Photo Illustration by The Globe and Mail. Sources: Queen’s University, Getty Images
Even Nobel Prize-winning physicists start somewhere, and in astrophysicist Arthur McDonald’s case, it was the lowest (and stinkiest) rung of the ladder at the power plant near his hometown of Sydney, N.S. Four decades later, Dr. McDonald had the rare pleasure of circling back to where he started – but this time, as the boss.
Back in 1961, I was 18 and I got my first summer job as a student labourer at the Seaboard power plant in Cape Breton, a coal-fired power supply for an electrical generation station. I applied the usual way, but I think I got the job because one of my older cousins was associated with Nova Scotia Power. I’m pretty sure a good word was put in for me.
I’d just finished my first year studying science at Dalhousie University. Summer students like me did all kinds of menial jobs – they actually saved up all the crappy jobs for the summer students to do when they arrived. The plant was a coal-fired boiler system, so one of the first things we were asked to do was to get inside the chimney where the smoke passed through. Our job was to clean out whatever gunk had accumulated on the walls of these tubes with a rotating drill.
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The plant used Cape Breton coal, which was very sulphurous, so what had accumulated was the sulphurous byproducts of the smoke. It looked like grey dust, and can you imagine the smell? At lunchtime on the first day, I went down to get lunch in the locker room, and I noticed that I’d been sweating all around my waist and under my armpits and it was a bright red colour on my skin. The sulphurous material was turning to sulphuric acid and actually burning my skin. I don’t know what it did to my lungs.
Job 2 was at the other end of the heating process where they brought the seawater in from the shore. It was similar to the first job, but the tubes were horizontal. You had to climb into a kind of module, which was just big enough to get a person in, then use a pressure gun with compressed air to clear out whatever muck was in there. Except this end was the ocean, so there were mussels and seaweed. Half the time it would splash backward into your face.
In 1961, safety was a minor concern. We should have probably had gas masks, especially in the chimney, but we didn’t. We wore hard hats only in circumstances when we were in danger of having things fall on us – when we should have been wearing them all the time. It wasn’t the hardest physical labour, but it was hard enough for minimum wage. The worst part was the dark, confined spaces; if you were claustrophobic at all, you probably couldn’t do it.
I lasted that whole summer and thought that was it for me at Seaboard. But 41 years later, I was experimenting with neutrinos – tiny particles that can pass through an enormous amount of material without stopping. The experiment required heavy water, which has very little chemical difference from regular water, but has an extra neutron. One in 6,000 of every water molecule you drink has one.
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We needed some $300-million worth of heavy water extracted from seawater on the coast in Glace Bay – next door to the power plant where I’d worked all those years ago. It was an amazing coincidence as far as I’m concerned. The [decommissioned] plant was our power source, and we were able to borrow 1,000 tonnes of heavy water for just the cost of insurance. It made the whole project possible and became the key element in the experiment for which I received a Nobel Prize in 2015. I was right where I started but now the head of the operation.
The experiment required 70 people underground a day, doing manual labour – just like I had that summer. I’d learned that manual labour is so important and the people doing it have got to be treated in a good way.
I said publicly and often and reinforced it with discussions with the people doing the work that everybody on the experiment was equally responsible for our success. Even the people that sweep the floors are just as important as everyone else.
As told to Rosemary Counter
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to compressed air as 'condensed' air and incorrectly said that heavy water has an extra 'neuron.' This version has been updated.