Work to revive Canadian Neutron Facility heating up as neutron gap draws closer

Lead for file may switch to Industry

Plans to construct the $466-million Canadian Neutron Facility (CNF) are down but not out. Following a period of relative inactivity, the scientific community and its National Research Council (NRC) partners are planning to bring the proposal back to government for funding consideration in the next Budget. They are pushing for the file to be moved from NRCan to Industry Canada, which handles the bulk of science files on behalf of government.

“We’re trying to get the lead association with the CNF moved to the science case and away from the AECL case (and) the lead science ministry is Industry,” says Dr Bruce Gaulin, president of the Canadian Institute for Neutron Scattering (CINS) and holder of the Brockhouse research chair at McMaster Univ. “That’s the intention but I’m not sure what the NRC has done to make the case. We’re obviously not making progress right now and the research community is frustrated and worried. We can see the neutron gap becoming a reality.”

Any push to have the CNF file moved to Industry would have to come from the NRC which is negotiating on behalf of the materials science and engineering research community. But the NRC isn’t talking right now, citing the sensitivity of the file and ongoing negotiations with AECL.

The CNF was given Cabinet approval but no funding in November 2000, and has languished ever since as the federal government remains stalled over how to proceed with the direction and funding of AECL. Yet another change at AECL’s head office (Robert Van Adel was installed as president and CEO last February) has led to further re-examination of priorities and another delay of the crown corporation’s long-range plan.

There are strong indications that the government may be swayed in a direction other than the CNF if it agrees to an Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL) proposal to refurbish the aging NRU reactor at its facility in Chalk River ON.

CNF has now been bumped as AECL’s top priority in favour of a new CANDU NG power reactor it wants to develop. That has raised the possibility of sinking more money into the 44-year-old NRU to avoid a punishing neutron gap (the time between the closure of the old reactor and the construction of a replacement). Currently the neutron gap is three years, since the NRU life span runs out in 2005 and it would take six years to build the CNF from scratch.

“It’s a worry. Things have gone on such a long time,” says Gaulin. “The NRU currently has about 100 user projects a year and without a domestic source, the research community would have to get beam time from foreign sources. And right now two US research reactors are shut down.”

CONFUSION OVER AECL HAMPERING EFFORTS

Gaulin says the CNF would likely have had more success had it not been caught in the confusion swirling around AECL. He says his organization has shied away from active lobbying on its behalf and is focusing instead on an application currently before the Canada Foundation for Innovation. The research community is seeking $15 million from the CFI’s international fund to participate in the Spallation Neutron Source (SPS), a US$1.4-billion project now under construction at the Oak Ridge nuclear facility in Tennessee. The SPS is due to be turned on in 2006 and the CFI funding (representing 0.67% of the project’s total budget) would buy Canadian researchers the opportunity to participate in the instrument development teams about to be formed.

In addition, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council recently approved a $1-million facilities access grant for the Chalk River facility, reviving the dormant Neutron Program for Materials Research.

CINS is also in discussions with officials at TRIUMF to explore the possibility of building a small spallation neutron source at that facility, but Gaulin says talks are still at a very early stage and the project could end up costing as much as the proposed CNF.

For the research community, the CNF remains the most valued prize. With recent advances in cold neutron source construction techniques, the price tag for CNF may actually be lower than current estimates.

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