Thank you.
I studied physics at the University of Montreal. Then I went to Yale University to get a Ph.D. in nuclear physics. Afterwards I joined AT&T Bell Labs in New Jersey, where I worked for a total of 21 years, including a three-year stay at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I worked on a solar tower project and a laser-driven nuclear fusion project. My boss there was a nuclear engineer.
For a very long time I was a promoter of nuclear energy, and I used to follow it on a weekly basis, especially when I was at Sandia labs. One day my boss said that if we could make the solar business work, it would be so much better than nuclear reactors.
Afterwards I spent about 10 years as a member of the IEEE-USA Energy Policy Committee, which met in Washington about three or four times a year, and also in New York City. We had several nuclear engineers on our committee. I said to one of them one day, “I hear that the CANDU reactor in Canada is supposed to be very good.” He said, “Well, the problem with the CANDU reactor is that it has hundreds of tubes that are constantly bombarded by neutrons. They become fragile and can burst out.” That's what this American engineer thought.
I'd like you to look at the second page of my handout. Does everybody have it? It's important.