Isotopes from OPG’s nuclear stations helping to unlock the promise of nuclear fusion

The tritium extraction process reduces radiological dose to workers and emissions to the environment, but also helps provide a beneficial product to the world.

For three decades, OPG has made tritium commercially available for use in self-powered lights, as a source for luminescence in watches, and for medical research.

Now, the isotope is helping to advance the next generation of clean energy development as a key ingredient in achieving nuclear fusion by combining with another key ingredient, deuterium, or heavy water.

By harnessing the same process that powers the sun and stars, nuclear fusion reactors look to produce power from fusing lighter atoms with heavier ones, releasing huge amounts of clean, emission-free energy.

International research into this potential energy source of the future continues to accelerate, along with the demand for OPG’s tritium stockpile.

“We expect to see this demand really get going by the 2030s, when the first fusion power plants to deliver electricity to the grid are predicted to be up and running,” Van Wart said.

As it decays, tritium also produces another valuable and extremely rare isotope, helium-3, which is helping to support quantum computing research and could also be a potential fuel source in fusion reactors.

While the moon is expected to house large deposits of helium-3 due to being exposed to solar winds for billions of years, this non-radioactive and inert gas doesn’t naturally form on Earth.

Rather than make costly expeditions to the moon, OPG’s subsidiary Laurentis Energy Partners uses a custom-designed tool to extract helium-3 from tritium stored at Darlington Nuclear, selling the helium-3 to strategic partner and distributer Air Liquide.

Today, it’s used in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), in border security to detect radioactive materials, and in quantum computing to reach near-absolute-zero temperatures, which reduces noise and interference in calculations.

And this is just one of the isotopes created in OPG’s nuclear stations that are helping to save lives, improve safety, and enrich society. Other important isotopes include Cobalt-60, used to sterilize 40 per cent of the world’s single-use medical devices, and Molybdenum-99, used in more than 30 million diagnostic and medical imaging treatments.

Heavy water, the isotope so vital to sustaining the chain reaction in CANDU reactors, also plays an important role outside of the reactor, as it enhances MRIs and helps pharmaceuticals last longer in the bloodstream.

OPG continues to explore other opportunities to extract tritium from its nuclear operations for use in the high-tech and medical industries.

“These are the major sustainability initiatives that we are continuing to advance as a company,” said Van Wart. “We are safely managing the used fuel from our nuclear operations, finding innovative ways to reduce and shrink the low- and intermediate-level by-products that make up 90 per cent of nuclear waste, and leveraging important isotopes for the advancement and well-being of our society.”