[en] Measuring the energy of particle emission from radioactive substances accurately has been a crucial endeavour in nuclear science. Quantitative measurement began with the electroscope, galvanometer and zinc sulphide screen. Because the detector signals were very small, progress in measurement accelerated with their amplification by means of the vacuum tube. In turn this enabled the use of digital techniques and then computers. Today the measurement process is completely automated with digital signal processing and software run on personal computers. Although the measurement processes now appear to be straightforward, they have had a long and interesting history of development which can be divided into three eras for discussion: early, middle and modern. (author)

[en] This article traces the history of the Montreal Laboratories of the National Research Council and in particular the lectures given to the staff members of Defence Industries Ltd to provide the necessary background to enable them get involved in the design of the NRX reactor. Lecture number 8 is an introduction to pile theory given by Dr. Lew Kowarski, the chief designer of the Zero Energy Experimental Pile (ZEEP) reactor.

[en] The unique design approach of the Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) family to the management of nuclear energy, using natural uranium and heavy water to produce power, came about for many reasons but the beginnings can be traced back to experiments carried out in Europe on the eve of the Second World War. At the time it was known that energy was available from the fission of uranium but no one knew how to extract it in a practical way. It was also realized that if the energy could be controlled, it could be used to generate power and conversely, if uncontrolled, for military purposes. This article traces the early lineage of Canadian reactors and how natural uranium/heavy-water reactor power grew from the order of microwatts to megawatts in a mere seven years. (author)

[en] The Second World War began in the summer of 1939 and spurred atomic science in the direction of weapons development. The United Kingdom (U.K.) was far ahead until about the summer of 1941 at which time the United States (U.S.) began to have serious interest in atomic weapons. Seen from Europe, the U.S. was a greater distance from the theatre of war and was deemed to be a safer place to conduct atomic research. In addition to good research centres it also had greater financial, manpower, and material resources. Early attempts at full collaboration between the U.K. and the U.S. met with little success and this led to the formation of a joint British-Canadian atomic weapons effort in 1942, with research laboratories located in Montreal, which were well up and running by spring 1943. The Montreal laboratory (ML) initially was administered by the National Research Council (NRC) and scientific direction was provided by the U.K. The ML was the foundation from which the Canadian nuclear industry evolved to the present time. Interest in atomic weapons development by the U.S. had been greatly accelerated by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941. By the beginning of 1943 it was spending 10 times as much as the U.K. on atomic weapons research. From then on, the U.S. set the Allied agenda for the development of atomic weapons, in varying degrees of collaboration with the U.K. and Canada. This spending which grew to about $2B by the middle of 1945, was directed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under the Manhattan Project, officially established on 13 August 1942, and led by Gen. Leslie R. Groves From 17 September 1942. (author)

[en] The major Canadian oil sands are located in Alberta and Saskatchewan, with most production from the strata along the Athabasca River in Alberta. The economically recoverable oil sands reserves are estimated to be 168 billion barrels which at a current production rate of 1.8 million barrels per day (2012), are projected to last a very long time. Canada has been blessed with vast energy resources which make it potentially energy-independent and able to provide significant exports but there are concerns that their development cannot be managed in a wholly acceptable manner. Comparable concerns have been applied to nuclear energy in the past and in recent times to the oil sands. The technologies associated with these energy sources have always been controversial because they are at the confluence of economics and politics where finding a balance between risk and reward is difficult. So it should be no surprise that when these technologies get linked together in certain proposals their prospect for success is doubly difficult. The possible use of nuclear energy for production of oil from the oil sands dates back to the late 1950s, when an experiment to mine the oil by detonating an underground nuclear device was proposed. It was predicted that the heat and pressure released from such a device would create a large cavern into which oil would flow, and from where it would be pumped to the surface. Almost at the same time, oil sands research using conventional sources of energy had culminated with the development of practical refining processes, essentially those still in use today. These methods require large amounts of heat energy in the form of hot water and steam. In this century nuclear energy was proposed as the source for the heat required by the oil sands production processes. To date neither of these nuclear proposals for oil sands projects have been successful, because the economic and political balance could not be struck. (author)

[en] Canada has a long and distinguished history of progress in nuclear science and technology, beginning with the work of Ernest Rutherford at McGill in 1898 to 1907. Since that era there have been a few other notable personalities who left their mark on the Canadian nuclear landscape. John Cockcroft certainly qualifies as one of these, arriving in wartime Canada at a critical time, to direct the construction of the country's first operating nuclear reactors. (author)

[en] Only three nuclear weapons produced by the Manhattan Project (MP) were used during World War II: Trinity Test, New Mexico on 16 July 1945, Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945, and Nagasaki, Japan, on 9 August 1945. Several sources and authors, including EM and RL (1967), Stacey (1970), Sanger (1981), and Buckley (2000), have written that it is unlikely that any Canadian uranium was used in the atomic weapons that ended WW II. These sources offer no detailed justification for their conclusion, nevertheless, after analysis of data contained in numerous sources, this article reaches a similar conclusion. (author)

[en] The CANDU (Canada Deuterium Uranium) reactor family is traceable to World War Two and to certain principal players. They gave Canada an early entry into the world of practical nuclear energy with the NRX (National Research Experimental) reactor, developed under the auspices of the ABC (America, Britain, Canada) countries. The principal players on the NRX project were, in alphabetical order: James Chadwick, C.D. Howe, Leslie R. Groves and C-J. Mackenzie. Their careers up to about 1940 are outlined in Section 10. (author)

[en] This investigation was carried out to test the probability of obtaining a sustained chain reaction in a large heterogeneous system of carbon and uranium oxide, U₃O₈ (Laurence and Sargent, 1941-1942). author

[en] Since the discovery of pitchblende in 1930 by Gilbert LaBine at Great Bear Lake (GBL), North West Territories, uranium has played a central role in the growth of the Canadian mining sector and it in turn has propelled the country into it's present position as the world's top uranium producer. The rich ore mined there was used originally by Eldorado Gold Mines Limited to build a business based on the extraction of radium, which was selling at $70,000 a gram at the time, and silver which was present in the ore in commercial amounts. The mine site on GBL became known as Port Radium. In 1933 Eldorado brought a refinery on-line at Port Hope, Ontario nearly 4,000 miles away from the mine, and began to produce radium, silver and uranium products. Initially uranium played a minor role in the business and the products were sold into the ceramics industry to manufacture a variety of crockery with long-lasting colours. In addition, there were sales and loans of uranium products to research laboratories that were exploring nuclear energy for possible use in weapons and power generation, as the potential for this was clearly understood from 1939 onwards. These laboratories included the National Research Council (George Laurence), Columbia University (Enrico Fermi) and International Chemical Industries (J.P. Baxter). With the beginning of World War II the radium business suffered from poor sales and by 1940 the mine was closed but the refinery continued operation, using accumulated stockpiles. By 1942 uranium had become a strategic material, the mine was reopened, and the refinery began to produce large quantities of uranium oxide destined for The Manhattan Project. As events unfolded Eldorado was unable to produce sufficient ore from GBL so that a large quantity of ore from the Belgian Congo was also processed at Port Hope. Ultimately, as a result of the efforts of this enterprise, World War II was finally ended by use of atomic weapons. After World War II the refinery continued to produce uranium products for export and for use in the fledgling Canadian nuclear research program at Chalk River, Ontario, which led ultimately to the CANada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) family of nuclear power reactors so familiar today. Until 1951 uranium was produced using purely chemical methods, then new processes (including resin ion exchange and solvent extraction) came to dominate because of their relatively lower cost and high recovery. This article reviews the Port Hope refinery operation from 1933 to 1951, particularly during the peak uranium production years of 1943 and 1944. (author)