nuclear-news

“Tritium Removal”: A Report on the Proposed MCECE Facility at Chalk River.

Gordon Edwards, 2 Mar 24

As it happens, both heavy water (used in all Canadian CANDU reactors) and tritium (produced in great quantities as a radioactive pollutant from CANDU reactors) are sensitive materials from the point of view of nuclear weapons proliferation. 

Heavy water can be used to produce nuclear-weapons usable plutonium without the need to buy enriched uranium, a carefully controlled material. And tritium, in a purified form, can be used to vastly increase the explosive yield of an atomic bomb by acting as a “booster”. As little as two grams of tritium can magnify the blast of an implosion-type nuclear bomb by a factor of ten. 

These matters are briefly touched upon in this report, which is mainly focussed on the dangers of tritium as an environmental pollutant that can endanger the health and safety of humans and the environemnt, especially for pregnant women.

“Tritium Removal”: A Report on the Proposed MCECE Facility at Chalk River

Prepared for Keboawek First Nation by Gordon Edwards, Ph.D.

Click to access GE_KFN_CECE_2024.pdf

Executive Summary

In a letter to Keboawek First Nation dated February 2, 2024 (reference # 2), we read that “CNL is restoring and protecting Canada’s environment by reducing and effectively managing nuclear liabilities. Among these liabilities is Atomic Energy of Canada’s (AECL) large inventory of tritium- contaminated heavy water.” In an accompanying Fact Sheet (reference # 3) CNL states that “tritiated heavy water cannot be used, re-used or disposed of in its current form.”

The fact that tritium-contaminated heavy water cannot be used, re-used, or even disposed of in its present form is a testament to the considerable hazards posed by radioactive tritium. Nevertheless, tritiated heavy water can be safely stored, and kept out of the environment, as is being done at present. There is no reason given by CNL as to why such storage cannot be continued indefinitely, until the radioactive tritium has disintegrated to innocuous levels.

Instead, CNL plans to build a tritium removal facility called the Modernized Combined Electrolysis and Catalytic Exchange facility (MCECE) to extract the radioactive tritium in a gaseous form from the non-radioactive heavy water. In the above-mentioned letter from CNL, we learn that CNL expects tritium emissions into the environment from this facility. Some simple arithmetic reveals that up to 10.7 trillion becquerels of tritium will be dispersed into the environment per year from this facility. (In the letter, up to 2 curies per week of tritium gas (T2) and up to 5 curies per week of deuterium tritium (DT) will be released into the atmosphere, for a total of 259 billion becquerels of tritium per week. Assuming an 80 percent capacity factor, that’s 10.7 trillion becquerels of tritium released per year.)

It is concluded that there is no justification for the proposed facility in terms of “protecting the environment by reducing and effectively managing nuclear liabilities”. The proposed facility does nothing to reduce the amount of radioactive tritium, but it does provide a mechanism for dispersing trillions of becquerels of tritium into the environment every year. Tritium is not effectively managed to protect the environment. Evidently, indefinite safe storage of tritium- contaminated heavy water is the preferred option if protecting the environment is the goal.

March 3, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, wastes