US call on Ontario to fill their shortage of bomb-detection devices

The United States is looking to Ontario for a key compound used in bomb-detection devices that is in short supply around the globe. A feasibility study is underway to see if the Province can provide the answer to the helium-3 shortage, south of the border.

Helium-3, which is used in scanners that can detect smuggled nuclear bombs that come from tritium, which Ontario power generation extracts from heavy water used in its Canada Deuterium Uranium nuclear reactors.

New Brunswick and Quebec also have CANDU reactors, but they don’t have the technology to separate tritium from the water.

A spokesman for Ontario’s power company said the study (due in April) will examine what needs to be done to facilitate the shipment of tritium to the United States, which has the technology to turn it into helium-3.

U.S. officials said the department of energy is looking at “multiple sources” for Tritium, but would not identify their locations.

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