Coming to a theatre near you: New documentary film “Of Great Service” celebrates the NRU reactor and its historical role as one of Canada’s most important scientific and research facilities.
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Transcript
Text on Screen:
Of Great Service: The Story of National Research Universal[Music up]
[images of a reactor floor being slowly zoomed in on]
Speaker 1: “The atom was only split for the first time in 1939. And that single discovery, shook the very foundations of the scientific community around the world.”
Text on Screen:
A Story of Imagination and Innovation[Images of old maps, site and inside facility are displayed]
[Two colleagues standing beside each other are in front of the reactor and speak]
Speaker 2: “It is so well thought out…to say that it was planned in the 50’s”
Speaker 3 “with a slide rule”
Speaker 2 “I don’t even know what that is?” (Laughter)Text on Screen:
To Build One of the Largest, Most Versatile Research Reactors in the World[Music rises and sound of film moving through a camera reel in background]
Text on Screen:
A Ground Breaking Scientific AchievementSpeaker 1: “You had to measure the thing that had never been measured before, and then control the thing that had never been controlled before, with an instrument that has never been built before”
[Image of scientists looking at data being printed, reading data printouts, monitoring equipment]
[Image of fly over of a nuclear plant]
[Speaker 1 on screen in hard hat and robe]
Speaker 4: “NRU basically enabled Canada to be a leader in nuclear power generation, in medical isotopes, in neutron scattering facilties”
[Speaker 4 comes onscreen in hard hat and glasses]
[Image of inside neutron scattering facilities]
Speaker 1: “NRU was the biggest thing that could be imagined, the biggest thing that could have been conceived”
[Music builds louder]
Text on Screen:
A Nation’s Triumph Felt Around the World[Image looking outside windows of the reactor]
Text on Screen:
Memorialized by the People Behind the Science[Music continues to build louder]
[Montage of images of employees of the NRU smiling]
[Montage of images of the reactor recent and vintage]
[Music peaks then leaves behind sound of film movie through a reel]
Text on Screen:
Of Great Service, The Story of National Research Universal”[Image on screen of logo for “Of Great Service, The story of National Research Universal” with atom graphic moving in the background]
Text on Screen
A Feature Documentary Event. Launching Fall of 2018
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology organization, is pleased to present a new documentary entitled “Of Great Service: The Story of National Research Universal.” Produced by SandBay Entertainment, an award-winning Canadian production company, the documentary celebrates and memorializes the contributions of the NRU reactor, through the stories and memories of those who worked within it. Filmed at CNL’s Chalk River Laboratories campus, the film examines the history of the NRU and its role as one of Canada’s most important scientific and research facilities.
One of the largest research reactors in the world, NRU was a landmark achievement in Canadian nuclear science and technology when it went into service on November 3, 1957 on the banks of the Ottawa River in Chalk River, Ontario. For over 60 years, the reactor served Canadians as a supplier of industrial and medical radioisotopes used for the diagnosis and treatment of life-threatening diseases, as a major Canadian facility for neutron physics research, and to provide engineering research and development support for Canada’s fleet of nuclear power reactors.
NRU was also the workplace of Canadian physicist Dr. Bertram Brockhouse, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1994. Using a technique known as ‘neutron scattering’ to explore materials, Dr. Brockhouse invented a new, highly sophisticated neutron instrument known as a triple axis spectrometer, which is now standard equipment at every neutron laboratory throughout the world. For its many achievements, NRU was recognized as a nuclear historic landmark by the American Nuclear Society in 1986.
Looking to the future, the NRU continues to add value to the global nuclear research community. Analyses of materials samples from the reactor and its components, as well as investigations of materials irradiated during the final year of operation, will continue for many years, complementing the unique capabilities of CNL’s recently launched Centre for Reactor Sustainability. The Centre for Reactor Sustainability is one of several new initiatives underway across CNL which apply the unique capabilities and scientific expertise resident within CNL to deliver important contributions in clean energy, safety and security, healthcare and reactor operations.