Environment Committee on March 1st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I now give the floor to Ms. Taylor Roy for six minutes.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both witnesses for being here this morning.

This is a very important conversation, of course, and, Mr. Whitlock, you mentioned that ordinary Canadians are involved in this decision-making and will help make these decisions, yet in listening to your testimony this morning, and to Dr. Ramana's, I'm hearing slightly different things. I want to ask about one aspect of it, because you're a nuclear physicist and a professor emeritus, a specialist in this area, and you're having a conversation that is not completely aligned in terms of what the risks and proper handling are of this.

For ordinary Canadians to have those rational conversations, how much information do you think the people who are living in these areas have? We're down to two possible sites for the geological repository. How informed do you feel the people in these areas are about what this means for their region—not just for their town, but their region—and about how the waste will actually be moved and handled before it's put into these deep geological repositories?

[Dr. Jeremy Whitlock]

Thank you for that question.

I think there's a range of awareness in these communities. There are some that are very informed because the NWMO has done a good job of providing the available information, but you can lead the horse to water, and if it doesn't want to come to the water, it's not going to get the water.

There are also large factions that I would say aren't very well informed, but they're just as vocal or more vocal. I think this is a problem in these small communities, because it's sometimes neighbour versus neighbour. I watch with great interest this process. I'm curious to see how the NWMO will adjust to this now that it's coming down to these two communities and it's not academic anymore: It's one or the other.

The ones that are fully informed and are for it are aware of all the opportunities not only for their community but for Canada. The ones that aren't are just very scared, and it's okay to be scared. That's a valid response, but we also need to have that conversation.

I worry—I don't know, but I worry—about when the final decision is made and it's a referendum or some sort of community decision, which it will be, how informed all the different sides will be, as in any community decision, in any popular decision, but in this case, it's a major question, though.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

For sure, I know it is, and I appreciate that. I'm just intervening because I want to also hear the thoughts from Dr. Ramana.

In this committee, I think we have heard from many sources about the benefits of nuclear energy, and we know what it means in terms of meeting our emissions, etc. I think this study is about handling the waste, so when we're talking about these communities, I really think it is about the safety and how the waste is being handled. You say that those who are informed would make the decision to go ahead with this.

Dr. Ramana, you seem to have a slightly different perspective on some of this. I'm just wondering.... You seem to be informed as well, so maybe you could elaborate a bit on what your perspective is on it.

[Dr. M. V. Ramana]

I would say two things.

One is that there's a wide range of information, and what the NWMO presents is just one aspect of that. If you look at studies of public attitudes towards technologies in general, and nuclear power in particular, they are concerned about a range of issues. It's not just one particular number, whether it's the volume of waste or the probability of the radioactive dose that might come from it or something like that. They're concerned about potential risks to future generations. They're concerned about the possibility of major accidents and things that may go out of control. Secondly, they're also concerned about what they will be able to do in the event of one of these things.

When you look at all those studies, all you can conclude is that the technical approach to saying that these are the only things that matter and that this is the only information that matters, is sort of second-guessing what the public ought to know.

The other point I want to say is that talking about the benefits of this—but in terms of jobs, in terms of the amount of investment that will be going into these communities—is like offering them a small bribe, in a way, dangling a big golden carrot in front of them in exchange for their accepting certain risks.

I think these discussions—and here I agree with Dr. Whitlock—often tend to be very problematic, but they're problematic precisely because of the particular nature of this—

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

I know I have a couple more minutes left. Do either of you have any specific recommendations on how to handle this issue? I think it is a very important one, the idea of informed consent and, obviously, being sure that the communities affected are well informed and give their consent freely.

[Dr. Jeremy Whitlock]

I mentioned in my opening remarks the importance of listening. Dr. Ramana touched on this as well. We can't just define the problems; we have to listen to what people think the problems are, which might be problems we didn't even think about, but what they think the issues are, and we need to address them.

I think listening is very important. I think the NWMO, as I mentioned, has done a good job at this. They spent the first three years of their existence doing exactly that, and I think that's key. It's having the conversation, creating time so it's not just a quick sound bite and not a meme on a Facebook page, but it's talking with them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

I now give the floor to Ms. Pauzé.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here.

My first question is for Mr. Ramana.

About a year ago, you submitted a brief to the New Brunswick Minister of Natural Resources and Energy Development that dealt specifically with the development of small modular reactors. In this brief, which I invite you to table with the committee, you discuss in great detail the significant costs of this technology, not to mention the costs related to the management of radioactive waste produced by the projects. In particular, you talk about the sodium coolant of the coveted and controversial Moltex project, which involves a new category of liquid waste. This is all in your submission.

Can you explain the magnitude of the financial and environmental costs associated with managing radioactive waste, compared to wind, solar or hydroelectric power projects?

[Dr. M. V. Ramana]

I'm sorry, my interpretation did not come through; I couldn't understand. I'm sorry, I don't speak French.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Is the interpretation problem solved now?

It doesn't seem to be. So we'll stop.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Chair, he might not have put his Zoom on English.

[A voice]

Mr. Chair, the interpretation came through.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Dr. Ramana, at the bottom of your screen there's an icon.

[Dr. M. V. Ramana]

Oh, okay, sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Could we start over?

[M. V. Ramana]

I'm very sorry about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It's all right.

Ms. Pauzé, please repeat your first question. We will give you your six minutes.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Ramana, a year ago you submitted a brief to the New Brunswick Minister of Natural Resources and Energy Development on the issue of small modular reactors. In that brief, which I invite you to table here at our committee, you talk about the significant costs of the technology itself, and you also talked about the costs of managing the radioactive waste produced by these projects. In particular, you talk about the new category of liquid waste from the sodium coolant of the Moltex project.

Can you explain the magnitude of the financial and environmental costs associated with radioactive waste management compared to wind, solar or hydro projects?

[Dr. M. V. Ramana]

I will talk about two different economic costs, one of which is building these small modular reactors and generating electricity from them. That is going to cost much more than alternatives like solar and wind because small reactors lose out on what we call “economies of scale”.

There's a reason CANDU reactors started small and became larger and larger. They were trying to take advantage of the fact that you'll not require five times as much concrete or five times as many workers to build a 900-megawatt reactor compared with a 180-megawatt reactor. When you go small, you're losing out on those economies of scale, so the cost per unit of power capacity or electrical energy generated would be higher for small reactors.

The cost of dealing with nuclear waste is literally a small fraction of this cost, but it is something that is going to be important when you consider different alternatives, or different kinds of waste management practices, as well as different kinds of reactor designs. In the case of small modular reactors, as I mentioned in the case of ARC-100 or the Moltex design, there would have to be an enormous amount of preprocessing done before these wastes can be converted into a form that can be placed inside a geological repository.

I mentioned some cost figures that we know from Oak Ridge in the United States. These are quite high compared with other kinds of radioactive waste forms. We do not have a complete figure, because there's uncertainty about how exactly these wastes will have to be processed.

I hope that answers your question.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

You're a numbers person.

Around 20 serious failings that were found in the document for commissioners, known as the CMD, were not corrected for the hearings that began on February 22.

How do you perceive these failures, which are in clear contradiction with the principles and recommendations?

[Dr. M. V. Ramana]

The claims about costs that we see made by some developers are very optimistic and intended to make their technology seem more acceptable and economical than it really is. As I said, I don't think anybody really knows these costs, because these methods have not yet been perfected.

We also do not have experience with operating the repositories to the extent that we have these experiences. For example, in the waste isolation pilot plant in New Mexico in the United States, there was an accident that happened within 15 years of the waste site being commissioned. Dealing with that accident accident cost billions of dollars.

How do we account for these kinds of potentialities? Does the cost of waste storage include those potential accidents? The answer is no.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

We know that things moved very quickly for the Chalk River project. Are there any underlying economics to that timeline?

[Dr. M. V. Ramana]

I'm afraid I don't have any information on that. I don't address that. I don't think I have the information to be able to answer that question.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

All right.

I would just like to remind you, Mr. Ramana, to send us your brief on small modular reactors, which you submitted to the New Brunswick Minister of Natural Resources and Energy Development. I had a chance to read it yesterday and found some very interesting things in it.