Environment Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2022

[Laurie Swami]

While we are funded by the nuclear energy companies and the owners of the waste, we have an obligation to meet the requirements of the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act. We also are required to report to government on the progress of our work. Our work in the early days was proposed to the federal minister, who approved the plan, and we are moving forward with that.

All of our work is based on our communication and engagement with Canadians to understand the values that are important to Canadians, and that is how we developed our plan. We've gone back many times to confirm—

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Ms. Swami, sorry to cut you off, but my time is limited.

Strategic consultations are currently under way in relation to the conflicts at the NWMO, addressing only a small fraction of the discussions around waste. At the same time, Canada's policy framework is under review. As I see it, assuming that the agenda hasn't already been set, things should be done in the proper order: establish the policy and, then, develop the strategy.

Why did the NWMO prematurely agree to implement measures related to the strategy? Does the NWMO have something to hide?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Unfortunately, Ms. Swami, the member's two and a half minutes are up. You'll have to provide us with your answer later. You may have a chance to follow up on Ms. Pauzé's question in responding to another member's question.

Go ahead, Ms. Collins. You have two and a half minutes.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I'm happy to make space in my time, Ms. Swami, if you would like to answer Madam Pauzé's question.

[Laurie Swami]

Yes. Thank you very much for giving me the time to answer this important question.

The NWMO has nothing to hide in terms of the work that we're doing. In fact, the whole point of engagement with Canadians is to be open and transparent, to share information and to seek input to the process that we have under way.

The federal Minister of Natural Resources invited us to begin looking at the strategy for implementing a pan-Canadian and all-encompassing waste strategy for Canada. In order to do that, the first step that we always take is to go back to Canadians to ask what's important to them, so that we make sure our strategy is effective. Policy is separate and distinct, and that is absolutely the responsibility for the government. Our work is to develop what we should do to make sure that all waste is safely managed in the disposal pathway. That's the critical step that we're doing.

As I said earlier, we have nothing to hide, and we would be happy to share the “What we heard” reports that we have just published.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

My next question is around climate change.

In my province of B.C., we've been experiencing the impacts of atmospheric rivers, extreme flooding and climate fires. These events are becoming more and more common across Canada with the climate crisis.

To both Mr. Hendrickson and Ms. Swami, how will these climate impacts affect the management of nuclear waste?

[Laurie Swami]

Perhaps I can start with that. It's a very important concept as we consider implementing a project that's for such a long period of time.

Part of our work is to consider the differences that will come through climate change over multiple decades and generations. For instance, right now when we consider deployment of a deep geological repository, we consider that there is likely to be glaciation during the period of time when that facility would be in service. We look at and consider that, and we design it to make sure that it can withstand glaciation. We consider increased weather and those types of things as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks.

Your time's up, but it was an interesting question and a good answer.

Go ahead, Mr. Mazier, for five minutes, please.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming out today.

Mr. Gorman, can you think of any other industry that understands and manages its waste to the same standard as the nuclear industry?

[John Gorman]

No. Having been involved in several of the energy industries, as you know, nuclear really has a very positive story to tell and, in my view, is an important example to set for other energy industries.

In addition to having the lowest life-cycle carbon footprint of any energy technology, we are also, as you've heard, accountable for every bit of the waste that we produce—from the mining of the uranium right through to the decommissioning of a site. We prepay for it and we do all of those functions very responsibly.

I'd like to point out that spent fuel has never injured, let alone killed, anybody here in Canada or around the world. That's because it's a straightforward thing to do and it's regulated internationally. It's regulated well in the various nations, especially here in Canada, but it doesn't remove the need that we have here to find a permanent storage solution, which is what we're talking about today.

If other technologies—not only the ones that are emitting pollution in the air, which nuclear doesn't—like wind and solar could follow the example of the nuclear industry in terms of prepaying and being regulated to manage their waste, it would be a very positive thing for the environment and the world.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Mr. Van Wart, do you believe that the current classification of low-level waste is appropriate right now? How could reclassification reduce nuclear waste?

[Jason Van Wart]

We are satisfied with the current classifications of nuclear waste.

We believe that in working with our nuclear regulator, we can move forward with things like free release. As we work through our low-level release minimization storing program, we find things like metals, steel and items that are able to be decontaminated, cleaned, free-released and put back into society to be used. We all know that there are a number of resource crunches.

That is what we would like to continue to look at; using the existing regulatory framework to increase our ability to recycle things, like metals found in our waste streams.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I think it was you who talked about McMaster University and the work you're doing down there. Could you maybe expand on that a bit?

[Jason Van Wart]

Sure. We have opened a clean energy sorting and recycling centre with the support of McMaster University. It's something we're very proud of at OPG. During the pandemic we were able to open the facility, which is fully licensed and audited by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. We bring our low-level waste to the facility where we sort and recycle.

Some of the very interesting preliminary findings we've had are that approximately 60% of the low-level waste that we store up at the Bruce site is actually medium free release targets. This means that we can eventually release it out from underneath the management of the low-level waste category.

We've also identified that the radioactivity that was originally measured and assigned with the waste has reduced significantly with time and the natural decay of the radioisotopes. On average, it's approximately 10% of the radioactivity that was originally there when we stored the waste. Over the period of 30 to 40 years, the waste has significantly decayed in terms of radioactivity.

The preliminary findings at McMaster will be finalized for us later this year, but it's quite interesting and applicable to our business.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Gorman, how important is certainty from government to ensuring that there's a strong nuclear industry into the future?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have 30 seconds, please.

[John Gorman]

Certainty is extraordinarily important not only to the nuclear industry, but to all of the other clean energy technologies we're going to need—solar, wind, water, etc. It's terrific that we have some very aggressive targets in place, but right now what the electricity industry needs is a plan, a pathway, a signal from each of the systems' operators that we are going to have to double the amount of electricity we have so that we can start going through the regulatory approvals and planning processes and getting the go-ahead to build out this infrastructure. We're going to need all of the technologies.

That being said, having a permanent solution for nuclear waste and spent fuel, especially because we have to deal with the existing waste, but we're going to have more nuclear, is completely essential.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Good. Thanks.

Mr. Hendrickson, you have your hand up.

[Ole Hendrickson]

Yes, if I might...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Actually, if it's to provide a response, I'll have to leave it to other members to invite you to do so, and I'm sure some will oblige.

Mr. Longfield.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to Madam Pauzé for this study, and to the witnesses for a very good discussion this morning.

I wanted to start off with OPG, with Mr. Van Wart.

Recently I met with the Canadian medical isotope innovation ecosystem.... You mentioned McMaster's involvement. It also involves the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, TRIUMF and Bruce Power, which were all on the call with me. I had planned to go to the site and also to the Saugeen Ojibway Nation to meet with the chief last week, but COVID got in the way. They're looking at how to expand the medical isotope production in Canada and at ways to work with the Government of Canada.

In the Government of Canada, we have NRCan and ECCC. ECCC is involved with the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada and, of course, NRCan is responsible for the radioactive waste policy.

How would you work with ECCC, which is the department that is most closely tied with this committee?

[Jason Van Wart]

Mr. Longfield, I'm not familiar with the ECCC—

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Oh, I'm sorry, it's Environment and Climate Change Canada. We're in the government, and we have acronyms for everything.

[Jason Van Wart]

We're very proud of our medical isotope program at OPG. We are very open to working with any government agencies. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has reviewed our application to produce molybdenum at Darlington. They've approved that amendment, which will allow us to fill the shortage. It's technetium-99 generators that are used in 50 million bone and long heart scans each year in North America.

We are actively working with the Nuclear Innovation Institute at Bruce Power and our friends in the isotope coalition led by Bruce Power, which you recently met with.

We are open to working with any of the government committees. We are very serious about our development of molybdenum. We recently harnessed the ability to extract helium-3 from the Darlington detritiation facility.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

There were a few isotopes they were discussing that were new to me, as well. I had worked in a previous life with cobalt-60 at Nordion. It was looking at a medical application which was of great interest to me.

I know Canada has lost a bit of position globally, but hopefully, we can regain our position in medical isotope production.