What do you think?
Rate this book
Canada Enters the Nuclear Age: A Technical History of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited as Seen from Its Research Laboratories
Written by sixteen of Canada's pioneering nuclear scientists, the book focuses on Canada's nuclear program at AECL's laboratories at Chalk River, Ontario, and Whiteshell, Manitoba, between the years 1943 and 1985. Topics include the organization and operations of AECL's laboratories, nuclear safety and radiation protection, radioisotopes, basic research, development of the CANDU reactor, and the management of radioactive wastes. As well as providing a valuable historical perspective on Canadian science, Canada Enters the Nuclear Age offers useful guidance for innovative scientific development in the future, a future that will depend on developing and nurturing technically sophisticated industry.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1997
3 people are currently reading
10 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 27, 2022
This deep, down-the-rabbit-hole read was right up my alley!
"A Technical History" was not an easy read, and certainly parts of the chapters specific to physics and chemistry research flew over my head, but the majority of this book was readable (if determined!), fascinating, and even funny and entertaining with some of the on-page footnotes (many anonymous employee anecdotes and stories that were too good not to include in the "technical" history).
I suspect many Canadians outside of Ontario and particularly under-40's across Canada don't know much about AECL and Canada's nuclear history. Not just the maybe-recognizable CANDU reactor name, but the fundamental research programs at AECL that enabled CANDU, modern isotopic medicine, food irradiation, and more. After crushing a pretty deep backlog of energy and nuclear books so far, I only had the foggiest awareness of CANDU and basically no idea what role AECL played in history. This book filled in a LOT of blanks and gave me a deep appreciation and even pride for Canada's nuclear legacy! It's amazing that a small (by population) country built a world-class nuclear energy program from scratch - all for peaceful purposes.
Main CANDU takeaway: neutron economy, neutron economy, neutron economy.
As a space geek one of my favourite anecdotes is how CANDU nuclear reactor reliability and uptime requirements drove innovation in valve packing (a type of seal that keeps big valves from leaking via the stem, i.e. the shaft that's manually or mechanically actuated to open/close the valve). Industry-leading valve packing lasted ~1 year at best before AECL researchers 5x'd the life. Following the O-ring failures on space shuttle Challenger, researchers from Chalk River labs collaborated with NASA on the shuttle fix, and a couple Chalk River researchers were invited to watch the first post-accident launch.
I am fortunate that an engineer currently working for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd recommended this book to me! This seems like a "lost" book - just 2 ratings and 1 review on Goodreads (before me) - but it's an absolute treasure.
I'd recommend this book to people who tick a few boxes of: history buff (Canada sci/tech, organizational, or technical), nuke-bro (or CANDUde/DUdette), engineer/technologist, and/or has read enough on nuclear to not be intimated by this gargantuan tome.
"A Technical History" was not an easy read, and certainly parts of the chapters specific to physics and chemistry research flew over my head, but the majority of this book was readable (if determined!), fascinating, and even funny and entertaining with some of the on-page footnotes (many anonymous employee anecdotes and stories that were too good not to include in the "technical" history).
I suspect many Canadians outside of Ontario and particularly under-40's across Canada don't know much about AECL and Canada's nuclear history. Not just the maybe-recognizable CANDU reactor name, but the fundamental research programs at AECL that enabled CANDU, modern isotopic medicine, food irradiation, and more. After crushing a pretty deep backlog of energy and nuclear books so far, I only had the foggiest awareness of CANDU and basically no idea what role AECL played in history. This book filled in a LOT of blanks and gave me a deep appreciation and even pride for Canada's nuclear legacy! It's amazing that a small (by population) country built a world-class nuclear energy program from scratch - all for peaceful purposes.
Main CANDU takeaway: neutron economy, neutron economy, neutron economy.
As a space geek one of my favourite anecdotes is how CANDU nuclear reactor reliability and uptime requirements drove innovation in valve packing (a type of seal that keeps big valves from leaking via the stem, i.e. the shaft that's manually or mechanically actuated to open/close the valve). Industry-leading valve packing lasted ~1 year at best before AECL researchers 5x'd the life. Following the O-ring failures on space shuttle Challenger, researchers from Chalk River labs collaborated with NASA on the shuttle fix, and a couple Chalk River researchers were invited to watch the first post-accident launch.
I am fortunate that an engineer currently working for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd recommended this book to me! This seems like a "lost" book - just 2 ratings and 1 review on Goodreads (before me) - but it's an absolute treasure.
I'd recommend this book to people who tick a few boxes of: history buff (Canada sci/tech, organizational, or technical), nuke-bro (or CANDUde/DUdette), engineer/technologist, and/or has read enough on nuclear to not be intimated by this gargantuan tome.
Read
October 20, 2009I was hoping to learn things from this book, but alas, I do not think I possess sufficient knowledge of the nuclear field to really absorb everything that the authors talk about. Everything just kind of whizzes by over my head, and even the diagrams are not that helpful because I can't really see what the process is. Still, I was forewarned with the title: "A Technical History". This book is indeed very technical, and I am sure people with experience in this field would find it interesting.
The first chapter did yield some funny (!) footnotes, including this one:
"The mechanical design of ZEEP was done at NRC in Ottawa under extreme secrecy, which forbade any public mention of the nuclear interest of the project. A security-minded visitor to the design office was appalled when a stranger looked in and asked, 'Have you had your neutrons yet?' The visitor was somewhat mollified when he learned that there was a general staff NRC newsletter called 'The Neutron', so named because, like neutrons, it was free of charge."
ARR ARR ARR I love bad science puns.
Anyway, I have resolved not to let this book be a total waste; the index handily indicates on which page a given entry is explained, so I shall harvest those terms and explanations in case I come across them in my work. Then I shall forego the rest of the book until I feel smart enough to read it.
The first chapter did yield some funny (!) footnotes, including this one:
"The mechanical design of ZEEP was done at NRC in Ottawa under extreme secrecy, which forbade any public mention of the nuclear interest of the project. A security-minded visitor to the design office was appalled when a stranger looked in and asked, 'Have you had your neutrons yet?' The visitor was somewhat mollified when he learned that there was a general staff NRC newsletter called 'The Neutron', so named because, like neutrons, it was free of charge."
ARR ARR ARR I love bad science puns.
Anyway, I have resolved not to let this book be a total waste; the index handily indicates on which page a given entry is explained, so I shall harvest those terms and explanations in case I come across them in my work. Then I shall forego the rest of the book until I feel smart enough to read it.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews