How do radioactive elements move through lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands?
That’s what our host Larkin Mosscrop is exploring this month with Matt Bond, an environmental biologist from Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. From Northern Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin to North America’s Great Lakes, Matt walks us through two of his research projects examining how radionuclides travel through the water into the surrounding aquatic food webs, starting from algae all the way up to predator fish. Unsurprisingly, the work involves a good pair of hip waders, a net and a fishing rod – but it also involves dry ice and a blender! Tune in, and you’ll learn how Matt does this work and why it’s a key step to nuclear power becoming a bigger part of Canada’s clean energy mix.
Matt’s work in the Athabasca Basin is enabled by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited’s Federal Nuclear Science & Technology (FNST) Work Plan.