[en] On September 9, federal energy minister Marcel Masse announced that beginning this fiscal year and until 1993, the federal government will allocate more than $450-million to support energy R and D. In the wake of the OPEC oil embargo in 1974, Ottawa established an interdepartmental energy R and D program to ensure the development of a broad energy science and technology base in support of energy production, efficient use and conversion, and alternative energy sources. This program is now being extended with a high priority on R and D to support a smooth transition towards a more diversified, environmentally acceptable, efficient energy economy, that is also responsive to regional opportunities. The program is planned, coordinated and reviewed by the panel on energy R and D, comprised of senior representatives of 20 departments and central agencies. The program is divided into seven TASKS: energy conservation; coal; fusion; renewable energy and generic environment; new liquid fuels; oil, gas and electricity; and, coordination and international participation (International Energy Agency). The program excludes nuclear fission. R and D in each TASK, except (coordination and international participation (International Energy Agency)), is coordinated by interdepartmental committees, which make recommendations to the Panel on what research should be done. Extensive external consultation in program planning and review is also obtained through external advisory mechanisms of all participating departments and through the various program and technical committees of the TASKS. About 60% of the program is contracted out with many projects being cost-shared with the private sector, provinces and universities. Some $450-million will be devoted to the energy R and D program during the present fiscal year and the next four years; $90-million of that sum will be supporting the efforts of the Department in the area of energy conservation and diversity (the new EED initiative)

[en] Early in October, Canada joined a prestigious international research project designed to produce fusion energy, the next generation of nuclear power. Scientists involved in the project say that while the initial entry fee is fairly modest, roughly $5-million (US) over the next 2.5 years, a commitment to build the largest fusion reactor in the world would cost Canada at least $250-million (US) over the next decade. The proposed $4-million (US) fusion reactor - called ITER - grew out of a superpower summit there years and is a joint project of the US, Soviet Union, Japan and the European Community

[en] The Ontario government recently announced that it will contribute $9.4-million to the Canadian Fusion Fuels Technology Project which was launched in 1982 to develop fusion fuel as an energy source. The project's budget is set at $33-million for the next five years, about double the budget for the first five years. The province's contribution comes from the $1-million Premier Council's Technology Fund. Aside from the Ontario government's contribution, Ontario Hydro and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. will also pitch in to fund the project. Provincial energy minister Robert Wong says Ontario wants to develop fusion energy because: unlike atomic energy, fusion energy does not produce radioactive waste which must be stored or disposed of through expensive means; and, about 80% of the province's energy j comes from diminishing fossil fuels which contribute to pollution. As part of a commitment to world-wide fusion research Canada has signed an agreement with the European Economic Community to help research and design the world's first fusion reactor, called the International Thermal Experimental Reactor. Mr. Wong says Ontario is hoping the reactor will be built in the province when that decision is made in 1990. He said it would create thousands of construction jobs and give the province significant export potential

[en] 'Full-text': Under the terms of memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by the federal and Saskatchewan governments, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) will relocate its design, engineering and marketing offices for CANDU 3 reactors to Saskatoon. This will mean 115 new high-technology jobs for the city in the first year, which might increase to 140 jobs in the second year. As well, the MOU calls for feasibility studies on the establishment of a nuclear accelerator technology centre with accelerator development and marketing components, a nuclear simulator and training facility, a Slowpoke Energy System business, and other related technology in the areas of medicine, agriculture and industry. The provincial government and AECL will cost-share the new arrangement to a maximum of $20 million each over the four year term of the agreement. The MOU is significantly different from the one signed in September, 1991 in that there is no pre-commitment, or any commitment, on the part of the province to purchase or build a CANDU reactor for nuclear generation, nor will there be any study or discussion of development of a nuclear waste site in the province. (author)

[en] The federal government has offered to contribute at least $236 million toward the controversial KAON particle accelerator facility in Vancouver. Justice Minister Kim Campbell says that no deal on the project has been signed, but negotiations with British Columbia are going well. She said Ottawa is prepared to contribute a third of the operating costs. The facility is intended to investigate the basic structure of matter by smashing atoms into their tiniest components known as quarks. It's estimated that operating costs will be in the range of $90 million a year. Campbell said the United States is willing to contribute $100 million toward the project, but did not know what this would be for. Debate about the KAON facility within the scientific community has been raging for years. Many scientists fear KAON would draw money away from other areas of research, which already face chronic financial problems. Campbell insisted that KAON would not distort overall research priorities, but made no firm commitments about increases for other areas of science. She said money for KAON, assuming the project does get final approval, will not be delivered before the 1994 fiscal year and won't affect efforts to reduce the federal deficit

[en] A memorandum of understanding (MOU) has been signed between the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The MOU has been put in place to facilitate procurement of Canadian goods and services for DOE's Superconducting Super Collider Project. A high-energy subatomic particle accelerator, the Collider will boost protons to energies twenty times higher than ever before. This will enable physicists to search out the innermost nature of matter, and the forces that hold it together, with unprecedented precision, and to explore distances one-thousandth the diameter of a proton. The United States $8.25 billion Super Collider project, to be completed in 1999, will be constructed in Waxahachie, Texas, under the direct supervision and management of the Universities Research Association Inc., a non-profit institution formed by 79 major research universities in the U.S. and Canada

[en] A neutron spectrometer called Tansy, which can measure temperatures in a fusion reactor, has been developed in the Department of Reactor Physics at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. The instrument has been designed, constructed and tested over the past eight years and it has become one of Sweden's contributions of scientific know-how to the JET (Joint European Torus) fusion centre in Britain. A thesis by Dr. D. Aronsson entitled 'The development of a spectrometer for 14MeV neutrons from fusion' describes his part in the development of the instrument. Hydrogen fusion could become an important future source of energy provided we learn to use it properly, he says. As the release of energy during fusion takes place at such high temperatures, the plasma (fuel) can only be kept in place by strong magnetic fields. One way to measure temperatures of such magnitude is to study the neutrons scattered by the process. With the aid of Tansy, it is possible to study the variations in speed between different neutrons emerging from the fusion process at an average speed of 50,000 km/sec. The basic principle is quite simple; the released neutrons hit a thin polyethylene foil and some of them collide with the hydrogen atom nuclei. After the collision, the particles continue in different directions. Tansy has a system of detectors which can register and identify the two types of particles at the same time. A computer can then use this information together with knowledge about the effects of the collision to calculate the speed of the neutrons released by the fusion, and from this determine the temperature at combustion. In its present form, Tansy is a one-off and will probably not be produced again, Dr. Aronsson says, but the principle is likely to be used again. If fusion becomes an energy producing method of the future, instruments like Tansy will be needed to control the process

[en] Short communication

No abstract available

[en] Short communication