Chalk River Laboratories (; also known as CRL, Chalk River Labs and formerly Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, CRNL) is a Canadian nuclear research facility in Deep River, about north-west of Ottawa.
CRL is a site of major research and development to support and advance nuclear technology, particularly CANDU reactor technology. CRL has expertise in physics, metallurgy, chemistry, biology, and engineering, and hosts unique research facilities. For example, Bertram Brockhouse, a professor at McMaster University, received the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering work in neutron spectroscopy while at CRL from 1950 to 1962. Sir John Cockcroft was an early director of CRL and also a Nobel laureate. Until the shutdown of its nuclear reactor in 2018, CRL produced a large share of the world's supply of medical radioisotopes. It is owned by the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories subsidiary of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and operated under contract by the Canadian National Energy Alliance, a private-sector consortium led by AtkinsRéalis.
History
The facility arose out of a 1942 collaboration between British and Canadian nuclear researchers which saw the Montreal Laboratory established under the National Research Council (NRC). By 1944, the Chalk River Laboratories (known as “Petawawa Works” of Defence Industries Limited during the early stages) were opened and, in September 1945, the facility saw the first nuclear reactor outside of the United States, ZEEP, become operational (see Lew Kowarski). In 1946, NRC closed the Montreal laboratory and focused its resources on Chalk River.
In 1952, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) was created by the government to promote peaceful use of nuclear energy. AECL also took over operation of Chalk River from the NRC. Since the 1950s, various nuclear research reactors have been operated by AECL for production of nuclear material for medical and scientific applications. At one point in time, the Chalk River Laboratories produced about one-third of the world's medical isotopes, and about half of the North American supply. Despite the declaration of peaceful use, from 1955 to 1985, Chalk River facilities supplied about of plutonium, in the form of spent reactor fuel, to the U.S. Department of Energy to be used in the production of nuclear weapons. (The bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, used about of plutonium.)
Canada's first nuclear power plant, a partnership between AECL and Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, went online in 1962 near the site of Chalk River Laboratories. This reactor, Nuclear Power Demonstration (NPD), was a demonstration of the CANDU reactor design, one of the world's safest and most successful nuclear reactors.
The Deep River neutron monitor operated once in Chalk river.
1952 NRX incident
Chalk River was also the site of two nuclear accidents in the 1950s. The first incident occurred on December 12, 1952, when there was a power excursion and partial loss of coolant in the NRX reactor, which resulted in significant damage to the core. The control rods could not be lowered into the core because of mechanical problems and human errors. Three rods did not reach their destination and were taken out again by accident. The fuel rods were overheated, resulting in a meltdown. The reactor and the reactor building were seriously damaged by hydrogen explosions. The seal of the reactor vessel was blown up four feet, and of radioactive water were found in the cellar of the building. This water was dumped in ditches around from the border of the Ottawa River. During this accident some of radioactive material was released. Future U.S. president Jimmy Carter, then a U.S. Navy officer in Schenectady, New York, was part of a team of 26 men, including 13 U.S. Navy volunteers, involved in the hazardous cleanup. Two years later the reactor was in use again.
1958 NRU incident
The second accident, in 1958, involved a fuel rupture and fire in the National Research Universal reactor (NRU) reactor building. Some fuel rods were overheated. With a robotic crane, one of the rods with metallic uranium was pulled out of the reactor vessel. When the arm of the crane moved away from the vessel, the uranium caught fire and the rod broke. The largest part of the rod fell down into the containment vessel, still burning. The whole building was contaminated. The valves of the ventilation system were opened, and a large area outside the building was contaminated. The fire was extinguished by scientists and maintenance men in protective clothing running along the hole in the containment vessel with buckets of wet sand, throwing the sand down at the moment they passed the smoking entrance.