Natural Resources Committee on June 4th, 2009

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

You mentioned the international standards. I did want to ask you a couple of questions about the international assessment that you mentioned in your presentation. They're going across Canada. How many reactors do you oversee?

[Peter Elder]

There are twenty power reactors in Canada operating or undergoing refurbishment, and there are five small reactors at universities, plus NRU, plus a number of decommissioned reactors. The team is also looking at how we regulate uranium mining and the use of medical substances, as well as the other processing facilities associated with production of nuclear fuel.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

What standards are they using in their assessment? Who sets those standards?

[Peter Elder]

The comparison they're using is the standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

They're spending some time here, and then they'll be making a report, did you say, in the fall?

[Peter Elder]

That's correct. They do quite a detailed two weeks here, then they will present a final report to us some time in the fall.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

How often would they do this in each country?

[Dr. Michael Binder]

They have now compared, I think, about five countries--France, Germany, Spain.... They're doing the U.S. next year. So it's one of those services that the IAEA instituted to benchmark a regulatory framework, one country against another country, and you learn from each other, which we believe is a positive intervention.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Anderson and Mr. Trost.

There is time for a two-minute round. If any party doesn't use that two minutes, we can get to our discussion on future business of the committee that much earlier.

Starting with the official opposition, Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Chairman, I have a quick question and then I'll share my time, if I can, with Mr. Tonks.

Obviously, people are watching this on television, because I've received an e-mail with a photograph that says “MAPLE with targets”, suggesting that isotopes were made in MAPLE. I'm going to show you the picture and see if you can confirm.... Obviously, I can't look at this and say this is proof of anything. It's a nice picture. Let me show it to you and you can tell me what it means to you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Regan...no.

Mr. Tonks, maybe you could go ahead with some questions.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Point of order, Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I don't know what trick Mr. Regan is trying to play right now, but none of the rest of us have seen any of this. I'm sure it's something very important. Maybe he can pass his BlackBerry over here.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I'm not going to pass him the BlackBerry, of course, but I'll show him the picture if he likes.

Mr. Chairman, the question was whether isotopes were made in that, and the answer was they didn't think so. The suggestion is that they were. If they can't confirm this picture indicates that, that's fine. That was my question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

From now on, Mr. Regan, if you have something you'd like to show the witnesses, get it to them ahead of time--

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Chairman, as you know, it was e-mailed to me during the meeting. We're talking about modern technology here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay, Mr. Regan. That's not the way we handle it.

Go ahead, gentlemen, if you'd like to answer the question. Go ahead.

[Peter Elder]

There isn't enough in that picture. It's a picture of the reactor, but you can't tell the details of what fuel rods are in or out. Technically, you could say that as soon as there's fuel in the reactor you are producing isotopes, because medical isotopes, the moly, is produced within the fuel. The real question is can you do anything with that reactor, and the processing facility to remove the moly was never commissioned.

[Dr. Michael Binder]

Let me be absolutely clear. They did power the machine. Both machines were powered. Every time you turn on a nuclear thing, there are isotopes in there, but it's not the moly that we are talking about now.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

There's a predictability--I understand that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Regan.

We go to the government side, Ms. Gallant, for up to two minutes.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

What impact, if any, will this leak have upon the renewal process for AECL? Will there be an impact on their ability to renew their licence for another five years?

[Dr. Michael Binder]

First, as you heard from the previous witnesses, they have to assess the extent of the so-called corrosion. That requires testing and they're now talking about actually going inside the vessel and checking all of this. They then have to come to us with a solution that will meet our safety requirement.

There are a lot of ifs here. That's why they are not in a position to give a definitive time, because there is a lot of work to do yet to explore the various options. They're looking and we are helping them, in terms of trying to understand what the acceptable options are for restarting the machine.