

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