Agency and various national governments monitor the production and distribution He and his men had lured the sheriff out to a cabin and ambushed him. "He was pretty much a pure, unalloyed hero," Bascomb says. The presence of the heavier hydrogen isotope gives the water different nuclear properties, and the increase of mass gives it slightly different physical and chemical properties when compared to normal water. Every contingency was accounted for. Tronstad was the sort of commander who wouldn't allow for himself what he had to deny others. Heavy-water nuclear reactors generate electricity in China (above), Canada, and "He was pretty much a pure, unalloyed hero.". For the same reason the US and its allies want to deny Iran access to heavy water today, Tronstad wanted to destroy Vemork. India. Heavy water is a form of water with a unique atomic structure and properties coveted for the production of nuclear power and weapons. easily split or "fissile" materials that fuels nuclear bombs. Heavy water is H20 but with an uncharacteristic neutron added to both hydrogen atoms. And while the heavy water saga may have been his greatest contribution to the Allied cause, it wasn't his greatest contribution to Norway's. Each of the saboteurs had been given a cyanide capsule; each knew that their chances of hitting the target and escaping with their lives were, at best even. When Norsk Hydro began producing heavy water in 1934, Norway became the first No commercial plants in the U.S. use heavy water. apart, or fissioning, in a chain reaction. It either must be enriched—made more concentrated in a rare Like him, the commandos of Operation Gunnerside were all Norwegians, exiled to the U.K. after the Nazis conquered their country two years before. This isotope of hydrogen is called part in 4,500. But the only resistance, if you can call it that, was a Norwegian plant worker sitting at a desk in the basement. "[F]amily, house and worldly goods had to be set aside for Norway's sake," he wrote in his diary on September 22, 1940, the day he went on the run, Gestapo hot on his trail. that can go on to split other atoms. country with a commercial heavy-water plant. Rjukan, Norway, was home to the world's finest heavy water reactor, a cascading tower of electrolysis chambers where heavy water molecules would fall, Plinko-like, downward until they reached a vessel that held 99.5 percent pure heavy water. This content is imported from YouTube. All of this made him an indespensible asset—and too valuable to make the jump into Norway alongside his commandos, though he desperately wanted to. heavy water—its discovery, uses, and why it remains a threat Satellite images taken in February 2005 reveal a heavy-water plant in Arak, "America put everything into the Manhattan Project partly — not wholly, but partly — because of information Leif Tronstad was giving the Allies on the intensity of the German atomic project," says Neal Bascomb, the author of The Winter Fortress. Iran. quantities, though, is no easy trick because heavy water constitutes only one Scientists recognized the stuff could be a useful moderator—that is, a material which would neither dampen a chain reaction before could go critical, nor let it fizzle out prematurely. trigger new fission events if they are slowed down. Separating out significant Uranium and even basic laboratory supplies were also difficult to procure, he says. A week before Christmas, 1942, Tronstad gathered the six men he was about to send behind German lines as they prepared to ship out. Tronstad realized why the Germans were so interested in heavy water. Argentina, Iran, Romania, and Russia. When the tide of World War II turned against Germany, Tronstad's goals shifted. Gilbert Lewis, a renowned chemist at U.C. The rest of the team posted up outside the guard house manned by German soldiers. Berkeley, isolated the first sample of essentially pure heavy water from ordinary of heavy water. Second mistake. down.—Susan K. Lewis. beaker filled with ordinary H20. "He just wanted to see if he could build it," Bascomb says. Maybe Germany's bomb research was doomed anyway. rely on heavy-water nuclear power plants for electricity, make the most heavy How we test gear. Popular Mechanics participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. Physicists everywhere realized that if chain reactions could be tamed, fission could lead to a promising new source of power. "The lack of heavy water was a big problem stopping everybody, but the German bomb project had enough other problems that this was not the single bottleneck," says Richard Kremer, a history professor at Dartmouth College and an expert on science in Nazi Germany.

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