Environment Committee on March 1st, 2022

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I only have two and a half minutes.

It sounds like you're not concerned, which is a little troubling given that we're hearing from indigenous leaders who have taken part in these processes that they are concerned.

I'll just quickly return to Mr. Ramana. We heard recommendations from a number of previous witnesses that we need to address the risks of conflict of interest and a recommendation for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

They report to the Minister of Natural Resources; the minister is responsible for overseeing, but also promoting, nuclear energy. Do you think it would make more sense for the CNSC to report to the Minister of the Environment to mitigate risks of conflict of interest?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Give a 10-second answer, please, or even less if you can.

[Dr. M. V. Ramana]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

The answer is yes? Thank you, Dr. Ramana, for accommodating our time limit.

Mr. Carrie, you have five minutes, please.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I'm really pleased to be part of this committee. It's good to see everyone.

Dr. Whitlock, I'm the member of Parliament for Oshawa, and basically I live between Darlington and Pickering, two well-known nuclear facilities. I must say that most of the people in my community are pretty comfortable with the situation. We live there, we work there, we have neighbours who work in these facilities, we have kids who go to school and become nuclear engineers and we see the economic benefits of it. I think one of the most important reasons for that is the industry overall has done a very good job with us locally, educating people on nuclear and what it's all about.

One of the questions I have for you is, though, moving forward and looking at places to actually store this long-term. Many Canadians are happy when these are government facilities, but moving forward, I think some of the storage facilities may be privately run. I wonder if you have a comment on risk-benefits for people who live in communities where storage facilities will be.

As far as transparency and access to information is concerned, do you think everything is manageable so the industry can get the information out and people such as those in my community who have a lot of questions can get those answers?

[Dr. Jeremy Whitlock]

For sure, there has to be rigorous oversight by the federal government and by the regulator, and that will always be the case regardless of the operator. I know there's a perception that if the government is involved, perhaps everything is being taken care of. There are probably a lot of perceptions the opposite of that as well. The common denominator is that there is a strong regulator, and that has to be demonstrated. If it's not perceived to be strong, that has to be addressed as well.

Information needs to be made and time needs to be given to all points of view in addressing credibly all of the questions that arise.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

In my community, we live close to these facilities and, like I said, we're very comfortable.

I wanted to ask you for a comment. Early on, I think Dr. Ramana was saying that to meet our climate change objectives not only here in Canada, but also globally, we have to have a mix. In Ontario, nuclear seems to have performed quite well.

Do you see any way to net zero if we do not utilize nuclear energy?

[Dr. Jeremy Whitlock]

We need all tools in the chest. SMRs are the way that we can sell nuclear power to a new generation, but we can also build CANDU reactors. Those are on the shelf. We can build those, as well, and your witnesses in the next session can answer to that.

Nuclear is necessary, as well as renewables. Everything has to be contributing together in the way that Ontario has done it to have an almost 100% clean grid. That's the way going forward. Renewables will need something to fill the gap, because they can't be running all the time. That's going to be fossil fuels, if you can't run something else that's clean, like hydro or nuclear. This speaks to diversity.

I absolutely cannot see a way, globally speaking, especially with the emerging countries that are increasing their economies.... They're going to make all the same mistakes we did if we don't provide them with these cleaner solutions. I can't see how nuclear can be overlooked.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

You made a comment about the waste from small modular reactors. Right now, that doesn't seem to be part of the urgent requirement for storage, and you mentioned that we could be building more CANDU-type designs in which we do know the fuel. We know what it's about.

My colleague asked a bit about accident risk, and you mentioned that Mother Nature has been looking after some radioactive things for millennia. I'm curious. With the type of waste that we have now, if it is being stored properly, you mentioned that it would be a low risk.

Do you see any other challenges utilizing and storing the waste that we have? I'm thinking more or less transportation-wise. Is this something that people in communities need to know a bit more about?

[Dr. Jeremy Whitlock]

They definitely need to know about the transportation, because it's going to be going through their communities all along the path.

When people think of transportation, they think about accidents, so that needs to be explained to them. There's nothing like seeing the tests that they put these transport vehicles and containers through to show.... These are things—immersion in water and fire—that they need to see and not just be told. They need to see the pictures.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Weiler.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also want to thank Dr. Ramana and Dr. Whitlock for joining our committee today.

I want to start with Dr. Ramana. I really appreciate your earlier comments, but one thing that was not mentioned was how pyroprocessing concepts can address proliferation risks. My understanding is that the way this risk is reduced is as a result of how pyroprocessing laces the plutonium with uranium and actinides to make both stealing plutonium and creating weapons more difficult.

This approach reduces the risk by eliminating the need to transport used fuel from and new fuel to the fast reactors at the site. Do you agree that this would mean that pyroprocessing has a lower nuclear proliferation risk compared to Purex, because of the non-availability of pure plutonium product?

[Dr. M. V. Ramana]

The issue is not that the pyroprocessing has a bit of contamination of the plutonium. The issue is that most of the fission products are being removed from that, so you are making the task of proliferation much easier, compared to leaving the plutonium in the spent fuel as such, which Canada has been doing so far. The approach that NWMO has taken is that the spent fuel will be as is, placed in casks and inside the geological depository. That's a far better way to address the proliferation risk.

You're trying to compare a really bad process, which is a Purex process, with a bad process, which is pyroprocessing.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you.

My next question is for Dr. Whitlock. You mentioned that you'd like to see other chemicals treated like nuclear waste at ground storage. We talked about how the benefits are going to be seen for future generations.

Why would we invest right now in geologic storage, given the need to make major investments in decarbonizing all other energy sources in Canada right today?

[Dr. Jeremy Whitlock]

The need is because Canadians have recognized that we have to be doing something about our waste right now with this generation and the next generation, so that 15 generations from now they are not having to deal with our waste.

That's the need. It's a moral obligation. Technically the waste is fine where it is right now. It can be there for hundreds of years, but then it's going to be bowled over by a glacier and spread around the continent. Along with everything else in downtown Toronto, it is going to be spread around the continent, so we need to do something about it.

The only thing we are currently doing something about on that timescale is nuclear waste, and that's because we can quantify it, it's all in one place, it's relatively small, the problem is well defined, and it scares the heck out of people. This is something you have to do to be able to advance the technology itself, in order to have that tool in the chest for climate change. So that's the need.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you. I was hoping you could comment on how nuclear waste is governed in Canada as compared with other countries around the world.

[Dr. Jeremy Whitlock]

It's very similar. I can't comment in detail. I'm not an expert on the different waste policies around the world, sorry.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

One of the things you mentioned in your comments is the need for nuclear energy as a stable baseload source of power as opposed to solar and wind, which are intermittent. I'm wondering what role you think storage can play with those types of intermittent sources of energy, to really contrast and to combat that issue of intermittency.

[Dr. Jeremy Whitlock]

Storage is definitely a technology, but if you're talking about something ready in the quiver to help us with getting to net zero in the near future, storage technology on the scale we are talking about, which is providing energy to a country-sized population—not just a First World country but all the countries on the planet that are trying to get to the same level of health and prosperity that Canada has been used to—that's an awful lot of stuff. It can't just be this or that, and you can't just throw one technology off the table because you happen to think it's going to take 30 years to get economies of scale down to where it's practical.

Unless there is a moral reason not to be doing it, if it's something that's technically solvable then we need to keep all the tools in the chest.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have 10 seconds.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I'll just end it there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks.

This is now the end of the discussion with our first group of guests. I would like to thank the witnesses for bringing their expertise and for contributing to our discussion, which has been extremely interesting.

We will pause to give the next panel an opportunity to join the meeting. That should take about five minutes. We will then hear presentations from the witnesses, which will be followed by a question and answer period.

I again thank the witnesses for contributing to our study and wish them a good day.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll get going. Based on my calculation, we'll need an extra 10 minutes after one o'clock, so this portion will go to 1:10. I assume there's no objection to that. That allows everyone to get in their questions according to the time limits.

We'll start with the three-minute opening statements.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses. We'll start with Atomic Energy of Canada.

I don't know who will be presenting for the three minutes. Is it Mr. Dermarkar or Mr. MacDonald?

[Fred Dermarkar, President and Chief Executive Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited]

It will be me, Fred Dermarkar, the president and CEO of AECL, who will be presenting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I'm so sorry. Yes, of course, Mr. Dermarkar. I'm very sorry. I didn't clue in there.

Go ahead, please.