Thank you very much.
I represent the Canadian Neutron Initiative, a pan-Canadian effort to propose a solution to an urgent policy problem. The initiative is presently supported by nine Canadian organizations and is led by the University of Saskatchewan and McMaster University.
Committee members, Canada needs a complete 21st century scientific tool kit for materials, research, and innovation. To help maintain a clean environment and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Canadian researchers study and develop materials that are needed to improve wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear plants, and hydroelectric dams, and to store renewable energy for release when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining.
To help achieve a clean growth economy, Canadian engineers are developing light yet strong alloys for energy efficient planes and cars that can be powered by alternate fuels or batteries.
Canadian engineers are investigating how metals change during service, which helps government and industry manage aging pipelines, naval ships, and railroads to ensure safety and to support cost-effective decision-making on infrastructure renewal.
Canadian scientists are developing materials for diagnosing cancer and fighting cancer. Canadian scientists are developing more resilient crops to strengthen global food security. In all of these examples and many other research areas, Canadians depend on having the right tools to study and improve materials. After all, everything is made of materials. But here's the problem. Canada is about to lose a critical tool, a tool which is essential to the country's clean economy, safety, and health goals because it is an essential tool to advance our knowledge of materials in all the areas I just described.
The tool we are about to lose is neutron beams, with the imminent closure of the NRU reactor at Chalk River. Neutron beams gently probe inside materials and reveal nanoscale materials' details that cannot be seen with other scientific tools and that are important to understand how materials perform.
The value of neutron beams is recognized around the world. Other developed countries have invested $9 billion in capital so far this century in neutron beam facilities to support research on materials. Canadian Bertram Brockhouse was honoured with a Nobel Prize in 1994, recognizing the global social impacts of research with neutron beams, the method he pioneered.
Currently the value of neutron beams is being underscored by 2015 Nobel laureate Art McDonald, who has spoken in support of doing something about this imminent crisis.
In March, Canada will lose access to these irreplaceable tools when the NRU reactor at Chalk River closes. Researchers in over 30 Canadian universities, in government, and industry will be affected. Inaction creates the risk of crippling our ability to apply neutron beams to Canada's innovation agenda. Once lost, this capability will be very difficult to restore.
Our solution will ensure that Canadians can continue to access neutron beams for research, innovation, and development of young people for highly skilled careers. To maintain our capability over the next decade, we must now establish partnership with leading neutron beam facilities worldwide. We will also need to fully exploit our domestic asset, the McMaster nuclear reactor, which will be Canada's most powerful research reactor after NRU has closed. Both upgrading the McMaster reactor and accessing world-class facilities abroad will be needed to maintain and rejuvenate our national capability to apply neutron beams for materials research.
If in the future Canada contemplates investing in a new domestic research reactor for the long term, this rejuvenated community could help Canada maximize that investment by informing the inclusion of neutron beam capabilities that will attract collaborators and place Canada at the forefront of materials research for decades.
The Canadian neutron initiative offers a cost-effective solution to an urgent policy problem. The university-led program we propose will cover Canada's needs for neutron beams for 10 years. It will cost $24 million over the first three years, ramping up to about $19 million per year, less than a fifth of the cost to operate the NRU reactor today, currently stated as more than $100 million per year.
Our solution will keep a critical tool in our scientific tool kit so that Canadians can continue to contribute at the leading edges of clean economic growth, security enhancement, health, and fundamental scientific discovery for years ahead.
Thank you very much for your time.