Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First I must say that what I say today are my own opinions, my own attitudes, my own convictions, and not those of the university at which I am employed.
The previous speakers have in fact eloquently described many of the situations I had intended to cover, so I will expect my brief to be even more brief than it is as written.
There is one point. The NRU reactor was and continues to be a vital part of the successful CANDU electric power system. As that power system has now reached maturity, the primary role of NRU is testing of design features aimed at upgrading plant performance and diagnosis of unexpected performance characteristics of various components and systems. Major plant developments, such as the current ACR-1000, also require extensive testing of novel design features, especially in the areas of fuels and materials.
But how about its age? How about its leaks and unplanned shutdowns? Of course, these are expected events in any similar facility. They are made critically important only by the lack of a backup system, as has been mentioned by previous speakers. AECL, to their credit, fully recognized this lack and planned early to install a large multi-purpose reactor as a replacement for NRU as soon as the imminent final shutdown of NRX became apparent. However, funding was not provided for this project.
Then, as a second-best approach to the problem of isotope production, the MAPLE project was initiated, with very tight funding and very tight schedule allowances. The results of this fundamental decision to proceed with MAPLE are well known.
However, in spite of the obvious weaknesses associated with the MAPLE facilities, I consider that start-up and operation of these facilities may well be the preferred route, as has been mentioned by both other speakers. It may well be the preferred route to solving the immediate shortage of radioisotopes. Yes, there will be problems; yes, this may not be possible until well after completion of the present repair processes at NRU; however, at the end of that sequence of events--that is, the repair of NRU--there still will be no backup supply of radioisotopes for a very long time to come. At the very least, MAPLE might help to fill this time gap.
I'm aware, from discussions here in Atlanta and in Vienna some time ago, that other countries are gearing up now to replace and augment the supply of molybdenum-99 from their own countries, so the gap-filling by MAPLE may well be the best thing we can do for both Canada and the world.
I come to the fundamental question to be answered, and I believe the committee is to be commended for investigating this question: if not MAPLE, then why not MAPLE?
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.