Natural Resources Committee on June 4th, 2009

[Peter Elder, Director General, Directorate of Nuclear Cycle and Facilities Regulation, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission]

No.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Binder, it's nice to have you here again.

I want to ask about the MAPLE project. Obviously you were following it and were involved with overseeing that development. It's not by any means clear to me what went wrong and what should or shouldn't happen in relation to the MAPLEs, but I certainly think it is the responsibility of MPs to ask questions about this.

They were, as I understand it, designed to provide basically 100% of world supply of isotopes. My understanding is that MAPLE-1 actually did make isotopes, but they had not been extracted when it was shut down. Is that accurate?

[Dr. Michael Binder]

Not to my understanding. Again, I just arrived early in 2008. My understanding is that it never did actually succeed in producing isotopes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

My underatnding is that some people would say producing would mean the extracting part. Right? I think maybe that's where the distinction is.

Mr. Elder wasn't there earlier? Can he not answer this question?

[Peter Elder]

I wasn't directly involved in the MAPLE reactors at that stage, but had been involved earlier. To my knowledge, they had never actually put in the targets that produce the medical isotopes. It was just the driver fuel, the normal fuel that had been tested for commissioning tests.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

All right.

My understanding is that the U.S. National Academy of Sciences has suggested that if AECL can't fix the MAPLEs, maybe they should bring someone else in. You're following this; you have expertise at the CNSC. Is it your sense that AECL might lack the expertise to make the MAPLEs work in a predictable fashion?

[Dr. Michael Binder]

As I'm trying to explain, our mandate is just to make sure whatever they do is done in a safe way. They were experimenting with the MAPLE and tried to make it work and every step of the way our goal was to make sure that whatever experimentation they were conducting was according to standard and being conducted in a safe way. We were not involved in their decision eventually to abandon the project.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

As you can imagine, we look to people who have expertise in this area, and clearly you're one of the organizations in this country that does have expertise in this area. That's why I would be posing those questions to you.

[Dr. Michael Binder]

But our expertise is really based on safety culture and safety cases. It is not really on actually producing, if you like, isotopes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

But it's nuclear safety, and you're very involved with what happens with the nuclear reactors across the country.

Is it true that one of the problems here was that it was designed to have a negative power coefficient and when it was operated it ran with a slightly positive power coefficient? As I understand it, it's true that some CANDU reactors actually do operate with a positive coefficient, but the issue is the predictability. Is that right? Could you comment on that?

[Peter Elder]

The issue is not whether, necessarily, there's any problem with a positive coefficient. It was a mismatch between the predicted in their safety case in the computer codes that said it should be negative and the actual measurements in the reactor that turned out to be positive, which means there was something in those computer codes that was not modelling what was really happening in the reactor.

It is very important, certainly in a production reactor like the MAPLEs were, that you fully understand the neutron physics of what's going on all the time through the process. So it wasn't the fact that it was positive or negative. It was the fact that there was a difference between the prediction and the actual.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I must tell you, I would have liked to have asked those questions to the folks from AECL, because there's no reason for me to think they lacked the expertise to deal with that, and those are important questions to ask.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

You still have two and a half minutes, if anyone else from the Liberal Party would like to ask a question or two.

Mr. Tonks?

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Binder, thank you and your colleague for being here.

Looking at the degree of the metal fatigue in the NRU, have officials been to also parallel the investigation AECL is carrying out on the NRU?

[Dr. Michael Binder]

Absolutely. We have staff on site who monitor and participate in practically every inspection and every review. In addition to that, the licences are awarded for five years, and every time the licence is up for renewal, review is required. So in 2006 there was an extensive review.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

From the experience of the regulator, on first observation with respect to the extent of this metal fatigue, would you venture that this is beyond a reasonable time response? This looks to a layperson like very serious base metal fatigue. Is it possible this is beyond the reasonable time with respect to repairing the damage?

[Dr. Michael Binder]

Let me respond by saying that I keep hearing people referring to an aging, creaky, leaky NRU production, but there is no real set time for some of those reactors. If you look at what's happening in power reactors, they're being refurbished and put in place. Some of them are running for 60 years, and people are arguing that they may run for 100 years.

The way to do it is to continue to improve safety. If there is any problem, you replace it. That's exactly what AECL will have to determine, the extent of.... It's not the aging; it's a corrosion. There's some real reason for this particular corrosion, and they have to determine the extent of this corrosion.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I suppose it's not a fair question to say that it's not comparable to making a decision about getting on an airplane with a wing that was corroded.

[Dr. Michael Binder]

That's right. If I saw a wing that was being corroded, I wouldn't go on that airplane.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Tonks.

We go now to the Bloc Québécois. Madame Brunelle, you have up to seven minutes.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

Mr. Binder, it was a power outage that revealed the reactor's operating problems. A closer examination revealed more serious problems yet. Why did you grant a licence for the NRU reactor?

Are there permanent personnel from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission at Chalk River to check the reports and facilities? Tell me how this works.

[Dr. Michael Binder]

Eight people live and work there to provide all necessary supervision.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

How do you explain that no one saw what was happening? The corrosion is very extensive, after all. Does this make you think you should change your checking procedures? Does it cause you to ask yourself any questions about your work?

[Dr. Michael Binder]

You must understand that it is not easy to get into the reactor to do checks. It's not like a car.