July 10, 2009

Our reputation as a leader in the peaceful use of nuclear
technology is at risk.

Canada's didn't become supplier of one-third of the world's
medical isotopes by accident. We have a long history of
nuclear research and isotopes are just one of the practical
applications.

Others include neutron beams which are used to analyze
welding for defects - - everything from space shuttles to
certifying steel for bridge-building.

Canada has been at the forefront ever since the National
Research Universal nuclear reactor was built at Chalk River
in1957. At the time, it was the most powerful in the world
and the only reactor outside of the U.S.

NRU attracted scientists from around the world to explore
the uses of neuron beams. "This is quite awful," said one
biophysicist who came from California to conduct research on
cell walls. "The whole Canadian community who uses neutron
beams will have to find other places."

None of that seems to matter Prime Minister Harper. He says
Canada is "getting out of the isotope business," as if that
was all that NRU did. He seems to be as quick to abandon
our role in the peaceful use of nuclear technology as he was
our peacekeeping role.

Prime Minister Harper has been hostile to Atomic Canada ever
since his fragile minority government took office. In late
2007, he fired the director in charge of nuclear safety
because she shut down NRU for maintenance. It was a
conspiracy to make him look bad, he suggested, claiming that
the director was a "Liberal appointee."

Now that Harper's appointee is director, he can proceed with
shutting down nuclear research. His communication director,
Kory Teneycke, minces no words. "The government has put $30
billion into Atomic Energy of Canada Limited over its
history and it's been one of the largest sinkholes of
government money probably in the history of the government
of Canada."

Realizing that he was a bit blunt about the prime minister's
intentions, Teneycke backed away from his earlier comments,
saying he ``spoke in haste and in error" and should have
limited his remarks to the MAPLE reactors and not AECL as a
whole.

No one in Harper's government speaks in haste and error if
they want to survive. If Teneycke is still around, then he
didn't speak in error but simply echoed the prime minister.

Harper is right about one thing: NRU should be mothballed.
It's limping along because its replacement, the MAPLE
reactor, has run into some technical problems.

The MAPLE reactor's problems provide an opportunity to solve
a unique problem. The MAPLE reactor's design is totally new
and like any new reactor, a small but significant puzzle has
developed.

Contrary to what former Natural Resources Minister Garry
Lund said, the MAPLE reactor has produced radioactive
isotopes. But not as expected says a former director
general of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. John
Waddington is retired and can speak candidly without fear of
reprisal from Harper.

"The problem with the Maple reactor was that there is a
difference between how it was predicted to operate and how
it is observed to operate. The difference is small but in
the nuclear business, precision is critical. They are
getting closer to a solution. Isotopes have been produced
during tests but they were never extracted for commercial
use," Waddington told CBC radio.

Rather than getting out of the "isotope business," the
government of Canada should support a solution of the
puzzle. Such discrepancies provide more of an opportunity
for discovery that if things went as predicted.

If Harper's Conservatives will not rescue Canada from
mediocrity, our nuclear physicists could if given a chance.
We have the technology and the talent to complete the MAPLE
reactor which could supply the entire world with isotopes.

Canada's physicists could solve the riddle. They say that
the MAPLE reactor is only months away from functioning.

To drop decades of research will not only get us out of the
isotope business, it will entrench our reputation as a
branch plant of the U.S. and scatter our talented physicists
to the corners of the earth.

Meanwhile Harper's new Minister of Natural Resources
Minister is going through the motions. Lisa Raitt has
assembled an expert panel of nuclear specialists to review
the future of our nuclear industry. But message is clear:
the Prime Minister has already decided to abandon Canada's
reputation as a world leader in the field.
 

David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

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