Ailing reactor at Chalk River essential to nuclear future

The aging Chalk River nuclear research reactor, now well-known as a source of medical isotopes, is also crucial to the development of the next-generation nuclear reactor a consortium proposes to build at Point Lepreau – and to its eventual safe operation.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. is still developing the ACR-1000 model and it is relying “very heavily” on the experimental expertise and the 52-year-old national research universal (NRU) reactor at Chalk River, Ont., 180 kilometres northwest of Ottawa.

“That NRU reactor or a research reactor is an essential tool for the continued development of the fuel for the ACR-1000 over its 60-year lifetime,” said John Waddington, a nuclear safety consultant.

Waddington is a former director general at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and now chairs a panel of independent academics who advise AECL on research.

The 1,100-megawatt reactor is the product AECL has put in the window in its bids to build the first new reactors in 30 years in New Brunswick and Ontario.

Team Candu, a consortium that includes AECL and several leading private-sector engineering firms, has proposed to finance the construction of an ACR-1000 as the second reactor at Point Lepreau.

The provincial government supports the proposal and is waiting for Team Candu to secure investors.

AECL is now in the second stage of a project pre-design review by the CNSC.That process is expected to take until August.

Waddington said the current trouble at Chalk River would likely not be more than a minor setback to AECL’s development of the ACR-1000.

But AECL says the extended outage at Chalk River has had “no impact on the ACR’s development.”

“We’re still on target to complete our tests with the NRU,” said spokesman Dale Coffin.

And if the NRU was offline for longer than expected, the ACR team has a contingency plan that Coffin would not elaborate on.

Other research reactors around the world could perform some of the necessary work, said Waddington, but the NRU has key advantages in its expertise in Candu technology.

It is also the only research reactor that loads fuel rods horizontally to mimic the performance of Candu reactors, he said.

But Waddington said AECL has to be concerned about the continued development of the ACR-1000 over its lifetime.

AECL relies on the research reactor to perform continuing experiments relevant to its fleet of operating reactors.

The research allows for the optimizing of fuel efficiency and to ensure the materials used in the reactor’s construction remain safe after decades of use.

“To ensure you can continue to operate them at a very high level of safety over their 60-year lifetime, and that is not a small matter, you must have a good research infrastructure,” he said. “That must include a research reactor that can mimic what’s happening inside your (commercial power-generating) reactor.

“You would be very vulnerable indeed, in my opinion, if you did not have a sound research facility.”

Chalk River sprang a leak in mid-May and will be offline for repairs until at least mid-August.The shutdown has created a worldwide shortage of medical isotopes.

It has also renewed debate about whether the Harper government made the right call last year when it abandoned the development of two research reactors AECL was creating to replace the NRU.

The Maple reactors had gone hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and still hadn’t met their design criteria.

“At some time or another, the government really has to think about replacing that NRU reactor with a modern one,” said Waddington.

A study a few years ago showed that compared to the amount of electricity the country gets from nuclear reactors, the government of Canada provides only a fraction of the funding other leading nuclear countries do on basic nuclear research, said Waddington.

Source: Telegraph Journal