Natural Resources Committee on May 28th, 2007

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Could nuclear energy exist in Canada without the financial assistance of the Government of Canada? I would like to know, and I think Mr. Trost wants to know this as well, how much nuclear energy is costing taxpayers. Is the investment in nuclear energy a good deal for taxpayers, given that we know that solar energy, if it had the same financial support, could develop and produce energy without GHG and with no risk to the environment as nuclear energy claims?

Mr. Brown, can you tell us how much nuclear energy costs per kilowatt/hour? I see there have been some cost overruns. Refurbishing a nuclear power plant, and costs related to safety and waste management, amount to several billion dollars. Nuclear energy is costing taxpayers a lot of money, whether they live in Ontario, Quebec or Saskatchewan.

[Howard Brown]

Sure. I can try.

Once again, I don't want to seem evasive, but it's a very complex question for the following reason. AECL engages in three kinds of activities. There are commercial activities, and ACR-1000 is a good example of that. There are discretionary public policy activities, such as research being done to support the existing CANDU fleet. And then there are things that I would call non-discretionary public policy activities. This includes managing the waste that is left over from the Cold War, when we were closely cooperating with the Americans on nuclear matters, for example.

The cost of managing that legacy waste, the leftover waste from the Cold War up until the present, was recognized on the government's books...last year, Tom, or was it the year before?

[Tom Wallace]

Two years ago.

[Howard Brown]

The last year or two, and it was about $2.7 billion. So we've recognized the cost of that up front.

The commercial activities, I believe, could stand the commercial test.

So when you're asking are the activities of AECL profitable or could they be commercially viable, it's a little bit like asking whether the activities of General Motors are sustainable and commercially viable. Probably not all of them, but there is probably a core of things that are.

[David Torgerson]

I would just add that AECL's commercial business is a very strong business, but the business in fact is used to subsidize some of the policy areas that we carry out. No other nuclear vendor operates a national nuclear laboratory. Only AECL does that. The commercial side of our business could stand on its own, and it's a very profitable business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you.

Now we're going to move along. Ms. Bell.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you for all your presentations. It's very interesting. I've learned a few things about nuclear waste, but I have a few questions.

Regarding the heavy water, I think I read in one of your documents that you've reduced the amount of water that you use, but I want to know what happens to that water after you're finished with it. Does it go back into the aquifers, or is it safe? That was one of my questions on the waste, and I think I'll ask them both together so you can answer them together, because they might fit together.

You talked about the spent fuel, and you said that you're reducing nuclear waste by two-thirds. That was Mr. Torgerson's report. I just wondered what the percentage was before the two-thirds reduction—so that I have an idea how much was there—and also what current research is taking place that would hopefully bring us to near 100%? Because I would imagine that you're trying to get to a goal of not having any waste at all.

[David Torgerson]

First of all, the heavy water, in fact, is reusable. It's in a sealed tank, and the water costs about $300 a kilogram, so it's a very valuable commodity. The plan would be to simply keep recycling that heavy water and reusing it and processing it to remove any radioactivity that is in the water. It's worth doing that because of the high cost of the water.

In terms of the fuel, we in Canada have generated enough fuel waste over the last 50 years to fill a soccer pitch probably to a height of about four feet, so the amount of waste is actually very small and very manageable--about 6,800 cubic metres of spent fuel. One of the reasons it's relatively easy to manage the waste is that it's in small quantity and it's solid, and over time the radioactivity is decaying away, so the amount of heat that the fuel puts out is going away rather rapidly. Ninety-nine percent of the radioactivity external to the fuel has decayed away after the first year the fuel has come out of the reactor. So the radioactivity is decaying away with time.

With the new reactor, there's only one particular type of uranium in the fuel that actually produces the energy. It's called uranium-235. In the new reactor, we have increased the quantity of that uranium in the fuel so we can actually get three times more energy out of that fuel bundle than we can with the old fuel bundles. We have reduced the volume of waste for the amount of energy that we will actually get out of the fuel. In the longer term, I think what you're talking about is whether it's possible to recycle the fuel. The answer is yes. It is technically possible to take the fuel and recycle it back into the reactor and reburn it.

For example, in our existing CANDU reactors, we could take the waste from another type of reactor called a light water reactor, which has more fissile content in it at the end of its life than does the fuel that we start with. So it's an excellent fuel for burning in a CANDU reactor and for reducing the amount of waste and getting more energy out of it.

There are plans in the longer term to look at these advanced fuel cycles and look at recycling in the field.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

That's interesting.

You were talking about nuclear's not having emissions. So how many nuclear energy plants do you think it would take in Canada to make us virtually emissions free?

[David Torgerson]

We currently emit something like 750 megatonnes a year, I believe. So each twin ACR plant would save, if it displaced coal, about 15 million tonnes. If you could build 10 of these twin ACR stations, then that would provide sufficient hydrogen to fuel probably all the cars and light trucks in Canada, and that would be, I suppose, something like possibly 100 megatonnes. So I think if you started using nuclear to make hydrogen, to get into the hydrogen economy, coupling that with renewables like wind and intermittent renewables such as wind and solar to make hydrogen, coupled with a base load like nuclear, you could have quite an impact on reducing our emissions over time.

But the reality is that we're going to be dependent on fossil fuels for some time to come, for our economy. We will have to do all we can to reduce, but it's going to take time to come up with those reductions.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

I'm sorry, I didn't hear if you said how many.

[David Torgerson]

An ACR station, which is composed of two reactors, would displace about 15 million tonnes of CO₂ a year.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Do I have any more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

I'm sorry, we'll have to get back to that one, because I want to give other people a chance.

Mr. Allen.

[Mike Allen, Tobique—Mactaquac, CPC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, gentlemen, for your presentations.

I have three questions. One is about the fuel in our reserves, with respect to being able to sustain this. I know that future reactors will be able to use less. A company named Geodex Minerals, I think, has made a discovery in New Brunswick that potentially.... There are some uranium resources there as well. Do we believe there are the reserves there—ignoring the price aspects of it—that will sustain us for however many years? We know for oil, and we kind of have an idea of how long we could sustain ourselves with the oil sands. But do we have an idea for the reserves?

[Howard Brown]

Dave or Tom may know how many years of current level of production we have. I guess I'd say, though, that the majority of uranium produced in Canada is exported.

As to the question of energy security, it's difficult to be energy secure in one country by itself, because as any kind of energy supply becomes more expensive, that's going to be reflected in global markets.

Do you have the specific answer, Tom?

[Tom Wallace]

I know that on a worldwide basis, the Nuclear Energy Agency, which is located in Paris, has looked at this question about the adequacy of uranium supply and I think have concluded that given reasonable expectations of what reserves are and how quickly they could be discovered, it goes until 2050. They think there's enough uranium to last that long.

I could dig up the report that was written on uranium reserves, if it would be of interest to the committee.

I think the conclusion of the analysis that's been done is that probably a lot of uranium is still out there to be discovered. One of the big challenges has been bringing it to market in a timely way. And all over the world we see a lot of very complex regulatory processes and a long timeframe for development, and that has been the challenge of bringing on uranium supply to match demand. It's more bottlenecks at the development stage as opposed to forecasts of the near-term shortages of reserves.

[Mike Allen]

Okay.

It seems to me this technology represents a significant export capability for us. Having been with NB Power when we first sent people to Terra Nova back in the early nineties, I know it created a significant revenue stream.

You've talked about the 900 engineers we have too, which is no insignificant amount to the economy. Do we have any idea what kinds of numbers we've brought in by doing these service projects and that type of thing for China, South Korea?

[David Torgerson]

A lot of the 900-engineer increase is due to the refurbishment contracts we have signed here in Canada and the ones we're going to be doing offshore. I would say every time we carry out a project offshore, that probably creates something like $1.5 billion worth of goods and services that are purchased out of Canada, and $1.5 billion creates an awful lot of jobs.

From our part, I can see we're going out and hiring a lot of people, but I imagine Canadian industry is doing this as well. And I know our partners, such as SNC-Lavalin, hire people. I know our manufacturers, such as Alstom, also in Quebec, have to manufacture the calandria vessel for us. So I imagine quite a bit of employment, and very high-level employment, is created by these projects, just by the large influx of money into the country.

[Mike Allen]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Do you have another question?

[Mike Allen]

No, I'll be fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

All right.

I'm sorry we couldn't go on for another hour. It was fascinating. And if there are any further questions, I'm sure we could direct them to you through the clerk.

Again, I thank you very much for both presentations. It was very useful. I'm sorry to have kept you for a little extra time today, but thank you again for your appearance.

With that, we are adjourned.