Thanks very much for having us here today. My name is James Scongack, and I'm the vice-president of corporate affairs and environment at Bruce Power.
Before I give the Bruce Power overview and share some information with the committee, and before answering some questions and passing it off to my colleagues, I just want to thank this committee for looking into this important issue.
From a Bruce Power perspective, one of the things we've always said is that if we look at the role of energy in Canada broadly, and where we want to be as a country, it's really a three-legged stool.
The first component consists of a modern, strong, successful oil and gas sector, primarily based in western Canada, but which we see impacting the entire country.
The second component is looking at provinces like British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland, with very successful long-standing hydroelectric generation and a real role on that front.
The third leg of the stool is the nuclear industry, an industry that unfortunately sometimes does not get the recognition that it deserves, frankly.
It's really important that all three of those elements be connected and successful for Canada to have a modern, clean, successful, and economically viable electricity system. My comments will be very consistent on that front today.
For those of you who aren't aware of Bruce Power, we're Canada's only private sector nuclear generator. We operate the largest nuclear facility in the world, located in southwestern Ontario. We're entirely Canadian-owned. Our ownership consists of the OMERS pension benefit plan that invests pension funds for about 400,000 to 500,000 public service employees in the Province of Ontario; TransCanada, a massive energy player in North America; and our two unions on site. Ninety per cent of our workforce is unionized, and the Power Workers' Union and the Society of Energy Professionals are also owners in our business. In addition, over 90% of Bruce Power employees are self-investors in our company. That's our ownership structure. It's unique.
The structure of our company itself is also unique. We lease our facility from the Ontario government under a long-term lease that will run until 2064. We sell all of our output under contract, through the IESO in the province of Ontario. We're the largest public-private partnership in Canada. Over our first 15 years of operation, we've invested about $10 billion into our site. We have a plan, over the course of the next 20 years, to invest nearly another $13 billion to $20 billion.
One of the previous questioners from the other session asked about the price of power. For those members who are not from Ontario, this is one of the top-of-mind issues on the electricity file right now in Ontario. We are paid for all of our output through a contract with the IESO. As Mr. Jager alluded to, like the OPG nuclear division, we're a low-cost electricity producer.
Just to put that into perspective, there are a number of components that make up your electricity bill if you're an electricity consumer in Ontario. One component of your electricity bill, anywhere from 40% to 50% of it, depending on where you live in the province, is actually the cost of electricity. As Mr. Jager alluded to, similarly to Bruce Power, if you receive 100% of your electricity from any of the nuclear facilities in Ontario, the cost of electricity on your bill would drop between 40% and 45%.
Sometimes there's a myth that the cost of nuclear electricity doesn't cover everything, when in fact it does. When we talk about the 6.5¢ that Bruce Power is paid per kilowatt, that covers every cost of our operation. It pays for the spent fuel that will eventually be in Laurie's care and control. It covers all of our long-term liabilities. It includes all of our capital. It includes everything we generate from our operation. That's a really important point. That's why we've been recognized as a unique public-private partnership in Canada.
Obviously my comments have been a bit more Ontario-centric, because that is where we operate, but I think there are a number of important, broader Canadian elements to our operation that would be of interest to the committee, the first in the area of clean air. As we saw earlier in the week, the Minister of Environment talked about moving towards a coal phase-out agenda for Canada by 2030. I know that's going to be an issue that will be actively discussed in the coming weeks.
As people are also aware, 2015 was the first year that we had no coal generation in Ontario. Ten years ago, about a quarter of our electricity in Ontario came from coal.
Yesterday the Asthma Society of Canada released a report marking the first anniversary of the passage of the Ending Coal for Cleaner Air Act and acknowledging that Bruce Power was responsible for 70% of the extra electricity needed to phase out coal. That $10 billion we spent effectively enabled coal phase-out in Ontario.
As we look at the carbon-pricing regime that is expected, whether it's cap and trade at the provincial level or some other construct, one of the things the Asthma Society also concluded yesterday is that compared to the alternatives, our continued operation will avoid a lot of additional carbon costs. That's estimated to be between $12 billion and $63 billion over the next 50 years, or up to $14,000 per family, so as we're talking about clean air, it's important that nuclear gets mentioned in that equation.
Before I wrap up, there are two other important points. I know that the member of Parliament covering the Chalk River facility is here today, and she'll be very aware of this file. One of the key elements in our nuclear industry in Canada that is often not recognized is the contribution to the medical community internationally. Bruce Power, along with Glenn's facility over at Pickering, is the world's largest provider of cobalt-60.
If any of you folks ever have to go into the operating room of a hospital, you want to make sure that every single piece of equipment and any medical supplies are absolutely sterilized and clean. Over the last 30 years, we've seen a dramatic drop in infection rates in hospitals because all of that material is sterilized from the cobalt-60 we produce in nuclear plants around the world. Seventy per cent of the world's supply of cobalt-60 comes from the province of Ontario and Bruce Power.
Just two weeks ago, we announced a major project at Bruce Power. When the Chalk River facility ceases operation at the end of March, we will start to produce a new product called “high specific activity cobalt”. We're going to be one of the world's largest suppliers of medical-grade cobalt , which will be used to treat people with brain tumours and various forms of cancer. If you've ever had a loved one or a neighbour or a friend who has had a brain tumour and has been able to go in for this innovative medical technique, where they don't need to do operations but can effectively shrink a tumour through the gamma knife technology, all of that is going to be coming from Bruce Power in a number of years.
The final thing I would like to say in conclusion is that there has been a lot of talk about the regulatory regime in Canada. I certainly don't want to open up a full dialogue on that, but I want to share with you our perspective. If you were to come to the Bruce Power site today—and I encourage any of you to come to the site—you would see a very active level of engagement from our regulator. They're based on site. They're integrated into everything that happens on the site.
I recently had the honour of travelling to Vienna with a number of members of Parliament for the IAEA general assembly. I think Ms. Gallant and Ms. Rudd would be able to reinforce this. It is amazing how respected Canada's nuclear industry is on the international scale.
There is an international fleet of about 400 nuclear plants. Canada has a very small portion of that, with between 18 and 20 plants. We really punch above our weight as a country, and we should be very proud of that, not just from a nuclear operator perspective but also from a regulatory perspective. Canada's regulatory regime in the post-Fukushima period was one of the first to step up and was internationally recognized.
When I was at the IAEA in Vienna, what was also amazing to me was the significant role that CNSC staff play at the international level. We shouldn't underestimate the importance of that. There's always room for improvement, and we as nuclear operators always talk about “gaps to excellence” and how we can do better. I think that's a standard that we should always hold ourselves to, but we shouldn't confuse gaps to excellence with something that we, as Canadians from every walk of life and from every party, should be very proud of.
I think we have a strong story to tell as an industry. I'm thrilled to be here today to share that with you.