Canadian History
- Page ID
- 38934
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Canada's Nuclear History
AECL Achievements: A Half-Century Tradition
1945 The ZEEP research reactor is completed at Chalk River, Ontario and sustains the first controlled nuclear chain reaction outside the United States 1947 The National Research Experimental (NRX) reactor starts up at Chalk River -- the most powerful research reactor in the world 1952 The Canadian Government forms the Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, or AECL, from precursor organizations dating back to the early 1940s 1954 AECL, Ontario Hydro, and Canadian General Electric (now G.E. Canada Inc.) form a partnership to build Canada's first nuclear power plant, Nuclear Power Demonstration (NPD) 1957 The National Research Universal (NRU) reactor starts up, and today is still considered one of the world's finest for its versatility and high neutron flux 1960 Work begins on a 200 MWe CANDU prototype at Douglas Point, Ontario 1962 The Province of Ontario receives nuclear-generated electricity for the first time from the NPD station 1965 The Douglas Point station starts up 1973 The Pickering Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario is completed, producing more electricity than any nuclear power station in the world at that time 1974 AECL makes its first international sale to Argentina -- a single- unit CANDU 6 reactor, derived from the multi-unit Pickering station 1977 Pickering Unit 3 achieves the highest capacity factor in the world 1981 Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau visits Wolsong during construction of Unit 1 1982 AECL begins construction on an Underground Research Laboratory for investigation of long-term disposal of nuclear fuel waste 1983 Four CANDU 6s in Argentina (1 unit), Canada (2 units), Republic of Korea (1 unit) start commercial operation and CANDU wins seven of the top 10 places for lifetime performance among the world's reactors 1987 CANDU wins one of the ten Canadian awards for the top engineering achievements of the past century 1990 The Republic of Korea orders Wolsong Unit 2 1992 The Republic of Korea signs for two more reactors, Wolsong Units 3 and 4 1994Bertram Brockhouse is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his
discoveries using neutron scattering at the NRU reactor.
1994 Pickering Unit 7 sets a world record for continuous operation (894 days) without a shutdown 1995 The HANARO research reactor, with a core based on MAPLE technology, starts up in the Republic of Korea 1996 Cernavoda Unit 1 attains criticality in Romania on April 16 -- the first CANDU in Europe
Contributors and Attributions
Chung (Peter) Chieh (Professor Emeritus, Chemistry @ University of Waterloo)