Evidence of meeting #33 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 repair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:35 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
There was a single leak. There is an area at the base of the vessel, around the circumference, or around part of the circumference, where there is a corrosion mechanism taking place--
5:35 p.m.
NDP
5:35 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
No, on an area at the base of the reactor that covers an arc of something in the order of 200°.
5:35 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
That was caused by water leakage into the J-rod annulus, the space between the reactor vessel itself, the heavy-water filled reactor vessel, and the light-water filled reflector. There was a gas space in between, and because of the presence of water in that gas space, as a result of chronic light-water leakage, and as a result of the presence of air in that space, in the presence also of radiation, that allowed the formation of nitric acid. Nitric acid corrodes aluminum. The vessel's aluminum.
5:35 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I suppose I used a poor analogy in order to try to understand the Prime Minister's comments a little bit about getting out of the isotope business.
How old is the reactor now, 50-something?
5:35 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
It is 52 years old at this point.
5:35 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
There are Canadians who don't understand your business intimately--I suspect many of the committee members here share that lack of understanding of the intricacies--but they do understand old cars. If you repair one, and keep repairing it, and keep repairing it, it gets very expensive. There's sort of a decision point where you say, “Goodness, it's more expensive to keep repairing this thing than it is to simply bite the bullet and get a new one.”
The Prime Minister has said that we want out of the isotope business. He's pointing right at you guys, and your shop, and your facility, in saying that we want to get out of Chalk River--in part, I assume, because it's getting awfully expensive to fix this old jalopy. At some point we pull back and say that it's no longer worth it.
I mean, this time it's $70 million for one leak, for one area of leak.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Alan Tonks
I'm sorry to interrupt the apprenticeship-in-process of Mr. Cullen, but we are out of time.
Perhaps we can just give Mr. Pilkington an opportunity to answer, Mr. Cullen.
5:35 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't record a question.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
5:35 p.m.
Nathan Cllen
That's good. I hadn't used the radiator.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Alan Tonks
Anyway, if you just want to ask your question, we'll have a fast answer.
5:35 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
It's a question of when it's no longer worth the cost of putting it in, right? You simply don't get the cost benefit back in terms of your repair.
When does the tipping point hit for Chalk River?
5:35 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
Again, I can't give you a date. As I said before, this is determined by the aging management program and the inspections that we do going forward.
We are committed to operating the NRU through the next licence interval, 2011 to 2016. We believe it can be operated cost-effectively beyond that point. There is no defined end date when the NRU will be taken out of service. That will be determined as we continue to gather data on the aging over the years ahead.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Alan Tonks
Thank you, Mr. Pilkington, and thank you, Mr. Cullen.
We'll now go to Madam Gallant.
5:35 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I was thankful to hear that Mr. Cullen would support a replacement of the NRU. I hope his party does, should it come to a vote in the House, and as well, the precursory enabling legislation in Bill C-20 that will allow this.
5:40 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
I'd like to start off by thanking AECL for giving me the opportunity of seeing this mock-up firsthand. It truly underscores the importance of having the background and the precursor to the NRU, the NRX, to experiment on before doing it on the real, live thing.
My only regret concerning that visit was that the rest of the committee was not able to be there. The only way to truly understand what's going on and to appreciate what the employees there have been doing around the clock is to see it firsthand.
I know you've suggested that we go to the website and look at the videos, but could you elaborate on the instrumentation that has been designed thus far? It not only has to fit through a small hole down three storeys, where there are projections coming up and across, and circumnavigate the vessel, but it also has to be in unison with a camera, because it has to be done remotely, and be resistant to radioactivity.
How are we doing in that process?
5:40 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
I think that was a very good description, Mr. Chair.
You spoke of the inspection tooling. The whole inspection program is a good one, and it's coming to completion. It started with only video looking for a leak, and then very quickly AECL developed eddy-current and ultrasonic non-destructive technology to put into the vessel to be able to do non-destructive examination of the surface.
The initial tooling was somewhat limited in its capability; it couldn't get to every region in the reactor. In parallel with doing the initial inspections, AECL was developing more sophisticated tooling that, by its nature, takes more time to design, build, and commission in order to move into a phase two of the inspection program, so as to be able to go where the original tooling couldn't reach. Beyond that, additional tools were developed for specific areas of the vessel. In fact, we went through a phase three and phase four inspection using very specialized non-destructive examination tooling. As you say, all of these tools went through a 12-centimetre opening, went down 30 metres, and then were deployed to do their inspection. That is the technical challenge.
From an inspection point of view, all of the inspection data has now been obtained, and so that job has in fact been successfully completed. We now move into the repair phase, wherein we have equally sophisticated repair tooling that will be required, again from those remote locations, to complete the repair of the vessel.
5:40 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Part of the cutting-edge technology was the ice blaster that was being experimented with, in which dry ice was being used to blast off corrosion so that there would be minimal contamination left to scoop up when the job was done. Has that been confirmed as a viable alternative? And has a method of actually repairing the leak been confirmed?
5:40 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
On the subject of the dry ice blast, that was a tool developed as one of the cleaning alternatives. Actually, we have gone with a mechanical cleaning process instead. The carbon dioxide ice blast remains available as a contingency if it's required. We may still use it in some specific locations.
I have forgotten the last part of your question.
5:40 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Has a method of fixing the leak been determined?