Port Hope

Cameco Corp. Port Hope, Ontario, Canada UF, large... 

Keith Consulting, Summary of Uranium City, Saskatchewan, Remedial Measures for Radiation Reduction with Special Attention to Vent Fan Theory, presented at Workshop on Radon and Radon Daughters in Urban Communities Associated with Uranium Mining and Processing, Port Hope, Ontario (1980). 

Hart DR, McKee PM, Burt AJ, et al. 1986. Benthic community and sediment quality assessment of Port Hope Harbor, Lake Ontario (Canada). J Great Lakes Res 12 206-220. 

A bench-scale demonstration of this technology was conducted at the Port Hope Harbor on Lake Ontario, 100 km east of Toronto. According to the vendor, full commercialization of the technology is being delayed due to a lack of capital financing. 

Eldorado Nuclear Ltd. Port Hope, Ontario Ore concentrates Natural UO2, UF4, UF ... 

Fig. n.36 Photograph of an open, pocketed mechanical conveyor (a), detail of the pocketed belt (b), and some typical configurations (c) (courtesy Unltrac, Port Hope, Ont., Canada). 

Box 330, 299 Ward Street Port Hope, Ontario LIA 3W4, Canada... 

The only Canadian uranium refinery is operated at Port Hope, Ontario by Eldorado. Tonnage quantities of oxide (U3O3) were produced first in 1942 from ore concentrates. A solvent-extraction pilot plant was operated in 1950 and 1951 to investigate methylisobutylketone (hexone) and then tributylphosphate as extractants for uranium to obtain a high-purity product. The present refinery was designed and built by the Catalytic Construction Company in 1955 (11). Yellow cake is digested in nitric acid, the resultant slurry extracted with tributylphosphate dissolved in kerosene, and the uranium, after purification, transferred back to water. This solution is decomposed thermally to UO3. Capacity is about 5 Gg U/a. 

Berry, R. M. Eldorado s Port Hope Refinery-1969, Can. Inst. Min. Metall. 

With regard to UO2 conversion supply, Cameco s plant is by far the largest supplier, with a licensed annual capacity of 2800 tU. In addition, smaller plants exist to meet the local needs in India, Argentina, and Romania. Cameco Corporation owns and operates ma-nium refinery and conversion facilities located respectively at Blind River and Port Hope. The Blind River plant refines natural uranium concentrates (U3O8) into uranium trioxide (UO3) and was commissioned in 1983. The intermediate product is shipped to the Port Hope plant (commissioned 1984) where further processing produces natural UFg. 

Jovanovic, S.J. and Pan, P. (2013). Characterization of uranium in contaminated soil from port Hope, Ontario, Canada, J. Nucl. Energy ScL Power General Technol. SI, 1-9. 

Philips, C.R., Pai, H.E. (1976). Environmental radon and radon daughter measurements in Port Hope. Report to the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada (as cited in Van der Vooren et al., 1982). 

Bennett estimated that Eldorado had about ninety-six grams of radium on hand or in production at Port Hope. CRUC had thirty-five grams, and about the same amount was out on lease. Even if Eldorado could never put its hands on this extra seventy grams, it had a lot of radium in its possession. An intensive sales eflfort might convert this expensive inventory into cash. ... 

Bennett s first move in this direction was to establish at Eldorado s Port Hope refinery a radium filling operation - a workshop where radium could be prepared in various forms for medical and industrial uses. It was a costiy undertaking because of the special equipment required for handling radioactive materials. Weighing and filling required custom-built lead-shielded cabinets with special exhaust fans to evacuate the radon gas emitted by radium as it decays. The facility also needed... 

It was this commercial market that made the filling operation at Port Hope necessary. To serve private-sector customers, Eldorado had to offer them radium in a form that they could use. The filling lab prepared radium for its primary medical market by packing it in needles, moulds, or tubes in precise quantities. Gradually Errington developed an extensive line of other radium products to serve a wide variety of customer needs. One example was radium-beryllium sources for well-lo ng in the oil business. Companies servicing the mining sector used this technique to determine if there were oil reserves in the vicinity of a dry drill hole. Radium combined with beryllium in the proper ratio produces millions of neutrons a second. This neutron source could be lowered down... 

Perhaps it simply did not occur to Chalk River that Eldorado should handle isotope distribution. The scientists there knew Eldorado as a uranium producer but had no sense that its destiny was linked to theirs. Moreover, their opinion of Eldorado was tainted by the Port Hope refinery s reputation for poor control of radioactive emissions - the legacy of three decades of processing radium in an era of less rigorous health standards. W.B. Lewis was appalled by conditions there. Errington shared this concern and had eliminated Port Hope as a possible site for Eldorado s isotope work. Nevertheless, many people associated Eldorado s sales department with Port Hope, which gave it a bush-league reputation in the minds of the Chalk River cognoscenti. 

Ken Coltas, head of the special products laboratory at Eldorado s Port Hope facility, reported to Errington that Chalk River s scientists were more interested in the use of isotopes for research than their commercial potential He would later set up Eldorado s isotope order processing and shipping operation at Chalk River. 

At least Errington knew that he, with the powers in Ottawa on his side, would probably get what he wanted in the long run. In the meantime there was the odd little victory, such as finally securing permission to have Eldorado employees located at Chalk River to learn about isotope production. In November 1950, Ken Coltas, head of the special products laboratory at Port Hope, arrived with another Eldorado staffer for a preliminary visit to the Chalk River plant. On entering the gates that surrounded the reactor compound, they set off radiation alarms intended to screen workers who were leaving the site. Coltas was not surprised, because he had heen in touch with Chalk River staff about health monitoring and knew that their detectors would be sensitive to radiation levels that were common in Port Hope. Still, everyone at Chalk River heard about the incident, and the reputation of Port Hope as a sloppy outfit was reconfirmed. ... 

Nevertheless, the two men eventually worked out the terms of the transfer. CPD would continue to sell most of its existing product line, including radium processed through the Port Hope refinery and filling operation. A highet powet would decide exactly what assets should go to AECL and how Eldorado should be compensated. How to deal with radium rentals proved the thorniest issue. It made sense for CPD to take over the rental business, but paying olF Eldorado for loss of this regular source of revenue would take millions of dollars that Howe was not prepared to hand over in a lump sum. Eventually it was decided that Eldorado would retain ownership of and the rental revenue from radium it had produced before the transfer. ... 

Meanwhile the physical separation of the company s parts created numerous headaches and inefficiencies in day-to-day operations. The main offices were still in the basement of the Beamish building on Montreal Road, but other office space was leased nearby as the white-collar workforce grew. The radium-filling operation remained in Eldorado s premises in Port Hope, while Chalk River produced and refined isotopes. Neither the radium nor the isotopes group had the equipment to do its work efficiently, but there was no point investing in existing quarters because they were temporary. 

The new building took longer to finish than a normal structure because of the special features that had to be incorporated to accommodate all these activities. The handling of radioactive materials required more customized installations than did any other function, especially because significant improvements in safety standards were incorporated. The radioactive materials processing faciUties at Tunney s Pasture would segregate distina functions much more rigorously than thqr had ever been at Port Hope or Chalk River. Radium and cobalt-60 would each have a separate production line, and there would be a third line for all other isotopes. 

Errington could have relied more on the fiUing department in Port Hope, but it had no personnel who were expert in teletherapy. Besides, although they were used to dealing with radium, they wete apprehensive about handling cobalt-60 because it had a much higher level of radioactivity. 

Chemicals. Natural UF was provided by Cameco Corporation s Port Hope Conversion Facility in Ontario. The UF5 gas (90-95% pure) was purified at -50 and... 

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