Evidence of meeting #28 for Natural Resources in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was problem.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Mr. Smith, are you saying that if AECL were to call you tomorrow, within 15 days you could have enough medical isotopes for Canada?
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Sorry, I thought that's what I heard you say.
How long would it take, then?
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
How long would it take, roughly, to meet the current regulatory demand to have the MAPLEs up and running?
5:20 p.m.
As an Individual
As I said, I think we'd need a year to get the people back. I mean, it's not just putting the machine back; the people have to be re-certified to run it. You're looking at about a year for the timeframe.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
About a year to meet the current regulatory framework?
5:20 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes. We could put in place any plans while the operators are being re-certified. That assumes that you can get them to come back to the project.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
So it would take a year to get everybody back, and then it would take you a certain amount of time to make the calculations and to make sure the reactor actually worked. Then you'd have to start producing medical isotopes after that. Would it be two years, then, presumably?
5:20 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes. There's some parallelism here. Some things can be done at the same time--
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
I'm sorry for interrupting. I just have three minutes, so that's why I'm going fast. I apologize. I'm not trying to be rude.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
So we're talking about two years for that.
Tell me, what is meant by “some of the emergency shut-off rods failed to deploy”?
5:25 p.m.
As an Individual
It meant that they couldn't poise them. It didn't mean that these couldn't fall in; they had some friction that was stopping it from being poised. It was a fail-safe situation.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
What's the ultimate danger of a reactor not working, of all the safety features not working?
5:25 p.m.
As an Individual
That's not a 25-words-or-less kind of answer. Sorry. There are many different scenarios. It depends on what your accident is.
5:25 p.m.
As an Individual
It's not what you want, for sure, but that's why there are three systems in MAPLE.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
I would assume that none of you are suggesting, then, that we reduce the safety. As somebody who lives quite close to Darlington, I remind some of the people that there is a $38 billion unfunded liability with Ontario Hydro. None of you are suggesting that we reduce safety in order to get this project to work.
5:25 p.m.
Acting Dean, Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology
Absolutely not.
