Evidence of meeting #37 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 reactors.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
President, MDS Nordion
Clearly we have a dispute and a very significant difference of opinion with AECL around that contract. We clearly believe they have an obligation to supply isotopes for a 40-year period on commissioning of MAPLE.
We are examining all our options. It's hard for me to comment beyond that, frankly.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
Catherine Bell NDP Vancouver Island North, BC
You mentioned some different kinds of rods. Was there investment into changing more things such that MAPLE could actually work?
12:25 p.m.
Nuclear Safety Consultant, As an Individual
One of the alternatives that are open to AECL is to redesign the fuel itself, as opposed to the targets, although the targets in fact contribute quite a bit to the power. When you design fuel, you can design it with certain power characteristics right up front, depending on how you make the fuel and what you put in it.
So AECL does have an option to redesign the fuel with a different set of characteristics that would enable it to have a very definite negative power coefficient of reactivity. But when you make new fuel, you have to go through a detailed qualification process before you can convince the CNSC, the regulator, that you can put it into a reactor and fire it up. That takes quite a few years. You have to actually put it into a research reactor and check again that each fuel design you've made will in fact behave exactly as you expected, and you do that in a research reactor before you do it in the production reactor. That's quite a long job and quite an expensive job.
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Catherine Bell NDP Vancouver Island North, BC
But did you see that as one—I guess the last—option to get the MAPLE online?
12:25 p.m.
Nuclear Safety Consultant, As an Individual
Is it the last option? Yes, I would say it's probably the last option they have. The problem really is that even with new fuel there's still some combination of factors going on in that reactor that is not fully understood—which is a problem.
12:25 p.m.
Nuclear Safety Consultant, As an Individual
Even that, I would say, is not a complete guarantee. Obviously if you ensure with design of the fuel that you are well negative on your power coefficient, then you can stand quite a degree of uncertainty, because you're well negative—more than you can stand when you're just around the negative-positive boundary.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you, Ms. Bell.
We go now to the government side for up to seven minutes.
Mr. Trost.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Sitting through these two committee hearings on this issue, I have to say I feel a little like a motorist driving by an accident. It's a horrible thing that has happened, the MAPLEs not being able to work, but I feel somewhat fascinated by the wreck that's happening there.
When you look at the timelines when this was started—I'm looking at some of my briefing notes—as part of the agreement, the government provided a $100 million interest-free loan to get this going, and the dedicated isotope facility was expected to produce radioisotopes by the end of the year 2000. So an agreement was reached in 1996, and things were supposed to be rolling by 2000. The last I checked, we're right now in 2008. I think it's pretty obvious just how badly this has gone wrong--not just to people who followed it, but to the general public.
My question is to Mr. Waddington and also MDS.
When did you realize this technology was high risk? Initially, when you look at the timelines, I think the assumptions would have been, coming from a more general public perspective, that this technology would be relatively low risk. They had some definitive timelines. But in your minds, when did it begin to become clear to you that this technology, as far as being able to deliver the product desired goes, was high risk? When did you start to come to those conclusions?
12:25 p.m.
Nuclear Safety Consultant, As an Individual
Speaking for myself, sir, and the advisory panel of professors with whom I sit, who advise the board of directors of AECL, I think we came to the conclusion that there were some serious difficulties here probably around about 2006, when we did a detailed review of what had happened up till then and a detailed technical review of all that had gone on to that point.
We advised AECL's board of directors at that time that the things they were doing and the process they were following were, in our view, the right things to do, given the circumstances. They were doing a very detailed analysis, seeking expert help from outside, setting up a series of tests, which had started by then, to get to the bottom of it. So they were certainly following the right path, but we also looked at the chances of in fact coming up with a result that wasn't satisfactory. That was clearly a possibility in 2006, in our view, in terms of the advisory panel.
12:30 p.m.
President, MDS Nordion
From the outset, I don't think we ever saw this project as a high-risk project. We would never have invested the amount of time and money in the project if we didn't think it was going go be completed. When we mediated the new agreement with AECL in 2006, I have to say they felt very confident that, despite the issues they had, they were very capable of resolving these issues.
So in terms of quantifying the risk of the project, our position was that we thought we had invested enough of our shareholders' money in the project. We also believed that AECL should take ownership and finish the project. They assured us they could do that. Otherwise, I think, we would have gone down a different path. But AECL was very clear with us--and that's just two years ago--that they would complete the project, and they would complete it on time.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
The issue I'm having a bit of a problem grasping is that, according to my notes, we were looking at 2000. I can see 2001 or 2002. This was six years later. Was it just that everyone kept thinking, “Well, one more minor tweak, one more minor tweak”? You can say that for one or two or three years, but not six. That's more than the length of time, really, of the original estimate; we had already gone double the length of time. To a layman, that's beginning to raise a few red flags.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
I mean, my colleague has just pointed out to me that by 2006, according to our notes, your company had put in $350 million.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
You accountants would have been very stressed at that point.
12:30 p.m.
President, MDS Nordion
Our shareholders even more, perhaps.
But of course the issues around the technical problems varied, as we understood it from AECL. So all the delays up to 2003 were completely different issues.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
President, MDS Nordion
The issue around the coefficient of reactivity really started to occur in 2003.
I might ask Mr. Malkoske, who has some long history in this, to comment, but I think that at the beginning of the positive coefficient of reactivity issue, it was actually seen to be a relatively solvable issue.
Mr. Malkoske, you may have another view, and Mr. Waddington.
12:30 p.m.
Nuclear Safety Consultant, As an Individual
Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, I could just—
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
Could you be brief, as I do have a couple of other questions.
12:30 p.m.
Nuclear Safety Consultant, As an Individual
In 2006 we considered the risk of not completing the job and not finding the problem. I don't think at that point we would have said it was a high risk, but it was definitely a risk.
Thank you.
12:30 p.m.
Grant Malkoske Vice-President, Strategic Technologies, MDS Nordion
I will pick up on Mr. West's comment.
I think that as we look at the MAPLE project now, there were a number of different factors that played into this, and it really wasn't until 2003 that the power coefficient issue emerged as another technical issue that needed resolution. It had been characterized very early on as something that would be resolvable, frankly, in a matter of weeks.
So when you take a look at the question of whether or not this was a high risk, it was obviously not deemed to be a high risk. As this was going on, there were other issues still emerging on the project. So we shouldn't characterize the MAPLE reactors as having only a power coefficient issue that needed to be resolved. We had the best reactor experts in the world designing and building these facilities, which were going to be dedicated solely for isotope production.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
Before my time ends, I have a very quick question.
Regarding the theoretical predictions for the power coefficient of reactivity, if the physicists had somehow figured out in the equations that it would have been a positive power coefficient instead of a negative one, would we be able to operate the reactor today, or would there be too many unknowns at this point that we would still say no because of the positive coefficient?
To summarize, what I'm asking is this. If the predictions had said there would be positive instead of negative coefficient, would we be running the MAPLEs today?
12:35 p.m.
Nuclear Safety Consultant, As an Individual
I can't speak for the CNSC, as they would make that decision. From a reactor safety point of view, you can operate a reactor with a small positive power coefficient. It's not the desirable method, but it can be done, and you can do it safely. What you have to do is slow down the way in which you move the rods so that you bring more control, or a very high level of control, into the system.
So it is possible to operate the reactor with a small positive coefficient as long as you can predict exactly, as you said, in your calculations that this is how it will work, so that you will know exactly what's going on.