Article content

Canada’s workhorse nuclear research reactor, the NRU at Chalk River, is to be shuttered in 2018 after a 60-year run of pioneering scientific innovation and, more recently, serious age-related breakdowns, safety and security concerns, and political controversy.

Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford quietly announced the closure more than a month ago, in a press release heralding a two-year extension of medical isotope production at NRU until March 31, 2018. The release went on to artfully note that the venerable reactor’s “decommissioning” will begin after that date, too.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or World's oldest operating reactor, in Chalk River, to close in 2018 Back to video

About 500 direct jobs are at stake. But Robert Walker, head of the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), said in a statement to employees that he anticipates NRU will continue to require “essentially the same workforce it employs today for at least the next five years.

“We will be actively working to retain, retrain and redeploy those staff eventually affected by the shutdown of the NRU.”