Over the centuries one of the unrealized dreams of many alchemists has been discovering the formula for converting materials into gold. The nuclear industry sometimes practices the reverse, that is to say, the conversion of gold into other materials. In another of the anecdotes from Les Cook’s unpublished book “Birthpangs of CANDU” we learn in the following extract how this “reverse alchemy” almost led to a major problem at the National Universal Xperimental reactor (NRX) at Chalk River. (Les Cook was the Director of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Division of CRNL from 1945 to 1956.)
“It was amazing how difficult it was for staff at the Chalk River project to grasp the fact that NRX was a powerful transmutation machine – and its implications.
On the entrance door of the NRX building was a sign warning that mercury in any form, including thermometers, must not be brought into the building. The immediate corrosive effects of mercury on aluminum were well known, at least to chemists, and NRX was an aluminum structure throughout. I had insisted on doing something to prevent inadvertent destruction of NRX with, say, a mercury thermometer, long before.
One day a horrible thought struck me.
Several years before, Donald Jones, a physicist then administrative assistant to Cockcroft, had told me that he had put a substantial amount of gold in a radiation position in NRX. His motives were fully justifiable. Gold would be turned into mercury, but into a single mercury isotope which, at the time, was a promising candidate as the world’s new standard of length to replace the meter bar in Paris. No one else seemed to be using the radiation position, Don said, so why not prepare for future possible physics needs?
That was OK, only Don had since left for a job with American Optical in the US, and no one was watching this gold. It was just sitting there and by now would be a 15% mercury amalgam. A terrible potential accident that could easily destroy NRX was just waiting to happen.
I immediately sent my colleague Tom Church to check the situation. Sure enough, the sample had already been in for several years. The records were regularly reviewed by the operations management, but without any reaction, and the review would undoubtedly have gone on until trouble broke.
I quickly called Gord Hatfield’s attention to this and the mercury was removed, fortunately in time.
The Society for the Preservation of Canada’s Nuclear Heritage Inc. (SPCNHI) would be very pleased to receive further anecdotes about the early days of the nuclear industry. Anecdotes can be sent to info@nuclearheritage.ca or directly to J. Ungrin at ungrinjr@gmail.com .