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.
5:40 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
A lot of the recent effort has been around the welding procedures that will allow us to do a weld build-up over the location of the leak. We have proven it on the bench and we're proving it in the mock-ups. So the answer is yes.
5:40 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
In addition to getting the science right, the CNSC also has to approve everything.
What sort of delay, if any, are you anticipating in getting those regulatory permits in place?
5:40 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
We have a protocol with the CNSC around the NRU repair and return to service. It's signed by our president, Hugh McDiarmid, and the president of the CNSC, Michael Binder. It lays out the requirements and the documents we need to produce and submit to the CNSC. And it provides a schedule. By meeting that schedule, there's a commitment on both sides that we will have a calendar going right to the approval process, and that approval will not be on the critical path of the restart of the NRU reactor.
5:45 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
I understand that the Petten reactor has experienced a similar situation. How is AECL sharing the information that it's learning from its experience with the leak?
5:45 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
On a technical basis, I am in communication with the people at the Petten plant in the Netherlands. So they are aware of our progress, and I am aware of their plans.
Concerning the broader platform of isotopes, I would pass the microphone to Richard.
5:45 p.m.
Vice-President, Isotopes Business, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
Representatives from the global reactors meet on a quarterly basis to schedule plant outages and review how we can best coordinate ito minimize their impact on production.
5:45 p.m.
Conservative
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Alan Tonks
You did, and I know it went fast—just as fast for the committee as it did for you.
Thank you, Ms. Gallant, for giving the chair, on behalf of the committee, a segue into thanking Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Côté and into somehow forwarding our appreciation for the Canadian capacity to adapt the technical requirements to the task. It's encouraging to us as Canadians to know that this capacity is there.
Please forward as appropriate to the engineers, the technicians, and those who are engaged both from AECL and from the private sector partners who are working on this particular task.... I think I can express, on behalf of all the members of the committee in a very non-partisan way, that we are quite taken by the creativity and the professionalism with which you are mustering your resources to get this task done. We appreciate it very much.
5:45 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
I thank you very much for those comments, Mr. Chairman. So much time is spent dwelling on the challenges and the issue that we often overlook the effort of all of the people involved in making this possible. So thank you very much.
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Alan Tonks
Thank you, Mr. Pilkington.
Unless there is anything else before the chair, the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn.
5:45 p.m.
An hon. member
I so move.
5:45 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
5:45 p.m.
Liberal