Why am I not surprised by that? Perhaps you can give me a warning when my time is up. I could spend a lot of time on this file.
First of all, we have committed $75 million in this budget for research on the advanced CANDU reactor. A lot of money has gone into this research up to now, and this is sort of the last installment to complete this research. It would be irresponsible for our government not to complete the research on this next-generation reactor. I appreciate the involvement of AECL and the commercialization.
So we are making investments like that. In fact, we're in a nuclear renaissance. We're seeing interest around the globe and in Canada as well. I don't think it's any secret we're seeing activity here in Ontario. We're hearing about activity in New Brunswick on refurbishments. We're hearing of new reactors. The industry sector in Alberta is talking about it as a potential source of energy to reduce natural gas consumption in the oil sands. They're looking at it as a clean source of energy. From purely an environmental perspective, nuclear is absolutely emission-free, pollutant-free, and greenhouse-gas-free.
Ultimately it's a decision that will be made by each individual province on whether this is an energy mix that they want to pursue. We'll be there to support them.
I can't speculate on what kind of research dollars will go into it in the future. I think it's very important--and I've said this publicly before--that AECL is commercially viable and competitive on its own without government assistance. It's essential as we move forward.
I think the opportunities are very good for AECL, from the interest we're seeing. We want to promote all sources of energy, renewable energy. We want to promote clean coal technology, but you can't discount the potential enormous interest that's coming forward in nuclear, for no other reason than it's a clean form of energy.
We'll continue to make the investments we need as we move forward. One of my first investments as minister was $500 million for the nuclear waste legacy issues at Chalk River.
So these are things we are doing, but I wouldn't want to try to speculate where we will spend our research dollars in the future.
Let me add one last point. I think it's important to note that about 50% of the world's medical isotopes are produced at Chalk River--50% of what is used for nuclear medicine. That's quite remarkable when you think about it. There has been a lot of research, so it's not just energy generation.