Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility |
Regroupement pour la surveillance du nucléaire |
Excerpts from
by Robert Bothwell, University of Toronto
by Wilfrid J. Eggleston
by Vincent G. Jones
Connecting the Cold War
Nuclear Productions Processes
To Their Environmental Consequences
by William Chenoweth
Excerpts from:Port Radium Memorial
text engraved on a bronze plaque |
Port Radium, Northwest Territories,
prepared by George Woolett for Echo Bay Mines in 1985
"The mine was the only source of radium outside of the Belgian Congo. Because of the high demand for radium for use in medical treatment, this source was of world significance.
"The Eldorado Mine was closed in 1940 due to World War II and an over-supply of radium."
"Processing of the radium and uranium ore resulted in the establishment of a world class refining facility at Port Hope, Ontario.
"Exhaustion of the uranium ore led to mine closure in 1960".
Excerpts from:
|
[Canadian Minister of Munitions and Supply, C. D.] Howe was ready for the occasion. As a member of the Combined Policy Committee, he knew ... it was intended to use the bomb to bring the Japanese war to an end....
"it is a distinct pleasure for me to announce that Canadian scientists have played an intimate part, and have been associated in an effective way with this great scientific development."
From the Interlude, "War Into Cold War", p. 157
From the Interlude, "War Into Cold War", p. 159
from Chapter 3: From Radium to Uranium
There were three possible sources of uranium.... One was now in German hands [Czechoslovakia], and the other two were the Belgian Congo and 'Arctic Canada'. [ pp. 84-86 ]
from Chapter 4: Private into Public
What the British wanted, King learned, 'was the acquisition of some property in Canada, so as to prevent competition in price on a mineral much needed in the manufacture of explosives.' Perrin then took over. What was involved, he told the Canadian leader, was a 'military weapon of immense destructive force,' based on intra-atomic energy. Naturally it also had implications for industrial power later, but for the moment the bomb was the thing. Perrin recalled that 'a look of absolute horror and panic' stole over King's face as the lecture proceeded. 'The first country to possess a military weapon of this kind would win the war,' King was told....
The British delegation contemplated acquiring control for themselves and the Americans, in effect locating a small and autonomous part of Tube Alloys and the Manhattan Project [the British and American code names for the A- bomb project] on Canadian soil. This idea was now put to Howe who did not reject it.... From this emerged a conclusion that eventually Eldorado would be subject to tripartite control.... The Americans were to be informed ... and their approval sought.
The most surprising thing about this proposal is that C.D. Howe agreed to it. It was, on the face of it, a most unusual proposal.... [pp. 119-121]
from Chapter 3: From Radium to Uranium
It is impossible to know what the company or its president made of this, but it is reasonable to suppose that they knew it had to do with the military applications of uranium.
Early in March 1942, [Eldorado received] an order for 60 tons of uranium oxide, approved by [ Vannevar Bush, ] the head of the US atomic project....
The 60-ton order from the Americans was enough to re-open the mine.... In other, older days the news would have been trumpeted from the rooftops. In March 1942 it was a secret.
Uranium oxide from Eldorado ('grossly impure commercial oxide,' according to the official 1945 Smyth Report) could now be shipped to St. Louis, and then sent on....
Starting in May 1942, therefore, Eldorado shipped 15 tons a month. The company assisted the Americans by reducing the impurities in its oxide to what the latter considered a more reasonable level -- one per cent or less. To do that, it merely had to clean up piles of oxide in the refinery yard, start emptying its silos, and begin forwarding concentrates piled up at Waterways, Alberta, and, once the Great Bear Lake mine reopened, the concentrates there as well. It would only be in 1943 that the misadventures in mining in the Arctic would begin to have an impact on Eldorado's ability to deliver on its contracts. [pp. 108-9]
By July, by air and by water, LaBine's supplies were getting through. Fortunately there was a reserve of ore available for instant shipment, having been abandoned on the docks in June 1940. But it would take longer than expected to get the mine back into production....
Those who got to Great Bear were better treated than their predecessors... In 1943 a recreation hall sprang up, complete with library, pool tables, store, and movie facilities. In 1944 a bowling alley was added. But if conditions above ground were better, those below ground were in many respects worse. The basic cause was the tendency of Great Bear Lake to flood the mine.... [p. 105]
Some of the blame definitely attaches to the company. In the first place, the pace of demand was more than the company seems to have anticipated, and more than it could satisfy. But while granting that the demand was American, the decision on how to supply -- at what rate, and at what cost -- was Canadian. [p. 106]
It will be recalled that there were two major sources of uranium available to the would-be bomb-makers on the allied side -- the Belgian Congo and Great Bear Lake. Both Great Bear Lake and the Union Minière pit at Shinkolobwe were shut down in 1940, and the Shinkolobwe mine in fact remained closed until 1944.
In 1939 rich concentrates from Shinkolobwe were introduced into the United States, and there they sat, unwanted and largely forgotten, in a warehouse on Staten Island in New York harbour. Like Eldorado, the Union Minière also seems to have had uranium concentrates in transit inside the Congo, or piled up around the mine; the total of concentrates at its disposal, accordingly, was the 1200 tons from Staten Island, plus about 900 tons in the pipeline between Katanga & the Atlantic Ocean.... [p. 107]
On 16 July [Eldorado] negotiated a contract for 350 tons of uranium....
On 22 December 1942, [Eldorado signed] another order for 'five hundred tons of U3O8 ,' either commercial grade or purified. 'This order,' [it was] stipulated, 'is to follow immediately the completion of our present order [for 350 tons] and should be delivered before December 31st, 1944....
Eldorado was now committed to supply 850 tons, in total, to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in addition to the 60 tons first contracted for, and supplied, in the spring of 1942....
What the army now had was concentrates, rich concentrates to be sure, which still had to be refined. There was only one place where that could be speedily done, and that was Port Hope.
What did this mean to Eldorado's ability to perform its existing contracts? The capacity of the refinery in 1942-43 was between 120 and 145 tons of feed per month. The Katangese ores were different from those produced at Eldorado's Great Bear Lake mine. If the Belgian ore had priority, then Eldorado's own ore would have to wait until the Belgian order was finished, since the two required quite different methods of treatment. Consequently, it was agreed that even the first, 350-ton contract, which was still pending, would be but into abeyance' until the Belgian work was done....
The Americans had other plans.
First, they had some lower-grade Belgian concentrate ... [as well as] another contract for 500 additional tons of Eldorado oxide [from Great Bear Lake]....
The Americans also had 200 tons of oxide deribed from American vanadium residues. [p. 134]
Not as important as some believed, Mackenzie replied. The Manhattan Project was 'not entirely dependent on Canadian ore' and a bomb might have been managed entirely 'without our material.' Nevertheless, uranium was scarce, and Canada's uranium had probably gained in importance because of the scarcity. [p. 160]
Excerpts from:
Canada's Nuclear Story
|
From the Foreword by Dr. C. J. Mackenzie,
From Chapter 1: Canada Enters the Nuclear Age. p. 4
There was, as it happened, a substantial stockpile of uranium oxide at Port Hope. This had not been accumulated in shrewd anticipation of the nuclear age; it was merely a by-product of a radium refinery.... At all events, uranium oxide in quantity was available for refining and use in any wartime application that might materialize.... [Chapter 4: Canada Is Drawn In, p. 41]
Less than a month after Pearl Harbour, the U.S. Planning Board began a survey of all key strategic materials. This brought out the information that Eldorado had three hundred tons of uranium concentrate [ not yet refined ] located at Port Hope, Ontario. It was also noted that Eldorado's mine at Great Bear Lake could, if re-opened, produce up to three hundred tons of good grade uranium ore a year.
In the following month, the U.S. Planning Board recommended the purchase of two hundred tons of uranium oxide from Eldorado....
In April 1942 Gilbert LaBine was invited to Ottawa by the Hon. C. D. Howe, Minister of Munitions & Supply to talk over the offer.... The whole transaction, on the insistence of both U.S. and Canadian governments, was to be conducted with the greatest secrecy. In view of the tremendous possibilities of uranium fission which had just opened up, the question of the wisdom of leaving such a strategic war material in exclusive private hands occurred at once to Mr. Howe.... [Chapter 4: Canada Is Drawn In, pp. 44-45]
The Canadian prime minister's diary disclosed that on June 15, 1942, he "had an interview with Malcolm MacDonald [the British High Commissioner] and two scientists from England" about "the acquisition of some property in Canada, so as to prevent competition in price on a mineral much needed in connection with the manufacture of explosives."...
Mackenzie King ... agreed to have the matter discussed with his Minister of Munitions and Supply and with C. J. Mackenzie.... "They told me there had been complete agreement among them as to the desirability of Government not only controlling, but owning, the particular mineral deposit in question, and I was asked if I would authorize the Government getting the majority of shares from the owner.... I agreed to this step being taken at once so long as the Americans were advised...."
"At 2:30 to see Dr. Bush [Head of the Atomic Bomb Project]. Had a long meeting with him to discuss the work of the S-l [Uranium] Committee. He gave me a clear account of what has happened in the U.S. "Bush said he would let me know as soon as he got that final signal which he expected that day but Winston Churchill had just arrived on a flying trip and it probably will be some time before he hears...."
On his return to Ottawa, on June 22, Dr. Mackenzie immediately saw his minister, Mr. Howe, who agreed with Vannevar Bush's recommendations about the Eldorado property and undertook to expedite the acquiring of machinery and equipment necessary to get the Great Bear uranium mine into full production as soon as possible.
On August 29 Mr. Howe sent a letter to Dr. Mackenzie containing information that Eldorado had recently arranged to purchase 500 tons of uranium ore from Afrimet. The ore assayed approximately 68 per cent U3O8. It was a part of the stocks of Congo ore then held in the United States. A further 700 tons stocked in the United States, Mr. Howe added, was available from the same source. This purchase would assure Eldorado of the stocks required to meet its current contract with the U.S. Army for uranium oxide. [Chapter 4: Canada Is Drawn In, pp. 45-48]
Since it formed a historic turning point in relations with the United States, its salient paragraphs are reproduced here:
"Since it is clear that neither your Government or the English can produce elements '49' [plutonium] or '25' [uranium-235] on a time schedule which will permit of their use in this conflict, we have been directed to limit the interchange correspondingly ... in what is, after all, a joint aim -- namely, the production of a weapon to be used against our common enemy in the shortest possible time under conditions of maximum security."
... In part the new attitude was a logical consequence of turning over the problem of producing an atomic weapon to the U.S. Army. Military men, not scientists, were now in the saddle.... [Chapter 5: A Promising Partnership Deteriorates, pp. 64-66]
It concerned the destination of the supplies of uranium ore and refined oxide coming from Canadian sources. The aggressive and relentless drive of General Groves and his American colleagues had resulted in a series of secret private contracts being reached between Eldorado ... and the U.S. Army. For a time the Canadian government was thrust into the indefensible and embarrassing position of not even being able to find out just what deals Gilbert LaBine and his associates had made with the Americans for Canadian ore and oxide.
The Canadian government held all the cards of course, in the event of a showdown. As an autonomous power, it could step in at any time, expropriate the properties of Eldorado ... and take over complete control of its uranium contracts with the United States. This, however, was a step which the Canadian government would be reluctant to take....
Less than two weeks later General Groves and his associate, Colonel Nichols, were in Ottawa seeking a mutually satisfactory answer to the problem of uranium supply.... [Chapter 5: A Promising Partnership Deteriorates, pp. 79-82]
Churchill kept hammering away. He renewed his inquiries during [his] visit to Washington in May 1943.... Still nothing happened....
Fortunately the end of the dispute was in sight. In July 1943, there were renewed meetings in London.... By this time also the historic meeting of the leaders at Quebec City had been arranged, and Tube Alloys [the A-Bomb Project] was on the agenda.
"... Churchill discussed the atomic project, which had the code name "Tube Alloys", with Mackenzie King and secured his agreement to the suggestion Churchill planned to propose to President Roosevelt, that C. D. Howe [Canadian Minister of Munitions and Supply] be made a member of a combined policy committee of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada."
Joint action to set up such a committee was taken on August 17. The Articles of Agreement on Tube Alloys [A-Bombs] were signed by Roosevelt and Churchill on August 19....
The preamble noted it was "vital to our common safety in the present War to bring the Tube Alloys [A-Bomb] project to fruition at the earliest moment." This might be more speedily achieved if all available British and American brains and resources were pooled. It was agreed that:
... The new committee met for the first time at the War Department on September 8....
A meeting of the Combined Policy Committee was held on April 13, 1944, in the office of the Secretary of War ... in Washington.... Hon. C. D. Howe ... on April 14 ... reported the decision of the Combined Policy Committee to provide for immediate construction of a large-scale heavy water pilot plant [reactor] in Canada. [Chapter 6: An Agreement Finally Brings Action]
Under a cloak of extreme wartime secrecy a novel wartime establishment had to be brought into being as speedily as possible.... On August 21, 1944, General Leslie Groves was in Canada and was briefed on recent Canadian developments, including the decision to locate the heavy water project at Chalk River....
President of the Canadian
National Research Council
during the WWII A-Bomb Project.
The fifth and last section [of the Quebec Agreement] outlined arrangements for "full and effective collaboration." It provided for a Combined Policy Committee, to be set up at Washington, composed of:
Excerpts from:Manhattan: |
[The] source was the mine owned by Eldorado Gold Mines Ltd., at Great Bear Lake in Northwest Canada.... The mine itself had been closed and allowed to fill with water in the summer of 1940, because sufficient ore had been stockpiled to meet anticipated demand for five years.... When the OSRD placed a sizable order in 1941, it obtained additional equipment and supplies for getting the mine back into operation and, meanwhile, [ Eldorado ] continued to supply amounts of [ uranium ] oxide refined from the stockpiled ores....
Excerpts from:Linking Legacies
Connecting the Cold War U.S. Department of Energy Chapter 2: Washington, D.C., January 1997. |
[table entry]
During WWII, the United States purchased the uranium content of high-assay uranium ore from the Belgian Congo (now Zaire), supplemented with ore and concentrates from Canada and the Colorado Plateau.... (p.18)
The Manhattan Project used uranium processed here as fuel for the world's first nuclear reactors and in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.... (p.19)
... About half of the uranium used in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex was imported from Canada, Africa, and other areas. The remainder came from the domestic uranium industry that grew rapidly in the 1950s. The first imported uranium, high-grade "pitchblende" ore containing up to 65 percent uranium oxide by weight, was milled in Canada and by domestic contractors. After World War II, imported uranium was purchased in the form of already-milled concentrates and high-grade ores.... (p.19)
Excerpts from:Strategic Procurement for Manhattan
by William Chenoweth |