Nuclear Power Demonstration reactor commemoration, June 1, 2002
Ladies and Gentlemen, honoured guests, I am honoured and delighted to be asked to speak to you and to share this important occasion as we celebrate both the Nuclear Power Demonstration reactor and the first nuclear power generated electric power being fed into the Ontario Hydro electric grid for the people of Ontario.
For the invitation to speak here today, I would like to thank the Canadian Nuclear Society, especially Dr. Jeremy Whitlock for his assistance. I am also grateful to the Ontario Heritage Foundation: first, for asking me to research what turned out to be a fascinating topic, and second, for seeing fit to honour this great achievement with a commemorative historic plaque.
My thanks also to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), Ontario Hydro, and Canadian General Electric. Without their work in the 1950s and 1960s, there would be no Nuclear Power Demonstration reactor and no celebration today.
But most of all, my sincerest thanks to the many men and women who contributed to this great pioneering effort. The Ottawa Valley is a valley of pioneering and that pioneering has gone from exploration, fur and timber trade all the way to nuclear reactors.
The NPD reactor is revolutionary. Some say that Canadians do not have a revolutionary history but they are wrong, because their view of history doesn’t extend beyond politics. We find the most revolutionary of Canadian history when we turn to engineering, science, and technology. I was delighted when the previous speaker, Ms. Cheryl Gallant, MP for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, referred to the NPD reactor as "revolutionary." Now there is someone who understands the breadth of Canadian history.
The NPD reactor revolutionized reactor design and on June 4, 1962, revolutionized electric power in Ontario, when it supplied the Ontario Hydro power grid with the first nuclear-generated electricity in Canada.
Our history tells us who we are, particularly when we look at how we respond to crises, new information, and new situations. The NPD was to serve both as prototype and as a research and training centre for much larger-scale nuclear electric generating facilities. The discovery that the NPD reactor design could not be scaled up successfully meant that the NPD reactor risked becoming a research and development dead end, relegated to a lesser role rather than helping to lead the way to larger-scale reactors. This was a grave surprise and a test of who we were. Canadians reacted admirably. Some might have decided to leave the design unchanged and simply redefine the role of the NPD reactor so as not to face the need for major design rethinking.
But that didn’t happen. Last night, Lorne McConnell told us about the "agonizing decision" which stopped design and construction on the NPD-1 and led to a new design, then called the NPD-2, the reactor we are honouring today. That decision was an act of bureaucratic courage and a model for how to deal with surprising new information and insights, a model of the relationship between research and development, a model of how we should be guided by research. The entire NPD project team reacted courageously and with the best interests of the people of Ontario, and the rest of Canada, in mind. That decision is truly one of the proud moments in our history. It allowed the NPD reactor, known temporarily as NPD-2, to serve as proof-of-concept for the CANDU reactor design and, over its 25 years lifespan, make many contributions to the field of nuclear power in Canada and abroad.
The NPD reactor and Canada’s pursuit of nuclear-generated electric power also tells us about our sense of community and our ideals.
Last night, Lorne McConnell mentioned his sense of community, and today we should also speak of community. We are all members of various communities. Last night we saw something of the Deep River Community, which is a focal part of Canada’s and the world’s nuclear power community. We are members of the communities of our various professions and trades, each of which contributed to the success of NPD and the story of CANDU and nuclear-generated electricity in Canada. We are also members of the Canadian community, and as Canadians, we took our own approach to nuclear knowledge.
During the Second World War, Canada contributed to the development of the atomic bomb. It was a wartime necessity; sometimes we have to do terrible things in the hopes of avoiding even more terrible events. However, even before the war was over, Canada had decided that after the war it would use nuclear knowledge to advance peaceful purposes. While many countries talked about "Atoms for Peace," for Canada the slogan meant atoms for peaceful purposes only. The Canadian-made bomb would be the cobalt bomb for treating cancer. For some other nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom "Atoms for Peace" meant atoms for peaceful purposes, but not to the exclusion of developing atomic weapons.
Canada’s interpretation of the catchphrase "Atoms for Peace" was part of our continuing search for what is appropriate for us. The search for the appropriate is an important recurring theme in the history of Canadian engineering history, as well as other aspects of our history. And to me there is such a thing as appropriate nuclear technology.
In 1978 the prestigious journal Science published a retrospective article by Canadian nuclear scientist J.A.L. Robertson, under the title "The CANDU Reactor System: An Appropriate Technology."[1] [2] Robertson explained that "The selection of reactor types for national power systems is not determined by physics alone" Naval propulsion was the first application of nuclear power in the United States. Minimum physical size was the dominant criterion and light-water reactors were a reasonable choice. Enriched fuel was available from diffusion plants built during the war, and construction of large pressure vessels was within U.S. industrial capability." In Britain, early emphasis on nuclear weapons also influenced the approach to nuclear design. This meant that when these countries turned to "civilian nuclear power" they already had larger-scale reactors, experience with their financial implications, and "demonstrated engineering viability and established industrial infrastructure."[3]
But what was the situation in Ontario? First, the hydroelectric generating mindset accepted high construction and initial capital costs, but expected low operating costs along with near continuous operation. Canada also had a good source of natural uranium in the Elliot Lake mines in Northern Ontario. On the basis of price, natural uranium was the logical choice of fuel - even though it had one disadvantage. For reasons we do not have time to explore here, natural uranium (as distinct from enriched uranium) required a heavy water moderator rather than a light water moderator. But Canada already had considerable experience with heavy water moderated reactors.
And so scientific principles and knowledge, combined with what we as Canadians thought was an appropriate way for us to behave, led to the basic characteristics of the CANDU reactor, which was Canadian, used heavy water as both moderator and coolant (which were kept separate), and relied on natural or unenriched uranium fuel.
Turning these basic design decisions into an efficient, safe reactor led to some very elegant and practical science and engineering. Again, there were far too many achievements to list them here. For example, "the separation of coolant and moderator meant that their chemistries could be independently optimized. Specifically, neutron poisons could be added to the moderator to control or shut down the reactor without jeopardizing the corrosion control of the primary coolant circuit."[4]
The basic design philosophy also led to bold engineering solutions, particularly in the CANDU reactor’s most important feature, namely "the concept of on-power fueling, which had not previously been attempted for a water-cooled reactor."[5] This was no small feat. Just as the overall reactor design had had to be changed completely, so too did the design of the fueling machinery, but that was the kind of change one could make in a demonstration project where research, new knowledge, techniques, and understanding are valued above all else, for they are the key to the ultimate goal: viable commercial nuclear electric plants.
Again, we see a design philosophy that sets the research and engineering challenges we face in producing a technology that reflects who we are and who we wish to be. That is to say, it is appropriate technology.
But we should now turn to another question, the answer to which tells us more about who we are. Why nuclear power? Why design and build the NPD reactor? The answer to both is a sincere desire to make a better world. That answer is about idealism.
Idealism is not a fashionable word; today "idealistic" is often regarded as a synonym for impractical or unrealistic. The word is associated with the kind of people who tend to go on and on about what is wrong with the world rather than what might be done realistically to improve it. But people who merely criticize are not idealists, they are merely whiners, desiccated philosophers who have long since lost touch with day-to-day life. In my experience and research, scientists and engineers are the true Canadian idealists. Many of the people present today are scientists and engineers. You people are idealists. You want things to work better and you’re not afraid to take chances in pursuit of your goal.
The NPD reactor is a monument to idealism and how to create a better world. Ontario needed more electric power, but it didn’t need more air pollution, so you set about finding a better way for Ontario, and ultimately Canada and the world, to secure more electric power. You took what we already have and coupled it to sound design and ideas. You were willing to explore uncharted territory - a Canadian tradition even older than our country. You undertook the challenge of working in a harsh environment, another hallmark of Canadian technology and engineering.
Those who explore uncharted territory need the courage to follow new possibilities. And those who advance the leading edge of technology must have the courage to face up to the implications of new knowledge, even when it means radical changes in plan. We saw all of this happening as new knowledge led to redesign and new solutions.
The story of NPD and its successors also demonstrates the need for sound, knowledgeable management and corporate governance. Sound management and corporate governance should complement sound science and engineering. We know that any project or industry is only as strong as its weakest link, and if management or administration is weak, then strong engineering or innovation will not save the project or the industry. We have a great deal to learn from the NPD management, which had the courage to scrap one design and adopt an entirely new and eminently successful NPD reactor design. Now that more Canadians are seeing what happens without sound management and corporate governance, we need to look at both types of situation and decide what we want to be known for in the future. Right now, we are known for both approaches to management and governance: the sound and the unsound.
The NPD story also reminds of our need to make and stick to long-term plans for training the best possible people to the best standards. Training is about a commitment to the future and a shared sense of community. Without that commitment to the future and a shared sense of community, we achieve far less than we should. Perhaps it was the commitment to the future and a shared sense of community that made NPD far more than many suspected it might have become when it started.
But now NPD is closed, decommissioned. Is it dead? If we had been able to hook NPD up to a heart monitor, we once would have seen the healthy beat of a vibrant site. Would we now just see the flat line of death? I don’t think so.
History and life are continuums punctuated by special events that help us see things more clearly. Last night, NPD was alive and well. As we listened to Lorne McConnell and met in the high school cafeteria to share experiences, look at a now-archival film, and pore over historic photos and reports, NPD came back to life. We were sharing a sense of membership in four communities: Deep River, NPD, the Canadian nuclear community, and the community of Canadians who want to use what we have to make things better. Above all, NPD was alive when people talked about what it meant then, means now, and could mean in the future if we let it. Last night NPD was a focal point of shared communities.
Perhaps the last two days have suggested what we need to do next. I would like to suggest that we need to take what we glimpsed last night in the high school, what we glimpsed today, what we shared both days, and that we then add even more and bring them together to a new useful life for NPD. Now is the time to give NPD continuing life in a new form. Today, much of the evidence suggests that we tend to forget that as Canadians we were once known for the courage to face the unexplored and to make and stick to long-term plans and commitments in the face of uncertainty.
We need to capture the NPD story, because it holds valuable lessons and reminders for us all. It is a story of commitment; of sustained research and engineering development; of being ourselves and drawing on others as needed; of faith in nuclear power as an essential part of a better world; of appropriate technology and Canada’s search for the truly appropriate as distinct from the trendy fashion of the day.
Researching the tip of the NPD story has both humbled and excited me. I’ve written books and articles on Canadian engineering and technology, and I thought I knew something. This brief research project taught me how much I, and many others, had underestimated the importance of NPD. Let’s capture the story and tell it properly, over and over again. It is one of the great adventures of the twentieth century and one of the high points of Canadian history.
Thank you for sharing it with me and I hope I will be able to learn more.
In closing let me say that I admire and appreciate all that you have done. Now, how do we capture and get the story out?
Dr. Norman Ball, Director
Centre for Society, Technology and Values
Systems Design Engineering
University of Waterloo
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