Evidence of meeting #36 for Natural Resources in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aecl.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you, Mr. Alghabra.
We now go to the Bloc and Madame DeBellefeuille, for four minutes.
12:45 p.m.
Bloc
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Thank you.
Mr. MacDiarmid, the government and AECL seem to be putting a lot of hope into the ACR-1000. You say that you're not an expert on this, but it seems to me that the CEO of AECL should be in the best position to answer these questions for members of Parliament, even though he has held the position for only five months.
When you are an expert on nuclear technology and you want to market a high-performance reactor, why choose to use enriched uranium? I believe that Canada does not have the technology needed to enrich uranium. We would therefore be dependent on other countries for our enriched uranium supply. I don't understand why Atomic Energy of Canada chose to use enriched uranium in its new ACR-1000. I would like you to explain that.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Mr. MacDiarmid, you can choose to answer that or not, but Madame DeBellefeuille, you have strayed from the topic we're here to discuss today, which is the decision to discontinue the MAPLE reactors.
If Mr. MacDiarmid wants to answer, he may. But I would really encourage you to get back on the topic of the day. We certainly in the future can discuss this; I think it would be a very interesting topic for committee. But let's deal with the topic that is on the agenda for today.
Mr. MacDiarmid, go ahead, please.
12:50 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
I do want to respond, because in a sense the design process for a large sophisticated machine like this, as you can imagine, involves the interplay of many design factors that go into optimizing it.
The design objectives for the ACR-1000 were to achieve the safest possible reactor we could, built on a CANDU architecture, and to achieve the lowest lifetime unit electricity cost we could and be competitive with the global market requirements.
In order to do that, there were several important design adjustments made from the CANDU 6 starting point to the ACR-1000 evolution. Those included the move to slightly enriched uranium and also the move to a mixture of heavy water moderation and light water coolant, as opposed to the CANDU 6's being a pure heavy-water-based reactor. A number of other factors went into the desire to achieve a reactor with high productivity: high on-time reliability, serviceability—you name it, a number of design considerations.
The fuel design is a very important component of the lifetime economic performance of the reactor, and the use of slightly enriched uranium brings significant benefits when you optimize it with the other elements of the design.
12:50 p.m.
Bloc
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Thank you.
When the committee examined the crisis caused by the shutdown of medical isotope production, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and AECL undertook to conduct a joint review of the circumstances leading up to the shutdown, and the shutdown itself.
Is that examination completed? Can you tell me what conclusions, if any, you have reached after that study?
12:50 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
The study has been concluded. It has not yet been published.
12:50 p.m.
Bloc
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Forgive me, but I did not hear the interpretation.
12:50 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
The study was carried out, but
we haven't published it yet. The timing of the finalization and the review of it is simply unfolding over the next while. I think it would be premature for me to talk about the report until it's ready to be published and made public, which is in the summer timeframe.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you, Ms. DeBellefeuille.
Your time is more than up.
Mr. Trost, you have up to four minutes.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We're talking about how much money went into the MAPLE reactors, and they're not going to be put into their ultimate use. One of the things I was wondering is whether there is any way to get any financial revenue at all out of this project. Is there any technology that was newly developed that can be sold, or, ultimately, is every penny that went into the MAPLE reactors just going to become red ink?
12:50 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
You can imagine that we feel it's part of our job to look for any residual value that we can realize. One of the things we are doing is ensuring that we very systematically and very carefully put the reactors into a guaranteed safe shutdown state and then ultimately move them towards decommissioning.
We are also capturing all of the intellectual property in terms of the physics codes and all of the work that's been done, to the extent that if at some unknown future time there were to be a new revelation or some new development that we haven't considered at this point in time, I suppose.... But frankly, our view right now is that all of the evidence suggests that we are going to have some costs of decommissioning and that there's no significant realizable value out of those assets.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
Okay.
With everything put together--the costs for decommissioning, the initial ballpark--what are we looking at for the ultimate, final bill? What is this ultimately going to cost the shareholders of AECL?
12:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
It's a dangerous game for me to speculate, because those numbers really aren't finalized.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
Well, let's start it there. Currently, what has been spent, and then what's to be done? Give a neighbourhood figure as well as you can.
12:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
The AECL financial statements through to the end of the 2007 fiscal year will show $167 million of asset value, the carrying value of the assets, on our balance sheet.
12:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
It's the MAPLEs and the DIF, the new processing facility, so the total DIF project is $167 million.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
12:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
That's at the end of 2007. We have not yet approved and released our financial statements for this year, but I can give you a ballpark figure that says we will be roughly in the mid-$200 million range in terms of the total expenditure through the end of 2008 fiscal year.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
But eventually you're going to have to write that asset down.
12:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
Yes.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
So right now we've spent about $200 million, and we have an asset that we're probably going to have to write off completely.
12:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
That's correct.