Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 29th, 2016

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

What is the cost of a prototype model for your small modular reactor?

[Simon Irish]

It is $2 billion Canadian.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

But we're not talking about the same thing; advanced.

[Simon Irish]

It is an advanced reactor, absolutely.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

But it doesn't use the spent fuel. It's for the molten salt—

[Simon Irish]

We believe that is a pathway for this technology. One unique feature about liquid fuel reactors is they have the capability of consuming many different types of nuclear fuel. Some in the private sector today are leading with that characteristic to design a reactor to consume spent nuclear fuel. We have taken a commercial decision not to do that, because we think the most important thing is to bring an industrial reactor to the centre of industry quickly with existing fuel sources, which is low enriched uranium rather than spent nuclear fuel.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Delage, I was here back in the early 2000s when the previous government decided against supporting the bid for Iter to be in Canada. What is the progress? How long before it's estimated that we'll actually achieve nuclear fusion? I remember in university we were far from the fifty-fifty point. Where are we now?

[Michael Delage]

The generation of net gain power plants being built, Iter is one of them, the technology.... I would say, in hindsight, it may have been a good decision by Canada not to host, because the costs on Iter have grown and the schedules have slipped. To a certain extent, that does provide some freedom to Canada. What you're seeing with the research community in Canada is a looking past that age of technology, which dates to the 1980s and 1990s, to applying what's come out of other fields, like high-temperature superconductors, and looking at more practical paths to go faster.

The reason why our proposal is called “Fusion 2030” is because we think that in that time frame, we are going to see some of these more advanced concepts get to the stage where people are going to want to build a demonstration power plant, and we want to be part of that. Those are the time frames we're operating under.

If it's General Fusion, to be honest, I think we want to move faster than that. However, as an entire community, there are good initiatives around the world. The groups in Canada at the University of Alberta, are tied into some of them in the United States. At the University of Saskatchewan, they're tied to some of the work going on at MIT and in the U.K. There's an opportunity to build on that and be part of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you very much. We're beyond our time there.

Mr. Cannings, go ahead.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you all for being here today.

I'll start with you, Mr. Irish. You mentioned that your technology would be significantly cheaper, I believe. That sounds like you are well along the road to building a reactor. You talked about your progress with CNSC, and you talked about having a reactor within 10 years, I believe.

Can you expand on that? Where are you in terms of siting and other issues you might have to deal with?

[Simon Irish]

I'm very happy to expand on that.

First, in terms of feasibility, we can point to a prototype reactor that has been built and operated at national lab level before. We're taking the engineering step. We're in the middle of basic preliminary engineering, and we are in the second half of phase one of our vendor design review , the first step of the regulation process with the CNSC.

Our project timeline is for a reactor in the 2020s. I would probably qualify that to say the second half of the 2020s. It's our view that, given this technology and the extent to which it has been developed over the last 50 years at national lab level, this is an engineering project. This is not R and D. This is not blue-sky nuclear research. You can actually bring one of these reactors to markets.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I'll move to you, Mr. Delage, with the same kind of question. You talked about how one of your main asks of the government is to reinvest in some of the research projects with universities and producing the graduate students you need. To me that sounds like we're still a little ways away. You talked about 2030.

Can you just provide a little more detail of where you think we'll be by 2030? I assume we're going to have a fusion reactor for the grid, or is that just a demonstration-type small reactor?

[Michael Delage]

I think by 2030, in Canada or elsewhere, there will be under construction a fusion power plant that will put electricity on the grid. It will be first of a kind, but I believe we will get there. What we want to do is make sure we're ready for that.

We're talking about the technologies now. There's a tremendous amount of innovation going on in the field of fusion, partially because some of the larger government-funded programs have slipped in timescale, so you're seeing creative people who are impatient, who are turning to new technologies and new ideas that are driving. We're seeing the private sector play a role. The private sector is a powerful tool for moving some of these things along quickly, and that's the case with us.

The reason we are asking for support at the R and D level is that these things are never static, even when you get to first of a kind. What you need to be successful in a field like this is an ecosystem. That ecosystem in Canada sees one private sector leader at General Fusion, and we're a world-class facility up there with any national lab facility, but we're on our own. You need a full ecosystem of partners at the university level to produce the students to do the fundamental R and D as well, who will be ongoing support, and you need private sector partners on the commercialization side.

We do have the benefit in Canada of having a mature nuclear industry that we can take advantage of when that time comes, and work with and leverage when that goes on. The missing piece for us right now really is that earlier stage.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

When I was a kid growing up, many years ago, if there was anything more scary than nuclear fission, it was nuclear fusion, when you talked about atom bombs versus hydrogen bombs. I haven't heard anything in your presentation about the safety of this. Mr. Lemieux talked about how practical this is, but people who don't think of having a fusion reactor in their neighbourhood might be concerned.

[Michael Delage]

Yes, but in fact it's the opposite. One of the big advantages of fusion is that you operate on very small amounts of fuel at any given time. Maybe a second's worth would be in a power plant at any given time. Even if things go perfectly right and you manage to get the reaction going, which is hard, then it consumes the available fuel very quickly, so there's no chance of a runaway reaction.

At the same time, because those conditions are very difficult to achieve, if anything breaks in the machine and you don't achieve those conditions at all, then the reaction just doesn't happen. It's unlike fission, which is a spontaneous reaction. In fusion you have to work very hard to achieve those conditions. From that point of view, it's fundamentally fail-safe.

It also has the benefit of not using uranium or plutonium fuels, meaning you do not have the highly radioactive long-lived waste produced as a stream from the fusion reaction. It doesn't mean that there's no radioactivity at end of life; you'll have components like in a nuclear medicine clinic, or like in a fission reactor, that are activated. They need to be treated and carefully handled, but those are decadal time spans and not millennial-long. Its safety profile is actually one of the very attractive features of fusion.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Austin, I wonder if you could expand on your statements about the need for investment in education and what the federal government could or should be doing in promoting education in indigenous communities, right from elementary schools on up. We've seen the need for funding for elementary schools, and we've seen caps on funding for post-secondary education. I just wondered if that's what you would like to see from the government.

[Dale Austin]

Certainly that is one of the areas where we would like to see support from the government. These areas are in many respects not unique to the nuclear sector. Certainly for Cameco, investment in education, from primary education through to post-secondary, in northern communities would be a significant help to us. A significant part of our workforce comes from people who live in our communities. In terms of the ability of those people to study and learn at home, to live at home and find jobs, we really take advantage of those opportunities for our business. It makes us a better business.

Along with that, frankly, is the infrastructure needed to support those opportunities in northern Canada. When we talk about northern Canada, we talk not only of the area north of 60 but also of that band of development just below the 60th parallel, certainly where our operations exist. Basic infrastructure like roads, airstrips, and broadband, as I mentioned, would all be beneficial in those areas in terms of federal government support and provincial government support. That allows us to operate more efficiently. I think studies show that in terms of the cost of operating a mine site in northern Canada, where we operate, it's about two to two and a half times more expensive just given the lack of infrastructure.

So if we were to ask for government investment, it would be in infrastructure and education.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Mr. Cannings.

Mr. Serré, you have probably about four minutes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I want to expand a bit on the issue of nuclear innovation and R and D. We heard from some other witnesses on recycling. We looked at water reactors, at the investments there, and also at the small modular reactor. I wanted to get your opinion. Obviously, as you indicated in your presentations, in parts of the world we're seen as a leader in many areas. Moving forward, we could try to spend the R and D dollars overall, but do you have any preference or suggestions for us with regard to targeting and being a world leader in one specific area? And would that be the small modular reactors?

[Simon Irish]

Certainly: now, a small modular reactor is only a commercial formulation. It says nothing about the technology that goes into it. That's just an expression. That's a commercial choice by vendors to make it small rather than a large grid-based one.

I would caution the desire to pick a lane, at this point. I think it's a much better policy to water many flowers than to try to pick a lane early. That's part of the old paradigm where the state got involved very early on and made a decision that in hindsight probably wasn't the best decision. Water many flowers and have a broad set of policies to support nuclear innovation. I think that is a much better approach.

Second, I think a key thing for nuclear innovation, efficient nuclear innovation, is to have a source of neutrons. If you want to compete internationally and have a vibrant domestic nuclear community, innovating for competitive products, you need a source of neutrons. The NRU has been that source of neutrons. If Canada wants to continue to be competitive in this field, it needs to continue to provide its domestic nuclear industry with a source of neutrons for research.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Are there any other comments on the R and D?

[Michael Delage]

I would echo his comments about watering many flowers. I think at this stage, and this reflects what we've called for too, we're not at the point yet, but we do see, in the case of fusion, as we move forward through the period of the next 10 years or so, the opportunity to down-select and drive forward with a demonstration technology. The time frame where larger investments in a specific technology will come, but that's a few years ahead of us yet.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Austin, I appreciated your comments about broadband investments, roads, and about the power grid in northern communities. That's certainly been heard also from other witnesses and other sectors in the mining industry and others.

In terms of your relationships, as a company that deals with first nations, can you expand a bit on some of the best practices? We've had some conflicting...that first nations are not on board with nuclear, but we have some good success stories. Can you help expand on what the industry should be doing more to engage the first nations?

[Dale Austin]

Certainly. The first thing I would say is that we've been at this a long time. The relationship we have with our partner communities was not developed overnight. We had some missteps early on. We recognized those missteps. What we have now is a relationship that, frankly, is built on trust. Our partner communities trust us to act in a way that is going to maintain safe operations, and to respect them in a way that we are a clear and understandable partner that acts in a manner such that they know we will do what we say we will do.

The point is that this takes some time. There are best practices in terms of discussion and consultation and partnership, and I think those are key. We now call these partnership agreements, or community partnership agreements, because we believe we are in a true partnership with our communities.

We recognize that we cannot exist as a company in northern Saskatchewan without the support of our partner communities. They're a significant part of the workforce that works in our mines. They are suppliers. Community-based businesses have been the major suppliers to our mine sites, in the order of $3 billion over the last 10 years, through contracts and relationships we have with community businesses, in most cases run by northerners or indigenous Canadians.

My advice is to go slowly, take your time, and try to understand the position that your community partners are coming from. Work with them so that they can understand what you're trying to accomplish together.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you very much.

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for this portion. Gentlemen, thank you very much, all of you, for being here today and taking time out of your schedules. It's a great help to us in what we're trying to accomplish here.

We'll suspend for two minutes, and then we'll carry on with the next segment.