Natural Resources Committee on May 16th, 2007

[Murray Elston]

Can I just make one comment? I think what is extremely important to understand here is that we are emerging from what has been roughly a 15-year decline in activity around the nuclear industry. We haven't built in Canada since the finishing of the Darlington plants in the early 1990s. We've built externally, we've built in Romania and China and South Korea. To the extent that the boom days of the 1970s and 1980s built up capacity in the industry and the regulator, that capacity was lost.

Now, having to restart the engine has caused lots of scratching of heads, if I can say that, as to how we can make things move fairly quickly and smoothly.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

So you're saying this could be a little bit of growing pains, and once we get a little bit through here, we can actually make this more efficient.

[Murray Elston]

Part of it is. I think that with the re-launch of almost anything...and not to put too fine a point on it, but having been in campaigns, you know by the time you get to the end of a campaign you're doing pretty well, but the first couple of days on the road, you can have a couple of glitches. I think that we're experiencing this new plateau of activity, the type of hesitancy that will be well exercised away by the time we're in full swing.

We've found, as we've talked to the regulator, a willingness to look at opportunities to collaborate on ways of ensuring that there's greater transparency, more of a connection with the public. And Mr. Henuset, earlier on when he introduced his remarks, had already indicated that he has a very intensive on-the-ground campaign prior to his doing anything at all in the formal sense.

It seems to me that there are parts of things that will help us, but as we try to re-launch, there will be some stops and starts. I think all of us, though, would like to anticipate that the two primary issues that are of big concern are one, the timing of decisions to proceed, outside the regulatory, but then, two, the acquisition of the human resources to permit us to do all the work that is out there, in fact the capacity to do not only refurbishment but the new build and new projects, which Mr. Henuset has described are of some concern.

That, I think, forces people into positions where they reconsider what they used to do as a matter of course. So you will have seen, for instance, the regulator has released a couple of new editions of the status of the way processes are to work with new-build operations and with the way we're conducting our refurbishment operation.

It's not like we're not considering it. I think it's like, “once I get the applications, then I can really do it”, but government doesn't like to fund people who get ready for things that may not happen. So there has been that sort of tentativeness.

Now, instead of zero new-build requests, we have a request for an EA for a new build at Bruce, an EA at Ontario Power Generation Facilities at Darlington, and we have Mr. Henuset now out in Alberta. So we have three opportunities to build new, and we have a regulator that had none of that before.

I think it's understandable. That doesn't make it less anxious and stressful for people who are in the middle of it. I think by the time we get the first one under our belts, we'll be well exercised and able to get these things done pretty well.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

But just to be curious, what international cooperation does there tend to be? We won't be unique in this situation. This is an international renaissance we're talking about.

I'm assuming the Finns haven't had dozens and dozens of reactors over the last few years. They have a new one now. Other countries.... Going back to my question, what can we steal, borrow, beg from other places that would apply? Isn't there some way we can learn from other people's experience?

[Murray Elston]

It's interesting. You can deal with processes, but you can't steal the engagement with the public, which is what Mr. Henuset's doing now.

The Finns engage with their public. They have four units, they're building a fifth, they're now considering a sixth. The interesting thing about Finland is that the unit they're building now is a 1,600 megawatt unit, far bigger than anything we have here, almost twice as big as our biggest at Darlington.

You cannot steal, beg, or borrow the engagement with the public. The engagement with the public is extremely critical. Being transparent, laying out what has to happen, whether it's greenfield or whether it's building on an existing site, is really important.

Then I think, following along with the questions from Mr. Bevington, Madame Faille, and Mr. St. Amand, there's the importance of what you're going to do next: managing safety, managing the stream of spent fuel and waste. All of that stuff has to be laid out for people, so that they can get to the point where Mr. Henuset wants to be in 40 years, knowing exactly what's going to result from these units.

So we do look around the world at what's happening. We're a much more transparent industry than we were in the 1960s or 1970s—actually, very much more transparent—and from my point of view, better off in terms of our own performance inside the gate as a result of our relationships with the people outside the gate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Trost.

[Wayne Henuset]

I have to say I can work with the timelines as long as the reviews are done as they're stated and we're not held up. I'm just nervous because of so much that's coming on.

So far, with the CNSC and AECL, I believe that everything's been going unbelievably smoothly, but because there's so much coming down and it is all, basically, brand new, I think all of us have to support and work with those regulatory people to understand their issues and problems as they come forward, and try to help them come to conclusions they feel comfortable with.

So far, everybody I've worked with in nuclear power is nervous; everybody's skittish about it. Yet when you're working with the community and the people who actually work at it every day, they aren't skittish. Everybody here has that same response: don't bring that to my community, because I'll lose my riding; they'll all run to somebody else. But we're not talking about—

[A voice]

Actually, we're a little bit different.

[Murray Elston]

I think it's really important as well, as I've said before, that these nuclear plants are big industrial sites. I went to the University of Western Ontario, and two of the guys who were in residence with me—one from Iroquois Falls, one from Kapuskasing—were crawling in underneath rolls of flying paper. I wouldn't do that for a moment. There is dangerous work, if you're not trained to be safe and secure.

The difference between a lot of places and nuclear is that we spend all of our time considering the safety elements. The women and men who work there are trained and retrained. It takes six and eight and nine years for people to get certified to be operators in our plants. We are preoccupied with safety. It isn't just that you get inside and once you're there you quit thinking. It's like any sophisticated apparatus: you have to be respectful of it, you have to be vigilant with it, and you have to keep it repaired and fixed as though it were your own piece of equipment in your own basement. Then it's going to run well.

What has happened—you saw the table—is that as we get better at looking at how we run our plants safely and how we make sure our maintenance is done in a timely fashion, we're getting even better performance out of these things. It's like one of those cases when people say win-win, but these are win-win-wins. This is better production of electricity at a better price, a better operation of our plants, with safer outcomes for the women and men who work inside the gate and better outcomes for the people who are around them in communities. We're having a huge impact on the economies of each of those host communities.

But we don't do it by taking anything for granted. Wayne's right: people who don't work with a certain type of industrial apparatus are skittish of it—and not just nuclear. But nuclear has the problem associated with the events Mr. St. Amand identified: Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. In our case, containment and safety and security in depth—this apparatus around our units—makes us preoccupied with keeping these things safe so that people can enjoy a safe, healthy, and long life.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Elston.

Well, we did allow a little latitude with that first round of questions so I'm going to have to ask you to tighten up on the second round.

With no particular offence to Mr. Boshcoff, I'm going to ask that you try to keep questions and answers to about five minutes. That should give you adequate time.

So we'll begin the second round with Mr. Boshcoff.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Because it's my first time with you as the chair, I'll let you have that latitude of now you can throw us the rules.

The environmental movement remains largely skittishly anti-nuclear, whereas the term “reuse” or “refurbishment” is essentially a fundamental of environmental training or anything that you'd study. A year ago here they had these regular breakfasts called Bacon and Eggheads by the science council. They demonstrated very clearly and articulately the relative safety of nuclear waste disposal--those types of things--and several of the options, but even at that there was no mention of this refurbishment concept. Now it seems it's like going to a sludge pit and finding gold in them there hills and that type of thing, which makes a lot of sense.

So I'm going to ask you this. How new is this refurbishment concept? It seems new to most of us. Secondly, has it helped make any progress in forming allegiances within the environmental movements and organizations?

[Murray Elston]

On the latter point, the changes in perspective of a number of people involved in the environmental community are happening as a result of things other than the reuse of the fuel, or at least the reworking of the fuel for use again. I think it is because of the containment of waste and because there are no emissions of greenhouse gases and other things. That's tending to move people there, but it is not from the reprocessing of waste.

The concept of reprocessing waste has been with us for a long, long time. In fact, as soon as we started using it, people understood that there was a huge amount of energy still left there, but the economics around reworking the waste, the used fuel, was seen to be commercially less opportune of good results. So that's why it hasn't been promoted. Canada in particular, of course, has had the advantage of having a lot of natural deposits.

I think there are a couple of things. Even inside the nuclear industry, the debate about reworking the spent fuel generates a discussion, because once you get into reworking the fuel that you've used once, you will get into some chemical processes that end up generating, again, their own new type of separate waste stream. While you are reducing the volumes left over, ultimately by the reprocessing and otherwise, you do create a different set of waste issues to manage. We can do that, and I think the discussion has been largely academic because we've had these great natural reserves that have been able to take us away from doing that.

The people in France have been reprocessing fuel for a long time. The people in other parts--Britain and some other places--have been doing some things as well, but here we haven't had to.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

In many communities across the country in the eighties, there were resolutions passed declaring them nuclear-free, primarily because of the fear of fuel transport, either by rail or truck. I'm wondering whether the remnants of those resolutions are presenting problems perhaps for Mr. Henuset or your members.

[Murray Elston]

I think there's still a residue associated with the eighties.

Certainly it's interesting to consider some of the things internationally that happened. Australia declared itself a nuclear-free country. They have come to reconsider their whole nuclear program over there, because they of course, as I identified, have the largest reserves of uranium in the world. In fact, the Olympic Dam mine, which I think is the largest, is one that is very beneficial to that economy. Lately, Mr. Howard has been discussing the prospect of moving further even and considering reactors for Australia.

The eighties are still there. Some of us spent our best days in the eighties, one might say, and we can recall them. But when you take a look at what's happening now, there are two very important changes. One, we recognize that there is a real crunch on energy generally. So what do you do to substitute energy uses? One of them is to fuel-switch. If we go into something like electricity for cars eventually, then we're going to need more electricity generated from one source or another.

At the end of the day, we expect, when people bring those motions forward, that we will have people in almost every community across the country who can stand up and provide some detailed and very specific information that will help the communities understand that it's not necessary to be nuclear-free in this day and age.

[Wayne Henuset]

I want to add a little bit to that.

Right now, radiation is moved around cities everywhere. Radiation is used in the hospitals and it's fully insurable. It's transported every day throughout Canada and the world and it's not something that's uncommon. I see it behind vehicles on a regular basis on the road. They use it for X-raying, they use it for X-raying welds. It's almost a silly question.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

The question then, from an association standpoint, is the scope and degree of international competition. If Finland is exporting their technology or has it available for export—

[Murray Elston]

The Finns are building Areva, which is a French model. The Areva unit is a 1,600 megawatt, which is going to be duplicated at Flamanville by Areva for Électricité de France. There is competition among Areva, General Electric, Westinghouse, the CANDU product, and it's very intensive. The Russians, of course, are building in some areas, although they are not generally active in many of the markets in which we are. The South Koreans have technology available as well. So there is a lot of competition around the world in this field.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Boshcoff.

I'll go now to Monsieur Ouellet.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Elston, for 60 years, nuclear energy has been heavily subsidized in Canada. At one point, research alone was subsidized to the tune of $550 million annually.

How is it that at present, the nuclear energy industry cannot do without government assistance?

[Murray Elston]

There are two very important observations to make. Not all expenditures made by the Government of Canada on research can be described as subsidy. There are lots of places where investments are made in basic science for the benefit of the population generally. This is one of those areas in which the investment in nuclear technology that's been happening for more than 60 years now has paid off, with the export of units to Argentina, Romania, South Korea, China, where the benefits have flowed back into a number of communities and significant businesses in this country. So I would say that for basic science understanding, for academic understanding, the $540 million you identified is not to be described as a subsidy as much as it is to be described as basic science understanding.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

This year, the government is spending $840 million on nuclear energy. The figures are correct. I quoted them in the minister's presence the other day, and he did not contradict me. Security is involved. Of course, if we did not have nuclear energy, we would not need security. Research and oversight are also involved.

Why does nuclear energy need $840 million? It would be fantastic to invest $1 billion per year in hydroelectric energy. Did you know that the hydroelectric dams are going to increase their output by 40% without building other dams, simply by changing the turbines? That is going to cost $10 billion in Quebec. The province would like to receive $1 billion per year too.

Why does Atomic Energy of Canada and your 72 companies receive $840 million each year? Why do you need it?

[Murray Elston]

I think what you are doing is confusing the announcement of the $540 million that is associated with the flowing of money to the heritage waste issue. That is not money that is going to subsidize—

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

It is only $94 million for the environmental problems that we inherited. It is not the total.

[Murray Elston]

There's a cash flow, but I'm not sure it's $840 million. I haven't seen those numbers anywhere.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

I'll send them to you.