AECL's Whiteshell Laboratories (WL) has provided scientists with more than 35 years of valuable nuclear research and information, including the development of dry storage containment facilities for used nuclear fuel, a technology now used around the world. The site has also been home to research in food irradiation, hydrogen safety and performance, materials science for satellites and high performance aircraft, nuclear reactor design, reactor safety and waste management.

In 1995, the Canadian Government's Program Review process, a deficit-cutting measure, reduced AECL's annual R&D government funding to a point at which AECL could no longer afford to operate WL. AECL is now planning the decommissioning of Whiteshell Laboratories.

WL still supports a viable Waste Technology Unit that manages the Underground Research Laboratory (URL). The URL is used to research the concept of permanent disposal of used nuclear fuel in a deep geological vault and performs this research for both Canadian and international clients. The URL has used electric heaters to simulate the heat that could be generated by used nuclear fuel. The URL does not work with used nuclear fuel to produce heat. The reactor safety research conducted at Whiteshell Laboratories is in the process of being consolidated to Chalk River Laboratories. The site's accelerator-based materials science research has already been successfully privatized and is managed by Acsion Industries Inc.