An interesting short BBC video on a German scientist, who after WWII persuaded the Argentine president to fund the attempt to develop Nuclear fusion. As a side note from me, I believe GE Canada/AECL did have some role in the supply of equipment/fueling machines for the Argentine Nuclear fission plant, in the 1970's?
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p084871w/the-island-hosting-the-ruins-of-a-nuclear-lab
You're good at finding the most eclectic films, ssfc, but I appreciate it. I'm exposed to new ideas, concepts and histories that I never would have otherwise been. I had no idea that they were trying in the 1940s to develop nuclear fission in Argentina, of all places! I wonder if they were the first to think about it? Probably not, but one wonders. For those that are curious, the video is a little less than 7 minutes long, so not a huge commitment of time. It reminds me of one of the Canadian film board movies.
Regarding the AECL involvement in Argentina, I found this article about a refurbishment of a nuclear power plant (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/aecl-to-refurbish-argentine-reactor/article4259149/) there in 2011, but it was SNC-Lavalin Nuclear Inc. But this plant was built in 1984 so they probably had another one you are talking about that was built before then. Or SNC-Lavalin farmed out part of the work to GE. First I've ever heard of them being involved with nuclear. I wonder how many officials they bribed there to get the contract.
I believe SNC-Lavalin bought out either AECL or maybe it just was the nuclear services part of AECL?
Apparently AECL is still around but it's focus has changed they don't sell nuclear reactors or do refurbishments now so maybe SNC has been handling it for a while. But I'd expect they probably just handled the logistics part since their experience is in construction, I believe. Here's what the AECL website says about what they do now:
QuoteAs a federal Crown corporation, AECL’s mandate is to enable nuclear science and technology and to protect the environment by fulfilling the government of Canada’s radioactive waste and decommissioning responsibilities.
https://www.aecl.ca/about-aecl/ (https://www.aecl.ca/about-aecl/)
That doesn't mean what you're saying didn't happen, because the article I quoted was in 2011 about a refurbishment. It doesn't say who originally built the reactor. And there were probably other reactors before then so what you're saying happened likely did. I don't recall, ssfc, did you build fuel assemblies? Or were you in QA?
The building of the Argentine nuclear fission electricity generating plant was before my time at GE Canada. GE Canada may have built the fueling machines. I know we did supply some other replacement parts for the fueling machines, while I worked as a technician at GE Nuclear Peterborough.