Hydro and Tritium

In response to Ontario Hydro’s invitation to submit recommendations on policies to assure the peaceful use of the tritium to become available in 1987, a Science for Peace Consulta­tive Group has prepared a brief which is now available from the national office.

Members of the Consultative Group were G. Brenciaglia, J. Dove, A.Rapo­port, N. Rubin and L. Trainor. Addit­ional statements were included from Gerhard Herzberg, Michael Pearson, C. Leroy Sanders, for the Ottawa Chapter, and James Gardner, for the Waterloo Chapter. Another comment is expected to go directly to Hydro from John Hewitt, Ottawa.

Recommendations to Ontario Hydro were essentially as follows:

“We recommend that no tritium be sold to nuclear weapons states or to near-nuclear weapons states until con­ditions have changed significantly to alleviate our concerns which are

1. Substitution,

2. Direct use of Canadian tritium in nuclear weapons,

3. Impact on non-proliferation regime,

4. Implicit political support for the nuclear arms race, and

5. Impact on fusion energy research in Canada.”

“Exporting tritium diminishes the advantage that Canada has in attracting a major international fusion search centre to Canada.”