Editing Heavy water (section)

===United States===
During the [[Manhattan Project]] the United States constructed three heavy water production plants as part of the [[P-9 Project]] at Morgantown Ordnance Works, near [[Morgantown, West Virginia]]; at the Wabash River Ordnance Works, near Dana and [[Newport, Indiana]]; and at the Alabama Ordnance Works, near [[Childersburg, Alabama|Childersburg]] and [[Sylacauga, Alabama]]. Heavy water was also acquired from the Cominco plant in [[Trail, British Columbia]], Canada. The [[Chicago Pile-3]] experimental reactor used heavy water as a moderator and went critical in 1944.<ref>{{Cite arXiv |last=Waltham |first=Chris |date=October 2011 |title=An Early History of Heavy Water |pages=8–9|eprint=physics/0206076 }}</ref> The three domestic production plants were shut down in 1945 after producing around {{cvt|81,470|lb|kg}} of product.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Manhattan District History Book III The P-9 Project |language=English}}</ref> The Wabash plant resumed heavy water production in 1952.

In 1953, the United States began using heavy water in [[plutonium]] production reactors at the [[Savannah River Site]]. The first of the five [[Pressurized heavy-water reactor|heavy water reactors]] came online in 1953, and the last was placed in cold shutdown in 1996. The reactors were heavy water reactors so that they could produce both plutonium and tritium for the US nuclear weapons program.

The U.S. developed the [[Girdler sulfide process|Girdler sulfide]] chemical exchange production process—which was first demonstrated on a large scale at the [[Dana, Indiana]] plant in 1945 and at the Savannah River Site in 1952.