Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Why doesn't canada have nuclear bombs?
Neighbour of the USA, and jointly responsible for the defence of the continent of North America, Canada has long been closely linked with the United States' nuclear weapons program. The Manhattan Project was the product of a secret agreement between the USA, Canada and the UK, signed in Quebec City, Canada in August 1943. Canada contributed help from Canadian scientists, policy supervision by C.D. Howe and uranium and fluorite from Canadian mines (other uranium sources included the American Southwest and the Belgian Congo). Since Canada had just become the recipient of the world's supply of heavy water, it was also hoped that Canada could manufacture plutonium for the bomb effort. Canadians developed a superior process for plutonium extraction, but no Canadian reactor was completed until just after the end of the war. After the Second World War, Canada became a world leader in nuclear research through its Chalk River Laboratories. The NRX reactor and a small plutonium extraction plant were built there in 1947, and supplied plutonium for the first British bomb. For the next twenty years, the Chalk River Laboratories (later incorporated into Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) ) continued to sell plutonium to the USA's military weapons program.
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